The Anonymous New York Times Op-Ed Serves the Republican Party

Daniel Anthony
Sep 8, 2018 · 8 min read

In this article, I want to examine both the implicit worldview and the potential consequences of this week’s infamous New York Times anonymous opinion piece giving voice to the ‘resistance’ within the Trump administration.

We’ve all read or heard brief summations of the editorial as a ‘scathing’ or ‘damning’ critique of Trump and his White House. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

In reality, the anonymous opinion piece has five consequential dimensions:

1. It confirms the Bannon ‘deep state’ thesis that faceless bureaucrats are the preeminent threat both to the Republic and the Trump administration. The ‘drain the swamp’ mantra was just given a new lease on life.

2. It claims the Trump presidency has mostly been a success, in spite of his sophomoric, erratic behavior.

3. It deflects attention away from the Kavanaugh nomination, when every eyeball desperately needs to focus on his ascension and the handful of Senators who could deny his nomination.

4. It confirms the long-standing ‘adults in the room’ narrative, circulated by Politico since Mattis was named Defense Secretary before Trump’s inauguration.

5. It will fail to have a positive practical outcome: Trump will now be granted license in front of the nation to ‘trust his instincts’ even more. His Cabinet thus must cow-tow to his half-baked ideas and demands with more vigor than before, simply to remain above suspicion.

1. Confirms Bannon’s bogus ‘deep state’ thesis:

Bannon, a pseudo-revolutionary and foot soldier of oligarchical intent if there ever was one, has propagated the idea that the ‘deep state’ is made up of low-level, faceless, permanent officials beneath the elected leaders in the federal government. Notice, no mention of Wall Street financiers who have parasitized the economy for their own greed. Notice, no mention of the ‘military-industrial complex’ of Eisenhower, or the logics of power spanning NATO to private domestic defense firms. No, Trump, Bannon, and his fawning fans would like us to believe the deep state isn’t at the nexus of wealth and access, of greed and capability, but within the anonymity of an organizational chart. In their eyes the deep state is Peter Stzrok, who sents texts to a fellow FBI agent. Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro said Strozk “is the personification of the deep state itself, where fascism rules.” Hannity has made similar identical of Stzrok on his program.

A closer approximation of the deep state is represented in Jamie Dimon’s reported efforts to whip House Democrats into voting to weaken the Dodd-Frank legislation in 2014. But, no mention of this from Bannon, Fox News, or Trump.

To be radical is to go to the root of the problem at hand today: The American working people exist beneath the thumb of financiers who have bought our politicians, who become the Cabinet members and close strategic partners in the administration, and who advise the president directly. Trump constructed an administration that, according to Politico, was “an investment bankers dream.”

The anonymous opinion article affirms the ‘Drain the Swamp’ thesis. There is now an admitted, conscious, and organized resistance within the Trump administration. The swamp isn’t organized wealth, finance capital, intelligence networks, the military, the rapacious lords of oil, but hidden holdovers from the Obama or Bush years. The swamp isn’t rotten institutions of greed, but mid-level federal employees.

This deployment of their deep state concept is purposely hollow and points us not toward power, but stand-ins. The anonymity of the opinion piece crystalizes their flimsy deep state thesis.

2. Claims Trump has been successful for America in spite of Trump’s erratic behavior, rather than beneficial to the elite who’ve reaped the benefits alone.

The author points to the “successes” of the administration: Historic tax cuts, deregulation, greater prosperity, and a more robust military. We must remained disciplined and bring the question back to class: Who benefits from this administration?

The benefits of the tax cuts, predictably, have gone almost exclusively to the wealthy. Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed 70% of the tax cut would be returned to workers. However, CNN reported US public companies have announced $436.6 billion worth of stock buybacks, doubling the previous record of $242.1 billion. And according to NYU professor Edward Wolf, the top 10% of households hold 84% of all stocks in 2016. Meaning, the tax cut was given to the elite — not middle class Americans. In January of this year, Bankrate reported only 39% of Americans say they would be able to financially handle a surprise $1,000 expense. So, too, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics own numbers, real hourly earnings are down 0.2 percent from July 2017 to July 2018. The economic situation has not improved for American workers, just the already wealthy.

Amidst the whirlwind of the ever intensifying media cycle, the following cannot be considered breaking news: The president is erratic. Ever since the dotard was elected, we’ve all seen a cavalcade of bizarre, flippant, hysterical tweets. And they continue, day after day, week after week, and appear in book after book.

That Wednesday article was nothing but a way to save the Republican party, and it’s main tenets, from bursting at the seams. It’s a celebration of his policies (and thus the party) while denigrating the method and the man. The destructive nature of his policies, of their policies, cannot be separated from the way in which we expect a leader to act. Not only is Trump a national embarrassment, but he has actively harmed the standard of living for many Americans, has exacerbated inequality, has threatened to starve the ACA, all while showering his fellow parasites with handsome rewards.

3. Deflects attention away from Kavanaugh, a philosopher of the totalitarian executive.

The opinion piece came on the day as Democrats began to kick up dust in the Kavanaugh confirmation, led in part by Sen. Cory Booker, but spearheaded by Sen. Whitehouse, Sen. Leahy, and Sen. Durbin. Every eyeball in the country should squarely be focused Kavanaugh and this hearing, due to the far-reaching consequences of his potential nomination. Booker was able to point out that Kavanaugh was not on the initial list of potential Supreme Court replacements until Trump was already under Mueller’s investigation. Kavanaugh, without admitting it during the course of the hearing, quite obviously believes the president ought to be above the law while in office, due to the strenuous nature of the job. (This is most explicitly detailed in his ’09 Minnesota Law Review article.)

Yet, due to the release of this opinion piece, the media has focused its attention on gossip in the White House and the hysterical reactions from its occupant.

Dan Rather made this very point with Don Lemon on CNN (transcript from Real Clear Politics here):

DAN RATHER, FMR. ‘CBS EVENING NEWS’ ANCHOR: Certainly, one of them could be lying. Let’s end it this way, Don. The central questions about that Times op-ed piece, one, the timing. Why now, why just now? And there are going be people who say it’s a diversion, it’s a smokescreen to take the emphasis off of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing in the Senate.

LEMON: You think the administration could be playing this? Well, I thought about that.

RATHER: Look, I’m a reporter. I get paid to be skeptical. I think it’s a possibility. And the other is, what did the writer of that op-ed page, what did he attempt to — what was he attempting, what did he think he was attempting to accomplish? So the timing and what was a real motive.

If the author is a ‘Never-Trump’ Republican (as it seems), this was the perfect time to release the piece, especially when we consider the mid-terms are less than two months away.

4. Reinforces ‘adults in the room’ narrative.

This is one of those long-standing media memes that will not die. A brief list:

Apr. 16, 2017: The Daily Beast headline: “New Power Center in Trumpland: The Axis of Adults.’

This report paints this picture clearly. Kimberly Dozier, author of the article, says the following: “There’s a new band in town that’s guiding national security quietly tutoring the most powerful man in America. Never-Trump Republicans who’d been apprehensive about President Donald Trump are celebrating the trio’s influence, calling Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Homeland Secretary John Kelly the ‘Axis of Adults.’

In it, a senior administration official speaking anonymously says the following: “They realize this is a tumultuous White House, and they are serving as a leveling influence over fractious personalities…responsibly protecting the country from enemies both foreign and domestic.”

May 25, 2017: New York Magazine headline: “James Mattis is the Last Adult Standing in Trump World. That’s unsettling for a lot of reasons.”

Sept. 6, 2017, Business Insider report: In an email to local business owner, Ty Cobb, then Trump’s personal lawyer, said he and James Kelly were “the adults in the room.”

Oct. 9, 2017: New York Post headline: “When it comes to Iran, Trump is the real adult in the room.”

Oct. 20, 2017: New Republic headline: “The Real John Kelly: His freewheeling press conference yesterday proved that there are no adults in the room.”

Oct. 26, 2017: The New York Review: “The Adults in the Room,” article by James Mann detailing how Tillerson, Kelly, McMaster, and Mattis

Feb. 9, 2018: Boston Globe headline: John Kelly was supposed to be ‘the adult in the room.’ He’s anything but.”

Mar. 14, 2018: Vox headline: “Rex Tillerson’s firing puts the nail in the coffin of the ‘adults in the room’ theory.”

Mar. 22, 2018, Raw Story report: CNN National Security Analyst lampooned Trump for ousting National Security Adviser and replacing him with notorious mega-hawk John Bolton when she said, “There will be no more adults in the room and no one is going to control the process.”

Aug. 1, 2018: Bloomberg editorial board: “Trump’s ‘Adults in the Room’ Should Stay There: There’s no shame in trying to keep the president from acting on his own worst impulses.”

It was Senator Bob Corker who, last October, tweeted “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.” Throughout the Trump presidency, we’ve all hoped the petulant tenant of the Oval would and could be nudged toward more rational daily actions.

It goes on, and on, and on. It is a long-standing meme designed to assuage our fears and here it has been redeployed to reinforce that very idea — again.

5. Will allow Trump to be even more detached from reality, from advisers who could stabilize his obviously erratic and juvenile approach to governing.

A day after the milquetoast anonymous critique was published, the Washington Post reported Trump believes he can only trust his children now. Are they competent statesmen and stateswomen? Are they concerned with the health and vitality of the Republic?

Think about it: A man so obviously incompetent, averse to reading, with limited experience and even less insight, now can only trust his instincts. I shudder to think of what could come next.

In New York Magazine, Andrew Sullivan wrote, “Far from helping his cause, Anonymous has undermined it. Worse, he has triggered this president — which was completely predictable — into exactly the kind of unhinged behavior Anonymous is so worried about…as a political act, it was indeed gutless as well as pointless.”

The opinion piece has given Trump greater license to act how his instincts deem fit. Even if the author is merely a casual observer, Trump’s reaction has been plainly predictable. Yet if the author can be considered an astute observer, thus question begs itself: why was it written and for whom?

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