More and More Dangerous People in the White House

16/03/2018

Trump to fire National Security Adviser McMaster as personalist circle tightens

By Eric London
16 March 2018

The Washington Post reported last night that five White House sources claim President Donald Trump has decided to fire National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

The dismissal, which has not been officially announced by the White House and may not be implemented immediately, comes days after Trump announced the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Trump’s presidency resembles less and less a presidential administration and more a personalist clique of appointees who serve their leader.

The present cabinet reshuffling marks a dramatic step to the right by what was already the most reactionary presidency in US history. Trump has nominated CIA Director Michael Pompeo, far-right stooge of the Koch brothers, as Tillerson’s replacement. His nominee to take Pompeo’s place is Gina Haspel, who ran a US blacksite torture center in Thailand during the Bush administration.

Among possible replacements for McMaster is John Bolton, the ultra-right George W. Bush administration US ambassador to the UN and a ferocious advocate of war against Iran and North Korea. Vox wrote that Bolton “seems poised to become President Donald Trump’s next national security adviser, which would have significant—and frightening—implications for the future of Trump’s foreign policy.”

Last night’s Post report portrays Trump in his element as he assembles a cabinet totally dominated by the military-intelligence apparatus. “For all of the evident disorder,” the Post wrote, “Trump feels emboldened, advisers said” and “is enjoying the process of assessing his team and making changes, tightening his inner circle to those he considers survivors and who respect his unconventional style, one senior White House official said.”

This confirms the analysis put forward by the World Socialist Web Site in the March 15 perspective, “Seven days in March: The Trump administration and the breakdown of American democracy.” We wrote:

Trump conducts himself more and more in the manner of a Mussolini, putting into practice his frequent declaration during the 2016 campaign that only he could put right what is wrong about American society. He conducts himself, not as the elected representative of the American people, or even as the leader of one of the two main capitalist parties, but as a personalist ruler, an authoritarian of the Latin American or fascist type, the arbiter of all major social and political issues.

Further evidence of this process was provided in a letter sent yesterday by leading Democratic House members Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan. The letter alleges the Trump administration is purging career State Department officials from the government in what the Democrats call an “extremely disturbing” development.

The letter continues, “Over the past year, we have heard many reports of political attacks on career employees at the State Department, but we have not seen evidence of how extensive, blunt, and inappropriate these attacks were until now.” The Democratic letter alleges that Trump is firing certain officials it refers to as “Obama/Clinton loyalists not at all supportive of President Trump’s foreign policy agenda.”

The letter cites documents leaked from a State Department “whistleblower” (i.e., a Democratic loyalist) who asserts that the purge is organized by “a network of conservative outside parties—including former Speaker Newt Gingrich, conservative activist Barbara Ledeen, and former Dick Cheney and John Bolton advisor David Wurmser.” The memo cites an email from Gingrich calling for “cleaning” the State Department of Democratic officials. Cheney’s mention in the letter is particularly chilling.