Via Politico: ‘He is stubborn and doesn’t realize how bad this is getting’
“In some ways, Trump would rather have people calling him racist than say he backed down the minute he was wrong,” one adviser to the White House said on Wednesday about Charlottesville. “This may turn into the biggest mess of his presidency because he is stubborn and doesn’t realize how bad this is getting.”
That that Trump lacks understanding of the very serious situation we are in (and that he is helping create) is not a surprise. Nonetheless, this simply demonstrates why he is not suited to be in a position of responsibility, let alone occupy the presidency.
For Trump, anger serves as a way to manage staff, express his displeasure or simply as an outlet that soothes him. Often, aides and advisers say, he’ll get mad at a specific staffer or broader situation, unload from the Oval Office and then three hours later act as if nothing ever occurred even if others still feel rattled by it. Negative television coverage and lawyers earn particular ire from him.
I have worked for someone who frequently used anger as a “management” tool (to use the term loosely). It is toxic and unproductive. It is profoundly disturbing for POTUS to behave this way.
In regards to presidents and anger, the piece does note:
Trump is by no means the only president to be driven by his temper at times. Bill Clinton, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon all were famously known for their anger, while John F. Kennedy had a reputation for speaking sharply to staff, said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and clinical associate professor of public service at New York University. Nixon’s aides dealt with his vitriol by trying to build walls around him to protect the public from his moods as an internal set of West Wing checks and balances. It’s harder to set up those guardrails for the tweeter in chief.
“It’s not unusual to have presidents motivated by anger,” Naftali added. “The difference with Trump is the lack of filter, so we’re seeing much more of his thinking than we ever saw with past presidents.”
I would add, in regards to Trump, that his anger takes place in the context of profound ignorance of both his job and the world around him, and is linked, almost exclusively it would seem, to his ego and insecurities.
For Trump, anger serves as a way to manage staff, express his displeasure or simply as an outlet that soothes him. Often, aides and advisers say, he’ll get mad at a specific staffer or broader situation, unload from the Oval Office and then three hours later act as if nothing ever occurred even if others still feel rattled by it. Negative television coverage and lawyers earn particular ire from him.
White House officials and informal advisers say the triggers for his temper are if he thinks someone is lying to him, if he’s caught by surprise, if someone criticizes him, or if someone stops him from trying to do something or seeks to control him.
It would seem, in fact, that part of his inability to deal with the events in Charlottesville was that he was not going to be controlled by staff. At a minimum, calm rationality is needed at this time and we are not going to get that from this president.
