“President does what? Just signs bills and issues EOs and tweets?”
One way a President forwards his agenda in the long term is through coattails. Trump didn’t have huge coattails in 2016, at least not the kind that resulted in a GOP controlled congress loyal to him and his agenda.
Trump’s victory wasn’t such a huge surprise to me, but it was a surprise to GOP candidates running for the Senate and the House. They were sure he’d lose, so they distanced themselves from him and ran against his agenda.
Reagan, by contrast, had coattails in 1980 and Republicans swept into office knew they had the popularity of Reagan’s message to thank for it. The Republican’s and even many Democrats could see that supporting Reagan was good for their own political prospects. Even so, it wasn’t smooth sailing for RR. For three years, a deep recession made his tax and budget cuts look like a failure. Luckily, the economy kicked in in time to vindicate him and earn him a second landslide victory,
Trump’s case is nearly the exact opposite. The GOP and Dems both turned their back on him and let him go it alone. His success in spite of this has been astounding.
I think he will win reelection handily, but this time, I think the Republicans will wise up and embrace his MAGA movement - and make gains in both houses of congress - but this time it won’t be more RINOs it will be an infusion of new Republicans that actually ran on MAGA and are loyal to Trump. Then he’ll get more accomplished in the second term.
There is a lot of wishful thinking out there. I don’t think a Republican will ever get easily elected or reelected as President again.
Trump needs to get tax cuts, ObamaCare repeal and other major things done to reverse the Obama years. Right now he can’t even get his own majority on board. It may even be harder after 2018. We will see. Trump’s political future depends on it.