Trump is angry that he cannot turn a button and “fix” all that he sees as the “immigration problem.” Apparently, undocumented immigrants still walk the streets, and still seek asylum at the border from countries such as the Congo. So, like anyone addled with an adolescent psyche, Trump’s solution was to launch into a squirm-inducing tirade at Homeland Security Director Kristen Nielsen during a cabinet meeting of the executive branch of the United States government.
Jesus.
Not only did the meeting cause Nielsen to draft a resignation letter immediately afterward (though she never submitted it), it apparently left the others in the meeting eyeballing each other, twisting, turning away, wishing they were clairvoyant and could simply skip along to the end, anything to get themselves back to the world of adulthood, where people do not scream about intractable problems.
As first reported in Rawstory, author Chris Whipple, who wrote a well-reviewed book about the importance of the chief of staff, said that Trump “has learned nothing” during his first 18 months in office, and hit upon an essential Trump quality:
“But this is not at all surprising,” he said. “This is who he is. He loves ritual humiliation. He did it to Reince Priebus. He did it to Rudy Giuliani during the campaign… this is the price of admission if you’re going to work for Donald Trump at this level. If goes with the territory and, quite frankly, they know what they signed up for.”
He “loves ritual humiliation.” What a revealing sentence, especially when paired with “frankly, they know what they signed-up for,” because as everyone has noticed, people are no longer “signing-up” jobs under Trump. Indeed, Trump might well have simply stopped looking for many positions, because people are no longer interested in becoming the object of ritual humiliation, all to fill the emotional needs of a child.
We have not even hit the 18-month mark, and Trump has not learned anything about how to be a real leader. The only people “safe” in their positions are those who oversee a department or bureau with few “measurable” assignments, such as the Vice President, or a staff member such as the also-adolescent-in-his-approach Stephen Miller, who can simply whisper sweet-flattery into Trump’s ears all day and point fingers. But, there aren’t many jobs with such blissfully open-ended assignments, and the resignations are piling-up.
As I said yesterday, this is not sustainable, and part of the reason is that the United States is too great a nation to have a leader who enjoys “ritual humiliation” as a means of governing. Damn it, it wouldn’t be tolerated at a student council meeting!
