Funny Post: Governing without lines of authority

Doyle McManus
Los Angeles Times

“Get ready for chaos,” said Doyle McManus. Donald Trump and his
transition team are trying to rapidly fill out his Cabinet, but he’s fallen
far behind in filling about 3,300 jobs in the federal government and has
set up a White House without clear lines of authority. “The problem begins
with the man at the top.” The president-elect has “the habits of an
entrepreneur and showman” whose primary work experience is running
a small family corporation where he calls all the shots—not a vast federal
government with literally 63 layers of executives and managers and
about 3 million workers. The president’s chief of staff usually acts as a
gatekeeper, helping set priorities, but Trump has handed diffuse power
to multiple aides, including chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist
Stephen Bannon, communications strategist Kellyanne Conway, and adviser
and son-in-law Jared Kushner. “We have no formal chain of command
around here,” Trump recently told a meeting of tech executives.
He also has no clear political philosophy, leaving aides to guess what he
wants at any given moment. Now, “Trump could surprise us” with his
managerial brilliance. But if he tries to wing the presidency, his administration
quickly will be engulfed in infighting and dysfunction.