TRUMP MIGHT NOT ACTUALLY RUN A SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION -- AND THAT COULD BE A SERIOUS PROBLEM

One of Donald Trump's ongoing complaints about his time in the White House is that aides and staffers wouldn't always do exactly what he ordered them to do. David Graham reported a few examples in 2019:

Sometimes aides didn’t want to follow orders that would require them to lie—as when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein refused to say that firing FBI Director James Comey was his idea. At other times, they resisted orders that would violate government guidelines, as when then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to cancel his recusal on Russia-related matters. And in some cases, they refused to do things to protect Trump from his own worst impulses, as when then–Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told the president he’d ask Sessions to resign, but just didn’t do it.

The acme, or the nadir, of noncompliance came from former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who first refused to fire [special counsel Robert] Mueller and then refused to write a letter denying that he had refused to fire Mueller. Told he might be fired, he was defiant: “McGahn dismissed the threat, saying that the optics would be terrible if the President followed through with firing him on that basis.” McGahn was right, and he wasn’t fired then.

We're told that this won't be a problem if Trump wins again -- he intends to employ only loyalists in his second administration. But will that really be the case?

Maybe not. Rolling Stone's Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley report that Trump insiders have pushed back on one of Trump's personnel preferences:

Earlier this year, Trump offered far-right conservative activist Laura Loomer a job on his campaign, but the campaign quickly rescinded the offer after some senior staff bristled at the idea of bringing her on board.

“Take it from me, President Trump’s campaign is the only place in the political world where you can be hired for a job by the man himself in his office and then find out later that you actually won’t be hired due to intervention or sabotage from staff. It’s a situation that is unique to Trumpworld,” Loomer tells Rolling Stone....

Since the incident first leaked to The New York Times in April, Trump has on multiple occasions expressed his desire to have Loomer in a second administration, according to two sources familiar with the situation. Still, decidedly mixed feelings among his campaign officials persist.

In addition to that, here's a story in three headlines:

* The New York Times: "Trump Says He Would Give Green Cards to All Foreign College Students at Graduation"

* Politico: "Trump Keeps Flip-Flopping His Policy Positions After Meeting with Rich People"

* The New Republic: "Trump’s Surprising Promise to Immigrants Quickly Retracted by Campaign"

As the New Republic story explains, immigrant hard-liner Trump recently made a not-so-hard-line campaign promise:

Donald Trump made a very interesting immigration proposal on a podcast released Thursday: giving green cards to all foreign college graduates in the United States....

Appearing with right-wing tech baron David Sacks on the All-In podcast, Trump said he would implement the proposal helping international students if he returns to the White House.... the statement came after one of the other podcast hosts, investor Jason Calcanis, asked him to “promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America.”

“I do promise, but I happen to agree,” Trump said, and added that “what I will do is—you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges.”

How did that happen? Politico explains:

Donald Trump privately hinted at a shift in immigration policy at a Business Roundtable meeting last week. He told the group “we need brilliant people” in this country, according to one of the attendees, who was granted anonymity to describe a private meeting. And when he talked about finding ways to keep American-educated talent at home, some top CEOs, like Apple’s Tim Cook, were seen nodding their heads.

... there is plainly a pattern of Trump aligning his political stances with the views of wealthy donors and business interests.

But as The New Republic notes, Trump's own campaign opposes this blanket green card grant:

... Trump’s campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, walked back the plan hours later, issuing a statement to The New York Times that it would include an “aggressive vetting process,” excluding “all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges.” She added that the plan would only include the “most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America.”

The fact that Trump once again might be prevented from ruling as a dictator could be good news -- but it's likely to be very bad news. The last time around, Trump was constrained by institutionalists and people who respected the rule of law. This time, he might be at odds with staffers who are more extreme than he is, staffers whose revenge agenda is ideological rather than personal.

What I mean is that Trump wants to be president for personal reasons -- he wants to be powerful again, he wants to free himself from the legal cases against him, he wants to hurt his enemies, he wants to act on his own personal prejudices, and he wants to collect bribes and emoluments. His likely future staffers want to make America unrecognizable in a right-wing, Christian nationalist, permanently authoritarian way. Trump just wants to make himself the king of the world for four years, or eight years, or for the rest of his life. His future staffers want to neuter liberals and moderates in every part of America -- the government, the media, academia, popular culture, business -- and they want their kind to run the country forever.

I've expressed the hope that perhaps Trump won't be fully on board witrh the counter-revolutionaries' agenda and won't help them implement it as readily as they hope he will. But it's also possible that they'll have the upper hand, and when they're in conflict with Trump, they'll win.

That would be very, very bad for America. If Trump wins, we should actually hope that his narcissism sets the tone for his administration. The alternative -- control by the satff -- would be much worse.