The Trump Vs Henry Ford Comparison

This piece began well before the Biden Administration did, well before the election, even. I thought about this a lot, considered different directions I could go with this article to make my point, but I think it’s actually better off as a short commentary on reputations.

Donald Trump and Henry Ford are two of the most well known businessmen of the past 100 years, both seen as moguls in their fields.

The story with Ford is that while he himself was not an expert at many of the various processes vital to the growth of his company, his management skills and business savvy helped him create one of Americas most famous automobile companies. It’s said that he had a button on his desk that he could press to summon a subject matter expert on any number of topics, bridging the gap between his lack of specific expertise and the needs of his company.

Let’s quickly contrast this with Donald Trump. Trump also had a button on his desk as president, but his button summoned diet cokes, not experts. In fact, Trump’s narcissism often got in the way of him actually taking advantage of the experts he had access to. Remember when he drew his own hurricane map? Or when he said we should drink bleach?

Trump’s arrogance and ignorance led him to be an antithesis to Ford. To suggest anything else is to romanticize Trump beyond recognition.