“The Mueller report makes Trump look vain, ignorant, inept and astonishingly dishonest.” So writes my Washington Examiner colleague Quin Hillyer, never an enthusiast of Donald Trump.
He is referring to one passage which shows the president ordering his White House counsel to arrange the firing of the special counsel, then ordering him to state in writing he never said that; to a second passage suggesting that Trump was dangling pardons to cooperative aides; and to other passages in which Trump vents his rage at the protracted investigation which eventually, after almost two years, found no evidence that he or his people colluded with Russia.
House Democrats are looking hard to find something that a bare majority of House members will find a plausible basis for impeaching the president. They will ignore the fact that Trump’s aides, notably White House counsel Don McGahn, refused to carry out his orders or ignored his suggestions. They will call this obstruction of justice, even though it’s nothing more than thinking bad thoughts out loud.
That’s not an offense that will get him removed from office by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. But it is a species of political malpractice, one that may lead the voters to remove him in November 2020.
And it’s very different from the modus operandi of the three most successful presidents of the last 90 years, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan, who won their second terms with an average of 59% of the popular vote.
Donald Trump shares all but his innermost thoughts with us. Moments of irritation and of elation prompt instant tweets, full of execration and exultation respectively.
Not so with Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan. Each of them projected an image of friendliness and cheer. Each seemed to have shared the tastes and gut instincts of ordinary people.
But none of the three had any really close friends, any aides or companions with whom they shared their plans and revealed their reactions to people and events. Each had gone through a long period of enforced idleness, an enforced hibernation, in what are for most professionals their peak years — Roosevelt bedridden with polio, Eisenhower stuck at lieutenant colonel, Reagan as his movie career declined. Each then suddenly gained great fame — Roosevelt and Reagan as governors of the nation’s largest states, Eisenhower as commander of the nation’s largest military operation.
Each came to the presidency accustomed to great responsibility and to long loneliness. As president, each kept his strategy and most of his tactics to himself. Not one seems to have fully trusted or confided in anyone for any extended period. Not one seems to have wanted the public to know how knowledgeable and well read he was. Each managed to fool historians on that point as well.
There are some, but only a few, resemblances between these three presidents and Donald Trump. Trump did enjoy success and gain fame early, and perhaps a form of enforced hibernation during his near-bankruptcy in the 1990s. He seems to share the tastes and instincts of many ordinary people.
But he has nothing like the self-discipline apparent in the determination of Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan to keep their long-term strategies and as much as possible of their short-term tactics to themselves. Roosevelt cordially disliked some political allies, Eisenhower had a volcanic temper, Reagan had his pet hates, but they all kept these things secret from the public and, mostly, from their closest aides as well.
The contrast with Donald Trump is obvious. You can get his instant responses to just about any public event or political development by signing up for his Twitter feed. Former aides, political allies, and rank-and-file supporters have all suggested, multiple times, that someone grab and hide the cellphone on which he tweets. No one has done it.
It’s obviously foolish for Democrats to follow the advice of Trump haters in the media and impeach Trump for making comments and threats he and his subordinates never acted on. Nor are his expressions of rage at an investigation evidence of guilt, as CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin argued even after Mueller’s finding of no collusion with Russia. Vagrant musings should not be the basis for overturning the result of a presidential election.
But neither is the dismissal of charges evidence that Trump’s undisciplined self-exposure is the best way to govern. Maybe he should click off cable news and read a few books to see how his three most successful recent predecessors managed to keep to themselves.
