Summary
Trump’s transition team is reportedly mired in infighting at Mar-a-Lago, with factions clashing over control and strategy for his return to the White House.
The Washington Post detailed heated disputes, including shouting matches, name-calling, and physical altercations.
Three key factions have emerged: one led by Donald Trump Jr. and JD Vance, another by Trump ally Susie Wiles, and a third by Linda McMahon.
High-profile confrontations involve figures like Boris Epshteyn, Elon Musk, and Vance, highlighting tensions over Cabinet picks and leaks, further fracturing the team.
Following the Watergate scandal, ‘-gate’ became the suffix to label subsequent scandals.
I propose stories associated with Trump, and other stupid scandals, be encrusted with the suffix ‘-a-Lago’.
This is actually very great
Soo… uh… what do we call this one? Scuff-a-Lago? Rumb-a-Lago?
Rumb-a-Lago sounds like a poolside exercise class.
Tariff-a-Lago
Embargo-a-Lago
Cargo-a-Lago
Fiasco-a-Lago
Bravado-a-Lago
Avocado-a-Lago
Wait, what happened to avocados? They were already too expensive-a-lago
This happened throughout his first term as well as within the Trump Organization before he sought public office. His management style seems to be one where the boss pits everyone against each other to keep all would-be dethroners at bay. It’s not the best way to distribute the keys of power, but it is a good way to keep anyone from challenging the leader even in the slightest.
This is exactly how Hitler ran his government. People think the Nazis were hyper-efficient. In truth the German reputation of being a highly regimented and strict society well predates the Nazis, the Nazis themselves were highly disorganized and really inefficient in most everything they did.
Nazis came into power in the early 1930s. It required them to lose a major war in 1945 and the death of their cult leader before they stood down.
It appears that one of our greatest mistakes was allowing the Nazis to become a comedy trope (like the Producers), showing them as incompetent buffoons. In reality, they were a decade-long threat that made the world extremely uncomfortable. Nazis don’t fall over just because they’re “the bad guys”, and outside of some more-powerful superpower rising up and kicking their ass its not so clear how to make them fall.
That being said: Trump and the MAGAs are NOT Nazis and thank god for that. They are Americans and ultimately I tie them closer to the Know Nothings or Whigs.
The Presidents of the 1800s caused major atrocities over the Native Americans, and the USA then had a century of anti-Native American / bad-guy Indian savages to deal with. Of course, we won those battles so it wasn’t such a big deal but the atrocities remain a black spot in our moral history. Given the trajectory of what we’re witnessing here, I expect a similar thing for MAGA.
Turning the Nazis into a comedy trope was something that predated WW2. There were people who actively mocked the Nazis because they thought their pomp and rallies were ridicules.
Post-WW2 they received more humanizing depictions than the Soviets ever had. The comedy trope as you mentioned didn’t really start until the 1960s with Hogan’s Heroes that portrayed the Nazis as utter buffoons. The Producers was made by Mel Brooks, who made it his life’s mission to turn Hitler into a figure of mockery and ridicule.
The reason why he did that is because he believed that by making Hitler look like the ultimate comedic jackass, no one would ever take Hitler and his ideology seriously ever again. He did have a point. His satires of Hitler were never co-opted by Nazis, who frequently co-op anti-Nazi satire and propaganda as their own (look at American History X. It is a serious critique of white supremacy, but the protagonist’s handsome and muscular appearance and his attitude turned him into a Neo-Nazi icon).
The main issue is that people don’t understand why Hitler was evil, why Hitler was dumb, and more over… how similar Hitler was to many other third-world dictators and tyrants that we condemn without a second thought. It was that he inherited the German state, which was far more advanced technologically and economically than other countries and thus actually stood a chance at doing the crazy shit they set out to do.
Mussolini had wide ambitions, but they were not targetted at Western European powers, and also he seriously lacked the capabilities of carrying out his ambitions (his attempt at wooing the Muslim world over to his side failed in a comical fashion). This is why Mussolini is often remembered as a goofball idiot and not the tyrant that he actually was towards his fellow Italians. Mussolini’s family was not tarnished by his misdeeds and have been active in Italian politics. His great-grandchildren hold office and are still running and no one seems to care much for it there.
It was also very well-known that when fascism comes to American it will not resemble the Nazis in Nazi Germany. Sinclair Lewis noted that in his 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here that fascism will come in an American guise. HE is misquoted as saying that it will come carrying a cross and wrapped in an American flag. He didn’t say that, but he definitely meant it.
The same thing is going on in Germany, with the AfD rising in power and might even be able to take office. It won’t be like Germany in the 1930s and 40s, but it will be a Neo-Nazi state.
Wait, are you implying that Trump is similar to Hitler?
Add an /s otherwise people won’t understand you.
I am sure this is exactly what Trump wants. To run his administration like The Apprentice.
I feel like if we’re to get out of this unscathed it’ll be because of this kind of infighting. AntiMAGA people in gov’t should find as many ways to stir the pot as they can.
EDIT: y’all - definitely agree that we’re not getting out of this unscathed, you can quit pointing out my poor choice of words
We didn’t get out unscathed last time. The fucker got
23 SCOTUS appointments and whole mess of lower judges.No chance we’re fine after this one either.
Three scotus picks
Fuck I forgot.
We’re not getting out of this unscathed.
The infighting and arguing is, at best, the grifters trying to secure the best grift for themselves at the expense of everyone else.
No you’re right, even if it’s just chaos and infighting for the next four years we’re all going to suffer
AntiMAGA people in gov’t should find as many ways to stir the pot as they can.
These people are so mature and well adjusted that this could be accomplished by simply walking up to Trump and saying “did you hear what Vance said about you last night?” and then walking up to Vance and saying “did you hear what Elon said about you?” and then asking Elon “did you hear what Don Jr said about you?” No elaboration, let their “imaginations” run wild.
There is probably at least one troll doing exactly that lol
Honestly if I had the influence required id worm my way in just to do that. It emphasizes factionalism and forces them at eachothers throats.
In other words; a bunch of ultra wealthy nepo-babies with the IQ/EQ comparable to the average 14 year old boy are hanging out at a luxury country club deciding the future of our nation, and despite having collectively been in the game for almost a decade, they still have no idea what they’re doing.
We’ve come full circle, back to the “founding fathers” in terms of letting the wealthy few decide our future, yet our modern cast of wealthy few are wealthy fools who likely wouldn’t survive a week without their personal assistants.
because each and everyone of them think that they are the real shit
Bitch Fight!
Bitch, fight!
I see a bunch of middle school boys
Media companies have realized what foreign governments have known for years. If you want all the inside knowledge of what goes on in the Trump White House, send a spy to Mar-a-lago. You don’t need clandestine agents when Trump and his crew discuss all this stuff openly, and all you have to do is pay to get in.
Hell, the dipshits willingly talked to the Watergate guy who ended up writing a book about it (instead of actually telling people about the shit, because that doesn’t make you money).
What? Woodward and Bernstein were told about the investigation by an associate director of the FBI.
It was already a crime being investigated by the FBI before the articles. Deep Throat was a high ranking FBI agent.
Some of yall need to read a little history if you’re going to base opinions on it because everything you said is wrong.
I think he’s talking the more recent stuff in which donvict’s people talked to Woodward, but Woodward held all that information from the American people, only to release it in a book later…
Three key factions have emerged: one led by Donald Trump Jr. and JD Vance, another by Trump ally Susie Wiles, and a third by Linda McMahon.
No, that’s one faction: Trump’s. This is how he does business. Creates infighting, brokers a deal, comes out ahead.
Yeah the sith had issues with infighting too, kind of a mark of authoritarian takeover.
Trump promised the social media nutjob faction, the corrupt billionaire faction, and the low-brow entertainment faction that they’d each get to call all the shots. Kinda awkward when they all get in the same room together.
This is why the Media helped Trump win. So they will have endless stories like this.
I hated it so much last time. Too stressful. When Biden won in 2020 it felt like a weight was lifted off me.
I see a lot of takes like “The media learned nothing from 2016/2020.”
My enby in Christ, our blessed ever perfect capitalism means they can NEVER ‘learn’ or even ‘care’ about what is best for the country. It will only ever be about the click$.
Trump’s team is slowly discovering why we have government and bureaucracy.
they must have not got the memo that their infighting is exactly what boss Putin wanted.
Yet another headline you’d never have to worry about seeing under any other normal presidency.
Wow. It’s almost like when you hire nothing but back stabbers and grifters, you get people who only know to back stab and grift.
