As last year both crawled and flew by, my compassion for Donald J. Trump kept ramping up, so astonished was I by the thunderous level of vitriol continuous directed against a duly elected president. And then — what happened, when? — at some point I realized that the greater the push, the greater his push back. That this singular man actually utilizes adversity as food. Who else can say that? Who else could get in there and begin to pull the plug on the insidious corruption that has infected the body politic? It would take an ego of his size, one that dwarfed all others, to take the Deep State on. 

(Unless of course, he’s part of the Deep State, “controlled opposition,” as we citizen journalists like to say. And of course, that still may be true! A diminishing part of me does remind the rest of me that the jury’s still out.)

This entire piece is well worth reading. Gives one author’s history, blow by blow, of the adversity, and how the outsized Trump not only survived it, but turned the tables.

Trump’s Greatest Achievement? Surviving His First Year as President

Excerpt:

Newly elected US Presidents can normally expect a honeymoon in the first six months following their election, with support for them tending to tail off towards the year’s end.

In Donald Trump’s case the pattern has been the reverse. Not only are his ratings improving but his position in Congress looks stronger now than it has ever been before.

Though talk of impeachment is still there, with the Republican Party in Congress now finally closing ranks behind him its prospect, even if the Democrats win control of Congress in the autumn, is starting to melt away.

In order to understand how this has happened the reasons for Donald Trump’s problems in his first year as President must first be explained.

Now you might read this one recent paragraph from Trump’s geopolitical counterpart, and I would assess him now, equal, President Putin:

Putin says KBG past prepared him for Presidency

Asked whether he had adjusted his behavior since becoming president, Putin said: “As strange as it sounds, no.”

“Yes, I’m in the limelight, but in my previous life [as KGB agent] I always tried to act as if I was constantly being watched,” he said. “It’s strange, but that’s how it worked out, perhaps because of my previous work.”

In other words, Putin acted as if he was in the limelight, even before he was. Kind of like myself as a kid, with the omnipresent Old Testament meanie God seeing all my behavior, so I’d better watch out, better be good.