Did Archie teach Trump?

 More than fifty years ago, while working for the Waffle House in Tampa, I worked with a guy named Archie Morgan. Archie worked as a unit manager until a couple of alcohol related incidents ended his career in management. He worked for several months as a cook before he hit retirement age and gave up working forever. I have mentioned him before involving some comments he made about his wife while possibly under the influence of alcohol. But enough background. let's move on.

One day Archie asked me about some piece of equipment that I was cleaning. I explained why I was doing what I was doing to clean the equipment. Archie asked me why I was doing it that way. I told him that I was doing it that way because that was how I had been trained to do it. He smiled and asked if I thought that there might be a better way to clean the equipment. I told him that there was what I thought might be a better way, but it wasn't the way that I had been taught.

He looked at me and said, "If you always do, what you always did, you will always get, what you always got." That grammatically incorrect sentence has been responsible for thousands of decisions that I have made in the more than fifty-two years since that day. Now you know who to blame. There are scores of people who think that I have polished his advice to perfection.

Why am I writing about this today? Donald Trump. Trump is a guy who obviously had somebody give him similar advice in his life. Trump takes a different road to the destination. Trump marches to the tune of a different drummer. Phrase it anyway that you want, Trump operates differently.

In his first term, Trump tried to fit into Washington. He got mauled by bureaucrats. The enormous bureaucracy that is Washington, DC just wouldn't work with Trump. Dr. Fauci is a prime example of all this. But Trump is a learner. I think that this term will be dramatically different from the first. Every appointment that he announces is evidence of this.

The media and Democrats (which is actually redundant) are screaming about how Trump's appointments will end the nation. They are lying. They are wrong. They are terrified of change. There is an adage that goes "Only wet babies appreciate change." Democrats are evidence of the truth in that adage.

I keep hearing how we need people with experience to lead different government agencies. Pete Hegseth is being ridiculed and attacked by Democrats and their media scum friends. They claim that he has drinking problems and may have sexually assaulted someone. Why don't they talk about his military experience? After all, that is the post for which he has been nominated. I am reminded of all of the "haters" who told Abe Lincoln that U.S. Grant was a drunk. Lincoln is reported to have said "Find out what brand he drinks, so that I can get a barrel for all of my other generals." Let's get a DOD run by people who realize that the real enemies of national defense are the government bureaucracy and the military-industrial complex. 

We keep getting government officials from the same sources and wonder why nothing ever changes. If you keep planting corn in your garden, you aren't going to harvest green beans. 

Right now, the DOD is being run by a retired four-star general who imperiled our national defense because he didn't know how to call in sick. He left no one in charge while in the hospital and didn't even notify his boss, Sleepy Joe. Lloyd Austin is the Crown Prince of the military-industrial complex. Which companies will hire him on Jan 21? Years ago, we passed a law prohibiting any military officers from serving as Secretary of Defense until they had been retired for five years. So, we keep getting Congress to make an exception for nominees. How's that working for us? Why bother passing a law if you are going to keep making exceptions to it? 

It's time to fish in a different pond. It's time to not just think outside of the box, it's time to act outside of the box. We keep making retired generals the Secretary of Defense and we end up with the same problems that we had before they started. "If you always do, what you always did, you will always get, what you always got." It's time for change. It is not just the DOD; it is everything in government. Government is the problem, not the solution.  

We don't need people who know how Washington works. We need people who can change how Washington works. It's time for real change. Why keep making the same stupid mistakes? I am willing to risk that we will make some new mistakes and still get better results.

Tell Trump to bring in the outsiders!!