Despite all the bragging about his talents, despite predicting an endless series of “wins,” despite crowning himself the ultimate “deal-maker,” despite his unsurpassed narcissism and his unrelenting ego, Donald Trump failed last week.
A week before the election, he promised to “immediately repeal and replace ObamaCare.” Yet, 64 days into his term, he failed to deliver.
The president has certainly changed things in Washington, starting with Harry Truman’s famous dictum, which now reads, “the buck never stops here.”
True to form, Trump found others to blame. “Look, we got no Democratic votes. None. Zero,” he complained to The New York Times, seemingly unaware that not a single Republican supported Obama’s reform, which he succeeded in passing while working hand-in-hand with then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Trump probably didn’t even realize that, although ObamaCare passed without a Republican vote, it did include scores of GOP amendments, allowed to them in an attempt at bipartisan comity.
By contrast, Trump made no attempt to bring Democrats aboard—not a single Democratic amendment to the bill was permitted by House leaders.
He blamed the GOP Freedom Caucus for its ideological commitment without recognizing the herculean feats required of the Democratic troika to bring together their own disparate factions behind the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the first instance.
The real culprits include Trump himself, as well as Republican congressional leaders, who voted over 50 times to repeal ObamaCare without giving any meaningful thought to how it might actually be replaced.
Say what you will about the pluses and minuses of the ACA, but the Obama administration and Congress took over a year to produce it. Due to GOP negligence, Trump started from scratch but seemed convinced he could restructure one-sixth of the American economy with less than two weeks of thought and analysis.
At a deeper level, though, part of his defeat arises from Trump’s failure to truly comprehend the nature of the job to which he has acceded.
To hear Trump tell the story, the president is a “deal-maker.” In fact, the job requires being a leader.
Deal-making is largely transactional, “I’ll give you this if you give me that.” “You refuse? Well how about I give you two of those?”
Legislating requires deal-making, but the currency of politics is different than the currency of real estate.
Indeed, there are multiple currencies in politics: a reputation for honesty and expertise, the ability to explain complex programs in simple terms and popularity with the public among them.
In these currencies, Trump is nearly bankrupt.
Presidents also traffic in causes, in visions. Ronald Reagan galvanized the country behind his vision of smaller government and lower taxes and used his popularity as a cudgel to bring recalcitrant members of both parties into line behind him.
Presidential leadership requires articulating a vision, having a legislative plan reflecting that vision and using your powers of persuasion to create followers.
As he made clear during the campaign, Trump’s vision could hardly be narrower. Yes, he wants to “make America great again,” but beyond those four words, there is little content.
Indeed, to the extent Trump brought any vision to the healthcare battle, he compromised it away in his madcap scramble for votes.
His vision was, in part, “coverage for all.”
Yet his bill would have thrown 24 million people off their coverage and made insurance more expensive for many of the rest, including his core constituency.
His vision included requiring coverage for those with preexisting conditions. But he quickly traded that away like Esau, for a mess of pottage, in the form of a few votes from the right.
In the end, there was no leadership, no vision, no clear sense of purpose; there was just transactional -deal-making.
Deal-making may be the road to the top in real estate, but leadership is the key to success in the White House.
Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has helped elect 30 U.S. senators, 12 governors and dozens of House members. Mellman served as pollster to Senate Democratic leaders for over 20 years.