Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Podesta Tries Some Trolling

John Podesta takes to the WaPo to troll the Trump White House staff.  He notes that the behavior of the White House staff is so incredibly far beyond the expected norms of American political behavior that they should resign.

This is, of course, true, but irrelevant, which is what makes it trolling.  The problem with the Trump Administration is not that the staff won't "speak truth to power" and protect the Office of the President, as opposed to the president himself.  The problem IS the president.  The problem is that Donald Trump can't be counted on to do anything approaching normal legal, ethical or political behavior.  Kathleen Parker thinks maybe an alien is wearing a Donald Trump suit, but she's probably closer to the truth when she suggests Trump fired Comey, because Comey is taller.

We are hopefully approaching the Emperor Has No Clothes moment that we need, but will it matter?  Trump has ALWAYS been this guy.  That's why Obama - ever the optimist - presumed America would not, could not elect this sputtering, incoherent bag of wounded ego and hot air.  Clinton's essential argument - "Donald Trump is not fit to be president" - has been criticized for not being positive or for not reaching WWC Rust Belt voters.  No one has stopped to consider that it is undoubtedly true.  Fewer are willing to wrestle with the fact that Trump's manifest unfitness for office, his arrested mental and emotional development and his fundamental assholishness is NOT disqualifying for Republicans, who continue to support this fraud in substantial numbers.

Maybe, hopefully, if Republican elites were to turn on Trump, some of his rank and file support would fall away. But there's little evidence that Trump supporters (as opposed to Trump voters) take any cues from Washington.

The Republicans elected Trump.  They support Trump still.  This is who they are.

No amount of buck passing should obscure this fact.

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