Thoughts on Trump, Two Years In

It's hard to believe that Donald Trump has held the highest office in the United States for about two years now, but that's the current state of the world. Almost as hard to believe is that the country and world are still mostly in one piece; you could quibble about deteriorating security overseas and/or the current state of a non-operational US government with the budget impasse, but nothing overtly catastrophic has yet transpired.

Victory?

Well, no, not at all... it's more appropo to simply note that's some of the most generous praise which could be attributed to the Trump presidency: in spite of Trump being a failure in the role of President in effectively every measurable way, the country is (to date) still standing, and there's a reasonable chance we've made it at least halfway through this dark period in US history.

... At this point, I feel like I need to take a brief aside, and note that the abject failure I'm referencing is Trump the person, in the office, and not the nominal Trump/GOP policies. Many of the policy ideas are sounds, and could be quite reasonable if presented in a more amicable and professional context. Trump as POTUS, however, is certainly the most incompetent and embarrassing president in my lifetime, and likely in the history of the US itself.

Let's review some of the primary traits which would make someone a good president, and see why Trump is so terrible at the job. For fun, I'll add my perception of Obama (who's policies I liked less) in the same role, for contrast.

Trustworthy LeaderTrump has lied repeatedly since the start of his campaign (and well before, but it didn't "count" as much before). He seems to be a pathological liar, and strongly prefers spokespeople who are equally willing to ignore the facts in favor of the party line. He's almost laughably dishonest, with most media organizations giving up on fact checking his speeches as a waste of time.
Obama was dishonest, but not nearly to the same measure, and did a vastly better job of disguising it with half-truths and infrequent usage.

Eloquent SpeakerTrump is a very bad public speaker, with atrocious sentence structure, and only a seemingly grade-school level command of the English language. His manner of speaking may work well for appealing to uneducated masses, but it's objectively bad.
Obama is a very eloquent public speaker.

Good DiplomatNominally what should be Trump's saving grace, his ability to negotiate and strike deals, has proven to be entirely farcical. Trump appears utterly inept at anything related to diplomacy, which might be has most damning failure as president.
Obama was a marginally better diplomat; vastly better in some areas (such as public appearance), but not substantially better in others (eg: end results of deals).

Very Knowledgeable
The president should have good working knowledge of a wide range of topics, know how to gather accurate information, and simultaneously understand the limitations of his/her own personal knowledge. Trump fails this test badly on all counts: he's woefully ignorant, gets information from biased and shallow sources, and vastly overestimates his own knowledge and intelligence. It's hard to even fathom someone worse at this aspect of personality than Trump.
Obama was very knowledgeable, gathered information well, and was seemingly aware of the limitations of his own information.

Relatable
This is perhaps the only area where Trump might have some claim to an advantage, with using social media to "talk" directly to the people, usually for the worse. It's not quite enough to counterbalance his obvious total disconnect from the lives of people who aren't uber-rich, but he get some points for trying, I guess.
Obama had the opposite problem, to some extent: grew up normal, but was perceived as "elite" because of education, intelligence, and eloquence. Still, he did better than Trump as being relatable.

For fun, let's also check how Trump rates for the desirable traits for a Boy Scout: Trustworthy (nope, see above), Loyal (nope, see turnover), Helpful (no evidence either way), Friendly (nope, see conversation), Courteous (nope, lol), Kind (maybe), Obedient (n/a), Cheerful (nope), Thrifty (lol, nope), Brave (bone spurs), Clean (nope, per reports), and Reverent (n/a). So he basically gets a one out of five for good scouting traits, with two n/a and two maybes. That's pretty poor for a person in general.

In my opinion, Trump is an utter disaster as a president, and a painfully embarrassing reminder of an entirely broken political system which allowed him to inhabit the office. I can only hope the American people find some way to break this cycle of terrible leadership in our nominal democracy.