The fact that President Donald Trump has a flourishing business empire was touted as one of the strong qualities that made him a great candidate for presidency. His aura of entrepreneurial success, billions of dollars in the financial portfolio and an enterprise that spans different countries and industries is definitely compelling, to say the least. The business world knows him for his confidence, decisiveness, dauntless nature and self-interest. No wonder then that his unconventional and “in your face” leadership style was seen as a much-needed flavor in a presidential candidate.
It has been 10 days since Inauguration Day, and Trump has made a couple of decisive and divisive moves in the chess game of domestic and world politics. Having been a businessman practically all his life, his decisions are bound to reflect the corporate modus operandi. A look at two of those events give insight into how boardroom policies have been directly incorporated into the White House.
A little after a day in the office, the Trump administration chose to make its first press briefing to, well, lambaste the media. The gist of the briefing was that the media was accused of deliberately doctoring images to claim that comparatively fewer people attended the Trump inauguration, and hence the White House was angry. The media was also chided for not covering ‘glowing reports’ of the president’s speech to the CIA, and were also warned that the president is going to hold the press accountable, rather than the other way around. Though the accusations were later held to be false, the act of berating and trying to control the press is a typical corporate behavior. Companies are known to keep an eagle eye on their public relations, and which information and news are doing the rounds about them. This policy works when you lead a multinational company, but not when you lead a multi-million-person nation.
The second incident is regarding intellectual property. Corporates go to great lengths to protect their intellectual property, which is logical, given that their profits depend on it. But it is an alarming development when a president, who is infamous for calling climate change “a hoax,” stops Environmental Protection Agency officials from revealing their scientific findings to the taxpayers. The Department of Human and Health Services and the Department of Agriculture also suffered a similar gag. As we speak, a ban is in effect on the EPA that blocks press releases and all social media communication and calls in for a government screening of all future media requests. Nobody could have put it better than the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that this is “censorship and intimidation.” This is not an act of protection of information, but simply a government bullying scientists in order to stop the flow of information.
The NC State community should be concerned about this not just as citizens, but also as students. We live in the age of information, use it as our strength and rely on it to further our knowledge to build a better world. There are many ongoing research works and projects in our campus which rely on such easily available and reliable scientific data for their own findings. Important discoveries and their accuracy are based on the foundation of unfiltered and unsullied statistics. Imagine the hurdles that would be placed in the path of enlightenment if the student and scientific communities have to struggle for something as constitutional as access to accurate information. Now add to this the fact that many projects at NC State are funded by the government. Thus, these groups of faculty and students must either give up their right to pursue their work or submit to the whim of the government and hide unpleasant truths from the public eye.
Trump’s unsavoury business leadership style did earn him billions, but whether the same style will slowly turn a democracy into a dictatorship set in the dark ages or not is definitely a question to be rethought.
