Buzz on Capitol Hill is that Mark Meadows may give up his safe House seat for a year-- if he lasts a year-- as Trump's chief of staff. No doubt he feels he won't be able to get anything done in a Congress firmly dominated by Democrats but could make a mark running the show for the chief executive described by Anonymous in A Warning as someone with severe attention deficit disorder."Take, for instance," wrote Anonymous, "the process of briefing the president of the United States, which is an experience that no description can fully capture. In any administration, advisors would rightfully want to be prepared for such a moment. This is the most powerful person on earth we are talking about. But before a conversation with him, you want to make sure you've got your main points lined up and a crisp agenda ready to present. You're about to discuss weighty matters, sometimes life-and-death matters, with the leader of the free world. A moment of utmost sobriety and purpose. The process does not unfold that way in the Trump administration, Briefings with Donald Trump are of an entirely different nature. Early on, briefers were told not to send lengthy documents. Trump wouldn't read them. Nor should they bring summaries to the Oval Office. If they must bring paper, then PowerPoint was preferred because he is a visual learner. Okay, that's fine, many thought to themselves; leaders like to absorb information in different ways. Then officials were told that PowerPoint decks needed to be slimmed down. The president couldn't digest too many slides. He needed more imagines to keep his interest-- and fewer words. Then they were told to cut back the overall message (on complicated issues such as military readiness or the federal budget) to just three main slides. Eh, that was still too much. Soon West Wing aides were exchanging 'best parctices' for success in the Oval Office. The most salient advice? Forget the three points. Come in with one main point and repeat it-- over and over again, even if the president inevitably goes off on tangents-- until he gets it. Just keep steering the subject back to it. ONE point. Just the one point. Because you cannot focus the commander in chief's attention on more than one goddamn thing over the course of a meeting, ok? Some officials refused to believe this is how it worked. 'Are you serious?' they asked, quizzing others who's briefed the president. How could they dumb down their work to this level? They were facilitating presidential decisions on major issues, not debates on where to go out for dinner... More changes were ordered to cater to Trump's peculiarities. Documents were dramatically downsized, and position papers became sound bites. As a result, complex proposals were reduced to a single page (or ideally a paragraph) and translated into Trump's 'winner and losers' tone."Unfake News by Nancy OhanianIn her review of the book, Jennifer Szalai wrote that "Attempts by the 'adults in the room' to impose some discipline on a frenzied (or nonexistent) decision-making process in the White House were 'just a wet Band-Aid that wouldn’t hold together a gaping wound,' Anonymous writes. The members of the 'Steady State' (the term 'Deep State' clearly stings) have done everything they can, to no avail. Anonymous is passing the baton to 'voters and their elected representatives'-- only now the baton is a flaming stick of dynamite."This might seem ideal to a manipulative ideologue like Mark Meadows, who wrote that he always considered himself a "fat nerd" and who lied about getting a college degree when he just got an associates degree. before getting into Congress in 2012, he was a real-estate agent. He tried getting the chief of staff job for himself when Trump fired John Kelly in January and now, as Trump prepares to off Mulvaney, Meadows is trying again.You think Trump's policy agenda is bad? Meadows' is in an entirely different dimension. Meadows is like a laser-focused modern-day Mussolini compared to Trump's bumbling Charlie Chaplin character.David Drucker of the Washington Examiner wrote that Meadows recently "accompanied Trump to New York to attend a mixed martial arts fight and then joined the president a couple of days later for a campaign rally in Lexington, Kentucky-- trips and locales with no connection to the Republican congressman’s western North Carolina House district... Meadows's frequent presence in the White House, is leading some Republican aides and lawmakers in the House to believe the congressman is auditioning to become chief of staff."
Meadows, 60, is playing a critical role in the House Republican effort to undermine the Democratic case for impeachment, which centers around a telephone conversation Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The president asked Zelensky to open an investigation into Joe Biden, the former vice president, and his son, Hunter Biden. Democrats charge that Trump threatened to withhold U.S. military aid from Kyiv unless Zelensky complied....“He’s one of the president’s favorite members of the House and will be extremely important as this impeachment witch hunt moves forward,” said Jason Miller, a Republican operative who advised Trump’s 2016 campaign.Given that, Republican insiders suspect that if Meadows does get the White House chief of staff post, it would become his until after the likely Senate trial concludes early next year. Meanwhile, Meadows is in a position to offer Trump a detailed, inside account of the unfolding impeachment proceedings.
So what happens if Trump does fire Mulvaney and replace him with Meadows? Well, aside from God save the country... there's the 11th district of North Carolina. Completely gerrymandered and with a PVI of R+14, it's the reddest congressional district in the state. Trump won it 63.2% to 34.0%, his best performance in North Carolina. The western district contains all or pieces of 16 counties. Meadows was reelected last year 178,012 (59.2%) to 116,508 (38.8%), losing just one county, Buncombe (even though Asheville was excised from the district to make it redder). Meadows spent $1,310,318 to Phillip Price's, his Democratic opponent, $232,177.Price wants to run again this cycle and he's in a primary with Steve Woodsmall. Both are running on progressive platforms. This district was drawn to elect Republicans. Until the districts are redrawn to represent people not parties and politicians, NC-11 is pretty much unflippable.