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The end of the Trump presidency

There's a scene in the series "the west wing" where the President of the US is replaced by the Republican speaker of the house, and after a few days on the job, the "new president" askes the chief of staff, "when does the fun stuff begin?"  

The reality of being President is not so much driven by the agenda (which is a short-lived process of about 100 days) since soon after the elections Congress is again running for office.  The reality of higher office whether it's political or business is that most of the issues you face are on your desk either for rubber stamping because the issues were resolved lower down the food chain or are so intractable that there is no clear winning.

For Trump who never ran for office, the trapping of the Presidency was probably the most attractive aspect of the job, the rest not so much.   Trump's reputation preceded him to the white house.  He is well known for shooting from the hip and shooting the messenger.  He's never had the patience for details and his vision is ultra short term and focused on one thing only:  Do I look good, is it good for me and will it earn me money.

Everything else is secondary

The impact of his presidency will not that he was a bad president, it was that he was an absent president that was more than happy to create division and strife.  Let's be honest, Trump didn't t.   the Southern strategy for the GOP, Steve Miller gave it a real-world outing with his racist policies.

Trump was seen as tone-deaf but in reality, it's not that he's tone-deaf its that he simply doesn't care one bit, it has been reported that he cheered on the attack on the Capital (I doubt it) but he never came out to calm things down, never expressed grief for those who died in the confrontation...he simply didn't care.  

The Dreyfus affaire just before WW1 was a similar period where both sides of the discussion could not stand each other, in fact, intelligent well informed people on both sides took positions they knew to be based on false information, and this for two reasons:  they didn't care as long as it served their personal interest.  The body politic had been broken, the same way it appears to be broken in the US.  I suspect that Biden will be unable to change anything there the hatred is too intense.

Several GOP congress members have already indicated that they intend to file articles of impeachment on Biden based on nothing more than hearsay, not because they know it's false, but because they simply don't care, and it serves their personal inteests

That's Trump's enduring legacy to the United States of America


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