Roy’s fictional Mulvaney is such a tragic character, he’s a Jesse Pinkman figure in the White House.
In the real world, I 100% agree with those who say Trump set up the Mulvaney stunt as a loyalty test for GOP Senators. Trump’s being impeached, he’s taking heat from his own party after the Syrian fiasco, and then he sends his Chief of Staff out to say “fuck yeah, we withheld congressional aid to Ukraine unless they ponied up dirt on our political opponent. We do that shit on the daily. And news flash, we’re hosting the G7 at a Trump property. What are you bitches going to do about it? Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
Possible. But I'm more inclined toward a Trump's Razor explanation: Mulvaney's appearance was the result of stupidity rather than any kind of calculation.
Trump is enormously stupid. To make himself feel good, he surrounds himself with people who are even more stupid than he is (or who are at least willing to pretend they're more stupid). Mulvaney has never been known for his brains, and he's got the perfect combination of blind lickspittle and low IQ so that Trump feels comfortable having him around.
See, I agree about the stupidity. But Trump’s instinctive move is to double down. It’s not strategic. He doesn’t really plan, but he understands his own power and he knows when to flex. No clue what Mulvaney’s thinking, but at this point it’s probably in for a penny, in for a pound.
Yeah, this is basically my thought as well. He’s daring them to convict in the Senate, knows they won’t, and spends his evening laughing at them on Fox as the disappear up their own buttholes defending him.
Yep. If you look at Trump’s actions through the prism of politics, how he behaves is batshit insane. But if you look at him as a mob boss who’s been challenged and wants to make sure his capos are still in line, it all makes a lot more sense.
(Nods) This. Mobsters don't build, they grab. Get the money; eliminate the competition. Who cares what happens next? He'll be sitting pretty in a Black Sea dacha when the feces encounter the rotating air cooler. Or so he thinks.
Right. Trump is gambling the Feds might get mad and shut off his various money spigots at some point, but by then he'll have filled six dozen buckets, and they'll never have the cojones to go after what he took. He does not see being a good president as his legacy, he sees his legacy as dying on the biggest pile of money ever. He'd start a civil war to protect that.
This is why it makes me nuts when people ooh and ahh and chinstroke about What Is His Strategy and This Is All Just A Distraction From [insert pet issue and/or Russia here]. There’s no strategy other than Id and mob boss stuff.
Mulvaney was elected to Congress as the hardest core Tea Bagger. He's a fanatic and would like to just destroy the modern federal government altogether. Yes, he's really not bright but he's mainly just a really nasty man.
Someone who's worked with Mulvaney said, "He's really smart. But he's only 70% as smart as he thinks he is." Actually that's interesting: how overestimating your actual smarts subverts it and renders you even less smart than you might be. Somebody write a fable about that.
I'm not certain about that: though it seems like the thinnest tissue to us, the 'we were rooting-out corruption before we gave them more money' seems true to anyone on their side precisely _because_ it's a way for them not to feel like duped enablers of a supremely corrupt man.
Often even smart people will believe bullshit rather than feel like they've been stupid or bad─as someone who wants to feel smart and good I watch-out for this constantly, and still almost certainly miss some of it.
It's real. I boggle every time I think about it. It's real. Clean them out. It's like the Alzheimer's has descended and I'm dreaming like Drumpf. But, it's real.
Roy’s fictional Mulvaney is such a tragic character, he’s a Jesse Pinkman figure in the White House.
In the real world, I 100% agree with those who say Trump set up the Mulvaney stunt as a loyalty test for GOP Senators. Trump’s being impeached, he’s taking heat from his own party after the Syrian fiasco, and then he sends his Chief of Staff out to say “fuck yeah, we withheld congressional aid to Ukraine unless they ponied up dirt on our political opponent. We do that shit on the daily. And news flash, we’re hosting the G7 at a Trump property. What are you bitches going to do about it? Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
Possible. But I'm more inclined toward a Trump's Razor explanation: Mulvaney's appearance was the result of stupidity rather than any kind of calculation.
Trump is enormously stupid. To make himself feel good, he surrounds himself with people who are even more stupid than he is (or who are at least willing to pretend they're more stupid). Mulvaney has never been known for his brains, and he's got the perfect combination of blind lickspittle and low IQ so that Trump feels comfortable having him around.
See, I agree about the stupidity. But Trump’s instinctive move is to double down. It’s not strategic. He doesn’t really plan, but he understands his own power and he knows when to flex. No clue what Mulvaney’s thinking, but at this point it’s probably in for a penny, in for a pound.
Yeah, this is basically my thought as well. He’s daring them to convict in the Senate, knows they won’t, and spends his evening laughing at them on Fox as the disappear up their own buttholes defending him.
Yep. If you look at Trump’s actions through the prism of politics, how he behaves is batshit insane. But if you look at him as a mob boss who’s been challenged and wants to make sure his capos are still in line, it all makes a lot more sense.
(Nods) This. Mobsters don't build, they grab. Get the money; eliminate the competition. Who cares what happens next? He'll be sitting pretty in a Black Sea dacha when the feces encounter the rotating air cooler. Or so he thinks.
Right. Trump is gambling the Feds might get mad and shut off his various money spigots at some point, but by then he'll have filled six dozen buckets, and they'll never have the cojones to go after what he took. He does not see being a good president as his legacy, he sees his legacy as dying on the biggest pile of money ever. He'd start a civil war to protect that.
This is why it makes me nuts when people ooh and ahh and chinstroke about What Is His Strategy and This Is All Just A Distraction From [insert pet issue and/or Russia here]. There’s no strategy other than Id and mob boss stuff.
Mulvaney was elected to Congress as the hardest core Tea Bagger. He's a fanatic and would like to just destroy the modern federal government altogether. Yes, he's really not bright but he's mainly just a really nasty man.
Someone who's worked with Mulvaney said, "He's really smart. But he's only 70% as smart as he thinks he is." Actually that's interesting: how overestimating your actual smarts subverts it and renders you even less smart than you might be. Somebody write a fable about that.
I'm not certain about that: though it seems like the thinnest tissue to us, the 'we were rooting-out corruption before we gave them more money' seems true to anyone on their side precisely _because_ it's a way for them not to feel like duped enablers of a supremely corrupt man.
Often even smart people will believe bullshit rather than feel like they've been stupid or bad─as someone who wants to feel smart and good I watch-out for this constantly, and still almost certainly miss some of it.
Well, that's one way to land the plane.
(Any landing you walk away from is a good landing, Wings On Fire Rolling Down The Runway Edition)
It's real. I boggle every time I think about it. It's real. Clean them out. It's like the Alzheimer's has descended and I'm dreaming like Drumpf. But, it's real.
"Dreaming like Drumpf" is the play Samuel Beckett should've lived long enough to write.
The real Mulvaney is making such an ass of himself in front of the press corps for Trump that I imagine Dancing with the Stars is not far off.