Who will be the last man standing?
Donald Trump thinks he can fire his way out of his mess.
Perhaps it isn’t much of a shock that the man who presided over 14 seasons of The Apprentice believes the key to his success as president is simply yelling “you’re fired” until his audience is satiated sufficiently to boost his ratings, but this particular management skill is increasingly proving to be the Achilles heel of his beleaguered presidency. A mere six months into his tenure, Trump has presided over not only a historically unpopular administration, but the most rapid turnover of any other executive branch in our nation’s history. Not even 200 days into its first season, the Trump train has already experienced a dozen unscheduled departures, and its lead engineer shows no signs of steering his “fine tuned machine” back onto the tracks.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!
Though conventional wisdom continues to hope that each new staff change will give Donald Trump the “clean slate” he so desperately needs to get his presidency into gear, the regrettable truth remains that he is the root of his administration’s incurable dysfunction. As “Instability-in-Chief,” everything Trump touches becomes vulnerable to the same disorder and volatility that have plagued him and his inner circle for 71 years. His entire career and celebrity have been predicated on his propensity for shaking things up, rather than holding them together. He’s purportedly thrived in the business community in spite of his lifelong character flaws, but under the microscope of the U.S. presidency and its inescapable 24 hour news cycle, those flaws have become an albatross around his neck. They have also served as the predictable catalyst of his growing list of resignations, firings, and passive aggressive threats to cause more of the same.
From the short but tumultuous 10 day tenure of his mini-me anger translator, Anthony Scaramucci, and the 23 day stint served by disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn, to Reince Priebus’ thankless but more lengthy 189 days as Trump’s lifeline to the establishment GOP and Sean Spicer’s 183 days of alternative fact manufacturing, all the president's men are gradually disappearing. As seen on The Apprentice, the underlying reasons for each departure may vary, but the commonality among them is the mercurial man at the head of the table who ultimately decides their fate.
Be it a perceived lack of loyalty, a vengeful insult to President Obama, or a premeditated attempt to obstruct justice, Trump’s growing list of departures is a result and confirmation of his incapability of running any organization without interference from his numerous emotional and behavioral impairments. His administration is plagued by the toxic character of its chief executive, and his lack of insight and judgment is responsible for every “mistake” he and his employees make. Though he persists in laying the blame for his many failures on everyone from his predecessor to Hillary Clinton to the media and even his own son, his captive audience is also historically aware that the buck is supposed to eventually stop with the president.
As we eagerly await the final revelations of Robert Mueller’s special investigation, we will undoubtedly be inundated with comparisons of the corruption and dysfunction exemplified by the Trump and Nixon administrations. Among the many salient parallels will likely be the clarion call of executive branch instability and rapid staff turnover as a prelude to inevitable disaster. Just as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did four decades ago, today’s investigative reporters are chasing Beltway leads (and leaks) in hopes of piecing together the timeline of criminal events that connects the actions of All the President’s Men to the president himself. They take this tack because Trump’s former employees are the proverbial canaries in his coal mine, and their fates are likely an ironic foreshadowing of his future. If we’ve learned anything from the rise and fall of Richard Nixon, it’s that presidents succeed or fail on the backs of those who succeed or fail at carrying out the chief executive’s orders.
Ultimately, a president’s character is revealed not only by the actions he takes alone, but the collective endeavors of the people with whom he chooses to surround himself. That so many of these individuals have so quickly become unwilling and/or unable to fulfill their obligations to Donald Trump (and the country) speaks volumes of his failed leadership and continued desecration of the office he holds. Though he remains intent on firing away the evidence of his incompetence and impropriety, it is indeed this steady stream of untimely departures that implicates him as the lead culprit of his own impending destruction.
“I've seen first hand that being president doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are.” - Michelle Obama
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