Have you ever imagined that you’d be president of the United States?
And if you lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., what would be on your to-do list?
Having 300 million Americans and billions of people around the globe watching your every move would be a scary thought. But for the sake of conversation, let’s say I was sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office.
What would I do?
I believe that I’d start with a list of what I would NOT do.
§ For example:
§ Lead with a “my-way-or-the-highway” authoritarian style
§ Let my ego influence my actions
§ Advocate freedom of speech but penalize those who exercise their rights of free speech
§ Call my critics scumbags, idiots, losers, cowards, crooks, traitors and worse
§ Insist members of other political parties or of different opinions are enemies
§ Say hateful things about people who have died—i.e., Rob Reiner
§ Be addicted to social media, blasting a tsunami of tweets
§ Live by a double standard: Rules for me and another set of rules for everyone else
§ Make promises that can’t be kept—i.e., end the Russia-Ukraine war on “Day One”
§ Exaggerate whenever possible
§ Rely on my own set of facts versus the truth
§ Pardon the Jan. 6 rioters
§ Pardon drug lords and other notorious criminals
§ Flip “the finger” at hecklers
§ Enjoy blaming former residents of the White House
§ Allow myself or my family to profit from my being president
§ Put my name on the Kennedy Center or anything else
§ Destroy a section of the White House without asking for approval
§ Host an Ultimate Fight Championship (UFC) match on the White House lawn
§ Have events at any of my properties that would profit me
§ Ignore real and perceived conflicts of interest
§ Be obsessed with retribution against my enemies
§ Abruptly change the name of the Gulf of Mexico
§ Force Canada to become our 51st state
§ Bully Denmark into giving Greenland to U.S.
§ Poke a sharp stick into the eyes of our NATO allies
§ Play footsie with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s dictator
§ Neuter the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
§ Make EPA “Environmental Pollution Advocate”
§ Declare that coal is “beautiful”
§ Label all of my ideas “beautiful”
§ Endanger America’s natural resources and environment
§ Ignore science in making decisions
§ Rule the Federal Reserve
§ Censor, control and/or punish the media
§ Drip the White House with gilded gold
§ Be preferential to billionaire buddies
§ Wield tariffs without knowing consequences
§ Sue everybody who disagrees with me
§ Sue the United States government
§ Rewrite history to suit my beliefs
§ Scoff at things that I don’t like—such as “affordability—and call them “scams”
§ Expect Congress to kowtow to my demands
§ Flaunt possibility of a third term
§ Take over and nationalize elections
§ Keep the country/world in chaos
§ Change Department of Defense to Department of War
§ Appoint unqualified people to leadership roles
§ Let “thin skin” dominate my reactions
§ Profess to be a Christian and act otherwise
OK, that’s enough.
My idea was simply to let you know what I wouldn’t do if I were president of these United States. And to get you to think about what you would or wouldn’t do while in the Oval Office.
I have visited the White House twice, but I never aspire to live there. Besides, based on today’s political climate, I would be unelectable. But if I were on a ballot, it wouldn’t be as a Republican or a Democrat. The extremes of both parties are troublesome.
I’d be representing a new party, CSA.
What’s that?
Common Sense America.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com