President Donald Trump’s unique management style was on full display this week, rightly earning more than the usual Democratic disdain for it.

His relentless criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions angered conservatives. His overly political speech to the nonpartisan Boy Scouts of America forced its chief executive to issue an apology. And his announcement in three early morning tweets to ban transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military “in any capacity” so floored the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the chairman told top brass not to implement it without more formal direction.

Clearly, the president hopes to shore up his base with these misguided ways of governing. But he can’t keep alienating Americans all the time, right?

Sessions, whom Trump called “VERY weak,” among other insults on Twitter, was the very first sitting senator to endorse his candidacy and remains the Cabinet member whose views on immigration, tough criminal justice and an insular America most mirror the president’s. On the left, opponents of Trump’s agenda erupted because they don’t want Trump to fire Sessions and then be able to fire special counsel Robert Mueller and upend his Russia probe. On the right, supporters of Trump’s agenda erupted because they don’t want to lose one of the administration’s strongest conservatives.


Rush Limbaugh labeled Trump’s all-out assault on Sessions “unseemly.” Tucker Carlson told Trump, “For God’s sake, lay off Jeff Sessions. He’s your friend, one of the very few you have in Washington.” The loquacious Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, called the unprecedented attacks on a Cabinet member “a sign of great weakness on the part of President Trump” and said, “If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.”

Equally unprecedented this week was Trump’s super political speech in front of 40,000 people at the the National Jamboree for the Boy Scouts of America, which turned off people inside and outside the scouting community. After the organization had warned its members beforehand to “ensure that any reactions to the president’s address are, as we state in our Scout Law, friendly, courteous, and kind,” it was the president who missed that mark.

Most emblematic of Trump’s ham-handed management style, though, was his sudden ban on transgender individuals in the military. Hearing from some in the GOP that the U.S. government should ban Pentagon-funded sex reassignment surgery, Trump could have reasonably suggested that. Instead, he opened up a new front in the culture wars.

That Trump, whose five Vietnam-era draft deferments kept him out of harm’s way during the Vietnam War, would impede the ability of thousands of current transgender military members from serving their country is frankly unpatriotic. While Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, called the move “the absolute right decision” and said, “National security should trump social experimentation, always,” Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, smartly took steps to block it. Added Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, “We should all be guided by the principle that any American who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so.”


Trump defined U.S. standards down this week.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion


Twitter: @sdutIdeas


Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion