# 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:** 2146
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42907 "2020-04-26T08:27:25Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > It’ll take a _lot_ longer than a minute if it requires people to consider the concept of “Trump, naked”. It’s (_gasp!_) already been considered. Remember those statues of him naked called “The Emperor Has No Balls”? Article with photo. Warning: Not Suitable for Sentient Eyeballs. Brain Bleach Required. Once seen, you can’t un-see it. [The Emperor Has No Balls](https://thewpsa.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/the-emperor-has-no-balls-virility-masculinity-and-the-american-presidency/) ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42908 "2020-04-26T14:26:35Z")
Well, we won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, that was his last COVID-19 briefing. He was so pissed off\* about the blowback on his bleach-snorting comments that [he’s taking his ball and going home, and won’t be doing any more daily briefings.](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1254168730898173953?s=20) \*The appropriate emotion would be “embarrassment” but he’s incapable of that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42909 "2020-04-26T14:58:04Z")
And there was much rejoicing. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42910 "2020-04-26T15:00:30Z")
Yeah, but he NEEDS the attention, even the negative attention from reporters sniping at him is better than being ignored, I guess. Betcha whatever he finds to replace these press conferences will turn out to be worse for us. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42911 "2020-04-26T15:00:52Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Well, we won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, that was his last COVID-19 briefing. He was so pissed off\* about the blowback on his bleach-snorting comments that [he’s taking his ball and going home, and won’t be doing any more daily briefings.](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1254168730898173953?s=20) > \*The appropriate emotion would be “embarrassment” but he’s incapable of that. My God. There are people in that tweet that are still defending this piece of shit. I guess racists morons have to support the racist moron. ---
**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:** [April 26, 2020, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42912 "2020-04-26T15:08:42Z")
See if you can guess who is being described in this [paragraph](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/george-wallace-donald-trump/607336/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+TheAtlantic+%2528The+Atlantic+-+Master+Feed%2529). > [@](#): > > The Republican Party has been taken over by an unscrupulous populist demagogue. His loyalty is to himself, not to his party or any ideology. He glories in violating political norms. He trashes liberals and government bureaucrats but has no use for limiting the government’s powers—at least, not his own powers. He has no problem with deficit spending, provided he can direct it to his base. He plays on white grievance and inflames racial division, while bragging that many black Americans support him and complaining that liberal bullies play the race card to shut him up. He gleefully attacks intellectuals and experts as enemies of America and common sense. He is not above calling his opponents traitors and hinting that they should be dealt with violently. In a crisis, as at present, he is a genius at finding others to blame. And the more he shocks and blames, the more his supporters love him for speaking forbidden truths and standing up to condescending elites. > … You probably think you know, but “The politician I speak of is, of course, George Corley Wallace.” > [@](#): > > … > As I write these words, President Donald Trump is bungling the worst crisis of his presidency, and of our era. He is failing to promulgate any kind of coherent strategy to cope with the coronavirus; he is maundering senselessly about injecting disinfectants into people; firm majorities of the public disapprove of and distrust his handling of the pandemic. Yet despite all of that and more, he is solid with Republicans and is likely to get at least 45 percent of the two-party vote in November. Some of his supporters, of course, will back him because of who he is not (a Democrat), but many will back him because of who he is—or, rather, who he emulates. > > Today more than ever, Trump’s outrageous style, unprecedented rule-breaking, and sheer weirdness make him seem a radical discontinuity, a bizarre anomaly who came out of nowhere. Although that interpretation is not entirely wrong, it is not really right, either. Equally true, if not more so, is that \*\*Trump is a radical continuity, merely the most florid and successful avatar of a white-populist movement that has built strength and solidarity over more than half a century, \*\*mostly under elites’ radar. In that sense, Trump’s base—the base that catapulted him from reality TV to the most powerful office in the world—does not really belong to the Republican Party. In fact, it does not even belong to Trump. Rather, he is renting it—or perhaps it is renting him. Either way, he is not the first in the series, and he won’t be the last. > > “We can foresee that unless something changes in American political culture and civil life,” says Dan Carter, a historian and Wallace biographer, “we’re doomed to deal with Trumps, whether they’re this Donald Trump or future Donald Trumps, for the next generation.” **Thank George Wallace for that.** > … My bold. As has been said on this board and in this thread, trump is the symptom, not the disease. ---
**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:** [April 26, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42913 "2020-04-26T15:40:37Z")
I sincerely hope that more attention is directed to just how badly the administration is fucking things up. George W. Bush hired “Brownie,” of Arabian Horse Association fame :rolleyes:, to handle FEMA and crises like hurricanes. And then Trump said, “Hold my beer.” Here’s Trump’s very own “Brownie”: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-hhs-chief-azar-had-aide-former-dog-breeder-steer-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-hhs-chief-azar-had-aide-former-dog-breeder-steer-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE) > [@](#): > > Shortly after his televised comments, Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.” So there you have it: a fucking dog breeder trying to help us fend off a pandemic. And here’s a better explanation of the magnitude of the problem. > [@](#): > > Azar’s optimistic public pronouncement and choice of an inexperienced manager are emblematic of his agency’s oft-troubled response to the crisis. His HHS is a behemoth department, **overseeing almost every federal public health agency in the country, with a $1.3 trillion budget that exceeds the gross national product of most countries.** You see, MAGAbots, this is why you want smart people - people with education and higher than average IQs to run the administration. The budgets they manage are massive. That’s _your_ tax dollars - yours and mine - that we’ve already paid into the system. It’s then a matter of how it’s used, and every fucking time we elect a Republican administration, we’re hiring people to manage bureaucracies that they not only don’t understand but don’t want to understand. [https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/26/food-banks-coronavirus-agriculture-usda-207215](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/26/food-banks-coronavirus-agriculture-usda-207215) > [@](#): > > “It’s frustrating,” said Nikki Fried, commissioner of agriculture in Florida. Fried, who is a Democrat, and much of the Florida congressional delegation asked Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue nearly a month ago to use his broad authority and funding to get more Florida farmers plugged into federal food purchasing and distribution programs as the food service market collapsed. “Unfortunately, USDA didn’t move until [last week].” > > Tom Vilsack, who served as agriculture secretary during the Obama administration, put it this way: “It’s not a lack of food, it’s that the food is in one place and the demand is somewhere else and they haven’t been able to connect the dots. You’ve got to galvanize people.” More incompetence. This is what happens when you have people in government who don’t know what they’re doing. We’ve got farmers in need who are forced to watch their food rot. And we’ve got food banks running out of food. It’s a growing disaster. Few people are talking about it yet, but we’re approaching a pivotal moment in the coming weeks when people aren’t going to be able to pay rents, won’t have money in their bank accounts, won’t be able to pay the rent, and will be forced to lean on state and municipal governments that will be facing existential crises of their own. This is when we need the smart people in the government. Instead we’ve got the government of people who seek opportunities to enrich themselves. Not very optimistic. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42914 "2020-04-26T15:53:07Z")
Most people don’t no shit about how government works, so they will never comprehend how bad this is. I mean, that’s how Trump got elected in the first place. He’ll make sure his supporters have someone else to blame, no matter how bad it gets. ---
**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:** [April 26, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42915 "2020-04-26T17:02:06Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > See if you can guess who is being described in this [paragraph](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/george-wallace-donald-trump/607336/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+TheAtlantic+%2528The+Atlantic+-+Master+Feed%2529). You probably think you know, but "The politician I speak of is, of course, George Corley Wallace."My bold. > > As has been said on this board and in this thread, trump is the symptom, not the disease. I think the description of Trump the avatar is an apt one. Indeed he is an avatar, a cartoon character pitchman for red meat politics. Yes, he’s a real Ronald McDonald for people who don’t care about the nutrition of ideas but who instead opt for hot shit in a bag to go and just want to feel full bellies and bowels in the end. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42916 "2020-04-26T17:57:22Z")
What bothers me, Deborah, is that [you have become part of the problem:](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494700-birx-it-bothers-me-trump-comments-on-injecting-disinfectant-still-in) > [@](#): > > Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if Trump’s comments from the Thursday White House briefing bothered her, Birx said, “I think it bothers me this is still in the news cycle.” Take your scarves, Debbie, wad them up and… fuck off. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42917 "2020-04-26T18:13:36Z")
The game is to force everyone to run serious defence for Trump’s incompetence until you get inevitability [scapegoated by Trump yourself and removed](https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/posts/10158511644751800). Trump’s life is a massive pyramid scheme running off the last gasps of not-quite-yet broken down sycophants. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42918 "2020-04-26T18:27:14Z")
Honestly, why is it now normal for government speakers to repeatedly thank and praise Trump each time they take and leave the podium? It’s like I’m watching a fascist dictator’s lackies desperately trying to survive a future purge. ---
**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:** [April 26, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42919 "2020-04-26T18:29:25Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Honestly, why is it now normal for government speakers to repeatedly thank and praise Trump each time they take and leave the podium? It’s like I’m watching a fascist dictator’s lackies desperately trying to survive a future purge. All I can figure is he’s holding their dogs hostage in the basement of the White House, suspended over a tank of piranhas. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42920 "2020-04-26T18:42:32Z")
Nobody puts a gun to the heads of those who become part of Trump’s team of enablers and apologists. They do it voluntarily because of arrogance (that they can control him) or the desire for self aggrandizement and personal gain. I think that even the best of them, like Fauci, fell victim to arrogance that he could make a difference. He did, briefly. But ultimately he was used to lend some veneer of legitimacy and is likely now being discarded because he did not play along. We’ve all seen this play out for 4 years now. I don’t know how many more times we have to see this before realizing that the only way to put an end to this perverse kakistocracy is to root it out of office and bring it finally to justice. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42921 "2020-04-26T18:51:28Z")
Apparently on the last day of Individual 1 press briefings, when he walked out without taking questions, the White House told a CNN reporter to move from her assigned seat in the front of the briefing room to the back. Members of the press corps objected and at least one said he would walk out. I don’t know whether Individual 1’s walkout without questions is related or not. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42922 "2020-04-26T19:00:46Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Honestly, why is it now normal for government speakers to repeatedly thank and praise Trump each time they take and leave the podium? It’s like I’m watching a fascist dictator’s lackies desperately trying to survive a future purge. You think that’s bad? Take a look at [Trump’s first cabinet meeting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ARgUIpM6f0), in which each attendee praises Trump and thanks him for the privilege of working for him. It was sickening at the time. (Now, perhaps one of the apologists is going to chime in here to say that is typical of a first cabinet meeting and that much the same occurred when Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter first convened their cabinets. But I doubt it.) ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42923 "2020-04-26T19:56:19Z")
According to [this article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus) in The Guardian, a group of crackpots has been peddling chlorine dioxide (a bleachlike chemical) as a cure-all, and one of them wrote to Trump about it just a few days before the notorious press conference. Donald Trump isn’t even smart enough to come up with his own idiotic ideas. He relies on other idiots to do it for him. Please read the article. It’s not long, and it has details that I won’t try to summarize here. It strongly suggests that Trump was trying to help some nutbar supporters promote dangerous and illegal quackery. Sarcastic, my ass. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42924 "2020-04-26T22:36:28Z")
In a way, it’s a shame if he does not hold anymore briefings, as he only sank himself lower and lower with each one. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42925 "2020-04-26T23:17:12Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > In a way, it’s a shame if he does not hold anymore briefings, as he only sank himself lower and lower with each one. We miss comedy hour too. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/42926 "2020-04-26T23:32:08Z")
Interesting Editorial (from 18 April) in _The Military Times_, which is not what one would call a leftist publication, by a Colonel Andrew Milburn (ret, USMC). You might say it is somewhat critical of the Trump administration… > [@](#): > > One of the terms of this unique social contract is that the men and women who comprise the armed services, who are all taught at entry that they must keep their political beliefs and military duties separate, should not be used as political props. Instead this president never misses an opportunity to shape what should be morale boosting visits to the troops into campaign rallies. He even uses the traditional presidential holiday phone calls to personnel serving overseas as an opportunity to vent about his political opponents and boast about his accomplishments as president. This behavior is more than unseemly. It is dangerous to the health of the republic. Dem’s fightin’ words. And like I say, being published in a Military-oriented mag, which by the very nature of the service, leans conservative (Generals _hate_ to change things, from Alexander the Great onward), is more than a little surprising (at least to me). Worth a read, IMHO. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=2145) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=2147)