A Rudderless Ship

While putting to one side DJT's pronouncement that the initial (not the notoriously offensive one) meeting with members of congress was the greatest meeting in the history of meetings, it must be said that it allowed the viewing public an opportunity to see their representatives actually positioning themselves in a forum where bipartisan statesmanship could take place. Unsurprisingly, the 'meeting' was largely vacuous with our president ultimately failing to deliver a clear directive regarding DACA to the congressional members charged with the responsibility in enacting this important piece of legislation along with a continuing resolution to avoid a governmental shutdown.

DJT lack of leadership was predictable from the beginning of the administration as he has never shown much interest (or intellectual curiosity) in matters of actual policy, preferring instead to delegate to others the implementation of a rather broad and often vague 'conservative' agenda the nature and details of which the president seemingly does not comprehend and in which he is unwilling to actively participate. In the meeting cited above, he actually stated at one point that, being an outsider, he was now turning the matter over to those assembled to 'work out' and return a piece of legislation that he could sign. It sounded good but unfortunately did not provide any clear direction (especially to those of his own party) in terms of what was meant by the phrase 'legislation that he could sign'. The chaos that has followed this lack of direction is evident in the indecision of these lawmakers as they now attempt to decipher the conflicting, confusing, and unclear messages from the White House.

Trump's indifference to detail and penchant for deflecting responsibility for the actual running of an organization should not come as a surprise. As biographers David Cay Johnston (The Making of Donald Trump) and Wayne Barrett (The Greatest Show On Earth...) have illustrated at length, DJT is first and foremost a showman, concerned primarily with the perpetuation of his self-designed grandiose image while displaying neither the curiosity nor the aptitude for mundane matters of actual executive leadership. This lack of command and its accompanying chaos is now on full display as all parties scramble to sort through the confusion, address the crying needs of children seeking family preservation and a path toward citizenship, and keep the government afloat while the ship's captain is content to remain asleep at the wheel.