Donald J. Trump has failed and he clearly hates it. His business failures, and there were many, could be swept under the rug with a bankruptcy. Today’s very public failures as president won’t go away and will haunt him every day.
Just this past week he has been repudiated by Congress losing on his main campaign promise, the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He was publicly scolded by Republican senators for his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and for not understanding the rule of law. Congress voted nearly unanimously for a sanctions bill the president didn’t want iInterestingly one of the only two senators who voted against it was Bernie Sanders) and since it is veto-proof he has been forced to say he will sign it. His White House staff is in chaos with his new (now former) Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci using unprintable language to attack other senior members of the staff. While Trump may enjoy that it makes him look like a fool in the eyes of any intelligent person.
He tweeted he is replacing his Chief of Staff Reince Preibus with Homeland Security Secretary retired general John Kelly. One could assume there may be another shoe to drop, considering the other White House staff target of Scaramucci’s verbal diarrhea was Steve Bannon. It would actually be interesting if Bannon can do what he suggested, lol. Turns out it was Scaramucci who was out within 11 days.
In the middle of all this, Trump tweeted a new policy declaring transgender persons will not be allowed to serve in the military. His new press secretary said it was coordinated with the military. She and Trump were rebuffed in less than 24 hours by the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff who said he knew nothing about it. That was echoed by the Secretary of Defense who had just announced a six month review of the policy regarding transgender persons serving in the military. Even conservative Republican Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and John McCain (R-AZ) among others criticized Trump saying all people should be treated equally. One must assume in Trump’s warped mind he figured because of all his failures he would do this to pander to his far-right homophobic constituency.
Amid all this chaos, Trump held an event announcing thousands of new jobs coming to Wisconsin. But because of all the crazy things he was doing this got little play. Trump may be lucky it didn’t. He announced it would bring 13,000 new jobs and was contradicted by the President of Foxconn who said initially it would only be 3,000. Looking into other similar announcements from Foxconn, like the one in Pennsylvania that never came to fruition, there is at most a 50/50 chance it will ever happen. Even if it does, Wisconsin taxpayers will have to anti-up nearly three billion dollars including “up to $1.5 billion in income tax credits for job creation, $1.35 billion in income tax credits for capital investment and up to $150 million in a sales tax exemption for the purchase of construction materials” to get the ten billion dollar investment. One can only pray for the people of Wisconsin this won’t be just another Trump failure.
Clearly adding up Donald J. Trump’s failures as president one must conclude he has no idea how to run a government or get something done in Washington, DC. But then why would we think he could? The fallacy about his being a great businessman gullible voters bought was a big lie. Donald Trump ran a family business and never had to be responsible to anyone else. He had as many failures as successes and never had to be held accountable. What’s one more bankruptcy to a failure like Trump? His attitude clearly was just screw a few more people, walk away without paying them, and move on.
Today he expanded his brand to screw a lot more people; all Americans. This time he will try to walk away and move on by issuing a slew of pardons instead of declaring bankruptcy.
The fact he couldn’t keep the promises he made in the campaign should have been clear to everyone; even those desperate enough to want to believe him. It makes no economic sense to reopen a coal mine. Bringing factory jobs back costs billions in taxpayer money as evidenced by Foxconn and the government must be willing to make the investment. Even then many of the old factory jobs won’t be there today because of technology. All one had to do was look at Trump’s successful real estate ventures like the Grand Hyatt hotel above Grand Central Station in New York to know he received nearly a billion dollars in government tax abatements and incentives. He is lying when he says he did it without government; and that means you and I funded him. Trump has yet to introduce a tax reform bill or his plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. The longer it takes him to do that the less chance anything will be done. Seeing Donald J. Trump and his administration as a failure is the only conclusion one can draw.
