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Howee



Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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Location: OREGON (in my heart)


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PostPosted: 09/06/18 12:01 am    ::: Zing. Reply Reply with quote

From the NYT:
Quote:
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.

Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.

“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.

It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.

The result is a two-track presidency.

Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.

Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.

We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.



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justintyme



Joined: 08 Jul 2012
Posts: 8407
Location: Northfield, MN


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PostPosted: 09/06/18 3:33 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

There is a lot of people out there suggesting that the author is Mike Pence because of the usage of the word "lodestar" which is a very uncommon word, but is used quite frequently by Pence.

I don't know how much credence I would give this based upon this fairly weak, if tantalizing, evidence, but imagine if it actually was him...



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Last edited by justintyme on 09/06/18 11:51 am; edited 1 time in total
pilight



Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 66773
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PostPosted: 09/06/18 6:55 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

justintyme wrote:
There is a lot of people out there suggesting that the author is Mike Pence because of the usage of the word "lodestar" which is a very uncommon word, but is used quite frequently by Pence.

I don't know how much credence I would give this based upon this fairly week, if tantalizing, evidence, but imagine if it actually was him...


Could be someone wanting people to think it was Pence



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Howee



Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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Location: OREGON (in my heart)


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PostPosted: 09/06/18 7:05 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I prefer to think it's Melania. Cool



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Shades



Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: 09/06/18 8:15 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

There probably isn’t really an inner resistance. Why put Trump on alert and risk getting caught? But someone making him think there is an inner resistance knew that it would make him even more paranoid and put him on even more of a self-destructive path.



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pilight



Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 66773
Location: Where the action is


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PostPosted: 09/06/18 1:25 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Howee wrote:
I prefer to think it's Melania. Cool


https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/politics/melania-trump-new-york-times-oped-sabotaging/index.html

Quote:
The first lady had a specific message for the author: "To the writer of the op-ed -- you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions."



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CamrnCrz1974



Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Posts: 18371
Location: Phoenix


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PostPosted: 09/06/18 4:48 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

pilight wrote:
justintyme wrote:
There is a lot of people out there suggesting that the author is Mike Pence because of the usage of the word "lodestar" which is a very uncommon word, but is used quite frequently by Pence.

I don't know how much credence I would give this based upon this fairly week, if tantalizing, evidence, but imagine if it actually was him...


Could be someone wanting people to think it was Pence


"Lodestar" is also a term frequently used by current/former members of the military.


GlennMacGrady



Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 8152
Location: Heisenberg


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PostPosted: 09/06/18 10:13 pm    ::: Re: Zing. Reply Reply with quote

Quote:
“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.


This is a key sentence. It says to me that the author doesn't personally witness Trump changing his mind, is not as high up as the "top official", probably doesn't attend Oval Office meetings himself, at least not often, and likely doesn't even work in the White House.
Howee



Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 15691
Location: OREGON (in my heart)


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PostPosted: 09/06/18 10:50 pm    ::: Re: Zing. Reply Reply with quote

GlennMacGrady wrote:
Quote:
“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.


This is a key sentence. It says to me that the author doesn't personally witness Trump changing his mind, is not as high up as the "top official", probably doesn't attend Oval Office meetings himself, at least not often, and likely doesn't even work in the White House.


....or, the author is merely adding a corroborating opinion to bolster their premise, i.e., they see it for themselves, but hear others expressing the same concern. Who knowz....??



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mercfan3



Joined: 23 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: 09/07/18 2:09 pm    ::: Re: Zing. Reply Reply with quote

I think it’s Conway.



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