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It's safe to say the new Donald Trump administration has shattered all records for reports of internal turmoil in the first week. See, for example,hereand here. Some of this could be Trump himself -- several stories are just brutal about his inability to focus and about how unprepared he seems to be. And some of it could be media overkill, since once a story is out there, it tends to feed on itself.

But another potential explanation --especially considering the jaw-dropping leaks coming from within the White House --is that there is something seriously wrong with the way Trump has structured his new staff.

He has decided, in short, to runthe White House like a Democrat -- just when it appeared that a decades-long argument had been settled in favor of the Republican model.

Here's the history. The "presidential branch" of government, with large White House staffs and agencies such as the Office of Management and the Budget, the National Security Council, and the Council of Economic Advisers, only goes back to Harry Truman's administration. Truman governed this new part of the government more or less the way Franklin Roosevelt had governed a tiny presidential staff, with several different people reporting directly to the president.

Dwight Eisenhower, however, brought over a new style from his military experience, naming former New Hampshire Governor Sherman Adams as his chief of staff. This top-down model served Ike well, and subsequent Republican presidents have all copied it to some extent. Democrats, however, resisted.Even when someone had the title, they were generally weak versions of the idea. So Jimmy Carter began without anyone in that role, which was eventually filled de facto by Hamilton Jordan (who finally got the title two and a half years into the presidency). Both Carter and Bill Clinton wound up moving to a hierarchical chief of staff model after experiencing White House disarray early in their terms.

It appeared, in January 2009, that the old argument was finally settled in Eisenhower's favor when Barack Obama began his presidency with Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. While the Obama administration had its share of rocky moments, little of it appeared to be traced to White House disorder, and it seemed both parties had adopted the same model.

So it's a bit of a surprise that Trump hasabandoned the Eisenhower model, but appears to be trying out the failed Democratic style. Trump does have a designated chief of staff,Reince Priebus. But he appears to have a weak version of the job, with a three- or four- or perhaps even five-headed organizational structure a better description of what's happening. Originally, Priebus was announced as part of a dual-command structure with Steve Bannon, but Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner made it three, and Kellyanne Conway has been portrayed as one of a "Big Four." And don't forget Vice President Mike Pence, who might make it five. Could National Security Advisor Michael Flynn even mean six? That's part of the problem; without a solid structure, everything is up in the air, which gives everyone strong incentives for turf wars.

Each appears to have fairly arbitrary portfolios -- Kushner, for example, is supposedly in charge of a Middle East peace initiative, while Conway has been tasked with health care -- and each has brought staff with them (Priebus from theRepublican National Committee, Bannon from Breitbart) who it appears are clearly identified with the person who brought them. It can't help, either, that the total government experience among the Big Four was Conway's brief early-career stint as a judicial clerk. None of them have hands-on experience with how a presidency works -- or how a presidency can go wrong.

This appears to be producing exactly what Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter could have predicted: A White House with competing factions, with frequent leaks and the air of chaos.

Granted, we're only a few days in, and even with all the insider stories so far much of this has to be speculative. And it's quite possible that the real problem is the president, and not the staff arrangements he's chosen. But we've seen dramatic differences in presidencies either as staff structure changed (as with Clinton) or when the wrong person wound up as chief of staff (see Ronald Reagan, who was a much worse president during Donald Regan's stint as chief of staff than before or after that unfortunate period). Organization matters. My guess? If the Trump administration ever does get on track, it will be after someone is put in charge.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mike Nizza at mnizza3@bloomberg.net

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Trump Is Running the White House Like a Democrat - Bloomberg

The empty stage for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on election night at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images hide caption

The empty stage for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on election night at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

David Betras realized Hillary Clinton's odds of winning the presidency were in peril back in March of last year.

Betras, the chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party, lives in an area of Ohio that traditionally votes for Democrats. But during the Ohio primary, Betras saw 18 people on his own precinct committee defect and cross party lines to vote Republican.

"Why did they vote for Donald Trump?" Betras asked rhetorically, and in the next breath answered his own question, "'cause Donald Trump I don't get it, but, amazingly, a man that s**** in gold-plated toilets was talking more to working people than the party's standard-bearer."

David Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party, said his party needs to get back to "its roots" and focus on the working class. Asma Khalid/NPR hide caption

David Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party, said his party needs to get back to "its roots" and focus on the working class.

The people here thought wrongly the national Democratic Party cared more about where someone went to the bathroom than whether or not these people had a job. And, so we're off-message.

David Petras, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party in Ohio

Quick fact check: While some apartments in Trump Tower do have gold-plated bathroom fixtures, there's no evidence of a gold toilet. But you get the point: Betras was frustrated with his own party, that it could not appeal to working-class voters while running against a New York billionaire.

"We were stressing the wrong messages. 'Stronger Together' that's real nice," Betras said, referring to Clinton's campaign slogan. "Let's sit around and sing, 'Kumbaya,' but that really doesn't get anyone a job, does it?"

The future for Democrats is fuzzy. Following President Obama, the first black president, the party is having something of an identity crisis. Clinton lost, in part, because she wasn't able to appeal to white, working-class voters, who were a crucial pillar of the party for decades. But minority activists warn that people of color have been a growing key to Democratic success for years yet still don't have the influence they feel they deserve.

While many in the party were encouraged by the massive turnout for the Women's March Saturday, which was bigger than the crowd that showed up for Trump's inauguration the day before, Democrats have no clear leader and no unified policy direction. Democrats suffered a stunning defeat in November, capping off a disastrous string of defeats during the Obama years. Democrats have lost more than 1,000 state legislative seats in that time, dozens of congressional and governors seats and are at the lowest point of their power than at any time in the last century.

In this post-mortem moment, Democrats can't even agree on why the party lost. Some, like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton's chief rival for the nomination, say Democrats focused too much on identity politics and need to return to their economic roots. Others point out that identity politics is a necessary part of the game. They argue that Trump was playing to his own base of white identity politics and that black voters, for example, were among the most loyal Clinton supporters, so the party should not abandon them and cater to whites.

And yet others insist that economics and race are not mutually exclusive choices, that it is possible to focus on both simultaneously. Figuring out that balance is going to be central to the party's survival, as it currently wanders in the political wilderness.

"Off message": Concerns over economy, white, working-class ignored

Betras, the county chairman, was so deeply frustrated by what he was seeing, he typed up a memo and sent it to the Clinton campaign in Brooklyn.

"I told the campaign they were in trouble with blue-collar workers," he said with urgency. He tried to warn the campaign that if it "didn't retool [its] message," it would lose not only Ohio, but also other states with influential white, working-class voting blocs, like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Betras said no one ever responded to his memo. And Clinton went on to lose exactly as he had predicted. It was the first time a Democrat had lost Ohio and Pennsylvania since 1988 and the first time a Democrat had lost Wisconsin since 1984.

A big reason for that was the bleed with working-class voters in the Mahoning Valley. Three counties make up the valley Mahoning and Trumbull in Ohio and Mercer in Pennsylvania. Clinton suffered more-than-25-point swings in each county from Obama's performance in 2012.

"We could have saved those states, had they taken my damn memo [and] at least tried to do what I suggested for them to do ... start talking to these people about their jobs," Betras said.

Clinton's loss shocked many Democrats across the country, but it didn't surprise everyone in Ohio, a traditional battleground state where Clinton suffered one of her largest defeats. She lost by more than 8 percentage points, the worst loss for a Democrat there since Michael Dukakis lost it by 11 in 1988.

"I'm not shocked that Hillary Clinton lost," said Precious Samuel, 29, a labor organizer in Cleveland. "I saw the loss a mile away."

In Northeast Ohio, Democrats said they saw the warning signs. And, so now, as Democrats look to rebuild, they also see lessons the national party can learn from Ohio.

"Here's the irony of it all our local Democrats crushed the Republicans," Betras said, " 'cause we're talking to those voters, we know how to talk to them."

He, like other Ohio voters, pointed to the popularity of Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan (who tried unsuccessfully to challenge Nancy Pelosi, who won yet another term as the Democratic House leader). But Betras said the familiarity and trust many voters felt for local Democrats didn't translate to Clinton on the national level.

"The people here thought wrongly the national Democratic Party cared more about where someone went to the bathroom than whether or not these people had a job," Betras said. "And so, we're off-message."

Betras insists for most voters, the economy is the primary concern. And he is worried the Democratic National Committee doesn't understand that that it has become too coastal, too elite and too disconnected from middle America. His prime example of the elitism he sees in his own party is the criticism he heard from some Democrats when Trump misrepresented the number of jobs in the Carrier deal.

"I don't care if it was a bad deal," Betras argued, "he was fighting for someone's job. That's what we used to do, right?"

Betras said the pushback seemed horribly out of touch with working-class voters. And the Mahoning Valley is home to thousands of working-class folks, many of them white people who voted for Trump in November.

"Those are our voters," Betras said. "Those are the people's issues we should be fighting for."

"Time for progressives to reclaim the party"

Leo Jennings III, a 61-year-old Democratic consultant and former union organizer, grew up in the shadow of the Ohio steel mills.

Leo Jennings III is a Democratic consultant from Youngstown, Ohio, who thinks the progressives need to reclaim the party. Asma Khalid/NPR hide caption

Leo Jennings III is a Democratic consultant from Youngstown, Ohio, who thinks the progressives need to reclaim the party.

But those days are long gone, he said, in between bites of country toast and bacon at the Golden Dawn restaurant in Youngstown.

"There's no one around this area who believes for two seconds that the steel mills are coming back, because we all watched them flatten. ... They're gone," he said. "But what they see is the rich getting richer and no opportunity for them to go to work."

Jennings, a Sanders supporter during the primaries, said the only way his party can start winning again is by adopting a more progressive economic agenda.

"I think we've left a lot of people behind by this belief in trade," Jennings said. "I think it's time for the progressives to reclaim the party."

He added that in a year when people wanted to shake up the system, Clinton was the poster child for the status quo. Plus, he added, she didn't have credibility among many voters on issues like income inequality and wage stagnation, because of her flip-flop on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Jennings, like Sanders, thinks the party needs to focus on working-class issues above all else.

"If we don't start talking about the things that we can do to make it better for all working-class voters, we're bankrupt as a party," Jennings argued.

Jennings added that working-class whites and blacks are affected by the same financial woes and that the Democratic Party needs to start talking about the economy in a way that rises above race.

"I mean, I don't think you have to abandon identity politics," Jennings said, "but, at the same token, you have to talk to the issues that motivate the traditional Democratic base, because it's been decades where they feel as if they've been ignored."

Both Jennings and Betras fundamentally believe race and class are not mutually exclusive they say the dichotomy between identity politics and the economy is a false choice.

"I hate the [phrase], 'white, working class,' " Betras said, "and I reject that notion that somehow the white, working-class needs are different from the working-class needs."

For both men, it's a matter of prioritizing the discussion. They see a focus on the economy as a way to ensure the party remains a "big tent."

A warning not to "go and pander back to white Americans"

About an hour and a half west of the Mahoning Valley, in Cleveland, Chinemerem Onyeukwu, 23, part of a group called Ohio Young Black Democrats, echoed that message. He, too, wants a more progressive party.

Chinemerem Onyeukwu, 23, an organizer with the Ohio Democratic Party's coordinated campaign to elect Clinton, is worried Democrats are not investing in young voters. Asma Khalid/NPR hide caption

Chinemerem Onyeukwu, 23, an organizer with the Ohio Democratic Party's coordinated campaign to elect Clinton, is worried Democrats are not investing in young voters.

I want to make sure that we do not abandon minority demographics to go and pander back to white Americans.

Chinemerem Onyeukwu, Ohio Young Black Democrats

"If the Democratic Party wants to be around in the future, they need to go left," said Onyeukwu, an organizer for the state's coordinated campaign that worked to elect Clinton.

Onyeukwu, like the Democrats in the Mahoning Valley, also thinks the party needs to focus more on the economy. He points out that's how a man named Barack Hussein Obama won Ohio twice.

But "progressive" politics for Onyeukwu is more than just the economy. He wants a party that is progressive socially and culturally. He thinks the party could start winning again by investing more in young voters.

"The Democratic Party has not done a good job in developing the next generation of policymakers, of advocates, and activists, and politicians," Onyeukwu said. He feels that Republicans have made more of concerted effort than Democrats to develop a bench.

He is worried that Democrats are going to keep running what he called '90s-style campaigns despite Clinton's loss.

"The people that they're talking about running in 2020 they need to be in a retirement home, just old heads," he said, quickly adding, "And, I don't say that to like be ageist ... [but] these people have sat at the top for so long, they don't even know what's going on in the rest of America."

A few other members of the Ohio Young Black Democrats nodded in agreement.

"Hillary's not the problem," said Samuel, the labor organizer. "The democratic process is the problem. And, making sure people feel included."

Samuel said the Democratic Party doesn't seem to understand its audience. And for Onyeukwu, that audience includes many people of color. So he wants a party that also continues to push for more progressive policies on race.

"I want to guard against the Democratic Party, because they feel that they lost because white men and white women did not vote for Democrats," Onyeukwu said. "I want to make sure that we do not abandon minority demographics to go and pander back to white Americans."

Onyeukwu is concerned that identity politics has become increasingly taboo in some Democratic circles.

"As a party," he said, "you should be robust enough to have multiple conversations with multiple groups of people at the same time."

"People of color are the base of the Democratic Party"

This debate over identity politics gets people like Jessica Byrd frustrated. She is an Ohio native who now leads a group called Democracy in Color, which calls for Democrats to invest more in minorities.

"We're talking about identity politics as if the only people who have an identity are people of color when we know that white men ... that's an identity too," she said. "That's who came out and voted for Donald Trump."

Byrd believes Democrats need to figure out how to create the most inclusive party possible. And, for her, that means not just expanding the tent, but also looking inside the tent.

She noted that people of color have been key for Democrats to win elections for years and yet, she believes they have not been given an influential enough voice in the party. She said without doing so inevitably hurts enthusiasm and grass-roots activism.

"The lack of diversity in the Democratic Party," she said, "means that we aren't meaningfully able to engage in the conversations on the ground that actually get people to care about voting."

She added, "People of color are the base of the Democratic Party; it is our home. The difference, though, is we're not allowed to make any decisions there."

She argued that power dynamic needs to change, especially at a moment when the party is rebuilding.

"In a time where we are rebuilding our home, and we're like deciding what's going to go on the walls and what kind of couch we're gonna sit on," she said, "we want everybody to come to our housewarming, [but] we also want to make some decisions about what that vibe is like."

Byrd said the party doesn't need a huge overhaul it just needs to do a better job connecting with the people already in the Democratic Party, particularly minorities, to make sure they show up on Election Day.

Byrd argued part of what's getting lost in this moment of Democratic introspection is the technical failures of the Clinton ground game. Clinton lost Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by fewer than 78,000 votes combined. Winning all three of those states would have put Clinton over the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

Clinton didn't make a single campaign stop in Wisconsin and did not pour in the kind of resources necessary to win Michigan. In each of those states, Clinton underperformed President Obama with young voters. Byrd, who worked on the Obama campaign in Ohio, said it takes extensive organizing and one-on-one conversations for Democrats to engage their base voters.

"We have to get back to believing that those resources being spent on human beings," she said, "having conversations with other human beings, is meaningful."

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Democrats Try To Find A Future Post-Obama With Fault Lines ... - NPR - NPR

A Democratic lawmaker unsatisfied with Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration says the president might as well build a statue flipping the bird along the U.S.-Mexican border, because it would be just as ineffective as a wall to guarantee border security.

"Trump's executive actions are more about sending a signal to his voters that the new president will act on fears of Muslims and Latinos rather than put forward actual, thoughtful security policy," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, in a statement Wednesday after Trump signed executive orders for construction of a border wall, defunding sanctuary cities and increased border patrols and ramping up deportations.

Gutierrez, a longtime Trump critic and chairman of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, added that "meaningful" border security is impossible without a "functioning immigration system that allows in people to work and live and keeps out threats and violent offenders."

The 13-term congressman added, in regards to the wall, "I suspect that a lot of Trump supporters would be just as happy with a big statue of a middle finger pointed south, because both that and a wall are about equally effective as national security strategies."

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Its main internal ethics entity, is investigating the matter, the Secret Service says.

01/25/17 9:48 PM

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Democrat: Trump might as well build a 'big statue of a middle finger pointed' at Mexico - Washington Examiner (blog)

A deadly airport shooting in Florida has helped spur a bill in Alaska that would allow authorities to temporarily take away guns from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

The proposal, from Rep. Geran Tarr, an Anchorage Democrat, was introduced after the Jan. 6 attack at a Florida airport that killed five and wounded six others. The alleged gunman, Esteban Santiago, is from Anchorage.

"I want family members to feel empowered to speak up and say something and hopefully, maybe, we can prevent the next violent thing from happening," Tarr told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Tarr said she had been looking for ways to address violence in her district when the Florida shooting happened. The bill was introduced Monday.

Authorities said that in November, Santiago went to the FBI office in Anchorage and made disjointed comments about mind control. He was taken in for a mental health evaluation and released after several days. The gun he'd had in his vehicle when he went to the FBI office was later returned to him. Authorities said it was the same gun used in the airport shooting spree.

The bill would let immediate family members or police seek protective orders against those believed to be a danger to themselves or others by having access to a gun. Depending on the type of order, a person could be barred from having or attempting to buy a gun or ammunition from three days to as long as six months, though it could be dissolved earlier.

Under the bill, once an order is issued, the person would have to surrender any guns and ammunition the person has or sell them to a gun dealer. Surrendered items would be returned once an order expires.

It's unclear whether the bill will gain traction. House Minority Leader Charisse Millett, an Anchorage Republican, wanted to learn more about the bill before commenting, minority spokeswoman Mallory Walser said by text message.

The National Rifle Association and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

California and Connecticut have gun violence protection order laws, said Jon Griffin, a program principal with the National Conference of State Legislatures. In an email Tuesday, he said bills on the topic were proposed or carried over in at least six states last year but none passed.

Tarr, whose brother killed himself, said high standards would have to be met to prove someone was a danger to themselves or others and she doesn't see the potential for abuse.

But along with efforts like this, she said there needs to be attention on expanding mental health services and access to counseling. The state doesn't have enough treatment beds, she said.

She credits expanded Medicaid coverage with helping people with behavioral health issues receive access to services.

"You definitely have to come at this from all angles," she said.

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Alaska Democrat Proposes Gun Bill After Airport Shooting - ABC News

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate's No. 2 Democrat has backed calls for an independent investigation into allegations that Russian hackers interfered in the U.S. presidential election last year.

Dick Durbin (Democrat-Illinois) was the latest in a growing number of lawmakers pushing for a broader inquiry into intelligence conclusions that Russia sought to manipulate the vote and help Republican Donald Trump win the presidency.

"Election Day 2016 is a day that will live in cyberinfamy. A foreign adversary intentionally manipulated Americas presidential election. It is an act of cyberwar and it cannot go unanswered," Durbin said in a January 24 speech.

Three different Senate committees are conducting their own investigations, but Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has rejected calls to convene a special select committee.

U.S. intelligence officials said there was no evidence that Russia tampered with the vote tally, but it was unclear how much possible Russian influence affected the overall election.

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Top Senate Democrat Backs Independent Probe Of Alleged Russian Election Hack - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty