# 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:** 632
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12625 "2017-10-20T19:41:07Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > And of course the political hack that was present during the call didn’t steer the grieving family’s interpretation at all… Right? > > “It’s amazing,” the Florida Democrat [said with a laugh](https://hotair.com/archives/2017/10/20/congresswomans-response-kelly-ill-tell-kids-im-rockstar-now/) when asked by 7News in Miami for her reaction to John Kelly’s impassioned rebuke yesterday afternoon over her attack on Trump over the call. “I’ll have to tell my kids that **I’m a rockstar now.** ” > > Ah. Her purpose is achieved. “Rockstar”, laughing, at the expense of the grieving family. But then what would you expect from a Democrat? It’s called sardonic humor. Shithead ---
**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 20, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12626 "2017-10-20T20:11:18Z")
You expect an out-of-place slimy disgusting vegetable to grasp subtlety? (or is it a fruit?) ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12627 "2017-10-20T20:13:31Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I was looking for the story, but could not find it, abut the gold star wife that hit bush when he talked to her, and then he hugged her while she cried. > > Now, not big fan of bush, but he handled that well. > > Can you imagine if a gold star family member hit trump? He’d hit back 10 times as hard. Maybe [this](http://www.ibtimes.com/fallen-soldiers-sister-says-president-bush-held-me-while-i-sobbed-2602457) is the story you were looking for. > [@](#): > > “@realDonaldTrump When my brother was killed, Pres Bush listened while I screamed at him & then held me as I sobbed, you fat f—ing liar,” O’Malley tweeted Monday. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12628 "2017-10-20T20:32:20Z")
> [@](#): > > When my brother was killed, Pres Bush listened while I screamed at him & then held me as I sobbed, you fat f—ing liar,” O’Malley tweeted Monday Bush handled it well. Last year, one of the talking heads says you just don’t speak ill of a gold star mother- if she sets your pants on fire you say “thank you, I never liked these pants much anyway”. That’s what you do. Now we have a toddler who cannot admit error, cannot apologize for anything, and cannot let any insult, real or perceived, go without a nuclear retaliation. Sad. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12629 "2017-10-20T20:41:28Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > Maybe [this](http://www.ibtimes.com/fallen-soldiers-sister-says-president-bush-held-me-while-i-sobbed-2602457) is the story you were looking for. That sounds right. I thought I remembered that she had slapped him too. I don’t think that trump would have been quite as accommodating. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12630 "2017-10-20T20:52:57Z")
> [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](#): > > Yes - presumably Trump didn’t make the call with the _intention_ of hurting anyone’s feelings, but he’s such a bizarre and abnormal person that he wasn’t able to successfully console someone. Isn’t one of the characteristics of a psychopath the inability to have sympathy or empathy for others? ---
**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 20, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12631 "2017-10-20T20:54:42Z")
From [Roger Cohen, NYTimes](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/trumps-road-to-2024.html?partner=rss&emc=rss): > [@](#): > > There are now two definitions of truth in the United States. The first is that a truthful statement is one that conforms to facts or reality. By this standard, President Trump is a serial liar. > > The second is that truth is defined by “telling it like it is,” or speaking in a direct, unvarnished way without regard to political correctness or the offense it may give. By this measure, for millions of supporters, Trump is the most honest president ever… He continues: > [@](#): > > Nine months into the presidency, the support of Trump’s base remains fervid. I am often asked whether I believe Trump will be impeached. I’ve taken to responding that it’s more likely he’ll be a two-term president. I’d put the chances of impeachment at under 10 percent and of his re-election at about 25 percent. > > That’s partly because the Democratic Party has not yet begun a serious reckoning with its defeat last year. It hasn’t grasped the degree to which it lives, still, in a coastal echo chamber of identity politics and Trump-bashing. Being anti-Trump won’t cut it. As fervently as I participate in this (my) thread, I have to agree with him. > [@](#): > > As Chuck Coughlin, a Republican political consultant who once worked for Senator John McCain, put it to me [Cohen]: “Somebody who speaks to common-sense American values — that is what the Democrats need.” I’m not sure who that person is but am pretty sure she or he does not reside in New York, Massachusetts or California. And as I’ve said in another thread, I’m pretty sure it isn’t a she. > [@](#): > > Trump winks at white supremacists, thrives on confrontation and debases the Oval Office. But it would be a huge mistake to conclude from this that his defeat is inevitable; or that his supporters do not include millions of decent, smart Americans who just view the world differently. Americans who feel culturally alienated from the globalized metropolis (and sense their worldview elicits contempt in a Democratic Party that often seems to have lost touch with ordinary Americans). > … > An overriding lesson of 2016 for liberals is that without hard-nosed realism about the state of the country and Trump’s talents, you lose. And that’s the truth. IOW we are doomed. ---
**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 20, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12632 "2017-10-20T21:07:54Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > From [Roger Cohen, NYTimes](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/trumps-road-to-2024.html?partner=rss&emc=rss): > He continues:As fervently as I participate in this (my) thread, I have to agree with him. And as I’ve said in another thread, I’m pretty sure it isn’t a she. IOW we are doomed. What this means is that the democratic party and progressives had better come to an agreement to negotiate and compromise on a campaign theme. The Bernie wing of the party needs to join the Democratic party and not run as independents. The United States is being threatened with nationalist authoritarianism. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s fact and it’s playing out right in front of our eyes. ---
**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 20, 2017, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12633 "2017-10-20T21:23:01Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > IOW we are doomed. Probably. But we are really no more doomed than we were 40 years ago. No president in our history has done much of anything to address the fundamental flaws in our socio-economic system, and some of them have striven to make those flaws worse. 44 was a profoundly bland leader who put duck tape on our problems and added a traditional coat of Olympic Looksgood Semigloss. This pass at which we are has been all but inevitable, and it may well call attention, for enough of us, to how truly fucked up things have been all along. Shitgibbon rode in on a wave of discontent, lightly salted with rage, liberally glazed over with befuddlement. If this is how we end up addressing our wants, with full-on stupid, I have to infer that there really was never any reason for hope in the first place. ---
**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 20, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12634 "2017-10-20T21:36:38Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Probably. But we are really no more doomed than we were 40 years ago. No president in our history has done much of anything to address the fundamental flaws in our socio-economic system, and some of them have striven to make those flaws worse. 44 was a profoundly bland leader who put duck tape on our problems and added a traditional coat of Olympic Looksgood Semigloss. This pass at which we are has been all but inevitable, and it may well call attention, for enough of us, to how truly fucked up things have been all along. Okay, but Obama actually took concrete steps toward changing that. He proposed pretty significant healthcare reforms and ended up getting at least some of what he asked for, only to be rewarded by uninspired voters with the Tea Party that threatened to shut down government every year. I agree that Obama wasn’t able to be the FDR many people hoped he would be, but let’s not act like the electorate is the victim here. Trump isn’t an asteroid that fell from space; it’s more like a growing cancer mass in our abdomen that we ignored. ---
**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 20, 2017, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12635 "2017-10-20T21:42:05Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > What this means is that the democratic party and progressives had better come to an agreement to negotiate and compromise on a campaign theme. The Bernie wing of the party needs to join the Democratic party and not run as independents. > … Absolutely true. The Left cannot let itself be split. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12636 "2017-10-20T22:25:09Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Mr. Trump fancies himself plainspoken, direct, no nonsense. No gloss, no gauzy sentiments. Somebody wrote a “formal” speech for him, and he didn’t use it, preferring his own. … Instead, he is that one guy every neighborhood has - the foul tempered, foul mouthed, hates everyone, and won’t shut up about it, bastard. The lousy rat everyone else hates and wishes would just die already. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12637 "2017-10-20T22:32:26Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Fuck John Kelly. He goes on stage and defends the indefensible. How DARE that congresswoman listen in on the same phone conversation that he himself listened in on! Fuck you, hypocrite. Donald “bravely” made the calls? You mean after nearly two weeks of not even acknowledging their deaths? You were “stunned” that this same congresswoman made a speech at an FBI building dedication and took some credit and getting funding for it? You fucking whine about THAT on the same day your pinhead boss was giving himself a perfect grade for his pitiful handling of the Puerto Rico hurricane? You’re fucking outraged at a personal friend of a Gold Star family calling out your sexual predator boss for his hamfisted condolence call, yet you had no outrage for your draft-dodging boss attacking the Khan family last year? You want us to suck your dick because of your military service but you serve under a guy who dodged the draft using bone spurs in his heels as an excuse? Then you take questions from the press, but only those who know Gold Star families? If the Khans had been there, would you have taken their question about why your psychopathic boss savagely attacked them last year? Fuck you a thousand times over and I hope you enjoy wiping the ass of your toddler boss. I approve this message. Kelly, just hand in your resignation. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12638 "2017-10-20T22:36:34Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > I approve this message. > > Kelly, just hand in your resignation. I don’t know what is worse-either Gen. Kelly is not the honorable man everyone believed him to be or the mere contact with Trump corrupts the best of men. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12639 "2017-10-20T23:07:34Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Fuck John Kelly. He goes on stage and defends the indefensible. How DARE that congresswoman listen in on the same phone conversation that he himself listened in on! Fuck you, hypocrite. Donald “bravely” made the calls? You mean after nearly two weeks of not even acknowledging their deaths? You were “stunned” that this same congresswoman made a speech at an FBI building dedication and took some credit and getting funding for it? You fucking whine about THAT on the same day your pinhead boss was giving himself a perfect grade for his pitiful handling of the Puerto Rico hurricane? You’re fucking outraged at a personal friend of a Gold Star family calling out your sexual predator boss for his hamfisted condolence call, yet you had no outrage for your draft-dodging boss attacking the Khan family last year? You want us to suck your dick because of your military service but you serve under a guy who dodged the draft using bone spurs in his heels as an excuse? Then you take questions from the press, but only those who know Gold Star families? If the Khans had been there, would you have taken their question about why your psychopathic boss savagely attacked them last year? Fuck you a thousand times over and I hope you enjoy wiping the ass of your toddler boss. All true. Worse: Kelly revealed something about himself that we hadn’t known–he’s not actually in touch with reality at all. (In the 1950s “women were sacred and looked upon with great honor”…say what?) As one commentator put it: > [@](#): > > … This imaginary era of “sacred” womanhood included plenty of discrimination against women; they just couldn’t always talk about it. The biggest change between then and now is not in the way men treat women but in the position women occupy within society. Since the 1950s, women have entered the workforce in droves. They have become breadwinners, CEOs and politicians. And they have become increasingly vocal about their experiences with sexual violence and discrimination, including in the Marine Corps, where Kelly served as a general. > > … The price of treating women as “sacred” is that it assumes women are “other” to men. It plays into years of damaging stereotypes that have been used to justify men continuing to occupy positions of power, both professionally and domestically; that women are weak and delicate; that women must be “handled” by men; that some women are more “sacred” than others because of the way they look or act; and that women must stand to the side and be protected while men go out into the world. [John Kelly Is Sad Women Are No Longer 'Sacred.' Women Are Not That Sad. | HuffPost Latest News](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-kelly-women-sacred-humans_us_59e91025e4b0df10767be25e) Kelly is evidently living in a dream world in which all who fail to be straight white Christian men, know their place and stand with heads bowed when their betters enter the room. We’d counted on him to keep a mentally-ill President from destroying the planet. But now we know that he’s not quite stable, himself. He’s more than a bit wobbly, there in his little dream world. Was it the prolonged contact with the mentally-ill President that did it? Very possibly. But the upshot is that we can’t count on Kelly to be the proverbial Grownup In The Room. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12640 "2017-10-20T23:21:47Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Instead, he is that one guy every neighborhood has - the foul tempered, foul mouthed, hates everyone, and won’t shut up about it, bastard. > > The lousy rat everyone else hates and wishes would just die already. Speaking of…why _isn’t_ the twerp dead yet? ---
**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 20, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12641 "2017-10-20T23:24:14Z")
I’m sick of all of them. If Trump is such a hot mess (and he is) that he needs constant handlers, then what the hell is wrong with Republicans that they aren’t getting rid of him as fast as they can? It’s somehow acceptable to let a completely unqualified maniac fiddle with the controls because he can be “managed??” I agree with others who have said Kelly, McMaster and Mattis are not the “adults in the room.” They’re enablers who allow the Republicans to carry on with their ruse that it’s somehow acceptable to leave this ignorant, cruel, petty pathetic sub cretin in the most important job in our country, so they can demolish health care, trash Constitutional norms, allow the rise of racist, white nationalist turds and sneak tax cuts for their own handlers past the clueless electorate, all while everyone wrings their hands and acts grateful that the dipshit hasn’t quite yet managed to reach the button. I refuse to normalize this. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12642 "2017-10-20T23:24:16Z")
What Kelly believes to be honourable is not necessarily what other people to be to be honourable. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12643 "2017-10-20T23:25:50Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Trump isn’t an asteroid that fell from space; it’s more like a growing cancer mass in our abdomen that we ignored. You misspelled “fed”. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12644 "2017-10-20T23:54:55Z")
> [@slumtrimpet](#): > > This! A thousand times this. > Kelly and Mattis are not ‘the grown-ups’. They’re enablers and just as big shitheads as the shit Cheeto in Chief. Not one person who accepted an appointment to this clusterfuck administration is commendable or honorable or even tolerable. > Personally, I think that extends to the entire GOP that allowed this shitshow to happen, but maybe that’s just me. Well, they’re the kind of grown-ups you get when you let a bratty kid hire and fire his own babysitters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=631) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=633)