Donald Trump thinks himself "larger than life". He has conducted his Presidency like an autocrat and has been abetted by a chorus of sycophants. But his narrowness of vision, self-absorption, incompetence, and ignorance have resulted in ineffectiveness of historical proportions. In short, he has diminished the Presidency measurably.

Nationally, he has no legislative accomplishments. His party is in disarray. He's under potentially criminal investigation. And his cabinet is derided for their astounding and aggressive incompetence. Internationally, he's shunned, pilloried and ignored. Our Allies are looking to move on without him, our enemies/adversaries see no reason to respect or fear him, and most of the rest look on in incredulity.

It took most of his two terms for Obama to heal the rifts and regain the respect that George Bush created and destroyed. How long will healing take this time? Can we recover?

Ahhh...Compassionate CONservative George W Bush who never vetoed a spending bill during the first six years of his tenure.

When, CONervatives took a majority in the government under W Bush, they decided to use the government in a very aggressive CONservative way to promote CONservative programs and spend money for CONservative initiatives.

CONservatives abandoned any thing remotely similar to their small government heritage, voting for more spending, lower taxes, new entitlements, by removing any rules that previous Congresses had lived with to create the assemblage and culture of fiscal discipline, namely "Pay as you Go."

Then, we have the GW Bush's international forays.

Attacking Iraq because 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. Makes sense! In invading a sovereign country and breaking it, an appointee fired all of the Iraqi police and military. Those tactically trained men were bitter that their livelihoods were taken away and formed an opposition force which later became ISIS under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Such legacies that Republicans leave behind.

...and the Republican sycophants complain that Obama didn't fix things well enough in his eight years - so they reward an incompetent, narcissistic, failed business man to be the most powerful man in the world to run America further into the ground, making the next Democratic Administration work harder to restore America to its greatness. Makes sense!

CONtrarian?
Heh. Loved the post.
'Tis been years since I've stoppered by.

NO
.

The only lasting damage so far is Gorsuch, but that just makes the Supreme Court about the same it was before Scalia died.

The other lasting damage is the nuclear option on the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. But I suspect Republicans will rue the day they did that. It's going to be smooth sailing for Democratic Presidents from now on when they have a Democratic Senate. Republicans have been much more likely to use the filibuster in the past. Now that's gone for Supreme Court nominees.

Assuming Trump doesn't do something stupid like attack North Korea as a diversion. At this point though, I think he would have a hard time getting that past the Secretary of Defense.

AG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How ARE you?????

Oh, I don't know about that. He has simply reinforced what most of us knew all along...that Republicans are incapable of governing. He's pretty much exactly what we've come to expect a Republican president to be; corrupt, incompetent, and ignorant. Toadies to corporate influence, blind to what the majority of Americans want and need and beholden to a radical anti-government base.
Near as I can tell, things are ticking along nicely.

Ditto AG! How is the metal smiting? I have recently caught the steel bug, and dear wife is entranced by new welding and plasma cutting equipment! Wives really love this hot stuff!

Tat

I am overjoyed to see you again...welcome back Ag.

That ain't even the half of it.
I'm still expecting a manufactured national security crisis.
The sort of thing where Trump can claim that "ONLY HE CAN FIX IT".
An attack on the DPRK is a perfect fit.

I don't think most of the Pentagon top brass support him anymore however, and it is clear that the national security community doesn't, and neither does the intelligence community.
So it might be difficult for him to pull it off...except...

My only worry is that too many in those communities have a tendency to "fall in line and fall in love" when something bad happens.