Donald Trump may be the only man in modern politics who has spent thirty years convincing Americans that he knows more than the generals, economists, diplomats, politicians, and experts.
It is an impressive claim.
Responsibility, unfortunately, has a habit of asking follow-up questions.
For most of the last thirty years, the American public has been treated to regular updates regarding Donald Trump’s extraordinary abilities.
Not good gifts; not impressive gifts, but extraordinary gifts.
🎧 Listen to the narrated version of The World's Greatest Expert (7 minutes, 57 seconds).
According to Donald Trump, he knows more than the generals, more than the economists, more than the diplomats, more than the politicians, and occasionally more than the experts who spent their lives becoming experts. It is an impressive list. One begins to wonder how the rest of civilization managed to function before he arrived.
Now, confidence is not a crime. America has always had room for confident people. We admire the inventor who believes he can build something new, the entrepreneur who believes she can create something better, and the reformer who believes old assumptions deserve to be challenged.
The difficulty begins when confidence graduates into certainty.
Donald Trump has never been merely confident. He has been absolutely certain.
Every problem was easier than people thought. Every negotiation was simpler than people believed. Every obstacle existed because the wrong people were in charge.
The experts were the problem. The insiders were the problem. The diplomats were the problem. The politicians were the problem.
The solution, invariably, was Donald Trump.
For years, this arrangement worked beautifully. After all, criticism is one of the easiest activities in public life:
· The bridge is poorly designed.
· The company is poorly managed.
· The treaty is badly flawed.
· The economy is weak.
· The military strategy is misguided.
· The existing solution is inadequate.
Anyone can identify defects. The harder task is replacing the thing you just demolished.
That is where life becomes interesting. Because eventually the critic acquires responsibility.
The fellow shouting advice from the grandstand gets handed a uniform.
The armchair quarterback is given the football.
The man explaining how simple everything is finally gets an opportunity to demonstrate just how simple it really is.
And that may be the central story of Trump's public career.
Not his victories; not his defeats, but his encounter with responsibility.
Take Iran.
For years, Trump described the existing nuclear agreement as weak, foolish, and unacceptable. A better deal, he said, would be easy to obtain. He would provide stronger leadership. Better instincts. Superior negotiating skills. Problem solved.
Yet here we are.
The old agreement is gone.
The replacement remains elusive.
The region remains unstable.
The risks remain real.
The supposedly simple problem remains stubbornly complicated.
Reality, it seems, has developed a habit of refusing straightforward instructions.
The same thing happened with trade.
Trade wars were easy. Until they weren't.
Healthcare was easy. Until it wasn't.
Foreign policy was easy. Until it wasn't.
Governing itself was easy. Until it wasn't.
Repeatedly, problems that appeared remarkably simple from outside government became considerably more difficult from inside it.
This should not surprise anyone.
The world is complicated: Nations pursue competing interests. Markets react unpredictably. Human beings refuse to cooperate with carefully prepared scripts.
Most leaders eventually discover these truths.
What makes Trump different is that he built an entire political identity around denying them.
His central claim has never been that he would do better.
His central claim was that his success was obvious; that the experts had overcomplicated everything, and that the solutions were self-evident.
The establishment, he said, simply lacked the courage or intelligence to implement his ideas.
That is an intoxicating message.
It is also a dangerous one.
Because when every problem is portrayed as simple, every failure requires an explanation.
And over time, those explanations begin accumulating.
The media.
The bureaucracy.
The courts.
The deep state.
The opposition.
Foreign governments.
Disloyal allies.
Ungrateful voters.
Everyone, apparently, except the man who promised that everything would be easy.
At some point, however, an uncomfortable question emerges: What if the experts were not wrong about everything?\
Not because experts are infallible.
They are not.
Not because institutions are perfect.
They are not.
But because many of the difficulties Trump encountered were precisely the difficulties experts had warned about from the beginning: Trade-offs. Constraints. Unintended consequences. Competing interests.
The stubborn complexities of reality.
Which brings me back to my great-grandfather.
He was not a political scientist.
He never appeared on television.
He never wrote a bestselling book about leadership.
Yet he possessed a piece of wisdom that seems increasingly useful: "Doers don't talk, and talkers don't do."
Like most folk wisdom, it is not universally true. Plenty of people talk and do.
But the saying contains important warnings:
· When the talking becomes endless, inspect the doing.
· When the promises become grander, inspect the results.
· When the self-praise becomes constant, inspect the record.
That is not cynicism.
It is accountability.
And accountability is ultimately what this discussion is about.
Donald Trump has spent decades telling Americans that he possesses exceptional knowledge, exceptional judgment, and exceptional abilities.
Fine.
Let us accept the proposition for a moment.
Let us judge him by the standards he established.
Let us use his ruler rather than ours.
If every problem were easy, how many has he solved?
If every deal were simple, how many have succeeded?
If every expert were incompetent, how often has he been correct?
These are not partisan questions.
They are performance questions.
The sort of questions any executive, manager, contractor, or employee eventually faces.
Because there comes a point when the sales presentation ends.
There comes a point when the advertisement gives way to the product.
There comes a point when the promises encounter the scoreboard.
And after thirty-plus years of hearing that Donald Trump is the smartest man in every room he enters, perhaps it is finally time to inspect the rooms.
Not because he asked to be judged harshly, but because he asked to be judged exceptionally.
There is a difference.
After all, if a man insists upon being known as the world's greatest expert, he should not object when someone asks to see his work.
— Dunneagin
Civics Unhinged
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Alternatively, keep reading in the chronicle: Keep reading: Identifying the point where certainty predictably outpaces competence in The Qualification Gap.
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A note on the shelf. These essays are part of an ongoing chronicle of American politics, democratic institutions, and the peculiar age through which we are presently living. The collected volumes—and the occasional standalone work—remain available through the Fourthwall shop, best read with something warm in the cup.