Trump is combative, but not convincing
At the end of last year’s presidential campaign, a sufficient number of voters in just the right places elected Donald Trump to go shoot up Washington and fundamentally change the way it operates.
He’s got the shooting part down just fine. But the big change part not so much.
In fact, 30 weeks after he took office, Trump is still shooting wild words and tweets at most anyone who criticizes him, hints at criticizing him or just moves.
Some Trump advocates say, “You tell ‘em!” But some supporters and others who don’t like the boastful New Yorker but had hoped he could deliver some necessary changes are starting to have serious doubts if he can ever deliver.
The 71-year-old Trump always wants to project strength and power. And he tried to show that in his Afghanistan speech this week. There’s a reason the real estate mogul did not build or rehab small buildings. And taking on the Washington establishment is no small task either.
In fact, it’s a huge, perhaps impossible task because the Congress, the bureaucracy, the lobbyists and especially the media there see their power, influence, job security and incomes threatened by changes to the status quo.
And many of them are quietly seeking to undermine Trump’s efforts with slowwalks, steady leaks, passiveaggressive behavior and an astounding media animus that’s lowered their public standing beneath even Trump’s. This wounds the rookie president, and prompts him to say counterproductive, even false things.
Most every modern president rides into town vowing to fix the place that includes the nation’s wealthiest counties that see no need for fixing.
Changing Washington would be a herculean task for even a savvy, disciplined executive with vision and keen political skills. Which Trump is not.
The really rich guy, lone among the more than 20 men and women who offered themselves as potential presidents in the last cycle, read the visceral anger and frustration of millions in flyover country. Sporadically attentive to public affairs, these voters had long pleaded, cheered, donated, campaigned and voted for those on both sides who promised in so many words to drain the D.C. swamp. And then didn’t. Trump spoke to and for those angry hopefuls.
His achievements, direct and indirect, have actually been many — Keystone Pipeline, VA reforms, regulation rollbacks, advances against Islamic State and MS-13, 1 million-plus new jobs, illegal immigration down, low unemployment despite many re-entering the labor force, soaring mortgage applications, consumer confidence and stock markets, among others.
It’s surprising that someone so successful with big projects finds it so difficult to drive his own party to accomplish big projects in Washington.
But our form of government contains three equal branches for a reason, to deny any of them the power to dominate.
Trump’s a great cajoler. Unfortunately, he’s an awful convincer.
Last week’s White House message was the desperate national need for infrastructure repairs, perhaps $1 trillion worth. Jobs. Growth. A better country. Trump touted his plan at a news conference. Then he demolished its coverage by indulging in punching back at people who charged his Charlottesville reactions were incomplete, even racist.
Boy, Trump sure told them. He has a right to do that, of course. But a need?
Remember when Trump criticized Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, saying the man who survived six years of POW torture was no hero because he got captured?
Now, guess who rose from a cancer treatment bed to fly cross-country and cast the deciding Senate vote that killed Trump’s oft-promised Obamacare repeal?