Trump - The Biggest Flip-Flopper To Live In The White House

Donald Trump would like for Americans to believe he is a man of principle, who stands for American values. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

He is a narcissistic lair who cares about nothing but what he thinks will make him look good. If he takes a stand and then starts getting bad publicity for it, he will change that stand in a heartbeat. In fact, there are times in which he changes a stand more than once -- waffling back and forth.

To be blunt, Donald Trump is the biggest flip-flopper to ever occupy the White House -- caring nothing about what his stands will do to the American people. That's because he is incapable of caring for anyone but himself.

Following is part of an op-ed by Michelle Cottle -- a member of the editorial board of The New York Times:

For better and for worse, Mr. Trump is a chronic waffler. As such, the American public would do well to stay vigilant about what his administration is up to — and not be shy about applying pressure.

It has long been clear that Mr. Trump is not the decisive, resolute leader he imagines himself to be. His presidency is littered with plans and pronouncements that were walked back or abandoned — some good, some not so good. His announcement last December that he was pulling all American troops from Syria was dramatically revised after pushback from foreign allies, lawmakers and his military advisers. This June, he approved military strikeson Iran in retaliation for its downing of an American drone, then canceled them. Last month, facing market turmoil and concerns from retailers and business groups, Mr. Trump postponed imposing additional tariffs on some Chinese consumer goods until after the start of the Christmas shopping season. He also floated the idea of cutting payroll taxes to goose the economy, only to reverse himselfa day later with a declaration that the economy was plenty “strong.” Responding to back-to-back gun massacres, the president vowed to push for “sensible, important background checks” — until the National Rifle Association voiced its displeasure. At that point, Mr. Trump’s resolve wilted faster than you could say “$30 million in campaign contributions.” Not that he would admit to folding. He instead spent weeks offering rambling comments about possible legislation. The White House is expected to clarify his latest position soon.

Even with issues central to Mr. Trump’s brand, he will now and again give ground. Recall last summer’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents — a move so appalling that even some of the president’s Republican apologists could not stomach it. After six weeks of international uproar, Mr. Trump announced an end to the practice.

He executed a similar flip-flop this winter, when Congress’s refusal to give him billions in border wall funding led him to provoke a partial government shutdown. When the public grew grumpy enough about the disruption, the president caved and signed a bill that did not include his desired wall money.

On occasion, Mr. Trump will move to reverse his reversals — or at least find a creative work around. Last month, the administration unveiled a new rule that would do away with the existing 20-day limit on holding migrant children in detention. On Tuesday, it announced that it is diverting $3.6 billion from Defense Department projects toward the construction of the border wall. The future of the medical deferred-action program remains unsettled as well. An agency official told The Times, “Whether a very limited version of deferred action will continue forward at U.S.C.I.S. is still under review.” Clearly, the public needs to continue expressing its preferences.

There are issues on which the president feels compelled to hold his ground. As Hurricane Dorian menaced the Atlantic Coast Sunday, he tweeted a cautionary message to the residents of several Southern states, including Alabama. Dorian was not projected to hit Alabama, which the National Weather Service clarified. Rather than correct himself, Mr. Trump dug in and spent the next several days obsessed with proving that at some point Alabama really had been in danger. The situation reached its absurdity apex when, during a storm briefing Wednesday, he brandished a map showing the likely trajectory of Dorian, which someone appeared to have doctored with a black Sharpie to include a sliver of Alabama. #SharpieGate immediately became the stuff of mocking memesand late-night monologues.

The entire sideshow was reminiscent of when Mr. Trump insistedthat his inauguration crowd in 2017 had been the largest in history. He not only dispatched his aides to peddle this fantasy, but also the National Park Service, responding to White House concerns, cropped official photos of the event to make the crowds look bigger.

More troubling, Mr. Trump’s inability to admit that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 has led him to insist, without evidence, that there was widespread voter fraud in her favor. He even put together an official commission tasked with proving this. It failed. Mr. Trump nonetheless continues to spread this dangerous nonsense.

When it comes to protecting his fragile ego, Mr. Trump can be quite firm in his convictions. The rest is subject to influence.

Trump Flip-Flops On Background Checks - Again

Once again, Donald Trump shows us that the only thing he cares about is what he perceives as good for him.

After the recent mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Trump told Americans that he supported a strong background check law on all gun sales. But that was before he got a phone call from the gun manufacturers most effective lobbyists (the NRA). Now he has backed down, and is saying we already have effective background checks (a LIE).

Instead, he wants now to blame mass shootings on mental illness. That's the NRA line, even though it is ridiculous. All developed nations have a problem with mental illness, but none have the mass shooting problem the U.S. has (averaging more than one mass shooting every day). That's because they don't make it easy for the mentally ill (or criminals and terrorists) to buy any kind of gun they want.

Trump's latest flip-flop shouldn't surprise anyone. He did the same thing after the shooting at the high school in Parkland. He promised action, and then backed down after getting a call from the NRA. It has become obvious that NRA campaign money is more important to him than saving the lives of American citizens.

Here is what the editorial board of The New York Times has to say about Trump's latest craven flip-flop:

President Trump and his followers delight in his image as a disrupter — a dauntless fighter raring to take on entrenched political interests and sacred cows. But when it comes to addressing America’s gun problem, Mr. Trump has proved both conventional and weak. As the shock fades of this month's back-to-back massacres in Texas and Ohio, he is poised to disappoint yet again. 

On Tuesday, The Atlantic reported that Mr. Trump had assured Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, that he is no longer considering universal background checks. Mr. LaPierre subsequently tweeted praise for Mr. Trump, who he said “supports our right to keep and bear arms.” 

By now, the president’s response to gun violence is familiar: In the first raw days after a mass shooting, he answers the public outcry with a pledge to muscle timid lawmakers into action. Following the Parkland shooting last year, Mr. Trump started a brief, high-profile push for “comprehensive” reform, hosting a televised meeting with a bipartisan coterie of lawmakers in which he publicly mockedmembers of his party for being “afraid of the N.R.A.” and touted his independence from the gun lobby. “They have great power over you people,” he said. “They have less power over me.”

Well, unless you count the $30 million the N.R.A. donated to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, making the group his largest single contributor. But why quibble? For whatever reason, Mr. Trump soon abandoned his safety effort.

In response to this month’s shootings, Mr. Trump promptly vowed to pursue “background checks like we’ve never had before,” noting, correctly, that “there is a great appetite” for closing existing loopholes. (More than 90 percent of all voters support universal background checks.) Asserting that he enjoys “greater influence now over the Senate and over the House,” he expressed confidence that, this time, he could persuade lawmakers “to do things they don’t want to do.” He boasted, “There’s never been a president like President Trump.”

Even as Mr. Trump was touting his specialness, the N.R.A. was whispering in his ear, warning of the political Armageddon that would befall him if he crossed Second Amendment enthusiasts, even on something with such broad support as background checks. In recent weeks, the president has had multiple phone conversations with Mr. LaPierre, including while the president was on vacation at his New Jersey golf resort last week.

Right on schedule, Mr. Trump’s knees have buckled and his resolute talk has devolved into a series of (slightly garbled) bumper-sticker clichés on the theme of, “It’s people who pull the trigger, not the gun that pulls the trigger.” On his way back to Washington on Sunday, he stressed that he was “very, very concerned with the Second Amendment, more so than most presidents,” and he helpfully offered, “People don’t realize we have very strong background checks right now.” Leaning on one of the gun lobby’s favorite talking points, he said that this is “a very, very big mental health problem.”

Yes, it is — if you consider chronic political cowardice to be a mental health problem.

Now would be a particularly pathetic moment for Mr. Trump to capitulate. For all its vaunted political clout, the N.R.A. is in crisis— embroiled in legal troubles, rent by leadership squabbles and flirting with financial ruin. The president has privately voiced doubts that the group will be in a position to be a serious player in the 2020 election. What better time for him to exert his independence — to set himself apart from the political wimps?

Some White House aides have insisted that Mr. Trump is not waffling, that this is all part of a grand negotiating strategy and that he will, in fact, renew his legislative push when Congress returns from recess next month. Others have acknowledged that the president, not known for his long attention span, has lost patience and interest in the entire topic. As one told The Daily Beast, “He’s started to moved on.”

If the president retreats, again, gun safety advocates cannot be surprised. As the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, observed of Mr. Trump’s cooling, “We’ve seen this movie before.”

Americans have indeed seen this tragedy far too many times — and are on track to see it many more. Mr. Trump was spot on with his observation that Republican lawmakers are terrified of the gun lobby, to the point of consistently prioritizing its desires over those of their voters, not to mention the good of the nation. The big question now is whether the president has what it takes to show leadership. For anything meaningful to get done, he will need to stop equivocating and flip-flopping and make clear that he expects lawmakers to meet the moment — or else.

It would be a welcome surprise if this version of the movie had a twist ending with Mr. Trump emerging as the brave hero facing down the extremist forces aligned against modest, popular reform.

But the viewing public probably shouldn’t hold its breath.

The Parties Have Flipped On Free Trade And Tariffs

A couple of decades ago, it was the belief of most Republicans that free trade agreements was a good thing. Most Democrats opposed them -- believing they were unfair to workers and encouraged the exporting of good American jobs. That no longer seems to be the case.

Now, the Republican base sees free trade as a bad thing by a slim plurality while the Democratic base sees it as a good thing by a substantial majority. The same is true of tariffs. Republicans now favor the imposition of tariffs while Democrats oppose them.

I find this rather puzzling, and I wonder if it's because of Donald Trump. Have the Republicans adopted an anti-free trade and pro-tariff stance because that is what Trump wants? Have the Democrats adopted a pro-free trade and anti-tariff stance because of their hatred of Trump? Has the love or hate of Donald Trump changed the economic policies of both political parties?

The charts above show the results of a recent Pew Research Center survey -- done between April 25th and May 1st of a random national sample of 1,503 adults, with a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Our Liar-In-Chief Is Also A Flip/Flopper-In-Chief

One Trump was sworn in, it became pretty obvious that truth meant nothing to him. He (and his aides) told over 100 obvious lies in just the first 30 days. Now we are learning that campaign promises mean as little to him as truth. He has flip-flopped on several issues -- taking a new position that is diametrically opposed to the position he espoused during the presidential campaign.

There are already some of his supporters that are growing unhappy with his flip-flopping, but so far, most of his trumpistas seem to be sticking with him. How long will they put up with his breaking campaign promises. Did they support him because of those campaign promises? Or did they just join a cult of personality?

If it is the former, then his support is going to start falling away. If it is the latter, then it won't really matter what he does or what promises he breaks. He hasn't quite finished his first 100 days in office, so I could be wrong, but I'm starting to think his supporters just joined a "cult of personality" -- and they won't think he can do any wrong (regardless of what he actually does or doesn't do).

From CNN, here are some of Trump's biggest flip-flops: