Der Führer aus Washington

From This is what Happens when you let Trump be Trump by Jack Shafer:

The war for the “control” of Trump, that Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Javanka, H.R. McMaster, Anthony Scaramucci, and now John Kelly have waged, can now be said to be over. Nobody ever had a chance of taming him, of civilizing, of teaching him which fork to use to stab his political opponents. For months now, his supporters said that all of his problems would vanish if his handlers would just Let Trump Be Trump. They finally have, and this is what it looks like.

And also this from The Intercept:

So can we stop playing this game where journalists demand Trump condemns people he agrees with and Trump then pretends to condemn them in the mildest of terms? I hate to say this, but it is worth paying attention to the leader of the Virginia KKK, who told a reporter in August 2016: “The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes, we believe in.”

So can we stop pretending that Trump isn’t Trump? That the presidency has changed him, or will change him? It hasn’t and it won’t. There will be no reset; no reboot; no pivot. This president may now be going through the motions of (belatedly) denouncing racism, with his scripted statements and vacuous tweets. But here’s the thing: why would you expect a lifelong racist to want to condemn or crack down on other racists? Why assume a person whose entire life and career has been defined by racially motivated prejudice and racial discrimination, by hostility toward immigrants, foreigners, and minorities, would suddenly be concerned by the rise of prejudice and discrimination on his watch? It is pure fantasy for politicians and pundits to suppose that Trump will ever think or behave as anything other than the bigot he has always been — and, in more recent years, as an apologist for other bigots, too.