[this_user]

In his first term, he probably didn't yet understand how much power the office truly holds and how to wield it and just how far you can go with that. Because the main restriction on all of that power has always been convention rather than any actually robust guard rails. But no one, not even someone like Nixon, has ever dared to truly test that out.

[CodingJeebus]

He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term. It’s why The Heritage Foundation came up with Project 2025: an organizated and cohesive plan to dismantle the bureaucracy and consolidate power. And it is working.

[mikeyouse]

The first term laid a lot of the groundwork for this term as well - had he not appointed three SC Justices, things would look very different. This court has said basically that all executive actions including pretextual investigations via the DOJ are legal and that there is no such thing as agency independence, even when written into the laws that created the agencies.

[throw0101c]

> He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term.

He did not know. He was also not expecting to win, and so had to scramble to get people appointed.

He asked around and got people who were experts in their respective fields. The problem is that those experts (a) knew his ideas were bad, and (b) had integrity. It was, by and large, Trump's appointees that worked hard to counter his agent and not the government bureaucracy.

Trump did not make the same 'mistake' this time around: he appointed folks not for their competence but for their loyalty to him. That was and is the only criteria for serving under Trump.

[johnnyanmac]

well it tried to be organized, "cohesive" is a stretch.

And it's really fumbling as of now. The tarrifs were 100% on Trump and it's clearly thrown a monkey wrench in everything. the federal judges have slowed everything to a crawl, and these spectacles with immigration have activated American eyes in ways we haven't seen in decades. These kinds of plans work in the shadows and as of now it's all out in the open.

It will reverse in November at this rate, but even a few more reisngations or deaths in the house can dramatically shift plans.

[3eb7988a1663]

I hate to assign him so much agency. The man seems a complete buffoon who lacks the ability to plan anything beyond real estate fraud. Instead, I look to all of the people in his orbit who can orchestrate long term goals. Sure, he will self sabotage many schemes, but will directionally go where the handlers want. Vance, Miller, Heritage Foundation, etc are the ones guiding most policy decisions.

That tariffs have been so absolutely scattershot, says Trump actually is the one calling the shots there.

[moogly]

His orbiters/handlers are totally throwing all kinds of stuff at him to see what sticks to his cooked brain. It's clear he's barely aware what's happening anymore. The only coherent things he can focus on are things from the 80s and 90s heydays and old and recent grudges.

[datsci_est_2015]

It’s clear that he’s very easily persuaded on many topics that he already has a slight bias towards, but that he also has his pet projects that his handlers don’t want to mess with because that would jeopardize their political capital (ball room).

Quick heuristic I have is: vanity project = Trump; neocon pet project = Heritage Foundation; anything related to racial purity = Stephen Miller; quackery = RFK and other grifters.

The tariffs are partially his bias, but also Navarro who lost his mind somewhere around 2015 and became an economics pariah.

[cosmicgadget]

Cause most of the capricious use of power is expensive and people used to care about the budget.

[estearum]

No? Because most people who have held POTUS aren’t malignant narcissists.

[piva00]

He still doesn't understand, I think anyone that sticks all of this to Trump is playing exactly in the hands of the powers behind him: The Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, billionaires like the Koch, Stephen Miller, Bannon, so on and so forth, they would love to have Trump as the scapegoat for all of this.

Trump is not a smart person, he doesn't know much aside from what he's been told, and the people playing him to further their agendas would love more than anything to be kept in the shadows in case it all comes crumbling down to just pin it all on Trump, the moron.