Summations Only

Today's New York Times presents the analysis piece For Trump, a Year of Reinventing the Presidency, summarizing how Trump has changed the presidency over the past year. It is well worth reading. Here's a few paragraphs from near the beginning:

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Under Mr. Trump, it [the presidency] has become a blunt instrument to advance personal, policy and political goals. He has revolutionized the way presidents deal with the world beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, dispensing with the carefully modulated messaging of past chief executives in favor of no-holds-barred, crystal-breaking, us-against-them, damn-the-consequences blasts borne out of gut and grievance.

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He has kept a business on the side; attacked the F.B.I., C.I.A. and other institutions he oversees; threatened to use his power against rivals; and waged war against members of his own party and even his own cabinet. He fired the man investigating his campaign and has not ruled out firing the one who took over. He has appealed to base instincts on race, religion and gender as no president has in generations. And he has rattled the nuclear saber more bombastically than it has been since the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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The presidency has served as a vehicle for Mr. Trump to construct and promote his own narrative, one with crackling verve but riddled with inaccuracies, distortions and outright lies, according to fact checkers. Rather than a force for unity or a calming voice in turbulent times, the presidency now is another weapon in a permanent campaign of divisiveness. Democrats and many establishment Republicans worry that Mr. Trump has squandered the moral authority of the office.

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--Percy

Yes, this is another sobering perspective on the Trump effect and the man himself.Right now, apart from his core base of populist supporters, it would seem logical to me that the people who support him being in office...even if only tacitly, are currently making money in this economy. Granted itis not because of him, but it makes it easier to minimise the harm that he is doing...the other stuff. I predict that once our country experiences another bubble and another correction (which will be inevitable) that things will really get ugly and that the divisiveness which has been sown will come to full fruition with devastating social consequences.It will be at that moment that most of us will wish that someone else was in power.add by edit: Not that I like him now...I'm talking about society at large, however. It's easy to turn a blind eye when your investments have gone up 8% in the last year.Edited by Phat, : added point

To repeat something said upthread (Message 1526), there's nothing more risk than being a Trump friend. In the upcoming book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff, Steve Bannon is quoted thusly:

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"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the F.B.I. immediately."

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Naturally Mr. Trump responded in kind in just the way we have come to expect (from Trump’s Reaction to Steve Bannon’s Comments):

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Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.

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Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my basehe’s only in it for himself.

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Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.

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We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.

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You have to give Breitbart News (which Bannon has returned to running) credit, they didn't try to soften Trump's words:

• TRUMP FURIOUS: BANNON ‘NOT ONLY LOST HIS JOB, HE LOST HIS MIND’
  
• WHITE HOUSE BLASTS WOLFF BOOK: ‘TRASHY TABLOID FICTION’

--Percy

The Trump excerpt must be Fake News. The tone is OK, but that’s way over 280
characters.

If you look at Trump’s Reaction to Steve Bannon’s Comments you'll see I left out these lines:

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From press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders:

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Statement from the President of the United States

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--Percy

What gets me about Trump firing people is why he ever hired them in the first place? Most bosses evaluate a potential new hire before even hiring the applicant.Surely Trump knew what type of person Steve Bannon was before taking him on, so he really can't claim that Bannon suddenly lost his mind, can he?

Trump is a failure as a businessman. That's what we're seeing in his hiring practices.The military teaches us what leadership is. A leader delegates authority to his subordinates so that they can do their job and he supports and enables them in doing their job. At the same time, no leader can delegate responsibility; he remains responsible for what his duly delegated subordinates do.Trump is a complete failure as a leader.Basically, Trump is just a big fat loser.

The answer is the old 6s & 9s propositions.A 6s manager only hires those who do not threaten his job or authority; the 9s manager only hires those who do threaten his position or authority. The 6s manager's primary function is to maintain his position. The 9s manager's primary function is to find a replacement for what he is doing so that he can move on to a more challenging task.

Yeah, but where is the president of the United States going to move on to? Though I will agree that Trump is a 6.In other news....
Despite Takedown And Legal Threat, Bannon Says He Still Backs TrumpSounds like Bannon is playing politics. Does anyone see him running for office or is he simply drumming up support for himself, as Trump suggests?It takes one to know one.Edited by Phat, : added jabberwocky

Look at the history of the rise of autocratic leaders.

Trump's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to Michael Wolff's publisher in an attempt to stop the release of his book with Bannon's comments, or to at least blunt the effects of the book. I doubt that such tactics will work. Nothing sells books like a controversy over the contents.

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The legal letter, a copy of which was obtained by CNNMoney, demanded that the publisher "cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination" of the book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House."

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Wolff's book is full of shocking quotes and claims about White House chaos and incompetence. The book affirms much of what's been previously reported by other outlets and adds disturbing new details. But it also contains some errors, according to early reviewers. Excerpts from the book have been published by New York magazine and The Hollywood Reporter.

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It is possible that the publisher might want to clean up any errors before publication, but simple errors would not make a lawsuit for libel against a public figure or famous politician successful. The standard for success in such a lawsuit would require malice or deliberate indifference to the truth and not simple error. I suspect that the book will be released on schedule.

Are we grading on a scale of 1 to 10, or can I use negative numbers? --Percy

The Washington Post ran an opinion piece today discussing some of the legal ramifications of the cease-and-desist letter: Trump’s cease-and-desist letter: A ‘desperate’ attempt to silence Bannon--Percy

An interesting side-bar regarding the election itself: I have read from other folks who know Trump and the behind-the-scenes of the presidential campaign and many have them confirm what the book says that Trump never expected to win. And when it occurred, it was a total shock. Even South Park has spoofed that very notion.I always thought this was little more than a glorified publicity stunt. But being that Trump's ego is so big, I am guessing even after he realized he was going to be president, he immediately shifted gears and starting convincing himself that was all part of the plan. People like Trump often can't accept errors in judgement so they will gravitate towards narratives that was always affirm that they were 'right all along'.

The 'Election Integrity Commission' was a fiasco built on a lie from the very start. The impetus for forming the group was backing up the president's claim that he actually would have won the popular vote but for illegal voting. Trump also claimed that absolutely none of the illegal votes were cast for him. Some remarks from Trump regarding the futility facing the commission:Donald Trump dissolves voter fraud commission | CNN Politics

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Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud. They fought hard that the Commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally. System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D.," Trump said in a Thursday morning tweet

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Of course, the reality is that 44 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia actually refused to cooperate with the request for voter information primarily because releasing the information violated state law. Now given that 34 Republicans, 15 Democrats, and 1 Independent state are the heads of the state executive branch, I challenge anyone to demonstrate that the obstacles were "mostly Democratic states" as Trump claimed. Nearly every state objected.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.