Doesn't Care, So No Need to Understand

For the last nine months, the lodestar of American government has been Trump’s volatile appetite, rather than the interests of citizens.

[...]

Sabotaging the health care system has always been morally obscene, but before the repeal process faltered, it was at least possible to construe the vandalism as an intended catalyst for some larger goal. Now, its only upshot is to turn innocent people into the collateral damage of a demented revenge fantasy.

Though Trump demonstrably does not care, it is still unclear whether he understands that his desire to win—whether winning in his mind means stomping on Barack Obama’s legacy, or just notching a signing ceremony—is being channeled into policies that will increase suffering.

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“They will have so many options,” Trump said Thursday. “This will cost the United States government virtually nothing, and people will have great, great health care, and when I say ‘people’ I mean by the millions and millions.”

Nope and nope.

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On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump assembled an audience of non-health-care professionals in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to applaud him as he signed an executive order crafted primarily for the purpose of making him feel better about his failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

At a subconscious level, Trump seemed given over to the fact that he was participating in an empty charade. Upon concluding his mostly-scripted remarks, Trump turned away from the order and attempted a swift exit, having apparently lost track in his own mind of the very thing he’d convened the event to do.

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It is anyone’s guess whether the instructed agencies will follow through with the order in earnest. There is a precedent in this administration of political appointees slow walking or even shelving Trump’s most vindictive commands. There are also compelling reasons to believe that at least some of the order’s aspirations are unlawful. But if the government implements it aggressively, it is alarmingly plausible that Trump will be blindsided by the blowback.

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He has, in other words, basically no idea what he just set forth as the policy of his own government.

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It is theoretically possible that Trump weighed all of these concerns and determined that, on balance, he’d rather own the consequences than be caught “losing” the health care fight.

But the unprompted nature of his decisions is much more consistent with a broader pattern of Trump tasking others with giving form to his impulses.

  Crooked

Which is exactly what he just did with the Iran nuclear deal, as well.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.