Donald Trump’s Decisiveness

October 8, 2004
R. D. Kushner

Reality TV isn’t just for entertainment any more. Reality TV is now an educational tool, thanks to Donald Trump. Trump had an exchange last night with his Executive Assistant Carolyn Kepcher, which in 8 seconds, managed to do what John Kerry hasn’t been able to do in almost an entire year.

Carolyn Kepcher was speaking about Pamela when she said, “She’s decisive.” Donald Trump responded, “But she’s wrong.” And then as if Trump’s moment of genius wasn’t clear enough, Kepcher said again, “But she’s decisive,” and Trump repeated his tremendous insight, “But she’s wrong.” And Pamela was fired for being decisive and being wrong.

Donald Trump has illuminated a reality that many Americans find hard to grasp: Just being decisive doesn’t make a person right. Being decisive is simply, being decisive. Without results indicating that decisiveness is effective, it is just a stance; an attitude that has no merit other than as an indicator of stubbornness and arrogance. Being stubborn and arrogant rarely achieves the desired results; because stubborn and arrogant people don’t learn from their mistakes, because in their minds they don’t make mistakes.

George W. Bush cannot run from his deplorable record in Iraq, but he wants the American people to believe that his decisiveness is effective, in spite of overwhelming evidence that his policies in Iraq are a dismal failure. Even though just today, President Bush conceded that Saddam Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction as he and his administration had claimed as their primary justification for the war; even though the independent 9/11 Commission has concluded that Saddam Hussein did not have any link to the 9/11 attacks nor did Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperate on the attacks, which the administration had suggested; and even now, as reports have revealed that Saddam Hussein was never an imminent threat to the United States of America, the President continues to say that he would not have changed his decision to invade Iraq. That is decisive. And wrong.

Mr. Bush is decisive. Foolishly and arrogantly decisive. On October 7, 2004 Donald Trump fired Pamela, for her decisive failure on The Apprentice. On November 2, 2004, the American people will have their chance. They will have George W. Bush in the “Board Room” and they need to tell him, through their votes: “You’re fired.”