The embarrassing slap fight with Steve Bannon this week is just the latest episode in the White House reality show and there have been a lot of theories about why President Trump’s first year in office was beset with so much internal drama. The theory put forward by the increasingly out of touch Rush Limbaugh is not one likely to stand up to scrutiny. Rush thinks Trump tried too hard to be “respectful” and to be a “loyal party guy.”
Listen to the clip of Rush.
As you would expect, Rush’s analysis is based primarily on himself. He’s comparing his brief foray into the unfamiliar territory of television back in the nineties with Trump’s entry into the political world. The point he’s making in general is probably good advice, but applying it to Trump seems completely whacko to me.
Don’t rely on anybody else to know more than you know. When you are an expert at what you do. Do not assume tha somebody always knows…do not assume that somebody is smarter than you are.
And I think…and I’m wild guessing here…but I think one of the things that happened to Trump is that he deferred to what he thought were professional political people who knew how to get things done in Washington, something he didn’t know how to do. He did know how to do it in his world.
And this…what we’re seeing here is the result. Rather than people trying to help him he ended up hiring a bunch of people who wanted to undermine him. He hired a bunch of people…essentially he brought the wolves into the henhouse.
Well intentioned, trying to be respectful, trying to be a good, loyal party guy.
Who the heck is Rush even talking about? Certainly not Steve Bannon.
Bannon upended Andrew Breitbart’s groundbreaking news operation and turned it into a unabashed Trump campaign site. Bannon had already sought to use the site to bring down so called establishment Republicans. It is difficult to see how Bannon could bee seen as undermining Trump or as representing party loyalty.
Reince Priebus or Sean Spicer seem like the only people that might fit the demographic suspect pool but I think it’s a stretch to say they were undermining Trump. General Flynn? Paul Manafort?
The notion of Trump trying to be respectful and show party loyalty is laughable to begine with though. His early attempts at shepherding legislation were puncuated with threats to support primary candidates against Republicans who didn’t do as they were told. “Respectful” is not a word anyone would use to describe Trump. His biggest toadies might say that from the Brady Bunch boxes on Fox News but rest assured they’ll also cite Trump’s bad insult comic act as one of the reasons they love him.
I think Rush’s analysis is well intentioned and he’s trying to be respectful, but I think he’s so wrapped up in his own experiences that he just isn’t seeing what’s really going on.
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