I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 because he was the best candidate. I did not vote for him because he was perfect. If he is the Republican candidate in 2024, I will vote for him again, because it is inconceivable that any Democrat Marxist in the known universe will be acceptable. But I pray that he is not available to receive my vote. And it’s not because, as my brother accurately suggests, he’s damaged goods. Consider the Parable of the Central Park Skating Rink.
“Once upon a time there was an ice skating rink in Central Park that could no longer make ice. No one could figure out how to fix the skating rink. Years went by and millions of dollars were spent and still no ice. One day a white knight wearing a bright red tie showed up and said: ' Let there be ice!’ Four months later there was ice.”
The city of New York had dumped $13 million into trying to repair the Wollman Skating Rink. Donald Trump stepped in and did the job for just over $2 million. Did he know anything about ice skating? By all reports, he simply said, ‘Canadians skate a lot. They know how to make ice rinks. Go get me a Canadian! He spoke and it was so. He commanded and it stood fast.
Trump, however, is not the Creator. He knows publicity and he knows how to get experts who can take care of the tasks he wants to have done. While this worked well in Central Park, it did not serve him well in the White House. You see, personnel IS policy.
Early on, you could see this in the parade of Chiefs of Staff in the White House. Trump won as a Republican, so presumably the Chairman of the Republican Party would be a good choice. But Reince Priebus turned out to be an establishment creature. Maybe a general could whip the office into shape? But John Kelly worked against Trump’s initiatives. Mick Mulvaney turned out to be an excellent CoS, but being double hatted made for too much work, and Mark Meadows took over. The last two actually supported Trump, rather than being part of the “Swamp” that Trump was elected to drain.
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Multiple other offices come to mind. FBI Director, Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence and others just demonstrate how the president got advice on personnel from others who simply did not share his vision for America. He got Swamp creatures again and again. Then came the Wuhan Flu.
President Trump acted quickly. He shut down the borders. This proper action followed a horrendous mistake. He picked up the phone and called the Centers for “Disease Control and Prevention.” That name is a horrible joke, because diseases cannot be controlled. That would imply god-like powers that no human possesses. Dr. Robert Redfield, Chief of the CDC said, “It’s a virus, you need a virologist. I’ve got the guy for you!” And Dr. Anthony Fauci stepped on scene to save the day.
The problem was simple. While Fauci did graduate from medical school and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, he hasn’t cared for a patient since he joined CDC and burrowed into the virology lab. He became an expert in protein coats, binding sites and genomes, but rarely ventured out in public until HIV became a problem. Then he predicted a pandemic that didn’t happen and failed in his attempts to create a vaccine. Ebola gave him another lease on life, but his pet drug, Remdesivir, turned out to be a dud.
Fauci disappeared into the bowels of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where he found solid footing as a bureaucrat. But when SARS CoV-2 came calling, he was ready. And as recent history has proven, he was seldom right, and seldom in doubt. Very little of his advice was useful, but petty dictators, mostly in blue states, used it as an excuse to flex their muscles. Trump played along, giving his opponents all the rope they wanted. His economic prowess was drowned in a cacophony of media mavens proclaiming every conceivable error. Even his dramatic success with operation Warp Speed was no help. Fauci predicted no vaccines for two or three years, while Trump got it done in months. The media conveniently forgot. Fauci was their savior, and Trump was a chump.
Contrast this with Ron DeSantis, my home state governor. He guided Florida through this mess with near-brilliance. He never railed against people who spoke out against him. He just studied the medical literature and, after conferring with experts, made expert decisions. They lauded him for doing his homework. He didn’t just say, “You’re the expert, tell me what I should do.” He conferred and made thoroughly informed decisions.
If we compare states with R or D in the Governor’s mansion, there’s no difference in COVID outcomes. The bug did what the bug was going to do. You simply cannot “control a disease.” But, unlike Andrew Cuomo in New York, Ron DeSantis made certain that people sick with the WuFlu were not allowed to go back to nursing facilities that did not have the plague. Close to 20,000 elderly New Yorkers died because of Cuomo’s criminal negligence. That didn’t happen in Florida.
Another thing that didn’t happen in Florida was dark eons of eternal lockdown. Our restrictions were painful, but loosened early, and Florida is largely back to normal. Blue states are way behind, with some still barely on the road to recovery.
Ron DeSantis has proven himself to be the “non-Trump” Trump. He stands for the America First agenda, and gets a lot of it done. He doesn’t take crap from opponents, but refuses to engage in petty squabbles. When challenged, he gives as good as he gets. But will he be effective in the White House?
My guess is that he’ll be far more effective than Donald Trump. DeSantis understands that personnel is policy. You can’t just call for experts. You have to be prepared to tell them to stop trying to baffle you with B***S***.
Donald Trump was very transactional, and didn’t become expert in enough areas to effectively drain the Swamp. Ron DeSantis is unlikely to make the same mistakes.
Ted Noel MD posts on multiple social media sites as DoctorTed and @VidZette.
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