After two years in the White House, we can make some judgments about Trump’s presidency.  Unless things take a dramatic turn in his final years, Trump will not be recorded in history as a great or transformational president.  And he certainly won’t be grouped with the likes of Andrew Jackson.

This is truly a shame because, unlike any other political candidate I’ve seen in my lifetime, Trump was able to connect with voters and generate  a level of enthusiasm and energy that should have propelled his agenda with great success.  Politicians would kill to have the kind of connection Trump had with his base during the campaign.

So what happened?

“He Can’t Single-Handedly Fight the Establishment”

This is the biggest explanation — or, rather, excuse — that I hear from people when the question is asked why so little progress is being made on his agenda, and why so little of the Swamp has been drained.  But this explanation also reveals the biggest problem:  you can’t fight this fight alone.  Every strong leader in history has surrounded himself with other strong men that will share the fight.  As far as I can see, Trump has not done this.  From just after his inauguration we saw him Drain the Swamp right into his own administration.  Bush-era retreads, NeverTrumpers, and Hillary campaign advisers won some of the top prizes in the administration.  MAGA-friendly folks in the White House were surprised at this direction, claiming that the criteria to become a White House official was that you had to hate Trump and be against everything he campaigned for.

Trump needed to surround himself with people who agreed with his agenda and were loyal to him, and fill out the heads of his most important agencies with selections from this group.

He didn’t do that.  He did the opposite.  For example, he fired crooked, Deep State goon James Comey.  That was a smart move.  But then he replaced him with another crooked, Deep State goon… Christopher Wray.  This pattern is found throughout his administration.  Rod Rosenstein should have never been nominated for Deputy Attorney General.  A simple Google search would have revealed enough information about his history to know that he is a complete snake.  Just days after being sworn in, he appointed the special counsel to begin the coup attempt.

Sing it with me:

“Oh shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”

Javanka

The duo of son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka have been the president’s biggest Achilles’ heel.  These two NYC, liberal snobbish elitist registered Democrats are constantly in the president’s ear whispering sweet compromises.  They have never been part of the MAGA agenda.  They’re embarrassed by “Middle America”.  Most of the disasters in the White House have come from Jared’s brain, according to all the sources we’ve all read — including this latest one involving the shutdown.

Worse, we all know that Jared is deep into all kinds of greasy shit.  Just look at the crimes his father was convicted of and imprisoned for.  The concern here is that the establishment has dirt on Jared, and Trump feels the need to protect him and, therefore, the establishment has leverage over Trump.

Tweeter-in-Chief

Perhaps the most frustrating habit of the President is his endless empty threats and complaints on Twitter, never backed up with any kind of action.  Trump may truly go down as the epitome of an “All Talk, No Action” president.  How many times can he make empty threats on Twitter, unfulfilled, until the whole world realizes that all his bluster is just bluffing?  When you make a threat you have to follow it up to be taken seriously.  Otherwise, you make yourself appear quite impotent.

His endless complaining about Fusion GPS, Uranium One, the “dossier”, and all the things the Democrats get away with — for heaven’s sake… will somebody please tell him that he’s the PRESIDENT and is therefore the HEAD of the FBI and DOJ?

Trump has allowed himself to be always on the defense.  Around the clock the MSM is talking about his trials, relentlessly.  Trump needs to move to the offense.  After the Bob Mueller investigation was announced, Trump should have immediately ordered a handful of special counsels to investigate all kinds of nefarious activity:  Hillary’s email server and FBI testimony, the actions of Comey and Andrew McCabe at the FBI, the Seth Rich murder, Uranium One, and investigations into anybody else who wants to spar.  Nobody in that city is clean.  Let those investigators go ahead and raid the offices of Comey’s private attorney, like Mueller did with Michael Cohen.  Let them start “turning” associates on process crimes the way Mueller did Manafort, Flynn, etc.  Hell, investigate Mueller for his 9/11 cover-ups, and his past failures to prosecute child pedophile rings.  And if Congress threatens to pull funding to cancel these investigations?  Let them.  And then Trump could shut Mueller down under the same pretenses.

Things are About to Get Worse

The Deep State has their “checkmate” piece readily placed on the chessboard.  And, as fits the pattern, it will be the President himself who moves the piece into position.  And that piece has a name:  William Barr, Trump’s appointment to head the Department of Justice.  Barr is, of course, another Bush-era Deep State goon with a long history of idiotically establishment-oriented views but he comes with an extra feature:  a conflict of interest, in fact.  He’s bestest buds with Bob Mueller himself.  Consider the stupidity of this moment:  Trump is going to make the head of his DoJ somebody who has been close, close friends — for decades — with the guy leading a soft coup to overturn the election results.

Between Barr and Rosenstein, Mueller will feel plenty safe to dig as deep as he wants.

Lack of Loyalty Has Consequences

Trump’s failure to remain loyal to his supporters is a huge hole that his enemies will exploit.  Time and time again, when a supporter is in trouble, Trump has dumped him to the curb.  Look at how quick Gen. Flynn was dropped once Trump perceived he could be a detriment.

All across the nation, Trump supporters — wearing MAGA hats and such — were organizing “free speech” rallies to show their support for the president, trying to offset the media narrative that Trump was an unpopular president.  And all over they were beaten, pepper sprayed, knocked out, had gashes opened up on their heads — and President Trump didn’t lift a single damn finger to help them.  Not only that, but his own Department of Justice went ahead and prosecuted his own supporters with “conspiracy to riot” charges (ten years imprisonment!) for attending these rallies and simply defending themselves.  Meanwhile, Antifa runs buckwild all across the country with absolutely no fear of repercussions from law enforcement.  Where the hell is the President?  Do Americans not have a First Amendment right to peaceably assemble?  When is he going to stand up and protect this civil right of his own supporters?

Trump’s supporters are going to jail for many, many years.  Antifa is running buckwild.  This is the reality on the ground and everyone knows it.

You don’t see too many of those free speech / pro-Trump rallies anymore, do you?  I think people got the message.

Now consider:  if the establishment moves to impeach Trump, how many of his supporters will be eager to go out there and put their lives, careers, and families on the line to support him… when they know he doesn’t have their backs?  When they know he didn’t lift a single finger to help them before?

MAGA is a Movement

I don’t know what 2020 is going to bring.  I suspect, all things considered, Trump would probably not win re-election.  Things could change, of course.  The Democrats could have a disastrous candidate.  There could be a third-party candidate to spoil things.  Trump could string together some serious successes in the next two years.  But either way, MAGA is a movement that, in many ways, is outside of Donald Trump.  He simply tapped into a lot of anger and frustration out there, and made his campaign’s central issues those that many Americans feel have been neglected for too long:  loss of manufacturing jobs, our immigration disaster, expensive healthcare, and endless wars.

We may need to find a new candidate in the primary leading up to 2020.  We need somebody with real guts and who follows through.  Somebody in the mold of a Matteo Salvini, or Viktor Orban, or Sebastian Kurz, or Jair Bolsonaro, etc.