1. So. That New York Times op-ed from the anonymous Senior White House official. It's high-grade seagull guano. A perfect example of how Decency Resistance is designed to shield the elite. Let me explain.
2. If you have someone who is mentally unfit to be president (as Trump seems to be) there is remedy: the 25th amendment. Instead, according to the op-ed & to Woodward's book, we have something far worse: an administrative coup.
3. The virtue of 25th amendment solution is that it keeps everything in the open: unfit president is evaluated, cabinet & congress take responsibility. Everyone can be judged by their public actions. That's vastly superior to a secret coup.
4. What we now have is a two-tier government: Trump tweeting and ranting & his staff executing separate policy. This undermines democratic legitimacy & ability of other countries to trust USA as much as actually executing Trump's policies would.
5. Part of the intent here seems to be to shield GOP --including feckless congress -- from responsibility for the Trump fiasco. "It's not true that we were complicit -- we tried to stop him!"
6. We have remedies for Trump: not just 25th amendment but congress could investigate & rebuke, staff could quit. The op-ed is a justification for why these remedies are not being applied.
7. What is really masterful about the op-ed is how it co-opts the language of the opposition to defend working for Trump: civility, resistance, McCain.
8. Of course, it's easy to use the language of the part of the opposition (what I call the Decency Resistance) because that language is itself a form of elite self-defense from being held accountable for Trump. See Heer here:
9. This should be a reminder that the real resistance is not among White House officials writing anonymous op-eds or even at John McCain's funeral. The real resistance is in popular organization -- protests, strikes, and electioneering -- aimed at changing the status quo
10. For more thoughts on this, see here: newrepublic.com/minutes/151068…
