Joseph Epstein, arguably our greatest living essayist, wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal a month or so ago headlined "The Only Good Thing about Donald Trump Is All His Policies."
President Trump came across to those who didn't automatically hate him as a good steward of the economy, lifting regulations and signing the first significant tax reform in three decades.
The tweets were a separate world of personal vendettas or skirmishes.
For some who've been tolerant (or even sometimes amused) by the President's twitter fights, there now seems, however, to be a new fear factor when the tweets have lasting economic implications, including attacking private companies and announcing trade wars.
It's not just Amazon and those sectors that are being named in Presidential tweets that are being affected.
The Dow is down 495 as I write this. The Nasdaq is down by a little more than 171. The market is complex and even experts can't time it or figure out the mysterious ways in which it moves. The tweets may have nothing to do with what we are seeing. But the president is making us all afraid by appearing that he has become as impulsive in the policy arena as in the private one. If people think you are, say, affecting their IRAs for the fun of a tweet, you–and your party–will be punished.
Please, Mr. President, go back to fighting online with Rosie O'Donnell. That's unseemly, but not costly.