In a presidential race between unpopular Hillary Clinton and unpopular Donald Trump it always struck me as bizarre that Trump chose to appear to the strains of The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
No kidding! But it’s now prophetically true that we haven’t got what we want, nor what we need, and it’s no joke. However, help may be on the way. We are told Trump has decided he now understands the job of president. In the tradition of “Prometheus Unbound” and “Hercules Unchained,” we are now going to have “Trump Unleashed.” Or perhaps, off the leash.
He is no longer going to be held back by traditions, norms, law or order, restrained by the so-called adults in the room. He’s going to get the cabinet he always wanted. Apparently in his mind, establishment types like Reince Priebus saddled him with all those people he’s had to fire. So, he’s going to get rid of uptight generals, CEOS, Goldman alumni and go with Trumpian outsiders.
He declared his independence by eliminating Rex Tillerson in a typically cruel and craven way, at long distance via tweet. He also engineered the firing of Andrew McCabe at FBI, hours before he would qualify for his pension, and before an IG report faulting him for dealings with the press was released or an appeal of its conclusions could be offered.
McCabe may have erred, but the barrage of tweets from the president prejudiced the case and appears vindictive, for McCabe’s refuseal to pledge personal allegiance to Trump. In Trump’s mind this made him part of an imaginary Comey cabal, out to stage a coup. Ruining McCabe may have been fun, but it may also add another count in a Mueller indictment for obstruction or evidence of the cover-up of the collusion Trump denies.
As usual the new blood Trump brings in will either be people he hopes will provide the loyalty it seems so hard to find, or the same old blood that has already passed the test. Mike Pompeo his CIA director will now become the Secretary of State, Senate permitting. Trump likes Pompeo because he does a daily briefing that requires no reading and lots of pictures.
Of course, Pompeo is also a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koch cabal. They invested in his defense business, bought him his seat as their hometown congressman, and he now serves as one of their administration moles. Trump is replacing mainstream Republican appointees with Koch people and Murdock people.
Since Trump gets all his information from Fox News and Breitbart, it’s hardy surprising that he would rely on them for personnel. Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon were creatures of the Mercer family whose money and ideology are embodied by Breitbart.
As to Fox friends, Scaramucci came from there. Peter Hegseth of Fox Weekend is rumored to be the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Foreign policy super-hawk John Bolton, also from their stable, has now been tapped to head the NSC in place of a three-star general who advised against scrapping the Iran deal. Bolton prefers war-war to jaw- jaw. Heather Nauert, a Fox cohost, has been promoted from a departmental spokesperson to an Undersecretary of State. You get the drift.
Trump is also demonstrating his freedom by erratic and self-defeating moves. He decided to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum against the advice of Gary Cohn, head of his Economic Council, who promptly resigned. He’s going to be replaced by Larry Kudlow who also happens to be a free trade advocate but has preached the supply side gospel on TV, which is a credential that carries weight with Trump. TV, that is.
Trump has also ignored warnings from many advisors and lawyers to stop tweeting about the Mueller investigation or pursuing the lawsuits involving sex with a porn star and a playboy bunny and one by a woman he slandered after molesting her.
Instead, he has followed his own advice, and that of his mentor the late Roy Cohn, to attack anyone who attacks you, no matter how counterproductive. Thus, his assaults on Mueller have caused even people in his own party to begin using the I word, impeachment, and his draconian attempts to enforce his non-disclose agreements suggest all the things he has denied are true.
One of his many lawyers, John Dowd, quit since his client won’t follow his advice. Only one? Not to worry, though. Trump has found a new one in the usual place, on Fox News. It’s Joseph diGenova, one of the originators of the right wings’s counter-conspiracy theory.
According to diGenova, Russia didn’t help tilt the election to Trump with the help of Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Mercer money, Bannon, Manafort, Stone, Kusher, Parscale, Papadopoulos, et al. Oh no. Instead, “there was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime.” Who was behind this treason? “A group of F.B.I. and D.O.J. people.”
Trump’s ire warms itself at such theories, but it seems to originate in his feelings of persecution and inferiority. He looks around the word and all the leaders he envies and admires — Putin, Duterte, Erdogan — get to have their own way. They aren’t being investigated by a Special Counsel, told to behave by appointees and attorneys, thwarted by Congress, criticized by the press, defied by women. And if they are, heads roll, critics disappear, women comply, troublemakers somehow encounter a dose of nerve agent.
Trump not only can’t always get what he wants, he almost never gets what he wants. He thought when he became president the Stones’ song that would be this anthem would be “Under My Thumb.” Instead of having any girl he wanted doing his bidding, the whole country, the whole world would do as they were told. Instead, people expect him to negotiate and compromise. In short, he can’t get no satisfaction. It’s very disappointing.