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Trump is not a president. He is grossly inadequate and probably in deep legal trouble. Those around him have noticed. Trump's staff, his GOP allies in Congress, department heads, attorneys, and spokespersons are therefore just tuning him out. He seems to have ceased being president. I can't remember such ever happening in the presidency in my 80 years nor reading of it in American history. The closest is Woodrow Wilson's fade-out after his stroke.
Trump still goes through some of the steps of being president. But his cloak of authority has been pulled away. Remember that scene in "The Wizard of Oz"? A little black doggie from Kansas reveals The Mighty Wizard to be just a charlatan peddler. In vain the Wizard cries out,"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"?
We all knew quite a while ago that this Trump fellow isn't presidential material. He publicly lies on average seven times a day, exaggerates like a four-year-old, has no noticeable train of thought, has no principles, has no policies. He has no dignity but screams out on Twitter like the demented peddlerman he actually is. He is crude, vulgar, self-absorbed and quite ignorant.
Now, in just one week, his staff, his party, his attorney, and his federal agencies have joined in disavowing his authority. They have quietly removed his cloak of authority by just ignoring it. As far as I recall, it began this past week with his own attorney — the improbably named Ty Cobb of the improbable mustaches. Mr. Cobb advised the world to ignore Trump's harsh remarks about Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating for any Trump/Russia conspiracy. Last Monday Mueller let the first shoes of his investigation hit the floor. Score to date: indictment of Trump's campaign manager and the latter's assistant, plus a confession by a campaign worker. There were not, as far as we can yet tell, revelations of a conspiracy, but the legal work showed the Trump campaign poised to go through that door.
Trump screamed, "NO COLLUSION!" (The capitals are his.) He screamed other anti-Mueller, anti-investigation stuff over Twitter, but his attorney quietly maintained that Trump's remarks have nothing to do with the investigation and that Trump was cooperative with Mueller. He isn't, but he would do well to be so because the public strongly supports Mueller. The public sides with Mueller - The Washington Post
Ty Cobb, the poor sod of an attorney, actually kept a straight face while announcing that Trump wasn't talking about Mueller. Cobb is trying to save Trump from roaring his way into yet another charge of obstruction of justice, one already looming from his firing of FBI Director James Comey, who began the investigation now in Cobb's hands.
Cobb's line was then taken up by Trump's press secretary, the smug and annoying Sarah Sanders. She too kept a straight face while announcing that Trump's attacks on the Mueller investigation had nothing to do with Mueller and the investigation.
The Republicans in Congress this week also treated him like the man who wasn't there. Determined to get some kind of tax law enacted — no laws having been enacted all this year — the GOP Congress gave only a cursory nod to Trump's urging they add a provision to the tax law so as to repeal Obamacare. As you'll recall, all year this Congress repeatedly failed to do anything about Obamacare.
Now, after several days of resounding silence from Congress, one chairman tentatively said they might consider including a repeal of the requirement that everybody get insurance. He was clear about this not being his idea: “The president feels very strongly about including this at some step before the final process.” The Congressman soberly noted, however, that "the Senate has yet to produce 50 votes on anything related to health care that I’m aware of.” G.O.P. May Repeal Health Mandate as Part of Tax Bill
So much for presidential authority in GOP law-making these days.
As if that weren't a slap in the face of presidential authority, look at the outright mutiny this week in thirteen federal departments. "Directly contradicting much of the Trump administration’s position on climate change, 13 federal agencies unveiled an exhaustive scientific report on Friday that says humans are the dominant cause of the global temperature rise that has occurred since the start of the 20th century, creating the warmest period in the history of civilization." Hottest Era in All of Civilization, Because of Man, U.S. Says
The federal prosecutors also have walked out on Trump, turning a deaf ear to him on sanctuary cities, immigrant bans, etc. Their job is to follow the law and the Justice Department rule book. Obviously it would be wrong for them to heed his bellowing of his prejudices. As for meting out justce, "Obviously, prosecutors don’t like to see people in positions of authority — including the president — commenting on possible penalties.’’ Mary McCord, a former senior national security official at the Justice Department, notes that “tweets and off-the-cuff statements make the jobs of career Justice Department people challenging. " When Trump speaks on legal matters, prosecutors try not to ...
In fact such commenting backfired on Trump this week when the ruling judge in the Army's Bowe Bergdahl desertion case refused to sentence Bergdahl to any jail time, taking into account that Trump had spent two years screaming that Bergdahl should be shot. Trump just doesn't understand that demands by a high-placed office-holder can be seen as prejudicing the rights of an accused. In his persistent ignorance, Trump helped the man he considered a traitor! Bergdahl Avoids Prison; Trump Once Urged Death Penalty
Words count, Mr. Trump. Learn that or no one who counts for anything will resume listening to you. Only your lonely little 33%.
You can't govern with 33% and the ill will or disdain of everybody else, including your own federal staff.
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