Everybody knows that Donald Trump is a blowhard idiot -- that nevertheless won the 2016 election by colluding with Russia without, if the current results of special prosecutor Robert Muller tell us anything, leaving a trace.
But I wonder, more and more, who is the Mr. Big hat is directing the strategic operations of the Trump administration.
Whose idea was it to feature an Oval Office photo-op for each annulled regulation? Who was responsible for getting an Acting Director for the revolting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the door immediately upon the resignation of lefty Richard Cordray? Who is behind the investigation of shenanigans at the FBI and the Justice Department that are just coming to light? Who set up Betsy DeVos and Scott Pruitt to set upon the Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency from Day One?
My point is that President Trump himself cannot be responsible for all this. The president just doesn't have that much bandwidth. This whole operation was planned. Somebody set up a bunch of policy people -- probably way back in the campaign, and certainly no later than the transition -- with the mandate to go pedal to the metal and roll back the extremism of the Obama administration.
In recent days I've read accounts of total chaos on the Trump campaign plane, complete with towering rages from the candidate. No doubt. But that tells us that someone, somewhere, was setting up all this strategery in some quiet place away from the sound and fury of the day-to-day campaign. And I am waiting to hear the first indication of who this someone was.
Just this week is the Trump administration decision to intervene in the question of administrative law judges. This is a case, Lucia v. SEC,
My approach to this is similar to the Kremlin watchers of the Cold War. You couldn't know what was going on inside the Kremlin, and everything you heard or read was propaganda. But you could try to establish a pattern from Kremlin actions.
This is what I am trying to do with the Trump administration. We know that the left wants to paint a picture of complete chaos and incompetence. And the Trumpists themselves want to put out the notion of a strong and all-conquering leader. So we Trump watchers are reduced to figuring out what is going on behind the scenes, based on actual Trump administration actions.
All I am saying is that the actions of the Trump administration can't just be the sum total of one impulsive man in the Oval Office. There is evidence, if you like, of a Conspiracy. Some Mr. Big set all this up, with the approval and/or the direction of Candidate Trump, way back in 2016 or even 2015.
And if I were a betting man I would put money on the notion that all the tweeting and insults are also a part of the strategy, an effort to hide the movements of the Trump troops under a smokescreen of diversions and confusion.
And, for me, it is more than coincidence that the Trump administration is executing on a ton of issues that have been developed by the center-right policy institutions over the last couple of decades.
But I wonder, more and more, who is the Mr. Big hat is directing the strategic operations of the Trump administration.
Whose idea was it to feature an Oval Office photo-op for each annulled regulation? Who was responsible for getting an Acting Director for the revolting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the door immediately upon the resignation of lefty Richard Cordray? Who is behind the investigation of shenanigans at the FBI and the Justice Department that are just coming to light? Who set up Betsy DeVos and Scott Pruitt to set upon the Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency from Day One?
My point is that President Trump himself cannot be responsible for all this. The president just doesn't have that much bandwidth. This whole operation was planned. Somebody set up a bunch of policy people -- probably way back in the campaign, and certainly no later than the transition -- with the mandate to go pedal to the metal and roll back the extremism of the Obama administration.
In recent days I've read accounts of total chaos on the Trump campaign plane, complete with towering rages from the candidate. No doubt. But that tells us that someone, somewhere, was setting up all this strategery in some quiet place away from the sound and fury of the day-to-day campaign. And I am waiting to hear the first indication of who this someone was.
Just this week is the Trump administration decision to intervene in the question of administrative law judges. This is a case, Lucia v. SEC,
[that] concerns an agency’s decision to allow career bureaucrats to preside as the functional equivalent of judges during enforcement proceedings. These officials, called administrative law judges (ALJs), are hired by career bureaucrats. They are not appointed by the president, a court or an agency head, but they exercise significant authority on behalf of the U.S. government in official proceedings.It sounds like inside baseball, but Charles Murray wrote a whole book, By the People, about the monstrous injustice -- and enormous power -- of administrative law judges being the judge, jury, and executioner in their own bureaucratic cause. Murray's solution was to encourage US citizens to make life so uncomfortable for the bureaucrats that they would be brought to heel. So this Trump administration action is shocking: it suggests that the Trumpists want to Do Something about the administrative state beyond mere civil disobedience. So I want to know who picked up on this and decided to get the Trump administration backing the anti-ALJ side.
My approach to this is similar to the Kremlin watchers of the Cold War. You couldn't know what was going on inside the Kremlin, and everything you heard or read was propaganda. But you could try to establish a pattern from Kremlin actions.
This is what I am trying to do with the Trump administration. We know that the left wants to paint a picture of complete chaos and incompetence. And the Trumpists themselves want to put out the notion of a strong and all-conquering leader. So we Trump watchers are reduced to figuring out what is going on behind the scenes, based on actual Trump administration actions.
All I am saying is that the actions of the Trump administration can't just be the sum total of one impulsive man in the Oval Office. There is evidence, if you like, of a Conspiracy. Some Mr. Big set all this up, with the approval and/or the direction of Candidate Trump, way back in 2016 or even 2015.
And if I were a betting man I would put money on the notion that all the tweeting and insults are also a part of the strategy, an effort to hide the movements of the Trump troops under a smokescreen of diversions and confusion.
And, for me, it is more than coincidence that the Trump administration is executing on a ton of issues that have been developed by the center-right policy institutions over the last couple of decades.
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