What John Kelly personified

He was American politics in the Trump era

John Kelly.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Al Drago-Pool/Getty Images)

After almost nine months of speculation, President Trump on Saturday confirmed the rumors: Chief of Staff John Kelly will be leaving the White House at the end of the year.

There's really only one question worth asking about this: What kept Kelly on the job for so long? The answer is the same thing that brought him to the White House: chaos and inertia.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

There were, after all, signs that Kelly was achieving what he set out to do. The day he was appointed to replace Reince Priebus, he got rid of Anthony Scaramucci, the unhinged White House communications director who had just left a threatening message on the voice mailbox of a journalist. Within less than a month Kelly had pushed out Stephen Bannon, the twisted grand vizier of the Trump sultanate. It was also reported that he blocked the infamous Sheriff David Clarke from receiving a job at the Department of Homeland Security.

But these gestures in the direction of reform were few and far between. So far from bringing sanity and order to this administration Kelly has himself become a kind of Trumpian figure. Many journalists expected him to resign months ago when it was reported that he knew of various accusations of domestic violence made against one of his underlings and chose to do nothing about them. He also managed to survive his bizarre argument with Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), for which he claimed he would "never" apologize.

How many people realize, I wonder, that it is Kelly perhaps more so than anyone else who is responsible for the Trump administration's decision to separate mothers and children at the Mexican border? This policy, which earned the disapprobation of everyone from Michelle Obama to Franklin Graham, was one of the many products of Kelly's febrile imagination while he was serving as the secretary of homeland security. Many other things will be brought forward to explain why he is finally being pushed out, but I think the fallout from what is so far the worst week of Trump's presidency convinced the man in the Oval Office long ago that Kelly did not have "spirit." If he had, it would have worked, right?

Why then did he remain in his position for so long? Simply put, because the president he was appointed to serve is by turns too distracted and too bored to bother with firing him. Addicted to cable news and the latest stock market tidbits, obsessive in his hatred of the special counsel investigation, Trump has been able to serve as president without a functional chief of staff for many months. He has thrown out all the old ceremonial trappings of the presidency in order to explore its full Caesar-like possibilities. If he does not need the help of Congress or Republican Party leadership or the conservative media establishment to make and implement policy, he certainly does not require the services of a crotchety former general in order to fire Omarosa. He used to do that for a living.

For months Kelly has been unable to proceed with his ostensible mission of reforming this administration. The reasons for this are obvious. What is less clear is why, knowing that his mission was doomed, he had been unable or unwilling to resign sooner. Did he continue out of a sense of duty? Did he need the paycheck? Did he have nothing better to do with his time?

Paralyzed and compromised, John Kelly personified American politics two years into the Trump administration.

Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.