100 Days

There's a lot being written about the first 100 days of Trump's presidency; for right now I'm going to share what political scientist/Bloomberg blogger Jonathan Bernstein thinks, from a post written on April 28:

Presidents have had worse weeks than the one ending Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, but most of the examples I can think of include resignation and worse. So far this week (and he still has one more day!) Trump has retreated or been defeated on his Mexico wall, on NAFTA, on sanctuary cities, and on health care reform. The administration went through something like three positions on North Korea. Trump rolled out a tax reform "plan" that not only has been ridiculed from all sides, but is also basically dead on arrival; Trump's one-page of bullet points is vague enough that any Congressional product may resemble it, but he's not likely to be a significant player in shaping what House and Senate Republicans choose to do. 

Beyond that, Trump gave a series of interviews which mostly served to furnish up new humiliations for him, whether it was complaining to Reuters about how unexpectedly hard the job was or obsessing to AP about cable TV news. Other 100-days profiles featured White House staff and Trump friends basically saying the president is ... a moron? “If you’re an adviser to him, your job is to help him at the margins,” said one Trump confidante. “To talk him out of doing crazy things.”

A toddler? Advisers have tried to curtail Trump’s idle hours, hoping to prevent him from watching cable news or calling old friends and then tweeting about it. That only works during the workday, though—Trump’s evenings and weekends have remained largely his own.

Also this week, investigations on the Trump-Russia scandal continued with new revelations about former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and a misfire by Ivanka Trump (rapidly walked back) reminded everyone of Trump's other big scandal involving conflicts of interest, nepotism, emoluments, and more.

I suspect I'm missing a few more.  The good news? It's always possible Trump could at least somewhat turn it around. He could hire a real chief of staff empowered to clean up the White House. He could start doing the work he's supposed to be doing -- learning about policy and process. Yes, he does have some potential assets to build on if he is capable of doing so. For that matter, he could still divest his holdings and put an end to what is basically a lawless presidency. 

Realistically, however? What's happening is exactly what anyone with any sense knew what would happen if he became president -- indeed, I agree with Ross Douthat that we've been relatively lucky that it hasn't been worse. We can hope he'll improve as he goes along, but there's really no sign of it so far, and no realistic reason to expect it. (Read the entire post here.)