Fifth
Risk
by
Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton, October 2018, 221 pg., $26.95, $10.58)
shows in example after example how willfully ignorant Trump employees
in Federal agencies were and are, as well as how much hard work and
knowledgeability are required to do a good job within the federal
bureaucracy. Lewis introduces the reader to a cast of dedicated
professionals who provide necessary information and services to keep
America running chosen from three million governments employs and
with whom President Donald J. Trump has been at war since his
inauguration.
Lewis
is a story-teller who takes on interesting topics, spinning stories
around them as his highly readable, informative narrative style draws
the reader in, eventually capturing completely. He begins by showing
us how unprepared and incurious the Trump minions were before
introducing us to John MacWilliams, the first risk assessment officer
of the Department of Energy. MacWilliams had prepared notebooks full
of explanatory data and information about the job of DOE and the
risks it oversaw, only to spend a few minutes with, of all people,
the clueless Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, who inhabits
the position.
Throughout
the vast and dedicated bureaucracy, government civil service
employees, upon learning that Donald J. Trump had somehow been
elected President, swung into action. They prepared voluminous
briefing books to prepare members of the new administration to
understand and continue doing the jobs that provided crucial
information and services to the American people. They expected to be
swarmed with these appointees the day after the election….And no
one came! When a few new agency heads showed up, they demonstrated a
remarkable lack of curiosity about what their jobs entailed.
Eighty-nine year old Wilbur Ross thought the Department of Commerce
was devoted to business and could never grasp the breadth of services
and information it provided. Curiosity and skill were absent. And so
information essential to meeting the needs of every day Americans,
particulalarly in the rural areas that won the election for Mr.
Trump, were hollowed out...neutered and made totally ineffective by a
President not interested in governing.
The
advantage of Lewis’ style of story-telling lies in his ability to
take a general principle of which we’re all aware, in this case the
two facts that Trump is sending unqualified hacks to lead the major
divisions of the government and that the agencies are being hollowed
out, denied money and qualified staff becomes real in his hand. We
see directly through the eyes of dedicated employees the importance
of many functions we’re not aware exist protect and inform, as well
as how cutting off the top and denying funding hollow out the
agencies, denying the recipients of their services essential
protections and advice that agencies provide. By focusing on the
Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy, Lewis shows
the breadth of their portfolio and the importance of the high quality
people working for them. Replacing what Trump has so successfully
destroyed, with the canny help of one of America’s most underrated
disablers, Mick Mulvaney, will take a generation or more to rebuild
once we rid ourselves of their depredations.
The
replacement of food scientist Dr. Cathie Wotecki with right wing
political hack and talk show host Sam Clovis represents another
example of removing expertise from important, but often quietly
effective low-profile specialists with political people seeking to
achieve political goals. The achievements of Wotecki during her time
with FDA at the Department of Agriculture were monumental, and life saving.
Clovis job was to shut down programs and eliminate the words “climate
change” from government lexicon.
The
role of government in rural America hidden, by being administered
through small banks, brings expertise and money into places where
neither exists, while being hidden by local interests and their
antipathy to what they see as “the government.” Lillian Salerno
eventually ran for Congress as a Democrat as she became increasingly
aware of the Trump strategy of replacing professionals with political
appointees who had no expertise or interest in the areas where her
specialization had helped strengthen rural areas. Simply a small
example of the larger problem. She lost!
Instead
of re-visiting the depredations committed daily on the American
people, the Tweeting, whining, self-promoting course of the Trump
train wreck, Lewis takes the time to burrow into the inner workings
of the crucial agencies and programs operated by the lower level
political appointees and civil servants who make the wheels turn.
Often, the recipients of government services don’t even know these
services are sponsored and paid for by the government. Lewis shows
how commitment, expertise, hard work, and dedication have built a
system that actually delivers necessary services, improves the
national health, protects the environment, and places needed checks
on the damage often perpetrated by big money and large corporate
interests. The results are a hollowing out of the inner workings of
the government, hidden by bluster and mis-direction from the top.
There’s no little irony in Lewis’s ending the book with the story
of a tornado chaser, who has learned to follow behind storms to avoid
being killed by the object of his studies.
Michael Lewis
Michael
Lewis is the author of a series of best-selling books mostly having,
at least superficially, to do with sports and/or business (Liar’s
Poker, Moneyball, Blindside, The Big Short)
which have all been best sellers as illuminating changing aspects of
our culture through his wonderful storytelling. Originally from New
Orleans, and educated at Princeton and The London School of
Economics, Lewis’ is 58 years old, and with Fifth
Risk
at
the top of his game.
In
the beginning of Fith
Risk
by
Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton, October 2018, 221 pg., $26.95, $10.58),
Lewis chats at length with John Macwilliams, who has identified the
five risks facing the government as the Trump administration sets and
achieves its chaotic agenda. MacWilliams has identified four risks
for Lewis, who finally asks him what the fifth risk is, to which
MacWilliams responds, perhaps in a toneless, hopeless voice, “Project
management.” This book is highly entertaining as well as “Must
Reading!”
