Has Trump become more Presidential since being sworn in as 45th President?

Not that I can tell.

He is still trying to defend himself when most presidents would let things slide. Little tits for tat.

He always had his moments of being kind and polite.

He still has his same way or rhythm of talking.

His inaugural speech seemed consistent with what he has said and done in the past.

I don’t see much difference.

I haven’t seen him since Friday, but then again, I haven’t looked.

I am hoping he becomes more dignified with his mannerisms and his speech, but I’m not counting on it.

He still is and always will be a colossal piece of shit.

Let’s start out by recognizing that “more presidential” is an extremely low bar to clear given that pre-inauguration Trump was not presidential in any way whatsoever. In addition, being “more presidential” is a far cry from his promise to be “so presidential that [we] won’t believe it” or “so presidential that [we] will be so bored.”

With that disclaimer out of the way, I’d have to say that the answer is “yes.” Since any minor improvement would be enough for that answer, though, it’s not an impressive result. As for the specifics, I’ll use his Twitter account as an example. It’s gone from an endless stream of lies and nastiness to a stream of lies and nastiness interspersed with moments of reasonableness (like this).

Granted, he probably didn’t write that himself. But even just the act of handing over his Twitter account to someone else rather than letting it remain a cesspool for every vile thought that ever passed through his head would be more presidential than he was even a week ago. But again, it’s an extremely low bar to clear. Being “more presidential” doesn’t impress me at all when there’s still so much space between where he is and the minimum I expect of a United States president.

Specifics are have you watched the news or Spicer’s conference? Same old victim shit.

He sure wasn’t when he visited the CIA yesterday. Sounded like a petulant child.

He is on vacation until Monday, per the White House. So check with VP Pence.

Not that I have observed, just more of the same rhetoric, bluster and narcissistic cravings that we have been subjected to over the past year.

But wait! Wasn’t the second tweet about the Womens March was marginally more presidential? Well, yes but coming on the heels of his first tweet it was obvious that the original one expressed his true character and the second was not an expression of Trumps opinion but something his handlers “suggested” that he put out.

To be forthright, I have seen more of K. Conway than him and I have the distinct impression that you cannot believe a single word that comes out of her mouth either.

Listening to the representatives of the present administration over the past few days has driven me to conclude that whenever it comes down to a “He said, she said” scenario between Trump and the press I am going to believe the press every time. And what does it say when you have reached the point where your honesty and integrity is considered lower than that of the main stream media?

Apparently not. Same shit, different day. Ask us again 100 days in.

I’ll consider him “presidential” when he puts is assets in a blind trust, that’s a minimum threshold to reach level 0, Also he’s made some shockingly bad cabinet picks.

He is using Spicer to puppet some of his more absurd statements. This allows Trump to appear a little less non-presidential.

Good news! Trump and his team will no longer be telling us a steady stream of lies. They will instead be supplying us with alternative facts. There is a phrase worthy of Orwell if ever I heard one. That does not strike me as very presidential, more like Putin and King Jong-il.

I’ve consciously avoided any news about Trump, but every time I’ve inadvertently seen a headline or heard a sound bite about him it’s been SOT (same old Trump). Trump is not my president and therefore in no way presidential to me.

He lives in an alternative reality where spoiled brats are yügely presidential.

On Saturday, Trump had his Press Secretary say that the sparse inaugural crowd had been the largest in history. If you saw some overhead views of the ceremony, you also saw an empty Mall beyond the stands. If you watched any of the parade, you noticed that people were standing 1 – 2 deep in along the route. How about the viewer stands at the end of the parade, that had large, empty spaces?

Trump did this as a ploy to steal attention and media coverage from the Women’s March on Washington, which drew a massive crowd and was replicated in cities throughout the U.S. and the world.

Throughout his entire campaign, Trump used bombastic, bullying tactics to discredit his opponents and deflect the media from his own shady actions and false statements. On the 2nd day of his presidency, he used the same maneuver yet again.

On Sunday, he unleashed Kellyanne Conway on the morning news-commentary programs. She acted the tyrant and used the phrase “alternative facts” to describe lies and misrepresentations. This was during the 3rd day of the Trump presidency.

The journalists should have shown the crowds that turned out for the women’s march, which set attendance records and which were in fact larger than for the Inauguration. I would have loved to see Trump argue about that attendance comparison.

He is “more Presidential” only because he has been sworn in. His very tenuous relationship with the truth remains unexceeded and matched solely by his eagerness to demonstrate it vocally at every opportunity.

@Love_my_doggie

I heard that the explanation for those large expanses of white that are in the overhead photos are not because they are empty but because of the large number of sheet clad supporters attending the event.

^^^ On this dreary, rainy Monday, you’ve literally made me laugh.

Trump is sucking the respectability out of our highest office and the life out of our psyches. Presidential? Only as the word relates to the org charts of the companies he owns and cares more about than the nation he was tragically elected to lead.

I fear the sight of him sitting in the Oval Office signing papers will have the power to shock me until the day he is impeached or voted out of office.

I don’t see any great change in him. He was always more presidential than Hillary Clinton. Let’s give him a chance. He just took office three days ago.

@VenusFanelli: More presidential than Hillary Clinton? He waves his arms around when he talks and is not diplomatic and doesn’t choose his words properly.

@ ica, Yes, he’s much more presidential than Hillary. Her flaws are worse than his. I’m not thrilled with either of them, but she is a tyrant who wants to destroy some freedoms. he is the lesser of two evils.

^^I will never understand how people can see Hillary that way.

@JLeslie I can and have understood it from the start. Trump spoke to his voters who wanted to be recognized Hillary spoke to her corporate sponsors whose interests were their own.

@Cruiser ^^^^ Okay now check his cabinet (Corporate heads) and the FACT he won’t disclose his Tax returns and won’t disclose his continuing business connections while in office. And 4 years from now his personal worth will quadruple, because he is giving executive orders that directly improve his businesses bottom line.
Do you know anyone that is hoping it rubs off on his business (with no employee insurance requirements)?

@Tropical_Willie I am not one to join in the congo line of conjecture….if I was I would line up with the soothsayers that would say Trump took a major cut in pay to be President as I am sure he could do much better than to merely quadruple his net worth in 4 years NOT being President.

If and when (never) you and the rest of your hand wavers could ever provide proof of your hysterical predictions I may…just may…take you seriously.

It is rubbing off.
He is just one lie after and another, oh I forgot that was an Alternate Fact.
I don’t need to prove he hasn’t and will not release his taxes, he has not and will not release control of his businesses.

I’m not waving my hands, I’m pointing out that “Alternate Facts” is Orwellian but I read that book.

Orwell is a good analogy for the hope and change that Obama promised By the outcome of the election I have to say people have learned their lesson.

@JLeslie ”^^I will never understand how people can see Hillary that way.”

We have a list of who Clinton would have picked for her cabinet. She was a pro-choice Republican wearing a Democratic pin. This election was a choice between a pro-corporate, pro-establishment Republican-pretending-to-be-a-Democrat and a pro-corporate, anti-establishment Republican who went to the left of Clinton in many ways (at least in his speeches). The only person on that ballot who represented the interests of the working/middle class (i.e. making less than $750k/year) was Jill Stein.

@gorillapaws “She was a pro-choice Republican wearing a Democratic pin.”

So is a significant portion of the electorate. For all of the problems this country has with gerrymandering and voter suppression—and we definitely have serious problems in both of those areas—the biggest reason why Democrats don’t win more often is that so many of them vote Republican. That’s why it’s so absurd to blame third party voters for Bush or Trump: in both 2000 and 2016, more registered Democrats voted for the Republican candidate than for a third party candidate.

@SavoirFaire That’s true, but the public is radically more progressive than our representatives’ voting record. When polled, overwhelmingly people are for an increase in the minimum wage, for the 1% paying their fair share of taxes, etc. (even average Republicans), but when it comes time to vote our representatives are working on behalf of the lobbyists and mega-donors.

Cory Booker, another darling of the Clinton wing of the Democratic party, just voted against being able to import the same drugs from Canada that we have here at a steep discount from what we’re charged. He’s also a big recipient of donor money from big pharma. cute right?

It’s time for a purging of the Democratic party, or the progressives should leave and form a party that actually represents the middle class. The Clinton wing of the party has done more harm than good with regard to pushing an agenda that would actually help everyday people.

@Cruiser you have got to be fucking kidding me with that clip. Do you want me to judge Trump on a clip like that? Jesus Christ. You know I could put together a doozy.

@Cruiser ”...people have learned their lesson.” Are you kidding me? People, in general, are stupid. They are sheep. They are wishy-washy. They will turn the other way if it doesn’t seem to be working out this time.
”...learned their lesson.” ? Give me a break…

@gorillapaws: How can we make assumptions about who Clinton would have picked for her cabinet?

@kritiper I could not agree with you more…case in point 64 million voted for Hillary.

@jca “How can we make assumptions about who Clinton would have picked for her cabinet?”

I’m under the impression that these decisions are usually made before the elections. Clinton certainly thought she was going to win. It’s very likely that her team were making short lists, vetting possible nominees and reaching out. It’s also very reasonable to believe that a journalist, Mike Allen, would have been able to speak with an insider and learn who those people were going to be. Here’s a link to an article on Slate.com.

I don’t know if Mr. Allen made it up, but the list seems consistent with much of what we know of Clinton.

@gorillapaws I think you use the words “what we know about Clinton” a bit too loosely.

@Cruiser Are you suggesting that the email leaks were fabricated? I consider them to be reliable primary source documents.

@gorillapaws I meant “we” most Clinton supporters are convinced the email scandal was a railroad scam by the FBI and the Republicans. I feel what we know is just the tip of the iceberg.

^^ Especially since the FBI found nothing reprehensible in Clinton’s emails, and hid what they knew about Trump being covertly supported by Putin… And unsurprisingly, the FBI director is keeping his job.

@olivier5 Who is the FBI director’s ultimate boss ? Donnie is not going to shoot him.

@gorillapaws Perhaps it would have been clearer what I was getting at if I had said ”unfortunately, so is a significant portion of the electorate.” I think that @JLeslie not being able to understand @VenusFanelli‘s perspective is perfectly reasonable when you consider that many voters (indeed, a plurality of them) considered Clinton the best candidate available in the general election. (Remember, after all, that @JLeslie was responding to this comment, not this comment).

The analogy between the electorate and the Democrats can actually be taken further. A significant number of Democratic politicians, much like a significant portion of the electorate, consistently vote against their own interests—often out of fear. While they take slightly different paths, both end up being pro-choice Republicans wearing Democratic pins. And both end up having trouble justifying their choices in the long run.

In any case, I wasn’t really making an argument for anything so much as a stray observation.

“the public is radically more progressive than our representatives’ voting record.”

Sort of. What the numbers and research show is that the public is far less conservative than both liberal and conservative politicians alike tend to believe (a belief which then influences their voting patterns). But that’s not quite the same thing as saying that the public is more progressive than our representatives’ voting records because there is more than one way to be non-conservative. We can’t just look at political issues and say ”x is the conservative viewpoint on this, so anyone who supports not-x must be a progressive.” This is a false dichotomy foisted upon us by its only beneficiary: two-party system.

“When polled, overwhelmingly people are for an increase in the minimum wage, for the 1% paying their fair share of taxes, etc.”

Indeed. But what are their reasons for holding those views? I bet they aren’t all progressive reasons. Many people will have populist reasons for wanting to increase the minimum wage or increase taxes on the extremely wealthy. Shackling ourselves to the false dichotomy is just another unproductive “with us or against us” that focuses people on promoting political ideologies instead of policy ideas. And assuming that agreement on one issue implies broad ideological agreement causes coalitions to break down unexpectedly.

“It’s time for a purging of the Democratic party, or the progressives should leave and form a party that actually represents the middle class.”

Sure, you won’t get any argument from me here. Economic issues aren’t the only thing, though, so they should probably make sure that the middle class isn’t their only constituency.

@SavoirFaire “Indeed. But what are their reasons for holding those views? I bet they aren’t all progressive reasons. Many people will have populist reasons for wanting to increase the minimum wage or increase taxes on the extremely wealthy”

To me this is kind of a distinction without a difference—while there are real differences, I don’t think they’re all that important in this context. Cal it “populist” or “progressive” or whatever else you want, these economic ideas are overwhelmingly shared by the vast majority of Americans. The Democratic Party used to represent the middle class’ interests as the core of their platform.

” Economic issues aren’t the only thing, though, so they should probably make sure that the middle class isn’t their only constituency.”

If Democrats could capture 99% vs the 1% they would win every election. Conservatives have been smart and have controlled the narrative. They make elections about manufactured controversial wedge issues like which bathrooms transgender people can use, something I (and probably most other Americans) had never even spent a single minute considering before it became a major national issue. If Democrats can stay focused on middle class economic issues, work on those issues with good legislation, and keep the national conversation about wealth inequality, they will massacre Republicans in the elections.

@Cruiser Yes, 64 million voters voted for Hillary. The Democrats are generally a more intelligent, college educated bunch while the Republicans tend to be just the opposite. (I know! I live in a all red, western state!) Just look at the Tea Party members. But it’s a small percentage of wishy-washy just-right-of-the-middle-of-the-road moderates who throw the balance one way or the other on desperate fantasy whims when they believe all has failed.
(Fact, 50% of all Democrats are Moderates, 66% of Republicans are Moderates, not including the Tea Baggers who generally are extreme, ultra far right religious conservatives.)

@SavoirFaire Bernie does a great job talking about the problem of wedge issues here.

@gorillapaws I’m not sure why you’re acting like I’m arguing with you when you’re basically just looking down your nose at me while repeating my own points back to me in different words. I’m also not sure why you think I need an explanation of what a wedge issue is or why it’s a problem.

“To me this is kind of a distinction without a difference—while there are real differences, I don’t think they’re all that important in this context.”

This statement is nonsense if “this context” refers to our conversation (since I presented it as nothing more than a technical point about the difference between “non-conservative” and “progressive”) and irrelevant if it refers to some other context (since I wasn’t commenting on any other context).

“Call it ‘populist’ or ‘progressive’ or whatever else you want, these economic ideas are overwhelmingly shared by the vast majority of Americans.”

Sure. That was my point. The ideas are shared even if the ideologies are not. But reasons still matter because conclusions are only part of the argument. People don’t just vote based on what they think. They also vote based on how they feel. Two people who are in complete agreement on a policy can still be tricked into fighting one another if you put them in opposite colored jerseys. Hell, you’re trying to argue with me just because of some misconception that I’m disagreeing with you. Furthermore, the way one argues for something often determines the outcome of the argument. You can accidentally talk someone out of agreeing with you by putting your argument in the wrong terms, and you can often get someone to agree with you by putting the argument in terms they already accept.

Case in point: I’ve managed to convert several conservative death penalty supporters to death penalty opponents in the past few years. But I didn’t do it by convincing them to give up on conservatism. I did it by getting them to realize that there is a very strong conservative argument for opposing the death penalty. So now we agree on the conclusion, but how we got there is different. In some ways, the background differences no longer matter. But they mattered to how we got here, and they’ll continue to matter when it comes to implementation. Failing to realize this causes coalitions to fall apart—often at inconvenient moments. So if you want to win, you have to be conversant in reasons as well as conclusions.

“If Democrats could capture 99% vs the 1% they would win every election.”

But (a) the middle class isn’t 99% of the population, and (b) you can’t win 99% of the electorate on economic issues alone because lots of people don’t vote primarily on economic issues.

“If Democrats can stay focused on middle class economic issues, work on those issues with good legislation, and keep the national conversation about wealth inequality, they will massacre Republicans in the elections.”

Economic issues are certainly the key element to a winning strategy, but I don’t believe they are the whole of it. In any case, my point was that there’s more to progressivism than economic policy. Campaigning one way and governing another is what got the Democrats where they are today. There’s no point in the progressives following them down that path by defining themselves broadly and then governing narrowly.

@SavoirFaire I’m definitely not looking down my nose at you. If I came across that way, I sincerely apologize. That was not my intent. I have a ton of respect for you and your opinions. I also agree that we’re mostly in agreement. I think you may be misreading my tone, the intent is to have a thoughtful discussion with someone I greatly respect.

The reason I linked the wedge issue clip was because Bernie does a better job expressing my feelings than I am able to here. It wasn’t meant to insinuate that you weren’t familiar with the problem. While I did @SavoirFaire you on the link, the intent was to keep continuity of the conversation than to try to direct the clip only at you. I posted it for the benefit of everyone.

The link starts at the wrong time. Here’s the correct one.

@Tropical_Willie Exactly. The emails were a total non-issue, fanned by the FBI director in order to make all the Bernites think that Hillary wasn’t worthy of their vote… And it worked like a charm. All these young and naive lefties unwittingly allowed the Naziest candidate ever to get in the White House.

Yeah @kritiper you are on to me. I live in a permanently red mid-western state but live in a neighborhood of .5%‘rs and we are all knuckle dragging, cromangnum conservative independents with the IQ’s of 2.

can you provide a link to your facts?

Trump being Presidential Bad Lip Reading

Haha @rojo They showed this on Morning Joe this morning! What a way to start the day! lol

Pretty sure it was actual lip reading, not bad. I can see it being just the way they showed it. I can’t decide if my favorite part is the whispered “you suuuck” or the “Gonna figure out a way to bury your stuff fast”.

@Cruiser I found that in “THE WEEK” magazine.

(I wonder where Mr. Trump thinks all the money to pay for all of this is going to come from???)

No.

No. Period.

Just checking….......................................no still not presidential.

There is a theory that Trump’s blustering is just a distraction from the dirty work done behind the scenes by devil incarnate Steve Bannon. That may be the net effect, but Trump is not smart enough to deliberately play at being a complete jerk. He just neatly fits into Bannon’s plans.

@LostInParadise That’s “President Bannon”