digby: The Best and the Brightest fail again

[babylonsister]

https://digbysblog.net/2020/03/the-best-and-the-brightest-fail-again/?fbclid=IwAR2F1htOR1G-11f1mFWCVZKZ9MpfhtfY7_iDbYH9Rx1PkGi2ZFu1q28OBwM


The Best and the Brightest fail again
Published by digby on March 3, 2020


This piece by George Packer may be the best analysis of what’s happened to our government — and why — than anything else I’ve read:

When Donald Trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.


snip//

The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement; transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was clear to the political class until Trump became president.

But the adults’ greatest miscalculation was to overestimate themselves—particularly in believing that other Americans saw them as selfless public servants, their stature derived from a high-minded commitment to the good of the nation.

When Trump came to power, he believed that the regime was his, property he’d rightfully acquired, and that the 2 million civilians working under him, most of them in obscurity, owed him their total loyalty. He harbored a deep suspicion that some of them were plotting in secret to destroy him. He had to bring them to heel before he could be secure in his power. This wouldn’t be easy—the permanent government had defied other leaders and outlasted them. In his inexperience and rashness—the very qualities his supporters loved—he made early mistakes. He placed unreliable or inept commissars in charge of the bureaucracy, and it kept running on its own.

But a simple intuition had propelled Trump throughout his life: Human beings are weak. They have their illusions, appetites, vanities, fears. They can be cowed, corrupted, or crushed. A government is composed of human beings. This was the flaw in the brilliant design of the Framers, and Trump learned how to exploit it. The wreckage began to pile up. He needed only a few years to warp his administration into a tool for his own benefit. If he’s given a few more years, the damage to American democracy will be irreversible.

snip//

Read the whole article if you can. It’s actually quite frightening because it discusses in detail just how much carnage he has caused within the institutions of government. It’s laid bare just how vulnerable they always were. And someone smarter but equally conscienceless as Trump will be able to take advantage of that in a much more systematic way.

[chowder66]

1. The original article is incredible.

And we need to address our lobbyist problem.

[Caliman73]

2. I am sure it is a fascinating article but Benjamin Franklin said it outside the Convention.

"A republic if you can keep it"

Emphasis should always have been on YOU. We fought, not 100 years after that and 350 thousand Americans and 250,000 traitor died deciding if we would keep it. We had to fight for women to vote, for Black people to vote, to enshrine in law that all citizens should be able to vote without impediment.

Our democracy has always been fragile but alongside it American Exceptionalism has been promoted and we thought we were simply the best and didn't have to worry and be careful with our institutions. Nixon chipped away at them, Reagan chipped away, Bush Jr. chipped away, then Trump came in and started taking a sledgehammer to everything.

I don't understand the incredulity. We have always been only as stable as our ability to keep our worst impulses at bay.

[JHB]

3. "also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party"

And that didn't suddenly happen in 2015. It's been going on for over 3 decades.