Power brokers exploit Trump’s dwindling attention span behind closed doors

What happened

AlterNet argues that access to President Donald Trump has become a source of power inside the administration as his attention span reportedly declines. Historian Zeb Larson identifies aide Natalie Harp as a power broker because she can reach Trump, though the article says her precise role is unclear and does not document particular decisions she made.

The article also cites Washington Post reporting that former and current national-security officials were advising state election officials about possible uses of federal power to influence an upcoming vote, including hypothetical deployments of troops or immigration agents near polling places. Those were reported concerns, not established actions.

Much of the piece consists of Larson’s predictions: that Trump may become less constrained as elections approach, that his coalition could fracture over succession and accountability, and that Democrats should prepare institutions to resist election interference while presenting concrete plans for governing afterward.

Access becomes authority

The presidency holds the institutional power. Trump possesses the formal authority to direct executive agencies, shape foreign policy and deploy federal personnel within legal limits. Officials, aides and allies exercise derivative power by controlling what reaches him and when.

That makes the article’s central observation important but incomplete. If Harp controls access, she may influence the president’s information environment. The reporting supplied here, however, does not establish that she ordered policy, engineered a particular outcome or displaced formal decision-makers. “Power broker” is Larson’s assessment, not a demonstrated chain of command.

The deeper failure belongs to a system that permits consequential government decisions to depend on proximity to one man. Gatekeeping becomes governance when cabinet processes, professional review and transparent records stop constraining presidential discretion.

Diagnosis is not accountability

AlterNet repeatedly labels Trump “demented,” while Larson describes “dementia” and cognitive deterioration. The supplied article provides no medical diagnosis. It offers Trump’s hostile response to a reporter and broader impressions of his behavior, neither of which establishes a clinical condition.

That framing misdirects responsibility. Speculation about incapacity can turn chosen conduct into pathology and make powerful enablers look like attendants managing an unraveling patient. Whatever Trump’s health, presidential acts remain acts of government. Officials who recommend, execute or legitimize them retain agency.

The article names dramatic outcomes—changes involving Russian oil sanctions, Ukraine and laws aimed at Vladimir Putin—but does not supply enough detail to establish what measures changed, under what authority or who implemented them. Those omissions weaken its attempt to map power.

The enablers have choices

Larson’s strongest point is political rather than medical: Republicans and administration officials should not be treated as powerless extensions of Trump. They occupy offices, command agencies, cast votes and decide whether to comply, object, resign or disclose misconduct.

Predictions that Trump might manipulate elections, punish critics or further damage the economy remain predictions in this text. Treating them as completed facts would be propaganda in reverse. But officials preparing for specified contingencies are responding to the extraordinary powers already concentrated in the executive branch, not merely to one personality.

Democrats also possess agency. Larson calls for plans addressing election interference, the Supreme Court and damage attributed to DOGE. Those are proposals from an interview subject, not evidence that the party has adopted them. An opposition that substitutes warnings for operational preparation would be choosing passivity.

Succession exposes the coalition

The reported fear of a post-Trump future reveals a coalition organized around personal access, protection and inheritance rather than durable public commitments. Larson predicts that succession pressures could produce infighting; former Trump official Anthony Scaramucci similarly offers his interpretation that Trump may sabotage the Republican Party. Neither prediction is yet an outcome.

Still, the incentive structure is plain. Potential successors want Trump’s voters without inheriting every liability. Officials seeking protection want continued power without permanent dependence. Those tensions can fracture a coalition, but fracture alone produces no accountability. Institutions must investigate conduct, preserve evidence and apply law to identifiable decisions.

The systemic error

The story’s weakest move is making an unsupported medical conclusion carry an argument that should rest on institutional evidence. The central problem described is not confusion in the Oval Office. It is discretionary presidential power, opaque access and a surrounding political class with reasons to indulge both.

Personal decline, if established, would intensify that danger; it would not create it. A government becomes vulnerable when informal courtiers can influence public power, formal officials can hide behind the leader, and an opposition mistakes forecasting collapse for preparing to govern. The future does not impose accountability by itself. Institutions and the people controlling them either do that work or choose not to.

Thanks to Alter Net

Source: Power brokers exploit Trump’s dwindling attention span behind closed doors