My thought was a meat grinder.
I called it before, but I can’t take any credit because it’s about as plain as the nose on your face:
The Apprentice meets West Wing.
Yes, and I think that’s what he’s going to bet the rest of his presidency (and quite possibly his life) on. I think that he never really expected to win the election and seemed prepared to burn the earth behind him after losing to Clinton by firing up his crazies claiming that he really won but “lost” a rigged election and that he’s gracious enough to forgive his opponent and let her have what she always wanted. Once he actually did really win, everything changed. But I think he had not really ever once truly thought about the day after and the day he’d be inaugurated until 3 AM on November 9th, 2016.
I think he was and has been conflicted about which avenue to take. He never had an ideology other than his self, but he was convinced by ‘experts’ that he needed to have relationships on Capitol Hill, so the GOP suggested that he hire Preibus. And on the other hand, he was convinced he needed a media guy who could connect with his extreme base, so he hired Steve Bannon. Now to be real, both Preibus and Bannon were critical and indispensable during the campaign: Preibus somehow miraculously managed to avoid a convention clusterfuck and was able to bridge the divide between Trumpists and #never Trumpers. And Bannon was a brilliant strategist and tactician in waging a media war to fire up the alt-right. I think others played an important role as well but they’re definitely part of the shocking Trump victory. But they were never really a good fit after the election. Trump doesn’t want to be hamstrung by Washington; he wants to fight against it. And Bannon’s idea of neo-populism is something that Trump had already thought about. He didnt’ need Bannon.
What Trump needs is a way to shut down the ongoing investigations against him and a way to bend the rule of law and the political norms to his will. The only realistic way he can do this is to have connect with his most extreme and loyal supporters, such as the religious right and the conspiracy theorist alt-right. Spending money on infrastructure is a pipe dream. He can only get that kind of legislation from Democrats and they’re out to impeach him, so fuck it, he’s with the crazies now. He doesn’t need to work with Preibus. He doesn’t need to communicate with Paul Ryan and John McCain; instead, he’s probably going to go to war with them. It worked on the campaign trial, and from where he sits, it’ll probably work again.
What he will tell his radical base of voters and what he will tell the weakling republicans in congress is this: I can’t govern the way you want me to govern. This rule of law and Constitution shit is too complicated. You want me to succeed, right? So just cut me a break and let me break a few rules. You’ll see the results. I promise.
So this and ThelmaLou’s follow-up made me start humming the Scarecrow’s lines from The Wizard of Oz (“I’d while away the hours, in my ivory towers, if I only had a brain…”). And that made me wonder how we could cast a re-make of TWOO using members of the Trump administration and Congress. Could Kelly Anne play Dorothy? I’ll propose Bannon for the Wicked Witch of the East. Who is Glynda? Elizabeth Warren? She’s got the voice for it. Trump is the wizard, for sure. Sessions could play all of the munchkins.
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I’m thinking more House of Cards with the Bluth family.
This has to be an error in observation by Euphonious Polemic. As everyone ought to know by now, The Emperor Has No Balls.
I keep waiting for the oompa-loompas to come out and sing a song every time a member of the Trump administration gets fired.
I saw a meme on FB where they used the stanza about “Who do you blame when your kid is a BRAT?” 
If Congress is a swamp that needs draining, the White House is an open sewer, with one turd pushing the turd in front of it further down the sewer. Now the Pumpkin has hired some lunatic who’s first statement following his wife leaving him was to accuse another of Pumpkin’s nutters of sucking his own cock. What is with these people?
Nobody would stoop so low, we were waiting for you.
Well, this whole administration has definitely been working out terrifically so far. Just like he promised: 
We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to win anymore. It’s too much. It’s not fair to everybody else.’” Trump said. “And I’m going to say ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning, We’re going to make America great again.”
This is an interesting point. But the thing is, what (as President) can he do to run them over?
Obviously, he can just veto everything for the remaining 3.5 years. And, to some extent, that might almost make him the most popular President ever elected since most people don’t want more government. But I don’t see him going that route. Trump will want to attack, not stonewall.
He can issue Executive Orders. But all of those adjust how the Federal government behaves with the average citizens; I don’t think that most laws he could change the execution of would strongly impact the Congresscritters directly. At best, he would be able to hold their constituents hostage, by using EOs to attack their base. But that’s also going to be his base, and he wants them to love him.
And so that leaves…suing and prosecuting everyone in Congress.
Usually, that would mean turning the Attorney General into an attack dog and pointing him at the Legislature. But, in Trump’s case, he’s in a strange position where he’s burned his bridges with the Attorney General and he can’t fire him either.
Overall…I don’t know. I suspect that Trump is going to find something he can do to troll everyone though. There’s simply too many obscure laws and judicial interpretations that allow for new and interesting ways to dick someone else over. The Constitution sort of assumed that the people running things were intelligent, honorable men. They didn’t build many safety rails in.
I suspect that Trump’s team is going to be poring through it to find all of the chinks, to go on the attack with Congress. I just don’t know what that method is going to be.
But that puts a ticking clock on the whole affair. Trump will start making everyone in Congress look unpopular, “Drain the Swamp” and all that. They’ll quickly start to fall under the train unless they can paint him as crazier, drunker, and crookeder than he’s painting them as being.
On the whole, I don’t expect much good to come from any of that, though a lot of the country will probably think it’s awesome.
There’s nothing to “call.” It’s been clear from the start that through both his candidacy and time in office he’s been putting on an act, directed at people too stupid to understand anything that doesn’t come canned as a TV show.It’s been clear from the start that he’s acting out the BS persona from the Apprentice, and his supporters think it can be mindlessly inserted into the the West Wing. That was all pretty much a given.
So low as to state the obvious? Uh…OK…
I don’t think he will be able to get his AG to attack congress - the current one seems more interested in attacking minorities, immigrants, and pot users than going after his former congressional colleagues. And he’s on Trump’s enemies list anyway - all of this assumes that Sessions remains in power, which may not be the case.
But even so, I think Trump will go back to doing what he’s most comfortable doing, which is firing up large, angry, white audiences and bullying and harassing his perceived enemies. I don’t think he’ll go after everyone in congress, as there are some unholy alliances he could make if he chose to.
His problem in the beginning is that he didn’t really know which direction to turn. He leaned a lot on Bannon, whose view of conservatism was unorthodox and at odds with the tea party / freedom caucus. Trump bought into Bannon’s white nationalism and economic protectionism, but the latter is a non-starter with much of his party. Trump is also tired of trying to walk this fine line between different factions. The simplest way forward is to pic factions he can most closely identify with – factions who need him as much as he needs them – and then work together to crush their opponents. His lack of clarity and lack of a strategy initially had him at odds with Mark Sanford of the Freedom Caucus - to the point where he threatened to support a primary challenger. But in truth, the Freedom Caucus is the perfect ally for Trump. The Freedom Caucus / Tea Party has never really enjoyed true legitimacy in the eyes of many GOP insiders. They just wanted to co-opt their rhetoric and ideas so that they could win elections, just like they’ve wanted to with other fringe groups over the years like the Evangelicals and the alt-right. These fringe groups have always been invited to the party but never been asked to dance by the homecoming king. Well, Trump just might be the one who asks them for a dance. And together, I could see them really putting the pressure on Paul Ryan, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, etc.
Interesting fantasy, I guess, but no more. Ever hear of a veto-proof majority? He starts fucking with Congressional Republicans and they’ll hamstring him far more completely than they ever did Obama.
Wanna see ramped-up Russia investigations? I guarantee you that the absolute last thing Ignominious Leader Trump wants is for Congresscritters to go through his financials too.
If he picks his fights carefully enough, he could pull it off. A lot of republicans don’t really care for each other. Trump could align himself with the purists, whose outlook mirrors his in some respects. Trump could pit the House and Senate republicans against each other. The question is, can he do it? Does he know how? He doesn’t seem to have a political strategist he can rely on now, which is a problem, because he needs one.
Actually, this may be the one thing he does know how to do, namely, creating dissension within a group by turning the members against each other. This is his declared and preferred management strategy. True, he doesn’t do it with any sophistication; he does it like a three-year old, with name-calling, insults, innuendo, and backstabbing. He loves chaos and infighting. His ego needs a milieu where there are winners and losers (well, a winner and the rest losers). Cooperation and working together is for losers.
Agree with this. He wants a win, and any win will do. It does not matter what it is (heath care bill), just give him a win. And if you cannot deliver a win, you’re fired.
Doing it in the business world is one thing, but doing it in a town where hardly anyone’s a native and where they each represent their own constituencies, many of which have no love for Trump, is entirely different. It’s doable, but it requires some thinking and calculating ways to break people down, not just impulsive reaction anytime someone pisses him off. Trump’s fate depends on whether he has the discipline to adhere to a strategy, which is something he’s managed to do for weeks at a time, but not much longer. Remains to be seen.