Holy Crap.
A few hours ago the New York Times published an op-ed from who they say is a senior Trump administration official. File this piece under nuclear war with Trump. The piece claims that their are “adults in the room” who are part of a secret resistance to “frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations” and protect the nation from his impulsiveness and proclivity to support despots while denigrating long standing allies. The writer clarifies that their opposition of Trump’s worst traits is not some left wing effort – quite the opposite; he/she says this:
“That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
After the op-ed exploded onto social media, Dan Rather tweeted,
Trump is presently going apeshit on Twitter, and just posted this:
I had a mixed reaction to this piece – First, it’s a Holy Crap moment where even insiders are talking about THE PROBLEM. Second, I find the piece oddly comforting that there really are normal people in the WH diligently working to stop this lunatic from burning down the planet. It’s somewhat cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.
With any luck between this story and the new book both presenting how people “handle” and “manipulate” him the demented one will rebel and “show” people he can’t be manipulated.
1He could do this by causeing a shut down because he can’t get his wall that the promised his supporters.
All the “normal” mainstream idiots are against it. Just as the same people are the ones stealing ppers off his desk and writing nasty things about him.
So he can show them all by shutting down the government in a hissy fit 2 weeks before voting.
How would he be welcomed in texas to campaign for his own widdle teddie boy during a shutdown? Will that help the incumbent canadian senator?
I don’t believe for a nano-second that there are adults in this administration. The president runs them off as soon as they out themselves as less than true believers.
2Read what Roy Edroso has to say about it. I agree with him.
3Trump asks TREASON?
4I think that train left the station, with him as the engineer.
This is the response to treason.
They’re going about this the wrong way. Removing papers from Trump’s desk is not enough. A straitjacket, a padded room, and heavy doses of anti-psychotics would be a good start.
5@slipstream – I was thinking a nice secure cell in a prison in Turkey.
6To criticize Trump, as the anonymous op-ed writer does, for not having a “moral compass” while the writer himself is lying and covering up to further the GOP goals of grift and graft and greed and devil take the planet and children and women and anyone without power and money is the height of self-delusion and hypocrisy.
7And of COURSE Trump views anyone not personally loyal to him as treasonous!
Are we certain that Trump’s Tweet wasn’t a DM? Asking for a country.
8Too many holes to suit me, though. The author counts the new tax law and increased funding for the military as “successes” of this fine administration; I’m not buying that. So they may be keeping us from falling it the abyss, but they’re still pretty willing to let us dangle over it.
9djw, I see it this way; they are perfectly willing to let us fall into the abyss, but they don’t have the huevos to kick us over the edge.
10@Charles –
Until they convince the GOP to act against Trump, we are just dangling over the pit. What annoys me is that these normal WH insiders won’t shove Rump over the edge.
11I’m guessing Pense as the anonymous author. Brown-nosers are most likely to store their cutlery in your back once it’s turned…
12RepubAnon:
13Raw Story has a piece about that, and makes an interesting case.
Personally, I hope it’s anyone but Pense.
With the faith in the fourth estate being under attack so much lately, I think the NYT keeping the identity secret of the person who would assume the presidency if Donnie is impeached, would would send a lot of folks who might be on the fence about the media into the open arms of faux news.
Trump today tweeted:
“If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”
Remember this day, September 5, 2018: the day the First Amendment died and Fascism came to America.
14What came to me is the thuglican pattern of having incompetent presidents and claiming that they have, unelected, people watching out for the rest of us from the worst of their fools.
During addled ronnies term they presented perjurer poppa and others as the safety valve from his stupidity. A situation they even had to formalize after Iran contra broke and Chuck percy was placed as the nannie for the drooling fool that addled ronnie was.
during the twit’s election and misrule cheney and daddies advisors were presented as the “adults in the room” to ensure sanity and experience in the oval office. Gee that worked out well didn’t it?
Now while running the same puppet master campaign they seem to have picked a looney tunes character they can’t control and the “adults” are bailing out while leaving the country in the lurch.
Why can’t the thuglicans pick a president that can do the job and doesn’t need a nannie?
ps from Wikipedia about 2000 campaign
15To distract from the new scandals the Bush campaign along with multiple other Republican candidates — attacked Al Gore due to his ties to Russia.[25]
Hypocrisy thy name is thuglican.
Your best title ever, EJ.
16Whoever these soi-disant sane people are, they’re still Trump’s accomplices, keeping him in office to assist the Rs in ruining the country. No doubt they think of themselves as heroes, though.
There is something Shakespearean about all of this. I am trying right now to pick the appropriate play, but I see aspects of all of Old Will’s writing in this. One of the aspects being the assassination of Julius Caeser by the people he met with most intimately every day, the ones he would never suspect having concealed weapons. Right now we are seeing a type of administrative mini-coup, but there comes a time when mini-coups grow up, ya know?
17I agree with every word K posted.
We really are in Crazy Town and reading that NYT article does not make me feel any better.
In fact, it scares me to death!
18Lawrence O’Donnell and a few other pundits think it may be Dan Coates, director of national Security. Another guest on his show felt it might not just be one person, but several involved.
19He cited the theory that at one time, Shakespeare was thought to be more than one writer, so maggie, you might be on to something.
RepubAnon:
I don’t think the corpse VP has the balls to do that. Mother has those tucked away in her purse.
20RepubAnon: it would be “the corpse” OR the “weasel” (Ryan) who would have the most to gain. As scared as we would be of a Pence presidency, it would only be a year and a half, and I seriously doubt that he could ever be elected again.
21As usual, excellent comments from all the patrons who have commented above. I recommend looking at Trevor Noah’s short take on this. I saw it on HuffPust this morning. I like Noah’s ability to highlight the important aspects of a story while still
being very funny.
The older I get the more I realize how the whole notion I was sold, hell we were “bathed in” growing up in the 1950s that America is the best at everything blah, blah, blah . . . might makes right, white is best, ALL OF IT such withering BS. As I still teach Kindergarten and other primary grades now all I want is for these kids to have clean water, air, and opportunities to live and not have all that sucked away by damn corporate greedy bastards and their helpers in Gov.
22Until somebody stands up and takes the hit for this, I can’t buy it. The fact that the essay specifically mentions deregulation and the tax theft bill as positives leaves me with an uncomfortable “we’ve got your back (where’s my knife?)” kind of feeling.
Bullshit detection rule #1: If you really want something to be true, it probably isn’t.
23The NYT claims to know who wrote it, and I think they would see an ethical abyss — worthy of DJT himself — to have published it if they knew Pence was the author.
In the meantime, the list of possible authors is huge, and it would be amusing to know that several people collaborated, uh, excuse me, colluded to write it.
24K, I love your point at #15 about the GOP pattern of putting up incompetent presidential candidates and assuring us that their unelected staff will really be running the show and protecting us from their possible follies. And we can note that from Reagan to Baby Bush to Trump, it’s only getting worse.
The parallel observation is the frequent GOP criticism of the Democratic candidate: “Too smart” to be President, as if that’s possible.
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