ONE
of the essential, if often unstated, job requirements of an American
president is to provide stability, order and predictability in a world
that tends toward chaos, disarray and entropy. When our political
leaders ignore this — and certainly when they delight in disruption —
the consequences can be severe. Stability is easy to take for granted,
but impossible to live without.
Projecting
clear convictions is important for preventing adversaries from
misreading America’s intentions and will. Our allies also depend on our
predictability and reassuring steadiness. Their actions in trade and
economics, in alliances with other nations and in the military sphere
are often influenced by how much they believe they can rely on American
support.
Order
and stability in the executive branch are also linked to the health of
our system of government. Chaos in the West Wing can be crippling, as
White House aides — in a constant state of uncertainty, distrustful of
colleagues, fearful that they might be excoriated or fired — find it
nearly impossible to do their jobs. This emanates throughout the entire
federal government. Devoid of steadfast leadership, executive agencies
easily become dysfunctional themselves.
Worse
yet, if key pillars of our system, like our intelligence and law
enforcement agencies, are denigrated by the president, they can be
destabilized, and Americans’ trust in them can be undermined. Without a
reliable chief executive, Congress, an inherently unruly institution,
will also find it difficult to do its job, since our constitutional
system relies on its various branches to constantly engage with one
another in governing.
But
that’s hardly the whole of it. Particularly in this social media era, a
president who thrives on disruption and chaos is impossible to escape.
Every shocking statement and act is given intense coverage. As a result,
the president is omnipresent, the subject of endless coast-to-coast
conversations among family and friends, never far from our thoughts. As
Andrew Sullivan has observed,
“A free society means being free of those who rule over you — to do the
things you care about, your passions, your pastimes, your loves — to
exult in that blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene.”
A
presidency characterized by pandemonium invades and infects that space,
leaving people unsettled and on edge. And this, in turn, leads to
greater polarization, to feelings of alienation and anger, to unrest and
even to violence.
A
spirit of instability in government will cause Americans to lose
confidence in our public institutions. When citizens lose that basic
faith in their government, it leads to corrosive cynicism and the
acceptance of conspiracy theories. Movements and individuals once
considered fringe become mainstream, while previously responsible
figures decamp to the fever swamps. One result is that the informal and
unwritten rules of political and human interaction, which are at the
core of civilization, are undone. There is such a thing as democratic
etiquette; when it is lost, the common assumptions that allow for
compromise and progress erode.
In short, chaotic leadership can inflict real trauma on political and civic culture.
All
of which brings us to Donald Trump, arguably the most disruptive and
transgressive president in American history. He thrives on creating
turbulence in every conceivable sphere. The blast radius of his
tumultuous acts and chaotic temperament is vast.
Mr.
Trump acts as if order is easy to achieve and needs to be overturned
while disruption and disorder are what we need. But the opposite is
true. “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour,” Edmund
Burke wrote, “than prudence, deliberation and foresight can build up in a
hundred years.”
Mr.
Trump and his supporters don’t seem to agree, or don’t seem to care.
And here’s the truly worrisome thing: The disruption is only going to
increase, both because he’s facing criticism that seems to trigger him
psychologically and because his theory of management involves the
cultivation of chaos. He has shown throughout his life a defiant refusal
to be disciplined. His disordered personality thrives on mayhem and
upheaval, on vicious personal attacks and ceaseless conflict. As we’re
seeing, his malignant character is emboldening some, while it’s causing
others — the Republican leadership comes to mind — to briefly speak out
(at best) before returning to silence and acquiescence. The effect on
the rest of us? We cannot help losing our capacity to be shocked and
alarmed.
We
have as president the closest thing to a nihilist in our history — a
man who believes in little or nothing, who has the impulse to burn down
rather than to build up. When the president eventually faces a genuine
crisis, his ignorance and inflammatory instincts will make everything
worse.
Republican
voters and politicians rallied around Mr. Trump in 2016, believing he
was anti-establishment when in fact he was anti-order. He turns out to
be an institutional arsonist. It is an irony of American history that
the Republican Party, which has historically valued order and
institutions, has become the conduit of chaos.
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