The Presidency Is Not a Sinecure, Donald Trump

by Shaker Alison Rose, a fierce queer feminist, avid book lover, and proud cat lady who lives in the northern SF Bay Area.

Let's say you own a business. You're conducting interviews for an open position. One of the potential hires—a man named, ohhhh let's say Ronald Gump—is pretty bombastic and a bit too aggressive. He seems to be inflating his resume, but that's nothing you haven't heard before.

But then he holds up a sheet of paper with the job description on it, and starts pointing at various bulleted tasks, saying, "I don't want to do this one, that one looks boring, I'd rather have an assistant to do these ones..." He says this in a tone of voice that makes you think he's imagining a sudden role reversal, where you are now the outsider and he's running the show.

Would this person seem like the right fit for the job? When they're openly saying they're not interested in doing specific parts of it, and when they seem incredibly nonchalant about it, as though there's no chance you could or should be put off by their attitude?

Of course not. But in the bizarro world of Ronald Gump—er, Donald Trump—this is how it works. You want the job, but you don't want all the work of the job? No problem!

The vice presidential pick will also be part of the process of proving he's ready for the White House, [campaign chairman and chief strategist Paul] Manafort said.

"He needs an experienced person to do the part of the job he doesn't want to do. He sees himself more as the chairman of the board, than even the CEO, let alone the COO.

Let us pause for a moment and recall the rumors that Sarah Palin might be on his YOOGE BEAUTIFUL list of potential running mates. Don't you feel better now?! I know I do, if by 'better' you mean 'ready to hop in a rocketship and fly to Mars'. Oh, but no worries, because as Manafort said, the campaign probably wouldn't pick a woman or a member of a minority group because "that would be viewed as pandering."

Cool story, bro.

But. Here we have the Republican nominee for president (jiminy fucking crickets!) who is pretty explicit about not wanting to be president so much as be called president. He wants to be the big name at the top of the staff listing, he wants to run meetings (can they be called meetings if he's the only who talks?), he wants to give big blustery speeches and tell a lot of people what to do, and, I don't know, throw darts at a world map to decide who our next mortal enemy will be. He wants to delegate all the boring crappy work to whatever random Straight White Man Who Is About Two Molecules Less Repulsive Than Trump he gloms onto as his running mate.

I mean, there are sixteen kajillion reasons not to want this man to be President and all of them are far greater sins than laziness. But laziness matters! He doesn't even want the damn job! He just wants the title. He's running on his business experience (such as it is, and 'as it is' is a pile of dog crap) but he doesn't want to have to do any actual business.

Can't we just make a big, gold name plate that says PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP, have someone build him a replica of the White House on the deserted property of one of his failed casinos, and have done with it?

Sadly, not wanting to do the work is just another reason his supporters are eager to hire him.

AMERICA!