Slacker In Chief

Donald Trump Came Into Office Promising to Work Hard for Forgotten Americans, but He’s Been Very Lazy So Far

- Alexander Nazaryan

Days before, Congress had finally managed to strike a deal on raising the debt ceiling, thus averting a disastrous default on the national debt. But the process had been long and hideous, like an ugly domestic argument waged in front of the neighbors. On the 5th, a Friday, Standard & Poor’s had handed the United States its first ever credit-rating downgrade, citing a lack of “predictability of American policymaking and political nstitutions.”

Obama tried to calm Americans with a speech that Monday, in which he declared the nation’s economic woes were “eminently solvable.” The financial markets disagreed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 635 points that day. There was talk of a double-dip recession. And there was anger at Obama, whose approval rating drop to 40 percent, the lowest yet of his presidency. Seeking a respite, Obama went golfing that Saturday, ahead of an “economic bus tour” of the Midwest.

The following Monday, the 15th, there came a tweet from Donald Trump, host of the popular Apprentice franchise. He’d recently become a hero of the right for insisting Obama may have been born a Muslim and outside the United States. It was not his first tweet needling Obama, but it was the first on a subject to which Trump would return time and again: the president’s love of golf. “@BarackObama played golf yesterday,” Trump’s tweet announced. “Now he heads to a 10 day vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. Nice work ethic.” (Obama had actually played golf two days before, and his vacation wasn’t until week’s end.)