“Donald Trump unleashed” goes down in flames

| 6:02 pm EDT April 1, 2018
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We’ve been hearing about it for weeks, thanks to insider reports from major media outlets that were probably planted by Donald Trump himself. He was finally going to rid himself of his meddlesome advisers, move beyond the all-talk and little meaningful action that’s defined his failed presidency, and come out swinging in the way he’s always wanted to. Now we’re seeing what that looks like, and it’s already a bust.

Trump has indeed chased off advisers like Hope Hicks, who pushed him to be slightly less rabid, and Gary Cohn, who understood how the economy works. His Chief of Staff John Kelly no longer appears to play any meaningful role. But instead of bringing in new people, Trump is simply recycling the people he scapegoated the last time he needed someone to blame. The Washington Post now says that the likes of Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie are part of his “new” posse. Those were the campaign advisers that Trump didn’t initially think were good enough to have White House jobs the first time around.

In other words, Trump isn’t looking to do anything new here. He’s merely concluded, after fourteen months of failure in office, that it must be the fault of the people directly beneath him. He did roughly the same thing halfway through his campaign, scapegoating people like Lewandowski. Now he’s bringing back his old scapegoats to replace his new scapegoats. Based on his behavior this week, Trump still believes the best way to proceed is to do nothing, while whining on Twitter about how his failures are everyone else’s fault.

Donald Trump spent most of his life running companies whose business model consisted of identifying suckers and ripping them off. Those kinds of endeavors only require advisers and employees who are capable henchmen, and not competent at running a business. Trump’s trouble in the White House is that his shell games aren’t fooling nearly enough people, hence why he’s failing on every level, and once again reshuffling the deck chairs. “Donald Trump unleashed” is merely Donald Trump recycled, and it’s already a bust.