EDITORIAL: Paying attention to consequences

The flurry of actions from the Trump White House should not have surprised anyone, except perhaps those who are used to politicians campaigning out of one side of their mouth and governing out of the other.

Implementation, however, is another thing.

Candidate Donald Trump made it clear he was going to move quickly in areas like immigration, the Affordable Care Act, and federal regulations. President Trump has followed through on many of those at breakneck speed, but with structure that has been lacking. The devil always is in the details and, so far, the Trump administration isn’t showing signs of worrying a lot about those details.

The details, however, are the essence of governance.

Anything that a president says and any action that the federal government takes have consequences. Those consequences directly affect people. If poorly implemented, adverse unintended consequences happen, and they happen to real people.

That was the case with Trump’s immigration action, which, at this writing, had been held up by a federal district court judge. Whether you think the pause or temporary ban on travel to the United States from the seven named predominately Muslim countries is a good idea or a bad one, the abruptness and lack of clarity of the executive order made its implementation a political mess. People were affected who shouldn’t have been, our allies were caught by surprise, and it provided Trump opponents with more fodder for their contention that the White House is being run by amateurs who aren’t clearly communicating with the officials who have to implement this and other actions. Lashing out Saturday on Twitter at the “so-called judge” who halted his executive order certainly didn’t help.

In fairness, we have to point out that the Trump administration’s quick action also can be appropriate and beneficial. Less than a week in office, he made federal disaster declarations in our area for the storms that hit on Jan. 2 and on the weekend of his inauguration. For situations like that — whether here or elsewhere — quick federal attention is needed and appreciated as Americans cope with disaster and try to get their lives back together.

For complex issues, however, we hope the president will develop a more deliberate approach. For instance, he and Republicans most assuredly will dismantle the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. We pointed out at its passage that the ACA was unnecessarily rushed into law and that the Obama administration was wrong not to involve GOP lawmakers in its creation. That rush led to unintended consequences. It created a health care system that expanded coverage for the poor, but it also adversely impacted many middle-class Americans who have found it anything but affordable and found their choices limited under it. But if the ACA is to be dismantled, a well-thought-out replacement first must be ready to be implemented. We also urge the Republicans writing the replacement law to not exclude their Democratic colleagues from the process. America’s health care system needs the best ideas from all sides in it, not the repetition of the other party’s mistake.

The start of a presidential term can be rocky. With America as deeply divided as it is, Trump was going to be taking harsh criticism regardless of what he did. His staunchest supporters also don’t feel any need for him to change his methods and tactics. The president, after all, is doing what they elected him to do.

For the many who supported him in the election as the proverbial lesser of two evils, or for a specific issue or issues such as job creation, national security or appointment of a conservative Supreme Court justice, however, there also was a hope that President Trump would be more tempered than the mercurial candidate Trump. So far, that hope has not been realized and one critical promise Trump made — to facilitate bringing America together “as one united people” — has not been kept. Of all of his promises, that’s the one we’d most like to see him fast-track.