A Crisis in Management

A Crisis of Management

.....all too soon will be faced with the management of a crisis. Trump's limitations as an effective manager have been visible through-out his business career. He is a long shot punter who rarely picks a winner. It take a spectacular lack of business acumen to bankrupt five casinos and it didn't take long for this incompetence to become the dominant theme of his early Presidency.

In quick succession we have seen an executive order so badly written it could not withstand the slightest legal scrutiny and a foreign affairs advisor so incompetent his behaviour verged on treason. The proper drafting of the executive order was subordinated to Trump's desire to do it quickly, while Flynn was just another long shot. We know, by looking at other appointments such as Betty De Vos as education secretary, as well as the disregard for care and protocol Trump has shown in his dealings with foreign leaders, that this trend is likely to continue. Those who continually stumble will regularly fall.

The temptation is to take some satisfaction in Trump's failures, but the reality is that his incompetence is a threat to both economic stability and world peace. If we are lucky Trump will stumble through his Presidency with all the style of a drunk staggering home. We can hope that the damage will be no greater than the vomit on his clothes. We can hope that he will lurch from minor crisis to minor crisis before he is impeached, dies or fails to win the Republican nomination in 2020.

Yet the risks are all too clear. Poor management in time of crisis is an enormous risk in itself but we know that in Trump's case, it is not even the main concern. Incompetence is one thing, narcissistic self-indulgence is entirely another, and the combination of the two is toxic. Not all drunks staggering homewards get there. They wander into the path of vehicles, they make some smart arse remark to the wrong person or they fall and smack their head on the concrete. This is the risk we face for however long he remains in power, and it is a risk we, as a US ally, should feel acutely.

No doubt those with a poor grasp of the events of 2008, or who view them from an ideological perspective, will find fault with Obama's handling of the situation. Who knows? There may have been better solutions to the financial crisis than those he chose. Yet he avoided the real, and at the time terrifying, risk of a total financial meltdown; an event that would have made 1929 look like a blip in the market. "Could have done better" is a big step up from " Fail" in such circumstances.

At such times ideology must give way to pragmatism. Bailing out the banks may be ideologically repugnant but it is far superior to a decade long catastrophic depression. This is precisely the point where a character like Trump is unlikely to make the right decision. His ego is too fragile to accept that his previous opinions might be wrong. Yes as President he will slowly slink away from many of the policies he proposed while campaigning, but that is not the same as a sudden public admission of error.

If the consequences of his attempts to manage an economic crisis have the potential to be disastrous, the consequences of his management of a serious conflict with another nuclear power are simply unthinkable. An event like the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Trump in charge, becomes world war 3. Life is always uncertain. Risks, of all kinds, are ever present. Trump just shifts the odds, moves the clock closer to midnight and makes all our lives just that little bit more uncomfortable.

The truth about Putin. This appears online for the first time (I think). Very ugly.

http://reprints.longform.org/putin-conspiracy-banned-story-anderson

Bannon is less important than recent reports suggest. The main game is Putin and Trump's treacherous double dealings with him. Impeachment is almost certain.

Peter the on-going revelations about the plotting between Russian intelligence and Trump campaign officials will prove to be too much even for Republican stomachs. Consider the timing of the release of the Clinton emails, straight after the pussy grabbing comment became public. Add to that the recent corroboration of much of the information in the "golden shower" dossier by British intelligence which makes Trump vulnerable to Russian blackmail. Oh and throw in the fact that he knew about Flynn's conversations with the Russians but didn't fire him until they became public. I said "almost certain" so he may survive, hard to imagine, but possible.

The Senate is where the action will be. Watch McCain, he has Trump's number.

As I was just saying

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/john-mccain-takes-on-donald...