Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I cannot resist.  I wrote yesterday about Donald Trump’s autocracy – he’s always in charge, no matter what the law says.  But I do so again today, given what Trump is still doing.

It is not a surprise to learn that no one in the administration of Donald Trump knows what they are doing.  [Notice that I did not use a capital letter for the word administration because it is not clear that real “administration” exists in Trump world.]

Trump froze all federal fund programs when what he apparently wanted to do was stop those related to his executive orders.  Apparently, he couldn’t tell the difference.

Even so, several of those orders were blatantly illegal and are being challenged in court, so stopping money for them might be illegal, too.  But Trump and his minions don’t care.

He just issued a “stop paying” order so all federal funds stopped flowing, even Medicaid, as some states learned the hard way – no money.

A federal judge acted quickly to block Trump’s plan before it was set to go into effect late Tuesday afternoon.  Still, some money had already stopped flowing. 

U.S. District Judge Loren Alikhan said she was granting a “brief administrative stay” that preserves federal disbursements at least until Monday at 5 p.m. EST after a group of non-profit and public health organizations filed a lawsuit. 

So, to add to my blog yesterday, a new category is this:  Trump can’t even impose an order the way he wants.  He is not smart enough and has no understanding of the federal government, unless he functions as a dictator asking others simply to do his bidding.

I fear for the country’s well-being.

So does Dana Milbank in the Washington Post in a column that appeared under this headline – “The Trump White House has no idea what the Trump White House just did.”  Here is what he wrote:

“In just eight days on the job, Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the federal government, and he and his aides apparently couldn’t be bothered to give any thought to the damage and chaos that would ensue.

“It’s not just the spending freeze.  It’s the willy-nilly, and probably illegal, firing of federal employees, the federal hiring freeze, the moratorium on foreign aid, the threats and bullying unleashed on allies, and the moves to muzzle government agencies to eliminate accountability.

“The sheer volume of executive orders and actions stunned critics into silence.  But, as the scene in the briefing room illustrated on Tuesday, reality is already beginning to catch up with Trump.”

And, in Atlantic Magazine, Tom Nichols wrote this:

“Trump’s wave of executive orders is designed to be performatively malicious.  My colleague Adam Serwer years ago noted that, for the MAGA movement, ‘cruelty is the point,’ and now Trump’s orders make clear that the malice is the policy.”

So, this conclusion from me:  It may be that Trump does not know what he is doing, which is bad.  Or, perhaps he does know and just doesn’t care – and that’s worse.