Blog No. 191. Anonymous v. Trump

One cannot help feeling a bit sorry for Bob Woodward. He spent months and months on endless interviews and exhaustive research to provide a detailed picture of the chaos within the White House. His efforts produced a soon-to-be-published book, Fear: Trump in the White House. Some juicier portions of the book were quoted and discussed in favorable pre-publication stories in virtually every major media outlet. The buzz was good and life could hardly have been better. But then what happened? The New York Times printed a 750-word op-ed piece from an anonymous “senior official” in the Trump administration and suddenly the media could speak and write of little else, eagerly scratching their heads trying to figure who the writer might have been. Not since the days of Deep Throat has there been such fun.

Non-Spoiler Alert: you will not find here the identity of the anonymous op-ed writer (“Anonymous”) or even any speculation on that subject. In fact, the question is, does it matter? Many have suggested that the more responsible (or less “cowardly”) course of action would have been for Anonymous to have resigned and publicly stood behind his allegations. That, it is argued, would have been more effective. But would it? More fundamental questions are what Anonymous hoped to accomplish by publishing the piece, and why the New York Times thought an anonymous op-ed was justified.

If Anonymous had resigned and published the same piece, the focus of attention would have been on him (or, possibly, her) more than details of what he had to say. As written, it is not clear that the writer told us much we did not know.  Anonymous purported to address both Trump’s personal qualities and aspects of Trump’s agenda that he and his colleagues are attempting to thwart. But while the piece may have been satisfying to write and see in print, the substance was modest. Possibly, the op-ed and Woodward’s book taken together have, as David Leonhardt suggested, “the potential to persuade a small but meaningful number of former Trump supporters.”  But even that assessment seems optimistic.

In terms of the Trump persona, Anonymous wrote that the President’s “leadership style” is “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.” Well, yes, but those attributes have been amply documented and are hardy news. Indeed, one has to wonder how Trump’s nature came as a surprise to Anonymous. What did he expect? Was he not around during the campaign when those qualities (as well as ignorance, vulgarity and mendacity) were readily observable by anyone who was paying attention.

Turning to policy, Anonymous makes the tantalizing claim that he and others are working to frustrate parts of Trump’s agenda. Presumably his rationale for concealing his identity and remaining in office, is that he thinks he can serve the country by continuing to collaborate in that course , but we are required to take that claim on faith. With one or two exceptions, Anonymous does not even identify the parts of the Trump agenda he opposes, let alone what he or anyone else has done or will do to block them. The principal exception lies in the administration’s dealing with Russia, where Anonymous points to the dichotomy between Trump’s expressed admiration of Vladimir Putin and the imposition on Russia of various sanctions, albeit belatedly. Yet that divergence between rhetoric and action has previously been the subject of comment and it is not clear whether Trump was not, in the end, simply persuaded, perhaps reluctantly, that the sanctions were required.

Apart from Russia policy, Anonymous accuses Trump of being “anti-trade and anti-democratic.” So far as being anti-trade is concerned, that vague reference suggests that Anonymous objects to Trump’s erratic imposition of tariffs, and properly so. But what has he or anyone else done to prevent Trump from ordering them? The term “anti-democratic” might be applied to a variety of Trump’s actions and attitudes. but Anonymous does not tell us just which he was referring to or what his collection of self-described “adults” were prepared to do about them. Moreover, as several observers have pointed out, a group of senior officials working secretly to defeat the agenda of the elected President who appointed them is itself conspicuously anti-democratic.

Among the topics that Anonymous fails to touch on are Trump’s chaotic immigration policies, Trump’s reactions to the Mueller probe and the savaging of his own appointees at the Department of Justice and the FBI, the administration’s passion to root out any program or data suggesting that human activity is a factor in climate change, efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act by executive action and with no replacement in sight, and Trump’s obeisance to the NRA on gun control measures. What does the covert collection of unsung heroes lauded by Anonymous have to say about all that?

The decision of the New York Times to print the op-ed piece was highly questionable. Unsigned criticism from a “senior official” may be titillating, but that does not make it newsworthy or deserving of the prestige conferred by publication in the Times. The op-ed will reinforce impressions that many of us had already formed, but it will also reinforce the belief of Trump supporters that the media are in fact the implacable enemy of the president and, as he has claimed, “the people.”

If Woodward’s Fear and the Anonymous op-ed have any significant effect, it is likely to come as a result of overreaction by Trump. Already we have been treated to the spectacle of administration officials rushing to deny having uttered the words for which they are quoted in the Woodward book, and then to deny that they are Anonymous. Trump is reported to be reviewing each such statement, and older readers may be reminded of the unhappy era of Loyalty Oaths during the days of Joseph McCarthy. In addition, it has been reported that there is a rather frantic effort in progress at the White House to discover who Anonymous might be. Inevitably, it was suggested by Rand Paul and others that polygraphs should be employed, and the search has begun to acquire the earmarks of a full blown, dare one say it, witch hunt.

On Friday, Trump further escalated matters by telling reporters that he wanted Attorney General Sessions to investigate the identity of the author of the op-ed piece and that he was considering action against the Times, though he did not elaborate. The Times responded with the following statement:

We’re confident that the Department of Justice understands that the First Amendment protects all American citizens and that it would not participate in such a blatant abuse of government power,” the Times said. “The president’s threats both underscore why we must safeguard the identity of the writer of this Op-Ed and serve as a reminder of the importance of a free and independent press to American democracy.

Presumably, the beleaguered Sessions will have the courage and good sense to ignore or deflect the President’s instruction, but if he fails to do so, such a brazen assault on the First Amendment should awaken the somnolent Republicans on Capitol Hill to the perils embodied in the reign of King Donald.