Susan Glasser: “It might seem self-evident, but it bears repeating: Trump, whatever else he accomplishes, will certainly go down in the record books as the worst manager of the White House in modern times. And not only is this state of affairs not normal, it’s no way to run even a small organization, never mind a country. A senior European official recently told me that every time he shows up at the White House there is a new aide to meet with him, because the last one he sat down with has since been cashiered or fled. As each successive wave of aides comes and goes, what little institutional knowledge remains in the White House is further diminished.”
“In such circumstances, of course, nobody knows who’s in charge or what the policy is. Staffers come in every day not knowing if they—or their bosses, for that matter—might lose their jobs by the end of the day. Everyone is looking for a way out. Gallows humor seems to rule the day, and aides from the top down are utterly consumed by their own fate and that of those around them. In that sense, Trump may well have created a West Wing in his own image, one more self-absorbed and beset by gnawing doubts than perhaps any that came before it.”
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