Chopping Thistles and Pulling Cockleburs.

Barack Obama came into office with the support of a Democrat super majority in the Senate and an operating Democrat majority in the House.  He had a historically large amount of good will and literally could have accomplished almost any legislative goal he dreamed of.  All of those things he complained about in his last six years that the Republicans prevented him from accomplishing?  They were there for the taking in his first two years.  And what did The One do with this magic legislative wand that he was presented with?  He foolishly frittered away all of his considerable political capital and his fleeting (Republicans…are you paying attention?) legislative majorities in the dubiously successful effort of ramming Obamacare down the throat of this nation.  This extraordinary legislative adventure sufficiently poisoned the waters on Capitol Hill so that the ordinary legislative process eventually reached the point of absolute dysfunction. 

So two years into his eight year tenure as president, Obama found himself at the famous fork in the governing road.  One path led to the difficult, time-consuming, humbling, and intense option of working with the Republicans in Congress to reach bipartisan agreement on policy initiatives.  The other fork led to the rather effortless and vain-glorious process of Executive Actions; those whimsical and idealistic notions that the President can arbitrarily impose on the American people at will.   Obama chose the path of least resistance; taking the use (abuse?) of Executive Power to new and historically high levels.  And now, barely a year and a half into his first term, President Trump has essentially unwound most of those Executive Actions taken by Obama.  You see, the easier path in the road came with a price.  That price was the impermanence of the Executive Action.  It felt good at the time and I can only imagine the celebrations that took place in the West Wing when Obama and his cohorts ceremoniously announced their frequent liberal solutions for whatever social problem they were targeting for reengineering.  It felt good at that moment, but now that we have a President who is diametrically opposed to Obama’s policy ideals, the previous president and his crew are left with empty glasses and precious little legacy.  What we also have is a President who is showing disturbing signs of choosing that same fork in the road that Obama chose. Governance through the excessive use of Executive fiat, be he Democrat or Republican, is an aberration of the principles our nation was founded upon.

Two of the toughest and most resilient weeds in the world are the thistle and the cocklebur.  You can chop ‘em down, you can ravage their very roots with a grubbing hoe … but they will come back.  You can put both hands on that hoe handle, gin up that primitive, Neanderthal enthusiasm and cut that thing down with relish.  But the rush is ephemeral.  They will return with a vengeance that makes you think that they are something akin to a creature or entity capable of a devilish vendetta. If you are really serious about getting rid of a thistle or a cocklebur; there is a way to accomplish it.  You can spray a thistle with a systemic pesticide that will kill the plant from the roots up; a permanent and lasting demise.  The cocklebur is a bit more tricky, but if you pull it up roots and all over a period of a few years and make certain that those incredibly fruitful little burs don’t make their way back into the soil, you can eradicate them for once and for all.  The lasting and permanent solutions to these invasive plants require much more time and effort than the quick fix of slicing and dicing.  The battle that many farmers wage with the thistle and the cocklebur is similar to the battle that our Presidents wage with Congress in the legislative process.

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Just as the simple and easy way to deal with the weeds is to take a swipe with a sharpened edge and whack it down (outta sight, outta mind); so is the Executive Action the expedient end-run around legislative incompetence.  These remedies are not lasting and it is inevitable that the battle will be repeated at some point in the foreseeable future.  That warm and fuzzy feeling the Chief Executive gets when they unilaterally impose their policies through Executive Actions must feel good at the time; but those issues will likely have to be revisited somewhere down the road.  Just as Obama unwound George Bush; Trump has unwound Obama.  It is time for a President to take the bull by the horns.  It is time to do the hard work similar to spraying the thistles and pulling up the cockleburs.  It is time for Congress to reassume its proper role as prescribed by the founding fathers and once again become the source of the written law in our country.  It will be difficult and often thankless.  It will require giving up something in order to gain something.  It will require seriously discussing solutions to problems that come from other people than yourself and that might run counter to your personal beliefs.  It will require, as the old saying goes, a compromise on practice while maintaining a solid adherence to strongly held principles.  It will require … shall I say it … bipartisanship.  Not the weak, watered down bipartisanship that is initiated by great statesman wannabes and results in meaningless and unprincipled legislative mush.  I am talking about the kind of bipartisanship where all parties can walk away with an honest feeling of a job well done and the Congressional bill is not at odds with itself.  It is understood by all that it might not work as exactly planned; but it can be revisited at a later time through our democratic process.  I am talking about Republicans and Democrats circling their wagons around the good things they can agree on and putting aside their political concerns about who gets the credit and who gets the blame. 

This restoration of a functioning Congress is not going to occur organically.  The environment in today’s Senate and House is politically corrupted beyond comprehension and they can only do serious business in fits and starts.  At some point in time, hopefully sooner rather than later, and hopefully with this President, our Chief Executive must figure out a way to exert and provide sufficient leadership and wisdom to create a working relationship with both Parties that results in a Congress that once again routinely passes legislation; thoughtful and deliberate legislation that addresses the needs and desires of our citizenry.  And it will pass that legislation in a bipartisan, principled fashion that simultaneously permits open debate about differing political philosophies while recognizing that business must get done and the laws of our land must reflect the will of all people, as channeled through their elected representatives. 

My wife and I shared a dinner and visit with some friends recently and I found myself the only real critic of President Trump at the table; outnumbered three to one.  In defending my personal distaste for our President’s crude, rude, ill-considered and sometimes outrageous rhetoric, I noted that I supported his policy initiatives but not the man.  My friends around the table shot back that it was the very traits that I dislike in Trump that have enabled  him to implement the policies I am so fond of.  I thought about that for a few moments and replied in this fashion … I want the President to be more than he is.  I want him to be all he can be.  I want to be able to embrace the man as warmly as I embrace his policies.  I want him to be that leader that can somehow bridge the widening gulf between our two Parties that has split our Congress with a Grand Canyonesqe political divide.  I think … I hope … that his ideals on governing can move us in that direction.  In many ways, Donald Trump is the accidental President who came into office courtesy of a perfect storm and unusual circumstances.  One could argue that he is uniquely qualified to serve as an agent of change in an attempt to address this partisan divide that exists in our government; a rank outsider being elected President is not likely to reoccur any time soon.  I fear that his personal penchant for continual chaos will prevent him from ever achieving this lofty goal.  Perhaps I am simply naïve to see this potential in this President.  Perhaps I am naïve to seek this potential from any President.  But if President Trump has any aspirations of rising to this level of leadership, he needs to put down the grubbing hoe, pick up the hand sprayer, and start pulling weeds.