What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[CountDeMoney]

Voice
America Is Getting Used to Trump's Insanity
The president has managed to accomplish at least one big thing in his first 100 days: the once unthinkable is now unremarkable.
By Max Boot
April 25, 2017
foreignpolicy.com

As he approaches his 100th day in office, Donald Trump does not have many achievements or much support. Fewer than 42 percent of Americans approve of his job performance, the lowest level of support of any president at this point in his administration — lower even than Gerald Ford's numbers after pardoning Richard Nixon. But he is benefiting from two trends. First, his base still loves him; his approval rating among Republicans is, I'm sorry to say, 84 percent.

The second trend is harder to discern, and it can't be reduced to numbers, but I am convinced it is real. I refer to the country's growing acceptance of the unacceptable.

People adjust to any situation, no matter how bizarre or abnormal. An alien landing on Earth would be "yuge" news, to use Trump's favorite word, but alien landings every day would quickly become ho-hum. So it is with the outlandish occupant of the Oval Office — he is increasingly being treated as a normal president even though he is anything but.

What was once unthinkable is now unremarkable. There is now a tendency, even among many of my Never Trump friends, to shrug their shoulders at his latest shenanigans. It is simply too difficult to stay outraged nonstop for 100 days, much less for 1,461 days — the length of one presidential term. Trump continues to say and do things that are, by any reasonable standard, egregious, but we notice his offenses less and less because they are such a frequent occurrence.

A few recent examples, big and small, illustrate the point.

—Trump all but endorsed Marine Le Pen for president of France, telling The Associated Press that a terrorist attack in Paris will "probably help her because she is the strongest on borders and she is the strongest on what's been going on in France." He had not one word of censure for Le Pen in spite of her party's long history of anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Americanism, pro-Putinism, and Holocaust denial. Trump's statement did not appreciably help Le Pen, who finished second behind the centrist Emmanuel Macron, and it may even have hurt her. But it is inconceivable that any previous president would have offered words of praise for such a fringe figure who is, according to one of her own former advisors, surrounded by "real Nazis."

— Trump has been outspoken in praising cruel dictators. He rolled out the red carpet for Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, praising this tyrant, who is overseeing mass torture and mass detentions, for having "done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation," and saying he has the "strong backing" of the United States. Trump did manage to win the release of an American citizen who was held unjustly in Egyptian prison for three years, but he has nothing to say about the many other innocents locked up and abused by Sisi.

Even worse, Trump called Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on his victory in a rigged referendum that was widely seen as the death knell for Turkish democracy. The U.S. State Department noted that the vote was marred by "irregularities" and an "uneven playing field," but Trump was silent regarding these abuses. You would have to go back to the Nixon administration to find any precedent for an American president offering such unambiguous support for human rights violations and the destruction of democracy.

— While expressing support for foreign demagogues, Trump consistently criticizes America's staunchest allies. Just last week, he said Canada's measures to support its dairy industry were a "disgrace," as if the United States didn't engage in its own market-distorting agricultural subsidies, and added, "We're not going to let Canada take advantage [of the United States]." Now he's imposing 20 percent tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imports. This comes after he had picked fights with other allied leaders, from Mexico to Australia.

— Trump hosted a motley crew — including Kid Rock, Sarah Palin, and Ted Nugent — for dinner on April 19 at the White House, during which they posed for a disrespectful selfie in front of Hillary Clinton's official portrait as first lady. The real problem, however, was inviting Ted Nugent at all. This is the same Ted Nugent, after all, who referred to former President Barack Obama as a "subhuman mongrel" and a "piece of shit"; who called former Secretary of State Clinton a "toxic cunt" and a "worthless bitch"; who said Obama and Clinton should be "tried for treason & hung"; who said, "I'd like to shoot them dead," in reference to undocumented immigrants; and who claimed there is a Jewish conspiracy to push gun control. Any one of these comments would have disqualified Nugent from stepping foot into any other White House. Trump, however, spent four hours squiring Nugent and his other guests around the executive mansion.

— Trump continues to be a conflict-of-interest disaster area. Not only has Trump himself recently won coveted trademarks from China, but so has his daughter Ivanka, who is a senior aide to her father in arguable violation of an anti-nepotism law. Both the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump Marks LLC continue to expand their activities around the world, doing business with companies closely tied to foreign regimes. As the AP notes, "The commercial currents of President Donald Trump's White House are unprecedented in modern American politics, ethics lawyers say."

— Trump casually bragged in his AP interview that his TV ratings on CBS's Face the Nation — or, as he prefers to call it, "Deface the Nation" — are the highest "since the World Trade Center came down." Coming from any other president, this insensitive comment would have caused days of news coverage; coming from Trump, it's barely noticed.

The problem with the Trump administration, just as with the Trump campaign, is that the outrages come so fast and furious that there is hardly any time to digest any of them before we are on to the next one. As a result, the public becomes numb to what is happening.

This apathy is especially damaging when it comes to Kremlingate — the ties between Trump and Vladimir Putin, who, evidence suggests, intervened in the U.S. election to help elect him. Troubling new connections continue to come to light. Just recently, for example, we learned that the Trump inaugural committee accepted $1 million from Alexander Shustorovich, who is, as the Wall Street Journal notes, "a Russian-American businessman whose business dealings and relationships with top Russian officials and state-owned companies—dealings that prompted the U.S. to refuse to allow him to be part of a uranium deal two decades ago, on national-security grounds—led the Republican National Committee to return a $250,000 check from him in 2000."

Yet the Shutorovich donation was not noted until the sixth paragraph of the Journal story and was generally ignored by the rest of the news media. Just as little attention has been paid to other Trump-Kremlin connections — such as the secret meetings that Erik Prince, Blackwater founder and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, had in January with Russian representatives in the Seychelles. The Trump campaign claims that Prince was not part of the transition; the Boston Globe has assembled compelling evidence that the White House is lying.

Countless other Trump-Kremlin links cry out for investigation, and there is scant reason to think that the Republican-controlled intelligence committees in the House and Senate will be up to the job. There is an obvious need to appoint a special counsel and/or a bipartisan, 9/11-style committee, but that will never happen absent a lot more public pressure than has been evident to date.

Trump doesn't have much support, it is true, but the failure among his many critics to mobilize and maintain a higher level of indignation is letting him get away with his offenses against good taste, sound policy, ethical norms, and possibly even the law itself.

[Oexmelin]

A transcript from an interview with AP, on the 24th of April:

"TRUMP: They had a quote from me that NATO's obsolete. But they didn't say why it was obsolete. I was on Wolf Blitzer, very fair interview, the first time I was ever asked about NATO, because I wasn't in government. People don't go around asking about NATO if I'm building a building in Manhattan, right? So they asked me, Wolf ... asked me about NATO, and I said two things. NATO's obsolete — not knowing much about NATO, now I know a lot about NATO — NATO is obsolete, and I said, "And the reason it's obsolete is because of the fact they don't focus on terrorism." You know, back when they did NATO there was no such thing as terrorism.

AP: What specifically has NATO changed?

TRUMP: (Cites Wall Street Journal article) ... I did an interview with Wolf Blitzer, and I said NATO was obsolete — I said two things — obsolete, and the country's aren't paying. I was right about both. I took such heat for about three days on both, because nobody ever criticized NATO. I took heat like you wouldn't believe. And then some expert on NATO said, "You know, Trump is right." But I said it was obsolete because they weren't focused on terror. ...

It's not fair that we're paying close to 4 percent and other countries that are more directly affected are paying 1 percent when they're supposed to be paying 2 percent. And I'm very strong on it and I'm going to be very strong on it when I go there in a month."


"AP: But in terms of tax reform, how are you going to roll that out next week?

TRUMP: Well I'm going to roll (out) probably on Wednesday, around Wednesday of next week, we're putting out a massive tax reform — business and for people — we want to do both. We've been working on it (unintelligible). Secretary Mnuchin is a very talented person, very smart. Very successful (unintelligible). ... We're going to be putting that out on Wednesday or shortly thereafter. Let me leave a little room just in case (unintelligible). ... And that's a big story, because a lot of people think I'm going to put it out much later.

AP: Do you have any details on that in terms of rates?

TRUMP: Only in terms that it will be a massive tax cut. It will be bigger, I believe, than any tax cut ever. Maybe the biggest tax cut we've ever had. ..."

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2017/A-transcript-of-an-interview-Friday-with-President-Donald-Trump-by-the-AP/id-2ca19fffb5fe4ae4a2c67774d040abaa

So unintelligible!

[Valmy]

We have a massive budget deficit. I just...I mean at least Bush had a supposed surplus when he did his.

[Oexmelin]

Seriously, that transcript is, by itself, such a terrible indictment of the American people.

[Admiral Yi]

Not going to win any rhetoric awards, but as an exercise in walking back a previous boneheaded comment that's not the stupidest thing Donald has ever said.

Maybe, just maybe, he has a capacity to learn on the job that could result in this being a merely mediocre presidency.

[Oexmelin]

Not going to win any rhetoric awards, but as an exercise in walking back a previous boneheaded comment that's not the stupidest thing Donald has ever said.

Maybe, just maybe, he has a capacity to learn on the job that could result in this being a merely mediocre presidency.

No, it's not the stupidest thing. It's just so furiously offensive, that someone as shallow,as mediocre, as Trump is reframing his presidency into " it's much more complicated than YOU think." 

[CountDeMoney]

Not going to win any rhetoric awards, but as an exercise in walking back a previous boneheaded comment that's not the stupidest thing Donald has ever said.

Maybe, just maybe, he has a capacity to learn on the job that could result in this being a merely mediocre presidency.

Dude, don't fucking start rationalizing this nonsense.


And no, he doesn't have the fucking capacity.

[grumbler]

Not going to win any rhetoric awards, but as an exercise in walking back a previous boneheaded comment that's not the stupidest thing Donald has ever said.

Maybe, just maybe, he has a capacity to learn on the job that could result in this being a merely mediocre presidency.

"Not the stupidest thing Trump has said" is such a low bar that it is laughable as part of an argument.  The stupidest thing anyone here can imagine Trump saying is probably not as stupid as the stupidest thing Trump has actually said.

I don't see growth here, I see weaseling and red herrings.  Trump is capable of recognizing when he has been caught saying something stupid to fire up the morons who support him, but he seems to want to excuse past stupidity by acknowledging only the 'past," not the "stupidity."

[The Minsky Moment]

The WH cable is more in keeping with diplomatic protocol.  Trudeau is being the dick on this one.

How is he possibly being a dick?

"the Prime Minister refuted the baseless allegations . . ." etc
It's supposed a diplomatic summary, not an argument from Lionel Hutz

[The Minsky Moment]

It's just so furiously offensive, that someone as shallow,as mediocre, as Trump is reframing his presidency into " it's much more complicated than YOU think."

Always keep in mind we are dealing with a true (if functional) narcissist to the point of near absolute solipsism. When he learns something new to him, in his mind it's the first time such knowledge has existed in the world. He and he alone is the measure of all things.  Like: "no one knew how complicated health care was". "Only I can fix it"  "No one is [less racist, less anti-Semitic, more respectful of women, etc.] then me"

[The Minsky Moment]

Trump continues to be a conflict-of-interest disaster area. Not only has Trump himself recently won coveted trademarks from China, but so has his daughter Ivanka, who is a senior aide to her father in arguable violation of an anti-nepotism law. Both the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump Marks LLC continue to expand their activities around the world, doing business with companies closely tied to foreign regimes. As the AP notes, "The commercial currents of President Donald Trump's White House are unprecedented in modern American politics, ethics lawyers say."

This is definitely part of the story that keeps getting lost in the noise.  The corruption is truly endemic - it suffuses the entire presidential administration such that the personal and business interests of Trump and his family are hopelessly intertwined with the public function.  It's tempting to say that this is the most corrupt administration since Harding - and that's true.  But it misses the quality of it - the problem isn't so much old-fashioned graft and bribery as a ancient Roman-style melding of family (house) with the res publica.

[viper37]

It's a cheap way for him to play the nationalist without pissing off any domestic constituencies.

Considering the unfair attacks against Canada, I'd say I'm surprised by his moderate and calm response.

Well, it seems NAFTA is dead.  Long live FTA!

[garbon]

It's a cheap way for him to play the nationalist without pissing off any domestic constituencies.

Considering the unfair attacks against Canada, I'd say I'm surprised by his moderate and calm response.

Well, it seems NAFTA is dead.  Long live FTA!

I don't think that's the latest news.

[Valmy]

Considering the unfair attacks against Canada, I'd say I'm surprised by his moderate and calm response.

Well since he is working so hard at destroying our relationship with our third biggest trading partner he might as well piss off our second biggest trading partner as well.

[Barrister]

Considering the unfair attacks against Canada, I'd say I'm surprised by his moderate and calm response.

Well since he is working so hard at destroying our relationship with our third biggest trading partner he might as well piss off our second biggest trading partner as well.

Americans have attacked (with good reason IMO) our supply-management system for dairy for year.  Similarly softwood lumber has been an issue for decades (with less good reasons on the US party IMO).  This is frankly one of the more normal things Trump has done as President (though of course he did so in his own unique fashion).