Автор неизвестен: A Warning

“I would know,” I wrote of those officials. “I am one of them.”

Since that opinion piece was published in the New York Times on September 5, 2018, the instability within the Trump administration has intensified. One element has remained constant, however. The president still lacks the guiding principles needed to govern our nation and fails to display the rudimentary qualities of leadership we should expect of any commander in chief.

In the Times op-ed, I wrote of a quiet “resistance” of Trump appointees—at the highest levels—trying to manage his rash impulses. We wanted the administration to succeed and supported significant components of the president’s agenda, but we were alarmed by his unstable behavior, in public and private. Those who tried to steer him away from self-destructive impulses were not the so-called “Deep State,” I wrote, but the “Steady State.”

This idea was assailed by the president. But the notion, that his team is working to protect him from himself, has since become one of the defining narratives of the Trump administration. Indeed, it was a hallmark takeaway from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election . “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful,” he wrote, “but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.” This included the president’s demand that White House counsel Don McGahn fire the special counsel, a request McGahn rebuffed for fear it would “trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre” and lead to Donald Trump’s impeachment. It probably would have.

President Trump should not be shocked that wary aides and cabinet members saved his presidency. My colleagues have done so many times. He should be worried—we all should be worried—that these reasonable professionals are vanishing. The president is chafed by those who dare to challenge him. He has targeted and removed many of these officials, from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Chief of Staff John Kelly, one by one. Others have grown tired of the charade and left of their own accord. With every dismissal or departure of a level-headed senior leader, the risks to the country grow, and the president is validated by a shrinking cadre of advisors who abet or encourage his bad behavior. We are already seeing the consequences.

The stewards of what I call the Steady State, what is left of it anyway, are public servants who push back against ill-considered or reckless decisions. They are not traitors or mutineers. They give the president their best advice and speak truth to power. They do not hesitate to challenge Trump when they believe he is wrong. They try to manage their White House offices or government agencies in a way that keeps them running despite the president’s temperamental manner. When they fail to persuade him to change course, they work with the president and others in the administration to limit the fallout from decisions that will have deleterious consequences, which happens to be an enduring dilemma here inside the Trump administration.

Increasingly, I’ve doubted whether this type of environment is at all effective, let alone sustainable. Can Americans put their faith in a cabal of unelected officials to maintain stability? More importantly, should they? This question is more urgent than ever because there is a chance Donald Trump, despite his extraordinary flaws and the threat of impeachment in Congress, will be reelected in 2020. By then the guardrails will be gone entirely, and freed from the threat of defeat, this president will feel emboldened to double down on his worst impulses. This may be our last chance to act to hold the man accountable. Before doing so, we must look deeper at the roots of the present disorder, which is why I have written this book.

The criticism of the Trump administration is so frenzied that ordinary Americans are struggling to discern truth from fiction. There is only so much the public can absorb. When everything is a crisis and a scandal, the end result is that nothing is. Americans are fed up with the cacophony, becoming numb to it. We are looking the other way, which has caused us to lose sight of what is important in the national debate.

I want to cut through the noise. I agreed to serve in the administration with the hope that President Trump would be successful and remembered for the right reasons, even if many of us had serious misgivings about signing on. While the president can claim a number of real accomplishments, overall that hope was dashed—and our misgivings validated—by hard experience. Through a toxic combination of amorality and indifference, the president has failed to rise to the occasion in fulfilling his duties. In these pages, I will underscore what Americans should actually be concerned about when it comes to Trump and his administration, diagnose the problems, and propose how we can move forward. The opinions presented herein are my own; yet, there is scarcely a criticism leveled that is not also shared by many other officials on the team or those who have departed. Most are afraid to say so publicly.

This book was conceived of, outlined, and written quickly amidst a flurry of fast-moving events and turmoil that is the norm in Trump’s Washington. Nonetheless, it is focused on aspects of the presidency and this moment in our political life that are unlikely to change anytime soon. Each chapter highlights an aspect of the Trump presidency that I believe is essential for the public to consider as they decide whether to keep Donald Trump in office beyond 2020.

A great deal has been written to document the administration’s chaos, an overused but unfortunately apt word. Some books have captured the atmosphere more accurately than others. Most of them have been authored by journalists and outside commentators who’ve only witnessed it secondhand or spoken to select sources, leaving readers to wonder how much of it is real and how much of it is “spin” promoted by people with an ax to grind. In these pages, I’ve done my best to provide an unvarnished assessment of Donald Trump and his presidency based on my own observations and experience, not baseless rumors. Certain content in this book will confirm existing reporting or put it in a more accurate light, some of it will be new, and many recollections will have to remain in my memory until the right time, lest the debate devolve into one about my identity, which I will discuss in a moment.

This text is written for a broad audience, not just for those already opposed to the president. Undoubtedly, his critics who read this book will feel justifiable outrage over its contents and greater unease about our nation’s present trajectory. They will fear the costs of a reelected Donald Trump, and they are right to be concerned. Unsavory figures in his orbit have relished the possibility of another four years—not in the “we can do good for the country” way you would hope, but rather with the attitude that “no one will be able to stop us.” I share your worry.

This text is also written with the hope that it might be given to the Trump supporter, or at least a subset of them. Many reasonable people voted for Trump because they love their country, wanted to shake up the establishment, and felt that the alternative was worse. I know you because I’ve felt the same way. I’ve worked with you. Many of you are my friends. But I also know deep inside you feel that something is not right about this presidency. That Donald Trump’s behavior is not tolerable, and is often embarrassing. We have ignored what we didn’t want to see. We’ve made excuses: “He’s just got a different style.” “He may be brash, but he gets it done.” “The other side is worse.” “The media is stacked against him.” I shared those sentiments, but this book is in part an effort to demonstrate why excuses have blinded us to some ugly but necessary truths. I challenge you to withhold your reservations and read this to the end.