That op-ed doesn’t give me warm, fuzzy Resistance feelings
But as amusing this situation some may find, I’m honestly horrified.
I’m a staunch Never Trumper. I despise the President of the United States. And by no means, this is a defense of the incumbent. This is, however, as put eloquently by Republican political operative Scott Jennings on CNN’s Opinion section, a very troubling precedent that could lead to serious issues later on down the road.
Appointed officials, correctly alarmed by the idiocy, impotence, and ignorance of the incumbent, are openly admitting to subverting the incumbent’s agenda. At first glance, you want to applaud them. And part of me does.
On the other hand, I realize that the incumbent can only serve 8 years, there will be someone else as president (hopefully, in 2021), and actions like these — and the Times’ willingness to actually publish it anonymously — can lead to later acts of sabotage.
What if a political appointee in the future decides to conspire with other staffers to sabotage reasonable policy? What if in the future, there’s cabal of staffers that decide a policy is not extreme enough and engage in a zero-sum game where if they don’t get their way, then no one gets their way?
One could reasonably say that a situation like that would be unlikely, considering American voters may learn their lesson and not be so willing to put such an unprepared piece of shit in the White House. However, we are also the same country that elected arguably one of the most openly bigoted politicians in recent political history into the most powerful elected office in the country.
Like Jennings wrote, I wish this administration official went through proper political channels, and either told Congress or the Special Counsel pertinent information, from bad policy judgments to any efforts to obstruct justice — whatever this official may be seeing in the White House.
As we enter into a new normal in American politics — a politics of anger, deceit, and division — we really do see how fragile democracy actually is. However, op-eds like these do not give me comfort about the future of democracy, but rather it accelerates my concern about its inevitable crippling, whether it is 20, 50, or 100 years from now. All bureaucratic institutions have shadow bureaucracies, whether it is a private sector corporation or a government — that’s just a given. But in government, it is truly frightening — not because of individuals that may be well-meaning, but because of those that may truly be extremists and could potentially have a hand in developing policies that really can undermine the interests of this country, all because they can subvert more reasonable policies.
Once again, I am not defending the incumbent. I am defending the necessity of a reasonable government managed by officials whom are tasked with constructive policies in a fully-functional representative democracy.
I fear that this op-ed may have opened a Pandora’s box; one that may never, ever be shut again.
