Presidential Manners For Idiots
The acknowledged history of the American President is a mix of things, part myth, part gossip and part ridiculousness, often offered live for our viewing pleasure. The office of the President of the United States is the most scrutinized job ever. And the most coveted. Election season for presidential nominations is an expensive bloodbath. Winners still taste blood in their saliva after the election. But, up until now, there has been an immediate alteration of group attitude upon entering the White House. They were the same people, only they weren’t. The big guy went from being Candidate So-and-so to President So-and-so. The big guy’s advisers became presidential advisers. Together they became the leaders of a crazy country on a crazy planet and understood their primary duty to keep everybody calm. The current administration didn’t get to that chapter yet, unprepared as they were to win. So, I would like to offer my services on advising how to act while in office.
Upon first entering the Oval Office, read the note left by your predecessor. It’s the one on the desk, which quickly found a pile of similar correspondence and you never got to. Find the damn thing and read it. I don’t know what it says, but I’ll bet it’s something important to you personally. Yeah, you said you read it. Nice try. Go find it.
Being President changes a person because it takes the need to strive away from our greatest strivers. They get four years of thinking about the world’s only superpower and how to keep it running. In the race to be President, they were the drivers. At the end of the race, the good ones became mechanics and let the really good drivers drive. In the process, the manner in which the country evolved defined a large part of the sitting President’s mythology. He didn’t necessarily have to do anything to deserve the verdict but, good or bad, it happened on his watch. The moral to the story is, be proactive. The President must communicate his specific desires to his staff and stay on them for accurate answers. If they’re wasting time having gang fights in the West Wing, they’re not working for you or us.
The President must also communicate his broader vision to the rest of the country. You need to begin working on the majority who didn’t vote for you. Give us the big picture. Speak to us as if we’re all smarter than you, because it’s probably true. Inspire us. Oh, you’re building a fence? Great. Any other landscaping projects, you let us know. Seriously, we need to know you know the whole world is gunning for us. We don’t need more enemies. We need more friends. Tell us you’re going to be a proper guest when visiting world leaders. Tell us you’re going to be a gracious host when they visit us. Be humble. You are Commander-In-Chief of a combined armed force that can blow up the Moon and everyone knows it. You can afford to suppress your pride.
And while on the subject of you, stop it. Stop being Donald Trump. Start being President Trump. Donald Trump is gone and he can’t ever return. I promise. The job will make it impossible to revert. May as well get new mirrors to help you get over the change. You can blame the mirrors. The difference is in your state of being. You will reach a point of relaxed exhaustion, like a long distance runner breaking through a wall. You will become less suspicious of the people close to you, more reliant upon them. You will achieve some level of Presidential Zen, if you’re lucky. I can’t wait.
Finally, be as honest as you can be. Don’t spill the beans, but don’t hide the fact the beans exist. We’re going to find them anyway. We have a free press and free minds and a lot of pickup trucks and guns. It’s a crazy country, Mister President. Half of it will disagree with you on any subject, and not always the same half. The only thing you can do to not make it worse is by denying us the ability to pass judgment. If you screw up ethically while in office, you will hear about it. Everybody does. So, don’t screw up. One investigation can overshadow an entire term of office. Independent Counsel Ken Starr was able to hold Bill Clinton’s second term hostage over his perjured testimony. It isn’t worth all it took to get where you are, just to blow it on a thoughtless lie. While lying about banging an intern is something we are prone to forgive, especially when your wife looks like, you know, lying about bigger fish, national security or government corruption, well, that brings out the torches and pitchforks. Don’t do it. If it’s done, find a patsy. Don’t get caught. If you’re not sure how to go about it, call your friend Chris Christie.
The history of the Presidency is full of winners and losers and accidents of fate. Each man to hold office understood it to be the ultimate act of service and sacrifice. They each resented their lot at some point, but they also felt honor in the struggle to serve a great nation. It staggered most of them, destroyed some of them and mythologized all of them. What will be your cherry tree, Mister President? Where is your Gettysburg? Walk tall and gather your people and they will tell you what you will one day be.
