More anti-Trump

Jonah Goldberg in National Review:

...my National Review colleague (well, boss) Rich Lowry penned a widely discussed piece for Politico, “The Crisis of Trumpism,” in which he argued that Trump’s basic problem is that he has no idea what he wants to do or how to get it done. “No officeholder in Washington,” Lowry writes, “seems to understand President Donald Trump’s populism or have a cogent theory of how to effect it in practice, including the president himself.”...

Trump brings the same glandular, impulsive style to meetings and interviews as he does to social media. He blurts out ideas or claims that send staff scrambling to see them implemented or defended. His management style is Hobbesian. Rivalries are encouraged. Senior aides panic at the thought of not being part of his movable entourage. He cares more about saving face and “counterpunching” his critics than he does about getting policy victories.

 

In short, the problem is Trump’s personality. His presidency doesn’t suffer from a failure of ideas, but a failure of character. 

 

 For the last two years, when asked how I thought the Trump administration would go, I’ve replied, “Character is destiny.” This wasn’t necessarily a prediction of a divorce or sexual scandal, but rather an acknowledgment of the fact that, under normal circumstances, people don’t change. And septuagenarian billionaires who’ve won so many spins of the roulette wheel of life are even less likely to change.