The Duck Soup Presidency
Michael Gerson - Washington Post
...The president's self-generated governing crisis is disturbing. But when paired with authoritarian envy, it is pathetic. An exercise in autocratic jock-sniffing. Other would-be strongmen have turned to Karl Marx for inspiration; for Trump , it is more like the Marx Brothers. Absurdly stereotyped characters - Anthony Scaramucci, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen K. Bannon - pop randomly in and out of well-appointed rooms, while the main character feeds chaos all around him. It is the Duck Soup dictatorship.
Don't get me wrong. Trump 's attempts to delegitimize institutions that check his power - the FBI, the mainstream media - are doing lasting damage. His constant lies have unleashed the irrational in American public life. His reliance on conspiracy theories and Fox News (but I repeat myself) to solidify a core of unthinking allegiance is dangerous. It is sobering to see how a revolt against authority has been channeled into a movement of docility and submission. If Trump did not have blind support, he would have no support at all.
But this is something different from authoritarianism. Trump approaches governing like a spectator, often acting as if someone else is really in charge. He seems most comfortable commenting from the sidelines, like an old Fox News viewer yelling at the television. Trump doesn't know how to do the actual job of president and doesn't seem aware that he doesn't know. And few people around him know any better.
Sometimes the simplest explanations are best. As Groucho Marx said: "[He] may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot. But don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot."
Being president, it turns out, actually requires certain skills. Presidents gain influence through rhetorical leadership - with the tools of inspiration. They gain influence through policy innovation and legislative leadership. They gain influence through motivating the permanent bureaucracy to accept and pursue their agenda.
As a matter of rhetoric, Trump will be remembered for an endless string of demeaning and incoherent tweets that force us to question his stability. As a matter of policy, he has either deferred to congressional priorities or acted through executive orders that can be easily undone. Rather than leading the bureaucracy, he has alienated it, depopulated it and sent some of it into resistance.
And it is worse than this. From his first executive order on migration from majority-Muslim countries to his recent action on tariffs, Trump and his administration have not displayed even minimal proficiency in making and explaining presidential decisions. On issues from immigration to gun control, the president has made seemingly random and contradictory interventions that reveal his ignorance about the basics of important policy debates. The man who believes in "the power of strength" exhibits a level of competence that would be embarrassing in high school student government.
Trump 's governing approach (at least so far) is less authoritarian than transgressive. He views the presidency as a performance. And he has shown a remarkable knack for dominating the national conversation with the outrageous and trivial. But we are seeing that the skill set of a reality TV star - the cultivation of melodrama and feuds - has almost no overlap with the skill set of a successful president. We might as well imagine Franklin D. Roosevelt on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." Trump 's particular talents are better suited to Page Six of the New York Post than to the history books.
The problem is this: Though weakness and incompetence are preferable to authoritarianism, they are unequal to the real challenges of the nation.
michaelgerson@washpost.com
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I don't know why you go to all this trouble every day JR. Your total readership is way south of 100, and only half them might agree you. I guess you use these silly articles to reduce the self induced stress of the truth of Trump being a successful president. It's a harmless way to vent your frustrations, but going out in the sunshine to get some fresh air and exercise would be better for you.
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I suppose you could call the toddler who threw his plastic sippy cup onto the heating element inside the dishwasher before his mother ran it causing a total meltdown with billowing black smoke and thus the need for his parents to go out and buy a brand new dishwasher a "success" if his intention was to get a new dishwasher... Sadly, I don't think Donald Trump is playing that kind of three dimensional chess and his lighting everything on fire is not intentional, just incompetent.
That's because I haven't posted any. I have more to do in life that sit here all day babysitting articles. That gives me more time to criticize the insipid and stupid seeds that get put up by some apparently deranged liberals. It's jolly good fun, and I just browse and post here for entertainment and comedic relief. If I end up annoying a left winger nut job, it makes my day!
Trump could blow Vlad Putin in Macy's window and his fanatical base would see nothing wrong...
The Emperor of Vulgaria has no clothes but his fanbots believe he is arrayed in sartorial splendor.
No we just have eyes wide open to understand that we will no longer tolerate the alternative which is any Democrat in power who give us either more marxist fascism or communism; depending on whether they are FDR fascists or Bernie communists
It really always seems that the lies they tell themselves are even bigger than the lies they inflict on everyone else.
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I did not know you had this kind of sense of humor, JBB. Right on, Brother!
That's because I haven't posted any. I have more to do in life than sit here all day babysitting articles. That gives me more time to criticize the insipid and stupid seeds that get put up by some apparently deranged liberals. It's jolly good fun, and I just browse and post here for entertainment and comedic relief. If I end up annoying a left wing nut job, it makes my day!