Note: TID Kitty is now a full-grown Tom Cat, but we are keeping his baby pictures because they still think they will get Donald Trump one of these days! ;-)
Posted on 06/13/2017 6:15:51 AM PDT by shortstop
It smelled like North Korea.
Yesterday, at the “cabinet meeting,” as some of the most powerful people on earth went around the table competing to see who could kiss their boss’s ass the most lavishly.
It smelled like those propaganda videos that come out of North Korea, where insane smiles and frenetic clapping break out every time the nut job with the hairdo has a bowel movement.
By the time the meeting at the White House got to the chief of staff talking about being “blessed,” it had taken on the air of worship. It was a gimme to the late-night comics, an exercise in mockable stupidity. One more knock on a horribly battered administration.
And this one we did to ourselves.
I saw “we” because I am a Trump supporter and a Trump voter. Not yet five months in, I think the Trump Administration has done much good. From the Supreme Court to the cabinet appointments, from the executive orders to the new relations with Europe and the Muslim world, I’m liking where this president is going.
But I’m not liking how he’s getting there.
And in the face of a slow-motion progressive coup, in an administration being depicted in a partisan press as a train wreck, many of our wounds are self-inflicted. And most of those wounds arise from a president who knows no bounds.
A president who can’t be told “no,” who can’t effectively be given counsel.
And that leads to spectacles like the cabinet meeting.
Instead of giving people confidence in the nation’s senior leadership, it was an almost Stalinist display of obsequiousness. It was worship of the Dear Leader, akin to the demigod homage paid people like Mao and Castro and Hitler.
And Jim Jones.
It was the sort of thing that would make one imbalanced guy happy, but leave 321 million normal Americans scratching their heads. Or laughing. Or muttering, “We’re screwed” under their breaths.
And it points out two weaknesses – Donald Trump must like that sort of thing, and nobody can tell Donald Trump how stupid and damaging such displays are. That means his instincts are flawed – at least when it comes to ego – and no one in his circle has the stones to stand up to him and save him from himself.
Not his son-in-law, not his chief of staff, not his vice president, not even the secretary of State, who usually seems to be the grownup in the room.
How could a White House operation not know that such a fawning display would backfire, and how could a White House operation not keep it from happening?
Trump needs a peer. Somebody who can take his lips off the presidential backside long enough to give him unflinching advice, especially when it may not be what Trump wants to hear. The most successful leaders have many such people; the most brittle leaders have nobody. A network of strong and independent minds backstopping and debating – that’s what a cabinet is supposed to be, that’s who presidential advisers are supposed to be.
But that’s not what we saw yesterday.
Instead we saw a roomful of people from various walks and disciplines, people of extraordinary achievement and leadership in their own right, reduced to a bowing and scraping we would expect from a royal court, not a Republic of equals. Kowtowing is not the American way. Certainly, there is a deference to leadership, and everybody knows who’s at the top of the organization chart, but no man is lifted up by the bowing down of another, and no secure leader requires the debasement of his followers.
Events like the cabinet meeting raise the fear that Trump’s adult life – lived in a privately held business where his word was law – may have given him a god complex, some belief that his greatness is demonstrated by the quacking praise of sycophants. It makes you fear that he is socially retarded, that he may be the world’s oldest spoiled child.
I hope not.
For the sake of the agenda I want Trump to advance, for the good of our country and the world, I hope not. I hope that these kinks can be worked out.
And I hope that Trump has read enough history and organizational management to know that fawning courtiers are always scheming courtiers, that dysfunction at the head fosters dysfunction throughout. A roomful of advisers eager to tell you how good you are is a roomful of advisers who will lie to you about other things, too. The people who smile at your face are the ones who stab you in the back.
And I hope that Trump and his White House can soon learn that displays like that cabinet meeting ass-kissing session are as lethal to public support as anything the Democrats and news media are throwing at them.
I hope they realize that if you shoot yourself in the foot often enough, the wounds can prove politically fatal.
Well the libs, as we know, “believe” it was real. Did I hear that schmuckee schumer had his cohorts in crime do a parody of it later in the day? Somebody needs a spankin’.
I love how the Never Trumpers always try to pretend to be Trump supporters while continuing their suicidal poltical idiocy.
Dear Morons,
You never going to get Trump for winning the 2016 GOP Primary without destroying the GOP for a generation.
You lost, quit crying and get over it.
It means the author is a Never Trumper hysteric trying to pretend they are a Trump supporter.
Who does this ass clown think he’s fooling?
Does he think we don’t know about concern trolling?
Dude, have some dignity and show your true colors.
Sheesh.
On drugs and nuts.
That’s the most uniformed, biased and sick piece of garbage I’ve read in awhile. Comparing Stalin to Hitler to Jim Jones? Jim Jones was a San Francisco progressive and friends with many democrat politicians.
What a silly article. This guy doesnt have a clue how to fight. Good thing pundits lost their effectiveness this last election cycle. Thank you President Trump.
Stop with the knee jerk worship of anything posted that consisted of nothing but a screaming bile laced hysteric rant at Trump instead.
Your guy lost the 2016 GOP primary. Instead of continuing with these sort of infantile daily temper tantrums at Trump, quit crying and get over it finally.
You lost, he won. You never going to “get Trump” so just grow up and get over it.
The media falsely report that everything is in chaos within the Trump administration. They report that everyone is unhappy. They report that everyone is threatening to quit and/or is about to be fired. They report that everyone hates, fears and mistrusts Trump.
When the Cabinet meeting is publicized and everyone is happy and working together the media have to work to try to lie and put a negative spin on it.
whining cynics gotta be whining cynics, I guess. I watched the cabinet meeting video, and enjoyed it. Of course, it was just the start of the meeting. The rest of the meeting continued with the cameras off.
Both you and Bob need to read Larry Schweikart’s piece.
http://bigleaguepolitics.com/trumps-cheese-maze-strategy/
Very good!
It was an introductory cabinet meeting. It was the first time everyone was in attendance. When you meet with your boss, you put him in a bad light right? You and LOOBsberry are idiots if you do that.
Stupid is strong with both LOONsberry and you.
You clown—I was for Trump over Cruz all along.
Doesn’t mean I have to surrender rationale thinking.
But was it really? And are laundry lists so effective? I think better to make the big noise as an accomplishment is being made, while it is still “news”.
************
A bit strong but probably some truth to it. He ran an immensely large business empire, flew around in a private jet, achieve enormous wealth, and enjoyed notoriety from being a TV star. And then dispatched a large field of presidential contenders to go on and win against all odds. He's the epitome of a HUGE success.
If any of us had achieved a small fraction of what he has it would be hard not to have developed a complex of superiority. Its one of the things he needs to be aware of as governing in DC is a lot different than running a private business. He is probably aware of this but changing one's personality and management style is not easy to do.
I saw it. More like a get acquainted session. I had the “closed captions” on and laughed every time the words “Thank you Mr President” was said. Several times it was printed out on the screen as “Mr Prison”.
Wondered if it was on purpose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.