Trump’s Failures, According to Trump Supporters

 

This is a thread for those of us who generally support Donald Trump and his presidency to discuss his failings. I would ask that Trump opponents please do not post here, since we already know what you dislike about the man.

I think it is important to document what we see as his mistakes so we can avoid them in the future.

One of the bigger failures in his COVID campaign was not letting scientists/physicians discuss scientific findings for him, since they can be precise and technical, while he is relaxed and acting as the everyman leader. This could have prevented a number of scandals. Also, have Fauci and company explain themselves better. The mask-or-not-to-mask flip-flop, excessive social regulations, and the excusing of protests destroyed public trust in public health.

He also missed the chance to push for long-lasting reforms, like destroying “certificate of need” rules.

Trump also massively failed in underestimating just how deep the swamp went. He ended up cycling through a lot of people needlessly – get the mass firing out of the way on day one.

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  1. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    COVID: he didn’t maintain his frame that this is not primarily a science question, but that this was in fact primarily a question of acceptable risk and competing values. The science should inform that, of course, but it’s madness to think that the science can answer it in some objective way. So President Trump ended with a muddled mix of the two, satisfying no one.

    • #1
  2. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Swamp:

    it’s hard to say and I’m just guessing, but I think it’s been a failure that nothing will happen to any of the perpetrators of the Russia Collusion Hoax.

    It’s hard to fault him in particular since the Swamp is so pervasive and treacherous, but he failed in personnel decisions with few outstanding exceptions.

    • #2
  3. DonG (2+2=5. Say it!) Coolidge
    DonG (2+2=5. Say it!)
    @DonG

    OmegaPaladin: One of the bigger failure in his COVID campaign was not letting scientists / physicians discuss scientific findings for him, since they can be precise and technical, while he is relaxed and acting as the everyman leader.

    Trump had bad personal and Dr. Fauci was one of the worst.  That man was a well-paid fool and his ramblings killed a million people.  Trump should have fired a *lot* of people and not trusted Paul Ryan.

    • #3
  4. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    He was in a difficult spot when he was elected because I don’t think he realized what was going to be directed at him based on pure, unadulterated hate. I guess he assumed he’d get a period of time to get his people and agenda in place, but that didn’t happen. Then, because he didn’t realize how important it was to get good people in place, a lot of his personnel picks were mistakes. Imagine Bill Barr as AG from the beginning.

    I think he could have done a better job fending off a lot of the maniacal attacks by using more humor and good-natured opposition rather than constantly going on the attack, but I guess that’s not his nature.

    He managed to get a lot more done than I suspected he could, but too much of it is now being undone by Sleepy Joe and his overlords without much effort.

    Fauci is [redacted profanity].

    • #4
  5. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    His biggest failing, he thought that saying something should be so, would make it so.

    He accomplished quite a bit. But he also made extravagant, nay, unrealistic, promises.

    He gave his enemies lots of ammo.

     

    • #5
  6. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    He understood way too late the need to go after Big Tech and Critical Race Theory.

    • #6
  7. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    I have always thought Trump should do more against eminent domain and civil asset forfeiture.

    • #7
  8. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Altogether, I think that Trump never could find loyal, or agreeable, or similarly-minded people to fill his top executive spots.  He replace Chief of Staff, and DOG and FBI heads but they were actually no better.  I think the fix was in early on to deny him competent staff, or to threaten or corrupt the competent ones.

    In hindsight, I don’t think there was any way he could win.  I’m a little surprised he actually survived, breathing-wise.

    • #8
  9. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    All four of his Chiefs of Staff were swamp creatures. His biggest failure was allowing DC people into his inner circle. They gave him bad advice all the time, and especially on the election fraud. Some of that was probably unavoidable, he couldn’t know all of the people who would betray him, but listening to the right (courageous) voices isn’t always easy when the cowards have such smooth, forked tongues.

    Here is a good summary from one of his idealistic young staffers about the depth of the swamp, the fact that the White House staff is largely composed if career personnel, and how there were so many layers around them dedicated to insulating him from the truth, and from implementing his campaign policies:

     

    • #9
  10. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    My only beef were really two things, and they’re not minor: his constant Tweets (good or bad) and his ego, otherwise he did a great job, while swimming against a massive tidal wave (not just high tide) like a salmon trying to leave his mark before his demise. The Tweets made people cringe, me included and I felt were un-presidential. He would have done better holding fireside chats in a fuzzy sweater – at least making his case on the issues that mattered to him; and they all mattered to him. He really cares about America and the working class. He never cared about his popularity, but he cared about results, and sometimes perception influences results.  

    I think that’s why he Tweeted all the time – the media was always dissing him, and never giving his due credit. His ego got in his way at times, always complimenting himself, which got annoying and old, but I get it. Again, he wasn’t portrayed fairly. We do have a dishonest, imbalanced media, and now a censored media. He saw it all coming. He could not change places like Portland and Seattle, and Baltimore or Chicago, or LA – the rampant homelessness, drug use, lawlessness and it was frustrating to him and all of us. He did not overstep -he wanted the leadership in those states to ask for help.

    The pandemic was unreal – never got the facts from China to this day. He pulled Herculean feats just the same – getting all industries to work together, vaccines, floating hospitals, manufacturing, greenlighting all avenues to bring help. He stood up to our adversaries, brought companies back from overseas with incentives, and jobs. We were lucky to have him that last four years. He was an outsider all the same, and there was no way they would allow him another term, even those within the Republican Party. We saw the scandals and lies unfold from the State Dept. Comey, Hilary, a hatchet job from the beginning. Lesser people would have folded.

    We won’t see that again, and by the next election, we’ll be living in a different place. He laid the groundwork and it’s up to all of us to pick up the mantel and keep going – we will face the tidal wave of liberalism/Marxism like never before. We don’t know that face. The Greatest Generation did – and they are dying out. That’s why they want to erase the past, so we don’t remember what they did to defeat it.

    • #10
  11. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Member
    DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):
    His biggest failure was allowing DC people into his inner circle. They gave him bad advice all the time, and especially on the election fraud. Some of that was probably unavoidable, he couldn’t know all of the people who would betray him, but listening to the right (courageous) voices isn’t always easy when the cowards have such smooth, forked tongues.

    This is what I was going to say.

    A lot more people should have been fired, or fired sooner.

     

    • #11
  12. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    His biggest issue was leaving embedded Democrats in power.  He should have removed the entire political class from office and replace with GOP loyal.  Of course, the concept of loyal GOP is problematic.  

    • #12
  13. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    He should have fired all political appointees in the Executive Branch within the first week.  Then, he should have listened to Rush Limbaugh about the level of hate that would come his way, so he could ignore it, laugh at it, and fight it.

    My thought was that, when a department slow-walked or ignored an order from his office, he should have walked over to wherever it was, and called an all-hands meeting.  He should have told everyone that, from now on, They work for Him, and he expected his orders to be obeyed, or heads would roll. That is something that can’t be done by a polite letter, it must be done in person.  He had the stature for it, too, being a tall guy.  Once they saw the whites of his eyes, and he saw theirs, they would have understood that Trump meant business.  I think that it would only take one or two of those meetings to put the fear of the President into the swamp-dwellers’ hearts.

    • #13
  14. DJ EJ Member
    DJ EJ
    @DJEJ

    As we see the Senate moving in an organized fashion to hold hearings and give up or down votes on Biden’s cabinet and administration nominees in a timely fashion, it really makes me resent Democrat senators’ obstructionism four years ago. Imagine what Rick “the fixer” Grenell could have done with more time, or during a second Trump term.

    Trump shouldn’t have listened to Ryan and other members of Congress when they pushed him to reorder his priorities and hold off on major campaign promises like immigration reform, securing the border, and building the wall. I now understand how few in Congress actually want a secure border and how many of them are beholden to the Chamber of Commerce. All of those Republican Congressional retirement announcements before the 2018 midterms were probably when Trump realized they wouldn’t fight for us or him, but by then it was too late. With the Dems back in charge, too many things that should have been accomplished through legislation had to be done through executive order, and we’re watching them all get rescinded with the stroke of Biden’s pen.

    As much as I oppose everything the Dems are ramming through Congress right now, at least they know how to push through bill after bill as fast as possible when they have the power to do so and without regard as to how unpopular those bills will make them. Being power hungry ideologues does make them truly effective politicians.

    On January 6th when the local station picked up the Fox News feed it was immediately obvious that depending on which Fox News personality was talking, the vocabulary used to describe the event was different. All of them were giving their hot takes with little first-hand knowledge. I remember Chris Wallace blaming Trump almost immediately and perhaps even calling it an insurrection (if I’m remembering correctly). All the January 6th hot takes were great insights into who all these journalists, pundits, politicians, and celebrities really are and what they think. The masks were off, and the narrative was being shaped as it happened before all the facts were (and still aren’t) known. I really wanted Trump to come on live TV and call for peace, order, and for people to disperse from the Capitol grounds before Biden came on TV to give his statement. From a purely political and narrative shaping perspective, I think Trump needed to do that first as it would have blunted and perhaps even prevented so much of the fear-mongering and “Fortress Washington” the Dems are still using to exploit what happened even now. He and/or his staff failed to act quickly and have Trump speak to the nation in those brief minutes where he could have led as peacemaker before Biden’s handlers woke him up to bumble his way through a sanctimonious and hypocritical condemnatory statement.

    • #14
  15. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    I agree with the posts about firing career political appointees. Leaving them in place was a mistake. 

    Also, his generally abrasive manner was and seems to remain a character flaw that makes enemies out of those who could otherwise be allies. Giving the Ds and their propaganda machine the richly deserved rhetorical punch in the mouth is all well and good, but even vehement disagreements with his staff or other Republicans could have and  should have been handled with greater aplomb, more light and less heat,  and he would have been well-served had he left a means of saving face for all parties involved. 

    I want to comment on a virtue of Trump’s, though, that the next Republican nominee for President and indeed every Republican running for elected office needs to emulate: Minority outreach. The only mistake he made in this aspect was not going even further, but, then, he had other items on his to-do list. 

    • #15
  16. CB Toder aka Mama Toad Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad
    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    Flicker (View Comment):
    In hindsight, I don’t think there was any way he could win. I’m a little surprised he actually survived, breathing-wise.

    The only Republican president the Democrats have hated more than Trump was Lincoln, and him they killed.

    I’m surprised too. God bless the Secret Service!

    • #16
  17. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    He didn’t hold the line when it came to signing the budget.

    • #17
  18. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    His biggest failing was bringing the swamp into and trusting it early on in his admin.

    Specifically Priebus and Ryan to name a couple.

    • #18
  19. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    No governmental/bureaucracy reform.  Should have closed/consolidated agencies, cleaned out the partisans.

    • #19
  20. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Member
    DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone
    @DrewInWisconsin

    DJ EJ (View Comment):
    As much as I oppose everything the Dems are ramming through Congress right now, at least they know how to push through bill after bill as fast as possible when they have the power to do so and without regard as to how unpopular those bills will make them. Being power hungry ideologues does make them truly effective politicians.

    It is quite impressive.

    • #20
  21. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    I was impressed with how well he hung in there in trying to trim back the ExIm bank, but his base didn’t have his back on it, and finally he gave up. I blame that mostly on his base, but Trump bears some responsibility, too. Although he was persistent, I am not aware that he communicated anything to the country about how this was an important beachhead in prying open the deep state to the other reforms that his base wanted. 

    A related issue was the covid epidemic. He missed an opportunity to  reform the deep state when he didn’t do anything to whack the FDA over the head with a 2×4 so it would approve rapid antigen tests for over-the-counter use.  The pandemic in the U.S. would be much more diminished by now if he had done that.  Biden has talked a good game, but I doubt he will get this done, because it means giving up government control and letting people make their own decisions. This should have been an issue ready-made for Trump and his base, but too many of Trump’s base are in denial, which means the left gets to have its way in regulating us the way it wants to, even if it costs tens of thousands of lives. (It’s a version of a problem that has occurred over and over again over the last century. It’s why we have an abusive, out-of-control EPA, for example.) 

    • #21
  22. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Member
    DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Hartmann von Aue (View Comment):
    I want to comment on a virtue of Trump’s, though, that the next Republican nominee for President and indeed every Republican running for elected office needs to emulate: Minority outreach. The only mistake he made in this aspect was not going even further, but, then, he had other items on his to-do list. 

    This belongs here:

    • #22
  23. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    I think Trump’s biggest failure was himself. He was undisciplined. Totally and completely. His rambling speeches a la Fidel Castro droning on and on showed that. 

    And then there is:

    In His Final Days, Trump Gave Up on Forcing Release of Russiagate Files

    Angelo Codevilla has numerous articles in American Greatness on Trump’s failings and how the Deep State got the better of him.

    Post-Trump there is this from Codevilla which shows what conservatives are up against. It’s why I’m in favor of defunding the FBI, CIA, NSA and all the rest of them. They are enemies of the democratic process.

    Can MAGA do better than Trump? I hope so.

    • #23
  24. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Hang On (View Comment):
    Can MAGA do better than Trump? I hope so.

    I think they can, but the Deep State will become even more unhinged when we do.

    Trump was stage one. He very much made clear who the enemies and saboteurs are in government, media, and punditocracy.

    My biggest criticisms of him were things I don’t think were politically feasible, not doing them was enlightening and revealing, but his failure to act harmed a lot of people.

    His handling of the Summer Riots was, to me, his biggest failure but I don’t know if his acting to protect those people would have hidden how awful the Democrats are. And people need to know.

    • #24
  25. Freeven Member
    Freeven
    @Freeven

    OmegaPaladin:

    This is a thread for those of us who generally support Donald Trump and his presidency to discuss his failings. I would ask that Trump opponents please do not post here, since we already know what you dislike about the man.

    I think it is important to document what we see as his mistakes so we can avoid them in the future.

    I’m not sure how to distinguish between failings and mistakes in this context, so I’ll reframe it and say my biggest disappointment (which I consider both a mistake and a failing) is that Trump continued to spend money we do not have — and did so an an exponential rate. He didn’t as much as pay lip service to fiscal restraint.

    • #25
  26. Goldwaterwoman Thatcher
    Goldwaterwoman
    @goldwaterwoman

    DJ EJ (View Comment):
    As much as I oppose everything the Dems are ramming through Congress right now, at least they know how to push through bill after bill as fast as possible when they have the power to do so and without regard as to how unpopular those bills will make them. Being power hungry ideologues does make them truly effective politicians.

    True enough.  The worst thing about the first two years when we had the power was Romney’s good buddy and former running mate Paul Ryan as speaker. He was a never Trumper who was not  on board with Trump’s agenda from day one.  The Dems act in lockstep with a tough General Nancy Pelosi leading the troupes while taking no prisoners.

    • #26
  27. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Freeven (View Comment):
    I’m not sure how to distinguish between failings and mistakes in this context, so I’ll reframe it and say my biggest disappointment (which I consider both a mistake and a failing) is that Trump continued to spend money we do not have — and did so an an exponential rate. He didn’t as much as pay lip service to fiscal restraint.

    I understand this complaint. But he laid better bricks than I’ve seen in a long time. He never came in with an emphasis on spending control, and yet he knew intuitively that you don’t dole out the country’s money to ease burdens placed on people by their states. The SALT deductions and refusal to bail out locked down states were incredible no-spend policies that no one else had the gall to touch… and they didn’t hurt him, either.

    Entitlement spending reform can not be sold at the high level. You must erode the political support for it. And that means closed or at least tightened borders and bring businesses back to America. You can not get entitlement reform when laborers in America are competing with Mexicans and Indians for jobs. Employers need to be participating in the same labor market their consumers exist in. Allowing them access to multiple markets to increase their labor supply means welfare will be in constant demand by people who are physically and economically incapable of expanding their job market to the world.

    • #27
  28. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    The elephant in the room for the Deep State is public employee unions. Because all the government departments are heavily unionized they can’t be easily reduced. Trump could first have gotten together a team of labor lawyers and then revoked the Kennedy executive order allowing public employee unions. He would have to get the lawyers together first and had a strategy to defeat the immediate lawsuits. That one action could have toppled the Deep State better than any other. 

    • #28
  29. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    CB Toder aka Mama Toad (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    In hindsight, I don’t think there was any way he could win. I’m a little surprised he actually survived, breathing-wise.

    The only Republican president the Democrats have hated more than Trump was Lincoln, and him they killed.

    I’m surprised too. God bless the Secret Service!

    No, god bless that Trump embedded his personal security team in the secret service detail.  Kept them honest.  On their who knows what would have happened.

    • #29
  30. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Hang On (View Comment):
    I think Trump’s biggest failure was himself. He was undisciplined. Totally and completely.

    Funny.  He was disciplined enough to obey the law and court rulings . . .

    • #30
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