The man currently sitting in the Oval Office is incapable of performing the duties of the presidency. This is not a controversial statement; a top member of his own administration wrote an anonymous op-ed assuring the public that they and other members of that administration were actively working to "thwart" Trump's most damaging orders and "worst inclinations," thereby confirming to the public that there is an ongoing attempt to mitigate the damage from Trump's ignorance and impulsiveness.
But Trump is incapable of the job in an even more basic way: He cannot reliably show up for it. Instead, reports Politico, he spends the vast majority of his supposed workdays watching television and otherwise ignoring his responsibilities.
[W]hile the notion of Executive Time, and the president’s increasingly late start to the day, has come under scrutiny over the past year, this new batch of schedules obtained by POLITICO offers fresh insight into the extent to which that unscheduled time dominates Trump’s week and is shaping his presidency, allowing his whims and momentary interests to drive White House business.
Given the man's transparent incompetence, this might pass for good news. On the one hand, Trump cannot handle the duties of the presidency and is instead watching television, going golfing, and (especially) shrieking at rally crowds in campaign-style events that have little to do with the presidency and everything to do with boosting the fragile man's ego. On the other hand, every minute of the day Trump is spending puttering with his phone or phoning things in with his putter is a minute in which he is not personally doing damage to the nation with his ignorance. Maybe.
In practice, however, Trump's absence from policy debates, national security debates, and nearly every other aspect of the day-to-day presidency means those roles are being filled by the hard-line, arch-right functionaries that his team selected to fill the nooks and crannies of government. Trump himself has not the slightest idea what is happening in most policy discussions—hence the regular repetition of stock phrases and wild mischaracterizations of his own supposed "actions"—but more devoted partisans are picking up the slack with gusto.
That is likely why no members of Trump's staff are willing to come forward with what they are willing to say in anonymous op-eds: Trump is incapable of fully performing the duties of the presidency. He may be, but Mike Pence and other hard-right conservative believers are getting their most desired actions accomplished without him. Far-right nominees to the federal courts are being shoved through, few if any of them recognizable to Trump himself; voting rights are being curtailed; massively complicated "tax cuts" are being targeted to the most devoted conservative donors; and civic protections are being carved up in bulk.
All while Trump thumbs through his Twitter feed and watches hours of television, scanning for references to himself. It is no wonder he cannot competently explain his own administration’s policies: he’s not the one making them.
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