It's the most devastating portrait of a President ever written. And its title "Fear" couldn't be better chosen.
For Bob Woodward's new book about Donald Trump reveals a President and a presidency in the throes of a nervous breakdown.
And that should scare everybody.
For it is a terrifying portrait of a group of staffers desperately trying to keep Trump from losing control of himself.
A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump’s inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.
Woodward describes “an administrative coup d’etat” and a “nervous breakdown” of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president’s desk so he couldn’t see or sign them.
With even some of those closest to him, like his Chief of Staff John Kelly, sometimes throwing up their arms in despair...
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was “unhinged,” Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
While others, like his Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, are forced to ignore his crazed orders to try to prevent World War III...
After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.
Mattis told the president that he would get right on it. But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.”
While telling close associates that Trump has the understanding of ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”
Think of that.
The man with the power to destroy the world, to kill you and all your loved ones, has the mind of a ten-year-old child.
Oh boy. I leave you to read Woodward's story, and draw your own conclusions.
But to me one seems inescapable:
Trump must be removed from office by invoking the 25th Amendment.
For he is unfit to be President, he is a threat to the entire world.
And must be sent, for our sake and his, to the place where he always belonged...
His craziness has also unleashed and emboldened the worst instincts among right-wing interested parties in Europe (like the Chemnitz riots in, of all places, Germany itself), and of course the hate-belching Conadian shit-disturbers too. Trump will not last forever, but the reactionary movement that he's the orange mascot of, won't go quietly either. If anything the next phase of our long national and international nightmare is only just beginning, with Kavanaugh's sham hearing and the likelihood of more Russian meddling and social media agitprop in the upcoming elections (not just our midterms but your campaigns too).
ReplyDeleteNow come to find out the idiot is going to chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the subject of -- IRAN? He can't manage his bathroom habits, let alone a U.N. conference! One way or another (by legal means as much as necessary), this son of a bitch needs to get out of office and take the whole NSGOP at home and abroad with him, before he gets anyone else killed. We had this "debate" 70 years ago and it sickens me that we're having to relitigate it again. LOCK HIM UP!
Hi Jackie...yes Trump will not last forever, but his craziness and his bigotry have already poisoned many countries including Canada. Which is why the way Trump goes down is important. I'd hate to see him just throw in the towel and retire. I want an example to be made of him, so all the tin pot would be Trumps out there can get a good idea of the fate that awaits them. We need to put not just Trump on trial, but all his collaborators who made his diseased presidency possible. We need to de Trump America like we de Nazified Germany after the Second World War. Nature will take care of most of his most rabid supporters, but the courts should pursue the rest until the end of the earth...
DeleteNo Republican will vote to impeach Trump. They would loose what they have. The world will simply have to ignore Trump and the U.S.A. He does appear to have some minders, so lets hope they stay on the job. We now know why the trade talks weren't going so well. Watched Rachel Maddox this evening going through this. omg, at least Stephen Corbett is back and he and her can explain what is going on, so its not too terrible to listen to.
ReplyDeleteOf course Trump is an idiot. Any one who dumps on his A.G. for having the DOJ prosecute Republicans simply doesn't understand the Constitution, the rule of law, or how the legal system works.
The U.S.A. has become the world's joke. Now I really, really want to know what went on in those closed door meetings with Kim 3 and Putin. It must have been just lunny bin times.
Hi e.a.f...If the Democrats seize control of Congress after the mid term elections, I can see quite a few Republicans voting to impeach Trump, if only for what he has done to their party. But we still have two long months to go before those elections, and one can only hope that Mueller will put the mark of the beast on Trump before then, to better seal his fate...
DeleteThe Insane Clown POSus won't be 25th.
ReplyDeleteNor will he be impeached in 2019.
The Insane Clown POSus was/is an empty vessel with a few obsessions that the White House and Administration realized could be commandeered for their own venal purposes and hobby horses.
An impotent man surrounded by a variety of con men, grifters, sharks, sociopaths all running their own agenda's and sabotaging others.
The following letter indicates that not all are con men,grifters,sharks and sociopaths. Hopefully the mid terms will cap his authority and hobble him in a complex legal web for the rest of his presidency. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/i-am-part-of-the-resistance-inside-the-trump-administration/ar-BBMVr2m?li
DeleteAn ineffectual babbling Trump for the next couple of years is likely better than a religious zealot high on Armageddon Kool-Aid. Anyone who can stand at Trumps side with a look of absolute reverence as if he were in the presence of the all mighty himself has to have some serious issues. Trump may be an empty vessel but Pence's vessel is filled with a toxic brew.
RT
Hi Jay...I'm still hoping that the insane clown will be worn down by all his political and legal problems, and will decide to just walk away. After all, he wouldn't be giving up any of his creature comforts, and he would have much more time to play golf, which he clearly prefers to being president. I would of course prefer that he be impeached or arrested for treason, but as long as this nightmare ends I don't really care...
DeleteHi RT...the mid term elections will indeed determine whether Trump is able to keep acting like a madman and pursuing his ultra reactionary agenda. Or whether he will be reduced to the status of an impotent blathering blimp. As for Pence, I don't fear him as much as many do, even though he is a scary religious fanatic, and a threat to women and gay people. I think he is such a freak, that even if he replaces Trump, he'll just be a caretaker president before he goes down with the rest of them...
DeleteI'd have to agree with Simon, 11:03 a.m. on this one. Pence is a religious nutbar but he isn't as crazy as Trump. Trump has difficulty understanding some very basic things which Pence does understand. Pence may look "adoringly" at Trump as if the sun shone out of his ass, but I suspect it is that look which got Pence where he is today. Pence might be President, but who becomes V.P. maybe the real story.
ReplyDelete