Trump’s fiery first year is not all that unusual. Ask Bill Clinton

Niall Ferguson says getting mad is part of the job as the presidency can be inherently infuriating, noting that US President Donald Trump’s tumultuous start has much in common with Clinton’s dramatic first year in office. Clinton, of course, went on to be re-elected

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President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address after taking the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States, on January 20 last year. Photo: EPA

Published: 2:30pm, 15 Jan 2018Updated: 9:13pm, 15 Jan 2018

“Once Trump came into the Oval Office with a newspaper folded into quarters showing some story based on a leak from the White House. ‘What the f*** is this?’ Trump had shouted. Presidential flare-ups were common enough, but Trump often would not let an incident go, roaring on for too long before calming down.” “The White House problems … were organisation and discipline. The staff was too often like a soccer league of 10-year-olds.”

You are probably thinking that you have read more than enough about Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury , the core thesis of which received fresh support last week from the president’s potty mouth and Twitter feed.

In fact, the quotations are taken from another book, Bob Woodward’s The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House, published in 1994. I just changed the president’s surname. A recurrent theme of The Agenda is Bill Clinton’s explosively bad temper.

My point is not that Clinton is like Trump, but that the presidency will infuriate even the best of men. Show me a presidential biography and I’ll show you eruptions of fury. Yet each biographer presents this as a significant trait of his subject, rather than appreciating that it’s structural: the job is inherently maddening.

Former president Bill Clinton (left) was known for his bad temper and the first lady Hillary Clinton’s (right) involvement in the administration. Photo: AFP

So let’s leave aside personality and consider a structural interpretation of the past 12 months. Most presidencies have the following characteristics in the first year. The White House operates much like a royal court in the time of Shakespeare – an analogy suggested to Wolff by Steve Bannon, but not a new one. The president is the focal point; access to him is power.

Initially, however, he is a powerful novice. Those appointed to key positions are also often new to government. The other branches of government operate according to different rules. To work with them, the president needs experienced insiders. Meanwhile, the press exists in a symbiotic relationship with the government. Out there, too, are the other governments of the world, sizing up the new guy.