The
White House is trying
to deal with the repercussions from Trump's defiant remarks on the
Virginia tragedy. Advisers hunkered down, offering no public defense while
privately expressing frustration with his comments.
But Trump himself, staying at his golf club in New Jersey, was increasing
rather than slowing his tweet-a-thon.On Wednesday, he had told associates he
was pleased with how his combative press conference had gone a day earlier,
saying he believed he had effectively stood up to the media, according to three
people familiar with the conversations who demanded anonymity because they were
not authorized to speak publicly about them.
The Mirror
The two greatest metaphors for fatal vanity lie in the Greek myth of Narcissus
and the fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Both involve reflections.
The simplicity of Narcissus lies in the fact that it only involves Narcissus
who sees his reflection in the water and falls in love with it. The reflection
in Snow White, however, involves a magic mirror that tells the Queen what she
expects to hear. It involves another entity. The story revolves around what the
mirror tells the queen, and action takes place when she does not like what she
hears - and sees.
As long as President Trump's mirror tells him what he wants so desperately
wants to hear and see, he is shielded from reality.
"Maybe it's good for the country that the president is in a good mood in the morning," an unidentified former RNC staffer told Vice News.
Keeping President Trump in a "good mood" must be a very, very difficult job-and-a-half for anyone who undertakes it.
This kind of cocoon-like state, however, also makes the President exceptionally clueless, even stupid when it comes to running the country. So stupid, in fact, that the flatterers must bite their lips or twist reason into Gordian knots. So stupid, that he humiliates himself (and the country) with inane statements simply because people like Miller have told him he's a great orator.
Tell that to Buzz Aldrin
The Treacherous and Dangerous Game Of Sycophants
The chief
flatterers of Trump have been tossed into the White House's dustbin: Sean
Spicer and Reince Priebus. Who could forget the image of Priebus telling the
President how "blessed" he was to serve him? The famous
"Cabinet-Meeting-that-should-never- have-been-public" showcased
Preibus as positively groveling, giving weight to Amarosa's statement about
"bowing down" to Trump."
Of course, Stephen Miller seems to more than fill the void left by those two.
Recently, some aides came (slightly) clean about their stay in the Trump administration:
"You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill": The most common response centers on the urgent importance of having smart, sane people around Trump to fight his worst impulses. If they weren't there, they say, we would have a trade war with China, massive deportations, and a government shutdown to force construction of a Southern wall.
The article by Mike
Allen for Axios also gives us a feeling of what some of the good,
well-meaning aides think about working in the administration: by curtailing him
and working with people like Mattis, they feel they are doing something good
for the country. And while they stress that Trump is not as evil as he is
portrayed, they do know that his erratic nature gives them very little job
security.
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