by liberal japonicus
I found this Graniaud piece by Sydney Blumenthal very interesting. As a senior advisor to Bill Clinton, he is familiar to the rhythms of how a presidential staff operates, but the paper is more a forensic examination of the Vanity Fair piece on Susan Wiles. Here are the final two paragraphs
Wiles herself introduces the therapeutic notion of the “enabler.” The role is that of someone who does not intervene to curb an “alcoholic’s personality,” unlike as she ultimately did to stop her father’s self-destructive spiral. She still thinks of herself as the alcoholic’s daughter, who has the choices of acquiescing, enabling or intervening.
As chief of staff, she has stifled her temptation to intervene. She knows it would be in vain and endanger her. In her interviews with Whipple, she presents herself as a manifestation of learned helplessness. But she may know instinctively that Trump, humiliated by her disclosures, might find a way slowly to humiliate her until she resigns. Or were the interviews themselves her retribution for the ineffectiveness he imposes on her?
Fascinating stuff.