Who in the White House Will Turn Against Donald Trump?

[Pluvious]

An excellent piece - insights into comparisons of the corrupted Nixion WH, and the closest aid that testified the truth and helped bring Nixion down - directly relates to the dysfunctional mess we have in The Groper's WH today.

"Who in the White House Will Turn Against Donald Trump?"

Trump’s egotism, his demand for one-way loyalty, and his incapacity to assume responsibility for his own untruths and mistakes were, his biographers make plain, his pattern in business and have proved to be his pattern as President.

Veteran Washington reporters tell me that they have never observed this kind of anxiety, regret, and sense of imminent personal doom among White House staffers—not to this degree, anyway. These troubled aides seem to think that they can help their own standing by turning on those around them—and that by retailing information anonymously they will be able to live with themselves after serving a President who has proved so disconnected from the truth and reality.

I thought about Trump and his aides and councillors while reading “The Last of the President’s Men,” Bob Woodward’s 2015 book about Alexander Butterfield, a career Air Force officer who took a job as an assistant to Richard Nixon. He made the move less for ideological reasons than to indulge a yearning ambition to be “in the smoke”—to be at the locus of power, where decisions are made.

As an undergraduate, at U.C.L.A., Butterfield knew H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and, after serving in Vietnam and being stationed in Australia, he called on Haldeman, who was Nixon’s most important assistant. Haldeman made Butterfield his deputy. Butterfield got what every D.C. bureaucrat craves most—access. He worked on Nixon’s schedule, his paper flow, his travel; he offered advice, took orders, no matter how bizarre or transitory. Butterfield could not have been more “in the smoke” than he was then. He quickly discovered that Nixon was a fantastically weird and solitary man—rude, unthoughtful, broiling with resentment against the Eastern élites who had somehow wounded him, be it in his imagination or in fact. Butterfield had to manage Nixon’s relations with everyone from his Cabinet members to his wife, Pat, who on vacations resided separately from the President. Butterfield carried out Nixon’s most peculiar orders, whether they involved barring a senior economic adviser from a White House faith service or making sure that Henry Kissinger was no longer seated at state dinners next to the most attractive woman at the occasion. (Nixon, who barely acknowledged, much less touched, his own wife in public, resented Kissinger’s public, and well-cultivated, image as a Washington sex symbol.)

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/who-in-the-white-house-will-turn-against-donald-trump/amp

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I just finished reading "The Last of the President's Men,"

and it was really fascinating. Even though I remember the whole Watergate contretemps and was old enough (recently out of college) to get what was going on and to be both fascinated and appalled by it, I didn't realize how very, very *weird* Nixon was until I read this book. Yes, he was a crook; that much was always obvious, but he was also nuttier than squirrel shit - something that he somehow managed to keep the public from really noticing.

He wasn't mad in the same ways as Trump, of course; Nixon was extremely introverted and socially awkward and sometimes could barely carry on a conversation; Trump can't stop talking or tweeting and buries everyone in bullshit. What's similar about the two is their loathing of the press, their compulsive insistence on secrecy, and their complete disregard for the law. Nixon, however, because he'd been in government for most of his adult life, was much better at controlling the levers and gears of the state. Trump doesn't have any idea how the machine even works. His White House is already more chaotic than Nixon's was until the Watergate scandal crashed down on him. I just hope there's someone like Dean and Butterfield who will finally just say "Enough!"

Read the book, it's fascinating.

[Alice11111]

2. After seeing his cabinet meeting, I would say it was a room of invertebrates. Possibly, Mattis.

In his inner circle, they are all up to their noses. Dean decided to roll and take his lashes. Smart and respectable. He wound up giving up his marriage, law license, income, savings and still did time. However, it could have been worse, if he stuck it out w Nixon. Since it looked like he was going to be the scapegoat, it made it easier. Maybe, the question is who will DTs team scapegoat? We already know Flynn. Who is next?

[murielm99]

3. Could it be this is why he surrounds himself

with family? They can't or won't turn on him? As far as the rest of them go, they all have something that could compromise them.

I guess we will have to see if anyone is honest and brave.

[Alice11111]

4. There was hope for McMaster, but he mitigated that.

Pence just hired his own lawyers, as he should. Liar. Ivanka isn't going to turn on her children's father. However, it could be Kushner. His dad went to prison and survived to reclaim his billionaire status. In some ways, they would have the most to gain. Negotiate that Ivanka stays w the children. He is so compromised, it appears, we will see, that he is going down anyway. He is young, so why not try to protect his family, roll, and do a couple of years. In his family, hey, yous all gotta do some time. Hell, I am totally speculating. When you know your trapped, why not come forward and make a deal. Just like Flynn wanted to spill the beans for immunity, but he is in so deep, they don't need to give him immunity.