A Dilemma With No Easy Answer

As Talking Points Memo and the Daily Beast have both recently reported

The Trump campaign is apparently having lots of trouble finding first tier people to fill scores of national security jobs.

Here’s a new piece from The Daily Beast saying this continues ..

Team Trump is struggling to fill numerous key slots or even attract many candidates because hundreds have either sworn they’d never work in a Trump administration or have directly turned down requests to join, multiple current and former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the transition efforts told The Daily Beast.

As the DB suggests, this isn’t terribly surprising since numerous Republican national security experts have already signed public letters saying they would never serve a President Trump.

As the article pointed out, however, someone will eventually fill those positions, and the reluctance of people who actually have the necessary skills to work for a Trump/Pence Administration means that the jobs will not be filled with competent public managers.

Since the TPM article, we have learned the identities of several people on Trump’s list of potential cabinet appointments, and he has announced that Rance Priebus and Steve Bannon will have important roles in his White House. The choice of Bannon was greeted with cheers by the KKK and the Nazis–and with shock from decent Republicans and Democrats alike.

So here’s the dilemma: if you are a responsible conservative Republican with skills relevant to and needed by the new administration, do you swallow hard and figure that you are really working for the American people, not the Orange Buffoon? Do you hope–against all evidence–that Trump will listen to your knowledgable advice, that you can prevent him from taking actions you know will be detrimental to the country and the world?

Eliot Cohen, a national security expert who served in George W. Bush’s State Department, initially counseled that approach. After conversations with Trump’s “team,” he has changed his mind.

The tenor of the Trump team, from everything I see, read and hear, is such that, for a garden-variety Republican policy specialist, service in the early phase of the administration would carry a high risk of compromising one’s integrity and reputation.

In a normal transition to a normal administration, there’s always disorder. There are the presidential friends and second cousins, the flacks and the hangers-on who flame out in the first year or two. There are the bad choices — the abusive bosses, the angry ideologues and the sheer dullards. You accept the good with the bad and know that there will be stupid stuff going on, particularly at the beginning. Things shake out. Even if you are just blocking errors, it is a contribution.

This time may be different. Trump was not a normal candidate, the transition is not a normal transition, and this will probably not be a normal administration. The president-elect is surrounding himself with mediocrities whose chief qualification seems to be unquestioning loyalty. He gets credit for becoming a statesman when he says something any newly elected president might say (“I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future”) — and then reverts to tweeting against demonstrators and the New York Times. By all accounts, his ignorance, and that of his entourage, about the executive branch is fathomless. It’s not even clear that he accepts that he should live in the White House rather than in his gilt-smeared penthouse in New York.

After noting the implications of Bannon’s hiring, Cohen concludes that conservative politicians and policymakers “should not volunteer to serve in this administration, at least for now. They would probably have to make excuses for things that are inexcusable and defend people who are indefensible.”

In the past few days, several media outlets have reported that Trump’s team was astonished to learn that the White House staff leaves when a Presidential term is over, and that they would have to hire people to fill those positions. Other reports suggest a transition team with a striking resemblance to the Keystone Kops.

If the likely consequences of Trump’s monumental ignorance weren’t so dire, this exhibition of gross incompetence would actually be funny.

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How We Should Respond

News outlets are reporting that the incoming Trump Administration is seriously considering establishment of a “registry” for Muslims. Politico recently quoted Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who says the effort is being modeled after the highly controversial National Security Entry-Exit Registration System implemented after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

When challenged about the constitutionality of such a measure, Trump supporters point to the “precedent” of World War II Japanese internment camps. Although that precedent has never been formally overruled, it is widely considered to have been a shameful departure from American principles, attributable to the stress of war.

Ordinarily, I would dismiss such stories, assuming that more responsible people would recognize the unAmerican nature and probable unconstitutionality of such a proposal; given the abysmal bona fides of those Trump has around him, however, I cannot simply assume that this effort will be still-born.

So here is what I propose:

If a Trump Administration attempts to require registration of Muslims, I intend to register, and I will encourage all of my friends and family to register as well.

One of the few positive stories that emerged during the Holocaust was the reported reaction of the Danes when, under Nazi occupation, Danish Jews were ordered to wear armbands with the infamous yellow Star of David. As the story goes, the Danish King and his subjects also donned the armbands, in a demonstration of the equality and solidarity of all Danish citizens.

Snopes tells us that the story is apocryphal, although the Danes did engage in heroic measures to save Danish Jews.

Although this legend may not be true in its specifics, it was certainly true enough in spirit. The rescue of several thousand Danish Jews was accomplished through the efforts of “thousands of policemen, government officials, physicians, and persons of all walks of life.” The efforts to save Danish Jews may not have had the flair of the “yellow star” legend, and they may not have required quite so many citizens to visibly oppose an occupying army, but those who were rescued undoubtedly preferred substance to style.

Sometimes, a morality tale can be more powerful than accurate history.

An actual effort to make Muslims register would be challenged immediately, and I have to believe it would be quickly enjoined, but the mere fact of the attempt would have a chilling effect on everyone’s religious liberties.

As a practical matter, if thousands of non-Muslim Americans publicize our intention to add our names to any registry–and if we announce that intention immediately in response to any trial balloon or actual proposal to create such a registry– we may be able to abort this insulting and demeaning and thoroughly unAmerican effort.

I hope these reports are wrong, but given the rhetoric of the campaign, Trump’s embrace of the “alt-right” (aka Nazis, White Supremacists and the KKK), and the nature of his inner circle, prudence suggests  that we prepare for the worst.

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“Repealing” Roe v. Wade

On 60 Minutes, Donald Trump evidently claimed that “repealing” Roe v. Wade would be a priority.

Among the many, many things our next President does not understand is how government actually works. He may be surprised to discover that Congress–even one dominated by GOP culture warriors–cannot “repeal” a Constitutional right.

That is not to say that Roe is safe, only that it will take several years and some fairly creative judicial legerdemain to completely reverse current case law.

Here is how it will play out.

Trump will have an immediate appointment to the Supreme Court, and may well have one or two others during a four-year term. He has pledged to appoint a social conservative, and that’s a pledge he’s likely to keep. Once a case implicating reproductive choice works its way up to the Supreme Court, that newly conservative Court will take the opportunity to further limit what previous Courts have confirmed: it is a woman’s constitutional right to control her own body. Perhaps the newly constituted Court will reverse Roe outright, perhaps not–but the effect will be the same.

Reversing Roe entirely would leave the legality of abortion up to the individual states. We would go back to the time–a time I vividly remember– when women who could afford to do so traveled to states where abortion was legal, and a significant number of the women who couldn’t afford to do that died in back-alley, illegal operations.

As my friends at Planned Parenthood like to point out, women didn’t begin getting abortions after Roe v. Wade. They just stopped dying from them. 

The only thing prochoice Americans can do to thwart this cynical and theocratic agenda is work tirelessly to prevent their state legislatures from passing new, restrictive measures that are intended to provide the Court with an opportunity to “revisit” the issue. (Here in Indiana, a State Representative has already announced his intention to submit a bill that would criminalize abortions and punish the women and doctors who participated in them. I’m sure theocrats in other states are equally eager to test the anticipated new boundaries.

Given the number of deep red states populated by religious fundamentalists, the odds of defeating all of these throwbacks aren’t good. So while Trump cannot “repeal” reproductive liberty, he can sure eliminate it.

I think the legal terminology is: we’re screwed.

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Sarkozy’s Good Idea

One of the most worrisome outcomes of the 2016 election is the likely “U turn” on efforts to protect the environment. As Vox recently reported,

Unified Republican control of the federal government over the next two years augurs a sea change in US environmental policy like nothing since the late 1960s and ’70s, when America’s landmark environmental laws were first passed.

If Donald Trump and the GOP actually follow through on what they’ve promised, this time around will be a lurch in the opposite direction. Federal climate policy will all but disappear; participation in international environmental or climate treaties will end; pollution regulations will be reversed, frozen in place, or not enforced; clean energy research, development, and deployment assistance will decline; protections for sensitive areas and ecosystems will be lifted; federal leasing of fossil fuels will expand and accelerate; new Supreme Court appointees will crack down on EPA discretion.

Given the rate at which the planet is warming, Trump’s promise to pull America out of the Paris Accords is a prescription for disaster. Local efforts to reduce America’s carbon footprint will be important, but those efforts won’t be universal and they won’t be sufficient.

So I was really heartened by Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposed response.

Sarkozy told the French television channel TF1 that he would “demand that Europe put in place a carbon tax of 1 to 3 percent for all products coming from the United States” if the U.S. refuses to apply the environmental rules that France and other nations are imposing on their companies under the accords.

This seems eminently reasonable to me. Why should companies that are complying with measures intended to reduce a global threat be disadvantaged in the marketplace? The environmental rules benefit the entire planet; companies operating everywhere on the planet ought to share the costs of compliance.

Among the enormous number of things Donald Trump obviously hasn’t learned and doesn’t understand is that actions have consequences.

Foreign countries will retaliate when the U.S. acts in ways that threaten their interests. Senators and Congressmen will balk when a President–even one of their own party–expects them to support measures that they know will be deeply unpopular with their constituents. The Constitution limits a President’s ability to restrain the media or single out citizens for disparate treatment. Etc.

Governing is complex, and Chief Executives in democratic regimes–unlike CEOs–can’t simply issue orders and fire those who refuse to obey them.

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What Now?

The next two to four years are going to be very painful.

Upcoming Judicial appointments will make the federal courts far less protective of our liberties (especially women’s liberties), probably for the foreseeable future. Economic policies will hurt the poor, especially women and children, and exacerbate divisions between the rich and the rest of us. A Trump Administration will abandon efforts to address climate change and will roll back most of Obamacare. There will be no immigration reform, only punitive deportations, and God only knows what our foreign policy will look like.

Worst of all, Trump’s normalization of incivility and encouragement of bigotry will play out in a variety of ways, none good.

For women, the damage Trump has already done can’t be reversed through legislation, if and when America returns to its senses. During his campaign, we saw an embrace of historic cultural attitudes that objectify and demean women. His election signaled a return to widespread acceptance of “locker room” attitudes and behaviors that had finally been diminishing.

So – what can each of us do, especially those of us sitting here in overwhelmingly Red Indiana?

  • As individuals, beginning right now, we can increase our support for organizations that work to protect civil and reproductive liberties, the environment and public education, among others. We will need them more than ever. A friend of mine and her husband, who stand to benefit from Trump’s proposed tax cuts, have decided to donate every dollar they save by reason of those cuts to organizations like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. We might even start a local “pledge my tax cut” campaign.
  • Each of us can identify a harmful policy this administration will pursue that we feel  passionate about, and volunteer with local organizations to mobilize citizens to do everything we can to defeat that effort or minimize its impact.
  • Perhaps the most productive thing we can do is focus on local efforts to ameliorate the effects of likely federal actions. Most of the innovation and action on climate change, for example, is happening in cities, and it is much easier to influence local policy than state or national legislation. Those of us worried about the environment can make sure our cities are at the forefront of urban environmental efforts. There are other policy areas where—depending upon relevant state law—cities can at least partially mitigate the effects of federal action or inaction.
  • We can–and we must– come together to create inclusive and supportive local civic cultures that make misogyny, bigotry and intolerance unacceptable. We are already seeing a substantial increase in racist, homophobic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic incidents; we need to create local environments that strongly discourage such eruptions. We have ready-made partners in those efforts, in arts organizations, civic and religious associations and the business community. (Former Mayor Bill Hudnut used to say that he was a citizen of “no mean city.” In the wake of this election, “mean” has taken on a double meaning. I hereby volunteer to help mount a No Mean City campaign, focused on encouraging a welcoming, inclusive, respectful civic environment.)
  • In the longer term, as I have previously written, we have to reform America’s election system. We need to combat voter suppression efforts and get rid of gerrymandering and the Electoral College, both of which operate to favor rural voters over urban ones, and generally distort the democratic process. We should work with groups like Common Cause and the League of Women Voters to make voting easier, reform redistricting and get Indiana to sign on to the National Popular Vote Project.
  • We absolutely have to improve civic education. “We the People” or a similar curriculum should be required for High School graduation. Trump made all kinds of promises that he could not constitutionally carry out. If more voters had recognized that he was totally unacquainted with the Constitution, it might have made a difference. In any event, democracy requires a civically-literate population; demagoguery relies on civic ignorance.
  • We need to combat Trump’s effort to hollow out government and enrich crony capitalists via his proposed privatization of infrastructure and other government functions. In Indiana, we can begin by working to scale back Pence’s school voucher program, the largest in the country.  Vouchers take money from public schools to support private religious ones. Research confirms that Indiana’s voucher schools have not improved student performance in reading or math (voucher students actually do worse than similar public school students) ; furthermore, public schools are where children from diverse backgrounds learn to live together. Public institutions should be strengthened, not abandoned.

There is plenty to do if we are serious about reclaiming America. And while we are engaging in these tasks, we have to resist efforts by the forces he has emboldened to marginalize and demean women and minorities–and we need to do so publicly, loudly, and persistently. We have to constantly explain to anyone who will listen why the bigotries he feeds are inconsistent with American values and the Constitution–not to mention human decency.

We can no longer sit back and depend upon the courts to protect our liberties. We will have to do it ourselves, through sustained and determined political action.

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