Will Trump Save the Baseball Season? by Jonathan Bernstein

Will Trump Save the Baseball Season?
By Jonathan Bernstein
bloomberg.com
3 min
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I strongly suspect that over the next few days someone in the White House — perhaps President Donald Trump himself — is going to have the bright idea of solving the current impasse between Major League Baseball and the player’s union. Some quick advice: Don’t do it, Mr. President!

Sure, Trump could use a win. And being able to take responsibility for saving even a very abbreviated baseball season would be a nice nonpartisan achievement, exactly the kind of act that could please both his strongest supporters and lots of people who don’t necessarily like him.

The problem is that the upside and the downside of presidential intervention aren’t balanced. A win would be nice, but even baseball fans won’t remember it for long. What’s more, many people (again, even baseball fans) might not be thrilled that the president is spending his time on sports when there are plenty of more serious problems facing the nation. That wouldn’t necessarily be fair — sports is big business — but navigating through such image problems would be tricky for an administration that is not exactly known for message discipline.

A bigger downside is that there’s every possibility that the two sides cannot be reconciled, and that Trump would wind up bearing the blame for the first-ever cancelled baseball season. No, that wouldn’t be fair; if the sides want to make a deal they’ll succeed, White House or no, and if they don’t they won’t. But that’s how this stuff works. It’s also unfair that the good news of a settlement would have less of an effect on people’s attitudes toward Trump than the bad news of a cancelled season, but it’s very likely that those are the conditions.

The one exception is if it’s a sure thing. If MLB is ready to cut a deal and some of the owners want to give Trump the credit, then he could convene a big White House meeting to conclude negotiations that had already been worked out. (At least a few team owners are Republican donors, so it’s not entirely far-fetched.) But even then Trump should be careful: For one thing, MLB labor negotiators haven’t exactly been known for a firm grasp of their bargaining position over the years.

The real lesson here is that major events, and not publicity stunts, are what drive elections. That’s good news in some ways for presidents; contrary to what some pundits say, a president walking awkwardly for a few steps almost certainly won’t have any affect on anything (and Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth is correct that it’s not a legitimate area for criticizing any politician). Even the fiasco of Trump’s march to a church after attacking peaceful protesters, ugly as it was, may not have any long-term political effect — and to the extent it does it will be because of the inappropriate use of force, not because he looked silly holding a Bible.

What would really help Trump are big events that seem unlikely as of now: controlling the pandemic, rescuing the economy, responding to protests in some way that seems like a victory for the entire nation. Yes, those things are extremely difficult to accomplish. But no one said the presidency is an easy job.


This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.net
Published on June 16, 2020, 7:31 AM EDT