Yeah Trump hated being president so much he is still pretending he is president after losing…
Trump loved being the President; avoided as much as possible the doing. In a second term he’d leave it to his minions to run things as much as possible, making sure to appoint venal toadies who’d serve his whims.
This. He loved the power, the visibility, and the prestige. He hated the actual work.
I think you all are discounting how much work he still is stuck doing. We joke that he plays golf and watches TV all day, but there are plenty of things he can’t get out of. There are meetings, events, and stress that he can’t just let someone else do.
The President can essentially do as much or as little work as they prefer, delegating all other tasks to the Cabinet secretaries or (for some presidents) to their Vice-President. Obama famously did a lot of reading and research (or at least studying other peoples’ research) himself because he didn’t trust anyone to be as smart or forthright as he was (probably to his detriment), while George W. Bush delegated an unprecedented amount of authority to his Vice, Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, while he took an astonishing number of vacation days especially for a president who had dedicated his country’s military to the persecution of two wars. (And yes, it is true that Presidential ‘vacations’ are not truly off-days—the President is still essentially on call 24 hours a day, and gets a daily briefing—but he was still out of the White House and away from most of his Cabinet and staff more than any US president in living memory.)
Trump treated the office of President with almost utter contempt, often eschewing briefings that were ‘too long’ (more than five minutes by some accounts), delegating or ignoring many official and normal duties, et cetera, as well as brazenly using the office for what is almost inarguably personal and political gain, all without putting in a fraction of the effort required to actually understand what was going on, and firing any Cabinet secretaries, advisors, and presidential appointees who dared to disagree with him. (He repeatedly gave the order to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, apparently never comprehending why his authority did not include removing the appointed director of the NIAID.) He’s not afraid of the “meetings, events, and stress” of the office of POTUS because he doesn’t take any of the responsibilities and duties seriously and never has, plus it gives him legal cover for any crimes for which he may be potentially prosecuted. Plus, there is an entire cadre of people who are looking to bolster and support him to achieve their own agendas of fundamentally undermining democratic institutions and continuity of normal government who are happy to do anything for him that he does not want to do himself.
Trump is seriously running for office, he’s not just joking or exaggerating about his desire to become a dictator on Day 1, and he’s not just going to turn around and resign after winning because for him the job is all lollypops and no vegetables. Eating vegetables are problems for other people who he can boss around and replace at his pleasure.
Stranger
There are zero such things. First term Trump pretended to give a fuck on occasion. Lame duck Trump doesn’t even have to go that far.
If nothing else there’s Trump’s own history available to predict his future actions. At this point Trump has been a President and he has been a former President. Having experienced both, he is trying to go back to being a President. That shows which status he prefers.
And if Trump bothers to attend any of these meetings (narrator: He won’t), then he can just get out his crayons and coloring book to pass the time until the event is finished.
That one … I’d argue … is a bit weaker of an argument.
DJT is basking in the glow of a shitstorm of his own making. If the past was prologue, and Trump had done what Clinton or Obama did (ie, retire in peace and with significant wealth), he might not have the same pressing need to be President again.
But as most of us would likely agree, the best shot he has at making the Federal charges against him go away is to retake the Presidency.
It’s hard to take that out of the equation.
But in my opinion, he is not trying to be president again because he loves being president. He is trying to be president to stay out of jail.
Getting a pardon is the surest way to handle the fed cases against him, and a pardon from someone else is faster than letting a self-pardon work its way through the courts.
But, counterpoint, that doesn’t end the threats against him from non-federal courts. But having the power of the presidency and a complicit party in the legislature gives him IMMENSE power, soft and hard, to wield against even non-federal agencies, if he’s willing to use it.
HINT: He’s willing to use it.
You keep ignoring that he can’t pardon his way out of state cases, but being in office will probably kick those cans down the road. Which do you think he finds more stressful, attending a boring meeting or incarceration in a New York state prison?
IMO …
This is nuts:
and this is the actual situation:
He loves almost everything about being President. Any part he doesn’t love he just doesn’t bother doing. Which unloved part is the 14-hour-per-day job we hire presidents to do. But once you decide to ignore all that, life as prez is easy.
The power, the pomp, the graft, and most of all his hoped-for ability to force all federal and state charges to just disappear via hook or crook. Those are the things he loves, and wants, and needs. And will be able to accomplish if enough of the rest of the system lets him boil their frog slowly enough. See the current thread about the government revolting (hint: it won’t) for more on that topic.
Another 4 years is barely enough for him. Another 30 would suit him immensely. And would also suit the innumerable hangers-on who will actually be doing all the henchmanship while shoveling money and power in to their own pockets as fast as they can, and also while shoveling any memory of democracy or rule of law onto the bonfire of history as fast as they can.
Pretty much this. He can pardon himself for federal crimes. Will that work? Who knows? But it fits with Trump-101 tactic of delay everything. Make the court cases extend so long and be so painful no one wants to bother. Trump is old enough that there is a fair chance he won’t live long enough to see the end of those cases. And, if I were him and didn’t think I could stay president despite the law I’d resign two weeks before the end and let my VP pardon me as Ford did with Nixon.
And, as long as he is president, there is pretty much zero chance a state can convict him and throw him in jail. So, Trump very, very much wants to stay in that seat.
Likewise with civil suits. How do you collect against a sitting president who does not want to pay you? Again, being president will allow him to delay that stuff for years.
How much work did Nero put into the day-to-day slogwork of running the Roman Empire? That’s Trump’s model of governing.
ETA: Not that I think he’s got enough historical knowedge to take that as a conscious model.
Ok, I’ll make another unpopular prediction. By the time he would take office, he will have been acquitted in the NY case, and Georgia Republicans will have successfully killed the GA case.
I could see the latter, but not an acquittal for the NY case. Evidence seems pretty solid. Just my opinion, of course.
I doubt he has any historical knowledge. Revolutionary War airports! He probably thinks of WW2 as the War of Allied Aggression.
With many fine people on both sides.
Am I reading this wrong or something? What do you mean first term? He already did that.