Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

MICHAEL A. COHEN

The greatest mystery in Washington: Why is anyone still loyal to Trump?

By Michael A. Cohen GLOBE COLUMNIST  JANUARY 05, 2018


Michael Wolff’s provocative new book about the Trump White House, “Fire and Fury,” is all anyone in politics is talking about right now. Yet, let’s be honest: Wolff’s story isn’t all that surprising.

Sure, Wolff writes at length about the president’s intellectual limitations, his monstrous ego, and his childlike need for constant validation. He writes of a White House consumed by chaos, mismanagement, and back stabbing. Yawn. We knew this already.

The one element of Wolff’s story that is still able to shock — and has since the day Trump took office — is why so many people continue to work for and defend a man who they don’t appear to believe has the requisite fitness and intelligence to be president.

While Trump’s feud with former top adviser Steve Bannon has received significant news coverage, it’s the overall caustic staff-view of Trump that is Wolff’s most illuminating tale.

The trail of insults from former and current staff speaks volumes. To Reince Priebus and Steve Mnuchin, Trump is an idiot. For H.R. McMaster, he’s a “hopeless idiot.” Gary Cohn compared the president’s intelligence to excrement. We already know about Rex Tillerson labeling the president a “moron,” a charge he’s refused to deny.

Kellyanne Conway is depicted in Wolff’s book as taking solace during the final days of the campaign that Trump would almost certainly lose. Trump’s former aide, Sam Nunberg, happily went on the record to tell Wolff about his ill-fated effort to explain the Constitution to Trump and getting “as far as the Fourth Amendment before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”

Even Trump’s family can’t stand him. His wife Melania was in tears on Election Night . . . because he won. Wolff describes his daughter Ivanka’s relationship with her father as “transactional” and recounts her making fun of Trump’s bizarre hairdo.

Those closest to Trump universally describe him as “like a child,” but also, according to Wolff, say “he’s a moron, an idiot.” And all of them question his intelligence and fitness

Trump apparently holds the same contempt for them.

According to Wolff, he derided Priebus for being “weak” and “short.” He calls Kushner “a suck-up,” Conway a “crybaby,” and said Spicer was “stupid and looks terrible.”

All of this raises a very basic question: what is wrong with these people?

Why do they work for this man?

I suppose if you’re a white nationalist like Stephen Miller, toiling for Trump is a means to an end.

But how does one explain an administration full of individuals who believe that the president they serve is an idiot and unfit for the job, and yet still wake up every morning, go to work, and not only defend him but strive to further his political agenda? It’s not as if multimillionaires like Tillerson or Mnuchin need the work. There’s always a place on cable news for a talking head like Kellyanne Conway.

Surely some rationalize what they do by telling themselves they’re protecting the country from Trump. But of course that’s a lie. They’re enabling Trump and allowing him to stay in a job for which he is manifestly unsuited.

This is a president who takes to Twitter to threaten North Korea with a nuclear attack; who has barely lifted a finger as half of Puerto Rico lacks power; who has regularly and flagrantly undermined the rule of law, and almost certainly obstructed justice. From what, exactly, is America being protected?

There’s no doubt that working in White House is a cool gig and the pinnacle of a political career, but to what end? Surely, no job, no matter the perks, can be worth enabling and normalizing a president — with all of the awesome responsibilities that come with the office — who you think is a danger not just to the country, but also to the world.

They could quit. They could speak out. They could implore the vice president and other Cabinet secretaries to invoke the 25th Amendment. They could stop lying on Trump’s behalf and stop assisting his effort to shred political norms and undermine the nation’s democratic institutions. They could do something, anything, to warn the country. Instead, most of them will get up Monday morning and do what they’ve been doing for the past year: enable a president who they believe is an idiot. Why they choose to do it is perhaps the greatest mystery in Washington today.

Michael A. Cohen’s column appears regularly in the Globe.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/01/05/the-greatest-mystery-washington-why-anyone-still-loyal-trump/mio4tjmKVifqkfs2xlKpcI/story.html?et_rid=524187610&s_campaign=weekinopinion:newsletter

hj Loc: Florida

Twardlow .... do we really need a rehash of all the lies included in the book as summarized by this columnist? Just based on the content of each lie you can tell it's pure fiction.... not even close to any truth.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

Have you read the book?
Don’t lie.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

The nation is buying the book, because:

It is perfectly consistent with the Trump we see every day;

It is perfectly consistent with everything we’ve heard in the last year;

It rings true.

Whether true or not, a nation debating whether Trump is more stupid or more crazy means nothing good for Trump.

hj Loc: Florida

Absolutely no I haven't read the book and I don't intend to. There are dozens of comments from reviewers, readers, columnists and those mentioned in the book who deny their quotes..... enough evidence to show the book is a book of lies intended to make money for the author and also to defame President Trump.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

We’ve heard all these stories for the last year! Over and over.

The stories and Trump, in person, are perfectly consistent.

Reporters claim this stuff is perfectly consistent with what they hear every day.

They are perfectly consistent with such facts as we can measure personally.

Yet you still believe he is Jesus on a featherbed?

Get Real.

hj Loc: Florida

Twardlow ....Stories.... reporters.... 95% of which are negative and left-leaning. AND, how can you measure facts personally, as you say. No you are basing your beliefs on those same reporters, news-casters and columnists who distort the facts. You don't know the president personally, nor have you been in the white house. I prefer to believe those who have. I am done with this thread as we won't convince one another beyond what we already believe. You choose to believe the democrats line most of which is bunk, disregarding the positive actions that Trump is making in our economy and country. Arguing with a democrat is like arguing with a pig in a mud hole. Eventually you realize they just enjoy it.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

You have no rational reason to believe 95% of reporters are negative, and you can certainly find those who are conservative—George Will, for example.

I accept the views of reporters I respect, and I have to choose those, but that choice is a privilege to be earned, revered and protected. You just wash your hands of responsibility and walk away, coward-like.

I have seen the President on TV; I have personally read what he said. I know something of the man, his character, his knowledge and experience, and it all tells me the same thing: he is a thug, a crook, a sexual molester—his wife accused him of rape, as did a 13 year old girl and a business associate—he is a perpetual liar, a proven liar, over and over, 1950 times a liar; he fails his businesses, he fails his payments, he insults our friends and allies, and he loves threatening war, in Mexico, in Iran, in Syria, and now in North Korea.

Now, tell me of the positive actions he has done for our economy and our country. Have you read any independent evaluation of the tax bill? By any impartial measure, it is a national rip-off, recognized by all, accepted by some, hated by tax payers, loved by the wealthy.

That tells you enough

I’ve seen enough. You keep looking if you must, but you’ve seen enough, too.

Our country is founded upon the idea that the common man, with his imperfect sources of information can make a choice the nation can survive with, working form his gut.

It has worked, for better or worse, for 250 years.

Don’t be the one to stop it now.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

I can understand many things. I can even understand someone not liking TYrump or any of his policies. But what I can't understand is Blind Hatred, and roboticly dismissing any of his accomplishments as evil.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

I’m not aware of any accomplishments, are you?

Just in cast your post refers to me, I don’t hate Trump. I’ve considered him and I’ve judged him incompetent, and dishonest; he is a profound danger to the nation, and I won’t stop saying so.

Having dinner with him would probably be a blast. He could afford the best wine, probably has some great stories to tell, though really his taste is vulgar and cheap, but still he’d be entertaining—except as president, where he’s a disaster, a living, breathing incompetent dishonest, my-money-in-his-pocket disaster.


He’s a danger to the nation,, and I can’t forgive that.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

I replied to your post a little while ago, then went to Walmart, but kept thinking about what you wrote. Let me speak again.

I take it from your post that you’re a long-time republican, and that you’ve discussed issues with some liberal, unsuccessfully, and now you want to leave the forum.

We both know that no party has a 100% monopoly on truth, and that the tension between arguments might possibly gain someone—hopefully both parties—resulting in some small measure of truth.

We may surmise that you feel you weren’t successful in your discussion, otherwise you wouldn’t leave the field. No one leaves when they feel they’re winning, do they?

That liberal, whoever he might be, did you a genuine favor, and you missed it. He gave you the opportunity to re-evaluate long held assumptions, probably gathered from your father and mother; he gave you an opportunity to think, to learn and to grow. Don’t pass that opportunity up.

Growth is always a good thing, but never an easy thing. Never.

You don’t have to accept what the guy says, you may rethink and come out stronger in your beliefs, and for new reasons. Or you may learn something.

The most difficult thing of all is to examine old beliefs, perhaps decide you didn’t have all the truth in the world, and then...change a little.

Change is difficult, but you have the opportunity to learn, to grow, to become better, and that is an opportunity you should always take advantage of.

Think about it and try it again. You’re almost guaranteed to become a better person for it, Liberal, Conservative, or someplace in between. You aren’t born knowing everything, but you can end up knowing something, and that’s a very, very good thing.

hj Loc: Florida

Naw, I didn't leave the thread because I was losing. I am leaving because I get tired of arguing with die-hard democrats who claim to be right regardless of the evidence. When you say you're not aware of any President Trump accomplishments, I know you are closed minded and my time is wasted. History will show which one of us is more on the right track. I'm done on this thread.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

OK, but why do you assume You’re right and I’m wrong?

That‘s not a rational decision, but an emotional one.

Instead of absolutes like being right and wrong, why not reach for the truth, knowing you’ll never achieve total truth or absolute truth, but the reward is in the doing, not the winning. To seek not to own, to grow not to rule, to search not to dominate...seek the searching and deny the dogma, you’ll never know it all, but you can search for everything.

You’ve set yourself on a bad course, a guaranteed loser, constant frustration, pretending knowledge you don’t have instead of learning.

I wish you well.

Give it a second thought.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Tom, you're old, retired, you only have so much time left, are you really going to waste it obsessing over Trump? Get a camera, or some other hobby/activity and start enjoying life.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

Trump is a threat to our nation, blurry, a severe threat; no way I’m gonna just accept him quietly.

But, he’ll be gone soon, and I can relax then.