Posted on 02/03/2017 2:57:43 AM PST by markomalley
"What happened to the honeymoon?" Charles Krauthammer asked last month. The opposition has long granted presidents time to form their administrations, to announce their signature initiatives. Donald Trump's honeymoon lasted all of 10 days—from his surprise November 8 election to the rude treatment of his vice president at a performance of Hamilton on November 18. After that, divorce.
The same forces that opposed Trump during the Republican primary and general election are trying to break his presidency before it is a month old. At issue is the philosophy of nation-state populism that drove his insurgent campaign. It is so at variance with the ideologies of conservatism and liberalism predominant in the capital that Washington is experiencing something like an allergic reaction. Nation-state populism diverges from Beltway conservatism on trade, immigration, entitlements, and infrastructure, and from liberalism on sovereignty, nationalism, identity politics, and political correctness. Its combative style and heightened rhetoric offend the sensibilities of career-minded Washingtonians of both parties, who are schooled in deference, diplomacy, being nice to teacher, and the ancient arts of CYA.
The message this establishment is sending to Trump? Conform or be destroyed. The outrage at the president's executive order on refugees and travel was a sample of what is coming. Trump is used to fighting the media and campaign opponents, but he has little experience with the professional and supposedly nonpartisan bureaucracy. That is why his firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates was so important. She ordered her department not to defend an executive order that had been cleared by the White House counsel and her own Office of Legal Counsel. For Trump to have delayed or done nothing would have been an invitation to further subversion. He let Yates go within hours.
The blasé manner in which the media describes opposition to Trump from within the bureaucracy is stunning. "Federal workers turn to encryption to thwart Trump," read one Politico headline. "An anti-Trump resistance movement is growing within the U.S. government," says Vanity Fair. "Federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new president's initiatives," reports the Washington Post. No one who professes support for democracy and the rule of law can read these words without feeling alarmed. The civil service exists to support the chief executive—not the other way around. And yet, when White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that career officials who disagree with White House policy are free to resign, the collective response in Washington was outrage—at Spicer!
Not only are there two Americas. There are two governments: one elected and one not, one that alternates between Republicans and Democrats and one that remains, decade after decade, stubbornly liberal, contemptuous of Congress, and resistant to change. It is this second government and its allies in the media and the Democratic Party that are after President Trump, that want him driven from office before his term is complete. You think I exaggerate. But consider this: When a former Defense official who teaches at Georgetown Law School takes to Foreign Policy to propose "3 Ways to Get Rid of President Trump Before 2020," and when one of those ways is "a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders," we are in unknown and extremely unsettling territory.
Congress is doing its best to live up to the public's dismal opinion of it. Democrats on Capitol Hill are behaving erratically, hysterically, boycotting committee meetings to approve Cabinet officials, threatening to filibuster a qualified and highly regarded Supreme Court pick because Mitch McConnell won a wager with President Obama, and saying they will impeach President Trump over policy differences. The Republicans on Capitol Hill seem as disoriented by Trump's victory as the Democrats. Congress has been in session for a month. What, besides repealing a mining regulation, has it done? Why is Mitch McConnell not playing hardball with Chuck Schumer on executive branch appointments and Judge Gorsuch? I know, I know: "Things take time." But time is the enemy. This is something Democrats and other members of the self-described "resistance" understand but Republicans do not. Or perhaps the Republicans understand all too well, and want inertia and entropy to bring us a less populist and more conventionally Republican Trump. The doofuses.
So unlikely did the election of Donald Trump seem to Washington and its denizens that the reality of it still has not sunk in. All of the city's worst traits—the self-regard, the group think, the obsessions with trivia, the worship of credentials, the virtue signaling, the imperiousness, the ignorance of perspectives and people from outside major metropolitan centers and college towns—not only persist. They have been magnified with Trump's arrival. There is so much negative energy coursing through the city that circuits are overloaded. That the president still draws support from the coalition that brought him to office, that a fair number of people see his policies as commonsensical, seems not to affect any of Trump's critics in the least. They will press on until Trump behaves like they want him to behave.
Which means the war between the president and the Washington establishment may last a very, very long time.
Civil Service rules on hiring and firing were put in place to allow, enable, and protect a nonpolitical professional Federal workforce. Today, that workforce is arguably anything but nonpolitical, and therefore does not deserve those protections.
Drain the swamp.
Hopefully, there are going to be an enormous amount of casualties in the bureaucracy. Wouldn't be a bad thing if it stretched into 7 figures.
The question is...what can WE do to help the Administration from outside? Our side doesn’t march in the streets. We don’t riot. We are not called the “silent majority” for nothing. But we can’t be silent any longer. I say we start by flooding McConnell’s office pushing to get him to move things along. To heck with Senate “comity.” It’s now or never to save this nation.
The author is Rosa Brooks, professor and associate dean. Her husband is Lt. Colonel Joseph Mouer, an 18O. Presumably he has some training experience in such things as military coups.
One wonders if his superiors have had a discussion with him about his wife's writing.
“Her husband is Lt. Colonel Joseph Mouer, “
It’s always a Colonel.
L
Trump doesn’t seem the type to accept the inertia and sit around having nice dinner events.
Here is one huge problem. As far as I can deduce it appears un elected leftist bureaucrats in the bowels of the State Department set quotas for refugee importations( and immigration in general ) and that is a huge problem that needs to be stopped ASAP.
“Honeymoon period” = resting on laurels.
Trump doesn’t rest.
He didn’t just hit the ground running, he was running so fast before he hit the ground that he was levitating.
GO TRUMP GO!
Damn, I can see why he warned us about getting tired of winning. It’s exhausting just watching the man beat the hell out of all of our enemies and kicking them while they beg for mercy.
We learn and speak eloquently to the ones that will listen.
All I have to say is thank you, Boobama.
Thank you, thank you, thank you... for gutting the Senate, House, and State legislatures of Democrats.
But what I am most thankful for is that you allowed the craziness and anti-American foolishness to get so bad that you provided an opening for a competent American businessman to arise and deliver us the political revolution we so desperately wanted.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Boobamba. You enabled TRUMP and Bannon and Mattis and Tillerson and so many other competent and patriotic Americans to enter our government and overturn everything you started.
BO’B in charge has helped the cause considerably.
Not only has he taken a sledge hammer to the rat party, the nation is getting a first hand view of the lies, tricks, evil schemes the little boy king used to get his way....to bring our Nation over the cliff to destruction.
The truth cannot be hidden forever; no matter how hard they try.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.