Summary: The campaign to cripple or replace Trump, leapt ahead this week with the release of two new stories. Only the Republicans can destroy Trump. There is evidence that this is beginning to happen.
The latest political sensation, an anonymous op-ed in the NYT!
“I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration“
Op-ed in the NYT by a “senior official in the Trump administration.”
“I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
The chat-o-sphere went wild!
“The phrase ‘The sleeper cells have awoken’ circulated on text messages among aides and outside allies.” {From the WaPo.}
One of the great and wise at the NY Times plays it straight, saying the superficial and obvious things about this event.
“This Is a Constitutional Crisis”
By David Frum at The Atlantic.
“A cowardly coup from within the administration threatens to enflame the president’s paranoia and further endanger American security.”
“If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution – and there were no “riskiness” exemptions in the text of that oath.”
But outside the charmed circle of our coastal gurus, some people have actual insights.
The idea that anonymous officials are covertly working to undermine the duly-elected president was supposed to have been a conspiracy theory… now one of them wrote about it in the New York Times
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 6, 2018
The irony in the op-ed from the NYT’s anonymous WH coward is glaring and massive: s/he accuses Trump of being “anti-democratic” while boasting of membership in an unelected cabal that covertly imposes their own ideology with zero democratic accountability, mandate or transparency
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 5, 2018
“The New York Times Proves the Deep State is Alive and Well (Oops).”
By David Blackburn at DB Daily Update.
“The New York Times this week ran an anonymous op/ed, supposedly written by a ‘senior administration official,’ who says that he is part of a cabal of government employees embedded in the executive branch working to undermine the Trump presidency.
“That’s the definition of the term “Deep State,” guys and gals. …If anyone doing this to Obama had identified himself to the editorial board of the NY Times, the Times would have publicly outed him immediately and referred his case to the U.S. Attorneys at the Southern District of New York. …
“The pre-planned constant disruptions …continued during the second day of hearings over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Some of the disruptions came from the same people who had been ‘arrested’ for doing the same thing on Tuesday. …They are taken to a nearby police station, booked, assessed a fine of $50, and released. That’s it.
“At the end of the day, what it all added up to was the Democrats getting exactly what they wanted: Capitol Hill was your basic three-ring circus. Expect more of the same today.”
Rogue journalist Caitlin Johnstone gives a more acerbic and insightful analysis
“We Are Being Played.”
“If any evidence existed to be found that Donald Trump had illegally colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election, that evidence would have been picked up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies and leaked to the Washington Post before Obama left office.
“Russiagate is like a mirage. From a distance it looks like a solid, tangible thing, but when you actually move in to examine it critically you find nothing but gaping plot holes, insinuation, innuendo, conflicting narratives, bizarre mental contortions to avoid acknowledging contradictory information, a few arrests for corruption and process crimes, and a lot of hot air. The whole thing has been held together by nothing but the confident-sounding assertions of pundits and politicians and sheer, mindless repetition. And, as we approach the two year mark since this president’s election, we have not seen one iota of movement toward removing him from office. The whole thing’s a lie, and the smart movers and shakers behind it are aware that it is a lie.
“And yet they keep beating on it. Day after day after day after day it’s been Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. Instead of attacking this president for his many, many real problems in a way that will do actual damage, they attack this fake blow-up doll standing next to him in a way that never goes anywhere and never will, like a pro wrestler theatrically stomping on the canvass next to his downed foe. What’s up with that? …
“The op-ed’s author claims to be part of a secret coalition of patriots who dislike Trump and are ‘working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.’ These ‘worst inclinations’ according to the author include trying to make peace with Moscow and Pyongyang, being rude to longtime US allies, saying mean things about the media, being ‘anti-trade’, and being ‘erratic’. …The final paragraphs are spent gushing about John McCain for no apparent reason.
“I strongly encourage you to read the piece in its entirety, because for all the talk and drama it’s generating, it doesn’t actually make any sense. While you are reading it, I encourage you to keep the following question in mind: what could anyone possibly gain by authoring this and giving it to the New York Times? …
“The op-ed says essentially nothing, other than to tell readers to relax and trust in anonymous administration insiders who are working against the bad guys on behalf of the people (which is interestingly the exact same message of the right-wing 8chan conspiracy phenomenon QAnon, just with the white hats and black hats reversed). …
“What are the results of this viral op-ed everyone’s talking about? So far it’s a bunch of Democratic partisans making a lot of excited whooping noises, and Trump loyalists feeling completely vindicated in the belief that all of their conspiracy theories have been proven correct. Many rank-and-file Trump haters are feeling a little more relaxed and complacent knowing that there are a bunch of McCain-loving ‘adults in the room’ taking care of everything, and many rank-and-file Trump supporters are more convinced than ever that Donald Trump is a brave populist hero leading a covert 4-D chess insurgency against the Deep State. In other words, everyone’s been herded into their respective partisan stables and trusting the narratives that they are being fed there.”
Johnstone is correct about the essential fact about this op-ed. Trump is accused of behavior unsuited for a president, unorthodox conservative policies, and failure to wage the Cold War against Russia — whose GDP is 8% of that of the EU (18% of the EU’s at purchasing power parity).
Another perspective on Trump
Through no coincidence, this same week Bob Woodward’s new book was released: Fear: Trump in the White House
“In Fear, Bob Woodward Pulls Back the Curtain on President Trump’s ‘Crazytown’” by Dwight Garner.
“Jim Mattis Compared Trump to ‘Fifth or Sixth Grader,’ Bob Woodward Says in Book” by Mark Landler and Maggie Haberman.
“At another moment, Mr. Trump’s aides became so worried about his judgment that Gary D. Cohn, then the chief economic adviser, took a letter from the president’s Oval Office desk authorizing the withdrawal of the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Mr. Trump, who had planned to sign the letter, never realized it was missing. …
“In April 2017, after President Bashar al-Assad of Syria launched a chemical attack on his own people, Mr. Trump called Mr. Mattis and told him that he wanted the United States to assassinate Mr. Assad. “Let’s go in,” the president said, adding a string of expletives. The defense secretary hung up and told one of his aides: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.”
“5 Takeaways From Bob Woodward’s Book on the Trump White House” by Noah Weiland. All five are small stuff. Equally sensational stories could have been published about the JFK, LBJ, and Nixon administrations. Equally sensational stories were published about the Carter and Reagan teams. My favorite: Carter was lost in the job, focusing on what he could understand (e.g., checking the arithmetic in the budget books, scheduling the White House tennis courts).
Conclusions
The key insight from all this is that large forces are moving against Trump. Invisible forces. Private forces. We see only their surface effects. Which explain why so little of these stories makes sense.
We can guess at the goal of many Republican officials: they want to replace Trump with VP Pence. Pence is a reliable and doctrinaire conservative, and a skillful politician. (The Democrat’s goals and motives for wanting Pence are obscure.) Their back-up plan is to weaken Trump so that he does not run in 2020. But they cannot directly act while Trump’s job approval remains around 40%. This week’s news are two more volleys attacking Trump’s support.
While our elites pursue their usual short-sighted goals, remember the big picture: removing Trump would changing our political system forever – probably for the better.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about RussiaGate, about the Trump years in America, and especially these …
- What Trump told Russia, why it matters, and why journalists ignore the smartest man in Washington.
- Status report on Trump: a president in peril.
- Hidden polls show Trump’s defense against impeachment.
Tw of the first crop of books about the Trump years
Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
