__________
Klein: 'The White House is the Crisis'
Ezra Klein: The Trump administration is overwhelmed -- by its own violence, its own cruelty, its own lies, its own chaos. There is nothing unusual about a presidency being overwhelmed by crises. What is unusual about the Trump administration is that it has created those crises itself.
Not that unusual for administrations to inadvertently create crises, usually by saying something stupid off the cuff or trying to cover up minor things - Biden's and Obama's had plenty of own goals...
The 2015 movie Our Brand is Crisis was based on the 1993 book "The War Room" about Bill Clinton's campaign, and self-created crises permeated through his presidency.
What is really unusual now is that the crises are usually attempted to be avoided; with Trump it's the opposite - crises and chaos are organic, they're a feature, not a bug.
Doesn't hurt that "crises" justify the permanent "emergency powers" for tariffs, militarization of law enforcement, etc.
Trump is cosplaying President (again, same way he was cosplaying "successful real estate tycoon" on Apprentice just as his real estate and casinos "empire" was crashing down) and needs to constantly deliberately create crises in order to 1) "solve" them and take credit and brag about "solving" them, and 2) distract from previously self-created and real "unsolved" crises, hoping that people will forget about them and "move on" (en.wikipedia.org).
He's never been sufficiently punished or paid real price for all his scams and misdeeds, avoided accountability and was given benefit of the doubt too many times by too many people, escaping personal bankruptcies and prison, hiding behind frivolous lawsuits and NDAs - so, as his superiority complex and dementia grew, he now believes he is a genius and cranks up crisis level to 11, because he wants to be "consequential" and is trying to outdo whatever he thinks previous Presidents couldn't accomplish... obviously, caring not a wit about actual consequences or anything but himself - apre moi le deluge style.
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"Genius is knowing when to stop."
__________