Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Those who know me know that I like “oxymorons.”

Here’s the definition of the word:

“A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction with each other.

Like “jumbo shrimp.”  Or, “military intelligence.”  Or, “political leadership.”

And, in this case:  Ethical norms that apply to Donald Trump.

He is beyond having any sense of ethics and he approved it again last week.

There he was on a lawn at the White House hawking Tesla cars on behalf of his unelected aide-de-camp, Elon Musk.

It was a clear ethical violation because presidents are not supposed to endorse anything in the private sector.  Trump doesn’t care.

It also was duplicity, something which catches Trump frequently.

That’s because, according to The Atlantic Magazine, in 2023, Trump posted that electric-car supporters should “rot in hell.”

Now, unabashedly, he is showcasing Teslas on the White House lawn, even though Teslas are electric cars.

More from The Atlantic:

“Yesterday, the president stood with Elon Musk and oohed and ahhed at a lineup of the electric vehicles, saying that he hoped his purchase of one would help the carmaker’s stock, which had halved in value since mid-December thanks to a combination of customer backlash and general economic uncertainty.  

“Trump does not own shares in Tesla, as far as we know.  He has said that he is supporting the carmaker because protesters are ‘harming a great American company,’ and has suggested that people who vandalize Tesla cars or protest the company should be labeled domestic terrorists.

“But he also seems interested in helping his friend, the special government employee, Musk, maintain his status as the wealthiest man in the world.

“Yesterday’s White House spectacle was ‘a stilted, corrupt attempt to juice a friend’s stock, and certainly beneath the office of the presidency,” according to The Atlantic.”

To Trump, he posits, so what.

Whenever he does something, he believes there is no problem with it.  He wouldn’t see a conflict of interest if it hit him in the face.

If any other government official had similarly promoted a friend’s product (especially on hallowed White House grounds), they would have been in clear violation of the specific regulation restricting executive-branch employees from using their role to endorse commercial products or services.

The president and the vice president are exempt from that regulation not to endorse private stuff, as well as from some of the other ethics rules that govern federal officials.  But, still, regulation or no, Trump’s action was a clear ethical conflict.

So, The Atlantic Magazine said Trump “violated the ethical norms of his office.”  That’s the oxymoron.

More from The Atlantic:

“Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his appetite for overturning norms and pushing ethical bounds, so his latest stunt as a Tesla salesman is not altogether shocking.  When Trump learned in 2016 that U.S. presidents are exempt from the conflict-of-interest rules that restrict other government officials, he seemed delighted.  ‘The president can’t have a conflict of interest,’ he told The New York Times then.  ‘I’d assumed that you’d have to set up some type of trust or whatever.’

“Despite the lack of legal restriction, modern presidents have generally moved assets into blind trusts, which are controlled by independent managers, in order to diminish any perception that they are profiting from the office (or that they are making policy decisions to boost their own investment portfolios).

“Trump has shuffled around his assets since taking office but in general has chosen to put his family in charge of managing them.  Trump recently said that he’d transferred his shares of Truth Social into a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr., a move that is irrelevant from an ethics point of view” because the money could still flow to him.  And, with his own family controlling the trust, Trump likely knows exactly where his money is and can make decisions that would increase the value of his holdings.”

Presidential conflicts of interest, or even the appearance of them, can undermine public confidence.

Musk, too, hasn’t assuaged concerns that he will separate his business interests from his role in as a Trump ally.  

Musk’s corporate empire relies on government contracts.  And the federal firings he is overseeing through his DOGE initiative are already reshaping agencies that regulate his companies. So, conflicts and ethical challenges abound for Trump and his acolytes.  But, of course, he doesn’t care.