I was in training this week in one of the best classes I’ve ever taken – not just in government, but ever – which is making me reconsider some of my more ingrained views about how I react to the actions of President Trump.

Please understand something: I’ve always considered myself to be an objective person who makes an honest effort to objectively analyze every situation, be it political, policy, or personal. However, I also understand that I am human, and sometimes my preconceived notions, my biases based on my fundamental values, and my blinders prevent me from stepping back and examining the President’s actions as objectively as I could.

This is not a discussion or an invitation to debate the merits of Trump’s policies. This is a think piece on how we can all step out of the box and reevaluate how we view the President as a person and how we assess his motives and intents.

This class helped me examine what keeps my blinders on and what keeps me in the box regarding the President. Why do I have such visceral reactions to this President’s policies and actions, even though I ardently agree with some of his policies?

To be sure, I do agree with a number of things this President has done. I support criminal justice reform. I’m glad he signed tax reform into law. I think Justice Neil Gorsuch is a rock star (and I admit to having a bit of a SCOTUS justice crush on him – yes, I’m a nerd). I support deregulation, although, I don’t think he’s gone far enough. I certainly support border security, although I believe “BUILD THE WALL” is a cutesy platitude, not a policy, and the issue is much more complex than just building a physical barrier.

And I do support the decision not to attack Iran over the downing of our unmanned drone, although I believe he would have looked a lot less indecisive if he hadn’t tried to show off his brass balls by threatening Iran and then changed his mind, in an effort to appear concerned with human life and magnanimous for not bombing the country back into the stone age. Make the final decision. Inform the public after the fact and explain the reasons for your decision, instead of doing the macho “They’re going to regret this” routine.

That said, I disagree with quite a few of Trump’s policies. I believe his foreign policy is an uninformed dumpster fire. The tariff war is having a deleterious effect on people I actually know and care about. The bump stock ban is ridiculous, and will do nothing to reduce violence merely because one psychotic murderer used one, and even his promise to “seriously look at” a suppressor ban for firearms makes me a bit stabby.

So there are Trump policies with which I agree, and others which I despise. But I have to wonder why my initial reaction to any Trump policy is initially negative and why I have to pull myself back from the precipice of revulsion when it comes to this President and physically remind myself to examine each policy and announcement for its value. Why is my visceral reaction always initially negative?

To understand myself, I had to look at my personal values. What principles do I value most? Honor. Integrity. Honesty. Courage. Competence. Flexibility. Diligence. Loyalty. Emotional maturity. Intellectual curiosity.And yes, there are others, but these are the ones just off the top of my head.

My second question to myself is: does this President exhibit these characteristics?

Well…

To be honest, no.

This is a man who has cheated on his wife and allowed the sordid drama to play out with his little boy in the spotlight.

This is a man who has denigrated his intelligence community, rebuking its assessment about Russian interference in not just our elections but other nations, while publicly claiming to believe Russian President Putin that Russia did not interfere and only walked it back after wholesale condemnation of his remarks, claiming he just misspoke.

This is a man who claimed that North Korea hadn’t “had any tests over the last two years — zero,” even as Pyongyang tested several short range missiles just last month and the intelligence community continues to assess that “North Korea retains its WMD capability.”

I hate the fact that he announces major policy on Twitter, and I hate his Twitter activities writ large, because he can’t help but sound like a puerile imbecile who can’t even spell.

But here is where I need to ask myself some tough questions. Is my personal distaste for how the President does business and conducts policy blinding me to real progress? Can I step out of the box when it comes to Trump and consider his policies without assigning motive or intent based on his personal foibles? Can I view his sometimes insane, erratic tweeting as an attempt to force a change in how our society consumes news, interacts with the media, and processes information? Can this attempt be considered leadership, rather than immature antics on social media? Can I assume noble intent and view him as a deeply flawed individual who is working to do what he truly believes is best for this country? Maybe his Twitter foolishness is a smart effort that comes at the wrong time. Maybe this nation is not ready to change the way it processes information right now, but his social media strategy will prove to be effective in the long term.

I don’t know what is going to happen, but if I continue to view the President as nothing more than an impetuous, erratic, puerile, dishonorable liar, everything he does will be filtered through that particular lens, and my assessment of him will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If, however, I take each policy decision on its merit, examine the facts as they are available, and quit jumping to conclusions about his dishonorable motives, I will be able to make a more accurate assessment about the value of each policy and quality of each action. And maybe I won’t have to physically pull myself back and remind myself to be objective. Maybe it will become second nature, no matter who is in office.

Fact is President Trump is a human being, not an object to be reviled. I don’t want to see him as a threat to the ideal President that I have created in my mind based on my values. I just want to view him in the context of a real, flawed person, doing a tough job under immense pressure and agree and disagree with his policies based on their merits, rather than my visceral dislike of him.

I still don’t like him as a person. His voice grates on me. His speech patterns make my ears bleed. His sometimes reckless disregard for intelligence and facts in favor of making himself more popular with his base makes me angry.

But I now have some strategies to counteract my visceral reactions to the President and examine his actions on their merits, or lack thereof.

Frankly, I wish I had taken this class during the Obama years, because my reactions to him were much the same in a lot of ways.

But better late than never.

Featured image courtesy of Pixabay; cropped, Pixabay License