As someone who has loved and watched politics for what seems like forever, like many long time observers I've seen ‘em come, and I’ve seen ‘em go. But in all of the time I've been watching politics and the politicians necessarily contained within that bottle, I can't honestly recall having seen a more clownish, incompetent ass gasket of a President and administration as this one.
Trump ran on two basic platforms other than bigotry and misogyny. He ran as a rank outsider, and he pledged to “drain the swamp”. To a seasoned political observer the only response that last one can evoke is “Puh-leeeeeeease”. Almost every politician, and certainly every Presidential candidate campaigns on cleaning out Washington, the most often used phrase used to be “change the culture of Washington”. And no matter how well intended the sentiment, the result is inevitable, the new man gets politicized. After all, there’s a good reason swamps don't get drained, those alligators can f*ck up your day in a heartbeat.
And it’s not just because Trump is an “outsider”. Plenty of non politicians have come and gone in Washington,congressmen and women, Senators with little or no political experience, more common for members of the House, but still political outsiders. And the ultimate result is always the same, they assimilate or they perish. because, once you get there, you realize very quickly that one, there is a limit as to what you can do by yourself, and two, the most important thing is to be reelected to get back there again.
But all of them tend to have one thing in common. While they all have faithful friends and confidants, they also manage to find Washington insiders to counsel them. And they not only have them they also tend to listen to them if they want to get enough done, and put on the kind of image that will allow them to get reelected again. They can also come in handy with fundraising.
This is what sets the Trump administration apart from almost everybody else. Trump came into town with an unusually small staff, my belief is that he never actually thought that he could win, and almost none of them had any kind of experience with the inner workings of Washington and the congress. In fact, even now I can think of only three. Reince Priebus has never been elected, but as the Chairman of the RNC he has had significant interaction with congress and some contacts in Washington. VP Mike Pence was elected multiple times to the House, and has pretty good knowledge of how congress works, and what will and will not work with them. And White House Counsel Don Mcgahn is a long time Washington insider lawyer who also knows the ropes. That's it.
But this is what really sets Trump apart from everybody else. Trump just will not freakin’ listen! He hasn’t listened since day one, to anybody but Jared Kushner and Ivanka. For a small while he listened to Manafort’s pleas to use a teleprompter and stay on script to attract more moderates, but it cramped his style and Manafort was gone. This is why he has wasted so much time on such insane windmill tilting as crowd sizes, unconstitutional EO’s, and claiming that Obama personally wiretapped him during the election.
You have to know that Reince Proebus was running around with his hair on fire when Trump started talking about pulling a putsch on Comey, he could tell instantly how disastrous this would be for Trump and the administration, and I can't imagine McGahn was any less aghast. But Trump had made up his mind, and the best part for him was that he was sure that the Democrats wouldn't fight him on this, they hated Comey too. I can only guess that Trump never had a dog, or he’d know that if you take their chew toy away, they tend to snap and bite, they have no sense of humor for that shit. And Trump took away the Democrats chew toy when he fired Comey.
The comforting thing is that this will not change.Trump’s ego won't let it.And even if he wanted to change, it wouldn’t do any good. He doesn’t have a David Gergen type to counsel him even if Trump would listen, and after all of this, what kind of a political insider operative that wanted to have a career after this administration would step into the middle of this Klown Kar Circus. Trump is going to have to limp along with what he’s already got, and if past history is iny indication of future performance, this is not going to end up in a sunny, flower covered glade for Trump and his band of incompetents. At least there’s that to look forward to for a while.