Why Trump's War on the Deep State Is Failing - So Far (MUST-READ from Benjamin Wittes)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-trumps-war-deep-state-failing%E2%80%94so-far

This is a long, very thoughtful, very perceptive piece by Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes.

It's way too long to except any of it without doing a disservice to the sections I'd have to leave out.

So I'm just going to quote the tweet from Laurence Tribe that alerted me to this:

Link to tweet

Having read this terrific @benjaminwittes piece twice, I’m ready to call on everyone who cares about our republic to read it at least once. If you agree after reading this, please retweet so it’ll get maximum exposure and reflection:

Link to tweet

Let's make this go viral. Post it everywhere you can.



Editing to add: Whatever your immediate reaction to the term "Deep State" might be, PLEASE read the article. PLEASE give it the attention Laurence Tribe says it deserves.

[highplainsdem]

2. Please read what Wittes wrote.

[Ms. Toad]

6. I wish emoticons worked in titles.

It isn't progressivese who are supposed to be so shallow they can only consume a title or 140 characters.

Read.beyond.the.title. It is well worth the investment of time.

[highplainsdem]

9. Thank you!

[Ms. Toad]

11. Thank you for posting the article -

It is an excellent find!

[thbobby]

3. Deep State Fake News

Sounds kinda like the dog ate my homework. Lunatic Bullshit from a Lunatic Bullshitter.

[Ms. Toad]

8. Did you bother to read the article,

not just the title?

It is an excellent discussion of the danger Trump poses - not to the artificial construct of the "Deep State" (meaning a shadow government run by Democrats) but to the "deep state" of norms and traditions that are primarily not embodied in law that have until now kept presidents who might otherwise be politically motivated and have dictatorial aspirations (including Richard Nixon) from successfully using the DOJ and the intelligence departments as tools against their political enemies.

The deep state referred to in this article has nothing to do with a shadow government run by democrats; it has to do with the architecture of our democracy that is not, in large part, embodied in laws - and could easiliy and legally be destroyed by someone with Trump's ambitions - and more skill.

[thbobby]

12. You got me

I did not. But I will now.

[Ms. Toad]

14. I wasn't specifically trying to "get you,"

But if you're encouraged to read the article, all the better!

It articulates a lot of the fears I've had about how little could be done, legally, to stop Trump if he was actually a competent tinpot dictator - and not an incompetent one. There's so much discretion involved in choosing the prosecution agenda, that it can be pretty easily perverted. We see that - generally - in the change in enforcement of immigration laws, or in the promise to pursue enforcement of Federal pot laws in states where pot is legal. Thus far, it has just been broad enforcement policies - and ranting about no one will let him go after Clinton, for example. But there isn't much legally to stop him, should he choose to sart targeting individual people (or to stop investigations targeting him.

[thbobby]

15. Ms. Toad

People like you are why I love the community of DU. Please don't think I was offended. I very much appreciate you. DU provides an opportunity to learn by conversing with intelligent and knowledgeable people. I really did not mean my post to you as a complaint. I was on twitter until a couple of years ago. I followed people I agreed with and was followed by people that agreed with me. There was little opportunity for intelligent discourse. Again, thank you.

[cilla4progress]

4. Excellent,

excellent read!

[Farmer-Rick]

5. Very interesting reading

I can't believe anyone still thinks Trump is an honest broker. Those who still support him are anti-democracy, white supremacist or a member of the kleptocracy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. That's because it would wreck the economy and rob him of his only bragging points.

Trump has promised and backed away from: scrapping NAFTA and waging a trade war against the Chinese, ditching the Iran deal, walking away from Europe, draining the swamp, and confronting conservative orthodoxy on taxation.

[highplainsdem]

10. Please read the entire piece that Wittes wrote.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. I read the entire piece. It was great.

Trump's raison d'etre is to shatter democratic norms and the rule of law. Will he succeed? I think not. But I do know his acolytes couldn't care less about them.

[malaise]

16. Excellent read

although I don't like the term 'deep state'.

[RandomAccess]

17. UGH -- "the least tyrant-proof part of the government"

That's as far as I've gotten --

Which is NOT to say I'm not going to read it all (so as to forfend a lecture on doing so, if nothing else.)

[malaise]

18. The best line in this article for me

He is ultimately a wuss.

[marked50]

19. Important read to understand where

are vulnerabilities are in regards to our democracy. Forget the "deep state" terminology. Read about the frailty of our system.

[Leghorn21]

20. K&R!!! Please read this!! Mr. Wittes is a sharp and knowledgeable man and BTW he is using DEEP STATE

ironically or sarcastically, because he knows fucking well how phenomenally stupid that whole “concept” is!

The beginning of his piece is devoted to his take on a trump presidency in MAY OF 2016, and he was 100% correct in his projections of what could happen should such a nightmare event transpire.

The rest of his piece lays out the current status of our democratic institutions in terms even an idiot like myself can...somewhat grasp.

Dem, thanks for making me slow down and read this...I check Ben’s twitter feed for baby cannon activity 15 times a day, but finally I stopped to read this...thank you!!

SNIP

No less hard to measure is the damage Trump has done to world confidence in the United States or what it will take to restore that confidence once he is gone. I also don’t know how to assess the opportunity costs of the near total failure of policy development in his administration across a wide range of national security matters. Nor, for that matter, do I know how to evaluate the likelihood that Trump’s myriad personality defects will trigger a national security catastrophe, rather than merely the sequence of injuries (such as spontaneous disclosure of important allied intelligence programs to the Russians) and embarrassments (like his phone call with the Australian prime minister) we have seen so far. The hits taken by law enforcement and other domestic institutions have been real, but they have not yet done irreversible damage. So for right now, at least, my impression is that the tangible damage from Trump is likely substantial but also likely reparable with time and decent government of either the political right or the political left.

I am decidedly less confident about our ability to weather a less tangible form of damage Trump is doing—that is to say the damage of which he has shown proof of concept. It was only recently that the notion of a modern president of the United States openly demanding politicized law enforcement or openly saying that the job of the attorney general was to protect him from investigation was unthinkable. Even Richard Nixon, who believed such things privately and acted on them in secret, never had the audacity to state them publicly. Trump has not merely advocated for the notion of law enforcement as a mechanism of political attack; he has campaigned against those within the bureaucracy who have resisted the vision. He has adopted an active policy of institutional attack on the FBI and public discrediting of intelligence-community findings inconvenient to him on Russia. The question is whether this style of politics—or aspects of it—catches on. This may be hard to imagine if Trumpism ends in a crushing electoral defeat and repudiation. But what if Republicans outperform expectations in 2018 or Trump wins reelection in 2020 or both? What will other politicians take away then?

That is not an idle question—one germane only to future populist demagogues who may arise. Because Trump has not, alas, flown solo in this project of institutional degradation. He has brought much of his party with him. The House Republican caucus is up in arms not about L’Affaire Russe but about the special counsel’s investigation of L’Affaire Russe. The braying for Robert Mueller’s blood and for a housecleaning at the Justice Department and the FBI pervades conservative media. We have to be concerned that Trump is in the process of normalizing for an entire political movement the politicization and weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence. No, he has not yet successfully corrupted these institutions. But he has made surprising inroads in corrupting public expectations of them. That damage is hard to calculate—but it could end up being devastating.

So for right now, let’s consider the damage—both tangible and intangible—as a work in progress: non-trivial, potentially severe, but so far not catastrophic, and difficult ultimately to assess.

Much more at link in OP

[peggysue2]

21. Good piece!

An important and informative read. We are indeed in danger but we're not dead yet. After year 1, that is. It's why I and many others here and across the web continue to press the importance of staying awake and concentrating on the mid-terms. Mueller and his team are doing what they do--an intensive investigation. What we as private citizens can do is keep sounding the alarms and working towards making that Blue Tsunami this November a reality. That's our One Shot to stop the madness and quell the fire that surrounds us. We're running against the clock because as Wittes points out, we do not know what impulse the Trumpster may act on tomorrow.

Btw, Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessy at Lawfare are very good researchers and writers/editors. I absolutely second the suggestion that Duers check them out regularly. They'll keep you abreast of what's going on from a legal and ethical perspective.

And Laurence Tribe? I think we can safely say his opinions are always worthwhile.

Thanks for the link

[Cha]

22. Kick for now.. Mahalo highplainsdem.. and Benjamin

Wittes!