First, the case is complex. Trump's response is knee jerk. It comes from what he feels. He gave no clear, detailed reasoning about why Apple is wrong. He just called for a boycott.
Second, Trump is willing to use the bully pulpit of a front running presidential candidate to go after individual businesses. It's not much different that the Obama administration using the IRS to go after conservative groups who applied for 501(c)(3) and (4) status.
Third, Trump is not willing to wait for due process. He wants to punish unofficially before there has been any official ruling.
This is not the Donald Trump who will make deals. It's the Donald Trump who will openly bully into submission people he disagrees with.
And it's not a one-off. He says he will tax Carrier for moving its production to Mexico. Trump doesn't point to a plan to encourage businesses like Carrier to stay in the U.S. (say, by lowering their taxes). His first impulse is to punish them if they do not stay. A little like a business Berlin Wall.
Trump does not stop at organizations like Apple and Carrier. He has and will continue to berate individuals. Another example today: Trump's threat against the Ricket[t]s family. (H/T Ben Sasse)
That's who Donald Trump is. It's not the art of the deal. It's the art of power to coerce others by threats of punishment. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
2 comments:
Spot on, TD. I've made no bones about it: I'm not an Apple fan, and I don't buy their products. But it's dead wrong for the government to insist that the company should be required to write custom software to enable them to poke through the contents of a handset that they inadvertently screwed up (by resetting the iCloud password; rendering the data inaccessible).
Trump's call for a boycott is a tactic favored by the Left - and he's simply demonstrating yet again that he's no conservative.
In hailing results over procedure, safeguards and the Constitution, Trump echoes Pres. Obama.
At least the process needs to go through the courts. Though, judicial decisions are too many times far from correct.
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