I am very pleased with it, because Trump himself is so awful.
No not really, but what do you expect we can do about it, other than contact our elected representatives and ask them why they are willing to allow the worst nepotism since who - the Clintons or the Kennedys?
I have said until l am blue in the face - our Congress and its imitation of the Roman Senate cowering before Caesar, is the crumbling of our government. The Executive and Judicial branches need to be reined back into their Constitutional roles / limitations.
Do “satisfied” and “happy” even matter? The relevant question is, “Are you happier or more satisfied with Trump than you would have been with Hillary Clinton?” Americans were asked a question last year: Trump or Clinton? That’s it. There were no other realistic options.
I’m happier with Trump because his election pissed off more people that I can’t stand than I believe Hillary’s would have.
If Trump, a guy who took record low donations for a president cannot implement his America First policies, it just shows that change is impossible at the ballot box and Americans should just expect continuity until the country implodes.
That being said he hasn’t yet failed on the two metrics I plan to judge his presidency on:
Sure there were, during the Republican primary - and the need to have an anti-establishment candidate catapulted an inexperienced Trump ahead of all sorts of candidates. There was a mandate - time to finally throw the gauntlet down - and plenty of choices were turned down.
But you’re assuming Trump is trying to implement the America First agenda and is simply being hamstrung from doing so. That’s not what is happening - to the contrary, he’s not even trying. It isn’t “cannot” - it’s “uninterested in doing so”.
I am not sure Trump really believes much of anything. He said what he needed to in order to win. It’s been said before, but he’s the dog that caught the car. Now he’s realizing how difficult pretty much all of the things he ran on are and he’s changing tack. A lot of his supporters aren’t pleased, but since he seems to now be taking a neocon approach, he might pick up some Never-Trumpers.
From an article on the gross incompetence of
Hillary (a good oneand of itself on that topic), one of the most succinct roundups of Trump in his first (near) one hundred days:
Every day, the incoherence deepens: He’s going to cover “everyone,” but he’s going to push 24 million people off their health insurance. He’s going to wipe out the debt, but his tax cuts and spending spree will add trillions to it. He’s never going to intervene in Syria, but he just did. He’s going to get Mexico to pay for a big, beautiful wall, but he isn’t. China is a currency manipulator, but it isn’t. The media is the enemy of the people, but he is on the phone with them every five minutes and can’t stop watching CNN and reading the New York Times. He’s going to be a tightwad with taxpayers’ money, unlike Obama, but his personal travel expenses are on track to be eight times more than his predecessor’s. He’s going to work relentlessly for the American people but he spends half his days watching cable news. We’ve got to be “very, very tough” in foreign affairs, but when he sees dead babies on TV, he immediately calls General Mattis and lobs 59 Tomahawk missiles. He has a secret plan to defeat ISIS, but pursues Obama’s strategy instead. He is for the “forgotten men and women” of America, but his tax plan — which is itself changing all the time — benefits the superrich and depends on removing health insurance for the working poor. He wants to be friends with Russia, but he doesn’t. He’s going to challenge China’s policy on Taiwan, but he isn’t. He is against crony capitalism, but he is for it. He’s going to keep the focus on America, but just upped the ante in Yemen and Afghanistan. He’s a deal-maker, but he cannot make deals even with his own party. He’s a great manager, but his White House is consumed with in-fighting and he cannot staff his own administration. He’s a populist who stacks his cabinet with Goldman Sachs alums. He’s going to pressure China to take on North Korea, but “after listening for ten minutes” to China’s dictator, he changes his mind.
Yeah, I know. It’s way too early to be saying “this is what he is now” (it hasn’t even been three months; feels waaaaay longer). It was the Syria and Afghanistan strikes and Bannon’s “demotion” that suggests he might be moving in that direction. It all could change (again) by the end of next week for all we know.
This is what irks me though, people see it as a scale where on one side you want to rebuild the entire Middle East and on the other you want to sit behind your national walls and play Sim city.
Trump goes out and mentions Syria and all of a sudden people assume were going to occupy the country. What it appears instead is that the Trump admin is trying to leverage military strength with diplomatic negotiations.
