President Donald Trump‘s first year in office has been full of blunders — and he has failed to make any lasting change, according to analysis published Tuesday.
Yuval Levin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of National Affairs, wrote in The Atlantic that Trump has attempted to make sweeping shifts during his second term and appears to be busy, but hasn’t yet laid out his policy plan or his priorities on public issues. By ignoring those powers and viewing his political prowess in the news cycles as his focus, Trump has “also shown remarkably little interest in public persuasion.”
“But if you view the year through the lens of the president’s powers, all of that action comes to seem more circumscribed. By neglecting some of the most significant formal and informal tools at his disposal, Trump has largely failed to advance durable policy change, at least on domestic matters,” Levin wrote. “He has dominated a lot of news cycles, but at the expense of shaping the future—for good or ill.”
Trump’s attention to domestic policy has continued to be lacking, Levin added.
“The appeal of this approach is easy to see, especially for those on the right who have felt mistreated by American elites for years. It has enabled Trump to extract real concessions from some hostile institutions,” Levin explained. “But it is inherently shortsighted and reactive. And it comes at an enormous cost for the integrity and reputation of the American government.”
And although Trump has given the appearance that he has accomplished many things, that’s not the reality.
“Perhaps Trump’s most lasting influence will be opening the door for future presidents to approach the executive as he has, pursuing governing strategies rooted in capricious personalism,” Levin wrote. “Still, for all the action of the past year, Trump has not been acting like a president. That has not only undermined the character of our constitutional system; it has also meant that he is getting less done than all the sound and fury might suggest.”
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