Trump's sniveling sycophants

[lpetrich]

All the president’s shrinking sycophants: In Trump’s White House, staffers have lost all sense of dignity - New York Daily News

Whatever happened to pride?

I ask because reports regularly surface about Donald Trump berating or insulting someone, often an aide, who just takes it. A recent example comes from Michael Wolff’s new book “Siege,” in which Paul Manafort, once Trump’s campaign chairman but now domiciled in stir, was vulgarly upbraided by the president: “You’re terrible, you can’t defend me.” Trump allegedly called him a “lazy f---” and asked “Am I a f---ing baby?” in a train wreck of a verbal assault.

Trump also berated Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, but he, as it happens, shouted back. Not so Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, who was soaked by a drizzle of demeaning tweets in addition to an Oval Office tirade he later characterized as the most humiliating experience of his public life. He offered to resign, but he stayed on anyway and never asked the president to step outside and put up his dukes.

Trump's targets include his former lawyer Gary Cohn, Army Gen. H.R. McMaster, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, and also Reince Priebus.

Has anyone other than Mitch McConnell has ever stood up to him? But MMC was very likely helped by having independent employment.

Now, though, an icky toadyism has been normalized. The White House staff members have the spine of nightcrawlers, oozing their way from meeting to meeting, trying to circumvent some idiotic presidential order or simply concealing matters from him. This is what’s happening now with attempts to plant malware in Russia’s energy grid, in response to Russia’s intrusion into America’s energy grid. The New York Times recently reported that some aspects of this clandestine program were withheld from Trump lest he object.

Which raises the serious question of who makes the decisions. Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk that stated "The Buck Stops Here". But where does the buck stop in the Trump Admin?

Also, I like how AOC once called him a "mad king".

 

[Keith&Co.]

Which raises the serious question of who makes the decisions.

I forget which president observed to his replacement, "There are no easy decisions in this office. If it's easy, someone already made the decision further down the line. You get the decisions everyone thinks are too difficult."

The decisions made further down the line from Cheato include "Put more colors in the briefing" and "Hide the USS John McCain." And "let's not put anything on his schedule today."

He has handlers. Not aides, not deputies, not assistants. Just people deciding what he is allowed to see, and how to present that to him.

 

[Patooka]

Which raises the serious question of who makes the decisions.

I forget which president observed to his replacement, "There are no easy decisions in this office. If it's easy, someone already made the decision further down the line. You get the decisions everyone thinks are too difficult."

The decisions made further down the line from Cheato include "Put more colors in the briefing" and "Hide the USS John McCain." And "let's not put anything on his schedule today

I wonder where "fire the people who gave me accurate poll figures" falls on the spectrum.

 

[ideologyhunter]

That cabinet footage from early 2017 was the absolute brain-frying distillation of Trumpistan...the round-robin where each of the weasels told the Orange One how working for him was a gift from God, how they all aspired to suckle from his fuzzy orange nipples. (What they actually said was worse, much worse than my reinvention.)

 

[Patooka]

That cabinet footage from early 2017 was the absolute brain-frying distillation of Trumpistan...the round-robin where each of the weasels told the Orange One how working for him was a gift from God, how they all aspired to suckle from his fuzzy orange nipples. (What they actually said was worse, much worse than my reinvention.)

If I remember correctly, every cabinet member did variations of, "You are going to let me know when your about to come, right?"

 

[lpetrich]

Trump receives praise from Cabinet - CNN Video 2017 Jun 12
Every one of the people there said how great he was for giving them their positions.

'Extremely stable genius': Trump defends his mental fitness as he tears into Pelosi - POLITICO 2019 May 23
He got his staffers to describe him as very calm, and not angry and ranting, when he met with Nancy Pelosi.

 

[ideologyhunter]

A Trump Never Tells. (It's on their family crest.)





cf. post #5

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What happened to pride?

The gays stole it!

None of the right-wing nuts would want to be gay, thus they no longer have any pride in what they do!

 

[Derec]

I ask because reports regularly surface about Donald Trump berating or insulting someone, often an aide, who just takes it.

So like Congressman Furlong but probably less funny?

Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk that stated "The Buck Stops Here". But where does the buck stop in the Trump Admin?

I guess his admin is similar to President Meyer's in that regard.