Who Knew Trump Would Be Such a Weak President?

[DonViejo]

October 26, 2017 at 8:07 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

Elizabeth Drew: “This depiction of Donald Trump as a weak president would no doubt shock his ardent followers, especially since Trump usually covers his retreats with bluster. It might also be a surprise to those who have worried that he’s a would-be autocrat. It turns out that Trump has neither the wit nor the grit to seize power, and he may be too lazy and too uninterested in governing to make much of it if he did. (He can, however, empower by default cabinet officials who do know what to do with the power at their disposal—for example, Sessions.) But, except for his use of executive orders (often to countermand ones by Obama) and his cyber-bullying, Trump is essentially a passive participant in his own government.”

“His campaign against the press is of concern, but thus far he’s not taken action to curb its independence, nor have his threats to do so had any discernible impact on the rigorous job the press is doing of holding his presidency to account. In fact, all things taken together, it begins to seem as if the strongman of the rallies was a convenient deception, a figure that Trump invented but couldn’t maintain when it came to making actual decisions in the Oval Office.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/10/26/knew-trump-weak-president/

[enough]

1. Yet somehow the dismantling of government functions and regulations continues daily,

no matter how "weak" he may be.

[LonePirate]

4. That is Pences work on behalf of the donors and Republican orthodoxy.

[unblock]

6. No doubt he's doing damage, though much of it is by neglect

A strong president would get laws passed to defund or dismantle the parts if the beauracracy he didn't want. Donnie is just not hiring, or hiring do-nothings and know-nothings.

That's damaging, but it's a very weak way of going about it. It shows he can't lead.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. I wouldn't charactarize him as weak.

Dismantling longstanding treaties, laws and executive agencies and having an itchy finger on the button isn't really "weak" in terms of his impact.

In terms of his abilities and the traditional roles and powers of President, he's weak. But he never really wanted to play that game in the first place.

[unblock]

7. It shows his weakness, and even then, he's not very effective

First, he's too weak to get laws passed even through a congress with same-party majorities. That's unheard of weakness for a republican president.

Second, even his executive actions fall short of the damage he wants to inflict. Look his travel ban has been blocked what, three times now?

And all the treaties, he campaigned not on just dropping them, but in renegotiating better deals. Ok, so he's walked away from deals, but he has yet to even begin to work on anything better. Not to mention it seems deals like the Paris accord and the Iran deal may well simply proceed without us.

This is damaging to us, sure, but there is no sign of strength in any if this.

Imagine a weaking dragging a sledgehammer through a china shop. He can do a lot of damage just by barely dragging it around on the ground, but you wouldn't call it a show of strength.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. We should definitely be so lucky that he's weak/incompetent

Not that the things that are happening are great or anything (far from it) but imagine how much worse it would be if we had somebody like Pence or Putin as POTUS, both of whom are both evil AND relatively more competent as POTUS right now?

[unblock]

11. indeed. if he were competent and/or the republicans had their usual degree of unity,

it would be far worse than it is.

i knew he'd be incompetent (though i didn't expect *this* degree of incompetence) but i expected republicans in congress to be more unified. i'm amazed they didn't pass a tax cut first thing and truly stunned that they couldn't do more damage to obamacare.

[LonePirate]

3. It was obvious during the campaign he merely wanted the title and had no interest in the work.

I believe he told Kasich (or in reference to Kasich possibly being selected as VP) that he would turning the governing reins over to his VP while he spent his time with MAGA bullshit (speeches and rallies).

It is clear to me that Pence and maybe Bannon and Miller made every single Cabinet appointment along with the Gorsuch pick. Pence and the Cabinet are running the government and they are destroying it in the process. It’s a mix of willful negligence and deliberate sabotage with 45 only appearing for photo ops, speeches and interviews. He has zero policy or governmental knowledge and he has no interest in acquiring any.

[unblock]

8. Honestly I still don't believe he wanted to win.

Just imagine what this last year would have been for him had he narrowly lost, as expected.

He would have been a celebrity in right-wing circles, free to get anti-hillary speeches to adoring fans, and the media would not be constantly on his case for all his lies and ineptness.

He could be milking his notoriety for millions and millions without investigations or scrutiny.

Instead his life is majorly constrained and under a spotlight. He has to worry about enemies in a way he doesn't know how to deal with. And he he can no longer surround himself solely with sycophants. He has to hear insults to he fragile ego on tv on a daily basis.

This is not what he wanted.

[lpbk2713]

5. A year ago I never gave it that much thought.

I never thought the American voter could be that colossally
stupid. Especially after two terms of Dumbya.

[Vinca]

9. I knew it would be bad, but I had no idea it would be this bad.

I knew he was nuts, but I had no idea he was this nuts. It's like a bad dream you never wake up from.

[rock]

12. Raises hand

OK, to be fair, I thought he would be just a leetle bit better. Very leetle.

[Thor_MN]

13. It doesn't take strength to destroy things.

Building things takes strength, maintaining things takes strength, destroying things is relatively easy.