That there was a department that acknowledged climate change in its name offered an indication of how distinct Trudeau’s project in Canada was from the one launched fourteen months later in the United States by Donald Trump. Trudeau was not elected as a radical change agent and most of his appointees remained too invested in the neoliberal compromises of our times. But the emphasis was on making government work. Trudeau was not governing based on some Steve Bannon theory about “deconstructing the administrative state” or the denial fantasies of American Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt. The new Canadian government was not constructed with an ulterior motive. It was not packed with greedheads and grifters, blank-stare ideologues and partisan hacks, Koch brothers mandarins and the campaign donors who have bought their way into the Trump White House.
Trudeau did not suggest that he was all-knowing, that he alone could meet Canada’s challenges. He made it clear that he would rely on the members of his Cabinet. He proudly empowered them to color outside the lines, to push limits, to improve upon his ideas. The son of one of Canada’s greatest political figures, Justin Trudeau had forged his own career as a parliamentarian before taking the lead of his Liberal Party and waging a campaign that promised to renew Canada’s sense of purpose.
Even before that campaign produced a landslide victory for Trudeau, he was thinking long and hard about how best to govern. He thought, particularly, about strengthening the government he would lead by surrounding himself with a cadre of brilliant individuals who were ready to learn, to legislate, to lead in their own right. “This is going to be a period of slight adjustment for a number of people in the political world in Canada,” the new prime minister announced as he introduced his team, “because government by cabinet is back.” He was calling not for blind loyalty but for broad vision. Even those who did not embrace the whole of that vision were encouraged to imagine that their country might be unified and strengthened by an engaged and caring government.
Americans should be furious that Donald Trump has cheated their country out of the opportunity to have faith in their government and hope in its possibility. They should be enraged with this president and the people he has surrounded himself with: gross incompetents and stupefied partisans, dirty dealers and self-absorbed schemers, cruel executioners of inhumane policies and the defenders of the indefensible. Trump has not assembled a cabinet; he has assembled a wanted list of unindicted co-conspirators. Around himself in the West Wing, where he freely admits that power is centralized and jealously guarded, Trump swims in a right-wing fever swamp of conspiracy theorists and crackpots. One of his top advisors wears the badge of a Hungarian group that collaborated so closely with a Nazi-aligned government during World War II that the State Department keeps it on a list of “Organizations Under the Direction of the Nazi Government of Germany.” His closest advisor quotes from the texts of European fascists and is portrayed on Saturday Night Live as the Grim Reaper.
Despite Trump’s own authoritarian impulses, however, he too governs by cabinet. It is just a different sort of governing, rooted not in the hope of making government work but in the determination to dismantle it. His cabinet members, aides and assistants form a crew of wreckers that have scrambled aboard a sinking ship of state to grab whatever is not nailed down. Trump will often direct the dismantlement. But when he is not directing, his appointees know how to carry the project forward on their own. And a few, like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, have schemes even more nefarious than those of their president.
While there are already conflicts within the Trump White House, and while there will be more, Trump has not created a “team of rivals” administration. He has surrounded himself with sycophants and Svengalis, mandarins who have the apologia ready even before the boss gets caught and cruel calculators who are ever ready to initiate the next high crimes and misdemeanors.
For citizens, watching from a nation that did not vote for this president (54 percent of ballot-casting Americans opposed Trump’s election in 2016) and that certainly did not vote for this presidency (Trump gave little indication of who he would surround himself with if he prevailed on Election Day), this can be confusing, confounding, dizzying, horrifying.
But Americans cannot look away from the crisis. Americans cannot simplify or diminish the circumstance in which we find ourselves. We have to accept that this is now about so much more than a man. Trump became president because of the obsession of our political and media elites with a dumbed-down, personality-driven imagining of American politics. Even now, many in the media continue to obsess about the strongman and his lies, as opposed to the federal machinery of deceit that now manufactures false premises, alternative facts and fake news on an industrial level. Yet, their obsession cannot be our obsession. It is impossible to understand (let alone challenge) Trump the president without understanding the Trump presidency—the whole of what he has created, the whole of what this book has examined.
What, then, is the duty of a citizen in times such as these? And what is the duty of the enlightened media and the visionary political leaders who would embrace and extend that duty?
The first response must always be solidarity. It is not enough to care about what Trump or one of Trump’s agencies is doing to you and yours. It is necessary to recognize that, with thousands of appointees in place, with the full apparatus of government at its command, with all the resources of the wealthiest nation in the world in its possession, this beast will have enough tentacles to wrap around every one of us.
Only the fool imagines that the damage done by a presidency that begins with a Muslim ban will not soon produce more bans touching more people, more assaults on rights, more restrictions. An injury to one will become an injury to all, and it is cruel delusion to duck and cover. The hope for America is found in a resistance that goes first to the airport when Muslims are being barred and then to the workplace or the school where immigration raids are being carried out, to the school where Betsy DeVos’s grand schemes are tearing apart the promise of education for all, to the clinic where Tom Price’s mangling of the health care system is denying care to those who need it most, to the countryside where Scott Pruitt’s rejection of science threatens sacred lands.
Standing in solidarity, standing in resistance matters. And if it is an intersectional solidarity, a “one for all and all for one” resistance, then the potential for victory is far greater than people imagine. The initial Muslim ban was blocked at the airports and in the courts. Mike Pence had to be called in to rescue Betsy DeVos’s nomination because even a few Republican senators rejected her—after their constituents demanded that they do so. Trump’s most noxious initial cabinet pick, fast-food CEO Andy Puzder, had to withdraw himself from consideration after a mass movement challenged and exposed him. Mike Flynn was hounded from his national security advisor position because a free press reported his wrongdoing. Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from inquiries into the Trump campaign because of the revelation that he had lied to the Senate. When Sessions abandoned his recusal and aided and abetted Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey in early May, the outcry was so loud that even Republicans in Congress heard it.
Every act of resistance matters, but it is a full-spectrum resistance that matters most. It is not enough to hope that Donald Trump will be hounded from office or simply lose interest; as this book explains, his vice president is every bit as conflicted, every bit as cruel, every bit as dangerous—and a good bit more doctrinaire and edgily partisan. It is not enough to hope for, and work for, an election result that takes power from a Paul Ryan or a Mitch McConnell, although that disempowerment is surely critical to the eventual delivery of the republic from its current peril.
What is necessary is a broader and deeper resistance that identifies all the wrongdoers, all the collaborators and conspirators within and around the Trump presidency, and that holds them to account. Infrastructure matters, and kicking
the underpinnings out from under Donald Trump will hasten his fall. The founders of the American experiment wisely established an impeachment process for holding to account lawless presidents. But presidents were not the only errant executives they considered.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States announces that “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Jeff Sessions is a civil officer. Betsy DeVos is a civil officer. Scott Pruitt is a civil officer. Steve Bannon is a duly sworn civil officer, and so are Trump’s men at the FCC and the SEC and all the other agencies that this presidency is mangling as it seeks to deconstruct the administrative state. As Neil Gorsuch told Patrick Leahy: “Senator, no man is above the law.” And we are best served by a resistance that demands accountability from every department head, from every commissioner, from every counselor and advisor.
This book seeks to identify some of the most serious subjects of concern, some of the most likely targets for investigation and censure. But the Trump administration is a moving target, and the ongoing work of watchdog groups is essential. Public Citizen has stepped up. The group’s Corporate Cabinet project (www.corporate
cabinet.org) is an essential tool. The Trump Transition Watch initiated by the American Civil Liberties Union (https://www.aclu.org/feature/trump-transition-watch) is invaluable, as is the detailed examination of the backgrounds of specific Trump appointees by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Center for American Progress has produced great investigative reports at Trump Cabinet Watch, while the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Trump Watch monitors assaults on the environment. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is all over this administration on issues of ethics and conflicts of interest.
Information is vital. Acting on information is even more vital. And people are acting. Few members of congress in this country can hold a town meeting without attracting an overflow crowd. The next step is to make sure that, when Trump cabinet members and appointees travel, they too are met and challenged.
Americans are going to be busy over the next several years, holding the Trump presidency to account and holding their country together. But at a certain point Americans must dream. We have a right to demand that this administration do no harm. But we have a right, as well, to demand that American politics evolve beyond the game of chance that gave us Donald Trump and his wrecking crew. Along with voting rights and campaign finance reform and gerrymandering reform and Electoral College elimination, Americans should pursue a new vision for how presidencies are configured.
In most democracies, political parties seek power not merely on the basis of personalities but on the basis of ideas that are outlined, and often costed and budgeted, in party manifestoes that are far more serious and detailed than the platforms that are quickly approved at American political conventions and then even more quickly abandoned. Parties in other countries give scope and meaning to their promises by identifying who will be in charge of major departments and agencies when the party comes to power.
The “opposition bench” is well known and outspoken in countries such as Great Britain, and it gives definition to that opposition. For years, Ralph Nader has argued that American presidential candidates should name their cabinets before they are elected, and that the fall campaign should feature debates involving not just the presidential and vice presidential contenders but party leaders who are identified with specific issues and missions: health care, education, food and farming, war and peace. Nader was always right, but the chaos and corruption of the Trump administration argues more strongly than ever for consideration of the “opposition bench” approach as a tool for opposing the Trump presidency.
Americans need to hear a steady critique of Trump appointees by informed and engaged leaders who might suggest themselves as potential replacements for those they are holding to account. The point is not just to oppose but also to imagine alternatives, to speak of the next America where that which has been broken can be repaired and where the work that has been neglected can finally begin. As Rebecca Solnit reminds us, hope in a time of darkness is powerful, and healing. It dissolves the spells of errant presidents and their cruel cabinets, it helps the people to recover their true sight and throw off chains of hatred and division, it restores government to its true principle—the service of the people. It teaches the genius of resistance and solidarity, and it transforms that resistance and solidarity into a new politics strong enough to assure that this country will never again surrender its future to a madman and his minions.
The horsemen will be dispersed.
The Trumpocalypse will be averted.
Acknowledgments
Alessandra Bastagli, my editor at Nation Books, encouraged me to take this project on. I am so glad she did. My editor at the Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, was absolutely on board and supportive; she is a brilliant comrade whose fierce commitment to the search for truth in an age of “alternative facts” is inspired—and inspiring. Many of the profiles in this book had their start in Nation articles. Others began even earlier, in my coverage of Paul Ryan, Reince Priebus and others for the great progressive newspaper of Madison, Wisconsin: the Capital Times. A number of members of Congress were encouraging and pointed me in the right direction as I started examining the Trump team; I especially appreciate the insights I have gained from congressmen Mark Pocan, Keith Ellison, Gwen Moore and Barbara Lee, and from Senators Bernie Sanders, Tammy Baldwin and Sherrod Brown. I cannot begin to express how much I appreciate the work of watchdog and activist groups that encouraged me to look at particular nominees and to dig deeper in particular areas. I’ll mention Public Citizen, the Center for Media and Democracy, Free Press, Friends of the Earth, the National Family Farm Coalition and National Nurses United, although there are dozens of other groups that merit attention. I hope I have succeeded in highlighting their work in this book. My friends Bob McChesney, Steve Cobble and John “Sly” Sylvester were, as always, possessed of the wry humor and knowledge necessary to be great sounding boards. So, too, were my late friends Ed Garvey, Ted Shannon, Kathy Ozer and Sandy Pearlman, who shared the spirit of this book before their deaths. Lastly, I want to pay tribute to my wife, Mary, a great investigative reporter with the Center for Media and Democracy, and an even greater partner, and to my daughter, Whitman, who has a rage for justice. Oh, and thanks to Nikki, Iris and Hope for taking me to the Sister March in Madison. It was awesome.
About the Author
John Nichols is the national affairs writer for the Nation magazine and a contributing writer for the Progressive and In These Times. He is also the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin, and a co-founder of the media-reform group Free Press. A frequent commentator on American politics and media, he has appeared often on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and BBC, and has frequently lectured at major universities on executive power and the need for presidential accountability. The author of ten books, Nichols has earned numerous awards for his investigative reports, including groundbreaking examinations (in collaboration with the Center for Media and Democracy) on the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Source Notes
A Note on How to Use This Book
My parents gave me a new edition of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s book The Imperial Presidency (Houghton Mifflin, 1974) when I was a child. That says a lot about them, and about my upbringing. But it remains the best book for beginning a consideration of the expansion of presidential powers and the scope and character of the executive branch. Willard Sterne Randall writes brilliantly about how Washington and Jefferson shaped the presidency in his books George Washington: A Life (Holt Paperbacks, 1998) and Thomas Jefferson: A Life (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2014). John Dean’s essay on Trump appeared on January 20, 2017, on Justia’s Verdict website as “Inauguration Day 2017—Trump
’s Dangerous Ego Trip.” For some fine writing on Trump and Berlusconi, read Alexander Stille’s “Donald Trump, America’s Own Silvio Berlusconi,” the Intercept, March 7, 2016. You will find a fine reflection on James Madison’s views regarding an informed citizenry—“FOIA Post (2008): Celebrating James Madison and the Freedom of Information Act”—on the U.S. Department of Justice website.
Betsy DeVos and the Malice Domestic:
An Introduction to the Trumpocalypse
Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to the “malice domestic” in his address at the San Diego Exposition, October 2, 1935. It can be found in many places, including the terrific American Presidency Project website assembled by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu. “Their malice may be concealed . . .” is found in Proverbs 26:26. The Los Angeles Times editorial “Putting Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA risks irreversible damage to the planet” appeared February 4, 2017. The New York Times editorial “President Bannon?” appeared January 30, 2017. I wrote about the phenomenon and philosophy of Trumpism for the Nation in a number of pieces, including “It Really Is That Bad: So now we must get very good at saying ‘no’ to Trumpism,” published November 9, 2016. Walter Dean Burnham’s essay “By co-opting an ultra-right wrecking crew, Donald Trump is sending the US back to the 1920s” can be found on the very useful London School of Economics US Centre blog (http://bit.ly/2jgK23G). Elizabeth Warren tweeted her impression of DeVos from @SenWarren. Diane Ravitch’s “An Open Letter to Senator Lamar Alexander About Betsy DeVos” appeared January 22, 2017, on Huffington Post. Trump’s statements about his cabinet picks can be found on the Trump Transition Team at https://greatagain.gov/. Budgets and staffing levels for the various cabinet agencies are in constant flux; for this book I tried to use the figures cited by the departments themselves, which give a fair sense of their size at the point when Trump was filling posts. Trump’s odd reference to DeVos was detailed by the Washington Post, January 23, 2017, “President Trump signs executive order for Betsy DeVos’s nomination.” Video and transcripts from the DeVos confirmation hearing, and those of other nominees, can be found at the terrific CSPAN website: https://www.c-span.org/congress/. It’s all archived and easily searched. Also, the Senate committees themselves provide many valuable resources on their websites. Randi Weingarten issued her statement on DeVos on November 23, 2016. Politico’s assessment of the cabinet picks, “Trump rewards big donors with jobs and access,” appeared December 27, 2016. Madison’s words are collected in The Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (Lippincott & Co., 1865). The Economist’s assessment of the new president appeared as “The Republicans: Time to Fire Trump” on February 27, 2016.