Dem
47
GOP
53
When the U.S. began to urbanize in a serious way in the 19th century, building codes were not a thing. In fact, the notion that the government should be supervising private businesses in this way would have been perceived as something between "laughable" and "immoral." So, a lot of companies built ramshackle multi-level tenement buildings, out of cheap lumber and other substandard materials. Eventually, one portion of the building would deteriorate pretty badly, and would be propped up as best as possible. Then another, then another. In the end, quite often, the whole building would collapse, sometimes with people in it. That's for the buildings that did not first get burned down in the all-too-common urban conflagrations of the era, of course. No fire codes back then, either.
We write that as prelude to a couple of items that, taken together, paint a vivid picture of the "building" that is the Trump administration. First up is an op-ed from (very lefty) former labor secretary Robert Reich, which was published in The Guardian, and was brought to our attention by reader M.G. in Boulder, CO. It is headlined "Why Trump built a staff of incompetent sycophants."
That headline pretty much gives away the game, but just in case, Reich's answer to the (semi-)question is that the people who make up the Trump administration are exceedingly unqualified for their jobs, and they know it. What they learned, long ago in most cases, is that if they could not offer competence, they could offer loyalty, sycophancy, and a willingness to break the rules (and the law). Those, of course, are exactly the things that Trump (like all authoritarians) wants in an underling. Not only does he get people who kiss his rear end, and do his dirty work for him (which means THEY assume the risk), but the longer they serve, the more they are in his debt, whether that means they need him in order to have a job, or they need him because they hunger for the attention and prestige that comes from being on staff, or they need him because they want (or expect to need) a pardon.
Now, let's pair this with a second item, from Politico, headlined "Seven months in, Trump's revolving door reaching full swing." Again, the headline pretty much gives away the game. Trump v2.0 is not even 15% of the way to the finish line, and prominent staffers are already leaving the administration for greener pastures elsewhere. Deputy press secretary Harrison Fields is gone, Deputy Assistant to the President Trent Morse is gone, senior White House strategist May Davis Mailman is gone, and so too are several other high-profile staffers.
It is certainly possible that, for some of these individuals, life in the White House (or, maybe, the accompanying salary) was not their cup of tea. However, for anyone who has actual, marketable skills, it makes all the sense in the world to leave ASAP, even if they liked their White House jobs. First, they don't run the risk of getting involved with something indictable. Second, they maintain a relationship with Trump and his team, and don't end up as pariahs because he turned against them (as has happened with so many of his former insiders, from Omarosa Manigault Newman to John Bolton to Stephanie Grisham). Third, "I can get President Trump on the phone" is a real selling point for about 3.5 more years. Once a Democratic administration takes over, it's not only not a selling point, it's an anti-selling point. Better to exploit the window of opportunity for as long as possible.
It's not too hard to see what the effect of these two, parallel, processes will be. An administration that is already chock-full of subpar people will skew further and further in the direction of boot-licking, incapable, unethical potential felons. We actually planned this item on Monday. As chance would have it, there were two very relevant news stories yesterday: Social media guru and decade-long Trump toady Dan Scavino, is taking over the Presidential Personnel Office, while Heather Honey, a "statistician" who has no particular justification for that job title, and who cooked up some of the "analyses" that showed the 2020 election was "stolen," has been appointed to work on election integrity for the Department of Homeland Security.
Returning to the metaphor we began this item with, some of the "rooms" in this ramshackle structure have already suffered from structural failure. The Pete Hegseth Signal chats. The document printed to a public printer during the Alaska summit. The accidental targeting of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The letter to Harvard that was not meant for public release. The tariff on penguins. The IRS Commissioner who lasted 2 whole days (aka, 18% of a Scaramucci). The litany goes on and on. Will the whole thing collapse in on itself, eventually? We don't know, but we can point out that: (1) In Trump v1.0, following the events of 1/6, it nearly did; and (2) the considerably less ramshackle structure built by Richard Nixon eventually collapsed, and at that point, it turned into every man for himself. (Z)