Iâve been thinking a lot about the meeting between Trump and Obama at the White House, and hereâs the thing.
Obama used to be a law professor. This is key.
Law school is so, so different from college.Â
In college, everyone expects there to be a âsyllabus day,â kind of a grace period where they can show up and get the lay of the land, figure out the bare minimum that they can get away with, the TA gives everyone their office hours, thereâs an introductory lecture, and everybody leaves a few minutes early to go take a nap or something. You do the bullshit assignments, you say something in class now and then to get your participation check mark, and figure out how badly you can do on the final and still pass.Â
But see, in law school, all the methodologies youâve spent the last 17 years operating under go out the window. Day one of law school is you being thrown into the deep end of the poolâyouâve had a homework assignment for two weeks now, and itâs to read the first 200 pages of your casebook. And now itâs you and the teacher (who is usually as smug as Alex Trebek) gauging and assessing what you managed to absorb while you skimmed through all those pages of reading so you could hurry up and get to the other 150 pages of reading for your next period class, in front of 50 people who are all smarter than you. And if you fuck up, or you didnât do the reading, you are at the mercies of not just the professor, but the silent satisfied judgment of your peers.Â
Law school is hard, and it will make you feel stupid and tongue-tied and like you donât know anything and canât form an argumentâbecause you donât, and you canât. Everybody there has had a 4.0 since birth. Everybody there was the smartest kid in their class, and youâre all rabidly competing for a sliver of a chance at something down the road. Itâs petty, and savage, fiercely entrenched in a culture of formalities and ceremony, and exactly like Washington DC.Â
Yesterday when I was driving home, the NPR reporter talking about the Oval Office meeting mentioned that Trump had thought it was going to be a âgetting to know youâ type meeting, but that he was surprised when Obama stretched their talk out to 90 minutes before sending him along to the Capitol building where he met with congressional leaders for more lengthy meetings and stuff he didnât want to do.
And he hasnât even gotten to the actual job yet.Â
So think about that as we go into this.Â
Trump walked into the Oval Office like a two-pump-chump freshman thinking it was syllabus day, and what he got was the first day of law school, and he hadnât done the reading like everyone else had, and Professor Obama decided to put him in the hot seat.Â
This was Obamaâs chance for the most perfect revenge that would never be picked up on as revenge at all. He was gracious, politeâeverything he needed to be for a peaceful transition and a good review from the press. And that would continue when the doors were closed, because thatâs the key. Not a Come to Jesus meeting, oh no. If Obama were smartâand he is very smartâhe would have treated Trump like an equal, and brought the discussion to a level that assumes far more of Trump than anyone has so far. Assumes that heâs an adult whoâs been paying attention. Statistics, esoteric minutiae about the executive branch procedure, economic growth numbers, labor figures, domestic policies, countries Trump has never even heard of, shit that would never in a million years have been in Trumpâs campaign soundbites or digestible summaries.Â
No way to escape. No aides to remember any of it for him. Just the two of them.Â
Because thatâs what would strike a precise chill into Trump. The thundering realization that heâs woefully unprepared for the hard, boring, thankless reality of this, and Obamaâs version of a smooth transition wonât and shouldnât include remedial civics.Â
Thatâs what I saw when they shook hands and Trump stared at the floor instead of looking back into Obamaâs face. Heâs just figured out how little he knows about any of this.Â
And that should give you a small glow of satisfaction, because after those meetings, Trump definitely has the 1L Terror Shits. In January, the night sweats and insomnia will show up, but for these first few weeksânothing but diarrhea and self-doubt. Â
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