Anyone with a lick of sense realized long ago that Trump will never “pivot” to presidential behavior. A walking collection of untreated personality disorders for seven decades now, Trump ain’t changing.
But that won’t stop the faithful from waiting for the Great Trumpkin. Here’s Glenn Thrush in the NYT today:
Harvey Gives Trump a Chance to Reclaim Power to Unify
By GLENN THRUSH AUG. 29, 2017Hurricane Harvey was the rarest of disasters to strike during the Trump presidency — a maelstrom not of Mr. Trump’s making, and one that offers him an opportunity to recapture some of the unifying power he has squandered in recent weeks.
“Reclaim?” “Recapture?” Both words imply prior possession of the thing to be claimed or captured anew. “Squandered” implies possession of a thing that was previously cast aside.
Trump isn’t interested in unity. He never has been. He’s still staging campaign rallies seven months into his presidency, FFS, and, uniquely among presidents in my lifetime, Trump doesn’t do even pro forma outreach to non-supporters. Someone who is paid to analyze Trump’s presidency should know this — it’s obvious even to a casual observer.
Thrush goes on:
Now a tropical storm as it continues to inundate the Texas and Louisiana coasts, Harvey is foremost a human disaster, a stop-motion catastrophe that has already claimed at least 10 lives and destroyed thousands of structures. But hurricanes in the post-Katrina era are also political events, benchmarks by which a president’s abilities are measured. Mr. Trump is behaving like a man whose future depends on getting this right.
Really? Is that why Trump skulked alone in the Camp David conference room, modeling a campaign hat in front of an untouched notepad while Pence and other government officials managed things from the White House Situation Room?
Is that why Trump said yesterday that he pardoned fellow racist birther Arpaio as the hurricane approached the Texas coast because he wanted the announcement to get high ratings?
I tire of the “imagine how the press would have reacted if Obama had done XYZ” game. But FFS, are we now going to treat what would surely be classified as hideous optics and a career-defining gaffe if committed by not-Trump as a measure of Trump’s determination to “get this right?” Apparently so.
Also, did you know thousand-year floods are like a leaky faucet in an apartment building?
Mr. Trump, one aide said, was fascinated by the long-term effect of water damage on structures in the Gulf Coast, peppering FEMA and National Security Council briefers with detailed questions about the flooding in Houston and Galveston. As the extent of the projected devastation became apparent over the weekend during a meeting at Camp David, he shook his head in disbelief and compared the situation to problems he experienced when managing his family’s apartment buildings in New York. “Water damage is the worst,” he told one staff member, “tough, tough, tough.”
OMFG. It reminds me of the “crime — boy, I don’t know” scene in “The West Wing.” But readers are asked to view this simple-minded and fatuous comparison as a sign that Trump is uniquely “engaged” on this issue.
To be fair, Thrush did make allusions to Trump’s tendency to fuck up his team’s messaging strategy by going on Twitter rampages, etc. But it’s the dopey faith that the gilded turd might morph into a president worthy of the office that makes me want to curse and break things. Thrush will occupy that moonlit meadow forever, waiting for the Great Trumpkin to rise.