# Trumps & cronies gaffes: accidental or careful trolling? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 11, 2017, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cronies-gaffes-accidental-or-careful-trolling/784272 "2017-04-11T22:40:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cronies-gaffes-accidental-or-careful-trolling/784272/21 "2017-04-13T12:42:50Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > One thing this thread has convinced me of is that if it is intentional, it has worked, since no one here thinks it is anything but stupidity. But how did they run a successful election campaign in that case? Trump himself obviously decided that the more outrageous he was the more outraged would his supporters become. Note the very few have deserted them. > … Ref **Stranger** just above, I’m not trying to pile on. I’ll take what I hope is a different tack. It’s well-recognized by pundits and observers of all stripes that winning the Presidency takes different skills than governing effectively as President. It’s less-well recognized that it also takes different aptitudes. Or else it takes being an organization man, where the candidate / President is simply the spokesbody for a set of pros who know how to win, who then give way to a second set of pros who know how to govern. The traditional party system employs both sets of pros and makes the transitions smoothly enough we mostly don’t much notice. Trump won by energizing a group of voters who normally don’t vote. A bit like Obama did in 2008. His skill, such as it is, is in angering the disaffected into favoring doing disruptive shit that’s ultimately self-destructive. In suitable circumstances that can be a heck of a way to get elected, to get thunderous applause at rallies, and to be retweeted like a rock star. It’s not really an effective way to govern when your policy goals (to the degree they hold still for more than a few hours) don’t align with the Ds, nor the Rs, nor anything rational really. Trump won, mostly fair and mostly square. So far we’ve not seen much evidence of him having the skill or aptitude or staff to make much happen. We do see he still has the ability to generate noise and applause from the cheap seats. As Obama discovered in 2009 _et seq_, a bunch of rapturous fans does not translate into actual political power in the face of determined opposition by the rest of government. And Obama was vastly more skilled than Trump in trying to actually govern in the traditional fashion: a mix of pragmatism, idealism, and give-and-take mud wrestling with all the other interest groups. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cronies-gaffes-accidental-or-careful-trolling/784272.md?page=1)