If stability is desirable, time to worry would be if Fox and Friends presenters start churning.
2
But... but... but... while driving to my Christmas holiday, my FM scan went past Rush, so I stopped for a minute to listen. And Rush says this "chaos" is all a pejorative slander of "the normal Washington DC operations" that are what is really going on. Rush said that the government shutdown was not "chaos" caused by Trump's reversal of his reversal on "the Wall", but instead is orchestrated by Democrats! Rush says that Trump has it all under control.
Oh, who to believe?! Rush and Trump, or everyone else with any kind of critical thinking skills? Well, I think I can make that choice. After a couple minutes I scanned on... sorry Rush advertisers.
8
Trump will only go out kicking and screaming.
4
one more extremely important thing about Trump seems uniquely and particularly gruesome, and that is his tendency to publicly trash his own top appointees.
This is an extremely bad character trait and an obvious deterrent to anybody who would otherwise wish to work for a President.
Now he is publicly trashing his own Fed chair Powell 24/7 and it is having an obviously destructive effect on markets, the economy and on America itself.
4
The onboarding of several Fox News alumni recently — none of whom could reasonably be described as the “A Team” irrespective of their proximity to Il Duce — appears to have actually made things worse for turnover. They have all reached their Peter Principle level in this administration.
5
bedlam or plain disaster : you're giving trump way too much press. he got elected because of absolute free press coverage. do you need to re-elect him in the same way? if he were to pay for each and every mention in the ny times alone, he might plain give up his game. instead he actually thrives from these "newsies".
also: don't we "the people" really have enough of these trumpologies by being forced to follow those tweets he produces in daily shouts?
7
No surprise here. Any decent person with dignity cannot work for the con man. The child bully treats everyone as his slave. In his mind, he is the emperor. But the emperor has no clothes- the sycophant is mentally unstable and likely suffers from severe bipolar disorder. He needs to be treated. He is extremely unstable and unable to make a single objective decision.
4
I think the presidency of Trump will serve as a standard, a Litmus Test, for presidents, and for government officials, in general.
In the past, we have accepted candidates, without seriously questioning whether they were sane and qualified to be in office.
Now, it will change. Crazy, dishonest behavior will be questioned.
Trump is helping the US to move forward. with more confidence.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2
As Mayor Daley would say ... Who / Where are these polls?...
I don't remember anyone voting for Hannity, Coulter, Ingraham and Limbaugh to run the country.
9
Why try to analyze any of this? It defies analysis. You might as well philosophize about a mad dog, foaming at the mouth.
4
Ii have noted a number of recent columns providing evidence of how bad Trump is, but no one, including myself, has any idea what to do about it. Wait for Mueller or beat Trump in 2020 are not bad suggestions, but impeachment won't work so long as Republican senators are afraid of Trump, nor will the 25th amendment work since Trump has jettisoned the few cabinet members who might have tried to intervene. Trump may even dig in further to stay in office to keep what he considers to be sovereign immunity from indictment.
3
The only reasonable conclusion is that Congressional Republicans believe their only chance of holding the presidency in 2020 is with Trump. They obviously figure that if they turn on Trump now - or if they allow House Democrats or Mueller to remove Trump from office - Trump's base will turn on them, if not the country and who knows what happens then? What they are sure of is they won't win the next presidential election.
This is a genuinely terrifying situation. This is like the Twilight Zone episode where a vindictive child has unlimited powers over everyone around him. They can't even think about opposing him without being victimised (in this case by tweet) and possibly disposed of if the child no longer needs them. Obviously Mitch McConnell has decided his own survival depends on him keeping this vicious brat happy.
That means Trump can do whatever he wants to get re-elected. I have been predicting for two years that Trump is going to follow Bush 43's strategy and start an "election stunt" war to allow him to run for re-election as a "war president". This will get some American soldiers killed and maimed, it will kill tens of thousands of innocent Iranians, it will cause world trade and the world economy to crash.
But Trump's base will vote for him and so will McConnell, because Trump's base will vote for McConnell only if McConnell supports Trump. Trump is going to plunge the United States into disaster and nobody is going to even try to stop him. Nobody will even try.
5
In retrospect, it's clear now that Trump never had an A team. He had, like himself, self serving self aggrandizing, self promoting roadies. A crew to set things up to make Trump look good and stay on Putin's good side. July 24, 2017 was the high water mark for the Trump Administration. The next day Congress passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. A.K.A. Russian sanctions bill. From that moment it became obvious that there would be no Billions dollars drilling in Russia, and the rest became a race to extract as much as could be exploited from the country as possible.
1
Here is an excellent summary of the situation. The source, as delineated here, is in the personality of Trump. Or as I've repeatedly commented, in the ample behavioral features of a very dangerous personality disorder. Ironically, thriving on the dangerously chaotic is exactly what many of Trump's voter base wanted, so it is exactly what they are getting. Trump, from his celebrity environment, knows his ratings-elevating audience which in this political environment can almost guarantee voter-elevating. Well, an unexploded bomb can also work according to its design but difficult to defuse and still blow up everything.
Bedlum is normal for the compromised person in the White House. Do not expect anything else.
4
Let's make a deal with Mr. TRUMP. if he agrees to resign he can have his own prime time reality show on FOX. He can call it "Trump and Friends" or "The World According to Trump". I think he would be relieved .
6
Our malignant president remains in office courtesy of majority Republican support. When the president's overall approval rating falls below 25%, that will be the tipping point, the point at which Republican support among the American population will be less than 50%. That's the point where Republican congressmen will be free to censure him. But with Fox News being the place where the Republican leaning public gets its news, our country remains, to a large degree, at the mercy of that network. When Fox turns against Trump, he will fall like a brick.
4
Journalists generally have no hands-on business experience. The only thing Trump did right is to tell Gen. Mattis to leave sooner. All well run businesses do this. When someone submits a resignation with two weeks notice it is wise to tell them to leave then and there and you send them the two weeks of pay.
The reason is that an employee who is leaving taints those remaining. I am a big fan of Mattis and he set Trump up for getting him out sooner. Very wise move. Now we need Mattis, McMAster and others to go public with just how crazy Trump is.
Mattis tried to save us by serving. Now he can save us by talking. If we have inside proof of the obvious impairment then Republican Senators are not going to stand by Trump.
Kelly can certainly help too. Tell us of his Nixon moments: talking to the portraits, cussing his closest Cabinet. Let's hear it Marines. You are duty bound to tell America if Trump is too sick to govern.
And from one to another, Sir. Semper Fi.
7
In my almost 70 years I've never known one person to create as much instability, fear and hopelessness in so many. Trump is the lump of coal in our lives.
Peace of mind is my Christmas wish for all.
For one day let Trump fall on deaf ears and blind eyes, may all our minds be filled with joyous thoughts the Sugar Plum Fairy and our senses take in the joy of the Season. Leave Dickens' ghosts of Christmas to harass but one being, we all need to be of good cheer.
Yet I shall say a prayer of hope, hope that Ebenezer Trump can see a light, one that shows him a better way.
2
To Mr. Tomasky -- while your article is chuck full of worthless data, it told me nothing I don't already know. Our dilemma is how to get through the next two years with this worthless individual reeking havoc worldwide or how to go about ousting him (as indicated by other posts) before his term ends. A column on how we go about doing this legally using the constitutional tools available to us is a better use of editorial writing time and a patriotic duty almost both now and for the foreseeable future. Please
5
Mr. Mueller, let's go! Time to remove this clown before he hurts someone..... or a lot of someones.
4
There are a number of posters that believe that the 25th Amendment can be successfully used to remove Donald Trump, as President.
I do not! The 25th is harder than impeachment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/us/politics/trump-25th-amendment-anonymous.html
5
Someday, thank God, Trump will be gone. Then we will somehow have to Make America Great Again (no hats, please).
7
I love this piece, except for one small quibble:
The island of misfit toys is meant to inspire compassion for those whose talents are unpopular and, thus, unwanted. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is an awkwardly thrown together pastiche of marketable political, criminal and venal cliches that inspires nothing better than disbelief. Trump and his cronies are plenty popular, even if they're not well-liked among liberals. No one's abandoning them or ruining their Christmas except the Dear Leader himself.
Unfortunately, the Republicans will do nothing about our corrupt, incompetent, illegitimate president. They do not have the courage or patriotism to act in America's interest instead of their self interest. We have a corrupt congress representing oligarchs instead of the majority of Americans. We have no political solution in sight. Muller will assuredly be fired. The Democratic lead House of Representatives will be thwarted by the Republican Senate. Trump will be unchecked. We need a military coup by some of the true American patriots in our Armed Services who can oust the Trump administration and call for new elections. We need to reverse the stain of the Trump/Putin rigged election of 2016. The coup would not overthrow the Government, it would restore democracy.
9
On a news clip yesterday, I watched as Trump (standing next to Mattis) gently swayed and vacantly smiled at the sky while he was supposed to be standing to attention. He reminded me of my mother-in-law who has dementia. This is no longer funny.
12
It NEVER was.
8
The funny thing about the smartest person in the room is that even if they know they are, they use their cognitive powers to control an agenda and to get people under the same yoke to get everyone moving the idea, concept, etc in the right direction.
Their reward is the outcome of the cumulative effort. The smartest also tend to know when they’re wrong and have enough self confidence that admit it. The team sees this and usually move even closer to the “genius”.
Your President really hasn’t created anything remarkable in his lifetime but according to him, he’s smarter than everyone, in any field. Our Prime Minister is similar as he think he knows what’s best for Canada. He was a drama teacher and snowboard instructor yet talks down to Canadians like he’s a King.
Both were born to privilege and both have squandered their opportunity to build a better society; one moving to the right, and one moving too the left. Yeesh.
If voters really want another President who will tell us "The USA is and always will be a Triple-A borrower" even though our national debt and unfunded entitlements is $700,000 per taxpayer then when are the Dems going to show us their candidates for 2020 ?? The Federal govt. is a reality show and it's as entertaining as any Christmas show on NBC. I'm less entertained by the chaos in our state and local governments, which is where the real mess is taking place. Calif., the Dem flagship state, has huge homeless camps in LA and San Francisco. It's $1 trillion in debt. Illinois has $250 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. NYC has a crumbling subway that Hollywood should make a disaster movie about. LA teachers are going to strike on Jan. 10. Too bad they don't understand Accounting 101. LAUSD has $6 billion cash and $25 billion debts. Oh yeah, their pensions are invested in the stock market. More budget cuts are coming with or without a strike. I will never get a bill for my share of the national debt. However I will get a bill for CalPERS/CalSTRS unfunded pensions. It's my property tax bill and it's due next month.
2
And yet most of his followers still love him. He has 46% thinking he is doing a good job in the latest (3 hours ago) tracking poll. Obviously, how they feel has no connection to reality. Trump was right when he said that he would be literally able to shoot someone in Times Square without losing even one point in the polls.
"Steady bedlam" and the overall alarming tone of this article, admirable as they seem, are far too complacent. We are in a national calamity in the economy, commerce, and geopolitical status, caused singularly by an inept narcissist. The calls for this person to step down immediately should come from every corner and be ear-splitting before it is too late.
6
It’s time to admit that he is unstable and a serious risk to the country.
6
Things are actually going as smoothly in the White House as they were at this point in the Obama premiership.
It is a shame - and perhaps a reflection on his maturity - that writer Tomansky has actually bought in to the progressive hate-spiel-of-the-week that things are coming apart and the sky is falling and Roseanne already owns a unicorn, take your pick.
What wins elections is the economy and whether workers have money in their pockets.
Too bad the Democratic Party threw the fate of the workers to the side when it fell in love with progresive billionaires.
The only hope for the Dems is that a Ross Perot can be recruited to steal enough votes from Trump/Pence to elect a Democrat only able to collect 43% of the vote, counting non-resident voting.
2
@L'osservatore
So you are blaming Democrats for this mess of the last two years?
Seriously?
Pathetic.....
6
Trump views everyone in his orbit as his mistress Thus the constant turnover
During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised that his administration would include the smartest people in the world.
As it has turned out, the smartest people are those who have refused to join his revolving-door team.
5
I look back and everyone else is sprawled in the dust. No one can keep up. It is futile to try and lead when no one is capable of following me. I've left the greatest blueprint for success the world has ever seen. I resign as of today.
3
Sad to see the devolution of the United-, to the Untied States of America. All Constitution Streets, Avenues, Boulevards and the like renamed to be Division Streets. All those old geographically-named Division Streets get a new significance.
It's going to take a long time to restore what we had, imperfect as it was, if it ever can be.
2
NYC Mob Boss moves into Oval Office... GOP cheers, cheats and now starts losing.
Country goes the way of Mob Boss’s Casinos, Airline, University and other projects- into the ground. GOP blames Democrats. Sad.
Throw the bum out. He’s a disgrace.
6
Robert Mueller: don't act in haste, but ... please hurry up.
8
This entire administration is rotten to the core as are several Republicans who took Russian money for their campaigns. Looks like Mitch Connell took $3.5 Million if The Intellectualist is correct.
https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/mcconnell-received-3-5m-in-campaign-donations-from-russian-oligarch-linked-firm-93UjehU6aUCtejJRBFezCw/
6
But the coordination between the White House and Fox and Friends helps to keep Trumps supporters behind him, and I imagine, probably feeling secure. Trump is out there fight for their values, what ever Fox tells them they are.
4
A 65% turnover in less than two years is indeed a record. But if somebody reads those figures to Trump, his perspective will be: GREAT!
I follow Defense matters more than most do, but I know very little about Patrick Shanahan that is significant. He lead Boeing. He never served in the military. Trump's current chief of staff decided to lie to us about that (he is, after all, Trump's chief of staff), saying quite dishonestly that most of America's Secretaries of Defense never served in the military and that one who had done so, such as Mattis, was an exception. Of the dozens of Americans who have served as Secretary of Defense, only six had not served in the military, at least on this plane of reality. For America's Secretaries of War the ratio is even more lopsided. Oh and one other thing known about Shanahan. He has earned a reputation for, when Republicans tell Trump some military item will be too expensive, telling Stable Genius that he can have it all for less. On this plane of reality, it is customary for military items to cost WAY MORE than estimated, not less. But Stable Genius wants somebody to tell him what he wants to hear, and Republican Senators are fine with that.
4
@Marvant Duhon
You don't even know of how much resistance the American President got from Senators in his own party?
Remember, before he allowed Hillary to embarrass herself, he allowed 16 rivals for the GOP nimination to expose their weakneses first.
There is nothing that will drive Trump's voters away from him. They see through all the charades of disaster being promoted by panicky Democrats running media outlets.
Take impeachment off the table. Drop it. It will never happen as long as Republicans prefer to play footsie with the Russians and after a failed impeachment where are we? The deal is pursue the 25th Amendment followed by indictment and conviction. The Democrats swap that for agreeing not to pursue corruption and collaboration cases against Congressional Republicans. The Congressionals skate, Trump does hard time. Pence takes the Presidency on an acting basis but does not run in 2020. Let the Republicans have a shot at a fresh start in turn for dumping Donald.
2
Rewarding treasonous behavior on the part of the republicans?..... a bunch of self dealing grifters should not be rewarded but sent home. Some should do hard time. Trump and his spawn in the can for life.
Who are these congressional Republicans who are deliberately exposing the U.S. (not to mention the word) to grave danger?
8
I was born in NYC where Trump is well known but not much respected. I shared that opinion but noted that "At least he puts up big buildings." Now he's President and I know much, much more and respect him much, much less. I've noted that instead of building America up and "making it great again" he prefers to tear what made America great down, piece by piece.
Trump doesn't just listen to Fox, he also listens to Erdogan and Putin and MBS so MAGA is turnng into MACA - Make America Crash Again.
8
I used to want to flee out of here because of this awful president. Now with my stocks tanking I can't even consider that.
4
It is instructive to understand how Trump ran Trump Organization.
1. A small staff who followed his dictate or they left.
2. Trump encouraged competition among his staff. He felt if his employees competed for his approval, they did better work.
3. Loyalty was required and rewarded.
It worked at TTO. It's not working in Washington.
3
define "worked" in light of multiple bankruptcies, law suits, settlements, and dismantled charities.
6
To those wondering or angered by the Congressional Republicans blithely ignoring Trump's irrational, anti-democratic actions as president, let us not forget that they are the leaders of the "Party of Stupid" as one of their own dubbed it.
Consider, in no particular order:
Donald Trump (Sr. *and* Jr.) of NY
Sarah Palin of Alaska
Louie Gohmert of Texas
Steve King of Iowa
Rick Perry of Texas
George W. Bush of Texas
Paul LePage of Maine
Paul Gosar of Arizona
... and the list goes on and on and on and on and...
10
Good bosses atrack and surround themselves with talent, it’s pretty much always been this way. Bad bosses surround themselves with people who make them feel smarter and worshiped, witch do think describes Trump?
3
Bedlam: an asylum for the mentally ill
5
He still hasn't figured out the difference between a company where he is king & a country where he is a citizen. He knows nothing about government, laws, history, alliances, treaties, etc. He only knows what he can do in real estate...hold on to the property until he gets what he wants...can't do that with a government. What next?
This is not bedlam but chaos & lunacy. trump needs medication & rest in a padded room with no phone or TV. Maybe someone could read the daily briefing reports to him since he can't read by himself. They could explain the big words like ally & death.
14
The trump family government is failing...there is uncertainty about the trade tariffs, uncertainty in government because no one is minding the "store." Qualified people haven't been appointed to key vacant positions that help the economy and the government run, and qualified people are resigning because of shortsighted, disruptive, impulsive decisions where they have not been told, consulted, or considered.
The president envisions that he can run it all himself and deal with all the country's important issues and international relationships through his very limited understanding of the complexity of government and our alliances that have been brought about by decades of trust, thoughtful planning and collaboration, depth of knowledge in history, international agreements, and with the purpose of maintaining all the vital interests for our country.
The president needs to finally admit his almost complete lack of experience in government is causing extreme concern in our country, in the financial markets, with our alliances, all around the world. The Republicans must realize that we need to have a different leader who is stable with an even temperament, is knowledgeable, intelligent and experienced, and has the capacity to bring the country together.
12
I've been trying to figure out why you – anyone – would want to go to work for Donald Trump in 2019. These are a few possibilities:
1. You want to be able to tell people that you once worked in the White House. You will collect as many souvenirs as possible and quit before anyone knows you've been there. In a few years, you will take your souvenirs out of storage and display them under a picture of Barack Obama.
2. You have committed major federal felonies, as yet undiscovered. You hope that a pardon covering your behavior in the White House will forgive them as well. Note: Suck up to Mike Pence.
3. You believe that within a few months you will have been able to acquire blackmail material on somebody. Anybody. You never know when it will come in handy.
4. Vladimir wants a closer eye on Trump. "He's doing great, but if he flips out completely I want plenty of advance notice. You might last into the new administration, so be sure to suck up to Mike Pence."
5. You believe that you will be able to moderate Trump's behavior and keep control over his wilder impulses.
Scratch the last one. Nobody is that stupid.
12
There aren’t enough right wing think tanks or lobbyist positions to accommodate all the members seeking employment when this administration comes to a crashing end. What responsible entity would hire someone who signed on to be a part of Trump’s presidency?
8
Trump uses the presidency as an extension of his business dealings. He favours low interest rates because he is a chronic debtor, and he hopes the stock market will rise forever so he can pay off his debt-financed speculation in securities and real estate. As for foreign relations, it is just a matter of where he hopes to locate more branding opportunities.
Clearly, his approach to staffing is that all work for him, not for the country, as he never worked for the country and thinks doing so is stupid. He is also a coward, fearing the latest missive from Limbaugh or someone on Fox News who might contradict him. Indeed, he is their tool.
PS: "You're fired" is more than a mantra, it is his reality - he just confuses his reality with reality.
7
Please study your history........
I suggest a moment of introspection - surely we would all be equally concerned during the administrations of Messrs. Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan and Harding.
Chaos and uncertainty is nothing new to the political system we call our own. While I do not believe DJT to be suited for the office of the Presidency, we will survive his administration and begin the task of moving forward in more collegial and constructive manners.
And how do I know this?? I study our history!
Since the country is being run via meat puppet by Fox News, shouldn't the Times spend more ink on the ideology and aims of that unelected, for-profit organization? I'd say Fox is at least the equal of Russia as a threat to democracy.
14
Why is anyone surprised at this? Trump is a man who bankrupted six companies. He was the complete dictator of his company, with nobody to tell him no. He couldn't get a loan to save his life except from the less than reputable Deutsche Bank. His shady dealings are now coming into full light. He thrived as a reality show huckster, where his meanness and chaos pulled in ratings, because viewers love to watch people pitted against each other. His trademark was "You're fired!" Is it any wonder that he's fired everyone who comes through the White House (unless they've quit and/or been indicted...) The only thing he knows how to do is stir up controversy so the press will talk about him. This is a great strategy when the end game is to get billionaires to pay you for your name on the side of a building, but it's tragic when you're running the most powerful country in the world.
7
Maybe Trump ought to consider naming a qualified, respected dead person to be Secretary of Defense, like the late Caspar Weinberger. Trump doesn't listen to what members of his cabinet have to say anyway and his base, which probably won't realize that Weinberger is not alive, will be impressed. Or Trump can tell his base that his Secretary of Defense is Caspar the Friendly Ghost.
9
Turning Trump into Hoover would be a compliment. Perhaps Nero is the more apt comparison. The problem with his base wising up is that they would have to stop watching Fox & Friends too. In a normal world, Rupert Murdoch & Roger Ailes would be seen as eccentrics, not as an Oracles for the Right. But these are not normal times & Trump is about as abnormal as they come. It will be difficult to withstand the next two years without losing one's mind. I don't know what the remedy for this chaos will be, but we must stay vigilant in our protestations of this ongoing soap opera.
2
Putin keeps on winning and winning.
Yes, I am tired of all this winning.
6
It's said that everyone who worked for Trump when he was a private citizen had to sign a nondisclosure agreement so they wouldn't 'tell' on him. If he could have done it, it seems he would have made the contract into one of 'voluntary servitude' like in the days of debtors' prisons. Setting aside the question of legality, the master/servant approach doesn't work in public life in America. That attitude is why our ancestors revolted against England. But Trump won't accept, or doesn't understand, it.
Everything Trump does is calculated to benefit one and only one person, and that person it not you. People who got on the Trump Train thinking they could game it and receive some benefits while others were being harmed, are learning they miscalculated.
Trump is a fundamentally dishonest person; his relationship with the truth is cynical at best. We're now experiencing the results of placing a self-serving, dishonest person at the head to the government of the (soon to be formerly?) most powerful nation on earth.
It's said that in the old West when the fraud of the traveling salesman - 'drummer' they called him - was discovered, the drummer was tarred and feathered and rode out of town on a rail.
Trump is becoming more unnerved by the smell of heating tar.
3
We don't have a President. We have a made-for-reality-TV-disaster.
7
No worries. Regardless of how many Administration positions go vacant, trump will name Mulvaney Acting.
1
On the cusp of retirement, watching our 401K go down, down, down, my terror of what Trump is capable of doing to the world is now becoming very personal. My husband worked very hard for that money and we were so proud to have taken care of ourselves in our old and older age. Now, he can’t retire soon.
The whole world is nervous. That’s how Trump LIKES it. His personality disorder includes sadism. He wants people to fear him. It makes him feel powerful. He is deliberate in his unpredictability and enjoys the drama and chaos, playing people against each other, dropping little stink bombs and then sitting back and watching what unfolds.
If the Republicans continue to twiddle their thumbs, those stink bombs are going to turn into real bombs. Anyone who ignores or dismisses Trump’s mental state is just plain stupid. The stress of his Democratic opposition, further investigations into his lawlessness, and the Mueller Report are going to push him further over the edge. We are headed for SO much trouble.
20
The overall tone of your article is surprising.
The essence is this. Cabinet officials and "A-Team" players have FUNCTIONS. They DO things. You say nonsense like: turnover doesn't matter because Trump watches Fox & Friends and acts therefrom.
My God, man! My God! Mr. Tomasky, people are dying out there by the thousands because of this turmoil. Millions of lives are on the line in the near future because of this. Global warming is going unaddressed because of this. How heinous do you want to be, sir?
1
The man is very ill, and it's his finger on the button. You bet I'm scared.
6
Why not just let FOX News take over as cabinet? Fire everyone (Trump’s good at that) and move the FOX studio right into the White House. This way Trump would be closer to his main advisors.
6
Fundamental characteristics lead to diagnosis: loss of memory, paranoia, sudden mood changes, inability to sustain relationships, inability to assess the social environment, and lack of awareness of these deficiencies or insight.
This may all be a well known and common clinical problem. Where are the medical folks on this issue?
5
There os no way to make sense of anything in the Trump administration.
2
Waiting to hear the phone call Melania makes to Santa tonight -- is that still on?
2
I would suggest that we now have a Madam President. Her
name is Ann Coulter. Albeit, de facto. Trump is "Vice". She, as a representative of his base, tells him what to do, as recently evidenced.
Fox & Friends make up his inner circle. Everybody else
is just there to be there, awaiting the next explosion and
realizing that they were just hired to be fired, like baseball managers.
2
I love the photograph of the White House from the side that accompanies this article. I've noticed a lot of photographs of the White House from corner and side angles, that show the smallness of the building when viewed this way. And not the majesty and sense of power that the views with the North and South portico usually lend such photos. This perfectly captures the smallness and strangeness of this President and his disastrous Administration. The worst stock market since 2008. Let's see. The Republicans crashed the economy under Bush. The Democrats restored it under Obama. Looks like it crashed again. Can't wait for the Dems to fix it again. My 401K is dropping like a rock. Thanks a lot Donald Trump.
8
Tyranny by the minority. 65% of the country is ruled by the 35% Trump base. We never elected Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter but they ended up pushing the wall down our throats by being the Trump whispers. What have we let ourselves getting into?
9
@Maria We didn't elect Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet" of billionaires, either, but those are the folks who brought the disaster of Trickle Down Economics to the US. Electing a empty suit is the Republican's playbook, because it keeps tax dollars flowing to the private sector..
4
What will his "base" do when the trickle of t's events continues without letup. when more of the white house and departmental staffs continue their departures and many of his former staff and "friends" get locked up. I assume of course that members of the base are tracking these events. His tariff war is costing many of them significant debt in farming and job loss in manufacturing. Crops seem to be rotting in the fields and the auto industry is closing plants due to the tariff effect.
How many more of his appointments are going to jail?
The base needs to consider these issues and decide if t is still their person.
3
I hope President Trump can be persuaded to resign before it is too late to save our economy. If there is a way to force him to have an honest mental exam, that with the help of his children’s persuasion, may be a way forward.
3
"... let’s face it — the staff hardly matters." Absolutely true in the West Wing, but not as true with the heads of major agencies, including Defense.
The only constant with Mr. Trump is instability, nay, chaos. It won't change until he is gone from the White House.
4
Maybe it's time for a modern-day "Max Headroom" signal intrusion, but this time, on Fox News, and this time, with an agenda.
This country is waiting for one turnover in the White House - the Presidency.
We may have to wait until 2020 for that.
1
And, in fact, Trump himself tweeted that 3 Chiefs of Staff in Obama's first term was a clear sign of instability.
2
Bedlam.
What word are we going to use when Mueller indicts Trump and releases his tax returns?
A cornered animal and all that.
4
Let's stop with this bogus "last grown-up" stuff. Trump has never hired a "grown-up" in his life. No adult would consent to work for/with such an inept, sub-literate toddler in the first place.
4
Donald Trump once claimed he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not "lose any voters." At this point, I believe he could nuke New York City or Butte, Montana, and not lose any voters.
What needs to be done is to lock Trump in a room for forty-eight hours with no human contact and no contact with the outside world whatsoever. No television, no twitter, and no cell phone. After the forty-eight hours, and still without any real or virtual human contact on this planet, put him on national television and ask him about healthcare or immigration or any other topic of public concern. There would be deafening silence and the thousand-yard stare. That would be the ultimate "reality show." That would be the end of this abomination.
6
What is sad, 45 reads very little. He likely will not read Michael Tomasky's commentary. Hence, he will be ignorant about all our comments, many of which are quite thoughtful and profound. Equally, the majority of commenters are Americans, and we are from all over the country, even in states 45 won convincingly. This says how seriously POTUS 45 is alone. John Donne's famous quote may have to be altered, "No man is an island entire unto himself … unless he is 45!"
2
These statistics are alarming and should give us pause. The nation is being led by the likes of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Fox & Friends. Our President respects no opinion but his own and that of the extreme right media. When seasoned public servants like Mattis resign in protest it is a sure sign of trouble in the administration. Our best hope for the next two years is that the Democrats will be able to put a check on the crazy making in the White House.
6
When prior presidents filled vacancies, they were able to choose between highly qualified candidates. Trump filled his cabinet with dubious choices to begin with and, as his personal stamp on the presidency has become increasingly obvious, his options are going from bad to worse. Why would anybody want to work for him? Maybe a few grifters who seek personal gains or some true believers who see the chance to make America a racist, misogynistic and hateful place as a positive, but who else would willingly hop aboard a careening train?
6
Trump, like Littlefinger, seems to see “chaos is a ladder.” Well, every GoT fan knows how that viewpoint worked out for Littlefinger.
Most people will not tolerate chaos for very long.
I guess Trump's base get high on the chaos he creates. He also get high from it too because he maintains his prime news presence. He is the reality star..... And the sycophant Republicans still enable his autocratic goals in coddling him, or keeping their opinions to themselves. Then without qualified members to his cabinet, he gets to rule by his "gut" decisions.
Trump's announcement "Isis has been been defeated" reminds me of Dustin Hoffman's character in "Rainman" when he said: "I am a good driver I drove once in the driveway." Both characters have the same kind of brilliance!
4
Mattis still has a week on the job. He can still round up the other principal members of the executive branch (as per Section 4) and invoke the 25th. Realistically, I cannot see it happening, but this is the season to be making wishes. This president is utterly destroying this country and he is absolutely clueless about it.
5
Bedlam is the right word for Trump's rule: both chaos and uproar, along with the archaic meaning, an institution for the mentally ill, in this case, headed by an overseer whose sanity is questionable on a daily basis.
2
The blame for the world having to deal with the 'prominent existence' of Trump is its ability to see him as 'president'.
I have known presidents. Donald Trump is no president, believe me. I will not waste electrons here identifying what he is.
A decent society would have disqualified him long before the election, the moment in the debate when he stalked Clinton from behind when she was speaking. That moment was barely mentioned in the press. We deserve this person, I truly regret to say. Trump speaks poorly for the marginally autistic people of this nation.
5
I believe that too much credit is given to Trump saying he intentionally creates bedlam and hires obsequious bootlickers to destroy government and conventional norms of behavior. I've seen nothing to make me think Trump does anything on purpose. He doesn't think, doesn't care,won't read or listen and hires people like himself, rapacious criminals. If the government explodes, war ensues or people suffer - who cares as long as he and his cronies make a buck.
9
@C Schmidt
I agree. I shake my head at people saying Trump "likes chaos" or schemes to govern this way on purpose etc. The man has no idea whatsoever what he is doing, other than reacting to the momentary compulsions dictated by his id. He's a giant toddler. There's no strategy here, other than "Everybody look at me!" or lashing out in a rage when criticized or when any impulse is thwarted by … reality.
1
Everyone blames the mentally ill Trump.
But it is really McConnell (who is not bonkers) who is up to his elbows in the blood of democracy.
He never exercised his independent power and authority to reign in the fool in the Oval Office.
Instead, he has stayed pretty much MUTE as little donald has taken a match to match to democratic tenets, and global alliances, one at a time, non-stop- since January 2016.
This one's on you McConnell.
Big time.
12
Trump and Melania sit all alone with the servants and Secret Service in the White House. Ivanka and Jared are probably somewhere with their children celebrating being away from the White House or maybe skiing some place.
This is a very dangerous time for America. The President feels the net tightening around him. He lashes out. There is not one to stop him, warn him.
Do the Far Right Wing Folks at Fox whom he watches take off for Christmas? Let's hope so.
2
Your understatement of the situation which I think is an "hair on fire" existence which for me is consumed with a search of the headlines for any hint that the man is going down...is noted.
Pray tell, what potion are using? I need a fix of whatever it is.
1
One "Mad Dog" leaves Washington while the other remains. Would that it could have been the other way around......
2
Trump has inserted himself into every moment of our lives. Even on the holidays he stirs hatred, jealousy, animosity and turmoil in the most peaceful of celebrations. Someone in the White House, please tell him to shut up. Peace to all this holiday season.
2
Whether a Sociopath, Narcissist or combination thereof Trump's Christmas present needs to be a mental health professional. He is ruining this great country with his daily maniacal behavior. Common sense demands he be removed from office.
"As a psychiatrist, I have treated patients with sociopathic personality disorders. What distinguishes them, generally, is a lack of remorse or guilt for violating social norms - concerning truth or the others’ rights. They are Incredibly convincing liars. Many are con-men. They possess uncanny abilities to convince others of their honesty, and truth.
Sociopathy and narcissism thus differ in key ways. Narcissism commonly leads people to exaggerate their accomplishments, but sociopathy is more likely to prompt wholesale disregard for the truth.
Individuals may also have mixes of both of these personality disorders or traits. After all, the DSM lists only 10 personality disorders; but no two people are exactly alike. Even if individuals share certain personality traits, the intensity and manifestations vary. "
HuffPost, Robert Klitzman, MD, Professor Columbia U., 10/31/16
9
Yet another example of amateurs playing at running what used to be a professional government. The Trump administration is a disaster from top to bottom. Republicans in congress are complicit and his base while they might believe they are patriots are in fact traitors to everything that has made this country what it once was. We can only hope that this storm passes before it's too late. That leaders on both side of the aisle wake up to the demons we face and work together to chart a new course for this once great nation. This needs to happen with some urgency or I for one fear we'll crest the wave and never be able to return to a civil country that leads the world in everything that is good from technology and innovation to human rights and fairness. I lay my head on my pillow every night with the future of this country and the world weighing heavily on my mind. I know many others harbor these same fears. For those that don't, For those that believe what's happening is normal or otherwise an appropriate path for this nation I beg you to educate yourself and escape the fantasy that has been foist upon the world by a man in the white house who is arguably the most dangerous person on the planet.
Happy Holidays All... Chin up, Fight on, Resist!!!!
3
The future career prospects for refugees from this administration will rest entirely on how telegenically they can look the Fox News camera in the eye and mouth the liturgy.
I assume if Trump survives four years in office, the only man left standing will be Ben Carson. They'll have to wake him up to let him know the administration has run out the clock.
7
If the president is so influenced by what he sees on Fox and Friends, then maybe some billionaire like Gates or Bezos can "save the Union", and protect our "Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic", by buying the Fox network and holding them accountable to regular journalistic standards.
2
@RAC Bezos owns WaPo. He still finds it necessary to publish Mark Theissen and the occasional self congratulatory piece from Ivanka or Jared.
This article by Mr. Tomasky and stream of articles by the other writers and flow of news of Trump's irrational and unwarranted actions and decisions is frightening. If Trump remains in office will America still be around as a world power when we reach 2020, when we can legally remove him. We know Trump to be a skillful scam manipulator who lies incessantly deceiving listeners and delivering fantasy to his followers. If we could show that his campaign is completely riddled with lies and things-that-never-were could we claim a misrepresentation of Trump as a candidate and invalidate the election results. Here are the obvious items that are probably not true: 1. the totality of his success. Trump claimed 10 billion in assets at the start of his campaign. How much did he really have (before the emoluments and other bribes started pouring in after he won). 2. his intellectual acumen. How smart is he? He claims to be a genius ( he seems to be hiding this very well and it cant be because of modesty). Do we have any records of how well he did in school? Or did his bone spurs prevent him from taking exams? Are there any transcripts of his college work (or are they hidden with his tax returns?) What degrees (if any) did he earn and from which colleges ?
3. How successful were his actual business ventures? We know he had several bankruptcies?
Maybe the Trump we put into office was not the real Trump who now has tantrums in the Oval Room. Get an exchange?
2
Donald Trump is angry. He got a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking. There was no Santa Claus rally in the stock market this year.
2
Republicans cling to their small victories on tax cuts for the wealthy and appointing conservative judges. But their legacies 10, 20, and 100 years from now will hinge solely on how they responded to the most corrupt, dangerous, and dysfunctional president in our history.
Please save our nation.
6
Bedlam happens when someone named as president learns about history, allies, foreign policy, wars, commerce, farming, tariffs, environment, education, health, deficits, asylum, how to fill cabinet positions, and oil trade from TV. I'm sure I left some things out, but the crux of the matter is, he knows not what to do unless Fox Entertainment tells him. This causes bedlam and continued hate-speak. He doesn't lead. Fox Entertainment, Miller, Coulter, Bannon, Hannity, and Ingraham lead. If this chaos doesn't frighten the base, nothing will.
213
@NancieThe base is not frightened because they are just as ignorant and incapable as resident Trump.
44
@Nancie it certainly will not frighten his base. If anything they will applaud even more loudly. The base of fools unfortunately are running the show and their narrow view of the world has become Trumps policy.
34
@MuddyWater@Nancie@jayne@Jack Sonville
That's what you have a Cabinet for. Trump thrives on bedlam - it's how he prospered in the NYC real estate market. He doesn't get ideas from Fox News he gets the support that NO other MSM will give him 24/7/60. I'm surprised @jayne I'm surprised that 62 million could be that stupid? How are we succeeding? @MuddyWater I'm not narrowly focused I've written 3 books. @John Sonville That's a very valid point. But 62 million wanted someone to "shake-up" DC. However, I believe Trump is learning the needs of the bureaucracy, but to be effective and efficent. The old way certainly didn't work.
Cheers. Merry Christmas.
fox is trump's hiring agency.
1
Trump is grossly incompetent and unfit and his GOP supporters picked the lame horse that was likely to finish last in the race. Very predictably, the horse is running last and may not even make it to the finish line.
If Fox would start acting like a bona fide news organization, it would help. Especially since this prez won’t read briefings and prefers watching Fox.
3
We are in a situation that anybody who can get a reasonable job outside the higher levels of the U.S. executive will not want one except from a sense of patriotism: We need competent people in the room to prevent potential disaster. What surprises me is how well in times of economic prosperity we run without a competent executive in standard sense. Lets hope we get through 4 years without serious economic or military crisis.
4
The turnover is the manifestation of his personality, how it expresses itself on his environment ... Lets not keep using these cliches like "unhinged", "adults in the room", "constitutional crisis" , "going off the rails" , etc ... this is who he was in 2015-16, (it was fairly obvious if our eyes were open) and for decades before this ... he is incredibly primitive and pathologic, emotionally and intellectually (he's only capable of creating chaos) and this also is being used by outside drivers to destroy Western relationships and structures (the useful idiot concept) ... the questions are really, what are "we" gonna do about it ... although, I agree, it is fascinating to watch ! ...
8
Looks like the congressional republicans are just gonna keep their hands in their pockets. I hope to God the US does not face a predicament like the Cuban missel crises, or have the president instruct four or five of our aircraft carriers to go to the South China Sea. We should all be terrified. He’s quite mad don’t you know.
13
Let's be real: the majority of his appointees never should've gotten the job in the first place, so I'm not crying a river over their loss. (Although what will it take for DeVos to go away? She's hanging on like a cockroach amongst nuclear fallout.)
Remember when Trump said he knew all the best people? I think what he really meant was, "I know a guy."
28
Well said. Anyone taking a job with this administration will be slimed for life, unless they go to work for Faux.
8
"we have a president who gleefully flaunts his instability and thirst for disorder every day."
I will go further. He is not flaunting, he is showing, unfiltered, what he actually is: unstable, disoderly, unethical, dishonest, rude, bigot, etc.
25
Someone needs to hack the control booth at the next Trump rally and cue up "Helter Skelter" .
I can see him dancing on the stage until someone wispers in his ear.
4
The clown car is permanently parked on the lawn of the White House feeding and endless supply of idiots, jesters and thieves for the trump administration.
11
It has become abundantly clear to all who know something about mental health, that we have a man in the White House who is very ill. It is time to start facing that fact. If Pence, the Cabinet, and the Republican leadership continue to aid and abet this out -of-control leader, doing nothing about a severe crisis, then the people need to start insisting on the removal of a person who poses a severe danger to the country and the world. Yes, it is a constitutional crisis, but it is also a human crisis brought on by mental illness. We fail to acknowledge this, and to act, at our peril.
22
Excellent opinion piece. The first one I have seen in a very long time that has mentions the issue of aids needing to lawyer up. The story of George Stephanopoulos
And the enormous legal debts he incurred by simply being associated with the Clinton administration were the first I had realized what personal peril these people take when joining and administration. They seem to me to be some unsung heroes
of democracy. I would bet that the vast majority of Americans have no idea about these
The added burden of having to tell the truth Under oath or risk jail time is a second issue I’ve never seen mentioned anywhere else. These two important threads need to be followed by reporters at the New York Times. The realities of being a political aid in Washington are now more perilous for their futures and their families than ever before. I would bet that the vast majority of Americans have no idea about these risks.
@Lynn Wilson.
Lynn, I think you meant to write George Papadopolus.
2
@Lynn Wilson
While not associated with the Clinton administration, George Papadopolus just spent 14 days in federal prison and was handed a $9,500 fine for lying to the FBI. He joined Donald's foreign policy adviser team as a volunteer adviser.
@GroveLawOffice
Well, the Clintons' Stefanopolis wrote in his book a decade or two ago, that he'd amassed a pretty hefty legal bill. Many in that administration did, even people who were non-decision making staffers.
1
Let's not forget that all of this bedlam was made possible by a compliant Congress with a republican majority.
17
I agree with much of this commentary on job turnover. I would like to add one simple idea: 45 hires based on looks, on gut feel, on momentary relations. Ie, he doesn't vet, doesn't care about qualifications. If the person LOOKS the part (see reality TV experience), says the right thing in this minute's conversation, seems "ok", then maybe he gets the job. Especially if he says nice things to 45 in one of his good moods. That's why he kept destroying his businesses. Oh, yeah, the family connection is different. If it's FAMILY, well then it must be ok. Trust no one but who married your daughter (?)- is that a qualification?
6
The presiden's undisciplined nature, lack of understanding of how government works, his simplistic autocratic and impulsively aggressive ways of functioning daily have led to many positions being left unfilled... ambassadors not chosen, assistant secretaries, heads of agencies, and other leadership positions. With the chaos and bedlam of so many turnovers
the president's consistent acting out is making the path ahead unclear and perilous.
2
Thank you Michael. This is one more opinion piece for our historical, and historic, record.
2
It may be troubling to establishment mind sets who
look for stability, prudence, competence, the usually useful
qualities. But for electronic media journalists and the
"base" this romper room atmosphere is either
terribly good for filling up narrative spaces with
dramatic stories filled with juicy tidbits, rumor,
extrapolated details, or is still more proof that
trump is on their side by fighting to upend
the status quo which they believe acts
not in their interests.
The exogenous unpredicted/unforseen event(s) that
will sweep all this bemusement away in uncontrollable
chaos is the only way this childish idiocy stops. Neither congress
enablers nor media allies and propagandists will ever
stop or undercut it. Nor do they want to. The runaway train we're all riding is not about to regain control.
If anyone had bothered to pay attention to how the five prior
bankruptcies occurred they would have found plenty
of poor decision making, impulsive acting out without
a strategic plan grounded in reality, a deranged
self belief in both risk taking and the self affirming power to bully and intimidate in order to impose a vision that was self defeating.
We had been warned but we did not heed the message. So we
will pay the heavy price.
3
Whether you are on the left, the right, the center or are informed by another ideology far removed from "direction" one thing , for me at least is clear. Donald J. Trump is just not a President.
Our Democracy is not a suicide pact and yet it isn't Trump that is the shock but rather that there is no mechanism to remove so obvious a mistake who aside from the corruption, probable collusion with a foreign power to rig an election and his attempts to subordinate law enforcement, the judiciary, the security agencies, the Federal reserve etc. to his own personal interests, etc., is wrecking the environment, deregulating the safeguards designed to prevent another Great recession.
Finally, Trump, clumsy, inarticulate, thoughtless and ignorant as he is is not entirely wrong regarding the removal of US troops from certain areas of the world. While
I respect General Mattis and the other Generals, I do believe that American foreign policy has not been covered with glory since the end of World War II. The unending military interventions, hundreds of lengthy and senseless wars, the militarization of our international relations has caused untold suffering to millions of innocent people, involved the US in a variety of continuous and horrible acts that we routinely accuse others of including terrorism, sacrificed trillions of our treasure and has brought shame on our nation while compromising its interests. Anyone who wants to study the history of US military can do so online.
2
@Elliott Jacobson
"Our Democracy is not a suicide pact"
This could be the second best quote arising from the crisis. (It's almost impossible to top former Rep. Dingell's immortal suggestion...but then, this administration is continually raising the standard for expressions of pain and outrage.)
2
But why the chaos and instability?
One view: ego. This is the way that President T operates due to his lack of personal relationships beyond loyalty towards HIM. As soon as he believes that personal loyalty is violated, off with their heads.
Another view: strategic calculations. This is the way that any strongman dictator behaves to maximize his power. By undermining countervailing forces and authorities, decisions fall, de facto, on the leader.
Or populist anarchy. This is part of the broader authoritarian-populist creed, which believes that the establishment is corrupt, government dysfunctional, and the state serves the powerful. New value cleavages divide the political classes. So anarchistic chaos is morally justified.
4
There's no reason that a great businessman wouldn't make a great president, but the operative word, great, is lacking in the case of Donald J Trump whose record is replete with bankruptcies, fraud, nuisance lawsuits, unpaid bills and piles of debt. Is it any wonder that his tenure has been a tour de force of chaos and conflict?
I'm reminded of the ad where men in scrubs state the reality, not reality tv, of their expertise; to wit, they are actors, not doctors, but as such do advise the audience not to neglect its collective health and consult actual physicians. I hope in the long run that this is the takeaway in the aftermath of this shambolic, purposely perverse presidency, which in my view cannot come to an end fast enough.
In keeping with the season, we should remember that Bedlam is a corruption of Bethlehem.
1
America’s sovereignty ended in 2016, when our nation was attacked.
Russia and Turkey make our foreign policy for us.
The massacre of our brave and effective Kurdish allies by Turkey will commence as we pull out of Syria.
Congress could declare, or at least threaten to declare, war in Syria to prevent this preventable betrayal. Congress has this
Constitutional power and now is the time to use it.
Or we could can sit back, endure endless speculation about the shutdown and close our eyes while Erdogan “meddles” with the Kurds and Putin gets a stupendous Christmas present from Trump.
We still have the power to stop this upcoming slaughter.
3
One more important item in the departure column:
Trump lost his mind [if one may be so bold as to suggest he ever had anything deserving the name]. It is not exactly clear when this occurred, given the increasing frequency of the occasions on which his words, his behavior and his entire mien have offered proof positive of his mental and emotional instability. True, there is one respect in which he can be said to be single-minded: he is determined to destroy everything and everyone not ready and willing to cheer him on.
1
He destroys even his cheer leaders !
1
Trump has two problems besides being incompetent. One is that he expects unswerving loyalty to him no matter what which translates into his considering every department in the executive branch HIS department that works for HIM and not the American people. Second he seems incapable of hiring/retaining people who can do the job without putting their own self interest ahead of that of the country. If they can, he cannot get along with them.
Trump is a classic bully. He's also immature and more of a Toddler in Chief instead of a Commander in Chief. We have a TIC in the White House rather than a CIC. If we don't like what we're seeing in the executive branch or the legislative branch we should be more careful of who we vote into these offices. If we want a functioning government we have to stop putting in obstructionists like McConnell, Graham, Cruz, etc. It is that simple.
5
As I write this, at just after 10am MST on Christmas Eve day, the President has now sent out seven tweets. All but one of them angry and blaming. Blaming the "Fake News" of false reporting regarding his relationship with the Acting AG. Blaming the "Fed" for the drop in the stock market (down 425 points and 1.9% as I write this) and offering a bizarre gold analogy the Fed doesn't "feel" the market. One blaming Democrats for not agreeing to fund his "wall". One wrongly blaming Brett McGurk for a cash payment of $1.8 billion to Iran. One calling a GOP U.S. Senator "Little Bob Corker". One criticizing a four-star general - Jim Mattis.
And, now - in the time it has taken me to write the above - an 8th tweet. This one saying "The complete wall will be built with Shutdown money plus funds already in hand". Whatever that nonsense means.
Seriously...we have an enormous problem sitting in the oval office.
17
@David
The Powers that Be: The Plutocrats, the Pentagon brass, the GOP leaders, our security agencies, our allies etc. see exactly what's happening.
Their patience is limited.
The plutocrats got their tax cut and are free to rape and pillage the environment for short term profit.
The Evangelicals got their Justices.
The deplorables got to stick it to the liberals and indulge in their hate politics.
And now, when Trump is cornered, I bet they toss him aside.
When the uber-rich worry about their profits, they do what they always do.
They'll drop their useful idiot.
4
Could he be setting up an insanity defense when the inevitable indictments come down?
8
During this holiday season and with a nod to the Marx Brothers, everyone knows there's no sanity clause!
1
The upheaval is more about America's political past catching up with the country than problems in the current administration. Our country is in a perilous time and is now being held accountable for its erroneous past. The media’s scapegoating of Trump's leadership is a diversionary tactic to take attention away from these failures. It is time for the country to take responsibility for these actions, and grow from the mistakes made, not blame the president who was placed in the office as a rebuke to the political establishment in the first place.
1
Supposedly competent people stepping up to fill positions in the Trump Administration either believe they are saving our institutions of government or they are daft. If it's the former, they should be handled with care by Mueller as they are found to be hapless co-conspirators.
In recent years, as yet another mass shooting hits the headlines, I feel saddened but not in the least bit shocked. It's almost hardly worth reading the stories, knowing that nothing meaningful will be done on gun control.
It's now much the same with Trump. Every single day this unhinged narcissist makes news with another crisis, which is followed by pained analyses on the op-ed pages. But when will the hand-wringing stop and something actually be done? When are congressional Republicans going to put aside their own private interests and show that they care about our Republic?
5
What, exactly, will it take for Republicans in Congress to wake up and do something about the madman in the White House?! How far does he have to go before they say "enough!"? This has gotten truly scary. Merry Christmas, everyone.
7
1) It's not steady bedlam. It's accelerating bedlam.
2) The word "bedlam" comes from Bethlehem hospital in London, where the insane were housed. See the opening and closing of the 1984 movie "Amadeus" to get a rough idea of what Bethlehem hospital was like. "Bedlam" is an excellent word choice and metaphor for this administration.
6
The comparisons between the head of the GOP and the former head of the NSDAP are more and more clear -- not that they have the same exact goals in mind -- as we see this man's personality disorders increasingly on display. The paranoia, the distrust, the micromanaging of the unimportant, the chaos, the insecurity, the overly-sensitive emotions bubbling under the surface and erupting...
2
Ah, Mr. Tomasky, "for the potential Trump staffer who can think ahead" indeed.
As I scrolled through, your prose conjured up for me an image of a demented and demanding pastry chef trying to put out a grease fire in a kitchen where some prankster had replaced the fire extinguishers with flame throwers.
That dream sequence faded into the hope that while Trump languishes around the White House absentmindedly clicking the remote, a few cooler heads on the cleaning crew have been making their rounds and quietly collecting up all the fiddles.
2
Great use of metaphor.
1
@Alan - Thanks. It's the result of my masochistic practice of reading The Gray Lady while simultaneously listening to NPR. Everything I see and hear makes me long for those carefree days of the 70s.
If Chuck Barris were still alive he could make all of this go away. He'd haul out the gorilla arm, bring on Gene, Gene, The Dancing Machine, and then we could all take a break and come back for - more STUFF!
But then disco came along and spoiled all that. It's always something . . .
1
If I had to bet, I would say that one day in the next 3 months, Donald Trump will throw a tantrum at a news conference, and say that because the country refuses to recognize his genius and lavish praise on him for it, he will resign.
5
@FilmMD, We should be so lucky!
5
@FilmMD
It could happen! But then as a private citizen he would face his crimes in court.
He's running out of options.
I get that vigilance is needed but it does distort reality. The most likely outcome come January is two years of a spastic, tweeting, lame duck Presidency headed by a guy who is almost certain not to run for re-election and declare victory from a table in the Mar-a-Lago dining room(the tweets will keep coming). And I wouldn't be surprised if some moderate Republican emerged and did win the election.
1
Of course it's getting worse. There are going to be impeachment proceedings based on what we know about Trump's venal and minatory actions already. Then we have the Mueller investigation, which final report will no doubt be made public minus national security redactions. And with the Mueller report, we have treason, money-laundering, tax evasion, witness tampering, obstruction of justice and other financial crimes of Trump, Trump family and Trump Corporation to deal with. Great reality TV brought to you by the GOP's great con man.
What's so hard to understand. Incompetent and mentally ill, the head of this crime family is behaving exactly as everyone with eyes and ears knew he would behave. The only unknown at this point is how many of our tax dollars he has been shoveling into the cash registers of Trump owned businesses while he "works" every week at one or another of his golf courses. And like so many of the marks that have done business with these criminals in the past, We the People will be left holding the bag at the end of his latest bankruptcy.
8
I wonder whether the turnover rate has a direct correlation to how well an administration implements meritocracy? Whatever happened to the best and the brightest? Now it seems that Trump’s number one factor is “loyalty” - alternatively omerta.
Remember Cohen’s office was broken into and was a great guy, so long as he kept quite about Trump’s sexual infidelities. Once Cohen broke the code of silence, he was a terrible lawyer no one should hide.
Thus, should it be any surprise that those who are loyal find themselves ensconced in corruption.
1
A federal judge ruled that grizzly bears are protected in Yellowstone. The Trump Justice Department is trying to reverse that ruling to allow people to shoot them.
Trump seems to get everything wrong. I suspect the turnover rate is because, in order to keep the president happy, Trump people have to eat... Big Macs.
When you flush the swamp you get bedlam. That was on the ballot.
3
The AP reported today that Trump responded, not to Fox, but to Turkey President Erdogan's threat to attack the Kurds fighting with us in Syria. But this was because we had agreed in June to withdraw our and Kurdish troops while they were replaced by 15,000 Turkish-trained Syrian opposition fighters along with Turkish troops, according to a June meeting between the parties in Manbij, Syria - according to today's AP report by Susan Fraiser.
So this story, never reported before, explains Trump's withdrawal and a smart strategy for relieving war-worn warriors who decimated, with their Kurdish allies, ISIS held land to 1% and fighters to only 2,000 left in as small area. Then left the clean-up to the 15,000 trained Syrian opposition supported by Turkey assests.
Mattis either disagreed with this or wasn't involved? But the President and Bolton most probably developed this. And I would call reducing the land to 1% is ending the jailbait and Victory.
1
Actually, considering the willful ignoramous in the White Houe, the country is still doing amazingly well. It will take more than Trump to bring it down. Perhaps the Dem House will be enough of a brake to save us from total disaster for the next 2 years. And this debacle will perhaps finally waken the country to the erroneous policies of the last 40 years and we may get responsible government in 2020 to try to repair the damage.
Bedlam is right. Putin, Xi and Kim Jong-un are laughing but the rest of the world has every right to be fearful. When the leader of the free world and commander-in-chief of the most powerful military turns out to be an unstable moron everyone should be shaking in their boots.
5
Come on people...this is ALL the fault of:
Hillary's e-mails
Obama ( pick ANY subject)
Mueller Probe
Fake News
"the caravan"
"The Democrats"
In the end, people seeing thier savings and possible chance for retirement slip away will be the death knell for this idiot in the White House.
The population is getting older every day. We NEED our savings. A lot of the 55+ white male Trump supporters who HAVE retired will wake up to the clowns act.
O well....I guess in Trump's next two years, AFTER he cleans up this Tariff mess that has fallen by the wayside, he'll get working on that wonderful, beautiful health care plan he promised......the one that will replace evil Obamacare....
Probably will involve a free bottle of aspirin for everybody in the US.
Another promise kept he can bray about at his next "rally".
WHere will that be? Ohio, Michigan? Nope-GM workers canned....Indiana? Nope...RV industry crashing...Florida? Nope....too many retirees living on dwindling savings AGAIN under a GOP president....Texas? NOPE they don't want a stupid wall on THIER property...
2
We are witnessing the psychotic breakdown of a man who has cultivated the life of a professional criminal from a space of priveledged private protection and systematic familial mafia-like methods. Going public as POTUS has cost him his cover and all that went before is dust in the wind.
A psychopath whose empathic feelings are mostly a put-on act is mortified at the thought of crimes revealed and punishment following justice. Everyone around him can sense and feel this &R gravely concerned and distraught and thus become suspects. He now trusts almost no one because he tries to compromise everyone with his innate corruption and criminal mode. And they refuse to go down with him.
The disconnect from real time human advise and consult to getting "messages" from Fox news begins to look like God told me to do it. There is a disassociative aspect to this that borders on a schizoid split from "reality" as we once knew it. Have we all gone mad or is it just Trump.
We just can't look the other way and hope for the best even though it would seem impossible to use the 25th against a psychopathic president since our culture idolizes these rogues so dearly.
Are we gonna let him burn it down or what? Are we afraid of him? Can he just throw himself around and get his way? seems.
Impeachment procedures should not ensue however because our loss (almost certain) would be his gain. Get the GOP to disown him in 2020 and focus on the positive Demo candidates available. Prosecute post-term.
7
@Discernie
Perhaps with the stock market crashing, the GOP may abandon him before 2020.
3
Mattis was just another Republican fascist yes-man. Good riddance.
The three-legged stool that supports the continuous turnover in this administration is based upon a trio of nefarious influences:
1. The Trump base.
2. A complacent and complicit Republican Party.
3. A sworn enemy of the United States.
And since Trump must appease his three slave masters multiple times a day, every day and often simultaneously, he will never, ever solve the Rubik’s Cube problem he has created for himself, our country and the future of our democracy.
The selfishness of a greedy individual is pathetic. The selfishness
of a person who was elected to uphold the laws of the country he supposedly serves is a crime and must be punished to the fullest extent of those laws.
5
That man will be the death of us all, and I mean "all" in the biblical sense, as in "everyone." Like, everyone on the planet. He's nuts.
4
There's no mystery here. Trump is the vicious nightmare boss. One characteristic of G.H.W. Bush that emerged in all the speeches eulogizing him was what a great boss he was-- for many, he also became a great friend. Trump is the opposite: he curses at his staff, disparages them, resents them, undermines them, disregards them . . . And so the nepotism is no wonder as only family can be expected to put up with such abuse.
Along with this, Trump is the brainless boss. He upsets decades of thoughtfully decided policies. He acts like an oaf on the global stage. He makes decisions, only to abandon them for their opposite a few days or weeks or months later. To work for him is to have no solid ground on which to stand. There's nothing to count on, except his laser focus on his perceived self interest, and not even that can be trusted, as hack talk show hosts can transform his perception from one day to the next.
And finally, Trump is the genuinely crazy boss. He's delusional. He spent his life prior to holding the Oval Office in an insulated bubble in which he decided that he knows more than all the experts know. He operates based on vague impressions from decades ago, like his chats with his uncle the MIT scientist about nuclear energy. In reality, he's very expensively but poorly educated and very likely learning disabled to boot.
I am only stunned that the turnover rate isn't even higher.
9
Trump administration thru 2019 will consist of yes men with no one to deter Trump from issuing chaotic tweets showing his ignorance and erratic nature. Trump wants to run America as a dictator with no critique from the free press he calls the enemies of the people as Stalin once did. Trump cowers before Putin at Helsinki where he made secret deals with him we don't know about. Trump never says an unkind word about Putin making many wonder just what does Putin have on corrupt president ,it must be very DAMAGING. Trump is mainly interested in his family's personal financial interests and his image at his cult rallies who he entertains with slogans. Trump is unfit for his job and eventually by 2020 the GOP will convince him to resign for the good of the country.
The subtitle of Tomasky's column is "Making sense of the never-ending turnover in the administration." I read it and I'm still looking for his explanation of the "sense" of this administration's turnover (or anything else in it). But maybe I'm being too harsh, because if there's one thing about it that makes sense, it's that there is no sense to it. Unless you deem that the senseless actions of a man who makes decisions strictly through the lens of his own ego makes some kind of sense.
Does that makes sense?
1
The 25th amendment or a military coup are our only choices. How sad!
1
@Massimo Podrecca -- No, you could just win the next election.
But can you do that? Not if you try to win for the corporate donors and DNC insiders who ran Hillary.
1
Why would anyone even try to "make sense" out of the turnover?
Trump has never had a cohesive plan or vision to be president. He has no commitment to any ideas; he just "believes" and spews whatever seems most politically expedient at the moment. He doesn't really "change his mind," because whatever he spews hasn't ever really been rooted in his own mind, but rather was planted there by his handlers like Bannon, Miller, et al.
And he has written about how he "thrives" on chaos, and has used disruption as a tactical tool during his business and now political careers. Just toss a bomb into the situation, cause confusion; keep everyone guessing, and weasel you way into the mess to pick up whatever scraps you can find. More like a carion-eating scavenger than a skilled, purposeful hunter.
Why bother trying to make any "sense" out of this, when there's no logical thread that connects the scatter-plot of buckshot? The only thing that ties it all together is that purpose behind anything that he says or does is to feed his out-sized narcissistic ego (and potentiall make himself more money).
1
The other malevolent influences in Trump's White House beyond Fox are not mentioned here, namely the autocrats such as Putin, Erdogan, MBS, and others who control the Trump cabal through financial and other pressures.
Also always present are family members like Ivanka and Kushner, with high WH positions although never elected and totally unqualified but with the president's ear and protected through nepotism despite their own corruption such as trademarks from China, profits from Trump Hotels, and loans from Saudi Arabia and China. As they play at government, they have undermined the real experts and arranged some of the firings out of malice and jealousy or something.
Nothing is normal in the Trump White House. No one is patriotic or interested in serving the public or in protecting the Constitution.
They reign in vanity and bigotry, in greed, corruption and self preservation. Congressional GOP members suck up to them as they maneuver for power.
What an unholy mess that the country will suffer from for years after their shadows no longer darken the White House.
5
Underestimate Trump at your own peril.
The idea that DJT could be re-elected may/should seem absurd, but no more absurd than we have witnessed the past 2 yrs. And no more absurd than that he enjoys a $43-46% approval rating, which will only grow once a Dem is put up against him. Elections are choices not approval ratings. The Dems are primed to screw up 2020
The Dems have a growing electoral college problem. The Dems will beat Trump by 10 Million votes in 2020, but the only votes that count are the electoral college
His road to reelection runs through the small hicks towns of this country, which are many. OH looks to be out of reach for the Dems for a very long time; S. Brown probably could not carry it.
N.b., the GOP has never won an POTUS election without OH.
3
How much longer will it take for the GOP Grand Poobahs to finally pull the plug on this ignoramus? Methinks it will be sooner rather than later now that the market seems to be in a downward spiral. We're talking real money now, and the 0.01% cares for little else. "Boarder" wall be damned.
4
We have a president incapable of learning from mistakes because he's never had to pay the price for them, even benefits from his failures as he leaves his victims in his wake.
They day of reckoning is certainly coming for him, brought on by his unwillingness to believe anyone else could have opinions or knowledge outside his own that could be useful.
He is a man whose business acumen probably achieved worse results than conservative investments would have of the fortune he inherited- until we see his tax returns it is probably safe to assume this to be true.
His one genius is based on the gullible nature of our species. If you flatter our ignorance we will gratefully embrace you and let you be our king.
An idiot sevant of sales and branding. He instictively understands human weakness.
3
This administration is reduced to cartoon status with the Tasmanian comb-over. It appears 45 has reached the end of his rope. The staff are bailing out as the ship of state is sinking rapidly. The year is ending on another poor impetuous decision with no out; as the democrats take the house in a week. There will be no wall, and, upon the release of the Mueller report, no POTUS either. #45, the worst POTUS in our entire history, will be exposed for the crooked grifter, traitor he is.
3
White House cabinet,
Advisors and staff soon to
Be Mick Mulvaney.
1
I hope the American dupes who elected this man are enjoying the benefits of this presidency. So too the dopes who didn't vote in 2016. Elections do have consequences, now enjoy them America. Exceptionalism at its very finest, ha ha ha.
6
@Max duPont. The dopes who nominated Hillary in a rigged primary guaranteed to make other qualified candidates drop out or think twice about entering should be blamed the most. Even had she won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania she would have lost. You can throw in Florida and she still would have been three votes short. The electoral vote was 306 to 227. It would be nice to know what she was smoking to tmake her think she had it in the bag and could take a month off from campaigning.
Elections do have consequence. That’s why nominating a candidate with a freighter full of baggage and one failed nomination behind her wasn’t such a hot idea. Point that finger to the person you see when you look in the mirror.
2
I can see no mystery in why such turnover happens in this White House. Imagine getting up every morning knowing you must deal with Donald Trump. National and international crises pale compared to massaging the ego of this ignorant, vicious, selfish corrupt creature.
2
Lincoln may have reveled in his "Team of Rivals," but Donald Trump, who suffers from the anti-personality disorder of narcissism, cannot tolerate any who refuse to offer Pence-like unconditional fealty and loyalty. That may work in business (although Trump's multiple bankruptcies say otherwise), but in government that requires the conflict and resolution of different ideas it is fatal. The White House body count is the direct result of the narcissism of Donald Trump who has to be seen as a "stable genius" ruling over of band of "freaking idiots" who toady to his every whim. Those who disagree are ignominiously fired by "tweet in the back" if they don't have the character like Jim Mattis to resign on principle, or are mercilessly attacked like the "fake news" "enemy of the people" [aka Trump] press or the F.B.I. In either case, we have mentally unstable man suffering from massive narcissism that amounts to having an autocrat in The Oval Office. The destruction [aka "chaos"] is obvious, but it's cause has yet to be widely accepted and remedied by removal.
1
Trump Zero: no brain, no heart, no courage, no humor, and no friends.
9
We now know what the Romans underwent under Caligula. At least Trump hasn't made his golf cart a senator. Yet.
4
@Richard
Caligula was taken out by his own Praetorian Guard, the Secret Service of his time. Makes you wonder...
Why are we dwelling on these “moments” when we know from Trump’s history that he bankrupts every venture he gets into and then walks away. His family has a history of dishonesty and racism. He was mentored by the likes of Roy Cohn. And he’s supported by a mafia of Oligarchs, and probably has made deals with and for them. The Executive Branch is in the grip of a Thug, a wanna-be despot, and while some percentage of the American public thinks it’s great, I believe the majority of us do not. I resent my tax dollars going toward supporting his shenanigans. If Congress had any common sense, they’d either contain him or remove him.
2
Let’s put aside any attempt to rationally explain the irrational. Donald Trump is an impetuous, diabolical fool who, for the good of our country, must be removed from office. Mueller’s findings will be so sensationally damning that not even the Senate Republicans will save him once they receive the impeachment report from the House.
1
Mentally ill commander in chief.
Stop trying to second guess him. Too many words here.
What is the proceure for protecting the country from a deranged individual with his power?
2
@Jacalyn Carley
The 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
1
We are a "Ship of Fools" with a court jester as Captain. Sad!
3
The last paragraph says it best. This country is now ruled by an official Ministry of Propaganda a la Goebbles, aka Faux Noise, giving its policy marching orders to utterly corrupt man in the Oval Office.
Trump's base has received their 24/7 thrice pre-chewed opinions from that very network for years.
"Propaganda works best when those who are manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will".
Joseph Goebbles.
3
I continue to comment on how bad it is. How bad does it have to get before we rid ourselves of this maniac?
2
Trump is a merchant of chaos. His lack of intelligence steers him right into the abyss.
We have to stop shopping, get out in the streets, and force this man out of office.
2
@Mic p
I think the answer may be that he's illiterate. It would explain a lot of things.
1
Surely Mr Tomasky cannot be right! After all. the Man has repeatedly told us that as a "stable genius" he hires only "the best people". Unless...and surely he cannot be wrong? Unless, Virginia, as sure as there is a Santa Claus, we have a raving narcissistic, sociopathic, ignorant and stupid moron at 1600 Penn, whose inability to act in a manner befitting an adult, let alone the 45th Custodian of this nation, puts us and the world as a whole in danger.
3
Trump is a weak chief executive. He is in over his head and therefore cannot ever be sure of what he’s doing. To let people on television jerk you around on your policy positions is the sign of a flailing insecure leader. He’s paranoid too, so he can never be sure his staffers aren’t plotting against him and laughing at him behind his back( they probably are). Trump has a tiger by the tail. We’re all going to pay for electing this miserable excuse for a human being.
3
Trump is an idiot savant. The idiocy - impulsive decisions even on grave matters; disrespectful, burn-your-bridges tweets; sychophanitc reverence for autocrats; inability to evaluate sound policy if wrapped in personal praise - is well reported. But so far no one seems capable of seeing or giving him credit for that spark of genius that keeps him high and dry, front and center.
It is this hidden genius which produced the string of departures, and which, in the next two years will produce fewer, yes, many fewer departures.
Trump's genius is his ability to win, to always win, to always look like a winner and act like a winner and feel like a winner. If there's a loss, blame someone else. If you expect there will be a loss, say the system is rigged or unfair. If you're caught in a lie, ignore your accusers, or change your story, or create alternative facts, but never, never admit you made a mistake or were ever wrong.
Trump is able to see himself as invincible in every situation, because he keeps it all about him. Unlike other leaders who identify with their followers and empathize with their needs, Trump feel no one's losses. If others suffer losses, they are losers, and got what they deserved.
Surrounded at last by people who affirm his belief that he is the messiah, with people of unflagging devotion and loyal hard-work, he will win (at least in his mind) regardless of what happens to the country or the world.
And we, the losers, get what we deserve.
1
The liar-in-chief is an empty, hollow vessel. His surface is a thin veneer of plastic and makeup. He is without insight and judgement. He is incapable of learning from experience.
He sees himself as king, our national resources and treasury as his personal property and wealth, and our nation's citizens as his surfs-servants-slaves. Everything and everyone must kowtow and bow in service to his ego.
He sees his Cabinet secretaries and all appointees as obedient-to-his-will surfs. They take oaths to serve the national interests of their title, but he discards them for doing their job. His non-function has deteriorated to paralysis. Fox Propaganda Network is a "parasitic twin" with our liar-in-chief, and that is what is keeping him afloat.
That giant trump-baby hot air blimp is nothing more than a realistic depiction of what is our president. It does not have a long shelf-life, and when the skin gets punctured, the hot air will send it twisting in the wind. The vacuum of his hollowness creates a vacant office that will be filled by...whom? by...what? and... when?
1
Why isn't the NYT calling for Trump's resignation, or for Congress to invoke the 25th amendment? Clearly you have an unhinged crazy person in charge. If the 25th wasn't written for Trump, then you might as well simplify your constitution and remove it.
5
He's becoming 'Julia Davis' crazy...
1
Trump might cause a recession, or even an actual depression, but let's hope he doesn't start a major war with his stupidity - for if he does, with his lack of military advisors and lack of brain power, it is certain that many will die.
7
The Republican party must be punished, and punished severely, for inflicting this psychopath on our country.
7
The biggest question of all is, How does such a phoney, such a vacuous imbecile, such a nasty person, get anywhere in life by flaunting it?
3
@Jacques
Similar or worse people have come to power in other more or less democratic (with a small "d") countries. Whether he was elected on his own (albeit with a minority of the popular vote) or due to Russian influence, he was accepted as having been selected in a legitimate fashion.
The US is no longer an exceptional country. Clearly there are many Americans who are so anti-"elitist" that anyone with intelligence is suspect, and anyone who caters to the lowest common denominator welcome.
2
@Jacques
Money.
This photo is worth a thousand words. The White House dims in the twilight with the ominous red sky promising more bad weather on the morrow. His supporters foolishly believed that all the glitter of his campaign promises would turn to gold. This is a presidency already in decay in less than two full years since he was sworn in. America deserves better.
3
Trump has no functional neural circuits in his brain. He lets Fox do his thinking for him. What a pathetic failure and how pathetic it is that so many voted for him.
5
With the inclusion of 45, the Sick Six -- Duterte, Kim Jung-il, Vlad, Erdogan, MBS, Assad -- become the Malignant Seven. A horrowshow now in global theaters everywhere.
3
Trump is a sick man.
I've seen many lament that he's never addressed us as a nation of 320 million. But he's simply not emotionally capable of doing that, being someone outside of his monstrous and fragile ego--he can't even act the part. Trump is a sick man.
2
Trump has a short-term timeline. He doesn't care about long-term consequences. He know he's old. He wants what he wants, now. He only cares of himself. So, anything or anyone that makes him feel slighted, he's going strike out against. It's been this way his whole life, he is not going to change.
But, perhaps for once in his life, he will suffer the consequences of his actions in a meaningful way. Hopefully before the consequences are too severe for the rest of us.
1
No one can stop Trump until 7 Republican senators decide that we and they have heard enough, seen enough, lost enough, had enough
3
In the end it will be trump all alone in a dark, cold Oval Office with the ghost of Nixon
3
Bedlam is a great word to describe what trump has created.
3
The real national Security threat is Trump himself. We need a wall around him to protect the nation, and shut down that insane twitter account of his.
4
Commenting on this dangerous carnival barker is getting so tiresome. Activism in any just form or time frame is the way to go!
He knows he's going down and he wants us to go down with him. My "gut" tells me that his disappointment in not getting Americans to do what Russians will do for Putin is driving all his contemptuous decision making. He is a sad autocrat wannabe...
Please note that the reason he still plays to his base is that when he is out of office they will hand over their hard earned money to this grifter-expresident. This is the reason he "loves the uneducated".
4
Your comments of Trump's awful 'virtues' is, by force, incomplete, as it fell short of explaining Trump's deep insecurities and immaturity, in a family's environment of maladjusted education (he fired his own private teacher, a caprice allowed by his parents), and a racist environment promoted by his father, and then Trump's persistent objectivization of women, and the reliable cheating of U.S.'s tax system, for self-enrichment at other's expense. And now, with the complicity of the republican party, he has rattled the market by a totally irresponsible tax cut for the corporate world...when they least needed it....and then, his stupid move to upset the international trade via tariffs, a delicate but working environment for everybody's benefit left hanging to dry. Being unable to read nor listen to his own experts as to how to go about in national issues and international waters, he has become highly destructive of the norms that allowed peace and prosperity, in an upside-down world, for the last 70 years (since WW II). Being a despot himself, he is in love with the tyrants of the world, hence, creating an institutionalized violence at home, a pluto-kleptocracy made up of misfits, his Yes-men and women, cutting off the free flow of ideas for progress, and blaming the press for his malevolent designs. A democracy without constructive criticism is worthless. As he so deservingly shows. And now Mattis, and then Powell.
2
To have joined this administration in the first place, was not any measure of grown up status, but rather to put self or party over country.
Secondly, those that tried to advance themselves, found that if they were not 100% beholden to the President, then they were jettisoned like toilet paper on one's shoe. (an apt visual)
Third , to write letters now, or even quit in a huff, means nothing, because I refer you back to point one.
You all voted for this administration and President, and then joined it, and then quit it.
There was no honor or conviction ... just hypocrisy.
2
Individual 1: There is no “U” in the word “team”.
It’s been two years now, 2019 is fast approaching and and I’m still finding it hard to believe that the American people picked a catastrophic loser like Trump to crash the stock market, close the government down and install the most corrupt government ever seen in the home of the brave and the land of the free.
We might have picked Hillary. And maybe we did.
The woman had a lot of hard bark on her. Putin, the Ayatollahs and ISIS would have found that out soon.
She’ll would have found enough Republicans to work with in Washington to get a few things done.
She would not have written any emails or tweets while she was President. Not a single one.
She would have appointed a special prosecutor by the name of Robert Mueller to investigate the nefarious wheeling and dealings of a certain Individual-1.
Kellyanne Conway would today be undergoing the most rigorous tax audits ever seen in the history of the Internal Revenue Service and her car would frequently be towed away to distant municipal parking lots by the D.C. police.
Shawn Hannity would today be followed around New York by men in black SUVs wearing black suits.
Electricity at the offices of Fox, Breitbart and the Drudge Report would have turned out to be an off-and-occasionally-on-again thing.
Mothers and daughters would have gotten a great kick out of watching her boss-around men.
Ah well, we got what we got and probably deserved it.
Merry Christmas Mrs. Clinton And A Very Happy New Year.
9
@A. Stanton. Hilary Clinton would not have used Federal agencies as her revenge squad. Whatever else she would have been had she been elected, she wouldn’t have been a despot.
2
Get your popcorn ready. The Trump Administration is in a death spiral. Stand back and watch. The crash will be spectacular.
6
How can one make sense when the leader of the chaos has no sense at all - of anything. He is tone deaf, distressingly (shockingly) narcissistic, untalented, incurious.....corrupt and most likely illegitimately elected.
So no one should strain their brain trying to make sense of this - all we can do is hope for Mueller, and if that doesn't lead to resignation or impeachment, weather the next two years as best we can.
3
Maybe Trump should just have his cabinet secretaries on three month rotations, i.e., Ben Carson moves to EPA, Betsy DeVos moves to Housing, Rick Perry moves to Agriculture, Mnuchin moves to DOD, Sonny Perdue moves to Interior,etc. and then after three months they all switch again. It would provide all the turnover and confusion Trump requires but with some underlying fake stability.
5
The criminal Trump needs bedlam. When the full extent of his crimes are known it will be brushed off as the result of incompetent underlings, deep state "agent provocateurs", etc.
Mueller's blade can not save us soon enough.
3
What is sad is not that Trump is a sociopathic baby. We in New York knew that since he forced himself onto the front pages of our tabloids in the 1980's. What is sad is that half the country thought so little of their vote and their country that they allowed this to happen, and 40% of the country, very invested in that horrible decision they made, say they would do it again. It's like they just spent all they had on a car or boat they never should have bought and just can't bring themselves to admit they made a horrible mistake. We have met the enemy, and it is us.
6
A beautiful picture of the White House! Note that the flag isn't at half mast...
It would appear Trump is reshaping the WH to mirror the inner workings of the Trump Organization. Verbal abuse, domination, yes-men, yes-women. Mercurial behavior. Walk-backs. Media manipulation. Undercutting your people.
This is how DJ Trump operates.
1
I wonder if Americans could get an "update" from Anonymous.
Are the members of the so-called (very subtle) inside "resistance" to the folly in the 65%, or are some "resistants" left in the 35% not-yet-out-the- door?
Seriously, this cannot go on for another two years...
1
of the corrupt by the corrupt for the corrupt
2
Smells like Incompetence.
All the “think tanks”, all the
wheedling, gerrymandering,
whining about voter fraud- for THIS
total fraud of an administration?
Their years of pining for One Party Rule for this ?? The GOP is even crazier than the guy they installed because they won’t stop it.
2
Donald is less grounded than the Swan King of Bavaria. The collapse of his KGB and Royal Saudi ego-boost is hard for him to process. Bibi's going to be indicted and out of power. As for Donald, he's floated (to the tune of billions) by foreign banks. Are they nervous? they should be. Management of the national financial market now threatens his own profits. As his debt balloons then shrinks, then re-balloons, he'll spend his time ranting, firing, hiring, twiddling, firing, fudging, he may replace the Fed head 4 times. He may even melt the gold on his toilet bowl. Rugs will be chewed. The Family will sell their Imelda Marcos collection. Lots of abandoned islands off the Indonesia coast -- offer them one.
1
It’s been two years now, Christmas and 2019 are fast approaching and I’m still finding it hard to believe that the American people picked a catastrophic loser like Trump to crash the stock market, close the government down and install the most corrupt government ever seen in the home of the brave and the land of the free.
We might have picked Hillary. And maybe we did.
The woman had a lot of hard bark on her. Putin, the Ayatollahs and ISIS would have found that out soon.
She’ll would have found enough Republicans to work with in Washington to get a few things done.
Husband Bill came the closest of all our Presidents to making a peace between Israel and the Palestinians. She would have tried hard to go him one better and get the job done.
She would not have not written any emails or tweets while she was President. Not a single one.
She would have appointed a special prosecutor by the name of Robert Mueller to investigate the nefarious wheeling and dealings of a certain Individual-1.
KellyAnne Conway would be undergoing the most rigorous tax audits ever seen in the history of the Internal Revenue Service and her car would frequently be towed away to distant municipal parking lots by the D.C. police.
Shawn Hannity would today be followed around New York by men in black SUVs wearing black suits.
Ah well, we got what we got and probably deserved it.
Merry Christmas Mrs. Clinton And A Very Happy New Year.
5
Let's hope he doesn't start talking about "precious bodily fluids" or quoting Clemenceau "War is too important to be left to the Generals". OPE
1
@Matchdaddy
Love your allusion! Next he might be suggesting that fluoridation was a deep state plot.
2
To have joined this administration in the first place, was not any measure of grown up status, but rather to put self or party over country.
Secondly, those that tried to advance themselves, found that if they were not 100% beholden to the President, then they were jettisoned like toilet paper on one's shoe. (an apt visual)
Third , to write letters now, or even quit in a huff, means nothing, because I refer you back to point one.
You all voted for this administration and President, and then joined it, and then quit it.
There was no honor or conviction - just hypocrisy
1
This opinion piece, while informative, never quite achieves the claim in the sub heading of "Making sense of the never-ending turnover in the administration."
Why doesn’t the President just go ahead and make it clear about who’s pulling the strings and hire Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
1
Forget the Little Drummer Boy. The tattoo being beaten out during this yuletide season is the rat-a-tat-tat of "bedlam," "mayhem," "chaos," "havoc," "upheaval," and "turmoil," all words plucked from just the past day's headlines.
Machiavelli codified the belief that the ends justify the means, but from the onset of this debacle what I most feared is how the means themselves would undo us.
Watching this spectacle has never been a benign sport. It's a blood one. When lying, cheating, subverting, colluding, denying, posturing, firing, threatening, and bullying become the coin of the realm, you know you're well and truly bankrupt.
A country cannot maintain its reputation and standing when the world rightly sees it as the village idiot's village. The nation that continues to support this level of dysfunction invites its own ruin from within and without. The only miracle is that the continent-wide fissure this man has opened has yet to be exploited by a foreign enemy (on more than financial fronts) but only because there are so many enemies within our gates, there's no room for them.
Yeats' rough beast has found his hour and is on the prowl. I fear what's slouching toward Bethlehem.
"The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"-- W.B. Yeats
Bedlam it is. After this, the deluge.
3
Bottom line: the Republican Party, which controls the entire government, has completely failed at their most basic task...governing. America is in trouble yet large portions have no idea because they get their news from Fox and other right-wing propaganda outlets, which allows the problem to continue.
Trump is just the symptom of our problem. Right-wing media is the cause. The profit driven keep their audience hooked by addicting them to anger; anger at everything - an anger factory - has turned a third of the country into right-wing-nut-jobs.
I just re-subscribed to the WSJ after cancelling them when they mis-handled the financial crisis. Their Austrian school solutions to that crisis were based more upon right-wing politics than sound economic theory.
There is value in their news division, but now just like the wider right-wing section of the country their comment section is barely distinguishable from Breitbart’s.
When will this nightmare end? Never forget right-wing media and the Republican Party brought us here. They must be destroyed and rebuilt. The party of Lincoln has become dangerous to the United States of America
1
The story today about SCOTUS Chief Judge John Robert's concern that his court is partisan is highly important, because the damning silence of Republicans in Congress in the face of Donald Trump's manifest unfitness to be President is primarily about establishing right-wing dominance of America's court system.
Judge Roberts himself remained publicly silent against Senator Mitch McConnell's refusal to hold hearings for a legitimate Supreme Court nominee, which was essentially an open guarantee of SCOTUS partisanship. Brett Kavanaugh has been careful to side with Judge Roberts in a few minor cases so far, but this is going to wear off. And Roberts will be to blame
1
To have joined this administration in the first place, was not any measure of grown up status, but rather to put self or party over country.
Secondly, those that tried to advance themselves, found that if they were not 100% beholden to the President, then they were jettisoned like toilet paper on one's shoe. (an apt visual)
Third , to write letters now, or even quit in a huff, means nothing, because I refer you back to point one.
You all voted for this administration and President, and then joined it, and then quit it.
There was no honor or conviction > just hypocrisy
Actually turnover is zero.
Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, Kushner, Trump.
All still there.
Adelson, Barrack, Mercer.
MBS, Vlad, Erdogan.
Present and accounted for.
Maybe .. just maybe .. Alex Jones is on the outs?
1
Mercurial? Minatory? These epithets for Trump are holiday gifts. Incompetent and immature trace the arc of his life, this liar who’s lost ten billion dollars while bankrupting six times. Reducing Trump turnover to numbers reminds me of Marx telling us in Kapital that there are no characters in the book because there are no people under capitalism, only types. There are no people in Trumpworld, only marks. No graphs to measure him against other presidents. He would reduce the world to ashes and build a hotel on the rubble. Never forget what he said when the towers came down: Now my tower is the tallest in New York. And as horrific and revealing a remark as it was, even this wasn’t true. It consoles me only that he will spend the ruins of his life and money on staying out of prison. And fail again.
1
"That's a kind of steadiness, I suppose.". I believe that Mr. Tomasky missed the one advisor that has been there all along, and even predates the residency in the White House. With this omission Tomasky falls prey to the strategy employed by Trump to distract from what is actually occurring. The advisor is Vladimir Putin and the "what is occurring", is treason. For all those who think Trump's actions flow from stupidity and childishness, you are being lead astray. The Trumpovs are not stupid but the are sociopath traitors in pursuit of their lucre.
1
This article would be better if stats for Jimmy Carter were included. Hands down the least corrupt president in memory.
There's only one turnover number I care about, and that is the turnover of Mr. Trump himself. The problem is the Numero Uno.
25th Amendment should be invoked. He is not mentally stable, he is not smart enough for the job, his personality disorder (blame everyone else for his chaos), his thin-skin, his desire for revenge, his fear of humiliation all lead to a permanent, ongoing crisis for all of America and the world. Allies are gone or falling away and Autocrats are circling ever closer.
No one is protecting us. I am furious at this. No one is protecting us.
We Americans are going to have to hit the streets, and not just for one day marches, no matter how large. We need to strike and on a daily basis until Congress acts and removes this man and his entire, illegitimate presidency.
He is a cancer on America. He needs to be cut out.
2
Who needs an actual Cabinet when you've got a television set and a Twitter account? Trump's regime is a Banana Republican nightmare of ignorance, incompetence and corruption.
2
Something really horrendous must be about to come out of Mueller or the media because DJT is going out of his way to make more chaos and distraction than usual.
By withdrawing the troops from Syria and Afghanistan he’s giving himself an excuse for not visiting them in those countries. This guy only wants to support the troops when they make a colorful backdrop for him. He’s a grifter and a user of the worst kind.
There has been bedlam in the White House every day for the past two years, but it’s getting worse because Trump knows what’s coming out in the Mueller report, and he’s now behaving like a caged animal.
I’m reminded of the parable of the young girl and the snake; “You knew I was a snake when you took me in”. Well 65 million took this snake in, enough to win the election thanks to a founders rule 250 year old. Trump is a straight up lunatic, Congress does nothing, the 25th amendment is a joke. Yup, it’s all going to get worse.
1
"anyone who accepts a White House position today will spend years paying for the pleasure. First, literally, as any Trump White House aide is bound to need to lawyer up and eventually pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. And second, reputationally"
While the above is true, your article rightly points out that the smarmy male talking head projecting a false sense of machismo or the bleached blonde sycophant fawning over the latest blustery lies holds sway over the Grifter in Chief and no cadre of competence will restrain this petulant bundle of insecurities, bottomless vanities, buffoonish boorishness and indeed, basket of deplorability.
Trump is truly the Ozymandias of future generations... May our posterity forgive the 63 million marks who willingly imbibed of the only enterprise that Trump has succeeded at pitching: Trump Snake Oil
1
While Toxic Trump deserves to be impeached for his corruption, we can't wait that long.
Toxic Trump is clearly endangering America with his ignorant, impetuous, spiteful-to-our allies and/or sycophantic-to-our-enemies actions.
He needs to be sequestered in a lead lined, rubber room for the next two years, then immediately indicted then tossed into the hoosegow.
1
Who really knew than an American President having so much power ?
Hiring cabinet members at his will without any vetting ?
Shutting down the government when millions will not get their pay checks to have food on the table ?
Hiring illegal immigrants to have them at his beck and call yet wanting to deport them so those workers are on pins and needles 24/7 ?
Can`t wait for Bobby Mueller`s report on trump and his children a bunch of thieves !
2
There are two ways to view A-Team departures in Mr. Trump's Administration. Mr. Tomasky presents us a glass half empty view. But rather than view with condemnation let us consider admiration of a glass half full.
We know two important facts: first, many people have left Mr. Trump's A-Team; second, Mr. Trump knows and hires only the best people. What can we make of this seeming contradiction? Let's focus.
We must ask ourselves, if only the best people work for Mr. Trump, why are so many leaving? Mr. Tomasky says some are promoted, some just resign (wear themselves out working so hard?) and some RUP (retire under pressure). Promotion and working until you wear yourself out on behalf of America are both glass half full, but RUP is more glass half empty vision. A mixed glass dilemma.
So what is the clear glass half full vision? The correct perspective to view the glass?
The obvious answer is Mr. Trump only knows and hires the best people and he knows so many of the best people that he wants more of them on his A-Team, but being a good conservative Republican he is aghast at the very thought of enlarging government (in this case the A-Team) so he pressures those already on the A-Team to leave so they can make room for him to bring in more of the best people...giving more of the best people the opportunity to serve the American people. (Whew!)
Ah, so now you can better understand why Mr. Trump is so fond of "Fox & Friends." They view the A-Team turnover as a glass fool full.
Sense?
Narcissism, greed, self-delusion. Surround with sycophants, stir with nationalism and liberal-baiting and bake with free-market evangelism. Discard any sense of public duty and quickly destroy anything with a whiff of Obama.
This recipe wrote itself years ago.
1
Individual One and his ever-changing nightmare team have turned the WH into a house of horrors.
Any one, including the MSM pundits, who did not recognize the inevitability of all this when Trump descended the escalator in June of 2015 to announce his candidacy is a fool. Any one who thought he might become more "presidential" in the job is a bigger fool. Those who enabled him are traitors. Those who have opposed him have been weaklings and cowards. This country deserves the troglodyte we have elected. So everybody, please stop being shocked and dismayed. What did you think was going to happen?
1
Sobering article. Minatory will go over Trump's head, almost made it over mine!
This column just provides the same depressing information readers are given everyday about the corruption in the Trump administration....what's new?
“Empire is as Emperor does”
1
Bedlam, the English insane asylum, is indeed an appropriate title for the Trump White House. Trump just can not find the psychiatrists that will tell him what he wants to hear which must be an exact replay of FOX News. If you want to know Trump's 'thinking' just tune in and you will hear a nonstop prattle of Trump praise and verification of Trump lies and untruths. Trump is still living out the glory days of 'The Apprentice' and that is what Trump gets, access to the worst of our boob tube.
The article leaves comes up short. Why does this instability exist? It leaves out the psychosis and racism behind much of Trumps behavior; he lacks the temperament to be president as a "man you can bait with a tweet". This is all coming to fruition as Trump literally kicked Mattis out of the White House and shut down the government. Worse is yet to come until he is forced out of office. Trump's shutdown is not about the steel, or even the wall. "The Wall" in Trump-speak is all about white supremacy and racism. When you say "wall" you think of the edifice, when he says "wall" his minions hear a barrier to keep brown people out of the USA and the white races pure. This is the unspoken cloud hanging over the entire disgraceful discussion. Please Senate Democrats, hold your ground. Please NYT and major media, let's have an honest discussion about a deeply disturbed man in the American presidency.
I’m reminded of Emperor Nero, and our Republic is burning.
1
"..an island of misfit toys..." So, 45 is like the devious brother on "Toy Story" who, like a mad scientist, dissects and reconstructs toys repurposed to fulfill his dystopic dreams. Only, 45 does this to cabinet, to foreign policy, to environmental policy, to healthcare policy, and economic policy. Indeed, 45, like King Herod, has gifted our country with peril.
What's truly amazing is that more people working for Trump haven't resigned in disgust. Think Caligula, Nero, Mussolini and others who drove their mighty, once respected empires and nations into the ground. We are not far off, folks.....
Are we tired yet of all this winning?
Nobody else besides President Trump launched a trade war. Nobody else unilaterally imposed tariffs against competitors and allies alike. Nobody else created an atmosphere of utter chaos and confusion in the highest reaches of the Executive Office. Nobody else appointed a cabal of corrupt grifters to his cabinet, most of whom have resigned or been fired. Nobody else obtusely shut down the government out of a fit of pique over funding for a stupid wall.
There is only one person who did these things, and that person is President Trump. Aside from giving aid and comfort to the enemy and destroying decades worth of international alliances, this person is undoing all the economic and diplomatic progress made under President Obama.
To his beloved White trailer park base, what we call turnover is a masterpiece of decision-making.It's a solid prove of a stable genius.
This is all Ronald Reagan fault. He granted Murdoch a license after he was rejected in England and France. 30 years later, we have a Murdoch's presidency.
If only the stability of his genius could carry over, . . . .
"Bedlam" is too kind of a word for an ignorant, corrupt, lying and law-undermining president. Otherwise one cannot but agree: this is getting worse by the day while Republicans take the Holidays off and continue sticking their heads into the sand.
Trump this! Trump that! Trump the other thing! Enough already about this nut. He's not going to stop until Putin tells him to or he is removed from office.
What I wonder these days is why the media is not lighting bonfires under Mitch and the Republican leadership. Yes, the NYT has something occasionally. But Mitch and his type deserve front page news every day, non-stop.
Mitch fully enables Trump's madness.
2
It is even more depressing to consider the ones that have not left. A more mediocre assembly of sycophants would be hard to imagine. Truly a confederacy of dunces.
I have one question for Congressional Republicans: Why is this unfit, incompetent, dangerous, malignant narcissist and stain on our Republic still *president?
We can't repeat this enough..."elect a clown...get a circus." How about legislation that requires assets to be placed in a trust or sold before taking office.
1
As long as the people who put him there feel the pain, all this hand wringing is for naught.
A waste of electrons and print.
How about some strategies to educate the electorate on the repercussions of their choices.
Can you imagine having served in the Trump Reich on your resume? That his base and congressional enablers pretend his disordered governance is somehow in the service of a greater good will be seen as one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history. While many of the problems Trump’s base obsesses over have some basis in reality, their “cure” is the eqivalent of trading a bad cold for a dose of bone cancer.
1
We need more probative reporting among the voters who put this guy in office. It is clear Trump cares nothing of process and order, often finding his worst moves vaguely pleasing to his self-centered personality disorder. But why don’t his voters care? At the heart of it is a distrust of the system that gamed the housing/banking market in the early 2000s and a failure of the otherwise historic Obama administration to call anyone significantly to personal responsibility for widespread, systemic violations. We can continue to thunder each day about the Idiot in Chief’s latest outrage, but restoring faith in the ethical underpinnings of the American dream will take more.
More support for education. Universal junior college at public expense. Health care with a heart. Innovative tech job training for those impacted by the inevitable migration of low-skilled jobs. Care for the environment we will leave for the next generation. Open immigration, the real source of American exceptionalism.
Donald Trump is a master of virtual reality. As long as we remain unable to distinguish virtual reality from the complexity and depth of reality itself, he will retain his power to manipulate and divide us.
Pull back the curtain. He’s a mean-spirited and massively insecure fraud.
2
Hannity for Chief of Staff? Brilliant! Eliminates that annoying lag-time between fakenews outlets AND gives institutional stability (whatever) for those grandpas in the Senate. But what about new Sec of Def? Sarah Huck? OMG! Totes perf! Let’s do it!
1
Never forget that quite a few so-called patriots voted for Trump , which is really astounding . Do the same people hire child molesters to take care of their children and bank robbers to handle their finances ?
<<>>
That Trump is an imbecile that nobody wants to work for.
This administration has more turnovers than McDonald’s during summer.
“I hire only the best people. That I can tell you.”
— Donald J. Trump
The 45th President of the United States
Maybe we should change who is on Fox and Friends. (Or impeach this dangerous man.)
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the White House anyone with integrity should be saying “I gotta get out of here and away from this louse.”
What a Christmas! Government shut down, brought on by Donald Trump, POTUS, thousands go without paychecks, top respected person, Mattis, not only resigns but then gets the boot (for show from Trump), and poor Donald relinquishes his little get away to Mar-a-Lago.
And President Obama was criticized for going to spend Christmas with his sister in Hawaii. Remember? Imagine!
2
Do you think this is what Vladimir Putin had in mind when he influenced our election?
Hopefully, in 2019 Mueller will save the United States from President GRIFTER and his GRIFTING administration by impeaching, indicting, and basically removing them all. America needs a major Do-Over.
Bedlam: alternative name of the English “lunatic asylum”, Bethlem Royal Hospital, used as mental hospital from 1403.
Sublime word choice.
2
If Melania and Ivanka would go on television and say that their husband and father is sick and needs help, our present crisis would be over in a matter of days.
2
The chaos in the White House was completely predictable.
Trump is an ignorant extreme narcissist. Every move he makes confirms it. The Republican Party leaders knew before they gave him their nomination that Trump was completely unsuited to be president. Trump has indeed behaved just as he has all of his life- with gross incompetence, massive greed complete lack of a sense of reality and total selfishness.
Despite Trump's known history of fraud and failure the Republican leadership still chose to inflict him on this nation through corrupt election practices. The Republican objective is always to slash taxes for their rich owners and to undo every step of social progress this country has ever made.
There is no excuse for the behavior of these Republican hypocrites. They have destroyed their party just as they are destroying the United States of America. Trump will go back to his corrupt life at Mar-a-Lago claiming he was the best president the US has ever had, but the Republicans will all go down in infamy.
2
To paraphrase another: hire a clown, get a circus.
1
Explaining the White House turnover is easy. Despite the fact that this train wreck of a presidency has been entirely Trump’s fault, he has blamed all his failings on every one of the people he has fired, or quit when they could no longer tolerate his ignorant, unstable, criminal actions. The one common denominator is that he has wrongly blamed all of them for his ignorance, his criminal acts and his general unfitness for office.
So why does 40% of this country still love a president who could well plunge us into another Depression at best, or into a nuclear holocaust at worst? Because Trump supporters are very much like him. They blame others for their own failings. They would rather have things handed to them, than have to work hard for them, themselves. They refuse to take responsibility for their own shortcomings. They see him mirror their racism, their xenophobia, their bigotry, and they love it. They don’t want to educate themselves. They believe that anyone who tries to better himself or herself is an “elitist”. All Trump voters want to do is blame. They don’t want to do the hard work to succeed in higher education and in professions requiring advanced degrees – precisely those jobs that provide financial stability. Instead, Trump voters want something for nothing. And if they don’t get it, they falsely blame others for their own lack of success. They would rather see all of us suffer, to satisfy their selfishness – and this, in a word, is Trump.
1
To have joined this administration in the first place, was not any measure of grown up status, but rather to put self or party over country.
Secondly, those that tried to advance themselves, found that if they were not 100% beholden to the President, then they were jettisoned like toilet paper on one's shoe. (an apt visual)
Third , to write letters now, or even quit in a huff, means nothing, because I refer you back to point one.
You all voted for this administration and President, and then joined it, and then quit it.
There was no honor or conviction >>> just hypocrisy.
Bedlam is what you get when you allow the inmates to take over the assylum. perhaps it's all part of the Republicans' master plan to complete their takeover of America and create a business-friendly fascist state in its place. for now, though, it appears to be an out-of-control disaster presided over by nut cases and ideologues from a distinct minority of America. this gang puts the X back in Xmas and gives America a lump of coal for the holidays.
1
Unfortunately you did answer the most pressing question, what is the turnover rate at Fox news
Well, if you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas, right?
1
Any guy on a barstool at the corner bar on Main and Halfwit could run the country like Trump - in essence commenting on what’s on TV and making some outrageous statements about how to do it better.
1
"any Trump White House aide is bound to need to lawyer up and eventually pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills . . . that parachute on which officials of administrations from both parties typically float off to lush corporate sinecures is, in this administration, made not of gold but of lead"
Much as this must delight Trump's enemies, it is troubling for the country on many levels.
We cripple our ability to get anyone in important jobs, not just keeping out bad people but even more assuring there will be no good people.
It suggests that the norm for government is to please that elite (donors) who can give the golden parachute after service. Is that what "government service" has come to? Yes, it seems so.
Using the criminal system in politics is a feature of authoritarian and deeply troubled countries. Most agree that with Trump we are deeply troubled, but this is another order of trouble, crippling the system rather than one bad person in office. The precedent set, will this not happen again and again?
This is the damage done by both Trump and the reaction to Trump. There is no place for glee in it all, nor pleasure with anyone involved.
2
It is important to not be complacent and think that a bad president will be forced to leave.
The president's undisciplined nature, his spreading innuendo and false facts, his nods to political violence, his difficulty to work with, his lack of decency and ethics, his failure to plan properly, his ignoring of advise and expertise from experienced advisors, his authoritarian instinct, and his propensity to illegality have not been checked so far.
Those around the president must constantly be mitigating and acting against the president's worst impulses and excesses including his preference for autocrat and dictators over our long term loyal allies, and attempt to hinder his discrediting the Special Counsel Mueller and the DOJ. The president's lack of knowledge about how the government works, how separation of powers work, and what constitutes obstruction of justice is evident every day. Those working around the president have a difficult job to preserve stability in a chaotic, drama filled, and dysfunctional White House which seems to be in an everyday struggle to control the uncontrollable.
Because of the constant bedlam and never-ending turnover many government positions have been left unfilled, ambassadors not chosen, assistant secretaries, heads of agencies and other leadership positions. Currently we have an acting secretary of defense, an acting chief of staff, an acting attorney general, and an acting out president making the path ahead unclear and perilous.
2
Remember during the debate, Clinton in responding to the question from the audience, what can you say that’s positive about your opponent, said that Trump truly cares about his family, or something to that affect.
Well, I wonder how he relates to his family on political matters, seeing that his is addicted to FOX and probably the Enquirer, and I hope they aren’t.
If they are a sane voice, they probably are a quiet one. Can you imagine if one of them criticized him, what would happen?
1
@Pete Thurlow My bet is that Trump has made it clear to Melania, Ivanka, Eric and Junior (maybe even Barron) that if you criticize you will be cut out of his will.
Perhaps the Brookings study should be tracking who Trump is paying attention to on Fox News and other conservative media since that might have a greater influence on how this administration operates than who sits in various offices.
Maybe someday in the future, if we're lucky, we'll be able to look back on this time and say "Geez, that was a weird period in America ..."
5
Trump’s business philosophy, to the extent he had one, was that chaos created opportunity for him to do a favorable transaction. His philosophy of opportunistic chaos is polar opposite of how institutions like the White House, cabinet departments, the foreign policy apparatus, the courts and the Fed, among other government agencies, need to operate. Their entire objective is to foster continuity, dependability and reliability among the leaders and citizenry of not only this country, but others as well.
Anyone who thinks that chaos orchestrated by a mercurial autocrat is a good way to run a government need only look at the examples of other nations, like some in Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, to see how that has worked out. I doubt you can name an example of one that is going well currently, or that ended well.
691
@Jack Sonville
What we have here is essentially the Trump/Heisenberg uncertainty principle where nobody really knows why Trump does what he does except for Mueller.
17
Perspective is everything.
If I were a soldier in Syria, I'd be ecstatic to know I'm going home.
2
@Jack Sonville
Trump's flailing shambolic chaos makes much more sense if you map it onto KAOS from the old Get Smart series.
KAOS was the "international organization of evil" founded in Bucharest in 1904. CONTROL would be the agency fighting KAOS, and while it is uncertain who is the Chief in this scenario beyond one of the purported adults in the room, we may have just lost one of the possibilities in Mattis.
I miss sanity, and the No Drama, Obama, and the past stability and civility that were normal for a White House. What I most want this Christmas are a few Silent Nights with no tweets.
24
Just a wild guess here, but as the special counsel report becomes imminent under a new democratic majority in the House, Trump senses a tipping point. My theory is that he will now accelerate national chaos in any way he can in an attempt to lure democrats into an impeachment fight.
His bet is that the Senate will never convict him, and the spectacle will fire up the Republican base prior to the 2020 election.
If democrats don't go for that bait, he will attempt to make the deal of his life: Resign the presidency in return for a pardon from all potential indictments.
171
@Barnaby Wild - Maybe. If that is indeed Trump's plan it may very well backfire on him. Depending on what comes out of the Mueller investigation, continuing to stir up a bunch of national chaos may actually convince the 20 or so Republican senators that it's in their best interest to join the Democrats and ouster the biggest threat to our democracy in our lifetimes.
70
@Stephen Absolutely mind boggling what this tyrant has done to the country in only two years.
45
@Barnaby Wild: If it were up to me, I wouldn't pardon Trump if we were in a crowd, and he bumped into me.
POTUS or not, pardoning Donald Trump is still letting him off the hook for all his political "sins and transgressions" commited. POTUS or not, he deserves to be made an example of, setting a precedent,or not.
Either by indictment or litigation, Donald Trump must finally be held accountable for throwing this country under the bus.
The wheels have finally come off the wagon.
52
Merry Christmas Trump style:
Markets crashing - down almost 20% this year.
Government shutdown - 800,000 employees not being paid.
Allies left and abandoned and bewildered.
General Mattis insulted and told to leave this week.
Trade wars being promoted as easy to win.
Bailouts to farmers necessary.
Healthcare uncertain for many.
American leadership now seen as a joke by the world.
Nato attacked by the Trump.
17 active federal and state investigations against Trump.
Criminal convictions and indictments becoming the norm.
Resignations and departures from the administration at historic levels.
Deficit is way up.
Critical departments and ambassadorships left open.
Shall I go on or are we sick of winning yet?
Impeach Trump Now.
483
@Ocean John
Yes, he must be impeached, sooner or later. But he will not be convicted by the Senate and removed from office.
He could be removed as unfit under the 25th Amendment, but that in unlikely.
How about this? The President is commander in chief, and if that is a military rank as well as a civilian title, then he could be court-martialled for dereliction of duty.
44
@Ocean John
You forgot corrupt members of the White House administration, leaving under pressure because their enriching themselves by helping themselves to the wealth of the nation.
26
@Ocean John
The 25th Amendment is a more likely scenario for removing trump from power.
14
Frankly I'm not surprised anymore. We have a mix of emotional instability and narcissism leading our nation in ways that have never before been seen in this country. The revolving door is nothing but a symptom of a president who cannot stand to have things not go his way. A president who makes his most important decisions on how to least our country based on who is on the air over at Fox News without the need to consult his cabinet members, who are supposed to be the ones the president goes to first. It's no surprise his cabinet members mostly have no backbone. With the threat coming over their heads of being fired unless they comply, we are in a sort of political checkmate where our president finds sneaky ways through our system of checks and balances, and when questioned, fires those who oppose him over Twitter. And, as the article states, with a potential turnover rate of 100% in the 4 years Trump will be in office (how has it only been 2) literally no one can escape his narcissism. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.". It is becoming exceedingly clear, and has been for some time, how Trump has decided to lead his life, and our nation.
369
@Jack All evidence Trump is NOT leading.
6
@Jack @Ralph Averill @DukeSphere @Ocean John
Here's one decision that Fox News had nothing to do with.
The AP and Susan Fraiser reported today that the US, Turkey and the Kurds in June at Manbij, Syria agreed that 15,000 Turkish-trained Syrian opposition fighters along with Turkey assets would replace the war weary American and Kurdish forces in Syria. When it appeared "the Americans were dragging their feet," Erdogan threatened to attack the Kurds. That's when Trump called the Turkey President and was reminded of our June committment,then Trump announced the 2,000 troop withdrawl.
We didn't abandon the Kurds,the Syrian opposition and Turkey were going to clean up. Our proud but war-worn warriors who, with the Kurds, reduced the caliphate to 1% which most call Victory. The remnants of ISIS would be dealt with by the Syrian opposition.
So every critical partisan and all the MSM should have egg-nog over their faces, and it's well deserved!
@Frank Leibold - Nice spin. You could also say that Trump and Erdogan agreed that the US would get out of the way so Turkey could send in 15,000 soldiers to crush the Kurds in Syria, to insure that they didn't carry on with any ideas of setting up an autonomous area for themselves. Which works for Turkey in the short run, while guaranteeing that the PKK continues its "terrorist" insurgency in Turkey for the foreseeable future. The US soldiers are the only thing preventing those 15,000 Turkish soldiers from rolling in and wiping out the Kurds who have done all our heavy fighting against ISIS. Guess how easy it is going to be to get local allies in the next little terrorist suppression we try to do? Shortsighted, self-serving, and abandoning our allies. Trump's "leadership" leaves a little gap in the strategic outcomes.
10
The question isn't Trump; at this point he's a known quantity. The question is how long will congressional Republicans, including and especially Mitch McConnell, allow this damaging chaos to continue all for the sake of a few more judgeships, the further gutting of federal regulations protecting the environment and consumer banking, and so on? Except for the judges, the Democrats are going o restore everything after the next election anyway, though we probably won't be able to do anything about the warmer planet, at least in the short run.
Every day they do or say nothing, the Republicans dig themselves in deeper, eventually at everyone's expense, even the billionaires.
1147
@Ralph Averill
It might also be that Republicans like McConnell are themselves riding the currents that Trump is exploiting -- as Mattis suggests, the currents of realignment that flow towards autocracy and ever more concentrated wealth and power, and away from lawful, inclusive, and more egalitarian democracy.
183
@Ralph Averill The billionaires all assume their money will insulate them from the coming environmental and economic catastrophe. Eric Prince is doing a bang up business dealing in ex-military trained mercenaries, billionaires are building panic compounds in remote locations, and tax havens abound with unwashed cash. They really believe they'll be able to avoid the chaos caused by severly altered weather and natural resource collapse.
128
@Ralph Averill
Seems to me that many of Trump's policies don't upset the established order. It's just the method of delivery that's different.
16
Let's put some rose colored glasses on and look to the future. Just suppose that Fox News sees the error in its ways and decides to call for a reconciliation by the President with the Democrats. Assume further that Trump takes this message to heart and he then works with the opposition to reverse the tax cuts for the rich, adopt a compassionate immigration plan, implements medicare for all, and passes a massive spending bill which addresses global warming. We can dream can't we?
3
I think it's agreed that Trump has no respect for the country and no comprehension of his position or its gravitas, other than as the top CEO of another one of his businesses, albeit a tremendously bigly one. It's just another job, and right now it's not going at all the way he wants. His usual MO is to declare bankruptcy and walk away. Why would this be any different? What's the likelihood that he will reach the point where he throws up his hands, decides he has better things to do, and just quits.
Santa, I know it's late, but please, can we put this on our Christmas list?
15
Who would knowingly accept a job with a crazy boss like that? Only another autocratic fruitcake, I guess. Or a secretary who can't type. Or an opportunist who sees a chance to make some serious money doing Trump-like graft. Or a tell-all biographer who wants a closer view. But hardly any knowledgeable public servants.
14
@JP
"The billionaires all assume their money will insulate them from the coming environmental and economic catastrophe"
That's what the French Aristocracy thought in 1789.
47
@Paul
The French aristocracy had horse drawn carriages. Our plutocrats have big SUVs and private well-armed security, helicopters and monogramed jets ready to carry them off to their private islands far, far away where they have stashed all their treasure. They're not stupid.
1
@S.E. G.
Appreciate the sentiment, But...
Private, well-armed security can easily turn to the light...
1
Forget about trying to "make sense" of the Trump White House.
There's none to be made. There is only darkness, chaos, and increasing destruction. That is your story and it should be printed and broadcast on a daily basis until Congress takes the necessary steps to remove Mr. Trump from office. He is a clear and present danger both to our nation and to our world.
85
@ Jimbo
"There is only darkness, chaos, and increasing destruction."
Indeed, but that terrible darkness - leading to chaos and destruction - was never voiced inside that US even within weeks after he won the presidency.
On November 9th, 2016, the German weekly Der Spiegel had an eerie black and white picture of the White House in dense fog with leafless trees. The headline was
"Trump. The Fog of Horror"
1
The serious consequence of Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice" approach to White House staffing is that future new hires will be limited to ever more opportunistic, poorly qualified candidates, as a White House position becomes perceived as stigma rather than honor.
Reagan's White House was the first to suggest "starving the beast" that is the federal government, Grover Norquist famously adding, until it could be "drowned in a bathtub". This presidency is the embodiment of Republican Right Wing ambitions of dismantling the Fed, and Putin's efforts to disunite and dominate the Western alliance. We are the hapless victims of misguided policies and poor leadership that will leave countries like the US and Britain facing economic decline and irrelevance.
38
@Reed Erskine
While I agree whole heartedly with the first paragraph, I cannot actually go along with the second, since, if I'm not mistaken Government non-military spending actually rose in Reagan's terms. Admittedly there were reductions in revenue, but these were tempered by a Democratic Congress.
This "Administration" however has had no brake since Congress has so afar been the enabler.
3
I don't believe this country will make it to summer. And that is not hyperbole.
24
@Keely
OMG - don't be so Dramatic!
@Keely
I think we're going to make it. The tide is turning. The plutocrats will throw Trump under the bus if the markets continue to fall. Their toadies in Congress will do what they're told to do. The Pentagon brass and security agencies don't like being disrespected. Our Allies are running out of patience. Trump is running out of friends and C-list folks willing to work for him.
The next few months may be terrifying, but I think we're going to push through.
Silver lining?
Maybe, just maybe, we'll have the courage to rebuild our Republic and address the daunting issues we face.
Maybe.
1
I only hope the military has "fixed" the nuclear codes so trump cannot start a nuclear war. A sane person should be in charge in regard to push those buttons or not to push them. Trump is not sane.
29
Great article. However, I think you’re being too kind by comparing this Cabinet to the Island of Misfit Toys. After all, each Misfit Toy, at odds with factory specifications, had a quirk that made it niche, unique. I’d sooner have a train with square wagon wheels than a private school guru atop the U. S. Department of Education. And I’d rather my toys be made by a would-be dentist elf at the North Pole than a has been mogul President who wished he had built a Moscow Trump Tower.
To my mind, it makes more sense to compare this Cabinet to the fictional folks in Bedford Falls in a world without George Bailey. Like the community members in the parallel world of Pottersville in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, these administration officials are hollow, embittered individuals that lack a moral center, led astray by a civic leader whose chief goals are vanity and greed. Even the people who could do the world some good are self serving and resentful in an alternate universe dictated to by a leader with no heart.
If he’s out there, will the real George Bailey please stand up. The world is ready to wish a befuddled, self absorbed Mr. Potter a Merry Christmas.
31
@MBD Many Republican leaders remind me of the original Boss Hogg of the Dukes of Hazzard TV series. Greed, scheming, shady actions, using rather than obeying the law, holding grudges, total comfort dealing with underworld figures for a profit, the only difference is that Trump is a rich city slicker instead of a country shyster.
2
@MBD, This is not an "island of misfit toys," but an "island of broken toys." As for Trump as Mr. Potter, the latter was more compassionate and, quite seriously, a better businessman and a Scrooge-like banker. Capra portrayed him unsympathetically as he did every rich person with the exception of Walter Connolly in It Happened One Night.
As for the rest of your critique, as much as I would like to dispute some of it, most of what you write is on point.
Has Trump ever taken the blame for anything? I know he is right there to take all the credit when something is good. The latest example is the stock market. When the DOW was up over 26,000, it was because of him. Now that it is scrapping the low 22,000 region, he blames Powell and Mnuchin. Typical.
In case it hasn't been clear from day one, this man has no idea what he is doing and has no business being in the Oval office.
61
@John
Trump is a malignant sociopath.
It's not enough for his to "win"
Someone else has to lose.
He is a sick, twisted individual.
Just look at his face- he is so miserable, despite all his gold plated trappings he is completely miserable.
It must stink to be him/.
1
We knew he was a monster two years ago. What exactly are we waiting for?
35
Trump's record in the White House mirrors that of his career in the business world, one long series of failures.
49
I find it disappointing that writers continue to refer to 'adults in the room'. It is beyond being merely cliche and borders on lazy. One could also describe Mattis as the consummate Trump-enabler. Mattis come to the position of Secretary of Defense with a solid reputation and used that reputation to further both his own career, not to mention Trump's administration. By analogy is like describing a retired and respected general who decides to join an anti-democratic authoritarian regime. You wouldn't describe that person as the 'adult in the room'. Instead, one should question the original assessment of that retired general officer. And, of course, this isn't an analogy at all - it is in fact what happened.
Maybe Mattis was a mad dog, but not in a good way.
9
Another who comes to mind is former SOS Colin Powell.
1
I think it is almost impossible to exist in an insane asylum without taking on the attributes of either psychosis disorders or outright psychotic tendencies. This is the trump White House. Maybe it should be compulsory for everyone leaving the White House to undergo examination and debugging for the safety of the nation and themselves.
6
t has the ability to tune out reality. He can "see" the world and the US as he wants them to be. He refuses to accept any version of anything that is not the exact same as his. He does not understand that he cannot do business the way he did it in NY - bully people until they do what he wants or they leave. Unfortunately he can't do that as president and that appears to drive him what some folks would call "nuts" and we suffer. Perhaps he would resign and we all can relax a bit.
6
What are we to make of this turnover in the White House? It is being led by an incompetent, Trump, who can now only attract incompetents.All branches of the government are being degraded, the Judicial, the Legislative and certainly the Executive. This is our government- if it were being compromised by foreign powers we would rebell .The President is leading the charge to dismantle the governmental institutions. We value our Democracy but do not accept his behavior- he has to go!
20
"...As a result, a partisan war may be just what he wants. He has privately told associates that he is glad Democrats won the House in last month’s midterm elections, saying he thinks that guarantees his re-election because they will serve as a useful antagonist..."
Why?
Why don't the rich, white men of the U.S. who have the power and money do something about this. Don't tell me there isn't someone who can. This situation is deplorable and frightening. If for no other reason other than for someone to just say 'NO' to this L'enfant terrible.
He lives in his own reality TV show. Is General Mattis the only real man left in the U.S. who is not a coward?
The man has all the attributes of a practicing alcoholic even though he does not drink. It is in his genes.
27
@Claire Douglas
then again he thought that the Republicans won the midterms, that "trade wars are easy to win", that his/Republican Congress' Tax bill was the greatest, that making terrible appointments and calling them the "Best people" would make them good, that Calling Mr Mueller's investigation a "witch hunt" would make it disappear etc etc
If he believes that the various Democratic House Committees will not reveal further incriminating facts, then his delusions are uncurable.
While catering to his base may assure him of a certain percentage, the losses among independents and among those who voted for him as ABC (anybody but Clinton) many are finally realizing their mistake. If he survives until 2020, I do not believe his supporters are anywhere near enough for re-election.
4
@Claire Douglas Not an alcoholic. Do you ever wonder what drugs he takes? I do. They can manifest in much the same way as alcohol, maybe even worse.
1
@Claire Douglas,. Gee, you're still looking for a savior. That person is you, so get out and work for anti-Trump candidates and vote. Organize and vote. Stop mourning and appealing to a deaf heaven.
When will we reach the "tipping point" for the Trump administration?. As defined by Malcolm Gladwell the tipping point is "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" ...from which change takes place. In the case of Trump it could manifest as many things i.e. dismissal by his core diehard supporters, broad based actual Congressional revolt manifesting in impeachment and conviction, or, simply ignoring him until he goes away. But before that happens what damage will be done and how long will it take to recover?
11
As I watch the uneasiness of most "lefties", this clearly is a case of "be careful what you wish for".
DJT, a novice politician did what everyone suggested, by getting recommendations for his cabinet positions from long time political operatives. Most of the suggestions came from RINOs. And they proffered like minded candidates. Most, if not all, were doomed to failure.
The new hires were thoughtful,cautiously guarded and not given to flashes of brilliance, followed by daring action. Jeff Sessions. I liked him. Most thought he was a good pick. But, he tapped out as soon as he got in the cage. Tillerson, the meticulous brick mason, wanted a wall that was carefully engineered, to stop the the hoards. Maybe he should have thrown a few bricks.
Trump confounds the left, with his unpredictable style. He is not swayed by the media and throws the stones right back at them. Our allies don't know what to think.
Neither do our enemies.
Mike
season's greetings and a community's love to your family. But (gently offered) are you blind? "Not swayed by the media"? He is totally dependent on media influence. Trumpster was just bullied by Rush and other media hate mongers into reneging on an agreement with Congress. He translates Fox and Friends inanity into public policy. He routinely transmits falsehoods he hears via media in his many hours of daily TV watching... Not a matter of left and right....he's the guy born with a silver spoon; gets 400,000,000 from his dad and still manages to go bankrupt six times. Not confounding.... Just total incompetence
3
@Mike Thanks for saying what we all knew -- that Trump is still the bratty little playground bully who throws rocks, even at babies in playpens. Or, nowadays, in concentration camps.
The groveling sycophants of his first cabinet thought they could pursue their corporate tax breaks, racist policies and repeal of rights for women and LGBT people, not to mention a little profitable grifting of their own, as long as they kept him happy with enough self-abasing flattery. They were wrong. He's amateurish, vain and incompetent but totally uncontrollable, and they've accomplished nothing except to destroy their own careers and maybe ride around in cool government limos or military jets for a little while.
But you're wrong that our allies and enemies don't know what to expect. They do. Our allies know that he will insult them, threaten them, and behave at official events like a boorish clod, and will renege on any deal, break any promise, and slough off every burden in pursuit of his own interests. Our enemies know he will do as they tell him under threat of blackmail.
2
@Mike - neither do most of the US citizenry.
When are you pundits going to stop trying to make sense of the Trump administration? There is no sense to it. Incompetence, negligence, cruelty and over-riding dishonesty are all on display daily. The man has been placed in a position for which he has no aptitude except to please the person who put him there to do exactly what he is doing--tearing apart and destroying what was once one of the most powerful countries in the world--the United States of America. This is just more fiddling while America burns.
35
@Meg Maybe that is where Trump will end up when he is out of the WH...have his own show perhaps?
"Mr. Trump is more influenced by whoever is on “Fox & Friends” on any given morning than who’s in the office down the hall."
He is very close to having these be the same individuals.
25
Is there anyone in the Republican party who might challenge Trump in 2020?
6
@tthecht It's looking more and more like (soon to be former) Ohio Gov. Kasich is going to run against Trump. I am not a fan of how his Christian beliefs shape his public policy, but he has actually been fairly reasonable of late and vetoed some of the more extreme conservative anti-abortion and pro-gun bills that made it to his desk in Ohio. He is level headed and actually cares about people. He would be a refreshing change to the gutless power-hungry Republicans we currently have in Congress, and a perfect contrast to the chaos president.
The inmates are running the asylum is a perfect example of what is happening in the White House and country; there is complete chaos, backstabbing, immense greed coupled with self preservation which has a life of its own. Forget about us the American people, our interests, our votes, we no longer count; forget about the safety of the world, other Nations, the environment. What’s even more appalling and alarming are supporters of this anarchy thinking they are immune from this diabolical dysfunction.
The country is imploding. This President, the majority of his administration and GOP are incapable of running the country; what they are doing is running the country to the ground. We are witnessing the least capable of individuals starting with an incompetent psychologically disturbed President who is now in charge and running the most powerful country on the planet for personal gain, profit and constituents.
I am hoping….no; I am praying that the people, the country and the world will survive the enormous damage, chaos, dysfunction, division and hatred this President and administration have unleashed.
19
Here's a take-away from 2016 to inform your 2020 vote: If a candidate cannot win his home state, maybe the people there know something about him that you don't know. Trump got 36.5% of votes in NY...they knew.
42
@Frank
You have described Mike Pence to a T.
4
@Frank. Truer words cannot be said. I grew up in NJ in the 70’s, my father worked in Manhattan. Donald Trump was a laughingstock; a moron then and a moron now. I still can’t believe it when I hear “President” in front of his name -cognitive dissonance. I’m surprised it has taken this long for the markets to start to tank, when the country is being led by a moron indulging in tariff wars. Month after month of consistent improvement under Obama wasn’t enough. Now we can all go on the downhill side of the roller coaster. Wheeeeee!
4
You think this is bad wait until he starts a war thinking he will win reelection as a war time president.
19
You lost me at "making sense." Nothing about Trump or his presidency makes any sense.
7
Maybe Trump is on the payroll of Fox and Friends? Boost those ratings.
3
Working for the Don is not a career enhancer nor is it likely to be long career, ask those that worked for all the famous Dons from Chicago and NYC.
4
One word summarizes everything we are experiencing -- birther movement, the beginning of fake news forever established by a proven sociopathic liar who was able to become the leader of the free world.
10
Best line: The Trump administration is, to employ a seasonal metaphor, an island of misfit toys.
2
Add the stats of how many campaign workers or staffers were arrested and/or indicted and convicted . Its a picture of greed and deceit, mixed with delusion.
6
It’s too bad we are here now in this foregone conclusion that a lot, but not enough, voters foresaw. Yes, Trump fans, we saw this coming. None of this is a surprise. Sorry if you thought otherwise. I hope losing 30% of your retirement in a week was worth keeping another Clinton out of the WH.
23
>>Clearly, James Mattis’ departure is gravely concerning<<
What ever happened to "deeply troubling"?
"Gravely concerning" sounds so contrived and unnatural.
After all, "concerning" was conceived as a preposition. And a preposition it ought to stay.
4
A couple of synonyms for "bedlam" are chaos and madhouse. Then a synonym for chaos is rat's nest, then a synonym for madhouse is insane asylum. One more, pandemonium which can also be turned into anarchy.
Yes Mr. Tomasky, you have chosen the right word to describe this Administration.
5
Those potential voters who find this turnover to be literally dangerous, and find Trump to be an imbecile and a joke, (which amounts to about 60%-65%) have one job to do right now. Create such a groundswell of opposition that either: 1.) Trump and the Republicans are buried in a landslide in 2020 - losing the White House & Senate and numerous statehouses and state legislatures, or 2.) making the above impending landslide so obvious and irreversible, that frantic Republicans move against him in 2019
13
The only staff that Trump would approve of is an army of telepresence robots. They could roll all over the world with Trump on an iPad and face time direct to the Oval Office where he could sit and control them all like some demented Wizard of Oz. The only thing is, he might not have enough time to watch Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh because how else would he know what to tell his robot presences to say or do.
1
What r we to make of this bedlam? That's easy. The bedlam tells us that our system of selecting elected officials is terrible but our inability to remove them from office is even worse.
For some obscure reason I cannot fathom, we cling to rules set in stone 242 years ago and procedures to change those rules equally archaic.
In an era where technology is moving at the speed of light, our sailing ship mentality still rules the roost.
America needs a Yellow Vest moment when the people who are affected by Trump & Citizen's United, flood the mall and demand immediate change. Not in two years when the next pork laden election is held, but NOW so that we have more time to deal with Climate Change.
Decisions based on how many cheeseburgers Trump ate, aka: "gut feel", aka: "gas pains", and what he watched on tv, is utterly ridiculous.
9
Trump watches the news about him (no broader curiosity) and responds emotionally. Day in, day out. (He also eats burgers, fried chicken, and soda which, according to Satchel Paige, rile up the blood.) Then he tweets. Watches. Eats. Tweets. Watches. Eats. Tweets. And looks for a scapegoat. Hence the 'steady bedlam.' His supporters, naturally, blame the news, since that appears to be the proximate cause of his behavior. Or maybe it's the food.
Didn't Denice-the-Menace have similar hair?
10
This article is, like many others, right on target when describing the Trump “mess.” However, I long for a series on what can be done now to fix the “mess”, including impeachment without removal by the Senate. It is time to acknowledge that some kind of legal action needs to be taken before complete chaos overtakes the country even more. Has anyone been studying this? Are there any options at all? Is anyone working on legally fixing this situation?
8
Among his many faults, I do not think Trump's abysmal personnel management gets enough attention. For a supposed biz school genius, his inept poor hires and turnover ratio would get him fired as CEO of just about any organization.
10
Republicans holding the reins at the NRC and their congressional counterparts are fully responsible for the total sham this government has become. Trump's their boy lock stock and barrel.
They hold their noses in some cases and look the other way, while winking at each other. Supreme Court this, Tax cut that...These soulless, spineless, sycophants continue to stand by and do nothing but mumble as alliances shatter, the world reels, the environment suffers, and the markets are whipsawed. Is there nobody who can convince the R's to come to their senses ? Where is the tipping point and how much Trump - inflicted damage needs to be done to our cherished institutions before one decent person takes it upon themselves to mount a Republican movement to rid us all of the incompetent juvenile delinquent in the White House ?
10
@Alex MacDonald
The only republicans willing to speak up (Corker ,Flake) are out the door. I used to have faith in Lindsay Graham until he became trumps golfing buddy. So I have the same question as you....who in the GOP is going to speak truth to power?
For decades Trump imagined himself president. He has energy, he has humor (yes, he can be funny, not inadvertently funny), he once had some facsimile of concern for people. He is quick, clever and extraordinarily ignorant. Living inside a bubble made up of people like himself. I can't imagine this is what he had in mind. He wanted to be admired. Respected. Have people be in awe of the massive good he could do. I am sure he never imagined he would be seen as this hideous jerk. No one at all is interested in the carrot he had to offer and no one is afraid of the stick. People are afraid of the damage he can cause. But no one respects him. For me the last President was Johnson. The office lost all its luster with him. It started with Kennedy and was all gone with Johnson. At least I thought it had.
2
It’s a Straw Man Presidency,he keeps putting straw men in to enact his promises. And firing them for following their humility.
2
The problem is not Mr. Trump's penchant for chaos, it is the media's attempt to normalize the situation, to deal with it the same way it deals with everything. So we have an analysis of the chaos that shows what? Something, we didn't already know? The turnover, however, does not compare in any way to any of the turnover in previous administrations, period.
Yes! We have now come to expect the unexpected. In fact, we are no longer surprised or shocked, so the one thing we can be certain about is that it is not chaos that we are dealing with or witnessing. It is simply disfunctionality on the part of a President, in this case Trump. This is a non practiced, non studied, self centered, erratic, narcissistic person, who has no clue how to govern, and we are paying the price, much to the glee of his moronic following and supporting news casters.
In the background, the peanut gallery, is a supporting cast of cowardly Republican representatives in both the House and the Senate, who are aiding and abetting him in every conceivable way. The government has run amuck, and it will only get worse unless this man is removed from office. Inserting the puppet, Pence, will not improve things, but it will stop things from getting far worse, which is currently the country's heading.
11
It has become abundantly clear that Trump has absolutely no idea what he is doing. He changes government policy based on an ill-conceived right-wing blog article or an ill-founded Fox newscast. When an expert disagrees with his mercurial tendencies, the expert is disparaged by Trump, often publicly. This brings us to the obvious conclusion that there is a barely functioning brain in the head of the snake. Of course, most people (per the popular vote) already knew that. It is now time for Republicans to wake up and save us from this clown (my apologies to clowns).
8
I shudder to think how much worse everything would be if the person sitting in the oval office didn't know more, about anything and everything, than any other person in the world.
4
Maybe but he'll still carry Ohio.
2
Are we talking about staff turnover again? I'm astounded that the news has already moved on from:
Trump committed campaign finance felonies by paying hush money to porn stars he cheated on his third wife with, then lied about it for two years.
Trump's "charity" repeatedly engaged in illegal activities, including bribing Pamela Bondi, the Florida AG. to drop the class action lawsuit into his fraudulent "university," such that the President has been barred from running a charity in NY.
Trump's fixer and campaign manager are going to jail for crimes too numerous to enumerate here. Trump called the who supposedly told the truth "a rat," and the one who lied "a good guy."
Trump's National Security advisor, a traitor to our nation, will likely do little jail time because of the value of his "substantial cooperation" into the investigation of Trump's collusion with Russia.
Trump was conducting business with our most dangerous adversary while running for the presidency and perhaps after winning the election, while that same adversary hacked our elections in for his benefit. Trump lied about it, along with his co-conspirators, for three straight years, and praised the anti-democratic dictator of that country, in front of the world, while demeaning our own security forces. Then handed him a win in Syria.
If I have learned nothing this year, it is the GOP cares for nothing other than its own stranglehold on power. Not the rule of law, not democracy, and certainly not America.
19
It's just very difficult to believe that any large group of "patriots" could be so un-American. It's created no little amount of cognitive dissonance in me; I guess I did have some respect for Republicans. Are they completely unethical and greedy? Wow. Worse than I feared, and my fear level was already sky-high.
1
Please stop trying to apply reason to what our Fraud in Cheif is doing.
Madness does not follow the rules of reason and logic.
4
A President unhinged who likes to threaten and scare the people of the world and incredibly takes pleasure in scaring the people of the country he is supposed to lead. It is as if the high school bully has been made principal and is going around expelling any kid who looks at him or is doing too well academically. Why just yesterday one of he school buses was late due to inclement weather so he cancelled the contract with the bus company, passed a rule that all kids had to come to school barefoot and sprinkled the halls with shards of glass.
3
Firing people and shutting down government, leaving people with no paychecks at Christmas. What a tacky, Ebenezer Scrooge move. Major tactical error. Even his base won't like that.
6
The use of the word bedlam and its reference to insanity brings up an interesting comparison of the orange clown king and the intentionally deaf, dumb and blind republican party to the way we used to handle the mentally ill in this society.
The afflicted individual was hidden away and ignored by society until their actions became so disruptive that they finally were placed in an asylum. As the sleep deprived orange clown king's grandiosity and maniacal behavior becomes more disruptive the republicans ignore it more. This allows that behavior to escalate.
There will be an end to this insanity and if those who have control do not step up it is not going to end well for anyone. Greedy republicans included.
3
Institutionalized racism, condoned sexism, and ths near absolute grip of our entire country by men who look like me, created the most fertile opportunity for someone as unqualified and incompetent as Trump to become president!!
Trump is the creation of an America that evolves technologically, and becomes richer, but still stays same by ignoring the weight of increasing poverty, virulent sexism, unabated racism, and laws that protect accelerated inequality.
He continues to upend the international order, and sow more dissent and chaos than can be imagined.
But Trump is the incarnation of the other side of America out in the open. Very sad. But so very very true.
8
What did you expect from someone whose lifetime achievement was a fake tv show called "You're Fired?" He fired people on tv for his own profit, he's busy doing the same to us. Only this actually is reality, and the wolves who are his cohorts and our enemies are waiting at the door.
3
Now that Trump has summarily gotten rid of anyone competent or experienced, and those who in his mind pose a threat to his rule, in the first two years of his inept, ineffectual and increasingly destructive term, what's next? Things here are about to get worse as Mueller's investigation has made him a man obsessed and incapable of leading the country. Time for our legislators (who do not work for him) to exercise their power and act in bipartisan concert to thwart, block, check and loudly protest his arrogant, omnipotent and self-serving odyssey.
7
Why doesn’t somebody just hijack his TV feeds and send him some sensible stuff ,surely it wouldn’t be difficult and I’m sure he wouldn’t notice
5
The WH events of the recent past has been like watching two neighbors that revile each other and one’s catches fire. They scramble frantically to put it out, the other sits back with their feet up in a lawn chair only watching and laughing. Any justice in this world will blow the rising flames towards his. The surrounding neighbors who are only sick of the two feuding families are up on their roofs watering them and hoping the two houses burn down quickly so they can get some peace and quiet.
@John Doe
Trump is more like an arsonist endangering ALL the houses in the neighborhood.
Except he has a house and a golf course waiting in another neighborhood when this one burns down.
6
Feste's words to the Duke Orsino:
"Your mind is a very opal."
All that need be said.
2
The usual inducements that encourage working for a corporate despot are pots of cash and the ability to share war stories of working for crazed business loon and saying 'crazy yes,but did i learn a lot' .
Neither condition exist in a fixed compensation job for a clueless embodiment of the Peter principal. The escapee market for tell all books is saturated, MSNBC will use you as a cautionary tale, and FOX will decry your disloyalty for not engaging in ritual Seppaku in front of the Congressional committee.
With the clock running for 2 years and 27 days until the new occupant, the sane ones are running for the slit trenches waiting for the civic bombardment to stop. Third team substitutes will fill in.....Ben Carson is still available right?
1
Bedlam is where Trump belongs.
9
It is time for Republican senators to have a 'Nixon conversation' with President Trump
7
It will be interesting to see if the deputy Sec Def, Patrick Shannahan, is nominated to the post, and agrees to serve.
As Mr. Tomasky observed, a resume replete with service in the Trump administration will likely not result in a golden parachute.
But the senate confirmation hearings regarding whomever The Trumpster nominates should prove entertaining.
3
Perhaps the turn over is by design. To keep the suspense/ratings for his style of reality TV governance, isn’t it necessary to stage a new cast of characters every year?
15
@Rachel
To suggest a design to what we are witnessing, we would have to be convinced there's some strategic thinking at work in Trump's head.
I see only unhinged lurching about. Today's decision to dump Mattis early is the result of pique, not strategic thinking.
4
@Rachel
"...isn’t it necessary to stage a new cast of characters every year?"
If not, it is indeed necessary to distract national attention from the Mueller investigation. This, I believe, is at the heart of the Trump-created "chaos week", Dec 17-21, 2018.
Little-to-no "Mueller talk" within the media this morning. See how that works?
5
No one should be surprised with the “steady bedlam” of the Trump Administration. This oxymoron is a perfect description of not just a mental hospital but what began as purposeful screeching anti-democratic, White Nationalist hysteria of Trump’s presidential campaign and Americans expecting a President Trump in a democratically elected role of leadership demanding a healthy, rational mental state and a moral center and commitment to our democratic Republic.
Trump surrounded himself early on with the most incompetent, most corrupt, or the most destructive individuals, some mentioned by Mr. Tomasky. President Trump has demonstrated he shares these negative characteristics and others perhaps more destructive.
The Administration, aptly described by Sen. Bob Corker as an adult Day Care Center, has now lost its staff.
33
The term "A team" is not appropriate because it contains the word "team." There is no cohesion, no single purpose, no commitment to the greater good; at the top is a hollow, volatile caricature of a so-called leader.
This "island of misfit toys" is a pathetic collection of self-dealers with bad judgement playing an epic game of Survivor, in which the American people have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Enemies of the U.S. have never had a better time to pounce.
83
@MichinobeKris
Very well stated. For the first time in my 59 years I am truly frightened for the future of this nation and the world.
31
Starting to wonder if, instead of obsessing over who fills which position in this maelstrom of an administration, we should instead focus who has which time slot on Fox News and right wing radio. Clearly Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and the three bobbleheads on “Fox and Friends” are Trump’s true advisors.
He knows more than all the generals, he tells us. He is the greatest genius ever for making deals he tells us. He has done more for this country than any president ever he tells us. This emperor is so naked it boggles the mind that there are enough sycophants around willing to risk their reputations, mental health and personal finances by working for him.
I fear the day people actually die because Donald Trump’s pathology was allowed to run unchecked. Til then, we must hope and pray that Ann Coulter doesn’t get too upset, that Rush feels respected enough, that Tucker continues to blow enough dog whistles for Stephen Miller and that Hannity get laryngitis.
54
@Joanna Stasia NYC
The little girl who died in custody after crossing the border comes to mind......plus the hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. People have already died.
2
@Joanna Stasia NYC
For heaven's sake, people are already dying because of Trump's psychopathology! Desperate refugees are dying, citizens who can't afford healthcare are dying, demoralized, depressed and indebted working people are committing suicide at record rates, and those exposed to unregulated environmental toxins are dying as a result. Once the SCOTUS eliminates safe and legal abortion, we can expect a surge in deaths among women who can't afford to leave the country for the procedure. And as long as the NRA owns congress, more guns will mean more gun deaths.
1
America, armed to the teeth, has never in history been more vulnerable.
It is obvious that our command structure is not Fool-proof.
19
"... the staff hardly matters."
It's pointless to speculate on who will replace whom, regardless of the reason for staff turnover. Trump is a veritable whirling dervish with no consideration of consequences, requisite skills, or interest in building a team. Staff strength is seen as threatening. Boot licking is the only relevant requirement.
The White House emanates discord, not direction. There is no organizational strategy. There is no policy strategy. There is no economic strategy. There is nothing intentional, constructive, or unifying coming from the Oval Office. There is only self interest, ignorance, and petulance.
Forget the "adult in the room" approach. That's been proven a flawed assumption. Clearly Trump has no interest in being advised. There are only three forms of control, one near term, one of unknown term, the last long term.
First is Congress. They have the legal authority, obligation, and power to protect us from a vacillating and intemperate chief executive. Second is the Mueller investigation, which may shine a light on transgressions to significant to ignore. Third is the ballot box, which hopefully will signal the nation's fatigue with this ethical, moral, and adminstrative roller coaster.
We can only hope that Trump will self destruct before he wreaks any more havoc upon a bruised and divided country.
35
@SMKNC: What does a Trump self destruct look like?
1
None of this is truly difficult to make sense of. A narcissist who has made a career of grifting by pretending to be much more than he is won an election he never expected to win. It is probably pretty safe to imply that most narcissist career grifters are in no way qualified for the position of President. Trump is literally proof of that.
42
@Rick Beck, I agree wholeheartedly with your premise. The only thing I take some exception with is that this grifter was elected.
Yes, sure, the Electoral College elected him. That is what makes someone president. But more interestingly, the majority of American voters did not vote for this person.
Let us ask ourselves if the the Electoral College is still relevant to our nation. Then let’s take a long, hard look at the electors. Were they pawns? Were they bribed? How does someone represent us, only to vote against our wishes? The system is not only broken. It could possibly be corrupted.
9
@Alex T I am inclined to agree. It seems as though the popular vote might be a more fair approach. I also am an ardent advocate of an independent non partisan gerrymandering process. Our current election process is entirely too subject to nefarious manipulation.
1
This is not normal. Trump gained most of his celebrity status as a reality star. He is is still living in the reality star mentality, but now it is endangering the stability of our nation. Shame on his fans for accepting this destruction.
27
We need to let go of this lust for an "adult" in the room with Trump. We're treating the person like an amulet with magical powers. Powers like in some old Druidic myth to keep a mans beast locked inside, the removal of which will mean disaster for the local townspeople. "Keep the curtains drawn, don't let him see the full moon, maybe we can stop the transformation!"
FYI; the disasters are taking place! Look around! The amulet, like all alleged magical objects, doesn't work!
This is the place we we're always gonna be. Trump being his own council, seeking only the expected yes's of his progeny (have they ever turned him around on anything meaningful?) and demanding fealty from those willing to stick around and take his daily barrage of "smartest guy in any room, anywhere" rants and raves.
Picture Trump like the typical cartoon dog on a leash, in a fenced yard. The leash we prayed would be his staff, and advisors. He could only charge so far before the leash yanked him back, and the fence - norms, traditions and laws - would keep us safe should the lease not be enough to hold him back.
But look closer at what he's been doing for the last two years. He not only shortened, if not eliminated the leash, but more importantly he pulled the fence in closer. Making the leash unimportant, as he could and has simply played out the line, and hopped the fence and started mauling any and all passerby's. Unless you hail him in the media, or at one of his Applause Tour stops.
13
trump's Chaos and Distraction is deliberate. Unqualified, uneducated, devoid of decency or intellectual thought, C and D make a good cover. Stealing, one of the main focuses of his administration, flourishes in the confusion. Kushner works on criminal justice reform to save himself. Ivanka milks her appearance to float by and pick pockets. Melania luxuriates in the free clothing and gifts while having hair and makeup done. Don jr and Eric fly on our dime to make 'deals'. This is who the trump's are. Sadly, the GOP is entirely corrupt and run behind grabbing scraps. Bannon and Stone knew they had their guy when they installed trump. Let's tear down a country just for fun. We can only hope that Democracy can fight back .
26
Mr. Tomasky lacks real world experience, or he would have recognized Trump's management style as that favored by the worst, most incompetent executives: Knife Fight.
Knife Fight leaders eschew data, objective analysis, and process. They encourage dissension, backstabbing, and fawning by subordinates. Their organizations do not empower people. Instead, the organizational style is feudal society.
Their tenures never end well.
16
If you are an intelligent,experienced and thoughful executive would you really want to work for a nasty,volatile,and ego driven boss? Not likely. Sadly things can only get worse. Tough times ahead.
26
Gee, who would have predicted that electing a reality show star whose catchword phrase was “YOU’RE FIRED” could have led to chaos in our government?
29
@Brooklyncowgirl
Right on. Unfortunately, too many in this nation live in TV World where they care more about what happens in their favorite sit-com than what is happening out here in the real world. The idolization of stars and knowledge of their lives too often supersedes knowledge about those who govern. To some, Trump as witnessed on TV appeared to be smart and his often business acumen satisfied a highly gullible group of voters. How often I have heard, "I voted for him because he is a successful business man... the richest man in the world, etc." The clown shows that were presented as "debates" only made things worse. Those running against Trump behaved like awed teenagers and fed into his ego driven drivel. This gave us yet another reality show and Trump on a silver platter. That his behavior during the Clinton/Trump debates was also allowed also falls on the shoulders of the media moderators, who it seems would rather make headlines than challenge the "contestants" and force them to talk seriously about issues. Trump stalking Hillary while the moderator sat allowing it, still gives me the creeps.
The media failed us. His constant business failures, mobster behavior and lack of a moral compass should have been front page headlines.
1
@Elizabeth Sorry about the clumsy writing - clearly, I need a proof reader!
There have been many, many articles, op-ed pieces, etc. about how inept and crooked this guy is. There is nothing new about his antics. What I would like to see is something about where we go from here. How does the country recover? Will there be enough good activity by the House in the next two years? Will enough states, including some of the so-called red ones, keep on an even keel?
We have to have a rest from all the Trump activity. I wish I knew where it might come from.
15
No HR department in any company or institution would keep Mr. Trump as an employee. His credit rating and constant lies would be a instant disqualification.
Would you but him in an office with people? He is high on the creepy guy scale. Please congress end this reality television show so we can get this country functioning again.
18
Gee, if only the DNC and the RNC hadn't given us a 'choice' between two obvious grifters and con artists, one being slightly smarter than the other.
You want to get terrified, read Michael Lewis' 'The Fifth Risk'; if you don't have the time, it's all about how Trump has demolished the institutional memory any government needs and how thousands of quiet experts in critically important jobs have been replaced by ... no one. While the media pundits were blathering on about how 'maybe he'll pivot' it was obvious the man had no clue and was a psychopath. But what could go wrong, huh? I'm sure the incoming market crash will only be a blip in historical time frames... like the next Ice Age, perhaps.
13
@signalfire: Regarding "two obvious grifters and con artists", this is yet again the same false equivalence. Hillary Clinton has been investigated dozens of times and there haven't been any convictions, much less indictments, for anything she's done.
For example, Clinton haters like to bring up the Clinton Foundation, but when it comes time to actually cite evidence of wrongdoing, nothing! Charity Navigator--- the gold standard for rating the transparency and effectiveness of charities--- gives the Clinton Foundation a 92.4% rating. In contrast, the Trump Foundation rates a "High Concern CN Advisory."
Clinton haters like to bring up fake scandals like Uranium One, conspiracy theories which are so ridiculous they'd be the object of universal derision except for even more ridiculous anti-Clinton rumors like the Clinton pedophilia ring in the (non-existent) basement of Comet Pingpong pizza.
And then there's that dastardly email server--- somehow unlike Ivanka/Jared's ijkfamily.com private email server with government business--- and the fake Benghazi scandal, already the subject of nine congressional investigations by republicans.
The Clintons may be rich, even aspiring to become richer. Hillary may not have a particularly warm or mothering personality. But they haven't committed any crimes.
It's time for the Clinton haters to pony up evidence of grifting and con jobs, if they're going to keep making these baseless accusations.
2
@signalfire
Really? Slightly smarter? You have to be kidding!
@signal fire
Really? Hillary Clinton a grifter and a con-artist? Upon what evidence do you base those assertions and on? Fox (Faux) News? The right-wing smear machine that has been after this woman since 1992? You cannot produce one shred of credible evidence of criminality on Mrs. Clinton's part, can you? Not rumors or whispered lies. Facts, please. And as for HRC being slightly smarter than Trump, she is highest honors graduate of Wellesley and Yale. A professor at Wharton publicly stated that DJT was the worst student in his memory.
Lastly, voters chose Clinton and Trump in the 2016 primaries in a fair process. Bernard Sanders, faux Democrat that he is, arrogantly thought that DNC rules should have been changed in midstream to favor him.
America had a choice on 11-08- 2016 between a supremely qualified candidate (Clinton) and a proven lying grifter (Trump). It chose wrong and is now reaping what it showed on that fateful night.
2
The behavior of the President is sufficiently bizarre and dangerous. It is long past time for an actual psychiatric intervention.
20
“Making sense of the never-ending turnover in the administration.” ??
Don’t we wish this were possible!
You can’t rationalize the irrational.
7
How can anyone in this country not be disgusted at the chaos in this Administration? How can ayone in this country not be disgusted at the sight of the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, groveling before some of the most brutal dictators in recent history? How can anyone not be disgusted at the constant barrage of insults against anyone, including the media, who has the temerity to criticize the President? How can anyone not be disgusted at the sight of the President cravenly ceding his power to Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Fox & Friends?
What is going on here?
29
Do the lush corporate sinecures include the cozening and pimping that our elected legislators undergo as part of the corporations' incessant lobbying? The USA is no longer a representative government, of its electors, that is. It belongs entirely to special corporate interests that are almost by definition inimical and pernicious in every way to those of us who vote, work for government as I do, and who are of sufficiently modest means that we are paying the taxes. The president is merely the one-man freak show that we deserve for our complacency and superficiality as we continue to dwell in the artificial universe of electronic toys and connectivity that doesn't adequately inform us or our children...
8
What are we to make of it? Simple - Trump made foolish promises that he feels compelled to keep. He believes he is the smartest person on earth, probably in all human history. Therefore, he won’t listen to anyone. Someone else is always to blame. He cannot recognize reality because he lives in his own head, and gut. No person can create his own reality and impose it on the nation. Other nations have struggled through their times with incompetents in charge, most have survived, some after nearly being destroyed. He’ll thrash about, make a mess of things, we’ll be hurt to some degree, but we will survive him and be wiser for it.
6
@John i hope you are right
The hallmark of this Presidency is continuing to exemplify distrust. His telling NATO members that we can't be counted on, except to demand dues, began his parley of distrust. Trumps is now attempting to complete his campaign of distrust with our cut and run in Syria by declaring victory and running out on our European partners as well as the Kurds. Now with the market in free fall, D.J.T decides to close the Government for Christmas, with our armed forces babysitting our southern border for peace seeking refugees. Only Putin and the like could enjoy America Self Destruction.
Marry Christmas from Donnie Baa Humbug Trump!
4
This Opinion editorial is accurate, as I am sure are most of the comments. Please ralize that Trump will continue his destruvive and dusfunctional ways until he is out of office, either by Impeachment or a resiganayion i.e. Nixon, or he is voted out. He will not change!
6
@Roland
Spell check correction of my typing:
This Opinion editorial is accurate, as I am sure are most of the comments. Please realize that Trump will continue his destructive and dysfunctional ways until he is out of office, either by Impeachment or a resignation i.e. Nixon, or he is voted out. He will not change!
1
Same circus, different clowns is, unfortunately, the phrase that immediately comes to mind.
The GOP should never have unleashed Donald on the country and the world. They should have sent him right back up his escalator in Trump Tower. But the party thrilled at the primal fury that he tapped into. They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. What we are witnessing IS Donald acting presidential—his version of the concept.
I keep trying to focus on the fact that we’ve made it almost halfway through, that he’s clearly in a tailspin, and he is under investigation with more to come on that front with the new Congress. He’s elderly and not very fit, based upon his reliance on golf carts and limousines to travel short distances. It’s enervating to realize that we have another 750 plus days of this nonsense unless we are somehow delivered from it.
11
If Trump isn’t a Russian operative put in place to undermine the US domestically and internationally, her certainly does a good imitation. He acts as if he was a real live “Siberian Candidate”.
Treasonous is the word that comes to mind, regardless of what his motives or competencies are.
12
Wishing all fellow New York Times readers a happy holiday! On this christmas eve former U.S. Presidents like Filmore,Grant,Harding and Nixon are smiling since Trump makes them look better and better each day.
6
Wewish: Everyone a Happy Holiday season and a Happy New Year, with a stable government leader in place; Heavenly, wise, staff member stabilty in the White House; A peaceful, safe, world with plenty of food and shelter for its inhabitants; And lots of joy. But we at Balanitis and Team Balanitis know that none of that is going to happen now, or possibly ever. Time is running out. You all should see the real desteuction of the environment that we are seeing during our journey. Frightening! Very frightening. Please cause a positive change in your government ... really soon.
8
"Mr. Trump is more influenced by whoever is on “Fox & Friends” on any given morning than who’s in the office down the hall. That’s a kind of steadiness, I suppose."
Please, Mr. Gates and/or Mr. Buffet buy Fox News and save the country and the world.
8
As all this was utterly predictable--we knew what this guy was and we put him in the White house anyway--a bigger question is how we get the American public, or at least the low information voting sector of said public, to recognize the difference between "a different approach" and "unhinged crazy".
Because apparently, all due respect the misgivings of some of the voters about the lack of action they craved, the majority have been so inured to insanity they can't recognize the nth degree of it when it announces itself. After all, if the voters just wanted a standard, typical Republican dump on the poor and cut taxes on the rich administration, they could've voted for Bush or Cruz or Rubio.
There was absolutely no evidence--flat zero--that once Trump got into office he would attempt to approximate a statesman, and that was plain to see for anyone who wanted to look. So, again, we're stuck with the question of whether people simply refused to look, or are actually incapable of seeing. The answer to that question may have more predictive power as to the continuation of the American experiment than a lot of us would care to admit.
6
There is no making sense.
Either he is removed from office or this country is doomed.
10
You're over analysing this. He will keep firing and hiring because he refuses to accept the blame when his policies go wrong, or when there's consequences to his incompetence. So this will be happening as long as he is in office. NOBODY can make this guy look good.
7
Donald Trump is right on track. You just have to understand the track. The goal is to destroy the United States of America and replace it with the Confederate States of America. The republicans in congress are onboard with this goal. The Trump base is onboard. The appearance of chaos is simply subterfuge, gorilla dust. Trump and his cohorts want to drive this country off a cliff.
The real question that needs answering here is what are the rest of us going to do about it. The Democrats we sent to the house are not enough to save us. That was just one battle in this war. We had better prepare ourselves for the coming conflicts. Chaos in the white house is just the beginning. Soon we will have chaos across the country.
8
Mr. Tomasky you ask, "What are we to make of all this turnover in the Trump White House?"
It's as clear as the nose on my face. The Con Don was planted in OUR white house by Putin, Netanyahu, the Koch brothers and other International Mafia Robber Barons to destroy OUR government and standing in the world. It was a hostile financial takeover - not an election.
The Con Don does not represent the values, ideas and direction WE THE PEOPLE want for/in OUR United States of America.
He is putting "temporary" cabinet members in place to try to escape OUR U.S. Senate approval so they can merrily go about destroying institutions, social safety nets and OUR reputation without impediment.
Surely those in positions of power can see that as clearly as I do. The question is when will they step up - as Mr. Mattis and OUR emissary to Syria did - and take matters into their own hands to get them all out of there?
These are unprecedented times. One of the most corrupt human beings on the planet is in OUR white house aiding and abetting his International Mafia foreign and domestic brethren.
WE THE PEOPLE MUST DEMAND UNPRECEDENTED ACTION BY POWERFUL CITIZENS WHO CAN STOP THEM NOW.
13
@njglea: We The People need to start living in the streets, continuous action, strikes, in-their-faces actions, create financial insecurity for them. It's the only thing they care about, their own financial security.
That must change.
4
I agree, sophia, but if we hit the streets too often it will become "old" news.
There is another Women's March planned for January 2019 and every person - female and male - MUST show up to who our contempt for The Con Don and the Robber Barons he has and is placing in OUR important government positions.
1
There are facts, and there is narrative. Trump cares nothing for fact as long as he can win the narrative.
He does not like the narrative that General Mattis is the adult in the room, or that General Kelly keeps him in line; he fires the pair and rewrites the narrative. He hires someone who can play the part better in his own reality.
Trump is struggling to create the narrative with his base that he, and only he, can deliver on his promises. He will build the wall; he will defeat ISIS and bring our troops home. He doesn't care if his actions are based on fact, or are sensible, or if they cause irreversible harm. He cares about the narrative, and assuring that just enough believe his narrative to keep the pressure on the Senate to not vote against him on impeachment.
Ego, narcissism, criminal liability and desperation do not make for a sound workplace or safe career.
289
@Cathy
How many votes did Jim Mattis receive in the last election?
How many wars did Jim Mattis stop or win?
Thanks to the votes of 63 million Americans including 58% of white people Trump is "not struggling to create the narrative with his base". Trump still has the support of 85% of Republicans plus the smiling smirking Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman.
There is no Constitutional requirement that an American President not be a narcissist nor a criminal nor be desperate in the Oval Office of the White House in order to be sound and safe.
Very astute comment, Cathy, and not a wasted word: A
11
@Cathy
Trump will always live with his narrative. Hopefully, it will be in very close quarters under very close supervision.
And it's a one-hundred percent certainty that American history will reflect the factual narrative and relegate Trump to the bottom of the barrel. There will not be a school named after him, nor a portrait of him in the White House, nor will the flag fly at half mast when he dies.
17
Trump was and is unfit for service. Clear to any thinking person mature enough to know about life and human interactions.
By about 11 years old we know bad behavior from good behavior, mean people from kind people, fair people from unfair people, smart people from not so smart people.
I have to assume - on the plus side - that we are a Nation of voters and government officials with the cognitive abilities of at least an 11 year old. There is no excuse for not knowing intellectually DJT was "different" and not in a classical good sense.
But here is the rub - an 11 year old is still sort of curious, empathic, helpful, and eager to please. Sort of a joy to have around.
But then comes adolescence when things change - when things on the bad side look better to them, when good is often equated with weakness, when scholarship and kindness threatens their place on the pecking order.
Badness somehow seems attractive to them.
And somehow everything has to be all about themselves/their issues - and all bad stems from others actions!
So here we are ... we could not even act as 11 year olds in our voting and governing
Rather we acted/act like 14 year olds - enough of us - elect (voters)/support (Congress) a bad boy "15 year old" President.
Example: only a adolescent would seriously blame our Nation's problems on "others" when we have set the standard socially/technically/economically, and own 31% of World's wealth with only 5% of World's population.
Think hard about that!
4
@MegaDucks
Actually, "we" did not elect this moron. The American people got it right, once again. It was the ridiculous, outdated electoral college, that, along with Russian help, got Mr. You're Fired into the White House.
1
@MegaDucks: I love your comment. I agree about the difference between an 11 year old and a 14 year old. We have an extreme 14 year old who views blame as an existential threat. He has no core, just anger and blame - and fear. A great deal of fear. He'll do anything to keep all that at bay. He lives in ten minute increments: How to get through this crisis by creating another one.
It's a very, merry Christmas and Happy New Year for Mr. Putin. Champagne and caviar - only the best! - overflowing. And laughter. Lots and lots of laughter.
1
I think the title of this op/ed piece is misleading; that the bedlam is not so much in the White House as it is in Trump's psychological makeup. He is the source of the bedlam and all the confusion, inconsistency, lying deceit, creation of 'fake news' and the amorality. The simple fact is that he needs to be removed from office and replaced with someone in touch with reality and knowledgeable about running the government. Period.
8
He will never stop playing his tv reality show. Are any of his staff truly qualified for their jobs left in his cabinet, ( not that it matters, he never listens to anyone but the voices in his head.) Very few are willing to work with him because he's a lost cause. He keeps losing supporters and those that are left are terribly naive. Time to look to the 25th before he totally destroys our country.
4
The single most important RUP will, of course, be Donald Trump himself. Until he's gone this insanity will only get worse. The Republican party is creating the biggest collective "I told you so" in the history of the world.
6
Remember "The Apprentice"? Trump goes on TV, gets a bunch of people to do some silly things and ends up hiring one of them after all the others have left. Well, what I didn't realize until now was how backwards the whole thing was. The young job seekers were not the apprentices. It was Trump, and sadly, it still is.
4
Ah, were this only the locus of steady Bedlam. Recall the origins of the word, Bedlam, Bethlem, of Bethlehem -- a hospital in Medieval London that began treating the mentally ill, those hysterical or raving mad folk incapable of living life in a world punctuated by court intrigue, Bubonic Plague, and uncharitable drudgery.
Fast forward to a word that typified the inmates rather than the place, Bedlam, chaotic madness. As Bedlam in the "spital" fields characterized a place to care for epileptics, mental maladies, and psyches broken by the world's harshness, we now find the White House equally incapable of shaping the psyches of the current inhabitants. Witness Donald Trump, whose erratic character, driven by the winds of opinion from oligarchs, right-wing pundits, and perhaps unseen voices of a decaying mind, devolving into the political equivalent of the Warner Brothers' Tasmanian devil. Get out the nets folks, lest this one gets away, and takes the rest of the planet with him.
With the government shutdown over a fit of pique to build an untenable wall, the president has again imposed his petulancy over public policy. It's one thing to protect the border. It's quite another to fixate over construction of an edifice that will take decades to build due to the sensitivity of the lands it crosses, the physical demands to staff its properly at a reasonable cost, and its symbolism that those yearning to be free need not apply.
Hail our new Hadrian. We need a net, not a wall.
5
Trying to make sense of the almost daily mercurial events in this White House is maddening, more a chapter in a Kafka book than a properly managed branch of government. The stuff of a good comedy, maybe even a new Mel Brooks musical except this circus maximus has finally taken a dark turn with Mattis leaving and the Fed Chair facing the guillotine.
The congressional culprits who are enabling this fiasco are home for the holidays, abdicating their solemn responsibility to serve the interests of America instead of enjoying the pleasures of incumbency. The Mitch McConnell-led Republicans need to man up, find their inner Barry Goldwater (who told Nixon it was time to go) and begin the process of restoring order. The inmates have been running the asylum way too long.
3
@Doc- I think Trump outcrazies Kafka's famous cockroach by quite a lot. And his kind of insanity is a step down for Mel Brooks. I'm afraid the situation is stylistically The Three Stooges. Or The One Stooge. Or just good old vaudeville melodrama, amplified, for bilking the audience.
I began writing a response to this op/ed, and then decided there is only one thing that need be said: Trump is unfit for the office of the President.
7
An excellent point about what else—apart from all the other reasons someone might not want a job with Trump—might deter someone from joining this administration: the thought of witnessing acts that could well lead to jail time if one doesn’t fully disclose what one saw or heard in WH meetings.
I would add to the list that Trump is showing signs of intense paranoia. While there are people actively looking out and uncovering his misdeeds, the full extent of his ethical lapses have yet to see the light of day. Trump clearly knows he has a lot to hide. He should be paranoid.
4
So Trump has lost 13 cabinet secretaries so far? There are only 15 cabinet departments!
2
The bedlam in the White House reflects the bedlam in our ability to create democracy. If you really want to fix things begin with the people and their educational system.
7
@Mike Wilson
America is not nor was it ever meant to be a democracy
America is and always was meant to be a republic of a particular kind. America is a limited power constitutional republic of united states.
That is why there never was a President Al Gore nor Hillary Clinton. That is why a half million people from Wyoming have as many Senators as 39.5 million Californians. That is why Wyoming has a member of the House. That is why we don't vote for Supreme Court Justices. That is why the size of the House of Representatives and the Electoral College are limited in size to the disadvantage of more populous States.
@Blackmamba
Thank you for the civics lesson. We all learned it in the 6th grade. But seriously, how is this system where Wyoming has as many senators as California working out for us?
1
Picture a hamster on a hamster wheel. Except the wheel is not powered by the hamster. It's powered by a external force. That's the White House today. Trump's knowledge of his collusion with Russia is that external source. He continually runs knowing he can not stop the wheel from turning because it's the exposure of his conspiracy that is driving events. The frantic pace, the frantic results, the frantic turnover is all because nothing can stop his foreseeable humiliation.
7
President Trump's administration will not stabilize this or next year. We are holding our breath in the swamp of Republican hegemony inside the Beltway and across America. The turnover rate of RUP (resigning under pressure) White House staffers is staggering. The legal bills for anyone who works in the Trump White House will be execrably expensive. Mr. Trump's appointed Cabinet secretaries and officials have left the White House or been fired by our running-on-his-gut instincts president. Trump -- impetuous, ignorant, braggadocious -- thrives on daily chaotic dramas of his own making. World capitals (whether of former allies or former enemies ) are horrified by America's bizarre tv reality show with our scammer-in-chief as the M.A.G.A. star. Bedlam is reigning now. On the bright side, our 45th president has decided not to come to Florida for his 16 day golfing Christmas holiday, as he is needed in Washington to fix the US government shutdown, which he alone owns. Long ago, when Britannia ruled the world, the saying about England was "The sun never sets on the British Empire". We Americans can see clearly now that the sun is setting today on the American Empire.
4
whats the turnover rate on fox and friends? those are his true advisors. there's certain to be stability from murdoch's puppets.
3
I was taught many years ago that if you are unsatisfied, unhappy or have a boss that makes life miserable, quit that job and head for better employment.
While true we all have suffered under some of the worst managers that could be found, I would find it difficult, at best, to accept or seek employment directly under Trump given his poor management style.
Why would one subject him/herself to the rantings of Trump by tweet? Why would one find the need to engage an attorney upon taking employment with Trump?
The reasons I can come up with is first, blind faith to the teachings of Trump regardless of their validity;
firm belief that Trump's actions will have a beautiful ending, you know, that rebuilt infrastructure, the grand healthcare plan and that wonderful tax cut-scam.
Trump will have few successes, far less than what he promised and those who still believe fall into this old adage that is said to be used by grifters many years ago: A fool is born every minute. Trump has proven that adage is fitting.
4
No way, Jose, will president Trump's administration stabilize this or next year. We are holding our breath in the swamp of Republican hegemony inside the Beltway and across America. The turnover rate of RUP (resigning under pressure) White House staffers is staggering. The legal bills for anyone who works in the Trump White House will be execrably expensive. Mr. Trump's appointed Cabinet secretaries and officials have left the White House or been fired by our running on his gut instincts president. Trump -- impetuous, ignorant, braggadocious -- thrives on daily chaotic dramas of his own making. World capitals (whether of former allies or former enemies ) are horrified by America's bizarre tv reality show with our scammer-in-chief as the M.A.G.A. star. Bedlam is reigning now. On the bright side, our 45th president has decided not to come to Florida for his 16 day golfing Christmas holiday, as he is needed in Washington to fix the US government shutdown, which he alone owns. Long ago, when Britannia ruled the world, the saying about England was that the sun never sets on the British Empire. We Americans can see clearly now that the sun is setting today on the American Empire.
Anyone taking a job in this administration immediately becomes a witness to obstruction and corruption. I'd say this is a problem for democracy. This president is unfit to serve and is creating an extremely dangerous situation. He cares only for his base supporters and his own use of the Oval Office to further enrich himself and his family. This, by no stretch of the imagination is governing. This is chaos that can only end badly.
2
Trump's whole life demonstrated that he was completely unqualified to be President. That anybody thought he could manage was delusional. It will only get worse. Nobody with any ability and principles is going to sign up for a position where their attorneys fees will exceed their salary. It's all over.
2
I guess I should not be surprised that the reason he is in office is because his supporters were duped and knew little or nothing about his character, his impetuousness, his impulsiveness, his recklessness and his seeming vindictiveness as evidenced by his failure to take advantage of Mattis' willingness to stay on through February. But now they probably do even if they will not admit it and if they are hurt by this individual's sins of commission or omission, they have nobody to blame but themselves
1
With Republicans now as terrified of electoral eviction as the President is of incarceration, we can expect no political recourse for 25 more months.
1
Trump is a perfect top-down corporate exec. He wants sycophants who will agree with his every utterance. This rarely works in the business world for too long and it certainly is a recipe for disaster for the 330-million people of the United States.
2
What is most disturbing about Trump is not that he doesn't listen but to whom he actually does listen. Who or what could that be?
It's Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter apparently. Sure, Trump would like to be a dictator or king as if America were an authoritarian state where policy and law is always top down dictated by well the dictator at the top. We make a mistake when we make that judgement. Trump is too obtuse to even be a dictator who decides how the country is being run. He watches Fox News to see what makes his " base" happy and goes from there. The governing authority in this administration is not from a devious would be dictator but a right wing television network and its talk radio allies.
2
There is a phrase that keeps occurring across various media platforms and a variant of this occurs at the opening of this piece. "The adults have left the room", they say. Most recently this refrain accompanies discussion of the leaving of Mattis or more of a general reference to the dearly departed three Generals and other staff. There is a definite problem with such a simplistic overture. The infantilizing of Trump and his seriously craven feckless sycophants lets them off the hook because babies and children are not seen to be wholly responsible for their actions. Yes we can laugh at how "childish" this administration can act saying "No we didn't!" through stuffed cheeks and hands in the cookie jar. But actually it is not funny. There is a coup happening by the hands of adults in the administration of your White House. We can see it from up here in Canada and are worried and wondering "Why can't you?"
7
@Geoff
Lots of us see it. We also see the republican enablers who value money and power over our country. If it seems like we’re laughing, it’s only because we’re trying not to cry. And because we’re not ready to give up. Laughter will keep us strong, and humor is something this administration is not capable of. They haven’t the insight or humility for it. Fingers crossed for the incoming democratic majority in Congress.
Nobody ever had to babysit Obama.
3
@Geoff
I think it's possible to make a good argument for that Mr. Geoff in Toronto, some of us here see it also.
Interesting recitation of the fairly well known facts about the madhouse that is the Trump administration. What a place to work - it's a mystery why anyone in his or her right mind would willingly be part of what already is a very dark chapter in history. The root of the problem is, of course, Trump. He's a very sick man, always has been, and, with the walls closing in, he's getting worse. Paranoid, persecuted, lonely, impulsive, unstable and not very bright to begin with, he's more of a danger than ever. After this past cataclysmic week, he's got to be teetering on the edge and I'm afraid we'll wake up some morning to find that he's incinerated someone, somewhere out of spite and frustration. Intervention of some sort is warranted: impeachment. indictment, 25th, lock-down, something. Unfortunately, none of that can happen immediately - which is what is needed when you have a dangerous certifiable on the loose. My holiday question is: can we afford the luxury of another week or so of Trump Unchained before a Democratic House can begin to put the brakes on this worsening pile-up? Oops, unanswerable with this bundle of nerves at the helm. With all that said, I think I'll check on how the NYSE is doing this morning. Maybe that will bring some comfort at a very uncomfortable time.
2
It frightens me that we have a former Boeing executive as out Secretary of Defense. Not that he is a bad man, or that he has no leadership skills. He has no military experience. No foreign policy experience. He is a business man not a warrior or a diplomat. That should frighten all Americans. Even Mr. Trump's base voters should tremble a bit. Just where is this President taking us? I think the administration does not know; does not want to know and cannot know. We are the most powerful nation in the world and we are lead by the blind.
7
Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk...
What are we going to do about it?
This is the leader of the free world we are talking about here--the most influential person on the planet.
Let's hear some options for solutions. We get it. We're in trouble. So what do we do to rescue this sinking ship?
3
Am I the only one who finds it odd but telling that only Reagan's turnover rate was anywhere near comparable to Trump's? Was there more bedlam under Reagan than we remember or know?
"Misfit toys" is what the seasonal reference provides. In actuality, of course, the Trump administration is an island of unfit toys. With Mattis gone, nobody is fit to serve.
As Tomasky notes, there is more at stake than legal fees or reputations. One pertinent statistic is the Nixon White House. More than 40 Nixon staffers, lawyers among them, spent time in a federal prison. Trump is giving us a new Watergate every single day.
I for one believe the most influential parts of the president's de facto cabinet are not in the White House at all. That should frighten all of us.
This cabinet includes, for instance, "Fox and Friends." It also includes the set of brutal autocratic undemocratic murderous leaders whom Trump by all accounts gets along with very well, and admires. Finally, it might very well include Putin and Russia who are compelling him to act--treasonously.
4
Anyone surprised about how Trump is handling the presidency, really wasn't paying attention to how he has lived his life. He has to be the center of attention (most kids outgrow that by 20), he has to always have his way, whether it makes sense or not, and he knows nothing about anything and refuses to learn more. Maybe I am just being optimistic, but I truly hope the majority of republicans wake up to the destruction he has caused our country and get somebody else as a candidate next time. And I don't mean Pence, who wants to keep women pregnant and back in the kitchen.
8
Not only have we reached the point where no qualified, rational person, who had a choice to work elsewhere, would accept a position in the Trump Administration, we have reached the point where any such person who already is in the Trump Administration is looking for a way out.
190
@Jay Orchard
Remember Hope Hicks? ...the canary in the coal mine.
10
@Jay Orchard - What are you talking about? Who wouldn't want a low paying job working 80 to 100 hours a week for a boss who despises you for doing your absolute best and publicly humiliates you when he makes bad decisions... or takes all the credit if any of your hard work is recognized as well done. I mean, isn't that the kind of job we all dream about?
The real fact of that matter is that's exactly the kind of job (and boss) many people of color (whether black or brown-skinned immigrants) are able to obtain. Perhaps the people who have had to work for Trump over the last two years will keep that in mind when considering the plight of immigrants who want to come to America. They might have a bit more sympathy.
10
@Jay Orchard
I think Roseanne Barr and Jerry Springer are on the short list for cabinet confirmation.
14
Trumps management style isn’t at all unfamiliar to anyone who has experience in a corporation. Hires friends and yes men, check. Spins everything to make it look good, check. Takes responsibility for positive outcomes none for the negative, check. Has some pointless pie in the sky plan that will burn money, check. Churning management at the top, check. Weak board of directors, check. The People voted in a guy who thinks like a bad CEO. Worst part is we are stuck, cant just bail for another country before it all hits the fan.
3
The one turnover we need is the President. He is clearly unable and unwilling to do the job adequately.
8
The departure of Mattis is being portrayed by many in the media as (yawn) yet another example of the chaotic Trump White House, or, wink wink, the last adult leaving the scene. Trump has so enured us to news of catastrophe that when it happens now, we just shrug, shake our heads and carry on.
Well guess what folks, Mattis leaving should be making our blood run cold. If we had any sense left, we'd be waking at 2 AM every night in existential dread. Under the supervision of numerous capable appointees over the last two years, Trump has forced through a series of consequential, destabilizing actions that imperil the global order, weaken American influence and embolden American adversaries. Now all the capable appointees are gone, replaced by third tier yes men who won't even bother to attempt curbing Trump's recklessness.
Trump is feeling extremely isolated. He is under crushing pressure from multiple investigations, a Democratic congress is less than two weeks away, the markets are panic selling and Republican lawmakers are showing signs of revolt. He is becoming desperate, remains deeply ignorant of history and policy, and is the most powerful man on earth. World weary shrugs are not the appropriate reaction to the present moment of extreme danger.
5
The Caine Mutiny comes to mind.
But everyone is doing such a great job, the military with their endless war and limitless budget, the Fed and Wall Street profiting from another recession, hey kids let's have a carbon tax, medical care keeps going up, the middle class is floundering, the poor are doing weller but not well enough, the old won't let go of power, women proved they could do better than men by abolishing proof, and people still mispronounce Alexandra Ocasio Cortez name.
What would you do without Trump?
This administration’s turn over rate reflects the instability and incompetence of the President himself.
It is the opposite of the virtual reality of the taped Cabinet meeting in which all the cabinet Secretaries
offered fulsome praise to Trump.
Yes he is impossible to work with and doesn’t listen and threatens its members with legal bills.
But what about the country and the citizens they are supposed to serve?
Today there is outrageous partial government shut down over financing a Wall. Trump says there is an existential border security crisis which demands that he harm the economy and government workers to force Congress to give him his Wall.
Yet no one sees a crisis. It is virtual and exists only in
the mind and rhetoric of the President. Most people feel that the Wall is outdated and ineffective and too expensive and would not solve immigration issues.
Yet the President wants to get his way or else.
Who would want to work with such an immature and irrational leader? Who? I believe the governmental crisis is just beginning and will become a constitutional one that will test the integrity and effectiveness of our political system. Congress should pass the budget without any financing for his Wall and have the votes to override his veto to prove to the voters that they have some courage and rationality.
4
Yes. And we sit and watch and let it continue.
2
Considering some of the dubious characters that have come and gone through trump’s White House, I consider years of paying for lawyers karma. For others, it will be an economic hardship. I once had a boss like trump, given to nasty outbursts, and erratic behavior. I got out of that job, as fast as I could.
2
Sadly, the only thing we can hope for is that Trump's gross incompetence and blatant boorishness render him incapable of fully destroying our Democratic Republic, though lord knows he's trying.
Hopefully, sooner or later enough Republican senators will peel off and put nation over party and their own electoral skins (unless voters in their states turn against Trump and "primarying" them) and STOP Trump.
Most Progressives, like me, don't see Pence as any better, but I see Mr. Pence as an actual practiced politician and administrator, who has far more respect for regular order than Trump. While he might be a dreadful president, Trump is clearly a catastrophic one, who, through cognitive dissonance refuses to see the damage he's done, or take blame for anything going wrong.
Now he wants to fire Jerome Powell at the Fed and why? For doing exactly what he criticized Janet Yellen for not doing! Trump complained she wasn't raising interest rates, solely to protect Obama (not true, but if Trump says it's sunny I'm grabbing an umbrella). Now he's complaining about Powell raising them! After 2 years, the markets and the banks, both here and abroad are realizing that he's a disaster for the economic world--banking, business, manufacturing, markets, international trade, etc. He introduces instability solely for his own ego, creating chaos that in his dream only he can fix. Works on TV, not in the White House.
The Senate Majority needs to finally say "Enough! We want Pence!"
7
Trump loves chaos - it's what his base wanted him to bring to Washington, and he has delivered big time. Because the Republicans got their court choices and tax cuts, they went along with it.
But now, as the great Bob Dylan sang - things have changed. With the stock market suffering its worst week since the great depression, and the Republican donor class now coming down with real worries, things have gone too far. Overt racism, constant lying, bashing long time allies, phony promises, Putin hugging - that was all acceptable. But now that the gravy train to their pockets from the 1% crowd is in danger, Trump is on thin ice.
8
The scariest portion of this article is the implication that anyone who goes to work now in the White House will face indictment. This is ~our~ government! How did we get to this point?
6
Donald Trump is not and never has been President of the United States of America. He is always and only the president of his base. He speaks only to them; he plays only to them. Nobody else in America even exists for him.
That’s the primary reason why adults in his administration are gone: they had the vision and purpose of working for America, with a partisan slant of course, but still as a whole and more importantly as something greater than its people—an America whose institutions and values and place in the world were worth protecting. But that notion—America the great, America the good—doesn’t exist for this president, whose only real care is the adulation of his base (and frankly, the basest of that base). So having folks around him who seek to fulfill that broader purpose are not only irrelevant, they impede his own vision—to reign supreme in power and glory always and only for that 38 percent (or whatever it is) who see him as their savior, the defender of their southern border from those brown people further south, the ultimate protector of their white privilege.
So Trump looks only for “advice” to the Anne Coulters, the Sean Hannitys, the Tucker Carlsons, the Laura Ingrahams of his limited vision. To the extent he accepts guidance at all, they will guide him unless and until the adults in the GOP—if indeed they are any, any with true American vision—have the gumption to take the reins.
I am not holding my breath.
4
Our system of checks and balances is being tested and it’s failing miserably. No written document can save a nation when total power has fallen into the hands of people of bad character and corrupt intent. We are becoming a weaker nation with the passage of every chaotic day of reckless disregard for the basic tasks of governance. This cannot continue for two more years without irreparable consequences.
4
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here"--Dante I fear for the republic. Yet hold out hope from all those who have seen the inside of the maelstrom. May a leader of substance, a Phoenix, rise from these ashes.
6
Here's a so-called 'thought experiment' for you:
How would Trump respond and what would happen if the TVs in the WH all went mysteriously dark? He is arguably addicted to watching FOX "news" - not unlike millions of others, unfortunately - so what would this thin-skin DO if that electronic drug were withheld? Even briefly. Likely to be even worse (or better) is if the dark screens were erratic and unpredictable.
A brief video of his assured melt-down would be informative and perhaps give pause to even his supporters concerning his stability. Apparently he would have to start barking like a dog and clucking like a hen to have his supporters see anything wrong with him. He seems to be headed in that direction even without Fox and Friends withdrawal.
It's just a 'thought experiment.' But devices have been made that will turn off TVs in public spaces. Perhaps some very mundane WH staff could procure one of these and start some serious mischief. Presumably someone else who had had enough and was going to leave anyway.
Really, it's quite amazing that ANYONE is still with him, and it's not inconceivable that a true mass-resignation could yet be triggered by the ham-handed, pseudo-president himself.
6
So Regan had a higher turnover than Trump, that's interesting. I just don't buy this "last adult in the room" catchy phraise. I would consider Pompeo, Bolton, Ross , Mnuchin,Mulveany etc. etc...All competent adults. So let's put that one to bed.
Is there turmoil in the West Wing? Sure, because the President wants it that way. And Mueller is reported to issue his report Mid February, perhaps with charges against Stone and Corci.
No family members and nothing criminal associated with the President. Disappointing many!
Donald Trump, whether he likes it or not, is now responsible for the Syrian, Kurds, who fought alongside the American troops. If Turkey attacks them, Donald Trump will be responsible for each and every death. It will hang over him, not just during his presidency, but for the rest of his life. His behavior toward his Defense Secretary has been indefensible. His disruptive behavior, in the past, has been jarring. Now it has become a matter of life and death.
6
The turnover is indicative of the least prepared, and least psychologically stable president in my lifetime. And I go back to Eisenhower. But there's more than that afoot...
I believe he's guilt of giving aid and comfort to the enemy: a treasonable offense.
Consider Putin, whom he has publicly admired, once a major force in the KGB, now president of what was the second major power in the cold war. It is a failing nation, dictatorially ruled by Putin, desperately trying to project itself on the world stage.
But it still holds its position as the 9th largest economy on the planet, BEHIND BRAZIL!
Look more broadly... Putin directed electoral interference in the US, and may well be behind Brexit, and right wing emergence within Europe, not to dwell on the Crimea and the Ukraine.
Pulling out of Syria allows Russia to build its stature through control in the middle east. Of course Putin praised Trump's decision!
Meanwhile, Trump believes he can carry on the family business, and negotiate for a Trump Tower Moscow.
Who's pulling DJT's strings?
And will the new congress act, in January, to stop this insidious attack on democracy?
12
We have had enough information, isn't it time to get coverage on what other Americans are doing which might offer those of us still not sure of what to do, some direction? And overemphasizing dysfunctions within organizational efforts isn't that helpful -- disension, disagreements among committed people is to be expected. What's happening at local levels?
2
The turnover of Donald Trump’s A Team is very concerning, but it is not the most troublesome aspect of the Trump presidency at the half-way mark.
Every day we hear directly from the lips of the American president – in addition to his daily Tweets – that he knows more than the generals, that he knows more about international trade than anyone, that he knows more about climate change, more about border security, more about the internet, the stock market, education, ….
There apparently is no expert in any field who knows more than Donald Trump. This bizarre behavior is cause for grave concern. We are about to see thousands of Kurds slaughtered for assisting the United States and incurring the wrath of a Turkish autocrat whom Trump has embraced.
Donald Trump, of course, becomes a pal of all tyrants and wishes he could act with impunity the same way they do.
Michael Tomasky probably is right that in the case of Donald Trump the personnel turnover does not matter as much as it would with a psychologically normal president. The troubling reason for that fact is that Donald Trump has ceded his presidency to “Fox&Friends” and to Sean Hannity.
President Trump simply isn’t smart enough to realize that Fox uses its shows to run the Trump show.
11
The hurricane that is this administration is shaking the structures of government to the core. The first tiles to fall away were the many career folks that fled when unfit lackeys wishing to undermine agencies were put in positions of power. As the wind got stronger, more pieces begin to fall. At this point, some of the foundations are beginning to crack (Mattis). The more stress the eye feels with investigations closing in, the more violent it will become. Let’s see with that we end, because they’re many who are willing to destroy the structures as long as they can remain in power to make sure as many federal judges as possible are put in place to ensure the 2020s look like the 1920s.
124
@A.L. Grossi
Oh Yes Of Little Faith
With GDP 3%, 50 year low unemployment, highest worker participant rate, NATA saving U.S. $10:billion and Energy independence, Keystone, An
ANWAR access and becoming an energy bet exporter for 1st time in history.
The future is bright. Cheers.
Merry Christmas.
@A.L. Grossi
more likely the 2020's will look like the 1930's locally and globally
7
The pattern is clear. Documentation of the Executive Branch under Trump is interesting to some extent. But with due respect: So, what? To “prove” Trump’s incompetence? We know that! It’s by now a self-evident fact. The question is, What is to be done to check this distructiveness? And by whom? Congress hasn’t been much help; in fact, in some ways Congress has enabled the Executive Branch. It therefore winds up back in the hands of the citizenry. For myriad reasons, none of which is acceptable in terms of responsible behavior, we, the people, are letting Trump happen. Perhaps taking a lesson from the “me too” movement is a way for corporate-us to be guided. In a way, it’s the same problem ... domination by an aggressor, a bully, with submission in-formed by either fear or resignation.
2
President Trump has transitioned from a person who should not have been elected to a president whose impeachment should be seriously considered to a president thst realy, really needs to be removed from the presidency.
4
Don't make sense of it.
Keep your eye on the ball. It's all about money.
When the stock market tanks, Trump's friends buy. When he tweets, fires someone, or abruptly decides, say, to leave Syria, it's a smoke screen for money issues -- and the Mueller investigation that might finally bring Trump's money laundering to light.
Where's Mexico's financing of the wall? Talk about money.
4
An old friend who lives in Germany called me last night. He (along with the rest of the world) wonders why this clear and present danger to the entire world can't be removed from office. Trump has the nuclear codes, after all. Republicans in Congress need to wake up and do the right thing instead of lining their pockets.
4
Implied in a high turnover rate is the notion (hope) that the replacement is better than the incumbent. Not in these fine times. What replaces is sure to be a yes-man as obedience to this horrendous president comes before anything so mundane as competence.
Let's have 'impeachment' be the Word of the Year for 2019.
2
Applying “bedlam” to a rather dry accounting of executive-level turnover shows how far into the insanity we have traveled. Staff turnover is important and certainly confusing, but it’s not bedlam. The archaic use of the term to refer to an asylum for the insane seems applicable, but that also suggests an institution where the damage is limited by its walls.
If this were merely an isolated institution run amuck, it would be cause for concern and correction. But when it's the epicenter of world politics, the term bedlam fails. Catastrophe works. Cataclysm as well.
In a sane world (can we still use that term?), the source of the problem would be removed once news of the outrages reached responsible people. The problem is that for two years there have been no responsible people overseeing the Administration from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
In the old asylums, the person causing the bedlam would be held in restraints to prevent hurting other people. Let us hope Nancy Pelosi has a white coat.
3
Anyone who has dealt with a troubled family member will get a dark laugh out of the sentence "there seems almost no chance that this .... will stabilize."
It's the late stage view of families of alcoholics and addicts and psych cases after a long dose of drama and damage.
Not the end stage....but the late stage.... with denial still obvious.
4
So, Fox News is really the most powerful institution in America? Perhaps the solution to reducing its influence is a campaign to boycott its advertisers. Do we really want Tammi and Fox and Friends running the show? Can you imagine a Hollywood Horror where the leader of the free world makes his decisions based on comments from the Television? All Alone, surrounded by the likes of Stephen Miller, our President takes council from ill advised, I’ll informed, and basically political reality show personalities stirring the pot with resentment fear, and anger.
6
The only way to make sense of the never-ending bedlam in the White House is to make peace with the fact that as long as Donald Trump occupies it -- it will never end.
This is a person who creates and thrives on chaos and division in order to appear in control.
This is a person whose life of unparalleled entitlement has left him with a distorted sense of reality and the inability to deal with it.
There will always be someone else to blame for his mistakes, because in his mind he never makes any.
Which means there's only one way to solve this problem.
VOTE in 2020.
3
I am afraid that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recent illness will be a catalyst to cement the Republican's commitment to Trump even further. They would do anything and allow any aberrant behavior by Trump in the hopes that they get another Supreme Court Justice. Meanwhile the country is in a chaotic free fall in almost every area: foreign policy, the military leadership, the Justice Department, immigration and the economy, with no coherent leadership.
1
More frequent turnover is likely to become the norm no matter who is in the Oval Office. The strategy of the opposition party is accuse, accuse, accuse on any and all matters in an attempt to paralyze the present administration. They try to create so much pressure the office holder either is removed (for nonsense accusations like flying first class or for something they said, did, or wrote 30 years ago) or simply decides it’s not worth it to subject himself/herself and their families to the hyper-scrutiny and attacks.
The losers of this intra-party fighting are the America people as they will have a far smaller pool of capable candidates willing to work in these government positions.
27
@Matt Williams...The present administration is doing a very good job of ensuring that any accusations by the "oppostion party" are founded on reality and facts, and not the fiction that the present administration is trying to sell the country.
40
@Matt Williams: The Trump Administration is expanding the potential danger that a White House subordinate may have for putting his/her reputation on the line for serving Trump. It may come to pass that the rewards for serving in any administration are outweighed by the political consequences of such service. The political toll keeps rising as our tribal disfunction continues.
13
@Matt Williams: Nonsense? If you’re referring to Tom Price, he took chartered flights at a cost to the taxpayer of $52,000 for his seat alone, not counting his staff, rather than flying commercial. His overseas travel amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was forced out when Trump realized that the optics of wasteful travel were terrible, since he ran as a champion of the middle class.
Rob Porter was fired because of accusations of spousal abuse. Scott Pruitt very clearly abused his position at EPA and crossed ethical lines in every direction.
If people like Price, Porter, and Pruitt are discouraged from public service, we’ll all be better off.
50
The media is saying more and more that Republicans are kowtowing to Trump at the expense of democracy and justice.
Unless we Republicans get together and use amendment 25 to remove Trump we will be blamed for all that he did and there won't be a Republican left in Congress.
We must show that we put country before party.
3
When President Obama was in office, my Trump-loving (and Fox addicted) friend used to say that "Valerie Jarrett is running the country", a reference to the president's long-time advisor and lightening rod for vitriol against the Obamas. Now we see that Coulter, Limbaugh and the Fox and Friends crew are running the country. Nobody voted for them either. Is is incredible and frightening that someone with that much power, on a global scale, can be so easily manipulated. So in a sense, it really doesn't matter who plays the role of advisor (or babysitter), at whatever level, unless they parrot the TV pundits trump listens to faithfully, he won't listen to them. God help us.
6
@Indy Anna: Yes, but the difference between Obama and Trump is that Obama listened to his advisors, and then made a rational decision from the perspective of what would be best for the country, and took responsibility for it even if in hindsight it was not the best possible decision. Trump will just blame others if his decisions, which are all first and foremost serving his own interests, turn into chaos.
3
There must come a point where party politics yield to our national security. By now, even the staunchest conservatives must understand our country's safety is in the small hands of a belligerent three-year-old. It is time to begin the end.
6
What a peculiar use of statistics! Changes resulting from promotion are mentioned but not revisited in the article. 17/42 A team positions changed owing to "promotion". This suggests that an individual initially selected performed "well enough" to move up the ladder. This is the kind of turnover you often want to see. If we recompute to "staff loss" in A team, we now get 38%, equivalent to that of Clinton. Clearly there is something interesting in the "promotion" category, but the article does not tell. Much more compelling would be a comparative assessment of demonstrated qualifications of A team occupants, but instead you have given the Trumpian rebuttalist more than enough to blow back the argument of this column.
1
Alarming as these figures on turnover are, things are about to get worse. Trump has chosen incapable sycophants who have proceeded to prove this fact by behaving corruptly. But the first two years represented a period of relative tranquility as compliant Republicans looked the other way. In the coming year deeds that were ignored will be investigated. This will consume time and create yet more chaos.
There is an old expression in Baseball about trying to hide a poor player, say someone who can hit but not field. The expression goes: "The ball will find him." In the next few years a "ball" in form of a national security crisis will find Trump or one of his luddites. Let us hope it does not prove fatal to our Nation.
3
Obviously the crucial removal and turnover has yet to be made, trump. Chaos will cease as well as his path of destruction and order will return.
2
Mr. Trump has never had to suffer the consequences of his failures, and there have been many. If he were judged by the same standards as the rest of us, he would be paying huge restitution to those he has damaged financially. Some of his "business activities" would land a lot of us in jail. Of course, being part of the privileged elite (mainly guys born into huge fortunes who have never actually worked a day in their lives) he is insulated from the "rule of law" he and his supporters like to blabber on about.
Also, don't forget that his base takes great pleasure in the governmental chaos he has created. They basically don't believe in government, so if it malfunctions (due to sabotage) they see this as a victory. There's a twisted psychology in the U.S. these days: self-destructive and senseless.
17
It was Mattis' decision to resign. He is the general and not the CIC. He could have just as well stayed to serve the country via the administration despite the difference regarding Syria, surely he would be aligned with Trump regarding other policies of importance. Military personnel have tremendous discipline and take orders from their superiors, when they agree and when they do not.
It is a funny world, Obama reduced troop counts in both Iraq and Afghanistan and was widely praised for doing so, Trump does the same with Syria and is scorned. The bias against him is blatantly obvious.
@Philly It is comical to see the president and his supporters constantly berate President Obama for everything he ever did but, then, justify their current actions with the childish retort 'Well he did it too.'
3
@Philly That would be because Obama did a draw down in a reasoned, measured way that didn't put our allies in danger and trash our reputation with the rest of the world.
Donald Trump has hung the Kurds out to dry, after they have fought along side with our soldiers, putting their lives on the line for mutual interests. He has left the troops of our llies in Great Britain and France and other nations on the hook, after we convinced them to join a coalition.
It is an act of utter irresponsibility, contemptuous of the lives of our friends, and frankly, obviously, something done at the behest of his controller in Russia.
5
@Philly
Obama made plans. He consulted experts. He thought about consequences. Does Trump do any of that? No? I didn’t think so.
And bringing Obama into this simply reveals how inept Trump is in comparison.
Obama was a rational, sober thinker. Trump? No? I didn’t think so.
4
Putin must think he has create a gold mine with Trump and found a tool to destroy his main adversary from within. He has revealed an essential vulnerability of democracy, a divisive populace. World War II brought our country together. Now, partisan politics and "Fox News" are ripping the country apart. Republican politics foment dystopic logic that has blossomed after Watergate with disturbing frequency. Advocates like Lee Atwater, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter cultivate distrust and magnify the divisions in the populace.
31
What's to make sense of? Trump doesn't want advisors, he wants sycophants who will tell him over and over, "Yes Mr. President, that's brilliant! Great idea! You're awesome! Another fantastic play!"
The man is all about the ego stroking, one direction.
36
Prior to becoming president, Trump headed a relatively small, privately-held real estate business that he inherited from his father. He had no experience in governance and surrounded himself with loyalists who never questioned his quixotic nature.
Nearly two years into his presidency, Trump still doesn’t understand the role of the president and the intellectual rigor required to do the job even adequately. From all credible accounts he strolls in late, regularly misses briefings, doesn’t read reports, and is most concerned about scheduling these never-ending rallies.
40
I'm willing to bet that even the staunchest Trump supporters would walk out the door if employed by this man.
There'd be complaints to HR and major corporations would be faced with litigation because of him.
If he worked for a public company, the board of directors would have replaced him.
Would you work for this person?
29
Short term fix for Trump inc. Trump had a 30 year career with 3 lawsuits per week, two he instigated for quick profit, one that came back to his lawyers, filed against him. No difference here, and Trump's blood pressure is NOT going up. Trump is worried about personally making a buck, and as he puts his weekly revenue in the bank, he smiles. Forget the rest of it.
15
The very fiber and security of our nation is at stake with Trump in office. He is an unfit, unmoored person, someone who has no clear vision or understanding of how to keep our country on an even keel Someone who doesn't adhere to our Constitution and who flouts the rule of law is not someone who should remain in the White House. Whether or not Mueller's report finds that he has laundered money, has interests in Russia, and has personally profited from his dealings with foreign governments for which he has broken the Emoluments Clause, every day that he remains in office is a day I feel less safe and uncertain about our future. In the New Year the best course of action is to execute the 25th Amendment.
38
All of the personnel turmoil in this administration must be viewed in the light of what this “man” set out to do: destroy the effective functioning of the federal government (what his “base” really voted for in their petulance and resentment). In this light, the turmoil is highly effective as a strategy, as is replacing departed officials with less qualified ones. One can only hope that, once he is gone, what is left of the complicit republican party will be so attenuated as not to have another such opportunity for many, many years.
57
Ideology is a drug and Republican voters are hooked on it.
The current state of chaos is the only possible outcome when a system is led by a chaotic individual. The stock market has an uncanny way of serving as the canary in this coal mine. I think we can trust its "reading" of our circumstances more than we can trust the chaotic individual at the top.
34
When I saw the subtitle "Making sense of the never-ending turnover..." I thought this would be yet another piece that attempts to ascribe some sort of rationality or strategy to the Trump administration. However Mr Tomasky doesn't do that and he nails it. This administration is chaotic and only knows how to tear things up - international trade agreements, environmental regulations, the Paris accord etc. However they have no idea how to build anything. They are like a contractor that does the demolition work then walks off the job.
There is no healthcare plan or infrastructure plan as Trump promised during the campaign, the tax cuts went mostly to the wealthy who needed them the least, and border security is no better than the day he took office. Look for 2 more years of chaos and mayhem. And yet his supporters are blinded to the fact that he has done nothing for them. They finally got their George Wallace/Jesse Helms president and for that they are eternally grateful.
92
@optimist
The two Supreme Court appointments, and possibly one more, will last much longer than anything else Individual-1 has done or will do.
That is a scary thought. Perhaps another Justice Kennedy will emerge. We can only hope.
22
@Mike Westfall
And for some that is all that matters. I-1 will be gone...eventually. It may be next month, or two years or six. But he will be gone. But he will leave behind a more conservative judiciary that will haunt presidents of legislators of both parties for a very, very long time.
3
As of Jan 1, 2019, at least 4 top cabinet secretaries are "acting" rather than nominated and confirmed, Justice, EPA, Interior and Defense. Others have one foot out the door, like Kirstjen Nielsen.
Many like Pompeo are unqualified and/or lobbied against the agencies they now lead, like Wheeler. Trump has favored those who enthusiastically support his agenda of isolationism, protectionism, exploitation of public lands, reckless deregulation, privatization and fiscal irresponsibility. Controversial backgrounds like that of Matthew Whitaker are a plus for Trump.
His "be very afraid" rhetoric has infected financial markets and key sectors of the economy like agribusiness, automotive, housing, oil producers and others.
International allies are quietly distancing themselves from Trump, while authoritarian leaders like Xi, Putin, Erdogan, Assad, Kim and MbS are quietly pumping their fists to see the Trump Administration descending into chaos and shutdown.
But in the hermetically sealed brain of Trump, his agenda is winning everywhere. That lack of a self-correcting mechanism, combined with a acquiescent Congress, should be the most alarming of all.
127
Anyone accepting an appointment from Trump now must go in with eyes fully open about what the future is likely to hold, financially and reputation wise. Consequently, it seems fair to assume that the replacements now will be less qualified, less impressive than their predecessors. In the cases of Mattis and Haley, that's a given. In the cases of Zinke and Sessions, it's actually pretty difficult to imagine.
72
Forget about politics or policy--having been a manager for many years, no organization succeeds, much less survives, with these kind of turn over rates. Having said that, in building a team, there is a period of time where aligning job skills to particular positions and with the organization's philosophy there is disruption---and, you will lose team members in the process. But at some point, early on in a leadership role, a team must solidify behind goals of the organization and then use their particular skills and talents to advance those goals --accomplishing those goals is a team effort. Trump as yet to learn ---and this will ultimately take down his administration--is that there no "I" in "team."
36
@ACJ
“....yet to learn”????
He’s over 70 years old. He regularly has temper tantrums that the average 1st grader should be (and eventually would be) ashamed of. He cannot offer a single word of praise for anyone or anything without also praising himself even more.
He is an incorrigible egomaniac with a criminal mind who suffers from morbid affluenza. Donald Trump ain’t about to learn anything about teamwork from anybody.
2
I for one don't feel that Gen. Mattis's resignation is "gravely concerning." After all, what did he really set out to do as Sec. of Defense and what has he accomplished?
Did he finally provide congress and the American people with an accurate accounting of how our 770 billion dollars is being spent? No.
Did he steadfastly oppose our pending withdrawal from the INF treaty? No.
Has he given a full accounting of where our troops are in Africa and more importantly why they are there in the first place? No.
Did he explain why our troops invaded Syria , especially since this act of war was never authorized by congress? No.
Did he set up a plan to eliminate the enormous waste, graft and corruption that is built into out massive military spending? No.
Yet, pundits continue to praise him because he didn't support torture of POW's and was supposedly the "adult" in the room.
And Trump's replacement might be more of the same or worse. But all Mattis accomplished was to keep the well oiled military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in business.
It's past time that we get past these window dressing issues about our our government functions and focus on what we, the people want and need, not simply what we have been given.
42
You’ve made some good points but I suspect we’ll never know what his greatest accomplishments were....the things that didn’t happen....and how much time and effort it took.
57
@drspock
While you make many points and some of them are real, the article is not about Mattis. You have only to look at a map of eastern Syria and western Turkey to see that US withdrawal is the current installment of "the art of the deal" Trump is delivering (for Putin?).
The prize is reclamation of Syria by Assad and the reclamation of Kurdish-held territories by Turkey. Both occasions of slaughter will be met with much angst and "I didn't know" when the warnings have been there for 15 years. The mass killing of innocents and restoration of totalitarian kleptocracies will be unintended/intended consequences for Trump and his sixth-grade understanding of world history - but Erdogan and Assad are grinning ear-to-ear as we disassemble our 76 member coalition to redraw the middle east out of crisis. No one can trust Trump for anything.
6
@drspock The "Liberal" Media won't tell us. Lapdogs & cheerleaders that they are
1
Saying that senior staff "hardly matters" is inaccurate and dismissive of the roles that information gathering and communication have in managing the executive branch. Trump's not listening to staff doesn't mean that no one is needed to carry out the functions -- besides political -- of these people,
10
Contextually, the statement means "hardly matters [in this administration]", as implied by the follow-up clause.
The point isn't that they never mattered nor that they shouldn't matter, but that in this case they're rendered irrelevant, for good, for I'll, for no reason at all--but their normal duties are ignored, at best, right now, by the person they would perform them for.
6
@Sqwerdon I think you're mistaken. Staff advice may not matter to Trump, and their knowledge and expertise were never important to Trump..
However, their functions as heads of administrative activities have impact in myriad ways. How many stories have you seen of staffers trying to make operative some incoherent Trump policy-by-Tweet? Remember the chaos of the first ban on Muslim immigrants, done without a staffing process to roll it out.
Bolton has further truncated the nat'l security decision staffing process that would have at least warned our allies that Trump was thinking of troop withdrawals. I guess he did this to make himself more powerful, but it really means many things aren't getting done.
Simply, big government operations require management and leadership -- it's kindergarten to think the president runs everything.
1
It is not surprising in the least that the Trump Administration is an island of “misfit toys.” Anyone who thought otherwise in 2016 had lived in a closet the last forty years. That is why he lost the general election by 3 million votes. Unfortunately, the US now has a de facto authoritarian structure where the president is not elected by majority vote and has way to much power to negatively affect society.
88
The culprits are the Republicans. They know what Trump is but are accomplices in his incompetence, mendacity and anti American behavior. Trump is manifestly unfit to be president but has been propped up by McConnell, Ryan and co.
268
@John Long term fix for this problem. Get rid of all republicans.
4
@John. DT is also propped up by his base. When those farmers in the Midwest and the upstanding Religious Right find their own ox getting gored they may turn on DT, but don’t bet on it. The last to turn on him will be the religious right because they believe in DT with the same fervor they believe in God. They will never let him go and they will curse and tear out their hair over those who may. So, for the sake of the less than a third of the population but most of our monied corporations, our democracy is likely to go down the tubes — just another failed empire. Next up? China. Count on it.
1
@Ali G.
Don't be ridiculous.
2
Watching the special on Nixon, Watergate, and Deep Throat last night, they got to one point in the narrative where the American people absolutely knew Nixon was lying and shortly thereafter he lost the confidence of Congress and he resigned. We are well past the point where we know that Trump lies almost about anything he says and Republicans are fine with it. So power is more important than truth to them and they are presumably learning from the Nixon debacle and they are also still upset that Democrats didn't join them in removing Clinton.
Democrats for their part may regret not removing Clinton as it has stiffened Republican resolve. Such failures as both Democrats and Republicans have and are demonstrating give us little hope that the future will be any less chaotic. Perhaps a clue will be what the Supreme Court decides to do with this mystery company thing in which the company is fighting SCO subpoenas to provide documents in the Russia probe. A ruling for the company will be a win for Trump and a ruling to affirm the lower court ruling will be a win for the SCO. You have to figure out for yourself just what that does for the American people, both in the the short and long run.
25
@Madwand
Clinton did not merit removal and at the time close to 70% of voters staunchly and consistently opposed such an action. Clinton lied about sex, assuming that you could believe anything from Kenneth Starr. Trump is a wrecking ball, fracturing the Western Alliance and undermining norms and laws here. You people need to stop trying to make some kind of an equivalence between Clinton and Trump. There simply is none.
5
@Madwand
Why on earth would Democrats regret not having removed Clinton?
Do you really think today's Republicans are motivated by Clinton's impeachment trial?
Silly.
1
@Madwand There was no reason to remove Clinton, his poll numbers were in the low 60's even when he was impeached by the house. Whitewater, like all republican investigations, was a sham. He did perjure himself about a completely unrelated incident to the Whitewater investigation, which the majority of the public was evidently willing to overlook, due to his other successes as a POTUS. That's what really irked the republicans, Bill Clinton was a great politician, and waaaaay better POTUS than this jerk.
1
"The Trump administration is, to employ a seasonal metaphor, an island of misfit toys."
If that's the case, then you have to wonder what good the Cabinet does at all. Why have Cabinet members in charge of departments when they have no experience at all in them? DeVos, Perry, Carson, Haley, Perdue, Ross, and on and on. Have they done any real damage to their departments, or have the professionals on their teams managed to preserve some level of competence in them?
The answer is that it's a mix, and that isn't good enough. We need competent people at the helm, not Trump loyalists. It's embarrassing to see someone like DeVos exhibit her complete lack of expertise in Education during her Senate hearing, and still get appointed.
"Only the best people", said Trump. Well, compared to him, maybe that's not far off. And that's a sorry state of affairs for our beloved homeland
63
@Max Dither I'm guessing they will all receive pensions and healthcare for life ?
2
The reason turnover among Barack Obama’s A Team was so low is because his appointees were actually vetted. Donald Trump, on the other hand, assembled a rogue’s gallery of characters who were more like Dick Tracy villains than cabinet members and high-level staffers. Instead of Mumbles, Flat Top, Shaky, Prune Face and the Mole, Trump gave us the Mooch, Grifter, Spicey, Frequent Flyer, Rex from Tex, and Rob the Slob. In the cases of Tracy and Trump, Big Boy is at the top of the heap.
169
@NA Wonderful and fitting comparison.
3
As long as Congress refuses to act on its Constitutional oath and something like 30% of the American voting public sees nothing wrong with the Trump administration, nothing will change, Mueller notwithstanding. What a country we live in now.
73
@Etienne
Mueller, more than likely alone will not bring down trump, but combine that with the AG of NY, the SD of NY, Federal Court in Washington, DC and the very nature of trump, his family and friends.
The trump Organization, along with everything they touch, such as trump University, trump Foundation, is corrupt and self-enriching. The facts are they have enriched themselves on a house of cards. But in the 1990's trump NJ Casinos all went bankrupt. They were unable to raise funds from any American bank, but somehow with outside "help" they managed to obtain vast amounts of cash. Where did all that cash come from, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other money laundering schemes?
8
Trump is not managing by chaos. He is simply not managing.
He was supposed to drain the Washington swamp. Instead he has enlarged the cesspool by appointing grifters like Pruitt and Zinke and hanging out a sign to lobbyists that the White House is open for business as long as you stay at Trump Hotel.
He is two years into his term. People thought that he might grow into his job. Instead he has trashed the Office he holds.
When will the Senate Republicans wake up and start performing their Constitutional responsibilities.
288
@Rita
I have a theory that the reason Trump thrives on chaos is because his mind is chaotic. His thoughts and emotions are chaotic so chaos is what he is familiar and comfortable with.
His mind is going. He can't handle the constant pressure to perform so most of the time he retreats to his bed and Fox News, for hours, since it calms him.
It calms him to hear on tv how right he is and how good a job he's doing. So when Coulter criticized him harshly he immediately went into action to change that opinion. He shut down the government.
He needs the continued approval of the voices that matter to him. The voices of Fox News.
Generals, senators or any other knowledgeable and intelligent advisor means nothing if they don't agree with and compliment him.
He won't change because he doesn't see anything wrong that needs changing.
His anxiety level over Mueller is through the roof. To calm himself he creates distractions that keep his mind off his anxieties. And since he's distracted he thonks everyone else is too. Many have been but many more weren't. The walls are closing om on him and all we're going to get from him is more erratic behavior and more chaos.
Let's end it now. It's inevitable.
LET'S DO IT NOW.
14
@Rita They're waiting for the Democrats to be the responsible ones and then they'll turn around and trash them.
8
@Rita
People didn't really believe that he was going to 'drain the swamp' did they? After all of his business dealings?
If they did- they didn't pay very close attention to his actions over the past 40 years.
He is the swamp.
8
A 4-year turnover rate greater than 100 percent is a fairly safe bet. The A-team doesn't include the President or the Vice President. If Trump, dare I say when Trump, is removed from office, both these positions will turn. Mike Pence is pretty much guaranteed to flip almost every seat on the A-team list. Assuming of course Pence isn't caught up in Mueller's investigation as well. That's still an open question.
Depending on how things shake out, Trump is probably on track to set the record for highest 4-year turnover ever. 65 percent in 2-years. Another 90 plus percent in under 4-years when Pence takes over. 100 percent again when Pence is voted out of office. Bedlam is appropriate but I would add farcical as well. Trump's staffing problems are absolutely head spinning. However, the administration is so chaotic you almost have to laugh. The laughter comes from a bitter place though. It's like laughing at the pilot because you just realized he doesn't know how to land.
72
Criticism of Trump’s dismissal of Mattis may be disingenuous at best and ignorant of precedent at worst.
From the birth of our country, a standing army was viewed with fear. Washington was careful in developing our defense, and rejected the offer of permanent leadership.
During the Civil War, Lincoln appointed and removed generals. His conflict with McClellan resulted in disapproval, and a challenge from McClellan for the presidency.
Perhaps the best known example would be President Truman and General MacArthur. Truman was vilified for his decision.
Mattis was also removed from his command by President Obama. Once again, the hawks leaped upon this decision with reproof of Obama.
American foreign policy has made a decidedly aggressive posture in the last several decades. Our bases encompass the world. We are fighting “enemies” on almost every continent. We ignore the complexities of local situations and interfere under the guise of our self-proclaimed right of protection. Eager to topple states that do not submit to our dictates, we ignore or excuse our friends’ bad behavior.
Trump has not actually removed one soldier out of harms way, but the reaction to even the thought of it disturbs the pundit-politician-publicist complex that supports our military ventures.
It has been a sharp fall from wariness of armies and war to what Rosa Brooks’ book sees as our embrace of an all encompassing military presence.
25
@doughboy And what a roster of "enemies" we have! With a military such as ours, we need them around the globe.
1
I agree with your point about blasé militarism, but your analogies are inapt.
Lincoln and Truman removed generals for their conduct of the wars. Stanton wasn’t replaced.
Neither was Mattis dismissed. He resigned because, correctly, he viewed himself impotent after Trump repeatedly made abrupt consequential decisions without consulting him.
I don’t think many are concerned about replacing Mattis per se, disingenuously or otherwise. The concern is with a president who’s willfully ignorant of foreign affairs and far too enamored of his own opinions, and has shown a propensity to use the military for purely political purposes.
The American system concentrated a lot of power in the president during the Cold War. Until Trump, we were fortunate in that each president — even W, with his limited intellectual capacity — treated that awesome power with respect and deliberation. Now we’ve given the job to a feckless playboy and blowhard. That’s the concern.
2
@doughboy
Come on. This has nothing to do with whether or not the military reports to a civilian. We Democrats, anyway, all agree. This has nothing to do with whether or not these wars are terrible. They are, especially the one that the Republicans started on false premises in Iraq. The only thing worse than being in these wars is getting out of them in the feckless manner Trump has proposed. This is only about the manifestly unfit Trump and his manifestly unfit cabinet. All other things the same, wouldn't it be nice if the cabinet was comprised of competent, knowledgeable, principled, ethical, decent, skeptical, honest, fact-based individuals? We are unhappy because Mattis was the last such cabinet member.
3
It's impossible to imagine Mattis, a brilliant military strategist and scholar, would not have predicted that his letter of resignation wouldn't have prompted Trump to fire him. I imagine Mattis also knows that Fox&Friends is governing the president's mind. Additionally, he would understand that in a democracy, the people have the right to know the truth.
Trump's reaction to Mattis's letter puts it in plain evidence, how easily Trump can be played. If Mattis can tweak the Donald so predictably, how can the American people and Fox&Friends ignore the power that hostile nations, such as Russia and North Korea have over this president? Mattis has disabused us of the notion that Trump and Trump alone is governing the nation when the manipulative powers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and North Korea could be working him just as easily? Now the American people and Fox&Friends can understand why Trump sided with Putin and MBS against our own Intelligence. False understandings are the great enemy of democracy and of military success. Americans have falsely assumed that Trump's "I Alone" Doctrine was an accurate explanation of his decision making process. Mattis has disproved that. Even if it weren't Mattis's aim to expose how easily Trump can be manipulated he has shown the American people, Fox&Friends, and the world, that Trump's decision making process can be as easily influenced as reverse psychology on a tantrum driven child. Thank you, General James Mattis!
91
@Max & Max,
So right! a manipulation of the most subtle order until now. Coulter, Limbaugh - he responds to criticism from the right wing influencers. And Fox - what a joke. But where do there opinions come from?
I believe that this flurry of activity in Trumps head comes from the rebuff of Flynn in court and the judge who admonished him. It was dictating the news and Trump had to win back the coverage.
2
@Max & Max I imagine that General Mattis wrote his resignation with posterity in mind. He could not exit his position without standing up for what he thinks is right (whether we do or don't, and how we feel about Generals in the Cabinet is something else). General Mattis merely confirmed -- but from the inside -- what we already know. That the current administration's policies, foreign or otherwise, are born of ignorance, petulance, and willful idiocy. And possibly worse: fealty to Mr. Putin's world view.
3
Tomasky's right to call the White House staffing churn what it is: "bedlam." What worries me as much: Trump's judicial appointments. Following the checklists handed to him by the Federalist Society and goaded on by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans' control over the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trump is steadily stocking the Federal and Supreme Court with jurists who will impact Americans' lives for years, decades--eras--to come. This cockeyed approach to staffing the White House administration, on the one hand, and packing the courts, on the other, stretches the public's capacity to protest. Which fire to put out first?
69
Time to view Trump as the reprehensible man he is not as a President. He has sullied all things within his reach throughout his life and has deliberately undermined American institutions including his own election. It is impossible to foresee how to repair the damage he has wrought.
197
@rhdelp
One step at a time.
The old saying: the longest journey begins with the first step.
It's time to take that step. NOW.
13
@Butterfly. You talking to Republicans? The rest of us left six months after he took the oath of office.
At this point it's all about Mitch. I am not holding my breath for him to do any kind of right thing.
200
@LS
Agreed--he never has; he never will.
1
If Fox and Friends continues the trend of occasionally criticizing trump and his officials on important matters, will we end up seeing a turnover there too?
56
Some nice turns of phrase, such as "the island of misfit toys."
We make a mistake if we judge Trump by normal standards. (1) He welcomes and requires chaos and listens to none of his cabinet officers. (2) It keeps the focus on Trump, Trump, Trump. (3) He has no interest in governing, no understanding of our Constitutional government, but he does have strong authoritarian impulses. (4) He is playing to a limited audience of commentators on Fox News and talk radio.
308
@Bob Garcia
I don't think his real audience is Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc.
I think it's Vladimir Putin.
4
As difficult as it is to watch this Kabuki Theater play itself out on the international stage, the 25th Amendment needs to be activated, and it is Congress that needs to wake up and do their work now to remove the stain.
263
If there is no Cabinet of record (only interim Secretaries or vacancies), can the 25th Amendment legally be applied?
17
@rford
With that in mind it's time for everyone to flood their congresspeople with calls, emails, texts and letters demanding that the 25th Amendment option be activated.
NOW.
3
@rfor
The 25th amendment needs competent people in the cabinet. Have you noticed who is there? They aren’t statesmen; they are fellow gang members.
11
The high turnover of high level White House and cabinet jobs seems inevitable when the President makes lying a regular part of the function of his administration. Some will do this out of political expedience -- Trump is their meal ticket. Like him or not, he advances your agenda, so find a way to deal with it. Some will do it out of sense of service or duty, especially the military. Dealing with Trump's peculiarities may seem less ominous than being shot at on the battlefield, and if it's your duty, it's your duty, at least until you get to the point that you can't look yourself in the mirror anymore. My impression is that Mattis reached that point when Trump's behavior felt like a genuine betrayal of allies and alliances. (This is what his letter suggested -- I've never met the man.) But in the end, anyone capable enough to rise through the ranks and be considered for a high level government position will be able to recognize the reality working for Trump means being in a world your personal integrity is likely to be compromised. Worse, it is a world in which the criminality that is known about -- the Trump foundation, the Trump University -- may only hint at the criminality that is not known about and which may show up in the Mueller report.
It is a credit to the country that many dedicated people keep coming to work for the government (when it's not shut down over a tantrum) despite Trump, but it clearly gets harder as time goes on.
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'gravely concerning' sums up the events of the past 2 years. We do not know how this will all end. We predict that it won't end well. Besides the vast amount of damage that will be done to the country, the aura of the American President is likely to be gone. To be won back, we'll need a succession of Obama-likes. From the progressives and the conservatives, alike. And that's unlikely.
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And it's becoming more clear by the day that experienced professionals--in any sphere of expertise--that men and women who are supremely capable of lending a hand (and a brain) to the floating Titanic that is the Donald Trump administration would simply rather not have their résumés irreparably marred by an association with the 45th presidency.
The departure of General James Mattis is perhaps the most damaging of the not-quite two-year tenure of this unqualified (and unembarrassed about it) president. Rather than lean on the advice of his Cabinet-level members, the president would seem to want to first hear what Fox News has to say about this or that policy or personnel decision. That's one huge reason that this foundering régime has taken on the water that it has. The president simply does not have the education or the experience in politics or the intellectual inquisitiveness to be able to put together the qualifications of a Secretary of Defense and how the title cannot be beholden solely to political expedience but must take into account how the deployment of people and matériel is of the utmost importance--both domestically and internationally. When a president has little interest in the movements on the world-wide chess board, a resignation by a first-class military man is inevitable.
Trump, it would seem, is oblivious to all the requirements of what it takes to become a competent--not first-class--president. The former is beyond his skill set; the latter is a dream.
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Also oblvious to How one keeps friends. He’s never had any. Never knew how to play well with others.
7
@Red Sox, '04, '07, '13, ‘18,
Trump knew that Mattis was not going to bend before him, regardless of his title. And to not discuss matters with Mattis, whether Syria or other military or domestic matters, thus endeth his tenure in the "White" House. Trump is a child, and a peeved one who neither reads nor takes counsel from most of his cabinet, aides; instead he watches tv, perhaps one channel exclusively, and continues to oversee the most chaotic, disruptive and corrupt administration in many a presidency. And we've not had the report from Mueller yet!
6
I have worked in a large number of organization, both as a full-time employee and as a 'gun for hire' and there is one thing I know: you can not run an organization or build anything is this type of chaos ( you can, however, destroy the company). A 65% turn over rate? That is madness. Staff doesn't know who the boss is or how to work with him/her (it take time to build a team). Some people are working on their exit, some are trying to hold things together but without guidance or support. And some sit there stunned at how fast things fell apart. I was at two places that fell apart because of chaos at the top (in the end I left both places). I was also hired at two other places to rebuild after things fell apart. It took several years in each place to rebuild. This is madness.
P.S. I know there are some who welcome the chaos because it means trump's agenda becomes less and less likely to happen. But you can't run a government like that and we need the government to run.
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@sjs
"it takes time to build a team." Mistake number one.
Trump is NOT interested in building a team.
There is only one "team" player and that is trump.
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@sjs
I think the chaos serves a smoke screen to let him do what he wants behind the chaos as everyone out front is focused on it.
10
@sjs
The only people who "welcome the chaos" are Trump and his supporters. Those of us who know better are appropriately appalled.
10
Although this editorial confirms that which anyone paying attention knows; i.e., Trump is synonymous with dysfunction, at this point, journalists should focus like a laser beam on the now obvious: (1) a textbook definition of a dangerous sociopathic, if not psychopathic, malignant narcissist “rules” our country, and (2) why does his own party refuse to save the Republic, and ultimately themselves, from the certain disaster looming ahead.
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@J.
The Republicans continue to ignore Trump’s behavior because they continue to get small things they want (judges, less regulation,etc.) and they judge that when it is over they can blame it all on Trump, and they will probably get away with it.
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@J
While I would love to see Trumpie escorted out of the White House in shame, I do not see it happening. I believe he would have to do something really major - I know, how much more major, right? - before the Republicans in the Senate would even consider it. They would still have undertaker Pence, so why not?
My belief is that they live in fear of the backlash they would face. Some of those Southern Republicans could lose their seats to candidate who are even further to the right. The reactions of those fervent fools who gather to hear him ramble on, and actually think he is doing great things, are an unknown quantity. And a feared one.
As soon as he became the Republican candidate, we were damned either way the election went. We can only hope to survive two more years and vote the buffoon out and then go about repairs to the ship of state.
23
@Mike the Moderat
Since there is no response in criticism of Trump, thinking persons of both parties (I am assuming that there are some hiding in the Republican Party) shoulld start considering how they can reach the Trump-supporting Republicans? They are obviously deluded, but can they even be reached?
3
Considering he only hires ''the best''people, just what constitutes a best person?
For example, Dr. Carson, who has admitted he knows nothing about running a government department. Just what has his medical experience got to do with housing and development?
Is Zinke, now retired,a good example of ethical dealings in his field?
Then there is Munchkin, who thought a military airplane was his for the asking. Does that fall under the category of a treasury perk?
What about the EPA chief, a subscriber to coal?
Just to name a few requirements for any job in the Trump white house. Plus, of course, a private fortune to fall back on when a legitimate job is unavailable.
140
The hardest part of working for His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness 45* would be not knowing which forces would ventriloquize your sock puppet boss from day-to-day.
It's obvious Very Stable Genius views the world - and acts accordingly - through the singular prism of 'what's in it for me ?', determined entirely by Right Wing Media cranks, by whichever authoritarian despot last chatted him up on his unsecured phone, or by preening whimsy.
One (almost) feels sorry for Mitch McConnell, who thought he had a budget deal Un-indicted Co-Conspirator 45* would sign after it passed last week, only to find the 98-0 unanimous Senate vote meaningless, since Orange Jabberwock folded like a wet napkin (resilient much ?) under pressure from Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter.
Now, Sen. McConnell announces he'll call the Senate back to consider a new budget deal ONLY after Mayhem 45* publicly endorses said deal. It's sheer lunacy that Mitch deceives himself someone who proclaimed on Dec. 11 to cameras in the Oval Office that he would proudly 'own' a government shutdown then less than 10 days later blames said government shutdown on Dems, would be somehow constrained by public profession supporting such a deal.
Agent Orange from KAOS could very well be standing at a microphone having just announced support of a budget deal, then looking at his Twitter stream, and in the next sentence saying he's against what he just supported.
POTUS 45* is a clear and present danger to this nation.
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@R. Law
None of them are deceived.
They all know exactly what they are doing. They are making decisions based on what's in it for themselves and their individual future.
Nothing else matters and their is no other reality other than their own desire for self preservation.
28
Can’t Congress pass the proposed budget, minus the $5.6B wall, let the infant in the White House stomp his feet and veto it.... then override his
veto?
If this plan is possible, we need it soon!
24
@R. Law
Feel sorry for Mitch McConnell. He has the potential to be a very powerful person, but he chooses to bury his head in the sand. No sympathy here.
14
"If it were me, I’d assume that fate would one day place me in the position of either having to tell prosecutors some very gruesome truths about what I saw or not telling them and risking jail time. Who wants that?"
Who wants that, indeed. Also, assuming any new staff that the president picks has to presume how his or her tenure on a resume might make jeopardize future career moves.
This administration needs an intervention at the highest levels. Our TV president watches too much of it, and taxpayers are not only paying for presidential outrage time, but he's basing policy decisions on what FOX pundits say--who elected them?
The turnover Mr. Tomasky describes would bother me less if all the resignations, firings, and ethical firestorms weren't the cause.
But with most of them leading back to King baby, the nation is demanding a solution. Isn't it 25th Amendment time? Or better, isn't it time for Republican Senators to stand up and say, this is not OK and something must be done to rein in an unstable president before more damage is done?
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@ChristineMcM
"he's basing policy decisions on what FOX pundits say--who elected them?"
FOX speaks for Trumpland. As FOX goes, so goes that nation, the only one 45 cares about. So 45 is right to make policy decisions based on his state TV news source. It's just so convenient and efficient -- no middleman.
And next up: Jerome Powell. To make matters worse, it appears Trump's view that everyone else is to blame seems to be reaching seismic levels, so we may start seeing a firing or "RUP" every day. Or because Trump does everything bigger and better than everyone else, maybe two a day. What we most definitely will not see is Trump having any understanding of his role in all this.
100
@Concerned Citizen. I'm betting the next one will be Mnuchin....
3
My biggest issue with DJT as president is that he has never addressed us as Americans. He never speaks to the nation as a whole. He never inspires us or aspires himself to do/say good big things for the NATION. It is always negative or pitting one against another. And, for me, it is truly depressing.
Sigh.....the late, once great, United States of America. Thanks, it was awesome.
820
@MB
It will be again. Rest assured the American people, the sane and mature ones, will see to it we return to our former aspirations to our best selves.
14
@MB
“Sigh ... the late, once” promising and sometimes progressive country (PKA) America, which Emperor Trump is further pushing toward being a disguised global capitalist Empire.
9
@MB: Trump has never "addressed us as Americans" because he doesn't care about anyone who didn't vote for him. He cares only about the minority who make up his base.
35
There is something more serious going on for Americans to worry about. You say you are a nation of laws but are you a nation under the "rule of law". That is an over riding philosophy that sits above national law or constitutions, essential for any real democracy, that means : independent judiciary and institutions, and protection for the common man from arbitrary acts of the state of from any executive or administrative decision which is irrational.
In such a situation even the idea of a President being able to fire the Chairman of the Fed would be unthinkable and any presidential decision, where he has not applied his mind, cannot rationally be shown to be linked to the proposed outcome and /or is on. whim, would be unlawful to be set aside by a court.
45
While well written, this opinion piece says nothing that hasn't already been hashed out in the news. Yes, Trump has an unusually number of turnovers. Old story. Mr. Tomasky focused only on the total numbers, even though the Brookings report defined three categories of departures.
What about a story delving into those categories? Compare promotions under vs other Presidents? Resignations vs resignations under pressure? Can those trends lead to new opinions about what's happening?
8
The only real question a job applicant for this administration can ask before accepting a position - "can I make more money from my nefarious actions than it will cost to defend myself after the fact? Assuming I'll never find work again in legitimate society..."
354
@markymark
I knew a guy who worked for one of the big firms of Wall Street. He was in the position to know everything, but he told them "do not invite me to any meeting where anything is illegal is being discussed". Two things came out of this. The first was he didn't have to go to many meetings, The second was that when the SEC came a calling, he was just fine and went on to a long and profitable career on Wall Street.
Couldn't say the same for all of his colleagues.
59
@markymark Perhaps those taking these jobs are well versed and experienced in dodgy situations both within and outside of the White House. They'll find a new situation that fits their skill sets once they too are fired.
17
The President's power can only be checked by our thoughts. Most here are thinking right, are positive in the face of the disaster that seems dominant. It is not. It is a little puddle on a dismal floor. We need to express our thoughts all over and win others over. We are in a Cosmic Democracy where our ideas and thoughts impact the Universe. This is the way things will be from now on. The speedup we are in has a purpose and it is called evolution on steroids. Our action triggers are. Speak up. Act up.
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@Stephen C. Rose
I agree entirely. Those who were telling us to stop obsessing and to start ignoring him were absolutely all wrong. We cannot prevail if we ignore. His behavior now is so bizarre that we need to pressure Congress to follow their consciences. Since my congressman is Jerry Nadler and my senators are Gillebrand and Schumer, I'm not worried about how they are acting, but we do need to pressure the Republicans to act according to our principles.
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@Martha
I agree with both of you. One of the most insidious talking points is this bizarre notion that we dare not utter the words "impeachment" or "indictment."
I cannot imagine a more bewildering or dangerous outcome than if the Democrats themselves cave-in on accountability. There are games being played and the most dangerous one is the way we're all normalizing "bedlam" and depravity.
I will lose any remaining respect for my party if it abdicates its responsibility to hold the GOP accountable. Enough of the mealy-mouthed, "Wait and see" and "well, maybe we'll do 'something.'"
The evidence of wrongdoing has reached mountainous proportions. Rarely have their been easier calls than the one that denounces this, and yet the Dems are now so concerned about the "optics" of taking action that they risk becoming exactly like this recalcitrant and corrupt GOP...missing in action. It's our job to demand they act.
I think it's high time this country was collectively sat down and made to ponder why the founders created the option of impeachment and why Article 25 was introduced in the post JFK-tragedy days. There is a reason they're there!
I cannot fathom why we are all pretending we cannot do anything in the face of this crisis. It's deeply dishonest to maintain this pretense. That and dangerous.
8
While I cannot ignore or even turn away even at Christmas I am from Texas and I have Cruz and Cornyn. I call, I write but they like Trump care only for the right wing constituents. It’s more than frustrating!
3