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.

Many of us who are watching Donald Trump turn this country into his personal playground have grappled with the posit in this blog headline.

There is no magic answer.

Some possibilities:

• Trump practices retaliation, going after those he hates simply because they have opposed him in the past. 

• Trump goes after those he feels have not appropriately honored him. 

• Trump acts before he thinks, which is why he is being called “The TACO President,” which stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” an acronym which you could imagine riles Trump.

On this notion – acting before he thinks – Thomas Friedman in the New York Times used that reality to write a new column this week.  It appeared under this headline:  “Trump’s Gilded Gut Instinct.’

Here is how Friedman started his column:

“Wall Street analysts recently began joking that the best way to predict the behavior of Trump — and make money in the process — was by practicing the  ‘TACO trade,’ which stands for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out.’  You can always bet on Trump rolling back a reckless tariff.

“This mocking of Trump’s inconsistency, which drives him nuts — “Don’t ever say what you said,” he told a reporter who asked him about it — not only is accurate but also deserves to be more widely applied.”

As examples of chickening out, Friedman cites:

• One day he is pushing Ukraine away; the next day he is shaking Ukraine down for its minerals; the next day Ukraine is back in the fold.
• One day Vladimir Putin is Trump’s friend; the next day he’s “crazy.”
• One day Canada will be the 51st state; the next day it is the target of tariffs.
• One day he brags that he hires only “the best” people; the next day more than 100 experts at the National Security Council are pushed out just weeks after many were hired.
• One day the president hosts a gala at his Virginia golf club for the biggest buyers of his meme coin, who spent a combined $148 million for the chance to hear him give a talk standing behind the presidential seal.  The next day the White House spokeswoman suggests it’s not corruption because the president was “attending it on his personal time.”

Friedman puts it this way:

“Trump is governing by unchecked gut impulses, with little or no homework or coordination among agencies.  He respects no real lines of authority, has his golfing buddy (Steve Witkoff) act as  Secretary of State and his Secretary of State (Marco Rubio) act as his ambassador to Panama.  He compels anyone who wants to stop him to take him to court, while blurring all lines between his legal duties and personal enrichment.”

What this telling us, Friedman says, is that “we are not being governed anymore by a traditional American administration…we are being governed by the Trump Organization. Inc.

“In Trump II, the president is unchained and running the U.S. government exactly the way he ran his private company:  Out of his hip pocket and with only the markets or the courts able to stop him.” 

I add that markets or courts don’t usually stop Trump.  He just ignores both.

More from Friedman:

“Weeks after taking office, Trump announced a series of global tariffs without any serious consultation with the U.S. auto industry.  Along the way, he discovered that only about one-third of the parts of the popular Ford F-150 are made in America and cannot be replaced anytime soon.  The tariffs have been such a blow to the whole auto industry that Ford, General Motors and Stellantis announced they could not give earning predictions for the rest of 2025, citing tariff uncertainty and possible supply-chain disruptions.

“Then China reacted predictably to Trump’s 145 per cent tariffs on all Chinese exports to America.  Beijing abruptly halted exports of rare-earth magnets that go into U.S.-made cars, drones, robots and missiles.  If Trump doesn’t find a way to strike a deal (“chicken out”) on some of his China tariffs, U.S. car factories may have to cut back production in the coming days and weeks.

“It gets worse.  His ridiculous right-wing woke obsession with destroying the U.S. electric vehicle industry that President Joe Biden was trying to build up undermines U.S. efforts to compete with China in electric batteries.  Batteries are the new oil; they will power the new industrial ecosystem of A.I.-infused self-driving cars, robots, drones and clean tech.”

Then, Friedman goes to a phrase that, to me, explains exactly how Trump acts – “fire, ready, aim.”

It’s a phrase I often used when I was a lobbyist and how I saw how various legislators react to proposals before them.  They criticized a proposal before they had reviewed it.  Fire.  Ready.  Aim.

To conclude, Friedman writes:

“In sum, what you are seeing from this Trump II administration, and its bended-knee Congress, is a dangerous, undisciplined, intellectually inconsistent farce that we will pay dearly for in the future.  Major geo-economic moves are being made by one man who has done no homework, modeling or stress-testing and has fostered little apparent interagency process, with no congressional oversight or apparent reference to history.

“If you think this is not dangerous, just keep in mind that the Trump Organization, Inc. over the years filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for six different businesses.  There was a reason for that:  The operating style and values of its boss.”

So, now I am among those who are losing sleep over Trump, not to mention those minions who help him destroy America by creating his own autocracy.