Dealing with Trump: Don't Watch the Monkey, Watch the Organ Grinder
Last edited Fri Feb 17, 2017, 08:41 PM - Edit history (1)
“Don’t watch the monkey, watch the organ grinder.” That was the advice I heard a political commentator provide a few days ago on CNN on how best to observe and understand the inner workings of the Trump administration. That is an alteration of an old saying, “Speak to the organ grinder, not the money”, which of course means talk to the boss, not an underling. In its new form the saying means don’t focus on the distractions associated with Trump’s chaotic organization; instead pay attention to what is really happening in the background. As I watch Trump’s chaotic press conference today, I was reminded of the advice of that political veteran, but I also realized that in the current White House, Trump is both the organ grinder and the monkey.
I am convinced that Trump staged the last minute press conference to distract from the fixation of the media on the Flynn affair, the revelations of constant communications between members of his campaign staff and Russians, and growing the suspicions that Trump was aware of, and perhaps even orchestrated those communications. What better way to distract the press than to throw out a few “alternate facts” – like my staff “is running like a well oiled machine” and “I inherited a mess” – and then throw a public tantrum attacking the media unmercifully.
Trump was undoubtedly expressing his growing frustration with wide spread criticism by the press and with his inability to shape the message. However, his main objective was to bait the press into spending time fact checking his obvious lies and defending themselves instead of continuing to explore his connections with Putin’s Russia. And based on the focus of the discussions on CNN this afternoon and evening, he was largely successful, at least for today. Virtually no time was spent discussing Trump’s Russian connections or his public bromance with Vladimir Putin. However, the antics of the monkey also distracted attention away from something else that happened today that was equally important, especially to environmentalists and those focused on the health of those living in the Appalachian Mountains.
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Dealing with Trump: Don’t Watch the Monkey, Watch the Organ Grinder]
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