He Just Doesn’t Get It

What a lot of people don’t realize is that Trump, fundamentally, has no actual idea of what the job of being the leader of a country is. 

Even after more than a year in the position he doesn’t get it. 

It’s not being the head of some services company where, if he screws up and damages a client he can get away with it either by bribes or threatening to cost millions in legal fees. 

It’s not some TV show where he has full rein to be as offensive as he wants and can thrill to forcing multiple people to perform pointless and humiliating tasks

It’s not some company that, when he inevitably mismanages it, he can drop it into bankruptcy and pass all the pain onto the employees, investors, vendors and taxpayers. (I mean, we *are* talking about the guy who failed to make money selling booze, steaks and gambling to American men)

It’s not some public relations scheme where he can self-promote himself with blatant, serial, contradictory lies and force anybody else involved to keep silent under threat of lawsuit 

He is, in the end, someone who has *never* had to be accountable for his actions, because he has, until now, never actually had to be accountable, because he could always, again, bribe, outright or through legal settlements, or abuse the process of litigation

The actions he takes, as the head of a country, have real and profound consequences.   And those consequences cannot be hidden behind a legal settlement or an NDA or by habitually telling falsehoods. And he isn’t even aware, after over a year in the job, that he can neither run, nor hide. 

And this is shown, with amazing clarity, with his very public announcement that, on his own initiative and whim, he lied about matters of state, to *another* head of state, the leader of a nation that, up until now, has had long standing and strong ties of mutual support with the United States. 

And then, completely demolishing any chance of restoring trust by either admitting he was mistaken, or telling the white lie that he had been “misinformed,” publicly *bragged* about fabricating information about matters of mutual state security. 

When heads of state directly negotiate, rather than work through intermediaries, it is almost always as a last resort on matters of vital national importance.  And those negotiations rely on trust between all parties, that at least some level of honesty and gravity are present. 

And Trump has shown, for at least the remainder of his term of office, and likely for a good while beyond, that that trust and honesty will not be any part of negotiations between the United States and any other nation. 

And he doesn’t get it. 

At all