Do you think the Trump Presidency, so far, has been a disaster?

[pbrower2a]

The Trump Administration was doomed to be a disaster because of the candidate's demagoguery. Trump then made a deal with the corporate powers who said that as long as he obeyed the money, that all would be fine, thus becoming a more standard right-wing, corporatist Republican on economic matters, selling out his low-educated voters  ('the deplorables').

He put his ego above solid achievement and went on quixotic efforts in legislation that did not work (on abolishing Obamacare and a big tax cut for the super-rich) without making suitable compromises. Take a third this time, the next third another time, and the last third the next time, and then get some icing on the cake a little later after having changed the political culture? That was the Reagan way.

He disparaged the previous President for everything that he had done, which means that he threw away any continuity.

Of course it is strictly a question of values of whether anyone individually wants a society with cheap labor under brutal management, low taxes for the richest people as an alleged spur to economic growth, privatization of anything that has the potential for monopoly management and pricing, hostility toward ethnic and religious minorities, and soft rules on environmental protection. Profit maximization is an objective of most firms, and the idea that government is responsible to assets more than it is responsible to people who lack the assets is a novel form of government, at least in modern times.

But I look at the nearly three quarters of his Presidency and I see him doing little in the first sixth of his term as President (and it will be one term) that gets him re-elected. He has not build support. His cynicism is the opposite of the exuberant optimism of JFK, and it has much the opposite effect. If JFK barely won he was attracting Nixon voters for a Presidential campaign that might have happened except for some gunshots from a lone gunman from the Texas School Book Depository (yes, I accept the official story). Trump is offending people who voted for him. Unlike Reagan he isn't convincing people that they need to lower their expectations now to get better things in the future.  Reagan convinced people with college degrees that they really did have to work in fast food and retail, and keep living with Mom and Dad for a while so that inflation could be whipped -- and inflation disappeared. Trump isn't convincing people to do anything like that. He offers pain without purpose. He repudiates everything about his predecessor in rhetoric and practice. The Trump Administration is as monstrously corrupt and self-dealing as the Obama Administration was scandal-free. Clinton had nothing bad to say about the foreign policy of his predecessor and promised to continue it -- and he got good results. He lacks the caution and decency of Eisenhower. It's hard to see any daring agenda that  elevates people in hardship for no cause of their own making, as did LBJ. Unlike Nixon he is unable to make obvious compromises.  Trump isn't Clinton, and he isn't Obama. Neither is he Kennedy nor Reagan. 

Truman may have been vulgar, but that reflects his rural origin. The last President to have not attended college, Truman can be excused for using some occasional four-letter words. Trump came from as privileged a background as possible. Truman at least knew what he was missing; Trump disparages the humane learning available in top schools. Truman at least knew that he was ignorant and did something about it -- well, we all know that wise people are embarrassed by the limitations of their learning and knowledge, as said Socrates, and fools are content with their ignorance. Trump may give people hell, but he gives Hell to the wrong people -- the good people who deserve better. So he doesn't come close to any President since FDR. Just don't try to get me to contrast FDR (who may have done a great share of saving Western Christian Civilization from its worst tendencies) to this American Mordred.

Good leaders, whether commercial, political, or military, do not act upon spite. Spite is the essence of Donald Trump, and he well cultivated spite in his 2016 campaign. If this Presidency has not yet achieved the disaster that some have predicted, then there is plenty of time, plenty of opportunity, and no cause for anyone to think that he won't bungle something badly.  Bad as he is, he will become even more objectionable.