I told conservatives to work for Trump. One talk with his team changed my mind.

[avebury]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-told-conservatives-to-work-for-trump-one-talk-with-his-team-changed-my-mind/2016/11/15/f02e1fac-ab7c-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html?utm_term=.8b009661992f

I am a national security Never-Trumper who, after the election, made the case that young conservatives should volunteer to serve in the new administration, warily, their undated letters of resignation ready. That advice, I have concluded, was wrong.

My about-face began with a discreet request to me from a friend in Trumpworld to provide names — unsullied by having signed the two anti-Trump foreign policy letters — of those who might be willing to serve. My friend and I had agreed to disagree a while back about my taking an uncompromising anti-Trump stand; now, he wanted assistance and I willingly complied.


This friend was someone I liked and admired, and still do. It was a momentary eruption of temper, and we have since patched up our relationship. I surmise that he has been furious for some time, knowing that supporting Trump has been distinctly unpopular in his normal circles. He is in the midst of a transition team that was never well-prepared to begin with and is now torn by acrimony, resignations and palace coups. And then there are the pent-up resentments against a liberal intellectual and media establishment that scorned his ilk for years.

I sympathize, but the episode has caused me to change my mind about recommending that conservatives serve in the administration, albeit with a firm view in their minds of what would cause them to quit. This was a tipping point. The tenor of the Trump team, from everything I see, read and hear, is such that, for a garden-variety Republican policy specialist, service in the early phase of the administration would carry a high risk of compromising one’s integrity and reputation.

====

Trump was not a normal candidate, the transition is not a normal transition, and this will probably not be a normal administration. The president-elect is surrounding himself with mediocrities whose chief qualification seems to be unquestioning loyalty. He gets credit for becoming a statesman when he says something any newly elected president might say (“I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future”) — and then reverts to tweeting against demonstrators and the New York Times. By all accounts, his ignorance, and that of his entourage, about the executive branch is fathomless. It’s not even clear that he accepts that he should live in the White House rather than in his gilt-smeared penthouse in New York.

[Ligyron]

1. I'm not even sure if one could call Trump a Republican.

He did this for his ego and a GOP name was the ticket to get what he wanted - which looks to be by and large adoration.

He'd of been a Green if that's what it took and he'd of spouted off the right buzz words too, although those people wold have been harder to fool.

Now, I don't think he's enjoying the gig staring him in the face at all.

[KingCharlemagne]

2. Holy Shit! - nt

[annabanana]

3. Palace coups and intrigue will be the lingua franca of this crowd.

They are in a race with the Medici's and Borgia's for the Most Mendacious World Championship.

[mopinko]

4. there is gonna be a power vacuum

the likes of which have never been seen outside of deep space.
be afraid, be very afraid.

[BainsBane]

5. A "Stalinist purge"

Is a phrase used by an inside source, as reported on MSNBC.

[boston bean]

8. Want to know what is mind numblingly ironic.. is Bannon proclaims to be a leninist!

I am like WTF???? I don't think anyone will ever see the end of the dream to a truly socialist USA... We will be stuck in the fascist period.

[BainsBane]

9. What?

[boston bean]

10. yeah, see this

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-bannon-trump-s-top-guy-told-me-he-was-a-leninist.html

[BainsBane]

12. He's not a Leninist

He just wants to blow evertything up. Lenin was a Marxist. He wanted a workers state. He would never have have used the term leftist as a pejorative. He just told the reporter he was a Leninist to fuck with him.

[boston bean]

13. Like I said, it was a self describe term, and he uses leninism in the sense of tearing down the

capitalistic state... but then not replacing with socialism.. but a brand of tea partyism... that is how I read it at least.

I still find it ironic, he calls himself a leninist..

[BainsBane]

14. It's strange alright. Nt

[blueseas]

6. K&R

UGLY!

[mainstreetonce]

7. Already the reality show

Has turned into Game of Thrones.


If he only had a brilliant dwarf younger brother


( Sorry to disrupt a serious thread with sick humor. It's the only thing that helps right now.)

[LongTomH]

11. Trump isn't building a cabinet - he's building a criminal conspiracy!!!