Donald Trump has shown great loyalty to those around him.
Loyalty used to be important. An athlete often started and finished his career in the same city, where he became a beloved figure. Employees often stayed at one company and walked away with a gold watch and great appreciation for years of service. My dad bought only Chevy cars for about 40 years, while many people used to prefer flying on a specific airline, whenever possible. Those days are mostly behind us.
Even good baseball players may have more club jerseys than fingers on one hand. I don’t know anyone who only buys a Ford or Caddy anymore. When we want to travel, we go to a travel website and look for the best prices and fewest stops. While many people are quite dedicated to either Apple or Android devices, part of the reason is the difficulty in moving between the systems. If Samsung phones had all of the features of iPhones at half of the price and the two operating systems were interoperable, people would vote with their feet and ditch Apple.
Donald Trump has shown enormous loyalty to those around him. Knowing him from the 1970’s, I always thought he was just an opportunist. But then came the Kavanaugh hearings. While the accusations seemed trumped-up as the accusers could not remember dates or locations and there was no contemporaneous supporting evidence, the spectacle was unseemly. I thought at the time that nobody other than Donald Trump would stand by Brett Kavanaugh. The simple political calculation was to jettison the candidate as many other presidents have done when their choices got stuck in the Senate. But Donald Trump did not flinch. Apparently, he told his man that as long as he was willing to fight, then the president would support him completely. And the claims and witnesses went up in flames and Brett Kavanaugh joined the highest court in the land.
Donald Trump has once again shown his loyalty to his people with the confirmation process for several of his cabinet members. Not all sailed through the Senate 99-0 as did Marco Rubio. Pete Hegseth, Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard all faced significant headwinds that included squishy Republicans that would not vote for them. All of them made it out of committee and after much Democratic maneuvering won their confirmation votes in the Senate.
One might argue that Trump no doubt had agreements with Kennedy and Gabbard. The two of them joined the Trump train during the election, and Donald Trump promised them the positions they now hold. That point, while no doubt true, is irrelevant. As their confirmation hearings became contentious and questionable as to their future success, a traditional politician would have begun to sweat. Losing cabinet battles makes a president look weak, independent of the delays caused by not having someone running the show at a given department. But Donald Trump never wavered. He did not make a single comment suggesting that he either regretted the deals he made or that he was looking for someone else. He made it clear that he believed that his nominees for running the various executive departments were the best that could be found. Gabbard and RFK, Jr. were sworn in in the presence of the president himself.
And that brings up one more unique Trump feature. Thin-skinned politicians always hold a grudge. There was a story years back that Oprah Winfrey had made a comment considered disrespectful of the Obamas. She found herself kept away from the White House until she came up with the supposedly racist treatment she claims to have experienced at a very high-end store in Switzerland. Claiming grievance, she was allowed back into the fold. Donald Trump has a knack for giving important positions to people who were his political enemies in the past. The same Rubio, now secretary of state, once in 2016 questioned Donald Trump’s virility. Nikki Haley made it clear that she would not support Trump’s candidacy that year and he made her UN ambassador. Donald Trump does not hold grudges for long, and he is ready to appoint someone he believes is competent, even if that person ran against him or attacked him previously. The president, like most sentient beings, does have his limits. Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton would not find work again in his administration, as their actions the first time around were enough to get them pushed out of Donald Trump’s orbit. So while even the president has his limits, he often works with and/or appoints people who in the past expressed antipathy towards him. That is smart politics.
Donald Trump is in many ways hard to put in a box. He is extremely wealthy but seems most concerned with the needs and well-being of regular Americans. While being the most powerful man on the planet, he waited outside to receive both Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah of Jordan. Hitler famously stood on a higher step when he received foreign leaders at the Berghof. President Trump and his guests were at the same level from the first handshake. The president can lob and receive mud during a presidential race and then take his former opponents and make them ambassadors or cabinet members. And above all, the president is loyal to those who support him. One can see that many of the people who stood by the president from the chaos of the 2020 election through his victory last year were rewarded with plum positions. Donald Trump understands that loyalty has to run in both directions, and he certainly showed as much by nominating or appointing many who supported him through thick and thin.
Donald Trump values the loyalty of those who work with him. He also shows them great personal loyalty, which helps to push them to give their all to help the president’s program succeed.
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