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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Implosion Watch: Adult Day-Care Center Edition - By Jonathan Chait
By Jonathan Chait
@jonathanchait
October 10, 2017
8:49 am
There is very little disagreement among high-level Republicans that Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for the presidency. Senator Bob Corkers comments represent a milestone, in that a sitting Republican elected official, who has previously bent over backward to accommodate Trump, said out loud what everybody was thinking: Trump is behaving like a reality-show character, his erratic behavior threatens to bungle the country into war, and the White House has become an adult day-care center, whose staffers see their task as managing the child monarch.
Since its very first day, when the president raged over photographs of his inaugural attendance and instructed his press secretary to tell wild lies about it, Trumps presidency has felt like something that could not possibly last. Im going to try to chronicle this aspect of the Trump presidency in a regular feature were calling Implosion Watch. Whether it actually ends in an implosion, or explosion, or miraculous recovery, or simply hobbles onward, is for the next three-to-seven years to tell.
In the meantime, it continues to be the case that the officials surrounding Trump see themselves as holding off a collapse. Politico reports that deposed former chief of staff Reince Priebus habitually used a technique familiar to parents of small children to manage the president. When Trump asked to do something stupid, crazy, or impossible, his staff would mollify the request by delaying it, on the hope that the president would forget about it later on. Explaining to him that the request could not be fulfilled would simply anger the president.
A Trump confidant speaking to the Washington Post likens the president to a pressure cooker, who will explode if he does not blow off steam. The metaphors in the two reports differ, but they share the essential assumptions of the presidents handlers: Trump is irrationally emotional, and the only strategy for managing this problem is to try to defer the costs to the future.
As with a toddler, Trumps managers try to explain to him that his outbursts are self-destructive. (If you cant stop your tantrum and get dressed, we wont have time to go to the park at all.) Given that Trump can only afford to lose two Republican votes, lobbing insults at a senator who is already a risk to oppose his primary remaining legislative objective is an extremely bad idea. But Trumps managers are resigned to his venting as the least-bad alternative.
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/trump-implosion-watch-adult-day-care-center-edition.html
ProfessorGAC
(65,050 posts)Just yikes. This whole CF is proof that america is essentially stupid. 60 million suckers bought that a failed business man would fix everything, even stuff that wasn't actually broken, simply because he was rich and famous, and the first half of that because he inherited a ridiculous amount of money.
Just sickening.
lindysalsagal
(20,692 posts)It's all you ever hear. Any other politician would have faked a car wreck/heart attack/drug overdose and resigned by now.
Notice how there no longer is any hope of him catching on and playing a real potus?
He thinks this is all ok.
I doubt there is one living soul this toddler would believe if they tried to explain how horrendous he is.
Solly Mack
(90,767 posts)underpants
(182,818 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)This stuff is scary. Who is watching that guy at 3am?
Initech
(100,078 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Will some low ranking military person and the Secret Service be enough to stop him?
The good thing is we will be asleep if he nukes North Korea and China nukes us for killing lots of it's people. Or if he nukes Iran and kill a lot of Russians and the Russians nuke us.
The baffling thing is the number of Americans who think a nuclear war is winnable.
Initech
(100,078 posts)Somehow have more clout than the 64% who don't. Because they're white and love guns, flags, and JAY-SUS more than the next guy. That to me is fucking mind boggling. The GOP would rather keep their precious majority because they've been convinced by a minority that they're superior to those who don't support them. I mean what the fuck is happening in this country? It's like we've entered bizarro world.
Willie Pep
(841 posts)Seriously, maybe Trump needs safe hobbies to blow off steam. I suggest stamp collecting and model airplane building.
Hekate
(90,704 posts)You know, the senile, the Alzheimer's crew, the stroke victims. Own it. Say it out loud. Accept the ugly, ugly truth.