In the days leading up to his 100th day in office, Donald Trump was either poo-pooing the significance of that benchmark or claiming that he had set a record for accomplishments as president over that period. The truth, which, as always, he missed by a wide mark, is something else entirely.
The first 100 days of a new administration are that so-called honeymoon period when the glow of the election victory, coupled with the public’s desire for whatever change or initiatives marked the winning candidate’s campaign, can lead to legislative successes and/or to diplomatic breakthroughs. That brief period of a president’s four-year term in office does not define the presidency or provide a final grade for the president, but it can be a bellwether for the months and years that will follow. And in Trump’s case, the prognostication has to be unsettling for anyone paying attention.
The record, such as it is, isn’t good, at least when viewed in conventional terms. Yes, he got a Supreme Court nominee confirmed, and conservatives are absolutely giddy about that accomplishment. But other than making the nomination, Trump had little to do with Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation. It wasn’t as if he convinced the eight Democrats he would have needed to avoid the “nuclear option” that the Senate Republicans had to employ. In the end, Gorsuch got the 52 Senate Republicans’ votes and nary a Democrat.
And that single accomplishment was it as far as legislative victories are concerned. The attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare was a disaster, never even getting to a vote in the House. And anything else that Trump wants to do legislatively hasn’t even become a bill yet, which is an indication of just how unprepared the president was and is for the work of governing. The evidence for this point goes far beyond the lack of legislative accomplishments, however.
Trump’s administration is still only a skeleton of what it should be. Countless senior positions in most of the cabinet departments are unfilled, many without even having nominees named. And without those people in place, the hard work of crafting legislation can’t get done, especially if the mid-level career public servants in those agencies aren’t getting clear signals on what the administration wants to accomplish. And when it comes to clear signals, this administration is definitely not speaking with one voice.
Trump, of course, is a multi-voiced kind of guy. He can say (or tweet) one thing one day, and then seemingly reverse the message the next. The reporters who cover the administration still act as if they take him seriously, seeking explanations for his ignorant statements as if they can be provided. Watching a Sean Spicer press conference is a comic experience. Spicer, hardly the most articulate of speakers himself, will hem and haw his way around an answer to a question about something Trump has said, and the reporters will then act surprised, as if they are thinking, “wow, that doesn’t seem to make sense,” and then will follow up with more questions that seek rationality. They are doing their job, but as professionals with integrity, they have to be thinking that this presidency is a joke.
And then there is the man himself. In his first 100 days in office, Trump has shown that he is amazingly ignorant of the mechanics of governing and of the policies he claims to be pushing. How many times will he either say or intimate how surprised he is about how difficult or complex some aspect of his job is. Health care is the obvious example (“nobody knew health care was so complicated”). But he has been equally flummoxed by the complexities of trade (NAFTA may actually be a deal worth keeping), by the distinction between friendly and unfriendly foreign governments (China really isn’t a currency manipulator and has a great leader; Russia isn’t such a wonderful force in international affairs and our relations with it have never been worse), and by figuring out how to combat terrorism (ISIS isn’t so easily defeated).
To be sure, every new president faces a learning curve, but most at least try to study the basics of the policies they espouse. But this president doesn’t have the intellectual energy to try. He clearly doesn’t know what is in the current House bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, as his comments over the last weekend on pre-existing conditions were completely at odds with what the bill would do (giving states the ability to opt out of the guaranteed coverage). He apparently doesn’t bother to check with his state department before reaching out to autocrats like Turkey’s Recip Erdogan and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. And now he says he would be “honored” to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, which even Spicer had a hard time explaining.
Trump’s first 100 days also revealed how casually he is tied to his campaign rhetoric. He really hasn’t fought hard for anything yet. Even the travel ban, now twice rejected by federal courts, has been less of a passion for him than his speeches before the election had suggested. And the wall? Don’t hold your breath on that crazy idea ever happening.
Trump really only cares about himself and how he is perceived. He wants to be seen as great at anything he does. Thus, specific policies that other presidents would push hard to get passed or enacted are just points to shout about at campaign rallies for Trump, and only if they get him cheering crowds. Conservatives may be happy to have him in power, but if he were to determine that a liberal policy were more popular, my guess is he would jump to it in a heartbeat.
He’s a flim-flam man, a con artist, a demagogue. His ardent supporters will stick with him as long as he says what they want to hear, which is the same stuff he spewed during the campaign: jingoistic nativism that claims America can be made “great again”; an isolationist foreign policy that seeks to sound tough without actually putting boots on the ground anywhere; an economic vision that promises better jobs with more restrictive trade policies; and a non-too-subtle acceptance of xenophobia, sexism, and even a little racism.
Trump’s presidency may well end up looking nothing like its first 100 days. The man may slowly develop a sense of the office and the responsibilities that come with it. That hope still exists, even after the chaos and incompetence that we have seen so far. But for now, the first 100 days of this presidency indicate that the country and the world are in for a pretty rough ride with Donald Trump as the nation’s president.