There's no plan! - By Jennifer Rubin

[DonViejo]

By Jennifer Rubin March 25 at 12:00 PM

The media, politicians on both sides of the aisle and foreign leaders have sustained the pretense for the first 16 months of President Trump’s tenure that he is rational. Out of a sense of self-preservation and a desire not to panic billions of people around the globe, they’ve all played along, pretending that there is a method to his contradictory statements, his personnel shuffles and his tweets. They’ve acted as if he understands the content of the speeches he reads off a teleprompter and knows what’s in the bills he signs. They’ve maintained the fiction that he has a working knowledge of history and economics, that he has a grasp of the Constitution, and that he remembers or cares to remember what he said a day or an hour ago.

It’s time to fess up. The weight of the evidence is that these soothing tales we tell ourselves and one another do not reflect what is really going on.

The New York Times reports, “Aides said there was no grand strategy to the president’s actions, and that he got up each morning this week not knowing what he would do.” This week? How about “every week”?

He doesn’t play chess of any dimension nor is he cleverly distracting us from one calamity with another. He acts out because he lacks the knowledge, discipline, perspective and decency to behave otherwise. Yes, we’d rather be led by any of the teenage speakers on the March for Our Lives stage — who know what they don’t know and have a good grasp of civics — than the current Oval Office inhabitant. Goodness knows the teenagers are more respectful and concerned about their fellow citizens than Trump is.

Trump’s opinion on a matter at any given time seems to be derived from Fox Pretend News hosts and his “gut” — which has led him to two divorces, extramarital affairs, a dozen or so failed businesses, multiple bankruptcies and a series of policy and personnel debacles. He is informed by nothing more than his own narcissism, racist beliefs and reality-TV existence. He is either so desperate or so out of touch with reality that he thinks what his presidency needs is more Trump. He is not going to bother paying attention to those with more knowledge, more sense and more experience than himself; instead, he’ll be guided by flame-throwers on cable TV.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/03/25/theres-no-plan/?utm_term=.0dd29cb0963c

[dalton99a]

1. Pretty good stuff

Except he really doesn’t deliver what he keeps saying he will. He signed a bill that funded Planned Parenthood but not the wall. He agreed to spend gobs of money Democrats wanted on domestic programs. He did not slash foreign aid. He did not “defund” sanctuary cities nor did he curb legal immigration. (“The bill allows the administration to nearly double the number of H-2B visas available for companies to hire temporary foreign workers this year to 129,547.”) But then again, it’s very possible he had no idea all that was in the bill he signed. After all, he thinks he has effectively repealed Obamacare by eliminating the individual mandate.

Even his steel and aluminum tariffs are largely for show; the administration exempted from the tariffs most of the top exporting countries. He probably isn’t all that certain — or doesn’t care what the tariffs actually do. Harsh? No, he still thinks the trade deficit means we are “losing money” and NATO countries pay into some giant NATO piggy bank to fund their defense.

Trump is doing plenty — but not in fulfillment of his promises to his base (sorry, a tax cut for corporations doesn’t count), nor in service of any ideology. He lumbers about tearing down democratic norms (which he likely does not know are norms, or does not care), throwing allies into confusion and panic, jolting the markets and perhaps bringing us closer to nuclear confrontation with not one, but two rogue states. There is no plan; there never was. There are no guardrails; most of the guardians have been fired.

That’s not a comforting picture, but perhaps it’s better to come to grips with the reality that we have an irrational man at the helm and a Congress afraid to do anything about it.

[smirkymonkey]

2. K&R

[spanone]

3. he thinks he's a badass.....he shoots from the hip

as scary as it gets

[vlyons]

4. Is she crazy or what?

I completely disagree with her 1st sentence. "The media, politicians on both sides of the aisle and foreign leaders have sustained the pretense for the first 16 months of President Trump’s tenure that he is rational."uneducated,

Not the media that I watch and read. For months, Trump has been described as Quixotic, chaotic, issue-less, incoherent, clueless, stupid, uneducated, emotional, impulsive.

[DFW]

9. She is a right wing "I-Hate-Hillary" hack who is nonetheless appalled

She wanted a McCain or a Romney. She is not Fox Noise. She can see what is going on, and understands that her right wing cause will not gain any true traction as long as it is being led with all the skill of a crewless Titanic.

[NewJeffCT]

12. yes, the media and politicians have said those things

but, has it gotten any coverage? There have been a large number of supposedly influential Republican pundits that have been against Trump since the start of the primaries, but their clout has been negligible at best. (Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Ana Navarro, Rick Wilson, Dave Jolly, George Will and others)

[ginnyinWI]

5. She paints an accurate portrayal.

He's an ignorant con man who conned himself into this job with no qualifications to back it up. Too narcissistic to realize he is doomed to fail. His being there at all is due to a lot of factors outside of himself. He's really stuck, and he deserves to be miserable.

[iluvtennis]

6. Yes. The thing that has always bothered me is Trump's unwillingness to learn/educate himself on

the business of the white house. He does no reading or research and has no intellectual curiosity. That is what bothers me most as it puts America in a dangerous position when he is supposed to be representing our interest on the world stage and KNOWS NOTHING.

[ginnyinWI]

15. I was hoping the adults in the WH would guide him and keep the nation "safe",

but now to my dismay he's firing everyone who disagrees with him. I suppose that means he will fail faster and harder--so maybe that's the one bright side of it. The midterms can't come soon enough.

[PatSeg]

7. Whenever people refer to Trump's "agenda",

my reaction is "what agenda?" There has never been a real agenda or any actual policy. Trump is reckless and reactive. His agenda depends on what mood he was in when he woke up or who he saw on TV fifteen minutes ago. There has never been an agenda other than chaos and revenge.

[usaf-vet]

8. His "gut" is cancerous.

It seems to have spread. The metastasis in his brain makes him and his decisions dangerous for us and the world.

[Scarsdale]

10. Let us not forget

before he took office, his son Beavis Jr. went to Kasich's aide with a proposition. He asked how Kasich would like to be the most powerful V.P in history, in charge of domestic and foreign policy, and other important factors? The aide asked what tRump would be doing, and with a smirk (maybe that is his usual expression?) Beavis answered "Making America great again" Obviously, tRump had no interest in actually doing the job anyway, he just likes the photo ops, and fawning reporters. kasich refused the offer.

[grantcart]

11. And now he wants to do it without even a COS

He really is delusional.

[DinahMoeHum]

13. Jennifer Rubin, WTF took you so long??

ALL of us here at DU had him pegged as an assclown a long time ago.

[dalton99a]

14. She's been attacking him for a while:

Link to tweet