What's Better, An Incompetent Trump Or A Competent Trump?

Auschwitz Revisited by Nancy Ohanian

"Trump," wrote Philip Bump in his Washington Post column yesterday, "appears to simply be making the figure up." What figure? Does it matter? Trump makes everything up. (So does Biden, but not as much). Bump was talking about how Trump consistently lies about his approval numbers, "touting a 93% approval rating from Republicans. The first iteration of that figure that we found came from a straw poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is a bit like foxes claiming to be overwhelmingly popular after surveying people at a furry convention. It’s like asking about support for the Second Amendment at a gun show. In June, though, Trump tacked on a percentage point. He first claimed to have 94% support from Republicans during a news conference with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May. Our fact-checkers looked into it, determining that there was no public poll showing anything of the sort. If it was an internal campaign poll, it hasn’t been made public (our fact-checkers asked). Since then, though, 94% has supplanted 93% in Trump’s rhetoric, with his touting this purported number over and over and over again."

Lying is Trump's modus operandi. (Biden's too, but not as much.) As Max Boot wrote in his own Post column in the same edition, "Trump inherited more than $400 million from his father and invested in one failed business after another." New polling, he reports, "shows voters aren’t buying Trump's bullshit as much as they once did," not about anything.

Another Post reporter, Karen DeYoung, wrote on Sunday night that Trump's regime is in a shambles policy-wise. She wrote that the bumbling non-leader some call "president" had screwed up Afghanistan even more. "Plans for U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, in keeping with President Trump’s pledge to end the war there, were thrown into confusion Sunday, following Trump’s decision to call off a secret meeting he planned with Afghan and Taliban leaders to secure a peace deal. Competing versions of what led to the cancellation of the meeting and, at least temporarily, any further U.S.-Taliban negotiations, exposed internal administration tensions that have flared as a deal seemed near in recent weeks. Those tensions have pitted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose chief negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, said a week ago that agreement 'in principle' had been reached after 10 months of talks with the militants, and Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who opposed the talks."

Trump, she reported, is "likely to move ahead with the planned initial withdrawal, regardless of the apparent collapse of negotiations." Trump had been the main person pushing for the Camp David meeting-- on the anniversary of the 9/11 debacle no less. "Trump," she wrote, "thinks his personal style can persuade anyone, and that he has seen the possibility of a substantial Afghan withdrawal as a major plus for his reelection campaign... The Taliban said that the decision to end the U.S.-Taliban peace process for now would 'lead to more losses for the United States,' spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement. 'Its credibility will be affected, its anti-peace stance will be exposed to the world, losses to lives and assets will increase.'"

Sounds like a real shit-show, right? And it most ways it is. Trump's colossal incompetence is one of the biggest scandals of the long list of scandals that has made this the worst presidency in American history. (There are new virtually no serious historians who disagree that Trump is the worst occupant of the White House ever, worse than Hoover, worse than Nixon, rose than Buchanan, worse than Taylor and Tyler, worse than Harding... just the worst. 

Mark Gamba, the progressive mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon who is running for a congressional seat held by right-wing Blue Dog Kurt Schrader confirmed what the historians are all saying: "Trump is the worst, most corrupt President, certainly in this century and arguably in the history of the country. The damage he’s done to our international relationships will take many years to repair. The damage he’s caused to civility, decency and public discourse is tearing the country apart. The damage he is doing to the future of the planet by avoiding strong climate action may be the crime of the millennia. I suspect that he is in deep with the Russian banks because no one else will loan him money after all the bankruptcies. That explains the pandering to Russia, and his dismissal of their intervention in our elections. The Republicans always paint themselves as more patriotic, but how patriotic is it to prop up a president this corrupt, who is likely in bed with one of our enemies? The shocking loss to Trump has made the democratic leadership gun shy and unwilling to begin formal impeachment inquiries. It’s time to put people into office that are not so twisted up by their own machinations and those of the opposition that they can’t even recognize their duty to their country. If I were in Congress right now, I would be calling for formal impeachment inquiries. There is far too much on the line for anything less."

But there is one way that Trump has proven to be a fast learner-- he's figured out how to corrupt the entire government, something that doesn't surprise any serious Trump-watchers. Jonathan Chait: "Trump came to the presidency a complete novice to government and often found his corrupt, authoritarian impulses frustrated by its bureaucracy. But he is slowly learning how to control the machine that has stymied him. This is the story of 2019, as Trump has replaced institutionalists attempting to curtail his grossest instincts with loyalists happy to indulge them. It is playing out across multiple dimensions. This is the through-line between several seemingly disconnected episodes from the last several days." And that isn't the worst of it!

Increasingly, Republicans are dispensing with the fig leaf and flaunting their complicity. Putting money in Trump’s pocket by booking his properties has become a symbol of partisan solidarity. It is a signal of support both to the president and to fellow Republicans or business clients that you are on the ins with the boss. “President Trump has really been on the side of the Evangelicals and we want to do everything we can to make him successful,” one Evangelical leader tells the Times. “And if that means having dinner or staying in his hotel, we are going to do so.” Aggressive lack of curiosity has given way to open boasting of the quid pro quo arrangement.

None of these stories by itself has the singular drama of a Teapot Dome or a Watergate. Indeed, the mere fact that there is so much corruption prevents any single episode from capturing the imagination of the media and the public. But it is the totality of dynamic that matters. A corrupt miasma has slowly enveloped Washington. For generations, both parties generally upheld an assumption that the government would abide rules and norms dividing its proper functioning from the president’s personal and political interests.

The norm of bureaucratic professionalism and fairness is a pillar of the political legitimacy and economic strength of the American system, the thing that separates countries like the U.S. from countries like Russia. The decay of that culture is difficult to quantify, but the signs are everywhere. Trump’s stench is slowly seeping into every corner of government.