The first year of the Trump...

...administration has been, by any objective measure, an unmitigated disaster. (Don't believe me? Just look at his approval numbers. That's how Trump would judge it, wouldn't he?) While I won't go into all the details (mostly because you're well aware of them all), a piece in the Daily Beast, "One Year in, Trump-World Is Drowning in Regret and Chaos With Little to Show for It," has me thinking: how could things have been different for President Trump?

Imagine this scenario, if you will. After his very encouraging speech on election night, what if Trump had followed that up with an equally positive Inaugural Address? And what if, instead of having Mike Pence, Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan staff his cabinet and White House with Republican Party establishment figures and Beltway swamp creatures, Trump had reached out to more populists like Steve Bannon (without all the racism, etc.)?

And what if Trump had begun his administration by saying to Congress, "I want a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on my desk within 90 days"? "If it isn't truly bipartisan, I won't sign it. So get to work you guys! And after that, I want a truly bipartisan tax reform bill and a bipartisan fix for health care. I don't care if you repeal and replace Obamacare or just tweak it, but it has to be bipartisan." And then if nothing happened he could have campaigned against Congress, instead of railing at both parties like he is now for the Republicans' failure to put any bills on his desk.

What if a President Trump had run a truly populist administration and succeeded in breaking the partisan gridlock in Congress? Wouldn't his numbers be much, much better? Could they possibly be any worse?

Now, I know especially after rereading that piece in the Daily Beast that this is all pie in the sky. You'd have to imagine a President Trump who doesn't thrive on confrontation and controversy and doesn't tweet or watch Fox News all day. You'd also have to imagine a President Trump who released his tax returns and was sensitive to nepotism and the appearance of any conflict of interest. You would have to imagine a President Trump who turned his back on The Wall, the Muslim ban, and a bunch of other silly ideas. Oh, and you'd have to forget about North Korea and that whole Russia thing too.

So I guess this is all a waste of time. Trump is Trump. He's unqualified for the job and unfit for the office and we knew it all along. He's oddly thin-skinned and insecure while having a giant ego at the same time. Honestly, he's one of the weirdest guys I've ever seen in my life.

But a guy can daydream, can't he?