On Two Trump Significant Actions

The Necessity of Getting Advice

   In the past week or so, President Trump has made two major decisions and acted on them in the form of significant promulgations. He gave an order that radically changes the country’s practices  on immigration and he put forward his nominee, Neil Gorsuch, to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

   The latter move was received calmly; there were no demonstrations for or against and the few discussions I have monitored fall quietly into the expected category. Liberals, in this case spokesmen for Democrats, combined a “what did you expect” with the concession that candidate Gorsuch was wholly competent and in the class of acceptable justices of our highest court. A few senators are expected to vote not to  approve him. But that is not so much disapproval of the person than it is payback for the unprecedented way the Republicans treated the nomination that Obama had made to fill that vacancy created by the death of  Justice Scalia.

   Conservatives, mostly Republicans, welcomed Trump’s nomination, praising both Mr. Gorsuch for his judicial record and his personal characteristics. There is no question that after the usual process of vetting such candidates he will be easily approved. That I would vote "no" is of course of no general interest. 

   The reception of President Trump’s order concerning immigrants, mostly Muslims, from seven Middle Eastern countries was anything but calm and acquiescent. While those who voted for Trump appeared to approve  an action he had put forward during the campaign, a huge number of people protested with noisy vehemence emphatic declarations, together with many statements by educators and scientists and others who tend not to join more boisterous opponents.

   Worse, almost immediately a large number of individuals and families were stopped in their tracks and seriously discombobulated, to use too mild a word, at airports, on other modes of transportation and at US borders. To add insult to injury, so to speak, many knowledgeable persons have made the point that this presidential action is grist for the mill of potential terrorists.    
   The title of these remarks suggest another significant difference between these two presidential actions. I feel quite sure that Mr. Trump did not come into the presidency acquainted with even the names of potential justices of the Supreme Court, not to mention their records or the actual persons themselves. He surely sought advice from people whom he trusted to know their way around these elevated legal circles and who had a sense of Trumps ideological predilections. The result was a nomination that was not, as far as I know, actually denigrated by anyone in the know.

   The story about the other presidential action. There is lots of evidence that Trump thunk up, as the kids say, that immigration edict by himself. Maybe he asked a couple of people to help him write it, but it is quite clear that he did not consult any of the many governmental officials who are knowledgeable and experienced in matters of immigration and to whom he has immediate access.

    The whole world knows that last November American voters elected a person without experience in just about all aspects of governing. The one person who does not seem to know this obvious fact is November’s candidate and now the president of the land.