# 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:** 89
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1761 "2017-03-02T06:20:42Z")
> [@arfurvirus](#): > > It’s cute how the Marxist Media and Thier useful idiots get worked up about a 50year old woman obviously getting her legs out of the way of people in a very crowded small room, while snapping a picture. It’s cute to see the lengths right wingnuts will go to excuse Republicans for stuff they would be condemning in Democrats. You can say a lot of things in response to criticism of this photo. For example, I find it completely reasonable to conjecture that she was setting up her phone to take a picture, rather than browsing through Facebook and ignoring the visitors. But the one thing only an idiot would say is that she didn’t have room to put her feet on the floor. FFS, there is at least six feet of room in front of that couch. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1762 "2017-03-02T06:25:17Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Further Russian revelations involving our Clown-in-Chief. This just drives home further what I’ve said all along: President Donald J. Trump is a traitor. Or a guy who likes to surround himself with failures. But he gets a lot of respect as a perk. [http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-advice-wisconsin-college-students-221383](http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-advice-wisconsin-college-students-221383) > [@](#): > > “And you’ll find that when you become very successful, the people that you will like best are the people that are less successful than you, because when you go to a table you can tell them all of these wonderful stories, and they’ll sit back and listen,” he said. “Does that make sense to you? OK? Always be around unsuccessful people because everybody will respect you. Do you understand that?” I think Trump has a knack for setting a lot of his cabinet people to become bigger failures. ---
**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:** [March 2, 2017, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1763 "2017-03-02T06:28:11Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > She was likely just setting the camera function on her phone. What I take from this is that official photographer is another one of those positions that the Trump White House hasn’t been able to fill yet. I hear Pete Souza might be looking for work. I suspect Kellyanne’s on her knees a lot around Trump. It’s a position he has been able to fill. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1764 "2017-03-02T06:49:52Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Further Russian revelations involving our Clown-in-Chief. This just drives home further what I’ve said all along: President Donald J. Trump is a traitor. I remember the good old days of last November, when I thought we had elected an incompetent boob who would have to be told what to do by more competent staff. Then I remember the good old days of December, when it became clear from the people he was appointing to key positions that he was not only an incompetent boob, but he was deliberately setting out to dismantle as much environmental and social progress as possible. Now I’m wondering if, after learning that he and his team colluded with Russia to undermine Hillary Clinton, and lied under oath about even talking to any Russians, that these will soon seem like the good old days, when we find out even more about this abomination in chief. There is one thing we can do — we need to start a popular demand to see his tax returns, and learn the extent of his business ties to Russia (although I’m sure half of his stuff was off the books). Every Democratic congressman and senator should adopt Cato the Elder’s tactic, and end every speech, interview, and pizza order with, “And it is also my opinion that Trump should release his tax returns.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1765 "2017-03-02T07:19:48Z")
We’ve numbed. I mentioned in another thread, as snark, about how Trump claimed those millions of illegal votes were cast. Three million to five million, something like that. Now that there qualifies as a Big Hairy Ass Deal. In any previous incarnation of America, there would be sound and fury, _sturm and drang_, the trajectory of the shit would intersect the locus of the fan. And there sorta kinda was, for a couple of days, and then…what, exactly? I don’t remember perzackly, had to guess, I’d guess that another droll dribble of batshit dripped out. Was that it, or just everybody shrugged? What is it, if the lie is big and stupid enough, it no longer counts? ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1766 "2017-03-02T09:21:11Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > We’ve numbed. I mentioned in another thread, as snark, about how Trump claimed those millions of illegal votes were cast. Three million to five million, something like that. Now that there qualifies as a Big Hairy Ass Deal. In any previous incarnation of America, there would be sound and fury, _sturm and drang_, the trajectory of the shit would intersect the locus of the fan. > > And there sorta kinda was, for a couple of days, and then…what, exactly? I don’t remember perzackly, had to guess, I’d guess that another droll dribble of batshit dripped out. Was that it, or just everybody shrugged? What is it, if the lie is big and stupid enough, it no longer counts? How many Presidents say, “What—you think we’re so innocent?” ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1767 "2017-03-02T11:24:28Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > …about how Trump claimed those millions of illegal votes were cast. Every time he has accused his “enemies” of doing something nefarious, it later becomes clear that he’s the one who was doing those things. Every. Single. Time. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1768 "2017-03-02T15:06:33Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > How many Presidents say, “What—you think we’re so innocent?” I know that no Democratic president ever said it, because the atmosphere would _still_ be echoing with howls of right-winger rage. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1769 "2017-03-02T16:28:44Z")
[229 Republicans Voted Last Night](https://www.yahoo.com/news/229-republicans-voted-last-night-200506946.html) to Prevent You from Ever Seeing Donald Trump’s Tax Returns. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1770 "2017-03-02T16:29:51Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Every time he has accused his “enemies” of doing something nefarious, it later becomes clear that he’s the one who was doing those things. Every. Single. Time. Seriously. It’s fucking ridiculous how consistent this has been. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1771 "2017-03-02T16:32:54Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > This is no biggie. Sessions is a Republican. And it’s pretty much a given now that the Republican leadership, from the president, to his advisors, to his cabinet are all working for the direct benefit of Russia’s interests. > > So it’s really just business as usual at this point. Republican voters seem just fine with it. I would make a subtle distinction. Trump and his advisors are working for Russia’s interest. The Republican leadership, however, is working for their own interest – and to that end, they’re perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to whatever shenanigans Trump is up to, as long as he shuts up and signs off on whatever they send him. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1772 "2017-03-02T16:48:19Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Seriously. It’s fucking ridiculous how consistent this has been. It’s long-standing Republican tactics. The GOP is the party of projection. ---
**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:** [March 2, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1773 "2017-03-02T18:28:08Z")
[Here is a very interesting article that touches on several interesting important points](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/andrew-sullivan-the-white-house-mole.html): It remarks on the shared outlooks of Putin and Trump, > [@](#): > > … Trump and Putin are natural allies in their fight against the postwar, U.S.-led international order that has kept the peace for 70 years. Putin and Trump, after all, share a Bannonite foreign policy: a robust defense of nationalism; a view that NATO is obsolete; support for far-right parties throughout Europe; and the goal of smashing the European Union so that Russia can once again extend its tentacles into Eastern Europe, and the U.S. can play one European power off another… Trump and Putin want to form a pincer movement to destroy what we have known for a long time as the West. > > Their domestic politics also have disturbing parallels. Trump would love nothing more, it seems to me, than to be an American Putin, treating the country as he long treated his own corporate fiefdom. He once explained he admired the autocrat because Putin has “great control over his country.” explains why many of today’s American conservatives are so filled with hatred, > [@](#): > > I feel like I know Stephen Miller, the youthful Montgomery Burns who lectured the lügenpresse last Sunday morning in his charm-free Stakhanovite baritone. I feel like I know him because I used to be a little like him. He’s a classic type: a rather dour right-of-center kid whose conservatism was radicalized by lefties in the educational system. No, I’m not blaming liberals for Miller’s grim fanaticism. I am noting merely that right-of-center students are often mocked, isolated, and anathematized on campus, and their response is often, sadly, a doubling down on whatever it is that progressives hate. Before too long, they start adopting brattish and obnoxious positions — just to tick off their SJW peers and teachers. After a while, you’re not so much arguing for conservatism as against leftism, and eventually the issues fade and only the hate remains. comments on Steve Bannon, > [@](#): > > Steve Bannon, on the other hand, is [different from Miller, Anne Coulter, etc.]. I’ve read and reread his 2014 speech at the Vatican to see if I can find any coherence in it, and I confess I failed. It’s a hodgepodge of melodrama, hysteria, and a defense of some kind of “enlightened capitalism” along Judeo-Christian lines, in the face of an imminent Islamist takeover of the planet. It’s the 1950s versus jihad, an attempt to convey the gist of the entire Drudge Report every day and turn it into a thesis. He argues that we are just “at the very beginning stages of a global conflict” that could eradicate 2,000 years of Western civilization. It reads like the apocalyptic, paranoid fantasies of someone who writes letters to the editor, single-spaced, in all caps. … and more. ---
**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:** [March 2, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1774 "2017-03-02T19:14:09Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > I didn’t care when GW Bush put his feet up on the Resolute Desk. I didn’t care when Obama did the same thing. To me, it’s almost a _positive_ image, the president feeling sufficiently comfortable in his job to relax to this extent. I wouldn’t even mind if he was smoking a cigar at the time, deep in thought. It’s the kind of image we might see in an issue of _GQ_, really, assuming he wasn’t _too_ casual, i.e. in shorts and a t-shirt. A buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up, maybe a loosened necktie… the executive in late afternoon, contemplating his options in quiet reflection… Frankly, people who bleat about “dignity” and yet have no sense of style are invited to go suck goat dick. ---
**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:** [March 3, 2017, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1775 "2017-03-03T00:41:44Z")
538 is running a daily report on Trump’s popularity. Or lack thereof. > **[How Popular Is Donald Trump?](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=story-facebook)** > > FiveThirtyEight is tracking Donald Trump’s approval ratings throughout his presidency. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1776 "2017-03-03T00:50:05Z")
In the words of legendary political philosopher K.C. Stengel, “Can anyone here play this game?”. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1777 "2017-03-03T00:59:53Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > And correct, “we” don’t win anything anymore. The last time I remember “we won” something was Grenada. Everything else “we” touch turns to crap. If not right away, then later. Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, on and on and on. Huh. When did that trend start? Who was able to reverse it, and who failed? Show your work. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1778 "2017-03-03T01:03:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Everything else “we” touch turns to crap. If not right away, then later. So because events continue to happen, victories are not victories? Wow, that’s deeper than you realize. Maybe victory is a transitory thing, ephemeral even. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1779 "2017-03-03T01:08:04Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > Germany/Japan model. Full military occupation. US Military administration. Denazification (in this case de-radical-islamization). Suppress that ideology with full US military might like we did with the Nazi ideology. Outlaw it. Write their Constitution for them, like we did in Japan. Slowly build up civilian administration under strict control of the US, until judging that they are ready to be on their own. > > Or, if you don’t think this can work, don’t even go in. Doing it half way is worse than not doing it at all. I agree, especially with that last sentence. The failure to make that choice in Iraq is on the GWB team, for thinking that they could go in with minimal ground forces and do this quickly, and for not preparing the people of the USA for long-term occupation or Mesopotamia. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/1780 "2017-03-03T01:12:50Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > The last time I remember “we won” something was Grenada. Everything else “we” touch turns to crap. If not right away, then later. I must have been too busy looking at cat videos or something when Saddam re-conquered Kuwait. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=88) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=90)