After 100 days Trump is learning!

[GMDino]

At least he's learning that he's the employee...not the boss. 

Whether he likes it or not.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/29/trump-blames-constitution-for-first-100-days-chaos-presidency

Quote:On his 100th day in office on Saturday, facing historically low popularity ratings, a succession of intractable foreign crises and multiple investigations of his links with Moscow, Donald Trump reminded the nation that 1 May was Loyalty Day.


The day is a US tradition dating back to the cold war, when it was a bolster to stop May Day becoming a rallying point for socialists and unionised workers, but for an embattled president learning politics on the job it has an added resonance.


In an interview with Fox News to mark the 100-day mark, he declared himself “disappointed” with congressional Republicans, despite his many “great relationships” with them.



He blamed the constitutional checks and balances built in to US governance. “It’s a very rough system,” he said. “It’s an archaic system … It’s really a bad thing for the country.”


The Loyalty Day announcement came amid a flurry of other proclamations to mark the milestone at which the early stages of American presidencies are traditionally measured. The coming seven days were named both National Charter Schools Week and Small Business Week. May has been burdened with being simultaneously: National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, Older Americans Month, Jewish American Heritage Month, National Foster Care Month, as well as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Such announcements help a president look busy, especially at such heavily scrutinised milestones as the 100-day mark, and particularly for an inexperienced politician rapidly learning the limits of presidential power, even with a solid Republican majority in Congress.

He has failed to get any of his priorities turned into legislation in the face of party disunity, and his attempt to rule by executive order has been largely hollow. His decrees have been either meaningless, like his one-page, detail-free tax reform plan, or have been blocked by the courts, such as his travel ban for Muslim countries and refugees.



Trump’s approval ratings have remained mired at historic lows for a presidency in what is supposed to be a honeymoon period, hovering around – and frequently below – the 40% mark, well below his recent predecessors at this stage in their presidencies.



But his core supporters have remained faithful, choosing to believe that the mainstream media are purveyors of fake news, rather than accept that the Trump presidency has not been the unrivalled success the president has claimed. They have also accommodated Trump’s affinity for Vladimir Putin. The percentage of Republicans who see Russia as an unfriendly state has fallen from 82% in 2014 to 41% now, according to a CNN/ORC poll.
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[url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/29/trump-blames-constitution-for-first-100-days-chaos-presidency#img-2]
 Trump claimed that car companies were ‘roaring back in’, an apparent reference to General Motors’ plans. Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP


On his 100th day, Trump turned to this loyal base to sound off on the issue that bonds them most tightly – economic nationalism. On an otherwise leisurely Saturday, during which his only other engagement was a call with the CIA director, Mike Pompeo, the president was due to attend an evening rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where disenchanted workers defected from the Democrats in droves in the 2016 election. While visiting the town, he was also due to sign an executive order to establish an office of trade and manufacturing policy, which will help push his drive for import substitution.


In his weekly presidential address, he also focused on jobs, pointing to evidence of an economic revival that has been previously contested as a result of corporate decisions made before Trump came to office. He claimed that car companies were “roaring back in”, an apparent reference to General Motors’ plans and Ford’s decision to expand in Michigan, which both appeared to be part of their long-term strategy.


Trump also claimed that his approval of the Keystone oil pipeline from Canada would create tens of thousands of jobs. That will be true in the short term, during the construction phase, but after that keeping the pipeline going is expected to employ 35 people on a permanent basis.
The gap between the extreme bravado of Trump’s claims and the daily realities of governing has deepened public cynicism. In a new Gallup poll, just 36% declared him honest and trustworthy, down from 42% in early February. His general approval rating stood at 40%.

There is strong evidence, however, that the fact-checking of presidential claims is having a small and dwindling impact on true Trump loyalists. His support remains strong in traditional blue collar areas and evangelical strongholds, where there is more trust in the president than the mainstream media. The president has relentlessly assaulted the media, launching an attack per day on average since he took office, denouncing negative news as fake news, and there are signs the relentless offensive has inflicted wounds. One poll released on Friday found that more people trusted the White House than political journalists.


Against that background there were reports yesterday that Steve Bannon, the champion of economic and ethnic nationalism, was making a political comeback in the White House, and that he remained a bulwark of Trump’s strategy to secure his core support and win again in 2020.


His hand has been seen behind the rapid-burst issue of protectionist moves in the run up to the 100th day, picking fights with Canada over milk and softwood imports, and measures to shield the aluminium industry from foreign competition.


“All of these people who say the president doesn’t have an ideology, they’re wrong,” one unnamed Bannon ally told political news site The Hill. “He does have an ideology, and it’s Bannon’s ideology. They are just now figuring out how to implement it.”



Bannon was also said to have drafted an executive order withdrawing the US from the North American Free Trade Area (Nafta), but on Thursday Trump decided simply to issue a call for its renegotiation reportedly after having been shown a map showing it would cost the most jobs in states that had supported him in the election. The battle between countervailing factions in the Trump White House continues to ebb and flow, but the president’s reflexes in times of adversity lead him to fall back on the “America First” narrative that got him elected in the first place.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/america-trump-100-days_us_5903842ee4b05c39767f36d7

Quote: Christopher Ruddy, the Palm Beach publisher who is one of Donald Trump’s closest friends, told me the new president has learned a key lesson during his first 100 days in office: That there is a Congress, and that he does not run it.


“That was a revelation,” said Ruddy.


Congress has power? Really? That was a revelation to others, too ― including Democratic senators and representatives who spend more time hunting campaign donations than thinking about how corporate oligarchs, automation and globalization screw workers.

Most assessments of Trump’s 100 days focus on his long list of misdeeds: the lies, both grand and trivial, the flip-flops, the selling of mere sizzle as substantive achievement, the contempt for the machinery of government, the murky and ever-more-suspect ties to Russia, the lack of transparency about his taxes.

In politics, he has coarsened discourse and made meaning meaningless.

He is the most unpopular new president in modern history for a reason ― for many of them, in fact.

But he is also the ultimate wind-tunnel test for the bulky, complex aircraft we call the United States. Will the bolts hold? Will the thing stay aloft?

In a sense, there are signs that Trump’s multiple challenges to our centuries-old constitutional system ― and to our society as whole ― are having a positive effect. People now know what’s at stake and that law and society itself must not be easily Trumped.

Start with the courts, as any analysis of our system must. Over the years, Trump (or more specifically, the Federalist Society) will have a chance to stack our judicial system with justices who distrust Washington power. But in the meantime, federal judges everywhere from Hawaii to D.C. are asserting the judiciary’s role as a co-equal branch.

Federal judges have blocked Trump’s anti-Muslim immigration move, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ threat to deny money to “sanctuary cities.” It may take months, if not years, for federal courts to review those cases.

Don’t think that voting for Congress or president is all that important? Consider who gets to nominate and confirm those judges.

Quote:[Trump] is also the ultimate wind-tunnel test for the bulky, complex aircraft we call the United States. Will the bolts hold? Will the thing stay aloft?

The media has awakened from its inexcusable campaign slumber. Being called the “opposition” by the president’s political henchman was a wake-up call, as if one was ever needed.

The emphasis now is on incontrovertible reporting and clear presentation. Invective alone is not enough, nor is it even the right approach.
Old school is new school in the face of Orwellian leadership.

Activists are looking for new ways to use social networks and platforms that had largely become the purview of personality and performance.

Trump still has the allegiance of many of those who voted for him last year. But the rest of society (including most of consumer-facing corporate America) is moving on, struggling to construct a truly multicultural, multiracial, fairer world.

So far, the backlash to the backlash has been largely cultural. Fox News’ Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly are gone. North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom rules are gone (sort of). Pepsi’s trivialization of social inclusion is gone.

At the same time, “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah’s ratings are booming. Comedian Hassan Minhaj, who will emcee what’s left of the White House Correspondents Dinner, is Muslim American. 

For too long, Democrats relied on the theory that shifting demographics and the cultural changes that come with them would inevitably vault them into power. President Barack Obama all but said so when he declared, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

But Trump has shown that demographics is not necessarily political destiny. Now that he is in power, he will do everything he can to keep the two apart.

That’s where the Democrats come in. Trump may put an end to a period of the party’s history that started with President Bill Clinton’s partnership with Wall Street. The Democratic Leadership Council, founded in 1985 after liberal Walter Mondale’s shattering defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, was the key to Clinton’s rise ― and to the party’s accommodating thinking ever since.

Trump is forcing the Democrats to rethink everything. There is no going back to the “big government” programmatic thinking of the New Deal. There is no future in the Wall Street + worker theory of the Clintons and the Obamas. So, where to?

CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS

Trump actually provides the starting place. His definition of America is simply too narrow, too negative, too fearful, too xenophobic, too based on mere money as the only social good in America.

That is not what this country is, or only what it is, or primarily what it is.

The Democrats need to define anew what it is to be an American, and build an American society according to what President Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.”

And they’ll need to propose a “sharing economy” in a national sense. Why can’t an idea currently confined to car rides and vacation overnights be applied to wider social issues, with the active assistance of the government?

For now ― but only for now ― this means Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his fellow Democrats standing in the way of Trump’s constant overreach and allying themselves with the small but crucial band of moderate Republicans in the House and Senate.

But soon enough, Trump’s opponents will have to offer a coherent, upbeat alternative to Trump’s vision of America, deploying better salesmanship in the process.

Trump is the man America’s founders feared: a demagogue who mixes elements of both the monarchy and the mob. If we can’t survive him, we don’t deserve what our predecessors gave us.

But we can, and we do.

[Dill]

(05-01-2017, 09:51 AM)GMDino Wrote: At least he's learning that he's the employee...not the boss. 

Whether he likes it or not.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/29/trump-blames-constitution-for-first-100-days-chaos-presidency

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/america-trump-100-days_us_5903842ee4b05c39767f36d7

Everyone is learning more about government from the Trump presidency. I am happy to see this is also true of the press.

The media has awakened from its inexcusable campaign slumber. Being called the “opposition” by the president’s political henchman was a wake-up call, as if one was ever needed.

 The emphasis now is on incontrovertible reporting and clear presentation. Invective alone is not enough, nor is it even the right approach.