Behind closed doors, President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has become a somewhat fractious and chaotic environment according to a new report.The Washington Post reported Saturday that "new camps have formed" at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida with competing visions for how to prepar...
Summary
Trump’s transition team is reportedly mired in infighting at Mar-a-Lago, with factions clashing over control and strategy for his return to the White House.
The Washington Post detailed heated disputes, including shouting matches, name-calling, and physical altercations.
Three key factions have emerged: one led by Donald Trump Jr. and JD Vance, another by Trump ally Susie Wiles, and a third by Linda McMahon.
High-profile confrontations involve figures like Boris Epshteyn, Elon Musk, and Vance, highlighting tensions over Cabinet picks and leaks, further fracturing the team.
I see a lot of takes like "The media learned nothing from 2016/2020."
My enby in Christ, our blessed ever perfect capitalism means they can NEVER 'learn' or even 'care' about what is best for the country. It will only ever be about the click$.
I feel like if we're to get out of this unscathed it'll be because of this kind of infighting. AntiMAGA people in gov't should find as many ways to stir the pot as they can.
EDIT: y'all - definitely agree that we're not getting out of this unscathed, you can quit pointing out my poor choice of words
AntiMAGA people in gov’t should find as many ways to stir the pot as they can.
These people are so mature and well adjusted that this could be accomplished by simply walking up to Trump and saying "did you hear what Vance said about you last night?" and then walking up to Vance and saying "did you hear what Elon said about you?" and then asking Elon "did you hear what Don Jr said about you?" No elaboration, let their "imaginations" run wild.
Switch up "unscathed" for "have some kind of functional country with a democracy not particularly worse than what we've had".
Start building unions, mutual aid, and other grassroots political support. It's time to start getting out of our post-election shock and turn frustration into action.
In other words; a bunch of ultra wealthy nepo-babies with the IQ/EQ comparable to the average 14 year old boy are hanging out at a luxury country club deciding the future of our nation, and despite having collectively been in the game for almost a decade, they still have no idea what they're doing.
We've come full circle, back to the "founding fathers" in terms of letting the wealthy few decide our future, yet our modern cast of wealthy few are wealthy fools who likely wouldn't survive a week without their personal assistants.
I love it. We have a bunch to catch up on then. Is Stormy Daniels; Pornstar-a-Lago? Access Hollywood; Grab-'em-by-the-a-Lago? How about Epstein-a-Lago? Waiting for that last one to break... 🤞
Media companies have realized what foreign governments have known for years. If you want all the inside knowledge of what goes on in the Trump White House, send a spy to Mar-a-lago. You don't need clandestine agents when Trump and his crew discuss all this stuff openly, and all you have to do is pay to get in.
Hell, the dipshits willingly talked to the Watergate guy who ended up writing a book about it (instead of actually telling people about the shit, because that doesn't make you money).
It's worth watching CGP Grey's video on The Rules for Rulers. In it he explains why allies of the new rulers are tossed out when the old rulers are deposed. What makes a person good at grabbing power doesn't necessarily make them good at keeping it.
It consolidates it, but that means the in-group is smaller. Fascisim is a death cult in the long run as it has to keep everyone focused on an enemy, but they have to invent a new enemy if they defeat that one.
For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.
Except, if I am getting what you are saying right, no. That would make things worse. That would result in President Vance and if you got rid of President Vance, you get President Johnson.
To quote Jello Biafra, "I'd rather have a dumb Nazi than a smart Nazi."
Hopefully they just tear themselves apart from the inside and everyone just bails and we can have another election with some decent fucking candidates.
This happened throughout his first term as well as within the Trump Organization before he sought public office. His management style seems to be one where the boss pits everyone against each other to keep all would-be dethroners at bay. It's not the best way to distribute the keys of power, but it is a good way to keep anyone from challenging the leader even in the slightest.
This is exactly how Hitler ran his government. People think the Nazis were hyper-efficient. In truth the German reputation of being a highly regimented and strict society well predates the Nazis, the Nazis themselves were highly disorganized and really inefficient in most everything they did.
Nazis came into power in the early 1930s. It required them to lose a major war in 1945 and the death of their cult leader before they stood down.
It appears that one of our greatest mistakes was allowing the Nazis to become a comedy trope (like the Producers), showing them as incompetent buffoons. In reality, they were a decade-long threat that made the world extremely uncomfortable. Nazis don't fall over just because they're "the bad guys", and outside of some more-powerful superpower rising up and kicking their ass its not so clear how to make them fall.
That being said: Trump and the MAGAs are NOT Nazis and thank god for that. They are Americans and ultimately I tie them closer to the Know Nothings or Whigs.
The Presidents of the 1800s caused major atrocities over the Native Americans, and the USA then had a century of anti-Native American / bad-guy Indian savages to deal with. Of course, we won those battles so it wasn't such a big deal but the atrocities remain a black spot in our moral history. Given the trajectory of what we're witnessing here, I expect a similar thing for MAGA.
Trump promised the social media nutjob faction, the corrupt billionaire faction, and the low-brow entertainment faction that they'd each get to call all the shots. Kinda awkward when they all get in the same room together.
It's an overlooked way to combat fascism. Get them to eat each other in a corner rather than taking out their rampant sexual frustrations on the rest of us.
The fall of the Berlin wall can be largely attributed to a boarder guard getting pissed at all his higher ups being at a party celebrating 40 years of the USSR and refusing to return phone calls (amongst hundreds of other improbabilities occurring on the same evening)
Only if it ends with Abraham Lincoln coming back from the dead and mowing every single one of them down with an AR-15 and then ending with a line like "Party of Lincoln, my ass!"
Yeah that'll happen when your populace is largely morons who vote for someone who proposed tariffs as a way to lower prices. Yep always the evil Democrats causing everyone to be such morons.
Dems could have ran a candidate that appealed to voters, but instead opted for the same corporate shills as always. Dems could have campaigned on massively popular populist policies like paid family leave, raising the minimum wage, or Medicare for all - things which would directly improve the material living conditions of the working class. Their donors didn’t allow them to, and their corruption ensured their obedience. Once again, not learning the lesson, and once again, losing in historic fashion.