Donald’s tired dance
Donald Trump tap-danced to the White House on a troika of dance moves that built a real estate and entertainment brand — but turn out to collapse like a beach shack in the stiff winds of governing. Move No. 1: Affix the gilded TRUMP name to the finished product but leave the heavy lifting, and risks, to other people grateful for a sprinkling of his gold dust.
Move No. 2: Flamboyantly break boundaries and dare the visitation of consequences, as in his outlandish campaign claim that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Ave. and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
Move No. 3: Cultivate a reality-distortion field through media by any means, telling an unrelenting story of success no matter what the facts.
Well what do you know: As any third-string politician could have told the neophyte President were he only capable of listening, it turns out that getting things done in government takes an entirely different outlook and skills, starting with a basic understanding of how democracy works.
The embarrassing meltdown of Trump’s proposed health care overhaul in the Senate this week reveals spectacularly the limits of move No. 1 — the means by which he’s also boasted of obtaining better “deals” for Americans on trade, taxes and NATO obligations.
Bringing together a business deal, all parties are motivated in pursuit of profit. But health care, in its intricacies, left individual senators sensitive to concerns voiced loudly by constituents — including a key Republican to bail on the health bill, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, who had held town hall forums while most colleagues had hidden from view.
Others, like libertarian Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, proved ideologically opposed to compromise. Trump hadn’t and hasn’t a clue how to satisfy competing non-cash demands.
He threatened Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he would be “very angry” if the legislation didn’t pass. So what? And why should any senator go out on a limb to deliver on Trump’s empty promise to replace the Affordable Care Act with “something great”?
Busting move No. 2, the President made the astounding choice, revealed after the fact, to sit down for an off-the-record hour at the G-20 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even with his campaign and transition in the heat of a special prosecutor’s investigation of possible collusion with the Russian government.
This on top of the astounding choice to have his sons carry on the family business, including a Washington hotel frequented by dignitaries and resorts to which the President pays regular visits.
Never one to know when to call it quits, as repeated bankruptcies attest, Trump can’t perceive that the days when bravado could bust him through any boundary ended with his election, if not earlier.
The Putin tete-a-tete only served to darken the cloud of suspicion enveloping his presidency, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigates numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and transition with Russian agents, draining his dwindling reserves of political capital.
It doesn’t take a gunshot: at 37% public approval, Trump is losing voters.
That leaves the President clinging to move No. 3. — his self-celebratory Twitter account, its signals amplified by friends in conservative media.
He waves off his son Don Jr.’s admitted attempt to collude with Russian operatives offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as “just politics” and dismisses Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt.”
Of the dead health bill, he tweeted Tuesday in advance of a meeting with Senators beyond exhausted with his antics: “it will get even better at lunchtime.”
This President will need to vastly broaden his repertoire in order to do his job.