Whatever mark Donald Trump is seen as wanting to leave in Washington at this point is certainly nothing short of it being total destruction. The President's determination for "draining the swamp" appears to be more focused on a promise by Steve Bannon which is to "dismantle the administrative state." As a whole, the Trump administration has kept this promise after just being in office for five months as they defy, bully and demand subservience from everyone and everything around it.
In the process, the latest revelations revealed through mounting controversies has resulted in chaos for the administration over the last couple of weeks.
As one article by the Washington Post describes, it appears that Trump has had little time to develop his new political career as he continues to leave destruction in his wake at lightening speed. As Blasting News pointed out, Donald Trump's willing political ignorance has only isolated him from Washington and cut him off from legislating anything.
Early to current signs of reining in Trump
President Trump could learn from the administrative state and leave ignorance behind to try and be a better president. But with him refusing to do so, the breakneck speed at which he creates controversy is also seen as the reason he's failed so far. As the Post suggests, he is not only wearing out his opponents but even his own staff.
The consensus agreement now is that he has done this intentionally to disrupt American politics from how it's supposed to function. As Blasting News has pointed out, Steve Bannon tried to do the same with the National Security Council (NSC) -- of which he was a member -- until he was forced out by Gen. H.R. MacMaster.
In the Blasting News article, Bannon admits to his purpose of being initially added to the NSC to make it dysfunctional but that MacMaster had restored it to its normal function where it's operating as the "administrative state" always intended.
But just as President Trump feels that by creating so much chaos that he is winning -- only to be countered by failing to legislate -- the Washington Post article also expresses the view that the President has paid the price for the ferocious speed he's tried to "legislate" with and has suddenly been knocked off balance. Over the month of May, the daily scandals have finally forced federal law enforcement to focus on him, with Congress appearing to do the same.
Adversarial powers on display
White House aides talked about living in dread of “5 o’clock,” referring to the daily dump of damaging news https://t.co/6BN99wjOYJ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 21, 2017
At the time of this writing, the latest scandal that will add more difficulty to the Trump's presidency is with reports that he told two intelligence officials in March to push back against the FBI's investigation on him. But the Post article highlights another issue for the Trump White House where aides are anxious about what kind of new information could come out by the end of each day. To them -- supporters and the opposition alike -- there appears to be a clear determination to destroy President Trump or what the Times describes as an "unseen adversary."
The fear is that this adversary -- being a person, group or leaks by themselves -- appears to be operating as fast or even faster than the President's hellbent determination to create destruction, and is at the point where not even the White House can keep up.
The President is currently out of the country with many of his closest aides which many suspect is a convenient effort to try and escape the controversy for a scheduled nine days. In the meantime, Robert Mueller who is a former Director of the FBI has been named as special prosecutor and someone who is expected to cause more anxiety for the Trump administration over possible collusion with Russian officials.
