I don’t blog (much) anymore; I have kids and a full-time job, and I don’t follow politics as a hobby much either. It’s all too pointless.
But we are entering the nomination season, and I have some thoughts on the general knowledge problem that we face, and I wanted to share them.
Welcome to the Fog
Congratulations! You’re an American voter. You have been blessed with the enormous responsibility of determining which single human is empowered with the ability to destroy the entire world, many times over. It is an awesome responsibility and is fortunately distributed across over 200 million other people and an Electoral College, so it’s not all on you.
But it does mean that we ought to take our job seriously: our vote should be for the person we think is most likely to wield the awesome power of the presidency responsibly.
Starting from that premise, we have a problem: as voters, we don’t really know anything about the people we’re voting for. Oh sure, we see them on TV, or on social media, or maybe even for a few minutes at a rally. If you’re really fortunate, you may have had the opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with the person for 5 or 10 minutes. I’ve personally met Kate Brown and a couple of other minor public figures in various contexts.
I don’t know anything about them, because it’s all a facade–in public, the politician’s job is to play a character. So I’ve met some characters, and I’ve seen some characters be played on TV.
If you actually feel like you know a politician personally, it’s because they’re very good at playing their character. You don’t. I promise you, you don’t; there is simply no reason to believe that the figure that a politician plays in the public sphere is genuine. Stated differently, the politician you think feels your pain is very good at making you think they feel your pain. Absent other evidence, there is no reason to believe that it’s genuine.
This is all fatalistic, to some extent–how do I know if what I see and feel is real if it’s all a big act?
Fortunately, there is a way forward. The responsible voter needs to rely on evidence. There are two types: what actually happened–the historical record or the politician’s actual record of action, and the more important one for the 2024 election, which is testimonial evidence.
Seeing Through the Fog
Most of us don’t have access to the inner thoughts and actions of a politician. However, some of us do. Some people actually do work in the political field and release their thoughts via some mechanism: direct interviews, memoirs, press leaks, etc. These are people with the insight and access that can help us understand what it is we’re seeing.
Generally speaking, we should start with the actual record, and then supplement with testimonial evidence, and then make our decision. Normally, I would say that the record is where you start–how did a politician do in office. Testimonial evidence also needs to be taken with a measure of salt. The people making their statements are also putting on a facade or playing a character. Any effusive praise of someone should be weighed against why they are issuing the praise at all–are they trying to protect their own interests? Is it for future advancement? Are they trying to defend or build a legacy? We have to try to read between the lines, and read in context, to understand what it is we’re seeing.
So what testimonial evidence should we believe? These are the types of evidence that I tend to count for more:
When multiple sources from different perspectives present the same fact pattern;
When someone makes an explicit argument against interest;
When someone’s previous testimonial evidence has been validated;
When someone wrote something for publication after they died.
But the key requirement is that we have to triangulate the evidence and try to figure out The Truth. Yes, there is capital-T Truth, not “My Truth.” We need to combine available evidence in the most logical, persuasive possible way to explain what the Truth is, and then make our decision based upon it and how that meshes with our own values.
Is this easy? No! It’s not, actually. But it is what good citizenship requires–you have an awesome responsibility, and you ought to take it seriously.
The Relevant Testimonial Evidence
Normally, we start from the record, unless testimonial evidence is compelling enough to say otherwise. In this case, I believe it is. Let’s go down the list.
Rex Tillerson was Trump’s handpicked Secretary of State. Tillerson certainly had a lot of time and exposure to Trump. Here’s some highlights from his assessment:
On Trump’s disparagement of American allies: “He saw those as people who were weak. He used to say that over and over again. I don’t know why he viewed them as weak, other than they were overseeing free countries.”
On China: “We’re nowhere with China on national security. We’re in a worse place today than we were before he came in, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
On his general knowledge: “His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”
On his lack of focus: “I used to go into meetings with a list of four to five things I needed to talk to him about, and I quickly learned that if I got to three, it was a home run, and I realized getting two that were meaningful was probably the best objective.”
On his inability to distinguish between truth and fiction: I think the other challenge that I came to realize early on is there were so many people who had access to his ear who were telling him things, most of which were untrue, and then he began to listen to those voices and form a view that had no basis in fact. So then you spent an inordinate amount of time working through why that’s not true, working through why that’s not factual, working through why that’s not the basis on which you want to understand this, you need to set that aside, let’s talk about what’s real. I think that was as big a challenge as anything.”
How about James Mattis? Mattis was Trump’s Secretary of Defense, a man who loathes politics and the media. Here’s Mattis on Trump:
On the George Floyd protests and Trump’s response: “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
“We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
On 1/6: “His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”
What about John Kelly? Kelly was Trump’s second Chief of Staff and worked extremely closely with Trump.
“What can I add that has not already been said? A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
Harsh words. Or Mark Esper, another man who served as Secretary of Defense:
“I think he’s unfit for office. … He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.”
Or Dan Coats, his Director of National Intelligence:
“To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”
Or Bill Barr? Barr was a loyal soldier for Trump almost until the very end:
“He is a consummate narcissist. And he constantly engages in reckless conduct. … He will always put his own interests, and gratifying his own ego, ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests. Our country can’t, you know, can’t be a therapy session for you know, a troubled man like this.”
This Cassidy Hutchison story is really useful as well. In response to a Republican lawmaker who asked her to reflect on what she was doing, she said:
“I hadn’t liked who I was, for a while. I knew in that moment I had to correct course for myself and come back to the person I wanted to be and the person I saw myself becoming when I entered public service.”
Trump tempts people to do bad things. He is good at it because it sometimes feels good to do bad things, or because they think the particular bad things are actually good. Sometimes they feel like the right things. He draws people to the darkness.
You can ignore this testimonial evidence–what it shows is an overwhelming fact pattern of people with direct access to Trump saying that he should not be allowed anywhere near the White House again. But you shouldn’t.
But what about the policy?
OK, fine, Trump’s policy program was not that far off from the American norm–he cut taxes, raised some tariffs (a bipartisan tradition), appointed some bog-standard Federalist Society justices. So how do we reconcile that?
My contention is that we dodged bullets in the last administration because of people like John Kelly, James Mattis, and Rex Tillerson, and that we would be foolish to count on similar people working for Trump in a second term. As a general rule, second term administrations have worse staff than first terms, and most second terms do not have such firm testimonial evidence from the people that worked in the first term.
This is why I think that the “prioritize policy over testimony” approach is foolish. The people that know Trump best are screaming bloody murder about the dangers of him being president again. They are in a better position to know than we are; we need to take their counsel seriously.
I don’t really need to predict the future here; I just know that the people in the best position to know are telling me that it’s not good. I have my suspicions: I think we withdraw from NATO; I think we move to a hyper-politicized Justice Department; I think we are even more distracted from ongoing aggressive moves from potential global competitors; I think we have zero attempt to grapple with the looming budget problems; I think the government starts to use force in unimaginably cruel ways on the southern border. I think there’s an outside possibility that Trump’s abuses of power cause some sort of constitutional crisis where he ends up being deposed by opponents in the administration, resulting in unimaginable damage to the American system of the peaceful transfer of power. (This basically happened on January 6 and 7, when Trump got pushed aside by Pence and the military, just in miniature. It could be much worse.)
I will suggest this story from the New York Times as well. We'd need to do more triangulation to figure out how true this is likely to be, but the alarm bells are screaming.
White House advisers encouraged a stream of corporate executives, Republican lawmakers and officials from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to tell Mr. Trump how damaging a border closure would be.
Mr. Miller, meanwhile, saw an opportunity.
It was his view that the president needed to completely overhaul the Homeland Security Department and get rid of senior officials who he believed were thwarting efforts to block immigrants. Although many were the president’s handpicked aides, Mr. Miller told him they had become part of the problem by constantly citing legal hurdles.
Ms. Nielsen, who regularly found herself telling Mr. Trump why he couldn’t have what he wanted, was an obvious target. When the president demanded “flat black” paint on his border wall, she said it would cost an additional $1 million per mile. When he ordered wall construction sped up, she said they needed permission from property owners. Take the land, Mr. Trump would say, and let them sue us.
When Ms. Nielsen tried to get him to focus on something other than the border, the president grew impatient. During a briefing on the need for new legal authority to take down drones, Mr. Trump cut her off midsentence.
“Kirstjen, you didn’t hear me the first time, honey,” Mr. Trump said, according to two people familiar with the conversation. “Shoot ’em down. Sweetheart, just shoot ’em out of the sky, O.K.?”
But the problem went deeper than Ms. Nielsen, Mr. Miller believed. L. Francis Cissna, the head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services until earlier this year, regularly pushed back on Mr. Miller’s demand for a “culture change” at the agency, where Mr. Miller believed asylum officers were bleeding hearts, too quick to extend protections to immigrants.
They needed to start with the opposite point of view, Mr. Miller told him, and start turning people away.
John Mitnick, the homeland security general counsel who often raised legal concerns about Mr. Trump’s immigration policies, was also on Mr. Miller’s blacklist. Mr. Miller had also turned against Ronald D. Vitiello, a top official at Customs and Border Protection whom the president had nominated to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
People like Stephen Miller are going to run the show in Trump's second term. The guardrails will be lifted entirely. Presidents without guardrails are dangerous. Executive power without measured moderation is dangerous. The best read of all this testimony suggests that Trump without guardrails will be a chimp with a machine gun. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to not allow Trump back near the White House. That’s where primary voters come in.
Normalcy Bias
I’ll close on “normalcy bias.” Normalcy bias is the idea that humans fail to take threats seriously because we are inclined to ignore them in favor of what we see every day. Normalcy bias caused the COVID disaster. I think people are guilty of it again. We think American democracy is inherently stable, but we forget the lessons of our Founders–that republican governance is inherently difficult. We imagine that we’re better than the Greeks or the Romans and fail to see that their representative governments collapsed in the face of irresponsible leaders and voters. There’s no reason to think we’re better than them. We’re flawed humans, just like they were.
Pre-COVID, I think a lot of Americans did well under Trump. Taxes were lowered, business did well, the job market was strong, wages went up, we continued our recovery from the collapse of 2008, and we didn’t enter into any new wars. (The vaunted “peace and prosperity.”) It’s reasonable to assume that we’ll go back to that path, and in the absence of the testimonial evidence, I might agree.
But the testimonial evidence around Trump is overwhelming: he is utterly unfit to be president. Do with that what you will.
