A Confession

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.

I would know. I am one of them....

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.
You can read his (or her) defense of this approach to electoral government at the link.

14 comments:

  1. From the NYT's lead in at the link: The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay.

    How do we know this person even exists?

    Eric Hines

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  2. We don't, of course. My guess is that he (or she) does exist, but probably isn't nearly as 'senior' as they're claiming.

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  3. Based on what evidence do you think this person exists?

    Let's assume the person does. On what basis do we assume this person is telling the truth? He is, after all, demonstrating his dishonesty by speaking--anonymously, mind you--likely in violation of his terms of employment if not his oath of office.

    If we assume he's a whistle blower, where is the evidence this person has exhausted all of his whistle-blowing avenues of objection and satisfaction before he went to the press?

    Eric Hines

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  4. I assume it's a real person because of the list of benefits he came up with: "effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more." I can't imagine the NYT fantasists coming up with that list. I assume they'd have imagined a list of conservative 'wins' along racist dog-whistle lines.

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  5. Bob Woodward could come up with that list. So could Bret Stephens.

    Eric Hines

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  6. Possibly. But if it were a NYT fantasy, I'd really expect them to find it impossible to resist including a couple of racist phrases to see if they could troll us into backing it. Then they could beat the Trump administration up with it, and any supporters who spoke up for those things too. I don't think they're disciplined enough to resist that chance (nor do I think they understand what we really want well enough to describe it in the first place).

    But the list is evidence, not proof. You asked for evidence; and I don't have proof anyway.

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  7. You asked for evidence....

    And it's entirely plausible, and it's more concrete than my general distrust of the NLMSM. That leads us in the direction of my second question.

    Eric Hines

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  8. please advise differences between "steady state" (not the electronics) and "deep state."

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  9. Just something the NLMSM made up to distract from their deep state cronies.

    Eric Hines

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  10. Since I’m a glass-half full kinda guy, I’ve started to wonder if we’re reading the Anon op-ed wrong.

    Trumps approval, though low by some comparison to other Presidents, is remarkably stable.
    The economy keeps humming along, posting record lows in unemployment stats and growth not seen for a decade or more.
    Trump gets regular wins in trade deals (Mexico) and foreign policy (Kim just re-affirmed a nuke-free S/N Korea)
    Trump has survived various bimbo eruptions, Manafort’s guilty verdicts, and the Cohen guilty plea (see #1).
    Speaking of Cohen, his attempt at furthering the collusion narrative had to be walked back by his lawyer Lanny Davis, even if CNN ignored him.
    While it didn’t garner a lot of headlines, Trump, along with McConnell and Ryan, restored regular order to the budget/appropriations process by passing actual departmental appropriation bills rather than an omnibus for the first time in about two decades.
    Speaking of McConnell, he got the Dems to cry uncle and confirmed around fifteen more judges in order to get a Senate recess before the election.
    I read over the holiday weekend that Mueller appears to have thrown in the towel on interviewing Trump in person and will accept responses to written questions. The Anon op-ed highlighted to 25th Amendment and ‘Trump is soft on Russia’ again, the two weakest collusion narratives.
    My take on the Kavanaugh circus is that the Dems have given up on trying to peel off any Republican senators to actually block his confirmation and went all-in on firing up their base.
    The generic Congressional polling is all over the map but is at least not showing anything approaching a Democrat Wave.

    Put all that together, and maybe Anon wasn’t so much an attack on Trump as it was an attempt to soften the blow for NeverTrumpers and moderate Democrats when the soft coup attempt fails.

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  11. And what would have been the reaction if someone within the Obama Administration had written a similar essay? “Don’t worry, I’m one of several people in the Administration working to minimize his impact.”

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  12. I think we all know the answer to that question, Mr. Harman.

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  13. The Platters were prescient regarding this op-ed.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwfmbXJEBtY

    Eric Hines

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  14. Ymarsakar11:32 PM

    Trum keeps being immune to all this stuff and the same thing will happen to him as JFK got.

    Reagan almost got the same. Lincoln got it from a bunch of Catholic conspirators like pro slavery Vatican, which is only Southern in the sense that Maryland is the Land of Mary Southern.

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