The Competence Vote

The Conservative Treehouse

From the first moment when he announced his intent to run for President of the United States in 2015, Donald Trump was very clear on one specific aspect to his view of why people would vote for him.  As a candidate, he repeated it often:

So the reporter said to me the other day, “But, Mr. Trump, you’re not a nice person. How can you get people to vote for you?”

I said, “I don’t know.” I said, “I think that number one, I am a nice person. I give a lot of money away to charities and other things. I think I’m actually a very nice person.”

But, I said, “This is going to be an election that’s based on competence, because people are tired of these nice people. And they’re tired of being ripped off by everybody in the world.”

President Donald J Trump continues to highlight that message today:

It’s funny, from time-to-time people ask “how is CTH consistently able to predict what Donald Trump will do about a complex issue”?  In reality the answer is simple, go back and re-read his hour long campaign kick-off speech. [See Here]

Donald Trump, now President Trump, is one of the most consistent people in history when it comes to his big picture views; and also his big picture solutions.  There are small shifts, and slight changes in the direction toward the solution, but ultimately the big picture destination is consistent.

Specifically because President Trump works on optimal solutions toward the goal destination, his objective, the non-politician takes a different approach than would be expected from a typical politician.  Ultimately this is how Trump is able to accomplish so much more in a similar amount of time; he’s not poll-testing the route. 

Each big goal, each major objective, has a series of way-points.  The process for reaching those way-points is independent and entirely based on the goal itself.  Politicians look at this approach and think of it as inconsistent, because the travel is not subject to a specific map that is always followed.

Because President Trump’s search for ‘optimal travel’ is not based on a prior path – but based on each unique destination, the goal is more predictably reached.  In many ways it is just common sense.

Competence in policy is not measured by endless planning, discussion and debate… it is measured by results.  Achieving results requires action.  Start the journey and head to the way-point; reach the initial objective – evaluate, and immediately measure the next way-point; repeat until you reach the destination.

[…] So we need people— I’m a free trader. But the problem with free trade is you need really talented people to negotiate for you. If you don’t have talented people, if you don’t have great leadership, if you don’t have people that know business, not just a political hack that got the job because he made a contribution to a campaign, which is the way all jobs, just about, are gotten, free trade terrible.

Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people, but we have people that are stupid. We have people that aren’t smart. And we have people that are controlled by special interests. And it’s just not going to work.

[…]  I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower. I love China. People say, “Oh, you don’t like China?”

No, I love them. But their leaders are much smarter than our leaders, and we can’t sustain ourself with that. There’s too much— it’s like— it’s like take the New England Patriots and Tom Brady and have them play your high school football team. That’s the difference between China’s leaders and our leaders.

They are ripping us. We are rebuilding China. We’re rebuilding many countries. China, you go there now, roads, bridges, schools, you never saw anything like it. They have bridges that make the George Washington Bridge look like small potatoes. And they’re all over the place.

We have all the cards, but we don’t know how to use them.

We don’t even know that we have the cards, because our leaders don’t understand the game.

We could turn off that spigot by charging them tax until they behave properly. (continued)