Out with the old and in with the new! It's that time of the year, the time to sweep out the cobwebs and to notice that windows might as well be see-through, given that the sun has returned.
And so it is in the White House, where Donald Trump has begun spring cleaning. Not with a broom of even with a vacuum cleaner*, but simply by barking out commands.
The first one out was Kirstjen Nielsen, who was the homeland security secretary. She "resigned" yesterday**. And today several other heads rolled:
Government officials said three more top department leaders were expected to leave soon: L. Francis Cissna, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Randolph D. Alles, the Secret Service director; and John Mitnik, the agency’s general counsel.We get a few glimpses into the hilarious scenes behind the stage. For instance, Trump wants Nielsen's temporary replacement to be Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection:
But by law, the under secretary for management, Claire Grady, who is currently serving as acting deputy secretary, is next in line to be acting secretary. The White House will have to fire her to make Mr. McAleenan acting secretary, people familiar with the transition said. Ms. Grady has told colleagues that she has no intention of resigning to make way for Mr. McAleenan.In ordinary times the deputy secretary of homeland security would have taken over from Nielsen, but Trump didn't have one! It's all a little like doing spring cleaning in a house where the chairs are nailed to the ceiling, there are no beds to to sleep in, and people have their meals in the toilets.
Here's the part which is not hilarious, but deeply frightening:
"There is a near-systematic purge happening at the nation's second-largest national security agency," one senior administration official says.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services director Francis Cissna and Office of the General Counsel's John Mitnick are expected to be gone soon, and the White House is eyeing others to be removed.
The President in recent weeks empowered Stephen Miller to lead the administration's border policies "and he's executing his plan" with what amounts to a wholesale decapitation or the Department of Homeland Security leadership, the official says.
The bolds, which are mine, describe the frightening part. Stephen Miller is the Rasputin behind the most evil of Trump's immigration policies, including the Muslim immigration ban and the family separation policy at the southern border. He is a true fanatic, with beliefs politely seen as white nationalist and impolitely seen as openly racist.***
Sadly, Miller is not going to be vacuumed out. Rather, he will step into the power vacuum all those firings have created, and the maddest of his immigration policies will now become reality.
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* I very much doubt Donald Trump has ever used a vacuum cleaner or a dust rag or cleaned a toilet bowl. I very much doubt he knows how to make coffee or boil an egg. But lack of such knowledge doesn't detract from many seeing him as a "man of the people."
** Trump personally fired her which is unusual. The reasons for that might be found in the fact that Nielsen has a pussy, but also in the fact that Trump's recent demands were impossible for her to legally follow which made him very very angry. As is now usual, I guess.
Note that I am not defending the awful things Nielsen did in her job. Following orders is not an acceptable excuse for the cruel policies at the southern border she enforced. But Trump wants even crueler policies to be enforced in the future, and that's why this spring cleaning.
*** Miller is also the usual kind of sexist which most Alt Right men appear to be. Weirdly, that tends not to get much attention, these days.