Proper use of “realpolitik” aside, I think Trump is a two term president. I think his “failures” are more often seen as accomplishments in his constituents eyes and that he has “successes,” he can point to to legitimize his obsene nature. People will forgive an obscene emperor if their bellies are full, they feel safe and the emperor only bullies the “others.” Question is, are their bellies full and do they feel safe? If the answer is “yes,” then we are fawked. The left is making the same mistake they made with Bush. They’re assuming trump is stupid and unaccomplished. He’s not. He’s a fucking genious when it comes to populism and he’s accomplishing a fuck-ton, just not a fuck ton the left cares about. Improsoning brown babies... left is enraged and the right sees their messiah. Two terms. By the way, I called his presidency when we were in the first GOP debates. It’s somewhere here on Hubski. Left needs to wake up and realize they’re not playing with some lucky fool. This guy is legit.
You were right and I was wrong about Trump being a one-term president. I deeply hope you're wrong about Trump being a two-term president. That aside, the argument made by the article (and the argument you're making here) is that Trump has some sort of crazy-like-a-fox strategy that is allowing him to "get things done." And it's just not true. I'm not going to make the arguments again because apparently you ignored them the first time so repeating myself isn't going to edify either one of us. I will cheerfully agree that setbacks are being portrayed as victories and the status quo is being portrayed as a revolution but objectively speaking, Trump has accomplished exactly dick. The Republican establishment is cheerfully using his malignant neglect to let the government drown in the bathtub, to be sure - but aside from the populism, he's got nuthin'. And populism will go a long way, to be sure. But you can't eat it, and it won't keep a roof over your head. It's the little things: we've got a project in shop class we might not get to do this year because steel tariffs have pushed it out of the budget. And if a pissant little technical college in Boeing's back yard can't get steel, how's Kenworth doing? Caterpillar? John Deere? One thing about populist governments: they come and go quickly.