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The Observer view on Donald Trump’s unfitness for office.
The Observer view on Donald Trump’s unfitness for office | Observer editorial
The sense of things falling apart in Washington is palpable – and a matter of growing, serious international concern. Donald Trump’s latest asinine act of gesture politics, the forced resignation of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has shone a spotlight on the extraordinary chaos inside the White House.
Even normally sober, experienced Washington observers now refer to the West Wing as a viper’s nest of seething rivalry, bitter feuds, gross incompetence and an unparalleled leadership vacuum.
Like some kind of Shakespearean villain-clown, Trump plays not to the gallery but to the pit. He is a Falstaff without the humour or the self-awareness, a cowardly, bullying Richard III without a clue. Late-night US satirists find in this an unending source of high comedy. If they did not laugh, they would cry.
The world is witnessing the dramatic unfolding of a tragedy whose main victims are a seemingly helpless American audience, America’s system of balanced governance and its global reputation as a leading democratic light.
...
The common factor in all these situations is Trump’s self-induced powerlessness and ignorance, his chronic lack of credibility and presidential authority and consequent perceptions of US and western weakness. And in the case of all three actual or potential adversaries – North Korea, Iran and Russia – these perceptions are highly dangerous. Precisely because US responses, actions and reactions can no longer be relied upon or predicted, by friends and enemies alike, the potential for calamitous miscalculation is growing. This uncertainty, like the chaos in the White House and the extraordinary disarray of the American body politic, stems from Trump’s glaring unfitness for the highest office. As is now becoming ever plainer, this threatens us all.
The Observer view on Donald Trump’s unfitness for office | Observer editorial
The sense of things falling apart in Washington is palpable – and a matter of growing, serious international concern. Donald Trump’s latest asinine act of gesture politics, the forced resignation of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has shone a spotlight on the extraordinary chaos inside the White House.
Even normally sober, experienced Washington observers now refer to the West Wing as a viper’s nest of seething rivalry, bitter feuds, gross incompetence and an unparalleled leadership vacuum.
Like some kind of Shakespearean villain-clown, Trump plays not to the gallery but to the pit. He is a Falstaff without the humour or the self-awareness, a cowardly, bullying Richard III without a clue. Late-night US satirists find in this an unending source of high comedy. If they did not laugh, they would cry.
The world is witnessing the dramatic unfolding of a tragedy whose main victims are a seemingly helpless American audience, America’s system of balanced governance and its global reputation as a leading democratic light.
...
The common factor in all these situations is Trump’s self-induced powerlessness and ignorance, his chronic lack of credibility and presidential authority and consequent perceptions of US and western weakness. And in the case of all three actual or potential adversaries – North Korea, Iran and Russia – these perceptions are highly dangerous. Precisely because US responses, actions and reactions can no longer be relied upon or predicted, by friends and enemies alike, the potential for calamitous miscalculation is growing. This uncertainty, like the chaos in the White House and the extraordinary disarray of the American body politic, stems from Trump’s glaring unfitness for the highest office. As is now becoming ever plainer, this threatens us all.
The Trump Presidency is a strange combination of menacing and impotent. It is also fractured internally like no presidency in American history.
The menacing element is plain. Trump sets everyone on edge with incessant verbal attacks and relentlessly indecorous behavior. The maelstrom that is his presidency seems like it could at any moment push the country off the rails—massive pardons to kill the Russia investigation, a Justice Department meltdown as a result of firings and resignations, a North Korean miscalculation, or who-knows-what-other-crazy-thing. Many people worry how the impulsive Trump will handle his first crisis.
As for impotence, Trump has accomplished nothing beyond conservative judicial appointments. His administration is otherwise a comedy of errors in the exercise of executive power. What is most remarkable is the extent to which his senior officials act as if Trump were not the chief executive. Never has a president been so regularly ignored or contradicted by his own officials. I’m not talking about so-called “deep state” bureaucrats. I’m talking about senior officials in the Justice Department and the military and intelligence and foreign affairs agencies. And they are not just ignoring or contradicting him in private. They are doing so in public for all the world to see.
Trump’s tweets keep the attention on him, but the operation of some of the most important components of his administration seems entirely disconnected from the President and the White House generally. The President is a figurehead who barks out positions and desires, but his senior subordinates carry on with different commitments.
As others have noted, it’s all a remarkable inversion of the unitary executive.
master.on
New Member
Priebus time for Trump to press the reset button
Perfect Trump song
@2:01
The world, the world
The time has come to
Push the button
The world, the time
Has come to push the button
The world, the time
Has come to push the button, the world
My finger is on the button
My finger is on the button
My finger is on the button
Push the button
The time has come to galvanize
Perfect Trump song
@2:01
The world, the world
The time has come to
Push the button
The world, the time
Has come to push the button
The world, the time
Has come to push the button, the world
My finger is on the button
My finger is on the button
My finger is on the button
Push the button
The time has come to galvanize
A third possibility
TheMoneyIllusion » A third possibility
During the campaign, there was a vigorous debate in the comment section of this blog. One side agreed with my claim that Trump was a clown and a buffoon, while the other insisted that I was being hysterical. Interestingly, I don’t recall anyone advocating a third view, that I was being far too generous in my characterization of Trump.
Update: Jonah Goldberg has an amusing take on “Mooch”, pointing out that the guy who wants to kill all the leakers actually confessed to a failed attempt at leaking White House info, but seems too dense to realize what he had done. The Mooch: White House Communications Mis-director
“Think about this for a moment. Scaramucci suggests that he was betrayed by Lizza because he believed this conversation would be off the record or on background. That means he thought he was leaking to the press about the internal dynamics of the White House. Ergo, Scaramucci is a leaker (something we knew already, by the way).”
Matt Yglesias suggests that the Mooch made his money the same way that Trump did, by bilking foolish investors: Anthony Scaramucci, explained
“At the same time, Mooch is a very Trumpy figure — and not just in his bridge-and-tunnel mannerisms. He’s a “hedge fund guy” but not a guy like George Soros, who made money with smart investments. He built his fortune on what amounts to a high-end swindle, successfully marketing a high-fee, low-performance investment vehicle. And he now stands to make even more money by selling the company while simultaneously serving at a high level in the American government — the kind of blatant, obvious conflict of interest that no other president would even consider tolerating in a senior White House official.”
Both pieces are worth reading.
TheMoneyIllusion » A third possibility
During the campaign, there was a vigorous debate in the comment section of this blog. One side agreed with my claim that Trump was a clown and a buffoon, while the other insisted that I was being hysterical. Interestingly, I don’t recall anyone advocating a third view, that I was being far too generous in my characterization of Trump.
Update: Jonah Goldberg has an amusing take on “Mooch”, pointing out that the guy who wants to kill all the leakers actually confessed to a failed attempt at leaking White House info, but seems too dense to realize what he had done. The Mooch: White House Communications Mis-director
“Think about this for a moment. Scaramucci suggests that he was betrayed by Lizza because he believed this conversation would be off the record or on background. That means he thought he was leaking to the press about the internal dynamics of the White House. Ergo, Scaramucci is a leaker (something we knew already, by the way).”
Matt Yglesias suggests that the Mooch made his money the same way that Trump did, by bilking foolish investors: Anthony Scaramucci, explained
“At the same time, Mooch is a very Trumpy figure — and not just in his bridge-and-tunnel mannerisms. He’s a “hedge fund guy” but not a guy like George Soros, who made money with smart investments. He built his fortune on what amounts to a high-end swindle, successfully marketing a high-fee, low-performance investment vehicle. And he now stands to make even more money by selling the company while simultaneously serving at a high level in the American government — the kind of blatant, obvious conflict of interest that no other president would even consider tolerating in a senior White House official.”
Both pieces are worth reading.
WTFU ...
Last edited:
The Downsides of John Kelly's Ascension
Why I Find Trump's Appointment of John Kelly Depressing
John Kelly, retired Marine four-star and new White House chief of staff, has been throughout his career everything Trump is not: He has endured more than Trump could imagine, and has displayed virtues that Trump may not understand and certainly has not exhibited, among them candor, courage, and discipline. Which is why some observers have welcomed Kelly’s hiring as evidence that perhaps the president is learning, that maybe now we will have a disciplined White House that will focus on the business of public policy. Maybe the early morning tweets will diminish or even stop.
Trump’s pick of Kelly is probably better understood in a broader and darker context. That includes a speech that he gave the same day to New York’s Suffolk County Police Department calling on cops to bang suspects’ heads into squad cars; the brusque, uncoordinated dismissal of transgender service personnel by presidential tweet; a speech a week earlier at the commissioning of USS Gerald R. Ford urging sailors to lobby their representatives; a harangue to 30,000 Boy Scouts that included a rant about loyalty, and that earned him an astonishing rebuke from the head of the Boy Scouts of America; and a longer history of toying around the edge of inciting violence, to include the assassination of his opponent in the last election.
As the coils of the Russia investigation grow tighter, as his failures in Congress mount, Trump reaches for what he knows—demagoguery of the rawest sort. He reaches as well for what he thinks of as his base, which includes (he believes) the military, many of whose leaders are actually quietly appalled by what he represents. He has picked Kelly not because of his political or administrative skills but because he thinks of him as a “killer”—a term of praise in his lexicon, which is why he likes referring to his secretary of defense as “Mad Dog” Mattis, a nickname the former general rejects. Kelly will not organize Goon Squads for Trump, but the president would probably not mind if he did. More to the point, Kelly’s selection, and that of a foul-mouthed financier from New York as Trump’s communications director, tells us not that Trump is planning on moderating his behavior, but rather on going to the mattresses. He just may have picked the wrong guy for that mission, that’s all.
...
There is one further reason to find this appointment depressing. It contributes to the continuing decay of American civil-military relations. Those of us who were relieved to see James Mattis as secretary of defense, H. R. McMaster as national-security adviser, and Kelly himself as secretary of homeland security, felt that way partly out of appreciation for the virtues of all three men, but also, very largely, out of relief that their sanity might contain their boss’s craziness. But it is inappropriate to have so many generals in policy-making positions; it is profoundly wrong to have a president regard the military as a constituency, and corrupting to have the Republican Party, such as it is, act as though generals have if not a monopoly then at least dominant market share in the qualities of executive ability and patriotism. It is unwise to have higher-level positions in the hands of officials who have openly expressed disdain for Congress—now a dangerously weak branch of government.
Trump, who has no idea how many articles there are in the Constitution, neither knows nor cares about any of the niceties of civil-military relations. To their credit, Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster have thought long and hard about these issues. But like any of us they have their individual limitations, and like any of us, their characters can be eroded by the whirlpool of moral and political corruption that is Donald Trump. The Marines live by a hard code, and John Kelly has endured tests of character more difficult than most of us can conceive. But his hardest tests lie ahead, and neither he nor anyone else can be sure that he will pass them.
Why I Find Trump's Appointment of John Kelly Depressing
John Kelly, retired Marine four-star and new White House chief of staff, has been throughout his career everything Trump is not: He has endured more than Trump could imagine, and has displayed virtues that Trump may not understand and certainly has not exhibited, among them candor, courage, and discipline. Which is why some observers have welcomed Kelly’s hiring as evidence that perhaps the president is learning, that maybe now we will have a disciplined White House that will focus on the business of public policy. Maybe the early morning tweets will diminish or even stop.
Trump’s pick of Kelly is probably better understood in a broader and darker context. That includes a speech that he gave the same day to New York’s Suffolk County Police Department calling on cops to bang suspects’ heads into squad cars; the brusque, uncoordinated dismissal of transgender service personnel by presidential tweet; a speech a week earlier at the commissioning of USS Gerald R. Ford urging sailors to lobby their representatives; a harangue to 30,000 Boy Scouts that included a rant about loyalty, and that earned him an astonishing rebuke from the head of the Boy Scouts of America; and a longer history of toying around the edge of inciting violence, to include the assassination of his opponent in the last election.
As the coils of the Russia investigation grow tighter, as his failures in Congress mount, Trump reaches for what he knows—demagoguery of the rawest sort. He reaches as well for what he thinks of as his base, which includes (he believes) the military, many of whose leaders are actually quietly appalled by what he represents. He has picked Kelly not because of his political or administrative skills but because he thinks of him as a “killer”—a term of praise in his lexicon, which is why he likes referring to his secretary of defense as “Mad Dog” Mattis, a nickname the former general rejects. Kelly will not organize Goon Squads for Trump, but the president would probably not mind if he did. More to the point, Kelly’s selection, and that of a foul-mouthed financier from New York as Trump’s communications director, tells us not that Trump is planning on moderating his behavior, but rather on going to the mattresses. He just may have picked the wrong guy for that mission, that’s all.
...
There is one further reason to find this appointment depressing. It contributes to the continuing decay of American civil-military relations. Those of us who were relieved to see James Mattis as secretary of defense, H. R. McMaster as national-security adviser, and Kelly himself as secretary of homeland security, felt that way partly out of appreciation for the virtues of all three men, but also, very largely, out of relief that their sanity might contain their boss’s craziness. But it is inappropriate to have so many generals in policy-making positions; it is profoundly wrong to have a president regard the military as a constituency, and corrupting to have the Republican Party, such as it is, act as though generals have if not a monopoly then at least dominant market share in the qualities of executive ability and patriotism. It is unwise to have higher-level positions in the hands of officials who have openly expressed disdain for Congress—now a dangerously weak branch of government.
Trump, who has no idea how many articles there are in the Constitution, neither knows nor cares about any of the niceties of civil-military relations. To their credit, Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster have thought long and hard about these issues. But like any of us they have their individual limitations, and like any of us, their characters can be eroded by the whirlpool of moral and political corruption that is Donald Trump. The Marines live by a hard code, and John Kelly has endured tests of character more difficult than most of us can conceive. But his hardest tests lie ahead, and neither he nor anyone else can be sure that he will pass them.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has decided to remove Anthony Scaramucci from his position as communications director, three people close to the decision said Monday, relieving him just days after Mr. Scaramucci unloaded a crude verbal tirade against other senior members of the president’s senior staff.
Mr. Scaramucci’s abrupt removal came just 10 days after the wealthy New York financier was brought on to the West Wing staff, a move that convulsed an already chaotic White House and led to the departures of Sean Spicer, the former press secretary, and Reince Priebus, the president’s first chief of staff.
The decision to remove Mr. Scaramucci, who had boasted about reporting directly to the president not the chief of staff, John Kelly, came at Mr. Kelly’s request, the sources said. Mr. Kelly made clear to members of the White House staff at a meeting Monday morning that he is in charge.
It was not clear whether Mr. Scaramucci will remain employed at the White House in another position or will leave altogether.
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