Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
The idea isn't to pull punches with his staff because they are smart or good; certainly not even to have pity on them.
It's that Trump plays the staff-shake-up-game during times of crisis both as a bobble for the media to get focused on and more subtly but critically, it's a way for him to pretend whoever is rumored on the outs is responsible for his failures. So making Bannon, or Conway, or Spicer, or Miller, or Priebus, or whoever the subject of an inordinate amount of focus and criticism is ultimately servile to Trump's interests: when and if things go really south, he'll fire the person or people and then pretend he's some savvy CEO who now sees he too has been betrayed by his disloyal and incompetent staff.
Obviously no one sharp would be fooled by this game but when critics aggrandize guys like Bannon as an especially pernicious influence, it may be both realistic but also folly. It lets Trump fritter around and say NOW Ivanka and Jared really has his ear, or he's really letting the Wisconsin guys like Priebus and Ryan set the agenda, he's really marginalized Bannon this time. Focusing on Bannon as really and uniquely bad is, in the end, political cover for Trump to deploy when its suits his purpose.
It's a giant fools' errand to follow the court intrigue too deeply. A lot of it is surely a smoke show crafted specifically to let the audience imagine whatever they want like the rest of Trump's rhetoric. He's got Ivanka and Jared for the elites and the women and the money people, Priebus for the insiders, Bannon for the alt-right and depending on the audience, time of day, rise and fall of various circumstances he's just going to pretend their status is rising and falling, they really have his ear now, this one is on the outs, he's about to say YOU'RE FIRED to that one, blah blah blah blah. It's a scam designed to confuse in the end. Critics should just focus on Trump. When and if he ever fires Bannon or sends Jared back to the Trump business empire or whatever, and some other new drama emerges, some new force that has Trump's ear this time, just ignore it all and continue saying Trump and Trump alone is the truly malignant and dangerous force in this thing.
Is there anything that can be done about Trump's focus on misdirects with staff as long as people keep accepting jobs. Huge staffing holes aside plenty of people line up to fill what jobs he chooses to offer.
This has been Trump's MO in his business career as well. He scapegoats as a primary defense mechanism. Which is absolutely one of the worst traits for a leader of anything.
Trump hired Flynn after he has been fired by Obama and then blamed Obama for him hiring him. Too many people are easily sucked into the vortex of nonsense for much of this to stick directly on Trump.