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What Trump's Doing Is Crazy and Dangerous--and It Ain't Over Yet
Trump still threatens us, and discussing the election in the past tense is stupid.
Dec 10, 2020
Ever since November 7, when the election was more or less authoritatively "called" by all major media, a wide range of pundits have spoken as if the election was decided. Some of these pundits have explained away Trump's consistent and angry refusal of the results as a sign of his narcissism and immaturity; some have focused on the ineptitude of the Rudy Giuliani/Jenna Ellis legal team; and some have focused on the important fact that so many judges and state election officials, even Republican ones, have refused to comply with Trump's efforts to subvert the election. Most recently, attention has focused on the December 8 "Safe Harbor" date prescribed by federal law. The point: the results have now been certified, and Biden obviously must be selected next week by the Electoral College, and Trump's latest efforts are beside the point.
Donald Trump--the commander-in chief, chief executive, and current occupant of the White House--is doing his very best to organize a concerted effort to overthrow the results of the November election.
Just like with the Mueller Report in 2019 and the impeachment in 2020, Trump's crossing of certain lines seems both absurd and legally impossible; Trump then crosses the lines, with no real consequence; then a new line is identified; and then that line is crossed. And so attention has shifted from November 3 to November 7, to December 8--an entire monthlater--to December 14. And as time passes, it becomes clearer and clearer that Trump remains as determined as ever to resist what both law and custom demand, and that he has extraordinary support in this.
It is simply beyond me why any intelligent person would fail to see that the election contest is not yet over, and for one simple reason: as Barton Gellman argued in his seminal Atlanticessay many weeks ago, we are still in the middle of a legally arcane and complex interregnum, Trump and his criminal associates have prepared for this and in some ways even gamed it, and they are now continuing to pursue every obstructive option at their disposal exactly as planned.
And yet only today Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University, published in the New York Timesa piece asking "What Really Saved the Republic From Trump?" and answering that it was not formal institutions but civic virtue. Saved the republic from Trump? Saved? Really? Did I miss something? Has Trump decamped to Mar-a-Lago? I thought he was still at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, meeting with various Republican Congressmen and state Attorneys General and plotting the next phase of obstruction.
Meanwhile, over at the Atlantic--the same Atlantic that published the terrific piece by Gellman, and just published Zeynep Tufekci's equally terrific "'This Must Be Your First': Acting as if Trump is trying to stage a coup is the best way to ensure he won't"-- the usually excellent George Packer bizarrely offered "A Political Obituary for Donald Trump" that is neatly summed up in its lead caption: "The effects of his reign will linger. But democracy survived." Packer is surely correct that the effects of Trump's presidency will linger. He may also be correct that "democracy" will survive (if it does, it will be in the manner of a frail old man who is badly beaten and bruised but manages to stumble away). But survived--in the past tense, as if it is a foregone conclusion? And "obituary," as if the beast is dead?
This is crazy.
In all fairness to Packer, the Atlantic informs us at the bottom that "this article appears in the January/February 2021 print edition with the headline 'The Legacy of Donald Trump.'" But both the author and the editors should be embarrassed for their abominable decision to produce a retrospective in early December that is intended for next year--months away--and then to publish it online in early December, even as Trump remains in office and continues to threaten democracy.
Packer, Wu, Ari Melber on MSNBC--all too many otherwise very smart people insist on talking, and behaving, as if Biden is not simply the President-elect but the President--some TV personalities actually sometimes slip and call him "President Biden"-or at least as if the transition from the first role to the second is a mere formality.
For decades, perhaps centuries, it has been more or less a formality.
But it is not a formality now. This is obvious and it is known.
Right now the Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit, filed by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, that claims that the electoral practices and results in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania "harm" Texas voters and should be invalidated, and that Republican legislatures in those states ought to be empowered to investigate the election "fraud" and then make the ultimate decision about certification and the naming of Electoral College teams.
This lawsuit is widely considered by legal scholars-who alas do not rule the world-to be absurd.
But it is being supported by the Republican Attorneys General of seventeen other red states, who have jointly filed an amicus brief.
It is also being supported by 106 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, who have also filed an amicus brief.
Amicus briefs of support have also been filed by Republican state legislators in many states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan.
And, of course, the suit is supported by Trump.
Will this suit succeed? It seems unlikely. At the same time, we do not know. More important, the widespread support for the maneuver by Republican national and state elected officials is deeply troubling, and signals a real determination to overturn the election.
This effort is part of a much broader mobilization of the Republican base and the Republican party leadership behind Trump.
Republican Congressman Mike Johnson (R-La.) is whipping House members, making lists of supporters for the President.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has announced that he will hold public hearings next week on allegations of election fraud.
A number of Republican Congressmen and Senators have threatened to challenge the Electoral College results on the floor of Congress on January 6, and at least two, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)) and Barry Moore (R-Ala.), have promised to do so (the toxic Jim Jordan has also indicated a willingness to do this).
In the meantime, state public officials--from the Democratic Secretary of State of Michigan to the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia--are receiving death threats; in Arizona the state Republican committee is urging supporters to "fight to the death" on behalf of Trump; and "Stop the Steal" protests and harassments are spreading. Yesterday's New York Timesheadline said it well: "As Trump Rails Against His Loss, His Supporters Become More Threatening."
Donald Trump--the commander-in chief, chief executive, and current occupant of the White House--is doing his very best to organize a concerted effort to overthrow the results of the November election. And he is doing it with the tacit support of the entire Republican Senate and House leadership, with the explicit support of many U.S. Senators, over a hundred U.S. Representatives, hundreds of Republican state legislators across the country, and a large proportion of the 73 million people who voted for him.
This is happening. Now.
And it is dangerous.
Might the outrageous lawsuit fail? Yes. Maybe. Probably even.
Might the effort of Brooks and others to obstruct the validation of the Electoral College vote by Congress on January 6 fail? Yes. Maybe. Probably.
But we do not know.
More importantly: we have no reason to believe that Trump will stop there. Because if he has been consistent in anything these past four years, it is this: he has no respect for laws or norms, and he will always push boundaries, and he will do almost anything to stay on top.
How far will he go?
Back in August, John Nagl and Paul Yingling--two very distinguished military intellectuals and retired U.S. Army officers--published an important piece entitled "'. . . All Enemies Foreign and Domestic': An Open Letter to Gen Milley." Their basic point was simple: "If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order." This piece generated incredible controversy. Many, Trump supporters but also people on the center and left, disparaged the piece as a call for direct military intervention in domestic politics, and almost as a call for a kind of coup. I believe this was a serious misreading of the piece, and I said so back then. But their specific argument notwithstanding, their piece was a brave and important identification of some very real scenarios: what if Trump refuses to leave on January 20, and what if he uses Homeland Security forces--the forces that were deployed on the streets of Portland--to overwhelm Secret Service officers seeking to escort him out? Or, what if he refuses to leave, and there are mass demonstrations in Washington, D.C, and he calls out federal forces, or even the U.S. military, to suppress the protests, perhaps invoking the Insurrection Act? What then? What happens then? Nagl and Yingling's basic point is that all U.S. military forces and all federal agents have a duty to defend the Constitution, and this means that they should not follow illegal orders, and must be prepared--if it comes to this--to uphold the law. If it comes to this.
The very fact that these two highly respected figures thought it necessary to raise these issues in public was telling, and remains telling. And indeed, the fact that so many smart people challenged their specific argument and sought to make more nuanced arguments about the role of the military in the event that Trump refuses to step down underscores the fact that this is not a crazy scenario. It might not be probable. But it is not impossible. Not at all.
Do you really think that Trump would never adamantly refuse to leave, and even call upon federal troops to support him? How confident of this are you? Really?
As Zeynep Tufekci has argued, what Trump is doing now surely seems like what political scientists call an "autcoup." How far will he go? We do not know. But everything we do know tells us that we should be afraid. Very afraid.
Joe Biden is the President-elect whose very status is the outcome of a contentious process that is not yet over. Donald Trump is the President. For many years he told us that he could not legitimately lose an election. Now he is telling us that he did not legitimately lose, and he in fact won, and he has no intention of giving up power. And he is methodically doing everything in his power to remain in power. He is a clear in present danger to democracy. And he is not gone yet.
It is not over until it's over.
And it is definitely not over.
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Miles Taylor (aka 'Anonymous') Goes Public as Voice From Within White House Who Warned of Trump's Depraved Personality and Leadership
"While I claim sole authorship of the work," said the former Department of Homeland Security official.
Oct 28, 2020
Ending over two years of mystery and speculation, former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor on Wednesday revealed himself to be the author of an anonymous 2018 New York Times editorial that claimed "many of the senior officials" within the Trump administration formed a "resistance" that actively worked to undermine President Donald Trump's agenda.
"Too often in times of crisis, I saw Donald Trump prove he is a man without character, and his personal defects have resulted in leadership failures so significant that they can be measured in lost American lives."
--Miles Taylor, aka "Anonymous"
In a Medium post also published by the Times, Taylor wrote that it "wasn't easy" to come out as "Anonymous" but "we owe... the American people the truth." He claimed he was revealing himself so that others might also speak out against the president.
"That's why I'm writing this note--to urge you to speak out if you haven't," he wrote. "While I hope a few more Trump officials will quickly find their consciences, your words are now more important than theirs. It's time to come forward and shine a light on the discord that's infected our public discourse."
\u201cBreaking News: An ex-Homeland Security official, Miles Taylor, reveals he was the anonymous author of a 2018 New York Times Op-Ed describing a \u201cresistance\u201d in the administration.\nhttps://t.co/ulkMBxrwby\u201d— The New York Times (@The New York Times) 1603913599
"The country cannot rely on well-intentioned, unelected bureaucrats around the president to steer him toward what's right," said Taylor. "He has purged most of them anyway. Nor can they rely on Congress to deliver us from Trump's wayward whims."
"The people themselves are the ultimate check on the nation's chief executive," he argued.
Taylor's admission marks a reversal from as recently as August, when he told CNN host Anderson Cooper that he was not "Anonymous," and that he only wears masks for "Halloweens and pandemics."
\u201c\u201cI wear a mask for two things, Anderson: Halloween and pandemics. So, no,\u201d says @MilesTaylorUSA, when asked by @AndersonCooper if he is the author of the op-ed book written by someone called Anonymous.\u201d— CNN Newsroom (@CNN Newsroom) 1598037258
Speculation surrounding the identity of "Anonymous" ran the gamut from former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen--who some former administration officials say was pressured into acquiescing to family separation--to Vice President Mike Pence, who, like "Anonymous," is fond of the word "lodestar."
During his DHS tenure, Taylor worked as Nielsen's chief of staff when she signed the infamous memorandum authorizing the Justice Department separation of undocumented immigrant families--including children and infants--many of whom legally presented themselves at U.S. ports of entry to request asylum.
Critics including Physicians for Human Rights have called the policy "government-sanctioned child abuse" and even "torture," and although the separation policy was formally ended after international outrage, the U.S. government to this day cannot find the parents of some 545 children it seized from them.
Taylor first publicly spoke against Trump in August, admitting he "should have done more" when faced with one of the most egregious U.S. human rights crimes of the century, and endorsing Democratic presidential nominee in an advertisement that aired during the Democratic National Convention. He also published a Washington Post opinion piece in which he argued that "the country is less secure as a direct result of the president's actions."
In a statement later on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called Taylor a "low-level, disgruntled former staffer" who "is a liar and a coward who chose anonymity over action and leaking over leading."
As he so often does, Trump falsely claimed he didn't know Taylor and called his revelation "another @nytimes SCAM."
\u201cThat\u2019s too bad. I remember you, all too well. And I will continue shining a light on your failed presidency through the election\u2014and beyond.\u201d— Miles Taylor (@Miles Taylor) 1603923228
Read Taylor's full statement--titled "Why I'm No Longer 'Anonymous'"--as it appeared in the Times on Wednesday, below:
More than two years ago, I published an anonymous opinion piece in The New York Times about Donald Trump's perilous presidency, while I was serving under him. He responded with a short but telling tweet: "TREASON?"
Trump sees personal criticism as subversive.
I take a different view. As Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or anyone else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about anyone else."
We do not owe the president our silence. We owe him and the American people the truth.
Make no mistake: I am a Republican, and I wanted this president to succeed. That's why I came into the administration with John Kelly, and it's why I stayed on as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. But too often in times of crisis, I saw Donald Trump prove he is a man without character, and his personal defects have resulted in leadership failures so significant that they can be measured in lost American lives. I witnessed Trump's inability to do his job over the course of two-and-a-half years. Everyone saw it, though most were hesitant to speak up for fear of reprisals.
So when I left the administration I wrote A Warning, a character study of the current Commander in Chief and a caution to voters that it wasn't as bad as it looked inside the Trump administration--it was worse. While I claim sole authorship of the work, the sentiments expressed within it were widely held among officials at the highest levels of the federal government. In other words, Trump's own lieutenants were alarmed by his instability.
Much has been made of the fact that these writings were published anonymously. The decision wasn't easy, I wrestled with it, and I understand why some people consider it questionable to levy such serious charges against a sitting president under the cover of anonymity. But my reasoning was straightforward, and I stand by it. Issuing my critiques without attribution forced the president to answer them directly on their merits or not at all, rather than creating distractions through petty insults and name-calling. I wanted the attention to be on the arguments themselves. At the time I asked, "What will he do when there is no person to attack, only an idea?" We got the answer. He became unhinged. And the ideas stood on their own two feet.
To be clear, writing those works was not about eminence (they were published without attribution), not about money (I declined a hefty monetary advance and pledged to donate the bulk of the proceeds), and not about crafting a score-settling "tell all" (my focus was on the president himself and his character, not denigrating former colleagues).
Nevertheless, I made clear I wasn't afraid to criticize the president under my name. In fact, I pledged to do so. That is why I've already been vocal throughout the general election. I've tried to convey as best I can--based on my own experience--how Donald Trump has made America less safe, less certain of its identity and destiny, and less united. He has responded predictably, with personal attacks meant to obscure the underlying message that he is unfit for the office he holds.
Yet Trump has failed to bury the truth.
Why? Because since the op-ed was published, I've been joined by an unprecedented number of former colleagues who've chosen to speak out against the man they once served. Donald Trump's character and record have now been challenged in myriad ways by his own former chief of staff, national security advisor, communications director, secretary of state, secretary of defense, director of national intelligence, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others he personally appointed.
History will also record the names of those souls who had everything to lose but stood up anyway, including Trump officials Fiona Hill, Michael McKinley, John Mitnick, Elizabeth Neumann, Bob Shanks, Olivia Troye, Josh Venable, Alexander Vindman, and many more. I applaud their courage. These are not "Deep Staters" who conspired to thwart their boss. Many of them were Trump supporters, and all of them are patriots who accepted great personal risks to speak candidly about a man they've seen retaliate and even incite violence against his opponents. (I've likewise experienced the cost of condemning the president, as doing so has taken a considerable toll on my job, daily life, marriage, finances, and personal safety.)
These public servants were not intimidated. And you shouldn't be either. As descendants of revolutionaries, honest dissent is part of our American character, and we must reject the culture of political intimidation that's been cultivated by this president. That's why I'm writing this note--to urge you to speak out if you haven't. While I hope a few more Trump officials will quickly find their consciences, your words are now more important than theirs. It's time to come forward and shine a light on the discord that's infected our public discourse. You can speak loudest with your vote and persuade others with your voice. Don't be afraid of open debate. As I've said before, there is no better screen test for truth than to see it audition next to delusion.
This election is a two-part referendum: first, on the character of a man, and second, on the character of our nation. That's why I'm also urging fellow Republicans to put country over party, even if that means supporting Trump's Democratic opponent. Although former Vice President Joe Biden is likely to pursue progressive reforms that conservatives oppose (and rest assured, we will challenge them in the loyal opposition), his policy agenda cannot equal the damage done by the current president to the fabric of our republic. I believe Joe Biden's decency will bring us back together where Donald Trump's dishonesty has torn us apart.
Trump has been exactly what we conservatives always said government should NOT be: expansive, wasteful, arbitrary, unpredictable, and prone to abuses of power. Worse still, as I've noted previously, he's waged an all-out assault on reason, preferring to enthrone emotion and impulse in the seat of government. The consequences have been calamitous, and if given four more years, he will push the limits of his power further than the "high crimes and misdemeanors" for which he was already impeached.
Trust me. We spent years trying to ameliorate Trump's poor decisions (often unsuccessfully), many of which will be back with a vengeance in a second term. Recall, this is the man who told us, "When somebody's president of the United States, the authority is total." I believe more than ever that Trump unbound will mean a nation undone--a continued downward slide into social acrimony, with the United States fading into the background of a world stage it once commanded, to say nothing of the damage to our democratic institutions.
I was wrong, however, about one major assertion in my original op-ed. The country cannot rely on well-intentioned, unelected bureaucrats around the President to steer him toward what's right. He has purged most of them anyway. Nor can they rely on Congress to deliver us from Trump's wayward whims. The people themselves are the ultimate check on the nation's chief executive. We alone must determine whether his behavior warrants continuance in office, and we face a momentous decision, as our choice about Trump's future will affect our future for years to come. With that in mind, he doesn't deserve a second term in office, and we don't deserve to live through it.
Removing Trump will not be the end of our woes, unfortunately. While on the road visiting swing states for the past month, it's become clear to me how far apart Americans have grown from one another. We've perpetuated the seemingly endless hostility stoked by this divisive President, so if we really want to restore vibrance to our civic life, the change must begin with each of us, not just with the occupant of the Oval Office. Fortunately, past generations have lit the way toward national reconciliation in even harder times.
On the brink of a civil war that literally split our nation in two, Abraham Lincoln called on the people not to lose sight of one other. He said in his Inaugural Address:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Heed Lincoln's words. We must return to our founding principles. We must rediscover our better angels. And we must reconcile with each other, repairing the bonds of affection that make us fellow Americans.
Miles Taylor
October 2020
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Nobody Expected We Would Pay Such a Steep Price for Electing a Mentally Ill Criminal as President--Can We Recover?
Trump and his buddies in the GOP may have finally destroyed America for good.
Sep 10, 2020
Our country, at the beginning of this year, faced four major threats: Climate change, Covid-19, Russian election meddling, and a worldwide nuclear arms race.
Donald Trump lied to us about all four of them. As a result, each, today, represents a larger threat than it did before he became president and hundreds of thousands of Americans have or soon will die because of his lies.
Trump lied to us about climate change and took billions from FEMA to give to unemployed people in Texas; that money ran out today. He claimed that forest fires in the west were because we weren't "raking the forest floors," one of the more stupid and simplistic ways he lied about climate change to satisfy his fossil fuel donors. And now Americans are dying and losing their homes in a dozen western states.
"Trump has been a lifelong grifter, money launderer and minor criminal. Now he has brought that criminality to the White House and guided himself from his criminal instinct to lie and cheat."
He lied, as we now have learned from Bob Woodward, to all of us about the severity of Covid-19. He knew in January how deadly this disease was, that it could strike even young children, and that it was transmitted through the air. Instead of warning us, instead of warning parents, instead of issuing a national mask mandate, he lied to us and said it was "just like the flu" and a "Democrat hoax." He then spent months lying to his supporters, packing them into events to stroke his ego even as he knew that some would end up like Herman Cain: dead.
He was repeatedly warned the Russians and others were attempting to manipulate our election, from activity on Facebook and in other news and social media venues to hacking into our election systems. Not only did he lie to Americans about this, but this week we learned that he ordered his illegal toady at DHS, Chad Wolf, to order those below him to hide this information from the American public.
Finally, Trump blithered on to Bob Woodward about a top-secret new nuclear weapons program the United States has developed. Once that information was published, it kicked off a new international nuclear arms race. We could hope that Trump was lying to Woodward about this, but it turns out that instead he had been lying to us and the world, and now that the truth is out it has put the entire world at increased danger of war and an extinction-causing nuclear winter.
And now a fifth crisis has arisen, because of the way Trump screwed up the Covid-19 and climate crises. Our economy has collapsed more severely than any time since the Republican Great Depression, and the only companies that are being meaningfully bailed out are the corporate behemoths. People are losing their homes, their life savings, and hope.
Donald Trump has been a lifelong grifter, money launderer and minor criminal. Now he has brought that criminality to the White House and guided himself from his criminal instinct to lie and cheat.
The result over the short term is the end of the American Dream and American Exceptionalism. The result over the long term could be the loss of democracy, both here in the United States and across the planet.
Nobody expected we would have to pay such a steep price for electing a mentally ill criminal as president. And nobody believed an entire political party would support a race-baiting fascist, but here we are.
The big questions now are whether the domestic terrorists Trump has activated will realize he's been playing them for suckers, or will their loyalty to white supremacy cause them to stick with him?
Or, will he successfully reach out to them and ratchet up racially motivated violence across this country as we go into, through, and past the election season this year?
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