I’ve been working on being sympathetic to President Trump. Not toward his policies, but to him as a human being. This has been a tough, miserable, nasty and just plain sad couple of months for the new president, and I’m trying to feel his pain.

His whole agenda is way behind because he can’t get his team in place, in part because some of the people he’s asked to join him are just too “busy,” or they can’t seem to tell the truth to Congress. I bet that’s been about as fun as being dropped into a pool of water filled with ice cubes.

Being president is especially tough for someone, like you, Mr. President, who is accustomed to getting your way through tantrums and threats. People say you’ll be a good president because you’ve run a successful business. But they aren’t at all the same thing, are they? You built a company that is so tightly controlled that blood relatives are just about the only people let into the inner sanctum. You run the show. You hire and fire.

Now you find yourself president of the United States, for gosh sakes, and it’s not like that at all, is it? Sure, you’ve got the nice plane and the house with the columns, but it’s a complicated, mentally exhausting job with a bewildering array of new demands. Plus there are people on all sides who have to be consulted and won over and who won’t just follow orders.

During the campaign, you could pretty much say whatever you wanted – the wilder the better. You could promise earth-shaking change. Deporting millions of immigrants. Bringing back all those blue-collar jobs. Making America great again!

Now, it turns out, all those things are tough to get done. Sure, you can fire off some executive orders, but you’ve already seen their limits. Most of your Cabinet nominees made it through, but that’s small potatoes, everyday stuff. The tough work is just beginning. And it all has to go through Congress, which is a mess.

In Congress, it’s a hundred times easier to stop things than to get them done, as the Democrats learned with Obama and as your Republican allies are about to be reminded of. You have to put your big ideas into detailed bills. Then they need a majority of votes in both houses. (I know, it seems crazy.)

I’m beginning to understand why you admire Russian President Vladimir Putin so much. He doesn’t have to deal with this stuff. Anti-government leaks? They have the Gulag. Opposition party? Just cyberattack the voting machines. Courts to protect the law? Not if judges like to look at jails from the outside.

But that’s all a dream, and you’re stuck here in the reality of modern America. Or are you?

What about if you stop listening to all those people with their alternative facts? Like the media. The courts. Moderate Republicans. The FBI and CIA. Scientists at NOAA and NASA. They’re all out to get you and ruin your best-ever presidency.

Stick with the people you trust. The ones who see through all that liberal, swampy Washington stuff. Like Steve Bannon. And the talk shows. And Fox. All those conspiracies they whisper about? True. And scary, very scary. The crime rate is raging because of Mexicans. Muslims are all secretly terrorist supporters. Democrats sold our industries to the highest bidders abroad. The CIA and FBI are agents of the Democratic party. And you were bugged by all of them, with President Obama leading the charge.

This is where my sympathy for Trump, as a human being, is challenged and my fear of him increases.

Last week, the president kind of lost it. First he told an interviewer that he felt “besieged” on all sides. Then he flew into a rage about his attorney general recusing himself from the Russian investigation. Two days later, he was tweeting explosive charges against Obama that he’d heard as conspiracy theories the night before on some of the right-wing echo chambers.

All of it made me wonder if this president can handle the job. If he knows what reality is. And if he’s beginning to lose his grip.

The president seems to have no desire to hear facts that don’t confirm his beliefs, combined with a dangerous habit of lashing out with whatever is within reach to attack someone or something that he perceives as a threat. None of it bodes well for America in the months ahead.

Let’s hope that Trump learns how to govern more and tweet less before we see a complete meltdown.

Alan Caron is the owner of Caron Communications and the author of “Maine’s Next Economy” and “Reinventing Maine Government.” He can be contacted at:

alancaroninmaine@gmail.com

Copy the Story Link