Why It Is Important To Have A President That Reads

Mr. Trump, according to a NYT article entitled “Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles” (NYT, Feb.5,2017), is angry that he was not adequately briefed on the content of the executive orders he signed. He was particularly frustrated, it appears, about the executive order that placed Steve Bannon on the National Security Council.

What? Wait! He signed an executive order he hadn’t himself read? He signed all of the executive orders without reading them first? He wants to be briefed on the contents? Are you kidding me?

Would you? Would you sign a document, any document, that had the potential to place you or your loved ones in jeopardy without reading it? Carefully. Most of us regularly agree to terms and conditions on the internet that we haven’t read. I suppose this makes it easier for us to understand not reading something. Yet, I like to think that if the orders I was about to sign, orders that have enormous consequences to the lives of millions, that I would at least take the time to read them through. This implies that I would read them well enough to understand them and consider some of the ramifications.

A few weeks before voting day last year I had a plumber in my house fixing a leak. It took only a few minutes before the enviable discussion of the candidates and immediately I could see my plumber was going to vote for Trump. I found myself saying that the trouble I have with Trump was that he didn’t read. My plumber said he wasn’t worried about it, that the President can always hire somebody to do staff work. It troubled me, though I am sure that I didn’t show it, that he didn’t seem to realize that reading implied understanding. I wondered out loud how the President was going to get the truth of what was taking place if he had to rely upon the interpretation of others?

Here is the point: reading is understanding. There is an enormous difference between staffing it out and staffing out strategy, research, liaison, publicity or political coordination. A President that doesn’t read, or at least doesn’t read the crucial documents, is placing the country, indeed the Western World, in jeopardy. And if we have a President that combines this by surrounding himself with some of the most dangerous people on the planet, then we have the perfect storm. Calamity must follow.

Look, Mr. Trump. Only your name appears at the bottom of these documents. No staff signatures lay along side. That is because you, not them, were elected. You, not them, have the mandate. They can be fired tomorrow. You cannot. You have to answer for the mess you create. You, also, will take a bow for the lives you enhance. It would be best if you could start reading Mr. President and start understanding what you were signing. At least it would help the rest of us get a night’s sleep.