Trump may be misguided, but he’s not wrong about everything
President Trump is often misinformed and misguided. He lies and exaggerates about a lot of things, but he’s not completely wrong about everything.
He’s not wrong that the immigration system is broken and illegal immigration had got out of hand, straining local budgets, overwhelming local culture in some places, and undermining the rule of law.
He’s not wrong that DEI, wokism, and cancel culture had gone too far.
He’s not wrong that civil service rules make it hard to attract talent or reengineer government while entrenching mediocrity.
He’s not wrong that the intelligence community and foreign aid programs could use a shakeup.
He’s not wrong that the government should not pay overhead rates of 60 percent on research grants.
He’s not wrong that large and persistent trade and budget deficits pose a serious threat to the economy.
He’s not wrong that Europe has never paid its fair share for the Western alliance.
All of these problems have been obvious and festering for years, begging for the kind of fix that Congress could and should have provided. Not only did Congress not resolve them—in most cases, it didn’t seriously try.
So we should hardly be surprised when a clever, cynical huckster comes along and convinces half the country to let him break some political china to make things right.
Members of Congress long ago resigned themselves to their own dysfunction. Most blame it on the stubborn extremism of the other party and a primary system that rewards partisanship ideological extremism. Others cite the polarization that has taken hold in a country that sorted itself demographically, geographically, ideologically, and informationally into two warring tribes that view the other as an existential to the American way of life. Whatever the reason, members of both parties now cling to the fantasy that the only way out of this rut is for their party to remain unified and refuse to compromise so they can sweep the next election and impose their policy solutions on a grateful country that will keep them in power for a generation.
As the last four presidents have discovered, however, the hegemony turns out to be short-lived. Too many voters are unwilling to swallow the partisan gruel. After an initial flurry of legislation rammed through on a straight-line party vote, Congress reverts to its familiar gridlock. A similar fate now awaits Trump 47.
Steven Pearlstein is a Senior Fellow at Penn Washington. He is also the Robinson Professor of Public Affairs at George Mason University and a former Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post. The views expressed here are his own.