One thing we can be sure of in the 4 awful years since Trump announced his candidacy – the guy hates work.
It’s beyond obvious he’s delegated (through inaction) all responsibilities to the least qualified and most inept people to handle any given thing. That’s how you get so many failed ideas on things like the Southern Border and the infamous, repeated ‘INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK’ Meltdowns.
During the campaign he was able to show up for a lot of rallies and puff out a lot of anger and it sort of looked like he was able to work. But it turns out boasting in front of an all white crowd of angry, intolerant people is actually Trump’s preferred form of recreation. So let’s not call campaigning “Work”.
He came prepared with a host of methods to avoid doing his job. Essentially, he’s faking it. It’s not like he’s all that good at it, but Trump doesn’t really care how it plays. Laziness is at the core of his “Leadership Style”, if you can call it that.
Let’s look at a few of his “Go-To” ways to dodge things; like reading (CAN he read?) or working in any way.
A Major Announcement is Coming…
There’s a MAJOR policy announcement coming on whatever he’s been asked about; and really any and all topics. When? In about 2 weeks. It never ends up happening.
As the president has stonewalled off all transparency and minimized his exposure to the press there’s been no way to really follow this up.
Busy Looking Meetings
The president likes to look like a work-a-holic who also has the time to develop and keep a very deep tan. These two at odds traits make it hard to look all that busy, but he goes through the motions anyway.
The meetings traditionally have gone one of two ways. Either the president will sit back and drink in praise from whoever he’s invited to a meeting, and it could be anyone from Mitch McConnell to Kanye. It looks so Banana Republic because it is.
The other track these meeting and brief press availabilities go is that Trump will take exception to a question and have a tantrum.
Either way the meeting gets on TV and the Dear Leader looks busy
Create A Crisis
Instead of getting down to the brass tacks of Trade or Infrastructure the president will start tweeting something crazy and draconian that he may or may not do. Insulting a world leader, screaming about a perceived Trade Injustice or just attacking some random person are all possible when he goes this route.
‘Solving’ the Created Crisis
When a tweet goes sour or an idea goes viral in the wrong way the president will use the aforementioned “A Major Announcement is coming very soon” stall.
Then, a day or so later, an aide or cabinet member will say on the record the president wasn’t serious about the crisis he created or the horrible things he was ‘forced to say’.
Sometimes we find out that he’s simply bitching about something that was settled months ago. It’s just done be on TV anyway. Again, he could care less how it plays. He considers it a win.
We just saw this in the Mexico Tariff Shell Game. At the last minute he pretended he had issues with Mexico and would impose tariffs. Then nothing happened and BLOTUS tweets he’s made a major deal. The Mexicans, for their part, were rightly confused and a little annoyed that an issue from a deal previously signed and settled is coming up again.
The media usually notes the deal is weeks or months old and there was never much chance Trump was going to do any of the things he threatened. It doesn’t matter, he looked busy. Mission Accomplished.
The Kremlin loves this too, by the way.
Wrong Time
The president will make threats and spitball policy ideas on Twitter at 4:56 am and then not show up anywhere until like 1 pm. When the rest of America wakes up hes passed back out but it looks like he was working.
This is part of a deeper theory I have. It’s that Trump doesn’t fall asleep and wake up like a normal person. In fact I think he’s like 2 days of sleep behind all the time. This would explain his constant confusion and brittle disposition. He can’t ‘sleep’, he only passes out from being awake too long for say 4 hours about every 20 to 30 hours. 12 Diet Cokes a day will do that to you.
So in a nutshell; my theory is he passes out from sheer exhaustion (and a caffeine crash) after 20 and 30 hours of ‘wakefulness.” Less than 5 hours later he wakes up in a cold panic the moment his body has been in stasis long enough for his mind to start to panic again. Then he ‘wakes up’ and starts the cycle again. He’s never anything but overtired, grumpy and scared.
Most of the time in he’s just in a torpor half out of it half watching Fox News Opinion shows that tell him he’s great. This is so his ego never has to stop grazing.
Wrong Place
This is maybe the Kremlin’s very favorite thing Trump reliably does.
The ‘president’ will just go somewhere and be completely inappropriate. Time and again we’ve seen him showing absolute contempt for his surroundings. He hates to work at all but has to make it look like he must be doing his job. Whether he looks like he’s doing it badly just doesn’t matter to him.
Be it standing in front of the CIA Wall of the Fallen while just lying about the size of the crowd and weather at his inauguration, saluting a murderous North Korean General, accepting Putin’s offer to investigate the 2016 Election, or sitting in front of the graves of 9,300 Americans who were killed storming the beach at Normandy; he says and does the wrong thing every time.
Remember when he shoved the Prime Minister of Montenegro out of the way? Or scared the shit out of thousands of Boy Scouts and angered their adult leaders with a crazy militaristic speech? That last disgraceful move has the president BANNED from any Boy Scout function. There’s a presidential first! The guy’s plain old inappropriate and he doesn’t care.
The president will act badly, provably lie and say completely inappropriate things in places you would consider sacred or at High Stakes Summits.
He has no idea about protocol and disgracefully supplicates himself to Putin and other nefarious figures regularly. He just wants the Photo Op to make it seem like he’s working.
He then dominates the news cycle with whatever disgraceful move he made, every crazy lie he told and/or bizarre threat he made.
Since getting on TV and getting things accomplished are pretty much the same thing to Trump, he considers it a win. At least no one’s talking about his terrible poll numbers or the multiple failed dictator moves like the Travel Ban, right?
Some people seem to buy it.
Fighting With Dead People
Death isn’t the end of Trump having a nonstop problem with you. No one is dead enough to escape his perma-rage.
One thing this president has shown is a boiler-plate pattern of being highly inappropriate and crude, especially about things that scare him. For instance – Military Heroes and the whole concept of death.
Usually it’s a beloved or revered Military hero that he focuses on. It’s the sheer insecurity of a Draft Dodger who didn’t even have the courage to say he was against the War. He just invented a disability and when the war ended he was magically cured. I’m sure most of the people with Incurable Bone Spurs would love him to share how he made them go away. No such luck.
Since dead people cant really fight back and he could care less how his words affect their families, he does it all the time. Be it refusing to lower the White House flag when John McCain died or mocking the parents of a soldier whose made the ultimate sacrifice, Trump feels like this makes him look on task and in charge.
Again, some people buy it.
Showing Off His Toys
Informal and insane statements while walking to his helicopter, with engine roaring, are a great way to look busy. So this is how we usually see Trump. The fact he usually yells when he talks anyway is slightly less out of place, but he makes up for it by being extra caustic in these moments.
So what if he’s flying to his own club to play golf or to one of his “Show-Rallies”? Any guy getting into helicopters that much must be working. Same thing with Air Force 1. He makes a few scathing comments in front of the plane, engines warming up, and he’s off.
Way to go, he just looked like he was working!
WHY?
Why would anyone act so stupidly? The short answer is “Donald Trump is LAZY and BAD AT EVERYTHING.” This extends to, well, everything. Be it what he tweets or who he hires and even to what information he takes in. He’s not an able Chief Executive.
In fact, were Articles of Impeachment built around an inability to fulfill his Oath of Office as such it would be hard for anyone to argue it wasn’t valid and would probably pass the House of Representatives.
Ever since his unexpected win Trump’s shown he’s unable to fulfill the Oath of Office. Nonetheless, he’s the president. Could it be that the Russians were punking all of us AND Trump too ? Like maybe he never thought he was going to win? It’s pretty easy to make the case he wasn’t trying to win with insane ad hoc policies and actions we saw on the trail. He was on the Low Road the whole time.
He’s never spent 10 seconds considering the importance of his job or shown any reverence to the office he holds.
And those are some of the ways Trump avoids doing any work.
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