The Spectator

Trump vs Trump

The US President is often his own worst enemy

It’s easy to see why Donald Trump gets angry. He is presiding over a robust economy, growing at the fastest rate of any major economy. His recent tax cut has encouraged jobs and investment to come back to the United States. Apple alone is redirecting an extra $38 billion in tax towards the Treasury’s coffers. Other employers are using the tax cuts to pay workers a bonus: AT&T is handing 200,000 of its staff a payout averaging $1,000 each. There’s so much economic optimism that even Democrat voters say they feel better about the economy than they did under Barack Obama. But Trump isn’t taking much credit. He is still very much blamed — and his approval ratings are still very low, worse than any other President going into his second year.

Trump blames the media, and he’s not entirely wrong. But his real opponent is himself. He continues to behave in a way that disgraces his office and embarrasses millions of Americans. They dislike his use of profanity, his intemperate tweeting and his general refusal to behave with the decorum expected of a grown-up, let alone a President. No amount of economic growth can hide this fact. Americans would accept his tactics as an electioneering tool, a means of grabbing attention. But to have a commander-in-chief who talks and acts in such a way is, for many Americans, mortifying.

His State of the Union address sought to strike a very different tone from his ‘American carnage’ speech at his inauguration. He was more conciliatory. He talked about the virtue of compromise and said he stood ready to do a deal to offer citizenship to illegal immigrants. It’s tempting to dismiss such rhetoric, given the nature of his presidency so far, but there are grounds to think that he might be trying to set a new tone.

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