Seriously or not, Trump launches one lead balloon after another

President Donald Trump's plans and proposals often form a kind of spray that vaporizes upon reaching the cold air of reality.

Ending birthright citizenship, as the president has urged, would clearly require a constitutional amendment. Like the idea or not, no such move is underway.

After the Dayton and El Paso massacres, Trump resumed making vague allusions to tightening background checks for weapons. But those are fading too after a quick verbal spritz.

The president recently made it clear he'd like the United States to buy Greenland, an autonomous part of Denmark that hosts the U.S. Air Force's northernmost base. 

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the idea "absurd," and that's where it will likely remain.

According to the Axios website, Trump repeatedly suggested to senior security officials that they consider using nuclear bombs to keep hurricanes in the Atlantic from reaching the United States.

As you might guess, experts call this idea highly dangerous. Trump reportedly brought it up in 2017, but it never reached the stage of a formal executive process. Trump called the story "ridiculous."

Trump soon issued another nonstarter. “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA," he tweeted.

The sentiment may be fitting. But "hereby ordered?" This phrase brought mockery from critics and translations by aides amid the current trade war.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) sniped: "As long as we are claiming constitutional powers we don't have, I hereby order the President to stop tweeting." 

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Trump “wants to make sure to the extent that we are in an extended trade war, that companies don’t have these issues and move out of China.” Mnuchin said he didn't think emergency "orders" would be carried out.

Trump reacted to recent white-supremacist protests, and counter-protests by self-proclaimed left-wing anti-fascists, by tweeting: “Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an 'ORGANIZATION OF TERROR.'"

No such "major consideration" is evident among law enforcement agencies. 

An Anti-Defamation League report suggests a possible reason. "Because there is no unifying body for antifa, it is impossible to know how many 'members' are currently active …," it says. "Right-wing extremists have been one of the largest and most consistent sources of domestic terror incidents in the United States for many years; they have murdered hundreds of people in this country over the last ten years alone."  

"To date, there have not been any known antifa-related murders," the league said.

Other Trump nonstarters include a hint of payroll tax breaks; readmitting Russia to the G-7; a naval blockade of Venezuela; halting all aid to certain Central American nations and a proposal to expel school kids who were brought here illegally.

Even one of this most-discussed initiatives looks like a dud.

Following a federal shutdown, an emergency declaration, and three years of rally chants, no new border wall is evident.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently confirmed that the administration hasn't built even a mile of new wall in a previously barrier-free section of the nation's Southern border.

By Dan Janison

dan.janison@newsday.comDanJanison

Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.