2017 was a tough year. Particularly if you were employed by the White House where job security was fictitious and tenure was determined by the whims of an oligarch.
The dysfunction of the White House swung regularly between unbelievable spectacle to quotidian as staff either quit or were fired, accompanied by stories of Trump family in-fighting, unplanned wedding photo shoots, and Anthony Scaramucci calling Reince Priebus a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic.” Trump fired staffers and officials with impunity and, while none of them deserve a shred of sympathy, they delivered at least the start of Trump’s one promise: a four-year pageant of chaos repackaged as a kind of dystopic soap opera. The increasingly self-tanned Sean Spicer berated journalists about the size of the Inauguration crowd and downplayed the Holocaust, while Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka insisted that they are not white nationalists. Omarosa Manigault’s job was undefinable and Tom Price jet-setted across the country in private planes courtesy of taxpayers. This is the year we learned that Reince Priebus was called “Reince Penis” by staffers at the White House and Anthony Scaramucci’s villainy was, though brief, comically terrifying.
And though memorable, Trump’s staff burned their candles at both ends, burning out before they could further advance their causes, be it the Republican Party, confusing Frederick Douglass with a living person, racism, or incredible wedding photographs. We’ve lost many this year; many who readily offered up some of Jezebel’s most melancholy, comedic, confused and angry content. We won’t miss a single one of you, not even James Comey, but we will remember you. At least, that is, until Trump fires John Kelly or Robert Mueller.