Here’s what I said last month:
Trump is like one of those kings/sultans/emperors in the history books who assumed power as a child and had various ministers conduct governance while they spent time in their harem or engaged in falconry.
And here’s Ross Douthat:
There is, as my colleague David Brooks wrote Tuesday, a basic childishness to the man who now occupies the presidency. That is the simplest way of understanding what has come tumbling into light in the last few days: The presidency now has kinglike qualities, and we have a child upon the throne. . . .
Read the things that these people, members of his inner circle, his personally selected appointees, say daily through anonymous quotations to the press. (And I assure you they say worse off the record.) They have no respect for him, indeed they seem to palpitate with contempt for him, and to regard their mission as equivalent to being stewards for a syphilitic emperor.
I like “syphilitic emperor” much better—if only I could write like Douthat.
Here’s The Economist:
In their darker moments, though, some grandees on Capitol Hill wonder if what ails this presidency goes beyond unwise tweeting or the lack of a gatekeeper who can shield Mr Trump from what one Republican describes as “people filling his head with stupid”. It has become a commonplace, especially on the right, to accuse the press of exaggerating palace intrigues in Trump World. If only that were true. In fact, powerful folk in Washington routinely describe Mr Trump in shockingly dismissive terms. He is compared to an easily distracted child who must be kept “on task”.
Through no fault of their own, the (TV) news media gives a very misleading picture of Washington DC. Republicans in DC are reluctant to be too critical on camera, but off camera they are utterly contemptuous of Trump. Trump has almost no supporters in DC, and even the people within the White House are abandoning hope.
For the past 12 months I’ve been accused of Trump derangement syndrome. If so, virtually every well informed person within 20 miles of the White House has the exact same disease.