Media Miss Game-Changing Detail as They Rush to Condemn Trump's Turnover Rate
It’s one of the most common talking points in the media about the Trump administration: the turnover rate.
There are too many people leaving, they say. Trump isn’t patient enough. He fires people too often. He doesn’t fill important positions. He leaves agencies understaffed!
How will we survive, after all, if the EPA’s staff has been reduced to Reagan-era levels? Can’t you just see the air getting smoggier and syringes washing up on the shore? Oh, wait, that isn’t happening yet? Well, it will.
The issue gets brought up every time a cabinet member gets canned. The latest catalyst was former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose departure — and the minute details of it — revived the media’s obsession with turnover.
If you’ve watched any television in the past week or so, you’ve probably seen a statistic like this:
Wow. That looks pretty bad. However, this chart leaves off one little detail that changes how we ought to look at this.
There are six names on that list above, as you have no doubt noticed.
Five of them were, for the most part, career politicians.
One of them was a businessman, public figure and private citizen who decided that he was fed up with the way that Washington worked. As it turns out, a lot of people were just as fed up. So, they sent him to the White House to, as he liked to say, “drain the swamp.”
As a conservative (and I’m assuming, giving that the site I’m writing for is called Conservative Tribune, there’s a good chance you are), you can like Trump or you can hate him. What you can’t do is deny he’s done things absolutely differently than anyone else that’s been in the office.
We keep on forgetting that this is why people sent him there. The general line in the media and among Democrats (but I repeat myself) and even some Republicans is that Trump should act like every other president except just a little different.
Behaving like he did during the campaign — when he fired people when it became clear they were the wrong fit, even if it made it look like his campaign was in chaos — was simply for the campaign. Now he was president, and along with that came all the old Washington niceties, including having patience with cabinet officials that aren’t necessarily on the same page with him.
Like it or not, that’s wasn’t going to happen. When the president realizes someone isn’t a good fit or that hiring them was a bad decision, he’s willing to let them go. Sometimes that process takes less than two weeks, like it did with Anthony Scaramucci. Given the fact that the Mooch is now making appearances on “Dr. Phil,” I think we can safely say that was the right decision.
Turnover in businesses is inevitable, particularly in startups. To Trump, the administration is like a startup — one where he has at least four and possibly eight years to implement his vision for America. He treats it like any other startup CEO would: as if he didn’t have any time to waste.
You may agree with this approach and think it’s refreshing. You may disagree and think that it’s the sign of someone who doesn’t understand how things work inside the Beltway.
I can tell you one thing for sure, though: Either way you think, President Trump doesn’t care.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
