Too Big to Govern Well

 Too Big to Govern Well

Is governing the United States too great a job for any Executive?  Since our founding when our population was 2,500,000, and now over 330,000,000 (132 times greater), with a Federal Government employing over 2,200,000, almost as much as the population total in 1776, this is a valid question.  Has America outgrown its ability to be properly managed? What kind of person, with what intellectual talents, and human nature, or demeanor, is needed? 

Am I asking this question more because of Biden now in office?  That may be the case, but it is a worthy consideration. 

Biden is certainly too small minded, and physically and mentally challenged for the task.  He appears as a puppet on strings whose operators are a biased class, not necessarily focused on WeThePeople as a whole, that is, the common good. Trump was decisive, well equipped to access the myriad views from advisors, as a whole, not one on one, hearing them all, and deciding, his plate full, many plates spinning as a well skilled juggler, yet he lacked the humility and character expected of a person having attained the highest office in our land. Obama was biased and clouded in judgment by his race and heritage, his decisions unbalanced, his positions on important issues in flux. Even Kennedy was immature, especially on military matters resulting in the embarrassing Bay of Pigs disaster and igniting the Vietnam war. His successors were mostly inept and cumbersome in their decisions and ability to lead. Nixon was intelligent, dull, self-absorbed, lacking friends, and obsessed with a righteous indignation towards critics. Carter was blinded by the oil crisis and the Shah, his ignorance of Middle East history and Islamism enabled a theocracy to overthrow a parliamentarian quasi-democracy in Iran, changing the picture under development in the desert. He was a bumbler.  Reagan was more the statesman and should get more credit for what he achieved than he has.  The Cold War was ended, then, Russia’s inadequacies exposed. The Bushes made many errors, with penchants for war and Clinton, in spite of his dalliances, was clear headed and practical, albeit a bit timid as to foreign affairs.  

Entitlements became the inducement, particularly for the left and the so labeled progressives, to vote ‘for me’ and not the strength of their character or their achievements for WeThePeople. Politics, and political dominance became a focus and not leadership for a unified nation. Thus the dilemma has become one of Party power and representation more than leadership. Divisiveness is in greater evidence, along with intransigence and a renewal for separation of races, sexually gender preferentially oriented, and repressed minorities. They, and those who align with ‘they’ are offered safe spaces, as politically and conveniently defined.  Trump represented the People, but the Party, Democratic and far too many Republicans, disliked his style, his rapid movements, his accomplishments, his steam-roller style and his braggadocio. He was dismissed not for what he was able to do, or his energy and focus, all too often overlooked, but his failure to fit the role ascribed by the elite for the Office of President. Trump in my view was the most able President since Eisenhower. Until the U2 was exposed Ike was revered, the peacekeeper, the man that kept the world free of nuclear annihilation and new wars. He had but a few months left in his reign. 

Needed is an executive whose authority is not arbitrary, and/or based on personal sentiment, but exercised, depending on circumstances and changing times, personal freedoms and choice always respected, for the good of the whole of the citizenry.  One’s duty is to serve WeThePeople, to insure our sovereignty, to engender opportunity to prosper, and to unify. 

Our Nation has come far, but the oversight role of the President may be too great for any human. To wit, those we choose, for whom we vote and entrust with this role, must be vetted by us all and carefully selected as one most able to do what may be the impossible. 

A matching conundrum is the voter collective itself; are we capable of choosing well? 

Thomas W. Balderston  

Author and Blogger

@TomBalderston (Twitter)