A+ Executive Functioning
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Donald Trump is the GOAT Executive. Here's why.
Executive Functioning
Executive functioning is the set of higher-order cognitive processes that enable goal-directed behavior across complexity: working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, planning, sustained attention, and real-time monitoring. In ordinary life these processes let a person keep priorities active, filter noise, update plans, and execute without losing the thread. At the scale of the presidency they determine whether a POTUS can hold a large set of über high-stakes domains—each with history, present state, trajectory, allies, opponents, and levers—in active awareness and drive strategy across them.
500 Hot Topics
The contemporary presidency operates inside the densest information environment in history. Continuous global media, instantaneous feedback, multi-domain military reach, complex markets, and real-time political contestation create a load most executives manage by filtering. Donald Trump does the opposite. He embraces unscripted questioning across a wide range of domains on a daily basis. That objective reality produces a measurable public record: Trump's demonstrated public span reaches 500+ hot topics.
The GOAT Executive
This exceptional executive functioning, which has driven extraordinarily successful results for the American people, makes President Trump the greatest executive in human history.
No previous executive has approached this level of demonstrated executive functioning. The American presidency has always been the biggest executive job, and now the 21st century presents a vast, complex and integrated executive landscape of unprecedented proportions and complexity. Thus, no executive from earlier eras or roles approached it.
Steady Gaze
Before quantifying the vast range of topics routinely and deftly handled by President Trump, let's first observe his eyes. Never mind his world-class side-eye, which evokes John Lennon on the cover of Revolver. What's important here is the steadiness of his gaze.
Most people look up when hit with a tough or complex question, especially when traversing across a wide range of difficult topics, e.g., in a debate, interview or press gaggle. Glancing upwards is an involuntary response that gives the brain time to shift onto the new topic, orient its thinking and begin to formulate a response. Weak minds also buy time through filler words like uh and um.
President Trump almost never looks up, notwithstanding hardball questions hurled his way in non sequitur fashion across 500+ topics. His steady gaze and minimal filler words are clear signs of high-performance executive functioning.
The Working Memory of the GOAT Executive
A president's practical mind map starts from the constitutional roles (execute the laws, command the military, conduct foreign relations, recommend measures to Congress, etc.) and the ~15 Cabinet departments plus key Executive Office of the Presidency functions, independent agencies, and personal/political dimensions.
Here are ten branches for this mind map, with examples of specific topics in each
Economic Affairs, e.g., Cost of Living, Trade & Tariffs, Jobs, Industry, Markets, Cyber, AI, Energy, Agriculture, etc.
National Sovereignty, e.g., border, immigration, terrorism, etc.
Foreign Affairs, e.g., War & Peace & Diplomacy, allies, enemies and alliances, etc.
Commander-in-Chief, e.g., Military operations, military rebuilding, nuclear testing/stockpiles/denuclearization, readiness/stockpiles, Space Force, veteran affairs, etc.
Order & Stability, e.g., crime and punishment, etc.
Health & Medical Care, e.g., drug prices and availability, medical insurance, autism and other scourges, clean air & water, etc.
Justice, e.g., judicial nominations, courts, protection of the weak from the strong, etc.
Federal Fisc, e.g., Treasury & IRS matters, including debt and deficit and currency, etc.
Infrastructure & Such, e.g., Transportation/aviation, housing, environment/energy permitting, veterans, education, disaster response, etc.
Politics & Personal, e.g., midterms, election integrity, media relations, culture (sports, Patriot Games, America 250, pop culture, etc.), White House renovations, family, etc.
Each of these ten branches has at least ten topics about which the President routinely speaks, delving down into at least five specific situations for each. That totals 500+ "leaves" on his mind map about which he fluently responds.
Tale of the Tape
I gave Grok the above rubric and asked it to estimate how many topics various presidents demonstrably mastered. The results present a clear tale of the tape.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were competent Chief Executives, irrespective of their sad cCon worldview and less than stellar results for the American people. Each scored a respectable 300, the Gentleman's C of presidential grades.
George W. Bush scored a less-than-respectable 200 topics, but the worst 21st century presidential executive was none other than Joseph Robinette Biden, who scored a generous 125, only 25% the performance of his successor. America and the world are lucky we survived that executive train-wreck.
President | Topics | Note |
47 - Donald Trump | 500+ | Unprecedented frequency of unscripted exchanges in the densest media environment ever, including with both reporters & constituents |
46 - Joe Biden | 125 | Worst in the TV era, a crime of governance right before our eyes |
45 - Donald Trump | 400 | Trump 45 set the record and then Trump 47 broke it. |
44 - Barack Obama | 300 | Verbally adroit, hypnotic speaker, more ideologue than executive |
43 - George W. Bush | 200 | W wasn't the greatest executive, not by a long shot. |
42 - Bill Clinton | 300 | Super smart, loquacious and not an awful executive, as Dems go |
The Bottom Line
Executive functioning is not a soft skill. At presidential scale it is the difference between coping with a vast portfolio of issues and actually driving them. The public record shows President Trump routinely driving a set of high-stakes initiatives that dwarf those of his recent predecessors, let alone those from earlier centuries.
The chart is not subtle: where others operated in the low-to-mid hundreds, he operates at roughly twice the demonstrated span of the next closest modern presidents and four times that of his immediate predecessor.
Results have followed: the border is closed; alien criminals are being removed; murders have plunged; Venezuela is an ally; the Hamas hostages are home; Iran’s nuclear capability has been crippled; America 250, Trump Accounts, TrumpRX, the boffo World Cup, veterans driving trucks, college sports saved, military recruitment surging — and on and on and on. He delivers more positive results in a week than most presidents do in a season.
The steadiness of gaze, the absence of filler, and the breadth of accessible mind-map are not disparate phenomena. Nor is the huge stack of wins for America and Americans. They are manifestations of exceptional executive functioning.
This world-historic executive performance is visible online every day, live and in color.
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