Michael Wolff rains down fire and fury on the President and his Keystone-Kops-can’t-shoot-straight administration which fosters internecine warfare like a factionalized Lebanon. Everything but the car bombings—so far. He lays it all out in his fly-on-the-wall FIRE AND FURY: INSIDE THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE.
Maybe other presidential administrations had internal problems too. I suspect so.
Nixon with his impeachment.
Clinton’s driven libido. (p.s. I was a strong Clinton fan, and I heard him speak at our local high school—mesmerizing, but came to realize he should have resigned. He disgraced the Office of the President, and probably cost Gore the 2000 election. But the disgrace was not on this Trumpian scale, allegedly engaging in antics with porn stars.)
So, while I fret about the sheer disorganization and administrative guerrilla-war conflicts of Trump and his people, at least he hasn’t plunged us into a 15-year-graveyard-of-empires-war, at the cost of trillions that could have rebuilt and reeducated America, to say nothing of the 500,000 dead Iraqis in the missing-weapons-conflict.
Obviously, I digress a bit.
A summary excerpt, capturing the dysfunctional White House flavor, from the point of view of Wolff:
“As Walsh saw it, Steven Bannon was running the Steve Bannon White House, Jared Kushner was running the Michael Bloomberg White House, and Reince Priebus was running the Paul Ryan White House. ….”
My former career as a city manager placed critical emphases on communications, organization, efficiency, and productivity. That professional world-view contributes to my angst, despising Trump and his culture of disorganization.
Then, I had a counter-revelation. If we can survive Trump until his impeachment, we are safer with his mindless chaos. Can you imagine if Trump were really an effective CEO?
Meanwhile, I’ m counting on the American deep-state to keep us safe. Trump calls them “deep state.”
I call them the federal civil service; the intelligence community; and a military who take an oath to the constitution, not to the president. And, thank God, despite my personal aversion to the historical “racist” emphasis on State’s Rights—those State’s Rights are looking pretty good right now. Thank God we have fifty state governments. Maybe not the most efficient system, but built to thwart egomaniacal heads of state.
Every once in a while, our Founding Fathers look really smart, don’t they?
Ben Leiter 