The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions
This article is essentially the length of a short book. I only posted the introduction.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions
How Trump is destroying the civil service and bending the government to his will
When Donald Trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.
The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history, but it didn’t really matter as long as “the adults” were there to wait out the president’s impulses and deflect his worst ideas and discreetly pocket destructive orders lying around on his desk.
After three years, the adults have all left the room—saying just about nothing on their way out to alert the country to the peril—while Trump is still there.
James Baker, the former general counsel of the FBI, and a target of Trump’s rage against the state, acknowledges that many government officials, not excluding himself, went into the administration convinced “that they are either smarter than the president, or that they can hold their own against the president, or that they can protect the institution against the president because they understand the rules and regulations and how it’s supposed to work, and that they will be able to defend the institution that they love or served in previously against what they perceive to be, I will say neutrally, the inappropriate actions of the president. And I think they are fooling themselves. They’re fooling themselves. He’s light-years ahead of them.”
The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement; transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was clear to the political class until Trump became president.
But the adults’ greatest miscalculation was to overestimate themselves—particularly in believing that other Americans saw them as selfless public servants, their stature derived from a high-minded commitment to the good of the nation.
When Trump came to power, he believed that the regime was his, property he’d rightfully acquired, and that the 2 million civilians working under him, most of them in obscurity, owed him their total loyalty. He harbored a deep suspicion that some of them were plotting in secret to destroy him. He had to bring them to heel before he could be secure in his power. This wouldn’t be easy—the permanent government had defied other leaders and outlasted them. In his inexperience and rashness—the very qualities his supporters loved—he made early mistakes. He placed unreliable or inept commissars in charge of the bureaucracy, and it kept running on its own.
But a simple intuition had propelled Trump throughout his life: Human beings are weak. They have their illusions, appetites, vanities, fears. They can be cowed, corrupted, or crushed. A government is composed of human beings. This was the flaw in the brilliant design of the Framers, and Trump learned how to exploit it. The wreckage began to pile up. He needed only a few years to warp his administration into a tool for his own benefit. If he’s given a few more years, the damage to American democracy will be irreversible.
This is the story of how a great republic went soft in the middle, lost the integrity of its guts and fell in on itself—told through government officials whose names under any other president would have remained unknown, who wanted no fame, and who faced existential questions when Trump set out to break them.
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But the people are "content".
Sheep ?
while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history, but it didn’t really matter as long as “the adults” were there to wait out the president’s impulses and deflect his worst ideas and discreetly pocket destructive orders lying around on his desk.
Yep, that's been going on for almost four years now, and it has not worked. But Trump has outlasted them all and gotten rid of worst of them. But this partisan hate filled article appears to be yet another pack of lies and made up bullshit. His adversaries continue to underestimate Trump's abilities and strengths. He's a day and a dollar ahead of them every day and has been since the beginning and has thwarted them in every circumstance of their efforts to destroy him. He will continue to do so during his second term. Trump's a natural born winner, while the unhappy losers can only weep and whine.
No famous person in American history has whined as much as Donald Trump has.
Will you stop pestering me? I am not going to be part of normalizing Donald Trump. Its never going to happen.
If you want to normalize him seed or write your own articles.
No one is pestering you. You post controversial stuff on an open forum and apparently expect your views to go unchallenged.
That is not how it works according to the owner/moderator. You show no tolerance of respect for opposing views, so you should expect any in return.
Can you grab me some fries to go with that offer..?
i just was wondering...
if i could, possibly stand the heat in the kitchen,
if i'm in the ice box making frozen margaritas for the Mexicans building that wall between the living room their not paying for cause it's time for a siesta senior, or some 'heat'
don't wonder any further, your off the map already
Just remember this.
If you have young grandchildren or someone you know has young grandchildren, they will one day be taught in history class Trump was the 45th President of the United States, and that lesson will not say one word about what you have been babbling on about for the past 4 years...with zero proof.
Ditto
Don't sell all of the Democrats and their lemmings short. They have whined just as long and loud as Trump; and there are a whole hell of a lot more of them.
In their personal lives. That is the context of 'content' as I use it. Since 'content' is not in this seed my guess is you are referencing my comments that the American people are currently 'content' with their personal lives and thus are naturally not looking to make many changes that could upset that.
The desire to not upset the apple-cart, so to speak, is why Sanders will not win in the general. To prevail, the D candidate will first need to convince the electorate that s/he is not going to take actions that will result in pressure on an individual, his/her family and his/her friends.
( By the way, your seed link goes to the wrong article. )
“...would have remained unknown, who wanted no fame, and who faced existential questions when Trump set out to break them.”
The lazy hacks who hide behind the rules and exist solely to make others miserable in their game of ‘gotcha’? Burn ‘em all.
Trump should be put in a damn Institution !
Preferably one with lots of locked doors.
and padded walls
y
So he doesn't hurt himself
Never underestimate the lies/loopholes/lawsuits strategy.
You mean the ones the Dems have been using since he was elected? What's their success rate so far.
Trump's still there and will remain. Who can replace him? He's Teflon Don.
Link please.
You brought up the term, define it.
I think these articles are great for they put a nice mirror up to how Democrats have behaved for the Last 20 years. Bill Clinton’s presidency was the template for trumps and the people who enabled Clinton now act surprised when their tactics are used against them..
Well, it's necessary to state the obvious. An entrenched, unelected bureaucracy ain't democracy. And weakening an entrenched bureaucracy that sees itself as a politically unaccountable and independent fourth branch of government isn't an attack on democracy.
The bureaucracy has been empowered to legislate, create policy, and perform central planning for society in an undemocratic manner. The bureaucracy has obtained sufficient independent power to challenge the President, Congress, and the Judiciary. The bureaucracy has become a de facto fourth branch of government without Constitutional basis or authority.
If you had a sane president, you would have a better argument. Trump removes people who can demonstrate that his policies are ill advised and often self serving. He appoints people to replace them who are underqualified lackeys. All that supercedes your technical analysis.
And you continue to make sweeping and false generalizations that you can't or won't back up with facts or examples.
You don't have any logical or rational argument(s) at all.
The key word in that comment is 'appoints'. And political appointment of bureaucrats is not a democratic process. Perhaps it would be wise to do a little research on the Federal Senior Executive Service before throwing around descriptions like 'underqualified'. The measures of merit within the bureaucracy are not what they superficially seem.
Trump does not like institutions. Has a fear of them. Private life Trump spent fortunes battling against American laws, standards and accountability. Perhaps this is why the Putin regime considers him an asset of sorts.