White House in chaos — what's new?
The president decided the entire White House staff was working against him, running their own agenda, not his or that of the nation. Poll ratings had plummeted, with job approval in the 30s. Leaks were a common occurrence as staffers hyped their own policy positions, even brazenly floating them in trial balloons. The president was on edge, feeling helpless amid the chaos. His reelection looked like a fantasy. There was an independent counsel investigation examining all his business dealings. The attorney general was cursed all day long inside the White House for a crazy investigation.
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2018? No. This was 1995. On a good day, the White House is a totally crazy place with swirling intrigue, backstabbing, leaks, and books by departing staffers. The stakes are the highest in the world and so, typically, are the tensions. Many of the staff have ideological agendas and have been raised entirely in politics, often coming from Capitol Hill with little experience outside of government. George Stephanopoulos published a memoir on his political education with the Clintons, calling it “All Too Human,” that depicted his work as too many lies and too much chaos.
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Today, the public has a 60 percent negative view of the Republican Party, a 58 percent negative view of the Democratic Party, and a 54 percent negative view of the president, according to the last Harvard Harris poll.
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