Within moments of Donald Trump announcing his 17-day vacation — at his golf club in New Jersey — which begins Friday, his detractors in the media, the political world and beyond, slammed him for this new Trump hypocrisy.
Recall that Trump had regularly skewered Barack Obama for taking vacations while he was President, and had even tweeted, quoting from his own book, that if you like your job you don’t need a vacation. “Don’t take vacations,” he wrote in “Think Like A Billionaire.” What’s the point? If you’re not enjoying your work, you’re in the wrong job.”
But Trump’s critics have it all wrong.
We should be applauding this vacation. Not because Trump has earned a taxpayer-funded holiday. No, as a Quinnipiac poll released this week found, Trump’s approval rating is now at the lowest point ever for a president at this point in his term: an abysmal 33%.
What’s more, Trump has already spent millions and millions of dollars of our money — yours and mine — jetting off to spend weekends at one of his private country clubs to get a break and often play golf. In fact, Trump is on pace to spend more in his first year on personal travel than Obama did in his eight years in the White House.
So while Trump is clearly not deserving of a 17-day vacation only six months into his new job, we, the people, desperately need one! Typically presidents, like Lincoln, will visibly age while in office. In this case, Trump is doing a reverse-Lincoln: he is aging all of us. That is, all of us who are responsible for his dismal 33% approval rating.
Between his alarming policies, his alarming tweets and his alarming gaffes, he may actually be generating enough agita to shorten my life expectancy.
The Trump presidency reminds me of this season of “Game of Thrones,” which has been trimmed from the typical 10 episodes to seven. As a result, more action than ever had to be crammed into a smaller period of time.
So let us hope that for the next 17 days, we can all have a Trump-cation. We can return to the lives that we enjoyed B.T. (Before Trump.) We can spend more time with the family. Take up a new hobby that is actually healthy. Maybe even figure out what the Kardishians have been up to (kidding; the one upside to Trump has been we don’t hear about the Kardishians anymore).
Of course, the big question is: will Trump ruin our Trump-cation? It’s very possible. I get the sense Trump is like the boss who calls you just after you finally got comfortable on the beach on day one of your getaway to ask you a “quick work question.” (It’s never quick!)
The fact is, it’s hard to believe Trump will tolerate being out of the headlines for too long. Reporters will be trailing the President at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. And he will likely call a press conference at some point to lash out at someone or something. And of course, with even less work to do, he may fill his spare time by tweeting.
But here’s hoping that Trump’s new chief of staff John Kelly has the foresight to cut off Trump’s data plan as part of his new reining in of the President. We all need a rest from his Twitter tirades.
Seventeen days will come and go so quickly. But let’s pray that for at least a few of those days, we can all get the Trump-cation we have earned.