Presidential Pettiness

Tom Nichols: “Presidents are, like the rest of us, flawed human beings. Many of them had volcanic tempers: Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Joe Biden, among others, reportedly could sling Anglo-Saxonisms with gusto. In public, most of them managed to convey an image of geniality. (Nixon might be the exception there, but he embraced being an uptight square and his admirers found it endearing.) But all of them, regardless of their personality, had at least some notion about government, some sense of what they wanted to accomplish in the most powerful office in the world.”

“Donald Trump exhibits no such guiding belief. From his first day as a candidate, Trump has appeared animated by anger, fear, and, most of all, pettiness, a small-minded vengefulness that takes the place of actual policy making. It taints the air in the executive branch like a forgotten bag of trash in a warm house on a summer day—even when you can’t see it, you know it’s there.”