Caffeinated Politics

The official White House document for the new AI safety agreement contains a prominent typographical error, misspelling Donald Trump’s title as “President of the Unites States” instead of “United States”.  As of Wednesday morning, the glaring error remained uncorrected.  This is not a scandal or a headline story. The irony, however, is almost too perfect not to talk about, and not place into the larger narrative about sloppy tactics and behavior from Republicans in the closing weeks of the midterm elections.  Races where they are faring poorly.

The White House wants Americans to trust its judgment on the future of artificial intelligence, a technology capable of processing billions of pieces of information in seconds, yet it apparently cannot manage the most basic human task of proofreading its own documents.  This clearly reminds us that competence matters. Leaders who lecture the public about cutting-edge innovation while failing to catch a glaring spelling error are not projecting confidence.

As I sit at my desk on a rainy, gray morning, I admit I smiled yesterday when Trump touted the renaming of AI as “super intelligence.”  But what has my attention is less the spelling than what it says when added to the other baboonish news stories making headlines.  At a moment when voters are looking for competence, answers to the large issues demanding attention, we see many Republican campaigns and operatives showcasing carelessness and self-inflicted errors. After decades of watching politics, I consider overt sloppiness at this stage of an election season as a symbol of something larger, and that is precisely why this seemingly small mistake resonates far beyond a single misplaced letter.  Let me explain with more examples. 

Senator Eric Schmitt thought he looked cute and clever on Tuesday while questioning former special counsel Jack Smith. The gotcha moment had arrived; the senator had his tie perfectly tightened and his smirk perfectly placed when he lobbed the question of whether Smith had ever attended a February 2024 NBA game in Atlanta where the Hawks played the Golden State Warriors.  The Missouri Senator gave a sly smile when Smith first denied attending the game and later implied he was catching the prosecutor by surprise.

“I don’t think you know that we have this stuff. So I’ll give you a second to process it, so you don’t, you know, perjure yourself,” Schmitt said.

His staff displayed a poster of texts of Smith’s staff discussing seat numbers, and Schmitt said “for context” the date of the game was just after Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged a romance with a staffer, drama that had rocked the case into Trump’s election interference in Georgia.

But the two men’s demeanors changed over the course of the exchange, with Smith recalling attending a game in Maryland where the Iowa Hawkeyes were playing.

What is playing out now is not that people make honest mistakes.  It seems I populate many a day with them.  This morning folks around the nation are flustered that an elected official charged into the camera lights armed with accusations, dramatic claims, and ugly language without first doing the basic homework necessary to make sure he had the facts straight.  Late last year a person thinking of running for the state assembly asked for an hour of my time to talk about a proposed campaign.  I gave a lot of advice, and when offered a chance to share lessons I’ve learned over the years, I added that confidence cannot substitute for preparation. That lesson proved itself on national television yesterday.

Then there is Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who released a campaign ad meant to advocate for welfare work requirements but put a key GOP voter group on the proverbial train tracks. The ad depicted a young white man named “Brad” as a lazy welfare recipient playing video games and eating snacks. The framing of lazy white sparked backlash from high-profile conservative figures, including former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, who publicly stated that the ad risked alienating a key Republican voting demographic.  Low-educated white voters.

Now, it never bothered the Republicans when Black or Hispanic people were used as partisan tools, but place “Brad” into the mix and it is akin to a roller coaster that lost one of its cars midair.  And having that car plummet to the earth in the closing weeks of the midterms, when there is much concern from the GOP about securing those Trump voters who came to the polling places in 2024 but seem less eager to do the same in November.  Losing by the margins is a major concern for them now.

It is only noon on Wednesday. I have faith the GOP will make some more moments to write about soon.