From Wallwritings
One week after Donald Trump won the presidency, he is running his transition the way he ran his campaign, like a neophyte circus ringmaster who walks into the center ring with absolutely no idea of what to do next.
The clowns are bolting from their small crowded car, the acrobats are swinging high from their wires. The elephants are standing by quietly, perhaps recalling the plains of Africa.
Lurking over in the far edge of that circus ring is a mysterious figure, maybe a lion, or maybe another being, hungry for power. It is not a presence we expected to see at this circus. The audience pays him no attention.
What about that audience? It is now living with the consequences of the second presidential election in 16 years in which voters gave the popular vote victory to the loser of the Electoral College race, the one that counts.
The audience mourns or is gleeful. Some, but sadly not all, watch and read to see what happens next.
In Washington, The Los Angeles Times reports President Obama held the traditional courtesy talk with his successor, reporting later he tried to point Trump in the direction of pragmatism.
The president-elect's new Capitol Hill colleagues try to pull him in a "more ideologically conservative direction."
Ideology versus pragmatism is a common tension with any new president. Donald J. Trump is however, not cut from the pattern of previous presidents. He is, without question, the most unqualified candidate ever to assume the office of President.
He has, throughout his improbable campaign, demonstrated in public and in recorded private conversations, that he lacks the temperament and the maturity to become president.
But Donald Trump will become our President on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, just nine weeks from now. The transition to a new administration is launched in chaos and circus-like disarray.
Suddenly, from the chaos of the transition, comes the news that brings a disturbing clarity to the future.
On Sunday, November 13, Trump named Stephen Bannon (pictured above) as his chief White House strategist and senior counselor. Trump also named Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus as his Chief of Staff.
How close will Bannon be to the President? David Alexrod held the Bannon job through the first Obama term and in both Obama presidential campaigns. Chicago's current Mayor Rahm Emanuel, was Obama's first Chief of Staff. That close.
Bannon will be the door-keeper for the President. How he thinks and what he feels, will shape the White House agenda. Trump's first transition decision is a signal for what we should expect from a Trump White House.
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