In Trump's Washington, Nothing Feels Stable

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

This week in Trump:
We are living through big history and no one here knows where it’s going or how this period ends. Everyone, left, right and center, feels the earth is unsteady under their feet. Too much is happening. Democratic senators boycott confirmation hearings, Iran tests ballistic missiles, President Trump has testy phone calls with prime ministers and it’s quickly leaked to the press, the president tells Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to “go nuclear” — meaning use the so-called nuclear option to get the new Supreme Court nominee through. (No president, ever, should use those words in public; the Senate should ban that hideous, he-man, drama queen of a phrase.) Everyone’s political views are now emotions and everyone now wears their emotions on their faces. People are speaking more loudly and quickly than usual. At parties, dinners and gatherings the decibel level hits the ceiling right away and stays there. No one can hear anything. It somehow seemed right that a 25-pound bobcat escaped from the National Zoo; a Washington Post columnist speculated it fled to Canada. With his usual sense of occasion, the president asked the National Prayer Breakfast to pray for Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose ratings on “The Celebrity Apprentice” are “right down the tubes.”
Mr. Trump has overloaded all circuits. Everything is too charged, with sparks and small shocks all over. “Nothing feels stable,” I mused to a longtime Washington media figure at a dinner the night before the Prayer Breakfast. “Nothing is stable,” she replied. Earlier, on the Hill, a veteran conservative member of Congress, speaking of the president, got a puzzled look: “There’s no calming with him. It’s ‘Look what I can do now!’ ”
Battle lines are sharply drawn and no one is especially interested in understanding the other side. The Trump White House is viewed from the outside as heady and triumphalist. Inside they feel up against it, with the Democrats and the press arrayed against them, half their party’s leaders wishing they’d go away, and with a highly distinctive, not-fully-known quantity as president.
Last week’s executive order on immigration continues to reverberate. There was no Republican in Washington — not one, on the Hill or within the party structure — who did not privately call the order a disaster. Its public defenders argue it put force and focus on efforts to make America safer, that it was long-promised, that it’s a pause, not a ban, and one of relatively narrow scope. But it could have been done without such expense if it had been done without surprise and with coordination. You have to help your allies in the agencies and on the Hill know, understand and be able to defend what you’re doing. Instead, they were ignored, especially lawmakers. The Congress of the United States is not composed of meek and modest human beings. They were not amused to spend the days after the order taking phone calls from frightened, angry constituents and donors. (A senator, on its suddenness and the anguish at the airports: “They couldn’t do a three-day grace period?”)
What went wrong has been fully adjudicated in the press. But this should be said: The president and his advisers are confusing boldness with aggression. They mean to make breakthroughs and instead cause breakdowns. The overcharged circuits are leaving them singed, too. People don’t respect you when you create chaos. Prudence is not weakness, and carefulness is a virtue, not a vice.
The handling of the order allowed the organized Left to show its might, igniting big demonstrations throughout major cities. And not only downtown — they had to make it out to the airport to give the media the pictures, and they did. In Washington I witnessed a demonstration of many thousands of people carrying individualized, hand-lettered signs.
If all this was spontaneous, the Left is strong indeed. If it was a matter of superior organization, that’s impressive too.
You should never let your enemy know its own strength. They discovered it in the Women’s March, know it more deeply now, and demonstrated it to Democrats on the Hill. It was after the demonstrations that Democratic senators started boycotting the confirmation hearings. They now have their own tea party to push them around.
The handling of the order further legitimized the desire of many congressional Republicans to distance themselves from the president, something they feel they’ll eventually have to do anyway because they know how to evaluate political horse flesh, and when they look at him they see Chief Crazy Horse.
The furtiveness and timing of the order opened the administration to charges of smallness and bigotry and obscured a widening of the government’s lens on refugees — the welcome and justified prioritizing of persecuted religious minorities, including the Christians and Yazidis of Syria.
It has seemed to me the administration is engaged in a populist correction that springs in part from the insight that America at this point in its political history — after the crash of ‘08 and the long foreign and internal cultural wars, and in the age of terror — is going to go in either of two directions, a moderate-populist one or a socialist one, and the former is vastly preferable. But the administration must become careful never to allow its populism to be turned into something that looks dark, as if it’s not aimed at helping the ignored but at hurting various enemy groups. Of all political tendencies populism can never allow itself to appear dark, because its roots are in part emotional and because it depends on public esteem. Americans want an America that looks after itself, but they don’t admire bigotry or respect prejudice. They’re embarrassed by it.
The announcement of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch seemed to me both horrifying and wonderfully effective. A jubilant, partisan-seeming rally in the august East Room is lowering, undignified, not right. It is also true it was a total hit, with a highly sane speech by the president that had a rather stirring ending: “Judge Gorsuch, the podium, sir, is yours.”
Gorsuch: Jimmy Stewart. His spoken thoughts were modest, impressive: “When we judges don our black robes, it doesn’t make us any smarter, but it does serve as a reminder of what’s expected of us: impartiality and independence, collegiality and courage.” When Mr. Trump shook his hand in a way that seemed intended to tug Gorsuch toward him, Gorsuch literally stood his ground, kept his right arm fully extended, and did not come closer.
No one is going to take this guy down.
Judge Gorsuch reads Dickens; he quoted “Bleak House” in a 2009 decision. He writes clearly, a former clerk told me, because his grounding in legal philosophy allows him to proceed with simplicity. You don’t have to get fancy when you know what you’re doing. He loved Antonin Scalia but unlike Scalia “there is no acid in his pen.” He is a respectful persuader. It is reported that upon being nominated his first phone call was to Merrick Garland. If that is true the Court is about to get classier.
Democrats leveled the usual precooked, reheatable criticisms — he is for corporations and against women — and looked dopey and unusually insincere. They’re going to lose on this one and on some level probably know they should.

[geronl]

Feeeeeeeelings..... nothing more than feelings....

[DCPatriot]

No title.....No link....


WTF, WTF???

[Right_in_Virginia]

This needs a link @Weird Tolkienish Figure

Thx.

[DiogenesLamp]

In Trump's Washington, Nothing Feels Stable

You say that like it's a bad thing.   Upheaval in Washington is exactly what we need. 

That the Money Changers in the Temple are having their tables flipped over and being chased with a whip is music to my ears.

[Suppressed]

This needs a link @Weird Tolkienish Figure

Thx.

@Weird Tolkienish Figure

This looks like it...
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/47268

[txradioguy]

You say that like it's a bad thing.   Upheaval in Washington is exactly what we need. 

That the Money Changers in the Temple are having their tables flipped over and being chased with a whip is music to my ears.

 

[Norm Lenhart]

I think it's pure comedy that so many on the right who longed for a bull in a china shop and in fact used that exact verbage to get Trump elected, to say nothing of YEARS of hoping someone would turn DC upside down, now clutch pearls when plates start flying.

Now as for myself, I opposed Trump/didn't vote for him, and one of the main reasons for that was I didn't believe he could be trusted to keep his word on conservative issues. So far, to my amazement, he has. I am absolutely THRILLED that the establishment is freaking out and they can't rely on their standard fallbacks to keep SOP in place.

It's an odd juxtaposition. They got their hearts desire, while I and others like me were wrong and have had to eat crow over it by the truckload. And I (and those of similar mindset aren't the ones upset.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Sorry guy it was behind a paywall.

[DiogenesLamp]

I think it's pure comedy that so many on the right who longed for a bull in a china shop and in fact used that exact verbage to get Trump elected, to say nothing of YEARS of hoping someone would turn DC upside down, now clutch pearls when plates start flying.

Now as for myself, I opposed Trump/didn't vote for him, and one of the main reasons for that was I didn't believe he could be trusted to keep his word on conservative issues. So far, to my amazement, he has. I am absolutely THRILLED that the establishment is freaking out and they can't rely on their standard fallbacks to keep SOP in place.

It's an odd juxtaposition. They got their hearts desire, while I and others like me were wrong and have had to eat crow over it by the truckload. And I (and those of similar mindset aren't the ones upset.

Back in the 80s I used to judge the success of a Reagan initiative by how much the left screamed.   The more they screamed,  the more convinced I was that it was exactly what needed to be done.   


The SDI program had them screaming pretty loud.   That program is what won the cold war for us.


 

[geronl]

Back in the 80s I used to judge the success of a Reagan initiative by how much the left screamed.   

That's a stupid way to measure when both sides are essentially liberal

[Frank Cannon]

That's a stupid way to measure when both sides are essentially liberal

I guess I will believe you because you have the inside track on stupid.

[Norm Lenhart]

That's a stupid way to measure when both sides are essentially liberal

Fairly sure the GOP of Reagan's era wasn't liberal. Now there were liberals infesting it then too, granted, but guys like Jessie Helms were not uncommon.

Today, yea. they are one and the same with demonstrated by their records-hard leftists leading the majority and minority of the house/senate.

[musiclady]

You say that like it's a bad thing.   Upheaval in Washington is exactly what we need. 

That the Money Changers in the Temple are having their tables flipped over and being chased with a whip is music to my ears.

You're one of those worshippers who actually believes the blasphemy about Trump's being Jesus, aren't you??


Frightening.......   

[Jazzhead]

That's Peggy Noonan, from this Saturday's Wall Street Journal.   The best political commentator in America hits another home run.

Trump should heed what Noonan has to say.  He's making it all so much harder on himself.   Noonan was NOT a reflexive NeverTrump;  indeed, she got Trump's appeal long before most others did.   But in the week or so prior to the election, she realized that, notwithstanding the real force and appeal of Trump's populism,  the man himself is temperamentally flawed.

Trump desperately needs unvarnished, honest advice from those with his interests at heart.  I think he's surrounded by too many yes-man or bomb-throwers like Bannon with their own agendas.  Coupled with the disloyalty of the entrenched bureaucracy and the reality that just about everything he does is being leaked,  Trump needs to realize what a crisis he is creating for himself.   

There ARE people out there who would be willing to help him, if he showed the least inclination of taking their advice.   Not all of them were on the Trump train, but do not want this Presidency to fail.     

[DiogenesLamp]

That's a stupid way to measure when both sides are essentially liberal

‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

[Frank Cannon]

Fairly sure the GOP of Reagan's era wasn't liberal.

Google "Howard Baker" and "Bob Michel" and and get back to me on that.

[DiogenesLamp]

You're one of those worshippers who actually believes the blasphemy about Trump's being Jesus, aren't you??


Frightening.......   

I said to myself as I was posting that,   someone is going to claim that I am trying to associate Trump with Jesus.  Then I told myself,  "No.  Nobody is going to do that. " 


No,  i'm not trying to suggest that Trump is Jesus.   I'm saying that doing what Jesus did is not a bad thing.   


Don't you think the Washington Lobby organizations are a lot like the money changers in the Temple?     They are parasites living off of the taxpayers back. 

They need to be shook up. 

[Maj. Bill Martin]

That's Peggy Noonan, from this Saturday's Wall Street Journal.   The best political commentator in America hits another home run.

Trump should heed what Noonan has to say.  He's making it all so much harder on himself.   Noonan was NOT a reflexive NeverTrump;  indeed, she got Trump's appeal long before most others did.   But in the week or so prior to the election, she realized that, notwithstanding the real force and appeal of Trump's populism,  the man himself is temperamentally flawed.

Trump desperately needs unvarnished, honest advice from those with his interests at heart.  I think he's surrounded by too many yes-man or bomb-throwers like Bannon with their own agendas.  Coupled with the disloyalty of the entrenched bureaucracy and the reality that just about everything he does is being leaked,  Trump needs to realize what a crisis he is creating for himself.   

There ARE people out there who would be willing to help him, if he showed the least inclination of taking their advice.   Not all of them were on the Trump train, but do not want this Presidency to fail.     

I have come to accept that he's just not going to do that. I wish he would, but he won't.

Given the stuff he's generally doing, as opposed to the stuff he's generally saying, I'm not going to pile on him.  The left and media already have taken that as a full time job.

[DCPatriot]

I think it's pure comedy that so many on the right who longed for a bull in a china shop and in fact used that exact verbage to get Trump elected, to say nothing of YEARS of hoping someone would turn DC upside down, now clutch pearls when plates start flying.

Now as for myself, I opposed Trump/didn't vote for him, and one of the main reasons for that was I didn't believe he could be trusted to keep his word on conservative issues. So far, to my amazement, he has. I am absolutely THRILLED that the establishment is freaking out and they can't rely on their standard fallbacks to keep SOP in place.

It's an odd juxtaposition. They got their hearts desire, while I and others like me were wrong and have had to eat crow over it by the truckload. And I (and those of similar mindset aren't the ones upset.

Recognized the very first time I encountered you, that "there was a pony in there, somewhere"

 

You and I are actually no different in our POV regarding Trump as POTUS.

Only difference is, I took a flying leap of faith from Day 1.

THIS is exactly what I envisioned when I said, "You're GD right I want my guy using his pen and his phone!   And the sooner the better!"

I wasn't looking for my own 'King'.   I was looking for this!   

[Norm Lenhart]

Google "Howard Baker" and "Bob Michel" and and get back to me on that.

As I said, there were exceptions. But if you wanna try selling that Reagan era GOP in sum was as liberal as Turtle/Ryan era GOP, then best of luck. We all do crazy things sometimes.

[Norm Lenhart]

Recognized the very first time I encountered you, that "there was a pony in there, somewhere"

 

I like to think of it as being a
"Goddamm sexual Tyranasorus!"
/Jessie Ventura - Predator

But I always wanted a pony ;)

[DCPatriot]

That's a stupid way to measure when both sides are essentially liberal

Hmmm.....so far, the evidence would show that it's exactly the opposite.   Essentially Conservative, with a couple doses of Cod Liver Oil....to steal the union vote.

[DCPatriot]

I like to think of it as being a
"Goddamm sexual Tyranasorus!"
/Jessie Ventura - Predator

But I always wanted a pony ;)

They 'killed' him too early, IMO.   

[DCPatriot]

I said to myself as I was posting that,   someone is going to claim that I am trying to associate Trump with Jesus.  Then I told myself,  "No.  Nobody is going to do that. " 


No,  i'm not trying to suggest that Trump is Jesus.   I'm saying that doing what Jesus did is not a bad thing.   


Don't you think the Washington Lobby organizations are a lot like the money changers in the Temple?     They are parasites living off of the taxpayers back. 

They need to be shook up.

I understood exactly what you meant, @DiogenesLamp   But, next time we'll know better.   LOL!