The problem Trump faces is he's temperamentally not a gregarious Ronald Reagan who charmed the press and could read a teleprompter and make people feel good about making a sacrifice.
Trump is a petty individual who can be baited into anger with a mere Tweet. He's a person who's now personally threatening journalists. When Trump threatened Mitch McConnell, Mitch made a great public display of pushing back.
The response to Putin for interfering in the US election is already in process and a mere President will not be able to restrain it or stop it - the process would merely go underground. The people recruited into these organizations are patriots to their country and its long term interests, regardless of what some President says. This has happened before and it will again. Reagan with all of his charm and allies found he didn't control large swaths of the government.
In reaching out to the establishment in filling out his administration, Trump's putting into place people who are not loyal to him.
If Trump circles the wagons like Nixon did in his second term and surrounds himself with loyal yes-men, Trump will almost certainly be Impeached by Republican Party perhaps with some support from the Democratic Party. VP Mike Pence is a person the Republican Party leaders would have preferred as President, and they can easily make that so.
Trump can't emulate Reagan for longer than 30 minutes. For all of his weaknesses, Reagan didn't have a mean bone in his body, no thirst for vengeance, rarely ever anger and always briefly over something small. Reagan was a consummate insider supported by a lot of wealthy establishment business people. Trump is none of these things, he's mostly a Richard Nixon without Nixon's intelligence.
Trump actually didn't want to live in the White House, but under great pressure has realized he will be living there, not in Manhattan. As always happens his neighbors and businesses in his neighborhood are already fed up. This is why Ronald Reagan went to his ranch, not to a home in Bel-Aire. Trump is a rank amateur who understands none of this. He had no expectation of ever being President. Not a bad pedigree for Harry Truman, another consummate insider, but not for a reality TV show host.
Even Trump's Chief-of-Staff, Reince Priebus, is there to keep tabs on him which is why Trump will almost certainly want to replace him after he's been in office for a short period of time. But that would be the opening volley in a war with the Republican Party - and that's not even slightly Ronald Reagan - more like a low-quality Nixon or Mussolini. |
