07 February 2017

Clueless

GQ magazine published an excellent article yesterday with the title "Donald Trump Is Signing Executive Orders That He Doesn't Read or Understand" (link here). The piece in turn links to further articles from other media sources on the same topic.

This line in the article, excerpted in turn from a New York Times article, is particularly chilling: "Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council."

Yes, that's right, the President is signing orders without understanding what he's doing -- orders written by a man who just had Trump give him even more power.

The piece further details about how Trump has trouble concentrating on policy memos, about how aides control information that may infuriate him, and about how Trump gets bored by governing matters and likes to watch TV instead.

All of this is deeply troubling in itself. But it begs the question of who is really in charge? For now, it seems to be Steven Bannon, Trump's far-right consigliere with a long history of white supremacist and anti-Semitic beliefs and activity.

But what if that power is seized by another unelected puppeteer, say the mentally unstable Michael Flynn or virulent homophobe Michael Pence?

That could mean a very dark future for LGBT Americans.

People think they voted for Donald Trump and his amoebic promises. But we have no real idea who is in charge, who is making the decisions, and that should worry everyone, no matter what their beliefs.

There's nothing worse than a weak autocrat with a hair-trigger temper and a thin skin.

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