Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[Flagg]

To follow up in regards to President Peckerwood's bubble, his staff knows that bursting it would be the worst thing they could ever do. I mean all covfefe would break loose.

[bilateralrope]

To follow up in regards to President Peckerwood's bubble, his staff knows that bursting it would be the worst thing they could ever do. I mean all covfefe would break loose.

Then he'd fire whoever told the truth.

[Flagg]

To follow up in regards to President Peckerwood's bubble, his staff knows that bursting it would be the worst thing they could ever do. I mean all covfefe would break loose.

Then he'd fire whoever told the truth.

Yeah, but much like the fabric of President Peckerwood's new intern's underwear, spacetime would rip open against its will and bad comb-overs (or cheap hair pieces) would obliterate the universe.

[Simon_Jester]

In every man's life there comes a time when he must wake up and smell the covfefe.

In this case, the smell is a signal to everyone saying "Trump's smart and playing the long game with all this stuff" that no, he really, really isn't. His entire model of business for fifty years has revolved around hiring subservient cronies who will prostitute their own dignity and reputations in order to say and do whatever he wants them to say and do, in exchange for the rewards he offers. This has always meant that they were chosen for, above all else, the willingness to lie for him and to be his yes-men. Here we are seeing that in its purest form.

There is no possible rationale for why Trump would pretend he hadn't made a typo, except his own belief in his own infallibility. There is no reason for Sean Spicer to try to defend the typo as a real word, except that he's got this demented willingness to lie in hopes that reality will bend around to make his patron look appealing. The man is so terribly underappreciated in his current job; he'd be the perfect candidate for 1984's Ministry of Truth.

[Pelranius]

One of Trump's big weaknesses is that he's got a very limited pool of people he can actually rely on to do his bidding directly. He doesn't have powerful senior officials lining up to be his goons. They'll vote with him, they'll say nice things about him in public, but they're not willing to permanently tie their fortunes to his because they have options. They have the choice of not going down with his ship.

The only people willing to get aboard Trump's ship are those willing to drown with it if things go wrong, and by this point it's becoming obvious that that could happen, even if the average Republican may not think it will happen.

If a normal White House administration had a single man who'd been given a dangerously large portfolio who had to step down in disgrace, they could. Because they'd have a reasonable selection of intellectuals and people from the party interested in taking those jobs. But nobody with the chops it takes to do major jobs in government is going to want to do that for Trump. Not now that he's repeatedly demonstrated a lack of reciprocal loyalty and a willingness to use other men's reputation to wipe up the messes he creates.

So Trump is reduced to recruiting unqualified people he trusts not to leak just how rotten and stupid his administration is- like his family, his old bodyguard, and so on.

Well, frankly it sounds like a good deal of the leaking is being down by his inner circle of Bannon, Kushner, Cohn et al, mostly to gain advantage over the other in whatever the fracas of the hour is.

Frankly, if Trump actually fired and arrested all the leakers, it'd be just him and John Barron in the White House.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, that seems fairly likely.

Thing is, the kind of lying toady creep who would work for Trump with the way he behaves towards his staff is exactly the kind of person who would behave that way. They'll do what he says, as long as he directly instructs them to, but in all other ways they simply pursue their own agendas, even to the detriment of his own agenda. Why wouldn't they? They're the sort of person who can be motivated purely by money, by Trump's name, and/or by the prestige of working in the White House.

People who cannot be motivated entirely by those things, even people who are pretty damn slimy themselves but have enough ego that they won't be able to put up with being subordinated to a bullying manchild like Trump, simply don't sign up to work for him.

I suspect Trump may actually be having more trouble finding experienced competent people now than he did when he was a private businessman. In private industry it's more normative to work for someone you despise doing something you don't approve of, in exchange for huge pots of money. In politics, less so. Plus, in politics, reputation is more valuable- and working for Trump is death on a man's reputation for independence, competence, and reliability.

[Raj Ahten]

I suspect Trump may actually be having more trouble finding experienced competent people now than he did when he was a private businessman. In private industry it's more normative to work for someone you despise doing something you don't approve of, in exchange for huge pots of money. In politics, less so. Plus, in politics, reputation is more valuable- and working for Trump is death on a man's reputation for independence, competence, and reliability.

Well we are assuming Trump gives a damn about competence at all with his recruiting. In fact the evidence shows he is deliberately trying to exclude anyone who knows anything about anything what his firing of experienced hands at State etc. It's just his authoritarian tendencies coming through and authoritarians are notoriously incompetent. It's not like dictator or wanna be dictators don't make horrible decisions like invading the Soviet Union or not believing you are about to be invaded on the other side of the border circa 1941.

Competence is irrelevant or even detrimental because it can show the emperor has no clothes. Only loyalty to the leader matters, as you pointed out earlier that's all he gave a damn about in his real estate career.

[Simon_Jester]

When he ran private businesses, Trump did value competence- for example, he hired highly competent lawyers to serve as his attack dogs in threatening other people with lawsuits. This was because having competent subordinates helped him win.

The problem he faces now is that he's trying to be 'the boss' in an entirely different field. In private business, almost everyone is a mercenary on some level, and a reputation for loyalty to your employer of the moment is more valuable than a reputation for probity or integrity as a whole. Therefore, finding the best talent is simply a matter of offering more money than the competition, and once you've got the best talent working for you, you can get them to do virtually anything.

In government, that doesn't work. People have party affiliations, personal affiliations, and ambitions of their own. If you're not in a position to scratch those itches, you can't easily recruit other members of the political class just by offering bigger salaries. Even when you do, anyone who has long term ambitions to stay in government has to have a reputation for personal reliability and competence that will outlive your presidential administration.

This means that taking a job as, say, Donald Trump's press secretary is contra-indicated. Because it's pretty obvious that by the end of the Trump administration, Sean Spicer's reputation is going to be terrible even among people who sympathize with his politics, because of how nakedly obvious it is that he has absolutely no self-respect and is utterly willing to prostitute himself. And anyone who knew how Trump behaved on the campaign trail could predict this, and certainly anyone considering working for him now can predict this... Which means that the best way to ensure you have a career in politics in 2025 is to stay the hell away from Donald Trump.

...

It's not that Trump would not, all else being equal, prefer competent subordinates to incompetent ones. If he genuinely didn't perceive the difference between the two types, he wouldn't just be repeatedly bankrupt, he'd have literally gone out of business entirely. Decades ago.

It's that Trump is in no position to find real competent people, and overvalues the willingness to do exactly what he wants. In private business those aren't mutually exclusive, but in the public sector they tend to be, because people deal in the currencies of power and reputation more than money.

So Trump's existing methods for finding talented people willing to do as he pleases fails, he keeps trying to recruit people who do as he pleases, and the the only people he gets are incompetent lying toadies.

Let's not oversimplify the issue into "dictators prefer to hire morons." They don't. The problem is that by nature, hiring competent people in politics is hard. Especially if you're unable or unwilling to pay them in the currency of respect and your own long-term patronage and support. And Trump (like some dictators in history, but unlike others) cannot provide that currency.

[Thanas]

http://imgur.com/r/pics/YK6Ru

So....yeah.

[SCRawl]

Well, I suppose it's more internal than external, so here's the prepared statement of James B. Comey, Esq., which he will read at the beginning of tomorrow's testimony:

Statement for the Record
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
James B. Comey

June 8, 2017

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today
to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on
subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail
from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I
have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.
January 6 Briefing
I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference
room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence
Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the
findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the
election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the PresidentElect
to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information
assembled during the assessment.
The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the
incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious
and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to
publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of
the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the
extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt
any such effort with a defensive briefing.
The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion
of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material
implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would
do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although
we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI’s leadership and I were
concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came
into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence
investigation of his personal conduct.
2
It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are
different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The
Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical
and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United
States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those
efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted
for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves
hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves
“turning” the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the
behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On
occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.
Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence
investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to
be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops
reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign
power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will “open an
investigation” on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about
the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.
In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s
leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that
we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open
counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances
warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on PresidentElect
Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the
question, I offered that assurance.
I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect
in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle
outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written
records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my
practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I
spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) –
once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly,
for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I
memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with
President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.
January 27 Dinner
The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the
Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and
3
invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but
decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It
was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I
assumed there would be others.
It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the
center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the
room to serve food and drinks.
The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI
Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier
conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to.
He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during
the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this
was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part,
an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.
That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the
executive branch.
I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my tenyear
term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that
I was not “reliable” in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count
on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody’s side politically
and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in
his best interest as the President.
A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.”
I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the
awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The
conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our
dinner.
At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the
Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox:
Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because “problems” come
from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those
boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in
the institutions and their work.
Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job,
saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things
4
about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, “I need
loyalty.” I replied, “You will always get honesty from me.” He paused and then
said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” I paused, and then said, “You will get
that from me.” As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is
possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it
wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped
end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he
should expect.
During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had
briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his
disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering
ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied
that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we
were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very
difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to
think about it.
As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a
detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the
senior leadership team of the FBI.
February 14 Oval Office Meeting
On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism
briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in
a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The
Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National CounterTerrorism
Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I
were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting
between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a
few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.
The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and
telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the
participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my
chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me.
The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and
exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he
wanted to speak with me.
When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the
President began by saying, “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.” Flynn had resigned
5
the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn’t done anything
wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had
misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn,
which he did not then specify.
The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with
leaks of classified information – a concern I shared and still share. After he had
spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door
by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him.
The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly.
The door closed.
The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a
good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done
anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President.
He then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn
go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” I replied only that “he is a good
guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a
colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my
term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.”
The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and
left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group
of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.
I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about
Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the
President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection
with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in
December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader
investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I
took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the
controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very
concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.
The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect
the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to
abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there
was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little
sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely
recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two
weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting
capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.
6
After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to
figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The
investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team
members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the
President’s request.
Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to
pass along the President’s concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore
the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the
President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to
leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was
inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons
discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI’s potential
investigation of General Flynn.
March 30 Phone Call
On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He
described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act
on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been
involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded
when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that
we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be
great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He
agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.
Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about
Russia the previous week – at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed,
confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the
Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in
Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the
confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the
investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on
exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those
Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump.
I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, “We need
to get that fact out.” (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department
of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an
open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because
it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)
The President went on to say that if there were some “satellite” associates
of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he
7
hadn’t done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we
weren’t investigating him.
In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director
Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn’t brought up “the McCabe thing” because I had
said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and
had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe’s wife) campaign
money. Although I didn’t understand why the President was bringing this up, I
repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.
He finished by stressing “the cloud” that was interfering with his ability to
make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he
wasn’t being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we
would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.
Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney
General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russiarelated
matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I
would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President
called me again two weeks later.
April 11 Phone Call
On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had
done about his request that I “get out” that he is not personally under investigation.
I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I
had not heard back. He replied that “the cloud” was getting in the way of his
ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to
the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be
handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to
make the request, which was the traditional channel.
He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to
you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he
meant by “that thing.” I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White
House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what
he would do and the call ended.
That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.
# # #

[Flagg]

http://imgur.com/r/pics/YK6Ru

So....yeah.

They need to put that to the electronic version of Beethoven's 9th Symphony used during the Ludovico Treatment during 'A Clockwork Orange'.

[Civil War Man]

Well, I suppose it's more internal than external, so here's the prepared statement of James B. Comey, Esq., which he will read at the beginning of tomorrow's testimony:

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He
described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act
on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been
involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded
when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that
we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be
great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He
agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Incoming confirmation of Pee Pee Tape detected.

[Khaat]

Incoming confirmation of Pee Pee Tape detected.

I don't think anyone has anything so simplistic: Trump understands that as long as there is an investigation into a) Russian hackers influencing the election, and b) indications that Trumps own people colluded in this, it's a "cloud". A guy like Trump won't shrink from a video of him having hookers pee on a bed that Obama slept in, he'll wrap it around himself and wave to his racist, anti-establishment supporters (all 3 of them that haven't left). Even the pro-establishment racist folks will step back slowly from him at that point, because as Simon pointed out, they want to still have a career once Trump's done burning down the US in the eyes of the world.

What I fear is that the Trump administration is "step 2" of someone's long-range plan so that draconian "recovery measures" can be institutionalized.

But it also occurred to me last night: if Trump isn't paying off those Russian bank loans (in exchange for cooperating with Moscow's directives) but is writing them off, he can always go down for tax evasion. S'how they got Capone....

[FireNexus]

This I hope I hope I hope bullshit from the GOP senators is not going to look good if and when any smoking gun comes out.

[Thanas]

One thing is very clear to me from watching the comey hearing: The GOP - even the moderate ones like Sen. Collins - are circling the wagon around Trump.

[FireNexus]

One thing is very clear to me from watching the comey hearing: The GOP - even the moderate ones like Sen. Collins - are circling the wagon around Trump.

Yeah. But they're circling the wagons even though it's clear that the debris coming his way was being thrown by a fucking tornado.

[Gandalf]

One thing is very clear to me from watching the comey hearing: The GOP - even the moderate ones like Sen. Collins - are circling the wagon around Trump.

Makes sense. Circling the wagons got them through eight years of Bush, and they remained potent enough to derail a whole bunch of Obama's stuff. Why break with a winning strategy?

[Elfdart]

Well, I suppose it's more internal than external, so here's the prepared statement of James B. Comey, Esq., which he will read at the beginning of tomorrow's testimony:

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He
described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act
on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been
involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded
when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that
we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be
great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He
agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Incoming confirmation of Pee Pee Tape detected.

As I.F. Stone used to say, nothing is officially confirmed until it is officially denied.

[Simon_Jester]

One thing is very clear to me from watching the comey hearing: The GOP - even the moderate ones like Sen. Collins - are circling the wagon around Trump.

Makes sense. Circling the wagons got them through eight years of Bush, and they remained potent enough to derail a whole bunch of Obama's stuff. Why break with a winning strategy?

Grimly, yes- but there's one major side effect.

When you park yourself that close to a natural scandal magnet, and dig in that deep, you're guaranteeing you'll be caught in the blast radius of the scandals.

It's basically a long-term gamble. The reward is predictable in the short-term: increased party power to accomplish short-term goals, because Trump doesn't get pissed off at the failure of every powerful person in the country to magically show him "absolute loyalty" because he pulled one of the narrowest electoral victories in history out of his hat.

The potential cost is that your party is basically playing Russian roulette, and the metaphor is in some ways more accurate than usual in this case. If anything really bad happens and utterly discredits the name of your man, for decades to come... well, you've surgically welded your party's brand to his name.

This means that for the ambitious politician there's a calculation to be made: how much distance do you create between yourself and the massive garbage fire your party's pitched its tent over? Do you quietly snip a hole in the side of the tent to give yourself an exit route when something really toxic catches fire? When is it profitable to use such an exit route and act like you were never part of the tent at all?

Given the history of the last twenty years, the Republicans are at high risk of erring too far on the side of "not enough distance between me and Trump. And even if they weren't, the Comey testimony in and of itself contains nothing so obviously, hugely earthshaking that it would spur the immediate defection of a large group of Republican senators.

...

Consider a counterfactual scenario. Suppose Comey's testimony had been something like "Uh yeah, the FBI actually has extremely strong evidence of Trump being a child molestor, and not just in the creepy as hell locker room beauty pageant way we already knew about. Thaaaat was probably going to go public in a few weeks..."

I suspect that a lot of the same Republicans who are trying to downplay "he demands 'absolute loyalty' from the director of the FBI and fires him for not taking hints to quash ongoing investigations of his associates' covert affiliations with a foreign power" might think twice about the wisdom of circling the wagons around the guy. Because they'd know for sure, right away, no way in hell are they going to spin that successfully.

[It's a tragedy in my book that they DO think they can spin 'absolute loyalty' that way]

By contrast, this is the kind of thing that a politician who has limited direct personal instantaneous stake in the matter may at least try to spin. If it doesn't go over well with their constituents, well, it's nearly a year and a half to the next election, there's plenty of time to tack back over to the "Wanna-be tyrants who try to suborn and control the FBI are bad" side of the issue.

[Thanas]

I think they are betting on the short memory and stupidity of the American voter, which is a bet they have been winning over the past decades. You would think that after Bush II the chances of a GOP member being president were nonexistent for a long time but instead we get an even worse version less than a decade later.

[TheFeniX]

I think they are betting on the short memory and stupidity of the American voter, which is a bet they have been winning over the past decades. You would think that after Bush II the chances of a GOP member being president were nonexistent for a long time but instead we get an even worse version less than a decade later.

Trump pretty much staked his claim on the notion that he's not a politician and that he hijacked the GOP and made fools of them all. It's a really twisted version of what Obama did in 2008: people were done with politics and politicians. But Obama was a rock-star. He was everywhere talking about how the system failed them and he wouldn't.

When someone like Clinton says that, considering her history, it's called out for bullshit easily. Obama did this to her in 2008 and it was surprisingly effective.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think they are betting on the short memory and stupidity of the American voter, which is a bet they have been winning over the past decades. You would think that after Bush II the chances of a GOP member being president were nonexistent for a long time but instead we get an even worse version less than a decade later.

Trump pretty much staked his claim on the notion that he's not a politician and that he hijacked the GOP and made fools of them all. It's a really twisted version of what Obama did in 2008: people were done with politics and politicians. But Obama was a rock-star. He was everywhere talking about how the system failed them and he wouldn't.

When someone like Clinton says that, considering her history, it's called out for bullshit easily. Obama did this to her in 2008 and it was surprisingly effective.

Its also a big part of what allowed Bernie to go as far as he did.

The problem is that Trump conned people into thinking he was "anti-establishment". Which he was, sort of, but the key part is which "establishment" he's against. He's against the established legal and democratic norms of a Western democracy.

He is wholly part of the "entitled corrupt rich businessman" part of the establishment. Indeed, he's pretty much its ugly orange personification.

[Simon_Jester]

I think they are betting on the short memory and stupidity of the American voter, which is a bet they have been winning over the past decades. You would think that after Bush II the chances of a GOP member being president were nonexistent for a long time but instead we get an even worse version less than a decade later.

I honestly think a big part of the problem is that by being massively obstructionist for six years, the Republicans successfully created a narrative of the government being sort of, well... superfluous. Like, "but what have you done for me lately?" They've obfuscated hard to minimize the significance of key Democratic initiatives (particularly the ACA), and in the process have numbed Americans to the point where they stop actually thinking of policy competence and corruption-free governance as things that matter.

I'm hoping that exposure to the Trump administration will change this. I really am.

It also doesn't help that Obama has staked out foreign policy positions nearly identical to Bush's except that he's less likely to exult about torturing his enemies.

[The Romulan Republic]

There's some truth to that, and its part of why I so vehemently hate the "all politicians are the same" narrative that cynics and third partiers are so fond of peddling. Because it normalizes political corruption, and makes the worst politicians (ie Trump) seem equivalent to the best.

I consider that narrative, actually, to likely be a major factor in why Trump won, and why people made (and continue to make) excuses for him.

[TheFeniX]

I honestly think a big part of the problem is that by being massively obstructionist for six years, the Republicans successfully created a narrative of the government being sort of, well... superfluous. Like, "but what have you done for me lately?" They've obfuscated hard to minimize the significance of key Democratic initiatives (particularly the ACA), and in the process have numbed Americans to the point where they stop actually thinking of policy competence and corruption-free governance as things that matter.

People may hate Democrats these days, but they still liked Obama. That's because he was able to navigate the system and gets things done. So, voters see a guy like Obama and how things could get done over an obstructionist faction and ask "why aren't there more people like that?"

Faith in local politcians or "my" representative is high. I think Clinton's approval rating in her Seat State is like 90%. On a national level? Pfft, haha! But voters can also fall back on state and local politicians, so it mitigates some of this problem and makes it easier to cash out. Like, Trump guts the EPA. That sucks, but I do most all of my work through TCEQ and TRRC. Those agencies were, hilariously enough, founded to protect landowners. And in Texas, less so now, Landowners are "real people" worth protecting.

But I have problems being too mad that people are so disgusted with the system, because holy shit when you look close enough it's fucking grim. Outside of hugboxes/bastions of partisanship (and even inside them): the U.S. is increasingly moderate. What party represents U.S. moderates? You pick one or two issues as your hill to die on and hope for the best. Or you just, you know, don't vote. Even outside the process itself: try entering a hugbox with any kind of non-hardline stance. They'll fuckin' devour you. And yes, it's actually become worse over time IMHO.

Sidenote: why do you think I continue to post here? Not that I have thin skin, I'm just fucking tired of "political discourse" on 99% of the Internet being the equivalent of the "Xbone vs Playstation" flameware. And don't get me wrong, the Internet actually is a large portion of the problem, which in of itself is a multi-faceted problem.

Not that you are, but every click-bait trash spewer on the Interwebs seems to be, but you can't point to just one thing as to why people are disgusted by the system a guy like Trump could get traction when up against a monolith like HRC. It's this long, littered road of shit. The only difference is, this last cycle, the outgoing pres left office almost squeaky clean. So, ALL that blame had to go somewhere else. And boy did it.

EDIT: kind of wanted to add, we're not that far outside of the time when John Stewart, a comedian, was the most trusted face in news. I feel that's semi-related enough to warrant a mention.