It is clear that the Trump Administration can’t manage its way out of a paper bag. The Trump-created crisis with child migrants is just one example of administration-by-impulse. We can also see it in the sheer madness of how the travel ban was implemented and the fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants “diplomacy” that led to Kim Jong Un walking away with all the blue ribbons at the Singapore summit.
Let us suppose for a moment you are a member of the Trump Administration and think it's a good idea to rigidly enforce the law when it comes to illegal entry into the US by pressing for criminal charges against every alien who enters without inspection at a port of entry to deter others from doing so.
OK, fair enough. What’s your next step?
In any normal administration — in any normal entity that was concerned with public policy — you would gather a team from around the government to look at how you will implement this decision. You would ask yourselves questions like
— How many people does this involve?
— Where will we put them all?
— What if illegal migrants come with children? What do we do with them? What if they’re just babies? How will we keep track of them all and make sure they are reunited with their parents?
— How long will each trial take on average? Do we have enough prosecutors and other resources to try them? What if the aliens appeal their decisions? How many cases can each court handle in what amount of time?
— Will we treat people who are asking for asylum differently from ordinary illegal border crossers?
— How are we going to pay for this?
It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is going to get messy. A normal administration would work these questions through in an interagency process. They would plan for funding the initiative, making sure there were adequate facilities, getting Congressional allies onboard, and devise a public relations strategy to explain why the policy was being implemented and to anticipate criticisms to come.
In other words, they would do the normal work of government.
In Trump World, though, someone — in this case, it seems Stephen Miller — gets the ear of the president* on a Friday afternoon and by Monday morning a policy is put into place without further ado.
Of course, disaster ensues.
The same nonsense occurred with the travel ban. According to Steve Bannon, the chaos that followed at the nation’s airports, as immigration authorities, airlines and the rest of the travel industry all tried to figure out what the hell they were supposed to do, was purposeful. Designed, I guess, to prove to the base that the Administration was taking harsh action to implement the Trump agenda as promised.
This is not normal. This is not close to normal.
We saw how this ill-preparedness worked out at the Singapore summit. During their private meeting, Kim asked Trump to cancel joint US-South Korean military exercises. Stopping these annual exercises has been a priority for North Korea for decades. And Trump, on the fly, said, “OK,” getting nothing in return.
As awful as the chaos on the border is, it won’t lead to our destruction as a nation.
But who knows what other decisions are out there yet to be made by this congregation of fools, who will make policy on the fly, without thinking things through, and quite possibly wreck the economy or kill us all in the process?