Nolan Finley: Trump letting silly ideas detract from his mission

Nolan Finley, The Detroit News on Jan 10, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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Time to focus, Mr. President-elect.

The stream-of-consciousness flow of ideas and promises that marked Donald Trump’s presidential campaign must now give way to deliberate, well-thought-out policymaking.

But Trump’s press conference Tuesday, his second since the election, suggests he hasn’t made the pivot from candidate to chief executive.

He continued to wield a scatter-gun to present his plans for the country, blasting out proposals with no hierarchy of urgency or importance. And many that aren’t on the radar screens of most Americans.

Annex Canada as the 51st state? That’s not going to happen, so why waste time and energy touting it. All he’s doing is roiling the internal politics of a key partner.

Buy Greenland? It’s not for sale, and we don’t have the money to purchase it even if it were.

Rename the Gulf of Mexico? Invade Panama to seize the canal? And do it all in one big bill that Congress will have to pass or reject as a whole without debating the merits of individual pieces.

Chasing those pipe dreams and non-essential to-do list items will only distract Trump from doing what he promised to do: Make America Great Again.

Trump and Republicans apparently believe because he won the White House and they control Congress, if narrowly, they have a free pass to do whatever hare-brained thing they want.

Winning a bare 50% of the popular vote is not a mandate to unleash imperialistic ambitions.

America elected Trump to solve far more pressing problems. Rather than trying to blow up Washington on Day One, as Trump promises, he should present a strategically structured priority list that fixes first the things that are truly broken. Each victory should build momentum for the next.

Start with the debt and deficit. Trump should devote his energy to assuring his new Department of Government efficiency can deliver on its promise to cut hundreds of billions in federal spending.

From there, secure the border and enact new immigration policies to keep out bad actors while supplying American businesses with the workers they need to stay afloat. Then tackle a wholesale revisiting of government rules and regulations. The Supreme Court’s Chevron ruling gives him a wide opening to undo decades of restrictions government agencies have placed on business growth.

Take concrete steps to shore up Social Security and Medicare. Rebuild the military to meet modern threats. Address the soaring cost of health care.

Get those things done, and the new president can name it the Gulf of Trump, for all I care.

Trying to do all things all at once carries the real risk of bogging down and letting the small stuff derail the big stuff.

Napoleon, Trump’s apparent hero, said this: “To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.” Despite the delusion of his devotees, Trump is not a deity.

But he is a president who has a rare opportunity to bring real improvements to the country, if he puts his weight behind serious reforms and stops trying to consume the pie in the sky.