The incompetence and infighting at the White House manifest most recently in Anthony Scaramuccis ouster dismay Americas allies and encourage its enemies
The sense of things falling apart in Washington is palpable and a matter of growing, serious international fear. Donald Trumps latest asinine act of gesture politics, the forced resignation of his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has glistened a spotlight on the extraordinary chaos inside the White House. Even usually sober, experienced Washington observers now refer to the West Wing as a vipers nest of seething rivalry, bitter feuds, gross incompetence and an unparalleled leadership vacuum.
Like some kind of Shakespearean villain-clown, Trump plays not to the gallery but to the cavity. He is a Falstaff without the humor or the self-awareness, a cowardly, bullying Richard III without a clue. Late-night US satirists find in this an unending source of high slapstick. If they did not laugh, they would weep. The world is witnessing the dramatic unfold of a tragedy whose principal victims are a seemingly helpless American audience, Americas system of balanced governance and its global reputation as a leading democratic light.
As his partisan, humiliating and self-admiring speech to the Boy Scouts of America illustrated, Trump endlessly reruns last years presidential election campaign, rails against the fake news media and appeals to the lowest common denominator in public debate. Not a word about duty, service, shared purpose or high ideals was to be found in his gutter-level discourse before a youthful assemble of 30, 000 in West Virginia. Instead, he served up a sad cocktail of paranoia and narcissism. It was all about him and what he has supposedly achieved against the odds.
Which, for the record, is almost precisely nothing. After more than six months in office, and despite full Republican control of Congress, Trump cannot point to a single substantial legislative accomplishment. The bid to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, which eventually went down in flames in the Senate last week, was the most spectacular and telling of Trumps failings. His executive orders, such as the racist outlaw on Muslim travellers and last weeks bigoted attack on transgender people in the military, have mostly run pollute of special courts or been pre-emptively ignored by those charged with implementing them.
US army joint chiefs of staff: ‘No directives yet' to implement transgender policy
Trump has instead expended the political goodwill that traditionally accompanies a presidential honeymoon, shocked and outraged many middle-of-the-road voters who initially gave him the benefit of the doubt, thoroughly alienated Republican party conservatives, who had tried in vain to swallow their doubts, and undermined the authorities concerned of the office of the president. Trump, a supposedly ace chief executive, has now lost a joint chiefs of staff, a deputy chief of staff, a national security consultant, a communications director and a press secretary in short order. To lose one or even two of his most senior people might be excused as unfortunate. To lose all five suggests the flaw is his.
Perhaps John Kelly, the retired general hired to replace Priebus, can restore some semblance of order to the White House. It looks like a tall order. Kelly has no political experience beyond his brief tenure at the department of homeland security. Perhaps he will find an friend in HR McMaster, another army veteran, who is Trumps national security consultant. But there is no good reason to believe the internal feuding, and Trumps inability or disinclination to halt it, will end.
Anthony Scaramucci, the recently appointed, foul-mouthed communications director, has unfinished business with Steve Bannon, Trumps top strategist. Trump seems determined to undermine his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Then there is the self-interested leverage exerted by Trump family lightweights Ivanka Trump, Donald Jr and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. On top of all that, Kelly must work out how to handle the ever-expanding investigations of special advise Robert Mueller into the Trump campaigns copes with Russia. A good start would be to halt scurrilous White House efforts to dig up dirton Mueller and his team.
Yet even if Kelly succeeds in cracking the lash, curbing the in-fighting and containing the Russia scandal, he still has to deal with Trump himself. He has proved far more interested in settle scores, berating adversaries and showing off than in advancing a coherent domestic policy agenda. The next prospective vehicle accident, following the Obamacare pile-up, is a September deadline for a federal budget and linked tax reforms and increased military spending promised by Trump. A budget deal proved impossible last spring and may do so again. If there is no agreement, a government shut-down looms, an outcome in line with current Washington tendencies. Lazy, feckless Trump has no interest in the onerous business of lobbying Congress or running the phones. He wants quick, easy wins or else he strolls away.
