I think it's a grave mistake to label Trump as "powerless."
There's a distinction to be drawn when it comes to Trump.
Trump has proven either unable to succeed or alternately having no interest in succeeding in the traditionally understood Washington political environment. He's got basically zero accomplishments to his name that have come through guiding the legislative process. He's forever an outsider and the ways Washington has worked for centuries are foreign to his thought process and his personality. He and the notion of representative democracy are completely antithetical to one another.
That being said, it's foolish to write him off as powerless. He is the President and by that very nature alone his job confers a whole heap of a lot of power on him. Through the power of executive orders, military powers and perhaps most notably, the bully pulpit, he can make a hell of a lives miserable, both foreign and domestic. We can't just say he's powerless and treat him like a cute little sideshow.
He is in fact possibly the most dangerous man on the face of the earth today. He has a position that places great power in him, he's the leader of the most powerful country on earth with an enormous military arsenal, and he's mentally unstable.
Donald Trump is the lord of chaos, he sews chaos wherever he goes, chaos defines the man, and that chaos is a most potent and dangerous force.
Likewise, while there's long been a discussion claiming that Trump is merely a puppet of any number of people--Steve Bannon, Paul Ryan, John Kelly, even Vladimir Putin--ultimately, there's only one thing that pulls Trump's strings....and that's Trump's own ego. Others--including Bannon, Ryan, and most notably Putin--can and have attempted to massage that ego in the interests of their own agendas, but that Ego is the only thing that will ultimately reign supreme in controlling Donald Trump.
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