The United States does not have a real president right now. There is an individual named Joe Biden who shows up occasionally and sits in the Oval Office, but in no way can he be considered to be “President” in the traditional understanding of that term. Biden is an ersatz president.

An American president is essentially the CEO of the federal government. He or she sets the overall strategy and direction of the country, outlines and articulates its major objectives and manages the subordinate elements that create the actual policy in order to achieve the big-picture goals laid out by the president. Like any CEO, that person likely doesn’t personally have the specific technical knowledge and expertise on a micro level in a given subject area that his/her subordinates have (nor should a CEO or president get bogged down in that kind of attention-diverting minutia), but the CEO must have an overriding vision of their company’s intended direction and be able to see how the various component parts work together in the proper proportion and timing needed to achieve the stated goals. That holds true as well for the President of the United States.

Donald J. Trump was the prototypically ideal president in terms of setting clear achievement objectives for the country (securing the southern border, becoming energy independent, rebuilding our military, renegotiating advantageous international trade agreements, stopping China from taking unfair advantage of America in trade matters, getting NATO to pay more of its share of its defense needs, etc.) and putting in place the laser-focused personnel required to execute the plan.  This was classic large-scale business-style vision and management at its best.

Putting aside the unfounded, irrational personal animosity that his political opponents felt for him for having defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and for being direct, rough-edged and unapologetic in his dealings with the liberal media, recalcitrant foreign adversaries and feckless erstwhile “allies,” President Trump’s clear-eyed ambitions for the country led to a very targeted effort with unrelenting emphasis on the ultimate goal.

Many presidents, coming from a life-long appearance-oriented, “You-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours” political background, are only too happy to compromise their objectives for the sake of popular acceptance and media adulation. For them, the final results as they redound to the country’s benefit are not their true goal. For the conventional politically minded president, an agreeable process is actually the end goal: activity that looks and sounds good, even if it’s bereft of real, meaningful substance.

Results vs. Process. Trump was a Results president. Biden is a Process president. Biden and the Democrats embark on a flurry of meaningless activity that plays well to the media and to their supporters, but which amounts to nothing of positive significance. To the extent that Biden’s empty activity subtracts from or negates President Trump’s actual beneficial results, what Biden and the Democrats are doing is incredibly harmful to this country and detrimental to a smooth-running world order.

Unlike President Trump’s clearly-stated, very specific intentions of how to improve the quality of daily life in America, Biden and the Democrats seem intent only on currying favor with special-interest groups and their accomplices, the adoring liberal media. Consider the major initiatives undertaken or proposed by the current Democrat regime:

• The dissolution of our border integrity, with intentional unrestricted illegal immigration.
• Ending American energy independence, curtailing fossil fuel exploration and production -- astonishingly, before a viable replacement exists! -- and imposing crippling restrictions on future fossil fuel energy industry activity.
• Supporting destructive BLM activities and riots, favoring defunding the police, eliminating cash bail and decriminalizing what liberals laughably refer to as “low-level” crimes like shoplifting, robbery and breaking & entering.
• Endorsing positions clearly opposed by the majority of the country, such as men competing in women’s sports, the U.S. military paying for gender-change surgery, males being able to declare that they “identify as women” and enter female bathrooms and locker rooms, elementary-age children being taught and exposed to “alternative” LGBTQ lifestyles far before children have any natural understanding or interest in such matters, and so on. This is the fringe woke speaking to the fringe woke. It’s not a government putting forth policies approved by the majority that benefit the majority.
• Denuding our military of its equipment, mission and spirit by attempting to transform it into a mechanism for social change instead of a sharply honed, singularly aimed instrument of national security. It’s bad enough that the Biden Democrats are reducing the funding and equipping of our military. It’s even worse when Biden’s Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says his biggest concern is understanding “white rage.” The only thing Mark Miley should be concerned with is defeating our enemies on the battlefield. Nothing else.

This is the difference between a president concerned with bottom-line beneficial results and one who’s concerned with laughably shallow meaningless activity that amounts to nothing, other than buying the favor and future votes of niche special interest groups.

President Trump’s results-oriented approach gave us:

• Energy independence with $2.25 per gallon gasoline vs. begging Iran for oil and $4.37 gasoline.
• Secure, orderly, humane borders vs. human trafficking, drug infestation and illegals overwhelming our schools and healthcare system.
• Treating 8-year-olds like 8-year-olds with worthwhile educational methods that emphasized a solid understanding of scholastic fundamentals along with a proportional appreciation for tolerance and compassionate societal norms.
• A battle-ready military standing proud and poised to defeat any threat to American national interests.

The Biden Democrats have saddled us with the opposite. As a direct result of having an ersatz president without any semblance of worthwhile goals or inspired vision, daily life in America is now close to an unmitigated disaster. Absent America’s clear leadership on the world stage, uncertainty and potential catastrophe loom everywhere, around every corner because foreign adversaries are emboldened by our weakness. We are living through the debacle of not having a real president, someone with a clear plan to better the country.

Results are all that matter. Are you safe? Are you prosperous? Are you healthy? Are your children being educated? A real president understands all that and works to bring it about. A real president is immune to the distractions of appearances and media approval.

We don’t have a real president now.

Photo credit: YouTube screengrab