You Need Help and We’re All You’ve Got
When I first moved to DC at 23 as a bright-eyed, enthusiastic Midwesterner, I was told that watching policy being made is equivalent to watching paint dry.
True, the work of governance is not especially exciting. Some will understandably find it boring to argue about words and their usage, figure out what territory belongs to whom, determine who gets to go first, and decide what’s fair and isn’t. In some ways, working in government and teaching kindergarteners are similar in that both jobs require heavy lesson planning and management — and yet, people do not enter those professions for either of those, but rather for the chance to work towards a better future. We, the people who come to work in Washington, DC, are committed — no matter Republican or Democrat, Southern belle or New England blueblood — to making this country a better place for our fellow Americans.
Putting aside posturing politicians, most of us suffer no illusions of glamor about our work. We don’t wade through years-long hiring processes to work in airless, windowless buildings on Windows XP computers for a fraction of a wage we could make in the private sector because government is just so cool. We make a lot of professional and personal sacrifices in order to build, support, and protect this country.
While in the last year, Trump family, you have started to think about making America great again, the folks of DC have been toiling away at actually doing so for years, decades, or entire careers. DC is full of people who devote their lives to this country, and we can help you if you stop shutting us out, commit to actually showing up, and lead by being an example of service.
If you would like to know some insider secrets to running this country, Family Trump, listen up because you could learn a lot from us.
First of all, governing is far more complex than running a business. Governance is multi-layered, multi-lateral, and multi-stakeholder. Returns on government spending, for instance, are often too long-term to be measurable or modifiable, and actual lives hang in the balance. Turning a profit, the ultimate output of a business, is relatively simple and formulaic, but the outcomes in government usually involve tradeoffs that simultaneously hurt and help different groups of people.
While little can prepare you for the office of President of the United States, other business people have succeeded because they relied on the experts. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump, you seem to be taking an opposite approach by removing whole swaths of senior staff from cabinet agencies. Unlike a merger or acquisition, the staff in these levels of government cannot be easily replaced. First, these staff are so highly specialized that it is unlikely you will find better candidates, especially at the rate that they are fired. Moreover, with their departure, a depth of institutional knowledge and relationships is permanently removed that cannot be replaced. Finally, hiring is not easy. It’s quite likely that these positions will take years to re-fill, if ever. What does that mean for the American people in the interim?
Next, the office of the President is not going to be fun some days, but you still have a job to do. I get that you would prefer to do your deals on the golf course at Mar-A-Lago — honestly, who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, this compromises the security of the nation, whether it is because it stretches an already pressed secret service; it exposes you, your colleagues, and fellow dignitaries to a mountain of unvetted hotel staff and other guests; or it leaves us open to publicly posted photos of highly sensitive information.
In addition to ensuring security, your job now is about making informed decisions, not just making a deal. To do that, you need to start listening to the information collectors in the intelligence community. During my time in intelligence, I knew many things that Fox News simply didn’t. Holding, attending, and engaging in briefings from the staff who are here to serve you and your decision-making is crucial in order to save lives.
I imagine that you’ve begun to realize that this is not the job you want, but if you want to keep it, you need to adjust. Government is bigger than you and the office you now hold. Much has been written about how your management style is not adaptable to the global-scale operation of federal government. In your case, Mr. President, I think your insistence that the federal government bend and adapt to being run like your business is the problem. Slandering judges, disparaging the judicial system, and leveling accusations against predecessors make it clear that you want to operate however you wish. That will not happen in this job.
After all, service means you do not go first. You must realize you are a family of public servants now; you serve the 330 million people of the United States. Your efforts are dedicated to the values, ideals, and institutions of our democracy, and everything you do must contribute to this country, not the other way around.
This means you must stop burdening the very economy you have pledged to fix. The combined budget for security at Trump Tower and weekends at Mar-A-Lago is a figure that dwarfs the budgets of key cultural, educational, and environmental programs and will result in jobs losses, cuts in programs for poor and hungry children, and losses in health insurance for mothers. You just don’t get to jet off to meetings without taking into consideration the costs to the U.S.
It additionally means you have to consider the survival of other people before that of your brands. Your family members cannot go out in a $5000 dress the day refugees get banned from our country. You and your surrogates cannot encourage Americans to buy your failing products on national TV. You cannot cut vital food and health programs for the poorest among us and, in the same breath, peddle your pearls, steaks, or haute couture.
We civil servants do not understand how you can look at those tradeoffs and choose yourselves. We do not live for ourselves here; we live for others. In this way, we are not just any workforce. To get us to work with you, you have to inspire us, and you do this by leading selflessly. Without that, many will leave rather than work for someone they don’t believe in or trust. Those who do stay may thwart your policy implementation. In either scenario, the American people lose.
You can no longer put yourselves first. Any choices you make to accommodate yourselves, or elevate your brands or your status, have real world repercussions on the people in this country and throughout the globe.
As a family, you need to show up, put aside your own needs, and truly take on the task of leading this country. Only in this way are you qualified to help make America even greater.
Shauna Dillavou is a Political Partner with the Truman National Security Project. She is also Principal of Security Positive and Founder of CommunityRED. Views expressed are her own.
