“In a way, Trump’s claims about what he’ll do as president are as fantastical as those Barack Obama made during the 2008 campaign. In this case, though, the magical force is Trump’s deal-making rather than the supposed bipartisan consensus that Obama or his election would create,” Nyhan added.
Julia Azari, a Marquette University professor who has written extensively about presidential leadership, said Trump is not appreciating how hard it to change U.S. policy, even as president. She noted that President Obama has found it impossible to extricate the U.S. from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan started under George W. Bush, even as Obama campaigned on getting American troops out of both countries.
“How much can one person do? There’s all the talk about going in there and changing things,” said Azari. “But reversing policy course is much harder than that. There are people invested in the status quo, getting them to do something differently takes a lot more than just bluster.”
In offering this powerful model of the presidency, Trump is rejecting the approach of Obama in the latter stages of the presidency. Obama has largely abandoned the hopes of his 2008 campaign to create bipartisanship.
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