Failure Friday

This past week has to be one of the most disastrous weeks of any presidency. In a week that already had been labelled as “failure Friday” by Morning Joe’s Mika B., the icing on the cake was the firing of Priebus late Friday night. As bad the week was, it was only an extension of the same failures that has become the early pattern with the Trump Administration. The staccato pace of failures is beginning to be felt by the people of denial, the cult of alt. facts. The Trumpanzies paused for a moment from their wild chattering to feel the first palpable tremor of reality – Trump is failing. After months of changing his promise to the faithful that repealing and replacing Obamacare and replacing it with better healthcare at a fraction of the current costs (“it will be easy and happen so fast it will make your head spin”), not only did Trumpcare fail, he failed to even repeal Obamacare! The self-declared “world’s best negotiator” had failed on his signature campaign promise.

Then, he begins to humiliate his attorney general in 3 am tweets. The man who declared that he was the “toughest boss alive” – You’re fired! – didn’t have the courage to fire Sessions, but resorted to humiliating him. It was as though Trump was trying to so embarrass and humiliate Sessions that he would have to resign to preserve any dignity. Other than disgracing the office of the president, the only thing Trump accomplished was to reaffirm that anyone choosing to work for him had already lost all dignity.

Then there was the “Mooch”, who immediately lost any dignity of his own when prostrating himself before Trump in the very first press conference. Another Wall St. hire (“clean the Swamp”), Scaramucci has no communication skills training or knowledge of how government works, but he quickly made it clear that he does have one communication skill – he could curse and threaten people as though he was channeling Tony Soprano. It’s fair to say that he has embarrassed the entire country already… and probably secured his job.

Then there was the appalling performance at the Boy Scout Jamboree. Trump turned a rally of adolescent boys into a political rally that evoked images of Hitler Youth Rallies – the only thing lacking were the torches. How bad is it when the leader of the Boy Scouts had to apologize for the president?

Then there was the tweet changing military policy on transgender servicemen. What kind of person announces a change in military policy in a tweet? Although Trump claimed he had consulted with his generals, it quickly became apparent that that was a lie when the Pentagon was caught completely by surprise. More than a few in the military and in government are concerned about a commander in chief who makes impulsive, unilateral decisions on military policy and announces it in a tweet before informing his military. In a subtle, but powerful act of defiance of their commander, the joint chiefs announced that they were not changing any policy until the proper procedure and considerations were completed. The man who declared that he ”knew more than the generals…” was smacked down in an unprecedented way by those generals.

Then there was the passage of a Russian sanction bill by a veto-proof vote in both bodies of Congress. The most significant political aspect of those votes is that Congress included a limitation on the power of the president to change the sanctions. All but 5 members of the House and Senate announced they do not trust Trump on the issue of Russia.

Then there was the resignation of Priebus. The man who declared himself the best judge of talent and greatest manager in history, promised to staff his administration with only the “top, top talent… the most brilliant people”, has now lost more upper level appointees than any president in the first 6 months of his administration. Two of his appointees to the top national security positions turned out to be employed as agents of another country. That’s some judge of character and talent! His communications director, his chief of staff… all told, some 9 people in senior management have been fired or resigned and that doesn’t include the acting attorney general and FBI director – but those were not his appointees, they were fired for investigating his collusion with Russia. And this is all before any criminal indictments have been issued! Numerous sources report that the White House is in total chaos, and the product coming out from there seems to confirm those reports. If a CEO of any major company lost 9 senior managers in six months, they would be fired.

The failures are accumulating, and the sense that this president is incompetent is even starting to penetrate the collective Medulla Oblongata of Trumpcult. #whatabouthillary?