The vast ego and self-absorption of Donald Trump have been on display in three presidential campaigns. What’s apparent is that “the Donald” has the attention span of a hummingbird and a shallow understanding of deep issues.
Deficiencies of Trump as decision-maker are nowhere more apparent than in his selection of a vice-presidential nominee. The Trump campaign has found itself mired in controversy at statements by J.D. Vance. America is run by “childless cat ladies,” who are “miserable in their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
Such sentiments, along with Vance’s proposal to “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat” in the federal government, have become fodder for the media and Democrats. The Trump-Vance ticket has earned the label “weird,” attached by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and gone viral.
By contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris has managed to be deliberate while having only three weeks to vet contenders and pick her own running mate. The Democratic nominee is interviewing the finalists, who can expect a stiff go-round. A former prosecutor, Harris showed her chops in Senate interrogation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during the Trump Administration.
Why should we care about this? Because probing in depth can be an antidote to disaster. A point of reference is Robert Caro’s account of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis in the third volume of his masterful biography of Lyndon Johnson. The urging from generals, senior staff and Vice President Johnson was for an air strike to “take out” intermediate range Soviet nuclear missiles rapidly being installed.
John and Robert Kennedy chose to do their own thinking, opting for a quarantine of Cuba-bound weapons shipments, and a back-channel offer: We would dismantle obsolete missile bases in Turkey if the Soviets would pack up their missiles in Cuba. The offer was carried by RFK to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrinin.
Nuclear confrontation was averted. Nikita Khruschev was given a way out. While a polished presence on television, JFK brought depth and skeptical intelligence to the job. He learned to be wary of advice. After all, the CIA had sold the Bay of Pigs landing and predicted Castro’s demise.
Alas, nowadays, candidates for public office rise or fall on sound bites, debate performance and courting of ideological media. But appearances deceive. Joe Biden bombed in his debate with Trump. At the same time, however, the 81-year-old president was successfully putting together a multi-nation prisoner exchange deal. A couple years ago, Biden put a far-reaching infrastructure package through Congress. Trump had talked infrastructure, never to deliver.
The great Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Chuck Noll coined a maxim for boastful opponents: The empty drum bangs loudest. He proved the point with the Super Bowl humiliation of Los Angeles Rams linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson. The maxim carries over to politics, and judgment.
Barack Obama chose to deploy Navy SEALs to Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, rather than an air strike that would have caused casualties, aka “collateral damage.” Dwight Eisenhower refused calls to rescue colonialism, allowing Britain and France to flounder in their seizure of the Suez Canal.
Inept, hastily chosen vice-presidential nominees are an American tradition. In picking Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew as his running mate, Richard Nixon declared: “This guy has it.” We never learned what “it” was. Agnew was soon in trouble, calling one reporter a “fat Jap” and declaring: “If you’ve seen one big city slum, you’ve seen them all.”
Tapped by George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle tried to equate himself to John F. Kennedy, evincing a withering putdown from Democratic foe Lloyd Bentsen: “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. And, senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” Quayle would later insist, during a school visit, that the word potato was spelled with an “e”.
Vance is having trouble being the designated attack dog when he is dogged by past statements calling rape and incest “inconvenient” and pledging to pack the federal government with “our people.”
Hence, Harris has good reasons for testing chemistry and competence in one-on-one interviews with finalists for VP, not simply acting on vetting recommendations from the law firm of Covington and Burling. She pilloried Joe Biden in the first debate of 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, only later to sign on as his running mate.
Depth of preparation shows its value. The late Sen. Henry Jackson delivered ceaseless speeches warning of U.S. dependence on foreign oil. When he ran for president, the joke was that when Scoop Jackson delivered a fireside chat, the fire went out. But Jackson was spot-on with his warning.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, who holds Jackson’s old seat, is likewise a learner. She has developed detailed knowledge, from causes of the Great Recession to explosive accidents involving rail transport of oil. When a Union Pacific oil train derailed in the Columbia Gorge, with several cars catching fire, Cantwell assigned a young transportation aide to research train safety. She then grilled him to master details. She did additional research on her own.
The result was that then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Fox found himself the hunted one at a hearing three days later. The Obama Administration was forced to take action (not enough) on train safety.
Cantwell has the reputation as an exacting boss. Kamala Harris gets similarly slammed. Male colleagues are seemingly exempt from such criticism. But politics is a serious business in a dangerous world. Nuclear weapons offer the danger of accident, miscalculation or madness. Climate change is generating extreme weather, and endangering future generations.
We’re not voting for an entertainer-in-chief this November.
I’m disappointed Joel, that in your first paragraph you disparaged hummingbirds. Otherwise, a good piece.
Mr. Taylor
Kind Sir
Thank you for the observation. I have 4 hummingbird feeders out year-round plus I am a beekeeper. I am therefore qualified to declare that hummingbirds have good attention spans.
Yr Obt Svt
A.S.
P.S. Mr. Joel probably knew better. This unforced error was probably due to thinking about the Velveeta Voldemort too much.
Finally it seems normal Republicans are reconsidering Trump and Dems are realizing we need to unify and stay focused. I haven’t felt so confident about defeating Trump and his threat to democracy for years.
I attended an all-boys school in Philadelphia ‘back in the day’. One of my teachers, responding to the noisy chatter that periodically arose in our classroom, would shush us with the whack pf a ruler on his wooden desk and remarking, “Remember this, boys: Empty barrels make the most noise.”
The meaning of his aphorism puzzled me, a city kid with no experience of barrels, empty or otherwise, until I had to move one by myself. Rolling an empty barrel can, indeed, make a hollow sort of noise.
Over the years I have seen references to and videos of Lloyd Bentsen’s remark to Dan Quayle. Despite the fact that it was true and a shocking statement during the debate, we must remember that the Bush-Quayle ticket won that election. The same is true of the Nixon-Agnew ticket. They also won the election. Presidential candidates do not want there VP candidate partner overshadowing them. Trump will tone Vance down. I think Gov. Walz is a good pick by VP Kamala Harris, but he is a bit of a showman. Even though Ms. Harris is not threatened by him, he must be careful not to “show up” Ms. Harris.
Joel,
My son, who, a financier at Blackrock, always beat up on Harris. And during the switchover from Biden to Harris, I was nervous. But in the days following, It was surprised how much brighter the world seemed and how light and airy I felt. A lot of people I know say the same thing. I also look at Biden with abiding respect and gratitude. I cannot have been an easy decision for him, but he put the good of the nation and party before his own interest. How wonderful to know that the country still has people, and, more importantly, leaders like him. I believe he is a national hero and hope a Harris and Waltz victory confirm that. I know it is too early to celebrate, but it is reassuring to read an article like yours that seems to radiate confidence.
But your remarks on hummingbirds lead me to question your sense. David M. Buerge