What is Hopeful About Trump's Cluelessness

President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first 100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the White House.

"I loved my previous life. I had so many things going," Trump told Reuters in an interview. "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier."

Maybe he's growing into the job, but I have my doubts. For one thing, this:

White House aides have figured out that it’s best not to present Trump with too many competing options when it comes to matters of policy or strategy. Instead, the way to win Trump over, they say, is to present him a single preferred course of action and then walk him through what the outcome could be – and especially how it will play in the press.

“You don’t walk in with a traditional presentation, like a binder or a PowerPoint. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t consume information that way,” said one senior administration official. “You go in and tell him the pros and cons, and what the media coverage is going to be like.”

Or, as was said in the 19th Century: "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader." That isn't leadership, but craven political cowardice.

"How will it play in the press" is not the mark of any sort of leader. It is the mark, rather, of a narcissistic publicity whore. Trump would seem to prefer to be flattered and believe that the American people love him, rahter than provide any sort of leadership in perilous times.

This is also disturbing:

Midway through a discussion about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map.

"Here, you can take that, that's the final map of the numbers," the Republican president said from his desk in the Oval Office, handing out maps of the United States with areas he won marked in red. "It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us." He had copies for each of the three Reuters reporters in the room.

Sore losers are pretty common, witness the South since 1866 (once the shock of losing wore off) and post-Great War Germany. Winners rarely feel a need to keep bragging about their victory (Patriots fans notwithstanding). People in the North rarely talk about their ancestors who marched off to crush those traitorous rebels 150 years ago.

But not Trump.