William Barr‘s appointment as Attorney General was another one of those highly problematic appointments that Trump has made from the very very beginning of his administration. There is also a book by Terry Reed titled “Compromised” with insight on Barr. It’s a problematic appointment from the standpoint of projecting Trump’s agenda of draining the swamp and putting into positions of power a different breed of appointees.
Presenting Trump with a list of 5 people to choose from, all of whom are covert anti-Trumpers in their beliefs, or neocons, or deep state bureaucratic veterans, but all of whom will easily be confirmed by the Senate, results in an administration that works as much against their boss’s policies as for them.
The political problem here is very challenging for Trump. No president in one or two terms can clean up pervasive corruption that goes back 60 years. Many of his appointees are vulnerable to exposure of their own misdeeds. Many hold to ideologies that are hostile to Trump’s desired policies. The same goes for key Congressional politicians.
Trump often has been choosing the least worse person to fill a post. Later he goes back and forth in criticizing and praising the decisions of his underlings in order to get them to support his agenda without their killing off their own reputations, families and careers. How well Trump has done this juggling and prodding act is something that’s beyond the scope of this blog. Clearly, he has often chosen the utterly wrong people. It appears that Trump would have gained more support for his agenda to have chosen at random from people entirely outside the usual establishment ranks; but it must be borne in mind that such appointments would have had to face the intense hostility of major media and major House and Senate powers.
Lately, in addition to the older media, Trump has been facing the hostility of Facebook and Twitter, where he cannot even find open channels to spread information about present and past corruption in order to generate the public support he absolutely requires in order to clean the Washington stables.
Little by little, Trump has found and appointed a few more people who are in line with his programs. He has made numerous appointments of judges. He could do a great deal more for his agenda if re-elected and if Congress were filled out with some people more sympathetic to his ideas.
As bad as the Biden/Harris program is, and it’s enactment really would be a disaster for America, this does not mean that the re-election of Trump gets us out of the woods. Not at all. Trump has been exceedingly bad on fiscal and monetary policy. He has been bellicose on China. Trump is bad on COVID vaccine and he has not been good on lockdowns.
2:25 pm on October 17, 2020
