* If Trump's staff are so readily disclosing embarrassing behaviour they have seen during the term of his presidency while they are still working for him, can you imagine what is going to come out when he has actually left the White House? I'm pretty much expecting another 20 Omarosa books with the theme "Of course I was lying that everything was great - I had a job to keep. But let me tell you some stories."
* The "soft coup" of an administration which simply sidesteps Trump because he's an idiot is an incredible situation. Any normal person in the Oval Office faced with the deluge of savage, highly personally insulting, leaking against him would already have resigned - if you can't find staff that actually support you in private as well as public, it's humiliating. But the GOP have decided it's best to keep Trump and his tribal, dumb, conspiracy believing base just ticking along, thinking he's actually doing a great job, so they can just work around him. Or does this NYT piece signal a rebellion from within? Because surely the author would know it would increase the paranoia in Trump's head - with any luck, sending him over some sort of edge. David Frum's piece, This is a Constitutional Crisis, puts it well:
If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution—and there were no “riskiness” exemptions in the text of that oath.* We actually know what will hasten the end of the Trump Presidency - Fox News turning on him. But is it a case of Rupert doesn't know how to do that without shedding a huge slab of his brainwashed audience?
Update: sounds about right:
12 comments:
I duuno,
Imagine you are Kelly or Mattis.
you know you are working for a moron probably because of his age, just what do you want them to do.
Every worker attempts to manage their boos. In this case it becomes very important
Come on, Homer. A US President is not your average "boss". He can cause all sorts of turmoil both economic and military, directly or indirectly.
You are missing my point. Imagine if Kelly or Mattis simply resigned and left it to their successors.
They would be worse!
The problem is that one motivation for the piece seems to be seeking the public's gratitude that White House insiders are doing the right thing by them.
That's disingenuous - if the belief from inside the White House is so widespread that this President is not competent to do this job, they ought to be resigning en mass, making a full disclosure direct to the public of what has been going on, and calling on the President to resign or face constitutional action to sideline him.
Steve,
sorry but although stupid he is not incompetent.
He could be impeached already on a number of issues HOWEVER if you impeach a President you have to carry the punters with you and the issue aint there as yet.
sometimes you simply have to sigh at peoples votes!!
A law professor argued a year ago that if they really wanted to, the 25th amendment could already be used to sideline Trump as incompetent, because it is not restricted to medical incompetence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-could-be-removed-for-political-incompetence--using-the-25th-amendment/2017/09/12/b6c62380-9718-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html?utm_term=.d595debc7075
Since then, we've had heaps more evidence via his own tweets that Trump is incompetent - for goodness sake, we have him in the last week openly saying that Sessions is incompetent for letting charges proceed against Republicans because of the coming mid-terms! How more blatant can you get in admitting that you think your Justic Department needs to time prosecution for partisan political advantage?
I know people will say "but that means we'll have Presidents under risk of 25th amendment for any reason in future" - which fails to take into account the extraordinary degree of Trump's self confessed approval of corruption which is (I would think) unlikely to ever be repeated.
Sorry Steve,
you could have impeached Trump from the get go but impeachment is a political process as we found in the Clinton debacle.
If you cannot take the pun punters with you then it will fail.
forget about impeachment unless Mueller comes up with something.
I think Trump is obnoxious as much as the next man but so what
It's not a matter of his being obnoxious: it's the actual corruption and authoritarianism of calling for political opponents to be locked up; saying that politicians on your own side should not be prosecuted; and giving character references for a campaign manager while a non-empanelled jury is still considering his fate.
No direct corruption has been proven as yet.
authoritarian tendencies are not an impeachment offence more so given the separation of powers in the USA
You keep talking about impeachment - I keep talking about 25th amendment.
Sa,e thing Steve,
It is the politics of the thing and it is just not there.
I know what you're saying Homer, which is why in the post I made reference to the importance of not only the GOP developing a spine, but also Fox News. It's an incredible situation - the GOP and Rupert have worked to gaslight themselves and their nutball "base" for years, and now it is a safe bet that one of the reasons that any concerned GOP congressperson won't do anything is because he knows that if Fox News doesn't support an internal move on Trump, they'll be armed redneck goons marching on the streets calling it a Deep State takeover.
What a situation to find a democracy in...
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