Trump's Systematic Attack on U.S. Institutions
There is no T-E-A-M in “I.”
This was the obvious lesson as Donald Trump sold out House Republicans this week. GOP members had sought to quietly defang an anti-corruption watchdog office. After angry constituents phoned House offices, Trump saw the Republicans’ position eroding, and slipped them a banana peel, tweeting that they should focus on tax reform and health care instead. He didn’t object to their goal; ethics are not exactly a Trump priority. He was simply taking an opportunity to enhance his image while sullying that of Congress.
Because Trump needs the Republican majority in Congress, his attacks on the institution will be more subtle than his attacks on other democratic institutions have been. But he intends to undermine Congress early and often, then bring it to heel.
During the Republican primaries, Trump was surrounded on the debate stage by rivals competing for attention and votes. In Washington, he will be surrounded by competing power centers, institutions that play vital roles in balancing power, mediating conflicts and managing the complex, messy work of the world’s most powerful democratic society.
Trump has signaled clearly that he will deal with powerful democratic institutions as he dealt with his Republican rivals. First he will denigrate them. Then he will demand their public submission to him. Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted and Low-Energy Jeb will find this game familiar.
Look at Trump’s approach to U.S. intelligence agencies. They are far from perfect. But that is not what troubles Trump. What troubles him is that they are, as yet, too far from submissive. They are a threat to him. They are powerful. They are independent. They know things (including things about Trump).
When U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that Russia had interfered in the U.S. presidential election, Trump released a statement on Dec. 9 stating, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
Trump similarly denigrated the value of intelligence briefings, saying they are repetitive and superfluous; he doesn’t need them because he is a “smart person.”
On New Year’s Eve, responding to reports that Russian agents had stolen Democratic e-mails with the goal of assisting Trump’s election, Trump issued this rebuttal: “I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”
Phase I: The intelligence agencies are incompetent. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Trump, who has repeatedly failed to display even rudimentary knowledge of national security or international affairs, knows far more than they do.
Phase II: “Trump Plans Spy Agency Overhaul.” That’s the front-page headline on the Jan. 5 Wall Street Journal. The president-elect, the Journal continued, “sees departments as over-staffed, politicized.”
See how this works? The CIA refused to provide Trump with the bogus, politicized analysis that he hoped would exonerate Russian espionage. So the CIA is stupid, incompetent, wrong -- and about to be downsized, restructured and marginalized.
Liberals and activists have focused on policy when decrying Trump’s cabinet nominations, which heavily feature individuals opposed to the very missions of the agencies they have been selected to lead. Several of Trump’s agency appointments appear determined not to redirect their agencies -- the prerogative of an incoming administration -- but to destroy them.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is on the less extreme end of Trump appointees, was even explicit about it, once saying he would eliminate the Department of Energy altogether. By nominating Perry to lead that department, Trump is sending the energy bureaucracy the same message he is sending the CIA: Submit or wither
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-05/trump-s-systematic-attack-on-u-s-institutions