Talking About Donald Trump: Do you agree that the longer Trump is in office he becomes less Presidential?


On Quora, member Kathy Houk asks:

Do you agree that the longer Trump is in office he becomes less Presidential?

My reply is:


No. I do not agree that Trump is becoming less Presidential with the passage of time.
Why?
Because he never was Presidential, to begin with.
Donald John Trump was not, as his supporters and detractors so often remind us, a conventional Presidential candidate who could be diplomatic, thoughtful, or genuinely interested in “making America great” for everyone. He was not a “career politician” who had mastered the ways of Washington DC or wanted to curry favor with the media or those voters who weren’t going to vote for him.
In other words, he was determined to be Donald Trump, tough-talking real estate mogul, television personality, and proud spokesperson for the Birther conspiracy theorists.
If you look at the highlights of Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, you’ll see that he was not interested in smoothing over his “tough guy from Queens” persona to appeal to all Americans. He (and his campaign team) knew that the way to win the election (the only way, really) was to constantly attack the opposition and say outrageous things, knowing full well that the press would cover it, repeat it endlessly in the 24/7 news cycle, and either create great revulsion in one camp or attract followers in the other.
In a country that was already divided over President Barack Obama’s two successful elections, plus the ongoing wars in the Middle East, it was easy for Trump to win in 2016 due to his adherence to the old Roman motto, divide et impera.
Now, considering that his first Chief of Staff, Rance Priebus, was a bigshot in the Republican Party, you’d think that Trump would have used the transition period between Election Night in November 2016 to his Inauguration on January 20, 2017 to adjust his abrasive, brash, and boastful persona into a more Presidential one.
Nope. He did not do that, either.
Starting with the braggadocio over the crowd size at his Inauguration and his claim that Mexico is going to pay for the border wall, Trump has never acted Presidential. He constantly panders to his base with empty words and attacks on the free press, his political adversaries, and anyone who disagrees with his divisive agenda.
Want to see a man who, despite being humanly flawed, was truly Presidential?

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