Trump Thread

[Montmorency]

Even if all those who disagreed resigned, there would be enough that remained to continue the process. I'm sure that there is a mass of self-interest going on here, but given that the staff do not have the power to change what is going on, all they can do is wait until either Congress grow some balls or his handpicked sycophants in the Cabinet do (unlikely - they've already sold out as far as they can);else the Electorate. Donald has the power to do a large amount of damage before the Constitutional changes are made.

Even with the op-ed, a lot of Donald's limited attention is going to be on rooting out the traitor, rather than bombing other countries, starting other trade wars or flexing other unilateral powers that the President enjoys.

You're saying that public defiance will have a weaker effect than stirring the pot and sabotage. I disagree. You also don't consider the ethical dimension.


If there were an effective "resistance" within the White House, giving up the game through an op-ed in a national paper of record would seem to be counterproductive.

The op-ed author(s) can immediately be dismissed as unserious because of the contradictions in the text and meta-text. One can't believe that a given elected leader is a danger to the country and claim to be working against them, while also claiming "[w]e want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous." Dissonance, or more likely hypocrisy. If one truly believes that "President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic", how can you justify shoring up the administration from within? That was their stated goal and alleged accomplishment. No matter how many good qualities such a person attributes to a Trump administration, he has spoken to and of its discredit, discredit he ought to be bound to admit irredeemable if sedition is the legitimate response.

In developing a non-partisan remedy the ethical option is to take a public and collective stance to force the issue. Then the onus is visibly on the legislators to act. We don't have the "vote of no confidence" in America, but mass resignation of high officials is a step in that direction.

These people certainly can't claim the virtue of righteous disobedience while still actively carrying out the functions of this administration. 'Sure, I'm still killing and raping for Islamic State, but think about that one child I spared. What we as Muslims need now is to overcome al-Bagdadi's divisive rhetoric and find the strength to shed the labels.'

Trump's limited attention would be a lot more limited if these #resistance quit their jobs. This White House would find it difficult to fill the vacancies, and has from the start been notoriously understaffed. Public recriminations would further deplete the pool of potential replacements. It's not like I'm asking for the open disobedience of mid-grade civil servants here, of which there are many thousands. We're speaking of political appointees.

And the final point: everyone knew who Donald Trump was. Whoever signed up to work for him in the first place is almost certainly a reprobate. Whoever is still working for him must be. Not even the public mass resignation would expiate them. But what we've got instead is of no account.


EDIT: In the interest of comity, let me emphasize that I agree with you that the fate of the republic doesn't ride on someone's resignation. I'm just saying they're worthless pieces of crap for not doing at least this much, and heinous pieces of crap for their ostentatious arrogance and smugness and duplicity.