By Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Let’s review a few recent developments.
Last week, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary,
resigned. This was part of a “White House shakeup” to get the Trump
administration back on track. The new communications director, Anthony
Scaramucci, would fix the White House’s “messaging problem.”
Within 24 hours of Scaramucci’s appointment, the
president returned to Twitter and unloaded another torrent of political
bombshells, including talking about his power to pardon, even as his attorneys
were denying that Donald Trump was thinking about pardoning anyone.
Speaking of lawyers, earlier last week, the president’s
legal team underwent another “shakeup.” That shakeup had similar results: no
change.
Over the weekend, Trump returned to Twitter to vent his
ire at his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. The former senator was the first
major politician to endorse Trump, and more than any other figure Sessions lent
conservative credibility and legitimacy to Trump’s campaign.
The president insisted on Twitter that the “beleaguered”
attorney general was taking a “weak position” on the need to prosecute Hillary
Clinton for various alleged crimes.
This is an odd claim. The president himself announced
after he was elected that Hillary had suffered enough and that all the “Lock
her up!” stuff was campaign bluster.
When I say it is “odd,” I’m being generous, because the
claim is almost certainly a politically expedient lie. How do we know this?
Because just days earlier, Trump sat down for an Oval Office interview with
what he calls the “failing” and “fake” New
York Times and said as much.
The president whined that Sessions had been “unfair” to
him when the attorney general recused himself from the investigation into
allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Never mind that the recusal was a political necessity at the time (whether it
was a legal or ethical necessity is debated). Trump told the Times that if he had known Sessions was
going to behave so ethically, he would never have appointed him.
In political terms, this was the equivalent of saying something
to the New York Times that you would
normally whisper to your closest advisor, if anybody at all.
The president has an elaborate theory that if Sessions
hadn’t recused himself, special counsel Robert Mueller wouldn’t have been
appointed.
It’s a strange theory. Trump admitted he was taking the
Russia investigation into consideration when he fired FBI Director James Comey.
Trump tweeted about the possible existence of “tapes” of his conversations with
Comey. Trump hired the man who appointed Mueller. On the campaign trail, Trump
had openly called on Russia to continue its cyber war on the Clinton campaign.
In short, at every turn, the president has acted as if he
has something to hide. Whether he actually does is an open question, but his
obsession with the unfairness of the Russia story — and his refusal to credit
claims that the Russians meddled in the election, or to criticize Russian
President Vladimir Putin — is a perpetual smoke machine causing people to think
there’s got to be a fire somewhere.
So what’s my point? Simply: The author of Donald Trump’s
problems is first and foremost Donald Trump. It’s fine to point out the
excesses of the Democrats and the media. There’s certainly ample reason to
criticize his staff. It’s understandable that Trump supporters think the
“establishment,” the “swamp” or the “Deep State” have undermined him — because
they have.
But Trump is not a victim. He is the hamster spinning the
wheel in the massive Rube Goldberg machine that is the spectacle of
presidential dysfunction.
Every few weeks, the debate about his tweeting starts
again. It’s like the gun control debate. Guns are to blame! No, criminals are
to blame! Guns don’t kill people, people do.
It’s all nonsense. Twitter is a tool. Barack Obama had a
Twitter account, too. Trump puts the bullets in the social media gun, and Trump
pulls the trigger, aiming at his own foot with unerring accuracy.
After every good speech, the clock restarts and the Trump
train is “back on track.” Then, Trump acts like Trump again and the clock gets
reset to zero. Spicer’s departure changed nothing. Firing Jeff Sessions will
change nothing. Shakeups change nothing. Shake the White House snow globe all
you like. The scene doesn’t change much, and when things settle down, there
Trump remains, being Trump. It won’t change, because he can’t change. Character
is destiny, now and forever.
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