Charles Blow/NYT: "Trump can't hold a candle to Obama-so he's taking a tiki torch to Obamas legacy"

[kpete]

Trump, Chieftain of Spite
Charles M. Blow OCT. 15, 2017




It must be cold and miserable standing in the shadow of someone greater and smarter, more loved and more admired. It must be infuriating to have risen on the wings of your derision of that person’s every decision, and even his very existence, and yet not be able to measure up — in either stratagem or efficacy — when you sit where that person once sat.

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This is the existence of Donald Trump in the wake of President Barack Obama. Trump can’t hold a candle to Obama, so he’s taking a tiki torch to Obama’s legacy. Trump can’t get his bad ideas through Congress, but he can use the power of the presidency to sabotage or even sink Obama’s signature deeds.

In fact, if there’s a defining feature of Trump as “president,” is that in all ways he is the anti-Obama — not only on policy but also on matters of propriety and polish. While Obama was erudite, Trump is ignorant. Obama was civil, Trump is churlish. Obama was tactful, Trump is tacky.

There is a thing present in Obama and absent from Trump that no amount of money or power can alter: a sense of elegant intellectualism and taste.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/opinion/columnists/trump-spite-obama-legacy.html?_r=0