[HOT AIR] I’m trying to locate this on the spectrum between "take him seriously but not literally," as his supporters do, and "take him literally but not seriously," as the media does. I think it falls somewhere in the gray zone of stuff he’d like to do and would do if American norms were different. But since they aren’t, he’s left musing wistfully about how much better things would be if law enforcement could just take the gloves off with the bad guys, a theme he’s returned to occasionally as president.
It’s also a point he’s reportedly made in private. The fact that we’re hearing it now fits with POTUS’s drift recently towards "letting Trump be Trump," to borrow a phrase from Corey Lewandowski. He was enthusiastic about gun control yesterday; he declared a trade war on steel and aluminum imports this morning; now here he is fantasizing about a Duterte-type solution to America’s drug problem. All of those positions are what you’d expect from a nationalist strongman. Maybe the days of POTUS rubber-stamping conservative policy pushed by Ryan and McConnell are over. |