Who Will Ever Tell Trump No? And if Someone Does, Will He Listen? - by Jeff Greenfield

[DonViejo]

YIKES

Who Will Ever Tell Trump No? And if Someone Does, Will He Listen?

LBJ’s SecDef manned up and told him Vietnam wasn’t winnable. He actually changed course. Could we picture a) anyone telling Trump a grim truth, and b) him listening?

Jeff Greenfield

02.06.17 1:00 AM ET

With a new administration and president so unlike anything we have seen before, it may seem fruitless to try to draw any instruction from the past. But there’s one lesson, almost half a century old, that raises what may well be the most fundamental question about the Trump presidency—a question that could well be literally a matter of life and death.

In early 1968, the Vietnam War had become a quagmire. More than 500,000 Americans were in combat there; 500 were dying every week. Dissent was spreading not only on college campuses, but also within the Democratic Party. A peace candidate, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, was mounting a primary challenge to President Lyndon Johnson.

When Johnson realized that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was increasingly plagued by doubt, he replaced him with Clark Clifford, the consummate Washington lawyer-lobbyist, who had been a key counselor in Democratic Party affairs for 20 years, as well as a highly paid lawyer with blue-chip corporate clients. After the 1960 election, President Kennedy said of Clifford’s assistance, “All he asked in return was that we advertise his law firm on the backs of one-dollar bills.”

Clifford had been one of Johnson’s more hawkish confidants as the war escalated, but within days of his nomination, the Tet Offensive—a series of attacks by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces across South Vietnam—had shaken U.S. confidence that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. When the Pentagon asked for an increase of 206,000 troops, Johnson asked Clifford to chair a task force to probe exactly where and how the troops would be deployed. The result was a revelation.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/06/who-will-ever-tell-trump-no-and-if-someone-does-will-he-listen.html

[unblock]

1. of course he'll listen!

he'll just fire the person, or call them fake news.

or bad!

or sad!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. If somebody does have enough intestinal fortitude to tell Trump

that he's wrong about something, Trump will not believe that person (and will probably fire him/her), because Trump is incapable of believing he could be wrong about anything. It's not just that he can't admit he's wrong; I really don't think he is able to believe he's wrong. As the cited article points out, even Nixon complied with the Supreme Court's order to turn over the secret tapes, and accepted the fact, pointed out to him by Republicans like Barry Goldwater, that he was likely to be impeached - so he acknowledged that reality and resigned. What we've seen of Trump and his pathology so far strongly suggests that he would never do something like that. In his mind he is never wrong.

And hence cometh the Constitutional crisis, probably sooner than later.

[Warpy]

3. That's really his problem now, people (judges, mostly) are telling him NO!

for the first time since he was potty trained and he doesn't like it at all. I knew this would happen, although I didn't know it would happen so quickly, and that's another reason for my new avatar.

This is not our mess. We can keep the pressure on Congress and that will help, but it's not our job to fix this mess. It belongs 100% to the Republicans and the disgusting human beings they've courted as voters since 1968. Watching that narcissistic pig contradicted for the first time in his selfish, ugly adulthood is going to be fun.

[murielm99]

5. I wonder if his first two wives ever told him NO.

Is that why they are former wives?

I can't imagine living with anyone like him. Imagine the gaslighting, the verbal, possibly physical abuse, the isolation.

Look at Melania. She looks anything but happy.

[dawnie51]

4. It's like Elvis.....

no one refused him, no matter how outrageous his behavior. Sycophants tend to agree for their own personal gain. And what happened? Elvis died sitting on the john in the middle of the night. Just sayin.....