Recently, the New York Times published an anonymous opinion editorial written by one of the senior officials in Donald Trump’s administration in which they detail the “resistance inside the administration.”
“The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility,” the article states.
First of all, whoa!
This is something virtually unheard of and the significance of the article goes beyond that of showing the “resistance” inside the administration and really demonstrates the mistrust, fear, and opposition to our nation’s president and his extreme agenda.
Not to mention this is the second op-ed recently published nationally against a senior Trump administration official in the last month. The uncle of Trump senior staff oficial, Stephen Miller, wrote an op-ed for the publication Politico in which he calls his nephew an “immigration hypocrite.”
“The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” the article reads.
To no surprise, Trump was quick to comment calling the opinion piece a “gutless editorial,” tweeting, “Does the so-called ‘Senior Administration Official’ really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”
Currently the witchhunt is well on its way to identify the anonymous author of the piece. As are the criticisms towards the author of the piece for not revealing his name.
“What the author has just done is throw the government of the United States into even more dangerous turmoil. He or she has inflamed the paranoia of the president and empowered the president’s willfulness,” stated former Bush speechwriter, David Frum, in The Atlantic.
The reality is that our nation’s government has increasingly and consistently pushed itself into the “dangerous turmoil” Frum speaks of since the election of Trump and the “resistance” hasn’t done much to aid the fact.
As to Trump’s paranoia, with the recent developments in the Russian investigation, it’s hard to pinpoint it on this article.
However, the author’s choice to not reveal their identity plays into one of the main points arising from the article, the idea of keeping quiet, and simply maintaining damage control.
“That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office,” the author writes.
According to the piece, the misbelief and mistrust in the President’s leadership even led senior officials to consider removing the president using the 25th amendment.
“Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.”
The only thing holding these senior Trump officials back is party loyalty. The fear of losing political power keeps these officials quiet and docile and in the process is pushing our democracy into the “constitutional crisis” they are trying to “save” us all from.