Our Nation Is Paying for Trump’s Refusal to Be Presidential

[Chosen Daughter]

Our Nation Is Paying for Trump’s Refusal to Be Presidential
By Jonah Goldberg
 
January 22, 2020 6:30 AM

The president’s inability to act like a president has further exacerbated our political dysfunction.
I’
ve long argued that Donald Trump’s presidency will end poorly because he’s a person of bad character. I still think that’s true, though I very much doubt the impeachment trial now underway will result in his removal. Regardless of its outcome, his impeachment illustrates the damage bad character can do to the presidency, the culture, and the constitutional order.

In monarchies and other systems built around one-man (or one-woman) rule, the leader’s quirks, obsessions, or inadequacies cease to be any of those things, instead becoming fashionable attributes of greatness. Bad jokes that emerge from his or her mouth become hilarious; rudeness, strength. Mispronunciations become fashionable locution. The story of Castilian Spaniards replacing the “s” sound with a “th” sound (“therveza” instead of cerveza) to accommodate King Ferdinand’s lisp is myth, alas (or “alath”). But the moral of the story stands...…………..

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/trump-impeachment-presidents-failure-to-be-presidential-hurts-nation/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=flex&utm_term=second

[FeelNoPain]

FTA:
We’ve seen something similar happen to large swaths of the GOP. Because Trump is unteachable about how the presidency and our constitutional system are supposed to work, politicians and media figures have dropped their long-held views on foreign policy, the national debt, trade, and even the need for basic civility in order to get in sync with the president.

Need Less of these Never Trumper Scum, Fake News, Low I.Q., Enemy of the People dummies.
Need More American Thinker genius toadies.

[Chosen Daughter]

Truth:

Our problems with partisanship and polarization predate Trump’s election, but his presidency has been gasoline on a fire. Trump could have avoided impeachment countless times. Most obviously, he could have not done what he obviously did vis-à-vis Ukraine. Or he could have admitted his error, apologized, and taken the steam out of the impeachment train’s boilers.


Instead, because of his low character, he opted to stand by his claims that his actions were “perfect.” As a result, Republicans must now further deform their character to accommodate his and scramble to protect themselves from hearing the truth at his impeachment trial, on the accurate but embarrassing pretext that the Democrats didn’t expose the truth the right way.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/trump-impeachment-presidents-failure-to-be-presidential-hurts-nation/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=flex&utm_term=second

[Wingnut]

This is an opinion piece.  Moving.

[rangerrebew]

The premise isn't quite right.  The problem isn't that he's refusing to be presidential, it is that he is too presidential for democrats the media and never Trumpers.  He's too decisive, quick acting, and stands for America.  In other words, he is the polar opposite of Barak Hussein Obama and THAT is what has his enemies so upset.  His actions make Obama look like a dimestore clerk suddenly thrust into the presidency.  His indecisiveness, preference for Muslims and Russia over America, hatred of the military, hatred for white people, his poor understanding of economics and business is all being exposed but the media either doesn't see it or, if they do, won't put it into words.

[dfwgator]

Whatever.

[skeeter]

The narrative is Trump isn't 'acting presidential'.

What 'presidential acting' is Trump not doing? Is he not negotiating trade deals on the USA's behalf? Acting as Commander & Chief where there's a national threat? Refraining from blowing his nose into the tablecloth while at state dinners?

He insults those who attack him. BFD.

[Snarknado]

What our country is "paying for" is dems' refusal to accept the results of one election, and refusal to allow voters to choose who they want in the next election.

[sneakypete]

This is an opinion piece.  Moving.

@Wingnut

Can you move it to the Huffington Post,where it belongs?

[Cyber Liberty]

 

[Wingnut]

@Wingnut

Can you move it to the Huffington Post,where it belongs?

You mean move Chosen Daughter to the Huffer?  @sneakypete 

[EasyAce]

On a daily basis, he's doing an amazing job of demystifying the presidency, without the inconvenience of a House inquiry and a Senate trial.

If so, then what good is the current impeachment effort supposed to do? That's a question raised recently by executive-power critics on both the left and the right. "Recent partisan impeachment crusades haven't challenged the gravest executive excesses," The American Conservative's Jim Antle pointed out. "Drone an American citizen, no worries. Drone on about Joe Biden in a telephone call, constitutional crisis."

"If Trump is going to be impeached," The Intercept's Murtaza Hussain wrote, "don't fool yourself that what he's allegedly done to Hunter Biden is the worst crime he committed while in office."

It's a fair point: The third-rate shakedown attempt at the heart of Ukrainegate probably isn't even the worst thing Trump did in the month of July. Even so, in politics, as in economics, incentives matter. Lower the cost of bad behavior and you'll probably get more of it. Not launching an impeachment inquiry in this case would signal that, going forward, it's perfectly acceptable for presidents to use the diplomatic and foreign policy powers of the office to, in John Dean's memorable phrase, "screw [their] political enemies." Moreover, to tolerate Trump's blanket stonewalling of Congress would establish the precedent that it's OK for presidents to ignore lawful subpoenas if he thinks the people investigating him are "biased." Repudiating those notions is hardly a waste of the House's time.

. . . The presidency has grown far too powerful to entrust to any one fallible human. Will the current impeachment drive do anything about that?

Impeachment's core purpose is to serve as "a bridle in the hands of the legislative body upon the executive servants of the government," as Federalist No. 65 puts it. But history proves there's no guarantee any particular impeachment will further that purpose . . . The post-Watergate Congresses made a lot of mistakes, and the good they did was steadily undermined by less assertive lawmakers in the decades that followed. But they carried out the last serious effort to limit executive power. Impeachment wasn't a "distraction" from that effort but the catalyst for it. Today, for only the fourth time in American history, an American president has been forced to contemplate early retirement via the impeachment process. Those of us who'd like to downsize the presidency itself have little to fear from that process and some reason to hope.

---Gene Healy, from "Don't Freak Out About Impeachment," Reason, February 2020 issue.

He opened his article with this:

Nobody likes losing his job, but if there's any country on Earth that's copacetic about firing people, it's these United States of America. Almost alone among industrialized democracies, the U.S. hews to the old-school regime of employment at will, which means most of us can be frogmarched out of the building at any time—for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all.

. . . Does it bother us when an old lech like Les Moonves of CBS or some new economy manchild like Adam Neumann of WeWork gets the business end of creative destruction? Like hell it does: This is the country that pioneered the idea of firing people as entertainment. For 14 seasons of NBC's reality TV game show The Apprentice, Americans tuned in eagerly to see which contestants would be shown the door with the signature line "You're fired!" Then, in 2016, we went and elected the game-show host president of the United States.

Since his inauguration, Donald Trump's tenure has been a whirlwind of self-dealing, management pratfalls, and public meltdowns of the sort that might get a mere captain of industry summarily canned. Luckily for him, he's failed upward into a post that comes with more job protection than the vast majority of American workers enjoy. Somehow we've decided that the one job in America where you have to commit a felony to get fired is the one where you also control nuclear weapons. Given the damage an unfit president can do, shouldn't it be easier to get rid of one?

Mr. Healy, by the way, is also the author of these two books that I for one wish more people had read and would read:



False Idol, by the way, is a free read!

[sneakypete]

You mean move Chosen Daughter to the Huffer?  @sneakypete 

@Wingnut

No comment.

[libertybele]

Still waiting on the U-haul.

[Hoodat]

Our Nation Is Paying for Trump’s Refusal to Be Presidential

No, our country is paying for putting Democrats in power.

[conservativevoter]

What EXACTLY has Trump done that could be voiced or written as a CHARGEABLE CRIME?  Did he wipe himself in the wrong direction? 

[EasyAce]

What EXACTLY has Trump done that could be voiced or written as a CHARGEABLE CRIME?

A president can be impeached for reasons having nothing to do with legally chargeable crimes. So said the Founding Fathers, among others.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

This is the kind of opinion piece that ticks me off.  Given the choice to focus on Trump's "unPresidential behavior", or the Democrats anti-democratic 3 year long crusade to overturn an election, Goldberg chooses to focus on the issue that only helps elect a Democrat.  And which is truly worse?  A President who says some offensive things, or the refusal of one political party to accept the results of an election, and trying to use the machinery of government to derail a Presidency?

Make me sick.  People like Goldberg are small-minded twerps who simply can't get over that their preferred candidate didn't win the nomination in 2016, and likely was offended by/unsulted by Trump in the process.  Well, my preferred candidate didn't win either.  But sometimes, you have to deal with disappointment and act like an adult moving forward.

[EdinVA]

So, we should all settle for do nothing government, high unemployment, stagnant stock market and real estate values.We need more food stamps and welfare with a side of socialism.
I will gladly pay... let me get my check book...

[Right_in_Virginia]

This is the kind of opinion piece that ticks me off.  Given the choice to focus on Trump's "unPresidential behavior", or the Democrats anti-democratic 3 year long crusade to overturn an election, Goldberg chooses to focus on the issue that only helps elect a Democrat.  And which is truly worse?  A President who says some offensive things, or the refusal of one political party to accept the results of an election, and trying to use the machinery of government to derail a Presidency?

Make me sick.  People like Goldberg are small-minded twerps who simply can't get over that their preferred candidate didn't win the nomination in 2016, and likely was offended by/unsulted by Trump in the process.  Well, my preferred candidate didn't win either.  But sometimes, you have to deal with disappointment and act like an adult moving forward.

 

[libertybele]

A president can be impeached for reasons having nothing to do with legally chargeable crimes. So said the Founding Fathers, among others.

??  Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution:  The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

[Cyber Liberty]

??  Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution:  The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Cato has been highly predictable in all matters Trump.  The Live Thread for today ought to be heating up any minute now...it's 1PM in DeeCee.

[libertybele]

Cato has been highly predictable in all matters Trump.  The Live Thread for today ought to be heating up any minute now...it's 1PM in DeeCee.

Speaking of heating up; it finally warming up a bit outside...time for another walk.   

[EasyAce]

??  Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution:  The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

[H]owever much it may fall in with the political theories of certain statesmen and jurists, to deny the existence of a common law belonging to, and applicable to the nation in ordinary cases, no one has as yet been bold enough to assert, that the power of impeachment is limited to offences positively defined in the statute book of the Union, as impeachable high crimes and misdemeanours.

---Justice Joseph Story, from Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833.

[roamer_1]

And which is truly worse?

Really, must I choose? 

I choose neither, thanks.