The Times is too precious to use the word 'fuck'

But maybe I'm taking the wrong message from this article.

When President Trump grows frustrated with advisers during meetings, which is not an uncommon occurrence, he sits back in his chair, crosses his arms and scowls. Often he erupts. “Freaking idiots!” he calls his aides. Except he uses a more pungent word than “freaking.”

For two years, Mr. Trump has waged war against his own government, convinced that people around him are fools. Angry that they resist his wishes, uninterested in the details of their briefings, he becomes especially agitated when they tell him he does not have the power to do what he wants, which makes him suspicious that they are secretly undermining him.

Now, the president who once declared that “I alone can fix” the system increasingly stands alone in a system that seems as broken as ever. The swirl of recent days — a government shutdown, spiraling scandals, tumbling stock markets, abrupt troop withdrawals and the resignation of his alienated defense secretary — has left the impression of a presidency at risk of spinning out of control.

  NYT

Are we all just catching up to that fact? Because it's been happening for quite a while.

Mr. Trump has grown more sure of his own judgment and more cut off from anyone else’s than at any point since taking office. He spends ever more time in front of a television, often retreating to his residence out of concern that he is being watched too closely. As he sheds advisers at a head-spinning rate, he reaches out to old associates, complaining that few of the people around him were there at the beginning.

Is he puzzled as to why?

Mr. Trump is said by advisers to be consumed by the multiplying investigations that have taken down his personal lawyer, campaign chairman, national security adviser and family foundation. He rails against enemies, who often were once friends, nursing a deep sense of betrayal and grievance as they turn on him.

“Can you believe this?” he has said as he scanned the torrent of headlines. “I’m doing great, but it’s a war every day.”

He made a huge mistake running for president before getting his Trump TV channel up and running. Fox periodically has people who disagree with him.

[His] aides, many of whom believe he has been treated unfairly by the news media, have replied that journalists are angry that he won and proved them wrong. He nods in agreement at such explanations.

[...]

The portrait that emerges from interviews with about 30 current and former administration officials, personal friends, political allies, lawmakers and congressional aides suggests a president who revels in sharp swings in direction, feels free to disregard historic allies and presides over near constant turmoil within his own team as he follows his own instincts.

[...]

As tumultuous as events have been so far, Mr. Trump’s first two years may ultimately look calm compared to what lies ahead.

In less than two weeks, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California will take the speaker’s gavel held until now by Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, and subpoena-wielding House Democrats will be empowered to investigate Mr. Trump’s family, business, campaign and administration. At some point after that, he will face the results of whatever Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finds about campaign ties to Russia and obstruction of justice.

This is all assuming he hasn't blown up the world before the year ends.

Amid all that is a rising budget deficit that will shrink Mr. Trump’s domestic options and signs of a possible economic downturn that would undercut his most potent bragging point.

“Nothing he’s going to face in the next two years is going to be like the challenges of the previous two years,” said Michael Steel, a longtime adviser to Republicans like Mr. Ryan and former Speaker John A. Boehner. “Given the staff turnover and the increasing feeling that the president is encircled or cornered by legal and political enemies, it’s entirely possible it gets worse, not better.”

I'd go further than "entirely possible." I'd say, "inevitable".

And what about his base?

“It’s absolutely fair to say that it’s better to have Nancy Pelosi as a foil than Paul Ryan as a foil,” said Marc Short, the president’s former legislative affairs director. “It’s better for the party and it’s better for unity.” He added, “The reality is the Democrats could overplay their hand.”

If anyone can, the Democrats can.

[O]ne congressional Democrat said the party has gone from thinking it could make deals with Mr. Trump to believing he must be stopped at all costs because he is so dangerous.

Mr. Trump has struggled with fellow Republicans lately, too. They objected loudly to his decisions to draw down troops from Syria and Afghanistan and pushed through a Senate resolution essentially rebuking his handling of Saudi Arabia after the assassination of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who protested the troop pullouts and Mr. Trump’s cavalier approach to America’s alliances, sent shudders through Republican ranks.

[...]

Senate Republicans, who had voted unanimously to keep the government open without the wall money Mr. Trump had demanded, were angry when he reversed course and refused to sign such a measure.

[...]

Always impulsive, the president increasingly believes he does not need advisers, according to people close to him. He is on his third chief of staff, third national security adviser, sixth communications director, second secretary of state, second attorney general and soon his second defense secretary. Turnover at the top has reached 65 percent, according to the Brookings Institution.

Smoothly running machine.

But Fred Fleitz, who worked for nearly six months this year as chief of staff for John R. Bolton, the current national security adviser, said the new team is more cohesive and better suited to Mr. Trump than one constantly undermining him.

[...]

In a recent public talk, Mr. Tillerson said out loud what others say in private, that Mr. Trump often pushes for actions that exceed his authority and does not like it when told he cannot do something. He bristles at constraints and expresses envy of autocrats like President Xi Jinping of China who do not have to deal with independent power centers like the Federal Reserve or the courts.

[...]

In recent days, Mr. Trump has asked aides whether he can fire Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chairman he appointed, telling advisers that Mr. Powell will “turn me into Hoover,” a reference to the Great Depression-era president. During a meeting with German car executives this month, Mr. Trump threatened to impose higher fuel efficiency standards on their imported cars than required on American vehicles even though aides told him he could not do that.

And he can be hard on his staff. He regularly curses at them, some say. Even his humor can be abrasive. When Larry Kudlow, his economics adviser, returned after a heart attack this year, the president ribbed him in front of aides. “Larry, you’re here six weeks and you had a heart attack?” Others laughed uncomfortably.

More recently, the president has told associates he feels “totally and completely abandoned,” as one put it, complaining that no one is on his side and that many around him have ulterior motives. That extends even to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was credited for helping push through the criminal justice bill, praise that Mr. Trump took note of.

Nixon's last days.

Longtime associates said Mr. Trump’s relationship with his children has grown more removed and that he feels he does not have a friend in the White House. He disagrees with Mr. Kushner and Ivanka Trump much of the time, but cannot bring himself to tell them no, leaving that instead to Mr. Kelly, according to former aides. That made Mr. Kelly the heavy, they said, and therefore the target of their ire until he was finally forced out.

[...]

Mr. Trump has spent far less time lately with older friends. The sense of isolation was on display at this month’s holiday parties when he appeared for a few minutes, took a few perfunctory photographs with preselected guests and then disappeared back upstairs rather than mingle. He spent part of this preholiday shutdown weekend alone until Melania could return from Florida.

He needs somebody to hold his hand and to take his bullshit.

Mr. Trump still views the presidency through the lens of a television showman. He told his staff that he wanted a fireworks display over Mount Rushmore. Before signing the farm bill, he posted a goofy video of himself at the 2005 Emmy Awards dressed in overalls and a straw hat, holding a pitchfork and singing the theme song to the old television show “Green Acres.”

For election night in November, he insisted on throwing a lavish party in the East Room and originally wanted aides to be on display for his guests, a simulation of officials gathering election return information like aides did at Trump Tower in 2016. When White House officials warned that a party would look discordant given the likelihood of losing the House, he insisted on going forward anyway.

[...]

By all accounts, Mr. Trump’s consumption of cable television has actually increased in recent months as his first scheduled meetings of the day have slid back from the 9 or 9:30 a.m. set by Reince Priebus, his first chief of staff, to roughly 11 many mornings.

And lately he hasn't been showing up until noon.

During “executive time,” Mr. Trump watches television in the residence for hours, reacting to what he sees on Fox News. While in the West Wing, he leaves it on during most meetings in the dining room off the Oval Office, one ear attuned to what is being said.

Jesus Christ. Impeach this idiot.

Still, for all the reports of a fuming president alarmed at possible impeachment, Mr. Trump rarely expresses such specific anxiety out loud, associates said. Instead he expresses frustration, anger, mania — all of which aides read like tea leaves to discern what lies beneath.

[...]

No one outside of Mr. Mueller’s office, of course, knows for sure what he will report, but so far he and other prosecutors have drawn a devastating picture of a president surrounded by people who have lied to the authorities, cheated on their taxes, skirted campaign finance laws and secretly worked for foreign interests.

[...]

Mr. Trump has not helped himself with decisions that opponents use to draw a narrative of a president unusually deferential to Russia, including his withdrawal of troops in Syria, which drew the public approval of President Vladimir V. Putin.

[...]

More recently, Mr. Trump has taken to spending time reminiscing about the happier days of his candidacy and his 2016 victory. He spent the fall showing different groups of visitors what he calls his love letters from North Korea’s iron-fisted dictator, Kim Jong-un, expressing admiration for Mr. Trump. And he still takes joy in aspects of the job, primarily those that demonstrate power. “The roads closed for me!” he declared to friends this year after a motorcade ride.

Jesus.

But those highs have been hard to recapture. The days are filled with conflict, much of it of his own making. More advisers are heading for the door. The divisions are widening, not closing. If it is a “war every day,” there are no signs of peace.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.