Trump's Private Ambition

And all the links.

I wrote recently about the idea that what is confounding about Donald Trump is that he has the wrong kind of ambition, but didn’t really focus on it. Going back to it here.

You’ll hear a lot about the dangers of ambitious politicians, but in fact the US political system and, perhaps all democracies, depend on political ambition. The idea is pretty simple. Ambitious politicians try to do things that win allies, build larger coalitions, and ultimately make voters happy; they avoid doing things that alienate people, both elites and ordinary voters. Ambitious politicians have strong incentives to identify real problems, and then, once elected, try to solve them. Moreover, those incentives go beyond just pleasing their supporters; even if they can’t hope to have everyone love them, they have good reason to keep opponents from being all that upset.

In other words, ambition creates healthy incentives.

That’s all true whatever the content of their ambition might be. Some politicians like being powerful. Some like advancing the interests of some group they belong to and identify with. Some have a policy agenda they really care about. And some just like being part of the action. Whichever it is, the same basic incentives apply if they want to fulfill that ambition.

Normally.

It turns out that what normal political ambition has in common is that it’s public. It takes place in the public sphere, the space in which whatever one’s motives they play out in the give and take of collective government, using its language and its justifications. It is personal, yes, but everything about it is public, so much so that we don’t even think of describing ambition that way.

Trump is ambitious, certainly…but his ambition, I think, is different. It is, fundamentally, private; it is detached, in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before, from the public sphere, the space that is shared between everyone.

The example that I used last time I talked about this was his interest in Greenland, which seems entirely divorced from any consideration of whether it’s good for the US. But there are just so many examples.

One that we heard about this week was his attempt to trade off continued funding for a tunnel project between New Jersey and New York for, of all things, getting Dulles airport and New York’s Penn Station renamed for him.

Then there’s a whole bunch of projects he’s done or wants to do in Washington: The destruction of parts of the White House so that he can build something he thinks is cool; the proposed construction of a huge arch; even, last year, the parade he wanted to throw because he apparently thinks parades are really neat. The Kennedy Center fiasco, too, fits with that.

There’s also his use of the presidency to play out personal feuds. Trump is obviously not the first president to feud with others; after all, presidents are humans, too. But no one has made it such a central part of the presidency, or done it so obviously at the expense of what would seem to be – what would for any other president – be larger goals.

So for example: The original detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was a consequence of normal (if horrific) public policy. But once the episode became a public relations fiasco for the administration and the kid and his father were ordered released, the obvious next step for any regular politician would have been to, well, find some other families to pick on. But not Trump; his administration basically switched, as it has previously done to other ordinary people who defeated the president in one way or another, to trying to persecute them.

It makes no sense as a public goal; it makes no sense, in fact, as a way to further Trump’s authority or his popularity or his policy agenda. It only makes sense as fulfilling the president’s private desire.

Of course, the most obvious way that Trump is in it for private rather than public ambition is the way he uses the presidency to stuff his pockets with money, whether it’s lining up corrupt deals with foreign entities or suing the government. This isn’t “honest graft” in which politicians use public action to incidentally enrich themselves; it involves, over and over again, putting the president’s financial interests first regardless of, well, anything else.

It’s all as far from James Madison’s ambition checking ambition as can be. And so it’s no surprise that it doesn’t work. Not only does it undermine democracy rather than building and sustaining the republic, but it also yields multiple policy fiascoes and an unpopular, ineffective president.

The weird thing about this is that the last Republican president, who was also known for policy fiascoes and being unpopular, also in my view had an ambition problem: He didn’t have much of it. This is highly unusual; normally, people don’t get to be president unless they absolutely reek of ambition. But George W. Bush, as far as I can see, was barely interested. I could be wrong, of course, but what it looked like to me was a guy who sobered up, needed a career, and unlike almost everyone in the nation it turned out that the easiest path for him was becoming President of the United States.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence. What they have in common, obviously, is that they were nominated by the Republican Party. It’s not that the party can’t nominate anyone with normal ambition; Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Bob Dole all would qualify, and I think any of them would have been normal presidents. But the party is dysfunctional, and it’s no surprise that weird, dysfunctional things happen in their nomination process.

How about some links:

1. Don Moynihan on Schedule F.

2. Rick Hasen on the threat to free and fair elections.

3. Miranda Yaver on Jay Bhattacharya.

4. Matt Glassman on “talking” filibusters.

5. Lindsey Comack on what the two parties want to “abolish.”

6. Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach on moderation.

7. Sabrina B. Arias and Lotem Bassan-Nygate at Good Authority on Trump, global organizations, and public opinion.

8. Natalie Jackson on partisanship and ideology.

9. David Karpf on the Washington Post and Team Billionaire.

10. Seth Masket is absolutely correct that JD Vance could be elected president.

11. Jennifer Lind on Canada and the US.

12. Dan Drezner is absolutely correct that Trump’s strongest supporters will stick with him regardless of what he does in Iran, and that most voters just don’t care about foreign policy. I would add: As long as there are no continuing US casualties; voters do care about that. Also, as long as there are no negative economic effects. Which people most definitely would care about.

13. And a wonderful blow-by-blow of a House vote from Matthew Green at Mischiefs of Faction..