A dick army
I finished reading fear and am going to try writing semi-coherent thoughts about it while I poop.
- sources seem relatively obvious, because they come out looking better than expected. Bannon, Priebus, Rob Porter, and John Dowd are almost all definitely sources. Or someone very close to them.
- you can sort of see why they were so hesitant to get rid of Rob Porter (assuming it’s accurate). He was instrumental in running interference on Trump’s dumber ideas by slow walking them, changing the subject, or failing to deliver memos.
- Trump actually comes off better than a lot give him credit for usually. Not good, mind you, but I think the way many interpret his terribleness is different than how it really is. People think he’s a moron that can barely string a senate crack together, but it’s more like he’s set in his ways, has a ton of moral failings, lies constantly, and has a very stupid worldview. He may also have a touch of dementia or Alzheimer’s because his staff often takes advantage of his forgetfulness. He’s basically your dumb uncle that thinks Obama is a Muslim except he probably lies more.
- people think Trump has no worldview but that’s not 100% true. He does, it is just a dumb one. He is extremely transactional and the only way he measures the success of those international transactions is money into the us vs money out. He doesn’t seem to be able to grasp the value of intangible parts of a relationship or grasp that there are sometimes second order benefits where a situation would be a lot worse without this imperfect balance in place. This is what ppl mean when they say “we need a business man for president” so America, let’s not say that anymore.
- he doesn’t really understand governments function or constraints
- it seems John dowd basically admitted to Woodward that he committed obstruction. He actually says “I don’t think trump committed obstruction” but then goes on to lay out that’s trump can’t be interviewed by the fbi because he is a liar and will incriminate himself in his answers.... this says to me that really actually thinks he did it, no matter how he tries to spin it.
- not much to go on either way with Russia stuff
- trump’s inability to run a well-tuned White House contributes to the bad policy. The chief of staff is unable to control the presidents schedule, so people will sort of sneak into his office and convince of shit with a memo to sign and Boom, new bad policy.
- he would be less objectionable with better people around him probably, especially on the crazy immigration shit.
- he 100% believes in the trade war though. Wanting to scrap the trade agreement with South Korea is a recurring then thwarted by his cabinet. Don’t be surprised if that executive order lands with a thump out of nowhere one day.
