Rick Wilson, current clown prince chronicler of “President Best Brain” and his tantrums, holds forth on the departure in protest of James Mattis and what it means. Daily Beast:
His extraordinary departure in protest of Trump’s policies and personality is absolutely unprecedented. Mattis naturally objects to the reckless Syria pullout plan, but also to the president’s wholesale abandonment of our traditional allies who have made not only the U.S. but the world safer. As I write this, Washington and the world are reeling, and in deep shock. Even usually Trump-compliant Stockholm Syndrome Republicans in the House and Senate are issuing statements bordering on panic, all while the Trump noise machine warms up to attack Mattis as a Soros shill, a closeted liberal, and a traitor to the Maximum Leader. […]
Even the Trump White House, a hive of the most morally vacant and cowardly bootlicks ever assembled, found themselves relying on Mattis, even if they never trusted him. If Trump ever realizes how much his own White House staff counted on the Marine general turned SECDEF to control his impulsive defense and foreign-policy decisions, he’ll have a Twitter stroke. […]
Trump called Mattis “a Democrat” during a recent interview, but Wilson correctly smells “the sour odor of jealousy” where Mattis is concerned.
Low, weak men like Donald Trump may pretend to praise people like Mattis, but always secretly revile those who possess virtues and values they lack. Trump resented Mattis for his accomplishments, his judgment, and his knowledge. Donald Trump, a man of the most shallow intellect and indifferent ability, faced a man who has forgotten more about war, diplomacy, and strategy that Trump has ever learned. [,,,]
One supreme irony of Jim Mattis working for Donald Trump was apparent to me from the beginning. Mattis wasn’t just a better man on every axis; Trump was the kind of man Jim Mattis spent his career training to defeat; the authoritarians and oppressors of this world, the big-bore despots and the small-bore warlords. The type of people Trump either admires or lets himself be manipulated by—Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Kim Jong Un, and others—are the kind of men Mattis sees as obvious adversaries of the United States. Mattis sees the risks of failed states, while Trump seems determined to create one. Mattis understands American institutions; Trump monomaniacally craves royalty, a literal Imperial Presidency.
Mattis did a lot to save Trump from himself, but of course, it was not enough, it can never be enough, when Trump’s in the equation. Trump is hell bent on playing out his hand as berserker in chief, wreaking havoc right and left, in satisfaction of some cosmic machismo purpose only he fully understands and the rest of us are trying to figure out. This week was a double whammy of epic proportion, with the departure of Mattis and the looming government shut down. One good thing, Chef Andres has offered to feed government workers who don’t get paid, if it comes to that. Trump doesn’t grok life on that basic a level — it’s all theater to him. Hopefully, his actions this week have pushed him that much closer to the final curtain ringing down, because this politics-as-shock-art schick of his is really getting old.
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