America is supposed to be a place for second chances. Where people can overcome obstacles and, with lots of hard work and a little luck, make it big.

Washington, D.C., in particular, and academia and the media in general, are places where people can be flat out wrong, daily for months at a time and then, when everything they predicted fails to happen, they awake refreshed and reinvented, and return to their expert-clairvoyant status without shame.

Take President-elect Donald Trump. Please.

Virtually all the “experts” said he didn’t have a chance of beating 16 better qualified (in their eyes) and more experienced candidates for the GOP nomination. But he won.

Virtually all the “experts” said he didn’t have a chance of beating former senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was supposed to be the year of the woman. But while he lacks her government experience and foreign affairs chops, it turns out more people watched The Apprentice than Meet the Press or Washington Week in Review.

Virtually all stock market and economics “experts” predicted that the stock market would tank if he were elected. It did. For about two hours. Now it is at record highs. When it goes down, as it always does, they may claim vindication. Some continue to claim that they were right because the market should have gone south even though it didn’t. But they missed the boat by a mile.

President-elect Trump — like many victorious candidates before him — is doing 180 degree turns all over the place. He’s courting Mitt Romney (who appears to welcome it). He’s not going to prosecute “crooked Hillary” because, it turns out, the Clintons are “nice people.” It appears that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) won’t be scrapped, as promised, but tailored here and there. This is what happens every four-to-eight years, especially after a dirty campaign (on both sides) like the 2016 election.

William Cohen, a former secretary of defense and U.S. senator, had this advice for presidential candidates:

1) Don’t make any promises, and

2) If you do, break them!

He was kidding. But just a little.

Now experts are telling federal workers, postal employees and retirees what a Trump presidency will mean to them. His grand plan for the bureaucracy — from pay raises to pension benefits and health insurance — over the next four-to-eight years. They may be right. They may be wrong. The point is that he, you-know-who, may not know what he wants to fix and, once identified, if it can be accomplished.

So read the blueprints and predictions carefully. In fact, you might want to date and save some of them in a time capsule to be opened three or four years from now. Be cautious and prudent. Just as you would have been had the election gone the other way. Don’t make your plans based on what he might do. Make them based on what he can do. And given the track record to date, it may be that he — like other presidents-elect — doesn’t have a clue what’s ahead.

Government Shutdown: Case-in-point example of dire predictions. As recently as a few weeks ago, “experts” were predicting a government shutdown, which was to begin next Friday. A week from today. Some feds worried it might wreck their Christmas. Now it appears the CR (continuing resolution) that expires Dec. 9 will be extended, at least until March and maybe much longer, into next year.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was first published with “The Little Mermaid” on April 7, 1837.

Source: Wikipedia

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.