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ADHD & Trump’s Behavior: Poor Planning
A.B.O.U.T. Behavior #5: Poor Planning
Historians credit Dwight Eisenhower with publicizing the old military aphorism: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” President Trump’s approach to the presidency turns this advice on its head.
Most accounts describe that Mr. Trump had not mapped out any of his next steps after winning the presidency. In the past week he has revealed that he had an idea to get US troops out of Syria, but engaged in no planning regarding how to do it or how to deal with the consequences. It even took days after announcing our troop withdrawal for him to publicly warn Turkey not to invade Syria and kill Kurds, despite this being a predictable response to his action.
Mr. Trump’s ADHD-driven poor planning directly contributed to the current humanitarian crisis unfolding on Syria’s border with Turkey. His poor planning caused our Kurdish allies to feel abandoned, our European partners to feel blindsided, and anyone else depending on US support to fear future betrayal. Even Republican supporters of the president have criticized the poor planning of his Syrian troop withdrawal.
Lack of planning has been a hallmark of this administration. He flew to a second summit with North Korea with no agreement in…
