Taking out the trash ...

After he was acquitted in the Senate on two charges, Trump removed the Lt. Colonels Vindman – yes, there were two, twins in fact – from the National Security Council. He also relieved Ambassador Sondland of his position.  

Was it retribution? An act of vengeance? Flushing the pipes, as someone said?

I sure hope so.  And I hope it’s just the beginning.

Now the impeachment farce, at least the first iteration, has ended, Trump should move quickly to purge who sits in on briefings, who has access to internal memos, and who is suspected of leaking to the media. He needs to cut down the number of people surrounding him. There should be no more “automatic” inclusions to confidential meetings or discussion. In essence, he needs to lock down access to information within the Executive Branch to a select few.  

Better late than never.  And it is very late in the game.  He should have done this on his very first day as President. Why he didn’t is a mystery. He should have known better.        

Trump’s made a lot of mistakes because he was a first-time politician.

But his biggest was not doing what many past Presidents did immediately upon taking office: they cleaned house. They removed or reassigned as many political appointees from the predecessor administration as they could as soon as possible to put in their own people. 

Obama recalled every Bush-era politically appointed ambassador, asked for the resignations of all the Federal prosecutors, and replaced as many as he could with his own people. He wasn’t the first. It was standard procedure among both incoming Republican and Democrat Presidents.

Trump didn’t do this.  Perhaps nobody expected him to win – maybe even him – so when he did he and his advisors were unprepared to take out Obama’s leftovers. That was a grave error.  It left him with a lot of players with little if any loyalty to him, and many who privately plotted against him. Few of them took him seriously, especially on his promise to drain the swamp. 

He was surrounded by career politicians, hacks and backstabbing weasels who didn’t care what his agenda was, or what he wanted. They had their own agenda.

Which was, bluntly, to make sure nothing really changed.  A goal shared by both Republican and Democrat party leaders, and the bloated government bureaucracy.   

He might have been elected President, but to them he was an inexperienced bumpkin. A rube. A naïf.  And it wasn’t just his Executive Branch members from previous administrations who felt this way, it was also the consensus among establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle, heads of our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, top U.S. military officials, career bureaucrats throughout the government, as well as most foreign leaders.  

Our political establishment’s plan was to control him as they had so many other Presidents. They’d encourage the bureaucracy to use delay, dissent, and endless challenges to grind him down.  They’d co-opt his appointees as soon as possible to protect their interests, and if that failed they’d move to discredit them and drive them from their positions.

They’d keep him from doing things they didn’t like by ignoring or tabling his orders. Because they knew better.  They’d been running things their way long before he got there and they’d run things their way long after he was out of office – which, they hoped, wouldn’t be too long. 

Whenever they could they’d give him a gentle push out the door by leaking to the media, embarrassing him, and if that failed actively working behind the scenes to overthrow him.

The establishment didn’t like what Trump was selling one bit.  

He threatened their plans to keep us in wars to support the military-industrial complex. He threatened to cut foreign aid to the same countries that employed the sons and daughters of our political establishment.  He threatened to reduce dependence on government assistance for millions of able-bodied people who didn’t really need it.  He threatened to stop or at least reduce access to cheap illegal immigrant labor.  He threatened to stop trade deals that encouraged U.S. companies to move our jobs offshore for bigger profits.  He threatened to force big pharma to cut prices, and big healthcare providers to reduce their costs to consumers. 

Worst of all, he threatened the myth that think-tank wonks, beltway consultants, and career bureaucrats actually knew what they were doing.  He kept proving that they didn’t. 

He had to be destroyed. So for the past 3+ years they did everything they could to bring him down. They leaked to the press. They used hacks from previous administrations to point out how wrong – and dangerous, he was. They used our own intelligence agencies to discredit him.  They sued him. They found other people to sue him.  They launched nonstop investigations of him, his past business dealings, and his friends and former advisors, sending some of them to prison.   

They attacked his family as well.  

And Democrats in the House impeached him, to the cheers of their pals in the media and their increasingly lunatic base. Making him only the third President ever to be impeached.     

Most others in Trump’s position would have quit.  It’s not like he needed the job.  He had plenty of money, a hot wife, and a good family for the most part. It wouldn’t have been surprising to have him come on TV one night and say: “This is bullshit.  I don’t have to take this crap. And I’m not going to anymore. I’m outta here. “ 

But he hasn’t.  I don’t think he will.  Maybe he’s just ornery enough, pig-headed enough, or feels he has nothing to lose, but he’s hanging in there.  Perhaps it’s just for spite. 

Maybe so, but his base still loves him.  Despite all the attacks on him, and impeachment, his numbers are up.  Every time there’s a new attack on him he gets more popular.

As it stands now, I suspect he’ll probably be reelected.  If he does he might even retain control of the Senate and regain control of the House. 

I hope he’ll be better prepared to clean house the next time.