{"id":2774,"date":"2020-05-21T16:46:46","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T16:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=2774"},"modified":"2020-05-21T16:46:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T16:46:46","slug":"the-presidents-job-is-to-manage-risk-but-trump-is-the-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=2774","title":{"rendered":"The president\u2019s job is to manage risk. But Trump is the risk."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“the novel coronavirus<\/a> came, and President Trump did nothing for week after week, month after month. We sit, still, in the void where a plan should be<\/a>, forced to choose between endless lockdown and reckless reopening because the federal government has not charted a middle path. Instead, we wake to presidential tweets demanding the \u201cliberation\u201d of states, and laugh to keep from crying when the most powerful man in the world suggests we study the injection of disinfectants. Trump has let disaster metastasize into calamity. The feared collision of global crisis and presidential recklessness has come, and it is not close to over.” 
…
“much of any presidency takes place in the murky realm of risk. Imagine that there are 10 horrible events that could befall the country in a president\u2019s term, each with a 1 in 40 chance of happening. If a president acts in such a way that they all become much likelier \u2014 say, a 1 in 10 chance \u2014 he may never be blamed for it, because none of them may happen, or because the one that does falls during his successor\u2019s term. But in taking calamity from reasonably unlikely to reasonably likely, he will have done the country terrible harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The logic works in reverse, too. A president who assiduously works to reduce risk may never be rewarded for their effort because the outcome will be a calamity that never occurred, a disaster we never felt. We punish only the most undeniable of failures and routinely miss the most profound successes.”…
“Of late, I\u2019ve been thinking back to 2017, when Trump began a war of tweets<\/a> with North Korea, the world\u2019s most irrational nuclear regime. \u201cJust heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N.,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cIf he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won\u2019t be around much longer!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s behavior stunned even Republican allies. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), then the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, warned that the president was treating his office like \u201ca reality show\u201d and setting the country \u201con the path to World War III.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But World War III didn\u2019t happen. Trump and Kim Jong Un deescalated. They met in person and sent each other what Trump later called \u201cbeautiful letters.\u201d The fears of the moment dissolved. Those who warned of catastrophe were dismissed as alarmist.But were we alarmist? Or did Trump take the possibility of nuclear war from, say, 1 in 100 to 1 in 50?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moments like this dot Trump\u2019s presidency. His withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal dissolved the only structure holding Iran back from the pursuit of nuclear weapons. What\u2019s followed has been not just a rise in tensions but a rise in bloodshed, culminating with Trump\u2019s decision to do what both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama chose not to do and assassinate Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani<\/a>. The end of that story is as yet unwritten, but possibilities range from Trump\u2019s gamble paying off to Iran triggering a nuclear arms race \u2014 and perhaps eventually nuclear war \u2014 in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord<\/a>, alongside his routine dismissals of the NATO alliance, similarly force us to imagine the future probabilistically. In both cases, Trump says he is simply being a tough negotiator, forcing the better deals America deserves. In both cases, unimaginable calamity may \u2014 or may not \u2014 result. The verdict will not come by Election Day. We will have to judge the risks Trump has shunted onto future generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the many risks that Trump amplified through lack of preparation, reckless policymaking, or simple inattention, a pandemic is the one that came due while he was still president. But it is not the only one lurking, nor is it somehow a charm against other disasters befalling us. Moreover, the coronavirus itself raises the risk of geopolitical crises, of financial crises, of disasters both expected and unexpected, manifesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, in his daily rhetoric and erratic mismanagement, is placing big, dangerous bets, but he will not cover the losses if they go wrong: It\u2019s America, and perhaps the world, that will pay, in both lives and money.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who originally ran Trump\u2019s transition team, relayed to Lewis a telling comment Trump made about the pre-administration planning, which he considered a waste of time. \u201cChris,\u201d he said, \u201cyou and I are so smart that we can leave the victory party two hours early and do the transition ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each day, the president of the United States receives the President\u2019s Daily Brief: a classified report prepared by US intelligence agencies warning of gathering threats around the globe. US intelligence agencies warned Trump<\/a> of the dangers of the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen of these briefings in January and February. But Trump \u201croutinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience for even the oral summary he takes two or three times per week,\u201d reported<\/a> the Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two problems build amid this kind of executive impatience. First, the president is unaware of the nation\u2019s constantly evolving risk structure. Second, the bureaucracy he, in theory, manages receives the constant message that the president doesn\u2019t want to be bothered with bad news and does not value the parts of the government that produce it, nor the people who force him to face it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is, in fact, worse than that. \u201cThe way to keep your job is to out-loyal everyone else, which means you have to tolerate quackery,\u201d Anthony Scaramucci, who served (very) briefly as White House head of communications, told<\/a> the Financial Times. \u201cYou have to flatter him in public and flatter him in private. Above all, you must never make him feel ignorant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, speaking at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, Trump unintentionally revealed how much time his underlings spend praising him, and how fully he absorbs their compliments. \u201cEvery one of these doctors said, \u2018How do you know so much about this?\u2019\u201d Trump boasted. \u201cMaybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

” \u201cWhen the president stands on top of a table and says, \u2018This is super important, super urgent, everyone must do this,\u2019 the government works moderately effectively,\u201d Ron Klain, who managed the Obama administration\u2019s Ebola response, told me. \u201cThat\u2019s the best case. When the president is standing up and saying, \u2018I don\u2019t want to hear about it, I don\u2019t want to know about it, this doesn\u2019t really exist,\u2019 well, then you\u2019re definitely not going to get effective work from the government.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“we conflate the unlikely and the impossible. This pandemic, if nothing else, should shatter that conflation. It is hard to pretend the worst can\u2019t happen when you haven\u2019t been able to enter a store or see your parents for six weeks. And let\u2019s be clear: coronavirus is not the worst that can happen. The H5N1 virus, for instance, has a mortality rate of 60 percent, and scientists have proven<\/a> that it can mutate to become \u201cas easily transmissible as the seasonal flu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even scarier is the possibility of human-engineered pandemics. As bad as the coronavirus is, Bill Gates told me<\/a>, \u201cit\u2019s not anywhere near bioterrorism \u2014 smallpox or another pathogen that was intentionally picked for a high fatality rate as well as delayed symptoms and a high infectious rate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We play for the highest of stakes. We must do what we can to improve our odds.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No one bears a heavier burden in that respect than the US president. But Trump is reckless with his charge. That reflects, perhaps, his own life experience. He has taken tremendous risks, and if they have led him to the edge of ignominy and bankruptcy, they have also led him to the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he has always played with other people\u2019s money and other people\u2019s lives. \u201cThe president was probably in a position to make riskier decisions in life because he was fabulously rich from birth,\u201d says Murphy. \u201cBut it\u2019s also true he has hada reputation for risk not backed up by reality. His name is on properties he doesn\u2019t own. We think of him as taking risk in professional life, but a lot of what he does is lend his name to buildings with risks taken by others. He\u2019s built an image as a risk taker, but it\u2019s not clear how much risk he\u2019s taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In electing him president, however, we have taken a tremendous risk, and it isn\u2019t paying off.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/5\/18\/21251370\/donald-trump-risk-coronavirus-2020-reelection-nuclear-china<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“the novel coronavirus came, and President Trump did nothing for week after week, month after month. We sit, still, in the void where a plan should be, forced to choose between endless lockdown and reckless reopening because the federal government has not charted a middle path. Instead, we wake to presidential tweets demanding the \u201cliberation\u201d of states, and laugh to keep from crying when the most powerful man in the world suggests we study the injection of disinfectants. Trump has let disaster metastasize into calamity. The feared collision of global crisis and presidential recklessness has come, and it is not close to over.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“much of any presidency takes place in the murky realm of risk. Imagine that there are 10 horrible events that could befall the country in a president\u2019s term, each with a 1 in 40 chance of happening. If a president acts in such a way that they all become much likelier \u2014 say, a 1 in 10 chance \u2014 he may never be blamed for it, because none of them may happen, or because the one that does falls during his successor\u2019s term. But in taking calamity from reasonably unlikely to reasonably likely, he will have done the country terrible harm.
\nThe logic works in reverse, too. A president who assiduously works to reduce risk may never be rewarded for their effort because the outcome will be a calamity that never occurred, a disaster we never felt. We punish only the most undeniable of failures and routinely miss the most profound successes.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Of late, I\u2019ve been thinking back to 2017, when Trump began a war of tweets with North Korea, the world\u2019s most irrational nuclear regime. \u201cJust heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N.,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cIf he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won\u2019t be around much longer!\u201d
\nTrump\u2019s behavior stunned even Republican allies. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), then the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, warned that the president was treating his office like \u201ca reality show\u201d and setting the country \u201con the path to World War III.\u201d<\/p>\n

But World War III didn\u2019t happen. Trump and Kim Jong Un deescalated. They met in person and sent each other what Trump later called \u201cbeautiful letters.\u201d The fears of the moment dissolved. Those who warned of catastrophe were dismissed as alarmist. But were we alarmist? Or did Trump take the possibility of nuclear war from, say, 1 in 100 to 1 in 50?<\/p>\n

Moments like this dot Trump\u2019s presidency. His withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal dissolved the only structure holding Iran back from the pursuit of nuclear weapons. What\u2019s followed has been not just a rise in tensions but a rise in bloodshed, culminating with Trump\u2019s decision to do what both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama chose not to do and assassinate Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani. The end of that story is as yet unwritten, but possibilities range from Trump\u2019s gamble paying off to Iran triggering a nuclear arms race \u2014 and perhaps eventually nuclear war \u2014 in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, alongside his routine dismissals of the NATO alliance, similarly force us to imagine the future probabilistically. In both cases, Trump says he is simply being a tough negotiator, forcing the better deals America deserves. In both cases, unimaginable calamity may \u2014 or may not \u2014 result. The verdict will not come by Election Day. We will have to judge the risks Trump has shunted onto future generations.<\/p>\n

Of the many risks that Trump amplified through lack of preparation, reckless policymaking, or simple inattention, a pandemic is the one that came due while he was still president. But it is not the only one lurking, nor is it somehow a charm against other disasters befalling us. Moreover, the coronavirus itself raises the risk of geopolitical crises, of financial crises, of disasters both expected and unexpected, manifesting.<\/p>\n

Trump, in his daily rhetoric and erratic mismanagement, is placing big, dangerous bets, but he will not cover the losses if they go wrong: It\u2019s America, and perhaps the world, that will pay, in both lives and money.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who originally ran Trump\u2019s transition team, relayed to Lewis a telling comment Trump made about the pre-administration planning, which he considered a waste of time. \u201cChris,\u201d he said, \u201cyou and I are so smart that we can leave the victory party two hours early and do the transition ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each day, the president of the United States receives the President\u2019s Daily Brief: a classified report prepared by US intelligence agencies warning of gathering threats around the globe. US intelligence agencies warned Trump of the dangers of the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen of these briefings in January and February. But Trump \u201croutinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience for even the oral summary he takes two or three times per week,\u201d reported the Post.<\/p>\n

Two problems build amid this kind of executive impatience. First, the president is unaware of the nation\u2019s constantly evolving risk structure. Second, the bureaucracy he, in theory, manages receives the constant message that the president doesn\u2019t want to be bothered with bad news and does not value the parts of the government that produce it, nor the people who force him to face it.<\/p>\n

It is, in fact, worse than that. \u201cThe way to keep your job is to out-loyal everyone else, which means you have to tolerate quackery,\u201d Anthony Scaramucci, who served (very) briefly as White House head of communications, told the Financial Times. \u201cYou have to flatter him in public and flatter him in private. Above all, you must never make him feel ignorant.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, speaking at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, Trump unintentionally revealed how much time his underlings spend praising him, and how fully he absorbs their compliments. \u201cEvery one of these doctors said, \u2018How do you know so much about this?\u2019\u201d Trump boasted. \u201cMaybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

” \u201cWhen the president stands on top of a table and says, \u2018This is super important, super urgent, everyone must do this,\u2019 the government works moderately effectively,\u201d Ron Klain, who managed the Obama administration\u2019s Ebola response, told me. \u201cThat\u2019s the best case. When the president is standing up and saying, \u2018I don\u2019t want to hear about it, I don\u2019t want to know about it, this doesn\u2019t really exist,\u2019 well, then you\u2019re definitely not going to get effective work from the government.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“we conflate the unlikely and the impossible. This pandemic, if nothing else, should shatter that conflation. It is hard to pretend the worst can\u2019t happen when you haven\u2019t been able to enter a store or see your parents for six weeks. And let\u2019s be clear: coronavirus is not the worst that can happen. The H5N1 virus, for instance, has a mortality rate of 60 percent, and scientists have proven that it can mutate to become \u201cas easily transmissible as the seasonal flu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even scarier is the possibility of human-engineered pandemics. As bad as the coronavirus is, Bill Gates told me, \u201cit\u2019s not anywhere near bioterrorism \u2014 smallpox or another pathogen that was intentionally picked for a high fatality rate as well as delayed symptoms and a high infectious rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

We play for the highest of stakes. We must do what we can to improve our odds.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“No one bears a heavier burden in that respect than the US president. But Trump is reckless with his charge. That reflects, perhaps, his own life experience. He has taken tremendous risks, and if they have led him to the edge of ignominy and bankruptcy, they have also led him to the presidency.<\/p>\n

But he has always played with other people\u2019s money and other people\u2019s lives. \u201cThe president was probably in a position to make riskier decisions in life because he was fabulously rich from birth,\u201d says Murphy. \u201cBut it\u2019s also true he has had a reputation for risk not backed up by reality. His name is on properties he doesn\u2019t own. We think of him as taking risk in professional life, but a lot of what he does is lend his name to buildings with risks taken by others. He\u2019s built an image as a risk taker, but it\u2019s not clear how much risk he\u2019s taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

In electing him president, however, we have taken a tremendous risk, and it isn\u2019t paying off.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[221,167,813,222,814,170],"class_list":["post-2774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-donald-trump","tag-government","tag-presidency","tag-president","tag-risk","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2775,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions\/2775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}