Truth in the Age of Trump - by PNACer Eliot Cohen
I hesitate posting this here as this is a true RWer, however the evisceration of Trump and those who join his admin is a thing of beauty and truth. I think we may find some strange bedfellows these next 4 years. To whit, Evan McMullin, Repub has been one of the most consistently outspoken politicians against Trump since November.
"The most important thing is to speak the truth, indeed, to become somewhat fanatical on the subject. ...More important will be calling him out every time he or his underlings lie: every time he says he has a plan when he does not, every time he jeers at a hero and denies having said any such thing, every time he claims to have created jobs to which others gave birth, or denies an inflammatory statement that he did make. And it means taking on the Reince Priebuses and Kellyanne Conways when they lie at 11 a.m. to cover up the outrageous remarks their boss tweeted out six hours before.
We will not change him—no one can. His children may be able to soften the edges and his most trusted advisers may deflect him off his erratic courses, but nothing will teach him gravitas, magnanimity, or wisdom. Until he is impeached, thrown out of office in four years, succumbs to illness, or lasts through eight years, he is what we have learned he is, and will remain so. The beginning of wisdom will be to treat his office with respect, but him with none, because it will achieve nothing, and because as a human being he deserves none. He will remain erratic, temperamental, vengeful, and perhaps most of all, deeply insecure. A man who mocks John McCain, denounces Gold Star parents, snarls at an actor who spoofs him, and makes fun of a crippled reporter is someone whose core is empty, and whose need for approbation is unlimited because the void within him is so complete.
Such is Trump. What of his underlings? His Cabinet officials are, after all, by and large Republican normal—some very good, some mediocre, some simply odd. All of his political subordinates either know or will discover that the corruption of power works not by making you do or say outrageous things (at first), but rather by inducing you to persistently shade the truth. They will, for example, find themselves pretending that we have a coherent policy toward Europe when we do not. They will excuse an unhealthy and possibly sinister relationship with Vladimir Putin as an exercise in realpolitik.
They will tell themselves that they have gone to work for the man because they think they can affect him; they will learn—or more likely, their friends and associates on the outside will observe—that actually, he is affecting them. Very few will resign in outrage, because the compromises to their integrity will creep up on them. As Sir Thomas More puts it in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, they will be like the man who, having taken an oath, is “holding his own self in his own hands, like water” and when he opens his fingers, “needn’t hope to find himself again.” They will try to open their fingers just a little bit, and it will not work: the water will cascade out. Many of them will never find themselves again, but will instead spend the rest of their careers making excuses for things that once upon a time they understood were inexcusable."
more at link
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/01/17/truth-in-the-age-of-trump/
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