Dear President-Elect Trump:
From the outside looking in, it seems like there’s mutiny brewing.
Kellyanne Conway, your campaign manager, and transition aid has taken to social media to persuade you against appointing Mitt Romney.
Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, two loyal advisors, are making their case against Mitt Romney on national television.
You and others must be considering him, or there wouldn’t be such a public effort to influence your private choice.
You have enough problems outside of your inner circle. You cannot afford such public disunity among your ranks.
A huge challenge that you face is that President-Elect Donald Trump is no longer just you. In addition to you, it’s also your transition team and everyone you’ve nominated to serve in your administration. President-Elect Trump is a conglomeration of multiple personalities. And it’s only going to get worse. When you’re President of the United States, they’ll be even more of you. Morphing from Donald Trump the individual to President Donald Trump is difficult for every personality involved.
The strength of your presidency depends on your ability to master this morphing. There may be many parts of you now, but you are still the head. The public fight over Mitt Romney reveals that collectively you have a way to go before you’re operating with the synchronicity necessary to convince anyone that President-Elect Trump is one body.
You need to control the people who collectively make up you.
Seeking to persuade you through social and national media diminishes you—individually and collectively. It reduces you from the perception of unified strength to one who is suffering from multiple personality disorder.
Jesus said “And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than . . . your whole body.”
That’s good advice.
It’s advice that George Washington employed during the American Revolution. His troops were suffering from a lack of loyalty to him. To ensure the safety of his army and the success of the country, he executed soldiers who were not loyal. Washington stated that he had “A gallows near 40 feet high erected (which has terrified the rest exceedingly) and I am determined if I can be justified in the proceeding, to hang two or three on it, as an example to others.”
You don’t need to kill anyone to keep them in line. But you do need to control the people who collectively make up President-Elect Trump.
Your success, indeed America’s success, depends on it.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
