The Ottoman Evil Spirit In Trump's White House

President Trump may not need a chief of staff. He is his own chief of staff. But he may need an exorcist to free him from the Ottoman evil spirit. The manifestations of that spirit have multiplied. Creating a White House in turmoil.

What should that exorcist, if found, be armed with: His holy water is the U.S. Constitution; his luring Trump into exorcising sessions should be in the pre-dawn hours when Trump is about to tweet his crazy statements; his voice should be soothing with words of adulation for that perplexing Commander-in-Chief.

Above all, the exorcist should use some Russian words, because no Ottoman (Turkish) spirit could bear the sound of the Russian language. First Lady Melania from ex-Yugoslavia might assist in keeping the Donald from frothing at the mouth during that ritual.

That Ottoman evil spirit has so far replicated in the White House what the Sultans in Istanbul (Constantinople) had done for 500 years:

• All senior White House staff distrust one another;
• Your opponent is someone with easy access to Trump;
• Making the Sultan (Trump) fearful of the intrigue by others outside of the Oval Office is a national duty;
• Lying to the President, or by the President, or for the President to the nation and the world is loyalty, honor, and courage; and
• Back-knifing is a patriotic sport.

Above all, the exorcist should ignore Trump's tantrums and vulgar language. The more that filth pours out of his mouth, the closer the exorcism is to a happy end: Trump, now hopefully cured, is out of the White House.

His embodiment of the Ottomans, brought about in part by General Mike Flynn, a foreign agent for Turkey while becoming a national security advisor, has brought unspeakable harm to America and the world:

• The turmoil of successive firings of a dozen senior staff has stalled work on the national agenda: jobs, health, the economy, taxation, infrastructure, and security;
• The obsession with repealing the legacy of President Obama, including its signature legislation in the areas of health care and the environment, has led to a rupture of Congressional bipartisanship, attacks on Obamacare while being the law of the land, and threats by the Executive against Congress -a co-equal branch of government;
• The repeated attacks on the integrity of the judiciary and the institution of free press have given life to the agenda of the ultra conservatives led by Steve Bannon, chief strategist for the President. Its main tenet is "the destruction of the administrative state;" 
• The abuse by the President of laws against nepotism and conflict of interest through appointing his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as senior presidential advisors. These violations constitute a danger to the trust in government and in the Rule of Law; and
• The calls by the President for condoning of violence against protesters, suspects in police custody, persons perceived as immigrants, are attacks on a national environment of law and order.

Such palace authoritarianism mentality, coupled with silence on the vulgarity of Anthony Scaramucci, former Director of Communications, has led to:

• Congressional defiance of Trump especially through sanctioning Russia for, among other things, meddling in the 2016 national elections. The near unanimous resolution on these sanctions was made veto-proof by Trump;
• Trump's forced signature on that resolution, now made law, was bemoaned by Trump as an unconstitutional interference in his foreign policy making;
• Resort by the Senate to staying in pro-forma session to prevent Trump from attempts at removal of the Attorney General as a means to derailing investigations into Russia's role in the 2016 elections;
• Expansion of the investigations by the Special Counsel beyond potential electoral conspiracies to also cover Trump's business and family finance has become public knowledge. This in spite of Trump's description of that investigative expansion as "red lines" -another aspect of Congressional defiance to this rogue presidency.
• The convening by special counsel of a grand jury, or his resort to empowering an existing grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C. are clear indications that those investigations are robust. Subpoenas have already been issued. They are the primary method by which prosecutors gather evidence in criminal investigations.

The international repercussions of the Ottomanism of this presidency are legion:

• Russia's reaction to American punitive sanctions, especially in the areas of energy and banking, has been swift. Russian actions against American diplomatic presence on Russia is only the beginning. Giving up on the prospects of warmer relations between Moscow and Trump's Washington, Putin derided anti-Russian sanctions as "Russophobic tools;"
• Trump's calls for China's help with restraining North Korea from posing a nuclear threat to America's mainland were quixotic. His attacks on China as a currency manipulator, the naval confrontations by the two powers in the South China Sea, and the flow of American arms to Taiwan, have all made such calls contradictory. President Xi's rebuff to Trump was made public in late July by Chinese media describing the Donald as "green horned" -a novice;
• Even in America's neighborhood to the North (Canada) or to the South (Mexico), the thrust of dealings in regard to trade has now sidestepped the federal government and refocused on directly contracting with individual American states.

The gravest aspect of this presidency remains its daily affront against the Rule of Law. Washington, D.C. is not the Astana of the Ottomans, although there is a strong whiff of it over this White House.

In and op. ed. page article in the New York Times of July 29, Sally Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, leveled these attacks against Trump: "He's ripping the blindfold off Lady Justice and attempting to turn the department into a sword to seek vengeance against his perceived enemies and a shield to protect himself and his allies."

And on July 31 came the revelation that Trump has personally written the cover-up statement of his son, Donald Jr.'s liaison with Russia.

Finding himself in early August besieged by multiple investigations, Trump fell back on an old Ottoman device: Ascending the pulpit to harangue his devotees that attacking him is an affront to legitimacy -a political apostasy bordering on insurrection.

That Ottoman evil spirit was in plain sight inhabiting Trump at his rally in West Virginia on August 4.

Time to fire that exorcist as weak and ineffectual. The evil that Trump knows is better than the evil that he doesn't know!!


Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"