The real issue is not the gray area between what is patriotic resistance and what is ideological subversion of democracy. It is the fact that we must ask this question in every action this president takes. If everything the president does must be questioned and analyzed as possibly crazy by straight thinking people like you Ross, then the president is UNFIT for office, even if some of these actions are not crazy. How do you govern the world's superpower under an unfit president? We are finding out.
14
It is false to assert that Trump is implementing the populist agenda on which he ran.
22
If you believe in democracy as an ideal form of government, then you must not thwart the will of the People. It's like censorship; no amount of personal justification will make censoring acceptable. Democracy means that we must respect the population's right to govern themselves. Either we believe people have a right to choose those who govern over them, or they do not. What we cannot do and should not do is sabotage the will of the People because we disagree or think they're making mistakes. We choose those who govern us through elections. We vote. And we have delegates, in part, to prevent areas with a greater density of population from deciding elections. To only be willing to play fairly when you win, and to resort to dirty tactics when you lose, is to deny that you believe in Democracy, that you, in fact, do not believe in the Peoples' right to govern themselves.
One way around this, to rationalize using dirty tactics, is to say that you are only doing it to "protect" the People from the one they elected. But unless that elected official is actually starting a nuclear war or gassing the population, you cannot reasonably say you are motivated by this.
Every person has the right to vote their conscience without being disrespected or reviled. Every person has the right to hold their own opinion without fear of intimidation or contempt.
7
If Ross had one bit of honesty he would just tell us that he supports Trump for Kavanaugh and the end of women have rights to reproductive freedom. Yes the inside resistance should resign but so should those never Trumpers who when all is siad and done support him behind a mask of rhetoric.
9
It is a sad state of affairs in this country when one party, the Republicans, continue their attempts to spin this administration, headed by a man-toddler with zero qualifications for the presidency even at eighteen months into the job, as “the will of the voters”, and therefore never to be questioned. Ignoring the fact that Trump recieved a MINORITY of the vote, he has shown that his imaturity, ignorance, lack of impulse control and narcissism disqualify him for any office, much less that of president. That Republicans continue to dishonestly defend Trump proves, once again, that they will literally allow the country to burn to the ground as long Republican ashes are on top of the wreckage.
15
"officials resisting Trump are trying to prevent his temperamental unfitness from leading to some mass-casualty disaster"
The first phrase that came to mind when I read the mole's dispatch from the Front was "Et tu Brute"? This saboteur is dangerously close to the President, and the New York Times' gushing endorsement of his activity may cause some to wonder if more extreme forms of resistance may have popular support. After all the Republic is on the line here. If we cheerlead someone who has gone this far, is anything off limits to safe the Republic? A line seems to have been crossed here. Perhaps we need to walk this back.
2
Thwarting the voters? May I remind you Trump didn't win the popular vote. He won the Electoral College by the narrowest of margins -- if he even won that. Every day he is in office is a disgrace.
21
Thanks for framing this in such a clear and useful way.
Surely it subverts democratic norms to steal documents off the desk of a president who campaigned in part as an ideological heretic during the primaries, when those stolen documents concern implementing some ideological heresy that was a subject of the campaign and that does not threaten mass casualties or moral infamy.
In my view the Republicans in the US Senate also breached democratic norms by abusing the filibuster as never before during Obama’s first two years and by not giving his judicial nominees a fair hearing.
My continuing exasperation with the Democrats for not rallying to Obama during those times is another question. Spilt milk, I suppose, but I hope people will listen to him now when he talks about the need for people to act using the rules and tools of democratic self-government rather than sitting around awaiting some charismatic savior who will wave a magic wand and make everything better.
As for the national Republicans and the people who bankroll or design their campaigns, I hope they’ll read Bret Stephens’ Saturday column and reconsider their position on democracy. Democratic norms and processes are important. So what if voters often don’t seem to care about that stuff. Maybe they’re taking it for granted. People who aspire to influence or lead are supposed to know better.
9
The theme of Anonymous and others is not as Douthat portrays it: Trump's issues won in the electoral college but we prefer our issues so we sabotage.
As has clearly been pointed out, the issue is that Trump, besides being criminal, is by ignorance and malevolence likely to cause catastrophe. His followers in Congress will not oppose him even to save the country. Trade wars, Russian election interference, coups, destroying America's alliances? It's all good if you can get a deficit ballooning tax cut going primarily to the very rich.
15
Saving "the country from populism"?
It would be quite enough to save the country from Ross Douthat & Friends -- they who worked tirelessly, year after year, to bring the electorate into a state of sufficient confusion, anger, misinformation and resentment to vote for the likes of Trump.
Funny how members of the self-described party of personal responsibility can never seem to take any.
10
I am still trying to figure out why the author wrote the editorial. Was it to brag about how people were thwarting Trump on issues when he does not conform to Republican orthodoxy? It seems to me that making it public will make opposing Trump more difficult. A true patriot would not expect to get credit for something if it hurts the country. I don’t think the editorial works as an expose both because of all the recent books that have already exposed Trump behavior and because it is pretty clear that everyone in Congress already knows what is going on in the Trump White House. My take is that the person who wrote this is not very bright and has not thought through the consequences of the editorial. It will not gain anyone credit. It will make Trump even more paranoid and therefore more destructive. He has already decided this came out of the intelligence community he hates so much and will go after them even though it is unlikely that anyone working in intelligence would write an editorial like this. My take is that we have to look at some of the dumber members of this administration to find the author. The Times would only publish for a truly high level person so Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Betsy DeVos and Ben Carson come to mind. Most of them are probably do not have enough intellectual horsepower to write the editorial. I think the most likely author is Pence or Conway who, with help, fit the required narrow intellectual range.
6
I think the reason behind writing the op-ed was to signal to other Republicans to just continue to go along with Trump because "true Republican adults" are getting their agenda accomplished notwithstanding the "idiot", "moron" "fifth-grader" in the White House.
5
I'm a lifelong Democrat who voted for Hillary and the straight down ticket Party Line, but I must admit to a degree of disquieting dismay at the thought of some sort of " shadow government ( I suppose Trump would refer to it as the " Deep State " ) working surreptitiously against the policies of a duly elected government. Additionally, I'm quite disappointed ( I'm an online subscriber) at the NYT for publishing such surreptitious boasts under conditions of anonymity. If circumstances were reversed howls of outrage would issue from the NYT and other like minded media allies.
3
Neither kind of resistance is justified. If cabinet members and White House officials believe the president is unfit for the job they should resign and go public. They lack the courage and integrity to do so.
6
The premise of this piece is wrong; if we were a democracy Hillary Clinton would be president and t rump would still be under investigation.
Douthat might want to remember that the will of a lot more people were thwarted in '16 than a few die hard so called conservatives.
14
"Thwarting Trump, or the Voters?"
Let's remember that Trump thwarts the voters ... the voters voted for Hillary Clinton.
Trump lost the election among the people, and won only among the ultra-elite electoral college.
14
So, Ross, the anonymous cabal in the White House are un-democratic when they offer "ideological resistance to populist policy"? A duly elected President should be allowed to fulfill his campaign promises?
"Our job is to make Obama a one-term President"
Mitch McConnell, 2008
17
The first thing that crossed Gary Cohn's mind was not national security, but how such an action on trade would affect his wealth. he was embedded in the White House by Goldman Sachs with two missions, ensure a tax cut and make the "public/private" infrastructure program as lucrative to Goldman as possible. He hung on through Charlottesville and every other indignity until he got his tax cut. When it became clear that infrastructure was a non-starter, he cut bait. To portray him as a hero is ludicrous. His stint at with Trump made him several hundred million dollars richer, and his pals at Goldman Sachs did pretty well too. Not bad for a few months work.
11
You write about the will of the voters as if Trump were elected with a mandate. He was 3 million votes short of a majority, the will of the voters was quite clearly for Hillary Clinton to be president but we were thwarted by the electoral college.
As far as I’m concerned, this “will of the voters” argument doesn’t apply and subversion of his dangerous impulses is more than fair game.
14
The will of the voter? A majority of Americans want sensible gun safety laws. Not going to happen. A majority of Americans (apparently at times including Trump) want us out of Afghanistan. Not going to happen. A majority of Americans think pre-existing medical conditions should be covered by insurance. In danger.
It is the voters who vote with a vote who are getting thwarted all time. The people who vote with millions of dollars are the ones who get what they want.
19
Anonymous isn't thwarting the will of the voters. May I gently remind you that Trump failed to receive a plurality of votes in the 2016 presidential election?
11
May I gently remind John that American elections are won with electoral votes, not the irrelevant popular vote.
4
Granted that Mr. Douthat's column is about the rightness of the anonymous op-ed writer's expressed position, but his references to how that position reflects upon our "democracy" presume too much. In an actual democracy, Mrs. Clinton would be president, since she out-polled Trump. America is (at the time of writing) a republic, not a democracy. References to the "democratic" will of the people should therefore at least pay lip service to the archaism of our electoral system, which privileges some citizens - those in the least populated states - over others.
11
Without re-reading the Op-Ed, it strikes me that the self-proclaimed resister praises Trump for having advanced the conservative agenda in multiple areas: tax cuts, judicial appointments, increased military spending, deregulation both environmental and financial, all bedrocks of the Reagan Revolution. Add to that voter suppression and blatant pandering to bigotry (which the GOP used to do with a bit more subtly) and in Trump you have Reagan Redux as brought to you by Fox News and right wing radio. What's the real message of the Op-Ed? Answer: Stick with Donald because he's the vehicle for this conservative nirvana, and the internal resistance will steer him to trade deals that continue to benefit the one percent, and away from military engagements that the base doesn't want, anyway, at least nothing more protracted than Reagan's heroic foray in Grenada. And with that mindset, the GOP just might retain the majority in both houses of Congress.
6
There's really no debate here, however much Ross tries to create one. If Trump's staff truly believes that his leadership needs to be resisted, let them resign, publicly and en masse, and call for the use of the 25th amendment. That the anonymous writer and his/her allies choose to use their positions to advance only the portions of Trump's agenda with which they agree is trying to have it both ways.
It's also a coup d’état, which wasn't legal last time I looked.
9
This is one of your least well argued and non-sensical articles I've read from you, Mr. Douthat. Not sure what you are trying to say here because neither point is valid.
People did not vote for his policies (they voted for what he was against). And of course we do not want our President to start World War 3 .
The point of the whole article, in my estimation, is that we have a soft coup on our hands and it's time to get rid of BOTH the President and the unelected folks that are - per the author's own words - now running our government!
9
When the republicans said they would resist anything Obama wanted to do and make him a 1 term president, that was in our faces as Americans that duly elected him. Except for the anonymity what is the difference?
12
Well, if the president REALLY means those terrible policies, then he will presumably take the time to overcome the resistance. But if they are just whimsy then the resistance has served a useful purpose. So adding a little bit grist to his wheels is not a bad thing, and does not prevent him from doing things if he really means to do them.
2
"which makes True Conservative ideological correctness “more important than honoring the outcome of a democratic election.”"
Pet peeve - the election was **not** "democratic" - if it were, Hillary Clinton would be President. Anyone who wants to "honor the outcome of a democratic election" needs to start with militating for the elimination of the anti-democratic Electoral College.
In the meantime, I would love to see language around this changed, so that Presidents in office due to the Electoral Collage having overturned the democratic voice of the people be referred to as "selected" rather than as "elected." Let the wording forever reflect that they are **not** their due to the will of the people.
11
The voters preferred Clinton
9
It is a mathematical fact that Trump stole the election by using illegal Russian vote gathering techniques and was not duly elected. Had Trump won legitimately he would not be acting so stupid. He knows that the Russian involvement and collusion will soon be revealed and his tenure will come to a screeching halt. So, he figures, to destroy everything in his path before he is sent packing and seeks an exile abide.
5
Omarosa was just interviewed. She disclosed that the Senior White House Staff created a hashtag that they texted each other whenever the "president" did, said, tweeted something "crazy". The hashtag is "TFA" (Twenty Fifth Amendment). She has 100+ such texts.
Trump is unfit, everybody knows it and that is the only issue that matters.
9
This is truly nonsense. When you lose the popular vote by millions, you don't get a "mandate" especially for fringe policies that probably everyone though were just rhetoric and had no real chance of being implemented. Saying you want to "renegotiate trade deals" isn't the same thing as destroying complex financial arrangements that you too stupid to understand but are convinced are harmful because there are foreigners involved. Just the fact that you can be thwarted in what you want to accomplish because you don't notice the paperwork is no longer on your desk is more than enough evidence that you should be doing everything possible to make sure that golf is the main presidential activity.
14
"Thwarting Trump, or the Voters?"
You make it sound like a majority of Americans supported Orange in the White House. They did not. So at best, Anonymous is thwarting the Electoral College--a group whose reason for existence is a complete mystery. If it couldn't save us from this stupid, bragging "reality" star, then why do we insert them between the voters and the White House? Can you seriously imagine a worse choice for president?
While I might prefer the idea of even an anonymous staffer to Orange making decisions, it is troubling that the staffer was not elected, is unaccountable, and we have no idea what morality guides his decisions. If he is a "Christian" like the big-money pastors who support Orange, then we can expect another war of choice--going after Muslims and seeking to hasten the Rapture by promoting Jerusalem.
Frankly, it sounds like Anonymous and friends are doing to Trump what McConnell and Ryan did to President Obama--preventing him from taking the actions that he was elected (by a clear majority of voters) to take. Think Merrick Garland, along with dozens of other judgeships that never got a hearing from the Republicans. While McConnell and Ryan were not anonymous, their actions were no different in effect than those of Anonymous. Block, stop, delay, prevent. Same play book. Its hard to be sympathetic to Trump.
9
So who is it, this anonymous Brutus who dares to question the reign of Caesar?
2
Something of interest actually occurred on one of the Sunday morning 'talk shows':
On NBC's "Meet the Press", Chuck Toad's interview with Dick Durbin almost produced some progress on defining the "cause", not just the "symptom" (as President Obama described Trump) of our "disease of the Republic", when Durbin stated:
"I can tell you this. A recent book, "How Democracies Die" [2018 by Harvard University political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt], talked about, you know, beyond the obvious, beyond the values of America, beyond the Constitution, there's mutual tolerance and forbearance that keep this democracy on track."
At which accidental moment, IMHO, Senator Durbin might have been a political Dr. House in diagnosing and going on, and stating to a national TV audience the true "cause" that Obama only hinted at in his warm-up for the role of actually going "Bulworth".
Durbin could have continued, and said:
"Well Chuck, as "The Post's" mast-head slogan of "Democracy Dies in Darkness" correctly implies, all Americans should understand that that 'Darkness', which causes the death of Democracy, and is the same "disease of Republics" (as our founders understood from their deep knowledge of the Roman Empire), and as President Obama was trying to describe as the "cause" of "symptoms" like Emperor Trump --- is actually the darkness of this Disguised Global Capitalist Empire."
Well, at least I can dream can't I?
Maybe Obama or Bernie will actually "Go Bulworth"
4
Under our form of government, a minority of voters can choose the leadership of our country, and their wishes must be honored by the majority! Clearly the minority wanted a deranged lunatic, a corrupt con man, a bankrupt casino operator, a sexual predator, a Russian agent, a liar, a fraud and a sadist to hold the highest office in our land. Now that the minority has spoken, it is incumbent on the majority to become a "silent majority" lest we face prosecution for sedition. Color me quiet.
7
The antiTrumpers are not thwarting democracy by themselves. The venerable NYT has taken the unprecedented action of publishing an anonymous op-ed and removing bylines from political reporting. Why isn’t that a cause for concern? It is the integrity of American journalism that is being thwarted here. Democracy will survive.
1
Wow. Douthat climbs onto the soapbox of respect for voters without even glancing at the enormous, scandalous, horrifying evidence that the 2016 vote was corrupted by illegal Russian interference.
And not just that! He also ignores the mountainous, scandalous, horrifying evidence of successful efforts, going on decades now, by the Republican party to deny Americans of color their rights to vote. He should have read, and taken to heart, Carol Anderson's treatment of this bitter history in the pages of today's times.
But he's a boy in his bubble. He might read it, but he won't take it to heart. I wonder every time I read him why the Times sees fit to continue to put his bubble on the front page.
13
"There are so few “practical checks on the executive branch’s ability to initiate force,” wrote Zack Beauchamp in Vox, that letting an unstable executive have his way can court unacceptable risks — like nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, let’s say. “Surely,” wrote Quin Hillyer for the Washington Examiner,"
Anyone who does not have enough absolute proof that this president is an unhinged sociopath has maxed out their capacity for self delusion.
If the author had come forward trump would have tweeted "fake fake" and his acolytes would dismiss the allegations!
The GOP propaganda machine would find every naughty/nasty detail in the authors bio to discredit him/her.
BUT now we have reinforced doubts - internal analysis - a president perhaps chastened - and "deep throat" alive and well.
Watching -waiting - and firing up the public to remove this menace of an administration at the polls.
6
(1st posted on a related topic) The op-ed writer chose not to go on the record, so what is the motive for the op-ed? I find no comfort that “many senior appointees” view Trump as unfit & that they, the self-proclaimed true protectors of conservative principles, are handling him beyond the expected advisory duties. Is making Trump more paranoid, erratic, & confused in anyone’s best interests? Fearing being manipulated, Trump may now be less open to any counsel. All troubling in several respects.
I find no solace in the writer’s boasts of worthy accomplishments in (unfair & budget-busting) tax reform, (environmentally & otherwise harmful) deregulation, more (wasteful) military spending, “and more.” The writer also mentions working to “preserve our democratic institutions” & putting country first, and even invokes the memory of McCain, but without any examples this rings hollow, as the writer slinks under the rock of anonymity.
These people clearly support the GOP agenda, the “resistance” is only to Trump. IMHO, the writer is basically talking to those of similar mind & who may vote not-GOP in 2018. The op-ed tries to reassure them that the GOP agenda will continue, that Trump is basically just an obstacle & the real non-crazy GOP will continue to try to handle him. The op-ed is more political propaganda than news scoop; there is not even a call for GOP leadership to stand up to Trump, but to stand up (or go on the record) you have to have a spine.
2
I think Trump, is dangerous, a serial liar, lacking the most basic knowledge about the economy or foreign policy. I suspect that he has committed multiple criminal acts, in his business dealing, while running for president, and while president. Still this act of 'resistance' is not supportable. If the individual believes what he writes then he need to resign and make public his reasons. Ends do not justify means. Until Trump's incompetence is made public by the many who have witnessed it the danger the individual claims to be controlling remains immanent.
3
Here's where the argument falls apart: Trump campaigned on many policies, but that doesn't mean that it is wrong and anti-democratic to thwart them. Take racism. Trump has been implicitly and explicitly racist all along (Muslim ban, Charlottesville, treatment of African Americans, etc), and his base loves it, but who among us would say that we have to support his racist policies because that is the will of the voters?
And never forget that he lost the popular vote, so most Americans actually did not support his policies in the first place.
11
He/she is working for one (but not all) of the Trumps. For more about Trump's multiple personalities, go back and re-read the columns by Gail Collins. She points out that there are multiple Trumps -- the anonymous op-ed writer is actually working for SNORT (Somewhat Normal Republican Trump). There may be thousands of people in the Trump administration who are trying to prevent NUT (Nearly Unhinged Trump, aka Unscripted Trump, aka Twitter Trump) from destroying our republic (locking up immigrant children without due process, inciting trade wars, antagonizing our allies, making nuclear threats). It is fine with me for a senior administration official to lock up all of the big black marker pens in the Oval Office when one of the malign Trumps is around.
2
None of this would be happening if Republicans had done a smidgen of due diligence and acted as a check on Trump's erratic behavior. They haven't because they want to alter the stance of the Supreme Court, and are willing to see the country divided and willing to see America become a global insignificance to achieve that end. Trump is basically just a patsy to the agenda of Republicans. Trump will be gone at some point, but the Republicans will have gotten everything they wanted. It is they who are the problem in this scenario for not adhering to the checks and balances built and long-ingrained into the system -- but which are now lost.
Hypocrisy has always reigned in government. It's just now reaching its pinnacle of achievement, courtesy of the current cowards within the Republican Party.
7
this is a real conundrum. when a president is truly unfit for the office (and if simply removing a letter from the president's desk means he will forget about the issue and do nothing, then he is too mentally impaired to carry out the duties of a president)yes, his trusted advisors are justified in taking the reins to avert an immediate, and rerevocable disaster (for example assassinating Assad or starting a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula . If 40% of the American people actually want those same things should the people's desires be thwarted ? we have entered the tyranny of the minority territory. In theory cooler and wiser heads should be able to prevail, that is why we have a senate, a supreme court, and other checks on government officials exercising king like power. Yes, if trump supporters really want a King, they should be thwarted, but to do it directly, mass demonstrations, assassinations ect. could be as bad as Syria without Assad (there is nothing worse than nuclear war). the right thing for the resisters inside the white house to do is to start the process of removing Trump from office under the 25th amendment.
3
Trump wanted to take extended family members of the military out of South Korea, and he wanted to put a hit on Syria's president Assad.
What we don't know about Trumps day to day may be even more alarming; Anonymous and Woodward are just the messengers, don't blame them.
3
I enjoyed this piece, but disagree with the rationale for one strand of the argument: that such things as tariffs and trade wars should not be interfered with by this band of silent resisters in the administration because Trump campaigned on these issues and won the election.
First of all, just because someone pulled the lever for a candidate does not imply a “yes” vote on every single proposal and initiative the candidate espoused, nor every sick action he then takes during his presidency. There was plenty to love and hate about both Trump and Clinton. Few voters would claim 100% endorsement of every single aspect of either platform.
Second, even if a voter did agree (for example) with POTUS tightening up our borders and building a wall, that doesn’t extend to agreeing with putting toddlers in cages or stripping citizenship from people birthed by midwives.
Voters supporting a goal that the candidate espouses does not give him carte blanche to use any means to achieve it, especially when he reveals himself to be ignorant, reckless, cruel and capricious, not to mention being an unindicted co-conspirator in a crime.
2
What we really need in the White House is someone who will tell truth to power and a president who will listen to those words. That we have a president who thinks he knows everything and really knows nothing sets us up for disaster. When the second Bush implemented tariffs that were failing Bush could drop them though many times he continued to make mistake after mistake in other situations such as the Iraq war. Through all of those mistakes there was a sense that someone was at the helm that could make some sense. Now our current demander in chief will drive us off of a cliff and not even have a sense that he is doing it. I really do understand the frustration expressed in that now famous letter though hate that person's politics.
Mr Douthat -- Perhaps you remember a much more clear example of a selfish Republican subverting the will of the people? Grand Wizard McConnell refusing to allow even a hearing on Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court.
9
All this hand-wringing about "unelected officials" is misplaced and only serves to divert attention from our country's real problem. In every large organization, lower-level administrators and rank-and-file employees resist ill-conceived directives from above by foot-dragging, passively concealing relevant information, tipping outsiders on how best to apply countervailing pressure and similar measures. A good CEO doesn't just bark out impetuous orders and expect everyone in the organization to mindlessly carry them out. A good executive seeks to understand the complexities of their organization and devise policies that inspire and motivate the people who have to implement them.
The real problem is that so far all of our political systems have failed: the voters failed, the press failed, the electoral college failed, the Republican-controlled congress failed, and we are left with an ignorant unstable president whose impulsive whims jeopardize the country's domestic tranquility and international security. If some appointed officials and bureaucrats are quietly trying to contain this fraud-in-chief's damage, I say thank you, at least some people are left who feel responsibility to our nation.
1
Thwarting the voters? Trump "won" by a negative 2,800,000 votes. With the help of Putin and a phony investigation into Benghazi et al. (where is that going now?) that the FBI bent over backward to disfavor Hillary Clinton. Yes, thwarting took place, but it's not what you're writing about.
The voters? Of course there are always voters who could not pass the most basic test of what's fact and what's not. But the Trump base is exceptionally, deplorably misinformed. Give THEM -- maybe 30% of voting-age Amurrica -- what they want and we'd have civil war and world war.
3
Douthout's hair splitting arguments miss the most important point- these issues were hashed out in the campaign and a significant majority of Americans voted against Trump and his policies. This presidency, along with its internal "resistance," elected by a minority of voters, secretly abetted by a hostile foreign power, is wholly illegitimate.
2
The fact that Trump's staff can take the actions described in the anonymous document is in itself an indication of Trump's incapacity to function as president. He doesn't know what his own selected "best people" are doing! So we have a guy who has demonstrated extreme ignorance about crucial issues of national security (remember that he said "if we have nuclear weapons why don't we use them?"). He has many times made decisions that clearly related to his own personal views but have little or no relation to any consistent policy. Destroy the ACA because he feels insecure compared with Obama - is that how we want national policies to be made? Other presidents may have wanted to use the office to express their personal likes and dislikes, but they had enough self-control that personal feelings did not routinely dominate their actions. Trump bounces from anger to fear to delusions of being a "stable genius," and the country suffers the side effects of his own personal chaos. He carelessly causes damage, and has no apparent interest in gaining any self control.
1
Will of the people? Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million. Trump won the electoral college by less than 200,000 votes. Tell me which "win" truly expresses the will of the people!
6
The larger question is: "Why did the anonymous author write the Op-Ed?" My suggested answer: I suspect that he/she is acting as spokesman for the group of senior administration officials who are resisting our current President. I further suspect that the intended audience for the Op-Ed is the Republicans in Congress and wealthy Republican donors around the country. What the Op-Ed really says is that the White House "resisters" have crazy Trump under control and that the far-right Republican agenda can go forward without difficulty or delay. Clearly they do not care that their behavior undermines the Constitution.
2
There was a time when conservatives would hold that in certain circumstances, character is the issue, and anything else was secondary. The presidency of Trump is one such time. So unless we come to see that past and current assertions of the primacy of character are no more than expedicy of policy, conservatives, to be taken seriously, must now stand tall and denounce Trump on character issues, despite the fact that some of Trump's policies are what is favored by conservatives.
1
First of all, fewer people voted for Trump than for Clinton. So it's absurd to suggest that anyone thwarting Trump is thwarting the will of most voters. Most voters wanted Hillary in the White House.
Second, it's absurd to say that the issues were thoroughly debated and whoever won the election must have won the debate on the issues. Plenty of Trump voters benefit from Obamacare and didn't believe that Trump, if elected, would try to take those benefits away - but he did. During the campaign Trump pledged not to cut Medicaid. But after taking office he agreed to sign a bill which would have done exactly that.
Douthat may not be a liberal, but he seems to buy into the liberal fantasy that our politics involves a great debate on the issues and whoever gets into office must have won the debate and will act accordingly. That isn't the way it works. That isn't the way voters actually make their choices. Grow up, Ross.
2
Regardless of whether one views the Op-Ed, a more fundamental and troubling inquiry emerges: how did the USA wind up with president Trump? Having already twice elected presidents who have lost the popular vote in elections this century, Americans should acknowledge that their electoral process needs a drastic overhaul. Adherence to the a first past the post method of determining electoral victors produces this result, after all.
Viewed from the perspective of an outsider it seems that the American electoral system is predicated more on producing endless election campaigning than actual governance. It's not only that you have too many elections, but that your presidential election years are exactly that---they last a whole year. Again, Americans should maybe ask the following: for what?
2
Thwarting the will of the voters? Perhaps you forgot that Trump lost the popular vote by about 3,000,000 votes. It is only the anachronistic and undemocratic (remember that the Republicans who control the Senate and hence a good deal of the electoral votes of those respective states, represent only about 40% of the population) that let Trump win. If we held presidential elections based on the popular vote, Trump would be sitting in NYC making trouble instead of the White House. So, no, I don't think these guys are thwarting the will of the voters, although I would have preferred a more courageous and non-anonymous statement.
10
I disagree with the alleged antinomy Reagan-Trump. With Reagan, the Republicans moved from Eisenhower warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex and Nixon boasting (however cynically) about Pat's 'Republican cloth coat' vs Jackie's couture, to Reagan's inauguration with billionaires filling the front row of the box, their wives in sable coats like an American version of the Mao suit for females. It was then that the celebration of money by the Republicans dropped the fig leaf. Starting with the Reagans, she having to return millions of dollars in "borrowed" clothes while in office, he graciously accepting a house he couldn't afford as a gift from the billionaire friends who had done very well thanks to him, thank you, after leaving office.
Such open profiteering from public office is to be expected in banana republics, but it did not tarnish the Reagans one bit. Throw in the Democrats' joining in in the celebration of untrammelled capitalism, demolition of Roosevelt's New Deal controls, etc, and what's going on becomes not only explicable, but inevitable.
3
Reading this man's contrivances always gives me a headache; searching and searching among the weeds trying to find the flora. After all "this"- the conclusion reading like a concoction that's just too "good sounding" to leave out:
"An internal resistance that conflates those two missions may prevent certain disasters; let us hope it does. But it will not save the country or its party from populism; it will only make the next surge that much stronger, and ease the next Donald Trump’s ascent." (What Does this mean Ross)?
2
The internal resistance subverts democracy? Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes. What democracy?
5
I suppose because of our democratic institutions and the results of this election, we should be more careful to distinguish whether we are talking about "subverting our democracy" or "subverting the will of the people". As you point out, the people did not want this president; if anything these officials are enacting the people's will.
3
Give credit where due. Who appointed the senior administration officials, some now resisting Trump's erratic behavior? Trump!!! By appointing such highly capable people who love America above all else, he put in place checks against what some claim to be his "temperamental unfitness." In addition to those that the Founders put in the Constitution, Trump has added another fail-safe layer of protection to thwart dangers from the Executive Branch. I recommend that all Trump-skeptics learn to stop worrying and cherish his prescience.
3
I actually agree with you Ross. In fact, the more I think about it, far better to let Trump's impulsiveness play out if nothing else to teach the country a lesson.
No, I'm not being snide. But voters have to be held accountable just as much as the person they thrust into office.
If you cast your precious vote for so completely unqualified for the presidency--not to mention, impervious to learning what he doesn't know--then you sow what you reap.
Mr. Anonymous and his shadow government are preventing Americans from realizing the full import of the toxic blend of recklessness, arrogance, ignorance, and corruption displayed by this president.
The more they protect him from the fallout of his actions, the more he'll become emboldened until his rash instincts actually set off a war or an economic crisis.
What they're doing is trying to have their cake and eat it too. The only problem is, they weren't elected to do either.
370
@ChristineMcM
The Tough Love approach is not appropriate here because the idiot in chief will not suffer much but everyone else will and for decades to come. The very earth is in danger from this man-child. We cannot allow this to run its course like a healthy ten-year old with the flu. He. Must. Be. Stopped. and by any means possible.
2
@ChristineMcM
And where is the moral outrage against Mattis for not executing Trump's wishes to assassinate Assad?
If Trump told Mattis he wanted Assad assassinated then Mattis should have immediately laid out plans for the mission and presented it to Trump to allow him to "pull the trigger".
@medianone I was clearly referring to LEGAL but stupid actions like trade wars, withdrawing from NATO, etc., not illegal ones. The US is not in the business of assassinating world leaders based on presidential pique, any more than the DOJ has to obey an order to punish a Trump enemy.
Mr. Douthat just can't get over that Trump, a bombastic self-promoting reality show host defeated Hillary. So, he starts talking about nuclear war. We can talk about that. During Obama's presidency, our relations with Russia had significantly deteriorated. Russian ministers and the military were talking about a nuclear option and they have 6000 nuclear tipped missiles with our address on them. Since Trump moved in, Putin is saying nuclear war would end civilization as we know it. Einstein said something similar when he said that WW IV would be fought with “sticks and stones.” So, when have we heard Russia talk about the nuclear option since Trump became President? During Obama's presidency, Kim was building up his nuclear weapon program and at the same time increasingly making threats. After Trump sat down with Kim, how many threats has he launched against us? What he is doing is begin dismantling the assembly plants, talking about economics as well as peace and denuclearization of Korea. In April, Kim walked into South Korea. Later the President of South Korea went into North Korea to meet with Kim. The Two have continued their communication. During Obama's presidency, ISIS grew and swarmed over Iraq and Syria. The NYT itself gave Trump credit for defeating the ISIS Islamic state. Mr. Douthat uses nuclear and war fear talk to paint over what has actually happened. But the paint is thin and transparent when you look through it and see events.
1
You really believe Kim's been dismantling anything real?
Oh, my. Look at that.
3
this editorial is based on an incorrect interpretation of out election. trump did not win the popular vote and with the unknowable about our election and who won with russian meddling as part of the whole landscape. douthat is writing from a very simple reading of the 2016 election.
2
He's alienated our allies while cozying up to Russia. Was terrible in Singapore, Helsinki and with NATO allies.
We've dropped precipitously in international esteem.
Institutions and norms of democracy mean nothing. We're lurching toward an plutocratic autocracy, and if he could, he'd end free speech!
Directs agencies to punish his critics. Singles out companies for his wrath. Easily manipulated, he'll engage in fringe conspiracy theories instead of reality-based policy.
He's mainstreamed the art of bullying. It's an urban myth he could grow into the job. Disclosure of internal details of a dysfunctional white house is left for voters to consider.
And that's a good thing.
1
The Anonymous editorial is a cynical ploy to prevent outraged, anti-Trump moderates and conservatives from sitting out the mid terms. That's it. End of.
1
The is like the pilot and navigator on the Titanic arguing about how best to steer away from the Huuuuge iceberg. And in the meantime, the Captain is completely oblivious.
Seriously.
3
Mr. Douthat’s essay is a perfect example of what many of the right-of-center responses to the anonymous op-ed aim to do: shoot the messenger and ignore the message. The messenger may be a hero or a villain, but that’s really not the point. The morality of the writer is inconsequential compared to the critical importance of the president’s morality and fitness for office. It doesn’t matter how many fancy words you throw around about supposed policy differences among republicans, justification of Trump-style populism by a supposed election victory, or theoretical politically-correct responses to White House chaos by those who have to deal with this president’s toxic behavior every day. You can’t avoid the truth forever, and the truth is that President Trump is exactly what he looks, sounds and acts like: an unbalanced, ill-informed and untruthful disaster as the chief executive of the most powerful nation in the world. You can’t shoot all the messengers of this quite obvious truth — there are too many of them. Reality always wins, eventually.
7
Let's face the Truth here Mr Douthat. This President is so totally out of his depth as the CEO of this government that he has to rely daily on "advisers" to tell him what to do. He doesn't know squat about economics, defense, foreign affairs, science or history. And worse yet, he appears incapable of learning. So as a result of his intellectual vacuum, (and, we all know that Nature abhors a vacuum), competing forces rush in to suggest decisions that should be made by a thoughtful, intellectually competent POTUS. We (aka the Electoral College) elected Donald Trump to do the job. We got Donald, the reality TV star who needed a script in order to function. Nobody is undermining this president; ain't nothing to undermine there. Different scriptwriters are just supplying new material every day and he reads his lines as written.....Except when his vacuous mind conjures up fantasies that he can espouse on his Twitter account or at his extemporaneous rallies.
2
It could also be true that the mystery writer may not be intervening in the presidential misbehaviour. Or care about it at all! They may have, upon seeing all the crazy come out in multiple books and reports, just have decided to troll your president. Kind of like kicking a wasp nest at a picnic. What could whip him up into deranged frenzy more than this? And why not? As far as I can tell all his life this is all Donald has ever done to every one else and look where it’s gotten him! Wreak havoc, plunder the spoils, repeat. Just somebody else using Trumps very own loathsome lodestar to find success in the same way he does, but against him. I just hope it’s not a case of the president doth protest too much methinks though, because then we are the ones truly being played.
2
If you re worried about the will of the voters being thwarted, you should start with Mitch McConnell's refusal to allow Merrick Garland a hearing. Then there was the electoral college thwarting the will of the majority of voters by installing Trump in the first place.
No, I'm not keen on the idea of someone who is not elected deciding what in Trump's amoral temper tantrums and mean spirited revenge-taking constitutes a bridge too far. But by the same token, Trump shouldn't have been allowed to be anywhere near the White House - even as a tourist - so someone keeping him from starting World War 3, or blowing up the DOJ shouldn't have been needed in the first place. The idea that he could just decide to launch nuclear missiles without someone there to stop him is a lot scarier to me than someone there who can make sure that he can't.
6
I don't usually agree with Ross Douthat (actually, hardly ever) but he's largely right on this one. If we believe in democracy we must accept its considerable flaws. But we must also realize that no system, and none of our institutions, can alone ensure good government or a just society. Leaders consumed by greed and insecurity, coupled with an uneducated electorate roiled up by zealots, religious and otherwise, will not be impeded by the Bill of Rights, the Ten Commandments, the free press, the rule of law or even simple human decency. So while we may properly criticize Mr. or Ms. anonymous, this rearguard action is certainly understandable.
The state of Trump's White House: "If there is disturbance in the camp, the general's authority is weak." An excerpt from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War."
4
Anti-democratic, puhleeze.
This cry is the height of hypocrisy.
* Voter suppression,
* Ignoring a SCOTUS nominee by a democratically elected president,
* Happily allowing campaigns to be financed by money that can't be traced back to individuals
* Not providing more money to the states to secure their voting infrastructure against foreign hacking
* Not providing the constitutionally required check on executive power by the legislative branch
* Lying about the benefits of a tax cut for the capitalists class
*These* are antidemocratic actions.
19
What I think Mr. Douthat might have missed in that anonymous op-ed is the abject fear that prompted his/hers (their) resistance. When faced with a chief executive in the world's most powerful position showing unmistakable signs of real instability, vindictive recklessness, and childlike behaviour - bad enough that the 25th Amendment is thought of being invoked, it doesn't matter anymore whether his populist ideology (such as it is) is being thwarted. The horror being experienced by officials in this White House trying to control the excesses of this President should not need to be deconstructed. We've all gone way past that now.
2
The issue Ross Douthat is grappling with involves the process-product relation. For example, a person might accept the result of long addition, trusting the process to produce the correct result. However, if it produces wrong results, then we should reject the process.
Douthat accepts democracy to be legitimate, and advocates resistance in certain cases, when "officials resisting Trump are trying to prevent his temperamental unfitness from leading to some mass-casualty disaster or moral infamy, they are doing the country a great service."
However, when we examine the history of democracy from its death sentence for Socrates, its slave and Jim Crow laws, its jailing of innocent people, its nuclear bombing of children, its oppression of the Palestinians to the Vietnam Holocaust, it violates the principle prohibiting harming an innocent person. The product of democracy, documented by the best historians, illuminates its ethical illegitimacy.
Douthat's prescription of resistance in case of a ruler's "temperamental unfitness" won't make democracy legitimate.
6
In the post-Judith Miller era, in which the NYT cheer-leaded for the phony justification to invade Iraq, it is unwise to allow the NYT to opaquely vet its administration source, while blindly accepting the characterizations of his nature, motives, status, and veracity presented in the NYT explanation Douthat cites. The NYT has not proven itself to be trustworthy enough to blindly accept.
I think Douthat parses this well. Actions to prevent an unjustified war are good. The action on the South Korea treaty is undemocratic. It also is the responsibility of Congress to object to this presidential action, once the president had been allowed by his staff to issue the order he wished to issue.
It appears that part of the intent of the insiders was to hide Trumps imperial/dictatorial tendencies. I guess the leaker has decided we're past that point and s/he now needs to establish personal goodness.
Good heavens, I agree with Ross. Never saw that coming!
But yeah, let Trump’s voters get what they voted for. Trade wars. No more clean water (and a lot more Flints). No more Medicare. No more ACA.
They voted for suffering to be imposed; they just thought it would be imposed on others, not themselves. Surprise!
And all those folks who, on the far left, want to “burn it all down” and start again — they too voted for suffering to be imposed, naively thinking that they’d be immune, and that it would be worth it in order to have a Phoenix-like rise from the ashes. Well, the Susan Sarandons of the world are immune, cushioned by their money; she won’t go without health care, you can be sure. But for the rest of us — the Phoenix is a mythical creature.
1
Douthat splits hairs so finely in his attempt to find an acceptable level of resistance within the administration he misses the obvious need to shave the head of the American body politic.
There is no acceptable level of resistance within the White House (outside of healthy debates over policy) and its very existence, regardless if its goal is to implement conservative policies or save the world from armageddon, indicates the need to remove the chief executive.
1
.
.
Who said that Trump was duly elected? That is really debatable.
The age we live in feels more like we're being governed by an occupying power than a "duly elected" government.
The current occupant of the White House and Republican leaders in Congress makes Marshall Petain's Vichy France look like a democratic paradise.
8
For many people, the issue is not even his stated policies, it is his unstated policies and uneven behavior. More critically, in an election of 49% to 48%, winning is a relative thing. Nearly as many people did not want the exact policy he called for, and to me the real challenge of being president with a nominal mandate is finding common ground to bring all people together. For most of the issues that are most divisive, abortion, taxes, immigration, I truly believe there are policies that could bring a vast majority together (you will never get ALL people to agree on any topic), but it will be impossible if you elect to frame the conversation with Trump's classic, NY-style, arrogant attitude. "My way or the highway" is no way to govern...unless your name is Putin, Maduro Orban, etc....
2
Everyone seems to either be trying to shoot the messenger or are looking too close to the page. It seems more like warnings of observers or bridge inspectors in Italy that a certain bridge has stress cracks or makes ominous noises. With our president showing strange behavior, we should stop, listen and then decide what is best for our nation. Before 9/11, there was an intelligence briefing “terrorist plan to attack the U.S..” Are we always blindsided?
2
What a Gordian knot, it's unraveling only a matter of time, as we descend into chaos by a 'bull in a china shop' that, being superbly ignorant (hence, convinced he knows more than 'the generals') and fit to be tied, needs to be restrained. Actually, the only way to control this toxic megalomaniac is by removing him from office. Trouble is, the 25th Amendment may be sitting there idle forever, as long as the irresponsible republican complicity remains rampant.
5
Certainly not surprised that Michael Brendan Dougherty would distort things: “this adviser’s side arguably lost the popular debate”, only in the Electoral College guys, 48% is bigger than 46%, i.e. more voters.
But what about you, Mr. Douthat? Trump is the constitutionally elected president but not popularly.
Stop lying.
2
Another way of putting this is "Should White House officials save America from the sheer suicidal stupidity of the Trump base?" What if the Trump base were all Nazis outright, calling for the elimination of Jews and re-instating segregation for blacks? Would it be a public service for members of Trump's staff to try to thwart carrying out the public's wishes?
3
I agree that these senior officials are subverting the will of our elected president, and the proper constitutional remedy should be to start the very heavy burden of instigating 25th amendment remedies. They should not take it upon themselves to make decisions on policy.
But then again neither should our President if he is incapable of making these decisions because of mental defect or impairment--the most obvious reason for trump's behavior, and lack of self control.
However, with that said, this president does not have a mandate from the voters. I shall not forget that he lost the popular vote by millions which might make the subversion argument more justifiable.
We surely are in a constitutional crisis in that we have an inept president, that daily shows he is unable to carry out his Constitutional duties. And worse is a cowardly legislative body that refuses to act properly by providing checks on his worst impulses. Moreover, with the Court now heavily politicized--I would say we the American people are getting screwed--and it is getting worse daily. I surely hope that we soon regain our senses. VOTE!
2
Sorry Ross, but the rather obvious flaw in your thesis is that the voters actually did speak against the despicable candidate whose stench now pours from our rotting White House. In spite of the massive amounts spent by Greedy Olgarchs and Plutocrats, voter suppression, widespread gerrymandering, and Russian interference the majority of voters rejected the bigoted narcissistic sociopath. The self righteous op ed author is just part of this cabal which has exploded the deficit (remember the old republican deficit hawks?) to line the pockets of its donor class and appoint neocons to the federal bench. Then he/she wants to tell us how they are saving the country. What a crock!
2
It comes to this: if he was bad enough from the very beginning to warrant this level of manipulation (not advice- all elected officials should get advice- what is described in the OpEd is manipulation) then the ‘resistance’ within the WH is just trying to have their cake and eat it too by not either trying to iniate 25th amendment proceedings or trying to get the Republicans on the hill our of their stupor and do something. That is the mechanism of operational democracy to deal with an unfit president, as described in the OpEd. That does bring up the point, though, that there wasn’ anything in the OpEd we didn’t already know- so what was the point, and now what?
The never Trump people have made fools of themselves. This idea that pro Clinton FBI agents can create ex nihilo Russian interference in the US election and all this pointless racket. That Trump is too pro Putin which is so ridicules. Trump is basically doing what Clinton would have done in Syria and Ukraine. With the relentless sanctions and accusations of Russian perfidy show the vacuousness of the 2016 election. Trump's domestic policy is basically the Koch Brothers playbook shows that Trump is an out of place raging celebrity who has reached the highest pinnacle of his incompetence. It is well the Democratic groundswell sees the Democratic establishment as in need of new leadership. The "its my turn" non sense of corporatist Clinton with her aggressive foreign policy and secret desire to be like Bill and be Wall Street's best buddy. The wealthy and aggressive neo cons were going to be the winners one way or the other.
Between voter suppression, gerrymandering and a flawed electoral college system, claiming that this is what people voted for is incorrect. Trump is in office due to a voter coalition of white Christian supremacists, greedy billionaires, racists and imbeciles. We are living in a period of minority rule.
7
During the early years of the Obama admin, something similar occurred. Treas Sec Geithner was given a directive to come up with a plan to break-up Citibank. He pretended to act but ended up doing nothing.
Now, Obama had the capacity to reprimand or replace him & insists it be done, but didn't. Not exactly the Cohn stealing papers off an idiot president's desk, but again an instance of the establishment exerting its will directly in contravention of the elected executive.
So, we have either an unhinged, Russo-compromised traitor or a soft coup.
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the Russian Republicans!
Thank YOO!
1
I think anonymoius was a clever plot to get rid of anyone opposing Trump in the WH
Ross' problems in this op-ed: "... a duly elected president...". Elected through conspiring with Russia (i.e. treason), eliminates the term "duly". A treasonous president has no legitimate authority at all.
"Trump’s personal behavior around Putin is, let’s be frank, super weird . . ." says Douthat.
Any normal person with common sense, sanity, and just plain taste knew how super weird and loony Trump was when he first slithered out of his manhole years ago.
We knew he lacked morals, scruples, honesty and any knowledge about what he was talking about, and he was always talking.
We knew that he was tacky and stupid and had a bizarre psychological component that constantly made him inflate himself. We knew he was ugly and vain and repulsive.
Anonymous is likely a good republican and just like any other republican, so afraid of losing his job that he can't show his face. He loves what little power he has and the high it must give him to yank another scrap of paper from Trump's desk to keep the world from conflagration.
So, this mole cum rat in the White House, likely once a loyal goose-stepping, rubber-stamping, Norquist, Newt, Neo-con conservative somehow came to perceive that Trump is nuts and decided to tell the world about it sort of sotto voce, behind his trembling hand.
And in unison the world yawned and said "duh".
5
@George Dietz
The first time I saw the grifter decades ago I immediately thought ‘tacky.’
He’s still tacky.
And much, much worse.
2
Ross, we cannot know what Trump impulses will lead to nuclear war or moral infamy. I am thankful there are those inside the administration thwarting Trump's worst impulses. Yet, I also believe the will of the people that voted for him was flawed and so if the inside resistance or "steady resistance" rolls back some of the ill timed, not well thought out drawbacks from alliances and trade deals, that is okay by me, too. If this adminstration's election was already swayed and determined by Russian interference and isn't focused on the will of American voters but by Russia's Putin and pals, we can't be sorry that someone inside is safeguarding us. We should be praying for them and cheering them on, as we do not want an authoritarian running our government from Moscow or Washington.
1
So if I get you right, you're concerned that people in the White House are undermining the will of the people, the democratic process. Good. I would expect you then to write another column or to be vociferous about Mitch McConnell having undermined the democratic process in refusing to hold hearings to confirm Merrick Garland; and to decry or at least put brakes on Trump's actions, including nominations, given the real possibility he enlisted a foreign power to disseminate false information and undermine democracy, leading to his election. Or does your skepticism and care for democracy extend only in a particular political direction.
9
When Reagan went senile, many of us wanted him out of office because his senility begged the question: who is really running the ship? Same issue here. Lock him up.
3
Republicans should have listened to Bobby Jindal and we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Jindal was right when he said,
"“We must stop being the stupid party,” he implored. “It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults.”
2
IMHO, the Times and it’s readers are being played. The writer has a hidden agenda. While everyone is obsessed with who done it, the real reason for the essay hasn’t been revealed. The timing is a clue: just after Labor Day as the campaign season starts.
Look at that nauseating photo, with Trump chirping away (complete with hand movements) while Bill Shine looks on from the side...
..playing Professor Higgins to Trump's off key Eliza Doolittle.
2
Any resistance to Donald Trump from anyone from anyhere - is patriotic.
3
You can only "take something off the desk" of a president who is so obtuse that he doesn't know what is going on.
3
While at the EPA, the GOP makes raping the environment its role, at education the GOP makes raping girls or boys okay and at the White House, the GOP makes inciting violence against reporters okay, Ross Douthat complains about what is justified.
1
Trump is doing nothing he promised and people still support him because they're too proud to admit they picked a freak. So their only satisfaction is to watch the liberals scream.
5
It is important to point out that one it is still unknown whether we got the outcome of a democratic election. First, the voters chose Clinton and second we don't know the extent of Russian meddling.
So before we wax poetic about what's going on in the White House cesspool we should get a firm grasp on reality.
2
This article avoids mentioning that Mr. Trump was "elected" by a *minority* of voters because of a quirk in America's slave era constitution.
5
Since the Anonymous source provides practically no new or valuable information (unlike Deep Throat,) was it really worth the ethical compromise to print an anonymous op-ed? Is NYT really asking me to accept the credibilty judgment of its editorial board? That's yucky. I don't accept anyone's judgment. I form my own judgments based on accurate information that the NYT is supposed to be providing. I have already judged Trump's credibility-- but I go back and forth on whether I find NYT to be a credible source of news, and this op-ed does not weigh in its favor.
The problem with this argument is that anyone in the Administration must do whatever the POTUS says, based on the idea that their first-loyalty is to the person in office. WRONG! All of the people in the administration, including the POTUS work for We the People and take an oath to "Support and defend the constitution."
There is no provision in working in government that tells anyone that they must act on an order that they know is wrong.
Monarchs and dictators demand and get absolute loyalty. One of our key protections is that citizens loyal to the constitution and laws work in government and can, and often do, by words and/or deeds answer orders with words or actions that say: "Sir, no sir!" That prevents us from becoming a dictatorship.
FWIW: That Trump doesn't realize that people aren't following his orders, doesn't even remember them, speaks to a different, albeit equally serious, problem.
6
I am a Quebecer and was born under a conservative regime that seems to be the regime the GOP wishes to emulate. We paid the lowest taxes and our corporate sector had carte blanche to do what they chose as long as they didn't interfere with health, education and welfare which was under church control and those areas under government control which involved the redistribution of the money obtained from graft and corruption. Most Quebecers were poor and ill educated. We called the system normal and you call this conservatism.
I attended the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal and we were extremely well educated because Montreal was the financial capital of Canada and though we few we constituted what was supposed to become the middle class.
We learned about Samuel Johnson the wisest man in the Kingdom who was the heart and soul of the English language and Johnson defined conservatism. Johnson's letter to the Congress of the United States in 1775 titled Taxation no Tyranny defined conservative governance and is the best guide to what conservatism should be. Today's American conservatism is far from what conservatism is supposed to be it gives all the evidence needed to understand Trump and today's GOP to letting us understand where and why conservatism is destroying what was the greatest nation on Earth.
4
I rarely agree with Russ Douthat, but not this time. The anonymous Administration official is violating the trust of the American Democracy by working within the Administration to thwart Trump. He or she is violating the oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution. Or in a simpler manner he or she wants to appear to be anti-Trump but also wants the power of being part of the Trump Administration. If this person was really a brave American, he or she would resign and appear publicly.
6
Yes, the two POVs can be harmonized. If this presidency has done anything its pointed out how little attention we the people, and our elected employees have payed to the consistent creep of unfettering the Executive branch from the very checks and balances that the other branches have by intent or apathy abdicated. The absolute abuse of Executive Orders. The Justice Dept previous Admin work to undermine the rule of law, and any number of treaties and contracts we have signed with other nations, re; torture and illegal extraditions, trade,military support,etc. Congress has nearly handed over all the power to go to "war" to POTUS.
And those are but a few of the places where we've been asleep at the wheel.
We the people, thru our elected employees need to take a cool, hard look at how this presidency has pointed out all the leaks in the good ship USA. But not to rush into legislation in order to corral this Chaos Commander in Chief alone, but to pull back on the reins that have been loosened over the last few presidencies. To where he/she must go to Congress in order to wage war, be it declared or these absurd incursions we keep getting wrapped up in. We need more restraint to using our military.
We need more long term (serious)debate and legislating - and not the constant, in the moment, reactionary, force it thru before anyone can take a serious look - we have now.
We the people need to restore the balances. Its time.
5
This isn't about populism or what the voters want. Far from it - it's about getting tax cuts and deregulation. The populism stuff is just to sucker the rubes.
The party of Ronald Reagan would support Bonzo in the White House so long as he managed to sign whatever they put in front of him.
13
Trump did not win the popular vote. The GOP machine malign Mrs. Clinton for years. The Russians sent out false emails against her. Trump paid a porn star to keep quiet. He has not fulfilled his campaign promises. Instead of draining the swamp, he has created a cesspool with his cabinet and advisors. Where is his health plan, and his infrastructure plan? His separation of immigrant children from their parents show his worse trait. He lacks any sense of morality.
His personality disorders need a psychiatric evaluation. His constant lies and infantile behavior cause much worry. Congress is no check on this president. McConnell, Ryan and the rest of the GOP have made a pact with the devil. Therefore it is necessary for the people who work directly with Trump to warn us of his behavior and actions. Trump occupies the most powerful office in the world. The Electorial College was created to prevent such an individual from becoming our chief executive. It failed.
8
It comes down to this: Trump is a freak, as in monster. Of course we have to put tabs on him. And the "we" includes normal Republicans.
1
I agree that the situation is impossible. It’s madness that people working for the most powerful man on the planet are subverting him. It’s madness that the most powerful man on the planet can be subverted by someone merely plucking a letter off his desk. It’s madness that the most powerful man on the planet is so consummately unfit for that role, that it would be madness NOT to subvert him.
I’ve always felt that Trump was an existential threat to our country. Where do we go from here? If this utterly moronic, mentally unstable fool can be elected president, our political framework is clearly broken.
This is the inherent flaw in the office of the presidency, our election process and our form of government. We should transition to a parliamentary system, with a prime minister who is elected by popular vote, and can be ousted by a vote of no confidence.
2
If I had a mentally confused son who was acting the way he has over the course of the past two years, I’d have stopped talking to him, advised him to see a doctor, kicked him out of my house, called the cops and cut him out of my will a long time ago.
Unless I was a Republican.
In which case I would do nothing,
11
In which case I would be a coward and do nothing.
3
Let’s dispense with the “will of the voters” myth. It was the electoral college that vomited up this disease. Thank you.
27
For the rustics who voted this Republican kakocracy in the office this "insider job" might look treasonous, but then again the Law of Diminished Returns will not fail to take a bite of their well being, at the reckoning! In the mean time all functioning Americans should think twice about skipping the November vote if they don't want to see this charade happening ever again!
1
The salient facts here are that an iuknown Trump insider colluded with the TImes by criticizing Trump with statements that had been made a million times before. Most of us are done with this. But the Times has rehashed this sill publicity stunt so many times that you’d think they got Deep Throat in action.reglar TImes readers worry that the newspaper isn’t listening when we shout out that we don’t care.
2
Now, we dwell in waste. A waste of time, the waste of energy, the waste of intellect as here with the thoughtful words of Douthat - such a brain; twisted to unravel the insanity of this evil man, our unfit President and the more twisted actions of those around him. Who would ever believe that our founders failed to write a method of ouster, clear and simple, when such obvious/blatant wrongs swirl amongst the lies to cover, every single day. Instead, we live with ruin. If only we could call the little white truck and some calm EMS people to bring a straight jacket.
3
You can't honestly discuss this issue without addressing the unforgivable, unpatriotic, vile, vulgar "enemy of the people" statements emitting from the foulness. I fail to see a single reference to that in this essay which renders it mostly or completely irrelevant.
1
In a strange way, the self-appointed shadow government might be doing the people on Trump's "enemies list" a favor.
It's not the "lying" media that's obstructing Trump. It's not the "deep state" of intelligence agencies and the FBI who are thwarting Trump. It is, in fact, the people he himself selected for the administration. He has brought this upon himself. Ironically, even though he chose these people for the mission of dismantling the government.
Of course, Trump can't fly off to rallies in the Mid-West and harangue his real enemies, can he. Because doing that would be to tacitly admit that Trump is exactly what people say he is: Stupid, ignorant, incompetent. To admit that he's been played. To admit that he, Trump, is the ultimate loser.
2
The voters struggled to effect reform of a government dominated by corporations and billionaires. They were misguided by an effective brainwashing operation put in place years ago. A few demented Oligarchs are running the GOP, Congress, and most State Legislatures.
Trump is a pimple, not the problem.
7
Trump is a lame duck and a pariah less than two years into his Presidency. He has a base of approximately 60M in a Country of over 300M. So far, this is playing out exactly as most of us thought it would. If the Democrats can motivate voters, and more importantly put up a realistic and admirable candidate, unlike the last one--a supremely qualified but toxic Hillary, this all just becomes a trivia question in 100 years. End of story.
5
The country is on the brink of disaster with a mad president in charge. Whatever it takes to stop him is just fine with me.
6
Douthat tries to have it both ways. Secondly saying the American voters elected him is bun, 46% did and he won according to the rules...Lincoln got only 40% and he won the Electoral College. He is President but this does not justify who he is as an human being - there is something serious wrong with this man emotionally, mentally and morally. He is not insane, but he is amoral, a malignant
narcissist, possibly a borderline psychotic, a man of extreme tangential thinking, unsavory, without scruples, and a chip of the old block who taught him truth and facts are for fools. He is ignorant, willful, full of himself and is brazen carnival barker. He has to be contained because he endanger us all everyday. Our Constitution did not envision having such a person as president, so our mechanisms of control and removal are sadly defective. The American voters will decide if they have had enough of him before his term ends or his self-indulgence removes him by natural means.
8
A couple things. Didn't Trump tell us he would only use "the very best people" to populate his White House? The Trump team are all hand picked by our dear leader. If those people don't measure up then it is up for Trump to employ the catch phrase that made him famous: "You're fired!".
As far as Trump's bleating that Anonymous is "Gutless" because he/she refuses to put their name on the op-ed, what does that then say about Trump himself? For decades hiding behind a series of AKA's like David Dennison, John Miller, or John Barron.
Doesn't the fact that Trump routinely uses a false name (David Dennison) on legally binding non-disclosure contracts make him just as gutless as Anonymous?
5
The most enlightening part of this column is its confirmation that conservative think tanks have now officially turned their considerable talents at creating dog whistles to rebrand white supremacy, xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism as "populism". States rights, religious freedom, pro-life, and now populism. Got it.
8
Trump lied and cheated his way to the Presidency. He is an accomplished liar. The GOP is absolutely complicit in this farce called the Trump administration. The GOP did not have to accept the corrupt Donald J. Trump as a candidate. Trump lost the popular vote, though he claims he was cheated by "millions of illegal voters." Trump and his team picked anonymous for his administration. His rule-by-chaos management methods are why this administration impulsively announces a bone-headed policy or program, see Muslim travel ban, and then walks it back within days. Many people are pointing to the abnormal methods of resistance within the White House and shouting, "But the norms, the constitution, Lock her up!" Trump is not an intelligent man and wields way too much power for his and our own good. Thank God, someone is trying to thwart him in crazytown.
To paraphrase T.S. Elliot:
He is a tattered suit on a fat stick.
2
The problem is that Trump is an outlier.
He's a con man, a liar, mentally incompetent, unable to execute a strategy, and clearly beholden to the Russians. Republicans should not even have accepted him as a candidate, but they decided to make a deal with the devil.
If he is that incompetent and corrupt, that news should be made public from as many firsthand sources as possible and he should be removed from office—period.
Republicans are too cowardly, and too in love with "winning," to do the right thing.
5
The actions of The Resistance within the White House should be guided by a sense of what is reasonable. It is perfectly reasonable for the President to make bad decisions based on ideology and real data. It is not reasonable for the President to make bad decisions based on fantasy, conspiracy theories, easily proven lies, hunches and other "information" that the current President seems to adopt in making, or advocating for, policy decisions. The Resistance should actively resist all of that which is unreasonable within the current administration. There is too much at stake to fail to resist.
4
One facet of this circus that is being overlooked is the President’s “fitness “ to serve in this capacity. It would appear (to anyone with even a modicum of medical training) that this man is a narcissistic sociopath who must demean others to indulge his own fragile ego. Couple this with his paranoia and his political position as one of the most powerful people on the planet, and we are in deeply dangerous times.
It is clearly the responsibility of Congress to assess the risks and protect our nation from the excesses and abuses of this President. Unfortunately, they appear to have abrogated their oath to uphold the Constitution.
3
Douthat quotes as follows: “this adviser’s side arguably lost the popular debate.”
That's just the thing. Trump "won" despite losing by 3 million votes. It's hard to argue, then, that the op-ed writer's side lost the popular debate.
4
Because thwarting Donald Trump is thwarting Julian Assange, James Comey, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin it is the ultimate act of patriotism by Americans who support preserving , protecting and defending the Constitution of our divided limited power constitutional republic of united states where the people are sovereign.
Suppose that, as a citizen--that is, as a voting constituent--I say, "...yes to prudent resistance to rash behavior, no to ideological resistance to populist policy..." [op cit]
Then, I suppose that logically:
1. I am in favor of, "hog-tying that irascible tyrant in the Oval Office!" [my caption].
2. But still not willing to impeach him, "just because I think he's pushing the whole country right off a cliff!" [my caption]
—
That, is a very tall order.
Maybe it's time for those with more knowledge and experience to review for us and explain to us the foundations of liberal democracy [remember Hobbs, Locke and Rousseau?]
--
I’ve been told that we've been here before.
Presidents Rosevelt [TR] and Jackson for example, were both populists and were reputably, “irascible” in their own right. Indeed, they were famous for it. So in a sense, Trump is not an aberration.
But that's as far as I can go. It's time I think, for the big thinkers to step in and continue this discussion.
--
In the mean time, thanks to all responsible commentators in our liberal and conservative media, for broaching this important topic.
—
More, later?
2
Regarding Operation "Extreme Babysitting"
I suppose we can be thankful that there are still a few adults left in the White House but these adults show the same lack of courage, principles, and judgment as the rest of the Republicans in Washington.
Nazi's are comforted as fine people, and NFL players taking a knee are demonized. Not a single resignation. The FBI and DOJ are attacked on a daily basis and no lines are drawn. The Constitution is under attack by an authoritarian with no respect for the rule of law and all of the "adults" can't seem to remember their oath of office.
Even on the policy front, Anonymous and the internal "resistance" seems to be suffering from delusions of effectiveness.
U.S.-South Korean trade compact remains in place but we are in multiple trade wars executed on a whim while Congress turns the other way. The Assad regime survives but the Post World War II order that has kept democracies safe is in tatters as Trump insults allies and praises murderous dictators. But it was all worth it to blow up the deficit on behalf of the 1%.
The primarily internal resistance to Trumpian madness should be coming from Congress. Says so right in the Constitution. G.O.P. "patriots" should not be writing anonymous op-eds, they should be holding hearings. Instead they are actively complicit.
This Country can be saved by an honest Congress and a responsible electorate. The G.O.P. does not deserve to be.
2
Because of Trump's continuing odd anti-social behaviors in both domestic and foreign affairs, this isn't about honoring the outcome of an election. It's not about (as Mick Mulvaney has recently been saying) hating Trump. It's about love of country and wanting to see it survive. That requires competent leadership and respect for institutional norms. It requires checks and balances to avoid imperial leaders. The president's behavior is exceptionally bizarre. The "best people" he chose for his campaign and his cabinet have frequently turned out to be self-interested and incompetent...like their boss. This country needs to get past the personalities and take action designed for institutional survival. Otherwise when the president says, for example, something like the author of the anonymous op-ed should be "turned over to the government," some jack-booted thugs will make it their mission to do just that. We are not that far removed from that quality of government.
1
The fact that trump just says things and no one believes him( even his supporters excuse the lies), is an unnerving reality. Nobody knows if any of his proclamations will be executed. Effectively we have no leader. We have a brawler and whiner. He provides no succor in times of national tragedy, he participates in fewof the presidential rituals or ceremonies. Now we learn that a secret group of officials decides what happens. So NYT why are still publishing his tweets? Why do his nasty and garbled swipes and insults pollute our brains every day? Clearly he’s not the chief executive or the commander in Chief.
1
I found the anonymous op-ed to be sort of a “Never Trump” declaration by someone trying to assure moderate and establishment Republicans that The GOP establishment is really running the country and not the incompetent fraud orange man. The fact that the Woodward book broke into the news, and we are just eight weeks from the election, means that this anonymous op-ed was strategically dropped to stop the bleeding of moderate and independent leaning Republicans reassuring them that Trump would just be a figurehead, and behind the scenes the traditional GOP would run things, and not Trump and his band of frauds, grifters and incompetents. The GOP underestimated Trump, yet again, as he has damaged world trade, tried to blow up NATO, and kidnapped 2000 children.
6
Ross, this is the price we are all paying for not questioning and/or challenging the outcome of an election that was clearly decided by an endless stream of disinformation.
The sources are immaterial Ross, since the Russians fed off our disinformation machine in order to make their disinformation campaign even more destabilizing.
That is the real crisis Ross.
We have now lost sight of what is truth and what is a lie within our political system.
Furthermore, I do not care about the motives of this oped writer and how he or she is casting themselves. It is of no consequence to me and should be of even less consequence to you Ross.
They can tell themselves anything they like, but it will still read more like a coup within a coup and/or an ever evolving and profoundly corrupt autocracy making excuses for itself.
After all, this autocracy is using policy as an excuse and these policies have already been bailed out three times by the federal government in the last 30 years.
So based on that kind of corrupt metric, what is another bailout among autocratic friends Ross?
Until we openly deal with the corrupt impact of this election, resentment on all sides will continue to build to such a degree that the only outlet left is mass violence and if that happens, can martial law be far behind?
Lastly, by legitimizing the election in the way we have, it is beginning to prove that we could be better off as two separate countries, rather than being a singular dysfunctional one.
Is Douthat living in an alternate universe in which some mythical country actually elected Donald Trump? His election was rigged and illegitimate. There was no mandate that formed an absolute policy direction. The man himself has no real policy standards. No one voted for a jumble of ignorant opinions from a petty, third-rate businessman.
5
Democratic? Anti-democratic? Between them, Clinton and Trump left over 40% of eligible voters on the sidelines. Of the voters, Clinton won nearly 3 million more than Trump. Insofar as Trump's inauguration crowd was the biggest ever; that some 3-5 million people voted illegally; and that he knows more about ISIS than the generals, it is surely undemocratic to thwart his idiocies. I wish Douthat and many others would give up this nonsense about Trump being elected by the American People, He was elected by the ghosts of slave owners and their genetic and moral heirs.
3
I actually agree with Ross about the difference between, for example, Trump doing something stupid with Russia, or sending troops in on ill advised missions, or other things with horrible consequences, and another to not implement policies that don't fit the GOP Ayn Rand "the rich deserve everything" stuff or the tariffs and trade war they hate.
That said, though, we also have to be very careful about throwing around "will of the people' as if the country was founded to implement the will of the people. The very thing that got Trump elected, the idiocy that is the Electoral College, was designed to thwart the will of the people and stop the election of someone like a Trump, a demagogue. The government was set up to thwart doing things rashly, government is supposed to operate slowly, so that the 'passions of the people ' (mob violence, in John Adams words) don't become quick policy and lead to disaster. With Trump doing so much without the check and balance of congress, operating on whim, that principal is being thwarted and we have an impulsive,reactive president acting quickly and irrationally it seems..with no check and balance. So while what the resisters are doing is "undemocratic", it is most definitely within the spirit of the founders, in that they have created a check and balance against rash action, one not mentioned in the consitutition, but like Trumps actions themselves, not disallowed either.
1
Democracy is the greatest school we Americans have, in that it lets us live with our mistakes, learn from the past, or suffer in agony for decades.
We elected a minority President, the second incompetent President in a row that the Republicans shoehorned into office with a minority of the votes. He has done his task, looted the treasury as the Republican rich wanted, and he has weakened our alliances, as his financial mentor Putin wanted.
So now he will probably be dumped from office, so that the super rich can chortle in their Hampton second homes, secure in the massive bank accounts and low taxes.
There is no such thing as a good Republican.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
This writer makes a flawed presumption --which is Trump's average voter knows something about trade or international finance. This arguments for fulfilling such campaign promises are lame. Guns, walls, abortion and gay marriage are Trump's supporter's main issues. Simple issues that they can sink their teeth into--issues that foment self righteous indignation and cherry picked 'Christian' values.
Whatever-- should we be subjected to a destructive administration because a flawed electoral system inflicted a man upon us who is woefully unfit for the job?
Where are our statesmen? Where is Congress to protect the nation against a president who has displayed a willful animosity towards our institutions of law and order--a preference for foreign dictators, and a stubborn reluctance to confront Russia's despot, Putin? A pretender who is no more than a snake oil huckster who tears down our national values on a daily basis.
4
Whether we approve or dis-approve of internal resistance, the fact is that this particular president is uniquely vulnerable to these sorts of tactics. A normal president wouldn't forget that he needed to sign something as important as the nullification of a trade treaty with another country. A normal president would know how many troops the US has stationed in S. Korea and why they are there. These are basic functions that even a simpleton like Trump can't seem to handle. The fact that the resistance is successful at all is yet another testament to Trump's utter incompetence.
1
I agree that Anonymous Resister mixes issues of ideology and temperament. His warning call would have been stronger had it focused only on Trump’s unhinged temperament. And Woodward’s book would have been better titled “Crazytown.”
1
A question to all those who support the writer's actions.
If it had been revealed that a senior administration official in the Obama administration had been part of an internal coup to prevent him from carrying out his policies, how would you have reacted?
I suspect that it would not have been to applaud his courage to be true to his beliefs.
1
Ross Douthat, along with Nikki Haley and Kevin McCarthy, decry the efforts of people --people Trump himself chose to work in his administration-- that these apologists and sycophants consider subversive. Yet, not one of them present any meaningful argument, much less evidence, that undercuts the descriptions of Trump's behavior--by the anonymous op-ed writer, by Bob Woodward & by Omarosa Manigault--that demonstrates clearly his unfitness for office.
3
..so Ross, you have opined many times against the "cafeteria" Catholics who pick and choose which of the church's edicts they wish to follow in accord with their own conscience...
.....yet you, as a conservative Republican, are espousing that "cafeteria" Conservatives are free to pick and choose which of the President's orders, whims and commands they wish to faithfully follow according to their conscience and judgement.
Can anyone detect the obvious double standard?
How about you, Father Douthat?
The bottom line is that Trump has no idea what the Federal Government he's in charge of is doing or not doing.Trump knew next to nothing about government to begin with, underscored by his flawed notion it's like a business that a mediocre real estate developer can easily manage while tweeting, indulging his apoplexy, along with cheeseburgers, Fox & Friends, chocolate cake and petty feuds with everyone who isn't in his amen choir.
Unfortunately the evidence ignored by those who support him is his abysmal track record as the CEO of his own company, accountable to no one but himself and bankruptcy court.
All evidence points to a critical mass of his acolytes who support him for no reason other than liking the character he plays, a tough talking playboy billionaire who defies convention and legitimates racial hate.
They didn't vote for him because of specific policies or an agenda. He promised to "drain the swamp," kill Obamacare, kick non-whites out of the country, restore industrial jobs, and bully other nations into trade agreements that advantage America. Tax cuts and hijacking the Supreme Court were Ryan's and McConnell's baby.
His "mandate" consists of punchlines that garnered the loudest reactions at his political creep shows. Disingenuous to suggest his core voters were thwarted.
Trump collects trophies that reflect his imagined magnificence. His biggest trophy is the White House, where inmates now run the asylum, except they call it Crazytown.
2
I live in Quebec , I am 70 years old and I( can tell you why Trump.
I was born in the most conservative place in North America.
We payed the lowest taxes we had the weakest government and we functioned like all feudal societies with a small middle class and the churches ran health education and welfare. We had illiteracy and little social mobility but the 1960s gave us a revolution.
While we had conservatism you had liberalism and high taxes that built roads highways, schools airports and infrastructure you paid a top income tax of 90% and built the towns villages and communities where you slept. In 1964 your GOP had a revolution and your society rejected liberalism
Today we are upwardly mobile and our population is healthy and optimistic and you have Donald Trump and await the apocalypse.
Conservatism is a cancer and has been a cancer in the our time. My only fear is that it may be too late with too many selfish would be autocrats and oligarchs in control. Even those you call liberals like Hilary are conservative in today's world Bernie Sanders is the closest thing you have to a liberal and conservatism is eating you up alive.
5
Let's not forget that the US Constitution permits the loser of the popular vote to still become President. I would argue that Mr Trump doesn't have the unfettered right to do as he wishes because he really wasn't their choice.
1
"When such a debate is fought and lost, The Federalist’s Ben Domenech wrote, the losers “should want the voters to reap the benefits of their bad (from their perspective) decisions: oh, so you want a trade war? Let’s do that then, and you’ll pay the price.” "
That's crazy talk. Everybody pays the price, not just Trump's voters.
You want to stand back and let everything burn to the ground just to have the satisfaction of being proven right? Does that reasoning apply to terminal issues like climate change or nuclear war as well? The left should be rooting for the end of the world in order to deliver the world's biggest told-you-so?
We all know the right would just keep on doubling down on denial anyway, right to their very last breath.
1
It just shows what happens when a man who is temperamentally unfit, ignorant about governing, exhibits racist tendencies, doesn't value the rule of law, and has extreme policy positions that aren't based on fact, shared values and anything resembling rigorous testing is president. What do you expect to happen?!
Suggesting that these aides are executing traditional republican/conversative economic policies behind Trump's back is to suggest that Trump has a policy alternative. His 'populism' is pure rhetoric; catnip for his base. There is no alternative populist agenda to promote. He could care less.
What's important is to keep the reality show going and getting 'great ratings'.
The one shining populist initiative has been tariffs and all that they have shown is how many industries, and therefore workers will be hurt by them.
1
Mr. Douthat:
When Mitch McConnell led the Republicans in Congress in a coup against Pres Obama by refusing to work with him in any way, did you write a column at that time speaking out against the fact that they were "thwarting the will of the voters?"
When Mitch McConnell led the Republicans to refuse to even consider Pres Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, did you speak out against them thwarting the voters?
When John McCain declared that if Hillarty Clinton won, he would lead the Republicans to refuse to accept any person she nominated to the Supreme Court, did you speak out against his call to thwart the will of voters?
If you didn't speak out then, then you're nothing more than a hypocrite.
9
Everyone's making this far too complicated. Here's what actually happened. We have a president who told a truckload of lies to get elected. He then turned around and did the opposite of what he promised, save for a few minor deeds that got him headlines. So, who's subverting the will of the voters? That man's name is Donald Trump. More importantly, do you think this sort of subversion would have worked on Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton? No, of course not. But why? Because they are both serious people who are prepared, who dig deep into each issue, who work late hours so they can be well informed, who follow through to the best of their abilities. Conversely, Donald Trump wants bullet points, because, you know, he has a brilliant mind. So brilliant, in fact, that he has been easily duped by his own aides. The people who voted for Donald Trump have gotten exactly what they voted for. You only have yourselves to blame.
5
Douthat's premise boils down to "is it justified resistance to a dangerously unfit leader, or is it insubordination?" His answer is "both." He is wrong, because it is neither. Anonymous himself makes it clear that the resistance is selective and intended to keep Trump from completely self-destructing in order to preserve his presidency. The reality is that aides to powerful people covertly disobey and divert their bosses all the time, for a mix of motives. That's all this is.
Anonymous makes no mention of Trump's blatant financial corruption or of his campaign and inner circle being shot-through with foreign agents and crooks, of his constant lying, or of his public pursuit of bizarre personal vendettas, of his patent contempt for the law or his palpable hatred of non-white people. All he cares about is one portion of Trump's policy agenda and making sure Trump doesn't torpedo that. Casting this as resistance is self-serving gaslighting of people like Douthat.
2
“Brendan Dougherty pointed out, and “this adviser’s side arguably lost the popular debate.” When such a debate is fought and lost, The Federalist’s Ben Domenech wrote, the losers “should want the voters to reap the benefits of their bad (from their perspective) decisions...” Trump lost the “popular debate” by over 3 million. This argument hinges on a fraud. Trump does not have a mandate and never had a mandate. Democrats said little when Republicans falsely attracted Obama based on lies about his nationality and religion (and his race-whispered). It is time for Democrats to capitalize on Trump’s popular illegitimacy. The American people did not elect Trump.
“President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election?” which didn’t show up in the original transcript, now appears alongside his second question: “And did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?” Putin replied: “Yes, yes I did” should set any conservatives hair on fire. I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that meddling took place,” Trump told reporters in brief remarks before a meeting with members of Congress. Yet he immediately contradicted both his own statement and that community’s findings, saying, “Could have been other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.” ‘I think it is Russia.’ I have President Putin, he just said it is not Russia. I will say this—I do not see any reason why it would be.”
Are there really two sides to this catastrophe? Does Douthat trust Trump.
2
The idea that one can simply destroy an industry with random tariffs (like autos), and all the voters should just accept it until the next election is ridiculous.
Imagine if a member of a party got into office and just put massive tarrifs, fees and costs, on say, financial transactions and it had a major impact on NYC, diriving it into recession and losing hundreds of thousands of jobs, including massive layoffs of NYT opinion page writers. Or if they just massively disrupted the livlihood of farmers and set in motion economic dislocation in rural red states.
Would everyone be sanguine and counsel we should "just wait until the next election" and you can vote again.
As Obama pointed out this has been the Republican way for years, having abandoned process and refused to co-operate on anything, all the while lying or manipulating to achive narrow policy goals.
The inablilty to discern this is intellectually dishonest.
6
Your premise that Trump's agenda won him the White House, and thus should be honored rather than thwarted, ignores the equally important role played by his supporters' personal antipathy toward Hillary Clinton. Had he not had an opponent cast as the Devil incarnate for decades by so many voices on the Right, he would not be President today.
2
The anonymous resistance writer does clarify many key questions about the Trump phenomenon. Donald Trump is not in charge of his own administration. He has no idea who is an an ally or enemy to his wishes. He has assembled a group of disloyal liars and self-servers who love their power and their reputations and will risk the destruction of the nation to see policies they like enacted by a dangerous person. If they believe they are somehow patriots or heroes, they are lying to themselves to justify the unjustifiable. Those in Congress and the nation who follow Trump have long ago decided following this person, rather than a party or ideology is their final choice. They are not populists or anything ideological; they just follow this man. There isn’t another Trump in the wings waiting to be adored. For whatever might be said about his deficiencies, Trump is unique. Trump, like Chauncey Gardner, the challenged main character of “Being There”, has risen to the heights of power because people want to be validated, not for any ideology. Trump is sadly that person many Americans want to be; loud, crude, amoral, a fraud and to be able get away with it.
2
The overt celebration erupting from those on the left and the more subdued but no less despicable response from never Trumpers on the right over the actions of a sanctimonious conspirator in the “resistance” to our president is revealing. Revealing in the sense that it proves unequivocally that the “deep state” not only exists but in exposing the subversive tactics it is willing to employ in order to undermine the policies of a dully elected president.
Lost in the echo chamber of hysterical anti-trump ranting emanating from inside the beltway is the quiet acknowledgment by Trump supporters across the country that Washington DC is a swamp more expansive and sinister than they ever imagined. It is inhabited by an incestuous cabal of creatures inside and outside of government that are determined to maintain their self serving power, no matter the cost to our constitutional Republic or the well being of ordinary Americans.
Ross, working for a boss like Trump is 24/7 gray area---I worked for a short time for a boss with alcohol issues---exhibiting on a daily basis Trump like behaviors---First, everyday these were my choices; should I prevent an organizational disaster; should I frustrate company goals; should I preserve my career path which each day was becoming a victim of too much Vodka. The entire period working for this man was exhausting, just plain exhausting--- e.g. look at Sarah H. Sanders.
1
I think that internal resisters in the WH believe that Trump was elected by people who didn't care about his policies but loved the fact that he gave the finger to the "elites" and dog-whistled racism. Following that logic, they figure Trump has no real "mandate" for his trade policies, rapprochement with Russia, or any of the other "misguided populist ideas" you mention. In the public interest, these internal resisters therefore feel comfortable subverting the President's will.
But I think that's as far as they'll go because, like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, they understand that their base is Trump's base. As long as the crowds are wearing MAGA hats, the internal resisters figure the smart play is to keep their objections to themselves and their protests anonymous. Better to be a spineless hypocrite than unemployed, right?
1
how much did McConnell thwart the voters by denying a duly elective president (twice) his right to nominate a SC justice?
was that okay?
1
It's telling that Douthat decides there are two kinds of internal White House resistance, and one is justified. Douthat finds that Mattis engaged in "admirable...internal resistance," while others did not. In reality, all of Trump's cohorts are depraved. Mattis, like all the rest of them, joined and remained in this authoritarian administration for a reason, and it wasn't to stop Trump. Republicans understood that Trump was the golden ticket they dreamed of. He's given them everything they always wanted, things they could never get because American democracy, and pesky things like the Constitution, prevented it. All serving Trump had a choice, invoke the 25th Amendment and save the Republic, or enable Trump and get what they wanted. They chose the latter. Trump is an amoral despot, but Conservatives are equally amoral. They made a cynical cost-benefit analysis. The benefits received from Trump are Deregulation, meaning destruction of the environment, clean air, and the social safety net; Tax Reform, meaning payouts to billionaire Republican donors with money stolen from working Americans; and the imposition of Christian Religious Law in violation of the Establishment Clause. Mattis got what he wanted too, all the money he's ever dreamed of for the Military Industrial Complex despite knowing that it is "a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." These were the benefits; so what were the costs? American Democracy and the Rule of Law.
1
Bottom line here imo, Obama said it best and I will paraphrase him.
It should not be left up to some anon. vigilante in the WH to reign in the most dangerous things Trump does, it should be the elected members of Congress, especially the Republicans.
The anon. vigilante(es) may be doing some good but they also may be trying to run the gov't although they are not elected or worse do something illegal like Trump is doing.
2
Essentially your piece proves the point of the op ed piece and the sum of all our fears, we have someone who cannot make a reasonable, educated decision because he is unfit, and disastrously unqualified.
America, and the rest of the global community, cannot live in constant fear about what Trump will do in his mood of the moment. He does not think. He does not think of others. He thinks of Trump only and Trump is a frustrated, angry man who hates. He feeds his hate all day long.
We cannot have people from within stepping up to keep us all safe, we need to get Trump out of this job and replaced by someone who is fit and qualified and not a hater or a destroyer of our democracy. That is the punch line of the op ed piece and the resistance to Trump.
1
I guess I'm the lone voice in the woods here. I consider the writer of the op ed and his/her colleagues- patriots of a sort. Now, I'm sure no one will agree with me. When Donald Trump was elected I told my brother I expected this country to be in a war within two years. I still firmly believe Donald Trump is that dangerous because he simply does not have the skills, intelligence nor temperament needed for the job. So, whatever it takes to control an individual as ill-suited as Donald Trump, it works for me. I wish anonymous well and thank them for their service to the country. As I said, I doubt anyone will agree with me. I remember another presidency prior to Obama's when someone else ran the show instead of W.
“A few weeks ago Dick Cheney said he thinks I’m the worst president of his lifetime, which is interesting, because I think Dick Cheney is the worst president of my lifetime,”
Remember?
2
The Trump Administration's agenda is not populist at all. It is tyranny of the worst sort. The anonymous essay did not do anything to ease my mind that these people are acting in the best interests of this Country, only to preserve their own agenda.
Trump cannot be contained. When are these people going to realize this?
The only reason that they pretend to care about the country is that they lose their power, if Trump is not President.
This is just more selfish and corrupt behavior by those who surround Trump . It is an "everyman for himself" Administration.
Let's call it the way it is.
4
Are we really debating when a president should or should not be restrained? This is insanity!
I listened again and again to Trump’s cabinet and top officials deny they had written the Times op-ed. But not one of them categorically denied the truth of the assertions. Not one of them pointed out a situation where Trump was the coolest head in the room. Not one of them talked about situations where Trump showed evidence of being the most informed or most thoughtful or, God forbid, most intelligent person on the team.
Not one of them praised Trump’s leadership in concrete terms.
We have elected a reality TV president whose major source of information is “the Sunday shows” and Fox News. We have chosen an unprincipled man who does not read books, who does not have a coherent program beyond the slogans his base approves, and who appears to be an adulterer.
But the rich got their tax cuts, and the Christian Taliban got their Supreme Court Justice. “ For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?”
I pray that America begins to regain its soul in November.
1
It's really simple: if Trump is incompetent, he should be removed. If he were competent, Anonymous and his colleagues would need to or be able to thwart his agenda.
The GOP and Anonymous are sticking with a manifestly incompetent Trump because they are willing to risk the country in the hands of a bozo for personal gain --- continued support of donors and voters, ramming through an agenda rejected by voters in the primary, and the follow-on jobs.
I can only hope this catastrophe destroys the Republican party before it and Trump finish destroying America.
1
Hopefully there will be some who were on the fence when they voted for Trump and admit they made a mistake.
Generally though as for the Trump supporters and why did they cross the road? Because Donald Trump told them to.
Blatant hypocrisy. Douthat denounces a liberal pope and lauds the conservative cardinals who thwart his agenda, but cannot understand a patriot who places loyalty to the Constitution and nation above fealty to a would-be tinpot authoritarian.
Resignation is not the only honorable course for our anonymous author. It is more honorable to swallow public vilification and stay the tyrant's hand from the nuclear trigger and other irreversible catastrophes.
4
I agree with Douthat on this -- the first time as far as I can remember. Trump may be an ignorant, immature man, but people like both his policies and his tantrums. As far, though, as the staff undermining his administration, that would not be possible if he had any idea at all what he was doing. I cannot imagine this sort of "resistance" in the Obama or Bush/Chaney administrations.
1
The internal opposition in Trumpian White House or moles and saboteurs, depending on one's point of view, could either try a coup d'état or something more acceptable constitutionally. Ignore Trump, let him wander like the Ghost in Hamlet in the halls of White House, twit his inanities, but do not let him run the country.
This may bring about a nice constitutional crisis, population's uproar, and eventual Congressional action.
The problem with Douthat's analysis is that he assumes that The People elected a president to follow a particular agenda, misguided though it might be. If that were true then there is a strong argument that The People's will must be obeyed. But did his voters really want a trade war with China? Do they want to pay for the famous wall? Trump was supposed to make all these great deals with other countries and make Mexico pay for the wall. Trump said he would replace Obamacare on the first day of his administration with something so much better and cheaper.
The fact is that Trump had and has no agenda beyond vague promises that he could not keep if he tried. No one can frustrate a non-existent agenda.
1
I agree. trump is not the only lunatic in politics and anonymous did not give me any relief. Anonymous seemed to basically like the policies and appointments that are happening but seems to be concerned about how chaotic everything is. I couldn’t disagree more with the policies and the whole thing is an abomination as far as I am concerned. With that said, Trump is correct to complain regardless of how terrible he is. If I were president I would be apocalyptic if I saw this behavior. It is also true that this lunatic was elected using our current system. Ultimately if people are uncomfortable and are resisting from the inside then the most courageous thing to do would be to come out in public and vote against your own party. It is clear that these guys are on the wrong side of history. We have seen this stuff before and it ends up loosing out here in the United States. Bring it out into the open and make it not ok in public.
71
But what's ok or not ok? The president not only bears the standard but also sets the standard. And what is and has been his standard of behavior? Is lying ok, profuse lying that is? Obfuscation, disingenousness? Anonymous communications?
Is he not getting the Golden Rule treatment? That is, the cynical version of that: Treat others the way they treat you.
My take-away is that removing Trump from office will accomplish nothing. There are dozens of mini-Trumps, such as the anonymous columnist, in place who will keep things going. They claim to have prevented some really horrific policies and events. That's certainly good. But the steady din of babies being thrown in prison, cold wars against former allies, inaction on climate change ... will persist even without Trump.
1
But it’s Trump.
This is not a normal Presidency, it is uniquely dangerous for our nation and a threat to our national security stemming from the low character and erratic behavior of the worst President in American history.
1
Trump's mandate always was weak and it has made his legitimacy very shaky, apparently even within the White House.
Fewer than 78,000 voters put him in the White House while nearly 3 million voted against him. Claims thatf 'the voters' and 'democracy' are being thwarted are rather shaky as well since his is a detested minority government, not a broad mandate that a popular vote victory would convey.
It is hardly surprising that a such a loathed presidency would manifest in the Anonymous Op-Ed and a chaotic and disloyal WH.
Our great nation is threatened every day by what the GOP has become. We must vote them all out off office beginning this November.
1
Trump and his internal resisters all do not care about democracy or democratic values. They want to rule the country promoting their own political and moral values that are NOT shared by anything close to the majority of the American people.
This IS the sad current state of the American 'democracy'.
1
Where was all the valiant insider resistance when Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Powell lied about Iraq?
Their lies took us into an actual mass-casualty disaster, with hundreds of thousands killed, many more grievously wounded, and ISIS rising from the ashes. Not to mention the trillion$ spent on war and its aftermath.
I guess George W. Bush got a pass because he was the kind of man voters wanted to have a beer with. Even Hillary voted for his war. (But maybe she was burnishing her national security credentials so she could run for president, not thinking about the actual death and destruction to come.)
I'm disappointed that so many Americans are driven by their emotions (outrage against Trump, having a beer with W) and seem blind to actual risks and consequences.
1
The Op-ed asks us to consider how much faith we have in an underground coup, and to assure us it is safe to go to the polls a vote Republican because the anonymous adults in the room will protect us. Nothing to see here folks, just keep walking; pay no attention to the large loud man behind the curtain.
I not reassured. If the policy in place is the result of restrsint (!) then we need a longer look at invoking old number 25.
I don't see an upside to the White House Resistor's editorual. Now we just know that not only is Trump arrogant, but he is joined by other self important egoists who know what is good for us all.
Vote thus fall folks. Select the adults in the room yourself.
1
We only have to go back to Lyndon Johnson to see the same thing. At the end of his administration his SecDef was actively working against him and his Vietnam policies while saying he supported him. He admitted this years later.
1
Any resistance, internal or external, to this failed president is welcome news. Past presidents will never appear with him. In post-presidency history he will be reviled.
1
Three million voters were thwarted by the Electoral College, what about them? The majority of voting Americans did NOT choose this president. As to "duly elected" we can debate that as well, what with all the Russian interference. If the adults in the White House subvert this so-called "president" we should all thank our lucky stars...
1
Appearing to be crazy is a known strategy for keeping your adversaries off balance. They have to give you the benefit of the doubt before thwarting your desires or you might unleash some of that craziness on them.
For this strategy to work, you have to convince the world that you really are crazy. If they think it's an act, they'll act accordingly.
Is it working or is it true? Is Trump really unbalanced, or is he truly unstable? I'm convinced of the latter, but there's nothing I can do about it other than voting next November, contributing to the opposition, and writing these letters.
So here's another... maybe, just maybe, it will all work out, and America will carry on with minimal damage. Or maybe it won't. It's a crazy time for sure.
Ralphie,
You state that you see nothing "unstable" about Trump. You reflect about one-third of the electorate, which for we as a country is a god-send that the majority of adults in the country do not agree with your view.
It would be interesting to note exactly what you consider "unstable."
A thinking person considered stable would exhibit an adult's view of the world around oneself. He and she would reflect logical skepticism of life events, not paranoia; truth telling, not stunning pathological prevarication; respect for other beliefs even when ideologically opposed instead of boorish/childish insults.
Furthermore, one would expect a self-avowed Christian to have a semblance of walking the talk of Jesus instead of behaving like the various Herods, most deserving of his moniker as the Potentate of Hate.
1
The “anonymous” Op-Ed piece author has sparked a healthy debate about the facts, the issues surrounding Trump’s Administration - though the real issues at hand is the Republican Congress trying to protect, not the country, but their incumbency
By remaining anonymous we’re not distracted with destroying that individual/s. - Think of the mean names Trump has labeled at Jeff Sessions ( an awful individual in his own right). Bottom line: we know Trump is a disgrace, but the real issue is a Republican Congress that is allowing the erosion of the nation’s domestic and international values and interests
5
In a word, Hogwash. Mr. Douthat claims that 'voters' are being thwarted if resistance to Trump includes resistance to True Conservatism. Has he not read the opening column of today's Review? Does he not know that Trump lost the popular vote? Does he not recall the open admission by the Trump campaign of active voter surpression efforts, or the encouragement of Russian hacking against Clinton?
The will of the voter has indeed been thwarted, not by the internal resistance, but by systematic efforts of groups like ALEC and the Heritage Foundation. Shame on you, Ross.
4
Douthat claims two kinds of internal White House resistance exist, one being justified. In reality, none of Trump's cohorts actually resist him. Douthat finds that Mattis engages in "admirable...internal resistance," while some others do not. Mattis, like the rest of Trump's enablers, joined and remained in this authoritarian administration for a reason, and it wasn't to stop Trump. Republicans understood that Trump was the golden ticket they dreamed of. He's given them everything they always wanted, things they could never get because American democracy, and pesky things like the Constitution, prevented it. All serving Trump had a choice, invoke the 25th Amendment and save the Republic, or enable Trump and get what they wanted. They chose the latter. Trump is an amoral despot, but Conservatives are equally amoral. They made a cynical cost-benefit analysis. The benefits received from Trump are Deregulation, meaning destruction of the environment, clean air, and the social safety net; Tax Reform, meaning payouts to billionaire Republican donors with money stolen from working Americans; and the imposition of Christian Religious Law in violation of the Establishment Clause. Mattis got what he wanted too, all the money he's ever dreamed of for the Military Industrial Complex despite knowing that it is "a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." If these were the benefits, what were the costs? American Democracy and the Rule of Law.
2
Expecting those who work for Trump to make wise judgements about when and how to resist or sabotage his undertakings falls into the category of not-gonna-happen. If his people are going to help him---and us--they need to resist him to his face. If they can't do that they should quit and join the impeachment serenade.
It's going to be awhile before the "next Donald Trump". If there's one positive about this national nightmare it is the fact that we now have clear and convincing evidence of the craven, irrational, and despicable nature of the right wing in this country. Just as Pete Wilson drove the final nails into the coffin of the Republican party in California we have Trump to thank for doing so on the national level.
What is this "democratic election" of which you speak?
We don't have such a thing in the USA. We have a system which over-represents smaller and more rural populations which somehow gave us Trump.
If we had had a 'democratic election" Hillary Clinton would be President and none of this other garbage would trouble us.
I'm sure pizza parlors everywhere would be nervous, but that's about it.
2
Voters knew what they were getting when they elected Trump. They were voting against Washington, which they saw as having done little for them for a long time. They voted for a guy who would punch D.C. and the usual order in the nose. This is a fact the NY/California/Massachusetts/Seattle/San Francisco crowd does not seem to understand. His voters weren’t stupid—they knew exactly what they were doing. That’s why most of them, when polled, continue to support him no matter what he says or does. They wanted him to blow things up and he has done that.
I hate everything about Trump. But we have a consitution that talks about elections and says how the branches of government are supposed to work. If you don’t like what the president you work for is doing, you try to convince him otherwise. If you think he is doing illegal things, contact the people in government who can do something about that, including Robert Mueller. If you can’t stomach what he is doing, you quit—publicly stating the reasons, if you wish. But writing an an anonymous Op Ed about how you subvert the president from within—that is frightening no matter what your politics. In my view the Times never should have published this.
If someone in the Obama White House had done this, there would have been outrage on the Left. But now the precedent has been set (and even applauded by many) and so no one should be surprised if the same thing happens in a future Democratic administration.
1
I believe much too much is being made about this op-ed and the trump presidency is being over rationalized. First, I bet most of us have worked in a job where a new boss arrived who we just could not stomach. I bet many went out of their way to mess up his or her agender and make them look bad while feeling they were saving the company. I cant say if its right or wrong however I can see that trump would be impossible for me to support. Second, who really believes trumps policies got him elected? Sure a small number of people support racism and protectionism however I believe the real support was he was the anti Hillary. In two months we will see if the American people still think trump should get card blanch to do whatever he wants, I bet the answer will be NO!!
2
It's a dichotomy that if there is a requirement that there ''needs'' to be people around the President to reign him in, or keep him in check, then the President needs to be removed (25th/impeached) on that basis alone, versus, if there is a President that is so unhinged, then I want people there so he does not start Armageddon that destroys us all.
I prefer the former, instead of having a backstop for the latter, but what I would really like is for republicans (anyone ?) be a check on this President. (as remedied in the Constitution)
Supposedly, that is too tall an order to ask.
This entire issue, of the internal "resister," fits into a larger backdrop of the last 4 presidencies.
All 4-- Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump--have been full of extra-Constitutional attempts to use Signing Statements, Executive Orders, and War Powers to thwart the checks and balances of the Constitution, and to re-legislate or extra-legislate laws passed by the Congress.
In all 4, the Justice Department has become ideological contested territory in a way that's politicized the rule of law. For those that need reminders, google Waco, Ruby Ridge, Ashcroft's hospital bed/domestic surveillance program, enhanced interrogation techniques, Abu Ghraib, the unitary executive, fast and furious, etc.
During the Trump presidency, these extra-Constitutional uses of power have been joined to an attempt to push at other norms of governance, violating even parts of the Constitution that had come to be seen as vestigial like the emoluments clause.
And the Congress has become only a part of the executive branch. Passively and silently acquiescing to each violation of laws and norms with a reptilian oleaginous servility seen only in full blown dictatorships like Franco's Spain, or Pinochet's Chile.
The Presidency must be remade. It's vast powers further distributed, new checks/balances created and giving Congress new connections to it.
Disconnecting the Justice Dept from the Presidency would be a good way to start.
2
As I understood it, if a commander or superior gives you an immoral order, you have the moral obligation to disobey that order, even if that means imprisonment, the loss of your job, etc. If the president were to order the military to strike first at North Korea with a nuclear weapon, one could argue that this is an immoral order and disobey. The rub is that in order to do so effectively, one much disobey the order publicly with one's own name on the line.
Instead, what we have is some unnamed senior official disobeying orders but with all the cowardice of hoping to not lose his/her job in the process. This isn't morality at work, it's a true usurping of power from the president. And because this is happening at the highest level, it turns out that there isn't any "deep state" of dark operatives somewhere in the bowels of government following their own agenda but a shallow state of people who are Officers, as defined in the Constitution, or senior staff members working in the West Wing itself.
53
@Joel And in the middle of it all is Hurricane Donald, bringer of chaos.
How quaint. If a civil servant strongly disagrees with the President's ignominious actions he/she should speak up forthrightly and face being ignored, downgraded, fired. Or resign. Unless it's a really serious problem like nuclear war.
Follow orders and protect the institution at all costs --like the Catholic Church, Mr. Douthat?
The hard truth is there is a vast range of potentially harmful Trump actions and consequences. A vast range of resistance activities. A huge diversity in resistors, the impact and consequences of their going public, the damages to career and the consequences of being replaced by someone less ethically challenged when confronted with Trump's mind-numbing misrule.
Don't ask civil service employees to wave opposition pom-poms, put their jobs at risk or resign. Do ask them to do the right thing, ignore hierarchy and break with indefensible actions.
How many of us have confronted similar challenges in the workplace? --More power to the many who did the right thing including those who acted surreptitously and lived to fight another day.
The election of Trump by the Electoral College does not oblige civil servants to abdicate their integrity. Especially this election and with all we now know.
Otherwise we're liable to end up like the Catholic Church, Mr. Douthat...where vested interests have trumped evil for far too long...
Worth pointing out two things. Firstly, the Anonymous editorial writer him or herself conceded proudly that under Trump the nations's security and prosperity have both been greatly improved. Frankly, for me, that's performance enough. If our kids have a better shot at safety and a better life, that's success on the two biggest parameters that any President can be measured upon.
Secondly, if the writer really is a "senior" member of the Administration, then he/she likely will have taken a sworn oath to uphold the U. S. Constitution. It will still come as a surprise to some that the Constitution places President Trump (for better or worse) at the top of the Executive Branch. I personally think that admitting that you and a secretive cabal are actively and repeatedly attempting to subvert the duly elected President of the United States puts you squarely in violation of that sworn oath.
27
@Michael
>>>> Firstly, the Anonymous editorial writer him or herself conceded proudly that under Trump the nations's security and prosperity have both been greatly improved. Frankly, for me, that's performance enough.
It was enough for the Germans in the 1930s too.
1
The Trump regime came to power with a minority--not even a plurality--of the popular vote, due to irrational peculiarities of the American electoral system. In this context, the argument that internal White House "resistance" to Trump is subverting democracy makes little sense. Perhaps it can be argued that the so-called resistance is subverting the workings of the irrational American electoral system, but what does democracy mean here?
Does it make a difference to Mr. Douthat's argument that Trump lost the popular vote? And that the sheer existence of the electoral college itself may subvert democracy? How truly popular is Trump's populism? How subversive of democracy can it be for a secretive cabal of unelected officials to undercut the policy decisions of a president who was not elected by a majority of voters?
These are not rhetorical questions - I would really like to know.
1
@Poe15 There are numbers that answer one of your questions: Trump has never had widespread support among the US public. Three out of four eligible voters did not support him in 2016:
https://mises.org/wire/26-percent-eligible-voters-voted-trump
1
No. There's a difference between promoting one side or another on a policy position and subverting a policy decision. Influential advisers must present their agreements as cogently as possible while decisions are being made and even persist in their opposition or support of a policy after it has been decided. That is not the same as intentionally subverting the execution of a policy ordered by your superiors. If the policy is potentially disastrous to such a degree that an employee or 'public servant' cannot, in good conscience, carry it out, they must resign (see Elliot Richardson). They must never, never, be so arrogant as to substitute their own agenda for that of the elected officials they serve. Speak up to power and continue to try to correct mistaken policy by persuasion but not by conspiracy to subvert.
1
"An internal resistance that conflates those two missions may prevent certain disasters; let us hope it does. But it will not save the country or its party from populism; it will only make the next surge that much stronger, and ease the next Donald Trump’s ascent."
It's not clear if you are advocating for Trump's brand of populism, Ross. I doubt it. But like everything else related to this sham of a scamster president, he can't be trusted to follow any particular course with any visible forethought or follow-through. Or any logical course. Or any particular policy. Or anything else "trustworthy". Except to build up his own "Trump Brand" at any and all cost. Which, no matter where one sits on the left/middle/right continuum politically, makes him completely untrustworthy to most anyone with a brain and a sense of common sense, common decency, and even mildly honest citizenship. The bottom line problem with this man - for virtually everyone on the "outside", as well as - now more and more often factually confirmed - for most of those working for him on the inside, is he can NEVER be trusted. So you go minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, knowing that no matter what he just said, or what he just insisted you do for him - no matter what the topic or the particular circumstances "this time"...you know with almost complete certainty that tomorrow morning's random tweet storm is likely to blow it all up. Again.
1
You certainly have a right to your views, Mr. Douthat, but not to your own facts. This piece rises to a positively Orwellian level in its abuse of the facts; no reader would guess that Hillary Clinton was the choice of US voters--by a margin of more than three million voters. Efforts to thwart Mr. Trump may be right or wrong, but to suggest they are "anti-democratic" is an insult to the facts, to your readers' intelligence and to your own role in the public discourse. Should you choose to publish an apology, it's worth mentioning that only 26% of eligible US voters cast their ballots for Mr. Trump. Anyone concerned about "democracy" might spare a thought for the 3 out of 4 Americans who did not support the minority's candidate in the 2016 election.
2
I am reminded that in the old Soviet Union where shortages/power cuts etc,etc were the norm, in order to prevent the masses becoming outraged and storming the barricades once again they allowed the publication of two satirical magazines Krokodyl and Aganyok (Twinkle). it was permitted for contributors to mock and criticise the state for its shortcomings and this was a safety valve which laughed and scorned along with the populace and keep dissent at a manageable and strictly controlled level allowing the powers that be to carry on as usual.
Maybe I am wrong but I was reminded of this when the
Op-Ed came out, everybody knows that trump is a disastrous joke in extremely poor taste of a president and it cannot be denied by even the staunchest of Republican
supporters so, what to do? The hard-line Donor-Friendly, trumpist agenda must continue as they are on a roll and may never ever get the chance to steer the country in this totally dominant way again and if the potus is removed, that chance may evaporate.
Perhaps this OP-Ed was designed to delude US voters about trump and make out that things are just fine and dandy really, despite all appearances to the contrary because trump is being "contained" and the real business of his regime could quietly continue?
The fact that we are having a debate about whether a high ranking official should be able to thwart an incompetent president's agenda rather than resign demonstrates how self serving wins out over duty to country.
@Steven Blader That begs me to ask this question: should a high ranking official have arranged for transport to the Nazi death camps because loyalty to the nation's leader and "duty to country" are always a perfectly match? Or are patriotism and duty more complicated than that?
The voters didn't put Trump into office; Vladimir Putin did, aided by an electoral college system, the modern effect of which is to dilute the voting power of urban, and by extension, minority voters.
2
Wow, I can't believe that with all the reports coming from the White House; Omarosa, Wolf, Woodward plus all of Trump's tweets that some people still don't see what grave danger the country is in. The country is literally being ruled by a six year old with Congress complacent.
When Trump gets ready for a Nuclear strike because his feelings got hurt you all will be more than grateful that some actors may try to deter him.
This is not some theoretical game we get to play out in the "what is best for democracy" section of the Times.
The stakes are very real and the the consequences unforgiving.
1
It is difficult for me to find outrage in the sorts of actions, such as the removal of a document from the President's desk, intended to shape policies. The op-ed writer casts this as preventing Trump from implementing inadvisable actions. The debate centers around the question, inadvisable to whom?
But it misses the point that Presidential aides and advisors have always done what they can to influence or change their President's decisions, for as long as there have been Presidents and advisors. This is what advisors do. Obviously the mechanics of the process are outside the norm in this case, to say the least. But at the core, this is a necessary step in how policies are ultimately pushed ahead or thwarted. There are innumerable instances we can see throughout history of unelected officials working to change policies through bureaucratic actions.
As other commenters have noted, the real issue to me is that the President is too inept to understand that these actions are occurring. While I'm thankful that some of the damage is being avoided, it's clear that this ineptitude is resulting in the development and implementation of policies that are, and will continue to be, enormously damaging.
The most troubling thing here is that the Republican Congress has decided that ineptitude and corruption is fine, as long as it's Republican ineptitude and corruption.
6
When Hillary gets 3 million more votes but Trump is president, that’s fine. When democratic congressman get 55% of the vote but the Republicans control Congress, that’s OK. But when somebody removes a bill from the president’s desk so he can’t sign it, and he’s so clueless he doesn’t even notice it’s missing, that’s “thwarting democracy”. Right.
9
A lot of the issues raised in these arguments can be resolved by the proper and constitutional exercise of its duties by the congress. The two example Douthat gives of apparent interference by members of Trump's administration are actually irrelevant to the argument at hand. The order to assassinate Assad is an illegal order and Mattis is duty bound to refuse to comply. The ability to withdraw from any trade agreement is clearly not within the power of the President. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution is unambiguous in that the Congress has power "To regulate commerce with foreign nations". So in effect what Cohn did was stop Trump from undertaking an illegal action.
That being said and done, the backroom disassembling of a President's agenda by his own administration is clearly in contradiction to our form of Government. Trump was duly elected and his actions, within the bounds laid by the Constitution are what we get in return.
Now, if the Republicans would grow a spine and perform their duties as laid out in the Constitution we would have a different conversation.
2
Mr. Douthat just can't get over that Trump, a bombastic self-promoting reality show host defeated Hillary. So, he starts talking about nuclear war. We can talk about that. During Obama's presidency, our relations with Russia had significantly deteriorated. Russian ministers and the military were talking about a nuclear option and they have 6000 nuclear tipped missiles with our address on them. Since Trump moved in, Putin is saying nuclear war would end civilization as we know it. Einstein said something similar when he said that WW IV would be fought with “sticks and stones.” So, when have we heard Russia talk about the nuclear option since Trump became President? During Obama's presidency, Kim was building up his nuclear weapon program and at the same time increasingly making threats. After Trump sat down with Kim, how many threats has he launched against us? What he is doing is begin dismantling the assembly plants, talking about economics as well as peace and denuclearization of Korea. In April, Kim walked into South Korea. Later the President of South Korea went into North Korea to meet with Kim. The Two have continued their communication. During Obama's presidency, ISIS grew and swarmed over Iraq and Syria. The NYT itself gave Trump credit for defeating the ISIS Islamic state. Mr. Douthat uses nuclear and war fear talk to paint over what has actually happened. But the paint is thin and transparent when if look at events.
The premise of the article is based on Trump’s election due to the will of the people which of course not the case. He received 3 1/2 million less votes than his opponent. His election is the result of a flawed electoral college. Trump’ s politics lost the “popular debate” so results like the “resistance” must be expected given the undemocrated process that brought him to office.
Why debate reasonable approaches to handling a crazy President? Let's just do what we can to protect the nation and our families while the madman finishes his term!
As for thwarting democracy, what's democratic about a President who lost the popular vote? What's democratic about a Senate where Alaska and Montana have equal representation to California and Texas! What's democratic about a House of "Representatives" elected by winner-take-all contests in politically-gerrymandered districts?
The US is a republic governed by the rich for the rich, not a democracy governed by the people for the people.
1
We're of course assuming Trump is a legitimate president. Between FEC violations and that "super weird" stuff concerning Putin, there's a strong argument that Trump is in fact an illegitimate president. In this scenario, he was not popularly elected and therefore his policy demands are irrelevant. There goes one argument. Assuming the allegations are true, Trump is a walking national security disaster. Merely applying "resistance" or "constraint" to the president seems entirely inadequate in defending our nation's interests. There goes the other argument.
I don't especially care you how you interpret the anonymous writer's letter. Republicans are acting in partisan self-interest. The country's safety is at risk and they don't care.
Duly elected? Let’s wait for the results of the Mueller investigation. I have my doubts...
5
The Anonymous essay does nothing to further the goals of a resistance group in the White House, so what does it do? It provides future cover for any and all of Trump's enablers who have worked there, whether they resisted or not. It’s like the French Resistance; after the war pretty much everyone claimed to be a member. There were no collaborators.
Someone in the administration is busy checking which way the wind is blowing.
Someone is hedging their complicity.
1
Ross, maybe you should also address the failures or wisdom of keeping Mark Felt's identity secret from the public (Deep Throat in Watergate cover up history). History has basically painted Mr. Felt as a hero to America and democracy. Certainly many Nixon supporters at the time felt Deep Throat's disclosure were anti-democratic as well and should be outed.
Maybe when Congress refuses, or is unable, to be a Constitution's balance to the this Administration's power then i certainly hope clear minded individuals can step up to block emotional rages by this president.
If the president is secretive about details in his taxes or lies about his personal life to the extent voters (as Nixon did in the cover up) are kept uninformed of the truth, then I find equal justification for Anonymous to remain so.
Truth cannot exist on one side only. Truth begets truth.
42
Our democracy does not work by undermining the Executive, whether it comes from within or from majorities in Congress ignoring their constitutional duties or making up rules that justify acting against the words and spirit of the Constitution defining them. The Anonymous op-ed suggests desperation with the knowledge Congress refuses to act in the best interests of this country, that Congress itself refuses to check obvious abuses of powers, and immoral, inhuman, unconstitutional, unethical acts of the president. The problem is an anti-democratic and corrupt president and an anti-democratic and corrupt Congress.
Putting aside historically proven failures of large tax cuts to benefit most Americans and the country in the long-term, the aim of GOP governing is to eliminate policies and programs that do benefit most Americans and to eliminate constitutional rights, freedoms and liberties of those deemed underserving, whether coming from the religious right or from the bigoted and racist elements infecting the Republican Party and this country. Winning elections does not make inhuman and wrong-headedness right. Winning elections does not validate benefits to a chosen few nor zealous belief over fact. Realizing these aims and maintaining a democracy are mutually exclusive.
Those who value democracy, the words and spirit of the Constitution, need to show it.
58
I am tired of reading that Trump isn't the legitimately elected president because he didn't win the popular vote. This is wrong on so many levels and Trump not winning the popular vote is not justification for undermining his policies or removing him from office.
First --- winning the electoral college vote, not the popular vote -- is the rule determining who becomes president. It is in the constitution and was important in getting all the states to join the union. Every presidential winner has been determined by the EC vote. Of course, the EC vote and popular vote usually go together -- who wins the popular vote usually wins the EC but that is irrelevant.
Second -- if the popular vote determined the presidency, then campaigns would change strategies. I don't think Trump spent much if any time in blue states like CA. But he would have if the popular vote mattered. Instead he spent his time campaigning in swing states.
Third -- many voters in deeply red or blue states know their vote for president doesn't matter so they don't vote. But if the popular vote counted, they would likely do so.
Fourth -- you can't assume that if the election was run by different rules that you would get the same outcome. Yes, HRC won the popular vote but that does not mean if we held the election again with the popular vote determining who would become president that she would win. There is no way to tell.
1
Where Mr. Douthat's piece falls apart is in the details. It is true that Mr. Trump did voice an opinion that the U.S. and Russia should be closer while he was still a candidate. But where is the evidence that this was driving force in getting the MAGA-hat-wearing crowd to the polls?
I recall them being far more concerned about undoing President Obama's legacy, most importantly repealing the ACA, as well as stacking the courts with conservative judges, and of course making sure that Hillary Clinton did not get elected.
"Cozying up to Russia" was at the very bottom of their list of priorities, if it even appeared on their list of reasons for voting for Trump at all. Ditto for South Korean trade policy. Therefore, the argument that the president should get his way on these issues because it's what the voters wanted is spurious at best.
1
The op-ed might have been the only way to go... keeping it anonymous at first. We will all find out who wrote it eventually
but in the meantime, we have been alerted to the depth of doubt surrounding this president. We would be talking about Who wrote it rather than What the Who was writing about. The
What is the important part of this story so far. Coming from inside the White House makes the whole issue less a partisan issue than a national wake up call.
From my point of view, what makes the insider resistance welcome is that the president has shown himself as unable or unwilling to grasp the importance of many issues, and someone has to be able to deal with matters. So, if aides take charge, so be it. Trump actually seems uninterested in spending time being president. The reports of the time he spends golfing, watching television, tweeting, travelling to his rallies, flying to Florida, and other activities do not create a lot of confidence that he's really in charge. It seems he's content with others doing the real work for him and allowing him to take credit for it. Taking letters off his desk is probably standard practice. Presuming he ordered the letter written in the first place and then didn't notice that he never received it, shows a lack of organizational and managerial ability, at the least. Trump seems to spend most of his time plotting how to get revenge on his critics and fabricating stories to defend himself, but doing little actual work. So, others step in. Someone has to.
4
The Anonymous essay jumbled quite different kinds of concern: Trump’s inattention, ignorance, and impulsiveness; Trump’s amorality, self-interest, and authoritarian tendencies; the belief that some of Trump’s positions on economic and foreign policy are potentially dangerous. The outrage against Anonymous is mostly focused on the third category—these are unelected people overriding an elected president. Leaving aside the obvious point that he hired them and is supposed to supervise them—they are not permanent civil servants—there is still some reason to feel that sneaky actions to undo his will on policy are inappropriate. But surely the main point of the Anonymous article is in the first two concerns—that the man is unstable, incompetent, and in no real sense faithfully executing the laws of the land. Had the op-ed simply focused on these it would have been much less vulnerable to criticism from all sides.
1
One would imagine that the senior administration officials' proclivity would be to interfere in those presidential decisions of magnitude that are imperative to maintaining peace or economic stability--a sort of "triage" of presidential will.
Mr. Douthat's article suggests that there is a choice by some senior officials to discriminate between presidential decisions, when it's obvious that those same officials believe the president to be unfit for office no matter what the concern or decision being made.
All presidential decisions under this president are evidently tainted by his overall deeply troubled personality--regardless of the matter at hand, and so he cannot be trusted. Mr. Douthat seems to be able to envision this president as functioning in some areas while faltering in others--a view that I do not share, and evidently is not shared by those closest to the presidency.
Mr. Douthat, I'm terribly old-fashioned in that I think your column ought to be addressed on the merits. The comment stream is rah-rah Democratic campaign rhetoric (some of which I fervently agree with). However, let's address your point about the op-ed by the administration insider printed here.
You correctly note that insiders stepping in to save us from an existential threat are to be praised and encouraged. If it is nuclear Russian roulette Trump wants to play then we need all the interfering we can get.
However, Republican conservatives blocking policy changes on trade and tariffs or other issues for their own ideological interests are contravening the executive's campaign promises (wrong as they are). We have elections to make such changes. If these conservatives object, they must resign in protest, not operate a shadow government.
2
@Unworthy Servant: By your logic, no elected official may ever break a campaign promise. They would have to resign and a new election would have to be held.
1
Subverting the power of the President from within simply on ideological grounds is indeed unjustifiable in a way that keeping him from impulsively doing something actively dangerous is not. However, it is wrong to say that Issues were were hotly debated and thrashed out publicly in the campaign but "this adviser’s side arguably lost the popular debate." Trump lost the election by 3 million votes. The majority of the voters wanted someone else, and presumably different policies.
1
It's not as if democracy works by stages, where there is a "popular debate" that is "fought and lost," and then everybody is bound, possibly against their better judgment, to adhere to that decision. It is itself part of democracy that elected officials appoint other officials, and those officials' jobs require them to use their good sense, intelligence, and moral compass for the good of the people.
2
The checks and balances to presidential over reach are granted to the Congress and the Courts. This Republican Congress has and will not do anything to investigate and curb the most dangerous and reprehensible actions of this president. In fact they have used any means at their disposal to protect him. And why, because the tax cut pleased their donors and the reactionary judges pleased the religious right and deregulation pleased industry.
It is a very slippery slope to have members of the executive branch subvert the will of the executive for whatever reason. They should resign and publicly state their reason for resigning.
Finally, we are a self governing nation and it is up to us, the voters to elect members to Congress that live up to their oaths to defend the Constitution and the country.
2
Actually Ross, neither of the two essays are compelling, and neither pertain. To suggest otherwise is to imbue them with a degree of probity that simply isn't warranted for a Trump kakistocrat. Rather, the anonymous screed in question is most likely the work of political ambition, the purpose of which is to advance a particular Trump executive's future electoral prospects .. sooner than later ... say 2020?
1
One relevant distinction here is between US policies that harm present-day Americans, and those that harm everyone else. If Trump trashes Obamacare, it's mostly contemporary Americans who will suffer--though admittedly a sizable number who voted for his opponent. If Trump trashes the climate, most of the victims won't have had a chance to vote for him at all. Ditto for nuclear war in Korea.
Especially in these cases, claims that the people should be allowed to make its own mistakes look pretty hollow. As Jason Brennan puts it, 'If most voters act foolishly, they don't just hurt themselves. They hurt better-informed and more rational voters, minority voters, citizens who abstained from voting, future generations, children, immigrants, and foreigners who are unable to vote but still are subject to or harmed by that democracy's decisions.' And,we might add, non-humans, who will be the vast majority of climate change victims.
4
Trump defenders seem to universally forget one important truth: Trump id not win the democratic election. He lost by millions of votes.Any attempt to thwart him in attempts to implement his campaign promises in fact promotes the choice of the majority of those who cast votes.
As a result, both of Douthat's argument, as applied to reality, support those in the administration to check his power. One may debate if such actions are justified, but not by arguing points that simply are not true.
7
There us only one way to win POTUS in our representative democracy. The rules of the election game were settled long ago. That Hillary played the game to maximize votes only in her favorite districts while Trump played by the rules shows us in yet another way that we ducked a bullet in 2016.
"distinction between protecting America from Trump’s erratic personality and extra-constitutional whims and frustrating the agenda that won our president the White House."....I was talking with an acquaintance and asked him why he opposed Obamacare. He said it was an expensive program we couldn't afford and he railed against budget deficits and the spendthrift ways of Obama. When I told him that Obamacare was carefully designed to be revenue neutral and it would cost the government more to shut it down than to keep it running, he simply did not believe me; and when I told him Obama cut the budget deficit by $800 billions dollars in 8 years and Trump had increased the budget deficit by $250 billion in 2 years he thought I was deranged. We never got to the point that when Trump took office illegal immigration was already at a 40 year low, or that all the main players running the Russian investigation are all Republicans. You can't fairly talk about the importance of democracy and the Trump agenda, because the people who elected Trump, the people who are supporting that agenda, are completely disconnected from the facts.
13
@W.A. Spitzer
You forgot the $1.5Trillion dollar tax cut that was actually a tax increase to give the wealthy a gift.
Most of the wealthy in this country could pay 99% of what they now have in tax and there would still be enough left over to keep their families living well and not having to work for several generations to come.
2
Readers are ignoring the headline writer's point, which is that millions of Americans liked some of the things Trump said, and therefore voted for him. So, readers, you can demonize Trump all you want, and you can probably engineer a coup, driving Trump from office. But what do you plan to do about the millions of your fellow Americans who voted for him, and may not just fall obediently into step behind the Democrats once you have deposed the person they voted for? What should be done about them?
5
@me should we keep a dangerous president because of the Mob?
1
@Lisa Murphy Interesting way to characterize millions of your fellow citizens, Lisa. That attitude is exactly why Trump won.
The reason the Cabinet and the GOP Congress do nothing to stop Trump is that they implicitly assume nothing permanently bad will happen to the country. Sooner or later, Democrats will regain power and "fix" this mess. In the meantime, Republicans relish taking their tax windfalls, deregulating whatever they can get their hands on, and installing Supreme Court justices (and quietly reworking the Federal judiciary at all levels).
We have a political problem. But what we really have is a problem of human nature, of the human psyche. It is an evolutionary problem. We take what we can get, for as long as we can, until we are stopped. Not everyone is like that, but current Republicans certainly are.
What about problems with the Electoral College and two senators from every state? We weren't talking about these things when Obama was elected. His prowess with the Electoral College (plus David Axelrod and David Plouffe) was no problem when he beat Hillary in 2008.
What's going on with Trump is nothing new. Those in the White House have been "subverting" democracy from time to time as long as we have had presidents (and a White House). And it has been necessary because of the broad powers of the president.
There's nothing new here, except a new twist with Trump's particular brand of extremism and an anonymous NYT op-ed. I have no immediate viable solutions to propose. Politics is cyclical. Let's just hope we get out of this mess before we're in too much over our heads.
2
The writer of the anonymous op-ed is falsely smug. He thinks he’s pulled a fast one, grabbed more power than our power hungry president and shown who is really the smart person in the room. Why bother when everyone already knows Trump’s true nature? Because everything Trump touches turns to dirt and everyone who aligns with him eventually is humiliated and publicly shredded. This will include his children.
The problem is that you can’t have it both ways. Republicans will find this out, with much pain. You can’t support lies and injustices without being found out. History gives us this lesson over and over again. Truth will out - always. Just because you were able to keep Trump from doing something you didn’t agree with doesn’t change the peril our environment faces, or economic problems that mounting debt brings.
Trump lied to get into office. His intentions are antithetical to what he promised his voters. Most people knew he was just talking to hear himself speak, making it up. Unfortunately they didn’t vote and there are some people who don’t like anyone very much, have no respect for Government or the rule of law and know very little about what it takes to successfully keep our country going. But they did vote.
Our smug writer still drank the kool aid and is pushing a republican agenda, just wants it on his terms. The only difference is he doesn’t tweet, or at least not yet. I just want them all to go away and am especially sick of Trump.
2
It seemed to take an eternity before the real media could use the term "lie" when covering Trump. Alas, media's hand was forced, as Trump lies with the tenacity of an epee blade fencer. There was no choice but to report his incessant fabrications.
Now that we can safely call him the Liar in Chief, why not graduate to Mentally Unstable Commander in Chief? That's what he is, and everyone on God's good earth knows it. The politicians who could stop him know it, and they choose to ignore their sworn oaths of office rather than stop him. Our allies and our enemies know it. It's time we start addressing the orange elephant in the room.
Trump's removal for mental instability shouldn't be a political issue. It is a matter of national security. "Pence would be worse!" is no reason to keep Trump in. We need to show #45 the door before we are at war. We need to rid ourselves of Trump before we are cast into a fiscal Depression we can't get out of. We need to end Trump's nonsensical and dangerous reign before he does something that can't be fixed.
Is he in bed with the Russians? Did he try to fix the election? Who is Anonymous? Those are things that, although wildly important to consider, serve as distractions for Trump. They buy him time by mudding an extremely dire circumstance. Let's deal with the fact that he's certifiably wacked, and get him out of office first. Then, we can figure out how we got here.
5
The really horrible aspect of Gary Cohn's stealing of the letter is that--Trump didn't notice!
On a whim, Trump decides to destroy a major trade relationship --and then forgets all about it.
I don't want a man like that cutting my grass, much less running the country.
23
Trump's campaign promises were as follows: to lock up Crooked Hillary Clinton, to have Mexico pay for a border wall and to ban Muslims from our country. Were we supposed to take him "literally or seriously?"
Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes, at least. That is not a mandate; or, even consent of the governed. That margin of victory/defeat typically means that the leader must work across the aisle to produce compromise solutions, not ram unpopular, and unconstitutional ideas down our throats.
Of course I want people inside the white house to stop Trump from assassinating world leaders and launching nuclear weapons, who doesn't?
4
Let’s not say that the anonymous Op-Ed writer and his ilk are “subverting democracy.” Democracy is subverted every time the presidency is captured by a minority of voters, as was the case with Trump and Bush 2. Democracy is also subverted when 40 million Californians are represented by the same number of Senators as the 2 million folks in both Dakotas.
The U.S., at the national level at least, resembles more an oligarchy than a Democracy. Let’s call things as they are.
5
Quit pretending that Trump was democratically elected. He wasn't.
3
Speaking with delicious selfishness I'm happy to say that I sincerely hope that
1. Donald J. Trump finishes his term
2. The Democrats do not impeach
3. The Mueller investigation offers irrefutable conclusive evidence that Trump is a criminal and that the GOP has been criminally complicit
4. Congress goes hard blue in both houses as the Republicans show themselves to have betrayed their voters, their oaths, and all their purported values
5. The state-level investigation in New York proves to be beyond anything Trump can prevent, discredit, or reverse, and cements his richly merited reputation as the worst person ever to hold the presidency
6. Every Trump courtier, lieutenant, and retainer, including his own family, turns against each other to save their own unworthy hides
7. Criminal convictions gut the Trump racket from top to bottom
8. The grimy shills with an (R) after their names are permanently marked as unworthy to hold office
9. The 2020 election makes 1964 look like a mild rebuke of the GOP
10. The Times finally cleans out the Augean stables that is its Op Ed roster and starts contributing to the rebuilding from the ground up of the idea of Conservatism and what it ought to mean.
Trump is a sickness. The GOP needs to suffer from it until it cures them or kills the party.
18
@Next Conservatism
In one sense, I also hope that Trump finishes his term-- it would mean he hadn't stumbled into a thermonuclear war in the meantime. The real danger that he will, however, is a compelling reason to remove him *now*.
1
@Matthew I can't disagree with you, but I'd call it highly unlikely. Far more likely are, first, more environmental devastation from natural disasters, hurricanes, fire, etc., with loss of life and huge costs. The Republicans have shown themselves to be indifferent to the suffering of anyone outside their gated communities. More displays of incompetence will only make them less credible. Second, domestic terrorism. Trump is all but calling for it already, and as the legal heat turns up on his fetid enterprises, he'll be more explicit. We will see bloodshed on US soil by people who answer his call.
So much wasted thought and energy trying to make a completely disfunctional situation function! Nobody can make this man behave normally. He’s uneducated, uninformed, severely mentally unbalanced, delusional, a mean-spirited bully and probably in some stage of dementia. Nothing anyone says or does can make the current White House “a well-oiled machine.” Apparently, there are people close to the President who think they can head him off at the pass and distract him from doing anything catastrophic. There isn’t a person on the planet who can contain Trump. We find ourselves in the position of hoping against hope that a group of anonymous people are going to make good decisions for the country, or at least prevent this madman from making terrible decisions. People who were not elected! We don’t know who they are and what idology they embrace. This is nowhere near normal. Our government was never meant to function this way. Where are the heroic people who will tell to power? And, there IS such a thing as truth.
5
I am less concerned with the message in the anonymous letter and more concerned that it was published. I am sure a letter like this would not be published in this newspaper if it was regarding a Democratic administration rather than a Republican one. Has Trump so divided us that all rules are suspended in the great liberal crusade to undo the results of the last election? Trump worries me less then how his actions have potentially undermined the morals of those that oppose him.
1
Not thwarting, using. The Republicans are using the Don (as are the Russians). The Don is but a tool to achieve thier goals.
2
In either case, it proves he(Trump) is incompetent and must be removed.
1
And where is the president himself in all of this? Why wasn't he insistent in looking for the documentation to throw out the South Korean trade agreement? Why didn't he continue to insist that Assad be murdered? He expressed shock and dismay to Omarosa that she had been fired. Well....he's the president so why didn't he order her return?
My guess to all of these and more is that he forgets or becomes so easily side-tracked by tweets and watching Fox News that he just bounces on to the next whim of the day. Think of the toddler who plays with each toy for five minutes and then is on to the next.
The toddler can be excused but do we really want this attention span in the Oval Office? We can argue until 2020 about the Electoral College and the popular vote but the fact remains that we are stuck with him. And frankly, the more adult supervision he receives is fine with me,
138
@Tom Q Like many a toddler, Trump smashes his toys with no idea how to put them back together.
1
Your last paragraph is the important one. Donald Trump isn't the only dangerous lunatic in this room. It took years of establishment Republican collusion with the conspiracy theorists and the video hoaxsters and Fox fear-mongering to reach the point where their voters were so easily manipulated that this comically incompetent con-artist could lead them by the nose. Anonymous and the Republicans who condemn him are united in being more interested in using our fascist clown president to enhance their power and preserve the status quo than in restoring coherence & legitimacy to our political process. How about some ideas about what Republican officials and pundits should be doing to protect the country from themselves?
5
So. The writer was right, or wrong. The guy with the opinion of Anonymous is right or wrong. How about we do something with the actual message we are being given.
I applaud Senators Booker and Harris as well as the Sen. from Hawaii. You brought it when the Kavanaugh hearing went to Crazytown. And by “Crazytown”, I mean “from the clutches of the Republicans”.
3
If the Dems manage to fix the electoral college there won't be another Donald. Donald is and remains a minority Prez in a gerrymandered, voter-ided minority party shoving an unpopular regime down the majority's throat.
3
The struggles among hateful people who have actually different ways of doing harm has been a lesson for me. If Kavanaugh gets on the Supreme Court there is no telling how these ego driven logic chopping arrogant literal minded right wing justices might turn on each other. Obviously this is a very thin reed to hold onto.
One time I submitted a short story to a magazine. It became the object that competing forces inside the magazine fought over. As it turned out the faction that liked the story wanted to reject it for some reason totally separate from the story. And the faction that didn't like it at that point pushed to get it published. And once it did get published the people who tried to reject it told me how much they liked the story and were happy that it was published. It was totally nuts,
4
“...the agenda that won our president the White House” is still being uncovered by the Mueller investigation.
6
Make no mistake -- I despise "Li'l Donald" as much as ever. But I agree with Mr. Obama (our last real president) that trump is a symptom; he is not the cause. The cause is people like anonymous and the Republican party in general, who installed this psychopath to be a figurehead. They thought they could stage an administrative coup if he got out of hand and the rest of the party would turn away and not stop what they are doing -- disabling the machinery of democracy and justice. These people hate our country and our democratic system. Their party is all about robbing the poor to give to the rich, and they will put party above country every time. Shame!
8
Bob Woodward wrote another book about another strange president 40 years ago. During the final days of Watergate Nixon roamed the halls of the White House with Henry Kissinger, drinking Ballantine's scotch and praying in front of various presidential portraits.
Kissinger drank the scotch and prayed the prayers...but he instructed the DOD staff not to take any precipitous action without his approval.
Yes, the people elected Trump. But when your president is a lunatic and you have the power to prevent or delay his insane impulses, I think you are right to do so.
5
@ed connor 1. The "but" in the second sentence betrays your true inclinations. and 2. Trumps is not a lunatic. Over his head, perhaps, but that's not the same thing as being clinically insane.
I voted for President Trump.
I will happily vote for him again.
The fact that East and West Coast liberals are doing all they can to try to overthrow a duly elected president demonstrates they are traitors and seditionists.
The fact that sown government employees are attempting to thwart the policies of the duly elected president demonstrates they are traitors and seditionists.
Liberals lost - and now they’d rather destroy the country and our Constitution than accept that elections have consequences.
5
Before disparaging east and west coast liberals you should consider that a more appropriate delineation is urban vs rural. And that urban people, be they coastal elites or citizens of Omaha, in aggregate generate a disproportionate share of GDP and pay a disproportionate share of taxes.
1
@Voter
"Liberals lost - and now they’d rather destroy the country and our Constitution than accept that elections have consequences. "
The true victory for Trump and his voters is stated above with the first 2 words: "liberals lost.." Sticking it to liberals is the #1 item on the agenda. Forget about policy debates.
@Voter
WOW!
YOu may not have been paying attention but the people who are subverting El Trumpo are the most ultra republican conservatives all of whom we can safely assume 3 years into his presidency with so much turn over did take the personal loyalty to El Trumpo oath he asks for. They also signed NDA's which is ridiculous since they work for us not him.
1
Did the president follow up with Mattis about his orders to come up with a plan to assassinate Assad? No, he didn't. Why didn't he? Because Trump forgot about it. (Doesn't that confirm Mattis' alleged comment that Trump acts like a 5th grader?).
Did the President ask his staff about the missing paper he needed to terminate the U.S. - North Korea trade pac? No, he didn't because Trump forgot about that too.
Isn't that like the behavior of a 5th grader? or to be fair to a 5th grader, isn't that like the behavior of a 1st grader?
8
Debating the pros and cons of the NY Times op-ed letter seems to me like arguing over whether to use "shower", "fan" or "mist" on a garden hose while your house is burning down. Senior administrative officials and/or Congress, please do your job and remove this man from office as soon as possible.
10
Yesterday the Times reported remarks made by Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, in a private meeting with Republican officials and donors. They include this:
"'You may hate the president, and there’s a lot of people who do, but they certainly like the way the country is going,' Mr. Mulvaney said, adding of voters: 'If you figure out a way to subtract from that equation how they feel about the president, the numbers go up dramatically.'”
That thought dovetails neatly with the anonymous essay. If the essay was designed to serve a purpose and not simply to make a statement, the most readily apparent purpose is to "subtract" Trump from the administration by giving assurance that he will be cut out of the loop as necessary while the administration goes on doing its supposedly good work.
This would account for the author's need to remain in place while speaking out. The idea is to let us know that the resistance faction will be there "to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office."
Without the assumption of such a purpose, the writing of the anonymous essay seems a Quixotic act. With that assumption, it becomes an act more in keeping with the Washington state of mind. The resisters must think they've figured out a way to make the desired subtraction.
The oath of office for civil servants and, I believe, others in the Executive Branch, is an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. One does not swear allegiance to the President, but to the Constitution.
6
@Horace that is part of the oath that a president must take.
One of the things that struck me about "The Op-Ed" was the number of top Republicans and government officials who felt compelled to deny that they wrote it. The list of potential suspects was virtually endless. Think about that. Someone claims to be actively subverting the will of the President and, in the state we're in, oh gosh, it could be almost anyone.
5
Quoting messages like "debate is fought and lost" and "a democratic election" is Orwellian in forgetting that Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Falling in line is not so virtuous when considering that the presdient continues to represent a minority of the citizenry.
6
@John Walker It's also worth noting that Trump got the votes of only 26% of the eligible voters:
https://mises.org/wire/26-percent-eligible-voters-voted-trump
If someone in Hitler's inner circle had warned about Hitler's recklessness, his lying, his hatred of minorities, etc., that person would have been lauded as a hero. He would have stayed inside Hitler's circle to be aware of what was going on. Trump has an ego as large as Hitler's and hates the same type of people Hitler hated. I'm grateful to this person. As a New Yorker I was well aware of what Trump was and could not vote for him even if only his name was on the ballot.
3
@Sharon Conway
There were actually a few like Admiral Canaris ...
1
@KBD But not enough.
The resistance inside the White House should have begun the process of using the 25th Amendment.
As to the op ed, I have a sneaking suspicion that the timing was strategic. Sorry NYT but I think you were used!
Peole who want to control Trump need to vote to kick his corrup GOP Congress out. Vote this November and tell the GOP where to go...Russia or hell....their choice.
8
The man was elected with an agenda, and it is only fair to implement it?
In the middle of all the lies, insults, confusion, and exaggeration was a policy announced?
Or was there a drunken sailor candidate, who said so many strange and unbelievable things, that nobody knew what he meant?
He did promise the wall. He didn't campaign on child separation.
A health plan that was so much better that our heads would spin. Amazingly lower drug costs.
Floating tax breaks to the upper crust?
Shall I recite the tiresome list again for everyone, all the things this man said and didn't mean?
Policy was not discussed during the campaign.
Rhetoric was slung.
Dogs heard whistles so much that they couldn't sleep.
A drunken sailor candidate destroying the hotel room with his party, while bellowing and thumping his chest? Incoherently exaggerating everything? Having tantrums and screaming lies?
To pick through the aftermath of that wreckage heap, and say that the sailor didn't intend to break the lamp, but meant to throw the ashtray at the mirror, or that the cigarette butt in the dregs of the bourbon bottle was intended, while the lipstick smeared into the curtain was not? How is that policy?
Only in retrospect, it seems, is there coherence.
When people with an agenda translate all the garbage for us, and say the country voted on it.
Meanwhile, the drunken sailor can't remember how he got here.
6
Naive citizens harboring any remaining faith in the apparent two-party system can relax now: it doesn't exist. The Republicrat party of the elitist coastal mandarins rules, voters be damned. If they (the voters) do not vote the way elites want, the elites find a way to circumvent it, even if it takes petty thievery. So much for the myth of the democracy.
3
@Yulia Berkovitz If you're happy with Trump's performance in office, that strikes me as very odd, but tastes do vary. However, to suggest that opposition to him is a violation of the voters' will is laughable. Let's remember that only 26% of the eligible voters cast a ballot for him, and that of those who did vote 3 million preferred the candidate who won the popular vote. Not sure what you mean by "the myth of democracy," but shouldn't democratic government be associated with majority rule?
https://mises.org/wire/26-percent-eligible-voters-voted-trump
2
Well, I suppose one can postulate any number of reasons to rationalize—or challenge—a course of action. But sometimes a dangerous idiot is just a dangerous idiot and must be contained. The Constitution is to be revered, but it’s not a suicide pact.
6
$1,500,000,000 dollar tax cut so far, and more to come, and some ways it will actually be 5 trillion dollars that has to be raised elsewhere in the budget (read Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security). Douthat is anti-Christian family values, but he likes the belligerent in office, because it stands for freedom to be poor and freedom to be stuck when pregnant. Over 300 direct instructions on caring for the poor in the Bible, and Douthat apparently doesn't read it. So, Republicans can disenfranchise black voters, deal with the Russians to fix elections, receive emoluments, cut deals with whole countries, screw anybody they want, blow up the deficit, get rid of diplomacy, are the world more dangerous and the US more ignorant, shrink the world economy to suit a whim, but it may be disloyal to protect against the Republican machine.
6
@4Average Joe
Joe, your lead off number is too small by a factor of 1000. Testimony indeed to the enormity of tRumps foolish tax cutting.
When nearly everything a president say mirrors what Adolph Hitler was promoting in the 1930's I agree with the actions of these people.
By the way, what president, prior to this one has had no concept or understanding of the U.S. Constitution?
It's in the Presidential Oath of Office, and Trump lied when he took that oath.
Impeach The Liar.
7
Whatever Ross. This so called President is a schmuck of the nth degree. One who didn’t win the majority of votes so cool it on democratically elected. On top of that he is wholly illegitimate. So whatever it takes to corral a baby, it is fine with me.
5
It is not clear to me that his man was as so-called 'duly elected'.
Therefore it has to be determined whether or not he was inserted by the russians or other means. I will never accept him as a leader of this nation. The republicans have schemed for years to suppress the vote especially here in North Carolina and it seems to me that Trump's victory by only 3% (N.C.) needs to be investigated as well but it will never happen as long as the republicans hold sway in this state as well as the nation.
6
Douthat wants his cake and eats it too. Subverting the president is OK, if someone decides the consequences could be dire. But it's not OK to do so if the president's decisions are for populist reasons (never mind that others have pointed out just how NON populist the policies have been). One does not get it both ways. This opinion piece does dovetail nicely with the theory that Republicans put up with Trump's behaviors, which can't be listed here because the number characters is limited, while their busy giving the country away the oligarchs. In the meantime, the other conservatives walk back the potentially devastating presidential impulses. Let's have Donald Trump full on, come what may. The more disastrous the better the chance of fixing our politics.
5
Trump is the Electoral College's president. The Popular vote went to Hillery. As far as a Democracy or a true Republic is concerned she is the president. We don't have a true Democracy or a true Republic until that anachronism is eliminated.
7
Ross, you don't like either type of essay because both miss the most important point. Anonymous is a narcissist and the op-ed presents a delusional view of her own power.
Anonymous serves the President. She does not have the authority, power or guile necessary to prevent the President Trump from exercising his constitutional powers. Anonymous may be able to subvert and delay the execution of President Trump's orders but he cannot countermand those orders.
Anonymous wrote an op-ed that rings with self-congratulation and self-praise. That's not unlike Donald Trump himself. Anonymous reflects Trump just as the moon reflects the sun.
The reality is that the Presidency is too big a job for one person to perform without delegating some power, authority and discretion to others. Every president succeeds, or fails, because his political appointees exercise their power, authority and discretion wisely, or foolishly. The president gets to claim all the credit and takes all the blame for the performance of his political appointees.
Anonymous wrote a self-serving op-ed proclaiming that his insight, wisdom and power are superior to those of his boss. Perhaps Anonymous is right. That op-ed also reveals that Anonymous is not honorable.
Ross, it is the lack of honor that you find disturbing.
7
Of course we wouldn't be at this point if the Republican's rejected the 'GOP TV and Radio' hate filled rhetoric but they love hearing their views reinforced and therefore they see nothing wrong with a little hate especially as it advances their conservative views. Et tu Ross?
2
It's remiss of National Review’s Dougherty to say that “this adviser’s side arguably lost the popular debate"' when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. Or does he side with Trump's obsessive lies about the vote count? Even within that smaller popular group of voters, the educated Republicans I know wanted Trump's tax cuts and deregulation, but hoped his jingoistic tariff threats would evaporate into the ether like so much other Trump hot air.
Anonymous is not telling us a lot that we didn't already know - we knew Trump's handlers were trying, and often failing, to manage him. We knew the White House is in disarray. We knew the president's moral compass arrow is frozen toward the goldplated lodestar of greed. What we don't know, but seriously doubt, is whether Anonymous and his band of self-styled band of make-the-rich-richer Robin Hoods will step up to help remove Trump from office, or will they continue to rule by cowardly diktat.
7
Regardless, this process has the worst features of a soft coup. Yes, the unfit and corrupt man elected is not in full control; no, there is no guarantee that this surreptitious and impromptu remedy will catch every catastrophe in time.
Bottom line, we have a government modified (if not run) by people we did not elect: this is not democracy or anything close.
2
The President is off the rails, as is the Administration, as is the Republican Congress. So whether thwarting Trump or the voters is a meaningless discussion.
We're toast if we can't get the Democrats controlling at least one house of Congress. There's no one at the helm, no lookout, no one in the engine room, and we're running at flank speed in a pea soup fog.
Better vote.
4
The question should be who is the big winner in all this? And the answer is the NYT. The editorial board is now running op-eds on the op-ed. 23,000 questions to the NYT about how this was done and probably on the original op-ed, the most hits and comments on an any article or op-ed for a very long time.
It is one thing to do a "Yes, Prime Minister" to keep the politicians in check, but the last thing that Sir Humphrey would do is submit an anonymous op-ed to a newspaper. That would defeat his purpose. So does this. The resistance works by keeping it out of the limelight.
The Senior Official, if he or she cannot fulfill the requirements of the job, should resign.
There is though another winner: Mr. Trump. His paranoia will will now be justified and this too will be added to his claims of those who thwart him and prevent him from succeeding.
So in the end, it is Mr. Trump and the NYT hand in hand.
2
I believe that Trump was elected because the voters were fed up with the major parties taking care of the rich and leaving the average person to twist in the wind. Eight years before they tried Obama and he proved less than effective. Hillary was not trusted by most of the electorate. Therefore lacking any other choice, they elected to try Trump.
I believe that it is obvious to all but the true zealots, that America made a mistake. Trump is doing serious damage to our country. For those who do not want the conservative agenda to go away if Trump is impeached, it won't. Mike Pence will become president, you will keep your agenda but also gain a sane President.
For the Democrats, impeachment of Trump will be a conditional victory. You will get rid of a mad man, but you will have to find a way to work with a fundamentalist christian conservative. If you cannot find a way to compromise and govern, then I believe you can write off any chance of winning the Presidency in 2020, because you will have shown that you do not know how to compromise in order to govern.
33
@Bruce1253 while you point out that Hillary Clinton was not trusted by most of the electorate one could say with equal accuracy that she was the most trusted candidate on the ballot and was more trusted than Trump. Why didn’t you say that?
5
@Bruce1253
I think that the Republicans cannot aspire to the description "fundamental christian conservative". Their actions in favor of the rich and against the poor bear not the slightest resemblance to true Christianity. As an atheist I believe in true humanity in relation to all people. I think that was also the teaching of the Jesus whose leadership they claim but do not follow.
Hillary Clinton WAS trusted by most of the electorate, approximately three million more voters favored her. It was by dint of the Electoral College that she did not win the Presidency.
All along this "debate" has been raging. The reason Kelly and Mattis were selected and embraced by Republicans was to prevent the very types of excesses and impulsivity the writer of the op-ed piece claims to be taking credit for offsetting. In other words, this has been going on all along. Just not spoken of publicly. Until now. The insiders want credit for keeping the mentally ill guy from disrobing in public as it were. They are, in essence, admitting that Trump is not the chosen one. I imagine, once this person is outed, (s)he will be reviled for admitting that Trump is, in fact, everyone's worst nightmare. It will no longer be just sour grapes from Hillary supporters. Do you really think these people in the inner circle want this to go on for 8 years? I guess you have to stop the run a way train by having someone in the passenger car pull the emergency brake lever. Otherwise you don't know what the engineer will do when it reaches a curve or he fails to sound the horn when approaching a crossing. The biggest fear, I assume, is the train will hit something and never reach it's planned destination. And then someone will have to call out the NTSB to pull the wreckage off the tracks. But then again, that requires hearings to ask the engineer what he was doing when the crash occurred. Clearly Congress isn't interested in that.
50
Attempts to undermine Trump by lefties and anti-Trumpers of all stripes are anti-democratic. They are an attempt to disenfranchise those who voted for Trump. Of course it is allowed to attempt to change Trump's mind on an issue OR if he is doing something illegal or unconstitutional. But anonymous provided no such examples. Saying you want to assassinate Assad may be wrong but, guess what? Several presidents have considered doing that or have ordered it or knew that their orders would likely lead to the death of a head of state (JFK anyone?). And I have read discussions about taking out dear leader in NK as an alternative to a nuclear strike in legitimate papers. Even the Times.
I have seen no evidence that Trump is unstable. If there is evidence then the 25th amendment should be invoked. Being impatient or impulsive is not the same as being mentally unstable. Wanting to get rid of Mueller is a legitimate desire as it is clear that Mueller has nothing on Trump and is simply trying to scare someone into confessing to collusion -- except no one has. Trump's instincts aren't always good -- such as saying he would like to be interviewed by Mueller. Fortunately his attorneys have talked him out of that because Mueller's only reason for wanting to interview Trump is to entrap him -- get him to say something that contradicts a public statement. But that doesn't make him unstable.
30
@Ralphie: Why, by your reasoning, is it "allowed to attempt to change Trump's mind on an issue"? It is not changing the minds of those who voted for Trump on the issue and it is therefore disenfranchising them.
This whole argument about what the voters wanted misses the open-endedness of political decision-making and the point of a representative democracy.
@Ralphie
If you haven't seen any evidence that Trump is unstable, I suggest you haven't been watching. How else would you describe a man who tells an average of eight provable lies a day?
Further, the 25th amendment doesn't require that the president be deemed "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." I'd say said inability has been demonstrated in spades.
@Ralphie How is is possible to call opposition to Trump "anti-democratic"? Whatever else it is or is not, such simply opposition gives voice to the 3 out of 4 Americans who did not support the candidate in the 2016 elections:
https://mises.org/wire/26-percent-eligible-voters-voted-trump
1
If an official feels an order from Trump is unconscionable, she should refuse to do it, explaining to Trump why she is refusing. If Trump persists, she should resign and tell the public why she is doing so. This will lead o a public debate, and if the majority of voter support the official's position, Congress will act.
If Congress refuses to act, it will be clear which members are thwarting the will of the people, and they will have to pay the consequences at the polls.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. If only the press would do their job and call out lies and do real objective investigative reporting, America would be better off. Show some spine.
2
Just a reminder Ross - Trump was not "elected" president by the voters, he was selected by the EC which represents rural and southern states far more than the populace does.
We need to get rid of the the EC, but I am convinced that the only way to do it is for the Democrats to win the EC, but lose the popular vote. The resulting "constitutional crisis" is the only chance to amend and rid ourselves of this pox on democracy.
12
Voters did not vote for Trump’s agenda. Polls consistently showed that most disliked both Trump and Hillary Clinton. Trump’s victory is better seen as a rejection of Clinton’s agenda rather than as an endorsement of Trump’s. Therefore, it would be undemocratic for staffers to silently implement Clinton’s agenda, but not for them to stop Trump’s.
2
You are still playing the un-populist president, Mr. Douthat, presuming that you can decide what counts as moral infamy better than those who elected the president (or even decide that morality matters in a policy calculation). As if Trump voters would not have rejoiced at a Trump assassination attempt on Assad...
Your problem is with the Trump Admin. Direct your editorial to them. And, the voters? More of them voted for Trump's opponent in 2016, so they're all good, too.
6
On the one hand or the other, as a nation, we should be “managing” this president out the door. I can think of three million voters disenfranchised by the shameful Electoral College who would agree, never mind Senator Graham sniffing that Democrats must win some elections if they want change.
7
If the Republican "Resistance" is responsible for usurping Trump's presidency, the Republican Party will be wandering in the political desert for the next 40 years.
1
The truly sad part in all of this is that Congress should be the ones to control the abuses. The truly scary part is that ain't going to happen as long as Republicans control both houses.
7
If I may make one minor point: Surely, one of the more troubling things about Cohn swiping the letter is that Donald Trump did not notice it was missing. This was not some minor thing, like a note to pick up milk on the way home. So, did Donald not miss it because someone *else* in the administration had advanced the idea he was about to sign off on, and, hence, he wasn't invested in it enough to remember? Or because of gross incompetence and poor attention span that signal how his "policies" are the result of random, wild hairs he gets? Either scenario is disturbing. And dangerous. Maybe instead of wringing our hands about what Anonymous should or should not have done, we should focus on the warning.
208
Spot on. It may be debatable whether or not to shoot the messenger; but, definitely don't shoot the message.
Let him have his trade war. But let the free market take care of the farmers and manufacturers. No bailouts. Let the job losses roll in. Let there be a little stock market correction of 30-40%. No bailouts. Bring it on. Trump voters will take the biggest hit-white middle aged men. With no spare cash because of those tax cuts, people will feel the pain. My mother called this the school of hard knocks. Make bad, selfish choices, suffer consequences.
8
You find yourselves in quite a pickle.
You have a President who could provide the picture for an encyclopedia article about what would disqualify someone for that august Office. You have a President who didn't in fact win his election in terms of votes cast and who only ascended because of that peculiar institution tat is the Electoral College. So, the argument that Trump was duly elected is debatable.
On the other hand, since your system actually gives the President massive leeway in deciding who will be on his team, much more than in any other mature democracy, the fact is that he should be able to expect loyalty from his team. This implies indeed that applauding the active interference, sabotage even, of senior officials in the President's pursuit of his agenda (to the extent that this actually applies in Trump's case), is a dangerous thing.
No-one can see the future. It is therefore impossible to say that anything positive was achieved by taking documents off the President's desk or by gambling that the combination of a minute attention span and news-cycle screeching would have Trump forget that an issues was even on the table.
Finally, as M. Douthat admits, it's not at all clear what agenda the internal resistors are trying to advance. I'm afraid the net result of all of this may well be an acceleration of Trump's paranoid disintegration and ever more extreme actions, to the point of initiating a war.
In a couple of years, when the stock market has fallen back to 21000. When inflation is rampant and interest rates hit 6 or 7%. When the National Debt can only be defined by scientific notation. Trump will be blaming Obama and his faithful following will be mired in debt from health problems that their second rate insurance has left them in. We will recover but it will take a few presidencies. “ When a fool throws a rock in the garden, it takes 10 wise men to remove it.”
7
Liberal readers of this paper need to understand the incredible damage and wrong-headedness of using the SCOTUS to move social change where popular support if lacking, calling out specific faith groups as ignorant and irredeemable, and openly dissecting racial and gender groups in condescending terms.
It all seems okay in the urban, intellectual echo chamber; but it is deeply complicit in the rage swirling around half our population.
And there is no admirable or morally superior justification for this so-called resistance. It is wrong; and, as Ross Douthat points out, it is upping the ante of anger.
If you read this comment and do not see your own guilt, turn around each argument on Black men, Muslim faithful or any segment that the mainstream press feels are part of the Democratic Party’s future. Allusions on Fox or Rush Limbaugh radio do not justify this level of disdain, and the pot will gain velocity toward an eventual boiling point. As a Moderate, I hold our educated class and the media to a higher standard.
And so should all of you.
5
This is a brilliant article. The obvious solution is for the anonymous writer to come out of the shadows. If he has clear evidence that the President is unfit to serve, he should declare it to the nation and its Congress. If he merely has a strong disagreement with the President's policies, he should resign and publicly explain why he believes these policies are misguided.
If we are a Republic, then we cannot have a secret government operating in the shadows to protect us from our own public decisions.
I loathe Trump and the modern Republican Party thoroughly and almost without qualification. But this is no way for a democratic society to redress its own election of demagogues.
The clear path forward lies in reform of the electoral college, an end of partisan gerrymandering, curtailment of voter suppression, strong campaign finance reform, and an open public debate.
Our society has urgent problems: we spend far too much on the military, prisons, and border militarization, and not nearly enough on energy-transformation, infrastructure, and education. We have elected goons who misgovern us in every possible way. Adding a shadow government into the mix is not the way forward.
2
I assume Douthat read the anonymous op-ed.
He says the debate over anonymous's tactics are binary: that anonymous is subverting the president's will (he's not Reagan enough), or that anonymous is a guardrail preventing an unstable president from driving the nation into a ditch.
There is a third theory: anonymous wants Trump to succeed and his actions in thwarting him are an attempt to save "Trumpism" without Trump. (Remember that GOP meme from 2017?)
6
Even if Trump had won the Electoral College and the popular vote, the first loyalty of his government would still be to the Constitution. Especially when Trump is trashing it every day.
5
Finally, a Douthat column with which I can totally agree. We are finally coming to a point whereby we can all recognize the difference between policy and whim, judgment and temperament, campaigning and governing.
1
Sabotage of the president by people who are supposed to be working for him and support for such sabotage from the media is confirmation of Trump's contention that powerful anti-democratic forces in the USA are out to get him.
5
These "gray areas" of Douthat's logic might actually exist if Donald Trump exhibited any ability to reason or to not take to Twitter. As Ross points out, government by whim is to be avoided at all costs.
2
Trump serves the Republican agenda very well. T's over-reactive personality coupled with his narcissism make him predictable and useful. Republicans, and I'm speaking of the politicians and the people who bought them, are well-learned in the art of manipulation. They simply feed Trump to get the reaction they want while they work behind the scenes to achiever what their owners interests are.
Of course this can only work now because Obama's administration worked so diligently to raise America up out of the last Republican cause recession.
I think Republican voters are confused. The same may be true of Democrats but since I am a Democrat I don't think so. It seems to me that Republican voters seem to think of politics as supporting the local High School Football Team. I have yet to find a Republican voter who follows the voting record of the person they voted for. They are more likely to assuage themselves with excuses with belief = expectation. In other words they are lazy reactive voters and the Republican party uses that to their own advantage.
Trump is an actor. He is not an astute business man, nor is he a moral/ethical man. He just plays the part. The Republican party accepted that with a deal that seems to be: we attend to the business our owners demand of us and you provide the distraction. It is a mutual consent to deprive the workers from education and money. It has worked for thousands of years.
6
This article would have been better if douhatt had connected this issue to other instances where it comes up— whether to obey immoral orders, whether it’s better to subvert or resign, whether to resign privately or publicly, etc. the choices are often nuanced and subtle, and sometimes portentous or dangerous. Douhatt has been too shallow to dig into it
1
The possibility of Mr. Trump’s tactical moves - unjustifiable - such as a nuclear attack gave me a terrible chill. The anonymity of the letter raises a question of its credibility and suggests the self-protection such that wherever subsequent events run or are driven to, the author of the letter will be able to survive politically. The columnist’s point on the anti-democratic as a subversion from the nature of the letter is cautiously true. I also strongly agree that the advisors against Mr. Trump should resign or make their resistance clear in the administration’s policies, visible to the public.
I'm elated that we have a free press to keep the public informed about all aspects of government. It should not take an anonymous insider to interpret the inner workings of Trumps administration. The sad part about this entire fiasco is that we are supposed to have a congress that serves as a check against a renegade president. There is no question, that has gone missing. Too much party loyalty and not enough objective intervention to speak to Trumps handling of most issues. He will run loose as long as the congress will let him. Both McConnell and Ryan are clearly mouth pieces for the party and are completely derelict in their duties of over site against this president.
114
The biggest issue I see with the anonymous op-ed is that disclosing the existence of a "steady state" undermines it's cause of secretly disrupting Trump's amoral inclinations. Now Trump is wise to the game, and is looking to flush out cabal. It would have been better to stay quiet and keep tempering Trump. Now, more paranoia triggers in Trump. The "steady state" succeeded in telling us what we already know, while also tipping it's hand to Trump. What's the point?
55
Russ, you wrote, "Such uncertainty means that sustaining the combination that I’ve suggested — yes to prudent resistance to rash behavior, no to ideological resistance to populist policy — would require constant self-scrutiny among the people trying to manage this presidency from within." Where does the patience to pull this off exist and more to the point, do we have the time?
Kavanaugh's certain seating on the court is only one of many examples of government out of control. Add to the list voter suppression, the tax break for the wealthy, et al. It appears the only hope we have is in the coming election and even that is being stymied as much as possible.
I don't see patience and understanding a options. Not at all and worse, I don't see them implemented.
7
The dichotomy that Mr. Douthat points toward has been used very effectively for the last twenty months to further the Republican agenda, The Kabuki theater of the White House keeps the voters attention off the great dismantling of democratically created regulations to keep our nation's laws fair to all, our food, air and working environments safe and healthy and regulations that prevent economic melt down and chaos. The constant attack on voting rights by the party in power along with this dismantling or ideological overreach is a sure sign that the party in power is not interested in supporting democracy. It is a reactionary attempt to return us to nineteenth century thinking and a nation governed by the rich and powerful who feel they are ordained to lead and control and are free to ride roughshod over the common working man.
Anyone who cares seriously about the welfare of our democracy and people would have already acted to remove this "Bad Actor" from the Presidency.
7
Anti-democratic, extra-Constitutional measures are being taken because the Republican Congress has failed to act to rein in Presidential abuses and errors through oversight.
Trump’s campaign rhetoric was vague and superficial.
Voters who voted for Trump trusted that his vaunted business acumen would result in beneficial decisions.
What the Op-Ed is saying is that Trump only played a successful businessman on tv. That his leadership style is that of an amoral toddler. That he can’t grasp complex interrelationships.
The Constitutional recourse for a President who relies on a captive cable news network for advice instead of his experienced, knowledgeable advisors is, in the first instance, a robust Congress who engages in oversight and pushback. And if that is not sufficient, then either impeachment or the 25th Amendment.
We are at a crisis because the Republican Congress is not doing their job. That Op-Ed was a very public cry for help to Congress.
Apparently that fell on deaf Congressional ears.
7
Could be thwarting the voters if Trump truly won the popular vote. He only won Electoral by lest than 1% margins in most cases hinging his victory on 76K votes overall. So, really... not so much an issue of thwarting voters.
10
A well thought out argument from Mr. Douthat.
Now I would like to hear how Mr. Douthat responds to a corollary. Mr. Obama was a duly elected president winning a significant popular vote margin as well as the Electoral College. The Constitution confers appointment powers upon the president and Mr. Obama appropriately and conscientiously exercised those powers in nominating Merrick Garland to SCOTUS.
The Senate has the responsibility to advise and consent on appointments. In the case of Garland and other judicial and administrative nominations it did neither. Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, essentially refused to advance nominations thus thwarting the president's constitutional responsibilities and the will of the voters.
Where was Mr. Douthat on that issue? What are reasonable remedies for Mr. McConnell's abuse of his power?
29
Internal resistance would not constitute thwarting voters since a majority voted against Trump. In fact, given what we know now, there is reason to doubt that Trump was duly elected.
17
A well thought out and vry nuanced column by Mr. Douthat. Unfortunately, there is very little or no nuance in Trump. And if Congress refuses to exercise its oversight responsibility on a reckless, impulsive and increasingly unhinged president, those involved in adult day care at the White House should not be blamed for trying other solutions, even if it means firing a distress flare in the form of an anonymous op-ed.
10
If the topic is truly about thwarting the will of the voters, then any fair and honest discussion needs to include the following:
-Gerrymandering
-Voter suppression
-Merrick Garland
Add internal White House resistance to that basket, and we'll have a good conversation, with no name calling and yelling, correct?
26
There is another related question. Are we bothered by the efforts to contain Trump or knowing these efforts? Does this affect how we view the op-ed, liking or disliking it? Would we have a different opinion of these actions if they arrived in our consciousness through rumors?
Essentially, is it the message or the messenger we are reacting?
Thank you, Mr. Douhat, for your thoughts on the internal White House raging war, and on this note, I placed in the bin an appeal by 100,000,000 Christians to make a donation in order to prevent the destruction of the Trump Administration.
3
@Miss Ley, here praying the 100,000,000 million Christians you mention for once realize that their Christian upbringing and deeply held beliefs are inconsistent with the cruelty that emanates daily from this White House and ignore your plea for donations and instead line up in November and send Trump and his minions a powerful rebuke. And in the process send the White House a little note saying: No, you cannot misappropriate Jesus’ words and teachings and corrupt them as you’ve done thus far.
2
When the "resistance" within the White House prevents an unconstitutional act, an illegal act, or a war crime, it is fully justified. Indeed, it is to be praised.
But when it prevents something that the unelected officials believe to be "misguided" or "not in keeping with conservative principles," they are guilty of insubordination.
Here is the test … if someone in the Obama administration had acted in that way to sabotage DACA, how would we react, compared to how we would react to someone in the current administration stopping the President from ripping up a trade deal, how would we react? If one is good and the other bad, then we are just being tribal.
There is a remedy for an out of control President, and that is the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. Unless and until that is invoked those serving the President must do so unless, as stated above, the order is unconstitutional, illegal, or a war crime. Or they must resign, noisily, and let the people know the true facts.
9
My greatest fear with Trump as president is that he will fire nuclear weapons at some other country. I have wondered If someone in the White House circle will stay his hand and prevent this. I hope so.
While Trump’s insight into human nature is uncanny his judgment is awful. Trump is a national security threat that many Republicans cannot bring themselves to recognize. While claiming to make America great he could easily get Americans anniliated.
9
@Nb
Trump appears to be having a breakdown and may be having trouble tying his shoe laces. This administration is corrupted and broken. Our nation in danger under his leadership, we will go to the polls and vote, and regardless of party affiliation, it might help serve us best to address the enemy within our country.
Does anyone know Trumps agenda beyond narcissism? Hate is his underlying theme. I agree in that the letter is destabilizing but it’s author will be known. Why isn’t Congress questioning Cabinet officials about the Executive Branch stability and possible invoking of he 25th Amendment which will require possibly two votes by both Houses of Congress? One to uphold the VP decision, and one to confirm a new VP. That Congress is not standing up makes checks on the President all the more necessary.
6
Can be the land of the free, and the home of the brave? That is the question.
As is the case with many complex matters, there are always shades of gray to foil oversimplification of the black and white. Mr. Douthat aptly points out the tug of war between arguments both for and against the anonymous, recently published New York Times opinion piece.
That said, we are faced with a president like no other, one who routinely misleads by prevarication, whose morals are questionable to many, and whose policies often appear to be anathema to traditional American ideals and long-established principles of governing.
Clearly, the author seems to feel that he or she possesses information of critical importance to Americans, of which they would otherwise be unaware. There is a certain level of patriotism involved that should be applauded as a result.
So the only question remaining is whether revealing it anonymously was the right thing to do, or whether the author should have gone public with it in an identifiable manner. I'm inclined to agree, much as I strongly disapprove of Trump, that the author should have revealed his or her name.
Then again, when your president claims that he could shoot someone in broad daylight and get away with it, and who routinely, publicly and repeatedly fires withering verbal shots at his own appointees, I can rationalize the author's desire for anonymity and the fearful sense of duty to country that appears to have accompanied it.
5
Part of debate centers on Trump's policies which is a rather gray area. Trump's policies have been up for sale to the highest bidder in some cases and frequently in question as he waffles. Take for example his "religious" streak, or his stance on gun control when he forgot he had to be for guns right after the Parkland shootings. He initially tried to negotiate with Pelosi and Schumer on DACA until someone else reminded him it was the wrong deal. The direction of Trump's policies on immigration have degraded to inhumane treatment if not immoral treatment of human beings that took an outcry from across the nation and within the courts to stop.
The true nature of the disservice to voters is to continue to perpetuate the myth of Donald J Trump as a successful businessman, and therefore his decisions must be good for all of us. There is a wealth of well-sourced information to the contrary, most of which many of his "people" will never see or never believe. There is and will remain a group of voters who will support Trump, not because of his policies, but because they identify with his base nature. Yet, there are some voters who see a trade-off between adherence to a set of policies and democracy itself. Some voters are not happy to be faced with the depth of Trump's corruption and that of Congress. Some are realizing the precedents being set, realizing if allowed to continue we may not be able to find our way back if our President is placed "above the law".
7
@psrunwme. The best illustration of Trump’s absolute lack of convictions is his response to Nike’s new ad. Using NFL kneeling as a racial attack dressed up as patriotism, Trump said he would say nothing against Nike displaying the founder of the kneeling movement in its ad.....because Nike paid rent in Trump Tower.
A lesson presumably learned years ago by the Russian money pouring into Trump business for years (as both sons have previously said).
1
This is a very thoughtful and nuanced analysis. I agree with its general conclusion but have one additional point to made. How were these Presidential "orders" subverted? If these "orders" are policy priorities of Trump, shouldn't the President notice many things were amiss? Instead, Trump was as surprised as anyone about the letter that Cohn removed. If terminating trade agreement with South Korea is important, why haven't the President asked about it because he should know that he has not signed this order if he is remotely competent? My suggestion is that there are numerous presidential whims and he advisors are choosing what to implement. They also know that most of these whims are not important enough for him to remember the next day. Is it ideal that his aids act his way? No. Is it ideal that our President issues so many orders daily on a whim that he has no personal recollection? God help us.
16
I am a liberal democrat and it is safe to say that the Trump administration is a test of my citizenship and whether I can remain in this country. But, Mr. Douthat has left out what I see as the most germane point: congress is not playing the role of exercising checks and balances on this president. Without that constitutional check, then we are left with creative insider solutions to stem the daily tide of chaos.
130
@Susan And the op-ed was written to reassure moderate Republican votes that an insider solution is in place, so there is no need to replace their do-nothing Republican legislators with Democrats this November. Very clever!
1
Unless, like me, you voted for Trump and his agenda ...
When it takes 2 days for a Supreme Court nominee to directly answer a simple yet vastly important question without obfuscation and with long term, negative implications for this country's democratic future, the law has no longer become the law because the truth is no longer the truth.
And when 'anything goes' becomes how we govern ourselves, then everything goes.
41
@Guido Malsh
"And when 'anything goes' becomes how we govern ourselves, then everything goes."
NO! If everything goes, then we no longer are governing ourselves. We have abdicated to anarchy.
@ImagineMoments
In fairness, maybe I misread your statement, and you meant just what I said.
@ImagineMoments Au contraire. IMHO, 'anarchy' is more tactical than strategic and less sustainable
than Fascism. Regardless, either one of them leads to inevitable doom.
Some of Trump's campaign promises that were repeated enough to be identifiable as some sort of clear program, and which have not been enacted:
a thrillion $ infrastructure plan
better health care for all
limiting the influence of lobbies and money in DC
reducing US military involvement abroad and foregoing attempts to remove non democratic governments
building a wall paid for by Mexico
locking his opponent up
Some of those promises appealed to many, others were crazy, some not legally feasible. But that's not the point. The point is that, among what could be identified as a clearly «Trumpian» agenda at odds with the Republican mainstream, almost nothing has been enacted at all. The only exceptions are the trade wars, which have been conducted in order to achieve minor gains to the US without threatening the free trade agenda, and possibly some of the immigration policies (although there is a strong anti-immigration wing in the republican party).
I would very much like a journalist to actually investigate what happened in each of those cases, instead of focusing on personal conflicts. They would illustrate both aspects of this «resistance». Did the president take steps to implement these policies? How, when and by whom have they been thwarted? Does the president realize what is going on or does he not notice that he is not in charge?
18
@passer-by
Don’t forget the tax cut for America’s wealthiest including Trump while this retiree will see her taxes go up.
6
While I would offer a counterpoint or two, on balance a fair assessment.
3
This is the result of keeping an 16th century device of elections that has thwarted majority rule. Clinton won the democratic election, Trump won the adjusted election. That along with gerrymandering and voter suppression have made democracy a sham. Now, though polls are not elections, we have a very strong rebuke of Mr. T's policies. What to do? This is the worst case scenario. T ran a campaign to adjust trade deals, but not because they will help in the long-run, but because they fed his base of hooting and hollerin fans. If a husband or wife starts to spend the retirement fund on bad investments or lavish toys, it is time for the spouse to close the account, despite the ranchor it would bring. Do we need a constitutional crisis? or can we just fix the Electoral College? stop tribal politics enough to not destroy our great nation? And at least stop saying "The American people vote for.....". They didn't.
28
@William Trainor William, this argument that HRC won the democratic election is simply silly. The rules were and are that the electoral college determines who wins. Everyone knows that. So Trump chose to contest the battleground states while HRC went to CA and NY etc. If you don't like the rules, that's one thing and I feel put upon because my vote essentially doesn't count in a deeply blue state. But that is still the rule.
Moreover, if the rule had been that the candidate who won the popular vote would become president -- then both candidates would adjust their strategies. And voters in deeply blue or red states who didn't vote would be more likely to vote. So you can't retrospectively make your argument. It's like saying, well we would have won if we were playing football but instead we had to play soccer. Tough.
2
@Ralphie
When people feel that they are playing under unfair rules they don't like it and they resist.
If we believe in majority rule then the majority must rule- not the minority. Increasingly many feel that they are playing against a stacked deck where it is almost impossible to change the rules. As long as every state has two senators,then those states with small populations will never consent to a change in the rules, That is what is tough.
@Ralphie I am in no way disputing the election, I am saying that the system is not purely democratic and the rule is bad. Now we have one party rule and they keep claiming "the voters voted for....." and they didn't. Trump has not tried to find consensus after being elected, he just plays to his base and has accumulated power even though 50+% don't agree, that is not democracy. Both of these things are anti-democratic. Our country is in danger.
In order to thwart the will of the voters, the election of the president would need to reflect the will of the voters. Thanks to the archaic instrument of the Electoral College, not to mention deliberate Republican-led voter suppression efforts in multiple states, and the enormously corrupting effects of Citizens United, we have a president who did not receive a plurality of the votes cast and who has never enjoyed the support of the majority of voters.
Of course the self-appointed members of the "internal resistance" within the Trump Administration weren't elected either.
Like Douthat, I too am pleased that the military is opting to not carry out Trump's clearly illegal orders to behead the Syrian regime while I am troubled by the deliberate sabotage of his effort to scotch the US-South Korea trade pact. But my reasons flow from my opposition to US imperialism rather than any illusion that this is a democratic country where major political decisions reflect the will of the people. Horrified as I am by Trump, I am fairly confident that a President Hillary Clinton would have us in a full-scale war in Syria by now and that any orders from her to take out Assad would encounter no "internal resistance" whatsoever though it would be wildly unpopular. All of which is to say that the anti-democratic tendencies we are up against go well beyond Trump or even the Republicans.
6
The only reasons Anonymous wrote his/her letter is to assuage their guilt for Usurping the Presidency while trying to woo disenchanted, disgruntled Republican Voters whose votes may not be forthcoming in the 2018 midterms. The GOP is in its very recognizable power-panic when their base begins realizing again that they are being hoodwinked.
5
The "will of the voters" eh? and which voters are these? Those gerrymandered out of effective impact?
Perhaps the will of voters in districts that have had poling placed reduced in number to make it more and more difficult to actually, you know, vote.
Maybe it's the will of voters removed from voter rolls by a computer program that simply gives false positives, allowing voter purges.
Maybe it's the will of voters disenfranchised by voter ID laws put in place to stop non-existent voter fraud.
Maybe it's the will of voters using machines that are easily hacked and have no paper trail to confirm the votes tallied.
Is that the will of the voters at issue here?
Newt Gingrich has visions of a permanent GOP majority - effectively one party rule. The present GOP is well on the way to making that a reality. Kavenaugh will be crowning achievement of the GOP's march in that direction.
27
For me the bigger question is how more than 5% of Americans could vote for Trump in the first place.
The beginning to the answer goes back 50 years ago when the Republican Party created the Southern Strategy, the conscious effort to appeal to the segregationist George Wallace Democratic voters.
In the 1980’s the Republican Party gave us the culture wars and Reagan and the dog whistle politics of welfare queens and States Rights and created the Reagan Democrats.
In the 1990’s we got the Newt Gingrich House of Representatives take no prisoners confrontation, the Clinton impeachment, Whitewater, and Vince Foster murder conspiracy.
With Obama, they created the Tea Party and gave us the birthers, death panels, and support of the Confederate flag.
They coopted Christians with abortion instead working to get women birth control.
And all these years, they have been using the Reaganomics talking points of small government and tax cuts for the job creators coming from the right-wing think tanks.
For thirty five years, the rising tide of Trickle Down Reaganomics has mostly helped the wealthy at the expense of the rest.
The Republican Party can’t understand how the Republican voters, who have been losing their manufacturing jobs all these years as Mitt Romney and his Wall St. colleagues sent those jobs to China, these same voters who have been listening to talk radio and Fox all these years, how they can blindly follow Trump and not listen to reason.
55
@Independent,
What economic vision did HRC articulate to the people who have lost or are at risk of losing their manufacturing jobs?
I realize that the NYT is something of a progressive echo chamber, but if the dems' 18 and 20 campaign strategies focus on blaming Trump and blaming working class Southerners and Midwesterners who voted for him, the results will be more of the same.
There is a fundamental flaw in the opinion piece. Mr Trump's policies did not win the approval of the American people. He was not elected by a majority, so the argument that his policies are those that the American people wanted is erroneous on it's face. He is the POTUS, of course. But his policies are not favored by the majority.
33
I think there's a 3rd kind: thwarting whomever is the suspect of choice. Suppose it is from Pence's office, written by an underling who wants to get rid of Pence....possibly so the next-in-line (Paul Ryan or his successor?) could step in for the interim -- until a new VP is approved by both houses of Congress (before Jan 1?). Palace intrigue at the feet of the mad king? Sounds possible. Whatever rationale drove the anonymous author, I agree w/ Douthat -- they are all counter to our system of government and to our best interests.
2
As originally conceived The Presidency was a weak political actor circumscribed by The Constitution, Congress and the Judiciary.
The Civil War, the wars of the 20th Century, Communications and money have changed that and power has moved to The Presidency.
How we choose Presidents and how we circumscribe their power need a rethink.
To my way of thinking none of Kennedy, Obama or Trump were qualified to be President but at least the first two did not believe that..."I alone can fix it". But Trump's successful election is just symptomatic of a failed and dangerous process.
However, even when we select capable politicians and executives: LBJ, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton, we have to recognize that they have flaws. They still need to be circumscribed.
Should we move towards a parliamentary system?
6
This really reminds me Brexit. A slim but clear majority of the people voted to leave the European Union, both its undemocratic bureaucracy and its trade benefits. A substantial majority of elites in parliament and the civil service (our own 'deep state') opposed that option, and are 'colluding' with the E.U. in Brussels to frustrate or even overturn Britain's exit from the bloc. Democracy (like free speech) is not a fundamental value any more, it's just one more thing to be weighed against other values, including what each individual thinks is the right thing to do.
People working in democratic governments should try to at least give the illusion that they work to enact the mandated will of the electorate. The commitment to democratic rule must come first. Everything else is down-river.
5
@Chris In the case of Mr Trump the majority did not and do not support his policies. Brexit did get a majority popular vote, Trump did not.
18
@Chris You forgot one other parallel with Brexit: both the Brexit vote and our election were targets of Russian efforts to sow the seeds of chaos in the West, which casts doubt on whether either result can be deemed "the mandated will of the electorate."
[Indeed, our system rarely gives us a "mandated will of the electorate." In a typical American presidential election, perhaps 60% of registered voters actually cast a ballot, and the winner generally polls just over half of those. (President Trump, of course, got just under half.) Hence, we generally send people to the White House if about 30% of our registered voters actively support them. Of course, these people are legitimately elected and have every right to implement the policies on which they campaigned, etc., but a genuine "mandate" is a rare thing in American politics.]
3
@Chris
You confuse brexit with "the will of the people". A slim majority of voters may have been coerced into voting for something xenophobic and self-defeating, but they were not really making a democratic choice, just responding to demagoguery and hate. The same is true of Trumps election, without even the excuse of a "slim majority". Now that the full implications are known, and some of its cheerleaders have repented, recanted, or switched sides, the catastrophe of Brexit will stagger on, but perhaps the Trump disaster will be restrained...
2
Ross,
It is time to look in the mirror. It is time to acknowledge truth and the acknowledgement of truth as the only defense of dynamic technological and social change. Conservatism only exacerbates the new problems created and we are at a time where conservatism has poisoned the well from which we all drink.
There is a time for all seasons and conservatism's time may come again but its time wasn't from 1973-2018. The message of the GOP is toxic in a world of too many people, and too much production and options for change in the hands of a few for whom any change is not advantageous.
24
@Memphrie et Moi
Amen! Forward thinking for the 21st century.
1
@Kathy Berger
Thank you.
For what its worth our next Provincial election is a few weeks away and our next Federal election is a year away. The main issue in both elections will unfortunately be Donald Trump and our relationship with the USA. We can do little to tweak what most of us find is an equilibrium of public and private good and the real power to effect damage lays in Washington and New York.
In Ontario Doug Ford our Trump lite saw 80,000 jobs disappear in his first quarter. We cannot understand winners and losers and still think free trade is usually a win /win scenario.
I am a member of our democratic socialist party and because of our love of country many of us will vote Liberal in the next election because if we ever regain control of our country it will be because we can demonstrate that faith in our government requires all Canadians reject what seems to be happening in Big Brother south of here.
Thwarting the voters, interesting concept. So, Ross - what's your opinion of the Electoral College? Or is that the "good" kind of thwarting?
56
But, dear Mr. Douthat,
the (majority of) voters was (and hopefully is) not for Mr. Trump. Moreover, gerrymandering has been a constant "voter thwarting" that both parties did equally, but one of them did more equally (it ain't the Democrats).
Therefore, I would go very very carefully about the notion of "thwarting voters".
Marco Antoniotti
63
53% of eligible American voters voted in 2016. what "majority"?!
Ross' premises: that some actual policy debate occurred during the 2016 election. And that the people decided the nation's future course. Both premises preposterous of course!
"Choosing" Trump was primarily a referendum coordinated by two allies against Hillary. Two allies -- Putin and Red State America united by their mutual hatred of Hillary -- to be made great by their mutual affections for autocracy and distrust of liberal democracy.
And the predictable outcome of selecting the most unfit presidential candidate ever: an internal struggle within the administration for power in an atmosphere of chaos. While the economic engine for GDP maintains the fiction, the myth, there is some master in control.
38
Russ Douthat makes an important distinction between justified and unjustified resistance by administration officials. But he fails to acknowledge that even some of what he considers justified resistance still could amount to an extra-constitutional transfer of power - in plain terms, a Republican partial coup.
An arguably more constitutional distinction would make official resistance justified only if it is resistance to the president's orders that are unlawful , including any that violate international law. By that standard, American military personnel would be justified in refusing orders to use nuclear weapons, just as their predcessors would have been justified to resist orders to bomb noncombatant, civilian targets in Germany and Japan. But this still could leave unelected, unaccountable officials in the position of deciding what is legal and what is not.
And all this also could also still leave the question of when might it be morally but not legally justified to refuse or resist certain lawful orders. Douthat and others should address that question.
6
@Greg deGiere Military officers are also unelected but they can be held accountable for "only following orders" (if said orders are illegal such as assassinating Assad or engaging in torture) or disobeying legal orders (e.g. the refusal of some soldiers to undertake a dangerous mission). Either action can subject the soldier to court martial. In the case of General Mattis (Ret), Trump could, but didn't, fire him and would likely deny that he ever issued the order in the first place since it would be another cause for impeachment. While the
Commander-in-Chief has the sole authority to order launching nuclear weapons, the military officer in charge of executing such an order has openly stated that he would refuse if he deemed said order to be illegal, consequences be damned. The Joint Chiefs of Staff can also constrain Presidential follies of this sort. In sum, the rest of the world is safer from Trump than are we Americans.
1
The most disturbing thing is that everyone knows how unfit Trump is for office, but the Republicans accept, protect, and laud him in order to get what the want. Which is rule by oligarchs and the end of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Unless you ascribe to the idea that 'corporations are people too, you know.'
132
As a progressive independent I believe in 3 things germane to this conversation.
1. The rule of law
2. The concept of the loyal opposition
3. Loyalty to the office of the President and the Constitution
Democracy is messy and fraught with mistakes. I do not believe a 25th Amendment solution or impeachment would solve any current crisis, to the contrary it would only deepen the divide in this country.
Getting out the vote in 2018 and 2020 is the best remediation to the problem. Democrats need to find a platform other than anti-Trump.
30
@Joe Waters Great points. And they won't. Dems are increasingly out of touch with reality and miss the opportunity to offer a platform to recapture the center, where the largest swath of the malleable electorate is--instead mistaking it for inaction and status quo instead of compromise and reasonableness. The Bernie faction of the Democratic party is building a proverbial bridge to nowhere.
@Joe Waters A defective is holding the most powerful office in the world. That's the only issue that matters now.
2
@Joe Waters
The anonymous op-ed writer claimed that the "internal resistance" was aimed at preventing a "constitutional crisis" that would be brought about by impeachment or the 25th Amendment. That is absolute balderdash. It's a logical impossibility that acting within the bounds of the Constitution could precipitate a constitutional crisis. There would be a crisis, but it would be political. The Constitution, followed according to the intent of the founders and those who amended it, would be safe as houses.
No, the real constitutional crisis isn't impeachment or the 25th Amendment. It's the "internal resistance" itself, the takeover of the government by an unelected cabal of self-serving cowards.
1
The last two Republican presidents, George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump, were elected due to the anomaly of the Electoral College, and they both have turned out to be the most unpopular presidents ever. Bush left office with a 25% favorable rating and Trump’s favorable rating hovers around 40%. This clearly indicates the need to respect the wishes of the majority and let our presidents be elected strictly by popular vote!
Our system of government makes it impossible for internal resistance within the executive branch, however justified it might be, to deliver any material changes. If the internal resistance can’t succeed in invoking the 25th Amendment, we have to wait until the midterm elections and hope that Democrats succeed in taking over both chambers of Congress, which still doesn’t guarantee that Trump’s presidency will be terminated through impeachment. In any case, there is no constitutional justification for the internal resistance to cherry pick which of the president’s actions it will thwart and which it will allow. Such behavior is tantamount to sedition and could cause long-term damage to our democracy.
Political pundits have been complaining about the rise of the imperial presidency for a long time. But we never had a wannabe autocrat occupy the presidency before – this is the real problem. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution. Congress needs to scrap the Electoral College because the majority is too smart to elect an autocrat as president.
67
If Trump was able to fulfill his duties and actually lead the Executive Branch, then he would have surrounded himself with people loyal to his policies and agenda and there would be no question of an internal "resistance" and no need to worry whether contradicting the President's wishes was saving the country or usurping power. (And if anyone in the administration did try to "resist" it would be obvious and they'd soon be out of a job.)
The problem is he's not able to fulfill his duties and he's unfit to lead the Executive Branch, let alone the nation. That leads to a power vacuum at the top and everyone else trying to fill it according to their own personal views of what's best for the country (or themselves and their cronies). The Republican Party seems to be more than happy to accept this situation because they believe they can use it to their advantage (i.e., stay in power).
With the Republicans currently in control of the Legislative Branch, and doing their best to control the Judiciary, we're left with no institutional check on any of them and find ourselves at the mercy of individuals, many of them unelected, deciding for themselves when to act and when not to, with total disregard to the will of the people, leaving the whole country at risk of military, social, economic and environmental disaster.
As far as I'm concerned the Constitution has failed and the inmates are running the asylum. God help us all.
53
Except... except... except... Trump was not "duly elected" president. Trump won because he won the Electoral College, a device specifically intended to insulate the actual presidential selection from the direct will of the voters. By the direct will of the voters, Trump's main opponent won almost 3 million more votes than Trump. And there were several smaller alternative selections besides Trump. For yet another election, the direct will of the voters has been thwarted by the Electoral College. So all the Trumpistas and "conservatives" complaining about internal Republican resistance thwarting a 'duly elected president' must recognize that Trump won the Electoral College, not the election. Trump has no "mandate" to rule, however ineptly or erratically, to whatever his whim of the moment is, whatever demagogic extension of the powers of the presidency he can try to get away with. Trump is not the selection of the majority of the people, judging by the many polls, nor of the majority of those who voted. Trump is another mistake, another idiosyncrasy of the Electoral College. Were we to have direct presidential selection, Trump would -not- be president.
152
@Jim Brokaw-(and J Nargundkar) this is exactly the point re "mandate", once that is twisted by the arbitrary, extra value placed upon Electoral votes. It is a kind of yranny of the minority.
And we should not kid ourselves:
1/The problem exists also in the private sector, aids and assistants controlling the flow of information is always an influence on decision-making, and
2/ True majority rule is no guarantee against tyranny of the majority, as the writers of the Constitution understood.
But there is indeed something troubling when unaccountable officials do this on a regular basis-even if I would agree it is necessary in this bizarrely dangerous situation.
This is just another example unintended conscequences and of how twisted all has become under Trump.
2
@Jim Brokaw You are wrong on the facts & the law. For good, better, or worse Trump is the duly elected President by law & by fact....end of story. Every Presidential election for over 200 years has been based on the electoral college. Democrats have only been against it because it hasn't worked in their favor as of late. If the situation were reversed... had Trump won the popular vote but HRC had won the electoral vote would anyone be complaining...of course not. This is the height of hypocrisy. Face it HRC lost. She has no excuse. It should n't ever have been close. Let's review. She had the entire Democratic, Republican, media, business, tech, & global establishment on her side. She had had the most formidable political machine of the past 30 years. She raised more money than any other Democratic candidate for President...over 900 million dollars. She out spent Trump 3-1. She had substantially more troops on the ground. She had President Obama at the height of his popularity not only anoint her as his successor but campaign by her side. She had her husband, as well as Michelle Obama, pleading her case. She won all three debates. Her opponent put his foot in his mouth every time he walked out the door. She had every conceivable edge, more advantages than anyone who has ever run or probably ever will run for President. And she still couldn't close the deal…she still couldn't beat a former reality star who had never held office. HRC 's wounds were all self-inflicted.
2
@Bill Brown-sorry but this is silly. By facts HC got 3M more votes. The EC law is the law but it is wrong, as laws often are. His point is factually correct. And factually (.e.g see Economist a few weeks back) the whole electoral system is rigged now to favor Republicans, between jerry-mandering and the Electoral college-hence the problems in 2 of the last 4 elections. And if you want to throw in outside support and distortions - don't forget the Koch Brothers and other staggering amounts of money at the state level, and wait, ah what is the name of that friendly country that 6 intelligence agency heads (some Republicans) accused of profound meddling in the last election, certainly in the swing states narrowly lost. HC won the popular vote by a massive margin - you cannot say all wounds self inflicted. The whole thing turned on 70K votes. When you speak of hypocrisy and facts - I can only smile.
The Republicans and the Republican Party disgust me.
They steal elections.
They gerrymander.
They steal Supreme Court seats.
They give away billions in corporate welfare.
They allow a Republican President to be corrupt in plain view.
They give the 1% a $1.5 trillion tax cut that they don't need.
They say they have to cut entitlements after the tax cut robbery.
They smear civil servants.
They smear the Justice Department, the media.
They smear war heroes -- see John McCain, Robert Mueller.
They speak out against Trump, and vote lockstep with him.
They don't do anything to stop Russian interference in our upcoming election because I believe they want/need the Russians to help them win (see first point that they steal elections).
And now they pretend they are saving their country by doing a soft coup of an incompetent, amoral President Trump, instead of implementing existing rules that would provide the proper check against this outrageous man.
Don't be fooled by this smoke and mirror, self-serving act.
A pox on all of these cowardly quislings.
Vote for Democrats across the board in November 2018.
574
@V Well said.
Presumably Mr or Ms Anonymous doesn't have a job as 'a senior administration official' by accident, but was chosen for his or her position thanks to a personal profile and a resume that adequately fit Trump's concept as to what it takes to be included among 'the best people'. Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk that read "The buck stops here". Trump therefore, however desperately he tries to spin it by making himself out as the victim, must surely accept full responsibility for Anonymous, just as he must for Flynn, and for Pruitt, for Price and for Ross, for Sessions and DeVos, and just as he must for no fewer than two convicted felons who are spending this very night in prison.
37
@Leigh
I wouldn't presume that Anonymous was chosen for
any reason at all, except as a quid pro quo for work done and keeping his/her mouth shut on the campaign.
1
I wonder whether the various parts of the anonymous essay add up to a view of the author's purpose, or some parts are digressions that tend to obscure that purpose.
The burden of the argument is that Trump must be resisted because he is amoral, impetuous, and erratic; "off the rails", as John Kelly has also put it according to Bob Woodward.
If the references to policy are elaborations on the argument for resistance, they do set up the ethical contradiction you mention. Presuming to decide which of Trump's political aims are "bright spots" and proceed to thwart others that do not violate basic norms would be to thwart the democratic system (though not "the voters", strictly speaking).
But it may be that Anonymous wove in those political references by way of assuring conservatives that the internal resistance is neither leftist nor deep-statist; that the resisters are fellow conservatives taking a stand against a threat to basic norms and general safety. Where Anonymous seems too concerned with political outcomes, he or she may simply be laying assurance on a bit too thick.
I haven't decided what to think about that. However, I do think that the act of writing the essay shows Anonymous to be either very reckless or very deep.
5
Underneath their facade, the GOP is working toward being the party that runs the nation. They will fight against potential SCOTUS rendering of gerrymandering as being patently anti voter and party centric. They will continue their support of Trump as their autocratic leadership in an effort to take control of our government. They will stop defending democratic principles and the tenets of our Republic.
33
All of the talk about whether Anonymous should have written and been published misses the central issue. The same applies to the talk about whether any or all of the tactics Anonymous describes are anti-democratic, and whether he should or should not resign or disclose his identity.
The fact is that few are surprised at the tales of Trump's instability, incompetence and lack of moral character. The fact is that, as long as Trump remains president, the United States of America, and its citizens, are at substantial economic, social and military risk. Moreover our Country's self-image and our reputation abroad are suffering material degradation to an extent that will likely not be undone for a long time, if ever.
The entire tragic farce of Trump is materially exacerbated, in all of its dimensions, by the willingness of almost all of the Republican congressional majority to ignore or even praise Trump's daily demonstrations of his unfitness for that high office.
Americans, regardless of political party, should turn out in record numbers for the November, 2018 elections and defeat those members of Congress and State officials who have betrayed their oaths by facilitating Trump and not calling him to task for what he has been doing. Thereafter, we should do all we can to make sure that Trump and his other facilitators are resoundingly voted out of office in November, 2020. We must then, also, revise the undemocratic electoral procedures that enabled the election of Trump.
46
@HJB . 100%. That is just how it looks from this hemisphere.
Longterm what needs fixing is the state by state electoral system, the gerrymanders, the campaign funding and influence peddling.
The voters need to be able to trust in electoral outcomes and that is simply not possible under the current system.
Can I remind you all of the infamous Floridian `hanging chads' that not only saw G W Bush elected but then dragged your country thru 17 years of foreign wars with no end in sight.
Poor Fellow My Country..
6
Mr. Douthat sees two separate consequences to the insider’s strategy — thwarting populism and damage control. But these are not alternative consequences to be weighed against each other. Rather, the insider’s ends are damage control and their means are by thwarting populism. The insider is putting a check on Trump’s excesses by overriding his will and, by implication, overriding the popular will. But here is no duality in what the insider is doing. You either approve or disapprove of his or her ends and means. Or I suppose you could approve of one but not the other. Mr. Douthat misses the essential connectedness of damage control and thwarting populism. The conflict he poses misses the essence of the insider’s strategy.
2
@michjas: "The conflict he poses misses the essence of the insider’s strategy." We don't know the insider, and so do not know his/her strategy. Nor do we know Douthat's strategy although it appears to be widely shared in the media. Here, you're all discussing the messenger and the cleft stick in which s/he delivered the message. Let's stick with the actual message. Frameworks of laws and constitutions are cobbled together by the powerful in order to protect and serve themselves. Why do we expect that we can operate meaningfully within such frameworks?
2
The Republican treatment of Barack Obama shows that they have no qualms or hesitation about frustrating a president's agenda when it does not suit their fancy. So it should be no surprise or occasion for protest if a person of principle does the same to the president he (or she) allegedly serves.
After all, working with Obama to continue to pull the country out of its economic nosedive would help him get reelected.
Openly and blatantly thwarting his attempts would also likely get him reelected, so the only course of making him a one-term president was to thwart the economic recovery while pretending to do something else, such as saving the country from socialism or the sort of greatly increased indebtedness that dubya and Trump have both created.
When principles have been buried in propaganda and false reasoning, anything can be justified, and the tools for evaluating justifications have been deliberately sabotaged.
48
@sdavidc9--well said.
All of us remember McConnell announcing right after President Obama's election, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
It wasn't just the question of the recovery assistance, the plan was to claim ideological differences and refuse to cooperate at all. Joe Biden tells the story of seven different Senators telling him of McConnell's plan for a unified resistance--"The way it was characterized to me was: `For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,” Biden said.
18
@sdavidc9
Well said......like when the Senate wouldn’t take up Obama’s nomination of Garland to the Supreme Court! McConnell said it was tooooo close to the next election. Guess the term “duly elected” twice by a true majority of the voters didn’t count then because the president was Obama’s. What a travesty of justice that was.
2
The so-called internal resistor took a laudable first step (encouraged by Bob Wooward's coming book, no doubt), but the next step is even more essential and will require real COURAGE. It will be to stand up in person and repeat the same statements in full public view. Then a proper open debate can start and it won't be just about the president, it will be about all his enablers and all those who conveniently looked the other way or bowed sheepishly or even abjectly towards him when instead they should have raised their head and disagreed.
We don't really need more material to prove the dysfunction of the white house and the corrupt, inept nature of Trump. We need a public debate with official witnesses, not anonymous accusations.
And voting, obviously is the way to state your position in this debate.
As an aside, I want to mention that I agree with Rick Wilson that the Democratic party is the "real party of fiscal sanity, probity and responsibility" and that cannot be emphasized enough.
28
@Fly on the wall it may not be safe for the writer to reveal himself/herself at least at this time.
If our interesting Chief Executive is re-elected, it will be entirely because the Democrats, with the usual irony of history, have become the pro-War Party.
Ever obedient to their corporate/Pentagon bosses, they have succeeded in finding something the American people like even less than Donald Trump:
World War Three.
@Red Allover
"It will be entirely because the Democrats, with the usual irony of history, have become the pro-War Party."
^ What? Trump is anti-war.... same guy who per the OP ED calls for military strikes and even assassination of foreign leaders whenever he is annoyed?
What in the world are you talking about?
4
@Red Allover
??????
What in the world are you talking about?
3
@Red Allover: Uhm..., it is Trump and the Republicans who greatly increased the DoD budget, and gave a Trillians tax cut to the wealthy, while the Democrats would have spent the money on improving health care, education, infrastructure, combating climate change, maintaining the social safety net, etc., It is Putin, boss of Russian oligarchs, who is Trump’s boss. Talk about beholden to Pentagon/corporate bosses... Calling white black doesn’t make it so... it’s blatant lying.
4
There two viewpoints align much better if we first accept that error of the Imperial Presidency.
It evolved out of our Cold War thinking, and subsequent neocon delusions. Our fears and "needs" overwhelmed our actual Constitution.
It is far beyond the concept of the Constitution and its balance of powers, and not really what we should elect any President to be. We don't need a Roman Consul for a year (their original term, for safety reasons), much less an Emperor for 4 or 8.
7
@Mark Thomason: "We don't need a Roman Consul for a year (their original term, for safety reasons), much less an Emperor for 4 or 8." It seems that many of our fellow citizens prefer to allow a bombastic fraud to make their decisions for them. The threatening spread of authoritarian parties across Europe points in that direction. On Sweden-watch today.
5
Ross, you speak in this essay of a thwarting of the will of the voters.
That is certainly happening - at least with regard to the will of the voters who wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Donald Trump.
I consider it outrageous that no one in either the Trump administration or the congressional GOP has even a care for the will of the majority that wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the village idiot in the White House or the policies that that he is attempting to shove down our throats - and that we intend shove right back down his, and Mitch McConnell's, throats at the earliest possible opportunity.
What leads a man and a party to believe that an electoral college win coupled to gerrymandered control of the House gives one a mandate to take a nation back to the dark ages?
None of this will stand - not even Trump and the Federalist Society's machinations on the Supreme Court. All of this can and will be reversed as soon as Democrats regain full control of the government - IMHO, by 2021 - no matter the cost.
Ross, let me strongly suggest that any President who loses the popular vote should feel an obligation to govern from the political center for at least the first two years of his Administration.
Otherwise, all you do is intensity a desire for revenge and reversal of every single policy implemented at the earliest possible opportunity, by any constitutionally plausible means necessary.
87
@Matthew Carnicelli
That last sentence should have begun:
Otherwise, all you do is intensify a desire for revenge and reversal of every single policy implemented at the earliest possible opportunity, by any constitutionally plausible means necessary.
8
@Matthew Carnicelli An electoral college win is the only win that matters in Presidential politics. It's been that way for over two hundred years. The best way to defend democratic norms is to follow democratic norms. That means recognizing the results of the election.
@Bill Brown
We do recognize the outcome of the election; we accepted Donald Trump as President. We did not attempt to secede as did a disloyal, wrong as rain and guilty as sin, South in 1861
However, do not accept that he has a political mandate to do anything divisive - and hence we will actively seek to reverse literally everything that he and a shamefully gerrymandered House attempt to foist on this nation between now and the end of his term.
I say this only to compel the realization on conservatives that their current sense of triumph will be short-lived - and that once that pendulum swings back our way, likely by 2021, they will likely lose literally everything they think they have accomplished, including control of the courts.
There is an alternative to this constant swing of the pendulum - and that is working towards honest societal consensus, instead of endless attempts to turn back the clock in an effort to appease the high net worth donors who refuse to pay taxes, and lead GOP legislators around by the short hairs.
Merrill Garland would have been a consensus choice for the Supreme Court. Neither Gorsuch or Kavanaugh are consensus choices - and their influence must be diluted at the earliest possible opportunity so that conservatives learn the important lesson that crime does not pay.
1
If Trump is mentally ill, the 25th Amendment should be invoked to remove him from office and safeguard our country from danger. If the Mueller report shows he violated campaign laws and colluded with the Russians to steal the election and later obstructed justice, he should be impeached. But the Republicans won't allow the use of either of these constitutional remedies. Why? So their party can stay in power. All this moral dithering about internal resistance is sheer hypocrisy.
139
@Carson Drew
You're right about everything up to your last sentence, Carson.
But concern about a Republican partial coup, which is what Anonimous describes, is hardly dithering or hypocracy.
If there is going to be a mental illness investigation or impeachment somebody has to propose it Nobody has. It seems to me that the Democrats are equally to blame. Schumer never does anything.
Ross, like many commentators misses the larger and more unsettling point. Trump seems not to notice when or if he has had his directives derailed, slow-walked or ignored. A person of sound mind would notice, would he not, that his orders had not been followed. The fact that Trump doesn't seem to know or remember from one day to the next what he asked to be done is the sign of an infirm mind. Whether those doing the obstructing are right or wrong is a side matter at best. Ross, what should we think of a president who doesn't know enough to know his orders haven't been followed?.The central issue illuminated by Anonymous and Bob Woodward is a president who doesn't have the acumen to know what is happening around him.
164
@Manitop
Not so much an infirm mind as a distracted one. He is only interested in two things: money and his image. For the money, he has Jared and accountants. For his image he has Fox News, rallies, media of all sorts, polls, and - most importantly - his "ratings". The running of the state is a sideline at best. For that he has Pence and the cabinet.
By all accounts, this is how he "ran" his business, by outsourcing the decisions and deflecting blame for the bad ones while taking credit for the good ones. Nothing has changed and nothing will. It isn't his brain health; it is his character - or lack thereof.
3
@Manitop
That is certainly a very cogent point--and decidedly the reason that the 25th Amendment should have been invoked long ago, and still should be.
Although, the idea of Pence then occupying the Oval Office has given, and should give, all reasonable people pause.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
2
You say to give the people the president they voted for but the majority of people did not vote for trump.
184
@MidWest Popular votes do not decide Presidential Elections in the US by design.
1
Mr. Douthat makes some good points. There needs to be a gray area when dealing with a clearly unfit and unstable president. I think more than using the words "gray area," "fine line" would perhaps be more appropriate in this complex and undesirable paradigm we are now living through. There is absolutely no doubt that Trump must be constantly supervised. His behavior is increasingly erratic and volatile. But to remove from a desk personal letters, even if relating to national and international affairs, is dangerously close to a usurpation of the rights of the executive branch of government. As it is, we are already too near to a Constitutional crisis.
On the one hand I am thankful for both Mr. Woodward's upcoming book and the anonymous op ed. Both validate what thousands of Americans have already deciphered about Mr. Trump. It is clear that out of fear and cowardliness this president's most intimate aides and Cabinet will not step up to the plate and confront him with an intervention of some sort. I know I may sound like a broken record for the many times I have written this, but the responsibility of stabilizing our government now seems to fall upon Congress. Unfortunately, these Republican politicians are also cowardly and fearful...of losing their constituents and personal self-seeking agendas.
25
The only things thwarting the voters in the US today are the nonsensical Electoral College, and the ownership of two Senate seats by every state, no matter how large or how small. We are the victims of our aged constitution, which is badly - badly! - in need of repair.
260
@tony zito
Really?
So diagnose Brexit.
Italy.
Hungary.
Sweden.
Blah blah blah electoral college blah blah blah.
The voters? You mean that snuffer of the popular will--otherwise known as the Electoral College? The actual voters chose Clinton by three million votes.
381
It is a false dichotomy to separate supposedly non-dangerous presidential policies, which shouldn't be interfered with, and dangerous ones, which should be. Everything that comes from this man is poisonous. The danger lies within the man, and everything that emanates from him should be suppressed.
26
As super weird goes, it is super weird that we the people are best off if other nuclear powers believe Trump is not fully in charge of our arsenal and that the Joint Chiefs and/or Mattis might act with or without Trump input.
7
It all could have been avoided if the Republicans had refused to let Trump run as a Republican. They knew he would run as a third party candidate which would have been like 1992 all over again putting another Clinton in the White House. But they could have kept their integrity.
22
Mr. Douthat would have a worthwhile point if, indeed, it was The Donald's policy proposals that won him the White House. Let's face it: Trump is our president because lots of white Americans were worried that they'd be waking up one morning faced with the obligations of learning Spanish and living in a country governed by Shariah Law. Trump essentially let them know that bigotry was cool and that the people they hated were also the people he hated. The tax cuts (most of which ended up going to the folks who look down on THEM) are merely the icing on the cake.
411
Regardless of whether it was his policy proposals that got him into the White House, the point is that he was democratically elected by the American people. The fact that he may have been elected for other reasons doesn’t make the resistance of his advisors any less undemocratic. Trump has the mandate of the people to enact these policies; to quietly undermine and subvert his agenda is going against the will of the American people.
@James E-Trump was elected with the help of Russian interference that permeated down into the actual voting systems and vote counting software. Surely that should concern us all.
Voting Machine Easily Compromised at Las Vegas Convention ...
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/.../voting-machine-crack-...
DEFCON Video Shows a Voting Machine Used in 18 States Is Hacked in 2 Minutes.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/.../voting-machine-makers-are-already-worr...
@James E: If Trump has the mandate of the people so, too, do the senators and House members who oppose his policies. Not even his advisors are legally obligated to enact policies they deem to be unconstitutional or just plain wrong-headed. (Needless to say, Trump can fire and replace them with advisors who are more to his liking. Joe Arpaio and Roy Moore are both available as is David Duke.)
This supposed internal resistance, I suspect, Type 1 or Type 2, is rather more inchoate and haphazard than our Anonymous correspondent would have us believe. "Resistance" seems a misnomer, in any case, as the examples trotted out in support of these covert correctives are neither numerous nor particularly compelling.
That Trump's wildness needs to be constrained (beyond someone crazy-gluing his Twitter keyboard), while widely taken as axiomatic, seems overblown as well. If anything, on policy, he has been more timid than his followers at least would like. There is a wide gulf between his statements and his follow up. I am skeptical of any wide or systemic activity to undermine Trump within his immediate group of advisors. His other enemies, however, including the national political media, Academia, Silicon Valley, much of Wall Street, and within the intelligence community and other parts of the permanent federal bureaucracies, are well known, better organized, and have no mixed feelings such as those expressed by the not terribly brave or honorable Anonymous.
4
Brother Douthat, stop getting stuck in the weeds while the nation swirls down yet another rigged Republican Presidential toilet.
This Administration is just another carnival of Republican excrement, differing from the Bush-Cheney reign of error only in form, but it's the same rotting Republican fish of right-wing incompetence, corrupt authoritarianism, 1% welfare and election theft.
Trump may seem 'worse' than Boy George Bush, but they were both the spoiled rotten sons of rich fathers, both AWOL for Vietnam, both have trouble speaking English, both graduated from Ivy League colleges that seem above their IQs, both are the products of rigged Presidential votes who never had a mandate for anything who proceeded to flash their stupidity and Greed Over People every day of their Presidency.
The Republican Party since 2000 is a criminal political syndicate hellbent on power through dirty tricks to subvert the will of the American people.
Stolen presidencies through voter suppression, stolen Houses of Representatives via gerrymandering and the undemocratic Senate and Electoral College and rigged courts have permitted the Republican Party to assume illegitimate power representing no one but billionaires.
Infrastructure ?
Campaign finance reform ?
Healthcare ?
Education ?
The will of the people ?
Sorry, can't have any of that, America.
We need more tax cuts for millionaires.
The GOP is what a Russian-Republican oligarchic criminal syndicate looks like.
November 6 2018
646
@Socrates
Agree with your post 100%. Except that I'm not sure it responds to Douthat's piece, which, I'm surprised today, within the scope of his argument, for once in a great while (like maybe ever), makes sense, at least to me.
So, while I agree with your assessment of the Republican party and its behavior - I will only be truly satisfied if a second set of this-time-domestic Nuremberg Trials is conducted, and virtually every Republican who has been in Federal office these last years - and their financiers (no names necessary) - are tried for treason and other high crimes.
But, and again I'm surprised to say it, Douthat's argument, within the scope of "how should people in the administration act," does make sense. I'd rather we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with, where we have to even pose these questions, but for at least the next two plus years, this is where we are going to be.
Then again, if people get to the polls, and vote Republicans out of the majorities in the House and Senate, we can have a very different conversation. I'm looking forward to that conversation hopefully, meanwhile doing what I can, canvassing and phone banking for non-Republicans for Congress, with the overarching goal of tipping both Houses.
Meanwhile, don't take my disagreement as criticism of your general thrust. Keep sticking it to them.
11
@Socrates
Despite the overly strong language you indulge in, your instincts are correct. The basis for the Republican political power is the philosophy of "the ends justify the means", that subterfuge, propaganda "purposefully misleading the public to believe in false facts", "false accusations to discredit others", use of political power to subvert the will of voters, to win elections, is acceptable because the end results confirm your beliefs in how the country should be governed, or more likely it just is in your self interest. If this were only true of politics to would be trouble enough, but it holds true for all of our institutions, business in particular, civil organizations, religious organizations, philanthropic organizations. Somehow we as a society have forgotten that how we achieve our goals is more an indication of who we are than what goals we achieve. If the history of past civilizations has taught us anything it is that the "ends never justifies the means if the means cannot be justified by moral behavior". Decimating aboriginal societies, enslavement of any type, genocide, all produce advancement of one people over another, but the stain from those actions remains on those that use them and eventually turns against them. Only by acknowledging that all humane life has a basis in equal value regardless of the differences between individuals can a society maintain an improving future for itself. Remember Claudius , "let all the poisons in the mud come out".
7
@Robert Henry Eller
Wasn't pence duly 'elected' as part of team trump? Just saying...
Just remember, Trump DIDN’T win the popular vote. So technically, the “internal resistance “ is thwarting Trump on appearances, but also the voters, more importantly and seriously.
Abolish the electoral system!
182
@Fe R This is a poorly thought out rash reaction. Presidents are simply not elected by the popular vote by design.
Abolishing the Electoral College is a fantasy of the unhinged left and would certainly lead to a second civil war within the next 50 years at the longest. Subjecting smaller states to the will of a few larger ones is against everything the Founding Fathers wanted.
A better idea would be to adjust the EC so that the number of votes reflect the percentage cast for each nominee. This would make each vote count more.
1
Hmmm, the agenda that won Trump the White House? Would that be replacing Obamacare with more comprehensive, less expensive, “terrific healthcare”? Would that be taxing the wealthy people “like me” (Trump) to provide tax relief to the middle class? Or his promise to “end the carried interest tax loophole”? Rebuild our infrastructure? Get Mexico to pay for the wall? Trump promised the moon and the stars to his voters, and delivered a bag of rocks.
685
@John Ranta
And after receiving that bag of rocks his supporters mysteriously continue to salivate and froth over their savior. Call it what it is: a cult.
7
And that bag of rocks, of course, is a Christmas stocking full of several lumps of 'beautiful clean coal' for each West Virginian.....which is fatal.
And West Virginians cheer wildly for their Grand Old Poison.
Nationally-Assisted-Suicide: GOP 2018
6
To invoke the 25th Amendment requires the Vice President and a majority of the sitting Cabinet Secretaries to be on board. Uncertain about Pence, because there is some speculation he wrote the anonymous letter to the NY Times, but I highly doubt a majority of Trump's Cabinet would be willing to take that step. However, pointing out what a clear and present danger Trump is to the country and perhaps the world, the anonymous letter screams for the 25th amendment to be invoked, (and confirms much of what is in Woodward's book). (Part of me silently thanks whoever at the White House is trying to prevent something dire happening to the country.) Nonetheless, these individuals are acting like a shadow government, which has inherent dangers because it is answerable to no one. What I really wish, is that whoever is involved, (and the letter indicates several are), would quit en masse, walk out the door, and speak to the press and tell the truth about what everything that goes on inside the White House. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Not the fake news, nor alternative facts that we are bombarded with daily. If that were to happen, and it could be demonstrated unequivocally that Trump is unhinged, then Congress would have to seek some kind of action to remove Trump from office.
This is a dangerous time for our country, and as scary as the Cuban missile crisis.
58
In the past few days, we have read and heard a great deal about thwarting the will of the people, or obstructing a democratically elected president’s agenda. Such nonsense is enough to make the angels weep. The will of the people is expressed through the votes of the majority, which is the very basis of democracy. As we all know, Trump occupies the White House in spite of the will of the people. He secured his office by conspiring with a hostile foreign power, and by virtue of a constitutional anachronism that gives greater voice to less populated states – the very antithesis of democracy. Because Trump lacks democratic legitimacy, and because his action are antithetical to our national security and the common good, obstruction and resistance are completely justified.
One day we will see the end of Trump. As a nation, our top priority should be to prevent such a creature from rising to power again. We will need to restore common sense to our elections, getting rid of the power and corruption of dark money and foreign influence. So that future presidents may govern effectively and with the full consent of the governed, we will have to amend the constitution to abolish the Electoral College and give the power of electing the chief executive to the people.
195
@Joe
...and produce the very same documentation that is required for security clearance BEFORE a nomination for office is bestowed by ANY political party.
15
@Joe
Like a lot of the other commenters, Joe lets his
disdain for the current constitutional system -- a disdain I share, BTW -- overrun any respect he may have for the rule of law. The constitution is the law. If unelected officials are justified in conducting a partial coup against Trump, the same could be said about a partial or total coup against any other president selected under the constitution, i.e. all of hem.
1
@Joe
As has been pointed out in comments on these pages before, it does not require an amendment to the constitution. A more practical alternative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
The argument is that this approach would only require agreement by enough states to reach an Electoral College majority (currently 270); arguably an easier row to hoe than a constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds of the House and Senate and three-quarters of the states. Had the Compact been in place in 2016, we would at this moment be railing against the Republicans' zillionth investigation of Hillary's emails, not witnessing the decimation of our democracy.
2
It seems to me that people inside the administration who feel the administration is functioning poorly should say it openly and resign and openly denounce the dysfunction rather than conceal its true nature. If Trump is a disaster let him be a disaster so the voters can see their folly in electing him.
26
@Tor Krogius-If that happens won't Trump and his enablers simply circle the wagons and appoint (via the dictates of the Federalist Society/Koch Brothers) even less qualified but more compromised people?
2
"The first sort of essay argued that by working to thwart a duly-elected president, the anti-Trumpers within the administration aren't saving democracy but subverting it....."
This gets to the root of the problem I see exemplified by the train-wreck Trump presidency: He was, in fact, duly-elected. Leaving aside what now seems likely regarding Russian collusion to install him, Donald J. Trump was "duly-elected".
Put another way: Trump won the electoral college. Assuming the Republic makes it through the immediate crisis that is president Donald J. Trump, this antiquated perversion of American "democracy" needs to be corrected. Let's not forget:That is what (arguably) handed the 2000 election to George W. Bush and the simple-minded zealots who decided to remake the planet in their demented right-wing fantasy image. The World was still contending with that debacle when president Donald J. Trump was added to the trash pile.
America teeters on an existential precipice. America needs to face up to that fact.
62
The problem with your reasoning is the starting point. The letter is just one more step to damage a tower that has been holding, but is being damaged. When the Supreme Curt handed the presidency to Bush, the response that Al Gore gave to asking what to was correct: it was accept it or revolution. And he was right, but he did not recognize because nobody is a magician, that the decision was followed by further degradation, no more degradation.
(And to refresh your memory, there Bush family members behind that affair, all swiftly dispatched by Trump with ease and relish. Ironic.)
The "resistance" letter, speaks of someone that writes well, can see some layers, but cannot recognize the gravity of what she or he is doing. Sounds like another arrogant republican making terrible decisions with long lasting consequences.
They are inviting a revolution. Just wait until a fraction of the Trump supporters realize how well they have been played. Armed and mad, great combination. If the Democrats do not win big in November, this can go in flames much faster than pundits can ever realize.
25
@Ard I hate to say this, but his 'base' (white christian evangelical nationalists) will stick with him no matter what. Some people care more about outcomes (imposing their values on the country) than the due processes and separation of powers built into the Constitution.
2
Is this really the problem? Is how someone lets you know that the house is on fire more important than the impending inferno?
I contend that what this anonymous insider said doesn’t even come close to describing the outrages and failures that this president has committed openly, and with enthusiasm. People are having trouble reconciling the exalted position of the president with the lowlife that is squatting in the Oval Office. It causes some kind of cognitive dissonance to witness a dummy sitting in the same chair as Barack Obama.
There’s no government job description for managing the madness of the president. It’s an ad-hoc kind of thing, where one does what one can to stem the flood of insanity. Some may sneak away with a memo. Others might try to steer the ship of state away from the rocks. Still others might vent in an anonymous letter to the Times.
We knew the president was idiotic, ineloquent and inept. We thought these evils could be contained, or channeled or subdued once he realized the weight of the mantle on his shoulders. Instead, he praised neo-Nazis and spoke highly of Putin while denigrating is own security agencies.
What else can one do other than scream and wave his hands, as if we’re stuck on the track with a train barreling down on us. We’re going to get creamed, but we might acknowledge the warning with some grace.
300
@gemli-You said it best. Bless you!
2
Ross seeks a systemic explanation for “Mr. (Ms.?) Anonymous”. I don’t. What a candidate campaigns on is intended to give voters a sense of who s(he) is and how s(he) likely will act in roughly analogous situations, not really to make hard promises about specific action he or she will take in office if elected. Conditions change daily, which is WHY presidents have such powers – to respond to them timely. Voters empower the sense of who the candidate is, they empowered Trump, and however that turns out we’re stuck with it for at least four years. Trump promised OUTCOMES, not means to those outcomes, and second-guessing by anonymous apparatchiki is clearly an outrageous and patently dangerous arrogation of power by the unelected non-relevant.
Ross also seeks to set guidelines for such an invalid notion that propriety in presidential actions depends on how a president acts related to a “gray area” – that HE defines. We didn’t elect Ross president, we elected Trump president. But, then, this IS “Opinion”.
But eventually Ross comes down on my side, which is that “Anonymous” represents a danger to our Republic and indeed to democracy. He’s right. This kind of monumental hubris and certainty in the “right” is positively Pelosian in nature and intensity, and we can and must do without it.
3
@Richard Luettgen
Douthat ignores the third alternative; that anonymous wants Trumpism to succeed but it cannot because of Trump.
7
@Richard Luettgen: Outcomes? So the ends justify the means? The "outrageous and patently dangerous arrogation of power" has been the playbook of the GOP for years now, from gerrymandering to "committee classified" documents. Then there's Devin Nunes. As for campaign promises, let's harken back to Mario Cuomo who famously told us politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Today we've wound up with a president who is illiterate, makes fun of books (as well as war heroes, the handicapped, etc.), and has the attention span of a slug. One who cries national security to attack his political enemies, which he believes lurk everywhere. One with the sophistication of pond scum, who spends fully 25% of his time playing golf and charges the government top dollar for his own protection at his own businesses. You speak of "monumental hubris" yet see no irony here? We require many civil servants to demonstrate basic competence and stability yet leave the positions with the most power open to folks who think Alex Jones and Steve Bannon are valuable national resources. Would you have appointed Linda McMahon or Betsy DeVos to anything?
Our government, like our legal system, is necessarily adversarial, debate is the underlying means by which we reach consensus. The ultimate expression of that principle is the voting booth. Is it ok for one party to disenfranchise whole blocks of the eligible population on the basis of their race, gender or pocketbook? But yes, Pelosi must go.
3
It's not realistic for resisters within the administration to make the finely calibrated distinctions Ross imagines. No, the best course is for a resister to sign his/her name and suffer the consequences. To do otherwise is to want to have it both ways.
9
The problem is GOP'ers are such Radical Rightist tribalists, that a political appointee in the Executive Branch has no confidence if they became a whistle-blower to Congress, that anything would come of their efforts except they would be truncating their career trajectory.
In the bargain, they'd probably get sued by His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness for violating some bogus NDA he made them sign.
They need look no further than the actions of Devin Nunes, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell for verification of how any whistle-blower would be met with some bogus 'circle the wagons' action from other GOP'er tribalists.
Since when did it become 'conservative' to pass out $1.5 Trillion$ tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy with no plan to cut spending ?
That's a donor agenda, but not a 'conservative agenda' item' pretty easy to have an expansionary economy with a $1.5 Trillion$ injection of credit - waving a magic wand and saying " it will pay for itself ".
The anonymous op-ed writer is merely trying to rationalize what they know is distinctly undemocratic and anti-constitutional, but: tax cuts, judges, deregulation are the ends justifying any means.
If the anonymous writer doubts we are correct, they merely need stand and read their essay out loud, pretending Dems control Congress and the Senate, inserting 'Hillary' or 'Obama' for every reference to Very Stable Genius Pres. 45*.
And it's all because GOP'ers choose party over country.
Sad.
101
@R. Law-Agree except for one point: the $1.5 trillion "sugar high" injection will be paid for by cuts to social safety net programs. And that's always been part of the GOP purpose.
8
@Ann - Yep, we know how the bastards are going to eventually want to pay for the deficits they will create; we just decry the legerdemain of waving a magic wand declaring tax cuts will pay for themselves, when everyone knows we're powerless bystanders to (yet) another Heist by their donor class - same as the Dubya tax cuts and deficit spending in what were supposed to be good economic times before 2008.
Good economic times that were set up by Clinton running budget surplus after surplus after surplus; where are the GOP'er surpluses ? Even one ?
GOP'ers are setting up yet another tiresome repeat of Heists for their donor class, magical wand-waving, then economic wreckage for Dems to clean up with all the GOP'er burglars leaving office for think tanks and lobbying gigs rather than face voters.
The pattern isn't emphasized enough by Dems.
8
The President's powers are essentially what Congress provides by law. It's just that Congress has passed so many laws with so many delegations of discretion.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that the President's power is to execute the law and is only to execute the law. No action of the President is legal unless it's legal.
Normally, therefore, Presidential actions are framed by administration legal advisors to demonstrate that they are being done pursuant to law. A pre-dawn tweet, or even a formal speech, may well not be a legal "order" to a public official and no action should be taken until it's demonstrated that it is.
Normally, then, "resistance" would just be an internal process where the executive seeks and gets good legal (and policy) advice and tailors instructions according to what's legal, giving thanks to the advisors.
When on the other hand the executive is actively hostile to the rule of law, "resistance" becomes adversarial, but it's not illegal.
9
The op-ed piece probably was in the works for some time until Bob Woodward’s book hit the airwaves. Indeed, the unknown author could have been inspired by the research Woodward conducted over time to gather material for his book. It’s also possible that the author was interviewed by Woodward and felt that the book might give some cover to the op-ed piece. Whatever the case, the Woodward book and the op-ed have plenty in common and it may be that Woodward has a pretty good idea of who the anonymous author is. The book and the op-ed parallel each other as one treatise.
11
I thought that the op ed was a good bookend to both "Fear" and the earlier "Fire and Fury." The overall themes in the different accounts are so consistent with each other, and with what we witness, that all the publications have credibility. If anything, I found the op ed to be more tempered than the books, with its language like "misguided impulses" and support for Trump's political agenda. The author was telling us that despite how off the rails Trump is, there is a group of responsible people shielding us from a Trump left to his own devices. And much as I disagree with that political agenda, I still appreciate others stepping up to keep the arsonist-in-chief from setting the world ablaze.
14
My take on the initial article was that the authors were utterly convinced that their point of view was exactly correct and beyond any dispute. To the extent that their point of view was exposed, I found I could agree with some of their positions, argue about many others, and flat disagree with the rest.
What I can't agree with is someone who is so certain of the correctness of their belief that they are empowered to act on that belief with acts of deliberate sabotage.
Despite their belief that they, too, are the "resistance", the author(s) seem as anti-democratic and unwilling to listen to the viewpoints of others or accept the findings of science as the "Orange-One who must be obeyed."
The "resistance" is resistance of autocracy while favoring democracy. It is using the levers of government to help make life better for as many as possible, not a pre-chosen few.
While the "internal resistance" authors did not seem to be as senile and criminally insane as the Orange-One, and may actually prevent irreversible short-term disaster, they also seem determined to cause long-term disaster via their flawed, and unexamined policies.
10
Trump did not win the popular vote. One could use that as an argument for saying that the will of the voters was thwarted when the Electoral College gave its votes to Trump instead of following what the popular vote was.
We have a winner take all democracy in America. This means that if the party in power doesn't want to work with the president or take into consideration the needs and desires of the opposition it won't. Therefore after every presidential and midterm election someone is being thwarted.
The GOP has focused on non-existent voter fraud in an attempt to prevent African Americans, Hispanic-Americans, naturalized Americans, and every other citizen that they don't like from voting. Therefore it's the GOP that is trying and succeeding in keeping legitimate voters out of the voting booth in order to carry out their agenda which includes destroying the social safety net, rolling back regulations that protect us, etc.
Trump is a distraction. The anonymous "resistor" is fooling him/her self by thinking that anonymously writing an editorial for the NY Times will garner favor from the public. It would be better for all concerned if someone on the inside would stand up and state why Trump is unfit. The GOP won't care but the public, or that portion that does care, might be able to exert some pressure on our so-called representatives.
63
@hen3ry
Please, it's not as if Trump's unfitness isn't documented daily.
2
America has not been moving away from democracy for decades. Some of it is woven into our Constitution. Other is a reaction to the Voting Rights Act.
The Electoral College is weighted to give states with small populations greater strength in selecting the President. The Senate also gives states with small populations greater weight in determining laws and budgets. The lack of uniform voter registration and uniform rules of elections (variation in poll hours, early voting, photo ideas and the rules needed to obtain one) reduces the right of America to call itself a "democracy".
More and more the GOP wants to return us to the time when white men who were property owners were the only ones who had a vote. If they could, they would exclude those who are women, people of color and those with little or no net worth from the polling booth.
And all of the denials are simply lies.
This country may be doomed to suffer an spasm of violence. Maybe the police and military will be able to suppress it.
42
@Brad; Reading many comments, I'm seeing more and more discreet suggestions that despite losing elections, if leftists don't start getting what they want, violence could be the next step. Is this the point of view of people who support democracy? I don't presume to predict the election outcome in November but what happens if the Democrats don't win, as they now firmly expect to do--should we be on guard against their violence?
5
@Ronald B. Duke
It's not that. What we are starting to suspect will happen is that one event (say impeaching or using Article 25 to remove Trump) or a series of events like multiple investigations in a Dem. led House could lead to violence from Trump's base.
After all, they are the ones who are heavily armed, not those on the left.
There are situations were I could see violence breaking out in the United States like we haven't seen since the Civil War. It will be those on the far right and support Trump who will be the ones to start it.
Since Trump was elected we've seen a spike in hate crimes already, carried out mainly by Trump supporters, not Dems and progressives.
We aren't threatening violence, we who vehemently do not agree with the direction Trump and his enablers are taking our nation; we are sounding the alarm that others well could do so. And those are Trump's supporters who are not all that small in number and tend to be heavily armed compared to most of the other people of the United States.
2
@Ronald B. Duke: From the left you can expect the kinds of turmoil we saw during the Vietnam protests, which were significant but didn't involve violence against people, and the violence against institutions was meager. The violence against people came from the government and the far right (see Kent State). Today many more people are armed, mostly on the right, and it feels like many more people are resentful, aggrieved and on a hair trigger. A democrat loss by itself will not trigger violence, insurrection or civil war. If, however, Trump lumbers on toward his stated objectives of jailing political enemies, changing libel laws to suit him, shutting down legitimate investigations, firing people because they offend him and generally memorializing his avaricious narcissism by remaking the government, then I think enough folks on both sides will put country first and perhaps rise up. As it now stands, despite the support of his hard core base, popular opinion has turned against him and his version of the GOP. It's become clear they will violate their oaths and run any con to get and keep power, which is quintessentially un-American. If he pushes too far there may come a situation where the military steps in, if the cabinet or congress won't. That would throw a huge monkey wrench into both national and global balances of power, and the attendant social upheaval can not be accurately predicted. So yes, si vis pacem para bellum.
I saw the op-ed by the senior official as an effort to warn the public that the allegations of an out-o-control President are true. Multiple senior officials have taken desperate risks to avoid disaster and we need to know the truth in real time for a change.
So, thank you, senior Trump officials. Next stop: Help us validate the Bob Woodward book.
36
There is one area where refusal to execute Presidential commands is clearly justified -- illegal orders. Trump's strategy is to push and bully without regard for, or knowledge of the law. He believes that he can get his way by bullying the weak, i.e., staffers.
Such "resistance" would be unnecessary if Congreess carried out its constitutionally mandated oversight. Trump knows he can run roughshod over Congress. That's plain to see.
So far, the lower courts have generally executed their duty to check a rogue executive branch. With the Supreme Court up for grabs, future prospects are not bright.
83
"But then the example of Gary Cohn stealing a letter off Trump’s desk to prevent him from dissolving the U.S.-South Korean trade compact seems closer to an example of the anti-democratic vice — because after all, Trump campaigned on renegotiating trade deals, didn’t he?"
Donald Trump also campaigned on the following--see quote below--but would have us believe now that he really didn't mean it.
""Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population." --12/7/15
14
Trump won an election that his fellow oligarchs would have preferred be won by any other oligarch or a shill, such as Scott Walker. But Trump snatched victory from the Kochs and that's that. Right?
Not exactly. While Trump is president, practically everyone, save for a handful of people (Ivanka, Jared) was put into place by Mike Pence, who is associated with the Kochs.
We know that Trump manages trade policy. We know he's told Wilbur Ross not to work on trade. We know Trump is hands on when it comes to foreign policy. Tillerson only lasted a year and his top achievement at State is the destruction of its civil service. Pompeo is the lowest-profile secretary of state we've ever had.
Now to that op-ed... Whoever it is that wrote it isn't a patriot. Managing Trump means ensuring that his presidency goes on. Given what Trump is, the dangers he presents, and the divisiveness he wreaks, preserving his presidency is a slap in America's face. It is more treason than it is patriotism.
Republicans have gone so far off the deep end that preserving power comes before restoring sanity to this nation. They're so corrupt that keeping a traitor in the White House is the only option, even as Mike Pence waits in the wings, ready to step in as President.
So, what's one to think? Maybe Putin gave Trump the kompromat he has on every Republican in office. That would certainly explain why Trump has only two detractors.
---
What Trump did while we weren't looking
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2ZW
219
Trump won this election because you and the rest of the inflexible progressives kept trashing Hillary Clinton. I knew Hillary Clinton was far from perfect but I voted for her anyway warts and all. It's really sad that progressives demand these artificial standards of perfection. No one is perfect Rima including progressives.
27
@sharon5101 Do you really know who Rima Regas voted for? Or are you just sounding off for the fun of it? Clinton was not the best candidate. She made several very critical mistakes. They were the same ones she made in 2008.
The problem with both Clintons is that they are not forthright. They do not come across as truthful or marginally honest. She could have said yes, it was a mistake to have a private email server. Clinton ought to have kept the "basket of deplorables" comment to herself. What she and the rest of the Democrats ought to have done was to keep on calling attention to what Trump and the GOP were doing. And then they should have concentrated on what they could do for us rather than playing catch up.
No one is perfect sharon5101, not liberals, conservatives, progressives, or you.
1
@sharon5101,
How nice of you to stop by my comment for another swipe, on an op-ed that has zero to do with Hillary Clinton, how anyone voted, or even about perfection, in any context.
If only you had the willingness and long term non-selective memory, you might know that I didn't, as you say, bash Hillary Clinton. I kept pointing out the problems with her campaign through the general election, warning that an adjustment was needed as the polling numbers were not where they needed to be. If that's bashing, then I stand guilty before you.
On February 25, 2016, I wrote:
"Today, in order to understand Trump’s appeal, one must read economist Moises Naim’s explanation. His life experience as someone who was raised in the Perons’ Argentina, uniquely qualifies him to offer us a contemporary glimpse into what attracts masses of people to authoritarianism, even as the environment in which they were brought up might intuitively preclude such a disposition:
“But this phenomenon doesn’t only afflict individuals. It also affects political groups and even entire nations that get enthralled by leaders whose ideas have already been tried and exposed as failures. These bad ideas, which should be dead and buried, have a way of periodically reappearing and gaining popularity.
Several years ago, I called this condition “ideological necrophilia”"
https://www.rimaregas.com/2016/02/25/finding-sobriety-in-2016-sanders-cl...
So, at the end of the day, Donald Trump alone is supposed to be the President; but that works both ways. It is not enough to argue that Trump has awesome political power, when he doesn't live up to the corresponding awesome responsibilities.
A sheet of paper upending a trade agreement was (allegedly) plucked from Trump's desk, and that was that? Well, sanely, that President should have had the focus and determination to follow through on his plans, either by looking for it, or by starting over. If Trump just forgot and moved on to the next thing, that's on him, and impetuous, half-baked ideas with serious ramifications should, by all means necessary, be discarded.
Trump was going to unwittingly start World War III, either by destabilizing the Korean Peninsula, or by taking out Assad (which, let's face it, would be just as long term destructive as regime change in Iraq proved)? Well, that's what advisors are for. In fact, it was no coincidence that Trump even put Generals in his Cabinet; they do understand other parts of the world far better than he does. If anyone gets exasperated at Trump's ignorance, that's on him for trying to operate with rudimentary knowledge.
Trump thinks that his titular authority requires nothing of him, which is where the argument against curbing his impulses falls short. If others are willing to keep us from the abyss of Trump's ineptitude, more power to them.
14
@NM -- the president never missed that piece of paper Cohn plucked off his desk because the president is irresponsible and allows his aides to do his thinking for him. Woodward and the op-ed author must have crossed paths at some point. I noticed that among the several candidates who are suspected of being the mole, Stephen Miller's name never came up. What does that tell you?
3
The Donald with face orange-red
Was handed a mean op-ed
Claimed the Don was fifth grade stuff,
Fell apart, the going rough,
Battered, Don began to bluster
With as much muck he could muster
His Cabinet lined up to say
"We’re innocent in ev’ry way”
Lying prostrate on the floor
‘Fore the POTUS they adore,
Trembling like fat aspen leaves
T'was VP Pence who got the heaves.
Each one kissed the Donald’s ring,
All his undeserved praise sing,
And the mole is still at large,
While Donald still thinks he’s in charge.
50