So I did a quick screen grab this morning. My response to Chris Cillizza is... "duh."
Whenever there's a problem, businessmen bark "you need to run blank like a business."
... the schools like a business.
... the church like a business.
... the country like a business.
and now, in 2017, the White House, like a business.
You never hear, we need to run this business...like a church.
A businessman in the White House isn't necessarily a bad thing, but don't be surprised when he runs things...<gasp>...like a business.
If Chris Cillizza was sitting across from me, I would bet he would tell me that we need to run America like a country, not a bottom line corporation. Lots of different folks in the U.S. of A. And I would agree with him 100%, but running a country includes a certain business acumen that certain politicians either haven't had, or neglected, in the last generation of trillion dollar deficits. If politicians' kept their houses in order, Donald Trump wouldn't have beaten 20 of 'em to become president. For the thousandth time, I am not a Trump fan, but I understand the mechanisms that put him into office. Bunch of 'Mericans want some accountability. Too bad they fell for a snake oil salesman....
I used to work for a Fortune 500 Company that made deliveries to hundreds of multi-national corporations in the Cleveland area. Outside of 2017, I worked there from 2000-2016. In that time 9/10 corporations tried to figure out how to cut costs, how to worker smarter, not harder, and do more with less.
Lines of empty cubicles and sagging morale as the same refrain eminated from every building, we need to hit corporate mandates. By 2016, half of the businesses that I delivered to either had locked front doors or a lonely unmanned phone in the lobby. I considered writing an article called Death of the Secretary because so many companies made the position expendable. I would see signs on doors that said "Don't Knock." The employees didn't want to be bothered. If you didn't have a phone number, you didn't need to be there. You want America to be run like a Corporation? You mean the place where your dreams die and you are nothing but an entry on a spreadsheet. Waking up every morning not figuring out how to succeed, but how not to get fired or downsized.
Now there's the rare occasion of an amazing company, it's growing leaps and bounds and seems to have a great atmosphere. On the west side of Cleveland, that company is Hyland Software, seemingly the Cleveland equivalent of Google. When I first went there it was a magical land of make believe, like the tech companies you see on TV. Too bad almost everyone I know has applied there, yet no one I know works there. Getting into Hyland is like getting into Harvard. Everyone wants to work at the awesome company, no one wants to work for the crappy company, thusly the problem with the analogy of America, Inc.
Are you happy with your company?
Are your parents happy with their retirement from their companies?
Would you want your children to work for your company?
Now ask the same questions replacing the word company with America.
Maybe I've meandered a bit, because I agree with Cillizza. I'm just surprised at his surprise.
How do you downsize Americans? (Purely rhetorical. You can answer that for yourselves.)