In a typical sign of the times, Trump admin decisions hover around Donald Trump’s over-sized ego.
This article is from The Editor’s Corner, with insights, short-posts, links, and general ramblings from Editor/Owner Justin Stapley.
Last week, news dropped that Donald Trump’s name would appear on the stimulus checks the Treasury Department would be sending to Americans as part of the recent $2.2 Trillion CARES Act. While Steve Mnuchin says this was his idea, independent of the President, this is another typical demonstration of palace intrigue in the Trump administration. An intrigue where so many decisions hover around the oversized ego of President Trump.Â
Leaving aside the fact that an act of Congress appropriated the money, and the Executive Branch is simply tasked with executing the contents of the bill, including the stimulus checks, this is yet another demonstration of the skewed way Donald Trump, and those he surrounds himself with, view the processes of our government.Â
The President has made it abundantly clear that he views the government in the same way he has viewed all his previous business ventures: as an extension of his own will and a personified manifestation of power after his own image.Â
Congress, in the President’s eyes, is little more than a board of directors he can flatter or disregard depending on his needs and wants (and his mood) in a particular moment. But in the end, he wants everyone to consider all government power and action as coming from him, whether it truly is or not.Â
Further, anyone who questions this sense of absolute authority becomes persona non grata. He, and his surrogates, will either ignore, belittle, or attack them until their influence within his circle of power, both in the administration and in the Republican Party, shrinks or is lost entirely. McCain, Romney, McMaster, Mattis, Kelly, Sessions, Flake, Sanford; the list of obvious examples can go on.Â
This reality leads to actions from those within Trump’s circle to feed his ego and demonstrate their own subjection to his will and worldview. They literally kowtow. Whether it was the order to cover the name of the USS John S. McCain in South Korea, Thomas Modly’s attempt to play Trumpian hardball with a Navy Captain, or this current decision to put Trump’s signature on stimulus checks; so many decisions in this current White House are made without the President’s overt direction. But they are calculated to curry his favor and maintain relevance in a Trump-dominated political world.Â
Trump wants everything to revolve around him, even during a terrible crisis. So far, his followers and enablers are all too willing to oblige him.Â
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