The Trump Doctrine: Whatever He Feels Like Doing Or Saying In The Moment
Again and again, I see Trump as employing a sort of "emperor as President" thinking. Impulsivity, nonthink, and narcissistic arrogance are what our country is being run on, at least in the executive branch.
Jonathan Rauch writes his take on it in the New York Daily News -- the apparent notion by the public that what's done openly should be considered okay:
For a period of hours after firing FBI Director James Comey, the Trump administration insisted that it was only following a recommendation from the Justice Department. The claim was unconvincing, but it lent a veneer of respectability to an action that gave every appearance of impeding an investigation. And then something odd happened. President Trump demolished his own team's story.In an interview with Lester Holt of NBC News, he declared, "I was gonna fire [Comey] regardless of [DOJ's] recommendation."
Still more astonishingly, he added: "And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story."
So there he was, right out in the open, volunteering that he had fired an FBI director partly because that director was investigating him. It was as if Richard Nixon, in 1974, had gone on TV, after all his aides' denials, and said, "Sure, I told the CIA to quash an FBI investigation. When I decided to do it, I said to myself, You know, this Watergate thing with Nixon is a made-up story."
Rauch observes:
What Trump seems to have figured out is that people quickly adjust to behavior that is open and legal, even if it is unprecedented, antisocial, and sinister. Instead, they focus on what's secret and illegal, assuming that secretive criminal behavior must be worse.
He describes the Trump doctrine in action:
By doing the unthinkable every day, Trump is normalizing conduct that, illegal or not, is by rights indefensible, intolerable, and (yes) impeachable.He is also throwing the public off the scent. Trump (or his associates) may or may not have secretly colluded with a foreign power's cyberattack on U.S. democracy, but he quite openly collaborated with it. First he called for it. Then he denied it, disparaged it, and distracted from it. Then he sacked the FBI director in part for investigating it. In other words, he engaged in a cover-up. Not the secret, Nixonian kind, however. Trump has invented something new, a cover-up conducted in full public view.
...The journalist Michael Kinsley coined a justly famous aphorism: the scandal in Washington is not what's illegal -- the scandal is what's legal. Trump has birthed a new variant. The scandal in the Trump administration is not what's secret but what's right in front of our nose.
Meanwhile, many Republicans who would have lit themselves on fire and run screaming down Pennsylvania Avenue if Obama (of whom I'm not a fan) had behaved Trumpily are largely mum on Trump's antics.
I'm horrified to correctly describe our President's behavior as "antics."
So true
President as Emperor is an accurate assessment of Trump but then the POTUS is an imperial system based on the Roman Emperor system (head of State & army)
Interestingly the Office has became a family business just as with the Romans.
First Kennedy,then Bush
Clintons? No. Not this time
Much prefer the British system
The Prime Minister is a "Back-bencher" who is allowed to sit on the "Front-bench" by the Backbench until they decide to replace you.
In such a system the PM is faced by the "opposition" and is tested every day in the Parliament where all laws are made.
And there is no real Executive power to abuse.
Graham Palmer at May 15, 2017 12:03 AM
Much prefer the British system
The Prime Minister is a "Back-bencher" who is allowed to sit on the "Front-bench" by the Backbench until they decide to replace you.
In such a system the PM is faced by the "opposition" and is tested every day in the Parliament where all laws are made.
And there is no real Executive power to abuse.
Graham Palmer at May 15, 2017 12:03 AM
I dont. It doesnt have the costitutional protections and the limits on Federal power the US does. It has been a socialist country, and largely a failing one on any measure of individual freedom since World War II.
Isab at May 15, 2017 7:13 AM
"Trump has invented something new, a cover-up conducted in full public view."
Does anyone other than me see the inherent contradiction in that sentence? Reminder: the last time we had a special prosecutor, it dragged on and on and on and on, and ended up convicting someone who was provably innocent (Scooter Libby). After that, and the way the Ken Starr investigation wasted everyone's time during the Clinton years, everybody agreed that we were sick of that sort of thing. Let's face it: The Trump-Russia thing is a dry hole. There's nothing there. We know this because everyone connected with it is leaking like a sieve, and if there were anything there, it would be public knowledge by now. Absolutely nothing that is remotely prosecutable has come out, except maybe some of the things involving Mike Flynn. (And if he is prosecuted, his defense will get the illegally obtained wiretap information thrown out of evidence, leaving no case.)
I remind everyone again: there were lots of people on both sides of the aisle who were ready to see Comey go. He botched the Clinton email investigation. He let the State Department run over him in the Benghazi investigation. His agency has been impotent regarding Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, and the Office of Personnel Management SF-86 hack. (Full disclosure: That last has been a matter of personal concern to me.) The FBI is a laughingstock in China and Russia, and is behind the curve regarding cybercrime and foreign-government-sponsored hacking. It was way past time for him to go, and I'll never understand why Trump didn't pull that trigger on Inauguration Day.
Let's get a competent and capable FBI director, one who will deflect political pressure and let the staff do their jobs. Then we'll see what, if anything, comes out of the Russia matter.
Cousin Dave at May 15, 2017 7:57 AM
Rauch: "What Trump seems to have figured out is that people quickly adjust to behavior that is open and legal, even if it is unprecedented, antisocial, and sinister. Instead, they focus on what's secret and illegal, assuming that secretive criminal behavior must be worse."
I think that's about the dumbest liberal, anti-Trump comment I've read this month. Is he saying there is something unreasonable in half of the people's acceptance of Trump's "open and legal" behavior as opposed to their rejection of Clinton's illegal "secretive criminal behavior"?
Well, Duh!
Heads up! ->> The reason why people who do illegal, criminal behavior keep it secret, why they keep lying about it and denying it, is that they're very aware that moral people, and probably the FBI, will react a whole lot differently to their illegal criminal behavior, if they find out about it, than they will to Trump's open and legal behavior, even if Trump is arrogant and narcissistic. Duh!
Alkon: Again and again, I see Trump as employing a sort of "emperor as President" thinking. Impulsivity, nonthink, and narcissistic arrogance are what our country is being run on, at least in the executive branch.
And so far the outcomes are better than we've gotten for the past 28 years; and a hell of a lot better then we would've gotten with the alternative candidate some people voted for running the country like a giant crime syndicate. In general, the behaviors of impulsive, nonthinking, narcissistic, arrogant people that are legal and open are much less sinister, antisocial and destructive than those whose behaviors are premeditated, secretive, illegal and criminal.
I admit I didn't vote for Trump. And I still haven't been able to bring myself to say I'm glad that Trump is the president. But I don't hesitate to say that I'm really really glad that Obama is out and Clinton lost. I find it hard to fathom the stupidity or blindness of people who otherwise seem bright, but who voted for a candidate that has personally received $Millions for speeches from banks "too big to fail"; and $Millions and $Millions in "charitable donations" (and - shhhhh! - probably a lot of secretive, illegal campaign donations) from foreign Muslim Arab billionaires and monarchs who finance terrorists, hate gays, abuse women, murder Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and other Muslims, who won't donate a dime to help fellow Muslim so-called refugees who then immigrate to Europe and then hate and abuse the kind Swede, Swiss, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, German and French people who welcome them and compassionately feed, clothe and shelter them at the expense of their own citizens; a candidate who took $Millions and $Millions and $Millions from the Russians and their Canadian surrogates, and then enabled the Russians to own 20% of the uranium in the U.S., on and near lands that American ranchers were driven off of.
Here's something I bet most Trump-haters don't understand: Those giant banks weren't paying for speeches; and those rich Muslims and the Russians and their Canadian partners weren't contributing to charity. They were buying a powerful American politician, one whom they expected to become the next President of the United States. And they wouldn't have been paying all those $$Millions and Millions if, based on experience, they didn't fully expect to get what they were paying for. And when that didn't happen all those donations disappeared, and the organization set up to receive and launder them went broke.
But I guess I'm easily fooled into believing that these secretive, illegal, criminal acts are worse than Trump's arrogant, open and legal behaviors - which so far I like. I'm unable to believe that Trump's legal and open behaviors, no matter how arrogant and narcissistic, are worse than the secretive, illegal, criminal behaviors of the candidate that the Trump-hating half of American voters were stupid, desperate or hate-driven enough to vote for.
As far as the firing of FBI Director Comey: I wish President Obama had fired him a year ago and saved us all the pathetic, liberal melodrama and phony outrage that erupts every time President Trump takes a breath or is served an extra scoop of ice cream.
- end rant -
Ken R at May 15, 2017 8:38 AM
Funny how things don't register ($500K speech fee to husband while SoS considers sale of precious metal) or even the below. What's that saying about the eye of the beholder?
http://thefederalist.com/2016/07/06/obama-has-lost-in-the-supreme-court-more-than-any-modern-president/
Bob in Texas at May 15, 2017 9:53 AM
The Imperial Presidency has been growing in power since Reagan.
We're just noticing now?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 15, 2017 10:58 AM
Right now, I grade Trump as a C. If it turns out Trump actually fired Comey because of the investigation, I will reluctantly have to go down to a D. If it goes to an F, who knows, I might be on the impeachment train with Amy.
(Since Trump, unfortunately, lies WHEN HE DOES NOT HAVE TO, we may never know the real reason for firing Comey.)
mpetrie98 at May 15, 2017 12:09 PM
"The Imperial Presidency has been growing in power since Reagan."
Ehh, I can trace it back to Woodrow Wilson.
Cousin Dave at May 15, 2017 1:00 PM
I really think you guys are over thinking this one.Trump will not tolerate anyone upstaging him.
Throw in making simple mistakes each and every time he gets on camera simply up the timing.
Calling the guy a "camera hound" is the clue.
Bob in Texas at May 15, 2017 2:13 PM
"Trump (or his associates) may or may not have secretly colluded with a foreign power's cyberattack on U.S. democracy, but he quite openly collaborated with it."
Wow. To do what?
I see you're still horrified. There are better things to worry about.
Radwaste at May 16, 2017 1:25 PM
If it turns out Trump fired Comey for being a blow-with-the-political-wind blade of grass, I'll give him an A+. For that action, anyway.
He's already gaining extra credit for trolling the living fk out of the media. CBS and CNN pages are awash in Trump outrage every day. Outrage, I tell you! (add extra exclamation points if you like).
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 16, 2017 6:04 PM
My only problem with Trump firing Comey is that it was now, rather than on Jan 21. He revealed himself as a political hack in his testimony before Congress last July; he detailed overwhelming evidence of major crimes, but concluded that no "reasonable prosecutor" would indict Clinton because she didn't know what she was doing with classified material. From my experience with a security clearance far below hers, the only way that could be true is if she had ignored many briefings about handling classified material while signing that she had read/attended and _understood_ them - making her a forger as well as guilty of hundreds or thousands of counts of mishandling classified material. If she hadn't both received clearance and signed that she understood what that meant, anyone who knew that (let alone about the private server!) and e-mailed anything sensitive to her should have been prosecuted.
But Comey said it didn't matter. This is where he showed an understanding of the difference between misrepresenting facts and opinion - if he'd lied about the facts, he could have gone to prison for perjury. But his "reasonable prosecutor" statement is opinion; you can't prosecute for that unless you can prove he didn't believe it, e.g. if he was on record as saying the opposite on the same day. But if you assume that is really his opinion, either he is grossly incompetent, or it's his opinion that the law doesn't apply to VIP's - and either way, "draining the swamp" should have started with him.
markm at May 23, 2017 8:15 AM
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