An expert is calling President Donald Trump's inner circle "ambitious losers" who are "second-rate or less" — and saying their lack of qualifications will lead to failure.
Trump's loyalists and his "voracious desire for retribution" against his opponents will eventually backfire, just as "parallels in the purges that were characteristic of authoritarian regimes of the past," Sidney Blumenthal, author and former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, writes in an opinion piece Friday for The Guardian.
"The cranks, incompetents and ambitious losers recruited to carry out Trump’s vengeance invariably display a spectrum of quirks," Blumenthal writes. "His preference would be that they would all be a chorus line of former beauty queens."
And as Trump recently uttered about White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, saying "It's that face. It's those lips. They move like a machine gun."
But the reality is that Trump sees everyone as interchangeable, while "attacks on his enemies have developed into a system in which injustice is made routine," he adds.
"Whoever the Trump misfit might be, beauties or Ed Martin, they are replaceable widgets that function within the system he has created. Trump wages war on the 'enemies within' with the eccentrics at his disposal. They represent the revenge of the second-rate or less, taking positions once held by the most qualified and then wreaking havoc on their meritorious betters in a wave of resentment. They reflect their damaged leader. That is the beating heart of Trumpism," Blumenthal writes.
