Trump’s Official Biographer Thinks the Bully-in-Chief Will Resign

There’s no question that Donald Trump’s self sabotage is rooted in his past. In his insightful article in the Washington Post, Art of the Deal co-author Tony Schwartz points out how all of the behavior we’ve come to abhor from Donald Trump as president was clearly laid out years ago.

Schwartz spent almost a year following Trump, interviewing him, observing him in action and otherwise studying the man for the 1987 memoir. He says that nothing Trump has done as president surprises him. “The way he has behaved over the past week — firing FBI Director James B. Comey, undercutting his own aides as they tried to explain the decision and disclosing sensitive information to Russian officials — is also entirely predictable.”

I’m in complete agreement about Trump’s predictability. He behaves as a classic bully—a fragile sense of self-worth, impulsive behavior, blaming others for his own misdeeds, and a worldview that everything is a zero-sum game of winners and losers. Most notable is his use of deflection, deceit, denial and deception. That’s why he’s the definition of a bully in my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

How much of Trump’s behavior came from a critical and demanding father whose abuse froze his emotional development in early childhood is best left to the experts, but the result is someone who is clearly unqualified for the highest office in the land. However, Schwartz doesn’t think that Trump will continue in that position much longer.

He told Anderson Cooper on CNN that he doesn’t believe Trump will go through the impeachment process. “There is no right and wrong for Trump; there’s winning and losing. And right now, he is in pure terror he’s going to lose.” To circumvent that, Schwartz predicts Trump will find a way to resign and then “figure out a way, as he has done all his career, to turn a loss into a victory so he will declare victory when he leaves.” 

We can only hope that happens before he takes the rest of us down with him.

Photo credit: MMM

A License to Exploit

The Trump administration seems to be taking a page out of the illusionist’s handbook as the president sends outrageous middle-of-the-night tweets about his predecessor to distract us from dismantling protections for American workers. The latest don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it tactic was Congress lifting President Barack Obama’s executive order called the Fair Play and Safe Workplaces rule that kept companies with poor safety records from competing for government contracts if they didn’t agree to fix their problems first. This may seem like a sane provision to ensure the kind of psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces I wrote about in From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire. However, most Republicans in Congress didn’t agree—the executive order was overturned 49 to 48. It seems fairly certain that Trump will sign the repeal.

It’s additionally unsettling that Congress used the rarely invoked 1996 Congressional Review Act to eliminate it, meaning that it can be revoked with a simple majority vote and can’t be reinstated by executive order by another president—to be reinstated it would have to be passed by Congress as a law.

There’s no doubt why the Fair Play and Safe Workplaces rule was necessary. According to a staff report from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 66 of the government’s 100 largest contractors have violated federal wage and hour laws. In addition, a third of the largest OSHA penalties have been imposed on federal contractors. This affects a huge number of employees: The Washington Post estimates that companies with federal contracts employ 1 in 5 American workers. Clearly by fulfilling the wish list of private interests Congress has granted an open license to exploit working Americans—the very people Trump promised to champion while on the campaign trail.

And all of this is being done at breakneck speed and deflected by sleight of hand. What’s the rush? I suspect Trump and the Republicans are hurrying to fulfill their agenda before the American people rise up and put them out of power. We can only hope that happens before truly serious damage is done.

Photo credit: BIGSTOCK

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

I wanted to take a moment to respond further to the stories of workplace sexual harassment that have been coming forward more and more in the past weeks. Many, from various talking heads to Eric Trump, seem to be suggesting that all a woman (or man) needs to do to dispel sexual harassment is go to human resources. Firstly, this point of view totally ignores the reality that many workplace cultures subtly encourage employees not to file harassment claims. Additionally, as I’ve discussed in my book, in many instances of workplace bullying (including sexual harassment), HR can oftentimes be part of the problem – either because they don’t have the power to effectively resolve issues, or because they are actively taking part in creating issues. Blindly directing targets of sexual harassment to HR is not only foolish, but potentially harmful in the modern workplace. Unless HR is completely trustworthy in the given organization, targets need to gather substantive evidence of their harassment to back themselves up when they finally make their situation known – otherwise, HR can end up empowering the bully or harasser further, sometimes unintentionally. As opposed to encouraging more women to speak up about harassment, which is valuable, I suggest another option: we need to encourage HR officers to grow backbones. In many workplaces like Fox News, where ongoing harassment seemed to be an open secret, where was HR? Where is HR when an employee is showing clear signs of domestic abuse, sexual harassment or mental issues? Many of the workplace bullying cases I see day to day could be avoided – if HR was empowered to help employees effectively, and had the real intention to do so.