Where I’m coming from

When I’m engaging in rhetorical combat on social media (which seems to happen more frequently as time goes by) my frustrated opponents sometimes take to pigeon-holing: “oh, you’re a Trumper!” or “your MAGA hat is showing.” Their actual words are closer to slurs, but you get the point: they think by disclosing the hateful ideology behind my otherwise reasonable-sounding words, they can end the argument with victory. Alas they’re wrong, as my MAGA friends can attest. I used to explain that “after thirty-eight years of honorable active service to the government of the United States, both in uniform and mufti, Donald J. Trump represented a repudiation of all that I stood for.” This left my opponents stammering.

Some still tried to ease their cognitive dissonance with online psychoanalysis: “why is someone like you justifying/defending/explaining what Trump just said or did?” I had to develop a second “Pat” answer for that: “Trump is neither my Lord & Savior, nor is he Hitler reincarnated. He’s just the guy currently occupying the Oval Office.” In today’s bifurcated political environment, I fear I don’t have much company in that opinion: you either hate him and his movement with a white-hot passion, or you adore him. I liken this to the two shades of TDS: Trump Derangement Syndrome and Trump Devotion Syndrome. In political theory, pundits sometimes refer to the spectrum of thought as a line with left and right limits. There is another version called the horseshoe, which bends the two extremes closer together (hence the horseshoe), which indicates the crazies on the left and right begin to resemble each other. Under TDS, I believe this is true: both end up believe everything revolves around Trump.

What about me? I served under six different Presidents: Carter, Reagan, Bush pater, Clinton, Bush filius, and Obama, representing an extremely wide array of political inclinations. Some I knew only from a distance; others I got close enough to know their principle advisors. I learned several things as a civil servant. Some leaders I liked as people but disliked their policies; others the reverse. In all cases, I was not there to render my personal judgment on them or their policies. That had been done by the American people. I was there to advise, inform and execute all the legal policies of the administration. And before you try to jam an elephant (or a donkey) through that loophole word of “legal,” I was taught (as are ALL federal employees) that we are not the sole determiners of legality. If we object, we can say so and face the consequences (being fired). We can resign in protest. We can contact the Inspector General or other Ombuds, or even the Congress as a whistle-blower. But we cannot go rogue or public with our criticism, cannot stay and work to thwart the policy, cannot take matters into our own hands.

My time in federal service also taught me that initial reports are little better than rumor, that everyone has a bias (and it’s worst when one refuses to admit it), that the press has an agenda, and everything (and I do mean everything) is much more complicated than partisans want you to believe. I learned all this before the advent of the internet and social media, and it has served me well.

I’ve told this story before. Way back in the 1990s, I was charged with looking deep into the future to advise the US Army on what to prepare for next, as the Soviet Union was fading away. I spent a lot of time studying the nascent “internet” and the experts debating whether internet access would be a key to victory in the future. Those that had access had more and better information; those that lack access would be at a disadvantage. I joined the debate with a slightly different idea: internet access would eventually become like water: a public utility with very low cost, and nearly everybody would have it. I suggested the strategic advantage would fall to those capable of using the access to sort good information from crap.

Sitting in dusty file cabinet in a huge warehouse somewhere in Washington, DC–probably down a row from the Ark of the Covenant– is a paper copy of my work. As I watch people on social media readily ingest pure garbage, and then spew it back out as opinion, I feel sadly exonerated.

Another thing I learned is that few things are as important as they seem at the time. Remember the population bomb (1960s)? DDT and the Silent Spring (1970s)? The Japanese economic challenge (1980s)? Y2K apocalypse (1990s)? How about SARS (2000s)? Earlier generations could add “Who lost China?”, the atomic bomb, and the end of segregation. There has always been a cottage industry in predicting the next big (or terrible) thing, and it’s rarely correct. Nowadays, it’s not a cottage industry, it’s a massive business, and apparently you’ve been buying!

I also learned a related lesson that people who cite “unprecedented challenges or threats” are just ill-informed about history. This has been especially useful to me in putting things into context.

• “No one has ever trampled on due process the way this administration does.” Let me introduce you to the statue of a guy in a wheelchair who knowingly and willingly ordered the roundup and incarceration of loyal, Japanese-American citizens at the onset of World War II.
• “Trump ignores the Constitution and fires independent commissioners at will.” Same people were yawning when President Obama declared the Congress to be “in recess” (helpful hint: that’s not his job, nor an authority he has in Article II) and appointed commissioners to the National Labor Relations Board. His action was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the commissioners de-commissioned, and all the actions they ruled on voided. But hey, that’s a nit!
• LBJ sent the FBI AND the CIA after Barry Goldwater in the ’64 election, not to mention after Senate staffers he didn’t like. Thomas Jefferson actually actively oversaw the treason case against Aaron Burr. FDR sicced J. Edgar Hoover on many political opponents, including some who criticized his wife, Eleanor! Don’t get me started on Richard Nixon, who really did have an Enemies List! It goes on and on, but of course there has never been weaponization like today, right?
• What about intimidating opponents with threats, like a mob boss? You mean publicly cowing the Supreme Court with the threat of stacking until it passively approves the New Deal? It worked, so I guess it was morally acceptable, right?
• Using the Federal Communications Commission to attack public media? FDR directed the FCC to deny licenses to any radio station with a viewpoint he didn’t like. He similarly directed his colleague, Senator Hugo Black, to investigate the tax and telegram records of reporters who didn’t support the New Deal.

You might have noticed many FDR references in the previous section. That’s not selective history. FDR just happens to be the last President to significantly expand the President’s powers, and to use/abuse those powers. Nixon tried, but generally failed. Funny how the same people who seem about to spontaneously combust over Trump conveniently forget the same actions when done by their hero.

You get the point, or you’re seething about “both-siderism” right now. But that’s not my point: I’m not defending Trump or MAGA. I’m putting the outrageous claims made today in a broader historical context. That context tells you (1) we’ve faced these challenges before, (2) they’re not unprecedented or unsolvable and (3) describing them as such with excessive rhetoric makes solving them harder, not easier. No where in this discussion do I suggest (1) there aren’t any challenges or problems or (2) Trump is right about everything (his favorite hat).

For example, we’ve seen a sustained growth in presidential power since the weakest point of the modern presidency after the Nixon resignation. Some of that was good. Weak presidential powers make for weak presidents, and that’s a problem in our system of government. But recent Presidents (note the plural) have begun to wield power as if there were no checks and balances. The Supreme Court can’t solve this on its own; Congress must re-assert its authority, of which it has a lot! But right now, partisanship in the legislature is preventing almost any legislation from getting passed.

Scoring public points has become more important than doing your job, or even addressing the larger issues. Right now, we’re amidst a government shutdown. Minority Leader Schumer pointed out last time, in voting to keep the government running, that shutting it down enlarges the President’s authority to do all kinds of (even crazy) things. Yes, President Trump encouraged a shutdown, as he believes that it frees up his hands. But now the Democrats in Congress are willing to go there (a place they used to call the height of irresponsibility) in order to make a point: not address the problem, nor even redress the balance of power. Just to make a meme. #Resistance.

I do have tremendous empathy for my liberal/progressive friends in this Trumpian era, but it’s empathy leavened by experience. Those of the left feel disoriented: how could this have happened? What kind of country elects a man like Trump, not only once, but twice (thrice by his counting)? How can anyone not see the danger to “our democracy” (sic)? What is wrong with the rest of you?

My friends have a sense of disillusionment, a feeling that the “arc of history” stopped bending their way, and that causes a deep sense of loss. To which I quote officer John McClane of the NYPD: “welcome to the party, pal!” I grew up in the 1960s, and from the time I was old enough (1968) to recognize a world outside the Catholic bubble of my family, neighborhood, church & school, it became clear to me the rest of the world not only didn’t agree with the world inside the bubble, it disliked it. At best, the dominant forces in society tolerated it, but only as long as it kept itself to the bubble, or agreed with the powers-that-be.

Think I’m exaggerating? If you ask, I’ll bore you with a litany of gripes. But the overall effect was that people of my persuasion (conservative Catholics) were on “the wrong side of history” and needed to either get out of the way, STFU, or just go away. So I know what it’s like to look around at the country and quietly think, “am I the only one who thinks this is insane?” I’ve been watching the Republic lurch from one insanity to another for almost sixty-five years. I never had the luxury of believing things would change toward my views; rather, I had the comfort of knowing we are pilgrims in a foreign land, journeying to a better place. I sense my liberal and progressive friends feel such a deep sense of loss because they now feel the way I’ve always felt, perhaps without the ameliorating belief in a just and loving hereafter. I can’t imagine what that would be like, but I think it explains the willingness to go to extremes in the here and now.

If nothing I’ve said at all convinces you, here’s one last attempt: the Dr. Phil question. When confronting some outrageous, self-sabotaging behavior, the good TV “doctor” likes to ask “how is that working for you?” I don’t find myself anticipating the Apocalypse. I watch what’s happening and adjust to the political or economic trends, not by setting myself on rhetorical fire, but by deciding what’s new, what’s different, what’s good or bad about it. I have faith in God, hope in His Mercy, and (I try) to love my fellow man . . . which includes, as I recall, my “enemies.” I searched and can find no “but Trump” exception in the Good Book.

It makes for a good life, I can attest. No, I don’t like everything that is going on, but when did the world–or the government–ever make that promise? Or you can place all your hope or hate on the man in the Oval. We all have choices to make.