Slouching toward FUBAR?

[rangerrebew]

VOLUME 20
, ISSUE
2
©
Centre of Military and Strategic Studies, 2021
ISSN : 1488-559X
Journal of
Military and
StrategicStudies

Slouching toward FUBAR?

Thoughts on Recent Events in the US
Dr. James Keeley
In its Volume 17, No. 3 (2016) issue, this journal presented my commentary on the
2016  US  Presidential  election  –
From
  SNAFU  to  FUBAR?

  I  got  a  lot  wrong,  was  dreadfully naïve or ignorant on some points, and too hopeful on others. In some things,
I at least edged somewhat close to the truth. The illusion of “running government like a
business” – or at least like the Trump Organization (a family-owned enterprise largely subject  only  to  the  whims  of  its  owner  and  his  children  and  associates)  – is  now  fully  exposed. I did say at the time that The US categorically cannot be run like a business, and if it was –presumably a  privately-owned  rather  than  a  listed  business  – that would  be  in  clear  disregard of the US constitution. Attempting to approach the United States in the same spirit as a business enterprise is likely to be a quickly disconcerting, and unsuccessful as well as politically very costly, way to start.

I  suspect  a  fair  argument  can  be  made  thatmanifest  personal  defects  aside,  many  of President Trump’s problems are due to his trying to run – or wanting to try to run – the US the way he ran his businesses. It is said that Joseph Conrad once spent many hours
contemplating the difference between penniless and without a penny.
 
  We now know that  there is a clear difference between “like a business” (at a minimum, a Trump business) and “in a business-like fashion.”

https://jmss.org/article/view/72090/54675