‘The Donald Principle’

There’s a famous business book called “The Peter Principle” that basically says that managers rise to the level of their incompetence.

The Trump White House has its own version – call it ‘The Donald Principle’ -- and it seems to be a lulu mix of chaos theory and junior high school spite applied to government.

To define The Donald Principle is like trying to herd cats, as they say.  How about: “I’m the President, I’m the Man, and You’re Not”? That can take in a lot of territory and explain a lot of the surreal behavior of the President, like making up tariff laws and deciding to meet with Kim Jong Un all on his own. Or like publically calling people sons of bitches or having the most turnover of any government or corporation or guild or tribe in recorded history.

The Donald Principle doesn’t really concentrate much on actual performance or competence. What counts is loyalty, and if you have that you’re in like Flynn (who is actually out).

But, as the Medicis and the Romanovs and many other ruling families found out and Macchiavelli seems to have always known, loyalties are shifting virtues, and a prince must heed their movement and motive. Trouble is, Trump was never much of a reader of Machiavelli or anybody else and is a worse listener, so we get a White House with a lot of people running around bumping into each other and cursing at each other and serving in ill-defined or undefined roles which they guard with the ferocity of marauding wildebeasts. Or there are the ill-chosen Secretary of This or That, serving at Trump’s shifting whim, and forever leery of the Grudge File, which is always open and available to be acted upon. (See Tillerson, Rex, caller of DJT a “fucking moron.”)

Actually, Trump likes it that way. He says the “competition” and “chaos” (his words) keeps his people sharp. I guess the paranoia and back-biting do, too. .

But, like Al Jolson said, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, folks!” Trump thinks he’s almost in the groove now and he is letting The Donald Principle’s basic foundation of unquestioning loyalty to him lead us along the true path to that shining city in the sky,  America the Great -- Brought to you by President Donald J. Trump.

True, a lot of staffers – the most in history actually --- have left the Trump citadel for reasons ranging from felony arrests to wife-beating to a gambling Jones, and one source said that there’s a state of “mania” on Pennsylvania Ave.  But after the Man did some high level cleansing just this week with more to come, he’s ready to roll his way. He’s getting this thing down and he doesn’t need any naggers. He’s getting some folks in who he’s comfortable with and who appreciate and accept his instinctive genius without any pointless dithering about ethics or protocol or international relations or any of that ragtime. People who “get” him, who know where he’s at. People who partake of and thrive on his leadership, no matter what the toll and on whom. People who might very well be a little crazy.

To that end, he’s already tapped into his native cable television’s deep intellectual milieu and the exciting and exotic financial world of cocaine addiction and illegal shenanigans for some new and amazing additions to the new, true Team Trump  Heck, his barber already has a Top Secret clearance. These folks get it, they understand Trump. They smell like him. So what if the odor would make a locomotive take a dirt road?

Hey, once he gets this all-star team in place and hitched up with the few surviving very faithful and loyal old retainers like Kellyanne and Mike and they’re all on the same page, it will happen bigly.

Unless the page they’re on is numbered more than 3. The Donald Principles don’t go past that.