Predicting who the leader keeps drops and attacks

Predicting Who the Leader Keeps, Drops, and Attacks

What this skill is about, in one sentence: How a dominance-seeking leader decides — not morally but operationally — which people to retain, which to rehabilitate after conflict, which to discard as losers, and which to attack, with constituency (not loyalty) as the master variable. And what that decision logic means for anyone in the orbit trying to preserve their position.

Where this comes from

This skill distills Chapter 7 ("Trump's World of Winners and Losers") of Sonnenfeld & Tian's Trump's Ten Commandments (2025), with material from Chapter 5 (fluidity of relationships) and Chapter 1 (loyalty-as-one-way).

Academic and cultural foundations:

• Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1513). The foundational text on power-based rather than loyalty-based retention logic. Not explicitly cited by Sonnenfeld but the ancestor of the framework.
• Groucho Marx — "I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." Sonnenfeld cites this as the operative logic: if the only people still loyal to you are nobodies, you are radioactive.
• Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1832), and the later tradition of Realpolitik (Ludwig von Rochau, 1853) through Bismarck, Kissinger, Brzezinski. The core claim: alliances should be based on mutual strategic interest, not emotional bonds or shared values. Trump's relational style is "Realpolitik applied to personal relationships."
• Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (1867). Quoted in Ch. 1: "No man can argue on his knees."
• Jonathan Karl, Retribution (2024). Cited in Ch. 7 for the Mike Pence interview on why Pence was startled by how quickly Trump turned against him.

Primary source: false. The operators describe a pattern of relational calculus that can fire in any dominance-seeking leader; they are not tied to the specific person.

North Star

Does this operator change what the user decides or does next?

If an operator helps the user understand why the leader is cruel or volatile but doesn't change whether they stay, exit, publicly criticize, rebuild constituency, or avoid being the next target — cut it.

Opening Gate: does this skill apply?

Three tests:

• Sort is visibly happening. The leader is actively retaining/discarding/attacking people around them in ways that surprise conventional loyalty-based observers.
• Criteria are not explicit morality or loyalty. People whose "loyalty" was greater than others have been dropped; people whose "betrayals" were greater have been rehabilitated.
• Public constituency seems to matter. Whether the person retains an audience, supporters, or glamour seems to drive the leader's treatment more than the person's behavior.

If all three flag, apply this skill. If only one, the situation may be ordinary HR/political-appointee dynamics.

The Operators

1. winner-vs-loser-by-constituency-not-virtue

Plain English: The master sort rule. A "winner" in this leader's universe is someone who projects success, glamour, toughness, and above all retains a constituency — an audience that affirms their status. A "loser" is not defined by crime, immorality, or ordinary failure, but by loss of constituency. Who has ears still listening to them determines how the leader treats them.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 7. The book's explicit claim: "A winner is someone who projects success, glamour, toughness, and, above all, relevance. A winner has a following, an audience, a crowd that affirms their status… A loser is not defined by crime, immorality, or even failure in the traditional sense. Being a loser has more to do with status than any innate reflection of self-worth."

Detect:

• The leader's retention patterns track constituency, not loyalty or merit.
• People with independent followings get more leeway; people entirely dependent on the leader for visibility get less.
• Critics are often left alone if they have loyal followings; loyalists are often discarded once their followings evaporate.

Intent behind it: Preserve the leader's own claim to winner status by association. Losers contaminate; winners elevate.

Counter-move:

• If you want to preserve your standing with this kind of leader, preserve your independent constituency. Credentials, expertise, public visibility, audience loyalty. Constituency is not a side-effect of being useful — it is what makes you durably valuable.
• If you lose your constituency, expect to be discarded regardless of past service. Sarah Palin, not Sarah Palin's disloyalty, is the case (she did nothing wrong; her star faded and she was iced out).
• Monitor your constituency in real time. You are worth what your independent base thinks you are worth, not what you privately contributed.

Do not use when: the leader has demonstrated durable loyalty to people without constituency over time. Rare, but possible — distinguishes dominance-seeking leaders from conventional loyalty-based ones.

2. rehabilitate-if-constituency-remains

Plain English: Former critics and enemies can be rehabilitated — even extreme ones — if they retain a constituency that the leader wants access to. The greater the prior criticism (and the more cultural cachet the critic had), the stronger the signal of dominance when they convert.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 7. Cases: JD Vance (called Trump "America's Hitler," "noxious," "heroin" — rehabilitated into Senate endorsement and then VP). Marco Rubio ("Lil Marco," questioned Trump's manhood — rehabilitated into Secretary of State + National Security Advisor). Lindsey Graham (originally called voting Trump "getting shot or taking poison"). "Lyin' Ted" Cruz. Tim Burchett rehabilitated by simple Trump charm without policy concessions.

Detect:

• Former critic has a significant following, cultural cachet, or symbolic power.
• Former critic has visibly bent the knee (recanted, publicly supported, ceremonial loyalty display).
• Leader's rehabilitation of former critics is held up as demonstration of dominance — "look at who now works for me."

Intent behind it: Converting a loud critic is a pure show of strength. Nothing signals dominance like "my loudest critic now serves me." The conversion is the trophy.

Counter-move:

• If you are a former critic with constituency: you are in a strong position to negotiate. Your prior criticism is not a liability; it is leverage. The leader wants the conversion trophy.
• If you are a conventional ally watching a former critic rehabilitated above you: your position is weaker than you think. The leader values conversions more than constant loyalty. Preserve your independent constituency so you stay in the "keep" category despite the lack of trophy value.
• For observers predicting the leader's next alliance: the most dramatic former critic with a constituency the leader wants will be rehabilitated next.

Do not use when: the former critic has lost their constituency. Then they are in the discard category (operator 1), not the rehabilitation category.

3. drop-invented-allies-keep-sovereign-ones

Plain English: The leader feels most entitled to discard people they "invented" or "discovered" — those who owe their entire public position to the leader. Allies with independent power bases outside the relationship get much wider berth. This makes a concrete prediction: people who can be framed as self-made-by-the-leader are disposable; people with external legitimacy are not.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 7. Contrast: Elon Musk (too independent to be discarded, too powerful to be embraced — treated as rival warlord, "American Prigozhin"); Bobby Kennedy (independent constituency, wider berth despite heterodox views); compared to Tulsi Gabbard (the leader's direct assessment per NYT: "Bobby's a star. Tulsi? Tulsi wants to be a star").

Detect:

• The person's public visibility/income/platform came largely through the leader.
• Alternative career paths are limited — the person would struggle to reach a comparable position without the leader.
• The leader publicly credits themselves for the person's position ("I made them").

Intent behind it: People who can be discarded without the leader losing anything valuable are discarded. People who could hurt the leader on the way out are handled carefully.

Counter-move:

• If you are being invented by the leader — take the opportunity but build parallel legitimacy. Industry credentials, outside income streams, independent public profile. Invented allies are disposable; sovereign allies are not.
• If you are sovereign — act it. Leaders who sense independent power bases extend leeway. Acting dependent when you're not gives away leverage.
• For predicting drops: staff-level appointees whose credentials are weak independent of the leader will be dropped first when the leader needs to sacrifice someone.

Do not use when: the leader has demonstrated genuine commitment to invented allies over time. Rare, but check.

4. drown-the-squeaky-wheel-in-oil

Plain English: The leader often prefers to absorb a critic — lavish attention, access, small favors — rather than attack them or replace them. This works especially well on critics who have a constituency the leader wants access to. It is often the first move on a new critic, before attack is considered.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 5, Ch. 7 (and its most detailed version is in Sonnenfeld's own account of his first encounter with Trump: Sonnenfeld wrote critical reviews of The Apprentice; Trump offered him the presidency of Trump University, then golf). Cases: Tim Burchett (charm-treatment converted him); Bill Maher (dinner softened him); Megyn Kelly (serial hot-cold pattern); Mary Kissel (journalist-turned-advisor); Sarah Isgur (similar).

Detect:

• The leader's response to a new critic is not attack but access, attention, or small favors.
• The critic's subsequent coverage of the leader softens over time.
• Former critics who accepted the access often describe the leader as "charming" or "disarming" privately.

Intent behind it: Absorbing a critic is cheaper than fighting them — and often more effective. Fighting amplifies; absorbing quiets.

Counter-move:

• If you are a critic being offered access, understand the trade. You gain information; you may gain real relationship. But the implicit price is softened future coverage. Decide consciously rather than drift.
• Expect hot-cold pattern. The leader who absorbs will also publicly attack when convenient. Megyn Kelly pattern: attack, absorb, attack, absorb. Personal animosity is not the driver; current utility is.
• For observers predicting the leader's next move on a rising critic: if the critic has constituency, oil before fire is the default.

Do not use when: the critic has crossed a line that makes absorption impossible (operator 6's territory). Then the move is retaliation, not absorption.

5. selective-retribution

Plain English: Contrary to public perception, a dominance-seeking leader's vindictive streak is not indiscriminate — it is precisely calibrated. The leader pursues revenge only when they are confident they have the upper hand: the target must be unsympathetic, isolated, and unlikely to rally support. Sympathetic targets or targets with constituency are left alone.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 7. Book cases of selected targets: John Bolton (Republican- turned-independent, no constituency), James Comey (appointed official, no elected constituency), Chris Krebs (same), Val Demings quoted saying Democrats were relieved rather than alarmed about Bolton indictment. Cases of non-targets: sitting Democratic elected officials are rarely attacked with the same intensity because their constituency mobilizes for them.

Detect:

• The leader's retribution targets are typically isolated, politically homeless, or institutionally exposed.
• Targets are people whose own allies are unlikely to defend them (John Bolton pattern).
• When the leader has attacked someone with a constituency, the attack was less effective and often backfired.

Intent behind it: Make the attack's cost asymmetric — high for the target, low for the leader. This requires picking targets who cannot mobilize defense.

Counter-move:

• If you are potentially a target: build sympathetic constituency before you need it. Political homelessness makes you cheap to attack. Even a modest constituency that would publicly defend you changes the calculus.
• For observers predicting the next target: the most isolated, least-sympathetic critic is next. Not the loudest.
• If you are a target already and cannot mobilize defense, consider lowering profile. High visibility without defenders is the worst position.

Do not use when: the leader has demonstrated willingness to attack sympathetic targets repeatedly. Some do; the pattern is rarer but not absent.

6. push-retribution-until-system-pushes-back

Plain English: Retribution is pushed incrementally, testing how far the institutional system will go along. When courts, prosecutors, or Senate stop the leader, they pull back. The push is not commitment; it is probing. Understanding this produces specific predictions about what the leader will and won't do.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 7. Book cases: Alina Habba as interim US Attorney in New Jersey — pulled back when judicial refusal and unanimous appellate ruling stripped her of authority. Lindsey Halligan in Eastern District of Virginia — high-profile cases unraveled on procedural failure (unlawful appointment, grand jury refusal, barred evidence). Trump "ultimately largely let his efforts to pursue legal retaliation lapse, abandoning his appointments of loyalists as US attorneys and reverting back to the traditional blue-slip-Senate confirmation process."

Detect:

• Retaliatory appointments/actions are pushed rapidly but withdrawn when courts or institutional bodies refuse.
• Pattern: test, push, retreat, test again. Not a do-or-die commitment at any single institutional boundary.
• The leader does not attack the institution itself frontally when it refuses — they test a different boundary next.

Intent behind it: Expand the field of what's operationally possible. The leader is not committed to any single retaliatory outcome; they are committed to stretching the envelope.

Counter-move:

• Institutional defenders: this is good news. The institutional system can push back, and when it does, the leader retreats. The most important work is strengthening courts, Senate-confirmation norms, agency independence — the institutional boundaries themselves.
• Specific cases: fight procedurally. The Halligan and Habba cases were won on procedural grounds, not ideological ones. Judicial insistence on proper appointment, grand-jury independence, evidentiary rules.
• Expect probing to continue. A single successful pushback does not deter the pattern; it shifts it to a different boundary. Defenders need sustained institutional capacity, not one-time legal wins.

Do not use when: the system no longer pushes back — in which case the pattern changes from probe-and-retreat to override. Watch for the transition.

7. strike-adjacent-weakness

Plain English: When the primary target is too strong to attack directly, the leader strikes adjacent — at the target's aides, subordinates, spouses, employers, business partners. The goal is achieved (pressure on the target) while the direct attack is avoided.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 7. Signature case: Trump's campaign against Fed Chair Jay Powell. Powell personally was too strong to attack directly (GOP senators rushed to his defense). Trump pivoted to attacking Fed Governor Lisa Cook on (potentially substantive) mortgage-fraud allegations — striking adjacent to Powell via a more vulnerable adjacent target.

Detect:

• The leader's attack lands not on the primary adversary but on adjacent people with weaker institutional protection.
• The attack is framed on ostensibly substantive grounds that the target cannot easily refute.
• The primary adversary has de facto leverage reduced because their adjacent allies are consumed by self-defense.

Intent behind it: Force the primary adversary to either defend the adjacent target (costly, distracting) or abandon them (reputational cost).

Counter-move:

• For anyone adjacent to a likely primary target: assume you may be the attack vector. Tighten your own institutional protections pre-emptively.
• For primary targets: protect your adjacencies. Aides, board members, business partners, family. The attack will come there first.
• For institutional defenders: support the adjacent figures publicly. Letting them be picked off individually weakens the whole chain; collective defense (see skill #4) applies.

Do not use when: the attack on the adjacent figure is genuinely merit-based and proceeds on its own substantive grounds. Misreading a legitimate enforcement action as strike-adjacent produces false outrage that undermines future warnings.

8. preemptive-retaliation-via-asymmetric-leverage (the Roffman case)

Plain English: When a critic surfaces publicly, a dominance-seeking leader often retaliates not against the critic directly but against whoever holds leverage over the critic — their employer, publisher, regulator. The asymmetric power (attacker's business leverage over the employer vastly exceeds the critic's value to the employer) makes the critic disposable.

Source: Sonnenfeld & Tian, Ch. 7. Canonical case: Marvin Roffman, a research analyst at Janney Montgomery, published research (correctly, as it turned out) that the Trump Taj Mahal would be unable to cover its debts. Trump faxed the chairman of Janney Montgomery demanding Roffman be fired and a public apology issued, threatening suit. The firm folded and terminated Roffman. Later, after the Taj Mahal's actual bankruptcy confirmed Roffman's prediction, he won a multimillion-dollar wrongful-termination settlement. But Trump's immediate goal (silencing the critic) was achieved.

Detect:

• The critic is relatively junior and dependent on an institution for their platform.
• The institution has business or political interests the leader can influence.
• The leader's move is aimed not at the critic's arguments but at the institution's relationship with the critic.

Intent behind it: Achieve the silencing goal without the direct confrontation with the critic. The institution does the work.

Counter-move:

• For anyone whose criticism of a powerful leader exposes them via an employer: build direct audience reach. Own media (newsletter, podcast, public platform) so that your employer is not the pressure point. Substack, independent research outlets, and direct subscriber models are partial defenses against this attack.
• For institutions: pre-commit publicly to protecting analysts/journalists/employees from this pressure. Public commitment increases the reputational cost of caving to it.
• For observers predicting this move: any junior critic making accurate predictions about the leader's weakness is a candidate. Watch the leverage chain, not the critic.

Do not use when: the institution's action against the critic is genuinely driven by the critic's performance issues independent of the leader's pressure.

Final-answer structure

Judgment

• Does this skill apply? Which gates flagged?
• Where does the user (or the person in question) sit on the winner/loser/rehabilitation/ retribution map right now?

What Would Change My Mind

• What constituency change (growth or loss) would shift the prediction?
• What would suggest this leader's retention logic is actually loyalty-based rather than constituency-based?

Next Action

• Concrete: for the user trying to preserve their position, specific moves to build or protect constituency; for observers, specific predictions to make about who gets kept/dropped next.

References

• references/source-notes.md — Ch. 7, Machiavelli, Groucho Marx, Clausewitz/Realpolitik, Bagehot
• references/rejected-candidates.md
• references/cases.md — Sarah Palin, Giuliani, Michael Cohen, Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Elon Musk, Bobby Kennedy/Tulsi Gabbard, Pence Jan. 6, Marvin Roffman, Habba/Halligan, Lisa Cook/Powell, Stone/Manafort/Flynn/Bannon redemption