Trump Chooses Bad Advisors Because He Is a Bad Person

It’s all fascism.

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This week North Carolina Senator and wishy-washy anti-Trumper Thom Tillis wandered around the media promoting his boring new book and cosplaying as a possible 2028 contender. In the middle of that sad exercise in gormlessness, Tillis opined that Trump’s relentless effort to raise prices on average Americans has one core cause. “I think he got bad advice,” he told interviewer Stephanie Ruhle. “I think the biggest problem with the president is that he’s listening to people who like to tell him how right he is.”

Ruhle was singularly unimpressed. She pointed out, rightly, that Trump chose his advisors, and that Howard Lutnick, in charge of the transition in 2024, specifically said that the most important quality in advisors was their loyalty.

Tillis nodded and furrowed his brow and said that yes, the president should change course and choose better advisors—advisors, he implied, like independent thinker of deep thunks Thom Tillis, who’s going to need a job after his Senate term ends in January.

As Ruhle attempted to point out, though, Trump will never appoint Tillis to anything, no matter how Tillis abases himself, because Tillis insists on acting as if he thinks he is, or should be, as important as Donald Trump, and because he has criticized Trump in the past.

Moreover, Trump is not a bad president because he is getting bad advice. He gets bad advice because he is a bad president which is inextricably intertwined with the fact that he is a bad person.

The President’s job is listening to people

Way back in the beforetimes when George W. Bush was the worst president America had ever had, that worst president boasted, “I hear the voices and I read the front page and I hear the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what’s best.”

This neatly summarizes the popular vision of the president as a tough-minded boss who is most presidential when he’s making tough, lonely decisions in the teeth of opposition and criticism.

The fact that Bush thought of himself this way is not unrelated to the ways in which he was such a terrible president. Because the fact is that the president is not a tough, lonely decision maker. In any administration, there are thousands and thousands of decisions that the president isn’t involved in. Even if the president decided and decided all day every day and never quit for a round of golf, there is no way he could be involved in even a fraction of the day-to-day decisions needed to keep the enormous federal government running, not to mention all the decisions needed to keep a political party functioning.

The most important job of the president isn’t making decisions. It’s gathering information about what is going wrong and where to focus attention. The information gathering starts as part of the political process; campaigning for president involves listening to the electorate (through one on one conversations, through talks with other elected officials, through listening to experts and journalists, through polling) to identify areas where people are suffering or are unhappy, or where problems are likely to develop. It continues in office, as the president attempts to keep track of information coming in from Congress, from cabinet officers, from the electorate, from the media, and on and on.

This isn’t to say that the president never makes decisions. Obviously, the president makes a lot of decisions. But anyone can make decisions. Any asshole can sit at the head of a desk and say, “I like it when things blow up; let’s start a war with Iran!” The difficult part of the job, the important part of the job, is being able to sort through information so you know enough to know that starting a war with Iran (or invading Greenland, or preventing people from getting vaccinations, or putting your name on the Kennedy Center) is not a decision that should be on the table in the first place.

Trump listens to Trump, and also flattery

Trump does not see the job this way. He doesn’t see it as a job. Trump believes that the title “president” means “god-king.” He thinks he is divinely chosen by the volk to channel their true yearnings, and that, for condescending to do so, he is entitled to do anything he wants, up to and including just seizing billions in taxpayer dollars for himself.

All presidents are massive egotists, and all of them think that their electoral victories give them special insight into What The People Want. Most presidents nonetheless also understand that they have been hired to do a job, and that a big part of that job is taking in information. They will, for example, read intelligence briefings. They make some effort to notify and consult with members of Congress before major military operations. They act as if someone out there might know something important they don’t.

Trump, in contrast, believes that the only information that matters is the bullshit that falls out of his own orifice. He regularly insists that he is super smart, and that that super smartness is the be-all and end-all of governing. For instance, he recently insisted on social media that “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Being “smart” here doesn’t mean learning about a complicated new topic and consulting experts in order to make an informed decision. It means that opposite of that; to be “smart” in Trump’s sense means that just sit there in your own skull congratulating yourself as everyone heaps praise upon you.

It also means that anyone who does not heap praise on you is stupid and nefarious. Trump’s attacks on the mainstream media are wearyingly commonplace, but even Fox is too independent for him at this point. He recently railed against the network for occasionally interviewing Democrats, for including Jessica Tarlov, a token liberal, on the show The Five so that the conservatives have someone to gang up on, and for not praising his rallies enough. Any pushback, no matter how minimal, is too much. Really, for Trump, any pushback, no matter how minimal, is treason.

The flip side of Trump’s refusal to hear anything but flattery is that he will listen to absolutely anything if it’s swathed in flattery. If you tell Trump he is smart and a great man, he’ll do whatever you want. Why shouldn’t he? He knows everything, and anyone who knows he knows everything is smart and should be listened to. QED.

One laughable example of the ease with which Trump is rolled occurred last November, when golf crony Bill Pulte convinced Trump to propose 50-year homeowner mortgages—a terrible policy which everyone hates— by comparing Trump to FDR and showing him a posterboard ad mock up. Less amusingly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu convinced Trump to join him in his illegal war of aggression against Iran by sustained personal appeals, including by telling Trump that Iran had tried to assassinate him.

You can see Trump’s rage for flattery in smaller ways too. His judicial nominees won’t admit that he lost the 2020 election. Why not? Maybe they’re all fools and conspiracy theorists unfit for office. But probably, in addition to that, they have been told, and believe, that if they say that Trump lost in 2020, he will withdraw their nominations. To become a judge under Trump, you have to be sure not to tell Trump something he doesn’t want to hear—even if that something is obviously true; even if denying it makes you a conspirator in insurrection.

The problem is the fascism, not the advice

Trump does not want advisors who will provide him with actual information or independent perspectives because he see the presidency as spoils, not as a charge or a responsibility. He believes his election means he is entitled to endless praise and ass kissing. The idea that he would trade that in out of concern for the American people is as preposterous as the idea that he would trade it in for the respect of gormless lackwit Thom Tillis. It’s not happening.

Trump’s theory of governance is fascist. He believes that as leader he is the embodiment of popular will, and that he should be venerated as such. He hires advisors who believe that as well, or who will lie about believing it. Advisors are not there to contradict him and not even there to inform him, because, as a fascist leader, he knows everything already, and opposing his will is to oppose the mandate of heaven.

Trump has not chosen poor advisors and therefore ends up doing foolish and fascist things. Rather, he is a fascist and a fool (the two are inseparable), and he therefore chooses evil and foolish advisors in his own image. Changing advisors will change nothing, because any advisor who would work with Trump—like, say, Thom Tillis—has already revealed their unfitness through their willingness to do so.

Trump is responsible for his own ignorance and his own evil. His advisors are responsible for theirs. And partisan hack Thom Tillis, when he apologizes for Trump and speaks as if dear leader has been betrayed by his scheming viziers, is responsible for his own ignorance and evil as well.