Damage Report

     I just read a funny article published today, September 27, 2017, on CNN's website.  It was written by five authors: Jim Acosta, Jeff Zeleny, Elizabeth Landers, Kaitlan Collins, and Kevin Liptak.  That a short article requires five authors is a question in itself, but I figure that one of them, Acosta perhaps since his name appears first, wrote the article (which needed proofreading before publication), while the other four gathered the information--and what information it is, since it deals with President Trump's psychology as well as the groupthink mentality in his administration, even as White House personnel continue to leak, a no-no that led to the replacement of Chief of Staff Reince Priebus with dour retired General John Kelly, who made it clear that leaking would not be tolerated.  He apparently doesn't realize that corrupt systems contain their own downfalls.
     The article, titled "Trump infuriated after backing Alabama loser," starts out with the President returning to Washington on Air Force One.  He had just been attending "a high-dollar fundraiser in Manhattan."  A fundraiser for desperate Puerto Ricans whose island at night now looks like North Korea from space?  A fundraiser for the Texan and Floridian victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma?
     The fundraiser, actually, was for the 2020 Trump reelection campaign committee.  75% of money raised would go to that, while 25% would be sent to the Republican National Committee.  In other words, money for scum.  Make America Great Again by ignoring everyone in need.
     An "infuriated" Trump watched Fox News Channel on the plane taxpayers pay to operate.  The Alabama senatorial election was called by a wide margin for Roy Moore over the President's endorsed candidate, Luther Strange.
     Trump, according to "officials and informal advisers," i.e. leakers, vented "at his political team and...Mitch McConnell, who had consolidated establishment GOP support behind Strange."
     McConnell had pushed for Strange, getting Trump to endorse and campaign for him.  As the election neared, Trump wobbled, saying at a rally in Alabama that "if Roy Moore wins, I'll fight for him."  He vacillated about Strange, saying, "Maybe he'll win, maybe he won't."
     According to officials and informal advisers (Ivanka Trump among them?) around the President, he "fretted the endorsement made him appear weak, cowed by an establishment that he's openly rebuffed during his own campaign."
     If you've gotten this far without laughing at our President, you may be a Trump supporter.
     Recently departed from the White House, right wing fascist pro-Nazi Breitbart leader Steve Bannon pissed on Trump's convictions by holding his own rally for Strange's opponent, Roy Moore.
     Strange has supported Trump's agenda.  Trump loves loyalty (if it flows his way).
     Trump was willing to make the "Strange" mistake, due to the man's loyalty, but still felt, Trump-wise, that "his team had largely failed him."
     "He [Trump] went to bed 'embarrassed and pissed' following the election loss, according to a person familiar with his mindset." (Did Melania Trump leak this tidbit?)
     McConnell is on Trump's shit list, apparently, and he feels "outdone" by Bannon.  Fingers in the White House are pointing at people to blame, though none apparently are willing to put a spotlight on the brains of the whole operation, the man whose "brand" gets hurt, according to the article, by "losing."
     Late last night, Trump erased recent history, deleting favorable tweets about Luther Strange, replacing them with this one about the victor, Moore:
     "Spoke to Roy Moore of Alabama last night for the first time.  Sounds like a really great guy who ran a fantastic race.  He will help to #MAGA! [meaning Make America Great Again!]"
     Of Strange he wrote, "...started way back & ran a good race."
     Enter Orwellian White House mouthpiece, Kellyanne Conway, who said of Moore's upsetting victory, "The result was not unexpected, and even though the polls are often wrong, the result was not unexpected."  In other words, the result was expected.  Nonetheless, she added that the race "validated" Trump's strategy.  In other words, whatever the fuck happens, let's call it Trump's strategy, whether it's nuclear war with North Korea, letting Puerto Rico go to Hell, or Trump's having to watch NFL owners disagree with him by supporting their players in their protests during pre-game performances of the National Anthem.  Chaos works that way; Trump's spokespersons, like Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, push the idea that Donald Trump actually has a command of the difficulties of his job, when he's actually making it up as he goes along.
     Conway added further that "other Republican senators who have supported Trump's agenda can expect similar shows of support from the President."  She went on to say that the Moore-Strange race echoed last year's atmosphere of anti-establisment support for Trump.  Thus, she conflates Trump's and Strange's failure with the victorious 2016 Trump, attempting to make it seem as if this new screw up in Alabama is part of some plan carried out by competent strategists.  Her promise, too, for the pro-Trump agenda senators getting the opportunity to have Trump's backing, as did Luther Strange, sounds more like a prediction of future election day losses for those Trump-supported senators.
     Trump, as he often does, gave his own inferiority complex and self-hatred away when he wrote in the above two tweets his characterizations of the the two campaigns.  Moore's he called "fantastic."  Strange's was merely "good."
     Two influential men campaigned for Strange and Moore near the end: Donald Trump for the former, Steve Bannon for the latter.  Trump had to concede that Bannon's man had done a "fantastic" job, while his own man had been "good."
     Compared to Bannon when it comes to political campaigning and propaganda, Trump is weaker, and he knows it.  His angry outbursts (such as when, according to sworn testimony in first wife Ivana Trump's divorce deposition, he beat and raped her after getting a bad haircut) tend to come when things aren't going his way.  The White House still leaks--John Kelly, therefore, isn't doing what he was brought in to do regarding that matter.  The place is dysfunctional, the most loyal servants are also the most craven.  Hitler in the Berlin bunker was also surrounded by such people, many of whom had a diminishing sense of reality.
     "Embarrassed and pissed," Trump went to bed last night.  At least he has a comfortable place to sleep, unlike three and a half million American citizens in Puerto Rico.

                                                                             Vic Neptune