Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Trump Is Still President? Really?


It’s hard to write about Donald Trump as President. It still doesn’t seem real, like someone’s playing some elaborate long-game con on us. Donald Trump as President? That can’t possibly be real.


But it is. This past Saturday marked Trump’s 100th in office. Gee, only 1,460 days to go. And if that seems like a long slog, Trump himself might agree with you. In a recent interview, he bemoaned the loss of his private citizen, super rich businessman lifestyle. He thought be President would be easier than this. “I’m the President so go do this because I said so. And you go do that because I the President say so.” I guess Trump really thought that’s how things worked.


But government doesn’t work like that. It takes thoughtfulness and planning and hard work; it takes wisdom and understanding and compassion. Qualities that Trump has demonstrably shown to be considerably lacking in his character.


So Trump is unequivocally not suited for the job of President. Well, duh! Any person with working brain cells would’ve seen that when he descended the escalator in the summer of 2015 to announce his candidacy. Ah, the summer of 2015. Yeah, we had a good laugh over that, didn’t we? Oh, we were so young then and innocent. We still had hope. Did we really need to put Trump in office to find out for sure?


At the 100 day mark, Trump had no legislative victories. The deal maker in chief who was going to bring us so much winning hasn’t won in any deals with Congress. Well, his pick for the supreme Court was appointed to the court but Mitch McConnell had to blow up Senate rules to get that job done. 


So someone gave Trump a crayon and he’s been furiously scribbling at his desk, signing Executive Orders. Well, he looks busy.


Which leads me to another reason it’s hard to write about Donald Trump as President: the sheer hypocrisy of the man and his supporters.  For example: Executive Orders. When Obama was writing Executive Orders, Republican pundits would deride him for being a dictator. Trump writes up a bunch of Executive Orders and those same pundits can’t seem to praise Trump enough for being so Presidential. Trump himself on the campaign trail would mock Obama for his use of Executive Orders. Now he’s holding up his Executive Orders as evidence of his success. “Oh, who’s been a good Donald? Have you been a good President? Oh my, look at all the Executive Orders! Good, Donald! Good boy!” And then you scratch him behind his ear and the thing on his head bites you.


Donald Trump and his supporters have no self-awareness, no capacity for honest self-assessment. No capacity for honesty. 


It’s also hard to write about Donald Trump as President when the man won’t stop doing or saying stupid things. By the time this posts on Tuesday, they’re no predicting what newly minted dumb thing Trump will have done or said by then.


For example: "People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?" Trump said in an interview last week.


But wait, there's more: "Had Andrew Jackson been (President) a little later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, 'There's no reason for this.'"


For the record, Andrew Jackson died 16 years before the start of the Civil War.



Yes, it’s hard to write about Donald Trump as President. But look: I’ve gotten a blog post out of it. Oh joy.


Thanks for popping by. Until next time, remember to be good to one another.

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