Dysfunction in the White House: Where Do We Go From Here?

An anonymous high level White House staffer, or staffers, felt it was their patriotic duty to expose various issues that reflected the dysfunction in today’s White House.  The instability related to the dysfunction is not surprising to many because Trump has always enjoyed working in a divisive and chaotic environment, and this goes back to his days as a private businessman. However, the White House’s dysfunction and instability is different than Trump’s former businesses chaotic environment, because now it potentially impacts the welfare and lives of over 325 million Americans. Adding more fuel to the current dysfunction and chaos is the fact that the president is being looked at as a “subject” or “target” in the Mueller Investigation.

Today Trump (who has been described as an erratic and impulsive narcissist) is “hell-bent” on derailing the Mueller Investigation in order to selfishly protect himself.  At this time, Trump’s White House is operating in a perpetual defense mode as staffers scurry around trying to guard the president against all incoming problems related to the legal issues that have already implicated Trump’s former National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, his deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and others.

With reference to the Trump presidency, folks often say that we “knew what we were getting when we voted Trump into office”. That’s true to some extent, but I believe that many people would have had second thoughts about voting for him if they knew exactly what type of president he would actually become. Yes, they knew that he would try to “shake-up” the existing bureaucracy and make changes in the staffing of the government, but many of these voters didn’t foresee the daily instability and extreme partisanship in government that Mr. Trump has created and routinely oversees.  Besides the Trump led extreme partisanship, there appears to be a new Trump-related, or Trump-caused crisis every week-sometimes every day, on Capitol Hill.

Another problem surfaces when we consider just how Trump actually won the presidency. There were the critical Comey allegations about Hillary Clinton, the constant anti-Democrat/anti-Clinton email leaks by WikiLeaks, and the indisputable interference of Putin and Russia. Due to these occurrences, there remains a question as to how much influence these factors had on the election.  Of course, no one knows. However, we can deduce that they had to have a negative effect on Clinton’s campaign, while having a positive effect on Trump’s campaign.

In the New York Times anonymous op-ed, the author(s) referred to the dysfunctional environment in the White House and stated that they were exposing this dysfunction because they felt it was necessary in order to protect Americans against the impulsive and erratic behavior of President Trump.  Trump’s psychological state and rationality have been in question for some time now. It is no revelation that the anonymous White House Op-ed writer(s) have attributed the current serious White House dysfunction directly to President Trump. However, they say that they want to avoid “impeachment” proceedings because of the possible destabilizing effect it might have on the government.

Many have stated that wherever Trump goes, chaos follows,  and they believe it is past time to take an in-depth and serious look into Trump’s psychological state of mind in order to determine his mental state’s possible detrimental effect on the country.

Trump has committed serious foreign relations mistakes pertaining to our allies, as he has continually alienated our long-term friends like Merkle of Germany, May of England, Macron of France, and Trudeau of Canada, while he has sidled up to and embraced known dictators like Putin of Russia, Kim Jung Un of North Korea, and Duterte of the Phillipines.  Many Americans feel that his behavior with reference to our allies was not only disrespectful to our allies, but un-American!

Can we continue to support a man who occupies the highest political office in the nation when he has shown that he has such an evil lack of respect for others?  Not only has he continually denigrated our allies but he has denigrated his own staff- many that he chose himself. In one instance, he is reported to have cruelly mocked one of his key cabinet level people in the person’s absence. On the campaign trail he referred to “Little Marco”, Lying Ted”, “Crooked Hillary”, etc.  This type of behavior, repeated over-and-over, regardless of venue, is more reminiscent of an offensive child on the playground, than the president of the free world.

Many pundits and media personnel seem to purposely avoid commenting on Trump’s marriage. That’s fine.  However, Trump’s history with women outside of his marriages is well known. Thus, it is conceivable that his current marriage may be functioning on an “optics only level”, that is, for “public relations” or “public consumption” purposes only. Could this be adding to his oftentimes bizarre behavior?

Over the past several months, the serious dysfunction in the White House has been reported in books and other writings, but their content was always rejected by the White House as false and/or inaccurate. Such books as Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, A Higher Loyalty by James Comey, Fear by Bob Woodward, The Truth about Trump (and other Trump books) by Michael D’Antonio, Unhinged by Omerosa Manigualt Newman, and this month’s Anonymous NY Times Op-Ed publication have not cast Trump or his White House in a flattering light. Though dismissed by the White House as inaccurate or untrue, it is highly unlikely that all of the above published works are inaccurate or false.  Many of them have reported the same serious problems related to the White House and Trump.

The bottom line with reference to Trump and the White House is that the allegations in the above writings must be further investigated and dealt with because they suggest that the President and the White House are in so much turmoil that it is unlikely that the White House is functioning anyway near maximum effectiveness. If that is true, then all Americans are in constant jeopardy.

We can’t continue to dance around the issue; the President is a pathological liar who lives in a self-created alternate universe.  He doesn’t believe in facts or truth unless they are “pro-Trump” facts or truths. If they are not pro-Trump, he dismisses them as “fake”.  

I don’t think that we can risk four full years of a Trump presidency in its present state, and, based on Trump’s history to date, I don’t expect him to change his behavior now or in the future.

America cannot continue to support a president in whom it can’t believe, or believe in.  Also, we cannot expect our allies to have confidence in an American President who is a demonstrated liar on issues large and small.

America is at a point in which it must decide what its next legal and/or political move(s) will be with reference to Mr. Trump.  For the well-being of America, and Americans, we need a change! For most of us, we will first demonstrate our commitment to this change at the ballot box come November.  After that, we’ll see what happens!  However, I am confident that we will do the right thing for America. I’ll see you at the ballot box.