What do you think of President Donald Trump's White House team?
The ideal “White House team” would be a group of people who were smart, loyal, and effective, and who worked well as a team in order to implement the president’s policy vision in the executive and legislative branches of government.The current team has none of those qualities.None of his “main” advisers have any government or electoral experience, and this is part of the reason they’ve been tripping over their own dicks on things that should have been easy, like the “Travel” (Muslim) ban and repealing the ACA. They’ve been making rookie mistakes: signing executive orders without having them reviewed for constitutionality by the Office of Legal Counsel, for example, or calling out Freedom Caucus members by name, making it impossible for them to back off of opposition to the ACHA without looking like complete “cucks” (as the Trump crowd would say). None of them appear to be very good at their White House jobs (as opposed to their campaign jobs) so far, and it shows.There is also a bizarre lack of ideological unity within the upper echelons of the administration, which I think is one of the reasons it seems to lurch back and forth on a variety of issues: Trump tends to take the position of the last person he talked to on an issue, so his stance on Palestine will be different depending on whether he had lunch with Bannon or Kushner. The “top three” currently would seem to be son-in-law Jared Kushner, who I believe is still a registered Democrat, Reince Priebus, party hackery made flesh/weasel impersonator, and Steve Bannon, a (very) poor man’s version of a fascist intellectual.None of these guys has any idea how either Congress or the various cabinet departments work, and on a number of policy issues they seem to hold four different positions between the three of them. Instead of functioning as a unit, the White House leadership team is at odds with each other, and prone to frequent backbiting, recrimination, and palace intrigue. This is one of the reasons why the White House leaks like a sieve; half of them spend most of their day trying to get the other half fired, and everyone talks about it at great length to the Washington Post.So he’s put together a shitty team, a team that was predictably shitty, and a team that is going to make it hard for him to accomplish what he wants to do, if he can ever settle on precisely what that is. It’s rule by malevolence, tempered by incompetence.
How old is too old for a primary candidate for president to get your support?
I’m a liberal - my party is the party of change, and change is for the young.As such, there’s a limit here, and I think that limit is about 70.That’s not to say someone over 70 has nothing to contribute. On the contrary, I’d much rather have 80-year-old Bernie Sanders as my president than 48-year-old Ted Cruz.But to get Bernie Sanders as my president, he’d have to get elected first. And it’s hard to get young voters out for an old person. Is this fair? No. Is it reality?Probably.Obama showed the way to make this work - you elect someone on the young side as president, and he chooses someone older as a running mate. This way you get the best of both worlds: energy, passion, and a desire for change from your president, and the sage wisdom of an elder statesman (or stateswoman) behind the scenes to help out.This was (and is) my greatest frustration with Hillary Clinton. She was not a perfect candidate by any means, but her choice of Tim Kaine as VP was perhaps the worst choice of any she made. It angers me still today. Kaine is a great man - don’t get me wrong. But he’s 100% the wrong choice for Clinton. She was on the very cusp of “too old” for the Democratic party (she was 69). She needed someone young and very liberal as her running mate.Instead, she chose a nearly 60-year-old Catholic white guy who was more conservative than she is (and she was already probably too conservative).Sigh.My dream ticket for 2020 is still evolving, and in the end if Bernie or Warren or Biden wins the nomination, I will support the candidate with my dying breath. Any of them are vastly better than the current administration.But I’d prefer someone a couple of decades younger - 50 I think is about the perfect age. Young enough to still have some idealism left, but old enough to have a little experience at this sort of thing.And the VP? Liz Warren would be perfect.
Are there any government positions that you think would be best if filled based on merit instead of presidential appointment?
One would hope that whoever is president appoints people based on merit to do that particular job.I do believe that most, if not all, of our previous presidents appointed top-notch people to fill the required positions. Oftentimes, they chose people with government experience across party lines. Or business leaders, or military that would work for the good of the nations.Only our current president has problems with his appointments. If they are well qualified business people, like Tillerson, or military personnel, like Jim Mattis, they resign because Trump doesn’t allow them to give him any advise. Instead he goes off on some made-up tangent.Never have so many left their cabinet positions so early due their conflict with the president. In previous administrations there was also change; but never so fast. And those cabinet members remained friends and advisors to their presidents even after retirement.This president takes advice from people like Sean Hanniety and other blow-hards from Fox News. Even the more sane commentators on Fox seem to be getting weary of Trumps’ tantrums.I know Impeachment is a terrible thing for our country, and most Republicans and Democrats are skirting around the issue; but can our country withstand 2 more years of this totally unqualified person to lead our nation?
Are there people more knowledgeable than the President of the United States who help make his decisions? If so, what’s their title?
They would simply be considered the President’s advisers in the Executive Branch, and their titles would be appropriate to what they are advising on.The Trump Executive Branch is rather amateur because of Trump himself is rather innocent of executive experience and as ignorant on policy as he can possibly be. He has clashed with the experienced hands and usually they are through the revolving door before having much impact. There have also been security clearance problems for nearly anyone Trump wants as an adviser.We have just reached a new level of worrisome with Trump about to appoint John Bolton as National Security Adviser. Bolton is a war monger-he frankly has never seen a war he doesn’t like. He will play to Trump’s belligerence, and this will appear near enough to the level of loyalty Trump wants that he will not be able to see the difference.What this has come down to, to stabilize the staff, there needs to be people who can pass the security level needed who agree with Trump enough that he will not fire them as soon as his mood swings. This will bring advisers who are not giving sound advice which agrees with what Trump wants and is long term and short term bad news for the US as a whole.