Washington (CNN) Shortly after firing FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump brought then-acting Director Andrew McCabe to the White House for a meeting. He had a very important question for McCabe: Who did you vote for in the 2016 election?

That episode, recounted by The Washington Post in a story published Tuesday night , is just so damn telling about how Trump views the government -- and law enforcement in particular.

The most important thing to him is loyalty to him. Not loyalty to the Constitution. Or the law. Loyalty to him.

Trump views absolutely everything through this loyalty lens -- how he feels about you depends entirely on how loyal he believes you to be to him. This has been proven time and again in his interactions with everyone from Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon to Comey.

Which is why Trump needed to know where McCabe stood on him before he could properly evaluate his future job prospects. According to the Post, Trump also grilled McCabe on donations his wife, who was a candidate for state Senate, accepted from a political group affiliated with then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime ally of the Clintons.

It's also why Trump told Comey, during a meeting at the White House in January 2017, that "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty."

Comey, according to the written testimony of the episode he submitted to Congress , recalls that he "didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner."

Trump's obsessive need for loyalty among those who work for him can be directly traced back to his years as a businessman in the private sector and his ongoing misunderstanding of how serving as president is different than being a successful person in the private sector.

In his past life, everyone in his company worked for him. They could be hired and fired by him if he didn't think they were doing a good enough job representing his interests. There was only one goal: To advance the Trump brand and make as much money as humanly possible.

The government is not a for-profit entity. Yes, the President of the United States is, technically, the head of the federal bureaucracy, but the loyalty of the employees of the government is, ultimately, to the people, and, in the broadest way, to the Constitution of the United States.

If you work for the FBI -- as McCabe and Comey did for a very long time -- your loyalty is to the law first, second and last. That's how it should be, at least. And it's why both men, reportedly, were taken aback by Trump's loyalty pledge.

Think of it this way: Your new boss calls you into his office. He immediately asks you if he can depend on you, if you are someone who is going to have his back. Would you think that was simply "a conversation"? Or would you think your boss wanted to make clear that his expectation was that he had your loyalty or else?

Right. Context matters. Which is why McDaniel's follow-up quote -- "I ask people who they vote for sometimes. I think it is just trying to get to know somebody." -- makes no sense. These loyalty pledges were in the context of what effectively was a job interview. Not a casual conversation.

Trump, who has never spent any time in government or law enforcement prior to winning the White House, seems to not understand the boundaries that past presidents have respected between the executive and some of the critical agencies -- like the FBI -- within the government.

Whether he doesn't know or doesn't care about those boundaries is largely meaningless since it produces the same result: A President of the United States who thinks that everyone in the federal bureaucracy must be loyal to him over being loyal to anything (and everything) else.

That is abnormal. Hugely so.</s>Updated with NRA spokesperson response to Don Lemon broadcast: National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch on Wednesday responded to CNN primetime star Don Lemon’s Tuesday night program in which he blamed President Donald Trump for death threats made against CNN’s staff in Atlanta:

Previous: CNN primetime star Don Lemon blamed President Donald Trump on air for the death threats CNN staffers received earlier this month from a Michigan man.

CNN Worldwide chief Jeff Zucker said he would use his weekly staff-wide town hall on Thursday to address the threats for which Michigan resident Brandon Griesemer was arrested and later released on bond. Authorities report he called CNN 22 times this month and threatened to travel to Atlanta to “to gun you all down” at CNN’s facility there, calling the network “Fake News.”

“This is what happens when the President of the United States, Donald Trump, repeatedly attacks members of the press simply for reporting facts he does not like,” Lemon said on his Tuesday night program.

Saying he was speaking to an audience of one – Trump – Lemon added, “The caller who threatened to kill CNN employees made this threat using these words: ‘Fake News.’ I wonder where he got those words.”

“Some very dangerous people are listening to you,” Lemon told Trump, and noted for viewers that POTUS had, once again attacked CNN as “Fake News” just hours earlier:

The Washington Post has reported a former high school classmate of Griesemer says he declared in high school that he was a fan of Hitler, suggesting the Holocaust was exaggerated. Anthony Luongo who, like Griesemer, graduated high school last year, also described him as a Trump supporter.

A man who identified himself as Griesemer’s father told The Washington Post that his son “did not mean any of it,” and “did not know what he was saying, the seriousness of it” and that they are not gun owners.

FBI has accused Griesemer of placing the calls to CNN in early January, vowing to massacre the news operation’s Atlanta staff. Court docs show Griesemer also made “disparaging remarks regarding Jewish individuals” and, months earlier, called a local mosque to make “derogatory comments relating to the mosque and Muslims,” WaPo reported.

CNN has been Trump’s favorite media outlet to hate. Last week he named CNN recipient of four of his Fake News Awards – the most of any news outlet. Since taking office, Trump also has blasted the network on Twitter more than two dozen times – WaPo counted.

Not surprisingly, threats against the network’s personnel increased since the President of the United States began his campaign against CNN.</s>YEREVAN, JANUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. The US Embassy in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince has been closed due to the large-scale protests against the policy of US President Donald Trump, Associated Press reports.

The local Police set up barricades to protect the Embassy building from the protesters. Some protesters threw rocks on the Police, but the officers eventually fired several rounds of tear gas.

The Embassy sent its employees to a safe place.

The protests in Haiti launched after the disregarding remarks by Donald Trump.</s>Like it or not, Donald Trump might just be the most famous golfer on the planet.

Forget about the on-course antics of Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, for many people when they think about golf, the American President springs to mind.

Trump acquired his first golf course at West Palm Beach in 1999 and his family’s business now own 17 venues around the world including the UK and Ireland’s highest ranked layout, Turnberry.

The company has a regular Tour venue in Trump Doral and at Bedminster in New Jersey they have hosted the 2017 US Women’s Open.

He may have handed the reigns over to his sons but given this level of involvement in the sport and the controversies that surround him, it seems fair to ask whether Trump is helping or hindering the game we love.

On the outskirts of Aberdeen, weaving its way through one of Britain’s most dramatic dunescapes is Trump International Golf Links.

When Trump received pictures of the dunes from a photographer he saw the potential for a spectacular layout and so bought the land.

Controversy followed as he clashed with landowners and the Scottish government but fast-forward to 2018 and that stretch of dunes is celebrating its sixth year as a golf course.

By employing course architect Martin Hawtree, Trump turned a patch of land used by a relatively small group of dog walkers and beach-goers into a must-see sporting destination.

And then of course, there is Turnberry.

The idea of Trump buying and then revamping one of Britain’s most treasured layouts filled many with dread.

Again his prowess can be seen in his hiring of Martin Ebert.

By allowing this dramatic coastline to further influence both the aesthetic and the test of the course, it is a commonly held belief that Turnberry has been elevated into something truly awe-inspiring.

Throw in the investment made at Doonbeg in Ireland and it is clear there is a lot for golf fans on this side of the Atlantic to be excited about.

Trump might just have been the only person on the planet with the vision and resources to take on these projects. The golfers who have played them cannot fail to be impressed.

￼Historically, golf has found it hard to shrug off the image of a haven for middle-aged misogynistic white men in bad trousers who revel in the status of being members of private clubs.

Golf was, and possibly still is, a marker of your social status.

For a while it looked as if Tiger Woods would open up the sport to the masses – then he drove into a fire hydrant one fateful November night and things changed.

Nowadays we have a crop of young, athletic superstars all capable of show-stopping sporting achievements.

Under their stewardship the modern game seems in good shape.

On the other hand you have the President of the United States.

A man whose comments about women, the disabled and different cultures have shocked and disgusted in equal measure.

To many, this sort of off-the-cuff, ill-informed rhetoric seems to have come straight out of the clubhouse bar.

What’s more, in 2015 Trump told Fortune magazine, “Let golf be elitist. When I say ‘aspire’, that’s a positive word. Let people work hard and aspire to some day be able to play golf. To afford to play it.”

While we all enjoy playing on empty courses at beautifully manicured venues, it is clear this attitude is not in the best interests of the game.</s>Though Donald Trump always liked to frame himself as a billionaire real estate mogul, many of his business ventures have simply seen him slapping his recognizable name on an array of odd products—sometimes with infamous results. Trump Steaks failed to win over meat lovers. Trump Vodka proved that the admitted teetotaler couldn’t take the American booze market by storm. And don’t even get us started on Trump University—which ended up being the focus of multiple lawsuits. Now, you can add another product to the Trump graveyard: Trump’s branded line of coffee K-cups, known as “Select by Trump,” has officially been discontinued.

The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold first broke the news yesterday on Twitter, writing, “I just heard that @realDonaldTrump's licensed brand of K-cup coffee—‘Select by Trump’—is no more. Not political, the coffee-maker said. The Trump name just never sold many K-cups.”

Though Fahrenthold is clearly a reliable source, if there’s one thing Donald Trump has taught us, it’s don’t believe everything you read on Twitter just because it comes from an account with a blue checkmark next to it. So we reached out to the company that produced the Select by Trump K-cups, and indeed, a representative confirmed that the product had been discontinued and that the decision was not a political one but was instead driven by sales data.

Unfortunately, pressed for further comment, the representative said he preferred not to elaborate on just how poor sales were or even when the product was officially discontinued. But the good news is that if you’re looking to score this piece of Trump failure history, some of the pods still appear to be available on Amazon—likely sitting in a warehouse thanks to those previously mentioned poor sales. The Clubhouse Medium Roast, Tower Light Roast, and Resort French Vanilla can all still be found via the online retailer—though some are currently in shorter supply than others. For instance, the Clubhouse is listed as “Only 13 left in stock (more on the way).” Ha, that’s what you think!

Meanwhile, though the downfall of these K-cups may just be getting publicized now, the writing was apparently on the wall for quite some time. According to a 2015 article in Inside Licensing, sales of the Select by Trump line were already struggling back when Trump was still a reality TV star and not the President of the United States. “Sometimes it’s just easier to work through the contract,” the producer said at the time. Talk about the art of the deal!</s>Was it worth voting for and funding Donald Trump into office?

Hell yeah! There has never been so much of an exciting time as now, we could be at war with N. Korea at any moment, we could be at war with Russia, or China at any moment. There could be a nuclear apocalypse around the corner, and who else could have shit on Obama’s legacy more than Donald Trump? Besides, watching the socialists and liberal do-gooders being ass shafted by the Teflon Don is priceless in itself, it is hilarious watching these CNN socialist hysterical soy-milk goons crying on air, or MSNBC pathetic weasels triggered beyond belief. Priceless! Thank you Donald Trump, just for that.

For eight long years many barely endured the insipid Obama reign, a presidential rule that was personified by transexual homosexual love-ins, and a celebration of limp wristed socialist censorship.

The funny thing is, the main three tech companies that rule over everything now, Facebook, Twitter and Google are still under orders from Obama to censor any thought that does not have a far-left soviet socialist agenda. They are still at it, and one can only hope that the Donald breaks these automatons and their nefarious programming, otherwise there may have to be a lot of civil unrest eventually to lighten their octopus grip over everything.

What hope lies for the future?

Sadly, for the Americans who voted for Donald Trump, the country is too far gone to ever make a recovery. There will not be nice little families huddled around a campfire and doing line-dances, or a massive move back to the Christian church. That’s all been defiled. Apart from America’s midwest, and Bible Belt, White Christian Americans are now a minority in their own country which they built up by massacring Native Americans, and brutally enslavening millions of Africans. Donald can’t bring back that America, and why should he, things have moved on since then, however the core beliefs of White Christian Americans, one of religion, dedication to hard work, gun toting, and community spirit will somehow survive, and has survived Obama, who tried everything in his power to destroy these people. He lost, big time, because in the end these people fought for, and voted for Donald Trump.

The Donald will build his wall, he will eviscerate Obamacare, he will have a war here or there, but there is nothing to fear for he just wants to be remembered as one of the greatest U.S presidents of all time. To have his head sculpted on Trump mountain, away from the others. Trump is a maverick, and this is what the DS understands totally.

The truth is, if you don’t put in the blood, sweat and tears to achieve something, you ain’t worth shit, and you ain’t owed a dime. Let us hope under Trump, he cleans up some of America’s wasteful welfare system where the entitled live lives of luxury and never have to work.

If you want to come to America, how about going through the legal channels and applying legally. No one should be given a free pass for walking over the border. It is illegal and a de facto invasion. The law should come down on illegals hard. They should be deported, the trucks should come to every neighbourhood and take these people back to where they came from illegally. Trump needs to step into gear.

As for the African American section of the community, sure there are a few hard working African Americans who have made a success, but what about the carnage outside of this section? Jail, the projects, ghettos, and more jail. Something has to be done. If America is to be great again, African Americans must be tamed, or eventually the wilderness will spread even further.

In fact, up until now, Trump has been way too nice. He needs to be ruthless, merciless, he needs to get into fucking gear now or he will lose the next election.</s>What is the US President’s motivation for heading to WEF in Davos, a notorious playground for the global elite? Two perspectives on the question.

Contributor Daniel Warner argues it’s a way for Trump to escape problems at home:

German writer Thomas Mann came to Davos in 1912 to visit his wife who was suffering from lung complications. At that time, Davos was known for its sanatoriums. His visit became the basis of his classic novel, “The Magic Mountain”. Davos later became a famous ski area and home to the annual meeting of those “committed to improving the state of the world,” the World Economic Forum (WEF).



More than 100 years after Mann visited his wife, US President Donald Trump is traveling to Davos as the major attraction of the 48th meeting of the WEF. While Trump is certainly not coming to Davos to visit his wife, or any person in whatever sanatoriums are left in the chic Alpine resort, one can easily question what the President of the United States and several members of his cabinet are doing in a tiny village in eastern Switzerland while wars rage in Syria and Yemen, major legislation on immigration remains in question, the inquiry into Russian collusion with his campaign and his potential obstruction of justice continues, the nuclear treaty with Iran needs clarification, revelations in Fire and Fury have questioned his capacity to govern and his vulgar comments about Haitian and African immigrants have shocked the world.



Watch out Switzerland: here comes The Donald, “shithouse” and all, headlining WEF founder Klaus Schwab’s annual party. While Trump is the President of the United States, with all the prestige and power that office embraces, there is an enormous disconnect between the personality of Donald Trump and the participants at Davos.

The WEF is not a New York City real estate convention or a Las Vegas get-together of rich gamblers. Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF and omnipresent at Davos, is not Celine Dion playing to a packed house in her Vegas theatre. Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and annual eminent grise of the WEF is not famed middle-class realtor Sam Lefrak from Queens. Selling the US at the WEF is not negotiating a Trump Tower in Macau with Chinese casino king Stanley Ho.

Quite simply: What the hell is Donald Trump doing at Davos?

The obvious answer would be that he is purposefully getting away from the aforementioned problems. Nothing better than a short foreign visit to take attention away from thorny domestic politics. Even away from home, Trump is certainly more welcome in an isolated Swiss village than he would be in downtown London clashing with its mayor. Although there will certainly be protests in Davos and already have been throughout Switzerland, Trump is obviously safer among the world’s political and financial elite than he would be in Port-au-Prince.

And he can always trumpet the visit as part of his program of promoting America First. Nothing better than hobnobbing with the world’s makers and shakers in the interest of his country. After all, he promised more jobs for the American workers, and what could be better for the average American than selling his agenda to the captains of finance and industry? The self-declared ultimate deal maker will be meeting with the world’s financial, economic and political leaders. For someone who prides himself as synonymous with the art of the deal, what could be more tempting than to perform on the world’s biggest media stage in front of the highest rollers?

On the other hand, Donald Trump is also supposed to represent the average Joe. While Barack Obama never went to Davos because of its elitist, capitalist reputation, and Bill Clinton was heavily criticized for schmoozing with Davos Men, Trump’s base is the anathema of those attending the WEF. “Joe Six-Pack,” as the average American is affectionately called, abhors the world of canapés and white wine. Trump won the presidency because he vilified Hillary Clinton as a spoiled, rich girl from Wellesley College and Yale Law School. Trump, although rich by inheritance, rode the wagon of the great American self-made man that the average middle and lower-class person associated with. His vulgarity was the perfect antidote to the Obama/Clinton erudition.

The smug globalists at Davos are exactly the types Trump and his former strategist Steve Bannon campaigned against in 2016. The rejection of Hillary Clinton by the voters had as much to do with her educational and cultural sophistication as with her politics.

Trump may have been successful in one arena with one set of rules, but the shift from New York realtor to global political leader has shown his limitations. Now that he is on the world stage, those limitations are becoming more and more obvious. It’s bad enough when he tweets or speaks within the U.S; on the world stage, he has become the reincarnation of the ugly American, able to play in The Apprentice, but poorly cast as the actual Commander-in-Chief.

Mann’s novel is complex and nuanced. The least we can anticipate about Trump’s sojourn to the Magic Mountain is that it will be neither complex nor nuanced. Watch out Davos: Here comes The Donald.



__________________________________________________________________________________________

'The USA is open for business’



James Foley, head of the Geneva-based Republicans Overseas Switzerland, says that Trump’s unique political position and view on the world will allow him to effectively promote the US agenda at WEF.

“In general, Trump is going to Davos to remind the globalist attendees (let's face it, Davos is a big globalist gathering) that America First is good policy and, despite what globalists may think of this policy, it's good for business,” Foley told swissinfo.ch. “It’s also a reminder that the USA is open for business, and that they shouldn't forget that if the USA's economy does well, they all do well.” James Foley, head of the Geneva-based Republicans Overseas Switzerland, says that Trump’s unique political position and view on the world will allow him to effectively promote the American agenda in Davos.



Was Foley surprised by Trump’s eagerness to go to WEF?

“I wasn't surprised by his decision because Trump is known as an outsider, he’s no career politician,” Foley told the Swiss News Agency SDA-ATS.

“You could view it as provocation, but that’s completely normal for Trump because Trump is a political provocateur. He is a provocateur with purpose, because he uses it to see how his counterparts will react and to plan better.”

“Theresa May, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron will all be there, and Trump can sit across from them and say, I’m here to represent America, not these globalist ideas.”



WEF also comes around the one-year mark of Trump’s time in office, a time that Foley argues has seen several successes. For example, as he told Swiss Public Television RTS, he believes the administration’s policy of government deregulation has managed to change “business as usual” in Washington, DC and accelerate the American economy.

Foley also notes the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and the passage of tax reform as positive developments, with the “positive effects” of the latter move already visible in the global economy.</s>I have no idea who the president is, but it’s definitely not Donald Trump

A few months ago, “The Daily Show” had a recurring segment asking, “Who is the real president?” Their roundup included influential conservatives in and out of the White House. Since President Donald Trump has proven time and time again that he is easily played – it is clear from his conduct and his statements that Trump does not know what he’s doing as president – anyone from Satan to Vladimir Putin could be featured on the list. Given his ignorance, a president who has little-to-no understanding of how government works must be influenced by a more knowledgeable party, if for no other purpose than to simply fill in the gaps in his awareness.

The problem with a discussion of who is really running the Executive branch is that it changes too often for anyone to know for sure. For a while, Steve Bannon was regarded as the mastermind of the Trump campaign and administration. He even helped engineer the infamous Muslim ban, which prohibited travelers from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Since his firing in August, it would appear as though he left the position open to newcomers.

Now that Bannon is out, I’m reluctant to think about who the new “real president” is, despite the opinion that chief of staff John Kelly is calling some of the shots, or that he contributed to the government shutdown.

It’s terrifying enough to imagine Donald “My button is bigger than yours” Trump running the country, let alone some smoke-and-mirrors puppeteer masterminding the whole operation without any of us knowing for sure who they are. It is immaterial whether the people whispering in the president’s ear are Russian or American; what matters most is that Trump is playable; more than that, he is actively being played by an ever-changing cast of characters. The Trump White House seems to have installed a revolving door, and it’s making many in the country – myself included – feel kind of nauseous.

That said, it is not necessarily meaningful that someone else may be pulling the strings when Trump’s tweets could be read as a declaration of war. It’s tempting to ignore the drama of the White House if there’s a constant threat of nuclear annihilation because no one is monitoring the president’s Twitter. Never before has an executive official been accused of requiring a babysitter, so how can the man who allegedly belongs in day care be an effective Commander in Chief?

It could be a waste of time to wonder who has the most jurisdiction over this borderline authoritarian regime. Everyone involved is complicit, and while that may not be reassuring, it does mean that this administration is too big to not fail. Already, we’ve seen Bannon’s fall from grace and indictments of Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. Now, the Russia investigation is shifting its focus onto Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, dubious real-estate mogul, silent boy wonder.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter who holds the official title of president, especially not in the wake of a government shutdown for which both parties are openly blaming each other – in particular, a political climate where senators and the president insult each other on Twitter. It doesn’t matter who’s calling the shots in the Oval Office when outside, citizens can turn the tide for good. The 2018 election isn’t far away and right now, with Republicans controlling the legislative branch during a tumultuous and disappointing time for their constituents, more people than ever might be motivated to vote and change the make-up of the House of Representatives and Senate. In November, and in all upcoming special elections, every vote counts.

Sophie Allen is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at siallen@umass.edu.</s>What is the US President’s motivation for heading to WEF in Davos, a notorious playground for the global elite? Two perspectives on the question.

Contributor Daniel Warner argues it’s a way for Trump to escape problems at home:

German writer Thomas Mann came to Davos in 1912 to visit his wife who was suffering from lung complications. At that time, Davos was known for its sanatoriums. His visit became the basis of his classic novel, “The Magic Mountain”. Davos later became a famous ski area and home to the annual meeting of those “committed to improving the state of the world,” the World Economic Forum (WEF).



More than 100 years after Mann visited his wife, US President Donald Trump is traveling to Davos as the major attraction of the 48th meeting of the WEF. While Trump is certainly not coming to Davos to visit his wife, or any person in whatever sanatoriums are left in the chic Alpine resort, one can easily question what the President of the United States and several members of his cabinet are doing in a tiny village in eastern Switzerland while wars rage in Syria and Yemen, major legislation on immigration remains in question, the inquiry into Russian collusion with his campaign and his potential obstruction of justice continues, the nuclear treaty with Iran needs clarification, revelations in Fire and Fury have questioned his capacity to govern and his vulgar comments about Haitian and African immigrants have shocked the world.



Watch out Switzerland: here comes The Donald, “shithouse” and all, headlining WEF founder Klaus Schwab’s annual party. While Trump is the President of the United States, with all the prestige and power that office embraces, there is an enormous disconnect between the personality of Donald Trump and the participants at Davos.

The WEF is not a New York City real estate convention or a Las Vegas get-together of rich gamblers. Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF and omnipresent at Davos, is not Celine Dion playing to a packed house in her Vegas theatre. Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and annual eminent grise of the WEF is not famed middle-class realtor Sam Lefrak from Queens. Selling the US at the WEF is not negotiating a Trump Tower in Macau with Chinese casino king Stanley Ho.

Quite simply: What the hell is Donald Trump doing at Davos?

The obvious answer would be that he is purposefully getting away from the aforementioned problems. Nothing better than a short foreign visit to take attention away from thorny domestic politics. Even away from home, Trump is certainly more welcome in an isolated Swiss village than he would be in downtown London clashing with its mayor. Although there will certainly be protests in Davos and already have been throughout Switzerland, Trump is obviously safer among the world’s political and financial elite than he would be in Port-au-Prince.

And he can always trumpet the visit as part of his program of promoting America First. Nothing better than hobnobbing with the world’s makers and shakers in the interest of his country. After all, he promised more jobs for the American workers, and what could be better for the average American than selling his agenda to the captains of finance and industry? The self-declared ultimate deal maker will be meeting with the world’s financial, economic and political leaders. For someone who prides himself as synonymous with the art of the deal, what could be more tempting than to perform on the world’s biggest media stage in front of the highest rollers?

On the other hand, Donald Trump is also supposed to represent the average Joe. While Barack Obama never went to Davos because of its elitist, capitalist reputation, and Bill Clinton was heavily criticized for schmoozing with Davos Men, Trump’s base is the anathema of those attending the WEF. “Joe Six-Pack,” as the average American is affectionately called, abhors the world of canapés and white wine. Trump won the presidency because he vilified Hillary Clinton as a spoiled, rich girl from Wellesley College and Yale Law School. Trump, although rich by inheritance, rode the wagon of the great American self-made man that the average middle and lower-class person associated with. His vulgarity was the perfect antidote to the Obama/Clinton erudition.

The smug globalists at Davos are exactly the types Trump and his former strategist Steve Bannon campaigned against in 2016. The rejection of Hillary Clinton by the voters had as much to do with her educational and cultural sophistication as with her politics.

Trump may have been successful in one arena with one set of rules, but the shift from New York realtor to global political leader has shown his limitations. Now that he is on the world stage, those limitations are becoming more and more obvious. It’s bad enough when he tweets or speaks within the U.S; on the world stage, he has become the reincarnation of the ugly American, able to play in The Apprentice, but poorly cast as the actual Commander-in-Chief.

Mann’s novel is complex and nuanced. The least we can anticipate about Trump’s sojourn to the Magic Mountain is that it will be neither complex nor nuanced. Watch out Davos: Here comes The Donald.



__________________________________________________________________________________________

'The USA is open for business’



James Foley, head of the Geneva-based Republicans Overseas Switzerland, says that Trump’s unique political position and view on the world will allow him to effectively promote the US agenda at WEF.

“In general, Trump is going to Davos to remind the globalist attendees (let's face it, Davos is a big globalist gathering) that America First is good policy and, despite what globalists may think of this policy, it's good for business,” Foley told swissinfo.ch. “It’s also a reminder that the USA is open for business, and that they shouldn't forget that if the USA's economy does well, they all do well.” James Foley, head of the Geneva-based Republicans Overseas Switzerland, says that Trump’s unique political position and view on the world will allow him to effectively promote the American agenda in Davos.



Was Foley surprised by Trump’s eagerness to go to WEF?

“I wasn't surprised by his decision because Trump is known as an outsider, he’s no career politician,” Foley told the Swiss News Agency SDA-ATS.

“You could view it as provocation, but that’s completely normal for Trump because Trump is a political provocateur. He is a provocateur with purpose, because he uses it to see how his counterparts will react and to plan better.”

“Theresa May, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron will all be there, and Trump can sit across from them and say, I’m here to represent America, not these globalist ideas.”



WEF also comes around the one-year mark of Trump’s time in office, a time that Foley argues has seen several successes. For example, as he told Swiss Public Television RTS, he believes the administration’s policy of government deregulation has managed to change “business as usual” in Washington, DC and accelerate the American economy.

Foley also notes the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and the passage of tax reform as positive developments, with the “positive effects” of the latter move already visible in the global economy.</s>I have no idea who the president is, but it’s definitely not Donald Trump

A few months ago, “The Daily Show” had a recurring segment asking, “Who is the real president?” Their roundup included influential conservatives in and out of the White House. Since President Donald Trump has proven time and time again that he is easily played – it is clear from his conduct and his statements that Trump does not know what he’s doing as president – anyone from Satan to Vladimir Putin could be featured on the list. Given his ignorance, a president who has little-to-no understanding of how government works must be influenced by a more knowledgeable party, if for no other purpose than to simply fill in the gaps in his awareness.

The problem with a discussion of who is really running the Executive branch is that it changes too often for anyone to know for sure. For a while, Steve Bannon was regarded as the mastermind of the Trump campaign and administration. He even helped engineer the infamous Muslim ban, which prohibited travelers from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Since his firing in August, it would appear as though he left the position open to newcomers.

Now that Bannon is out, I’m reluctant to think about who the new “real president” is, despite the opinion that chief of staff John Kelly is calling some of the shots, or that he contributed to the government shutdown.

It’s terrifying enough to imagine Donald “My button is bigger than yours” Trump running the country, let alone some smoke-and-mirrors puppeteer masterminding the whole operation without any of us knowing for sure who they are. It is immaterial whether the people whispering in the president’s ear are Russian or American; what matters most is that Trump is playable; more than that, he is actively being played by an ever-changing cast of characters. The Trump White House seems to have installed a revolving door, and it’s making many in the country – myself included – feel kind of nauseous.

That said, it is not necessarily meaningful that someone else may be pulling the strings when Trump’s tweets could be read as a declaration of war. It’s tempting to ignore the drama of the White House if there’s a constant threat of nuclear annihilation because no one is monitoring the president’s Twitter. Never before has an executive official been accused of requiring a babysitter, so how can the man who allegedly belongs in day care be an effective Commander in Chief?

It could be a waste of time to wonder who has the most jurisdiction over this borderline authoritarian regime. Everyone involved is complicit, and while that may not be reassuring, it does mean that this administration is too big to not fail. Already, we’ve seen Bannon’s fall from grace and indictments of Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. Now, the Russia investigation is shifting its focus onto Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, dubious real-estate mogul, silent boy wonder.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter who holds the official title of president, especially not in the wake of a government shutdown for which both parties are openly blaming each other – in particular, a political climate where senators and the president insult each other on Twitter. It doesn’t matter who’s calling the shots in the Oval Office when outside, citizens can turn the tide for good. The 2018 election isn’t far away and right now, with Republicans controlling the legislative branch during a tumultuous and disappointing time for their constituents, more people than ever might be motivated to vote and change the make-up of the House of Representatives and Senate. In November, and in all upcoming special elections, every vote counts.

Sophie Allen is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at siallen@umass.edu.
The United States closes its embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, due to large-scale protests against the policy of U.S. President Donald Trump.