If you can’t manage to review your campaign promises until it’s time to campaign again, that gives me reason to doubt your competence or your genuineness as an executive. There are literally thousands of people working who support the President. None of them could find time to write up an executive order and put it on the agenda in the first 100 days? (Remember, they would be allowed to “cheat” and work on this before inauguration or even before the election.)
But because the frying pan is slightly more comfortable than the fire, people keep tolerating this and voting for the lesser of the evils they’re offered, so so long as this strategy is epsilon more effective than actually leading the country and aggressively delivering on your promises, we should expect to see more, not less of it. Ultimately, the voters are partially complicit in this nonsense.
Human beings also have their own schedules and priorities. People are more stressed out and busy than ever. Inflation is rampant due to a war in Europe that regular people (especially those outside of Europe) had no power to avoid. Every year technology and social media get ever-more complex and sophisticated, demanding more and more awareness and discipline from people to avoid collapsing into a black hole of time-wasting.
Likewise, the problems facing societies at the national level and humanity at the global level have become unbelievably technical and complicated, yet we expect voters to navigate them like experts and deliver a miracle in the voting both? How has this idea not become widely seen for what it is: an absurd fantasy.
As the chief executive of the country, the job is largely delegation. Sure, there's still going to be some limit to WIP, but it doesn't look or feel that his office is close to that based on what they've accomplished or are working on.
"Then they actually look for these sorts of quick fixes because it can give them a little boost in the polls for something they were going to do anyway."
For one, it can remove the pressure to create a proper fix. We can end up with a bunch of half measures that don't fit well. There's also an argument to be made around expansive executive power usurping the voice of the people (not on polls but elected congress members) as I doubt that blanket pardons were the intent of that power. Sort of like how executive orders can be used to say how a law can be enforced, but has started to be used to flat out ignore enforcing the law. Technically legal, but feels like a loophole (similar to how you can change senate rules requiring a supermajority by a simple majority vote).
So yeah, like many things in politics, the people that agree with the result are less likely to question the method used to get there. The people that disagree with the result will question everything. But... it might be wise for all of us to start listening to the people who agree with the result but question the methods used, lest we undermine the trust or perception of legitimacy in our system of government. I think unilateral actions further the win at all costs mindset and will continue to hurt us as a nation driving us apart.
Trump, the guy everyone loves to hate, actually tried to keep his campaign promises, even the stupid ones.
The timing is for political gain. It's strategically smart, but it's not principled. I see no issue with people pointing that out.
At one point congress agreed to give him almost $6 Billion to build the wall and he turned it down, never to be in that position again. If he wanted to build the wall he could have accepted that $6 billion or negotiated in good faith.
Also, his desire to build the wall was never a principled argument. "Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it" tested well with his audience so his campaign jumped on it (which was smart).
But to act like it wasn't strategic politicking from the beginning is not correct. Not to say that Biden's pardons are not politicking (they are). Just saying Trump and Biden are the same (and every other politician) when it comes to things like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wall
> In January 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13767, which formally directed the U.S. government to begin wall construction along the U.S.–Mexico border using existing federal funding.[5] After a political struggle for funding, including an appropriations lapse resulting in a government shutdown for 35 days, and the declaration of a national emergency, construction started in 2018.
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> Initially, on January 20, 2021, newly inaugurated U.S. president Joe Biden terminated the national emergency and halted construction of the wall,[6][15][16] but the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security later hinted that the construction of the wall may continue under Biden's administration.
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> In March 2017, the Trump administration submitted an amendment for fiscal year 2017 that includes a $3 billion continuing budget for "border security and immigration enforcement". Trump's FY 2018 Budget Blueprint increases discretionary funds for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by $2.8 billion (to $44.1 billion).[82][83] The DHS Secretary John F. Kelly told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee during a hearing the Budget Blueprint "includes $2.6 billion for high-priority border security technology and tactical infrastructure, including funding to plan, design and construct the border wall".[82]
> In July 2017, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Austin, Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives would seek to pass a special supplemental appropriations bill to spend money on initial construction of the wall, a demand of the Trump administration.[84][85] Such a supplemental spending bill was supported by then-House Speaker Paul Ryan.[85] However, _SENATE DEMOCRATS EXPRESSED CONFIDENCE THAT THEY CAN BLOCK AN APPROPRIATIONS BILL FOR WALL CONSTRUCTION_, with the aid of some Republicans who also oppose the construction of a wall due to its enormous cost.
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> From December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, the federal government was partially shut down due to Trump's declared intention to veto any spending bill that did not include $5 billion in funding for a border wall.
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> In February 2019, Congress amended an existing appropriations bill, adding language that specifically prohibits new funding from being used to build border barriers at several sites, including the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, the La Lomita Historical park, the National Butterfly Center, and the area "within or east of" the Vista del Mar Ranch tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.[116][117] Soon afterwards, however, Trump declared a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States, which the administration claimed invalidated the restrictions imposed by Congress.
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> Construction progressed during the final year of the Trump administration, including the filing of land condemnation actions in court and the issuing of waivers.
For some reason this reminds me of the old saw about the economist and the twenty dollar bill. “The $20 on the sidewalk doesn’t exist because the efficient market guarantees that someone else would’ve already picked it up!” the economist said, while walking past the twenty dollar bill.
I think in reality politicians have schedules and priorities and the constantly shifting demands imposed on them by world events. Sometimes the things they always wanted to do get left on the back burner until election season starts to loom over the horizon. Then they actually look for these sorts of quick fixes because it can give them a little boost in the polls for something they were going to do anyway. What’s wrong with that?