Rim Country Gazette: It's slowly dawning on Republicans that Trump just might be the worst president ever

Sunday, July 23, 2017

It's slowly dawning on Republicans that Trump just might be the worst president ever

All is not well in Republicanville. No matter how slavish the Fox News segments become, it ain't working; it is slowly dawning on powerful Republicans that the president they are so dutifully protecting and sucking up to may, in fact, be an idiot.

Trump’s struggles go beyond health care. More than six months into Trump’s presidency, Republicans have no legislative accomplishments other than the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a confusing foreign policy, and a White House that is perpetually in damage-control mode. From lawmakers and governors to donors and foreign policy experts, a certain realization is sinking in within the party, based on more than a dozen interviews in recent days: Donald Trump has been a historically weak and ineffective president.

That it took six months to start wondering whether the man who talked about grabbing women, who discussed his penis size during a presidential debate, who sent his press secretary to baldly lie about the size of the crowds on his inauguration day, and who is currently engaged in a public defense of his campaign team openly seeking the assistance of the Russian government during a period of unprecedented assault on our election systems by that government, is perhaps not the brilliant world-shaping genius he made himself out to be.

This is the problem with the Republican Party. They don't catch on too quick.

Even the president’s top backers are losing patience. Billionaire Trump patrons Rebekah and Bob Mercer are “apoplectic” over the health care debacle, with renewed fears that Trump’s lofty goals of changing Washington have become all but impossible, said a Trump administration adviser. The adviser added that lobbyists and establishment lawmakers are making Trump’s life more difficult. [...] “They’re saying, ‘It can’t be done, he can’t change Washington,’” the adviser said, before putting more of the blame for the lack of progress on Senate Majority Leader McConnell. “It’s the Washington cartel at its worst revolting against the president.”

Bob Mercer has been the funder of everything wrong with the conservative movement for some time now. He is now apparently "apoplectic" that the band of incompetent white nationalist conspiracy-mongers and burn-it-downers he shoveled into the White House are somehow not able to single-handedly work their white nationalist, burn it down ways—and blaming the rest of Washington for blocking them? Good. That's the best news we've heard all day. Maybe the fucker will flee the country for some oligarchy that will treat him better; Russia is supposedly lovely this time of year.

A recent report on “soft power,” a term that covers a country’s political and cultural influence, found that the United States under Trump has slipped from first to third among 25 countries; France, led by Emmanuel Macron, jumped to first.

Heavens, it seems only yesterday Republicans had dealt a powerful blow to French influence by renaming cafeteria foods to spite them; this will be unwelcome news.

Anyhoo, we're six months into the Donald Trump pretzeldenty and, by gum, he has no accomplishments, has cratered U.S. influence, is still operating with a skeletal state department, is at war with his own staff to such an extent that they no longer are willing to appear on television when speaking about him, and has no apparent foreign or domestic policy vision other than tweeting about whatever last caught his attention on Fox & Friends. And this is despite Republican House and Senate leaders Ryan and McConnell bending over backward to defend him from an unending stream of scandals and in-your-face corruption. Good show. Really, good show, everybody. What a fine denouement for the "party of Lincoln."