This story just appeared in the Washington Post. Mattis criticized Trump. Trump tweeted a vicious insult about Mattis to discredit him. Kelly defended Mattis. To work for this sociopath is to risk your reputation. It used to be said that Mattis and Kelly worked for Trump in service to the nation, to rein in his basest, most impulsive actions. They are gone. Trump now is completely surrounded by sycophants.
Read to the end. What Trump tweeted about General Mattis is disgraceful.
President Trump’s former chief of staff John F. Kelly defended former defense secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday over Mattis’s criticism of the president’s handling of nationwide protests. Kelly also dismissed Trump’s assertion that the president fired the retired general in 2018.
“The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation,” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, said in an interview. “The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused. The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then he got nasty. Jim Mattis is a honorable man.”
Mattis tendered his resignation in 2018, citing his disagreement with Trump’s decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria.
On Wednesday, he released a statement criticizing Trump’s handling of protests that have erupted across the country following the killing of George Floyd in police custody last week.
Mattis accused Trump of deliberately trying to divide Americans, taking exception to his threats of military force on U.S. streets, and praising those demanding justice following death of Floyd, an African American man living in Minneapolis.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis wrote in a statement first published by the Atlantic. Trump later criticized Mattis in a tweet.
“Probably the only thing Barack Obama and I have in common is that we both had the honor of firing Jim Mattis, the world’s most overrated General. I asked for his letter of resignation, & felt great about. His nickname was ‘Chaos’, which I didn’t like, & changed it to ‘Mad Dog’,” Trump tweeted. “His primary strength was not military, but rather personal public relations. I gave him a new life, things to do, and battles to win, but he seldom ‘brought home the bacon’. I didn’t like his ‘leadership’ style or much else about him, and many others agree. Glad he is gone!”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Trump will engage in character assassination when anyone criticizes him. He has very thin skin and extremely low tolerance for cognitive dissonance. So, he lashes out. He is a human version of the snakes and scorpions and poisonous frogs is Florida that I encountered long ago.
Who was it that likened Trump’s tweets to an open sewer spigot?
I don’t know, but it’s such an apt analogy!
This is the chaotic plan that I see Trump forging bit by bit as the pieces fall into place and are manipulated by him.. Trump is not a long-term thinker. He is not a plotter. he is a pantser. A pantser is someone who, “flies by the seat of their pants,” meaning they don’t plan out anything or plan very little.
First, he botched (I think it was deliberate) the response to COVID-19 causing more than a hundred thousand to die with deaths still hitting more than a thousand a day. As the virus spreads and the death count climbs, it is apparent to me that he already sees this as a potential excuse to step in and stop the November election. Without the pandemic and a climbing death rate, Trump would not have that weapon in his growing arsenal to hold onto power.
Then there are the protests:
Looking for opportunities to present themselves, Trump leaped on this one to spread more discord and chaos. He will lie, mislead and continue to crack down to goad the protestors to react so he can crack down more. If the protests continue into the election, he will add that to his list when he makes his move to stop the election.
Mail-in ballots:
There is no evidence to support his repeated claims that mail-in ballots are ripe for fraud during elections and that mail-in ballots favor cheating Democrats. The reason he repeats that lie is that it is another opportunity to spread discord and chaos giving him a third excuse to call off the elections.
When Trump makes his move, he will order the states to suspend the election based on his false allegations of mail-in ballots, the pandemic, and the protests and anything else that comes up he sees as an opportunity to sow more discord and chaos.
Some Republican governors and state legislatures will fall into line (the Texas governor for sure, but the Texas legislature might rebel and not go alone). It doesn’t matter if stopping the election is illegal, because they will do it anyway.
Some Republican states won’t cooperate. None of the Democratic-controlled states will comply.
Trump will call for an uprising to save the country. His test run to see how well this would work was when he attacked the states that kept the lockdown to slow or stop the spread of the virus. His test run was a success, because he got away with it so he thinks he will get away with it again. Aside from some criticism, no one made any attempt to hold him accountable for what he did.
“President Donald Trump has defended tweets in which he appeared to endorse protests against stringent lockdown measures in several US states.
At his Friday briefing, he said some measures imposed by Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia had been “too tough”.
Earlier, he wrote in a series of tweets: “LIBERATE MINNESOTA”, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and then “LIBERATE VIRGINIA”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52330531
Will he use “Liberate the Election” for his slogan when he makes his move to subvert the election? Will he succeed? If he doesn’t, who will stop him – Moscow Mitch (I don’t think so) or someone like Mattis steps up?
I think Vox did an excellent job explaining if “Trump can cancel the November election?”
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/21/21188152/trump-cancel-november-election-constitution-coronavirus
These few pull quotes do not do the entire piece justice. That is why it is worth reading all of it.
“It’s unclear what happens if only some states hold the presidential election as scheduled, while others fail to appoint electors at all, but the 12th Amendment’s text (“a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed”) suggests that the total number of electors needed to choose a president declines if some states do not appoint anyone to the Electoral College. If only 100 electors are appointed, 51 electoral votes could potentially be enough to choose a president.
[If this happens as I think Trump is planning with help from people like Barr, he will challenge the final Elecotorial Vote and seek support from his deplorable base before his lawyers take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump will not stop until he has exhausted every opportunity to grab power or until someone steps up and stops him cold.]
“Needless to say, this quirk of the Constitution’s text gives every state an incentive to hold their election. If a bloc of red states delays the election, while blue states do not, Republicans could effectively forfeit the Electoral College vote.
“But let’s say that no one wins a majority of the electors. If that happens, the power to choose a president falls to the House — but with a twist. If the House is called upon to choose a president, it must choose one of the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. Moreover, each state’s congressional delegation has only one vote, and “a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.”
“While Democrats have a substantial majority in the US House as a whole, Republicans control a majority of the House seats in 26 states — just enough to choose a president. That said, this number could easily change. In many states, one party controls only one or two seats more than the other. If a handful of House members are incapacitated due to coronavirus, that could potentially alter the outcome of a House vote to choose the president.”
So in other words, we should be hoping for a fatal heart attack, stroke, poisoning or a deranged kook to breach the barricade of the WH to take out Trump? I had some hope yesterday….now I’m just feeling depressed again.
It’s enough to make me yearn for the porn star Hanging Chad.
This is the challenge as I see it.
Trump doesn’t play by any rules and he ignores the law, doesn’t care what the law says. This has been his Modus Operandi most of his life probably starting after he turned five.
Never Trumpers play by the rules and follow the rule of law.
Trump is a pantser. He waits for something to happen and follows his “gut”. In other words, whatever pops into his deranged mind to spread confusion and chaos.
The never Trumpers plot every step and check repeatedly that they are following the rules. While they are being careful, Trump is playing one wild card after another keeping them off balance.
If little donnie dumpsterfire tries to stop the election and maintain his hold on power, the current protests will look like a church picnic in comparison
to what will happen. The cops will also be encouraged to join the protests since in this case it will not be about police brutality it will be about defending the nation against a despotic tyrant and his crew of elitist looters.
The VOX explanation is a series of “if then and if then again and then maybe something else.” I appreciate the reference but this is a great example of the power of close reading. It can lead you into what the authors properly describe as the weeds–not marijuana. I tthink that Bill Barr and his chronies will try for claims of voter fraud and count on their stacked courts to support them in declaring Trump the winner. Lloyd is right in describing Trump as a panster. He is always saying:” Who knows? Let’s see what happens.” or A lotta people say that, so let’s see what happens.
“[H}e will order the states to suspend the election…”– There is simply no mechanism to do this. Not even Trump could pull this off.
He believes that the president can do whatever he wants.
He can issue an executive order postponing the elections indefinitely, Bill Barr can say it is legitimate, and the Senate will agree.
Actions have consequences. This would lead to the Senate eventually being disbanded through the process of the Constitutional Convention. In time, we would end up with a unicameral federal legislature (and maybe a parliamentary system and a prime minister).
Hmm, not such a bad idea. When Prime ministers lose the trust of the people, they often resign or are forced out and another election is held. Trump would have been gone before the end of his first year.
Trump will tweet an order or sign an official Executive Order. He doesn’t take advice most of the time, and he doesn’t care about the law or rules. This isn’t a new Trump. This is the same Trump that has been a con-man, a fraud, a liar, a cheat and a malignant narcisit most if not all of his life.
It will be up to Congress and the Courts to stop him. If they don’t, then it will be up to the states to defy him, and some of the Republican-controlled states will go along with it because the majority of those republicans are ignorant and/or corrupt.
If that scenario plays out where some states go along with Trump and others hold the election, and Trump claims that election was illegal and and the winner cheated after he losses, because he will lose in that scenario. Then it might be up to the military to step in and stop him if the Secret Service, the Marshalls, and/or the FBI don’t forcibly move him from the White House when the new president is sworn in.
There is a good chance that Trump will not give up without a fight as long as it isn’t his blood being shed. He may invite the white supremacist militias to the White House to guard him so he stays put (in the bunker). Some GOP states and even some in Congress will support Trump and refuse to honor the new president.
These are all possibilities. The US Constitution is words on paper just like all laws and that has not stopped other countries from falling to people like Trump. The US is not immune just because it is the US. Take nothing for granted.
If it comes down to a fight between TRumps forces and the military doesn’t step in, then it will be up to the people, or at least the people that are not his deplorable, ignorant followers that I hope will be dying in droves from COVID-19 between now and the election because they are the ones ignoring the stay-in-place orders, not wearing masks, and not maintaining a distance of six feet.
“… forcibly move him from the White House when the new president is sworn in.” — Being in the White House is not what confers executive power upon the US President. The election are “certified” by the Archivist of the United States. Trump cannot “force” such a certification.
I am so glad that Trumpty Dumpty is insulting and alienating the military and by extension their families and all those who strongly support them. I am not surprised in the least that the orange buffoon can’t think beyond the moment of his lies and insults in response to those who call out his idiocracy. Watch for another example of mind numbing spin by the right wing media and other apologists for President Spray Tan as they try to explain this away via ludicrous reinterpretations.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/07/02/masha-gessen-surviving-autocracy-democracy-red-line/
So, have Trump operatives instigated violence in the ongoing demonstrations, nationwide, so that he could send in troops and position himself as Mr. Law and Order? I have wondered about this ever since seeing the video of that middle-aged, white paramilitary fellow with the umbrella breaking the windows of the AutoZone store in Minneapolis. If so, the plan doesn’t seem to be working very well for the Orange One and his fascist Rasputins.
I am a retired Army Officer. It was an honor and privilege to serve this great nation and its people. I was also an enlisted person. Drafted in 1867.
I served when several different individuals were President. i cannot say I agreed with how each of them run this country but this nation always remained the leader of the free world.
Today we have a person acting as the president of the United States who is dividing this great nation. Destroying all that this nation and its people have stood for so many, many years. Trump is destroying the very democracy this nation was founded.
Trump has led into a time when we now have more hatred then we have seen in decades. The nation has stepped back into a dark time for which it is hard, under the current leadership and administration to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
If I had still been on active duty when Trump took the oath for which he has failed to live up do then I would have immediately during in my resignation papers. I could not would not serve under Trump as my Commander-in-Chief. He took the same oath I did — serve and defend this nation against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Trump is the domestic enemy for which we must defend against. Trump is a domestic terrorist whose only goal in life is to destroy all that is sacred to the People of the United States of America.
“We the People” need to stand up and see that Trump does not serve the great nation after November 2020. The military should stand up and help vote Trump out of office. He is no friend of our Service Men and Women.
Trump is a traitor who serves his handler in Moscow. He was being recruited and cultivated as far back as the Soviet era. He was bankrupt when he visited Moscow with his beauty pageant and facing over a billion dollars in payment that he couldn’t make on his phenomenally stupid gamble on casinos. Then, suddenly, lots and lots of Russian kleptocrats started showing up with suitcases full of cash to buy Trump properties. Then Putin expended enormous intelligence resources to get him elected. And since then, Trump has delivered and delivered. He abandoned our allies, the Kurds and left Syria to the Russians. He expressed again and again to his staff his desire to withdraw from NATO. He alienated all our NATO allies. He withdrew from the INF and the Open Skies Treaties at a time when Russia has developed hypersonic nuclear missiles. (The Open Skies Treaty allowed Russia and the US to fly over one another’s territories to film military installations to verify treaty compliance.) He has rendered most of our government agencies and departments ineffective. He has vastly increased our deficit. He has been AWOL for the pandemic and the nationwide protest against systemic racism (for he is a racist himself). He has sown division. He has encouraged domestic insurrection (“Liberate Michigan!”) Trump is a traitor. Moscow’s Asset Governing America (MAGA). Vlad’s Agent Orange. And all this is so freaking obvious that it is shameful that out intelligence services have not exposed him, leading to his removal from office and to trial for treason. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842
The Russian installation of Donald Trump in the Whiter House has to be the most bizarre and extreme intelligence failure in history. And an entire American political party is too stupid to see it.
Oh, and then there is his delaying providing weapons support to the people of Ukraine who were at war to keep the Russians from taking their country.
How about this whopper: William Barr says that there was “no correlation” between his personally ordering the dispersal by force of the peaceful protesters near the White House and Trump’s walk minutes later for his photo op with the Bible in front of St. John’s. This is the Attorney General of the United States, the same guy who said that the Mueller report “exonerated” Donald Trump. Here’s what the Mueller Report actually said:
“The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.
“Conclusion
“[I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Barr is a lawyer. Unlike his boss, Barr can read. What the report actually said is quite clear. It reported ten cases of obstruction and said that under DOJ regs, it couldn’t indict a sitting president. And then it left it up to Congress to do something about this.
“The Barr Memo and the Imperial Presidency”
https://www.acslaw.org/expertforum/the-barr-memo-and-the-imperial-presidency/
If Trump gets what he wants (total power for life), William Barr will become Trump’s Hans Frank, a German politician and lawyer who served as governor-general of … became the party’s chief legal counsel and Hitler’s personal lawyer.
Exactly, Lloyd. The Barr memo is not a description of the powers of a president under our Constitution; it is a recipe for fascist dictatorship.
A very apt analogy.
Even when someone does exactly Trump’s bidding, they can still be attacked. Witness this U.S. attorney in Utah who, at the behest of Trump, opened an investigation into Hillary Clinton. When he found no wrong doing, Trump bashed him, too.
WHY does anyone agree to work for this clown? https://www.ksl.com/article/46761109/trump-calls-utah-us-attorney-garbage-disposal-unit-for-ending-clinton-probe