In good, bad and ugly ways, this week has been a revealing metaphor for Donald Trump’s presidency. The ObamaCare repeal efforts died a sensational death and the number of people known to have attended Donald Trump Jr.’s foolish meeting with a Russian lawyer increased to eight.

Also, special counsel Robert Mueller contacted at least one person at the meeting and requested an interview, according to the Washington Post.

Trump recertified the Iranian nuclear deal that he promised to tear up, and his proposed changes to NAFTA, which he once called “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere,” are so modest that Mexico welcomed them as the basis for negotiations.

On other matters, the economy is still grinding forward, the stock market is near record highs and, despite numerous hysterical predictions, Trump has not started World War III with a tweet.

There is no denying that America elected an exceptional president in Trump, a consummate outsider and the first president ever to have no government or military experience. But as it wraps up its first six months, Trump’s presidency looks more conventional than exceptional.

Separating the substance from the noise shows him in a position familiar to all new presidents: struggling to turn his campaign promises into reality while juggling foreign-policy challenges and mastering the learning curve of the world’s most powerful job.

Trump also faces unique obstacles. Congressional Democrats remain determined to oppose him on virtually every act and appointment, and most of the media, along with much of the permanent government, remain determined to destroy him.

All those things considered, Trump’s rec­ord is not as good as he promised, but far better than his detractors predicted.

Most important, his mistakes and setbacks have not foreclosed the promise of his presidency. He still has an opportunity to reshape the economy so it creates more jobs and better serves working-class Americans. He is nominating federal judges who believe in limited government and don’t want the courts to act as a super-legislature.

Trump also has been mostly faithful to his America First agenda on overseas trips. While this has earned him cold shoulders from the likes of Angela Merkel , that’s a badge of honor. Merkel didn’t elect him and most Americans see Europe, including her Germany, as an example of a country not to emulate.

Yet there are worrisome trends, and the death of the ObamaCare repeal merits special attention because of what it says about Trump’s future. While the Rubik’s Cube complexity of health insurance, medical care and cost is daunting, the ultimate problem lies in the gulf between the president and the mainstream Republican Party.

Neither side is fully reconciled to the other and that is making it hard for the White House to get momentum. Its victories on ­executive orders and regulations are like one-game winning streaks, with congres­sional failures interrupting any sense of consistent progress.

Recall that the initial goal was to pass a health bill, tax reform and an infrastructure program — all in the first year. Now it’s not certain if any will get done.

Some of the stumbles are self-inflicted, and I don’t just mean the president’s bad habit of engaging in personal feuds. The larger problem is that the White House is simply not functioning effectively.

Leaks, leaks, leaks are Exhibit A. Why they continue, and why nobody has been fired for bad-mouthing the president to the media, ­remain a mystery. Why does Trump put up with it?

Another kind of amateurism was on display Monday. To set a campaign-consistent theme, the White House began a series of “Made in America” events.

With tractors, beer, tools, soup, golf clubs and leather goods among the products in a state-by-state display, the president put on a Stetson hat, climbed on a firetruck and pledged, “No longer are we going to allow other countries to break the rules, steal our jobs and drain our wealth.”

It made for great imagery, but then reporters asked why Trump family businesses continued to produce products in China. Poof went the air out of the room.

In the president’s defense, press secretary Sean Spicer mumbled something about “supply chains” and “scalability,” which was no defense at all, and Dems pounced.

A spokesman for the DNC called the exhibit “the epitome of President Trump’s ­hypocrisy” and said, “Instead of lecturing us, Trump should try setting an example.”

Of course, the president’s greatest vulner­ability is Mueller’s probe. Even if it finds no crime, its existence in the meantime is a shadow over the presidency.

The probe helps explain Trump’s record-low approval ratings, which tell many fellow Republicans that they have little to fear from him. That, in turn, makes them less willing to go out on a limb to deliver legislative victories for him.

Despite the drip, drip, drip of mistakes and leaks, I remain cautiously optimistic because I believe Trump’s ego will not let him accept being a failed president. To get lasting success, he must match his ambition with a steady effort to fix the White House so he can deliver consistent victories to the American people.

If he can do that, even Mueller won’t be able to stop him.

Reader nod to NYPD

Reader Catherine Heiser shares my concern about the lack of respect for the NYPD.

“The best I can do these days is nod and salute a cop when I pass one on duty,” she writes. “It is sickening to many of us what is going on in this city with our leaders squandering the lives of its police force. Many of us seniors can’t organize and show our despair and we are losing hope about the corrosion of our city.”

Guaranteed ‘die’agnosis

Headline: “DC allows doctors to prescribe life-ending medications.”

Finally, a health program guaranteed to work.

Dems don’t really ‘care’

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman put aside their dislike for each other to unite against any possible changes to ObamaCare. Too bad they can’t work together to fix the subways and stop the homeless surge.

Railing against Republicans is low-hanging fruit for blue-state Democrats, so Dems are free to say stupid things without fear of penalty. “People will die,” de Blasio claimed, as if ObamaCare has banned death.

Cuomo said GOP efforts to repeal it “will hurt the people of this state,” and Schneiderman vowed to sue if anything becomes federal law.

This is the standard bread-and-circus act of New York politics. Unable or unwilling to do the jobs they were hired to do — deliver services and manage the bureaucracy — the pols throw up boob bait to distract the public.

Pay attention, New Yorkers. The next time you’re trapped in a smoke-filled subway car or have to dodge ragged panhandlers, just remember — you’re on your own. Your government is too busy tilting at windmills to help with your little problems.