What A Failed Trump Adminstration Looks Like

David Brooks has been one of the leading conservative journalists in America.  His platform on the NYT has enabled him to advance conservatism, and offer intelligent commentary on Republican policies.  Trump did not fit into either of those boxes.  Trump captured around 35% of the electorate by exploiting populist sentiment.  That has given him enough power to neutralize opposition from the GOP Congress.  That may be enough to complete one term in office.  He offers his opinion on what the failed Trump Administration will look like in this article.

*  The Trump Administration is based upon his personality.  The government is conducted by a vast rules based organization.  He has declared war on the government agencies but he has no experience with managing organizations that have a rule base culture.  They have begun to fight back against him and he will not win that fight.

*  Personality based organizations operate with a handful of insiders.  That includes Bannon and his kids.  He was rejected by a candidate who would have replaced Flynn.  The candidate did not see how he could be successful without the freedom to fill his top jobs with qualified individuals.  He recruited Rex Tillerson for the critical secretary of state position.  Tillerson has not been included in foreign policy decisions developed by Trump's inner circle.  He has also been forced to fill key positions with candidates recruited by the inner circle.  He was the CEO of Exxon and is accustomed to operating a huge organization by putting capable people in key positions.  He will not succeed in his new position which is under the control of Trump's inner cirlce.

*  Trump behaves more like a medieval Monarch than like the president of a nation state.  Leaders in the rest of the world will respond to him in kind.  Some have already discovered the value of flattery. Others will take advantage of his weak position and lack of familiarity with global politics.  Russia has already found ways to take advantage of his weaknesses.

Those are the broad outlines of Brooks' description of the failed administration.  He concludes that failure is certain but the nature of the failure is hard to predict.  Its easy to forecast a hurricane; its more difficult to accurately predict the location and extent of the damages.