Here's what doing the work looks like and what it doesn't.
Doing the work: Start working on planning in May.
Not doing the work: Tweet in July "Open schools."
Not: Disbanding the task force in May & abdicate all responsibility for testing.
Not: Letting McConnell get away with not delivering any support, unchallenged.
Other ways of saying it are: "the bare minimum" or "doing your job."
When 10s of thousands of people are dead and you get a report that 10s of thousands of people may die soon, you don't say "it is what it is." You don't golf. You don't brag over how bad things could have been.
You make your staff repeat it. You mourn every single loss. You get the names. You call families. You make it as uncomfortable as possible for everyone until it stops. That's part of doing the work.
You embrace that or it terrifies you.
They don't do the work.
Whatever the private sector or scientists do, you claim credit for. Whatever they don't, you blame them.
If something fails, you blame it on the supposed experts.
You distract yourself by associating with the con men who "get you", with grifters who know you deserve the spoils because you got elected after all.
But not planning. Not deciding. Not saving lives. Because that would imply you had the power all along. That you failed.
Your ego won't let you grasp the historical magnitude of your failure. It won't process it.
If lunatics praise you, you praise them. Whoever likes you-- those are your people.
But they do the hard & necessary, not the absent & frivolous.
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