President Trump's Second Term: Fire at Will!
The Hill is going out on a limb now — they report that President Trump’s former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, has made a bold prediction, namely that a second Trump term would be a “non-stop gunfight” with Congress.
This, dear readers, is known as “Belaboring the Obvious.”
Former President Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly said a second term for the ex-president would result in a “nonstop gunfight” with Congress.
Kelly was Trump’s second chief of staff and came into the job hoping to instill discipline on the White House. He ended up lasting in the role for nearly a year and a half but had little success in ending the drama and infighting the characterized Trump’s administration.
“It would be chaotic,” Kelly said of what a second term might look like in the New York Times opinion piece.
“It just simply would be chaotic, because he’d continually be trying to exceed his authority but the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts.”
But John Kelly isn’t exactly a Trump partisan. He goes on to say:
“The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it’s more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life,” Kelly told friends, CNN reported in 2020.
Kelly has also spoken on Trump’s ongoing legal battles, including the federal indictment against him where he pleaded not guilty to 37 counts of mishandling classified documents and attempting to keep them from the government.
“He’s scared s—less,” Kelly told The Washington Post. “This is the way he compensates for that. He gives people the appearance he doesn’t care by doing this.”
It’s not at all clear how Kelly makes the connection between the first observation — that a second Trump term would be “contentious,” in the sense that a hydrogen bomb goes “bang,” and the second, claiming Trump to be dishonest. In fact, Kelly seems to have a visceral, emotional aversion to all things Trump, and one can’t help but think that this colors his thinking.
But he has a point.
In almost fifty years of watching politics like a lot of guys watch sports, I’ve never seen the outright hatred for any elected official as Democrats (and, candidly, some Republicans) display towards Donald Trump. From Nancy Pelosi’s childish tearing up of her copy of the State of the Union speech, to the serial impeachments, to the politically-motivated prosecutions, Democrats at all levels are absolutely unhinged when it comes to Donald John Trump. Now, look back on those acts, and imagine the mindset of the Left should Trump pull a Grover Cleveland and win the White House back in 2024.
Were I working in the Trump White House in that second term, I’d make sure that my life insurance was paid up — and I might look into an unobtrusive protective vest as well.
Politics has always been a nasty business. Reagan took his share of brickbats from the Left and then some, while President G.W. Bush (43) was called everything from “Chimpy” to “George W. Hitler,” and to be fair, Barack Obama was subjected to his fair share of abuse as well. ‘Twas always thus in politics; if you want to see some really candid examples, read some of Cicero‘s speeches to the Roman Senate, especially when he was speaking about Mark Antony. Cicero and Antony really, really hated each other, and Cicero, being one of the most eloquent and compelling speakers in human history (no, really, read his speeches, it’s worth it), really let Antony have it, right in front of Jupiter and everybody.
But Cicero paid the price for his outspokenness. Passions often run high in politics; both Cicero and Antony evoked such passions, and Donald Trump does, as well. And a 2024 election victory for Trump comes with the possibility of some folks coming really unglued.
The 2024 POTUS election is just getting started, mind, but on the GOP side, Donald Trump still seems like the guy to beat. And if he wins, and takes back the White House, look to see some serious history being made.
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