You want to know what being anonymous does? It protects you, and nobody else. You want proof? Have a look at the cowardly, lame-ass, anonymous op-ed by a “senior official in the Trump administration” in The New York Times. A pathetic cri de coeur penned by a con artist working for a con man inside the bunker of the White House didn’t protect immigrant children from being taken from their mothers and thrown into cages during the so-called “zero tolerance” policy on the border. Anonymous hasn’t protected the nearly 500 immigrant children who are still being held apart from their families by the Department of Health and Human Services.
This article first appeared in Salon.
Anonymous didn’t do anything to protect the 2,975 Americans who lost their lives in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria last year. That storm blasted through the island ripping apart homes, destroying the electrical grid, and killing thousands. And all they got from an out of control, ignorant, arrogant president was a few rolls of paper towels.
Anonymous didn’t protect the American people from a Republican tax bill that gave massive tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires while incredibly raising taxes on some lower-income families and people from states with high state taxes. And Anonymous isn’t protecting us from Trump and Republicans who are looking to cut Social Security and Medicare to make up for the massive hole they blew in the deficit.
Anonymous didn’t protect the American people from a Republican tax bill that gave massive tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires while incredibly raising taxes on some lower-income families and people from states with high state taxes. And Anonymous isn’t protecting us from Trump and Republicans who are looking to cut Social Security and Medicare to make up for the massive hole they blew in the deficit.
Three staff attorneys from the Civil Division of the Justice Department filed a motion to remove their names from a federal lawsuit the Trump administration has joined that is attempting to gut the Affordable Care Act, including ending coverage for pre-existing conditions. Since they aren’t “senior officials” in the Trump administration, I think we can safely assume that none of these three is the anonymous author of the craven op-ed in The New York Times, who has obviously done absolutely nothing to protect the health care of Americans from Trump.
You want to see some of the “quiet resistance” by Anonymous The New York Times tells us he or she is responsible for in its headline for the op-ed? Donald Trump has told 4,229 lies in the first 558 days he’s been in office, according to the Washington Post. That’s almost eight lies a day. An what do we get from Anonymous?
Pathetic whining about Trump’s “amorality.” “Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”
Gee, you think so?
Heard anything from Anonymous or any of the other “quiet” resisters in the Trump White House about the firehose of Trump lies? Me neither.
Trump’s Department of Justice is engaged in a wholesale “assault” on civil rights, according to CBS News. “The Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions has gone from enforcing civil rights to attacking them,” according to Lambda Legal CEO Rachel Tiven. The attack on civil rights by the Trump administration is so bad that yet another official in the Justice Department, Diana Flynn, has resigned. So we know she’s not the “senior official” in the Trump administration who wrote the whiny op-ed in the New York Times, just like we know Anonymous hasn’t done anything to protect the Civil Rights Division from the “assault” being carried out against it by Trump and his minions.
So where’s the “quiet resistance” while the Civil Rights Division goes down? It sure ain’t coming from Anonymous, or people wouldn’t be resigning.
“It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room,” we are calmly assured by Anonymous. What room would that be? The “adult day care center” the White House has become, according to Tennessee Senator Bob Corker? What are we supposed to think? Anonymous is one of the day care supervisors protecting us from Trump’s daily tantrums? You seen any reduction in Twitter tantrums by Trump lately? Me neither.
How about that sterling performance by Trump in Helsinki, when he threw his entire intelligence and law enforcement communities under the bus standing right there next to the man who ordered the attack on the presidential election of 2016 and helped him get elected. Couldn’t you just feel Anonymous in the room protecting us from his unhinged surrender to Putin? Singapore, too. I went to bed and got a great night’s sleep knowing that Anonymous was there protecting us while Trump had his love-in with the thieving, insane dictator of North Korea, giving that loon and his murderous regime legitimacy no other American president has afforded North Korea.
Couldn’t you just feel Anonymous protecting us from Trump’s worst instincts after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville last year, when he cozied up to the Nazis and white supremacists who caused the death of Heather Heyer? I could, too. The “quiet resistance” of Anonymous and all of the other “adults in the room” was palpable, wasn’t it?
Then there’s Trump’s daily assault on Robert Mueller and the “rigged witch hunt” that has led to multiple indictments and guilty pleas. And how about Trump’s near-daily attacks on his own Department of Justice and FBI. First he fires Comey, and now he’s after FBI Director Christopher Wray? I just know Anonymous and the other “quiet resisters” have that one in hand. Nothing to see here, folks. Go about your business. You can count on Anonymous to protect us.
Speculation is centering on Kellyanne Conway as the likely author of the anonymous op-ed in the Times. Makes sense to me. Her husband is a virulent never-Trumper, she’s working for Trump, and I haven’t read about any husband-wife murders in Washington’s Northwest neighborhood lately, so they seem to have come up with some way to co-exist.
Maybe they got together and penned the op-ed so when Trump goes down, they won’t be left off anyone’s Georgetown cocktail party list. Wasn’t it fascinating in the transcript of that phone call between Bob Woodward and Trump when he handed the phone to Kellyanne and Woodward reminded her that he had asked her to set up an interview with Trump during a luncheon at his house? I mean, there’s your “quiet resistance” right there. Doesn’t get much quieter – or chummier – than a cozy little lunch with Bob on the screen porch overlooking the garden of his Georgetown manse, does it? Bob was probably sitting there munching on his BLT telling Kellyanne, nothing to worry about, honey. Between the two of us, we’ve got this.
Ms. Inside and Mr. Outside trading tales about Trump over a couple of goblets of Rose. As Anonymous assured us in that lame-ass op-ed, that’s not the deep state, that’s the “steady state,” honey.
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to sleep tight tonight, because you can count on the ship of state maintaining a steady course when Bob Woodward is on the bestseller list and the dame who coined the phrase “alternative facts” is on look out. No icebergs on the horizon, folks. Full steam ahead. Trust the “quiet resistance” in the White House. They’ve got our backs. Everything is just fucking peachy keen.