The news last week that President Trump has pressed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to, in the words of The Washington Post, “award a border wall contract to a North Dakota construction firm whose top executive is a GOP donor and frequent guest on Fox News,” would be an enormous scandal for any other administration; that it already seems to have disappeared in the tsunami of daily ethics violations and assault on American democracy is no surprise.
Yet the fact that the president would apparently push the U.S. government to violate contracting rules in connection with his preeminent issue — building a wall across the southern border — is deeply revealing of both his autocratic notions of the presidency and of how the American economy operates. These notions are important not only because they go to the heart of this administration’s fundamental mindset and motivations, but also because they reflect the mindset of millions of supporters who remain loyal to the president despite what the rest of us see as his flagrant unfitness for office.
In this instance, the president’s willingness to put pressure on military officials seems rooted, at least partly, in a personal belief that the wall product of the company in question, Fisher Industries, can be installed quickly and cheaply. In other words, he sees circumvention of contracting procedures in favor of Fisher’s product as a personalized solution to a personal crisis —how to build a border wall, or great chunks of it, prior to the 2020 election. From this perspective, Fisher’s barrier product must seem like a no-brainer to Trump (the Corps of Engineers has indicated to the president that it’s cheaper because it doesn’t meet the standards set by the Corps, but when has a shoddy product ever put off the president?).
(It is also worth noting, as another indicator of the impropriety of the president’s advocacy for Fisher Industries, that Fisher Industries is suing the federal government over its border wall procurement process. And so the president’s corruption expands, to include support for a company that has set itself in legal opposition to the government of which he’s the executive.)
But what would strike many Americans as the president’s corrupt involvement in a process properly left to a competitive bidding process likely strikes many of his supporters as the president simply doing what he needs to get the job done. In this, Trump’s actions are those of an autocrat, a form of un-democratic governance his supporters have come to endorse. Specifically, it’s worth noting how Trump’s judgment is placed over governmental processes intended to both save taxpayer money and ensure they get what they’re paying for. This mentality is echoed in complaints by Fisher’s president that “bureaucracy” is interfering with construction of the barrier, and likewise in comments by North Dakota Senator Cramer (a recipient of major donations from North Dakota-based Fisher) that Trump was elected to get through Washington’s bureaucracy. But these businesses and politicians see this corrupt government with clear eyes — in claiming to be in revolt against an unresponsive bureaucracy, they instead grasp a golden opportunity to exploit personal connections and a corrupt president to make major moolah.
This corruption should be repellent to most Americans; the fact that it is not so to his supporters speaks to both their cynicism about how government has always worked, but also, I think, about how the economy itself operates. Forget about the free market; forget about competition; what is important is to get on your side someone who understands the importance of personal connections, and who will shovel the work and money your way. The irony, of course, is that this solution only reinforces the problem it purports to resolve; it’s based on a naive belief that a corrupt president would ever actually be on their side, and not more interested in lining his own pockets and the pockets of those willing to serve his purposes. Not that there are any ethical companies lining up to build the border wall; but are his supporters really served by an economy where those who are awarded such work are those who could afford to make the biggest donations to politicians? Ordinary citizens may think the president has their back economically, but this personal intervention on wall construction illuminates the devil’s bargain they have made: having lost their faith in the American economy, Trump turns around and simply continues playing the same rigged game that has led to their cynicism, only supercharged with the power of the presidency and with an additional self-serving purity. When you bet on the corrupt and self-serving to save you, disappointment will be your inevitable lot.
Finally, it’s worth noting, as I feel I’m doing constantly these days, the lackluster framing this otherwise well-reported Post story provides for the corruption it details. “Trump’s personal intervention risks the perception of improper influence on decades-old procurement rules that require government agencies to seek competitive bids, free of political interference,” the author writes, in hideous understatement. The president’s actions as described in the piece already constitute improper influence, whether or not they were successful; the Post’s mischaracterization of its own story is truly bizarre.