Our Dear Leader has something to say about that requirement!
"Modern day presidential" means that a mentally eleven-year old sits down and tweets about television pundits who have hurt his feelings. Stuff like this:
It's as if "presidential" now means to be a celebrity fighting for better media ratings. Digby wrote:
But one thing is sure. Trump is not doing the job of president. He's a celebrity managing his personal PR. He doesn't seem to know that this is not the job of president.So what is the meaning of "presidential?"
Suppose that an imaginary president goes on a state visit to another country. While his fancy limousine slowly drives past cheering crowds of the country he is visiting, he suddenly winds down a window, bares his bottom and then moons the people watching the cavalcade.
Now, Donald has not done that yet, but he has come pretty close. The problem with such behavior is, of course, that those watching a visiting president view that person as the embodiment of his or her country.
Therefore, as Donald behaves, so -- assume people in other countries -- does the United States. One part of the job of being "presidential" is never to forget that one represents the whole people.
That part of "presidential" Trump fails sorely. People elsewhere are laughing at his clown show. But he fails being "presidential" in most other aspects, too:
The job demands a certain dignity and maturity, one where the private person who has the job must stay secondary to the public person. Thus, neither Barack nor Michelle Obama ever aimed angry tweets in some kind of a media war against Rush Limbaugh, say, despite the fact that Limbaugh (a political pundit) employed a whole artillery of racism and sexism to attack Michelle Obama.
That's because ignoring such whining mosquitoes as Limbaugh IS "presidential." Trump lacks that ability. He either literally doesn't know how a president should behave, or if he does, he chooses to place his own selfish and petty concerns first, far ahead of the country.
The real travesty is not even that one Donald Trump is now the president of the United States of America. It is that around sixty million voters (perhaps with a little bit of help from Putin) decided that it was perfectly fine to vote for a president who knows very little, cares to learn nothing more and largely focuses on imaginary and real slights against his own person, rather than the actual job of presidenting.
And the man appears to have a pretty serious anger problem, too.
Never mind. He only has his finger on the nuclear button. But aren't you glad that we no longer have to worry about the possible use of a private e-mail server by someone in public office and that we no longer need to read about that almost every day?