"A Warning" by Anonymous and the Coming Constitutional Crisis

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. 

"My great and unmatched wisdom"

“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!)."

            The President of the United States, near midnight, October 7, 2019

This tweet illustrates in four short lines that Trump’s narcissism, fueled by three years of the presidency, has grown to galactic proportions.  It is now too vast to temper or control, and those inclined to try have been banished from the White House.  It is the only driver of American foreign affairs (we no longer have a foreign policy).

Trump no longer acknowledges the government he heads. We have only “I.”  Like Louis XIV (L'état, c'est moi), he conflates the country and the “stable genius.” He doesn’t speak for the government of the United States, he is the government of the United States.

His grandiose faith in his infallibility and monarchical sense of indispensability are both debilitating delusions which, when combined with a particularly malignant strain of pathological narcissism, cries out for invocation of the 25th Amendment.  

Before Trump, what would you have thought if anyone referred (without humor or irony) in a speech or written pronouncement to their own “great and unmatched wisdom”?  It’s one thing to think it, it’s another thing to say it.  If a corporate CEO made a public statement referring to his or her own “great and unmatched wisdom,” the Board of Directors would be convening over the weekend, engaging a psychiatrist and hiring a headhunter. 

And then there’s the bully, telling a NATO ally publicly that it most not cross a line defined as “anything that I [again “I”] . . . consider to be off limits,” and threatening to “totally destroy and obliterate” their economy.  This is not only illogical, impossible, unhinged, and illegal, but should mortify every person who loves our country.  And, by the way, the idea that he (again ”I”) has already destroyed the Turkish (or any other) economy provides the icing on a layer cake of delusion.

Note that none of this has anything to do with the substance of his change in policy toward the Kurds.  That was a mistake (ok, perhaps more than a mistake, given our moral obligations to our Kurdish allies).  But it should hardly be a surprise.  He doesn’t understand any of the complexities of the Middle East and acted by midnight tweet based on what the last person he talked to (Erdogan) said.  It’s fascinating that it was this unforced error that finally started to break down the wall of GOP solidarity.  I would invite the Republican Senators speaking out against the policy to reconsider the Tweet and the man behind it. Their former GOP Senate colleague Jeff Flake said: "I never thought I would live to see an American President speak this way, using language that can only be described as authoritarian.  Fellow Republicans, where is the line?"  And while they’re at it, those fellow Republicans might want to ponder Flake’s earlier advice: “Trust me when I say that you can go elsewhere for a job, but you cannot go elsewhere for a soul.”  

The Foundations of our Prosperity

Many of us have focused on how Trump’s galumphing vandalism of our political culture threatens the foundations of our democracy.  But what about our prosperity?

Like many others who rose from humble origins to the professional class, I enrolled in the GOP believing my interests were largely aligned with the party of business.  My fellow Republicans appeared to share my beliefs that trade was the engine of wealth, that trade wars were always ruinous, that free flow of capital and labor was the bedrock of the market economy, that economic growth required stable monetary policy executed by an independent Federal Reserve, and that markets – and not the “orders” of politicians – should guide the choices made by business.   I eventually left the GOP, both because of its embrace of the odious culture-war agenda of “movement conservatives” and because, with maturity, the public good, and not my own economic interests, became the main touchstone of my politics. 

This morning I tried to imagine what would have happened, at any other point during the past six decades of my life, if a U.S. President, all on the same day, had “hereby ordered” every U.S. business to disengage from a key part of its overseas supply-chain and market, declared the Chair of the Federal Reserve to be a national “enemy,” and escalated a ruinous trade war with our country’s single largest trading partner.    The GOP I knew would have swung into full crisis mode, sensing an unprecedented threat to the economy.   The President would have been accused of acting illegally, trampling the private property and contract rights of business in a way that smacked of socialist autocracy, as well as ignoring the inviolable lessons of economic history.  

Instead, what we hear from the GOP is silence.   So has it really come to this?  Is the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the GOP so definitive that none of its leaders can rise to defend free markets, free trade, private property, and rule of law?   Republicans have demonstrated they will do anything to obtain and maintain power.  But what for, if not this?   

 My former party, having become nothing more than the vehicle for a populist demagogue, offers only the self-styled “Chosen One,” whose narcissistic whims and impulses are well on the way to undermining the laws, practices, institutions, and policies that are the foundations of our prosperity.   

London

Every country’s politics function within the bounds of both written rules and a set of unwritten norms.   Most often, the difference between democracy and authoritarianism, or between national greatness and a failed state, lies not with the quality of its written constitution, but with the quality of its political culture.  

Among the catastrophes America has suffered under Trump is the systematic dismantling of a political culture built up over two centuries.   A political culture doesn’t determine the legal rights and prerogatives enjoyed by public officials, but it sets normative limits on how those rights and prerogatives should be exercised, and expectations for behavior within the scope of their official functions.   For example, our political culture developed norms to distinguish between the behavior of a president acting as Head of State, where he/she is entitled to our patriotic support as the representative of all Americans, and the behavior required by a head of government, functioning in the hurly-burly of day-to-day politics.   Our political culture establishes norms such as the non-interference by the President in criminal investigations by the Department of Justice, notwithstanding that the department ultimately falls under his/her authority.   It includes acknowledgement of the fundamental importance of an independent and unfettered press, no matter how annoying or even irresponsible an individual practitioner.  It includes all sorts of standards arising out of separation of powers, including special respect for the independence of the judiciary.   It establishes institutional government, where the authority of the President is exercised within the context of a vast executive branch in which policies are vetted and analyzed, most decisions are taken below the level of the Oval Office, and distilled high-quality advice is provided to the chief executive.  It sets standards for behavior, including at least the veneer of respect, when politicians deal with each other in their official capacities.   It includes the principle that “politics stop at the border” and many others.  

It’s not news that Trump frequently violates virtually all of these norms, and indeed, harbors an instinctive hostility to any political culture that constrains his egocentric, impulsive, ill-informed, “I alone,” no-advice decision making style, or that requires him to recognize limits on executive power, distinguish between government and politics, or make policy based on anything other than the personal (Chairman Kim and I “like each other”) or transactional (everything, and that means everything, is a “deal”).  What is news, I think, is that American government stripped of the political culture that made it the envy of the world, is the new normal.  Its violation – or more precisely, its absence – no longer gets a mention by the mainstream press, or by ordinary Americans reviewing the day’s events around the water cooler.

Today the President, in his capacity as Head of State, is on a state visit to the United Kingdom, where he will meet the Queen as an equal.   In a single pre-arrival tweet, he violated not only the norms of American political culture, but the norms of international diplomacy and universal standards of personal behavior, by calling the Muslim mayor of his host city a “stone cold loser,” adding “Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job” and then, descending to the inevitable school-yard taunt, added that Kahn is “only half his [de Blasio’s] height.”

But that’s not the terrifying thing.   I listened to the reports on several of the major network radio news shows this morning, the sort of thing millions of Americans are listening to while driving to work.   Trump’s words were reported as matter-of-factly as if he had tweeted something about his administration’s policy approach to the coming trade negotiations.   There was not a word of surprise or context.   Not even an inflection signaling that something out of the ordinary had occurred.  And why?  It hadn’t.  It’s the new normal.   (Here’s a thought experiment:  picture Walter Cronkite telling the nation of JFK’s assassination and the moon landing.  Now try to picture how he would have reported this morning’s tweet.)

Following this incident, the Queen should have refused to meet with Trump.  We know she finds him abhorrent.  The Prime Minister should publicly demand an apology for the gratuitous insult to London’s mayor.   Congress, including Congressional Republicans, should censure the President for his conduct while representing America abroad as Head of State.  John McCain spoke up following Trump’s appalling summit with Putin, calling it "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory."  Does no GOP Senator wish to claim McCain’s mantle?   Is the self-proclaimed party of patriotism and values really bereft of a single person willing to stand up for America and decency?

250,000 Britons, about the same number as took to the streets during his previous visit, are expected to demonstrate against Trump.    On one hand, this is welcome and inspiring news.   On the other, it is mortifying.   Since the Women’s March, no group of Americans that large has assembled to protest Trump. 

Theocracy Watch

So, let’s get this straight.  It’s the fourth century BCE and the Persians control Jewish lands.  The Persian King decides to have a beauty contest to choose a new wife, and a Jewish orphan named Esther is forced to enter the contest.  The situation catches the attention of the Hebrew deity, who intervenes to assure that Esther wins.  In the meantime, the Persian King appoints a notorious anti-Semite as chief minister, who offers the King 10,000 silver talents in return for the right to massacre the Jews, a deal to which the King agrees.  You see how this relates to Trump?  No?  Keep reading.

Skipping some convoluted back and forth, Esther proves to be the right person in the right place at the right time, managing not only to convince the King to lift the edict calling for elimination of the Jewish people, but getting permission to kill the evil anti-Semitic minister, his 10 sons, and 75,000 other enemies of the Jewish people.  This massacre is celebrated as “Purim.”   

Still don’t get it?  God sent Esther to deliver the Jewish people from their Persian adversaries, and must have figured that the time was right for a repeat, so he sent us (and right at Purim, no less) Donald Trump to again deliver the Jews from the Persians (contemporary Iran).  Yep, Mike Pompeo thinks Donald Trump is the modern Esther.  “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” says the U.S. Secretary of State.  And then, more robustly, “I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” Pompeo concluded.

In case it’s not all clear how this fits together, Trump’s rabidly pro-Israel evangelical supporters believe that all Jews will spend eternity in conscious torment in hell (because they have not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior).  Conservative Israelis are prepared to overlook this in return for evangelical support for their agenda.  Evangelicals are willing to overlook this because they need the Israelis to maintain their occupation of Jerusalem (and to rebuild the Temple), which are conditions to the “rapture”  (the time when the evangelicals go to heaven and the Jews – and everyone else not “born again” – are left behind and destined, in due course, for hell).  Talk about a marriage of convenience. 

If you indulge in the illusion that America’s largest religious block may turn its back on the only totally amoral President in history, don’t.  Evangelical leaders argue that God’s prophets and agents are often flawed, and this one – by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, abandoning the Palestinians, and now endorsing the illegal annexation of the Golan Heights – has done more than anyone else to advance the rapture, the most important thing that can or will ever happen.  Trump will be rewarded for this by an outpouring of evangelical support.  

It’s 2019, the age of quantum computing and genetic editing, and the next election in the world’s most “advanced” country may be determined by fundamentalist interpretations of an ancient eschatological myth.  If this doesn’t terrify and anger you, wake up. 

"A decent respect to the opinions of mankind . . ."

Your correspondent is reporting from Abu Dhabi.  While traveling during the past month I have been seeing the situation in America more or less exclusively through the lens of the media in South Asia and the Middle East.   I’ve been making notes and thought you would be interested in the view from the outside.

Seen from this part of the world, the great global threat is an energized far-right nativist and nationalist movement led by opportunistic thugs.  Duarte, Putin, Erdogan, and Trump are spoken of in the same breath.   Every day’s news – most recently Trump’s tortured response to the mosque massacre in New Zealand ­– seems to confirm this view.   The rising generation on this planet has never known the America of E pluribus unum, the America of “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the America that liberated the world from fascism.  They know only the America of white grievance and corporatist greed – an America standing absurdly on the wrong side of demography and history.

The coverage of the 737-Max debacle has been illuminating.   The near universal deference once accorded to U.S. government institutions such as the FAA is gone.  In its place, a belief that under America’s corporatist politics the financial interests of Boeing would trump public safety, and the view that Trump has either politicized or dismantled the U.S. government institutions previously respected by the world.  Papers yesterday noted with approval that Canadian and EU regulators would not rely on the FAA to validate the fixes to the 737-Max software.  Indeed, the media here has been dismissive of the American government’s role, noting that Trump had left the FAA Chairmanship vacant for a year, and then considered his personal pilot for the post. 

Guns are one area where the rest of the world has long been baffled by America’s seeming collective insanity.   But there is an emerging view here that the gun control debate in America is about power, not culture.  A statement in Trump’s March interview with Breitbart was widely noted:  "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump -- I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough -- until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."  And what is that “certain point”?  The elections, of course, if Trump loses.  As one Indian commentator observed, the right has all the guns. Why would they give up power?

Hypocrisy is a major theme of the coverage of contemporary America – which, the argument goes, supports values such as rule of law and free trade when they are applied to others, but ignores them as constraints on its own actions.  It is not easy to be a Gulf state partnering with America in the fight against Islamist radicals on a day when the U.S. Secretary of State appears with Netanyahu in districts key to the coming Israeli elections, and Trump Tweets away decades of bipartisan U.S. policy (not to mention U.S. leverage) by recognizing the illegal annexation of the Golan Heights.  The winners, according to the press here:  Iran, Hezbollah, and Putin (so much for Crimea).

Americans have thick skins.   Culturally, we are comfortable standing alone in the world, adhering to our view of right and wrong, even when prevailing sentiment is against us.   But Americans do not like being the butt of jokes and the subject of ridicule.  So if you travel, steel yourself.  Our President is viewed as preposterous.  America is the new Absurdistan. 

The Pilot Who Cannot Fly

You are a passenger on a plane.   A large number of things have gone wrong.  The plane is buffeted by head winds.   The flight radar is down.  The airline’s system for scheduling flight crews was hacked by one of its competitors.   The pilot in the cockpit doesn’t know how to fly.  For the moment, the autopilot is still engaged and the plane is flying normally.

From the point of view of the passenger, which of these problems is the most serious?

Most of us would say that the most urgent problem is that the person sitting in the Captain’s chair lacks the ability to fly.   The autopilot may be engaged, but we know that at any moment we could face a challenge where only the diligence and competence of the pilot stands between us and disaster.

And yet in the analogous situation here on the ground, we suffer from a collective blindness to our most acute risk.   Take the following example.  It is July 2017.   The collective conclusion of the U.S. intelligence agencies is that North Korea had test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.  We now know that the President refused to believe this intelligence, dismissing it as a “hoax” because Russian President Vladimir Putin told him North Korea lacked that capacity.

What is revealed by this breathtaking anecdote?  What about it should concern us most?  For most of the press and commentariat, the main issue was the malign influence of our prime adversary’s leader over our President, and perhaps further evidence of “collusion.”

In my opinion, this misses the point.   The issue isn’t Russia.  The issue is that the pilot cannot fly.   Our present safety is an autopilot illusion.    

·      The President is functionally disabled.  He lacks the ordinary ability to absorb and process information, what psychologists call “executive function.”  Executive function requires the ability to pay attention, gather information and structure it for evaluation, focus and remember details, and make decisions based on available information.  We now have testimony from dozens of former White House insiders about how this disability is manifest:  he lacks interest in many of the problems and decisions presented to the President. He will not read, sit through briefings, or absorb facts relevant to decisions.  

·      Instead, to navigate the world and make decisions, Trump depends on a completely different modus operandi.   A problem is interesting only if it involves him personally.   The world is divided into friends and enemies.  Friends are those who flatter him and appear for the moment to buy into his narcissistic narrative of greatness; enemies are everyone else.  Information is credible if it comes from friends and advances his narcissistic narrative (does it make me look like a winner?).  Information is not credible (to be dismissed as “fake” or a “hoax”) if it does not.  Understanding Trump really is that simple. 

·      It is possible to be an effective politician without executive function. After all, in politics you win or lose; slogans and messages are based on emotion and content matters little.  Someone passionately convinced of his own greatness will “sell” that illusion more effectively than a non-narcissist.

·      Governing is another thing altogether.   Substance does matter.   A President cannot navigate the complexities of national security without engaging with the facts and making some analysis – or, as an alternative, seeking the advice and taking the counsel of those who do.  But Trumpian populism is deeply suspicious of expertise and authority.  The narcissist is convinced he can fly the plane alone, despite lacking any of the skills of a pilot.

·      So imagine that day in July when the intelligence services presented their analysis on the North Korean missile threat.  On one hand, we have the collective analysis of thousands of independent non-partisan experts and professionals.  It is presented in writing.  It is evidence-based.  It is complex and nuanced.  It isn’t about him.  In the past, the intelligence services have refused to tell him what he wanted to hear.  On the other hand, we have Putin, an A-list celebrity who has flattered him shamelessly, whose strongman rule he admires, and who probably was instrumental in his election.  Putin told him, mano a mano, that North Korea lacked the capacity to develop ICBMs.   It was the answer he wanted to hear.  It should surprise no one which of the two sources Trump would rely on.

It doesn’t matter how much you hate government or wish it would shrink.  The world is a dangerous place.   The man his secretary of state called “a moron” might be able to do the job if he surrounded himself with first class advisors and took their advice.  He doesn’t.  Integrity and competence are causes for firing in the Trump White House.  The republic is in no less peril than our plane with a pilot who doesn’t know how to fly.

Contemporary fundamentalist conservatism has been built on a foundation of Orwellian inversions (e.g, Fox News as “fair and balanced”).  But before Trump, I believed that conservatives who called themselves “patriots” were sincere in their professions of  “country first.”  Not anymore.  Most Republicans have thrown national security under the bus in the pursuit of power.  John McCain called them out before he died, but they didn’t listen.  Our enemies are circling.  We see storms on the horizon in every direction, and yet the GOP fights to keep the man who cannot fly in the pilot’s seat.  When the plane crashes, historians will know where the blame lies.

Institutional Government

In less politically correct times we used to refer derisively to “banana republics.”  Originally applied narrowly to a certain type of Central American country overly dependent on fruit exports, the term later was used more broadly to refer to countries that nominally take the form of constitutional democracies, but that lack the institutions and political cultures to sustain them.   As a result, they typically are run by autocratically-inclined rulers elected by populist forces motivated by empty talk of national greatness.  They maintain legislatures and courts, but these are not effective in reining in the impulses of the caudillo.  The most powerful families and companies live in symbiosis with the autocrat (who they despise), dispensing flattery and political support in return for protection of their interests. 

This type of politics is a tragedy for the citizens of these unhappy countries, but – because the “banana republic” countries usually matter so little – they became fodder for jokes, parodies, and satirical novels.  The United States is not a banana republic, but in some respects, it has started to behave like one.  Unlike Honduras and its ilk, America matters a great deal, and as a consequence, the world is not laughing.

The critical distinction between a mature nation-state (whether a democracy or not) and a banana republic is institutional government.   In a mature state, the political and governmental institutions are strong and high functioning.  The political process for decision making may be messy, but once decisions are made they can be communicated and relied on as the position of the government.   National policies and priorities have broad continuity over time, regardless of changes in political control.  Institutional government is like a supertanker – newly elected politicians may push the rudder hard to port or starboard, but the ship turns slowly. Standing bureaucracies assure that politicians, holding temporary power only, make decisions armed with the best information and analysis arising from a sprawling government.  This stability and coherence is what allows a country with strong institutions to lead.   

Events of the past two weeks illustrate the extent to which our long tradition of institutional government has been abandoned.   On Thursday our special representative in charge of the talks for Afghan reconciliation stated that the United States was committed to the fight in Afghanistan: “the United States will stand with the government and the people of Afghanistan.” On Friday morning, Trump, without informing our Afghan allies in advance, announced the drawdown of our troops.   

With respect to Syria, the National Security Advisor said “we’re not going to leave” and the Department of Defense reassured our allies that we are “continuing operations” and “remain committed.”  A few days later Trump announced by tweet that the U.S. was withdrawing its troops from Syria.   Congress, the State Department, and the Pentagon all are reported to have been “blindsided.”  The Secretary of Defense resigned, still smarting at not having been informed before his impulsive boss announced our cancellation of the Iranian nuclear deal, suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea, or creation of a sixth branch (the “Space Force”) of the U.S. military.   

Banana republic:  impulsive rule by a single autocrat.  Lack of institutional deliberation and process. 

Michael Lewis’s meticulous reporting in Fifth Risk reveals that the executive branch of the federal government is led by a man with no knowledge of, interest in, or need for, the institution which he leads.   Even Steve Bannon, proponent of the “deconstruction of the administration state,” said of Trump’s attitude toward the government he is supposed to be running: “Holy fuck, this guy doesn’t know anything.  And he doesn’t give a shit.” 

Lewis details the President’s failure to fill vacancies, to appoint persons with relevant skills or experience, or to set policy agendas at the department or agency level.   Lewis’s reporting makes clear that while this approach to governing results in large part from not “giv[ing] a shit,” another part results from deliberate vandalism.  Trump wants the institutions of government to get out of his way.  When he does make appointments, the most relevant credential (other than personal loyalty to Trump) appears to be a declared dedication to dismantling or undermining the missions of the agencies they would serve. 

The American right, as a political strategy, has long stoked anger against the Federal government.    GOP candidates competed to list all the departments and agencies they would eliminate.   We’ll get rid of the IRS, the EPA, the Departments of Energy, Education, and Commerce.  It was all good fun, “playing to the base.”  No one took it seriously.  But now it has happened.  We still have these departments and agencies, but they have been gutted and neutered.  Donald’s dream has come true:  there is only Trump.

The President swears to defend the constitution and to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.”  This includes, as the particular duty of the President, to ensure the staffing, management, and effective functioning of the executive branch.   The institutions of the executive branch are mostly established by law.  Their missions and functions are not optional.  

No one reading Fifth Risk could conclude that Trump has “faithfully executed” his office.  Most GOP congressmen know he hasn’t and also know they have a constitutional duty to do something about it. Republican businessmen and financiers, who held their noses and accepted the farcical con-man in return for tax breaks and regulatory reform, now know they put the republic in peril. 

Banana republic:  the political and commercial establishment lives in symbiosis with the autocrat (who they despise), dispensing flattery and political support in return for favors and commercial opportunity.