Trumps Next 200 Days - WSJ editorial

[question everything]

(snip)

This week ended with some warning signs. On Friday the government reported that the economy grew by a mere 0.7% in the first quarter. Later adjustments may improve the estimate, and there were some encouraging internal data, but this is the weakest GDP report in three years.

(snip)

One lesson of the health bill fiasco is that the GOP needs a strategy to persuade. Paul Ryan knows his way around a slide deck, but the House Speaker doesn’t have the bully pulpit that the President rarely uses effectively. Mr. Trump played a diligent inside game with Congress on health care, listening to members and working the phones, but he neglected to mobilize the public.,,hyperbolic or false tweets are so counterproductive. They squander Mr. Trump’s credibility for when he really needs it.

Rewriting the tax code for individuals and corporations will be even more difficult than health care, and good policy alone won’t make the sale. The early signals here aren’t encouraging. Mr. Trump surprised his own advisers by ordering a Wednesday roll out of his reform outline when they thought they had more weeks to prepare. It’s obvious the Administration wasn’t ready with a consistent message or response to the critics. White House spokesman Sean Spicer caused a micro-panic this week when he said the Trump plan would revoke the tax advantages for 401(k) retirement savings, which it would not.

(snip)

Part of the problem is that the White House has been so slow in filling out the Administration. Mr. Trump’s cabinet has considerable talent, but the second and third tiers of the executive branch are still empty. By one calculation, the Administration hasn’t even nominated 465 of the 556 positions that require Senate confirmation. The White House has too often vetoed qualified candidates because they weren’t Trump loyalists during the campaign. But there aren’t nearly enough experienced Trump loyalists to fill out a government.

The most important issue is whether Mr. Trump can discipline his own pattern of setting policy by impulse. This week the White House stepped all over its tax rollout by leaking that Mr. Trump was prepared to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. That set off a panic inside the Administration that included his own Agriculture and Commerce secretaries.

Mr. Trump later told the Washington Post that he was “all set to terminate” Nafta unilaterally. He said he relented only after personal intercessions by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It may make sense for Mr. Trump to keep adversaries off balance, but it is self-defeating to keep allies and neighbors wondering whether he’ll punish them without notice.

More than most Presidents Mr. Trump will be measured by performance because he lacks a large party or ideological base of support. He needs to show policy results that produce faster economic growth. That means learning the lessons of the first 100 days so they aren’t repeated in the next 200.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-next-200-days-1493420292

[Bucky]

1. Pretty objective

Almost makes him seem normal. He's not, of course; he's a lunatic who can't control his own impulses. But at least this article gives a sense of how deeply screwed the country is.

[BigmanPigman]

2. I can't imagine how much more harm

he'll be able to accomplish in that much time. Maybe I will stay under my covers or under the bed.

[The Blue Flower]

3. A remarkable statement

"...there aren’t nearly enough experienced Trump loyalists to fill out a government. " If that isn't a silver lining, I don't know what is.

[SergeStorms]

4. Note that he doesn't......

consider a candidate's qualifications for the position, just their fealty to his crazy ass. That's all that matters to him. Everyone has to stroke his galactically oversized ego. His goal IS to destroy the government from within.