Trump�s failed presidency

Trump�s presidency is failing rapidly. Like others before him, modern
American presidents fail when they cannot master or comprehend the
government that they inherit. This is a hard concept to grasp in an age
when non-stop media coverage leads us to focus on the president�s
communication skills and when presidents themselves value spin more than
expertise. But in the end presidential failure is about reality, not
words�no matter how lofty and inspiring or how crude and insulting.

Contemporary presidents are especially prone to mistaking spin for reality
for several reasons. First of all, they are nominated not by other elected
officials who have some sense of what it takes to govern, but by activists
and party electorates who value inspiration and entertainment. Second, the
importance of mass communication leads presidents to believe that the words
and activities that got them into office can work once they are in office:
more rallies, more speeches, more tweets, and more television advertising.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Presidential scholars have been aware of the disjuncture between
campaigning and governing for some time now. More than a decade ago, Sam
Kernell wrote a book called Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential
Leadership (CQ Press, 2007), in which he showed that beginning with
President Kennedy, modern presidents spent a great deal more time on minor
presidential addresses and on domestic and international travel than their
predecessors. All this communication, he argued, came at the expense of
actual governing. Later on another presidential scholar, George C. Edwards
III, writing in Overreach, Leadership in the Obama Presidency (Princeton
University Press, 2012) argued that Obama thought he could go directly to
the public to get support for his programs, an approach that placed
communication over negotiation and that resulted in a stunning midterm loss
for his party.

Reality still matters, and spin has its limits�even in an era of social
media.

As long as things are going okay for most people, Americans tolerate a
president�s verbal gymnastics. But when people are in trouble, even the
most ardent government haters ask that famous question: �Where�s the
government?� And for most Americans, the president is the government.
Following the botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the
collateral damage to the presidency of George W. Bush was extensive. His
popularity never recovered and his second-term agenda, including bold
changes to Social Security, was destroyed. Nearly a decade later when
President Obama rolled out his signature achievement, the Affordable Care
Act, the hugely embarrassing crashing of the computer systems meant to
implement the act increased Republican opposition to it and undermined
public confidence in the government�s ability to implement important
executive actions.

Trump�s failures during the coronavirus pandemic run the gamut from the
rhetorical to the organizational. Every time the president speaks he seems
to add to the fear and chaos surrounding the situation: telling Americans
it was not serious by asserting his �hunches� about data, assuring people
that everyone would be tested even when there were very few tests
available, telling people that we are very close to a vaccine when it is
anywhere from 12 to 18 months away, mistakenly asserting that goods as well
as people from Europe would be forbidden from entering the United States,
and announcing that Google had a website for testing while the initiative
was merely an unimplemented idea, were just a few of his televised gaffes.
After every presidential statement, �clarifications� were needed. Trump has
the unique distinction of giving a national address meant to calm the
country that had the effect of taking the stock market down over 1,000
points.

We have come to expect verbal imprecision and outright lies from this
president, but that is more easily corrected on less momentous
developments. When there is fundamental incompetence on matters of
tremendous importance, voters punish poor results. And this is where
Trump�s actions on the coronavirus have gone far off target. One of the
most glaring deficiencies of his administration has been the failure to
have enough tests available to identify those infected and to screen others
for possible exposure. South Korea, a country a fraction of the size of the
United States, is testing thousands more people a day than the United
States. The failure to produce tests quickly will go down as one of the
biggest failures in the overall handling of this disease because it
prevented authorities from understanding the scope of the pandemic and
therefore made it difficult for them to undertake appropriate steps to
mitigate its spread. Other countries had tests and now state governments
are rapidly rolling out their own tests after the CDC belatedly removed
regulatory barriers. Even the nation�s chief infectious disease doctor,
Anthony Fauci, has admitted that testing is a major failure�a statement
that is most certainly not one of the president�s talking points.

In this and other areas, Trump has failed to learn from the failures of his
predecessors. When President Ronald Reagan signed into law the fundamental
restructuring of the military known as the Goldwater-Nichols reforms,[1] he
did this knowing that he did not want a military fiasco on his watch like
the failed Iranian rescue mission that did in Jimmy Carter�s presidency.
And following the total breakdown in the Federal Emergency Management
Agency�s handling of Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama made sure
his FEMA director was an experienced state emergency management director.
He knew that poor performance during natural disasters would doom his
presidency.

During the Obama Administration, the White House dealt with a precursor of
the coronavirus: the Ebola virus. While the scrambling eventually worked
out thanks to decisive executive office leadership, it illustrated that
pandemics were a fundamental national security threat. They created the
Global Health Security Team in the National Security Council to prepare. In
May of 2018, Trump disbanded the team allegedly because he never thought
pandemics would happen and because �I�m a business person. I don�t like
having thousands of people around when you don�t need them.� Trump�s
hurried justification for abandoning a unit (that was well short of
thousands) showed Trump�s limited understanding of why government is
different from business�it is in the business of preparing for low-
probability events. For instance, the United States military spends
billions every year preparing for wars all over the globe and even in outer
space that may never take place. The art of presidential leadership is
anticipating major problems and coming up with plans to mitigate them.

In addition to learning from past administrations, presidents need the
ability to anticipate reactions to their actions. The Trump administration
has been especially inept on this dimension from the beginning. The first
big executive order he issued, largely banning Muslims from coming to
America, was so ill-conceived that chaos broke out in airports around the
world as people with green cards to work in America and Muslims who had
assisted U.S. military forces in Iraq were initially turned away. Airport
chaos seems to be a specialty of the Trump administration. It reappeared
this past weekend, as Americans came home from Europe in huge numbers
following Trump�s announcement to close off travelers from Europe and
screen returning Americans. When travelers arrived, they found vastly
inadequate staffing at airports and were thus forced into the very
situation medical authorities were warning against: large crowds being
hoarded into small spaces with constant, close contact.

Trump has also failed to fill top government positions and turnover is far
higher than in any other recent administration, as Katherine Tenpas has
tracked on these pages. The absence of expertise in top government jobs is
especially dangerous during emergencies. Also, when positions are filled
they have not necessarily gone to the strongest candidates. Take for
instance leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
nation�s top agency for infectious diseases. Dr. Robert Redfield�s
appointment was opposed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest
which warned the administration that Redfield lacked a public health
background and that he was under investigation for scientific misconduct.

Modern presidents inherit an enormous enterprise called the federal
government that employs about the same number of people as the 6 largest
U.S. companies and has a combined annual revenue that is larger than the
combined revenues of the top 16 companies in the Fortune 500.[2] No wonder
modern presidents have had trouble managing this enterprise�in an
organization this big, something is always going right and something is
always going wrong. A president who understands what�s going right can call
on deep wells of expertise to protect himself from the failures that will
inevitably be attributed to him. And on the flip side, a president who is
aware of what�s going wrong can take corrective actions and try to stave
off the kinds of bureaucratic meltdowns that will also be attributed to
him.

On 10/9/2024 8:49 PM, Henry Bodkin wrote:
> Trump’s failed presidency

Makes Biden's DESTROY AMERICA FIRST term look like intentional high treason!

Henry Bodkin wrote:
> Nothing can be further from the truth.

Why are you death threat prosecution exempt by the Feds so far?

And after _so many_ death threats you issued on Trump and Vance...

Let's do our best to change that, shall we:

Governor Swill /Rudy Canoza/Lou Bricano/J Carlson/Michael A
Terrell/Chris Ahlstrom/Intelligent Party/Alan Bond/Henry Bodkin and a
few dozen other socks wrote:

Multiple death threats against Trump:
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Path:
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From: Governor Swill <governor.swill@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
talk.politics.misc,alt.politics,alt.politics.usa,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.elections
Subject: Re: Triumphant Trump Photo After Assassination Attempt
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References: <1oKdnTc9CYmJlg77nZ2dnZfqnPednZ2d@earthlink.com>
<XnsB1AED5FEA65AA629555@185.151.15.160>
<ONIkO.102541$dFU1.83026@fx11.ams4> <XnsB1AF52A9CDF3B629555@185.151.15.190>
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Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:38:43 -0400

Oh poor me I got shot at ...

Swill
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From: Governor Swill <governor.swill@gmail.com>
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Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:37:51 -0400

Cheer up, maybe someone else will try.

Swill

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From: J Carlson <j_carlson@gmx.com>
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> No. I am a patriotic American who wants the country and its people to
thrive. Getting rid of Trump permanently
> is an important step to getting there.

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That constitutes a DEATH THREAT against a former President, Rudey:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/871
18 U.S. Code § 871 - Threats against President and successors to the
Presidency
U.S. Code
Notes
prev | next
(a)Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail
or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any
letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any
threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon
the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice
President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office
of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or
knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the
President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the
order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years,
or both.
(b)The terms “President-elect” and “Vice President-elect” as used in
this section shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful
candidates for the offices of President and Vice President,
respectively, as ascertained from the results of the general elections
held to determine the electors of President and Vice President in
accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 1 and 2. The
phrase “other officer next in the order of succession to the office of
President” as used in this section shall mean the person next in the
order of succession to act as President in accordance with title 3,
United States Code, sections 19 and 20.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 740; June 1, 1955, ch. 115, § 1, 69
Stat. 80; Pub. L. 87–829, § 1, Oct. 15, 1962, 76 Stat. 956; Pub. L.
97–297, § 2, Oct. 12, 1982, 96 Stat. 1318; Pub. L. 103–322, title
XXXIII, § 330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)

9-65.200 - Threats Against the President and Successors to the
Presidency; Threats Against Former Presidents; and Certain Other Secret
Service Protectees
The Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division has
supervisory authority over 18 U.S.C. §§ 871 and 879 cases. As great
caution must be taken in matters relating to the security of the persons
protected by 18 U.S.C. § 871, United States Attorneys are encouraged to
consult with the Counterterrorism Section (CTS) of the National Security
Division when they have doubts on the prosecutive merit of a case. For
the same reason, dismissal of complaints under 18 U.S.C. § 871, when the
defendant is in custody under the Mental Incompetency Statutes (18
U.S.C. §§ 4244, 4246), requires approval from CTS. In other cases,
United States Attorneys must consult prior to dismissing a count
involving, or entering into any sentence commitment or other case
settlement involving a § 871 charge.

https://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/releases/2024/01/phoenix-man-arrested-making-online-death-threats-against-president-and

PHOENIX –David Michael Hanson, 41, of Phoenix, was arrested on Wednesday
for making online threats against the President and Vice-President.
Hanson was charged by Federal criminal complaint on Tuesday with five
counts of Threats Against the President and Successors to the Presidency
and five counts of Interstate Communication of Threats.

The complaint alleges that in November and December of 2023, while
living in Arizona, Hanson used a social media platform to post threats
to murder the President and Vice President of the United States. On
November 19, 2023, Hanson posted online a series of threatening
statements including one that stated, “#joeAndKamala I’m asking you to
resign on Monday your alternative is death brutally murdered.” After the
U.S. Secret Service spoke to Hanson and warned him that it was a Federal
crime to post such threats, on December 23, 2023, Hanson posted another
series of similar threats aimed at the President and Vice-President.

Each count of Threats Against the President and Successors to the
Presidency carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine of
up to $250,000, and up to three years of supervised release. Each count
of Interstate Communication of Threats carries a maximum sentence of
five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and up to three years of
supervised release.