As the president of the United States seeks to “make America great … again,” he is diminishing the power, stature and profile of the very office he occupies.
How? His use of Twitter has relegated what once were considered inviolable policy statements into mere “personal opinions.” That’s according to Donald John Trump’s senior staff and legal advisers.
What in the world is going on here?
There once was a time when anything that came from the president was deemed to be hard-and-fast policy pronouncements. If the president said it, the statement was solid. Good as gold. Take it to the bank. That’s what the nation stands for.
These days statements of policy now are passed off as something, um, considerably less important.
Trump tweeted, for instance, that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions “should” end the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Where I come from, when the boss said I “should” do something, that means I do it. Not so with Trump, according to Rudy Giuliani, the president’s current personal lawyer.
I have given up complaining about Trump’s tweets. I know that he is addicted to the social medium as a method of communicating.
What, though, do the messages mean? Are they directives or are they mere blathering from the commander in chief?
Donald J. Trump’s desire to “make America great again” must include an elevation of the office to which he was elected. The presidency should reflect the greatness of the nation. Isn’t that a reasonable assumption to make?
To date, not even two years into his presidency, Trump is diminishing his office through his incessant use of Twitter to declare every damn thing on what passes for his mind.
As the office of the presidency shrinks, so does the president’s objective of achieving greatness for the nation he governs.
