Trump, deal maker? Not so fast. Donald Trump is bad at negotiating: We need to talk about Trump’s inability to credibly commit. “Ready, fire, aim”: Critics see pattern to Trump’s approach. What happens when a bad-tempered, distractible doofus runs an empire? Jonathan Bernstein on how Trump’s ineptitude is no joke. Trump’s staggering incompetence: Is this terrifying bumbler the GOP’s secret weapon? The Trump White House’s incompetence comes through, in ways trivial and tragic. These days Republicans do ideology and politics, but just don’t do policy. Don’t blame Trump’s advisers for Trump: The tendency to look for a puppet master behind Trump’s actions is misguided. Can we still talk about Donald Trump acting like a toddler?
The hardest job in the world: What if the problem isn’t the president — it’s the presidency? The problem isn’t Donald Trump — it’s the American presidency. Has the American presidency become overwhelmed by its ever-expanding powers? Karen J. Greenberg reviews The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office by Jeremi Suri. From Boston Review, Elaine Kamarck on the devolution of the modern president: Trump may be egregious, but he is also a symptom of a much bigger problem facing modern presidents — the inability to govern; and William Howell and Terry M. Moe on why the president needs more power: The Founding Fathers didn’t design Congress to solve national problems in the national interest.
