In any other time or place, A Warning, the book by an anonymous “Senior Administration Official,” would have been the focus of sustained attention, both in the media and around the water cooler. After all, the author—a senior Republican who voted for Trump and joined his administration—makes the case, with a plethora of insider detail, that Trump has been a “catastrophe” for the country. But I have yet to meet another person who has read it. Most reviewers, unpersuaded by the author’s justifications for his anonymity, huffed that the book contained few revelations.
Perhaps, but each time an insider pulls back the curtain on what is actually happening in the White House, it adds to the depth and clarity of the picture. The author is truly terrified by the prospect of Trump’s re-election. He argues that, “freed from the threat of defeat, this president will feel emboldened to double down on his worst impulses.” And most of those impulses are, in the words of his aides, “bat-shit crazy.” He reveals that Trump’s ideas included ordering the military to shoot refugees trying to cross the border, and declaring the rest to be terrorists and shipping them off the Guantanamo.
He paints a picture of decision making bereft of the usual deliberative process. When a bold official dared to bring a written analysis into the Oval, Trump shouted, “What the fuck is this? These are just words. A bunch of words. It doesn’t mean anything.” A national security official complained to the author, “He is the most distracted person I’ve ever met. He has no fucking clue what we are talking about.” The author calls his intellectual laziness “astounding.” The author reports that Trump is obsessed with tariffs because he thinks foreigners can be made to pay us to buy their goods. “His convoluted view of economics is beyond repair.” The consensus of a group of cabinet secretaries and other officials was that “About a third of the things the president wants us to do are flat-out stupid. Another third would be impossible to implement and wouldn’t even solve the problem. And a third of them would be flat-out illegal.”
One of the occasions where the Trump’s incapacities cannot be hidden are in calls with foreign leaders: “Those privy to the content of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders were red-faced with embarrassment. To us, he came off like a complete amateur, using important calls to brag about himself and make awkward comments. U.S. allies felt the same way. His strange proclamations and irascibility shocked them.” He explains that the summaries of these calls were locked down in part “because the content was so routinely and so remarkably embarrassing.”
Trump’s bizarre delusions regarding foreign policy scare those around him. On Russia, for example: “We need a comprehensive strategy to counter the Russians, not court them. But Trump is living on another planet, one where he and Putin are companions and where Russia wants to help America be successful.” The state of affairs is terrifying:
“Our enemies and adversaries recognize the president is a simplistic pushover. They are unmoved by his bellicose Twitter threat because they know he can be played. President Trump is easily swayed by their rhetoric. We can all see it. He is visibly moved by flattery. He folds in negotiations, and he is willing to give up the farm for something that merely looks like a good deal, whether it is or not. They believe he is weak, and they take advantage of him. When they cannot, they simply ignore him.”
He describes the United States under Trump having suffered a “reputational free fall.”
Trump’s casual disregard for the truth is nothing new. Anonymous’s perspective is interesting: “The President has been called a pathological liar. I used to cringe when I heard people say that just to score political points, and I thought it was unfair. Now I know it’s true. He spreads lies he hears. He makes up new lies to spread. He lies to our faces. He asks people around him to lie. . . . He enjoys watching people go out and compromise their integrity in order to serve him.”
Perhaps the most important revelations in A Warning involve Trump’s indifference to legality and constitutional limits on his powers. The President demands to be told that the law will let him do what he wants. The author writes, “We can tell when Trump is preparing to ask his lawyers to do something unethical or foolish because that’s when he starts scanning the room for note takers.” He explains Trump’s MO regarding legality: “The president won’t let the cautiousness of government lawyers stop him from doing what he wants. If he really can’t get the answers he demands, he seeks outside counsel, scouring the legal community for its unseemly members.” If a judge rules against him it’s “a disgrace” and he or she becomes a “so-called judge.” In a morning rant, Trump instructed his aides: “Let’s get rid of the fucking judges. There shouldn’t be any at all, really.” He meant it and ordered that legislation be sent to the Hill (like so many of such impulsive orders, it was ignored).
He often demands that his staff ignore separation of powers and the constitution: “Increasingly, Trump has decided to ignore Congress altogether. He’s told advisors to do the same, goading them to flagrantly defy congressional restrictions . . . ‘Don’t worry about Congress,’ the president said [to one aide], ‘Just do what you need to do.’’’ The aide explained that was just not possible, as Congressional authorization was required. “No, no. It doesn’t matter. You have my permission to do whatever you need to do, okay? Just forget about them.” In Trump’s monarchical view, his “permission” and pardon power are sufficient to render any proposed action legal.
Predictably, Trump’s fascination with the power of the pardon is “almost mystical.” “He has told officials that if they take illegal actions on his behalf, he will pardon them.” An example was his order to the wall builders to ignore environmental regulations and eminent domain procedures and press ahead. “He’ll have their backs, pardon in hand, if they got into legal trouble.”
The author suggests that Ukraine is hardly the only instance where the president has conflated national and personal objectives: “He has always acted impulsively to serve his interests over those of the United States.” He cites the President’s insistence on cutting off federal aid to California after the devastating wild fires, because he believes that the state “stole” electoral votes from him by allowing “illegal” voters to cast ballots. Besides, he “hates” California. Writes Anonymous, “We learned that, given enough time and space, Donald J. Trump will seek to abuse any power he is given. This is a fact of life we’ve been taught inside his administration through repeated example. No external force can ameliorate his attraction to wrongdoing. His presidency is continually jeopardized by it, and so are American’s institutions.”
The Constitutional Crisis
We are already in the midst of a constitutional crisis and it can only get worse. The president has called the impeachment process a “hoax” and a “coup” and vowed to obstruct it at every turn. Impeachment is a constitutional process. As long as the House and Senate follow the rules, it is neither a hoax nor a coup, no more than a whistleblower protected by federal law should be arrested for “treason.” But all this gives us a clear picture of what to expect when it is time for Trump to leave office, whether upon loss of the election or impeachment. He will not hesitate to set the country on fire to preserve his vanity.
The depressing observation of Anonymous: “He will not exit quietly—or easily. It is why at many turns he suggests ‘coups’ are afoot and a ‘civil war’ is in the offing. He is already seeding the narrative for his followers—a narrative that could end tragically.” Remember that Trump in 2016 became the first candidate in the history of the republic to refuse to say that he would honor the results of the election if he lost. And don’t forget that Michael Cohen warned us that “there will never be a peaceful transition of power” should Trump fail in his reelection bid.
So what could happen if Trump loses in 2020? Trump would rally his base to mass protest, civil disobedience, and violence. He is virtually certain to launch a blizzard of lawsuits contesting the results. Individual electors in the Electoral College could honor Trump’s call to withhold, change, or delay their votes. States where the GOP controls both the legislature and governorship might claim fraud and substitute the legislature as the body choosing that state’s electors. The joint session of Congress called to receive the electoral votes could also delay or withhold its certification based on Trump’s complaints.
Trump would remain Commander-in-Chief until noon on January 20, 2021, and the military could be expected to follow his orders up to that time. What happens after noon if Trump is still contesting the election is opaque. I believe that the central military command authorities (and most law enforcement) would follow the lead of Congress and the Courts and respect their proud traditions of professional and apolitical service. Moreover, Trump’s indiscipline and incompetence have horrified the Generals (who also rankle at being called “his” Generals, and resent his attempts to lure them into compromising partisan activities).
When writing Christian Nation, I struggled to create credible scenarios for the transition from authoritarian populism to secession and civil war. In that particular dystopian vision, the U.S. military divided along partisan and regional lines, based on the fact that by 2013 certain units had already skewed heavily toward the religious right. In a 2018 Military Times poll, 77.2% said the military now was significantly or somewhat more polarized along political lines.
On balance I believe that in the event of Trump’s refusal to accept either impeachment or the election results, the majority of our troops would obey the central command structure. But there is troubling new evidence of the extent to which Trump’s irrationally faithful “base” now includes military personnel. Consider this recent poll from The Reagan National Defense Survey, conducted on behalf of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute: nearly half of armed services households questioned, 46%, said they viewed Russia as an ally. You read that correctly. According to an executive summary accompanying the results, the pollsters found the positive views of Russia seemed to be “predominantly driven by Republicans who have responded to positive cues from President Trump about Russia.” Military personnel, who ought to know better, are now nearly twice more likely than ordinary Americans to trust Trump and adopt his view that Russia is an ally, not an enemy. If this many soldiers sign up for Trump’s manifestly absurd apologia for Vladimir Putin, will they be able to resist his inevitable (should he lose) claim that the election was “rigged”?
The durability of our democracy is based not only on the solid foundation of our written constitution, but on the unwritten political culture that has evolved over the history of the republic: the independence and integrity of the judiciary, the independence and vigor of a free press, a citizenry educated in their civic responsibilities and trusting in our institutions, and a sense of national identity and unity that is stronger than partisan identity and division. Each of these elements of our political culture had been weakened before 2016, and has been further undermined in some significant way by Trump. But each will be required if our 232-year traditional of peaceful succession is to survive his foul character.