Trump’s “MO”

When we look back on the opening of Trump’s second term as U.S. president and try to identify a pattern, something emerges that would have been unthinkable anytime earlier in American history.

Apparently without any real thought, and on any given day:

1) Trump does something outrageous.  If you think you can guess what form this will take tomorrow, I’ll bet you $10 against a dime you’ll be wrong.

This can take any of a variety of forms: threatening military actions against one or more allies, using the justice system to harass/neutralize a political enemy, exonerate him for his crimes, invading large Democrat-run cities with federal troops, appointing crackpots to important cabinet posts, or, as in the case at left, doing something apparently benign, albeit idiotic in the extreme, trying to rename a large body of water that has been internationally recognized for its name for hundreds of years.

2) He either runs with it, or not. He’s clearly not embarrassed by anything, however stupid, he does or says.  He favors whatever plays with the media at any given moment in time.

The “Gulf of America” story is a great example; it came into and went out of the news fairly quickly.  Trump’s extreme tariffs on countries he doesn’t like have shifted in the breeze.  What inane idea that’s gotten him in the news today may be around tomorrow.  Or it may not.

To almost half of Americans, Trump’s behavior sounds like a solid and sane basis on which to run the world’s most powerful nation; I disagree.