In a column for the Nation, political analyst Jeet Heer disabused readers of any belief that there is any sort of "resistance" within the White House that is protecting the country from the whims and wild mood swings of President Donald Trump.
Noting the steady stream of Cabinet officials who have left the employ of the president -- the ones often referred to as the "adults in the room" keeping Trump in check -- Heer said the policies they left behind wasn't much different than what Trump wanted in the first place.
"Ever since Donald Trump announced his candidacy in the summer of 2015, there has been a string of false hopes placed in people and institutions that were supposedly going to bring him down—or at the very least mitigate his worst impulses: the Republican establishment, the delegates at the Republican convention, the Electoral College, GOP members of Congress, Trump’s cabinet using the 25th Amendment, and special counsel Robert Mueller," he wrote before adding, "One by one, these supposed bulwarks against an authoritarian president have fallen by the wayside."
Writing that it was "delusional" from the start to believe such a check could be put on Trump, and recalling a September 2018 column in the New York Times (supposedly written by a White House insider who claimed, “We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”) Heer said there is woeful little evidence that has been the case to date.
"Many of the figures most often hailed as the 'adults in the room' have left the Trump administration: H.R. McMaster, John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, and James Mattis. It’s doubtful whether any of them deserved the praise they received as exemplars of prudence and maturity. McMaster was a reckless hawk on North Korea and Kelly was fully on board for Trump’s nativist immigration policy," he detailed. "Kelly also joined Trump in enthusiastically slinging mud at Representative Frederica Wilson for daring to criticize the president. Tillerson ran the State Department like an autocratic CEO, refusing to listen to career diplomats and leaving key positions vacant. Mattis, although less hawkish than McMaster, had a long-standing obsession with Iran and almost provoked a conflict with that nation in early 2017."
Noting another official, Kimberly Breier, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, who recently announced she was stepping down to spend more time with her family -- after reportedly being chastised by Trump adviser Stephen Miller for not being a team player -- Heer stated she chose to go out meekly instead of a blaze of glory criticizing the administration.
"Resignations on matters of principle are rare in Washington; wave-making by ex-officials making explicit why they quit rarer still," he wrote before addressing another lower-level official who did leave and wrote about it in a scathing Washington Post op-ed.
"Instead of the fictional 'Deep State,' [Chuck] Park offers the reality of 'a Complacent State' that 'sighs when the president blocks travel by Muslim immigrants; shakes its head when he defends Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; averts its gaze from images of children in detention camps. Then it complies with orders,' Heer wrote, before summing up: "In other words, the government is staffed with individuals fully complicit in Trumpism."
The columnist then signed off by advising that no one should look to whoever is left in the Trump administration to rein Trump in.
"The real resistance shouldn’t come from those who work for Trump but from democratic forces outside the White House, from voters and from Congress. It’s long past time to give up magically thinking about salvation from 'the adults in the room' and refocus our energy on fighting Trump in the political arena," he concluded.
You can read the whole piece here.
