# The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 7, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070 "2016-12-07T00:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1312
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26225 "2018-10-04T20:32:12Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > For example, the USDA underwrites billions of dollars in loans for rural development… > > In the name of streamlining, this Rural Development program is being moved into the Office of the Secretary. The official Lewis interviewed suspects that they want to get their hands on the 200 billion dollar loan portfolio in order to sell it to their Wall Street friends. The program will become privatized and benefits will go to bankers instead of to the citizens that the programs are supposed to help. > … Your post was an excellent synopsis of sad and frightening news, but I’ve excerpted a single part for focus. It is unfortunate that I learn of this only at SDMB, not Google News (nor even Maddow or Oliver who I spend hours watching); and indeed at SDMB’s BBQ Pit at that! It would feel good to shove the noses of the SDMB Trumpists and Republiopaths into such shit and see what they say. But of course they won’t respond at all. (If forced, **Sam Stone** would applaud the decision to take power out of the hands of lazy bureaucrats and regulated workers and give it to Job-Creating kleptocrats. **Octopus** would say “Too bad, but there’s nothing we can do until 12 rednecks on a jury convict.” **Bricker** would find some pointless cite about a 19th-century case establishing that government fraud isn’t a crime if accountants are wearing pink neckties. **Hurricane** would have to hold off until FoxNews tells him what to think.) ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26226 "2018-10-04T22:10:45Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > If you’re talking about the provision of passenger rail services in the UK, it’s a “swings and roundabouts” situation - British Rail wasn’t exactly a paragon of public service either. If you’re talking about the infrastructure, yeah, Railtrack was a fucking stupid idea. > > Humperdoo. > > That’d be the same Deutsche Bank recently under investigation for facilitating money laundering activity, no? Yes, with justice Kennedy’s son employed there when the Russian money laundering was in full swing. The son, Justin, was involved in billion dollar financing for Trump building and renovation projects that American banks would not touch based on Trump penchant for bankruptcy and legal problems. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26227 "2018-10-04T23:27:58Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I seriously question how much cash he has. In the bank, probably not nearly as much as he wants us to think. And in his pockets? He’s one of those guys who never has cash on him and the people with him always have to pick up the tab. Well if Forbes/Fortune (?) is to be believed, then it appears that a spectacular irony is that his wealth has declined due to the tanking of his brand - and that was how he has made his mint since the early 2000s. He was the rich blowhard guy - entertaining and harmlessly obnoxious, until he started banning Muslims, putting refugee children in detention camps, referring to the third world as shithole countries, and starting trade wars. His brand is fucked. The only people who dig it are rich, white racists. But you’re not gonna get too many Winnebago-driving retirees from shitkicker country to sleep at luxury hotels in New York, DC, or Indonesia. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26228 "2018-10-04T23:34:40Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I posted some of this in another thread about this book in Elections but I don’t think that thread is going anywhere. > > I got the book and finished it in one day. Michael Lewis is one of my favorite writers and I found this book very compelling. > > It’s not really “another Trump book”. And it’s not about the transition, except for the first chapter. The quoted anecdotes about the transition are possibly the only direct mention of Trump in the book. (I’m guessing Chris Christie was the source behind those.) > > The book is an exploration of the missions behind the various federal agencies (DOE, USDA, Dept of Commerce) that compose the “Deep State” and the ways in which they are being threatened by an incompetent executive branch. Lewis spends most of the book talking with administrators in these agencies, profiling them and describing their projects. Incredibly important stuff that no one ever thinks about. > > For example, the USDA underwrites billions of dollars in loans for rural development. These loans are made to municipalities and private businesses for things like fire stations and medical clinics and water treatment and telecom in small towns and rural areas - services that are needed but aren’t necessarily profitable or low risk enough to attract private investment. > > The thing is, the beneficiaries of these loans often don’t even know that they are getting a government loan. The loans are administered via banks, who identify applicants that qualify for these loans. > > In the name of streamlining, this Rural Development program is being moved into the Office of the Secretary. The official Lewis interviewed suspects that they want to get their hands on the 200 billion dollar loan portfolio in order to sell it to their Wall Street friends. The program will become privatized and benefits will go to bankers instead of to the citizens that the programs are supposed to help. > > There is a similar situation with happening with the vast amount of data accumulated by the Department of Commerce. This data is used heavily in weather forecasting, firefighting and farming applications. Private industry wants to restrict the free availability of this data as they greatly profit from applications that use this data. And it’s important, for example, if it weren’t for journalists poring through publicly available Medicare and Medicaid data we probably wold think even know we had an opioid epidemic. > > The one thing that struck me was that the large majority of the vast number of programs that are being threatened exist to benefit areas that are typically very politically conservative. Because business and industry in urban areas have much better access to capital markets, a much larger tax base at the state and local level, and are much less dependent on the vagaries of climate, weather and nature in general. Which made me feel better and worse at the same time. > > And I fear that the interview Lewis did with the guy at the USDA in charge of the food stamp program will end his career ( the bureaucrat’s career, not Lewis’s ). > Because the guy talked about maximizing participation among the eligible population as being a goal of the program. And he talked about how frustrating it was when state executives and legislators try to torpedo those efforts. > It’s a really good book, and it’s not centered around Trump’s antics. > > TLDR - I think he should’ve called the book “You Didn’t Build That”. This is a important book, you need to read it. Thank you for this post, **Ann Hedonia**. I read it yesterday but it left me so sad I could hardly breathe. I’m aware of a lot of these actions, but it sounds like Lewis takes a clearinghouse approach to alert us to the many, many atrocities we must remedy in the wake of the Trump years. To the extent they can be remedied, that is. On your recommendation, I will read Lewis’s book. In small increments. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26229 "2018-10-05T06:42:12Z")
Today’s very important question: What is stuck to his [shoe](https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2018/oct/05/donald-trump-boards-air-force-one-with-paper-stuck-to-his-shoe-video)? Also, does nobody care enough to tell him? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26230 "2018-10-05T07:25:39Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Ok. This might amount to something. > > “N.Y. tax agency weighs probe after report that Trump family built wealth through tax-avoidance schemes and fraud” > [https://wapo.st/2RloIuv](https://wapo.st/2RloIuv) Or maybe this “Today, I called for the IRS to fully investigate the allegations of tax fraud committed by @realDonaldTrump and his family.” [https://t.co/rkxhsvFMkr](https://t.co/rkxhsvFMkr) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26231 "2018-10-05T08:16:26Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > Today’s very important question: > What is stuck to his [shoe](https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2018/oct/05/donald-trump-boards-air-force-one-with-paper-stuck-to-his-shoe-video)? > Also, does nobody care enough to tell him? That is obviously the foreign policy briefing put together by the office of whoever the Secretary of State is of late. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26232 "2018-10-05T10:41:38Z")
Huh. I thought it was the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26233 "2018-10-05T11:41:37Z")
According to El País, toilet paper. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26234 "2018-10-05T14:44:22Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > Today’s very important question: > What is stuck to his [shoe](https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2018/oct/05/donald-trump-boards-air-force-one-with-paper-stuck-to-his-shoe-video)? > Also, does nobody care enough to tell him? Pence immediately stuck some toilet paper to his shoe too. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26235 "2018-10-05T14:49:53Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Why would the Ruskies kill the handler and two other guys? Why not arrange an umbrella accident for her? People know to look for that now. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26236 "2018-10-05T15:10:32Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Well if Forbes/Fortune (?) is to be believed, then it appears that a spectacular irony is that his wealth has declined due to the tanking of his brand - and that was how he has made his mint since the early 2000s. He was the rich blowhard guy - entertaining and harmlessly obnoxious, until he started banning Muslims, putting refugee children in detention camps, referring to the third world as shithole countries, and starting trade wars. His brand is fucked. The only people who dig it are rich, white racists. But you’re not gonna get too many Winnebago-driving retirees from shitkicker country to sleep at luxury hotels in New York, DC, or Indonesia. A few weeks ago I spun a fantasy where Donnie Two-scoops was sitting in a cell after being convicted wondering where it all went wrong with everything pointing to his vanity candidacy. Everything was gone, wealth, family either convicted along with him or scattered to the four winds, property defaulted… everything but the Russian loans which are due _now_, comrade. I can see a similar story here except he’s in a studio apartment. I could live with that. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26237 "2018-10-05T15:23:50Z")
Assuming he doesn’t live out his post-Presidency days behind bars, even if his real estate business winds up in the (gold plated) crapper he’ll probably still make millions on the lecture circuit. They won’t be campaign rallies but I’m sure there’s plenty of rich folks out there willing to throw money at him to hear him speak. Which is kind of depressing in its own way. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26238 "2018-10-05T15:25:34Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > According to El País, toilet paper. It’s an act of political sabotage by one of the valets he employs to wipe his bottom for him. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26239 "2018-10-05T16:13:09Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > It’s an act of political sabotage by one of the valets he employs to wipe his bottom for him. Those lousy Democraps! ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26240 "2018-10-05T16:21:03Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Assuming he doesn’t live out his post-Presidency days behind bars, even if his real estate business winds up in the (gold plated) crapper he’ll probably still make millions on the lecture circuit. They won’t be campaign rallies but I’m sure there’s plenty of rich folks out there willing to throw money at him to hear him speak. Which is kind of depressing in its own way. I don’t think so. No one with actual money likes the guy. Sure, they’ll support him while he has power. Once he’s gone, he’ll be ignored. As least that’s my hope. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26241 "2018-10-05T16:43:34Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Pence immediately stuck some toilet paper to his shoe too. Awesome! ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26242 "2018-10-05T21:34:00Z")
Accusations of Godwinism are often fast & furious when making historical comparisons between Trump and You-Know-Who, but now, [one of the Holocaust’s eminent scholars is going there](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian): > [@](#): > > Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls. But a new essay in the New York Review of Books pointing out “troubling similarities” between the 1930s and today is different: It’s written by Christopher Browning, one of America’s most eminent and well-respected historians of the Holocaust. In it, he warns that democracy here is under serious threat, in the way that German democracy was prior to Hitler’s rise — and really could topple altogether. > > Browning, a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, specializes in the origins and operation of Nazi genocide. His 1992 book Ordinary Men, a close examination of how an otherwise unremarkable German police battalion evolved into an instrument of mass slaughter, is widely seen as one of the defining works on how typical Germans became complicit in Nazi atrocities. > > So when Browning makes comparisons between the rise of Hitler and our current historical period, this isn’t some keyboard warrior spouting off. It is one of the most knowledgeable people on Nazism alive using his expertise to sound the alarm as to what he sees as an existential threat to American democracy. > > Browning’s essay covers many topics, ranging from Trump’s “America First” foreign policy — a phrase most closely associated with a group of prewar American Nazi sympathizers — to the role of Fox News as a kind of privatized state propaganda office. But the most interesting part of his argument is the comparison between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Paul von Hindenburg, the German leader who ultimately handed power over to Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26243 "2018-10-05T21:47:31Z")
Jesus Christ. It can’t happen here. It can’t happen here. It can’t happen here. It can’t happen here. If I just keep saying that…It can’t happen here. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2018, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/26244 "2018-10-05T21:56:21Z")
Here is a link to [the essay.](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1311) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1313)