BLACK IS WHITEDecember 13, 2019
In 1949, George Orwell published his iconic novel of dystopia, 1984. It presented the world divided into three with Orwell’s England part of Oceania, ruled by the tyrant—or perhaps an avatar—Big Brother. The key to Big Brother’s power was twisting language: war is peace, freedom slavery, ignorance strength. The two articles of impeachment brought against Donald Trump bring Orwell to mind.
On November 21st, Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chronicle assessed Republicans’ take on the impeachment inquiry. The conservative writer Brent Bozell tried to undercut a witness who appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. Sondland testified that yes, there was a quid pro quo. Bozell’s tweeted observation: “Listen to Sondland and you’ll understand why Americans elected Donald Trump to get rid of people like Sondland.”
Black for Bozell and countless others is white. Gordon Sondland, whom Donald Trump claimed not to know all that well—after Sondland testified—donated one million dollars to Trump’s inauguration. Hard to miss a guy like that. In turn, Trump appointed Sondland, who made his fortune with hotels, to his ambassadorial post. (Reminder: Wealthy donors with no experience in statecraft often receive such posts, sometimes critical ones, from presidents of either party.)
It appears that Americans had no intention of electing Trump so he could get rid of people like Sondland, because Sondland represents not the “deep state” but the moneyed state to which Trump caters.
And there is another Orwellian-type term: Deep state. This nation has—at least, had—a large roster of career professionals in the State and Defense Departments, among others. These folks, unlike Sondland, are not political appointees but career civil servants carrying out the nation’s business with hard-earned expertise.
But what better way to whip the far right into a frenzy than to claim a plot by these unelected professionals without whom the nation faces dissolving relationships with other countries, challenges to forming and maintaining economic and military alliances, and roadblocks to gathering intelligence regarding hostile nations and terrorist groups such as ISIS.
Then again, the far right believes in Fortress America going it alone. Yet for me, the image ofDeep Stateconjures not a threat by invisible men and women bent on violating our Constitution but the classic TV show, X-Files. The show loved conspiracies and portrayed a fictional deep with tongue in cheek.
During one meeting of the deep state’s small committee of movers and shakers, their leader, the Cigarette Man (played marvelously by William B. Davis), takes the group through the day’s order of business. In concluding, he insists that the Buffalo Bills never win the Super Bowl. Football fans got the joke. The Bills had appeared in four straight Super Bowls from 1991-94 and lost them all.
Now let’s go to last Monday. The Justice Department’s inspector general determined that the FBI had mishandled some of the processes regarding investigating foreign interference in the 2016 presidential campaign but the decision to investigate was proper and devoid of political prejudice. Trump’s response: The report was worse than he thought it would be. The FBI engaged in an “attempted overthrow” of the government.
So yes, black is white. Take it from the Oval Office. Or should I say, the Ellipsoid Headquarters of Alternative Reality?
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As a former member of the “Deep State” – 43 years as an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission – I have been heartened by the response of most commentators to the testimony of the career Foreign Service officers. I don’t think of them as patriots, any more than I thought of myself as a patriot. Rather, they are people who dedicated their careers to becoming knowledgeable about subjects that are of vital importance to the United States and who saw what was happening in the Trump White House as a betrayal of the values they had sworn to uphold.
(Interesting side note: all federal employees – except the President – take the same oath when they assume their duties. That includes every employee from secretaries, janitors and low-level clerical people to high-level professionals and Cabinet officials – and, yes, members of Congress. Some of us took our oaths more seriously than others apparently do.)
David, I have one word for you: Amen.