Fun Times in TrumpTown

As SE Texas continues to recover from Hurricane Harvey, TrumpTown also is getting its first true taste of turbulent weather. For seven months now our esteemed President Cheeto Benito has primarily manufactured turmoil of his own creation, like falsely claiming his inauguration had the largest crowd size ever, and firing the FBI director. Now incidences are arising from outside Trump’s personal orbit that require actual leadership.

As we’ve seen from a recent focus group that included Trump voters, the president’s shtick is wearing thin. He’s seen as not professional, much less presidential. As his job approval numbers continue to fall, even among Republicans, Trump inches closer to the American people losing faith in his ability to carry out the basic aspects of his office.

The president ended August with a job approval rating of 34 percent, and a disapproval at 60 percent, according to Gallup. Those are historically poor numbers for a president in office such a short time.

When you look at Trump’s handling of Charlottesville, pardoning Sheriff Joe, and now invalidating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), he’s shooting himself in the foot. These were easy wins for this administration, but instead Trump sided with white nationalists and the KKK. That is the kind of decision making that will see Trump’s approval drop into the 20s.

Congress returns this week from its August recess, where its primary focus will be hurricane relief for Texas. It was cute to see Trump and his super model trophy wife dishing out free meals over the weekend, but his sludgy approval ratings and chaos presidency make no Congressional members fear or respect his office.

Hurricane Harvey continues to unfold. Some 43 people are confirmed dead, more than 30,000 remain in shelters, 436,000 have requested FEMA assistance, and an estimated 200,000 homes were destroyed. Water remains high in many areas and a fight is brewing over how to fund relief, and make whole those without flood insurance.

As Harvey plays out and Hurricane Irma barrels toward the U.S., Trump has several legislative items in addition to hurricane relief that are mandatory to accomplish by month’s end. On September 29 the United States will hit its debt limit and raising it requires 60 votes to move forward. Then on October 1 government funding runs out and a new budget is required.

A continuing budget resolution will work until the end of the year, but either this month or in December, Trump and his ludicrous border wall funding will become a serious debate topic. It’s inconceivable yet possible that Trump would shut down the Republican-controlled government over Congress rightfully not providing taxpayer money for a wall we were promised Mexico would pay for. Throw into the mix a tax cut bill for the richest one percent, and this becomes a rather congested legislative calendar.

One of Trump’s chief positives was the idea he could broker deals between divisive parties. This has never come to fruition. The supposed dealmaker has alienated himself from the people, moderates, business leaders, and driven a wedge between his own party in Congress. He wants to blame Ryan and McConnell for health care, and for nothing getting done, but it’s all Trump.

The president likes to tweet about how his administration is running smoothly, but reports from inside the White House depict angry outbursts and dark moods by the would be king.

Apparently Trump is tiring of the controls put in place by Gen. John Kelly, his latest Chief of Staff. Evidently this is cutting into the chaos president’s “love of spontaneity and brashness.” His henchmen and hangers-on have taken to referring to Kelly as ‘the Church Lady’ because they consider him overly strict and morally superior. Yes kids, that is exactly the job Kelly was hired to serve in hopes of bringing some order to this presidency.

Trump’s pissed at Sec. of State Rex Tillerson for his criticism, and characterized his top diplomat’s approach to world affairs as “totally establishment.” The translation for that would be Tillerson is acting as an adult and behaving responsibly.

Don’t forget Trump’s simmering over what is perceived as disloyalty from National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, who publicly criticized Trump’s responses to Charlottesville.

Do you see a theme here? It’s always someone else’s fault. It’s getting harder and harder to find anyone of substance and character that agrees with Trump, because he lacks empathy, discipline, and even a semblance of moral values.

As Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) put it recently, Trump is “a president who has no experience of public office, is often poorly informed and can be impulsive in his speech and conduct.”

Meanwhile Charlottesville is not going away, the drip, drip, drip of the Russia probe keeps coming, and North Korea is firing missiles left and right.

Yes, the real fun is just getting started in TrumpTown.

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