Boasting is Easy, Governing is Hard

One of the best presidents America never had, Adlai Stevenson, put it bluntly when he said: “The ability to govern is the final test of politics, the acid, final test.” Stevenson could have been talking to Elon Musk.

The world’s richest man, along with failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, have been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to head something called the Department of Government Efficiency. It’s not a cabinet-level agency or a “Department,” but a likely home for authors of the Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 with its 900-plus-page proposal on ways to slash the federal government.

Musk and Ramaswamy set about their duties with much boasting. Musk has promised to “send shock waves through the system.” Ramaswamy has proposed to fire all federal employees with odd numbered Social Security numbers. And Trump has described their mission as “the Manhattan Project of our time.”

Headstrong business bigshots have talked big when taking government posts in the past. They’ve usually made a mess of their task and sullied their reputations. They’ve failed to understand that effective governing means working out society’s compromises and that means listening.

https://www.postalley.org/2024/12/02/boasting-is-easy-governing-is-hard/

Those two listen?