The Observer on Trump: unfit for office

[MBS]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/30/observer-view-of-donald-trump-unifit-for-office?

Nothing this board hasn't already known for months, but the nightmare is deftly summarized here.

Excerpts:

The sense of things falling apart in Washington is palpable – and a matter of growing, serious international concern. Donald Trump’s latest asinine act of gesture politics, the forced resignation of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has shone a spotlight on the extraordinary chaos inside the White House. Even normally sober, experienced Washington observers now refer to the West Wing as a viper’s nest of seething rivalry, bitter feuds, gross incompetence and an unparalleled leadership vacuum.. ..
. . .
Like some kind of Shakespearean villain-clown, Trump plays not to the gallery but to the pit. He is a Falstaff without the humour or the self-awareness, a cowardly, bullying Richard III without a clue. Late-night US satirists find in this an unending source of high comedy. If they did not laugh, they would cry. The world is witnessing the dramatic unfolding of a tragedy whose main victims are a seemingly helpless American audience, America’s system of balanced governance and its global reputation as a leading democratic light. . .
. . .
Yet even if Kelly succeeds in cracking the whip, curbing the in-fighting and containing the Russia scandal, he still has to deal with Trump himself. He has proved far more interested in settling scores, berating adversaries and showing off than in advancing a coherent domestic policy agenda. The next prospective car crash, following the Obamacare pile-up, is a September deadline for a federal budget and linked tax reforms and increased military spending promised by Trump. A budget deal proved impossible last spring and may do so again. If there is no agreement, a government shut-down looms, an outcome in line with current Washington trends. Lazy, feckless Trump has no interest in the onerous business of lobbying Congress or working the phones. He wants quick, easy wins or else he walks away. This latter is one of several disturbing truths about Trump absorbed, to varying degrees, by Washington’s friends and allies in the past six months. Naive, misguided Theresa May and Liam Fox, the Brexit trade secretary, still seem to think Trump’s word can be trusted and that he will deliver a favourable trade deal. It is one of many delusions explaining why Britain’s government is so disrespected. In sharp contrast, Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, heads the realist, pragmatic group of leaders who are learning to deal with a post-Obama world where the word of the American president cannot be trusted. In this new world, longstanding US commitments and treaties may not be honoured and future collaboration on key policies, such as climate change, Russia and Chinese military expansionism, is held hostage to presidential whim and the blinkered perspectives of the Ohio bar-room. . .
. . .
The common factor in all these situations is Trump’s self-induced powerlessness and ignorance, his chronic lack of credibility and presidential authority and consequent perceptions of US and western weakness. And in the case of all three actual or potential adversaries – North Korea, Iran and Russia – these perceptions are highly dangerous. Precisely because US responses, actions and reactions can no longer be relied upon or predicted, by friends and enemies alike, the potential for calamitous miscalculation is growing. This uncertainty, like the chaos in the White House and the extraordinary disarray of the American body politic, stems from Trump’s glaring unfitness for the highest office. As is now becoming ever plainer, this threatens us all.

[Gothmog]

1. Trump is not suited to be POTUS

[dhill926]

2. K & R...

[dalton99a]

3. Unfit to run a 7-Eleven

Great article

[Paladin]

4. Kudos for the Shakespearian references.

Falstaff, minus the humor or self-awareness. Richard III, without a clue. Pretty hard to improve on that.

[MBS]

5. Yes, that was my favorite part of the whole article! n/t

[mr_lebowski]

6. Bu ... buh ...

[BigmanPigman]

7. I will not rest until he is sentenced to life and must

clean the bathrooms at Sing Sing (or any jail except the nice ones reserved for the elite criminals like Bernie Madoff). Too bad the methods used during the Spanish Inquisitions aren't allowed these days.

[MBS]

8. My feeling, too. About ALL of them.

These people are just the worst of the worst.

Did you see this?
https://newrepublic.com/article/144103/trump-mooch-rise-new-york-douchebag
Excerpts:

Normally, a president under siege would not hire someone like Anthony Scaramucci, the loudmouth financier known as “the Mooch” who joined the White House last week as communications director. Donald Trump’s strife-ridden administration already has more than its share of troubles, with the Russia collusion investigation escalating, the president feuding with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the Republican discord over Obamacare repeal (RIP, for now). In the midst of this turmoil, Scaramucci created his own drama by calling up New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza and insulting his White House colleagues in the crudest possible terms. Scaramucci called Reince Priebus “a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” and compared himself favorably to Trump’s chief strategist, saying, “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.”

In most administrations, Scaramucci’s public badmouthing of his colleagues would be a major liability, likely a fireable offense. But Trump operates from a different set of rules—the same rules, it would seem, that Scaramucci operates from. Reading his rant to The New Yorker, it was hard not to recall the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women: “You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy.” Indeed, Scaramucci is a sort of mini-Trump: brash, hyper-masculine, bro-loyal, sexually crass, and street smart, perhaps, but not actually smart.
. . .
The New York douchebag thrives throughout the tri-state area, particularly in New Jersey and the outer boroughs of the city proper. Usually white, he is belligerent, garrulous, ruthlessly competitive, and excessively confident in his persuasive abilities. He is also hypersensitive; the smallest perceived slight will trigger a full-scale defense of his pride. He demands to be respected at all times.
. . . Trump is the quintessential New York douchebag, but to win the Republican nomination, he had to make peace with the Southern evangelical base of the GOP. Toward that end, Trump implausibly reinvented himself as a social conservative, giving powerful posts to Southern traditionalists like Jeff Sessions and religious conservatives like Mike Pence. But Trump is clearly happiest in the company of his fellow tri-state douchebags. During the campaign, he spent a great deal of time around figures like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, two exemplars of the species. Trump wasn’t able to find administration jobs for either of them, and met with resistance from conventional Republicans like Priebus for trying to hire Scaramucci, whom The New York Times described last week as “a financial showman who rivals Mr. Trump’s own outsize knack for self-promotion.” Now that Scaramucci is in the White House, Trump has a fellow douchebag he can commune with. . .

[BigmanPigman]

9. One word in that article stood out more than any other...the first one

NORMALLY! That says it all.