President Donald Trump is trying to shape how he’s remembered through his transformations of Washington’s monuments, official buildings and grassy parks — and the honors boards at his golf clubs.
But as a frenetic summer rolls on, his legacy instead risks being dominated by a US strategic stalemate in Iran, the unaddressed economic anxieties of millions of Americans, and Republican Party schisms caused by his personal obsessions.
This unusual political bifurcation means Trump is juggling some of the gravest issues confronted by a modern president, like the war, and some of most trivial, including a dispute over Washington’s Reflecting Pool. It helps explain polling by CNN and other outlets three months before midterm elections that reveal low approval ratings and dissatisfaction on issues voters care about most.
By any conventional measure, this is a presidency in trouble. The traditional response would be to behave in a more focused way. But Trump is different from most presidents. He doubles down; he picks fights designed to please his political base; and he engineers sudden changes of course.
Throughout a turbulent weekend, Trump oscillated between profound and preposterous issues that all seem to merit equal time in his mind.
