There is No “I” in Government: The Thing that Donald Trump Got Right
Before you unfriend/unfollow me/write me off forever as the lost-est of causes, let me be clear, I don’t want Donald Trump to be President. But, in an effort to challenge my perspective (New Years Resolution #4) this year, I decided to sit down with my parents this morning and watch Face the Nation, which featured an interview with the infamous Mr. Trump. And to my extreme surprise, Donald Trump said something that, in light of my recent #100booksin100days challenge, I found rather enlightened.
“America needs a cheerleader.” — Donald Trump
Yep, that’s it, right there. There were plenty of other things he said that I not only wholeheartedly disagreed with but that actually caused my heart pain, but this subtle statement is much bigger than Trump or 2016. Whether he knew it or not, Trump had identified what we (millennials?) struggle with the most; engagement.
This statement sent me screaming back to high school, standing in the bleachers at Okie Blanchard Stadium in Cheyenne, WY, watching my best friends yell and sing and bound across the running track in tiny blue skirts while somewhere behind them a game (football, I guess?) raged. It always amazed me how many guys stand on the sidelines during a football game. While 11 blue-jersied lumps scramble on the field, seemingly hundreds of similar lumps wait on the sidelines, backs to the cheering crowd, just faceless numbers who had, earlier that very day, been cheating off us in biology. It was their game, the whole school and half the town had turned out to see them, and we never even saw their faces.
In the football game of America, the players are the government. A relatively faceless sea of lumps who bring us together but otherwise fail to acknowledge our existence. But the thing is, we’ve stopped showing up to the games. Voter turn out has dropped to new lows in recent decades; it would seem the jig is up, if they don’t need us, maybe we don’t need them either.
And yet, in 4 years of high school, I rarely missed a football game. Why? Because between the bleachers and the backs of the team, the masses and the players who represent them, was a group of peppy, enthusiastic, and highly skilled athletes who were at once part of the team and part of the crowd. They kept us engaged because they were mutually empathetic, because they shouted the loudest when our team was down and they led us to storm the field when we won. They reminded us, above all, that we’re a team, not just the players, but all of us, that just because the players backs were turned didn’t mean they couldn’t hear us, it meant that they were focused on the task of making us proud.
Donald Trump is on to something, but I think he was thinking a little too small. We don’t need a cheerleader, we need a squad. We need a battalion of policy communicators across the political spectrum who can tap into and understand the fine art and the science of politics, and then turn and lead us, communicate what is happening out there in a way that keeps us engaged and excited. Yes, Mr. Trump, we do need that.
After spending the holidays in Wyoming with my parents, it was exciting to find a reason to not completely hate Donald Trump. I don’t like to think that there’s a subject I can’t broach with my parents. My parents are certainly not alone in their (mild) approval of Donald Trump, and though I usually write off Trumpies as crazy zealots, I can’t do that to my parents, because I know and respect them.
So rather than checking out of the game altogether, leaving my parents with the zealots to clap politely for the fumbling player in the #1 jersey (who I think might lose the whole game if we give him the ball), I’m going to stay engaged (New Years Resolution #2). I’m going to trust in the bigger system, cheer for the whole team and its ability to function as one, and one day, when they hand the ball to the Secretary of Agriculture (or someone else I know about) maybe I’ll jump the rail, don a tiny blue skirt, communicate what I know as best I can, and help the people remember that, in the end, there is no “I” (or me, #1, the greatest, the most magnificent, etc.) in government.
