Eugene Robinson: The Trump administration is more a "Game of Thrones" than a "West Wing"

Washington • I want to hear the Democratic presidential candidates convincingly explain how they will beat Donald Trump. Then I would like to know how they propose to repair the devastating damage that Trump has caused to the three branches of government – and our trust in our institutions.

First, you have to send Trump to the package. I shudder at the thought of what four more years of chaos and weakening would do to the country. Trump is so unpopular, and has so neglected to try to broaden his base, that the agenda of the eventual Democratic candidate is clear: to encourage loyal Democratic constituencies to show up in large numbers ; reclaim at least some of the Rust Belt voters who chose Barack Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016; and invite independents and anti-Trump Republicans to join you.

None of these tasks are mutually exclusive, and none involves the science of rocketry. With few exceptions, I can see one of the Democrats on stage last Thursday doing his job. But then would come the difficult part.

The simplest and least complicated undertaking, as it would fall under the next president's jurisdiction, is to rebuild the executive power from the corrupt ruin that Trump will leave behind.

One of the least reported stories about the Trump administration is its fundamental incompetence. Trump's biggest problem was perhaps to convince his followers that he was a kind of business magician with a management genius. In truth, the Trump Organization was a family-run family business that he repeatedly managed to bring to the brink of collapse. It does exactly the same thing with the United States government.

The White House itself looks less like "The West Wing" than "Game of Thrones". The courtiers fight over the king's favors, unable or unwilling to assume their normal duties for fear of risking Trump's anger. Usually, the White House is a place where information from outside sources is synthesized and assimilated so that the president can make the best decisions possible. Under Trump, the flow is reversed – its quirks, as uninformed as they are, contradictory or simply whimsical, are tweeted and must be turned into politics.

Agencies vital to our national security – including the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency – engage, month after month, with no permanent leadership. "It's easier to act when they act," said Trump, but the situation reflects his own insecurity. By keeping his weak and indebted subordinates alone, he limits their power – and paralyzes the departments they nominally lead.

The first job of the next president will therefore be to equip the executive branch with competent and dedicated types of professionals who have served both the Democratic and Republican administrations. It will be a big effort, but it is relatively simple.

It is more difficult to determine how to remedy the damage caused by the legislature to Trump. With the help of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Trump made the Congress helpless. Even measures benefiting from public support greater than 90%, such as universal background checks for the purchase of firearms, can not even get a positive vote or a negative vote because Senate Republicans are so terrified by Trump's discontent.

Even if voters entrust Senate control to the Democrats, Mr. McConnell will still be able to use Senate rules to delay, deflect and disrupt. In that event, could the next president push Senate leaders to get rid of the filibuster? And if the Republicans retain control of the Senate, which is a very real possibility, do Democratic candidates have the idea of ​​going through, under, around or through McConnell to make Congress a new functional legislature?

The hardest of all will be to repair what Trump did to the judiciary. Trump and McConnell confirmed more than 150 new federal judges, most of whom were ideologues of the far right. Their impact on jurisprudence in the coming decades will be bad; their impact on public perception by the public is already worse.

We must be able to believe that justice is blind, that our judges are fair and impartial, including those who sit in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court. Trump's cheeky audience packaging threatens to break that belief, and I do not know if anything other than probity and time can restore that faith.

Benjamin Franklin stated that the Constitutional Convention had produced "a republic, if you can keep it". Trump will leave behind a banana republic and his successor will have to repair it.