Leading by whimsy rather than wisdom

President Donald Trump’s words and actions seem more dedicated to whimsy than serving the country.

Retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker drew attention on Sunday for a post on Twitter that basically called President Donald Trump a man-child in need of constant care.

Corker meant to push back at lies the president was spreading about the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but in an interview Corker laid bare the hard truth about trying to actually govern with Trump in charge.

“He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation,” Corker told The New York Times.

Saying that nearly every Republican senator also viewed Trump’s handling of the presidency as chaotic and unstable, the Tennessean lamented “the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around (Trump) to keep him in the middle of the road.”

We mention it, because while Trump’s Corker assaults weren’t the biggest news from the White House on Sunday, they get right at the nut of the problem of the Trump presidency.

Trump proved Corker’s assessment accurate, once again, by releasing his wish list of hardliner demands he now says must be met to keep nearly 800,000 Dreamers from losing work privileges and deportation protections.

Without resolution, tens of thousands of the young people will start losing protections in March. Families, employers and communities are left wondering how to proceed.

Trump’s wish list now includes funding construction of a wall on the border with Mexico and other provisions Democratic lawmakers won’t accept.

Yet only last month, when he killed the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Trump promised the young people who came out of the shadows and registered with the feds that they would be protected. “I have great heart for the folks we’re talking about, a great love for them,” Trump said, adding, “We have to do something.”

And Trump’s director of legislative affairs, Marc Short, said funding for the border wall didn’t have to be part of the package, adding: “I don’t want to bind ourselves into a construct that makes reaching a conclusion on DACA impossible.”

Given that we’ve learned to listen to members of Trump’s administration for guidance when he’s all over the map, we hoped the assertion suggested a reasonable effort was in place to back straightforward legislation that reformed at least this one piece of our broken immigration system.

Trump even dined with top Democrats — minority leaders in the Senate and House Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi — and seemed to promise a clean fix without mention of the wall. The libertarian thinkers at Reason magazine panned the $25 billion wall idea earlier this year, and Republican lawmakers who represent broad swaths of the border, are not convinced a wall is the best solution.

Yet here we are again, up against the wall.

Trump’s reversal is not unlike his dramatic betrayal of transgender troops after supporting LGBT rights on the campaign trail. Needing support from hardliners in the debate about funding his wall, Trump threw transgender troops under the bus in announcing — on Twitter, and without talking to the appropriate Cabinet members — that they would not be able to continue serving their country.

Once again, Trump seems more dedicated to whimsy than serving the country.

We hope cooler heads prevail. The DACA program had been working, and its recipients deserve a nation that keeps its word.

“He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation,” Sen. Corker told The New York Times, in commenting on President Trump.