Secretary Mattis, You’re Too Late in Condemning President Trump

By: Scott Olson

Former Secretary Mattis’s denunciation of President Trump rocked recalcitrant Republicans and made him Democrats’ darling de jure. But, with all due respect for his military service, Secretary Mattis’s critique should be read in its proper context; and his tenure in the Trump administration deserves, if not demands, deeper scrutiny.

It would be naïve to accept Secretary Mattis’s rebuke as an augur of his long-standing attitudes toward his former boss. After all, President Trump hasn’t changed; only Secretary Mattis’s public posture on his personal proclivities has.

Secretary Mattis’s criticism comes after the President deployed heavy handed tactics to eject peaceful protesters from a public space so that he could pose for photographs. “We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square,” the former Secretary decried.

On the other hand, Secretary Mattis’s words must be weighed against his silence on President Trump’s earlier abuses of executive authority. Notwithstanding his recent conversion, we must presume that the Secretary approved of the President’s earlier racist and misogynistic words, his authoritarian and anti-democratic impulses, his self-serving and unrepentant emoluments, and his impetuous and irresponsible policies. Secretary Mattis’s silence heretofore certainly suggests it. Indeed, if we were to accept the Secretary’s letter at face value, we would also have to accept that the President’s latest abuses of executive authority are somehow materially different than those that came before. Are they?

Are the President’s words today materially more racist than when he praised white supremacists as “very fine people” and emboldened white nationalism? Are they materially more misogynistic than when he crowed about sexually assaulting women?

Are the President’s impulses today materially more authoritarian than his fawning embrace of dictators from Russia, Turkey, and North Korea? Are they materially more undemocratic than when he labeled the press “the enemy of the people” or called for the dismissal of his critics?

Are the President’s emoluments today materially more self-serving than his enrichment of his own businesses at taxpayer expense? Are they materially more unrepentant than his endeavor to extort a foreign power to intervene in our next presidential election on his behalf?

And are the President’s policies materially more impetuous than when he abruptly announced America’s hasty withdrawal from Syria — a decision which evidently prompted Secretary Mattis’s own resignation? Are they materially more irresponsible than his ill-informed rejection of scientific consensus on climate change?

No, they are not.

President Trump was just as divisive and authoritarian before Lafayette Square as he is now. Few know that better than Secretary Mattis. The Secretary’s recent missive, therefore, is akin to boarding a train only to later decry its arrival at its scheduled destination. In that respect the President didn’t so much cross the Rubicon; he just crossed the street.

That the President would rend our nation’s social and constitutional fabric at its seams appears in retrospect more axiomatic than an aberration. Secretary Mattis’s abstention from criticizing President Trump’s earlier abuses of executive authority cannot, therefore, be dismissed. However correctly the Secretary may diagnose what now ails our country — and however statesmanlike his prescription for restoring constitution order may be — his recent conversion cannot absolve his complacency until now, nor can it erase the Secretary’s own acquiescence in the President’s earlier transgressions.

Nevertheless, Secretary Mattis did get one thing right: We are indeed “witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.” And our only way out of this quagmire is to unite as a nation in spite of our President. “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.” Yes, indeed, we must.

Scott A. Olson is a Political Partner at the Truman National Security Project. @Scott_A_Olson