Recently Eric Levitz of New York Magazine pointed out that members of Trump’s White House staff are leaking like a sieve.
The president is a 70-year-old child whose TV time must be closely monitored — because any news story that upsets his ego will trigger a temper tantrum followed by irrational demands that his indulgent, overwhelmed guardians will be helpless to refuse.
Or so Donald Trump’s aides keep confiding to the nearest available reporter.
Anyone who watched David Muir’s interview with the president last night witnessed that 70 year-old child vent the upsets to his ego. Here’s just one example in response to a question about his speech at CIA headquarters:
That speech was a home run. That speech, if you look at Fox, OK, I’ll mention you — we see what Fox said. They said it was one of the great speeches. They showed the people applauding and screaming and — and they were all CIA…
…I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time. What you do is take — take out your tape — you probably ran it live. I know when I do good speeches. I know when I do bad speeches. That speech was a total home run. They loved it.
The man-child fears that he isn’t receiving enough acclamation, so he constructs his own reality in which everyone adores him. That is delusional.
Besides Trump aides who are leaking to the press, we are seeing things like an an anonymous tweeter called “Whistle Blower” who claims to be a Republican operative hired to work inside the White House – which, of course, can’t be verified. His/her tweets have been deleted, but screen captured images show them saying that everyone is demoralized, Reince Priebus is single handedly holding the West Wing together and Speaker Ryan had to talk him out of resigning.
Finally, less than a week after Trump was inaugurated, Carl Bernstein is reporting on the concern he’s hearing expressed about all this from Republicans:
Last night @CarlBernstein said DC Republicans are raising concerns about Trump’s “emotional maturity, stability” https://t.co/dUe5eFRQSu
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 26, 2017
Yesterday, conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin did a good job of summing up their responsibility.
We also are saying that Republicans need to be pressed to state their view: Is he lying or is he unable to separate what he wants to believe and what exists, literally, in front of his eyes? The first makes him morally unfit, and…If the latter, they — and we all — have a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have never seen.
A writer by the name of Richard Willmsen did a good job of summing up what is likely to happen if someone doesn’t intervene.
It’s clear to me that whatever means he’s used to survive up until this point aren’t going to work in his new role. There’s simply too much scrutiny and ridicule, and it’s going too deep. He’s too much of a shallow narcissist to ignore it. Trump is going to learn the wisdom of Jacques Lacan: “the madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but also a king who thinks he is a king”. Whatever monster he has buried in his mind is going to rise up to bite huge chunks of him from within…
He will snap very, very soon.
If he’s right, there is no way of knowing what happens when he snaps. Republicans need to step up to the plate and stop him from destroying them…and perhaps the rest of us.
