Be Very Afraid

The past fifteen months has seen a near collapse in the credibility and professionalism of the executive branch.  Sean Spicer made way for Sarah Sanders.  Steve Bannon made way for the Mooch!  The Secretary of State was fired on Twitter.  The Trump family is enriching itself from federal coffers and foreign emoluments.  The Secretary of HHS has to step down because of scandal, and he wasn't the only one.

The thing is: This might be the high point of Trump's efficiency and effectiveness.

The decision to fire Tillerson and now HR McMaster bodes poorly for the future.  Tillerson was an abyssmal Secretary of State, but apparently he was seeing his department gutted by a sort of McCarthyite purge (not sure how this is legal) led by outsiders.  Now, with Tillerson and McMaster gone, those "outsiders" are going to be the insiders.

The Post article suggests that the following Cabinet level officers could be fired: David Shulkin (VA), Ben Carson (HUD), Scott Pruit (EPA) and Ryan Zinke (Interior).  At some point John Kelly will leave or be fired.

First of all, many of these people should be fired. In fact, they never should have been hired in the first place.  Few of them have the necessary experience or temperment to run a federal agency.  I'm not going to weep for the defenestration of Betsy DeVos, should it happen.

The problem is that Trump is not going to then turn around and hire better people.  In fact, by all accounts, he's going to tap John Bolton to replace McMaster.  That's....disastrous.  Bolton suggests that Trump is willing to go to war sooner rather than later, casus belli be damned.  I'm trying to come up with a worse scenario than leading a badly divided country into a war with Iran.  All I came come up with is leading a badly divided country into a war with Russia or China.  Kelly could be replaced with Newt Gingrich, a man whose own personal odiousness and partisan vindictiveness was either the cause or the portent of our poisoned politics in the 21st century. 

In short, Trump is surrounding himself with the commentariat of Fox News.  I'm waiting for Trump to cast aside Mike Pence in 2020 and name Sean Hannity his running mate.  I'm waiting for Jeannine Pirro to be nominated to the Supreme Court. 

Trump has always been the racist uncle who no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving or open his conspiratorial emails.  He's always been the Fox News president.  Now, he's making it official.  Back when he was surprisingly capturing the nomination, David Frum said that Republicans realized that they had thought that Fox News worked for them, only to find out that they worked for Fox News.

Trump will make this a reality.  Given the lack of spine in the GOP caucus, he will be permitted to.  The Ghost of Roger Ailes will rule this country.

Thanks a lot, Republicans.