dunie: I still disagree that these segments undermine characterizing Trump as bad.
"Unimaginable" is negative in context (it's not a good unimaginable). "Us-against-them rhetoric" was traditionally considered a "bad" thing to genteel centrist newspaper readers (although who knows these days anymore). "According to fact checkers" is a way to squeeze in a slam on Trump while still appearing "neutral" (there's no implication that the fact-checkers are wrong or biased anywhere). You're right that "self-interested system" is technically not attributed to Trump supporters. I get the message the writer is going for, but, sure, I can see a difference of opinion on proper phrasing for that one. "Outside the box" can be positive without any context, but the context is a bunch of norm-shattering authoritarianism, and it's a direct quote, so presumably the reporter thought that was the best quote to work with. "More bark than bite" has been thankfully true on some issues - if you take all of Trump's tweets and threats literally, he has not actually followed through on many of them. I think it's fair to worry that this understates what Trump
has done, but I think it's also fair to mention that Trump can be a blowhard at times, which is just clearly true (and is bad for the country in a different way). Reality can accommodate both Trump being terrible and promising to be far more terrible but not following up. Trump making the presidency more "authentic" is the Trump-supporter's stance, contrasted with "autocratic" from detractors; I think it's valid to mention the other side's stance, as it's what you pick to explain Trump if you like him. Understanding the opposition's arguments is useful. For "Presidents are human", here's the full paragraph:
Presidents are human, too, a blend of varying degrees of idealism, generosity, empathy, ambition, ego, vanity, jealousy and anger, but they generally hide their unvarnished traits behind an official veneer. Call it decorum, call it presidential. Mr. Trump essentially calls it fake, making no effort to pretend to be above it all, except to boast that he is stronger, richer, smarter and more successful than anyone else. To him, the presidency is about winning, not governing.
It's a set-up for "Trump is more interested in parading his victory around then acting presidential and ruling the country." That's an overall
attack on him - presumably even diehard conservatives want someone who can both win AND "govern." The bit about Kelly: It's in response to a meme among the "respectable" centrists that maybe John Kelly would "fix" the White House and help Trump after he became Chief of Staff, which the author is saying "eh, probably not" against. The electoral college wouldn't have mattered if Trump had lost by a 85-15 margin, which is what "should" have happened; how exactly he hustled his way to 46% of the vote is the point of interest the author is exploring. I think the EC would be fine to talk about in a different article, but this one was more focused on his first year in office, and how his supporters interact with him is relevant to that (with the election being the backstory for it). re "cautionary tale", it'll be a cautionary tale for future presidents because if EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE by 2020 future presidents might say "huh let me not do that again". The "broader mandate" thing is hitting on Trump for making radical changes despite having half the country hate him.
Anyway, as for whether this piece is really Trump-friendly or not, I'm going to fall back to the same thing I mentioned earlier in the thread: are there people who are Trump-neutral or Trump-positive and agree with the stance that this piece is portraying him as a maverick-super hero? Would that article appear in Breitbart without too many angry comments? If the only people who think Trump is being burnished by this piece are people who already hate Trump and won't have their minds changed anyway... is the piece
actually pro-Trump in any effective sense?
At the very worst, if nobody can be found that thinks Trump is flattered by it who doesn't already hate Trump, that would imply the article is a
wholly ineffective pro-Trump puff piece. Which is something I guess.
