The Big, Easy Presidency
He said being president would be easy, and now is surprised that it isn’t. “Easy” is the only gear in Trump’s transmission.
“Easy” is one of Donald Trump’s favorite words. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said the following would be “so easy:” Defeating ISIS, fixing healthcare, renegotiating trade agreements, getting Iran and North Korea to fall in line, acting presidential, being president. Trump then , in an interview designed to look back, reflect on and validate the smooth and breezy trail he strolled through his first 100 days in office, he instead (shockingly!) admitted that he “thought being president would be easier” and pined for his previous lifestyle.
Everything is going to be easy … until it isn’t. Here’s what I noticed early on in Trump’s rise in the GOP presidential primary, and even before that (inasmuch as I deliberately paid very little attention to him): This is his M.O. When backed against the wall or faced with a real challenge, he skillfully deploys a repertoire of cop-outs, distractions, lies, misdirection, attacks, insults and verbal sleight-of-hand. This usually works for him, as eventually the timer goes off on the debate stage, or the next news cycle turns over. But when he’s cornered, like in this interview below where CBS’ John Dickerson pins him down on the Obama Wiretapping allegations … Watch Trump attempt to confuse and conflate the issue, then stammer and slither away. The tail end of this interview is a microcosm of Trumpishness…
Reminds me of the dodgy, slimy persona on display in this interview for the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the fledgling USFL, in which Trump played a big part — first as a team owner and eventually as the league’s one-man demolition crew. When reminded that his attempt to sue the NFL for anti-trust resulted in a $1.00 settlement, Trump crawls away in a similar manner.
Stay in the comfort zone
On one hand, of course being president is hard … or at least it should be. But looking back on Trump’s first 100 days of “accomplishments,” I’m failing to see where he’s done anything but skate by, side-step, shimmy, tip-toe and dance around the difficult decision-making, deep thinking and meaningful cooperation and coordination required to bring our fractured two-party system together and get things done, let alone lead a broadly diverse and divided nation. Instead, Trump remains sheltered within his comfort zone, his echo chamber, his fortress of Trumpitude.
Don’t venture off the guided tour
The guy is just lazy, and once he got his concession call from Hillary and his Oval Office photo-op with Obama, demonstrating to supporters and haters alike that he “won,” he’s checked out and running on auto-pilot. The bus he’s supposed to be driving is careening forward while his stands up front like a tour guide, looking back at the passengers, re-telling tall tales, ghost stories, conspiracies, legends and lore. Half the bus is lustily soaking it all in while the other half considers jumping out the window while pleading for someone to take the wheel.
Fake it ’til you make it
The first 100 days of the Trump Administration has demonstrated Trump’s lackadaisical concern for roll-up-your-sleeves problem-solving and governing. We’re witnessing a teenage star athlete doing just enough academically — faking it until making it — to stay on the team so he can reap his praise and adulation under the Friday night lights.
Trump was supposed to be the ultimate change agent. He said it would be “easy,” but his supporters thought that meant he’d work really hard and make it look easy with his renowned business acumen and domain knowledge of the system. He’s also uniquely non-partisan and non-ideological, too, remember? He alone was positioned to do the impossible, those monumental tasks: Draining the swamp? That’s a big swamp. Tearing up NAFTA, TPP and the Iran nuclear agreement, and make better deals? Those are significant contracts. But hey, he promised he’d deliver — and a significant portion of it in his first 100 days.
So how’d he do?
Cabinet appointments: Trump’s selection process seemed to default to choosing the most menacing figure he could find, in relation to the department they would serve. Rather than the “smartest people” that he originally promised, Trump lazily rounded up the loudest bomb-throwers and known arsonists. DeVos in education, Pruitt in the EPA, Sessions in Justice, Price in HHS, Puzder in Commerce (who ultimately had to withdraw). The list goes on. Trump’s definition of “shaking up Washington” and ending gridlock was to send in a right-wing wrecking crew whose primary goal is to flush Obama’s legacy away as quickly as possible, rather than have any concern for their department’s real-world impact on all Americans.
The cabinet now resembles the ultimate fantasy camp for Christo-nationalists. These folks are looking around at their environs, awestruck at their good fortune, thinking they’d never wield such power, because no sane president would ever appoint them. Climate change denier Scott Pruitt, you get to be in charge of the EPA, for example. And if Trump couldn’t find a mercenary, he just went with yes-men. Rick Perry, remember when you couldn’t remember the name of the energy department in that primary debate? Here’s your field-of-dreams chance at redemption: You get to run it. Pinch me.
One would have hoped that such a lazy president, one who thought it would be easy but found out that it was not, would have at least appointed a cabinet who could make up for those shortcomings and take up the slack of the Slacker-in-Chief and run the country.
One would have hoped that such a lazy president, one who thought it would be easy but found out that it was not, would have at least appointed a cabinet who could make up for those shortcomings and take up the slack of the Slacker-in-Chief and run the country. No such luck, it appears.
Becoming more “presidential”: Nope. This is something Trump said would be “easy,” but hasn’t even tried. He’s still Tweeting, still slinging conspiracy theories, still intertwined with his business holdings, still promoting his company’s brand, still withholding his tax returns. He has laid over the top of all of that a thick blanket of nepotism, and spends a third of his time at one of his resorts rather than the White House.
Trump has also thrown a few of his signature arena rallies deep in the heart of regions he won handily. Where does he find such purely adoring crowds? Well, these are more than just campaign-style events. They are campaign events paid for and run by his organization, ensuring that participants are vetted before entering.
Supreme Court appointment: Trump submitted the name the Heritage Foundation suggested, with little involvement beyond that … then touted “Gorsuch” as his greatest achievement of the first 100 days.
Travel ban, the “wall,” ICE, sanctuary cities: Trump and the administration have thought through their “tough on immigration” policy to lazily and haplessly that they are being thwarted and struck down, checked, and balanced at every turn.
Trump just really isn’t explaining his positions very well, mainly because that would take some knowledge and effort. There is probably room for additional tightening of border security and vigilance on immigration, for example, but not when your approach is “Muslims bad: Terrorists. Mexicans bad: Take your jobs.”
Foreign policy: Trump says or tweets whatever he feels like saying about any given foreign leader on any given day, with no real foresight or actual strategy. His only real accomplishments here are raising the defcon level on North Korea in between alternating insults and praise for their dictator; and lobbing Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase and dropping a giant bomb on Afghanistan.
This is probably what we should expect from someone who says he gets his foreign policy information from “the shows.” Trump has gone on to proclaim that brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians will also be “easier than people think,” and has thereby put his son-in-law in charge of the process.
Health care: Like so many of the above half-ass attempts at making a splash in his first 100 days, the GOP’s new health care policy prioritizes “reversing all things Obama” over all other strategies. In fact, Trump and the House Republicans were so giddy to be able to say that they “voted to repeal and replace Obamacare,” they held a party on the White House lawn like they had actually repealed and replaced it.
The event put an exclamation point on 100 days of historic levels of laziness in the Oval Office. The Washington Post’s Robert Costa reported during the initial ACHA-Trumpcare debacle that Trump was mainly concerned with “having a ceremony.” When the second go-around barely passed with just enough GOP votes, Costa’s earlier reporting seemed validated. Trump couldn’t wait to take a victory lap around something, anything resembling a “win.”
A lifetime achievement award in laziness
Trump Enterprises is a private business that has allowed The Donald to dodge and weave his way from one “deal” to the next, leveraging litigation and bankruptcies to start over when the going ever got tough. If Trump were a public company with a board, shareholders and stakeholders, he, Eric, Don Jr. and Ivanka would have been marginalized or thrown out long ago.
In future, there may be room for another businessman or businesswoman to actually be a successful president. We shouldn’t necessarily take Trump’s failures as an indictment on the whole of the idea. We should just avoid handing the presidency over to a businessman whose only experience is running a business the way Trump does: Driven by innate narcissism, striving for all of the glory … with none of the guts.
