“I like this ship. Ooh, it’s exciting!” — Scotty (Simon Pegg), Chief Engineer, Starship Enterprise
Yes, Scotty, I like this ship too. And so do a lot of other Americans.
The ship is being commanded by President Donald Trump, and it’s boldly going where no president has led Americans before. The hard-working crew is being rewarded with higher take-home pay due to lower taxes. Everything from the hull to the regulation manual is being streamlined. And they’re getting better deals on imports from other planets – plus a whole lot more respect. Of course, there are still a few troublemakers aboard (e.g., anonymous White House sources, mysteriously anonymous sources, ridiculously anonymous sources, undifferentiated anonymous sources, a space herpe [Ice Pirates, 1984], et al), but they are being found one by one and dealt with accordingly. It’s moments like this when we need Wilford Brimley to declare, “We can’t have people go around leaking stuff for their own reasons. It ain’t legal. And worse than that, by God, it ain’t right” (Absence of Malice, 1981). Other than that, it’s a pretty tight ship.
So I’d just like to take a moment to ask all of the amped up real Americans out there to pause (preferably without amping down) and consider what gives this current zeitgeist its real energy. Here’s what I say: I have determined – and I don’t think that President Trump would be offended at all – that our president is the prototype for the presidents who must follow. Remember, a good working prototype proves disproportionately more of a concept than the production models that follow. Each successive production model might be marginally better, and cumulatively models A through Z might show considerable improvement; but it all starts with the right prototype. That is because the right prototype has the Right Stuff.
However, the scary part is that there are currently more Republican voters than Republican lawmakers who realize this. If they do not take this asinine system of promoting only from within their secret handshake club (e.g., Dole, McCain, Romney) and pitch it into a plasma pyrolysis disposal unit, then there will be no possibility of establishing a succession of effective leaders who can make and keep America great again. Just to recap: President Trump has mastered the art of the deal, the art of risk management, the art of personal relationships, the art of responsibility, the art of accountability, the art of patriotism, the art of leadership, the art of rebuffing the fake news, and finally – the art of looking good. The last president to achieve four-fifths of this record was Ronald Reagan.
All right, so what’s next is to build on it. For example, you had the M-16 rifle, M-16A1, A2, A4; the YB-17 bomber, YB-17A, B-17A, B, C, D, E, F, G; the Model T Ford, Model A; Alan Hale, Sr., Alan Hale, Jr., etc. Things can, though, actually get a little counter-intuitive when looking for the next picks. They don’t necessarily have to come from the private sector. As long as they follow a puristic conservative mold (or at least a born-again republican one), they could possibly be pulled from congressional ranks. Either way, what will help us to choose our candidates in the future is if we try to better define the only two viable pools – that is, private sector conservatives and conservative office holders. To do this we need to start thinking of the two groups as the “cans” and the “won’ts.” The private sector conservatives are the “cans” simply because of the things they have demonstrated they can do. And the conservatives from the electorate are the “won’ts” because of the establishment-esque things they clearly have demonstrated they won’t do. Naturally, we are bound to see some bleed over from year to year – i.e., private sector folks who have a knack for governing contemporaneous with office holders who can keep a balance sheet ship shape. So let’s keep an eye on these two parallel bumper crops. Maybe we’ll even be blessed with a little hybrid agronomy.
Focusing strictly on the private sector, though, it has some very fertile soil. Importantly, it does not have a history of being irrigated with electrolytes (Idiocracy, 2006). There are some highly qualified, very patriotic men and women out there (names to be provided in another blog post) who know how to positively motivate others toward a common goal and who don’t feel that chopping up babies or taking away people’s guns is the way to get there. And the people I’m thinking of are not merely accomplished in business but are also builders. They build things that people can actually walk into or drop on their feet, things that Americans can look around and see and be proud of. They are not purveyors of 31 flavors of financial alchemy.
Getting back to Donald Trump, let us not forget how a successful prototype inspires the next model. This means that we will have to remain vigilant talent scouts but also split our focus between thinking about what a true follow-on should look like as well as being on guard against those in the establishment who resent their past inferior entries not being chosen. Well, it might not be so hard. We’ll have to stay on our feet, but at least while we’re on the treadmill we can keep the flat panel in front of us tuned to another six years of awesomeness.
