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Saving the World from Trump
This morning I saw an op-ed piece that finally drove me over the top. Here is one statement from Kathleen Parker from her piece :
Whatever her ultimate motive, Haley clearly decided that stepping on Tillerson and Kelly was in her political interest. There can have been no other reason to drag these two honorable, accomplished men through the mud for, by her own account, trying to mitigate some of Trump’s more-destructive impulses.
Parker has impelled me to go after all the hand-wringing, outrage and disappointment that so many people have directed toward Trump. Especially egregious are the lies and exaggerations coming from inside the government against Trump.
Most of the anger directed at Trump is blamed on Trump—his actions and behaviors. But no one wants to discuss the extreme arrogance that is being demonstrated over and over again about who should be in charge of the Presidency.
Let’s begin with Nikki Haley’s recent book, With all Due Respect. According to Kathleen Parker, Nikki Haley would only criticize Rex Tillerson and John Kelly to enhance her own selfish political goals. The fact that Tillerson and Kelly tried to enlist Haley to resist actions by the President were apparently irrelevant to her. Parker quotes Haley:
‘Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,’ Haley writes.
The pair told her that ‘it was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America’ and ‘the president didn’t know what he was doing.’
So let me get this right: Kelly and Tillerson believed they were entitled, in fact obligated, to save the country by betraying the President.
For the last three years, the press has indulged in trashing the President and his staff. I remember early on wondering how the White House staff was getting anything done with such chaos going on. I’d like you to read the following characterization carefully and I will follow with my own observations:
The result of all the melodrama is a sense of constant chaos for a watchful nation and a crippling anxiety for White House officials. Some aides now refuse to communicate by email, given that federal law requires such messages to be archived for historians and investigators. Many have taken to using encrypted apps to get around the investigations Trump has ordered to clamp down on leaks. Others are skittish about even picking up the phone, assuming someone is always listening or monitoring calls.
So let’s look at this supposedly journalistic description, which uses terms like “constant chaos,” “crippling anxiety,” “clamping down on leaks.” So much for objectivity. Worse yet, I almost laughed at the reasons for the chaos. What do people think they have to hide? Are they afraid people might see their plans to sabotage the President? Are they afraid their efforts to leak to the media might be discovered? It seems to me that if people just do their jobs and don’t violate the rules against leaks, they have nothing to worry about.
And now we see the height of arrogance in the State Department bureaucrats. Again, they are going to save all of us from Donald Trump, who has the gall to take his own path without consulting them regarding Ukraine. What nerve! Many of them have gotten their noses bent out of shape because Trump is not only not letting them do their jobs (which of course includes saving Ukraine and the U.S.), but he’s changing the status quo!
In spite of stepping on lots of toes, rocking the boat, going against the grain (okay, enough clichés), Trump has done a very good job:
The most prominent motif in these pieces is language that suggests movement toward a climax or dissolution—downward spiral, closing in, unsustainable. Trump is always becoming increasingly frustrated or unstable; he never decompresses or cools down. And yet: On April 2, 2017, in the wake of the first round of CHAOS coverage, Trump’s aggregate approval was 40.4 percent. His aggregate approval rating today is 40.4 percent. In his time in office he’s passed a tax cut, launched the punitive ICE raids he promised during the campaign, avoided inducing a significant military or economic disaster, and retained control over the votes of almost every congressional Republican.
(I acknowledge the comment on the economy is very understated.)
I hope that citizens will begin to realize that their criticisms of Trump are actually more legitimately directed at the media, against those who hate him and those who think they know how to do the President’s job.
I think the best thing these conceited bureaucrats could do for the country is quit.
Published in Politics
I forgot how many parties and concerts Obama was throwing during his tenure. Another under appreciated aspect of Trump is that he doesn’t need to do that stuff. He’s already lived the life of celebrity.
Nikki Haley doesn’t need to scold our President either, she isn’t his mother.
Really did like your post @ejhill, you said it very well.
When he wasn’t throwing parties, he was jetting off to parties elsewhere. Obama is a fundamentally lazy person. He was in it for the perks of the office.
Has your boss found out that you are subverting him?
Trump is a celebrity who chose to become a president. Obama, on the other hand….
was a fraud.
Another way he’s exactly like Ronaldo Magnus.
His laziness was a blessing. God only knows what additional harm he could have done had he had half of DTs energy …
Obama hated face-to-face contact with people on the same relative level of power as him, but was sold the idea that he wouldn’t have to worry about that as president. He would just tell the House Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader what he wanted done, Nancy and Harry would then do it and give him all the credit, and the media would then hail him as the greatest leader in the history of democracy. That was behind both his “I won” comment to John Boehner, when the Democrats had their huge majorities in 2009, and the “Don’t call my bluff” line to Boehner in 2012, when the GOP was running the House.
If people weren’t going to just bring him things to sign, he wasn’t going to go out of his way to negotiate with Congress. That also explains his decision to go Executive Order-wacky in his second term (where the Dems are now trying to claim Trump can’t reverse those EOs with his own Executive Orders).
On Haley vs. Kelly
I don’t know anything about Nikki Haley that anyone else wouldn’t’ve seen or read. She’s a cutie-patootie, I thought she made some awesome speeches as UN Ambassador, and I enjoyed her defenses of both this country and POTUS.
I know a lot about John Kelly, and I have a hard time reconciling Haley’s accusations against him in her new book with my experiences and interactions with GEN Kelly.
For lack of a better title, I was GEN Kelly’s SOF Minister of Subversion, Mayhem and Deviltry. There are many times I’ve briefed him on my CONOPS (Concepts of the Operation) either one-on-one or with a very small, select audience. I served in this capacity for four four-star Geographic Combatant Commanders (Craddock, Stavridis, Fraser and Kelly). Of them all, while each had his pros/cons and idiosyncrasies, Kelly was the best. I knew he had my back no matter what, and he was unfazed by assuming risk. The only admonition he ever issued was, “Don’t screw this up, Mongo. I refuse to share a jail cell with you” in that awesome Boston accent of his.
John Kelly is one of my few personal heroes (that I actually knew).
On the accusations that Hailey has made:
-John Kelly worked to subvert the President: I worked with GEN Kelly through the Obama years. He despised then-POTUS’ policies. But his sense of duty meant that he supported them as if they were is own ideas. I cannot see him doing this. What I can see is him trying to impose order on Trump-induced chaos, and because there are times that order and “established systems” not only help the defense of the US, but also indemnify POTUS from accusations of wrong doing .
-John Kelly didn’t want to pull out of the Iran deal: I feel I can state with (to borrow a Rush-ism) ontological certitude that Kelly despised the Iran Deal and thought we needed to ramp up counter-Iran operations.
John Kelly didn’t want to pull out of the Paris Accord: I feel comfortable saying that Kelly didn’t care about the Paris Accords, and held them in the same regard as a fat baby’s fart.
He’s a good man. I think his been dishonorably slighted.
Regardless of merits of the Kelly/Tillerson/Haley ructions, it has become clear that the government is a huge bureaucracy with a small suggestion box. Once every couple of years, the bureaucrats take a peek in the box and take something out to give the rabble the illusion that someone cares about what they think.
As if that weren’t bad enough, we now have the spectacle of individuals celebrating this development. The trend is worrisome.
I trust your judgement on this and will adopt it as my own.
First time I have seen a standing ovation while defending the Constitution and conservative values.
No kidding! It is frightening and discouraging to hear anyone trying to justify these actions, @ejhill. Nikki Haley has impressed me with her courage and directness in the past, so I have no reason to doubt what she has said. She has more to lose than to gain by outing them. Sad.
I don’t doubt that in a great many ways he is honorable. Working for Obama must have been extremely annoying. But I doubt that Kelly worried that Obama was going to destroy the country. In addition, Obama’s personality was tolerable and I expect Kelly didn’t go out of his way to be around him. But I personally cannot imagine working with Trump day in and day out. Regardless of what he has achieved, it must have been like trying to have tea with a bull in a china shop. An insane bull, at that. Do you not think that it’s possible that Kelly was genuinely fearful that Trump was endangering this country? You know I deeply respect your opinion, @bossmongo, but I can’t for the life of me figure out a reason Haley would have made these statements if they weren’t true. But we can disagree.
And a Democrat President would take the same action if his appointees did not forward his agenda.
I worked for the Department of Energy for 29 years, from Reagan (briefly) to Trump (ecstaticly). This included 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama. Even at my low level, I worked on projects which advanced the agenda of whoever was in charge. If I had actively worked against those agendas, I wouldn’t have been fired. However, I would have been moved to a department where I couldn’t do any harm.
Trump is a businessman. When he makes a decision, he expects his people to implement it. And yes, I’m talking about a legal decision. If a subordinate believed Trump’s agenda or order was illegal, he should point that out to the President. If the President insisted he follow orders, he should inform the IG for his Department and resign, with the details spelled out in the resignation letter (standard CYA).
I can see Haley misinterpreting what she thought she was getting from General Kelly. Tillerson might be a different case and could have affected how she saw Kelly. And I’m not attacking Tillerson knowing what a deep state hornets’ nest he was in at the State Dept.
Trump is human, as such he can make mistakes; we know this about Presidents and folks on the hill like we know it about ourselves. Since Trump is so unusual, doing things differently it’s not easy to know what’s a mistake and what was clever until some time has passed. So far it’s worked out better than for any recent President and things were much worse when he took over than they have been, perhaps ever. The internal threats exceed any we have seen. I do not understand the deep anti Trump feelings among folks on our side. Is it just his personality? Which certainly turned most of us off initially. Do they understand just how far off our constitutional history we have gone? Most of us thought he’d do the same. Do they think it’s just two sides of a political world that go back and forth? I think this is their main error and it’s perhaps the biggest.
Trump is proving an outsider who’s not of the political elite class can get more things done regardless of personal behavior. Trump is also proving such a person can garner support from a wide range of sources. This frightens the caca out of the Beltway crowd, and they’ll do anything to keep it from happening again – anything.
I don’t know if this statement published in The Guardian muddies the waters, but here is part of John Kelly’s response to Nikki Haley’s statements:
President Trump is loose or careless with words. There may be other ways to describe this behavior. I suspect many ardent and supportive advisors see this and recognize potential for trouble. I think the opposition focuses on using his words against him.
Observation of results from actions initiated during Trump’s Administration lead me to conclude that he has done things that I support, more so than previous Presidents. I would like to have more of this. It’s difficult for the opposition to use his results against him.
One of the side things all the frenzy by the Democrats and their fans in the media has done, interestingly, is suck the oxygen out of the air for the normal Democrat complaints going into a presidential election with a Republican incumbent. You’re not hearing about the “Two Americas” stuff because the Democratic leadership doesn’t have time to try and do that because they’re putting all their chips in on demonizing Trump to the point swing voters won’t support him, no matter how good things are going.
(Going against that grain, Tom Steyer, who is desperate to find any ground at all to gain traction on after his radical environmentalist tactic cratered, apparently is trying to pull out the old playbook that Mondale used in ’84 and Kerry in ’04, at least with this latest online ad:
“Take on the Trump economy and do what?” would be the obvious question here, since the Trump economy seems to be humming along pretty nicely at the moment. But Mondale 35 years ago thought he could take on the Reagan economy by promising across-the-board tax hikes to voters, and that didn’t work out so well. So as long as Trump’s economic numbers remain good, maybe the Democrats’ plan to make Trump radioactive to moderates via the impeachment gambit really is the only strategy they can follow.)
Maybe it’s not going as well for Greenist frauds like Steyer.
Not that it should matter. He could live comfortably for thousands of years on the money spent just to buy his way into the Primary.
I don’t think so. They had to be outed. OTOH, Rush questions why she didn’t make this revelation sooner (Saving it for the book?).
That, and so many Democrats are in the “wealthy” part of the “Two Americas” . . .
Bernie and Liz seemed to have mastered the ability to deny their millionaire status to their supporters, while railing against the rich (though as others have noted, Bernie’s stopped ragging on millionaires since he became one, and is only harping on billionaires now).
I’d have to check the timeline on when Kelly left vs when she left. Mostly you don’t make waves about people still on the job.
The bottom line on this whole saga, going all the way back to the first Wednesday after the first Monday in November of 2016, is that cadres of folks on both sides of the aisle had decided the American people had made a yuuuuge mistake and that they were going to do everything in their power to thwart the new President.
As I said earlier in this thread, if someone on the inside actually thought Donald Trump was bat guano crazy – and that they could easily prove it – they would have. What this all boils down to is policy. And once you embrace the idea that the way to change policy is anything other than elections then the idea of a democratic Republic is dead. This isn’t Trump killing the norms. This is everyone else.
Not only in this case but witness the bureaucrats testifying in the impeachment inquiry. Most Presidents in my lifetime have had a couple of areas of major interests they would actually work on and even with those they were largely supported by the mainstream of their party and that will usually pass muster with the bureaucracy.
President Trump is not too keen on having our national policy, foreign, defense, or trade, unduly influenced by other nations. Didn’t he actually say ‘America First’? I think he means that and he was elected POTUS. The bureaucrats don’t approve of the President having too much freedom to make policy and Trump has stepped on their toes. They, the bureaucrats, have all of the Democrat Party with them, 90% of media, and establishment Republicans depending on the specifics, although I sense some are moving over slowly. But the President has the people.
The impeachment inquiry has given much visibility to this phenomenon of the ensconced bureaucratic national policy and that is helping the President. I am yet very interested to see if Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney Durham can restore a national sense of the importance of equality under a regime of ‘rule of law’
Let’s pray the people come through.
Exactly right. We’ve gotten so used to the Washington establishment running things, that we’ve been taken back by President Trump. This well meaning fairly honest very complex Washington establishment is a 20th century phenomena, but it’s powerful and dangerous. It’s the way most of the rest of the world and pretty much all history was run. We broke out and it worked.