Ross Douthat: Trump Needs a Brain

I’m not buying this narrative:

“THE series of columns I’ve been writing lately, floating implausible proposals for an ideologically unstable age, has been a useful way of avoiding the depressing subject of the Trump administration’s first 100 days — because really, in the face of such incompetence and chaos, what is there to say?

But precisely because this administration seems so hopeless, any constructive advice for the Trump White House automatically falls into the category of implausible ideas. So I can continue my ongoing series while also talking about Donald Trump — by proposing, as this week’s unlikely-to-happen proposal, that our president should go out and get himself a brain.

I do not mean a vat-grown cerebral cortex cooked up in some underground anti-aging lab funded by Silicon Valley immortalists … though I gather those may be soon available as well. I mean a brain in the sense that people (unkindly, but not inaccurately) used the term to describe Bill Kristol when he was the aide-de-camp to Vice President Dan Quayle 25 years ago: a person, or better a group of persons, who can tell Trump what specific policies he ought to support. …”

The Trump administration is about where I expected it would be in September.

President Trump is making a good faith effort to enact his agenda, but there is far more continuity than change because the system itself has failed. The Democrats in Congress are determined to block his agenda on every point. The #TruCons in Congress are incapable of governing. The federal courts continue to strip away power from the executive and legislative branches.

It is President Trump and a handful of likeminded advisors vs. Congress, the Lügenpresse, the Deep State and the federal judiciary. Even if President Trump had his own brain trust, all he is really capable of doing is issuing executive orders which are shredded by the courts. There aren’t enough Trump Republicans in Congress to push through a Trump New Deal level of change.

That’s why we are hearing nothing has changed on refugees, there might not be a border wall or a border tax. Nothing much has changed on foreign policy or healthcare either. It’s not for a lack of ideas or any lack of trying. It is because the office itself doesn’t have the power. In January and February, the narrative was that a whirlwind of change had hit Washington.

I suppose you could argue that things would be marginally better if President Trump had hired a bunch of Alt-Right staffers and chosen better cabinet picks. My view is that we would still be about where we are today because of fundamentals like extreme partisanship and polarization.

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23 Comments

  1. TBH no one is pressuring their representatives enough to move this agenda.

    Congressmen should be forced into bunkers for self preservation and scared of showing themselves in daylight.

    I’m alarmed at the steady build up against Russia. (((They))) really want whitey to kill whitey. Douthat is literally saying that Trump needs a Jewish Chamberlain/Vizier whispering in his ear.

  2. Trump needed to continue the offensive after the election instead of appearing “above it all.” He has stood back and let his enemies to attack the legitimacy of the election. The moment Trump appears to accomplish anything the entrenched interests will force a Constitutional crisis. Trump is now isolated and is acting like he’s being held hostage. If he doesn’t start consolidating authority and defying the “so-called judges,” prosecute the criminals and nuke the filibuster, he won’t follow through on his promises and if he gets anything it done it will be selling us out.

  3. Douthat is just telling us what David Brooks would like to say if he weren’t universally recognized as a ridiculous kike. No one gives a shit about New York Times presstitutes, Mr. Douthat.

  4. Donald Trump is going to have to decide what it’s going to be. IF he is serious he will have to begin mass arrests and declare martial law. If not this was all for naught. Unfortunately thats how it is

  5. Richard Spencer concluding that Trump Needs A Brain.

    It could have been the alt right (broadly speaking: Zero Hedge, Infowars, Molyneaux, Cernovich, the Alt Right properly so called, the Alt South…).

    In order for it to be the alt right again the alt right needs to come together as it was during the campaign. We need to understand that this is a war, perhaps even a cosmic war, between the Song of Order* and the False Song.

    We stand not merely for preservation of our nation, but of all nations, not merely of our bloodlines but of all humanity against a future where we have been superseded as when Nietzsche quipped

    “Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?

    All beings hitherto have created something beyond them selves : and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would
    rather go back to the beast than surpass man?”

    Humanity is at a crossroads: get this right and inherit the Universe, get this wrong and be annihilated.

    * Arta: truth, order, righteousness, in the ancient tongue

    • Buchanan already had the blueprint for Trump’s joining of social conservatives with economic nationalists. As a Catholic with a Southern identity and without Trump’s money he couldn’t break through. The cuckservative parts of the South would rather have McCain than Buchanan.

  6. According to the Lügenpresse, daily, the Trump administration is on the brink of collapse. Trump is a raving lunatic. Trump is just days away from impeachment., etc.

    They’re really pushing the failed Presidency meme hard.

  7. Donald Trump is using Native Born White American Working Class Teenage Male Population as canon fodder for his GREATER ISRAEL-JARED-IVANKA KUSHNER GENELINE…

    Fuck you Richard Spencer and Fuck you Paul Kersey….you have given Trump the blank check to exterminate the WHITE WORKING CLASS in the shithole known as the Middle East…

    • While Donald Trump’s sons cut multimillion dollar BIZNESS deals in Dubai….

      Jet back to Palm Springs for afternoon tennis… caviar…and back massages…

      Donald Trump is a fucking cockroach….

  8. Even if he does nothing else, Trump ripped off a lot of masks and prompted a lot of horrid, misshapen creatures to reveal their true colors. He’s also demonstrated that the White people still have an indirect, voiceless, but powerful urge to break free of this situation.

    Still, you’re right. The office of President simply doesn’t have the power to carry out what needs to be done.

  9. Trump wants to be liked. He likes to cut deals. He still doesn’t seem to understand this is about power, and White Genocide – or doesn’t want to understand.

    He was elected to become a ruthless tyrant. We need a Putin or Duterte. We need some-one who removes the Enemies of the People. Out a window, or a helicopter. Doesn’t matter which.
    The Hebes and their freaks will take him down, if he doesn’t wise up, and take some advice, and some Cleaning Staff from Putin.

  10. Trump doesn’t understand the knight of the long knives. removal of corrupt rulers are using him for their own ends.

  11. It is the President’s prerogative to decide what laws he wants to enforce. The courts can’t take any power that is not willingly surrendered to them by a cowardly congress or President. Trump has more than enough power to do what he needs to do. There are people who’s JOB it is to enforce the laws that he wants enforced. They are just waiting for the order.

    If he is serious, he should hire someone with experience who knows how to use the system to get things done. I recommend Bob Whitaker. One of the first things Bob recommends is the de-funding of organizations that misuse taxpayer funds to push White Genocide. Churches, Universities and (((organizations)) like the SPLC who engage in POLITICAL activities, must be de-funded RIGHT NOW. They must be ordered to pay back all of the money they STOLE from the government.

    Trump thinks politics is about being liked. No, its about destroying the enemy. If you think politics is just a game, THEY will destroy YOU.

      • A better question is why aren’t the Alt-Right Thought Leaders writing articles about it, that would get the attention of Trump’s people?

        Are they happy with tax payer funds going to Communist thugs who use violence to suppress free speech on the campus? They don’t seem triggered at all, because they are saying NOTHING. What’s up with that?

  12. I think Trump tried to do too much too soon, putting the cart before the horse.

    I’m talking about instituting the travel ban before he filled Scalia’s old spot on SCOTUS. Anyone could have told him that the open borders crowd would simply judge-shop to overturn it and it is the Ninth Circuit Court that is one-stop-shopping for leftists. Especially one that is going to overturn it based on perceived prejudice from Candidate Trump’s campaign rhetoric.

    Any kind of travel ban should include EVERY non-American citizen until some tough form of formal vetting is established. After all, you often find out that a British terrorist is actually a Pakistani Muslim who acquired British citizenship. Country of origin no longer matters these days if they are all letting in Muslims from other countries. Let’s face it, all over the west, countries are dubious propositions modeled on the good ole USA’s proposition nation foisted on us by the likes of the woman who put that stupid “Give me your poor, your hungry” inscription on the Statue of Liberty. But fill Scalia’s spot first.

    Another thing that Trump should have refused to get involved with was pushing Ryancare. It was a Democrat Congress that put in Obamacare; it was up to a Republican Congress to remove it. All Trump had to say is that he would sign any healthcare bill that the Republicans put together provided he thought it was good for Americans. If not, he would veto it. End of subject.

    As far as all the Russian claptrap, Trump should insist that Congress investigate EVERY American politician’s ties to Russia including La Clinton and Podesta as well as find out who is behind these links. I don’t think a single person in Washington hasn’t had some kind of business dealing with the Russians. Which is an even better reason why the United States shouldn’t forge closer, friendlier ties with Russia. Because at least the average citizens of Russian and the USA would benefit instead of killing each other on the steppes of the Ukraine.

    Trump is trying to do too much that involves the active cooperation of people who are not inclined to get with the program. He needs to keep Congress less focused on investigating Russia (unless they are investigating every one not just Trump and Trump’s staff) and more involved with fixing healthcare.

    The country has roads that are full of sinkholes and bridges that are crumbling. Trump needs to focus on implementing a jobs and infrastructure program including building the wall. If he builds that wall and makes sure that Americans are up to their necks in new jobs, he’ll be bullet proof. That’s where his focus should remain.

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