A favorite word Democrats use to argue against Trump’s second presidency is “guardrails.” The argument goes like this:
Donald Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing the first time, and someone is protecting the republic from his worst instincts. He’s experienced it now, and he won’t have the same White House staff and structure to rein him in during his second term.
This discussion has escalated after former national security adviser HR McMaster’s book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” in which he described Trump’s Oval Office decision-making as chaotic, sycophantic and lacking. in the nuances.
McMaster wrote that Trump often antagonized staff members and said “weird things” in meetings, such as suggesting bombing Mexican drug cartel facilities. (This idea doesn’t seem too bad to me, even if McMaster doesn’t like it.)
Of course, the guardrails argument is often made in a vacuum, and in the case of Trump, there is no comparison to what is happening with the current occupant of the Oval Office, President Biden, and the vice president, Kamala Harris. I am not sympathetic when Trump’s guardrails are questioned and the Biden administration is not.
Biden and Harris have made poor decisions, endured crippling staff turnover and have been known to use R-rated language when advisers and staffers are unhappy, so they can’t offer good advice, even if it’s necessary.
“No one is safe,” an administration official told Axios, of Biden’s F-bomb warning. And the father of an intern in Harris’ office when he was California attorney general said his staff was “terrified” of torture. His son, he wrote in an op-ed in the Union newspaper, which covers California’s Nevada County, was told only a senior staff member could deal with him directly.
As a former White House staffer, I believe that accountability advisers are essential in helping the president make strong decisions. But make no mistake – the buck stops with the president. And sometimes the president rejects or ignores his advisers because of his prerogative to adhere to or ignore staff guardrails.
In the end, the president the people want — and the Constitution demands — makes the big decisions.
Both have warts to heal in judgment.
For Harris, it was the chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Inflation policy. Force social media platforms to “censor” content, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg. Executive action is challenged by the courts. And his role is to cover the suitability of the president for a second term.
For Trump, his actions on January 6 were a low point in a presidency that most Republicans find more than palatable. He cut taxes, elected conservative judges and kept the country safe. And retrospective job approval in recent polls tops 50%.
Democrats are making a demand from Republicans today, which is to put all conservative values ​​behind the theory that Trump’s term without “guardrails” is dangerous for the country. But many Republicans will tell you that there is a fear of Trump’s decision-making structure being undermined by the specter of a Harris presidency that has jerked the country to the left, and in an irreversible way.
My faith is in the system. Biden/Harris and Trump were both held up by the Supreme Court. The House of Representatives has sometimes stifled both administrations, and as long as the filibuster stands in the Senate – not about whether the Democrats retain control without moderation but the departure of the influence of Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin II – it is the strongest check against him. hyperpartisan radicalism.
And there’s this: Voters have a chance to reward or punish policy decisions made by the president and his party every two years. And if things don’t work out, Congress can remove or rein in an errant president at any time.
Scott Jennings is a contributing writer for Opinion, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a senior CNN political commentator. @ScottJenningsKY
