How Cutthroat Corporate Culture Imposed On Politics Dooms Trump Administration – OpEd
By Jason Aidan*
Kellyanne Conway, a political activist and current advisor to President Donald Trump, and Stephen Miller, also a Trump advisor may not, at first blush, seem to be products of a corporate structure.
Employees who work in upper echelons of huge corporations all know corporate structure comes from top management, usually the CEO and Executive Board. It is easy to succumb to the rigorous demands of deeply embedded corporate structure without realizing it. However, when a corporate structure makes a cross over to government, all of the most negative factors of living the corporate life become obvious. Such is the picture the public sees of Conway and Miller. Part of the structure is what many recognize as the “rat race” to stay in close proximity to the top. Within such an environment, the level of competition between top advisors becomes overwhelming, and leaks abound. (Reportedly Conway leaked to the press that Trump was dissatisfied with press secretary Sean Spicer’s performance.)
The Ambitions of Conway and Miller
In order to remain a vital part of the “team,” Conway and Miller often become “creative” about facts and truth. They believe it is a matter of “loyalty.” Oddly, neither Conway nor Miller actually exhibit “team player” attitude. Rather, they exhibit the natural race to remain highly visible to their “leader.” The quality of any team depends on choices made by leadership. It would be impossible to ignore that Conway and Miller were handpicked because of their “flexibility” with truth and facts.
Traditionally, conservatives have held strong views regarding presentation of facts and the ideal of always having supporting evidence of stated facts. However, Conway and Miller have both besmirched these ideals by making false statements in the pursuit of winning approval from their boss.
Their blatant insistence, crafted to appeal to Trump’s narrative, on such issues as “voter fraud” in the state of New Hampshire, for example, has no basis in fact. Conway laid claim to 200,000 illegal voters on buses voting in the New Hampshire presidential primary. Conway never bothered to get the facts from the Governor of this state who emphatically proved she lied. New Hampshire allows same day registration of new voters; but, at the time of registration polling clerks in each district take “photos” of all new voters.
Nor is there any logical reason why the Democrats would want to “rig” New Hampshire, a state worth 4 electoral votes that they have won seven times in the last eight presidential elections. The Trump theory is that the Democrats somehow colluded to win the popular vote, but all of their 3 million “illegal votes” were concentrated in one state, California, when they needed 80,000 in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. But that’s what someone would think who also thinks that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK assassination.
Stephen Miller recently made the statement that the “president’s control cannot be challenged.” In reality, the U.S. Constitution clearly provides checks and balances providing for policies to be overturned or for the president to be removed from office for certain violations.
Conway and Miller, Dumb and Dumber
The pernicious need to inculcate falsehoods into public media for the purpose of enhancing their individual status as part of the “team” has failed. Even when Conway has been called out on her lies, she dumbly stated “there are alternate facts.” In fact, Conway has been so untrustworthy that she hasn’t been on TV this past week. Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough says they won’t book her because, “I don’t believe in fake news or information that is not true.”
As to Miller, his media appearances all seem monolithically juxtaposed to conservative ideals because they fly in the face of conservatives’ view of pristine democracy and constitutionality.
Many conservatives feel Conway and Miller are detrimental to conservatism because they present a false image of conservative ideology. To continue to present falsehoods that can be proven wrong by factual documentation is dumb and dumber for Conway and Miller.
This article was published at Bombs and Dollars.
