Tillerson will not be the last of the quasi-respectable members of the Cabinet to be fired or to resign under duress. One expects Steven Mnuchin, whose views on trade cannot be far removed from those of outgoing chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, to be forced out of the Treasury. H.R. McMaster’s tenure as national security adviser will not last through the year; his likely replacement, John Bolton, has practically been named already. Chief of Staff John Kelly’s days are numbered. Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis shares the opinions of Tillerson on, among other things, the state of Iranian compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal. Trump, on the campaign trail and thus far in office, has made a great show of deferring to the wisdom of those military officials to whom he refers invariably as “my generals,” but this too will be sacrificed eventually on the altar of his own narcissistic disdain. Even Jeff Sessions, the first politician of any standing to endorse Trump’s campaign, will eventually find that he is unable to maintain any semblance of independence from the White House and resign from the Justice Department, something that very nearly happened last year.
Why should we regard these exiles as not only imminent but inevitable? Why is it impossible to conceive of a world in which the president is served for longer than a year or two by even a handful of individuals not regarded as pariahs by the political and media establishments? Trump’s administration is haunted by the ghost of Stephen Bannon. The spirit cannot be exorcised. What was conceived in chaos, dedicated to no principle save that of vindictiveness and intrigue for their own sakes, cannot be governed by any maxims of prudence or moderation.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member