there is something gut wrenching about this piece in The Atlantic of civil servants being toyed with and then driven out or fired by Trump as he
proceeds like a forest fire hollowing out agencies and installing yes-men…..The piece is a longish read so be forwarned. Look closely at the portraits of the victims…they alone speak volumes. I always try to identify with both parties but I have to say The Don is an Asshole from a long line who in this case is running the Oval Office like its an extenison of the family biz where he gets to micro manage staff, manipulating, humiliating and threatening people into abject submission and setting examples openly to cow the rest of the crew. We have all met and endured this type of personality in our working lives. They never apologize and never look back at the carnage in their pubic or private lives. I imagine them as a sociopathic, reptilian, hybrid alien species who see the rest as just so much lunch. From within their ego isolation festers a deep paranoia, a fear and mistrust of everyone including family members… the response is always automatic, merciless and relentless.
George Packer writes about how President Trump is destroying the civil service and bending the government to his will:
But a simple intuition had propelled Trump throughout his life: Human beings are weak. They have their illusions, appetites, vanities, fears. They can be cowed, corrupted, or crushed. A government is composed of human beings. This was the flaw in the brilliant design of the Framers, and Trump learned how to exploit it. The wreckage began to pile up. He needed only a few years to warp his administration into a tool for his own benefit. If he’s given a few more years, the damage to American democracy will be irreversible.