PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I have been trying for months now to understand how President Donald Trump operates.

It is hard to believe a reality TV show host and a businessman of shoddy character even understands what the word strategy means as he flies by the seat his pants as president and says whatever happens to cross his mind. Truth is no barmeter.

In the Washington Post this week, columnist Eugene Robinson put it this way – and I agree with him:

“I find it hard to understand how anyone can construe Trump’s tirades and tweets as anything resembling a strategy. I see, at best, a familiar tactic: He seeks to drag opponents down to his level. He cannot compete with Joe Biden on the basis of ideas, integrity or performance, so he seeks to pull him into the gutter — hence the elaborate attempt to concoct a scandal involving Biden’s son Hunter.”

One of the basic propositions during my 25 years as a lobbyist, augmented early on by 15 years as an Oregon state government manager, was this:

To achieve any management end, it is easy to begin with tactics.  Don’t.   Strategy – a big picture look at what you want to achieve – should be the starting point. And, then, tactics should be developed to achieve the strategy.

For Trump, it’s all about tactics or least whatever crossed his mind and lips moment-by-moment.

Buoyed by columnist Robinson, I felt compelled this week to develop a list of what I consider to be Trump’s actions without strategy –- and some of these may be a repeat of what I have said before about this worst of all U.S. presidents. So here goes.

• First, with Robinson, I say Trump “seeks to drag opponents down to his level. He cannot compete with Joe Biden on the basis of ideas, integrity or performance, so he seeks to pull him into the gutter.”
• Second, Trump lies at every turn. It’s not second instinct for him; it is first instinct. Incredibly, the Washington Post Fact Checker column says Trump has told more than 18,000 lies in three years. It’s enough that “Fact Checker” has to exist in the first place; it’s even more troubling to reckon with the tally of lies.
• Third, Trump instinctively practices a policy of distraction. Rather than working with governors around the country to develop a sound national plan for tracing and testing in the coronavirus pandemic, he castigates Barack Obama and anyone else to distract from his own abysmal performance.

For me, in many ways, the worst of Trump’s diatribes was for him to denigrate the late Senator John McCain, truly a national hero. In life and in death, Trump went after McCain, one of most despicable acts of Trump’s presidency.

There is little question but that we are at war with coronavirus pandemic, as is every country around the world as the virus is no respecter of nationalities or borders.

More than ever, we need a president who will rise to the occasion. Many of us are not surprised to see Trump putting his own welfare above that of the nation.

As written by Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, Trump is busily inciting people across the country — and especially in swing states — to ignore public health guidance on limiting the spread of covid-19 and resume socializing and working in the riskiest of ways.

“Modeling masklessness, he welcomes any sabotage of orderly reopening.”

Such recklessness, in defiance of his own administration’s guidance, Hiatt writes, risks igniting new waves of the disease. That could lead not only to thousands more deaths, but also to further devastation of the economy. It’s not far-fetched to think that this blowback could arrive with the cooler weather next fall — just as people are voting in the presidential election.

“Various theories are offered for this seemingly self-destructive behavior.

“Trump, it is said, can’t think beyond tomorrow’s headline or stock market bounce. His need for instant gratification clouds his ability to plan ahead.

“Or, his perennial hunger for adulation drives him to irrationality. He craves the thanks of tavern-goers in Wisconsin; he is desperate for the roar of his rally crowds.

“Or, he is simply discounting the advice of experts, confident that his gut provides a better guide than their knowledge and experience.

All of these theories may contain some truth.”

So, Trump continues without strategy or rational tactics, thus making things worse than they otherwise would be. And, he wants to be re-elected? No.