Trump at Flood Tide

And Jeff Goldberg's Honor

Trump chugs along. All bow before him. A week ago it seemed Donald was losing altitude. Now, not so much. The great pillars of the liberal establishment—the lawyers, the universities, the media—collapse when nudged. The media dare not mention that the astronauts splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. It is “off Florida’s coast” or—and this is brazen—”off Florida’s Gulf Coast.” We moderates are not allowed even to acknowledge the Musk makes beautiful parachutes. Trump evolves from a corrupt, cheesy barker to a world historic figure. Centuries from now, historians will write monumental doorstop biographies of him. He is emulated overseas. Bibi Netanyahu fires the head of his domestic security service, Shin Bet, for doing his job (as in, investigating Bibi). Recep Tayyip Erdogan jails the mayor of Istanbul, his most prominent opponent. Trump’s Ukraine negotiator gives a fawning, vomitous interview about Putin to the fawning Tucker Carlson.

And in response, there is only the anachronistic left—Bernie Sanders and the talented but mistaken Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. (Check out the simple power of her language.) The fabric tears at the center. The center is silent. Sanity Clause is torn, too—between anger at the pompous indulgences and excesses of the left that led to all this…and fear of the brutal attacks on freedom from the authoritarian right. As David Petraeus said as he crossed the berm into Iraq at the beginning of that profoundly disastrous war: Tell me how this ends.

I have friends who believe it has ended already. The capitulation of Paul, Weiss—the ultimate, elite liberal law firm—scares the hell out of them. If the lawyers are too scared to go to court, who will challenge Trump? The last fifty years have produced a subtle but thick shroud of government influence—to the point where Paul, Weiss feared that their clients with federal contracts (i.e. far too many of them) would run off to other law firms. The capitulation of Columbia University, with its $400 million in government funding, seems less shocking, but no less nervous-making: there, a sanctified tradition of free inquiry was allowed to lapse into a brambled thicket of illiberalism over the past fifty years (especially when it came to Middle East and various identity studies). But where does this end? With the Pentagon scrubbing every non-white hero—including, Good Lord, Colin Powell and the Navajo code-talkers—from its history? With Fort Bragg, named for a racist confederate general, renamed Fort Liberty, then renamed Fort Bragg again, after an (unrelated) World War II hero? With the United States no longer a bastion of hope and possibility for sick children in Africa? With Social Security in chaos? With the Kennedy Center sliding from questionable, inaccessible liberal “arts” to the polenta of Andrew Lloyd Webber? With the world economy—and middle class 401Ks—rocking and reeling from Trump’s wobbly tariff inconsistencies?

After I criticize Bernie and AOC, a reader asks, “You prefer Trump?” But are those my only options? I prefer complexity. I prefer moderation. I oppose the oppressive arrogance of left and right. But the center is boring, I am told. Actually no, the center can be bracing. The big idea of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance, is a radical tear-down of the regulatory state, a state largely brought to you by Trump’s favorite targets, the lawyers and academics. A state fueled by the fable that there can be progress without any negative side effects whatsoever; that the government has a responsibility to protect its citizens from everything, including human nature and unintended consequences. The proposal sounds like an important idea, a major battle, a bulwark against societal decline, building on decades of good work by Philip K. Howard. And it recognizes that the opposition to Trump can only be built on solid intellectual foundations. (I expect I'll have more to say about Klein and Thompson after I read it—it’s sold out at my local bookstore.)

The sad fact is, we’ve had this coming. We’ve allowed the central institutions of our society to rot from the inside. We’ve allowed too much mindless, leftish horseplay displace the fundamentals of human life: That there is good and there is evil; that most projects have positive and negative effects. That there is no good excuse for criminal behavior. That intact families can’t be mandated, but they are a superior way to raise children. That bills must be paid, especially the too-generous entitlement feasts afforded those who don’t need them. That classical liberalism—free speech, free enterprise, the rule of law—has created more prosperity than any other system in human history. That science, real science, the discipline of the scientific method, must be respected. That egometastatic monsters like Musk are a necessary effluent of capitalist society; they create a lot of jobs, but can’t be allowed to run roughshod. That pacifism is a noble goal, but an impossible ideal—a rigorous military must be nurtured, and all our best minds should be required to participate in some sort of service. That ceremony is a balm; that nihilism is a narcotic.

Friends say I should take a strong, unyielding, hair-on-fire opposition to the Vandals. Perhaps. But I’d like to be part of something, too; part of a community that respects its members, that respects both freedom and tradition, that respects itself. A community that can govern. I see no sign of any such community, or even a single brave leader, emerging to challenge Trump. It is early days of this nightmare administration, but latter days, perhaps, in the history of the Republic. We have indulged ourselves and are allowing something quite remarkable slip away.

Jounalistic Integrity

There remains some bastions of honor. The Atlantic and its editor Jeff Goldberg is one of them. His inclusion in an online chat among top Trump security officials about the Houthi battle campaign is the sort of story Washington goes berserk over. Juicy, inside juicy. Potential metaphors abound—careless, reckless, clownish behavior and all that. But I’m not so sure this is all that significant, in the end. It was a mistake; I’ve made similar, though none involving national security. Goldberg reports the important policy part—what the principals think (note J.D. Vance’s command of the shipping facts) and how they express themselves—but he does not breach national security. This paragraph in Goldberg’s story has been overlooked, but is very important:

I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.

That is journalistic integrity. It is patriotism. It is the exact opposite of what Julian Assange—or a host of hot-headed newsmongers—might have done. Or what Rupert Murdoch might have done if it had been senior Biden officials. No doubt, if Goldberg had released the specific battle plans there might have been far more serious damage to the Trump Administration; it could have been an Afghanistan-like torpedo, an outrage instead of just a stupidity. But it would have been wrong. It could, as Goldberg writes, have harmed “American military and intelligence personnel.” That is not acceptable, under any circumstances.

In this meltdown moment, Goldberg drew a bright line and hewed to it. It is a reminder that the public opposition to Trump’s dangerous authoritarianism can only succeed if it has strong, traditional values. Anger is okay, but without an abiding sense of honor we are lost.