The media and the unpresidential Trump

Trump in Corpus Christi, TX

Why do the media – on both sides – keep doing this? Why keep predicting that the man currently occupying the Oval Office will somehow become “presidential” if he manages to do the absolute bare minimum without falling on his face or declaring war against the moon?

The New York Times reports today that the disaster caused by Harvey offers President Donald Trump “an opportunity to recapture some of the unifying power of his office he has squandered in recent weeks.” His planned trips to Texas and Louisiana this week demonstrate that he “is behaving like a man whose future depends on getting this right.” He “used the dulcet, reassuring and uplifting language of prior presidents” in announcing the trips, in a manner “strikingly different” from his near-defense of white supremacists and neo-Nazis earlier this month. At a news conference yesterday, he “repeatedly praised the joint response of federal officials, echoing his upbeat tweets over the weekend.”

All Trump has to do is the absolute minimum expected of a president -- say he’ll show up at a disaster site, and manage to discuss the disaster without insulting anyone -- and visions of “the pivot” dance in the heads of White House political reporters. That’s how low the bar is now being set.

There will be no pivot. There can be no pivot. Trump is fundamentally incapable of acting presidential. Instead, he’d rather use his visit to hurricane-ravaged Texas to – you guessed it, didn’t you? – brag about his crowd size:

During his visit to Texas in response to Hurricane Harvey, President Trump told a crowd gathered outside a Corpus Christi firehouse, "What a crowd. What a turnout," according to media reports.

I wonder how long it’ll take before history agrees in unanimity that the US made the worst possible mistake on November 16, 2016 CE?

(via Joe.My.God.)