New Slogan for American Politics: 'It's Nothing Personal, It's Just Business'

“It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.” This phrase appeared at the end of the opening titles to President Trump’s long-running, successful reality TV show “The Apprentice.” Because Donald Trump and the contestants on both the regular and celebrity versions of the show understood this, he maintained good relationships with most of the participants even after he fired them. Erin Elmore, Herschel Walker, Stephen Baldwin, Gary Busey, and Trace Adkins, to name a few former “Apprentice” cast members, have all jumped on the Trump Train even after he directed his infamous phrase “you’re fired” at them.

The guiding principle of “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business” carried over into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Throughout his campaign, Trump made several business decisions designed to strengthen his hand as he sought to accumulate the number of delegates necessary to clinch the Republican nomination. One such decision involved replacing his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, with longtime GOP operative Paul Manafort. Lewandowski understood that Trump’s decision was “nothing personal” and “just business,” enabling him to remain on good terms with the future President in spite of his decision to tell him “you’re fired.” To this day, Lewandowski remains one of Trump’s most ardent supporters.

What a different country we would live in if “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business” acted as the unofficial slogan of American politics. People on both the left and the right could agree that politics operates as a business; with the American people working to elect people who share their views into office and elected officials working to surround themselves with people committed to helping enact their agendas into law. As far as my feelings about Joe Biden, “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.” I don’t want to vote for a pro-abortion, pro-amnesty, China-first liberal for President. I probably would have said the same thing about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton if asked. However, because politics has become so personal in this country, I would have immediately faced accusations of racism and sexism for not enthusiastically supporting the every move and policy pronouncement of Obama and Clinton, respectively. The left in particular has made a cottage industry out of impugning the motives of everyone who disagrees with their agenda. Maybe they know that conservatives’ opposition to President Obama and Hillary Clinton is “nothing personal, it’s just business.” But they sure like to pretend otherwise in an effort to sow the seeds of division in this country.

Unfortunately, President Trump himself seems to have forgotten the wisdom of the phrase “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.” Long before any other member of Congress jumped on the Trump train, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions appeared at a Trump rally in Mobile, Alabama in August 2015. He later became the first member of Congress to endorse Trump; voicing his support even as the Republican frontrunner still had a handful of rivals to put away before claiming the GOP nomination for President. Sessions’s embrace of Trump should not come as that much of a surprise; after all, he spent his entire career in the Senate embracing the “America First” agenda that became the centerpiece of his campaign. As a reward to his loyalty to the MAGA agenda as well as his work on behalf of the Trump campaign, the President-elect deided to tap Sessions for the all-important role of Attorney General. Sessions, a former U.S. Attorney, gave up a safe Senate seat in a ruby red state to face a brutal confirmation hearing loaded with accusations of racism and very personal attacks.

Arguably, it might have made more since for Sessions, an immigration hawk, to serve as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Nonetheless, Sessions served as Attorney General for roughly the first two years of the Trump administration. The relationship between the President and his Attorney General quickly soured when Sessions decided to recuse himself from any matters related to Russia and the 2016 election after far-left Senator Al Franken painted him into a corner during his confirmation hearing.  Sessions’s recusal left Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in charge of anything related to the 2016 Presidential Election at the Department of Justice. Long story short, Rosenstein appointed a Special Counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election and President Trump never forgave sessions for his recusal. He spent much of Sessions’s last year in office attacking him on social media.  

Knowing Alabama, one would think that Sessions would have little choice but to return to private life because his Senate seat had gone to another solid conservative in a special election. Unfortunately, that did not happen either. Alabama Governor Robert Bentley appointed Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange to fill Sessions’s vacant Senate seat until a special election could take place. Bentley scheduled the special election to take place simultaneously with the 2018 general election. Perhaps things would have turned out differently if the special election had taken place in November 2018. Instead, the special election ended up taking place in December 2017. Shortly after appointing Strange as a seat-warmer, Bentley resigned from office in disgrace; elevating Lieutenant Governor Kay Ivey to the governorship. Ivey moved the special election up to 2017. 

In the Republican primary, which took place on August 15, 2017, Strange had to defend primary challenges from former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, a staunch social conservative, and U.S. Representative Mo Brooks, described by Ann Coulter as the “MAGA candidate.” If no candidate ended up receiving 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers would face off against each other in a runoff on September 26. Strange and Moore ended up taking the top two spots and President Trump endorsed Strange in a rally four days before the runoff.

A wave of anti-establishment fervor propelled Moore to victory in the runoff. While establishment Republicans disliked Moore because of his decisions to disobey court orders to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court and issue same-sex marriage licenses, the people of Alabama liked Moore; meaning that he would likely win the race in spite of the intense loathing Washington Republicans, not to mention the media and the left, felt towards Moore. However, sexual assault allegations against Moore emerged at the 11^th hour, enabling a pro-abortion Democrat to win a Senate seat in one of the most religious, conservative states in the country. Alabama elected Democrat Doug Jones to fill the remainder of Sessions’s term in the Senate, which expires in 2021.

Now, Republicans have a fantastic opportunity to take the seat back this fall. Sessions, who understands the wisdom of the old adage “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business,” has decided to throw his hat into the ring for his old Senate seat. While he probably does not appreciate the President’s relentless attacks on him, Sessions has made it clear that he will fight for President Trump’s agenda should he win back his old Senate seat and has contrasted himself with other Trump administration alumni; who have gone on to trash the President. President Trump obviously has a right to resent Sessions’s recusal; after all, the Russia investigation cast a dark cloud over his presidency that likely played a role in the Democrats taking control of the House in 2018. But he should see guaranteeing Republican control of the Senate as a business decision designed to ensure that President Trump will have committed to the MAGA agenda. Looking at the Alabama Senate race from a business, rather than a personal lens, it only makes sense for the President to endorse Sessions; who shares his vision on immigration, trade, and foreign policy; the issues that set him apart from every other Republican candidate in 2016 and propelled him to the nomination.

Unfortunately, President Trump has let his personal feelings towards Sessions get in the way of making a smart business decision. He has opted to endorse Tommy Tuberville, Sessions’s primary opponent, in the Republican primary runoff taking place there in July. For the record, Tuberville will probably still win the Senate race if he gets the nomination because not having lingering sexual assault allegations over your head seems to be the only prerequisite for winning statewide office in Alabama as a Republican. Doubts remain about Tuberville’s commitment to the America First agenda; his decision to hire an outspoken open borders advocate affiliated with the group FWD.us, which pushes to give all illegal aliens amnesty and provide tech billionaires with cheap foreign labor, should not provide Alabamans with much reassurance.

President Trump should also use the phrase “It’s Nothing Personal, It’s Just Business” when axing his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, from his position as senior adviser to the President. Kushner obviously does not follow that advice as his personal vendetta against Chris Christie caused him to toss the New Jersey governor and Trump campaign adviser’s transition plan aside; leading to the elevation of a bunch of people who did not support the MAGA agenda into top roles in the Trump administration. Rather than gravitating towards an America First agenda, Kushner’s instincts on the issue of immigration seem always seem to put the interests of big business over the interests of the American people. For example, Amber Athey of Spectator USA reported that Kushner successfully pushed President Trump to exclude guest workers from his temporary immigration ban designed to mitigate the economic impact of Coronavirus. For more examples of Kushner’s bad influence on the Commander-in-Chief, click here.

President Trump and Kushner can still speak to each other at Thanksgiving. Firing Jared would hardly constitute a hardship. Kushner amassed a lot of wealth working in the private sector and he should have no trouble picking up where he left off. At the very least, his recent move to Washington, D.C. would set himself up nicely for a position as a lobbyist on K Street. After all, throughout his tenure in the West Wing, Kushner has already done a pretty good job lobbying on behalf of the deep-pocketed globalists who value cheap labor above all else.

Finally, another group of people should adopt the “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business” slogan: Never-Trumpers. In most cases, Never-Trumpers cite President Trump’s personal shortcomings as the primary reason for their refusal to support him. A handful of Never-Trumpers, most of them sitting atop perches on cable television, have succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome so much that they raise questions about whether they actually held conservative beliefs in the first place. Another group of Never-Trumpers would probably never bring themselves to vote for a Democrat but would consider voting for a candidate like Evan McMuffin or staying home. These folks must remember that politics operates as a business. Regardless of their personal feelings about President Trump, staying home or voting third party could enable a Democrat to win the White House; leading to a series of “business” decisions at the federal level that do not reflect the conservative values they claim to hold near and dear to their hearts. Never-Trumpers should keep this in mind as Election Day 2020 approaches.

President Trump probably likes the political slogans he has created: “Make America Great Again” and “Keep America Great” will definitely go down as some of the greatest political slogans of all time. However, President Trump, Never-Trumpers, and the American people as a whole could do themselves by embracing a different slogan ahead of the 2020 election: “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.”