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[Trekkin]

There exists no standard of evidence that prevents one from saying there's an additional Secret Level of Trump that's just laughing at what fools we all were as the masterstroke comes down upon our necks. But by all standards of what can actually be observed, the things that take place in our actual physical reality...this world looks a lot like the one where an inexperienced sliver spoon rageaholic and dirty old man sidelined his way into the Presidency through an unconventional strategy keying into the zeitgeist.

Keyed into badly, at that. There were paths through the primary and general election where Trump could have walked away with a giant sack of cash, higher ratings for The Apprentice, and more enrollees in whatever next version of Trump University he put together to milk more cash out of angry morons. Several of them were robust to Jeb Bush's failure to get the nomination all the wackaloon candidates assumed he'd just milquetoast his way into.

Actually becoming President was never the best outcome for Trump, and it shows now.

[Maximum Spin]

This notion that Trump somehow didn't want to become President is ludicrous. Becoming President was always the goal of running for President. Trump doesn't even seem to be particularly motivated by "giant sacks of cash"; the argument that Trump's business ventures fail misses the point that Trump doesn't care nearly as much about making money as he does about being a Businessman. Trump doesn't want to get things, he wants to be things, and right now he is Being President. As far as he's concerned he's succeeding.

[Trekkin]

This notion that Trump somehow didn't want to become President is ludicrous. Becoming President was always the goal of running for President. Trump doesn't even seem to be particularly motivated by "giant sacks of cash"; the argument that Trump's business ventures fail misses the point that Trump doesn't care nearly as much about making money as he does about being a Businessman. Trump doesn't want to get things, he wants to be things, and right now he is Being President. As far as he's concerned he's succeeding.

Okay, let's assume that Trump wanted to be President -- not just in the same haphazard daydream/demands in which he randomly wants everything as a result of overwhelming sociopathic avarice combined with the memory of a goldfish, but actually as a specific goal that stayed with him beyond his staff's ability to deter him. Why was he so late in putting an administration together? Surely, had he wanted the job, some of the many people responsible for insulating him from the outside world would have noticed that he can't demand things and then get them -- which is what he understands the Presidency, and indeed all power, to be -- without people actually in the positions that make the Presidency work. Even if he'd just wanted to be a figurehead with little people to handle all the actual governing, there were people more than willing to do that in the Republican establishment. He could have put a staff together that would let him campaign and golf through his entire term, occaisionally demanding random things just to watch people scurry around and do them, and even signing executive orders that did nothing but sound very grand.

I just can't see how the Presidency he has now could correspond in any way to what he wanted out of the job. He's miserable and furious all the time now, he tells reporters how much he misses driving and how intrusive the Secret Service are, he resents how much work the Presidency is...that just doesn't sound like someone who's where he wants to be right now.

I think it's more likely that he wanted very much to run for President and go to rallies and hear people cheer for him, and then he wanted to win some debates and get people riled up, and the whole thing kind of snowballed out of his tiny hands. I don't see how he could want this current situation, or what he could possibly have wanted that would have become this through sheer ineptitude rather than indifference. If this is him succeeding, he must not like success very much.

[Maximum Spin]

No, no, no, he didn't want "the job", he wanted to be President. Your mistake is in assuming that he needs to want to be President for a reason or in order to do something other than Be President. Golfing his entire term wouldn't be Being President. You're also wrong about "what he understands the Presidency, and indeed all power, to be". He understands the Presidency, and very likely all power, to be about the image of having power, ie, Being President. He's not a sociopath or even especially avaricious, he's a classic ESTP, The Conman archetype, everything is image. He is currently the President, which means he projects the image of Being President, which is everything, because nothing else exists except image.

[Trekkin]

Then why is he so unhappy? If all he wants is "Being President", he's got that, so what's his problem?

[wierd]

He's an egomaniac. People NOT liking him, DEFLATES his ego.  Being president inflates it, but not being like DEFLATES it.  He wants to be president, and have people say he is a GOOD president.

[Maximum Spin]

He wants to be president, and have people say he is a GOOD president.

I'd say it's about 50% this and 50% he wants to Be President without all these people bothering him with asking him to do so much work.

[Trekkin]

He wants to be president, and have people say he is a GOOD president.

I'd say it's about 50% this and 50% he wants to Be President without all these people bothering him with asking him to do so much work.

But how can he simultaneously want to Be President without people wanting him to work while also not accepting the work-free, golf-and-shake-hands ceremonial version of Being President?

[Maximum Spin]

But how can he simultaneously want to Be President without people wanting him to work while also not accepting the work-free, golf-and-shake-hands ceremonial version of Being President?

Because the second one is obviously not really Being President. He doesn't want to ceremonially be President, he wants actually being President to be easier. You have to understand that the fundamental difference is that the image of Being President has to be intact.

[RedKing]

He wants to be president, and have people say he is a GOOD president.

I'd say it's about 50% this and 50% he wants to Be President without all these people bothering him with asking him to do so much work.

But how can he simultaneously want to Be President without people wanting him to work while also not accepting the work-free, golf-and-shake-hands ceremonial version of Being President?

Schrodinger's President. (Which I'm hoping means we can put him in a box with a vial of poison gas.)

You have to understand that Trump's tenure as a CEO was his ideal state -- he schmoozed, he mugged for the camera, he talked about how great his shit was and how rich he was, and then he let a small army of people in his organization do most of the actual work -- taking credit for their achievements, and distancing himself from any failures. That's what he expected the Presidency to be like, and it's not.

If anything, it's the opposite of that. Presidents get blamed for EVERYTHING (Thanks Obama) and get very little credit when they do things right, often not until years after they're out of office. Trump is like some poor guy in a Twilight Zone episode, where he got what he wanted only to find out it's exactly unlike what he expected. Why do you think he's so mad people are blaming him for Puerto Rico and keeps touting the "Hey, it was like that when I found it!" excuse?

[bloop_bleep]

Okay, I'm back now. And I have another rant to make.

You're mistaken, Trekkin. Only very certain people (such as ourselves) know that Trump isn't doing the things. His main voter base thinks he's doing excellently. They don't care whether something is actually good policy or doesn't end being a disaster; they just like him hating on the people they don't like (protesting football players) or things they don't like (Obamacare.) As long as he shows up on television and starts talking about the "things," people will assume he's doing the "things."

He does stuff like flame those who disagree with him because it presents him as the "tough guy." His supporters, who already agree with everything he does, will start hating whoever he's flaming, so he's basically selectively eliminating competition.

Don't get me wrong, Trump does not know how to do his job. But he wanted the job. He made a serious and concerted effort to get the job. He knew he could get the job.

He doesn't want to actually Be President, though. He couldn't give two shits about policy if it doesn't somehow benefit himself. He keeps up the illusion that he's Being President by pretending to do the "things." And I don't think he's an egomaniac either. The reason he wants people to think he's a Good President is because he wants to get re-elected. He just wants the innate power that comes with being President.

Okay, bye for now. I'll let you all counter-rant.

Fake-edit: was ninja'd by RedKing.

But the problem here is that Trump won't get blamed for anything, as I explained before. He's built himself a nigh-indestructible shell throughout his campaign that now his voters will agree with anything he does.

[smjjames]

Just wait until the next recession or financial crisis comes around.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It was literally only a few days ago that I posted the evidence showing Trump's net approval among rural voters has been eliminated by these past few months. This "don't you know Teflon Don's base is invincible, you nerd sheep" line isn't new and it's long disproven. Yes, shitlers and trolls don't care about the truth. Guess what, those people aren't the majority base of anybody.

This time last year I was telling you all that most of Trump's supporters wanted him for the Supreme Court seat and the burning R, and that shit's still true motherfuckers.

It has been nine months out of forty-six (dear god) and Trump's relationship with the public has undergone radical changes for the negative that most Presidents don't. It's just plain stubbornness or else conscious subversiveness to keep harping on the Teflon Don line when it doesn't match up with the world around us.

What is it with people just assuming political establishments are invincible? Hill Dawg's hardcore supporters used that line about the Democrats too, and it didn't exactly work out, now did it? Political establishments are top-heavy, they are very rarely as strong at the base.

[Reelya]

It's also possible that the USA is going to get a 1-term presidency this time. The run since 1992 (three two term presidents in a row) hasn't happened since the cadidates were literally* the heros of the American Revolution.

Also note the period from 1960-1980. Basically there were no proper two-term presidents in that time period at all, for the various reasons. People have been lulled by the unprecedented era of relative White House stability from  1992-2016, but that's unlikely to continue indefinitely. With the increasing polarization and social media making swings super-fast it's quite possible to imagine an unstable period coming up that covers the next 20 years or so.

* Truman counts as a single-term winner since his first term was serving out the rest of FDR's last term. If you count 1945-1980 there were exactly two proper two-term winners in 35 years. So on average, two 2-term presidents per 9 elections.

[RedKing]

Just wait until the next recession or financial crisis comes around.

Fake news! Obama's fault! MEXICANS! Hey, did you know some people don't want you to say "Merry Christmas"?? SAD!

Granted, less and less people will fall for the Shiny Things gambit over time, especially as the stakes increase. But I think there's also a problem wherein a lot of self-described "conservatives" are in this to the end, because admitting Trump is a failure means admitting they were WRONG. Which is about the hardest damn thing in the world for a lot of people. It took until a couple of years *after* Dubya was out of office before you saw a lot of Republicans finally get up the nerve to say (essentially) "Wow, that was a fuck-up. Let's not do that again."

Come 2022 or (God have mercy on our souls) 2026, you'll see a wave of Redcaps insisting they never liked Trump, they didn't vote for him, but Gawd would you look at the commie that's in office now?? We gotta do something and elect a REAL conservative! An outsider who'll shake things up!