I am amazed that Republicans cannot realize that the Democrats are giving them a golden opportunity, via impeachment, to get rid of Donald Trump, and replace him with a 2020 candidate of their choosing - a candidate who will, in all probability, soundly defeat whomever the Democrats nominate. And, if they time it right, the Republicans would only have to suffer the posturings of a lame-duck Mike Pence for a few months. With a little more luck, they might even persuade the Donald to resign, and thus avoid the stigma of actually voting against him. If that isn't a win-win situation, I don't know what is!
23
Know what Mr. Douthat? You need to just stop using, in your arguments, references to recent administrations. This presents two serious issues: all ethical decisions are relative; the current mess is just different in fairly trivial ways from previous messes. Really, isn't this mess in a different universe than any contemporary mess?
17
I feel like we're all strapped down to chairs and there's a drunken three year old with a loaded machine gun reeling around the room. Trump is dumping cans of gas all over the world and then trying to figure out how to work a lighter. I hope we're not all in flames or ashes before the next election or he quits and runs away to Florida.
20
Trump is weak in the way any malignant narcissist is weak. He doesn’t exhibit true character, inner strength, humility. self reflection, empathy, or even basic human connection. Trump might seem strong from the perspective of someone who can’t differentiate between the grandiose, chest pounding, self-obsessed narcissist who hides behind privilege and one who is truly strong, with a healthy ego and the ability to look in the mirror without a host of self defense mechanisms that blame or project on others. Unfortunately, it appears that there are too many Americans who can’t differentiate, or don’t want to.
23
trump brags about defeated ISIS in short order..and yet the ones who did the most of the fighting to defeat them were the Kurds, who sustained 10,000 deaths..our "grateful" nation, rewards their bravery and fighting courage with abandonment. This Will Cost Us...now that the Kurds are being slaughtered and ISIS is regrouping, and Russia has moved into our cowardly footprints.
16
Trump:
"I defeated ISIS in 1 year, Gen. Mattis told me it would take 2 years."
If this statement is not enough to fire this ignorant fool, for national security reasons, I don't know what is.
First of all, Obama set the stage for defeating ISIS, second it was Kurds who defeated ISIS, third, it was Gen Mattis who was responsible for execution.
22
I prefer my headline: "Trump As Schoolyard Bully Is No Match for World's Strongmen"
11
From this opinion piece, I take it that you are relieved that the US economy has yet to crash as it has under 100% of past Republican administrations. I guess that you would argue that we are not in nuclear winter is also a plus. You do not seem troubled by the fact that we not only have a cartoon character as President but that a substantial portion of the voting population seem to believe that a President engaged in undeniable criminal activity is “no big deal”. I always thought that your conservative leaning was loopy but even though you are relatively late to question the ravings of your fellow conservatives, I remain aghast that you do not view this episode in US history with horror and revulsion.
19
Metaphors fail, and are a disservice to the magnitude of this calamity.... this travesty.
Trump is a disaster. He has squandered decades of hard-earned prestige and domestic-social progress. He has energized and cultivated ignorant haters, and rationalized their behavior.
No matter how the impeachment hearings go, we must loudly, clearly, and emphatically reclaim our values, while rejecting nearly everything he's spawned.
He's not a 'wake-up call'. He's a madman, holding a gun to us all, and just itching to pull the trigger.
17
Mick Mulvaney is a man without a soul, carrying out the works of the devil Pres. Donald Trump. The man that should've never been president the American people are subjective every day of it tweets and his thousands of lies he no concern but himself, since he been president deceit leads to the White House number of things that who's already done right in front of the American people's eyes less make a list of things so the 30% and tea parties can understand how this president walked the crooked mile.
1. Stole the elections 2016 with the help of Pres. Putin of Russia.
2. Friends with Steve Bannon known races.
3 Tax break for the rich off the shoulders of the middle class.
4. Will not show his tax return 10 years due to the known crimes of he's committed felonies.
5 Immigration his NOT fill policy of the second century idea the wall.
6. That the children on the border due to his policy of ignorance.
7. Giving Turkey the green light to kill Kurds children and mothers.
8. Blocking every subpoena that could lead to his destruction.
9. Admitted in public that HELP from other governments to smear his opponent for the election the 2020 Joe Biden.
What more can we ask from the president stills and lies and blood on his hands what can we do as Americans all all Republicans out office because they stood by and watch the carnage of this president Donald Trump.
2
@Rick Johnson
These people obviously don’t care about the country.
Mulvaney has sold his soul.
He is willing to be deceitful, dishonest, unethical, and immoral to protect an immoral boss in the interest of maintaining power, and in turn to do more harm to the country for personal gain.
It is disgusting to watch.
3
I can’t figure out why Trump did that — just after a single phone call to Erdogan.
Was he just trying to pull off another media stunt to change the subject on Ukraine and the impeachment inquiry?
Was he just taking his Commander-in-Chief power out for a thrill ride to show himself how much power he has?
Was Giuliani hypnotizing him again — like a Rasputin to Czar Trump — to cave to Turkey because Giuliani has more patrons there that he serves as a secret, undisclosed lobbyist?
Why now?
Why in this way?
It seems so random.
Are there billions flowing under the table as Trump continues his betrayal of America’s interests?
Is he playing out this plan now because he and Putin now have to factor in the possibility that he won’t get re-elected?
5
Dear Ross: "Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways, and even after this past week his own failures haven’t nearly matched their body count."
Huh? You actually WROTE this?
No, Ross. The people who put Trump in the White House didn't care a flying fig about foreign policy. The vast majority of Trump voters couldn't find Syria on a map. No, Trump voters were motivated by racism and a perverse love of Mr. Trump's reality TV, World Wide Wrestling ethos of mud-slinging, trash talking and faux macho bluster. They elected this mentally ill criminal because they wanted to "troll the Libs." And guess what? Now they're getting to do just that. (And in this nutty column you're actually helping them in their trolling.) End of story.
Foreign policy? Seriously?
19
Ross, you say that Trump is unfit for his job? Now there is a basic truth. It took 1,000+ days for our esteemed Ross Douthat to say that “Trump is a weak man.” That observation, too, is a basic truth.
Wow, unfit and weak! Do you suggest Ross that we get better “baby sitters” like General Mattis, who Trump says is the most overrated general? Is this the same “mad dog” General Mattis who Trump praised back in 2017?
Or if we are not into utilizing more “ babysitters” for our unfit and weak President, what, if anything, do you suggest Ross? Censor? The 25th Amendment? Impeachment? Wait until the November 2020 elections?
5
Trump is indeed weak and this is evidenced by how real dictators can play like a fiddle this wanna-be strongman in the international stage for all the world to see:
• Putin — was able to manipulate Trump into saying that he believes Putin over 17 American intel and security agency
• Xi — was able to manipulate Trump into a trade war where farmers and manufactures are now card carrying socialist living on bailout money that more than quadruples what Obama gave to salvage the auto industry while at the same time buying produce from Brazil and Canada (who buys American at bargain basement prices)
• Kim — was able to manipulate Trump into multiple visits that elevated him as a world leader when Obama won’t even give him the courtesy of a phone call. Also, was able to manipulate Trump into falling in love with him despite Trump’s first love Ivanka being very much alive.
• Erdogan — was able to manipulate Trump to withdraw US troops from Syria, betray US allies, and made to look like a fool who does not understand foreign policy
• Duterte — was able to manipulate Trump into an armaments and intel agreement that really means monetary aid and a one-way traffic of intel despite Duterte’s very vocal support for Chinese economic and military policies
• Bin Salman — was able to manipulate Trump in giving the Hause of Saud freedom to wreck havoc in the middle east and getting scot-free from murdering a US permanent resident who writes for an American paper in exchange for a sword dance.
3
Someone has to send the pictures of slaughter and massacre of innocents to the oval office for the dotard to review his handy work. "The Kurds are happy, Turkey is happy and civilization is happy". Let him look at his happy work.
2
Douthat, do you cast your self as a strong man? Is that why you can tell your readers that you were against Trump getting elected, yet every column of yours I read indicated hope, and waiting for his style, it could end up great? A strongman, who thinks he never supported him? I would hate to see you in politics. You would waffle more than Trump.
“ utter thoughtlessness “. What a nice, polite Douthatism for a completely stupid, unprecedented ACT of betrayal, incompetence and cowardice. Yes, it’s all fun and games and explainable, until innocent people are slaughtered. You were warned, Ross. But you knew better, or hoped for better.
SAD.
1
Yes , Trump may be a weak man in a strong man’s world but history has shown us that often ignorance and stupidity is more dangerous and damaging than out and out malevolence
Trump keeps on giving. The pain we now share with all counties is only the beginning of a Putin style empire for the west. With thug Barr at his side, any and all laws can be broken or overridden. As we watch in dismay, we begin to see our country getting down with the worst. He has soiled our reputation so badly, it is going to be difficult and time consuming to repair. Let us never let such trash into the WH again.
2
Trump is the problem.
1
Since you do not have a column on the Clinton/Gabbard issue and I wanted to address it. I think I will. This was not a warning to Gabbard. It was a warning to any Democrat or quazi-democrat not to run an alternative against the presumptive party nominee.. This includes Gabbard and Stein [the Moscow candidates]and Steyer.
What the President fails to realize is that blame is often an admission of failure.
To Mr. Douthat - "Good answer. Good answer. I like the way you think. I'm gonna be watching you," [ Sam Kinison, as Professor Terguson, in the movie, Back To School.]
1
Mr. Douthat,
do you know the German term "Maulheld"?
The dictionary says: This means bravado, braggart, particularly "loudmouth". But actually this translation falls short. Literally translated it´s "mouthhero", this means a person who is a strong hero only by cheap talk coming out of his mouth. This expression could have been invented just for Mr. Trump because it says what you have written in your article in fact.
It might not fit completely to Mr. Trump because nowadays a very strong part of his heroism comes from his tweet machines but it´s still very close. Let´s update the term to "twitter-hero" - as "Maulheld 2.0" in the age of social media. Thats what he is indeed.
"Twitter hero" seems to be more suitabe to the English language also.
Trump is a weak man. But he has strong enablers - Republicans. And that makes him extremely dangerous to our country, constitution and democracy. Trump on his own would have been impeached way before now, but his Republican enablers seem to have made it extremely difficult. And therefore, the weak man's saga continues with impunity.
1
"Trump’s betrayal of the Syrian Kurds over the past week is a moral travesty ... "
So you are a "bleeding heart" liberal after all, Ross.
Let me give you a facts -- perhaps it'll make you feel better.
1. The Kurds owe us -- not the other way around as you portray it. We helped the Kurds defeat ISIL. The Kurds were getting slaughtered, like the Yazdis by ISIL. We gave the Kurds heavy weapons, intelligence, and most important -- air power.
2. ISIL's been defeated and has retreated to the shadows. There's no longer any reason to put American lives at risk and to spend America's treasure (all borrowed money, btw).
3. The Kurds want their own country -- but it's not our problem, and we've told them so.
4. Trump made the smart choice -- he moved our boys out of harm's way when Erdoğan told him he was moving his troops across the border. All they could have done in the face of Turkish invasion is die.
5. Now the Kurds have allied with Assad and Russia. Turkey is stalemated. And our boys are out from the middle.
Who is dumb enough to claim this isn't the best of all solutions? (Ross Douthat, that's who).
1
It’s not just Trump who is unfit, his cabinet is as well as some are still “acting”. Coupled with the horrific tribalism in our Congress, our legislation is a broken engine as the internal mechanics of our national governance are stalled. As a veteran, I’ve rarely been more ashamed by watching Erdogan looking at Pence like he was a third rate messenger and Pompeo smiling like a clown at the table. How far we have fallen. And we haven’t hit bottom.
Yeah, yeah. You were right all along.
So why did you vote for Trump? If he was obviously so unfit for office, why didn't you vote for a sane, experienced politician who understands foreign policy?
Just come out and say it -- you and millions of other Republican voters made a terrible mistake that will tarnish the US for decades. Say it, and keep saying it until people like you start to listen.
This essay does not speak well of the writer himself - so much obfuscation to reach the essential truth at the end: that Trump is unfit for the job.
How many Syrian civilians died because of the fecklessness of Barack Obama and the the EU? Ans: over 300,000.
How many refugees left Syria for the same reason? Ans: 3 million.
How many ISIS terrorists flooded into Syria after 2010 when Barack Obama, against the advice of most of the top brass in the US military, pulled US forces out of Iraq. Ans: 50,000.
And when Obama was warned that a bloodbath would ensue in Iraq, he parodied Alfred E Newman, ‘What? Me worry?’
Yet in 3 years this ‘incompetent buffoon’ Donald Trump, got ISIS wiped from Syria, started no new wars, restored Iraq’s borders, got the US unemployment rate down to 3.5%, a 60 year low, was the first president to have the guts and sense to confront predatory trading practices of our most serious enemy, China, got Mexico to finally enforce their own immigration laws, and suddenly none of that matters because Trump pulled 50 troops out of a northern Syria the democrats didn’t even want us to help and decided maybe Turkey and Syria/Russia should work out their own border issues sans the USA, and Ross Douthat is having a coronary? As a good Catholic convert Ross, show some proportionality, or as they used to say ‘give the devil his due’.
1
You write “no reason, none at all”. Excuse me, but what about those properties he owns or licenses in Turkey? Is that not reason enough for a man who, for example, plugged his Virginia winery after the Charlottesville tragedy?
We're living in the Matrix. So what is real? I'm hoping this is just a nightmare. Woke up this morning and dreamed I saw a 5 megaton too bright light over New York. Serenity now! Where is Bob Woodward and Jerry Seinfeld when you need them.
And what does that make the conservative and conservative religious movements, Ross? Wishing they had a strongerman at top.
"Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways..." This is nonsense on stilts. Trump won because of racial resentment, and because for the last several decades neither party did anything for the working class or the middle class, and because HRC wasn't a very good candidate, and because the media gave Trump billions of dollars in free advertising, and because Comey....etc. etc. etc. Foreign policy did not decide that election. Is there no one at the Times reading Mr Douthat's effusions before they get printed, who could help him out by, I don't know, editing him?
1
Yes, the Trump administration is the equivalent of a political dumpster fire. However, as written elsewhere in today's NYT, his campaign has gone all out to spread lies regarding his opponents and his successes" via the internet (thank you Mark Zuckerberg for taking the easy way out and allowing lies to be propagated on his platform). The Dems can only counteract Trump's lies with more truth - tell the truth of his "kept" and more importantly un-kept promises:
--lack of meaningful legislation - not d/t Dems but d/t Trump's lack of a legislative philosophy and his weakness resulting in an inability to create consensus even when Reps controlled both houses of Congress (ask Mitch about the Dem House passed bills waiting to be taken up by the Senate).
--Lower taxes for the middle class - only if they are in the 1%.
--End endless wars and bring the troops home - new wars in Yemen & Syria and more total troops in the Middle East.
--Infrastructure bill, better healthcare - what's that?
Trump never believed in a separation of powers believing that he is the sovereign and IS the state. His admiration for strongmen both amplified his weakness and showcased it in 1 on 1 dealings. What Trump has done to our democratic system is truly criminal. To quote Burt Lancaster in "Seven Days in May" (to the president): "you're not a weak sister, Mr President, but a criminally weak sister."
" ... our president is unfit for his job."
Republicans who voted for him need to own up to that fact.
It is on them to help Democrats correct the problem.
In view of that some (many?) Republicans have the preposterous idea that God put Mr Trump in office, my guess few will do anything other than continue to support this menace to democracy.
There was a purpose to abandoning the Kurds to be massacred by the Turks: it allowed Putin to draw yet closer to Turkey's Erdogan, to flex his muscles in terms of controlling Trump and to send a message to the whole world:
I, Putin, own Trump. He is my puppet and dances to my tune. And if you think that Trump's America will protect you, just look at how reliably he protected the Kurds, America's allies.
This reasoning resonates and makes sense. Trump's endless and bottomless prostration before Putin fits. Trump's abandoning our European and other allies when it fits Putin's program of sowing chaos and disarray fits. Most of all, it's the destabilization of large regions of importance to Putin that compels to pull Trump's strings so obviously.
So obviously? Why do you think that the phrase that sent Trump over the top was Pelosi's statement that all roads (i.e., every attempt to understand Trump's erratic and unprincipled behaviors) lead to Putin.
Strongmen aren't actually winning in our world today. The problem is...they're not exactly losing either.
What they are succeeding at is promoting and perpetuating prejudice, fear, anger, blame, illusion, chaos, "otherness," and violence.
We no longer live in a world in which a strongman (or women like we see in India and Myanmar) mentality can work.
We don't live in a "power" world...we now live in a "partnership" world...
...a world in which we must possess the ability to "partner" effectively with our constituencies, allies, and even our "frenemies" in order to safeguard against strongmen led nations like Iran, Russia, North Korea...and perhaps even the United States in the hands of President Trump.
If you observe the citizens of Hong Kong, now demonstrating in the streets by the hundreds of thousands for the 20th consecutive weekend, you will see what is needed to stop our own strongman...we, the people.
We the people willing to stop what is happening and fight for our freedom and our democracy.
If we aren't willing to do that, I can promise you that when our way of life begins to disappear...we will regret taking for granted all we once had.
And the "strongmen" will be the victors for many years to come.
You skipped over numerous Trump foreign policy disasters: pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal; Meeting with N Korea and giving concessions with nothing in return; pulling out of the short term middle treaty with Russia; aiding a massive slaughter by Saudi Arabia in Yemen; doing nothing about Russia’s misinformation attacks on our elections; pulling out of the Paris climate treaty; Pulling out of the TPP negotiations; abandoning the Palestinian and Israeli peace process; undermining NATO ; the list goes on and on....
1
Mr. Douthat and most of the commenters fail to address Trump's greatest weakness. They analyze Trump vis-a-vis other leaders in one-on-one transactional terms. What us most dangerous is the disdain for alliances and multilateral coordination. A relatively stable, if flawed, global system has been upended for naked power plays without brakes. Not only is he personally weak, he doesn't recognize either prudence or force multipliers. Even a strong person must not just act alone. A weak narcissist knows no other way.
The picture of Pence and Erdogan really captures the humiliation of our country.
Unless the Democrats can pull themselves together for the 2020 Election, Mr. Trump could well be re-elected. He has been planning for this since the day he took office, and it's his strong suit, whatever his other weaknesses might be. As reported in the NY Times, the Trump campaign has mastered the internet.
I am sure the Trump era will only worsen because of the cowardice of the Republican quislings in Congress. If they would simply borrow an ounce of courage and unanimously invoke the 25th Amendment, we could begin to put this country back together again. It will take generations to erase the Trump-led horrific slide into national insanity.
Regardless of incompetence arguments, Trump will win the next elections. Savvy social media and foreign hacking will prevail. These forces also make sure that republicans prevail in state races. And AI algorithms are already identifying people who are against Trump.
It's important to understand the appeal of a dictator during difficult times and be realistic. Of course the campaign spreads lies, but they are presented in a way that people will believe. What to do?
The public may adjust better to the long-term conservative domination if they believe these lies. This is how north Koreans survive hardships, for example. This is the way for the US populace to prepare for worsening standards of life, given the tendency of autocrats to turn common folk into serfs.
But there are tradeoffs. People may be miserable but take great pride in being citizens of a top country. In the long term, therefore, we may see americans becoming patriotic serfs, like some Russians and Chinese. They will be poor, sick, and unemployed, but they will take pride into America's ability to play chess with the other autocrats of the world, who are rising right now. That sense of satisfaction may keep people working in the gig economy or for a few dollars per hour in the chain stores of the billionaires.
The democrats are probably powerless against this worldwide trend. If a female candidate is chosen,she will simply sound powerless and ridiculous compared to a self-assured dictator.
The Republican plutocrats have been searching for their ideal puppet president since Paid spokesperson, Ronald Reagan, passed from the scene. In 2016, they found their delivery boy. Sure, they said, he's got some rough edges, but we can place some handlers around him who will keep him on mission. Ah, who would have thought it would be so complicated!
Early Sunday, I watched a news segment showing US forces retreating to Iraq from Syria. A battalion of expensive weapons in the desert sun and sand, stars and stripes weakly in ruffling in a mirage. Somehow, an epitaph for American foibles abroad, humbled, exhausted and leaving like an unwelcome guest by the back door.
Domestically the appointment of two mean spirited, cold hearted, logic chopping supine court judges is a genuine disaster. For Ross they are a source of great hope for the types of social misery he still hopes will to be inflicted on people-- particularly women and LQBTQ. Which is why Trump's domestic policy isn't a total disaster to him.
3
Seems to me that when -- not if; when -- when Putin decides to take over the next State Department, he (the new Sec State) will replace the old Foreign Service with the KGB.
1
It is so tiresome the way whenever "conservative" pundits need a negative comparison for the disastrous effects of Donald Trump, they feel obliged to mention the foreign policies failures of Democratic Presidents, while the (often much greater) disasters brought about by Republican Presidents are glossed over with vague allusions.
So Douthat feared that Trump would crash and bumble across the international stage and "inspire ambitious foreign leaders to test him in ways that made Jimmy Carter’s presidency look like easy sailing." And "the world under Trump was in certain respects more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term."
But then, while "the Kurds have been betrayed by America before" -- by whom? Guess who: George H. W. Bush, a Republican, whose name Douthat declines to mention. And "Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways." So true, so sad. And who were they? Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and their clueless, bumbling boss, the "decider," George W. Bush. Republican neo-cons all, whom Douthat, again, leaves unnamed.
Leaders of both parties have been guilty of hubris and disastrous misjudgments in the last 70 years. The Democrats are certainly not without guilt. But it's obnoxious and dishonest, and transparently partisan, to name names in one party and not the other.
5
It seems that all US presidents in recent decades have faced bad, horrible and catastrophic choices in the Middle East. All have come to grief there, one way or another. I agree that Trump, until last week, had done nothing approaching the utter folly of W's Iraq invasion in 2003. One correction: it turns out that the "smart people" on both sides of the Atlantic were crystal clear in their warnings against invasion and that ideological neo-con zealots (and Chalabi) drove us off the cliff (read Ricks's "Fiasco" to get the full depth of it). Obama inherited the mess and tried to disengage, amid various stumbles, but at least tried to do so in measured fashion. But Trump has outdone them all, like a questing ten-year old told by the cool kid to throw a rock through a window. Done!
We won't know for some time the scope of the fallout from this disaster, by it will most certainly include a new generation of terrorists nursing hatreds against the US of A. For shame.
1
Trump doesn't have a monopoly on weakness, he just shows it to the world happily every day. It's impossible for him to project any kind of strength, other than deriding his critics, simply because he's incompetent in his job. There is no guiding principle, no sense of history, and absolutely no curiosity about the world, or how America should lead. It is completely beyond his comprehension and ability, compounded by Republicans that kneel at his feet, showing weakness and fear, rather than strength and courage. Why anyone would choose to follow this man is both puzzling and disturbing.
1
I liked the title of this column "Trump is a Weak Man in a Strongman's World" and I think Douthat makes some decent observations here.
But I really disliked his gratuitous sideswipe at Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jimmy Carter (who, after all, personally negotiated the Camp David Accords—one of our nation’s greatest foreign policy triumphs of the last 50 years.) If that wasn't a moment of true American strength, I don't know what is.
1
This column could be read as an endorsement for Trump's re-election - by those already inclined that way, or those who could be convinced that he's no worse than Obama on a bad day, or a Democratic president any day.
This column - perhaps unintentionally - normalizes Trump by evaluating him as if he's just another president, instead of the disastrous threat to democracy that he is.
2
True inner strength rarely shows itself in external display. A strongman stance is based on fear.
3
Strange that Routhat felt the need to mention Carter and Obama failures, specifically, but failed to mention by name the disastrous decisions by Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush, and in particular Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush that have really thrust upon the United States such a difficult position in the Middle East. Conservative led foreign policy has created one mess after another in the Middle East, then when Progressive foreign policy can’t fix it in one fell stroke, it the Democrats who are blamed.
11
I disagree with this point if view. I can tell Trump‘s fans love him for what he is and whatever he does. It is a mistake to label him weak when in reality he is strong as ever, exploiting any loophole the Constitution holds by using the most talented lawyers America has got around to push the GOP’s agenda. If Democrats cannot get a foot on the ground to convey their story, Trump will prove to be awefully strong.
3
@Felix
You may be right if Trump is re-elected. Right now the odds are low and getting lower.
It is also true that Democrats don't have propaganda arm, such as FOX, right wing radio, evangelical congregations, Russian propaganda, which all coordinate Trump's message.
In withdrawing U.S. troops beyond the conflict zone, Trump is adhering to long-standing foreign policy. As Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins pointed out yesterday, “Turkey is an Article 5 NATO ally. We have obliged Ankara for two decades by designating its Kurdish separatists as terrorists. The U.S. has never advocated breaking up Syria (or Iraq, Iran or Turkey) to allow a Kurdish state. U.S. support for an autonomous Kurdish enclave in Iraq was dependent on the Kurds’ recognizing Baghdad’s sovereignty and not using Iraqi Kurdistan as a base to subvert neighboring states.”
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne defined the borders of the Turkish Republic but denied Kurdish dreams of a homeland called Kurdistan. Many Americans support the efforts of Kurdish separatists to carve a Kurdish homeland out of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, and some even prove of Kurdish guerrilla operation inside Turkey, but this has never been U.S. foreign policy.
At present,Turkey is attempting to occurred a buffer one between its border and Kurdish forces in Syria because Kurdish terror attacks have killed hundreds of Turks. The Kurds have allied themselves with Syrian and Russian forces. The United States has brokered a temporary ceasefire. However, the Kurdistan issue should be settled by the United Nations, not the United States.
Trump may be "weaker than you think", but his Russian backers are not. It's about time that Mr. Douthat expresses criticism of the President, but he seems to refuse to acknowledge the $millions that Trump has accepted from a variety of Russian sources, dating back to the mid 1980's--and they are the ones who own him. They are undoubtedly behind his decision to remove troops from Syria--remember that Russian troops filed into the country wherever American troops had left.
The impeachment process can't work fast enough to spare our country the humiliation of bowing to long time adversaries. It seems to me that the House, and Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff had more than enough evidence to rush subpoenas through.
8
One thing that hasn't been restrained in the first-three-year period is budget deficit and stimulus spending. It's easy to sell US T-bills paying real interest when the likes of Germany are offering negative interest on theirs. That's created demand for the dollar pushing it up, lowering import prices and masking the effects of trade war tariffs, creating enough good buzz that our drowning exporters (ag, export mfg), which are a minority anyway, can be ignored.
“Trump is weaker than you think.”
Doubtful. Some of us are familiar with the man’s legendary business successes, prior to becoming a reality television ‘star’.
What has been consistently terrifying about the election of Donald Trump, aside from Trump himself, is what might happen if someone more adept at manipulation, and more inclined towards malevolence were to follow in his stead.
Since taking office, all of Donald Trump’s behavior, and all of the behavior on the part of his cohorts in the Congress, and the Judiciary, have only served to exacerbate this concern.
To Trump’s religious supporters, the only question I have is this: has all which transpired been worth a handful of court appointments?
4
To them this world is meant to last and its end is hopefully soon right? Like Barr said, "We all die."
Mr. Ross Douthat's piece is right on point. Right now only senate republicans, 20 of them more than likely, stand between Trump and removal from office. What can Trump possibly do to make 20 or so Senators join democrats and independents to say: No mas!
1
To call Trump “weak” is misleading. In the distant past he was weak: too chicken to serve in Vietnam, too chicken to oppose the war openly, even when many brave and patriotic Americans were already doing so.
Over time he became twisted, intellectually and morally depraved. His animus towards the Central Park Five made that clear thirty years ago. I could go on, but what would be the point? This sad terrain has been covered many times.
There is, unfortunately, a part of every society that feels drawn towards these kind of people. They have a deep need for rationalizations and apologetics, since their own lives are riddled with contradictions that they shrink from confronting. Trump is their avatar. It should be no surprise that he’s popular with Evangelicals, and (for similar reasons) with members of the armed forces.
However, as the challenges mount, Trump will be less successful in this role. His political servants are drawn from the lowest levels of honesty and competence in American life, and although this was interpreted as “strength” amongst his supporters, their inevitable failures will become apparent.
1
He is weak, but he is a levithan propped up by the conservative movement's quest for power. This is their sovereign king.
The interesting thing is that when Trump makes domestic policy that Republicans know will not benefit all Americans, but will benefit their donors and themselves, they do not push back.
However, in the case of foreign policy, where the majority of Americans do not understand the implications and nuances of these decisions, Republican representatives and Senators sit in committees and meetings that we are not privy to. These Republican politicians know the true costs of bad decisions better than we do because of the knowledge they have gained through CIA and FBI briefings. So as lukewarm as their public statements are against Trump, the overwhelming pushback he gets via congressional rebuke by votes on the floor of Congress is telling.
1
All well and good, as well as accurate. However, the article totally ignores the damage done domestically by making partisan judicial appointments, undermining the contributions of science, sabotaging efforts to attack global warming, and allowing the despoliation of public lands. Whether this is done out of strength or weakness is beside the point. He's doing it administratively by making political appointments of people dedicated to undermining our natural resources as well as global resources.
18
Not, however, too “weak” to have populated the Supreme and lower federal courts with right wing ideologues, in addition to making payoffs to the Republican corporatist/plutocratic controllers via his tax giveaway. These particular instances of presidential “strength” go unmentioned in this opinion piece. The columnist is silently, widely grinning in deep satisfaction.
16
Thanks for the picture. The eyes have it: small hands. A weak man in a strongman's world indeed.
Unkle John
1
Can't have a Democrat in the White House. Can't have a public option in Health Insurance. Can't have a tax on billionaires. Can't have investment in clean energy and carbon sequestration.
Better a completely dishonest, corrupt and dangerous Republican. Yeah, that's the idea.
= The Greedy Old Plutocrats (GOP)
17
Trump has cracked the code for future demagogues and strong men in the US: 1. Never apologize when you are always right. 2. Appeal to disgust, fear, and fantasies of populist voters. 3. Anything said in opposition is a “fake news” “deep state conspiracy”. 4. Gaslight, gaslight, gaslight. 5. A rogue AG 6. As long as institutions like Congress are propped up by plutocracy and those institutions get their cut, they will support their “leader”.
6
Your bottom line, literally and figuratively , Douthat, is "our president is unfit for his job." So, when will we read your column coming out in favor of impeachment?
13
Trump is, to quote President Jed Bartlet, "a 22 caliber mind in a 357 magnum world". How pathetic that we find ourselves being led haphazardly by such an incompetent, traitorous, and psychologically challenged human being as Trump.
The GOP should remove him from office. If the GOP cannot or will not remove him from office, then the GOP office holders should be removed from office.
Upon removal, Trump should receive neither pension nor Secret Service protection. That is the least punishment we should mete out to this traitor.
8
Trump is the little dog of world leaders. He displays aggression for show, and is submissive to real threats.
8
Oh please. He is quite literally the toughest politician on the planet.
1
Oh, please tell us you are being facetious. It’s hard to tell. But we sure hope so.
NYT Please Advise: Given the perilous trajectories of our country and planet, at what point does the NYT take the lead and call for Trump’s resignation (without the benefit of a Pence pardon)?
Thank you.
7
Trump brags that he defeated ISIS, so I guess he just un-defeated them.
7
Yes, Trump is a weakling and the strongmen of this world know it. Putin, Erdogan, MBS have all played him for a sap. Even his own attorney, Giuliani, has manipulated him in concert with corrupt Ukrainian officials and members of the Odessa Mob.
5
Disinter the victims in Yemen, Gaza and Sryia that died because of Trump's ignorant corrupt policies and bury them in Trump's golf resorts. Dig up the greens like the Union did to Robert E. Lee's home in Arlington during the war.
Who is this 'you' Ross writes about? Many of us have known for years his bully and bravado act is a bad attempt to hide his inherent weakness.
4
he's destroying our environment by weakening protective laws and ignoring the settled science on climate change, he's gutting oversight of the food industry leading to outbreaks of salmonella, e-coli and other life threatening food borne illnesses, he's wrecking our economy with his tariffs, endangering the health of millions by attacking the protections afforded by Obamacare, including health insurance for children until the age of 26 and pre-existing conditions coverage, and more. he has kidnapped innocent refugee children, forever separating them from their parents due to lack of any responsible accounting, the refugees are being treated worse than animals. Abuse is rampant. Children as young as two are being deported with no adult accompanying them. Just put them on a bus heading south and whatever happens? "Not my problem". But none of these heinous "policies" matter. The only concern is over war. Nothing new here.
As for your history altering assumptions "near-victory over ISIS, de-escalation in the Koreas, a reasonable focus on containing China. And the world under Trump was in certain respects more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term.", none of this is true. North Korea is still testing missiles, ISIS's power is rising and China is still kicking our butts economically. The same wars are still raging that were there when Obama was president, Israeli-Palestine altercations are as bad or worse since trump assumed office. He's accomplished nothing!
4
As Speaker Pelosi said the other day, "all roads lead to Putin"...
11
Speaker Pelosi was , that I can remember , the first real government official to call him what he is, a TRAITOR. "All roads lead to Putin with you". As Trump recently blurted out ,
" TRAITORS SHOULD BE EXECUTED".
On this statement , the Criminal Trump and I are in full agreement.
2
Strong people have no need to bully.
Strong people have no reason to lie.
Strong people have no reason to threaten.
Strong people have no reason to denigrate.
Strong people have no reason to hurt those less fortunate than they are.
Strong people have no reason to undermine allies.
Donald Trump is not a strong person.
366
@SMKNC I don't ever remember Ronald Reagan or George HW, George W, or Barrack Obama ever threatening anyone. They all had some or a lot of class and believed in the country and our allies. No crooks in the list above. By the way,they all had pets they loved from horses to dogs and cats. No pets at this white house. Tells you something about this mans heart and mind....
28
The relative calm of the past 3 years??? Are you serious? Every day with Trump in the White House is a nightmarish roller coaster. Every day he announces some disastrous new policy he intends to implement, from removing bans on killing endangered species to taking away school lunches from indigent children. He does the wrong thing, every time. He insults people, he lies every time he opens his mouth, he spouts dangerous racist rhetoric that has increased crimes against minorities by a huge percentage. Now he is giving away our country to Putin, who has to be gleeful about Trump pulling out our troops.
He has done so many evil, illegal acts, it would take books to describe them all. And you think Trump years have been “relatively calm”! Astounding.
377
@1 of the 99% As a commentator to a WaPo article noted: "There is no problem, however awful it may be, that Donald Trump, in his unmatched wisdom, cannot make worse."
73
@1 of the 99%
It's been relatively calm for Douthat. He's gotten reams of judges who believe in theocracy (his version of it, too), and he doesn't care about racism, immigrants, refugees, the poor, the social safety net, the accumulation of wealth in the upper brackets, etc. None of the horrific words and decisions have had any impact on him so it's been calm. He's always been a never-trumper, but he's one who likes the policies and dislikes the man, not one like Jen Rubin and Max Boot who also dislike the policies.
63
@1 of the 99%
It's a fatuous word choice given the domestic and constitutional train wreck that Trump's presidency has been since day one, but to be fair, Douthat is referring only to foreign affairs.
And there, as he points out, Trump had until recently allowed a few grownups to keep him in line, more or less.
7
America and Russia elected him, so America is stuck with him and Russia benefits.
If America lets him get reelected, it will be more of the same:continued deterioration for everyday Americans and for democracy around the world, and continued gains for Russia, and China as well.
The choice is clear, vote him out and elect a Democratic president, House, and Senate. It will take intelligence, vision, unity, and all three branches pulling as one for us to get out of this mess.
9
"What distinguishes this fiasco is its utter thoughtlessness, its disconnect from any strategic purpose, the sheer obviousness with which Trump allowed himself to be rolled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the inability of his advisers to salvage the situation before it led to war."
This flowery prose is just plain wrong. How am I supposed to take the rest of the statement seriously?
Douthat mixes wisdom and folly, like the Catholic religion.
The wisdom comes from his, and our experience, as citizens in this republic observing and living through the last several governors. Perhaps we really are, in some ways, getting used to Trump.
The folly is trying to sell the notion, perhaps to make it believable to himself as well, that the current ruler is not really as bad as his predecessors, particularly President Obama.
This is not exceptional. It is the same disease afflicting most Republicans in Congress for the past three years.
So what we have at the end is the same homily, in lieu of justice, priests have shared with their sheep for a thousand years, "It could be worse."
1
Excellent piece...Not going to change many minds though. Best to just hold one's breath and pray. Dems not much better in any case....Weasels to a fault on foreign policy.
The "Kurds have been betrayed by America before." Hmm, not quite right...let's see: the Kurds have been betrayed by Republicans before. There, that fixed it!
11
The terrorist from Saudi Arabia attacked us from 7000 miles away. Don’t celebrate your enemies or former friends are far away, they may surprise you.
Trump has established that he is untrustworthy and he has re-made the United States into an untrustworthy ally. We may fight future battles alone. We may not be able to negotiate deals because we can not be trusted.
4
I posit that its not a question of "weakness" but of character. Trump has never had to strive, sweat for anything. There is no there except for an unbridled ego and an undeserved sense of exceptionalism. He is tinhorn autocrat in a world of brass ones.
3
One thing is wrong here. Is like the betray of the pulling out of Syria in a hurry was without a strategic purpose. But there is.
Russia have seen that the presidency is ending sooner rather than later. They don’t get lifted the sanctions and Ukraine will still be a conflict zone. This was the big bonus they now understand they don’t get now.
But humiliating of the us military, and a foot hold in the Arab world again that could be achieved fast and without much work. And they got it.
The author is just wrong to see the stratum interest from America, while what is guiding Donald Trump is his Russian masters and their strategic interests.
4
none of the details matter...... he is and has always been unfit for the job. thinking people don't need another reason and neither should republicans.
6
“Trump came to power because the smart people in charge of foreign policy failed in disastrous ways.”
So that’s your explanation? How about Trump came to power because we have an electoral college that gave disproportionate power to a large minority group of willfully ignorant people who base their decisions on what they learn on reality TV, sponsored Facebook clips and Fox News and Republicans like yourself found this somehow preferable to any Democrat taking office.
...So who failed in disastrous ways?
11
Sure Trump is weak. The tragedy is the US democracy is even weaker from decades of corruption and self serving millionaires elected officials.
The GOP officials are amongst the weakest one as they do not stand for any demonstrable values.
Small government ? Nah, lets increase military spending. Balanced budgets, nope lets blow a Trillion dollar hole in the budget to give ourselves and our rich friends a tax cut. America cultural supremacy, lets just pretend it is God given and cut investing in the future (education, R&D, infrastructure) and make scientific facts into opinions so we can ignore them.
I guess with "money is speech", Koch brothers and other oil money giving us a Tea party focussing on culture wars, not anything that would truly promote individual freedoms... the GOP got what it deserves. They still managed to win by lying and cheating but it is only a matter of time before they lose grip on political power [they will still have enormous economic power, but at least we will have a shot at avoiding going back to a feudal system].
4
“his own failures haven’t nearly matched their body count”
Is this to be A/THE criteria?
In a culture of institutionalized innumeracy in which people with names, identities, aspirations, etc., bodies, psyches and souls are transmuted into weighted-numbers?
In a toxic,dynamic WE-THEY culture and reality, which enables, and promotes the violating, by harmful words and deeds, which are rarely intervened with, created, selected, targeted “the other(s)?”
In an infectious weltanschauung enabled, and empowered, by the choices of all too many to be led by ranges of selected and elected policymakers, at all levels, ideologies and parties who “ operate” by being personally unaccountable for both implications and outcomes of their...?
In environments, at home, the neighborhood, community, at school, work, the streets, which are more than just for walking, sites of leisure and rest, places of prayer to...all too often transmitted into places to prey on...,in which complacency, complicity, corruption, willful blindness, deafness,
indifference, intolerance and ignorance are active or more passive lifestyle choices?
Trump, as a person, in his role as desecrator of the Presidency, is what he is.
What he will never be or become.
Which each of US enables in our own ways. Each day!
What about each of US? Our choices?
To contribute to risking making a difference that MAY/CAN make a sustainable difference for the equitable Wellbeing of ALL of US?
Menschlichkeit for ALL! MEFA
chamberlin at munich; trump on the telephone. This century looks so much like the last one.
2
You're a little late to the wake, Mr Douhat. Even Trump's "best" instincts ( perhaps avoiding war and distrusting existing power structures' assumptions ) are severely impaired by his paranoid, self aggrandizing relationships and total lack of knowledge.
2
HBO Last Friday: Bill Maher claimed he can rally 1000 rich people to pony up $1 million dollars [each] to buy Trump out of office.
You don't think Trump would resign for $1 billion dollars? I think he would..
5
Unfit indeed! Let no equivalences be made between Trump and his predecessors: This is nonsense: "Trump will have repeated the blunders of his predecessors, but with vastly less excuse" Trump's mistakes are nothing like his predecessors; his predecessors operated in principle upon our shared values of civil and human rights. Trump operates under one principle; what is good and true is what Trump says it is, based on meeting his personal needs. He is the ultimate in identity politics. It is time to unburden America from this monster who is the opposite of a leader.
2
As always you are the worst kind of Trump apologist. Your article, as usual, starts out by clearly pointing out the horror that Trump has wrought, the senselessness of his actions, the dangers of his actions. Then you say things about others who have done things in the past, usually Democrats, that were mistakes as if everyone does it, implying that what Trump is doing is worse but see other people do it too. Just enough to keep his supporters from having to look themselves in the mirror and ask why they are supporting this crazy person. You are like all the other Republican apologists who just can't admit that the time has come to own up to their previous lack of strength in admitting at the outset that Trump is the craziest and worst thing to happen to this country and he needs to be stopped now. But unlike many your Republican compatriots in Government who are doing this to hold on to their jobs, you have no such excuse. time has come to stop being a Trump apologist in any way and call for an end to the lunacy. Your credibility demands it!
6
Ross, you and your fellow travelers on the right need to take more ownership for this catastrophe that is the Trump presidency. Nothing of the sort has or will ever come out the the left. The general stupidity, science denial, conspiracy theories, and craven venality is purely a thing of the right. Drawing invidious parallels with the Obama term is ridiculous.
6
Guy is already manufacturing excuses for himself.
Or better put. The guy and his crowd are manufacturing excuses. Their wheelhouse.
‘I always said Trump is weak so nothing to see here. Everything is fine. Don’t blame me.”
Rats, ship. Ship, Rats.
Never changes.
3
can we replace "too weak" with "too dumb" or at least "not smart enough". What does "too weak" mean anyway?
1
Ross always succumbs to bothsides-ism. Trump is so bad he reminds Ross of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. What piffle. Carter and Obama as president were serious people with intelligence, informed views, decency, and a moral compass. There is no reasonable way to compare them to Trump. Just stop it, Ross.
10
“Becoming the overseas arsonist”?
No. His peculiar brand of self serving greed remains on full display, unchanged and untethered for his entire life so far. He’ll destroy anything and anyone to put one more dollar in his pocket. Giving up on Doral, a prima fascia violation of the constitution, was really hard but his greed assures him that he needs to stay in office to keep OUR military at the Trump Organization’s beck and call.
Lock him up. Lock this traitor up. Find out what Putin is really giving him to destroy our country.
2
I believe that George W Bush’s disastrous Iraq war will be seen as the catalyst, the biggest mistake the US has ever made and the beginning of our downfall. When I say Trump has the capacity and power to cause as much damage to the world as Hitler, I am often met by protestations of how I can compare the two. If you look at the history of Germany leading up to Hitler’s rise to power, Trump parallels Hitler, as well as Mussolini. Trump’s methods of demagogic rule also parallel Hitler and Mussolini. Germany was not such a large and powerful country, nor was Japan, compared to the US. And the US is everywhere in the world and the ignorant, gut feeling flailing and tweeting of our malignant president can have dire consequences, not just for our country and it’s ability to recover, but on world order where everyone’s lives hang in the balance. So yes, I do compare Trump to Hitler. Trump is the biggest threat to our country and the world since World War II. And the GOP is letting it all unfold.
1
This is a very feeble attempt by Douthat to tout "see, I was right all along about the perils Trump's of foreign policy."
And Trump's an overseas arsonist?
What about the havoc he has wrecked and carelessly unleashed at home in OUR country?
Sorry Douthat. Too little and way too late.
Find some courage and moral character in your so-called conservative soul and speak the truth instead of trying to score points in the newsroom.
YOU have a platform.
Wake up!
1
If what we’re witnessing—the unraveling of American values, weakening of institutions and utter corrosion of our government—is the result of a weakling in the Oval Office, God help us if we ever elect an actual strongman.
1
"And the world under Trump was in certain respects more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term."
Try harder, Douthat.
Try harder.
The blunder...the excuse making? You do mean the crime and the cover up, no?
Words matter Ross. Trump is a criminal.
2
We never should have been in Syria to begin with. It was illegal under Obama and it’s illegal under Trump. The mission under Obama and Trump was to combat ISIS. Now that ISIS is defeated in Syria how is it not mission creep to now expect that US troops should remain there indefinitely to protect Kurds from Turkey, which is a decades long conflict with obviously no US military solution? How can thinking people look at the Middle East and state with a straight face that US military actions have made anything better? Please read Bacevich’s excellent book The War for the Greater Middle East. I disagree with Trump on everything except this.
15
@Tam Hunt It goes beyond our attempts to extricate ourselves from wars in the Middle East. It is about one ethnic group, the Turks, more powerful, wealthier, and more brutal, obliterating another ethnic group, the Kurds. No country certainly no so-called democracy should stand by and watch ethnic cleansing. This is what it is, what it is all about. It has been Turkey's ambition for decades. Trump has given the green light to an atrocity among the most atrocious of deeds. Even if we never set foot in Syria or the Middle East, we have a moral obligation to help those who are in desperate need. But I speak to the proverbial wall, do I not? Our nation no longer lives by a moral compass and ethical principles. Rather it is all about greed and/or bigotry, not so pure and not so simple.
40
@Tam Hunt
Most of the criticism has been focused on the clumsy and abrupt way in which U.S. forces were withdrawn. Your comment sidesteps that issue. Are you of the opinion the withdrawal was properly handled?
21
@Tam Hunt - ISIS is not defeated, just regrouping. Thanks to Trump's greenlighting of Turkey's attack on the Kurds and Syria, we may soon see a refreshed ISIS making new trouble in the ME. Get ready, this will be ugly.
19
Thank you Mr. Douthat for being one of the most articulate GOP Trump critics writing! I agree with everything you've said about the disgraceful damage being done to our foreign policy, interests, and reputation.
I disagree though with your estimation of the damage that Trump has wrought domestically. Just as his overseas flailing damages the reputation of the US government overseas, his actions and attitude have degraded how Americans view it too. I weep and worry for the young people who are being taught implicitly that the big man always gets his way, that following laws is just for little people, that we basically live in a Tony Soprano-style mobster society, not unlike that found in Russia.
The most breathtaking example of this was just yesterday, when Mr. Mulvaney attempted to convince everyone that the illegal things that Trump did vis-a-vis Ukraine aren't wrong and shouldn't be illegal! At first I thought he was a fool and then realized that he was actually shooting for the ultimate prize: To make it so that when the evidence comes out that everything the Democrats have been saying happened DID happen, no one will have the will to impeach!
Fortunately, this gambit failed. Even the GOP Congresspeople (though only off the record) didn't buy this, and Mulvaney had to scurry back to his fetid office and let WH lackeys draft a semi-retraction.
121
@Christopher And then Mulvaney added that choosing Trump Doral for the G7 was reasonable and appropriate.
3
@Patrick McCord In what ways has it been demonstrated that Biden is corrupt? I can see clearly the corruption in withholding congressionally approved funds for Ukraine’s defence against a shooting war with Russia for the purposes of bribing the Ukraine to smear a domestic democratic opponent, seems odd that you can filter that part out ?
13
Trump is the high school kid desperately trying to get into the cool kids club. He loves the bullies, the strongmen (Putin, Kim, Assad, Ertogan, Orban, Duterte). So he pretends to be like them, to try to impress them, so they will let him into their club. But they all know he is weak and a fake, and that he is at the mercy of his rich donors and media supporters who are isolationists (Kochs, Mercers, right wing media like Sinclair). So, like in high school, they let him hang around at the periphery of their group pretending to be one of them, so long as he does useful things, like getting them beer and weed and abandoning the Kurds.
200
Carter brokered peace between Isreal and Egypt. He turned the Panama Canal over to the Panamanians. He was a champion of human rights, to friend and foe alike. Carter was years ahead of his time when it came to sustainable energy. Carter certainly had some mistakes and missteps to add to these successes. Perhaps Douthat should compare foreign policy disasters from this Republican administration and the last Republican administration. When the next Democratic President has to clean this current mess, he or she will only get blamed by the same Republican fools that put these previous disasters in power in the first place. Then it gets even worse, and then the next Republican administration is a real menace. I think I see the pattern.
9
The profound sadness of this treachery towards the Kurds is truly upsetting.....But, he has normalized this kind of behavior to a point where no alarm bells ring long and loud.
He has now deployed 1400 more American troops to the Saudi's while he abandons our allies to real danger, the Kurds. And, as they are setting up there, he tweets about no more Middle East wars, he places our troops in the birthplace of 9/11 with the leadership that carved up a Washington Post reporter. An event he refused to treat as the true criminal act it was.
I just keep wondering how many more rationalizations we must listen to excusing this ongoing behavior.
Somebody needs to make this a penetrating scream.. Normalizing treachery and betrayal is almost as criminal as those who continue to do it with confidence of zero reprisal.
6
All that said, dumb luck still floats the trump boat. Break stuff, move on, never look back or apologize. Rinse and repeat.
73
Trump still remains only the most visible symptom of the problems that vex American government and society.
Yes, Trump is a bully, and underneath it all, a coward who is enamored of the other bullies who are at the heads of governments and societies around the planet.
A problem is that humans can easily be enthralled by the trappings of power and dismissive of those who don't show the requisite symbols. Our definition of what it means to be masculine is at the core of the problem. For some reason, deep in psychology, we humans are easily captured by displays of power that have no deep roots.
Look at history, who is it that we remember and honor? It isn't the bully-boys, and that drives the bully-boys to distraction. Who are are real, long term, hero's? Most would not, if they were still alive, be elected to an official position in any government. Too weak, too wishy-washy, indecisive, flawed,...
Yes, a few, like Hitler, are still worshiped by the malcontents and many current bully-boys still have a following.
Will this nation survive? Probably. Will we have learned a lesson in what power and humanity mean? Probably not.
I watch the leading women aspirants to the presidency acting out the bully-boy rhetoric ( I alone have the answer) refusing to play Oprah to Trump's Apprentice Master by actually listening to and empathizing with We-the-People.
As Robert Caro insightful wrote: "Power Reveals". Sadly nobody pays attention to what is revealed till it is too late.
48
"but filtered through a bodyguard of generals his various impulses produced something that almost seemed strategic: near-victory over ISIS, de-escalation in the Koreas, a reasonable focus on containing China"
Seriously - you considered Trumps buffoonish love fest with Kim Jon Un as strategic? An unprovoked trade war with China where all we see is farmers being crushed and consumers paying tariffs is somehow strategic? A war against ISIS that was essentially running on auto-pilot as some strategic accomplishment?
It's too late to get your reputation back. The Trumpeter fire will take down with it not just the full throated sycophants in Congress, but also the subtle enablers like you who papered over their support for a morally and technically corrupt leader who was so from day one of his presidency
6
I think we can all agree that Donald Trump is a tough guy in precisely the sense that he’s a brilliant businessman, a very stable genius, and a thin guy who’s in perfect health.
Well, all of us who’re sane can.
3
In the Washington Post today Henry Olsen writes a negative article about Trump. Now Mr. Douthat writes a very negative article. These writers now join George Will, William Kristol, David Brooks, Jennifer Rubin and others who reject Trumpism. It is because he is not a conservative, just mimicks conservatism by trying to push conservative goals, but ends up with contradictions, that feed his angry base who are not really conservative either, just angry.
1
Trump will be impeached in the House. He will be acquitted in the Senate and he will be voted out of office in November 2020 by the American people.
3
I have hope and I pray daily that good honest men and women from both parties in Congress, in (the House and Senate )and in the Judiciary and in the organizations in charge of Justice like the CIA and FBI and Department of Justice and the Military leaders will come to their senses and even if afraid or deep down actually terrified, they will muster the courage to remove Trump and stand up to evil and corruption and take charge again. Women will have to lead the way as they always have.. from in front or behind the scenes.
This is already happening as we saw last week.
However Its too late now to prevent or reverse the damage done to vulnerable humans especially the children from South America and the kurds from horrific trauma and death and it is too late to stop some traumatized people or young impressionable people in other countries from listening to trumps words being used by Americans enemies in propaganda video clips to brainwash them into being becoming future terrorists. The damage is done and cannot be reversed for all the people alive now and born in the next 20 years or so...
God help all mankind. We need prayers and peace. We need courage and forgiveness and a moral compass and we need to listen to wise men and women and we need to live a life we can be proud of.
1
It wasn't weakness. It was ignorance, inexperience and immorality.
2
Mr. Douthat, your mental gymnastics are impressive. If you think that Trump's foreign policy is not as bad as Obama's, then you really haven't been paying attention. Trump is much, much WORSE, by all metrics. Obama was a cool, calm, intelligent man who did the best he could with a recalcitrant Congress who thwarted him at every step. Trump is an overgrown child smashing his toys and calling it "diplomacy." yet the GOP in Congress are STILL saying, "He's our guy!"
Stop grinding your ax about Obama. Start paying attention the REAL issue--an incompetent, mentally ill President putting the world at risk.
5
Since TRump loves Russia so much maybe an easy solution to this dilemma would be to buy him a one way ticket to some nice little Russian town and let us go back to being a democracy. He doesn't like Americans or America so let's give him a ride home to Moscow.
1
Mr. Douthat, your disdain for Trump is quite noticeable. Good, now might be the time to start writing about impeaching the President. Many share your opinion about Trump's foreign policy debacles, the latest and worse being the Syria withdrawal of American troops.
Trump is a failure at every level, you have a big voice with the paper you work for. Now is the time to lay out a case for why Mr. Douthat sees impeachment as a necessity at this juncture of the President's term.
We need all the help we can to rid ourselves of diseased presidency.
3
De-escalation in the Koreas?? He gets credit for “de-escalating” what he escalated?? You break it and glue a couple pieces back together and get to say “see what I fixed”?
3
He’s more than unfit; all roads lead to Putin with this man, the Speaker ominously said. We are witnessing, perhaps, the consequences of the most stupendously successful blackmail in all known history! Infantilizing him with the explanation that he admires “strongmen,” doesn’t explain this “Russia” connection!
So Ross, as a very conservative and frequent apologist for Trump and his Republican enablers, with a platform on the NYTs Op-Ed pages, what are you going to do about Trump’s now dangerous incompetence?
What are you going to do, Ross
There is indeed a foreign policy underlying Trump's decisions. All of Trump's actions advance Vladimir Putin's goals. Trump is a Russian puppet, no less than Assad in Syria. How tragic that the decline of American power is precipitated by the U.S. becoming subservient to an inferior adversary through manipulation of our election system.
2
The Savage
Tame Donald Trump, get him to play nice
Like other pols or he’ll pay the price,
So, say his critics, naysayers all
Who think Donald’s package is one to appall;
But peeps like myself love a disrupter -
Please double down, our savage corrupter.
The first sentence in your column immediately reminded me of the title of Anthony Cave Brown’ Book, “Bodyguard of Lies.”
That is trump’s true protection, not the various generals.
1
Yet one more column bemoaning Trump's obvious unfitness for office, three years on in this "disaster" of a presidency. How many of these columns have we seen now? I've lost count.
They are all, no doubt, true. Trump is wildly unfit for his office at best, and a deranged tyrant at worst.
Yet every single column fails to place the responsibility for this nightmare of an administration squarely where it lies: Trump voters. If Trump's poll numbers had dropped under 30%, Senate Republicans would be climbing all over each other to get him out of the White House.
Now we may blame Trump all we want. But I haven't seen one column focusing on the the power of his voters. They're treated as either entirely unrelated to this debacle, or as hapless dupes who were "hoodwinked" by Trump. They are neither.
Trump voters are entirely responsible for the fact that our once fine nation is considered a laughing stock at best, and an international pariah at worst. They support a known felon in the White House for only one reason - he is as racist as they are.
And this, folks, is all Trump voters want from a president. But their role in this horrific chapter of our history should not be overlooked. They should no longer be given a pass. They should be held to account.
At some point, Trump will be gone. And then the rest of us will have to live with the knowledge that some 40% of our citizens worshiped a frank bigot and deranged tyrant as their "president".
5
This coming year will be one for the history books. All of our adversaries know that Trump's time will be up soon. They also know that having a U.S. President like Donald Trump is a once in a lifetime event that will not come around for another 100 years. You can be sure that Putin, Erdogan, and Kim will not squander this opportunity.
They all also know the one (and only) thing that Trump absolutely knows for sure. When you control someone's income and/or finances, you control that person's behavior.
They will all get gradually more aggressive as the clock ticks down on Trump's presidency. And as Trump becomes more agitated and bat-guano crazy, they will start extracting more "favors" from him.
They see that Trump is a weak man - in every sense of the word (intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, and probably financially)
They will promise help from their security services in getting him re-elected. They will promise him help with his legal expenses if he loses re-election. They will promise him new and exciting deals "like the world has never seen before."
And all they will ask in return is for the U.S. to stand down when Russia invades Ukraine. Or stand down while Israel attacks Iran, or God forbid, when North Korea attacks South Korea.
Yes, Trump is an incredibly weak man. And even worse, he displays his weakness for the world to see. He does not try to hide it. Mainly, because he confuses his weaknesses with strength.
2
The President is unfit for his job because the voters are unfit for theirs.
1
Young man, I was extraordinarily proud to actually meet President Carter, as MY Commander-in-Chief, while serving in the US Army at Fort Hood, Texas. Cadet Bone Spurs is not fit to spit-shine His boots. Perhaps you had a different perspective and experience during YOUR Military Service.
Please, enlighten us.
3
The situation is dire, indeed, but I had to laugh at the picture of “Pence showing up at your doorstep looking like a disappointed owl.” A gem.
1
Morals matter. I've told my friends and family that none of us can predict what tough decisions, possibly critical life threatening decisions will come in the future. The only guide us voters have is by judging the morals of the man or woman who will make those decisions. In this case, we have a liar, a cheat, a racist, a bully, a adulterer - are those the morals you want future decisions made?
Trump is not "weak".
He's a crook.
Big difference.
3
"...this American president can be easily hoodwinked and flattered and bullied, and the only repercussions will be Mike Pence showing up at your doorstep looking like a disappointed owl."
Oh dear, someone ate their Wheaties this morning. Nice image!
1
It is tempting to think of Trump in terms of weakness or stupidity. These terms never seem quite to apply. He certainly has a Marble Church confidence that substitutes for strength, and like any other weasel, he knows how to find a hole when he's exposed. Say to an eagle.
It seems to me that his paramount quality may be that of knowledge: he is a master of a huge body of knowledge -- all of which is wrong.
His body of knowledge starts with his self-knowledge. That he is a stable genius is a fine example of that encyclopedic discipline. Geography? Well, he can find Fifth Avenue because he has a paid driver. Syria? Push a button and somebody will tell him what to say. If a Diet Coke turns up instead, drink it, then push a different button.
Modern technology? How to open and close an umbrella is on this term's to-do list. Daddy couldn't buy his way into a school where they taught that one.
He isn't weak or strong, or smart or stupid. None of these are relevant. He's big and loud, and these count in the animal world. And he's utterly ill-informed, doesn't know what knowledge is, so he keeps bumping into things.
Sometimes people get killed when they're in the way. Sometimes he steps on things that have been thought valuable for a few generations.
4
@David Lloyd-Jones
Nicely put. "Oblivious" comes to mind.
Trump thinks that he became a world leader for allegedly thawing our relationship with North Korea; in truth, he became the laughingstock of the world, hoping to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for the distinction of being played like a fiddle by Kim Jong Un.
4
You forgot to mention that, if Trump is convicted by the Senate or defeated next year, he will not voluntarily leave the White House
1
@Bob : I think that is possible. Maybe he will employ a large team of military assassins, pay them with paper money. I think he should be Exiled to Russia. Let him play with the other oligarchs. He will fit in. And don't ever allow him back in this country. not for any price!
Mr Douthat, your thesis seems to be this: Yes, it's bad, but it was worse earlier.
But that is a misleading, dishonest and shallow claim. Obama inherited a terrible recession, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and several other issues. He dealt with them, on the whole, quite well; he turned over to this feckless president a nation and a world in decent shape.
This isn't hard stuff, Mr Douthat.
5
A president should be an ASSET, NOT a DANGEROUS WILDCARD.
REMOVE HIM HE'S A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT
4
Liberal assessment of Trump in 2015-2016 wasn’t biased at al. It was right on target.
And every liberal is saying now, “I told you so”.
(This is one more proof that liberals view the world more realistically)
5
"Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways."
Do you count the mastermind that destabilized the entire Middle East, and gave birth to all this suffering, namely George W Bush, as a smart man? Were he and his administration honest and competent, or did they falsify data to push their poorly conceived plans forward?
George Bush was poorly educated, and in over his head, the people near to him served their own special interests in invading Iraq, and they lied to the American people.
Bush had a wide horizon of choices available to him, compared to problems Obama faced, for which there were few good or easy answers.
But not even Bush compares to the dullard miscreant in the WH today.
What are the chances that he has even heard about the napalm and white phosphorous or seen the pictures of screaming disfigured children? Too busy bragging at a rally.
Obama is not remotely deserving of the same scorn.
5
President Obama’s thoughtful purposeful foreign policy is looking better and better
5
"Both groups have grown used to Trump...because the most alarmist predictions, mine included, did not accurately describe his first two years in office."
Douthat no doubt is still in denial about his side and the atrocious historic calamity they've foisted on the rest of us.
Only a separate reality allows Douthat to say aloud that Trump isn't as bad as feared. This is Douthat dressed up as Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss and “all's for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” Maybe suitable as his scary Halloween costume but hardly a credible look for a serious pundit.
"Trump became president because the smart people in charge ...failed in disastrous ways, and even after this past week his own failures haven’t nearly matched their body count."
"Smart people in charge of foreign policy" is mealy-mouth for REPUBLICANS Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, McCain, Graham, Powell, all of whom lied and lied again to Congress and the American people. Douthat obviously prefers the duplicitous partisan fog that Republicans and Democrats are interchangeable despite the sycophantic allegiance every elected Republican has sworn to their zero to Nero leader and his demolition derby regime.
Trump's body count has yet to be totaled. It will include all the preventable deaths from his savaging of ACA, environmental, health and safety regulations, exacerbated inequality, racist incitement and NRA sponsored gun slaughter.
Among Trump's casualties will be Douthat's credibility.
3
Your article nails the reality of what is happening perfectly. And, true enough, trump is so very weak that he can't even begin to imagine how easy it is for dictators to outplay him. All it takes is give the guy a compliment and he is 'all in'.
3
Honestly though, what did Jimmy Carter ever do to get lumped into this?!
5
Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, a foreign affairs voice of reason who was just mocked by Trump as being “the most overrated general in the world,” rose up from the already high esteem in which millions of Americans hold him, when he commented: "I earned my spurs on the battlefield ... Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor”...
3
"And the world under Trump was in certain respects more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term."
And what would those certain respects be? I can't imagine what Douthat is talking about.
Except that, as a dyed-in-the-wool republican, who will never, ever budge from the right-wing stance of hating all things liberal, left, and democratic, especially Obama, he must stick it in once in awhile.
When is Douthat and the trumpites and all the wrecks in the republican party going to get over Obama?
If how you hate Obama is a harbinger of how trump will be regarded once we are rid of him and have disinfected and deloused the White House, then we will be raking over trumps idiocies, stupidity, craziness, and execrable behavior for decades and decades and despising him all the more.
How tiresome. He'll be gone that we will still have to deal with him through no fault of our own, like an exceedingly needy, troublesome baby left on our doorstep. The GOP has a lot to answer for.
4
The problem of a weakling trying to look strong: the real bullies figure it out, fast.
Putin knew before 2016 and manipulated our election enough to get our weakling in office. Xi found out and is playing a long game. Kim pals it up and keeps his nuclear program; he knows he'll be there when Trump is only a bad memory. Erdogan laughed at that silly letter but, being a Turk and being disrespected, will have his revenge, too.
This pipsqueak of a man makes our entire nation weaker. We need to be rid of him and purge the GOP of his enablers. Maybe a real conservative party would emerge from this den of overpaid corporate lackeys, then?
3
Ross. Republicans need to better rationalize their support of an ignorant, unqualified, corrupt, and reckless president. Republicans barley survived the aftermath of GW Bush, but the party’s fallout from the Trump disaster will be on a whole new level. Keep making these rationalizations and your party will quickly become irrelevant...
1
Will I find comments from Trump cultists, insisting that the Syria withdrawal was a good idea, nay a brilliant one?
3
Ross Dothat's long-winded premise is "weak." Just one more Trump-Hater hating on Trump. No doubt, his article will appeal to 95% of the NYT readership. But it neglects Trump's accomplishments, and his courageous drive to push on with all the obstacles and roadblocks the democrats put in front of him. Watch one of Trump's rallies and you will see just how "weak" he is: smart. articulate, reasoned, and funnier than SNL.
1
I dunno what’s more stunning: the notion that there is a list of Trump’s “accomplishments,” floating around in hyperspace somewhere (probably doing loop-the-loops with those tax returns and Obama’s real birth cert and the DNC server), or the claim that Trump’s funny to anybody past the age of deliberately blowing milk out their nose.
Be thrilled to see that list of accomplishments, though. I got a side bet it has, “Denuclearized North Korea,” “Got the USMCAA done,” and “Achieved Mideast Peace,” on it, and this stuff cracks me up.
2
@99percent " Watch one of Trump's rallies and you will see just how "weak" he is: smart. articulate, reasoned, and funnier than SNL."
Stupid, incapable of stringing together a coherent sentence, no thoughts just junior high school name-calling and totally without humor, and lying like other people breathe -- Trump in nutshell.
There -- fixed it for you.
2
@99percent It seems that you have neglected his "accomplishments" as well. Please, tell us of all the great things that Trump has done for the common woman and man.
1
What if there was one, just one, Republican senator who would stand up to Trump and say "enough." Let me put this in terms a Republican senator might understand. Just say "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but you are a disaster for this country, you don't know what you're doing, you have violated your oath to support the Constitution and our system of laws, you must now go." Perhaps you would then be challenged in your primary, perhaps you would even lose your seat in our do-nothing Senate. Would that be so horrible? You would be hailed as a hero by the whole world, you might have even saved the world, you might even have a shot at the presidency yourself one day. But if the presidency thing doesn't work out, you could still make $50 million in speaking fees over the next 10 years. Think big picture.
5
When Trump said he knew more about ISIS than the generals, we all laughed. He was serious!
3
Douthat cannot let go of his contempt for every Democrat and Democratic policy in history. Even now, with the Constitution being used to wipe Trump's feet, he will not put the blame solidly on the Republican Party and the policies it has worshipped for generations. He cannot see the inherent inequality every policy Republicans espouses. He cannot see the disdain those policies hold for all but marauding white, alpha males.
Marriage and family to him are a white male in a suit who is forgiven for all business transactions that have led to his success while his wife is prized for her stay at home, mindless, servile subservience and admiration for her husband's every action.
Until death do us part and procreation are his lodestars of humanity. He embraces the worst of Roman Catholic teaching and ignores the basic teaching of Jesus-Love God will all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Our neighbors are the Kurds, the Hondurans, the Zulu, every other human on the planet. A long as win-lose is the philosophy of human interaction.....we will all continue to lose.
6
Trump is a conservative's conservative : Strong in bluster, clueless in thought and weak in action.
5
This fraud showed nothing but utter weakness from the moment he was a "candidate." It's hard to imagine here in the 21st century that after 3 - 4 years of this Psych 101 exposé in the spotlight ad nauseam, that supposedly learned journalists are just now concluding that this Freakshow-in-Chief is weak? Amazing. Didn't we all learn in elementary that blowhard's tirades come from the blowhard's personal lack and deficiency? That the only way a weakling covers for their inferiority complex is decimating everyone and everything around them. Sorry, Ross, but you've had 3 yrs to come to these conclusions along with the MAJORITY of the rest of us who can still critically disseminate sensory info as it comes. This highlights just exactly what our issues are here in America and the inability (or more likely, unwillingness) of even folk who consider themselves intellectually efficient-to-above-average to exercise what we all
learned in K-12...or should have, at least...
...oh, and those first two years of Flunky's regime you downplay as relatively business as usual? Did you really write that?
The delusion is breathtaking. Maybe take a hiatus from the inner venture of writing, and rekindle some empiricism before it's too late.
3
This article is a prime example of selective and wrong historical reading. Apparently the first two years were so sanguine - with Muslim ban, Paris accord cancellation, extreme humiliation across every single ally, Iran accord cancellation, pathetic embarrassment of the Russian influence and not doing anything about it, southern border crisis.., Need I go on? And none of those stalwarts like Mattis or Kelly or McMaster were able to do anything. It’s about time conservatives like Mr Douthat just go home, it’s an odious analytical lens that’s just a disgrace on Americanism. Your defense of a socially conservative viewpoint itself is devoid of any logical rigor.
4
Mr. Douthat, your last sentence says it all “...our president is unfit for his job.”
5
Ross, you ain't seen nothin yet. Just wait til ISIS gets itself reconstituted and now with it's guts torn out by Trump, the CIA less capable of thwarting their terrorism, we have more death and chaos on the horizon. And it won't just be Kurds dying.
5
I thought exiting the world stage was why Trump got elected. That is what I thought he promised his voter. He got elected as an American firster and isolationism is their platform.
We knew Putin was our enemy, we never took a shine to China and I knew the USA would shaft us whenever they could but it was a price we would pay for the highest quality of life on this planet.
I never however thought the USA could chose a leader ignorant enough to believe that trade was a zero sum game and that the world is not the best place it has ever been. At 70 years old I may live to see maximum World population before I am 90.
America is mad, the glass is more than half full but America is depressed and going to take us all down into that horrible place.
We have an election on Monday and as usual there are those that think our election is close to importance as what goes down in Washington. In truth when we go back to routine on Tuesday and things will be back to normal except we will continue to monitor the Madness of your Loony in Charge and his morality challenged "advisors".
5
Putin can run rings around this failed person we now have in the WH.
However, Putin will also drop him like the proverbial hot potato if trump loses which would be a boon to all of us.!
Which "smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy" are you speaking about here, Ross? Donald Rumsfeld? Your beloved George W. Bush?
2
Paper Tiger!
It sounds like the Republican’s “Donald being Donald” excuse is wearing thin. Turns out it’s just as ignorant and dangerous as Donald himself. Besides that the thinly veiled “Obama did it” excuse is a typical bully/psychopath response when called out for murderous behavior...someone else is to blame. This time around people, including members of the US Military, have died, are dying, and will continue to die. Getting used to it? Beyond revolting.
2
Trump is a scared, insecure wimp, pure and simple. Every kid I grew up with could have, and many would have, demolished him, both verbally and otherwise. In Noo Yawk, mouths like his are a dime a dozen. He became an entertainer, because that is a job where you are often rewarded for your ability to pretend, to fake it. He got elected Entertainer-In-Chief, because we currently live in a world that rewards entertainers with money and credibility far more than teachers, or plumbers, or nannies.
6
I'm not a big Douthat fan, but credit is due: Pence as a "disappointed owl" is a lovely and apt description.
3
How can we be living in a strongman's world when masculinity is under attack?
1
By whom? The shock troops in dresses of RuPaul’s Third Army?
It absolutely amazes me that the Real Men spend this much time fretting about their masculinity.
2
@Southern Boy Only an undeveloped little boy's impression of masculinity. Balanced masculinity is doing just fine.
2
Ross, Trump tore up the JCPOA that was holding Iran in check, you don’t mention that. Trump walked away from the Trans Pacific Partnership, which was the best way to confront and contain China without a stupid and counterproductive mano-a-mano trade war.
That’s just for starters. There are plenty of other factors contributing to the current state of disrepair.
2
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Trump is not a self-made man but instead a “made” man i.e. part of the mafia, in this case the Russian mafia. Having failed at business on his own with Daddy’s $$$, he avoided becoming a loser by allowing himself to be bought by Putin’s operatives and oligarchs. It’s all dirty foreign money, and Trump is their puppet. Ukraine is just the latest unearthings of his deep mafia connections.
2
most alarmist predictions, mine included, did not accurately describe his first two years in office.
Clearly you aren't a child put into a cage.
4
WHAT A CAST OF CHARACTERS! Pence as a scared owl (is there any other kind?). Erdogan as a ruthless, cold, heartless monster. And Trump as Ronald McDonald? Trumptee Dumb-tee? The Trumpenstein Monster? Trumplestiltskin? (The differences among the different characters having to do principally with his costumes). What I find to be the most tragic, as well as the most dangerous, is the fact the Trump's supporters were surprised by his grossly impulsive, thoughtless, destructive actions. Have the GOPpers been in such a thrall to hm that they could not see his limitations? I guess so. Any rational, mature perception of others involves seeing the pros and cons of the possible relationship and of the capabilities of the other, as well as of the self. I was heartened by Lindsey Graham's outraged statement about Trump's actions. I quote from Graham's tweet: "The worst thing any Commander in Chief can do is to give land back to the enemy that was taken through blood and sacrifice. I fear those are the consequences of the actions being taken right now." The next step, clearly, is to respond to the worst is to begin impeachment immediately. That, or persuade Trump to be removed by invoking the 25th Amendment, or by resigning. Graham may acted badly by supporting Trump, but when the line was crossed, Graham was clear, bold and resolute in condemning the worst that a leader can do! Yes, Trump is the worst leader in US history! His days in office are numbered.
1
I have to wonder in Sen Graham’s moment of clarity when will he do another 180 degree and return to Trump’s lap (as his lap dog)?
One thing is for sure: if Trump is re-elected, everyone (and I mean everyone) can expect four more years of impulse, turmoil, destabilization, and misery. A man who openly divides people, and makes enemies of half the voting population, can never effectively govern such a diverse country.
4
There was nothing in Donald Trump's track record in 2016 that would have pointed to him as being a successful president. The Trump alarmist were correct in that no amount of babysitting was enough to forestall the mess he created. The 2020 election is not only the time to re-assess Trump but also to purge the country of those politicians who promoted his candidacy and enabled him after election.
5
I've been saying all along that, contrary to his assertions and the fervent insistence of his most rabid supporters, Individual 1 is a weak, fearful man driven almost entirely by a deep narcissism over which he has no control.
He has shown, time and again, that when in the actual presence of foreign leaders whom he has, from afar, threatened and taunted, he's a total pushover, a man so desperate for approval that he forgets he was supposed to be "mastering" them with his almost magical machismo and "dealmaking" ability.
On top of that, despite his long-honed "tough guy" pose — squint-eyed a la Eastwood, bejoweled glower, stubby fingers jabbing the air — *everything* about him in reality suggests not a he-man, but a preening, citified metrosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that ... unless you pretend to be something else).
He uses a tanning salon; he dyes his flyaway hair; he's a near-panicky germophobe (his partisans would be shocked to see his unwillingness to shake their hands which would require him — ewwww! — to touch them); he's never done an hour of hard, physical work, at least as an adult; he isn't fit enough to walk 18 holes, requiring a cart; his speaking style, despite his every effort to affect a macho pose, is flappy and whiny; he is comically easy to wound with words.
What about any of that do his legions imagine makes him a "tough guy"?
202
His money.
13
@MJM You mean his invisible money, since he doesn't let us see his financials. Given his record in regard to the truth, it is a guarantee that there isn't as much there as he claims.
13
@MJM
Which is mostly a mirage, in all likelihood.
5
Ross, the problem is deeper than what you describe, and has its roots in Bush v. Gore. That decision installed in an illegitimate president who then appointed two right-wing justices (Alito and Roberts). Those two cemented the majority for Citizens United. Thanks to that travesty of a decision we saw massive interference in our 2016 election by Russia, including huge amounts of dark money used to buy not only the presidency but also a majority in the Senate. As a result we now have Trump and two more right-wing justices (Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, the latter being doubly illegitimate).
Remember when Obama warned us about Citizens United in his State of the Union address and Alito mouthed the words “not true”?
Unless something is done to stop the effects of Citizens United, Trump-style corruption will become the norm.
12
@Critical Rationalist I completely agree. Excellent comment. And, realistically, Citizens United will be with us for decades, as the Supreme Court isn’t going to swing left for a long time. Fasten your seatbelts!
1
I think you slightly mis-identify Trump’s defining characteristic. It is not—or is not simply—weakness. It is laziness.
Trump is lazy to his very core. He is lazy physically, mentally, philosophically, and morally. It -looks- like weakness, evil, or stupidity, which is why you get so many profiles about Trump and his actions that describe him in ways that don’t really seem to totally overlap. But “lazy” describes every action of his perfectly.
All his actions can be predicted by asking yourself: what would the easiest thing to do in the moment be, and that is what Trump will do.
148
@J c
Agreed. And who are the easiest people to con?
There's a reason Trump didn't declare as a Democrat even though he never was a Republican. As any seasoned Con Man does- he scoped his marks.
Lo and behold, he deemed Republican voters ("I love the uneducated") easier to fool than Democrats.
10
Trump’s message concerning endless wars resonates.
There are many in our country who could care less about what happens in the Middle East either to our friends or to our enemies.
This should surprise nobody.
In a recent Times article about the fight over the library in Clinton, Arkansas, the author said that many people in Clinton no longer care about local institutions. They care about themselves and their families.
@Michael Roush
It only resonates to people who are too ignorant to understand that the world has changed to the point where isolationism just isn't feasible.
1
Republicans obviously believe that Trump is fit for the job and they are incapable of allowing their leader to humiliate them because they are not humble. These are the same arrogant thugs who brag about being "constitutional originalists" except when the constitution allows a duly elected Democrat to appoint a Supreme Court Judge. All indications are that this crisis will get much much worse.
8
"The Queen of Hearts is a fictional character from the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by the writer Lewis Carroll. She is a foul-tempered monarch whom Carroll himself describes as 'a blind fury', and who is quick to give death sentences at the slightest offense. One of her most famous lines is the oft-repeated 'Off with his/her head!' / 'Off with their heads!' ['You're fired!'] ... few people are actually beheaded. The King of Hearts quietly pardons many of his subjects when the Queen is not looking ... and her soldiers humor her but do not carry out her orders." But what happens when her good soldiers and the King walk away in disgust?
4
Do we really need this pained and drawn-out analysis and comparison to earlier Administrations? Pick a day from last week - any day - you will find sufficient reason that Trump must be removed. We have more than a year left of this foolish maniac. It is plenty of opportunity to result in disastrous trouble. I fear Trump is just getting warmed up. Impeachment is the way out.
5
"And the world under Trump was in certain respects more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term."
Seriously? Either I had my head up my navel throughout the Obama years or you are seriously deluded, Mr. Douthat. The last thousand days have been a political, environmental and judicial nightmare for everyone I know who is thoughtful and respected.
8
The Nixon years were terrible, but this.....!!!
3
Whether Trump is deranged, just a bumbler or evil is irrelevant to me. Whatever he is, he has blood on his hands for betraying the Kurds and I don't care that the US may have betrayed them in the past. If we want to rid ourselves of him, one of the articles of impeachment must be about his bloody hands. In the Senate trial evidence must be presented that permits the public to decide that Trump must go. If that's called a show trial, so be it.
5
What took you so long, Ross, and why do you keep saying that you predicted most of this?
3
You're a little late to the wake, Mr Douhat.
Even Trump's "best" instincts ( avoiding a hot war and distrusting existing power structures' assumptions ) are severely impaired by his paranoid, self aggrandizing relationships and total lack of knowledge.
3
Tiny little hands, too.
2
Soon Mulvaney will be fired by tweet and Romney will be selected to visit the White House and inform Mr. Trump the leadership of the GOP and the GOP donor class no longer require his presence in the Oval Office.., Someone make sure the paintings are all still there when they exit ala Nixon via Marine -One0
5
He is not weak. A guy who is supported by half of the voters in this country (the mightiest ever) is not weak.
If you have nothing to say, follow Wittgenstein’s 7th thesis in TLP.
Besides everything that's going on, our country is suffering from "knee-jerk" Republicans -- conservative loyalists who can see no reasons or facts while also emotional and reactive.
How can any reasonable and clear minded person not see Trump for who he is? Are the Right more afraid of the abortionists and LGBT than the ruins of our constitution, democracy, law and order, self respect and international standing? Do they really think their loss of the power to impose their religion is a lost of their religious liberty?
I do not understand why the Republican loyalists cannot see sea level is rising, glaziers are melting, and the self dealing and corruption openly and blatantly happening in the White House and the whole executive branch. How loud would they have screamed if President Obama and his administration did all that's been done? Even now, they want to point finger at Hunter Biden while ignoring the Trump's businesses and children.
It is as if the Republicans in this country have been doused with pixie dust and enchanted. Douthat included.
I am only a green card holder, but I believe in the American ideals, the Statue of Liberty. I believe in Americans the good guys. But it is slipping away, irreversibly, with each lies emanating from the White House, each hatred being shouted from Trump rally, and each moment of silence from the Republican in Congress and on the street. I tell myself, maybe it's all not too contrary. Maybe this is America all along.
15
Putin, Erdogan, Kim, and other dictators in power are people who made the right choices after serious thought and are aware of how much luck was needed. They see Trump as a harmless punk who they can manipulate, because he’s an insecure and fearful person.
9
Casually overlooking the fact that Trump's weakness both structurally and intentionally acts to strengthen these "strongmen" ("dictators," to most of us) directly.
Trump is not a weak man in a world of dictators. Trump questions our alliance with the world's democracies openly. He said a few days ago that it was ok for ISIS to go free since they were just going to go to Europe. He has praised Duterte, Putin, and Kim Jong Il. He's invited him to interfere in our elections and now left our territorial power in a Middle East hotspot to his thirsty Russian ally, while handing over other allies of ours to Erdogan.
Just because he's not cunning and Machiavellian doesn't mean he defaults to bumbling and helpless. Among the lessons of Kaiser Wilhelm II is that powerful leaders can be aggressively stupid when sufficiently puffed up.
6
Americans generally have this schizophrenia about our role in the world. On the one hand, we're responsible for everything, thus, "the world under Trump [is] more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama." On the other hand, according to the anti-"blame America first" crowd, we're not responsible for anything.
There's no doubt that trump's ignorant, irrational and self-serving, Russia-serving foreign "policy" is destructive, but the fact is Erdogan was prepared to invade Syria, and appears to have been prepared for months. You can't summon an invasion in 24 hours. For better or worse, most of the world is now clear: America cannot be trusted ever again. American voters and America's voting system are fatally flawed. Our allies and enemies need not fear our influence and ideals so much as our fickleness.
5
If Donald Trump is unfit, his supporters are worse than unfit. The president could be checked by a few brave Republican Senators. They not only aren't up to the task, they seem too ready to trade corruption for tax cuts and libertarian judges. And so a once proud party loses its soul to a would-be tyrant.
9
The headline here is obvious, but so is the weakness of the Republican Senators to Trump’s despotic attitude and incompetence.
These electeds remind me of something from the Bible that Evangelicals should have at their fingertips but have themselves apparently forgotten: When the people appealed to Pharaoh to let them go to pray to their God in the desert, Pharaoh’s heart was HARDENED.
We have Pharaoh in the WH and Evangelical’s are so enamored of the power they have lusted after for years that they have forgotten that the God they serve is one of love, not bullying, not pressure tactics, not name calling, not lying.
The Republican Senate is likewise “hardening it’s heart” (if they had one lately) because they fear the loss of their jobs at the polls or they fear being primaried, or they fear the loss of election money from lobbyists and corporations. Their cynicism is palpable.
They have no courage for the Constitution or for law and order, or for honesty in governance or for Truth, all of which they took an oath to support! And this parades before Evangelicals, as it does before all of us, and yet they stick by this fake “Deliverer” because they think he is giving them the power they have desired for so long. What we see here is the power of innumerable weak souls who have ABANDONED THEIR OWN CHRISTIAN TRUTHS to support Mammon and his minions.
Pathetic.
5
Spot on. Forget all the self-dealing and corruption and ego-mania and just focus on this one foreign policy decision, please Republicans, and finally come to your senses. These were the policy decisions of an unfettered, ill-informed, self-delusional megalomaniac, drunk with the adulation of the sycophants at his rallies and detached from reality.
1
The neo con descent into perpetual disastrous murderous failures has not diminished their efforts to increase their mindless hold over Washington power elites. The 2000 soldiers in Syria is a case in point of a stupid Trump action that has been transformed into an essential mission to save the Kurds. The soldiers were placed there to keep the Syrians from reestablishing their international borders. The US seems determined to keep the Syrian civil war going as long as possible. The Kurds were allowed to wander past their borders in eastern Syria which angered Turkey and Syrian Arabs. ISIS was inflicted on Syria by mind boggling miscalculations by the anti Assad international front. The neo cons have no desire to bring peace to Syria. They brought in vicious sectarian jihadists that wreaked terrible carnage on Syrians that matches the carnage inflicted by Assad. The US and its friends and proxies have succeeded in making the Syrian civil war vastly more bloody. All this talk of defending the Kurds by these purveyors of mindless carnage in Syria is dishonest political posturing.
1
Since this president is manifestly unfit for his job, I know that you'll be voting for the Democratic nominee on 11/3/2020.
Because there really isn't any other choice.
3
It is hard to believe Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds is “disconnect[ed] from any strategic purpose.” I cannot help but wonder whether Vladimir Putin did not deliver an ultimatum: “Since you appear hamstrung on releasing the Magnitsky sanctions (now that your attempt to blame Ukraine for our interference in your election has been exposed), at least give me foothold in the Middle East—if you want my help in 2020.”
2
Does Trump realize that he is being used by Putin, and bin Salman, and Kim or is it that he wants to be used by Putin, and bin Salman and Kim?
2
It is not weakness to command the blind support of "roughly 42%." It doesn't take 50%-plus one to start a war of distraction, set a fire in the Reichstag, declare a national emergency and set aside the Constitution. He has already shown how fragile our tripartite institutions are when loyalty to party supersedes principle and patriotism. Our only hope is that he alienates more Republicans and voters by some other foreign blunders soon.
2
Ross, what is your definition of weak? Looks pretty strong to me after the previous 8 years.
@Duffy
I think the more pertinent question is, "What is YOUR definition of strong?"
Remember, this is a man who avoided military service by manufacturing fake "bone spurs," staying safely at home while other boys went to war and got killed.
Nothing strong about that. It's rank cowardice.
1
I hope that in the time remaining to this man and all his enablers of the Republican ilk, including Douthat, we never learn that one of his “gut” decisions involves pushing a little button that sets off a Big Bang!
1
Trump may be weak
Which means the GOP is even weaker
Their corruption is complete
2
“ The only repercussions will be Mike Pence showing up at your doorstep looking like a disappointed owl.” Best line ever!
3
obviously the torrent of critisism regarding the g7 at doral has had its effect and made the white house change its plans... so please take note americans and make your voices heard loud & clear... when the gop realises there is a strong & active majority ready to defend democracy and hold the president accountable they might change their laisser-faire attitude versus the man in the oval office and start finally check&balancing him... it seems the republicans are slowly slowly moving in this direction... let us hope... and good luck to you america!!!
2
We put A monkey in the cockpit, he pushed a few buttons now and then, but the autopilot has been working so far.
The plane needs to land eventually, but the-man-in-yellow-hat just wants to save his seat.
1
Nixon: Vietnam
Bush; Iraq
Trump; Syria
In foreign affairs, Republicans are unmitigated disasters.
Vote Blue in 2020, up and down every ballot.
3
Trump isn't weak, he's just laser focused on getting himself rich through the presidency. He likes dictators because they can give him something.
5
Is it fair to call someone weak who simply doesn’t care? It appears that the President is spending quite some time in running all these corruption, self dealing and extortion schemes he appears to be truly invested in. How could you expect that he has time to discuss and consider the consequences of any of his foreign policy moves while having his lawyers demanding absolute immunity for the President? Why would he care about the Kurds? His problem are the prosecutors in New York who are actively seeking to pull the foundation off the house of lies that he has been building his entire life? It is not only Donald Trump’s political career that is right now facing impeachment - it is his entire life. He will therefore take any chance to distract and obstruct his downfall. Resigning and leaving the office for someone who is not entangled in as many legal and political challenges as the President would be the noble thing to do - just like President Nixon. But he appears to be too weak to even consider this option that would spare him from being confronted with daily revelations about his highly inappropriate or even illegal conduct.
4
There may be a reason for bending to Erdogan that is particularly personal. We know some of what Guilianni has been doing to press Trump's political agenda. We don't know what Don Jr. and Eric have been up to.
Trump has a business foot print in Turkey. We don't know if there are back channels between Pres. Trump and Turkey via the business the he claimed to divest himself from (remember that stack of "documents" on the table that no one was allowed near?)
Does Trump, the real estate "mogul" have any business with the countryless Kurds? Trump can smell money from 7,000 miles away. In this case the money is a few hundred miles closer.
2
Nancy Pelosi courageously said it best, directly to trump, about his foreign policy: "All roads lead through you to Putin." Not a whole lot left to the imagination after that is understood.
8
... "our president is unfit for his job." "Enormously unfit..." works better for me.
3
Trump has only one action left to distract the Congress from impeachment.
What is that action?
Clue: Why while removing troops from Syria does he send a few 1000 to Saudi Arabia?
Second clue: What country is believed by the Saudis to have damaged it's petroleum production system?
Who can prevent him from taking that action?
Only-NeverIn Sweden.Blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Trump is actually a weak person pretending to be a strong, super smart one. In a real sense, this is one of the most pathetic aspects of his psyche and his public persona. It is fake.
The Washington Post, in reporting on the decision to cancel the Doral club as a venue for the G-7 reported the following, incorrectly:
"...in a rare reversal in the face of public pressure for a president who prides himself in rarely folding or admitting failure, Trump said Saturday that he and his administration would search for a new location."
I have watched the Trump mess almost moment by moment for the last three years. He always folds when he gets serious opposition. To report the facts, the Post would have had to say this: Trump prides himself on never admitting failure but he immediately puts on a big show after changing positions to keep attention away from his weaknesses. He prides himself on pretending to be strong, pretending to always win but, in fact, he withdraws from losing situations, declares victory and moves on.
This is the exact pattern of his business career: no matter the outcome, it is always a wonderful, unbelievable "victory" for Trump. Long ago he came to realize that if he told the biggest lie possible, no one could hope to challenge him.
6
Only 5 more years to go.
The other day, David Brooks began a project that I hope Mr. Douthat and others will soon feel compelled to sign on to. He swallowed hard and stated the necessary: reasonable people must vote for whoever the Democrats nominate. His assumption is that it will be Warren and perhaps it will. Her policy prescriptions may be loathed by conservatives, but she is neither stupid, insane nor unfit to be Commander in Chief. It's that simple. I urge Ross to use his coveted soapbox for the sole purpose of ending the Trump presidency. We are in a national crisis of leadership, a historic crisis, and our relative luck these last three years only indicates how dangerous the future could be.
8
"Without his bodyguard of generals, the president is becoming the overseas arsonist his 2016 critics feared."
Becoming? Are you joking, becoming? This miscreant has been a disaster since it was installed on 1/20/17, the day the world began to disassemble. This thing has just lit a fire that will never be extinguished.
7
What do you mean by this: ". . . the constitutional order (such as it is) . . . ."? I find that kind of backhanded critique of our entire political system more than a little disturbing. "Such as it is" has kept us a stable, peaceful, and prosperous society since 1789. Why question it now, in the hour when it is being challenged so directly? If you're referring to the electoral college and other counter-majoritarian features, remember the constitution contains the means to keep it up to date, via amendments. It also contains mechanisms for reigning in the imperial foreign policy powers of the Presidency. Which I take it is the point of your piece, such as it is.
1
Remember, Trump's from-the-gut foreign policy with its constant headlines, distracts us from all the other dangerous stuff in his presidency that gets lost in the coverage but is cumulatively even more dangerous to us. I'm thinking particularly of global warming and the environment: both his denial as the years tick inexorably by and the death by a thousand roll-backs of hard-won protections of resources.
8
There's a quick and simple way to understand the sense of tis, and it has nothing to do with Trump "rolling over" for Erdogan.
Remember the part of the infamous Steele dossier that mentioned a secret deal for 19% of Rosneft? And that the Russians have moved in alongside the Turks and occupied an American base, paid for by US taxpayers?
Everything Trump does is designed to shovel cash into his pockets, by fair means or foul. There is absolutely nothing else that interests or motivates him. And his presidency is in jeopardy, so the move had to made now.
I wonder what Putin offered Erdogan to play his part in all of this? License to slaughter the Kurds? His own 19% of Rosneft?
In all things, but especially in all things Trump, follow the money.
5
I don’t know about the veracity of the excuses Mr. Douthat offers up for Trump presence in the White House ... bad foreign policy, etcetera.
None of it ‘rings a bell’.
What I do remember very clearly was the totally abysmal mainstream news coverage of his ascent and the forces behind it followed by three years of timid denial by many mainstream opinion writers of the magnitude of Trumps evilness.
9
Jim Mattis took a brilliant tactic at the Smith dinner in NYC the other night: he mocked King Lear and made fun of him. That is exactly what we need. More people need to expose him as the weakling and fraud he has been his entire life. Only then, when his base realizes that they've really bought a pig in a poke, will things shift, and that will hasten his resignation. Make no mistake, his 6 bankruptcies show that, at some point, he will want to negotiate an exit. I'm happy to chip in for the one-way ticket to Moscow.
12
Trump gets credit from Mr. Douthat for "de-escalating" with N. Korea? He wildly escalated the threatening dialogue with Kim. Then he gave Kim what he wanted: two meetings and faux negotiations that resulted in Kim continuing his nuclear program apace with no benefit to the U.S. or its allies, unless "love letters" from Kim to Trump are a coup. The icing on the cake was canceling military exercises with the S. Koreans. No wonder Kim loves him!
The Trump formula has been to lash out, create a crisis, then give in wholesale to end the crisis. This works with Mr. Douthat apparently.
11
I agree for the most part with this analysis. Crazy is as crazy does. And now Trump, unrestrained, is doing more crazy than ever. But Mr. Douthat is not quite right when he writes: "de-escalation in the Koreas."
Err, no. The North Koreans are playing Trump for time while they build up their arsenal of nukes. That they did the same thing to Clinton and Obama doesn't make it now less dangerous since at least those presidents, and their advisers, came within relatively short order to understand they were being played. Trump with his all his neediness (those "love letters"!) is oblivious.
Mr. Douthat's analysis also underestimates the gravity of the danger Trump's fiasco in Syria creates for Israel. With the Kurds ethnic-cleansed out of the border region, Iran now has a clear corridor all the way to the Golan Heights and Lebanon. This significantly intensifies the danger to Israel. Watch for an escalation of fighting along Israel's norther border.
16
Referring to pre-trump American foreign policy Mr. Douthat writes "...the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways...", which IMO begs the question, when has any western strategy or foray in the mideast not been a disaster, from the Crusades to our current attempts to stop ISIS?
15
The country will right itself after trump is gone (by impeachment or election) but the the worst outcome of his presidency will be the lifetime Federal judges he leaves in his wake.
18
@Stephan
Right itself within rearranged borders in the Mideast and potentially elsewhere and diminished opportunities for trade parnerships
Cult members dismiss the failings of their leader because psychologically they must. Republicans in Congress dismiss them because they choose to.
12
Are Republicans afraid of their base or afraid of the donor class of right wing ideologues that control the party? After all, it is the donor class that turns on any Republican who has the temerity to speak truth to power. The revenge begins with a blitz-kreig of negative press on the Murdoch owned media channels followed by adonor class supported primary from the right. Why is it that challengers are always more right wing than those they hope to unseat? I’m sure the propaganda coming out of Fox News ( conservatives are under attack, the entire government is infiltrated with democrats, anyone who doesn’t support Trump is a closet democrat, and democrats are all evil socialists that hate Fox News viewers) has something to do with what the base believes. In many ways, the “Trump base” are the front line victims of the power base behind the “Republican Party”. Let’s spend a lot more time and energy uncovering and discussing the source and motives of those who control the Republican Party and less time attacking and questioning the base they so masterfully manipulate.
9
Remember folks, Republican lawmakers denounced Trump on deserting the Kurds. But Trump’s supporters in MAGA hats agree with him.
5
@Oliver - Well IF those Republican lawmakers were actually serious about their denouncement, they HAVE an option: Support impeachment.
They are worse than MAGA hat people. They KNOW they are wrong and lying and still persist.
2
Well, Mr. Trump was strong enough to get two justices on the Supreme Court with Amy Coney Barrett in the wings and I am just fine with that.
2
@Mark I hear this all the time, that Trump installed two. Justices on the Court. Yet any Republican president could have done the same with a Senate majority, no filibuster, and Mitch McConnell. All Trump did was send them a. name.
13
@Mark Not strong enough. Lucky enough.
2
@Mark - Do you live near the coast? If so, I hope you're fine with sea level rising. Do you eat food? If so I hope you're OK with agriculture being disrupted worldwide. Do you appreciate living in a country ruled by laws? If so, I hope you won't mind being ruled by the whims of mobsters instead.
Ross, your column, along with Bret Stephenson's recent call for impeachment, fits perfectly with all those now jumping ship from an imploding Trump administration. Why it took a thousand days to get there speaks volumes about the state of our country's political affairs, and where the best - the ones who profess to think for a living - certainly lack all conviction. Even a stooge like Mick Mulvaney couldn't suppress, any longer, the eruption of obvious truth last week. Or was he, too, just trying to make sure he'd end up on dry land once his boss is fitted for orange pinstripes?
9
OK, when you say the most alarmist predictions about Ttump's presidency did not accurately describe the first three years, you mean because they were not alarmist enough and his presidency has been much worse than anyone imagined, right? You are not really clear on this, and any other conclusion is incorrect. And what about any predictions that the Republican party had actual values. It doesn't.
4
Trump is out of control, believes he can do anything domestically and in foreign affairs. There is no check on him. The Republicans are missing in action. The Supreme Court is a wild card. Who knows what the five ultra conservative justices would decide in any case against Trump brought before them. It is long past time that we people need to demonstrate our disgust and disapproval. After the last election when the Republicans were soundly defeated, Washington was suddenly awake to the anger in the country and took note of the grassroots energy that gave the House to the Democrats. But as time went on, Trump never stopped with his extra legal, and contemptible behavior and Republicans are mostly on board. It is time to let them know that we majority are still mad and won’t take it anymore. Time for a pro impeachment march on Washington.
4
What you describe as weak behavior is actually delusional behavior by a man who does not read and will not accept advice from experts.He is a threat to constitutional order as He guts the Cabinet and Government Agencies of experts and installs only loyalists who ignore the Constitution but support Trump schemes.He is a dire threat to international order because he admires “strong men”( read authoritarians) and will do anything to please them including things antithetical to U.S. interests.From day one it was obvious Trump would not support and defend. The Constitution-At day 1000 and counting his reckless behavior is threatening our safety and that of our allies-with his impulsive call to Erdogan he effectively abandoned our allies, made it possible for Isis to be freed , left American troops fleeing, bombing their bases as they left and left the US with a base in Turkey where our nuclear weapons are stored.Trump”s unchecked impulses are an imminent danger - every hour of every day he puts us in more danger-Impeachment must happen soon.
3
"Trump is weaker then you think". The nation has had 1000+ days of this presidency to come to this conclusion if they hadn't done so during the GOP presidential campaigning.
Greater concern and deeper analysis can now focus on the members of congress, on those in high level positions within the White House who left, resigned or fired personally by trump, those we can assuredly assume are deeply disgusted with this president and yet remain silent. Gen Mattis recently was adding a little humor to his retaliatory comments about his former boss stating that, "I earned my spurs on the battlefield, the president earned his spurs by a letter from his personal doctor".
We need more then a joke line against this corrupt man, the nation requires those in position or power who are disgusted and view him a threat to democracy to end their silence and voice their condemnation.
1
The elephant in the room is that this weak man remains President because Fox and other right wing media prop him up. Without right wing media that immovable object known as his base (his 42%) would have abandoned him. That right wing media juggernaut is the biggest threat to the American form of government and to the prospects for a future healthy planet we have experienced in 240 years.
6
Mr. Douthat,
WhY is it that, like most Republicans, you “criticism “ of Trump is always couched in a “this has always been the case” narrative.
This is not business as usual sir. And you know it.
15
Yes Trump is weak in all the skills of leadership and character. Well said: “the decision-making approach that Trump used makes Kaiser Wilhelm look like a model of cool statesmanship, and its application in a crisis involving a real great power could be catastrophic.”
Trump uses back room dealing, conniving, lying, and bullying as a strength. He has appointed positions because he wants to control things himself. He keeps people on in “acting” positions because he can overrule their actions. He used to like use military men as aides because of their long history of never behaving insubordinate; keeping military actions secret from the public (as needed in the military). Who else could he depend on to not speak out against him or reveal his secrets - and we’ve seen that has been truth. But Trump found out that the military has standards and character and they tried to contain his crazy.
Evil has strength but ultimately it is singular. Good has strength and ultimately it is plural and therefore can overcome evil. If only it will.
1
When I see folks clapping or cheering at a Trump rally - I lose a little faith in humanity. It is all so sad. The meanness, the ignorance, the racism, the fear. It’s just so unnecessary- watched Bowling for Columbine last night and the fear stoking by right wing media put it all in a new perspective for me.
9
Sorry - Jimmy Carter was strong. He oversaw the creation of 11 million jobs, was the first to decrease the federal workforce, had catalytic converters installed in all cars - probably the single most important legislation of the last 50 years - and got Israel to sign a still existing peace treaty with an Arab country. That right-wing propaganda can last 39 years is a testament to their belief in alternative realities. They still think Democrats are the spenders.
13
Someone in this country must take the steering wheel from Donald Trump's hands. Mitch McConnell knows he's contributed plenty to this mess and he must go to bed each night knowing that he's traded his experience and intelligence and dignity for whatever he's getting from Trump. Mr. Douthat, to point out that Trump is unfit to serve is to lay yet another document on the pile of similar conclusions. We know he's unfit, and he's playing chicken with America. Republicans need to wake up and actually do something to stop him or it will be too late.
1
A clear majority of us believe that Trump is catastrophic for the country. We will vote to get him out of office. But will we win? Possible not, because gerrymandering, the electoral college and lies from Facebook, Russia, Iran and China will work against majority rule. Take action against Facebook and cancel your account! Tell them to stop accepting political lies as "free speech."
3
Ross,
It shouldn’t have taken you 3 years to acknowledge Trumps complete unfitness. Any of the democratic candidates including Williamson would do less damage than Trump - a ham sandwich would be better.
4
We are here today because classy Obama did not drag W. Republicans took no responsibility for Iraq, spend spend spend on the military instead of infrastructure and then gave up governing for tax break and donations. All while democrats play clean. We need someone who can bring it.
Enough with nice.
Enough with equivocation
5
Every time I read Ross articles, I always bet myself that no matter what the subject matter, he will ALWAYS find a way to blame Democrats or Democrat leaders. ALWAYS. It's almost pathological. No matter what the subject or situation, he can never come forward with an analysis of Trump and not mention a Democratic failure.
9
Ross, you wrote this too early. Our president just made his most difficult decision yet since taking office. By removing his Doral resort from G-7 consideration, he declined to make money off his position. Before long we may hear the existing Air Force One paint scheme is okay after all. And before you know it, he could even reverse his foreign policy views by concluding the moon wasn't part of Mars after all.
When this president foregoes an easy opportunity to enrich himself, you know good things are just around the next corner. Or maybe the one after that. Be positive! Or as they say now; just get over it!
1
You fail to mention the most obvious criminality: Trump is doing this for his own financial gain.
4
Trump is of low standard, performing very badly and
is liable to break or give way under pressure at any given moment but what is really horrifying is that the low level person can push a button.
1
"[I]ts disconnect from any strategic purpose."
Cultivate favor with Erdogan and the Turkish billionaire who owns Trump Towers Istanbul, just as with his choice of venue--Doral--for next year's G7 summit.
Putin is known to have salted away a reported 200 billion.
Kim Jong Un, 5 billion.
Xi Jinping, 1.5 billion.
What is it about Communists?
For Putin, Kim, and Xi, however, their wealth will endure only as long as their reign.
It is not that difficult to follow Trump's thinking.
Nonsense from Mr. Douthat:
"Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways, and even after this past week his own failures haven’t nearly matched their body count."
Trump became president because the Democrats nominated a terrible candidate in 2016. He may be re-elected because they may do so again: Time to send home the clowns and nominate someone like Michael Bloomberg, Bill McCraven, or Michelle Obama, who can lead and motivate.
A ticket of Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada would be preferable to any of the announced options.
2
His declared for Kim isn't mentioned. His love for dictators isn't mentioned. And he abolished enough regulations protecting land, water and air. He is a very dangerous man.
2
Well Ross, it’s taken you almost three years to realize what a lot of the rest of us knew the day he announced his candidacy in 2015. I guess it’s better late than never - but just barely
2
We had previously in the form of Bush 43 a weak and ignorant president. He allowed Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld run foreign policy along with the likes of Wolfiwitz and Pearls. None of them could tell you the difference between a Shia and a Sunni Muslim. The result was 600,000 dead, $2.5 trillion wasted and we are still stuck in the shifting sands. And the Bush administration worked to corrupt and shake down religion in America.
Now we have another weak and ignorant president who cannot tell you the difference between a Shia and a Sunni Muslim. But there is no Cardinal Richelieu-like character such as Mr. Cheney who can manipulate Mr. Trump. Mr. Bush in contrast was content to play golf while others ran the government. Now the wasted money and the body count rises in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump panders to anti-democratic religious groups whose goal is to establish a theocratic state in the U.S.
As the old curse says, “May you live in interesting times.”
1
Once again, Douthat tries to assuage his own sense of guilt (and the collective guilt of his party) with half-truths, false equivalences, deflections, etc.
"Too weak to pass legislation."
- Except for a disastrous tax cut, which has exploded our debt. And what about all of the damage he's done by Executive Orders?
"Too weak to get his hacks appointed to Federal Reserve seats."
- But there are many other ways that he's wrecking our economy, such as Trade Wars.
"Too weak to use the bully pulpit, or any instrument, to boost his approval ratings above roughly 42 percent."
- Yes, but he's succeeded in using his bully pulpit to foment divisiveness, hatred, and violence. 42% of the country actively hate the rest of us.
"Too weak to prevent leaks or maintain staff loyalty."
- So what? They just quit without stopping his misdeeds. And the entire Republican Party enables him, sitting in silent complicity.
"Too weak to plot dirty tricks without their swiftly being publicized."
- How do you know what else he's done but gotten away with? And even when he's exposed, the Republicans dismiss and excuse it all as just being a witch hunt!
"Certainly too weak to hold on to power via extralegal means."
- But he got into power via extralegal means in the first place! And if the Republican Party as a whole continue to dismiss all of his wrongs and not speak out against him, he will hold onto power next year!
As always, Douthat equivocates. Half-truths don't absolve you of your sins.
3
Trump wants the USA and Russia to be close allies, forming a powerful block against a growing and threatening China.
He has articulated this idea, clumsily, since ‘16. Too bad he has not found a way to create a pact of some sort because it’s actually a good idea even if an impractical one today. But how does one do such a thing?
Yes, all roads with Trump lead to Putin. We were allies with Russia in WWII. Gorbachev tore down that wall. Trump now indicates that he thinks the USA is kind of similar to Russia and we should celebrate our shared values. Only trouble is those values he shares are corruption, vanity, and self dealing. He and Putin share the belief that people are pawns, people can be manipulated and controlled for their purposes, and people should be eliminated if they dissent.
Except for that, I love Russia!
52
I am actually a big fan of Russian culture. But Putin is a corrupt tsar.
I understand an alliance with Russia against China. But it must be the West and Russia, not just the US alone. And that would require a much cleaner Russian economy and governance. Otherwise it is a fool’s errand. Which is why Trump, a huge fool, is diving in head first.
15
@Russian Amigo
I think you give Trump far too much credit for thinking in terms of actual national interest or strategy.
It's all about Trump, always: first, last and everything in between. When he says "America" that is a front; he really thinks "Trump." He wants to hang out with Putin because he wants money, power, fame, etc. to rub off on him from Putin and Putin's kleptocrat oligarch friends. He wants a Trump tower in Moscow. He wants a big loan from some Russian money-launderers. He wants to play World Leader on TV.
They all manipulate him by flattering him. Kim sends him "beautiful letters" and he's putty in Kim's hands -- he claims (with no actual grounds or evidence) that Kim is disarming, and he calls off war games with South Korea. He gets on the phone with Erdogan and Erdogan says some fine words or other or promises him something, and he gets off the phone and pulls all our troops from Syria, playing right into Erdogan's hands.
And he doesn't even seem to realize he has been played. Nope. He's the greatest. Incredible. Like no one has ever seen before. Believe me.
10
@herzliebster well said
3
President Trump does all the right things by very unconventional means. You may quibble about his means and methods, and complain about his style, but the country owes him thanks for his many direct and indirect achievements.
In all areas he compromised where the Democrats were willing to move, he used his executive power where congress would not act, his masterful knowledge of deal making around the world, and now his showmanship to create impeachment drama (much of it feigned and scripted) to recover control of congress. The Democrats have no chance with this kind of "weak" man.
1
@Eugene Patrick Devany. Yea, unleashing a brutal army on defenseless families in Northern Syria, and allowing Erdogan to “crush the heads” of our allies in the fight against ISIS, are surely actions we can all be proud of. Not to mention blowing up our own facilities as we beat a hasty retreat from the Turks. Just wonderful! Oh, and now as we revel in Trump’s isolationist nonsense, we can just ignore the American troops and armaments pouring into Iraq to help the Saudis kill more civilians in Yemen. So much to celebrate!
2
@Eugene Patrick Devany "Direct and indirect achievements"? Name one that actually leaves Americans better off than before. This president and his cabinet is a wrecking ball of epic proportions. A weak leader of a powerful country. After being ridiculed by other countries around the world, the sentiment has now turned to worrisome wonder about how this president hasn't been removed from power yet. I'm afraid Trump has squandered America's reputation of being the 'leader of the free world'. Nature abhors a vacuum. It's already being filled by unsavory dictators that Trump so seems to admire.
1
2020.@Eugene Patrick Devany
Unsaid is R Douthat hope there is a path to recover from DJT and the Republican's failure to exercise their Constitutional duty.
'The Democrats have no chance with this kind of "weak" man.'
After three years of chaos, if the comment above about the DJT presidency represents more than a minority of DJT support the continuation of the American ExperIment remains in the balance in the 2020 election.
The repair R Douthout is hoping for begins with drumming out of as many Republicans as is possible by a gerrymandered electorate.
"And there’s some truth to this. Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways..."
Not really. This statement was at least partially true for Barack Obama. He used Clinton's vote for the Iraq War against her in the primary. He then ran on the same platform Trump used later: Ending endless wars. Trump's claim to this same objective is more dubious.
To Obama, endless wars meant Iraq and Afghanistan. To Trump though, "endless wars" primarily means Syria and ISIL as they are easily branded Democratic involvements but also Afghanistan to a lesser degree.
However, Trump's real foreign policy is looking for easy wins. He wants anything he can slap a sticker of approval on and do a victory lap. He doesn't understand there is no such thing as "easy" wins in foreign policy. Neither do his voters.
It's a very Trumpian approach. Claim victory for changing things but disassociate yourself from any negative consequences. In so far as Trump voters support Trump the man, his foreign policy is therefore responsible for his victory.
However, and here's the central point, US foreign policy mistakes are not responsible for getting Trump elected. Not unless you consider Obama's congenial response to Russian election interference a foreign policy mistake, which I do. But that certainly isn't what Douthat meant. Foreign policy was an afterthought in electing Trump and the results show as much.
1
Here's where you lose me, Ross. You say Trump's betrayal was "...for no reason st all..." We can all agree that Trump is manifestly unfit for the job. However. what many Republicans have failed to figure out is that Trump acts completely rationally when viewed in light of his clear psychological deficiencies. The man has a personality disorder. Everything he does is for percieved benefit to himself. Reporters should research all the reasons Trump might have seen the move as beneficial to himself personally, and therein we will find the answer, somewhere. Also, when researching this, don't rule out the possibility that Putin has something on Trump. Don't you find it curious that Mr. Putin seems a primary beneficiary of everything Trump does in foreign policy?
8
"Trump's weakness makes him less of a threat to the constitutional order (such as it is) than some critics imagine."
As a former prosecutor who is federal appellate attorney, what you write is disgraceful.
The perils of corruption were an obsession of the Founders. In the summer of 1787 James Madison wrote 54 times of the dangers of a self-dealing political leader. The transcripts of the constitutional conventions show the Founders understood that a corrupt president such as Trump, unchecked, would destroy our republic.
Trump's corruption is all-pervasive, not confined to his handing our Kurdish allies over to Erdoğan for extermination, or his phoning the president of Ukraine, where a quid pro quo was evident. Your GOP pretends it's false, that we shouldn't believe our eyes and ears, only Trump's gaslighting.
On Thursday Mick Mulvaney announced that Trump would host the next G7 meeting at one of his own golf resorts, and then offered a confession: Aid to Ukraine had been directly dependent on that country helping Trump with reelection by contriving dirt on one of Trump's political rivals.
Mulvaney then said "Elections have consequences," and "Get over it". Translation: "Trump openly admits he's guilty of the most heinous of 'High Crimes', but it doesn't matter as he's above the US Constitution and any law."
If this stands and your GOP which controls the Senate refuses to uphold the US Constitution, Trump's not a threat to the constitutional order, he's the end of it.
414
@Robert B I’m audition, the appointment of lobbyists to EPA, Interior, Energy, and other agencies means the foxes are in the henhouse. They know how to manipulate regulatory action to do extreme harm to what the public continually says it wants. With appointments of unqualified political hacks to federal courts, the damage will take decades to repair.
27
@Robert B
The forces that put Trump in power, and maintain him there-the billionaires, propagandists, political opportunists and foreign supporters- are all watching and learning from Trump’s mistakes. We will rid ourselves of Trump, I believe, but his supporters will try to come back with a better plan and a smarter figurehead, and they will be more vicious and far more violent.
For democracy to survive, a new government needs to act swiftly and decisively against the underpinnings of that power, particularly the concentration of wealth and unrestricted propaganda networks. Propaganda works; that’s why it’s still being used globally. We refuse to recognize that at our peril.
49
Well said, Robert!!!
9
"Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways, and even after this past week his own failures haven’t nearly matched their body count."
Please note that the great part of those body counts occurred under or as a result of the Republican Bush/Cheney administration.
15
A tragic betrayal of our allies, yes. The self generated conflict of human nature marches on, while one thing is the great equalizer in it all, the environment, protected species, and the inexorable reality that if we don't begin to look at the world with a global perspective, the environment teaches us one last great lesson.
2
I don't think it comes down to Republican-leaning voters and Republican senators having grown "used to Trump," it's the interest convergence - they get everything they want from this so-called president.
They don't give one whit about what is the most likely Trump behavior when the possibility of enacting their objectives is so high.
7
Just a friendly reminder that "Jimmy Carter’s presidency" gave the world the Camp David accords from which the world continues to benefit to this day.
No easy sailing there; Carter's feat has never since been replicated. Quite the opposite. And no, Jared, you're hardly up to the task.
25
One more time, the Kurds were allegedly operating two simultaneous operations. (A double game.) Accepting the financial assistance of the US in clearing ISIS from Northeast Syria, while at the same time attempting to create a free state of Kurdistan. Compounding the problem, purportedly the YPG entered into a coalition with the PPK of Turkey. And if true, their mission immediately transitioned to hostile to American interests. If so, President Trump was correct in removing our "trip-wire protection position" to their issues with Turkey. Turkey remains a NATO ally, and is still much more important to the regional stability, and to our national interests.
6
@R The Kurds gave up the lives of 10,000 of their fighters, male and female to defeat ISIS. How many American military gave up theirs?
And without the Kurds what would ISIS have become?
Will it now rise again?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
55
@R
Kurdish fighters, male and female fought hand to hand and allowed the USA to bomb from above. It is sad that any American soldiers died but Americans did not bury 10,000. To leave a soldier you have stood beside one day and drive away the next is shameful. The Syrian war is complicated and Trump wanted a simple solution like always.
53
@R
A troop withdrawal should be planned and appropriately communicated and scheduled. This didn't happen.
Our troops were endangered, couldn't remove equipment, the Kurds didn't have time to withdraw...
43
Ross when you list the weaknesses of Donald Trump within you first paragraph, I’m hoping that no president would be strong enough to abuse the power of the office unopposed. I would attribute this to the strength of our democracy rather than the weakness of the president. I will concede one point, this strength is not inherent to the constitution itself, but come from the people willing to uphold and protect it. I believe Franklin said it best when he said we have a “republic, if we you can keep it”
6
Interesting take Ross. I usually enjoy your writing. I was a little surprised that Trumps China policy was in the plus column here. But to each their own. Trump's worst domestic impact will come after he's gone. He's shown Republicans what they can get away with with their base, someone much smarter will take the playbook and use it to a much more dangerous effect.
36
@adam
And our allies (to the degree that they remain) and trading partners have come to learn that treaties and trade agreements are really only valid for the administration that made them - the next election can undo it all.
3
@adam - Yup. POTUS Trump is Republicanism without the veneer. The next one will be slicker.
1
It is all fine and well to give Mr. Trump a pass on continuing the economic progress initiated by Mr. Obama (although the long-term consequences of his stewardship are still to be seen.) However -- as seems to be the habit of all of you who write for the Opinion Section of the Times -- you give Mr. Trump a pass on his devastating and irreversible environmental policies and actions. These too were well telegraphed during the 2016 campaign. His "generals" weren't able to (or, more likely, weren't interested in) restraining his betrayal to our children and our planet. Maybe we'll e lucky on the international front. Luck won't save us from science.
60
Trump's major weakness is in his petty partisan politics. He has divided the U.S. in a way it has not been divided since the Civil War. Even worse than it was under President Obama. He has also divided our friends and allies. A simple example is his back-track on the G-7 location. He mentioned his failing gold resort The Doral at the end of the last G-& in France. He was told by politicians from both sides not to do it. He then puts his latest front man, months later out in front of the public to re-announce it after he was told it was a rotten and illegal idea and was told by politicians from both sides and the press that it was a rotten idea and illegal as well. Then he backtracks and blames it on the opposing party and the press. We all well know that the only reason he backtracked is he got more than enough blow back from his own party telling him it was a rotten idea and illegal. But of course he can't say that, he has to divide because in his mind, he has to divide the U.S. That in itself was a weak act, just the latest of the pantheon of bad decisions he's made which show he's weak and at the same time weaken's our nation. Strength and loyalty are earned. They just don't come as a perk of the job. Trump manages his own parties politicians through the fear of his big mouth, he has not earned their respect and loyalty via fear is fleeting at best.
31
“Less of a threat to Constitutional order”
Ross, I mostly agree with your analysis of the Syria debacle, but to dismiss the entire Ukraine fiasco (never mind the Mueller Report) as not a threat to Constitutional order is ignoring the impeachable offenses.
32
A good analysis but we have to keep in mind that we are just very lucky that Trump's other foreign policy blunders have not blown up as spectacularly as the withdrawal of troops from Syria. They certainly could have an may still do so. The withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran came very close to causing a war. Ironically it is only because Trump is so weak that it has not. North Korea could have gone badly as well. Trump was outmanueverd even though Kim Jong Un thought he had the weaker heand. Now Kim knows Trump's weakness gives him the stronger hand. Trump's ambivalence about Nato now takes on a whole new dimensiona and gives Putin a green light to stir up more probelms in Europe. Is an invasion of the Baltic states now on the agenda? The point is that all of Trump's foreign policy intiatives have been failures with a built in potential for disaster. The only thing that puzzles me is that Republican hawks like Lindsey Graham seem to only recently have begun to grasp the gravity of the danger of Trump's foreign policy. Unfortunately, editorials and comments like McConnell's opinion column in the Post indicate that they still think they can control his impulses. If they fully grasped the danger they would call for his impeachment.
27
@JS when you speak of the Baltic states, which constitute most of Scandinavia, don't you mean the Balkans, which is southeast Europe? I've seen this mistake often on the internet lately, and I'd rather be corrected than left thinking you don't know the difference.
7
@Irene sorry Irene, I think he correctly means Baltic (Latvia et al,) which Russia has long considered within its zone of influence (like Ukraine et al)
7
@Irene - Possibly as a means of reducing the energy options for Europe. Yeah, control of the Baltic States could be on Putin's wish list.
2
The idea that Trump became President because the smart people who run American Foreign policy failed assumes that the 2016 election was decided on the basis of foreign policy. I’d like to see some evidence of that; Americans are certainly fed up with their elites, but it isn’t primarily their foreign policy they find fault with.
14
@dapeterseg . . . I don't think the average person in America is even aware of what the country's foreign policy is nor do they care. We, bounded by oceans on two sides and relatively friendly neighbors we trade with have no fear of invasion or concern for anything foreign "7000 miles away." Sad by true. We are asleep in our envelope of comfort.
18
The US, for good or not, has become the arbiter of the world. During many years, there were no competitors, enemies, yes, but no one able to replace us. Even in this stable system, errors by engaged leaders served by thoughtful aides were made. From Vietnam to Iran, from Cuba to Guatemala, the power brokers refused to accept any change in the status quo and created prolonged conflicts. Now, we are in the hands of one man who has none of the preparation, the willingness to learn, the prudence of his predecessors. Moreover, we now have competitors. Gone is the world peopled with poor and militarily weak countries that could be intimidated. In the face of these challenges, the need for someone who understand complexities is indispensable. Instead, we have what we have, and there is much to fear if he remains at the helm another four years.
17
Mr. Trump looks more like a guru of a fanatic religious sect than a politician. It is not what he does or what he says that his supporters admire as is shown by his conviction that he could shoot someone or anyone without losing supporters. His policies exist mainly as a gimmick for arousing his supporters. The problem is he would eventually convince himself whatever he come up with would perfectly work! He is genius and the chosen! (This revelation of course happened to a Japanese PM called Tojo, a favorite of the then emperor.)
14
Why do we do this to ourselves? In a nation of almost 330 million people we have Republicans who can't lose the loser and Democrats incapable of fielding one candidate clearly capable of beating the man who lost the popular vote in 2016 and whose popularity and presidency has been marginal ever since. We are racing down the rail like a freight train heading for a tunnel too small. One would think disaster would bring at least some modicum of enlightenment, but it hasn't so far. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting it to turn out differently.
24
@Bill
Why - that's simple - Racism and Tribalism.
1
It is quite surprising to me that most here seem bemused as to why people put this man in the White House. They do not understand the power of class resentment. Pankaj Mishra'a 2017 book titled, Age of Anger, brings attention to the psychology at work: ressentiment, as the French call it. Through a combination of inequality of birth and talent, this large group looks around and notes, with baleful ressentiment, the comfortable, aspirational life style enjoyed by many well educated people, which includes a bunch of immigrants. Mr. Trump understands this group's aggrievement very well, being one himself for a different sort of reason. Democrats/Liberals, rightly seen as a party of college educated people, will never win over this group. They must appeal to the Independents, and with the largely progressive agenda of the current crop of Democratic candidates, it ain't going to happen. Progressives, and I am one, are reading the tea leaves wrongly. This country is center-left, and they will have to temper their emotional appeals to the extreme left. Leave it for the next generation to carry forward the Progressive torch! Our time now is to halt the country's slide into crazy territory. Please, Warren et al, listen! Run with Pete or Amy as your choice for VP to show that you mean business.
41
Warren is further to the left than Amy and Pete. I think that she is a better choice in that regard. The issue is a cultural one. It seems like Trump voters voted for him because of their religious views, their hostility towards immigration, and the demonization of the Democratic Party, which has done more for them than the Republican Party. They are biting the hand that feeds them.
16
@Meerajagannathan
"... most here seem bemused as to why people put this man in the White House […] do not understand the power of class resentment. …"
So, the remedy to all of the problems of the members of the resented class is for its members to shoot themselves in the foot by voting for a (everyone knows the list of pejoratives by now).
Sure, makes to me.
Name any 3 (OK 1) thing trump or his GOP enablers have done for the resented class. We know it does not include healthcare or infrastructure. The chump change 'tax cut' has already been more than offset by the national sales tax (aka tariffs).
2
@Raymond Warren can’t win unless she drops her absurd promise to outlaw private health insurance. That, and her too soft border policies will sink her in a contest against Trump. And I write this as someone who would vote for any of the Democratic contenders, including Warren, without hesitation. But I want my vote to count; that is, I want a Democratic candidate with a platform most people will support, and I’m sure there are millions of voters who share my sentiments. Why doesn’t Warren understand this?
1
'...near-victory over ISIS, de-escalation in the Koreas, a reasonable focus on containing China. And the world under Trump was in certain respects more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term.'
All the important work involved in the defeat of Isis in Northern Syria was painstakingly laid during the Obama Presidency including and most importantly the bringing on board of a large number of allies in a coalition t(hat included France and the UK.
It is difficult to understand, in the context of the present situation in the Korean Peninsular, what could be meant by "de-escalation". If it is that the chances of war breaking out between North and South Korea or the chances of North Korea attacking the US have diminished, it would be hard to argue convincingly for either of these propositions.
The Trump administration has done very little to contain China. It has hardly even voiced disapproval of China's treatment of the Uighurs or shown any support for the pro democracy movement in Hong Kong
Finally the world under Trump is an infinitely more dangerous place than it was under Obama if for no other reason that Trump is totally unpredictable and could cause a devastating upheaval at any moment.
41
@RHR Spot on. For some reason Ross Douthat has to whitewash and distort and even glorify the first two years of Trump mismanagement, alienation of allies, tariff wars, cuddling up to autocratic dictators, encouraging Russian aggression before he criticizes him over Syria and his betrayal of the Kurds. Thanks for correcting the record.
4
Ross Douthat writes: "But those voters and legislators have to ask themselves, at the polls in 2020 or sooner in a Senate trial, what seems more likely to predict Trump’s governance going forward: The relatively restrained pattern of the McMaster-Mattis-Kelly period, or the unchecked impulses that just gave us death and betrayal and humiliation for no reason, none at all, save that our president is unfit for his job."
The answer to the question is obvious - we will be more an more unhinged as the President routinely fires anyone who disagrees with him. Eventually only Jared and Ivanka will remain.
And the second answer is also obvious - Republican voters will consider it a worthwhile trade because they drank the Kool-Aid and believe Democrats evil; they like their tax cuts even if they are ephemeral; they don't mind destroying the planet if it means that the gas for their giant SUV is cheap and they can sell swampland for building lots; and think their healthcare will actually pay if they get sick, and won't know better until it is too late.
Republicans like to think of themselves as conservative, but they cannot bring themselves to conserve the Constitution, or democracy; conserve our position of leadership globally; conserve our plant; or conserve our middle class. Short term gain for long term ills - that is not conservative.
58
@Cathy - I think you just explained the "thought processes" of a gambler who owes the house but stays at the table after taking out a loan against his house, hoping it'll pay off this time.
Come on, lucky seven. Daddy NEEDS a new pair of shoes!
1
@Cathy
Brilliant comment!
1
Another excellent analysis by Mr. Douthat. I read your column regularly, and am glad this publication continues to include conservative-centrist views that don’t reflect my own. This column sounds the alarm that our president’s increasingly idiosyncratic and flighty words, decisions and actions are beginning to severely damage our country’s ability to lead. Global chaos and instability caused by a flailing US (and UK), combined with the rise of authoritarianism, are a terrible combination. It is hard to reverse course, but I hope enough senators are not too deeply entrenched to impeach and remove. I hope we can recover quickly.
36
Many of Trump's "deals" as president are seen from the perspective of what will help him financially and little else. The constraints of some democratic governments make it harder for him to assure that personal gain--much simpler to come to a back room agreement with some strongman/autocrat.
As an experiment, Google "Trump is unfit for office" with quotation marks to avoid some redundancy and unrelated commentary. You get about 6600 hits. Do the same thing with President Obama and you get just under 200, mostly from standard right-wing sites.
It is difficult to list the many ways Trump is unfit for office within the confines of a single op-ed.
47
@JSK
While the world is invoved in the game of "Risk" Trump plays Monopoly.
As to Syria, all you need to know is there are Trump Towers in Istanbul. [That was a period.] Onther interests do not pass "go."
@JSK
YES
We have been gearing this and have known this well for 3 years!
We in NYC have known about his scams for 30 years.
Has nobody ever connected the dits that NYC hate him and call him a fraud?
What? Are us east coast elites so prejudiced that we judge against him?
How about if we KNOW a conman and grifter and call it like it is?
You know, if and when his histrionics don't affect us all then who cares?
But now? We know that he is a risk. He is a liar and a sneak.
Let's cut the head off that snake.
Finally please!
1
The failure of the Republican Party to jettison Trump is caused by FEAR of retaliation. This fear is so intense that it eclipses their LOVE for the nation.
Fear on this point seems to be the more powerful of these two emotions. Loves makes the cosmos moves around but fear will lead it implode
Cry for the beloved country
33
@Bikome you have touched on the obvious, an obvious few non Republican politicians and voters understand. People make choices in life. Those choices are included when they acquire things and when they accept political ideas and positions. They are figuratively, and even literally making "buying" decisions. Ever heard the term buying into something? Politics is the art of persuading people to buy into ideas and candidates. There is little to no rational logic that determines the outcome of a buying decision. That is because the REAL needs of the buyer are often hidden from view. Why do people purchase a BMW when a Ford will get them there? Buys, my friend, are based on emotion. Any psychologist or sociologist will tell you that the strongest human emotion is fear. Donald Trump knows this, probably not because he read it (the man may never have read a book in his life), but because he has lived it. His father was a crooked, hateful, domineering tyrant. It is all Trump knows. In general, Republicans understand the concept of fear being the greatest motivator in the art of persuasion. They are masters of using fear to sell themselves. Not only are Democrats not good at it, but they do not even understand what is happening. Charts and anayses do not win elections. Facts do not win elections. Those who use the strongest emotional tools win elections. Dems think they are running a civic club. The GOP is playing domestic nuclear war. It is all about fear.
1
How does Trump being the weak man work? He's still in power - after 1000 days, and millions of words condemning him - and all those generals are now feather dusters with as much influence. One would have hoped for more than a couple of witty lines from General Mattis just last week in America's hour of desperate need for effective moral leadership.
Actions speak louder than words...
25
@Cass Phoenix
Agreed.
Let's recall that it was the Bush-Cheney Republican administration that blundered us into invasion and occupation of Iraq, unleashing the conflagration that has engulfed the Middle East ever since, with enormous consequences -- refugees, terrorism, a turn to authoritarianism -- for Europe. Republican presidents are prone to such military blunders. Why should Trump be any different?
33
@Portola
I think your starting point is too late. The problems go back, at the very least, to the then secret Sykes-Picot agreement that carved the Ottoman Empire in 1916. These are problems with a long and complicated history. This is not to make any claim that Iraq was handled well.
12
@Portola
Your comment is completely ahistorical. E.g., Democrats completely blundered us into Vietnam. As much as I, as a liberal, would like to see things through a partisan lens, it doesn't always work.
@Portola He is different because he seems to be a one-man wrecking crew without conscience, intellect, or a moral compass. Need more?
If Trump gets a second term the entire foreign policy establishments of the Republican and Democrat parties may be forgotten or gone. That should be a bit of consolation if by some hook or crook he does win. They have led our nation through a series of unrelieved catastrophes since the Second World War.
5
@Mike Murray MD
"A bit of consolation?" There is no consolation if Trump is reelected.
1
And yet there are those who paid less taxes or don't like "foreigners" or were helped a little by illogical tariffs who say:"He's doing good. I'll vote for him again."
28
If he is that weak how is it that he has manged to inflict such terrible damage to the fabric of American society, ruin our reputation abroad, gut essential environmental legislation, appoint all sorts of utterly unsuitable individuals to very important government positions and considerably enhance Russian strategic goals particularly within the European and Middle Eastern theatres.
10
He is a weak man. He has absolutely no moral sense, is just a hollow shell. People like that can only project strength by a acting, shouting, lying, bullying. They live in fear of being found out so become even more violent in projecting their pretence.
That being said, I believe that Trump has done a great deal of harm to our body politic. He has accelerated the use and acceptance of avoidance of constitutional restraints on the powers of the presidency. He has at least one Supreme Court Justice who believes in the all- powerful President as well as an Attorney General with the same views. This is not inconsequential.
1
@RHR - POTUS Trump has been thus weak and successful in this and other cons all his life because his marks have been weaker. They fall for his cons based on greed, willful ignorance, laziness, and the pursuit of short-term "wins." they hope they'll get something out of the deal, even if it's just the thrill of the ride. They lack compassion and laugh at the downfall of others, but expect sympathy when it eventually turns to/on them. Dr. Frankenstein, meet your monster.
1
"Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways"
Wow. I never knew that before.
9
While Trump's abandonment of America's Kurdish allies appears thoughtless - it may in fact be a deliberate, calculated decision designed with the goal of maintaining a viable Presidency, immunized from impeachment.
An escalating conflict in the Middle East would shift the national dialogue from impeachment (which seems evermore likely) and further the notion that Americans are unlikely to abandon their President in time of war.
If Trump loses his Presidency, either through the 25th. Amendment or the 2020 election - no matter the inevitable pardons, he faces a legal quagmire, both criminal and civil, for the remainder of his life on Earth.
This does not qualify him as a strategic 'stable genius' as his spin doctors would have it, but it does qualify his thinking as 'rat cunning'...he does after all describe his enemies and associates as 'rats'... or 'not rats' as the case maybe.
I've long believed that Trump would start a war if it were in his interests to do so - because the only life that matters is his own.
35
At this point it’s hard to see the American people rallying around Trump over a Mideast war. It would be hard for any president to get that, as there is no one over there, besides perhaps the Kurds, for whom the American people are willing to spend lives and treasure. For Trump it would be harder as any conflict would traceable to his own actions.
2
I think it’s inevitable and completely on-brand for him to start a war to distract from impeachment and rally support. I thought it would be Iran, but whatever works I guess.
Foreign "policy" made by a delusional, fact denying and uninquisitive president is surely going to lead to even worse tragedies than the abandonment of the Kurds and the Trumpian agreement to aid Erdogan by removing the Kurds from a 20 mile zone as U.S. assisted ethnic cleansing. But at the moment it is hard to contemplate what worse things Trump could do. No matter what it is and no matter how awful and thoughtless, the Republicans will find a way of supporting the unsupportable. Trump is leading the Republican Party to doom, but they are so scared of his basest of base voters that Republicans in Congress remain silent. A party of sycophants does not a great nation deserve.
19
@Harold R Berk - The Trump Administration response, of course, is "Hold my beer."
"...our president is unfit for his job."
I remain incredibly angry at those who voted for this man, despite the overwhelming evidence, clear well before the election, that he was unfit for this job. I am furious that so many in power display a complete lack of integrity, continuing to enable him despite the damage that he is doing to our country and the world.
But I welcome the voices of Mr. Douthat and other conservative thinkers who are speaking out against what is happening to our country. Let us join in common purpose to remove this unfit leader.
50
@Mark I am especially furious at the supporters of Bernie Saunders and Jill Stein (who joined Mike Flynn at Putin’s table for dinner in Moscow during the campaign), in swing states. There were enough to throw the election to Trump. Ones that I know, justify themselves by saying, “Well, I COULDN’T vote for Hillary.” Sorry, that doesn’t justify not offsetting someone else’s vote for Trump.
5
@Noah Fecht - please stop blaming others for the Democrats picking a candidate who ran a TERRIBLE campaign BOTH TIMES SHE RAN FOR NATIONAL OFFICE.
The two Mikes, Pence and Pompeo, have evidently calculated that sticking with tRump to the bitter end would be slightly less worse for their political futures than abandoning him.
But that immoral calculus might not be persuasive to a couple of dozen Republican senators.
And if tRump makes it to the end of this term, American voters should recognize it was all a ghastly mistake and send him back to where he came from.
19
@Jeffrey Herrmann - They say you can't go home again. POTUS Trump won't be able to go home either. After the pending cases at SDNY are resolved, he may lose even his paper assets...while he's serving time for bank fraud, insurance fraud, tax evasion/fraud, etc.
Weak but able to raise huge amounts of cash for his campaign and convince 63 million Americans that he’s the best choice to be leading the country. How corrupt has half of America become?
This is a very bad state of affairs considering the world is physically heating up at the same time. We’ll be living “the road warrior” in the not too distant future. Ignorance and greed are winning.
21
Trump took a victory lap with the Kurdish cease fire. We should remember that Neville Chamberlain did the same thing after the Munich Conference at the end of September, 1938, when he declared "peace in our time," and we all know how that turned out. Trump is a disaster looking for a place to happen.
19
Trump is not weak, simply because as the president of the US you have the muscle of the nation. Trump is just without any clue. His only strategy is charge, and even the direction of the charge doesn't matter.
In a world, where cooperation and reliance is essential, he plays tit for tat with a 'always dishonest' strategy. The rest of the world, strongmen or not, have adapted to this strategy, and that is why it is not working.
8
@Mathias Weitz
That's the problem. Trump may have the "muscle of the nation" -- but the MAJORITY of Americans still don't support him.
Not in 2016.
Not now.
11
Trump is not just weak.
He is criminal. His enabling of Erodgan's attack of the people who crushed ISIS is already criminal. People have died already. Hundreds of them. At last estimate, 160 000 people have fled their homes.
Ross, you often go on and on about families. What is Trump doing to kurdish families ? How many children are now scarred for life, in limb, in mind, and both ?
His weakness is the least of his sins.
Now stopping him is a matter of life and death.
25
I remember reading a description of Obama's working practices. He would read briefing books in the evening and return them the next day festooned with sticky-notes with comments and questions. He wasn't lazy!
Even well staffed decisions can go wrong. But one of the best things about being President is access to experts on every topic. To fail to use them when making a decision like withdrawal from Syria is criminal derelection of duty. The results of that decision are negligent homicide. Hubris + fecklessness = disaster.
The only good thing about Trump's decision-making process is that he seems to be hanging himself with bad choices.
Of course it's possible that the decision wasn't a mistake at all, and that what he got was what he wanted. Erdogan and Putin are likely happy enough. Do all roads lead to Putin?
23
@writeon1
I'll take a lazy president who rises to the occasion as needed.
I'll accept a dumb president who relies on smart advisors.
I'll put up with∂∂∂∂∂ a president of bad moral character who restrains his behavior while in office and is intolerant of mischief by his subordinates..
I'll tolerate∂∂∂∂∂∂ a fool as president who somehow manages to make decisions in the best interests of the country.
But Trump fails to meet any of these low-bar expectations.
We need to retire him to his Tower.
I've always considered Russ and David Brooks as Buckley conservatives. While I can disagree with them from a liberal perspective I infrequently find their point of view without merit. This editorial may be his best argument as to why this president not only doesn't represent a Republican party which is not nativist and racist at its core, but whose economic, and in this case, foreign policy are the antithesis of Republican values going back to President Eisenhower.
7
Optimists once hoped that Trump would learn the job. Instead, he's spent his first three years learning what he can get away with. Giving this oversized toddler a second term would be disastrous.
26
@Jim Demers - The Republican-controlled Congress had a chance during the first two years of his administration to show him the limits, to develop safeguards against this insanity. Instead, they applauded every overreaching group beyond the "norms," enjoying and encouraging the misbehavior. Now, the Democrats who are trying to rein in the lawlessness are viewed as the bad guys...until POTUS Trump breaks something of theirs. As one person said in a New York Times interview, "He's hurting the wrong people."
A person who never faced consequences in his life unchecked as president. What could go wrong?
1
"Both groups have grown used to Trump, in part because human beings grow used to all things, but in part because the most alarmist predictions, mine included, did not accurately describe his first two years in office." Really? Well, I'm glad that Democrats did not get "used" to Trump. Of course the biggest tragedy is this man (boy) himself. But the tragedy of the spineless, toadying Republican party and its so-called "leadership" has sent the US into a tailspin. We are an international disgrace, and after witnessing that Trump rally in Houston a few days ago, it appears that this behavior doesn't bother a lot of those fetid Trump voters.
There are a significant amount of decent people still around who have decided to leave the US, and, if Trump is re-elected, this will turn into a huge reverse migration. Our son, in his early 30s, has four friends who have already emigrated. Two of our neighbors sold their homes and moved out of the country. None of these people can stand the moral rot that is happening at the highest levels of government, that trickles down into their daily lives and causes really deep soul searching, and a sense that they need to do something to set their lives right again, I don't think you're getting the bigger picture here, Mr. Douthout.
12
@Joanna Stelling
The arguments in our house these days are mostly about which country to go to, if he wins again.
2
Yes all true and well presented. However, the BIG question, will the Repubs realize these things and get rid of him? Why can't thry admit the obvious and move on? what is it that keeps them so afraid? They have their guy Pence who will do whatever they ask him to and avoid the terrible behavior that Trump has.
Join the Dems, get rid of Trump and we will compromise and accept Pence. As far as the next election I don't think the American people will ever choose another Repub. As your man Mulvaney said "get over it".
5
To be quite blunt, Donald Trump is not only an "overseas arsonist", he is a domestic tyrant -- and the fact that he lacks intelligence and finesse is all too apparent with the increasingly profane meltdowns at his rallies.
Of course there's also his strong affinity to all the strongmen and dictators of the world, whether it's Putin, Duterte, Kim Jong-un Mohammad bin Salman or Recep Tayip Erdogan, there's no doubt where this president stands when it comes to ruling with an iron fist.
Just look at his ever-revolving administration.
Seems like they either cant leave or be fired fast enough.
And his snap-decisions on just about every front is nothing , if not the sign of a toubled mind.
Why else would he pull U.S. troops out of Syria in a moment's notice while betraying the Kurds, and then welcoming the President of Turkey to the White House even after they rushed in to plunder another country and decimate our Kurdish allies?
It's been only two and a half years since Trump has been in office, but it feels like forever.
He's learned nothing on the job except how to grift and lie even more to protect his private interests.
This may be everything his 2016 critics feared, but there's also no doubt he will never make America great again.
11
But will you help however possible to see him impeached? Will you help elect whoever is in opposition to Trump come election Day; sight unseen? Because that is the real test.
7
Well, so he's weak. Loud, inept, mendacious, ignorant, etc., but weak. I would not characterize this as a stunning new insight.
But that's not the key thing. I think we are all missing something in attempting to understand Trump's quixotic foreign policy. He's done a fabulous job of implementing goals that Russia/the Soviet Union pursued for decades. Why?
My suspicion is that when we finally get to the bottom of Trump's financial house of cards we will find that he owes billions to the Russian mafia. And can't pay it back any other way. Is this the real reason for the scorched earth refusal to disclose his tax returns?
That's a guess, obviously, but we are running out of other explanations that fit the facts we do know. A colleague of mine used to invoke the discovery of Pluto, which came from a search for the cause of perturbations in Neptune's orbit. She would say, when the evidence didn't quite add up, that there's a Pluto is out there. What is Mr. Trump's Pluto? There's a reason for this behavior, and weakness isn't it.
13
Ross attributes the so-called relative calm of Trump's first years to the steadying presence of "the generals." Let's leave aside the abandonment of millions of US citizens in Puerto Rico, the children in cages on the border, the packing of the courts with far-right ideologues -- none of which the generals seem to have had the slightest interest in stopping or even moderating.
This worship of the military is inimical to the very concept of our form of government. The military in the US is supposed to be under civilian control; the generals do not set policy. This anti-democratic worship runs deep in the far right. I cringe whenever I hear our troops referred to as "warriors," for warriors kill and conquer -- a warrior is not a soldier in service of a democracy. Trump has elevated a right-wing sickness to the level of policy. This is another of the crimes he has committed against our form of government, but one rarely spoken of because shared by a wide swath of the public.
7
@Gary I totally agree with this idea and see the militarization of our country as extremely dangerous. We have seen young people out to be trained killers and then welcomed them back as heroes. They are accorded special status for this. There is something wrong with this picture.
2
@Betsy Herring The vast majority who serve in our military are not “trained killers”. They are in support positions, with varying degrees of proximity to combat.
I’m not sure why anyone would begrudge a little special status for those willing to serve. It doesn’t amount to much. The occasional “thanks for your service” or a small boost in some hiring processes doesn’t seem like a lot to ask of the rest of us.
4
A cancerous soul, if not treated, will metastasize. Trump's incurably diseased essence first revealed itself during his campaign. But people either didn't pay attention or shared his hate. When he was "elected" to his office, his hubris, nativism, and bigotry increased. Then, as he became more consumed with power, he began his campaign to place desperate Central Americans in cages and separate children from their families, husband from wife. The Senate was silent. The malignancy spread across our seas by alienating our allies and embracing the ruthless. At last, he has descended into the nadir of human atrocities. He has cooperated and endorsed ethnic cleansing of the Kurds, former allies of ours whom we depended upon as they depended on us. Ross, 2020 is light-years away to rid ourselves of this evil man. We must make our voices heard, and urge the Senate to impeach along with the House. We have no other choice.
12
@Kathy Lollock “incurably diseased essence”. That is perfect. So true.
"Disappointed owl." Good one, Ross. That's Pence all over.
That and the Kaiser Wilhelm comparison cracked me up. Thanks.
11
Unfortunately Trump's portrait will hang in the White House but it would fit much better next to Putin, Erdogan, Assad, Kim, and the rest of the world's tyrants. The only thing stopping Trump from becoming a tyrant is a little document known as the Constitution, and if Republican congressmen don't see he is trampling all over it, they deserve to watch him take down their party.
11
By now who doesn't know Trump by words and deeds. For everyone else it is sin by omission.
3
Back to the notion of Trump being a threat to the Constitution. The Constitution isn’t a set of specifics but a fairly general set of guardrails for conduct of reasonable, intelligent, moral humans. Trump, like a mouse, was able to find all of the tiniest cracks squeeze through to exploit openings for questionable behavior. His acts, like grease stains will remain on the Constitution forever. His low bar of “presidential behavior” will become the new boundaries of clammy, barely acceptable acts for future Presidents. And for choices for the role of most powerful, most visible, most influential person in the world. Trump is a dangerous actor/precedent in all aspects of the role he is playing.
4
Trump backed down on holding the G-7 at his own club in south Florida.
Guess what? Trump ALWAYS backs down when he is pushed into a corner. He said he would never do it but he does it all the time. He ran for president as someone who knew the "art of the deal" but he apparently doesn't know either the art or the deal. He is completely inept but he acts and talks like he knows everything, which is how either a 1. Bully or 2. Stable genius acts and talks. Make your choice.
That a significant group of millions can't see through the facade of Trump and Trumpism has been a source of wonderment, confusion and abiding curiosity for years but, hey, I'm done with that. I will never fully understand how people hypnotize themselves to overlook every flaw, every lie and distortion, every goofy idea followed by a hasty retreat.
I don't care any more except to say that many of his supporters appear to be confused and, most likely, buried in propaganda. This is not a football game where your team "wins" and the other one loses. This is serious business, a matter of life and death.
Trump has a much bigger problem than Doral. There is no way he can back down from impeachment except to resign, which he just might do and soon.
13
"the sheer obviousness with which Trump allowed himself to be rolled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan"
Ross, why are you ignoring the "elephant in the room": Trump was rolled by Putin, not Erdogan. Who has been the real winner in Trump's foreign policy decisions? Putin. And who made sure Trump was elected in 2016? Putin. As Nancy Pelosi told Trump to his face: "with you, all roads lead to Putin". So why can't you and your Republican friends admit the obvious? Trump is the "Muscovian Candidate", installed by Putin to do his bidding.
"Occam's Law" states that when there are several possible answers to a problem, usually the simplest explanation is the answer. In this case, for all the reasons and excuses given by Trump apologists, the simplest answer is that Trump was beholden to Putin and other foreign interests, and has to do their bidding.
Stop making apologies, and using false equivalencies to downplay Trump's treachery. Use your voice to urge partisan Republicans to demand a full an open accounting of all Trump's finances, memos, and meetings. Americans deserve to know just who Trump is working for, because it isn't the United States.
8
@Kingfish52 wish I could recommend your post twice! Yes, we should all start shouting from the rooftops that Trump is a criminal and a traitor, beholden to the Russian mob. His son DT Jr. has repeatedly and publicly stated in the past that Trump's company funding for it's golf courses, for example, has come from the Russians. Follow the money going back to Trump Soho. "Lock him up!"
1
Ross- are you suggesting that trump be impeached and then removed? If not, what is your suggestion?
4
Everyone is worried about overturning the will of the voters.
The will of the voters is over.
He got the job.
Now it is time to respect the will of the taxpayers and fire him.
9
America can never be defeated by an external power that is also not destroyed in the process. As invulnerable as a country can be from the destruction of war, we are.
And like all superpowers that have preceded us, our demise can only come about from internal conflict and collapse. Trump's ignorance and incompetence may not result in such a national collapse but the very idea that this proposition can be entertained is chilling.
Trump must go before the fear becomes the reality.
2
"But if Trump’s weakness makes him less of a threat to the constitutional order (such as it is) than some critics imagine, in foreign policy it’s a different matter."
I beg to differ on your first point, Ross, that Trump's not a threat to the constitutional order. How can you say that, when his refusal of subpoenas, machinations in Ukraine, stealing money from military bases to pay for his wall, and pretend promise to keep his businesses out of the treasury trough?
OK, so the only "collateral" damange so far is the Kurds, sickening as that is. Your pain point is true: Trump listens to nobody when he's on the phone with strongmen.
And that includes the big daddy of them all, Vladmir Putin.
Trump may be weak in your eyes, but his strength is his stranglehold on your party. They're still with him thick and thin, excusing every degradation domestic or foreign.
Sure he's unfit, but as long as they're with him, he's stays.
8
Mr. Douthat claims that "the world under Trump was in certain respects more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term."
In which respects are those, Mr. Douthat? I know of none.
12
@Dan Styer
Agreed. I think he leaves the US out of his "world".
Ross, are you really crowing about how you predicted Trump would be a disaster, when his rise to power was facilitated by years of right wing "pundits" trashing the very concept of government? It's not Trump , it is every GOP enabler and the army of "conservative wonks" who have spent the past two years desperately seeking to put a positive spin on the mess they created. Instead of boasting about your prescience, man up and accept responsibility, then explain how you have quit the GOP and will vote for any Democrat.
6
It’s astounding how easy it has been to destroy the country from within to this point, with no real guarantees that it can or will be rescued.
5
Trump has singlehandedly created the greatest economy in the history of nation states. Foreign nations tremble at his might, his hard line on China, his repudiation of US allies trying to take advance of America. Don’t believe me, ask any Trump supporter or watch Fox News. Trump is indeed the greatest US President.
3
@Mickey
You're joking, right?
Imagine for a moment if Trump had been President when we found the first hint that Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
First there would have been the huge hints “of something very big, very soon”, then if Bin Laden couldn’t see the obvious and scarper, Trump would start leaking to some dictator he was trying to impress. Meanwhile everybody in the White House knows the rumors, and the staff would be fibrillating with excitement and leaking like a sieve.
Almost certainly Bin Laden would catch wind and escape, but just imagine he didn’t? Trump has to make a decision: high risk secret mission into the airspace of an ‘ally’ which more likely than not will fail, or some low risk alternative. Does anyone seriously think Trump has either the stones or the intelligence to make the decision Obama did?
6
Insightful about the terrible risk that Trump poses. Tepid though in giving credence to the comparative defense that has been Trump's response to so many of his character lapses and abuses of power. It's as though the substance of what he has done has no relevance. Deflection is no defense, only a feint to take the weak-minded off the truth.
While Trump’s now unchecked policy blunders and irrational behavior are scary, this column is beside the point.
Trump must go because, as an un-named Republican general said in Admiral McRaven’s recent editorial, he is a threat to the Republic.
Donald Trump is destroying all norms of behavior, all regard for tradition and precedent, all respect for the institutions and co-equal branches of government and a free press that have been the hallmarks of the United States for 240 years.
He has done more damage to this nation than all our foreign enemies throughout our history combined and that is not hyperbole.
The fact that people who call themselves conservatives—above all others—do not admit or speak out against this is mind boggling.
If Philip Roth had written a novel that simply narrated our actual current President, say 25 years ago; Republicans would have howled that only a ‘God hating, multicultural socialist, America bashing Democrat’ could possibly be the villain of such a story.
Does (at least the semblance of) honesty and decency truly not matter anymore?
3
Mr. Douthat, you wrote: "What distinguishes this fiasco is its utter thoughtlessness, its disconnect from any strategic purpose..."
This is totally incorrect.
The strategic purpose is to satisfy Trump's lifelonh yearnings; to kiss the boots of a foreign potentate he envies, then get patted on the head by Vladimir Putin and hear the cherished words "Good Boy!".
Dan Kravitz
4
" '...far worse debacles happened on its watch.'
"And there’s some truth to this."
No. Actually there isn't. Thousands dead, hundreds of thousands ejected violently from their homes. The promise of our nation, and the devotion of our soldiers betrayed. All to impress the neighborhood bully? For sheer depravity this is unimaginable.
As a citizen of the nation that sewed this wind, I can't help but fear the eventual whirlwind yet to be reaped.
3
Trump has committed treason and recklessness in US relations with Russia and North Korea since the day he was inaugurated. I know of nothing in President Obama's eight years that came remotely close the blatant disregard for our national security and intelligence officials by Trump.
The current crisis in Syria is about much more than Turkey and the Kurds. It is about a victory by Russia and Iran as our soldiers fled. It is about a typical Trump charade of a "winning" cease fire agreement to make himself look like he is an innocent intermediary offering to help. The unfolding fiasco in Ukraine has Putin's fingerprints all over it with Trump doing anything possible to lift Russian sanctions.
All of this combined leads to the obvious conclusion that our president has been aiding and abetting counties who are intent on destruction of our democracy.
Impeach for Treason now.
6
Kaiser Wilhelm is certainly an example of a man leading his country into disaster, yet his great blunder was to honorably stand by his allies.
In a conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, Austria-Hungary recklessly declared war knowing it had a powerful ally and Germany backed them, as it was the right thing to do. Other nations standing by their allies then dragged most of the world into a conflict that killed tens of millions and set the stage for far worst.
Giving an ally a blank check is not a smart thing to do.
"Without his bodyguard of generals, the president is becoming the overseas arsonist his 2016 critics feared."
Trump has been weak domestically but he has discovered that he can burn our society down from the outside in, via foreign actions. And burn our society down is what his base wants him to do, if he cannot preserve the unearned and unmerited prerogatives and dominance of white people.
2
He wants to be like Putin, Xi, Erdogan and even Duterte. Most of his followers see the Constitution as an outdated, late 1700’s scrap of paper and this feeds into Trump’s attacks on the press just like the “strongmen” he admires.
We are fighting for the soul of an America in which democratic countries can no longer trust the word of the United States.
Give Trump another 4 years in 2020 and our experiment in democracy will be over.
3
I love his foreign policy - let other countries pull their own weight, defend themselves and bring our troops home.
@Happy Republican
Just for the record.
What you're describing is not "foreign policy" -- it's nothing more than a campaign promise from someone who doesn't recognize the need for a strategic plan and diplomacy in handling world affairs.
12
@Happy Republican
The problem is, Trump's not "bring[ing] our troops home." He's moving some around and sending more and more to the region. See, e.g., https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/politics/us-additional-troops-middle-east-iran/index.html ("The US has increased the deployment of forces in the region by 14,000 since May.").
1
@Happy Republican Just read that the troops in Syria are now going to Iraq. Enough said.
1
What Mr. Douthat fails to admit is that this was done at the behest of Russia, not from some unfitness for the job or lack of smart people around him. Admit that obvious fact Mr. Douthat and you will then understand why Trump does anything - the evidence is overwhelming. He is doing the bidding of a foreign enemy who is directing him to vandalize America at every opportunity.
Then ponder what Trump's punishment should be. How were those who similarly betrayed America in the past punished? Perhaps Ross will then realize how serious this is and how wrong he (Ross) has been and what a grave disservice he is doing by continuing to write about anything but the most obvious one. Start writing about how people who were found to be traitors fared, America needs to be prepared for it.
1
Amidst the growing consensus that the current occupant of the WH is a dangerous sociopath, completely unsuited for office, there remains an intransigent core who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that the emperor has no clothes. The lesson of the first thousand days is that we have entrusted a corrupt real estate developer to provide leadership and have handed the wheel to an impulsive narcissist. We can’t afford to be at the mercy of right wing media sycophants and a Senate Republican leadership that repeatedly shows its willingness to betray the nation for their personal gain. In spite of repeated attacks by Trump and his acolytes, the Times and other sources of responsible journalism have been the indispensable, unwavering heroes in the battle for truth and an informed public. Therein lies our hope.
2
Regarding Trump's weakness "we ain't seen nothing yet". Syria is just an appetizer for a hungry Putin. Russian missiles coming to Cuba ? Stay tuned.
2
Yeah, waiting for the republican party to put country first is a fool's errand. Time to set our goals for what we want: complete destruction of the neocon movement, including the republican party, Fox News, and Donald Trump. Jail time to the ones who earned it and total bankruptcy for Trump (not the little kind that he has been so skilled in sliding off from).
1
Trump is dangerous because he has no clue what he doesn't know. He is too psychologically fragile to admit ignorance and seek advice.
He is fiercely determined to protect his own reputation- not American interests.
The more complex global matters become, the less he reads briefs or enlists experts. His letter to Erdogan was worse than an embarrassment; it revealed how shallow and immature this POTUS truly is. Weakness can manifest in different ways. Trump is used to blustering his way through adversity.
Alas- he does not seem to understand that Assad, Erdogan, Putin,Xi, Kim and Ukrainian billionaire thugs are way ahead of him. His Achilles Heel is his desperation to win in 2020 by any means. This makes him immediately compromised by need & fear... the most dangerous vulnerability.
4
But thanks to a dogged press, many fine candidates, and an emergence of some sense of duty by millions of Americans of sound mind to keep the country, albeit flawed, on it's feet , we may just be able to dump this lunatic before he does many of us in.
Much has changed in the last three weeks. Thank goodness for whistle blowers and gumption.
1
Why do the conservatives and Republican Senators wringing their hands and expressing anguish over the betrayal of the Kurds care nothing about the human toll Trump's border policies have extracted?
They don't care about the abuse of children that will leave lifelong damage. The daily mistreatment of asylum seekers doesn't bother them at all.
They get mighty worked up about an aborted fetus but don't give a second thought to daily cruelty done in their name.
Yet, these monsters call themselves Christians. So much for Christianity.
5
So, almost everyone hoped, believed or even assumed presidency will change a 70 years old, twice divorced, failed real estate developer with no governmental experience.
It didn't work and it is getting worse, exhausting us all...when will this nauseating nightmare end?
8
Put an incompetent as a president, and what can wrong? What a hopefully comment of yours, delegating responsibility in the check and balance of the constitution, as if it were a self driving car. My recommendation would have been not to vote for an incompetent president, but no matter now.
But hey, worry about foreign policy! Again, too late. When did we think that a NATO ally will be the one to move frontiers and start a long awaited ethnic cleansing? The American military, leaving their post, not defeated, but in a act of betrayal. This is beyond humiliating, this is criminal, this is a step towards pulverizing NATO and the world order.
And name the culprit. It is not Trump. This debacle is owned wholesale by the Republican Party.
2
What de-escalation in the Koreas?
2
Mr. Douthat's article starts out logically enough but the suggestion that Trump was responsible for "near-victory over ISIS, de-escalation in the Koreas, a reasonable focus on containing China", and to put forth that the world under Trump has been more tranquil than under Obama is disingenuous. He is right that Trump is remarkably weak - all narcissists are all bark and no bite. Did it really take the Turkey / Kurd debacle to recognize Trump's weakness as a leader?
It appears that Mr. Douthat's coming to terms with the disaster that is and has been the Trump presidency is probably going to slowly manifest in more garbage opinion pieces like this while the rest of us could have set him straight in 2016. As he gets through his stages of grief, we'll look forward to his acceptance that Trump morally unfit to lead and a traitor to all of us patriotic Americans.
3
The two Mikes could redeem themselves by invoking the 25th amendment and save the world from even more disasters. Every day he remains as "president" we are in peril.
Good piece. I would venture to say that the worst is yet to come. I also wish people would read more carefully before responding with an invalid criticism, particularly the one who misconstrued Ross's words about the glee of rivals as meaning his domestic political rivals. He was addressing the glee of U.S. rivals.
2
You are assuming that the president got ‘rolled’ by Erdogan. Without seeing the transcript of his Sunday night call, we don’t know that, it might very well be a quid pro quo regarding current or future Trump properties in Turkey.
6
While it took more than one man to create and propel this country forward to what it became 240 years later, it's only taken one unfit man less than three years to devolve and destroy it. This process must be stopped.
Now.
Period.
That's up to all of us.
14
“...and the only repercussions will be Mike Pence showing up at your doorstep looking like a disappointed owl.”
Thank you for this today. It’s one of the few times I’ve laughed out loud at a Trump foreign policy column.
22
The Senate trial will be very different from the Kavanaugh hearings. Justice Roberts presiding, Senators not allowed to talk and having to submit written questions. There will be no talk of love for beer, sneering speeches or playing gender cards. It will truly be an opportunity for the Senate to do its job. If there was a secret ballot the outcome would be clear. Given that Senators will have to vote openly I seriously doubt there will be the two thirds majority or even a majority. I think only a recession can change the minds of the cowered Republicans.
23
@Daniel Salazar Agree - an overdue economic correction and an emerging third political party: A 4th turning knocking on our collective door!
1
Ross,
Did you read the letter Trump wrote to Erdogan? Why are we even still treating this man as if he is a sane individual capable of leadership? He should have been impeached yesterday.
174
Presumably, Mr Douthat does believes things are getting worse. Sure this presidency hasn't amassed the phenomenal body count that W gave the world, or even the more modest one attributed to Obama's fecklessness, and certainly Trump's dithering and a real inability to think beyond his own navel has spared us any monumental disasters, although, it's relative I guess: the swirling chaos at the border and the child separations are the price some is willing to pay for a seat or two on the Supreme Court. And of course, owning the Libs is nice, even if it the cost of degrading the office of the president.
Mr Douthat dances around the whether Trump should or shouldn't be impeached? In fact, the opinions on the right of this august publication, while professing a complete disavowal of Trump, that is, unless he does something they agree, which they support with glee, seem singularly unable to live by their principles. It's tiresome to have to continue point out this hypocrisy. One wonders how many stopped clocks they have in their house?
22
Mr. Douthat sees "glee from rivals" after Trump abandoned the Kurds. Here is what Elizabeth Warren said:
"Trump recklessly betrayed our Kurdish partners and cleared the way for Turkey’s invasion of Syria—reopening the door for ISIS and furthering a humanitarian crisis. We should bring our troops home, but we need to do so in a way that protects our security."
I see no glee ... I see only sadness for the Kurds but also for America's moral standing. Please, Mr. Douthat, which words in this passage make you see "glee"?
83
@Dan Styer He was addressing U.S. rivals in the foreign diplomacy, not Trump's political rivals here. Read carefully.
2
I believe he meant international rivals such as Assad and Putin, whom definitely don't care about the Kurds and do love to see America acting pathetic and weak.
@Dan Styer
I think he was referring to foreign rivals being gleeful, such as North Korea, China, Russia, etc.
It is not about him as president per se that Trump’s demonstrates weakness ... though it does again and again ... it is about him as an individual, as reflected in his behavior all of his adult life. This is not condition for anyone of us with an once of compassion to celebrate in any way. That said, Trump as the individual he may not even have freely chosen himself to be, does disservice to the presidency.
7
"Or in year five or six or seven, should Trump be re-elected."
I still think it is highly likely that Trump will resign under impeachment pressure with the knowledge that exposure of his extensive criminal activity is at hand. Or be defeated decisively in Nov. 2020.
However, statements, such as the one above, jar me back to reality, and remind me that America still has the potential to gift Trump a second term and complete its intellectual and moral suicide.
52
@Alan R Brock
Unfortunately, I share your pessimism. Considering that most of the American electorate is shortsighted, very materialistic, ignorant of history since the dawn of recorded time up to whatever happened last week and not very bright, Trump will quite possibly be elected again.
Let me cut through all the man'splainin' and get right to the point. This situation, as far as I'm concerned, is all on them.
The Republican Party had better come up with a better candidate for next years election because I will not vote for Trump. It is now a case of anyone but him. Period.
106
@AACNY The current Real Clear Politics Trump average approval rating is under 43% -- and over half of those polled disapprove. Where are these "high approval ratings" of which you speak?
22
@AACNY
Admittedly, it's been awhile since my last college math class, but I remain confident in the observation that 2 is not a "large number."
10
Bernie Sanders had a turnout yesterday bigger and Han at any of Trump’s rallies, so by your measure Bernie’s ahead, right? Rally attendees are a tiny fraction of the voting population. And your statement about Democrats is baseless - polling in swing states is not looking good for Trump. In a good economy, Trump is still at approval numbers he was 2 years ago. With disapproval numbers rising. Reality appears to be different from the picture you suggest.
12
This is an astounding assertion:
"Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways,"
I can't understand how it can be supported by the facts, at all.
78
@brooklyn Well, there was the whole catastrophe in Iraq to start with. Things just went downhill from there.
2
@brooklyn Well, Bush II invasion of Iraq was the most disastrous US foreign policy in the memory oh any one alive today. The world has yet to recover from it and so has the moral prestige the US had for many years after WWII. Trump has shredded what little of it remained.
The Vietnam was another disaster in terms of lives lost but the world is no longer suffering from its after effects.
3
@brooklyn
I would avoid the judgment in "disastrous," but the US has never figured out how to manage our post-post-WWII world dominance. In 1946 we were without military or economic rival and largely held the high ground in international ethics, such as they are.
But the world did not stand still. Other powers emerged, and we were and are not sure how and where and when to cede authority or to share it. We haven't learned how to talk about such questions as adults.
1
That's an awful lot of self-congratulation for being right about "The Dangers of Donald Trump" (Oct. 29, 2016) from someone who hedged his bets in 2016 with a column the week before entitled "The Dangers of Hillary Clinton" (Oct. 22, 2016). I guess that's what's called a win-win for a conservative intellectual. One might be more generous if Douthat had spent the intervening 155 weeks ringing the bell that "our president is unfit for his job." But Ross decidedly did not. Indeed, he spent a good share of those weeks doubting the Democrats' perceptions, motives, efforts and moral standing, to boot, to do anything about a president unfit for his job. Much of the rest of the time, he devoted his column to the arcana of contemporary Catholicism and wistfully striving, this way and that, to take American culture back to the 12th century. Some weeks, actually many weeks, it was hard to avoid the suspicion that he was just desperate to write about anything to avoid the very subject of Trump. After all that has passed, said and unsaid, these past three years, Douthat's present double-flip midair contortions to slap himself on the back are a bit much to take, even if he does stick the landing.
274
@RRI Perfect response, as it's clear -- and been for a long time -- that the Republican's behavior you're describing is what they do best: either negating the plain truth, or obfuscating. Unfortunately, there's still too few Republicans who have belatedly come to the realization that it's time to stop pretending that everything is swell and dandy and that they need to speak out.
39
@RRI Couldn't agree more with your observations about the history of Douthat's writings.
15
@RRI Yes, NYT readers would have appreciated Douthat’s position had it come much earlier, but consider this: His column is syndicated. It appears in my local paper, in Louie Gohmert’s district, and probably in many other ultra-conservative, religious communities. It at least stands a chance of persuading people; whereas, if he had come out early and often against Trump, many people would reflexively dismiss it.
13
The tension and danger in this country and throughout the world has risen enormously since Trump has been president. People of good conscious and real intelligence have become distraught and deranged because they see clearly what harm he has done and what four more years of this can bring.
Senators that enable him, especially the loud ones, will find it very hard to accept their guilt and help the country out of this mess. They will have to gather what gold coins they can with the time left. You know how that ends. A plea to their better selves has not worked (are you there Sen. Graham, Sen. McConnell, Sen. Rubio?). Could we get some billionaire liberal to pay them off and resettle them in a nice far away land? It worked with the Shah. I'll pitch in if it will save the country I love and have fought for.
41
Clouding the criticism of Trump is the over-riding negative emotion with which it is expressed. Thus such commentary is rejected by his supporters and gleefully advocated by his enemies, which only reinforces loyalty.
Better for his critics to give him abundant credit for what he has done right and call into question his bad decisions using only the facts.
And aside from that, is the specter that a far from center Democrat nominee will be the alternative. If the Democrats wish to win they must set aside their emotions, treat Trump with as much evenness as they can muster, and find a nominee who communicates the values of patriotic Americans.
5
@Michael Dowd I don't believe there is any evidence for "thus". Trump supporters aren't interested in facts, so why would they base their conclusions on logic? As for patriotism, while it's clearly absurd to use it as an ideology and our current President appears to believe, it's scandalous to suggest that any political party or group of citizens is any less committed to the future success of America than any another. The point is that different people value different measures of success, that doesn't make them any less patriotic, that's just democracy.
42
@Jonathan You prove my point. "Trump supporters aren't interested in facts, so why would they base their conclusions on logic?"
The same could be said for Trump adversaries.
Unless the tenor of this debate and hateful attitudes can be changed it won't matter who is elected and the country will continue in the political malaise now present.
6
@Michael Dowd
But, the question is, what, if anything, has "he done right"? He signed off on the GOP Congress's tax cuts that proved little relief to most Americans and failed to produce its claimed stimulus effect. He's announced regulatory changes that are largely tied up and being turned over by the courts due to the Administration's failures to comply with the APA. He's made baldy political appointments to the judiciary of unqualified candidates who will be disadvantaging litigants for the next decade or more. He's implemented tariffs, based upon questionable authority, that are being paid for by American consumers and putting the brakes on the domestic economy. He's embarrassed the nation time and again in the international community, alienating allies and encouraging authoritarians.
The facts are quite clear, and enough to question whether any of his decisions have not been bad. And, that's before we take into account his violations of the law when dealing with foreign powers, or his violations of prevailing ethical standards when engaging in nepotism and self-dealing.
As for the "patriotic Americans" silliness, next time just call them True Scotsman - the logical value of your assertion will remain exactly the same.
37
I loved the article, but have one reservation. I think writing about Trump is clarifying if we fully realize that he is delusional and in complete denial of any mistake he makes, and therefore nobody can do anything to effect his behavior. This Syria catastrophe is proof enough. We need to face that. We need to “inspire” Mitch McConnel to step up to the plate with the full realization that the Commander in Chief is not capable of assessing the ramifications of any decision he makes and needs to be restrained by Congress. For the Republicans in the Senate to put their self interest first in such a situation, to rationalize away the danger, is something they will live to regret. The rest of us need make our feelings known. Like others have said, this is on Mitch.
39
Maybe the cabinet members will start considering the 25th (again?) as Mr Pence and Mr Pompeo were most recently sent to negotiate with Erdogan and clean up the mess. Not that anything positive for the Kurds came out of it.
11
@val Are there any cabinet members left?
1
@val -
The XXVth Amendment is not the savior you think it would be. Look at Section 4. It’s first paragraph is where the VP and cabinet can “clean up the mess”. But in the second paragraph, the president can disagree and he automatically gets back his powers for four days. Such powers as firing all the acting department heads who signed on to the notice of unfitness. (As a positive for him, he could do it on live TV, and use his “You’re fired” line from “The Apprentice”.) He could then appoint people more loyal to be acting department heads, and he would have a good long while (at this point almost to the 2020 election) to work on cementing a group that would never send such a letter to Congress.
I hope this editorial isn’t what will be used to excuse support shown for Trump. Foreign policy isn’t simply making the correct choice from a series of options, it’s about making choices based on some moral or at least strategic foundation. Think of it like football plays. When drawn up on a chalkboard, they are all meant to result in touchdowns, but they rarely do. When used in a thoughtful, strategic way they end up in a successful game plan. Past administrations all had some rational plan; Trump plans from his gut, minute to minute. Past administrations could point to good intentions coming from an overall commendable idea, not someone’s digestive system. Conservatives need a little more nerve when talking about this guy to hope for absolution.
13
Unfortunately the Syrian crisis already involves a"real great power". Russia has a significant military presence and can beef it up more easily than America. The Assad regime is dependent on Russian backing and will give them free rein to do anything, including attack Turkey, Lebanon or Israel. From Syria, Russia can move against major oil-producing countries, escalating a tactical misstep into a global, strategic catastrophy.
10
There is no excuse for the way Mr. Trump acted in Syria. However, in my judgement, his decision has many merits. SDF with American support was and is holding areas with clear Arab majority. SDF is seen as an terrorist organization by Turkey. Unless we assume that the American support will be there for foreseeable future, SDF would not be able to hold on that flat, long and vast area. So more war, more bloodshed would have been inevitable.
It is time the Americans get realistic: The Syrian Regime is there to stay. Turkey will not change its mind about the PKK affiliated SDF. Russia will continue to defend the Syrian regime. If the Americans really care for the Syrian Kurds, they need to support a realistic solution, which would provide autonomy to the Kurds, but at the same time receive the consent of Turkey and Syria, however grudgingly.
3
@ahmet andreas ozgunes Those "area with clear Arab majority" had been held by ISIS until we & the Kurds liberated them, with the Kurds doing the heavy lifting, taking heavy casualties.
Why not continue supporting them for the for seeable future? We still have troops in Europe to deter the Russians. It's a lot easier to deter the Turks.
Oh, Turkey wouldn't like it! So what? They still deny their genocide against the Armenians. As in they're no dang good. We could have let them know that if they caused serious trouble not only would our airpower devastate their forces but we would also partner with Greece to liberate Cyprus.
Keep in mind that the damage Donald Trump has done is not over yet, but all of it rests squarely at the feet of the GOP. 20 men and woman could have ended the misery of America and the world a long time ago. The GOP senators like Rudy, and William Barr must all be held accountable.
46
Congressional Republicans are too weak to control the plethora of executive orders that require Congressional and judicial review. Donald Trump cannot write his own Constitution. Someone must say "No, Donald, you can't do that."
20
"near-victory over ISIS, de-escalation in the Koreas, a reasonable focus on containing China"
He did none of these things, and escalated the last two to almost the breaking point.
89
@Martin What is a near victory? And what good does it do if it is ISIS? And you are correct, no de-escalation in the Koreas. And what in the world does Ross see which is a reasonable focus on containing China? That one has escaped me. I just see a grumpy fidgety stupid man throwing out tariffs on our friends and non friends, including China, to puff himself up with no, absolutely no, policy or goals. And, while I am at it, why these gratuitous comparisons with no examples to other administrations. They all look like shining examples compared to this one with the exception of the invasion of Iraq which was maneuvered by Cheney.
4
i don't believe in writing prospective history through leader personality analysis. carlyle's style of history as the biography of "great men" doesn't work for the past: no reason it should work for the future.
i am not optimistic about the future for structural, demographic, economic and resource reasons. but when it comes to americans and the american future, prediction should start with the temperament and resources of the people.
5
@drollere
Given that nearly 40% of the American people back Trump, I am rather less optimistic than you!
The possibility of Donald Trump being re-elected is more terrifying and discouraging than anything I've experienced in my 68 years. How can anyone - even a single person - think he is fit for this most demanding of all jobs?
159
@CW
The answer, in part, is Fox News. The version of reality promoted by that propaganda channel is shockingly at odds with the evidence.
11
Trump's main weakness (and he has many) is his utter lack of critical thought. If he were a man of average intelligence, unhindered by severe narcissism, he would have surrounded himself not by yes-men, who enable his every whim, but with men and women more intelligent, more experienced in their fields, and he would listen to them and trust their advice.
If he were a man with the ability to consider and reflect upon issues before reacting to them, he would pay no attention to the criticism that all presidents endure. He would not fly off the handle at the slightest insult, spend hours watching one channel on television, tweeting and retweeting bizarre conspiracy theories and blurting out his own brand of churlish insults. People in his position should have the ability to rise above criticism, and should never resort to childish name-calling, no matter what is said.
Psychological studies have shown that self-control is related to intelligence, and in tests, participants who scored the highest on intelligence tests also exhibited the highest level of self-control. I have a feeling that the "stable genius", the man who claims to have "great and unmatched wisdom"... is not, and does not.
110
@Chris Wildman "churlish insults". Perfect.
2
Blunders in the world arena will probably pale in comparison to the stubborn opposition and inability to grasp the existential threat of climate change. I fear for my newest grandchild.
45
I don't see the relative success of the first two years of foreign policy if you include: support for the growing number of autocrats running countries, and allowing one in particular to continue to try to destroy our democracy; getting played by North Korea; giving almost no attention to human rights; insulting other countries, and their people, the way a second-grader would be admonished for; pretending the best agreement feasible to vastly slow down Iran's nuclear weapons capability wasn't working because you don't like your predecessor; and not challenging Israel to live up to its best capabilities. Oh...and if you accept that the environment is also a foreign policy subject--as the Earth is the only home we have, there's that little thing like throwing out the imperfect but single best shot we had of minimizing the now-inevitable risks from climate change, the Paris Agreement, and saying almost nothing about fire-setting in Brazil and what that's also doing to indigenous peoples and the critters. And that's "more tranquil?"
97
@Matt Polsky
True! and absolutely crazy that we sit back and watch with no precedent, no context to evaluate or discern reality in community; reality is being made up day to day and we're being played - for a long time now. Your sublime rage speaks volumes but we the people have little power to come together given our over the top busy lives - While much appreciated, this column and comments are not enough.
18
And even if he didn't get us into a world war or a lesser, yet disastrous crisis, he has definitely not "made America great again". In fact he has made it weaker, smaller and of lesser importance in the international arena.
62
@michael epstein I have not seen the country so weak since the Carter administration. Trump has made America pathetic again.
And, I would imagine that in the greatest moments of the Tump induced international chaos, with America convulsing politically domestically, is when Mr. Putin, Mr. Jung, and Mr Xi will decide the time is right to make their moves to expand their empires, attack our traditional allies, and upend the post Cold War world order.
These are dangerous times. The GOP Senators who still believe in the concept of American exceptionalism need to step up, speak out, and make America Sane Again.
51
Republicans may believe in whatever; they fear Trump the more. That is certain. The nation is now being held by one the most evil of human emotions i e FEAR.
This is kind of disingeneous. Sure he is weak in a number of ways, including his effectiveness in international affairs. But his weakness is doing damage exactly because he is excercising power, if not strength, in his administration. He has fired or driven out plenty of people and replaced them with people who will do his bidding. And the damage he is doing by being a weak person with a lot of power applies to our domestic and constitutional order just as much as to foreign affairs.
42
I often wondered what would have caused Fred to send his son away to military school. Perhaps Fred had recognized the weakness in his son and hoped that the discipline of a military academy could strengthen his son's character. It didn't.
55
Fred's decision may have had something to do with the young Donald being expelled from his former school for assaulting one of his teachers.
4
Thank you for this, Mr. Douthat.
I see you are taking some heat in the comments, from those who think you are late in arriving at a negative opinion of Trump. But as someone who follows your columns and podcast rather closely, I have heard you express misgivings about Trump on a number of occasions. Your concerns here are especially true. The man could get us into a world war.
33
Mr. Douthat: I hope you read most of the comments written here in response to your opinion piece. Most of these comments will dispute your statement "the relative calm of years one through three ". I think the last three years have been anything but calm and I, along with others, disagree with your assessment.
126
@Kate "The relative calm of years one through three" is an interesting way of saying that the government has been incapable of addressing the crises (be it the spiraling cost of healthcare, education, and housing; our crumbling infrastructure, the opioid epidemic, or even the flood of scam robocalls) that are afflicting the country.
8
Douthat is right Trump's brand of statesmanship does follow the Kaiser's complete with the ineffectual hand wringing from the sidelines. Bombast and wearing the military uniforms of his peers didn't make for successful diplomacy. The description of Pence as a disappointed owl is perfect especially given that despite its reputation as a "wise old bird", the owl is not very intellectually impressive. If the pre-Trump world was laughing at us, it is splitting its sides at us now.
36
@judith kleist
Pence is a former radio talk show host who rose to be governor of Indiana. He once described his philosophy as "Rush Limbaugh lite."
The fact that he was a radio talk show host does not mean he is a lightweight necessarily. It is performance since he signed on as boot-licker-in-chief that has made his lasting reputation. The longer someone stays in the office, the smaller they become. Very few have escaped the vice presidency with high standing because it is a thankless job where standing around waiting for orders is the job description. As Nelson Rockefeller said, "I never wanted to be vice-president of anything." It seems likely that anyone good enough to handle the vice-presidency should refuse the offer if at all possible.
1
It certainly took long enough for this columnist to acknowledge the disaster that is this presidency.
Right wing partisans are always slow to acknowledge wrongdoing by their own, being more interested in perpetuation of power than governance.
72
At some point, perhaps after waking up with a bad case of indigestion, Trump will actually involve US troops in some debacle. Many of these young people were recruited from just the sort of economically dislocated regions that went so heavily for Trump and where a career in the military is sometimes the best bet. The crowds at his rallies can hoot and howl now, but it might be a different story when their children start returning home from some frivolous horror, then watch the yuks stop.
41
@stan continople Are you not aware that Trump has just sent > 3000 US troops to Saudi Arabia to 'protect' its oil installations ...and has bragged that the Saudis are paying for them. So now US soldiers are being peddled as a commodity - the best mercenaries money can buy. The thing is those soldiers will be just as dead and wounded in any conflict...
4
@Cass Phoenix
They are not even mercenaries, because they will not be doing any fighting, they are very expensive human shields meant to give Iran second thoughts about bombing Saudi oil installations and possibly killing some American troops. Makes me proud.
Well, the weak man is one of the two most powerful people on the planet, and controls our nuclear weapons. Does one need to go off for congressional Republicans to realize that they are violating their own oaths of office by keeping Mr. Trump in his?
He's bent or broken just about every other precedent and behavioral expectation under which previous presidents have operated.
It would be almost impossible to prevent a U.S. president from ordering first strike, and if congressional Republicans don't think Mr. Trump can be trusted with nukes they should get him out before he gets worse.
140
@Grennan
This may sound over-the-top paranoid, but can’t help wondering if Pompeo and his cohort of extreme evangelicals might not be too averse to a “first strike” which might lead us to the trump end of days and their transfiguration in the “rapture.”
Have to think trump would be “left behind”, however.
3
Trump survived as a "strongman" in private life by cowering behind his money and his lawyers, thus having his way at will. Now he can no longer operate that way, even though he still blusters like a strongman. But he will be rolled, and rolled again, by the likes of Putin, Erdogan, MBS, Duterte, Kim, and any other actual dictators Trump admires. And our republic and allies will continue to suffer the consequences of this monstrous electoral mistake.
146
@Mike Jones Agreed. But the mistake was the Electoral College system - antiquated and racist and antimajoritarian - that gave us this montrous presidency.
4
"... our president is unfit for his job." Congratulations Mr Douthat. Now it is time for you to say explicitly that Trump should be impeached and removed, And now is the time for you to say that any of the Democratic candidates should be preferred to Trump.
238
Sorry Mr. Douthat, but Trump became president not because of any previous failings that you mention, but because of his base, who took the lies, performance and rhetoric, lock stock and barrel; the Russian influence in social media; and the Electoral College. Trump has been a weak man all along, and you're just now realizing it?
255
@Birdygirl
"his base, who took the lies, performance and rhetoric, lock stock and barrel..."
Trump rallies with Trump as the star performer are sickening. Those who voted for Trump I might forgive, but for those who attend these rallies and behave like ignorant yahoos, I will never forgive. Falling for a conman and loving his "schtick" is unforgivable.
6
Trump's policies produced "de-escalation in the Koreas"??'
Ross, really. Any fact-based person knows that North Korea has been given a green light by Trump to produce more nukes and refine their missile capability, at no charge.
Our military, conversely, has been told to stand down, and even joint exercises with South Korea were cancelled.
226
@MarcosDean
All the actual good in Korea is due to Pres. Moon Jae-in of South Korea.
3
@MarcosDean
My response to that sentence was, well, kinda, but only after he *escalated* tensions there. Remember "fire and fury"?
But, as with all things, Douthat spins things to render himself the wisest of the wise and the noblest "impartial" observer. He's one of too many I only read for the comments, which are unfailingly more insightful and wise.
3
It’s not true that Donald Trump did not do significant longterm damage early in his presidency: his cancelling TPP and the Iran nuclear deal are already having negative consequences for the US and they will be with us for some time unless a new administration can provide fixes.
290
@Mike
Don't overlook the destruction of governmental honesty and environmental protection, which started early.
91
@Thomas Zaslavsky Thank you for beating me to the punch on the environmental destruction...pulling out of Paris Accord, weakening pollution regulations, drilling in Arctic Refuge. My heart goes out to those dying in Syria, but the damage Trump did in his first 3 years will have far more dire consequences for all of us.
69
Cancellation of the TPP gave you the ‘easy to win’ trade war with China. The whole point of the TPP was/is to contain China.
45
The sad reality is that we still don't know what debacles McMaster, Mattis, and Kelly may have been able to avert while they were around. We probably won't know until they decide to write books about their time in this administration. Now that there are only "yes men" left in Trump's orbit, there is no restraining him. The Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and Attorney General are all sycophants. Mr. Pompeo even believes that Trump was chosen by God. We are living in an incredibly dangerous time. Impeachment and removal from office are fully warranted at this point.
205
I appreciate the fact that Ross has finally found his personal breaking point. But it is interesting that he and the other conservative NYT Op-Ed writers can't find it in them to point out the atrocity that is Trump without pointing back to some Democratic predecessor. Surely Woodrow Wilson must bear some blame for the mess that Trump is in, or FDR, or HST, LBJ. (And no doubt they might; the sins of the fathers are often visited upon the sons to the fourth or fifth generation, but we've got Trump to deal now so lets stop facing backward and deal with the malady at hand.
206
My ever deepening fear is in what way Putin, Xi, and others can now read that their possible future actions will garner no response from Trump.
Given the way Trump was rolled by Erdogan, what’s the real risk Putin has in deciding that now is the time to roll into the Baltic nations? Or for Xi to declare unilateral control over the South China Sea, let alone an invasion of Taiwan?
84
@Mike W: Yup, Erdogan has established the blueprint for all foreign strongmen with Trump. We'll see whether Republican Senators will act before Cuba demands the return of Florida to the Pan Caribbean nation.
4
If Americans were outraged then their elected representatives would cower before them, because cowering before their constituents is what elected representatives do. If Americans were outraged, then the House would vote out impeachment articles without further investigation, based upon the President's own admissions regarding Ukraine, his defiance of House subpoenas, and his plain-view cashing in on his office. If Americans were outraged, Mr. McConnell would bluntly warn the President that his conduct was impeachable and that he risked conviction in the Senate. But Americans are not outraged. They are blandly acquescent to outrage. If they are outraged at all, it is because the press has dared to investigate the President, and because the President's crimes have been exposed. In short, not to put too fine a point on it, America--or enough of America to make Trump's crimes pay--likes it this way. They like Trump. There were enough of them to tip the balance in 2016--all the rest of us had to do was stay home, which many did. There are enough of them to convince Trump that he acts with political and legal impunity--and so far, he is proving himself correct. Perhaps 2018 meant he is wrong. It is no more than an even bet. In short, it's not Trump's fault. It's America's.
67
@Archer Absolutely. It's our relatives at the Thanksgiving table, our fellow church members, our neighbors, our local merchants, our auto mechanics, doctors and schoolteachers. To them, he can do no wrong and I can imagine nothing that will change their minds or their votes.
51
@Archer Our representative in Congress does not cower before the people who live in her district. She is doing the bidding of out-of-state PACs which are doing the bidding of libertarian billionaires. The billionaires who own her thrive on Trumpian chaos and climate change denial.
17
@Archer
It's not America's fault. Maybe it's your friends' or relatives' fault, but none of mine voted Republican.
I suggest putting your finger on our allowing right-wing fear/hate radio and TV, a.k.a. Murdoch, Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, et al., free rein to spread poison over the public airwaves. That's one huge factor. Thank Ronald Reagan's Republican foresight for that, as until his Presidency changed the rules it was not allowed.
8
Mr. Douthat never revealed for whom he voted in 2016 (or 2018), but his dismissal of any notion of personal responsibility for the Republican party, including Trump, is stunning.
When we routinely demand that Muslims denounce every dastardly act perpetrated by all who claim that faith, from Brooklyn to Timbuctoo, where are the wails of mea culpa for what Douthat and his colleagues have wrought?
"Mistakes were made?"
253
@jrd
The Republican party is a mistake, and has been one since or ever before the criminal Warren Harding. The only Republican Presidency that one could chew a wafer over was D. Eisenhower and his warning to the country about "the military, industrial complex when he left office has largely gone unheeded. No do overs are possible and and unless our captain Ahab is removed and soon we might capsize and become very unexceptional.
37
Mr. Douthat - You ask legislators and voters to consider an impeachment vote or an electoral vote. But you never come out and say what you think.
Should Trump be impeached?
Or do you secretly hope that a new group in the mold of McMaster-Mattis-Kelly will put themselves in a position to be abused by Trump as they try to rein in his worse instincts?
40
@HN “Who will rid me of this priest? I am too moral to get my hands dirty.”
The popular image of a general or admiral is the tough as nails, at-any-cost hard-charger -- and maybe a guy who isn't quite so smart as successfully aggressive. This image persists thanks to the ever-widening gulf between civilians and career military. Few civilians have met a flag-level officer.
I've had the pleasure of meeting a number of senior military officers over the years. The military is quite good at succession planning, identifying candidates for senior military posts and grooming them for the positions. Often, this includes post-graduate education as well as a series of leadership posts in contact with civilian officials, US and international.
Trump, no doubt, believes in the popular image. As usual, he has run smack up against a reality in which senior military officers have far more education and experience in national security policy and foreign affairs than the great orange one.
Should we even be surprised at this point how a corrupt real estate developer is utterly unqualified for the presidency?
116
You state that Trump's unchecked impulses gave us the disaster of his capitulation to Turkey. You say it was "for no reason, none at all, save that our president is unfit for his job." I think you know that's not true. There are reasons Trump keeps making decisions that favor Putin. The American people need to know what those reasons are. The work that Barr is doing to look into the beginnings of the Russia investigation; that is also an attempt to clear Russia of interference and thereby justify dropping sanctions. Putin is always the winner, ditto the Saudis. Stop pretending its just impulse. It is not.
666
@JoOregon
Thank You! I would recommend this post a thousand times if I could.
28
@JoOregon In a similar vein, Giuliani is not offering "advice" on foreign policy, good or bad. He is manipulating US foreign affairs for personal financial gain.
39
@JoOregon well said. To add detail to your point about Putin dictating Trump’s foreign policy, Trump’s actions in Ukraine are exactly what Putin wants. Similarly, Trump’s disdain for NATO and the EU follow the Putin playbook exactly. Ditto in Syria, Trump had no sooner pulled our troops than Russian troops marched in to take control. Again with the G7 and Trump announcing that Russia should be invited back into the group. The list of Trump carrying Putin’s water is long. My only question is, “How does Putin deliver his instructions?” He can’t call Trump directly, too many people would be involved (although they did have that private meeting in Helsinki, for which Trump seized the notes). Perhaps Giuliani is the go-between? It would be easy for Putin or one of his agents to contact Rudy regularly. This would fit with everything else going on with Trump and Rudy. With Trump Pelosi is right, all roads lead to Putin.
32
I really am curious about why Mr. Douthat, in an otherwise salient and well written column, tried to take a dig at President Obama. I cannot for the life of me figure out just what "certain respects" of any part of Trump's already too-long presidency were " more tranquil than the world of Barack Obama’s second term."
Seriously?
807
@Vanessa Hall
He really can’t help himself. It’s like a verbal, or political TICK.
170
@Vanessa Hall
With Ross I'm always curious to see how it will be up to The Democrats or the Democrats fault somehow.
161
@Vanessa Hall
Was this a dig at Obama? I read it as a fact about the world situation: Obama had to deal with more international turmoil in his second term.
14
Ross Douthat: Did you really mean to treat the Kurds' predicament is such a cavalier way?
"It isn’t lasting. Trump’s betrayal of the Syrian Kurds over the past week is a moral travesty, but the Kurds have been betrayed by America before. What distinguishes this fiasco is its utter thoughtlessness, its disconnect from any strategic purpose, the sheer obviousness with which Trump allowed himself to be rolled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the inability of his advisers to salvage the situation before it led to war."
I doubt that you did. But if I were given liberty to rewrite the first sentence in this paragraph I might have replaced the "but the Kurds have been betrayed by America before ..." with "and it's not the first time America has betrayed the Kurds ..." or, well, just about anything.
My apologies for correcting you. I don't hold a candle to you in terms of depth-of-knowledge and sentence-parsing, but that one graveled me and I felt I had to say something.
29
Think about this: If Trump crafted the kind of government he really wants, the military would stage a coup now.
46
@rm
True.
Our country has poor safeguards.
17
His incompetence is comprehensive. His narcissism prevents him from seeing clearly.
After the contretemps with Democratic Congressional leaders at the White House this week, he released the now infamous photo of Nancy Pelosi standing at the table, confronting him and his minions. He thought the photo made him look good.
He was wrong, again.
"Nervous Nancy" is anything but, and as far from being "third rate"as it is possible for a politician to be. I doubt there is a more first rate politician in Washington.
That photo was taken by a White House photographer, and the Speaker would never have even seen it if Trump hadn't used it to insult her.
It is now iconic, surpassed only by the image of her mockingly applauding him at a State of the Union Address.
In that, she invented a new way to belittle him. It boggles the mind that some House Democrats wanted her demoted from leadership.
So we now have a brilliant grandmother ( in the photo she seems to be the only woman at the table ) leading the House, and a puerile gangster in the Oval Office.
He doesn't have a clue.
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Pelosi is certainly not third rate, but in a year or so, Trump should be ready for third grade.
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@Matt brilliant comment.
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A true strongman leads by example. He leads by character. Trump leads by intimidation and fear because that's what weak people do.
The good people that he had around him the first two years are not the types that can be bullied, so they left. Trump replaced them with weaklings which them makes him feel strong. He isn't.
It's easy to feel strong when you are surrounded by those much weaker than you. That is exactly what Trump wants. He wants people that will blindly follow him and not question his actions. He wants people who will agree with everything he says and be totally loyal to him, not to the nation or their professional responsibilities.
As a result, when Trump goes up against real strongmen, the kind that have people executed at will, he idolizes them and caves to their every wishes. They are what he only he dreams of being. That's our commander in chief.
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When I think of Trump at all I am reminded of a phrase Charles de Gaulle used when discussing an unworthy world presence, "He is not a serious man".
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@bellicose I'm sure de Gaulle's assessment of Trump would be, "He is not a man".
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@Larry J That is essentially what he was saying.
There is a lot of blame to go around here, but I also want to put some heat on the Democrats who were so timid and afraid of the American electorate that they are only now getting around to fully investigating this man.
Judgment and policy are difficult to remove a president for, alas, but in this case the president has been breaking laws in plain sight almost from the beginning and getting away with it.
And remember: George Bush was elected not once but twice, after the country knew who and what they were dealing with. I still think some voter suppression and even outright voter fraud were involved in Ohio, but regardless, the nation reelected a man who invaded and occupied a country with no connection to the attack on this country, a war we're still paying for since they conveniently kept the real costs off the books.
My fear is we are about to see the same thing again, with even more voter suppression and outright fraud mixed in. And if you think this term was a nightmare, just wait until the next four years, when there is not a single guardrail in place. Not even the prospect of an election.
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@avrds Just a reminder: The Republicon Party controlled both houses of Congress until January of this year, so no investigation of Trumpty Dumpty was going to happen. When the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in January, they waited until Robert Mueller finished his investigation and then began investigations of their own. So don't be laying any blame at the Democrats feet. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your comment.
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@Doug
Point taken, but we are now almost at the end of the year. Nancy Pelosi said she would pray for Trump while he basically burned the Constitution in plain sight and his administration just laughed in their faces.
I'm grateful for what they are doing now -- and Schiff appears to be doing a good job of it -- but we've lost a lot of time.
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The founders designed congress to function slowly and deliberately, and that includes impeachment and removal of a president. If the intent is to remove the current president from office it requires 2/3 of the senate to convict. Please show how that is possible today, even with what we have direct evidence of now - and that is far, far more than the feelings - no actionable evidence - that folks who want NOW NOW NOW removal express. Your concerns are noted. But the constitution sets the actual requirements, and a case must be made based on facts, not feelings. That’s complicated, difficult work in an atmosphere where one party actively has shown obstruction is acceptable, perhaps even their most important goal. Impeachment alone will not move a petulant actor like this president to leave. That will as a start require the senate to vote to convict. Show us the votes that exist today.
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Not sure I agree with this. Trump's philosophy is not to commit US troops unless a vital interest is at stake, and unless we are committed to winning the conflict. That's not always pretty, but at least it is consistent. What is the alternate philosophy Mr. Douthat is offering?
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@Michael Livingston’s In the last week, 1800 new US troops were sent to Saudi Arabia. So, on the one hand, we'll do what we can to hobble Iran. But, then, on the other, we will give away vast swathes of Syria to the lovely combination of Russia and Iran. I think I must be missing the consistency here.
Are we in fact committed to defending the Saudis from Iran? If so, we are doing a pretty poor job of it.
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@Michael Livingston’s
The vital interest of the US is to not, repeat not, strengthen ISIL by betraying the Kurds, the fiercest warriors against these murderous terrorist and let them become canon fodder of yet another strongman, Erdogan.
Our few troops in Syria were not trying to 'win the conflict' in the Syrian civil war. They were supporting the Kurds with weapons and logistics, became friends with them, and achieved to capture and guard thousand of dangerous ISIL members.
Now, the Caliphate thanks to Herr Trump and Erdogan will most certainly rise again.
As to Trump's 'philosophy', he doesn't have one and probably doesn't know what the prefix philo means, nor spell this word.
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@Michael Livingston’s Well let's see, he doesn't have a clue what our vital interests are. Or he knows and is deliberately undermining them.
I don't know what the deal with Trump and Putin is but my very strong impression is that he would hand Europe to Putin in a heartbeat if he could figure out how.
Did you manage to notice that the troops he removed were not really in harm's way? He didn't have to "commit" them, they were already there. And they were deterring Turkey.
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Trump now controls the GOP and is anything but weak politically (mind and heart are other matters).
What Trump has done is to show the fundamental weakness of the constitutional order itself, at least when someone is willing to play entirely outside of the rules... and also has enough time to put together an inside team (including family) equally willing to play outside the rules.
Since 45 took office, we've learned the weakness of the special prosecutor act, which depends heavily on the cooperation of the executive being investigated.
We've learned that the DOJ does not even have to pretend to be representing the people as a semi-autonomous agency, but can operate with impunity as de facto in-house counsel.
We've learned that regulatory agencies do not have to meet their congressionally mandated responsibilities, but instead can be lobbyist-staffed arms of the industries they regulate.
The list goes on. And now it includes obstruction of justice in a legitimate investigation that could delay release of important materials or interviews with witnesses at the very top by taking the battle through the court system regardless of legal reasoning.
I lived through Watergate, and the constitutional order held then. But Nixon was no Trump.
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To Michael in Ecuador:
American Democracy’s traditional guardrails have not stood up in the Trump era. Thus we don’t yet know how far the nation will tumble before righting itself. The situation is frightening, particularly for those of us who lived through Watergate and witnessed a more robust response to a corrupt attorney general, chief of staff and president.
It’s certain when America does pull out of this tail spin, the Imperial Presidency will be vanquished in reaction to today’s unbridled abuse of executive power. Let’s hope balance between the legislative and executive branches is restored with thought and absent near complete neutering of presidential power.
Hail to the Press, for the most part this institution has held its own when Congress and Special Counsel have been semi effective at best.
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@Michael Your comment is the most salient. When the dark clouds part, we must as a people defang our entire imperial executive branch and return to serious checks and balances. If nothing else, Trump has exposed the mountain of weaknesses that have been built into our system of government over the past century.
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@Nerraw ...to fix the executive, you will need a functioning Congress capable of non-parison governance. That may be far harder to repair.
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You need to state in unequivocal language Mr. Douthat that Trump should be impeached, and that Republicans, if they ever cared about this country, need to vote for that impeachment in a Senate trial. Right now we are living in chaos, with no clear or real policies of any kind, let alone any sort of cogent foreign policy. When I awoke this morning the first thought that came to me was that we are now living in a post Constitutional era. It is a piece of paper. Our Constitution is not being upheld by those sworn to do so starting at the very top with Trump. When an Attorney General of the United States thumbs his nose at a subpoena, then we are no longer a nation of laws nor justice.
We are in ever shifting sands with this man who has dreams of grandeur of being king, and acts as though he were one, and is bowed and scraped to by a Republican Senate afraid of him, and his power to turn supporters against them. They made their bed with this narcissistic man with no moral compass and no conscience, and now they are having to lay in it. Who could not look at pictures of little Kurdish children with chemical burns and not be outraged and saddened and ashamed? Trump is unmoved and could care less. The same way he could care less about the immigrant children in cages. What more will it take for Republicans to finally revile this evil man?
Trump needs to be removed by impeachment or by someone finally willing to invoke the 25th Amendment (if there still is one).
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@Diana. I don’t care if every Republican in the country has to lay in the Trump bed they helped make. I do care that the rest of us (non-Republicans) do. I care that the rest of the world does. Trump is running through the goodwill and respect the United States built over a century the same way he ran through his father’s fortune- we will be bankrupt in every good worth having and we will deserve it if we don’t remove him from office and bring him to justice. Him and every person who abetted him, every person who profited from his actions and that includes his venal clueless children. Whatever the Republicans do, short of voting to remove this shameless incompetent from office, will be too little too late.
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@Diana
I fear the Republicans will never give u on him, so they (including he) must be erased at the ballot box at every level. Then perhaps the Republican party will reboot itself.
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@Diana...and yet Trump dares to call an invasion by Turkey something like two "kids fighting". He is narcissistic in the extreme and has actually become a traitor to constitutional order. He is the only thing that temporarily represents a greater threat than climate change. The nuclear suitcase is in the hands of a megalomaniac. Yes, it is time to invoke the 25th Amendment.
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“Trump became president because the smart people in charge of U.S. foreign policy failed in disastrous ways,”
No Ross. Presidente George W Bush didn’t listen to the smart people; invaded Iraq after being hood winked by Vice President Dick Cheney and company.
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@Walter Kronkite
Agreed...wondering how Mr. Douthat could make a statement like that in mostly balanced column. I would also add to your comment that the other advisors on that team were involved too......
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@Walter Kronkite As I recall, all the Bush advisors who had any actual military or combat experience, with one exception, opposed the invasion of Iraq.
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@Walter Kronkite
Donald Trump and famlly's reign of American ruin closely resembles that of Czar Nicholas II and Alexandra Romanov and kids of Russia.
How did that turn out?
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If we judged our leaders by the consequences of their actions, GW Bush would be in prison. If we judged leaders by their goals & aspirations, Trump would be. In the end, I’m not really concerned about the fact that Bush had no judgment, or that Trump has neither integrity nor intelligence. I’m concerned about the fact that we as a country no longer have these things.
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Congratulations, Martin.
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@Martin I just wrote a similar comment in Nick Kristof's Op-Ed. America has the luxury of being separated from the rest of a restless world by two oceans and so we have had Presidents who barely cared for the rest of the world since Roosevelt.
After Eisenhower pretty much every President has been a running bull in a China shop, destroying everything in sight. I include Obama in the list and the latest, Trump.
I would raise W and Trump as war criminals, with W still in the lead by far.
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@Martin
The problem that has allowed such malfeasance in our government's actions especially foreign policy is the executive branch has been unrestrained by Congress.
What happened to Congress and the separation of powers? What will happen now that the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary has been packed with Republicans? What will stop any president in the future unless Congress passes laws against the extraordinary abuse of power by Trump?
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Certainly, "weak" is a necessary adjective to apply to Donald Trump, but it is not remotely close to being sufficient.
An adequate assessment of his liabilities would also include ignorant, venal, petty, mercurial, insecure (with cause), mendacious and narcissistic.
List all of the qualities one would want in an American president in these fraught times, then think of antonyms for each.
That is exactly who Donald Trump is.
Ross Douthat writes (not for the first time), that Trump is "unfit for the job."
A large and growing roster of the Republican/Conservative intelligentsia recognize this stark fact.
It remains to be seen whether or not twenty GOP Senators will act accordingly.
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@Tom Sullivan Well said. In sad truth, it remains to be seen if even one or two GOP Senators will ACT, not just give the usual rhetoric and move one. We'll see. Not holding my breathe.
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@Tom Sullivan
You forgot the two most important adjectives - evil and cruel.
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@Tom Sullivan
Add to the list that he is not only daft, but bonkers and a dangerous psychopath.
He can neither string one coherent sentence together nor hold a thought in his empty head more than a couple of minutes.
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Trump’s recent diatribe against General Mattis showed, again, just how weak this president is.
Trump mocked Mattis, in his predictable way, as the most overrated General, ever, and having been insufficiently tough about ISIS.
Gee, Donald, who put Jim Mattis in the White House in the first place?
Anyhow, Mattis showed strength and dignity in his response which Trump will never understand. Mattis remarked that he was pleased to be in a category with Meryl Streep (whom Trump also called overrated), took it as a distinction to be the most overrated General, ever, and also quipped that Colonel Sanders was more Trump’s type.
Again, Trump fails to see that his bullying and insults make him look anything but strong.
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@NM Mattis also noted that he had earned his spurs on the ground, while The Donald got his from a doctor's note.
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@NM Or Colonel Klink, perhaps?
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@Mike with pence as Schultz.... "I know nothing!!!"
Thanks to Mr Doubt-that things could get much better. I respect conservatives if they are honest. My Facebook page once described me as a conservative liberal. I dropped it cuz it's hard to explain, but this President is a shining example of why we still need TRUE conservatives. Lying, cheating and bullying aren't true conservative values. Just as hating hard work and exceptional skill (or even good luck) is not a liberal value. I truly don't mind rich people or lucky people if they don't try to keep other people poor!
It is sad to wait for Republicans to accept that Trump is a betrayal of their own beliefs. Get over it my friends. Impeach the man now or the demographics are gonna bite your party for generations.
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@Vikingtree The validity of this can be seen in any magazine and on television all day long. The number of Black and Hispanic and Asian models has increased exponentially as have the number of interracial couples in ads on TV. Advertisers go to and appeal to those whose dollars they expect to get and it is no longer to white people alone that they are appealing.
@Vikingtree, “ Lying, cheating and bullying aren't true conservative values.” Sorry, Vikingtree...yes they are.
Think: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Also think, Mitch McConnell, Trey Gowdy, Jim Jordan. THINK!
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Foreign policies are thoughtful responses to some things that are known and a lot of uncertainties. It is perilous because one can never know what will be the outcomes. Anyone who uses gut reactions is just introducing more unknown influences to how events will develop. For every decision there must be plans to implement them and contingencies for unintended consequences or chaotic events may result. It’s not the kind of human area of behavior that people like Trump who have no control over their impulses can hope to master.
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Trump reveals a person who never learned to master himself. He does not use disciplined thinking to consider important issues but acts according to impulses which he ascribes to as instinctual genius. He says things to generate reactions but he continually reverses himself and relates his stream of consciousness even when it’s irrelevant in the context of where he is doing so. He offers explanations for mistakes or bad outcomes which are obviously untrue. He is someone who does not seem to have any boundaries and even cannot appreciate the likely outcomes of his own decisions.
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My question is, at what point does mainstream media accept the idea as plausible that Putin has video footage of some extremely embarrassing behavior by Trump that he is using to blackmail the man?
It has been suggested by a man with a reputation as a good source of insider Russian intelligence, as we all know.
What does Trump have to do to reduce all other theories of his motivation for fulfilling Putin's foreign policy ambitions as inadequate. When the nearly unbelievable is the only believable thing.
On rare occasions conspiracy theories are correct.
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@alan haigh
Consider the "golden showers" as being metaphorical of the wealth that already came Trump's way via the hooks that Putin and his mafia have had in Trump's hide for a couple decades. And of the promise of more gold to come Trump's way via his underworld tether.
But, of course, with Trump, hooks and hookers are not necessarily, mutually exclusive.
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@alan haigh
It's possible that such footage exists, but unlikely that it is the reason for Trump's willingness to cater to Putin's every wish; Trump has demonstrated time and again that he is incapable of embarrassment. Equally, I doubt that his behavior is due to his admiration for Putin, though he does clearly admire him.
Rather, I suspect that Trump is personally financially liable to Russia in some way, most likely having to do with money laundering. Trump's way of going through the world is as a gangster, and it's mob-style "discipline" that he fears most.
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@alan haigh
"What does Trump have to do to reduce all other theories of his motivation for fulfilling Putin's foreign policy ambitions.."
Show us his business records.
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