What I Hope

Dave Schuler November 9, 2016

As I wrote in my previous post, I literally have no idea of what President Trump will do. I can say what I hope he will do.

I hope he is gracious in victory. If I were in his shoes, I would announce my intention of pardoning Hillary Clinton or ask President Obama to do so as early as possible. Think of it as jiu jitsu.

I hope he tries to fulfill his promise of “being a president for all of the people”. I’m reminded of Sam Clemens’s wisecrack: “Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest”.

He could begin that by appointing blacks and Hispanics to prominent positions in his administration and appointing a woman to be his press secretary/spokesperson. Regardless of the demographics of those who voted for or against him, although we’re still a country with a supermajority of white voters, we have large black and Hispanic minorities and that deserves recognition.

I hope the media continue to go after President-elect and then President Trump hammer and tongs, a bulwark against presidential overreach. I have every confidence they will do that.

I hope he curtails the politicization of federal agencies that has become so apparent.

I hope that President Obama does not produce a flurry of last minute executive orders and that the Obama Administration does not engage in the sort of conduct that characterized the transition between the Clinton Administration and the George W. Bush Administration.

I hope he takes the words of the presidential oath of office seriously:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

I hope he will be a prudent steward of American interests in the world, the national interests rather than the narrow interests of certain groups, companies, or individuals. I hope he has no conceit of his ability to remake the world.

5 comments… add one

PD Shaw Link

I hope he revitalizes the sense of the Congress being the preeminent body for domestic policy and picks and chooses his disputes with them carefully. Not that I necessarily think the Congressional Republicans have all the right policies, but without political experience or much of a broader policy agenda, I could see the federal government becoming even more dysfunctional that it would under traditional divided government. See John Tyler.
sam Link

Perhaps and perhaps and perhaps…

I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish’d for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
Dave Schuler Link

Henry IV, Part 1.
... Link

I couldn’t agree with PD’s comment more. The Presidency has become too powerful, as Democrats are suddenly discovering.
Dave Schuler Link

As written the Constitution provides for a strong Congress and a weak presidency. Over the period of the last 70 or so years the Congress has surrendered much of its authority to the Executive. We can only hope the tide will turn on that.