16 March 2018

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Papers Say McMaster Soon Gone as National Security Adviser

The turnover at the White House is ridiculous, with about 35% of the staff having departed either voluntarily or otherwise. Some are gone because they did not please Mr. Trump; others are gone because of personal flaws that should have kept them out in the first place. The next man to walk the plank is H.R. McMaster, the National Security Adviser. He is a dead man walking according to the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. If the general had any self-respect, he would be resigning right about now. The Trump administration is a less an apparatus of governing than it is a chaos generator.

The Post and the Journal claim that the two men never really gelled like Mr. Trump wanted, and the president can not work with people he does not view as pals (nor in the opinion of this journal can he work with those he does like). The main complain seems to be that the general is a little rigid (three stars on one's shoulder can have that effect), and his briefings are too long (the president has no attention span).

Unlike former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who was fired in a tweet on Tuesday, the White House is trying to find a way to move the general out without humiliating him. Quite why this matters to Mr. Trump is impossible to say. He has shown no reluctance to embarrass the rest of his team. In any event one expects his parting gift to be a fourth star and command of NATO or some such position.

His replacement is likely to be either John Bolton, a man thoroughly disgraced by his actions in the administration of Bush the Younger, or Keith Kellogg, who is currently chief of staff at the NSC and whose chief recommendation seems to be that the president thinks he's fun. No matter which person gets the job, US foreign policy will be unchanged because under Mr. Trump there doesn't appear to be a coherent set of ideas, values and actions that could be described as a policy.

However, the effect of the McMaster's departure, or rather the rumor thereof, can only serve to undermine morale in a White House where morale seems in short supply. The Post reported, "The mood inside the White House in recent days has verged on mania, as Trump increasingly keeps his own counsel and senior aides struggle to determine the gradations between rumor and truth. At times, they say, they are anxious and nervous, wondering what each new headline may mean for them personally.

"But in other moments, they appear almost as characters in an absurdist farce --  openly joking about whose career might end with the next presidential tweet. White House officials have begun betting about which staffer will be ousted next, though few, if any, have much reliable information about what is actually going on."

Even more distressing is the fact that people of caliber who might have been convinced to serve in the Trump administration a year or so ago now will decline the offer. In March 2017, it was not yet clear what sort of White House one would be joining. Now, it is clear, and it is an unsavory environment. The only people now willing to join are D-listers like Larry Kudlow who will be the top economics adviser. Mr. Kudlow is a supply-sider from the Reagan years and currently a TV business commentator. Mr. Trump must have chosen him because of his celebrity because it could not have been for the man's economic insights. In December 2007, he said there would be no recession and the "Bush boom continues." Statistics from the National Bureau of Economic Research show that the recession began that very month.

One of the things that came out of that recession was the idea of stress-testing banks, running an experiment to see if they had the capacity to absorb shocks to the financial system. It now appears that there is a stress test underway for the US system of government. The results should be in before Election Day 2020.

© Copyright 2018 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.