The fact that that the world is both made up of individuals and institutions neither means that the former govern the latter, nor that the former are eclipsed by the latter. It is a more complex influential interaction.
What this article and the book it reviews show is how this particular elected individual has affected the operations of a number of American government agencies, rarely by design, and more by indirection and disinterest.
It is a fairly acceptable description of Trump as a grifter who comes to your house, pisses on your rug, vomits while eating dinner, grabs your wife and creates general havoc. It is a way to graphically illustrate his character style.
Now we have some work that goes from metaphor to actual behaviour and its consequences for government. It is not a hit on Trump himself in the mode of Wolff or Bernstein. He hardly appears. It is a document of what is happening on the ground.
Far from a cabal of eminences grises controlling him to enact particular policy, this documentary journalism shows how Trump’s grifting, ignorance and carelessness has gratuitously addled the functioning of some basic social services. The effect is kind of like wantonly teargassing women and children, but in the background, out of sight of most people.
Back when Trump was elected, I expressed that the media and the educational system should take the blame for the consequences. My reasoning was that if people chose him to spite the uncaring career political elites, then this shows that folks were badly served by the very institutions tasked with providing them with the tools needed to see the inappropriateness of this response, while pointing them towards something more sensible. Sadly, it seems that journalism, at best, can only act retrospectively, documenting just how dreadful the consequences have been.