Amateur Hour

Presidential Character and the Question of Leadership

Lara Brown

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000095722
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book assesses the impact of presidential character on the popularity, productivity, and ethics of contemporary presidents. Through comparative analyses, author Lara Brown demonstrates that the character of a president's leadership does not change in office and that the success of future presidents can be evaluated before they step into the White House. She traces the rise of "amateur outsiders, " like Donald Trump, and asserts the need for systemic reform and cultural reassessment of presidential character. Intended for students and scholars of the presidency, this book also holds appeal for general readers who seek understanding of past and future presidential elections.

1
LEADERSHIP, CHARACTER, AND PRESIDENTS

“Send her back! Send her back! Send her back!” was the chant heard at President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on July 17, 2019. The refrain began that night after Trump launched into a litany of attacks against Representative Ilhan Omar, a recently elected Democratic woman of color from Minnesota. On stage, he claimed: Omar

blamed the United States—for the terrorist attacks on our country … slandered the brave Americans who were trying to keep peace in Somalia … [says] Al-Qaeda makes you proud … blamed the United States for the crisis in Venezuela…she looks down with contempt on the hardworking American, saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country.… And obviously and importantly, Omar has a history of launching vicious anti-Semitic screeds.¹

Although the President sent mixed signals in the days following the rally (first, saying he was “not happy” with the chant;² then later remarking on the “incredible” patriotism of the audience³), no one wondered from whom the sentiment of the chant had originated: the President. For three straight days, Trump had been criticizing Omar and her three freshman colleagues, known as “The Squad,” arguing that their progressivism was not only un-American, but that the four women of color were not Americans (all are U.S. citizens and three of them were born in the United States). Having ignored conventional political wisdom about staying out of the way when your opponents are fighting each other, Trump had injected himself into a minor dispute between Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York (another one of the freshman members of “The Squad”) over the appropriate ideological direction of policy. Trump, posturing as though he was taking Pelosi’s side, controversially commented on Twitter:

Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came? … These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!⁴

Despite the firestorm that engulfed the President and the Republican Party’s defense of his actions, Trump continued with his xenophobic and racist attacks in the days leading up to the rally.⁵ As Republican consultant Terry Sullivan explained:

Regardless of whether his tweets are racist or not—I’m not saying they are or not—he is getting the media to make these extremely liberal, socialist, foolish congresswomen the face of the Democratic Party.… What he’s doing here is sad, but it’s smart politics.⁶

Trump was also, as Adam Serwer observed, stoking partisan animosity and uniting his base:

Once malice is embraced as a virtue, it is impossible to contain.… It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.⁷

Hence, Trump opportunistically jumped into the Democratic spat to not only steal back the media spotlight, but also to force Republicans to once again choose between him and his repugnant behavior, or the “extremely liberal” Democrats. Republicans chose Trump.

For her part, Pelosi also chose to unite her party. She denounced Trump’s multiple comments and then led an effort to secure the passage of a resolution condemning the President’s language. The day before the rally, the Democratic majority in the U.S. House passed the presidential rebuke (240–187 votes). Perhaps unsurprising given the partisan rancor that has characterized Trump’s tenure in Washington, the House debate over the precise language of the non-binding measure was highly charged, and included Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver from Missouri, who was presiding over the chamber, surrendering the gavel after disgustedly commenting, “We aren’t ever, ever going to pass up, it seems, an opportunity to escalate, and that’s what this is.… We want to just fight.”⁸ Still, it should be noted that while the President was speaking in North Carolina the next night, a majority of Democrats in the House joined with Republicans in voting to table a resolution (332–95) that called for the impeachment of the President, which had been brought to the floor as a privileged motion by Democratic Representative Al Green from Texas, who had long held that the President was guilty of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”⁹

What few seemed to notice was that the North Carolina rally had originally been scheduled for the same day as former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before two House committees about his previously released report on Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and Trump’s presidential actions, which may have illegally obstructed the investigation.¹⁰ Hence, Trump had planned for the rally to be “counter-programming” for the Republican activists who watch cable news coverage on Fox. Mueller’s testimony, however, had been postponed likely because Pelosi had a more urgent matter on which she was negotiating with the Trump administration and she did not want it to get derailed before the long August recess: a two-year budget deal that included a provision to raise the federal debt ceiling; thereby avoiding a U.S. default.¹¹ In short, Pelosi was likely concerned about the President’s well-documented impetuosity and vindictiveness.¹² She was likely concerned that about the possibility of Mueller’s congressional testimony being as damning for the President as was the 400-plus-page redacted report, and Trump deciding to blow up the full faith and credit of the United States because he did not like how he was being portrayed on television.¹³ For months, but particularly since the public release of Mueller’s report on April 18, 2019, Pelosi had been walking a fine line, attempting to accomplish the requisite business of government, while working simultaneously to restrain Democrats from starting the presidential impeachment process and encourage Democratic committee chairs to proceed with highly aggressive oversight of the Trump administration.¹⁴

Pelosi was not the only Washington politician engaged in a balancing act. Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been maneuvering for more than three years to ensure that conservative judicial nominations would get confirmed and that Republican policy priorities would be passed into law. Tasked with making Trump’s legislative record a success and keeping the Republicans in line with the mercurial President, he had to bend himself into a political pretzel, breaking Senate precedents and reversing his own rhetorical commitments.¹⁵ McConnell had surely long been aware that both his reelection to the Senate and his wife’s presidential appointment as the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, were closely tied with Trump’s electoral fate in 2020. In short, whether he liked or approved of Trump’s presidency mattered not. He knew he had to continue to support him. And McConnell and Pelosi, irrespective of the personal costs each were paying because of Trump’s presidency, were the successful politicians.

The collateral damage from Trump’s “fire and fury” in the presidency has been extraordinary.¹⁶ Aside from the Republicans having experienced a historically high number of incumbent retirements from the House prior to the 2018 election, former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin also chose to step down and not seek reelection.¹⁷ Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, both serious and steadfastly conservative lawmakers who appeared to have long careers ahead of them prior to Trump winning office, also announced their retirements before the 2018 midterm election. Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida, who had not only been presidential competitors, but were harsh critics of Trump’s character and candidacy in 2016, did an about face and became some of his most ardent supporters.¹⁸ Inside Trump’s administration, both advisers close to the President and in cabinet positions, have turned over (resigned or were fired) in an unprecedented fashion.¹⁹ This list only includes those in Washington. American foreign relations became severely strained across a number of policy dimensions (e.g., trade and tariffs, nuclear disarmament, climate change, and human rights). Allies, adversaries, and even the diplomatic corps within the U.S. State Department were often mystified by Trump’s “off-the-cuff” decision-making and media-driven negotiating style.²⁰ Crucially, for this study, it has also been the case that on all of the measures related to partisanship, civility, and race relations, the country is in much worse shape than when Trump assumed the presidency.²¹

The fierce partisan clash over Trump’s character and fitness for the office of the presidency is neither close to being over, nor an overreaction to a few impolitic comments on the part of the President. Trump’s character has been a central point of contention since before he won the Republican Party’s nomination in July 2016.²² His character was surely also one of the reasons why as 2019 drew to a close, the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were able to secure the passage of two articles of impeachment—abuse of power and obstru...