# 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:** 634
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12665 "2017-10-21T04:51:35Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > For protection from attacks by Mr. Trump and his cronies, it is necessary to have preservation of the record through recording and transcription, and to have a powerful friend with press connections. Trump is toxic. Prevention of persecution is by preservation, press and publication. > > Sycophantic worms who have a problem with that approach are welcome to worm right back up Mr. Trump’s ass where they came from. But there is a problem with this. The record means nothing to Trumps supporters. The press, and knowledge are the enemy. Facts are not obstacles to the willfully ignorant. Facts don’t have to be overcome. Just ignored. I don’t understand it, but fear it will be a history lesson some day. ---
**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 21, 2017, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12666 "2017-10-21T05:27:23Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > But there is a problem with this. The record means nothing to Trumps supporters. The press, and knowledge are the enemy. > > Facts are not obstacles to the willfully ignorant. Facts don’t have to be overcome. Just ignored. > > I don’t understand it, but fear it will be a history lesson some day. Provided we survive the disaster that is the Trump presidency. ---
**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 21, 2017, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12667 "2017-10-21T06:37:00Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > By flat out lying about the Congresswoman, Gen. Kelly showed he’s no better than Trump. > Maybe Gen. Kelly should have told Trump that he won’t lie for him and if he’s fired, he spills _everything._ Lying? Sure, maybe Kelly got some minor details wrong, but \*it’s the greater truth that’s important. \* The black bitch _does_ wear a cowboy hat — a red cowboy hat, no less — but owns no cattle and has probably never even ridden a horse. She pretends to be a “Congressman” but comes from a gerrymandered district full of black hos. This sassy slut disrespects our President, but her grandmammy was probably the cleaning lady at Friedrich Drumpf’s brothel in Alaska. MAGA! And, [as Dr. Huckabee-Sanders points out over the shrill whining of the lame-stream media](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/20/politics/sarah-sanders-john-kelly-press/index.html), the video her apologists produced was probably doctored. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12668 "2017-10-21T07:27:13Z")
John Kelly was [already an authoritarian](https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/gitmo-attorneys-kelly-s-aggressive-role-guant-namo-makes-him-unfit). It’s _why_ he was the DHS Secretary. He was never going to be the sober brake on Trump’s actions. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12669 "2017-10-21T08:43:14Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > 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?) Like the way he’s honoring Frederica Wilson? ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12670 "2017-10-21T08:49:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So do you deny support to Trump and let him crash? The problem with that is he takes the country down with him. Or do you work with Trump and try to minimize the damage he’ll cause? I can see how military men would see their duty to the country as justifying helping a terrible president. I don’t see any evidence that the military men are trying to minimize the damage Trump is causing. Tillerson is, but he’s clearly on borrowed time. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12671 "2017-10-21T10:57:49Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > Good thing both Kelly and Mattis retired before Donnie Two-Scoops was even elected, so that those civilian posts actually went to civilians. Or does serving permanently block anyone from further government service? Not permanently, but there is supposed to be a period of several years before taking up certain positions. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12672 "2017-10-21T11:09:01Z")
And you all know how I feel about Donald Trump, but in truth, I would have assumed that it was the Chief of Staff’s responsibility to organize things like getting the President to sign letters of condolence. The CoS should have had a draft that Trump could sign the very next day. I would assume even with eloquent writers like Obama, that organizing correspondence is still the staff officer’s job. I wouldn’t have expected the President - any President - to personally write all the letters, because if shit goes pear shaped, it’s too big a job. But getting the Communications office to write the letters and then getting the letters in front of the President is the kind of coordinating that a CoS is responsible for. ---
**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 21, 2017, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12673 "2017-10-21T12:52:43Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Not permanently, but there is supposed to be a period of several years before taking up certain positions. Another poster was bemoaning certain people being in political office and the post showed that poster seems to believe those certain people were still active duty military. Of course, there is a waiting period. The law permits a waiver to be granted and it was, so nobody broke the law with the appointment. As to the wisdom of the appointment in the first place, that’s a different story. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12674 "2017-10-21T13:44:30Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > And you all know how I feel about Donald Trump, but in truth, I would have assumed that it was the Chief of Staff’s responsibility to organize things like getting the President to sign letters of condolence. The CoS should have had a draft that Trump could sign the very next day. I would assume even with eloquent writers like Obama, that organizing correspondence is still the staff officer’s job. > > I wouldn’t have expected the President - any President - to personally write all the letters, because if shit goes pear shaped, it’s too big a job. But getting the Communications office to write the letters and then getting the letters in front of the President is the kind of coordinating that a CoS is responsible for. The Pope and the CoS could have both collaborated on a respectful message to give to the widow of a fallen soldier, but Trump doesn’t understand respect. He can’t follow a teleprompter or a set of simplified notes without bulldozing over everybody else’s opinion. Our FuckingMoron-in-Chief will continue to try to bully our population as well as the rest of the world. I am less scared of North Korea than I am of Trump and his progeny. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12675 "2017-10-21T13:50:15Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Last night, Richard Spencer made a speech at the University of Florida. Three supporters leaving the speech got into an altercation with protesters, culminating in one of the supporters shooting at the protesters. No one was harmed. The three Spencer supporters were arrested. The Texas assholes shouted “Heil Hitler!” at some protesters, one of them broke the car’s back window, the assholes shot. There would, of course, be no attempted murder charges if they’d been cops instead of ordinary yahoos. [Does this remind you](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/10/19/richard-spencer-shouted-down-university-florida-speech/781966001/) of anyone, btw? > [@](#): > > Spencer told the audience he grew up in the suburbs, and said his generation was born into a country where they are “strangers in our own lands.” > > “I, like millions of other white people in their 20s and 30s now, have a dramatically different ‘lived’ experience than our parents. Our parents can remember peak America. They can remember the America of ‘50s diners, and ice cream dates, and drive-in movie theaters,” Spencer said. > > “They can remember a white America in the midcentury. We can’t. We were born into something fundamentally different,” he said. Then the Sixties liberals ruined it all … ---
**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 21, 2017, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12676 "2017-10-21T14:08:05Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > …I wouldn’t have expected the President - any President - to personally write all the letters, because if shit goes pear shaped, it’s too big a job. But getting the Communications office to write the letters and then getting the letters in front of the President is the kind of coordinating that a CoS is responsible for. > [@LongTimeLurker](#): > > The Pope and the CoS could have both collaborated on a respectful message to give to the widow of a fallen soldier… I posted this elsewhere. Emphasis added. > [@How has Former President Trump pissed you off today?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-former-president-trump-pissed-you-off-today/777640/2107): > > \*\*\*Apparently Trump was given a prepared statement on October 5, \*\*\*and if he had just gone on TV and read it, this whole kerfuffle could have been avoided. But then, of course, the story would have been about the soldiers and not about “How much better Trump is than Obama.” > > > [@](#): > > > > In fact, Politico reports that the National Security Council staff drafted exactly such a statement for release on October 5, the day after the deaths. “The heroic Americans who lost their lives yesterday did so defending our freedom and fighting violent extremism in Niger,” a draft read in part. “Our administration and our entire nation are deeply grateful for their sacrifice, for their service, and for their patriotism.” Yet for reasons that are still not clear, the statement was never released. Putting it out might have dampened any questions about the mission—which it is increasingly appears was ridden with problems—and avoided the press-conference question. > > [Cite](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/trump-cant-resist-unforced-errors/543348/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlantic+%28The+Atlantic+-+Master+Feed%29) > This whole article is about “yet another example of how this president inflicts crises on himself.” > … ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12677 "2017-10-21T14:28:30Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The Texas assholes shouted “Heil Hitler!” at some protesters, one of them broke the car’s back window, the assholes shot. There would, of course, be no attempted murder charges if they’d been cops instead of ordinary yahoos. > > [Does this remind you](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/10/19/richard-spencer-shouted-down-university-florida-speech/781966001/) of anyone, btw? > Then the Sixties liberals ruined it all … So Spencer is channeling Trump. Or perhaps the other way around. > [@Nazi Spencer](#): > > Spencer told the audience he grew up in the suburbs, and said his generation was born into a country where they are “strangers in our own lands.” > > “I, like millions of other white people in their 20s and 30s now, have a dramatically different ‘lived’ experience than our parents. Our parents can remember peak America. They can remember the America of ‘50s diners, and ice cream dates, and drive-in movie theaters,” Spencer said. > > “They can remember a white America in the midcentury. We can’t. We were born into something fundamentally different,” he said. What a shame you privileged little fuck. You grew up in a time where racism misogyny and hatred was on the decline. Stupid fuck is trying to convince them that ‘Happy Days’ was a documentary. And they are believing him. I, a white 56 year old man, very, very much want to keep Spencer a ‘Stranger’. And asshole, this is not ‘your lands’ ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12678 "2017-10-21T14:36:44Z")
> [@Richard Spencer](#): > > “I, like millions of other white people in their 20s and 30s now, have a dramatically different ‘lived’ experience than our parents. Our parents can remember peak America. They can remember the America of ‘50s diners, and ice cream dates, and drive-in movie theaters,” Spencer said. > > “They can remember a white America in the midcentury. We can’t. We were born into something fundamentally different,” he said. What an odd thing to say. I was born in '77 (Spencer is just a year younger than me). I was a child of the 80s and 90s. I have fond memories of going to diners and all other kind of eating establishments. Ice cream? If you lived in Atlanta and you were halfway cool, then you were all about Zesto’s. There was also Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins and the ice cream truck. And all the big 80s movies I saw at a drive-in. Ghostbusters. Poltergiest. Gremlins. Strange Brew. The Starlight Drive-In is open today. I grew up in the city and I had these rather mundane experiences. And what do you know, being a child of the 80s and 90s granted me experiences that my parents could only dream of. I’m sure the same is true for Richard Spencer. So WTF is this guy talking about? I’m sorry he was so deprived of culture out there in his boring suburb. But that’s no excuse for being a racist asshat who can’t appreciate the goodness of the times he’s living in (I know I wouldn’t abandon the internet and Smartphones for all the “ice cream dates” in the world. Would Richard?) Of course, being a black woman, maybe I differ from Richard Spencer in that I don’t romanticize the 1950s. That wasn’t “peak” America for black folks. And of course he knows this. ---
**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:** [October 21, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12679 "2017-10-21T14:46:44Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > That wasn’t “peak” America for black folks. And of course he knows this. This is what he fantasizes and laments. When minorities and women knew their place in American society and white conservative men ran things. It doesn’t matter that he has no personal experience with that generation. What matters is that he can sell the idea of the ‘good old days’ to other bigots, many of whom are even younger than he is. ---
**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 21, 2017, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12680 "2017-10-21T14:52:52Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Washington did a good job as president guiding a new nation with its new civil rights. Grant did a good job as president guiding the nation into recognizing new Black rights (and your country still has one hell of a long way to go on that issue). Ike did a good job as president advancing the nation’s civil rights. All of them had been senior generals, and all of them were exemplary presidents. > > That being said, have a look at totalitarian countries. Very often the key used by a wanna-be strongman is to have strong ties with military leaders who then support the wanna be into power and/or once in power then extend the rule indefinitely. > > Presidents per se are not the problem. Generals per se are not the problem. The problem only arises when a wanna-be strongman has ties with military leaders. Trump is a wanna-be strongman and he now has a tie with a military leader who has chosen to bolster Trump. That is not a good thing, for Trump is a bad king. This is important to understand. Trump surrounded himself by generals because he wants to be an imposing executive. Remember, too, that Steve Bannon, another authoritarian (and an ideologue at that), had a hand in these nominations. Whether Trump admits it or not, Bannon had a major influence on the early structuring of his administration, and Bannon leaves little doubt as to his authoritarian predilections. What’s disturbing now is that what was before in the realm of ‘what could happen under the wrong executive’ is now moving in the direction of ‘what might actually happen under this executive’. Trump, with the help of Kelly and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is using respect for the military as a cultural wedge and a shield. To refuse to take questions from reporters or to suggest somehow that pointing out a falsehood made by a former general is tantamount to insulting the entire armed forces is the language of a strongman administration. It ought to alarm the shit out of everyone, including people who call themselves “conservatives.” These are not mere words or political tactics to deal with an adversarial free press; these are tactics that have been used by authoritarians who first seek to delegitimize and undermine the checks against their power. It’s easy to write it all off as just another example of a new normal in modern politics, but remember that authoritarians kill democracy with the consent of the people who participate in it. People in this democracy have already, wittingly or not, given Trump permission to take their democracy from them. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12681 "2017-10-21T15:35:56Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > Of course not. And as **ThelmaLou** pointed out, you immediately grabbed an extreme position that I was not in any way advocating. > > If only it had been apparent when the asserted basis by Sarah Huckabee Sanders to not question anything Kelly said was the fact that he was\* “a four star Marine general,”\* I’d agree you had made a meaningful distinction. But Trump is resting his well-larded laurels on this exact point – which kind of eliminates the civilian aspect of Kelly’s position, doesn’t it? > > The Trump administration is constantly harping on the military service aspect of these men as what qualifies them for their positions. That’s what makes me uncomfortable. I share your discomfort. However, this nation has a long, often good, history with the highest levels of military men moving into the highest levels of government. Kelly and Mattis have shit sandwiches of a job, and Kelly thought peeing on it might make it taste better. I really don’t know if he’s trying to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg even as the Captain keeps steering back towards it, or if he’s just along for the ride and making sure he’s got a place on the lifeboat. But I won’t disqualify anyone who has a lifetime of serving their country from continuing to serve in the highest levels of government. To this independent veteran, it sounds similarly (though not as intensely) shrill as the right’s bitchings and moanings about President Obama’s policies and picks. ---
**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:** [October 21, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12682 "2017-10-21T17:23:45Z")
People often don’t realize the Chump phenomenon is a very recent one. It may feel like it’s been 100 years, but really it’s only been a couple. I feel confident that at some point there will be some sort of a Joe McCarthy/Joseph Nye Welch moment, after which Chump will plummet even in the eyes of his supporters, and all the analysts and commentators will claim they knew all along the phenomenon couldn’t be sustained. ---
**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 21, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12683 "2017-10-21T17:30:01Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > And you all know how I feel about Donald Trump, but in truth, I would have assumed that it was the Chief of Staff’s responsibility to organize things like getting the President to sign letters of condolence. The CoS should have had a draft that Trump could sign the very next day. I would assume even with eloquent writers like Obama, that organizing correspondence is still the staff officer’s job. > > I wouldn’t have expected the President - any President - to personally write all the letters, because if shit goes pear shaped, it’s too big a job. But getting the Communications office to write the letters and then getting the letters in front of the President is the kind of coordinating that a CoS is responsible for. I wish they’d change the job title to Pompatus of Staff. Just so I can abbreviate it as PoS. ---
**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 21, 2017, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/12684 "2017-10-21T17:31:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Gorsuch tells a conference of lawyers meeting near the high court that he’s worried that college students with unpopular views aren’t “able to express themselves.” > > The newest Supreme Court justice says civility “doesn’t mean suppressing disagreement.” [Holy fuck](https://apnews.com/c85a1356fa704c4395f9ae87e4cc1dbf/Gorsuch:-Civility-doesn't-mean-suppressing-disagreement); this guy wouldn’t even have his job without the GOP suppressing disagreement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=633) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=635)