Since he has no intention of working full time, perhaps POTUS should be shortened to POS.
Given the choice between Trump working 40 hrs per week as president and 30 hours per week, I find the 30 hours per week more reassuring. The idea is to minimize the impact he has on events, not maximize it.
But there goes the theory that he’ll rein in all those lunatics and incompetents that he’s been nominating to Cabinet and other key positions. He can’t really do that very effectively if he’s not there because he off getting adulated at yet another Hitler-style rally, or running a fucking reality TV show.
The previous theory was that Trump isn’t actually all that right-wing and would actually govern moderately, and that sure got shot to hell pretty quick. Seems to be a lot of wishful thinking going on.
I think we have to continue to waste breath (and bytes) on it. Idiocy in the President of the United States isn’t innocuous.
You’ve got a point.
I’m so confused by Trump, I don’t know what to expect. He’s a complete wild card, and I think the best overall theory to explain his actions is that he will be doing whatever he thinks enriches himself the most. Hence, I’d like to see him spend as much time on Celebrity Apprentice as possible. It will be terribly embarrassing, but the alternative is, I fear, worse. At least then he’ll not be starting any wars.
The concern that Trump will be a hands-off part-time prez more interested in the trappings and the ceremony than in actually governing is, I believe, quite a serious one in light of the extremists that he’s appointing to powerful government positions who are likely to have much more of a free hand than they normally would. One has only to recall the PNAC ideologues that Bush appointed – Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and others – to see this kind of malign influence, although Bush wasn’t so much a part-time president as he was a halfwit, but it’s the same idea. But this is likely to be far worse, because it’s not just foreign policy ideologues, but far-right ideologues across the board, and the guy in charge of it all is shaping up as not just an uninterested part-timer or just a halfwit, but both at the same time, and with complete lack of experience thrown in.
A lot depends on what a President decides to do. Trump will save a lot of time by cutting out campaigning for his own proposals, something past Presidents have prioritized too much. There’s just no reason to fuel up Air Force One, cost the taxpayers millions, doing the used car salesman act on a policy they don’t want, while meanwhile the federal government isn’t being supervised and is doing things like fudging wait times at the VA, stonewalling FOIA requests, targeting political opponents, or just engaging in general incompetence due to the fact that the Big Guy is pimping his new policies rather than making sure the old policies actually work as designed.
I expect the POTUS to devote 100% of his time and effort to running the US. I picture him in the oval office, leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk, on the phone talking to his staff at 'Apprentice" about which female contestant has the biggest tits, and who wants to bone her.
So no, I don’t feel Trump will devote all his time and efforts to this country. But as we’ve all said in this thread, that’s probably a blessing in disguise. The less he’s there, the less he’ll screw up.
You think we’re going to save money on gas with Trump in there?
On what basis would you believe that? Air Force one is going to shuttle the Borgia family up and down the eastern seaboard for four years. Oh, they’re going to pitch in? Great!(Sarcasm)
But what’s the alternative? Trump being more hands on? How is that better?
I get your point – it’s not better, but it’s not necessarily worse, either. Someone has to run the Executive Branch, and if the POTUS isn’t around or interested, then the unbelievably extreme and/or unqualified Cabinet of Curiosities discussed in the other thread will fill the vacuum. I’m sure Trump would love nothing more than for those minions to just bring him stuff to sign that he doesn’t have to bother reading while he goes around playing President and starring in reality TV shows. It’s really a no-win situation. I’ve tried really hard to see the silver lining and would love to be surprised if something good happens. I’m just not seeing it.
That might happen, but the point is that Trump figures he just has to do social media and free media to build support for his initiatives. And he’s right. Presidents doing townhalls and speeches all over the country is just busy work, stuff Presidents do because paid political consultants tell them it’s necessary. Which means Trump will have an opportunity to spend more time overseeing the federal government than past Presidents. Whether he’ll actually do it is an open question.
Help me out here. I didn’t follow the chain of reasoning. Is this what you’re saying?
Trump figures he just has to do social media to build support, so he won’t be (wasting time) going all over the country doing speeches and town halls, etc. Therefore, he will have more time than past presidents have had (who, presumably wasted a lot of time running around the country doing speeches and town halls, etc., on the advice of their paid political consultants) to oversee the federal government?
If that’s not what you’re saying, please straighten me out.
If it is, I gotta hand it to you for attempting to find the pony in this room.
As for whether he will stick around and do his job, well, 1) he’s planning to behave like those Congressmen who don’t even move their families to Washington but just commute, and 2) if his victory tour is any indicator, he will not be able to give up the [del]Roar of the Greasepaint[/del] the Smell of the Crowd. So I don’t see him spending much time overseeing the federal government. As John Mace said, there is an upside to that, except when you look at who is going to be minding the store. And I feel strongly that his new Cabinet will be spending 110% of their time on their jobs.
Yeah. Everyone was whining about Pence, but I obviously wasn’t too scared about him. He is a politician. He knows he has to appeal to the people. It’s the cabinet picks that are scary. It’s why I’m hoping that both Democrats and the Reaganicans* will create a push back.
*New term I’m trying for Republicans that don’t embrace the alt-Right. We have two warring factions, so I think they need names. I’ll go with Trumpicans for the other side.
It’s not so much finding a pony so much as pointing out the opportunities Trump has to truly be different in a good way. Whether he has any intention of being different in a good way is something we’ll find out, but I wouldn’t bet on it happening.
Mind-boggling that no one seems to be in the least bit concerned that the POTUS will be the exec producer of a commercial TV show. Aren’t there a brazilian reasons why this isn’t a bigly conflict of interest?
Or is this akin to writing a book…
What’s one more among an entire landfill of conflicts?
To me, it’s just like getting used to Uncle Harold wearing his underpants on his head at Christmas dinner. At first it was outrageous, shocking, and unacceptable. Now we’re just kind of used to the idea. We say stuff like, “At least he’s still WEARING underpants. So what if they’re on his head.” <shrug>
It’s akin to writing a forward or a backsleeve endorsement of a book. “Executive producer” is very often a vanity title and/or a way to toss somebody some bucks. Probably given to Trump to keep away any wrangling over who owns what wrt the show’s format and name or something. As I said above, I have serious doubts Trump is going to do any actual producer work. It doesn’t look good but I also doubt anyone really believes NBC is going to be soft on Trump or vise versa over this.
le sigh
I feel like the first applications of brainwashing will be voluntary. I know I’ll line up for an Eternal Sunshine style erasure of Trump. RemindMe! +4yrs
Complete tangent*: Did Trump save us from Ted Cruz?
*And does thinking this mean I’ve reached the bargaining stage of grief? Yes, it probably does. 