BEING THE U.S. PRESIDENT IS TOO HARD FOR DONALD J. TRUMP

…The only one that refers to “SPY-GATE”, is Donald J. Trump

This president can only tell the truth by accident.

The president is showing two issues about his lack of understanding as to how a real US president should function.

First, it’s becoming clear that Trump does not care about working with Congress.  The reason is that legislating is complicated and it involves a great deal of work.  It also requires the president to have a clear understanding of both policy and intricate politics.  That’s way too much work for Trump.  He may style himself as a great negotiator, but he is terrible at negotiating with Congress and the many factions within the Republican caucus.  His personal efforts in which he has gotten personally involved, such as the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act or for dealing with immigration.  They were both major  failures.

The second issue is, that it is without a doubt that this president is guilty of being the president that lies more often than any US president in history.  But he is a President that has a remarkable ability to speak profound truths, but only by accident. His comment in January 2016 that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters” that has proven to be a more truthful statement than anyone realized at the time.

To show how little Trump has done as president, just look at the one significant piece of legislation this Congress has passed….that being the tax-cut bill.  That bill was passed with minimal involvement from the president.

All those Republican factions with their own interests, they were all squabbling over details of policy.  But from where Trump sat, it was all a great big bore. Like many CEO’s, he’s much happier when he can just issue orders and have them carried out.  He is not happy if he has to persuade 218 members of the House and 50 GOP senators to do what he wants.  This is particularly frustrating for Donald Trump, who as the head of his own private company, he never had to deal with shareholders or a board of directors, or anyone who could tell him no.

Now don’t get me wrong.  It’s not that Trump doesn’t want Republicans to hold onto the House and Senate.  Because even Trump knows that if Democrats get subpoena power, they’ll be able to open all kinds of investigations that will drive him crazy for the rest of his term.

But his lack of concern about the midterms will prove to be a serious blow to the Republican hopes of holding onto both chambers at a time when they have enough problems already.

And what are those problems?

Well, to start off, this particular Congress is an absolute disaster. Just look at what The Washington Post reported:  “Speaker Paul D. Ryan is losing his grip on the feuding House Republican conference just months before pivotal midterm elections, caught between dueling factions vying for power inside the party and facing scattered calls for his departure ahead of a planned year-end retirement.”

This unrest comes in the wake of a humiliating defeat for Ryan and other GOP leaders last week.  That was when stanch GOP conservatives sank a farm bill amid another dispute over immigration policy.  This feud threatens to spark months of bitter infighting as Republican lawmakers are trying desperately  to make the case with voters that they should be returned to power in Washington.  For some Congressional Republicans, it ain’t going to happen.

But there is no clear way out for the GOP.  Numerous aides and lawmakers said recently that there is no viable alternative to Speaker Ryan who can win enough support within the GOP for a clean transition before November.  And there is little stomach at the moment for the messy battle that will ensue when Ryan departs.

There are rumors that there may even be a coup, before Ryan steps down. The reality is that the Republicans have a weak, lame-duck Speaker now and they are likely to have a weak leader after November, regardless of whether they hold on to the House or not.

The party is now being riven by fierce factionalism, and it’s so bad that doing their actual job, you know, that “legislating” thing, has become only an afterthought.

The one thing the Republicans desperately wanted to do was cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations.  Now that they’ve done that, they are totally out of any new ideas.  Oh, they’ll pass some minor bills here and there, but they’ve made it plain that there aren’t going to be any ambitious Republican legislative efforts before the November midterms.

Under those circumstances, any GOP president might have trouble coming up with the enthusiasm to campaign aggressively for the Republicans in Congress. But with this president, one that is so singularly focused on himself as is Trump, that makes it even worse.

The truth that no one seems to want to discuss is that it may really be hard to get Republican voters to care about the elections when Trump isn’t on the ballot.  The reality is that Trump is personally not interested because he isn’t running for office.

Oh, Trump will do some events in places where there are key races, but we know how those will go, because we’ve seen it all before.

If all goes as usual, the Republicans will plan a rally in a particular district.  But like every Trump event, it will only be a Trump event, not an event for the candidate that is running.

At the beginning of Trump’s speech, he will read some remarks about the local candidate, he will mouth words about what a great person the candidate is and how we need them in Washington. Then, with that 30 seconds of comments about the candidate out of the way, he will proceed to talk for the next hour and a half about himself and what he has accomplished.

The Trump fans will leave the arena with their love of Trump renewed, while he will give what he calls the “dishonest reporters” the finger on his way out.  He will continue to talk about how awesome it will be when The Wall is built. But he will end by saying how the special counsel Robert Mueller is an operative of a “Deep State” conspiracy, that is probably being directed by Hillary Clinton.

However, as the fans leave, they will not be talking about their local GOP congressional candidate, they will be talking about Trump.

Let’s face it, one of the reasons Trump won in 2016 was that in some key states, conservative voters were motivated by the idea of electing Donald Trump because of what he promised.

However, now Democratic voters are the motivated ones, they are the ones who want to vote in order to strike back at this president.

It was never going to be easy for Trump to persuade his most ardent supporters to go to the polls when he’s not on the ballot.

Fortunately, that will be very good for the Democrats.

Copyright G.Ater  2018