A worthwhile, sad read on Slate - "The Stunt Presidency"
Donald Trump plans to replace governing with gimmickry. It’s already working.
By Julia Turner
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/12/trump_plans_to_replace_governing_with_gimmickry_the_carrier_jobs_are_only.html
"Last week in Indiana, Donald Trump saved a thousand jobs. You heard the story: Carrier, a heating and cooling company, had been planning to move some of its operations to Mexico. Then the president-elect personally phoned the CEO of its parent company. Then Carrier announced that it would accept tax incentives from the state of Indiana in exchange for keeping some of the jobs—between 800 and 1,100 of them, depending on who you ask—in the USA.
There are many reasons to be skeptical of this achievement. Bernie Sanders complained about the 1,000-plus jobs still moving to Mexico, and about the example the deal set: Trump “has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives.” At a White House briefing, Obama Press Secretary Josh Earnest noted that a thousand jobs is peanuts compared with the more than 1 million saved by Obama’s auto bailout or the 805,000 manufacturing jobs created during his term. Larry Summers expressed concern that Trump’s use of personal leverage and implicit threat could lead American capitalism away from the rule of law. (The tax breaks Carrier accepted did not nearly cover the anticipated savings of the Mexico move, but Carrier’s parent company, in which Trump held an investment as recently as 2014, relies on federal contracts for a nice chunk of its revenue, which may have incentivized it to stay in the president-elect’s good graces.) The Wall Street Journal editorial board sounded a similar alarm, noting that “Mr. Trump’s Carrier squeeze might even cost more U.S. jobs if it makes CEOs more reluctant to build plants in the U.S. because it would be politically difficult to close them.” Even Sarah Palin, that noted voice of reason, called the deal irrational: “When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent.”
All of these complaints have merit. Unfortunately, none of them matters. The Carrier deal is a triumph for Donald Trump, and it’s one that should terrify those concerned about what his presidency might bring (and how long it may last). The incident shows how keenly Trump understands the power of a concrete example. The Carrier deal will be good for the workers whose jobs will stay in Indiana, yes, but it functions primarily as a stunt that expertly reinforces Trump’s brand. As a candidate, he promised to use his deal-making skills to improve the lot of the American worker. Now, nearly two months before he even takes the oath of office, he has delivered. No matter what happens on Trump’s watch—to Carrier, to the manufacturing sector, to employment numbers overall—there will be some set of voters, and not just Trump fans, who vividly remember this moment, thanks to its clarity, to its tangibility. Each critique of the Carrier deal requires the listener to hold in his or her head several levels of abstraction: ideas about how systems and incentives work, ideas about cause and effect, ideas about how corruption can unfurl or how policy can affect millions of people. And so each critique has less impact than the sturdy story: Last week in Indiana, Donald Trump saved a thousand jobs.
Of course, politicians have long used stunts and stories to connect with voters. The stunts have typically been press opportunities meant to shape our perceptions of a candidate or leader. During the 1988 campaign, Michael Dukakis and his press secretary contrived to toss a baseball around on a piece of San Diego tarmac for an audience of 40 journalists, successfully pantomiming masculine regular-guyness for the press. (Tales of the Duke’s penchant for a good old-fashioned catch made it into more than one campaign dispatch.) When George W. Bush donned a flight suit for his visit to an aircraft carrier and then stood under that “Mission Accomplished” banner, the effect was to create a concrete vision of a commander putting a war successfully to bed. And it was Reagan, that master storyteller, who began the State of the Union practice of packing the balcony with anecdotes: Trevor, who helps the homeless, or Cindy, a teacher in a new program called AmeriCorps, or Josefina, whose life will be made better by tax cuts. In these cases, the representative human is customarily trotted out as an example. I’ve enacted a new policy, the politician says. Look how well it’s working for Joe. The idea is to take the abstract work of governing and make its effects real for the citizens watching at home."
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well worth reading. Each article like this just drives me into deeper despair. Who is going to save us from....us? (not us at DU, but the gullibles, the deplorables, the media)
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