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How a New Chief of Staff Can Energize the Trump Presidency

Less than two years into his administration, President Trump is in search of his third chief of staff. This is emblematic of the single largest problem plaguing his White House and hamstringing the implementation of his agenda: personnel.

The president ran on a platform of orthodox American republicanism, but that offended the recent vintage sensibilities of the U.S. branch of the globalized ruling class. As a result, he always had a thin bench from which to draw, at least if he restricted his search to Beltway apparatchiks as he inexplicably did.

Thus did Trump kill his legislative agenda by making an ill-fated deal with Paul Ryan that brought Reince Priebus into the White House as his chief of staff. Priebus’s most noteworthy professional accomplishment up to then, and, in fact, even now, was to have attached himself to Ryan. Priebus was not up to the job.

Following Priebus was John Kelly, a former four-star Marine Corps general who is everything Priebus was not: accomplished, disciplined and goal oriented. But he failed too, primarily because he was not political. That’s a necessary feature in a general, it’s a fatal flaw in a chief of staff. So bad is it, that there is no more absurd analogy which would provide a striking illustration of how foolish it is to have an apolitical chief of staff . . .

Read the rest at Spectator USA.

Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis /AFP/Getty Images

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About Chris Buskirk

Chris is publisher and editor of American Greatness and the host of The Chris Buskirk Show. He was a Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute and received a fellowship from the Earhart Foundation. Chris is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold businesses in financial services and digital marketing. He is a frequent guest on NPR's "Morning Edition." His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Hill, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter at @TheChrisBuskirk