President Trump will have been in office for six months, as of January 20, so observers are assessing how he’s doing so far.
His popularity is at record lows; the claims of a Russian connection will not die; he hasn’t passed any of his legislative agenda (taxes, the wall, health care, infrastructure).
But he has put a young and brilliant conservative justice on the Supreme Court. And his other judicial appointments are getting good marks from conservatives. That is an important legacy that could last for decades and have a major impact on the direction of the country.
After the jump, a relatively objective analysis. It makes the point that his biggest problem is that while the president makes mistakes, he doesn’t seem to be learning from them. His lack of discipline, the dysfunction of his staff, and his constant tweeting keep causing him trouble and prevent him from achieving his agenda. And he hasn’t done anything to make it better!
Other problems, of course, are the constant leaking and the hostile media coverage. But the leaking, again, has to do with his staff. Also a Republican-controlled Congress in disarray.
Yes, six months is early in his term. He has three and a half years to turn things around.
Do you think he can and will? Do you agree with those who think his presidency is a disaster that will get worse? Or do you think he is doing all right?
From Susan Page, Analysis: At six months, can Trump turn around his presidency?, USA Today:
The time for a turnaround is tightening.
The problem for President Trump is not just that he’s had a bumpy beginning in office – so did John Kennedy and Bill Clinton, among others. It’s also that he’s heading into the second half of his first year in the White House without yet applying lessons learned the hard way about imposing discipline, compartmentalizing scandal and adjusting course.
“It’s a presidency under siege,” Leon Panetta, a Democratic elder who helped rescue another embattled White House as chief of staff for President Clinton, said in an interview. “Unless some dramatic changes are made, I think there’s a real question about whether the presidency can survive.”
The first six months of Trump’s presidency were brutal.
The next six months could well be worse.
As the midpoint of his crucial first year approaches Thursday, a steady stream of disclosures about contacts between Trump’s team and Russians who may have involved in election meddling has transfixed Washington. When it comes to issues closer to Americans’ lives back home, the president is still in search of his first major legislative victory on a core campaign promise — to replace Obamacare with a “wonderful” new health care system, say, or to cut taxes, or to launch a massive investment in infrastructure, or to build a wall across the Mexican border.
[Keep reading. . .]
Photograph by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (Donald Trump) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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