Opinion: Trump’s loyalty problem

View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Monday, July 31, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist President Trump likes to sing the virtues of loyalty. “A scout is trustworthy, loyal,” he told a group of Boy Scouts last week, before adding, “We could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.” The perceived lack of loyalty to him from his fellow Republicans — and even from his own aides — has clearly enraged Trump. It’s a constant theme of his Twitter outbursts about leaks, the failure of the health care bill and various other subjects. John J. Pitney, a political scientist with [sterling]( [conservative]( [credentials]( has a blistering [piece]( in Politico explaining Trump’s problem: He thinks loyalty flows only one way. “Trump’s life has been a long trail of betrayals,” Pitney writes. He has dumped wives, friends, mentors, protégés, colleagues, business associates, Trump University students and, more recently, political advisers. “Loyalty is about strength,” Pitney, a professor at Claremont McKenna, writes. “It is about sticking with a person, a cause, an idea or a country even when it is costly, difficult, or unpopular.” Trump’s lack of loyalty helps explain a level of [White House dy]( that seems to worsen by the week. “There’s lots of back-channeling, backbiting, and lots of leaking,” John Dickerson, the host of Face the Nation, [said]( on the Slate Political Gabfest. “Anyone who doesn’t get that the loyalty should be for him personally, rather than the country, is, to Trump, a loser,” my colleague Maureen Dowd [wrote](. “The president seems to have given the green light,” Vox’s Andrew Prokop [noted]( referring to Trump’s [reported enjoyment]( of Anthony Scaramucci’s [tirade](. “His subordinates should attack their rivals as viciously as possible, and they’ll face no consequences for it whatsoever.” And if Trump’s aides disappoint him while they’re still working for him, just imagine how loyal they will feel after being let go. As The A.P.’s Steve Peoples [observed]( “Priebus was among only Trump campaign insiders NOT to sign non-disclosure agreement last year.” Former Obama staffer Cody Keenan added another angle: “‘Hello, Reince? Hey, it’s Bob Mueller’” he [tweeted]( on Friday. 2020 watch. John Delaney, a Democratic congressman from Maryland, has become the first notable candidate to announce his bid for the 2020 presidential race. He explained his reasons in [a Washington Post op-ed](. In the Times: If you haven’t read Ross Douthat’s Sunday [column]( I encourage you to do so. In it, he wonders how a party as broken as the G.O.P. can still be so much better at electoral politics than the Democrats. And if you’re tempted to dismiss the notion by pointing out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, I’d point out that Republicans control the Senate, the House and roughly two out of three governorships and state legislatures. 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