A Bit More of “The Apprentice” in National Government, Please

There is not much more to add to this Daniel Nexonesque evisceration of the appalling argument that we should celebrate nepotism and Jared Kushner’s presence in the White House. But I would like to draw out a point to which Nexon alludes.

There are a number of qualities that make for a good employee. Among them are intelligence, good morals and values, reliability, punctuality, the willingness to speak truth to power, and the ability to get fired. That last one is an exceedingly obvious point and is taken for granted a lot of the time, but that doesn’t make it any less important a point to make in this day and age; when an employee know that s/he can be fired, then that knowledge increases the employee’s sense of responsibility and accountability. An employee who knows that s/he is untouchable oftentimes becomes an employee who cuts corners, slacks off, abuses power, authority and the indulgences that s/he is given, and ultimately, fails to produce for the employer.

Again, I know that all of this is obvious, and again, it is so obvious that we have traditionally taken these points for granted. We should not take them for granted anymore, now that our world has been turned upside down and perverted beyond recognition. Jared Kushner cannot be fired by his father-in-law, the president of (I still cannot believe I am writing this) the United States. To fire the Callow Dauphin would be to cause a tremendous rift in his family; Trump’s son-in-law would hate him, Trump’s daughter (who might still work for Trump after any firing of her husband) would hate him, and various other Trump children may turn against their sub-moronic father–to mention just a bit of the possible fallout that might occur if the Callow Dauphin were treated like any other employee. Add to all of this the fact that Trump already has “an aversion to dismissing people”–one that existed long before Jared Kushner took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic–and one can readily see how accountability and responsibility might go the way of the dinosaur and the dodo bird in the Trump administration.

So, while it amazes me to write this, we need more of “The Apprentice” in the White House. We need employees who are fireable, and a president who is willing to fire them. To achieve that goal, we need to get rid of White House staffers like Jared Kushner, who are untouchable under the incumbent president of the United States. And to get to that point, we need to get rid of the incumbent president of the United States.

(Photo Credit.)

Originally published at pejmanyousefzadeh.net on April 8, 2017.