Article by Josh Rogin in Washington Post about how Trump’s son in law Kushner is managing behind the scenes whatever the emerging ‘China policy’ is going to be got me thinking about how the Trump presidency may be morphing into a shadow presidency run by a select group of trusted others. This was always the hope for people sceptical about Trump’s ‘skill set’ being a good fit for the Oval Office - ie that after a few months the rigours of the job would start to annoy/frustrate him and he’d look to pass the hard work off on a trusted group so that he could concentrate on presidential theatrics and golf - the question then becoming which faction in the West Wing would win the looming power struggle. Given the way Trump feels about ivanka she and her husband were always gonna have the upper hand in this game - assuming of course this game is actually on and they have a strong desire to play it. With the responsibilities Kushner has taken on and with Ivanka getting an office in the West Wing, I’m guessing we have an answer - and if the rumors are true that Kushner has been feeding negative stories about Bannon to the media, that would pretty much confirm it.
Assuming this is indeed what’s going on, the important question for me then becomes: where do Mattis, McMaster, Kelley and Tillerson fit in? Along with Haley, are they themselves another power group looking for leverage? My guess is people like Mattis and McMaster would look upon someone like Bannon as a person not to be trusted with power - but does that mean they necessarily align with Ivanka and Jared? Dunford did invite Kushner to Iraq and he happily accepted the challenge - maybe that’s a clue.
Haley I think has been the most impressive cabinet pick so far, but Mattis is quietly doing some interesting things. The McMaster effect hasn’t shown up yet far as I can tell - but he’s making good hires and I fully expect his influence to become increasingly apparent, although possibly not in the person of Trump himself - foreign policy is probably the most daunting task a president takes on and this is especially true of Trump who came into the office with no deep knowledge nor clear ideas in that regard - so for a coherent and capable foreign policy to emerge is gonna be a tricky thing and one will have to in many ways simply ignore what Trump himself might be saying - if a coherent foreign policy doesn’t emerge that will be because Ivanka and her husband have failed to get control of the Oval Office leaving chaos and confusion to rule the day.
As for Tillerson - don’t know what to make of him yet - I would hope he’s working closely with Mattis and McMaster to forge a way out of the mess Obama left behind - but it’s just too early to tell - and the snail pace of nominations to key jobs at State certainly doesn’t help. We’ll see how he responds to the gas attack in Syria - so far not promising - him saying Assad will be staying to me was just acknowledging an unfortunate truth - once Obama appeased Iran and let Russia into Syria as a power broker, getting rid of Assad became a much more difficult thing to do, if even possible at all - but him saying the fate of Syria was in the hands of Syrians was ridiculous. Still, the true test will come once it’s confirmed Assad again used chemical weapons against civilians - simply blaming this barbarity on Obama’s incompetence and weakness won’t do regardless of how true it might be - I believe America needs to respond in force - Obama letting Putin into Syria complicates that response a great deal, but I gotta believe Mattis and McMaster believe a strong response is necessary - if all we get are words, I’ll see that as a very bad sign, a sign that the power struggle going on in the West Wing right now is far from being settled and chaos indeed rules the day.