The Ordinary Presidency of Donald J. Trump

By: Jon Herbert, Trevor McCrisken, Andrew Wroe

Narrated by: Simon Darwen

Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

The presidency of Donald J. Trump is rather ordinary. Trump himself may be the most unusual, unorthodox and unconventional president the US has ever had. Yet, even with his extraordinary personality and approach to the job, his presidency is proving quite ordinary in its accomplishments and outcomes, both at home and abroad.

Like most modern US presidents, the number and scope of Trump’s achievements are rather meager. Despite dramatic claims to a revolution in US politics, Trump simply has not achieved very much. Trump’s few policy achievements are also mostly mainstream Republican ones rather than the radical, anti-establishment, swamp-draining changes promised on the campaign trail. The populist insurgent who ran against Washington has followed a policy agenda largely in tune with conservative Republican traditions.

The Ordinary Presidency of Donald J. Trump provides a detailed explanation for the discrepancy between Trump’s extraordinary approach and the relative mediocrity of his achievements. Ironically, it is precisely Trump’s extraordinariness as president that has helped render his presidency ordinary.

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A unique view of early Trump, adds perspective

The author (it is important to say, speaking BEFORE COVID 19 and January 6), did a very good job of staking the position that Trump's presidency, as of then, was (in actual achievements, aside from all the noisemaking, claims and unrealized promises) surprisingly mainstream-conservative. (At least, it represented many not-so-rare threads of existing conservatism.) Trump did a unique job of packaging and marketing a lot of stuff he did not create, that was bound to be expressed anyway. Though we cannot un-see the later events (and our opinions piled atop them), which are still unfolding as I write this, there is value in this viewpoint, at least for me. It shows me a few things I took away here: (1) the hype often overshadows the limits to most presidents' impacts, against the background and flow of history, and (2) Trump's impact was (more than often supposed) a matter of being "the right person at the right time," i.e., a catalyst for lots of forces waiting to unfurl anyway. This helps me detach with greater context from the person and noise surrounding Trump specifically, and gain historical context on the times we are in. This is not the whole story, but it enriches my views of it, and gives some distance from all the hysteria and hand-wringing.