About Those Unelected Bureaucrats
President Trump (on Amb. Marie Yovanovich: "Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it."
Secretary Pompeo (asked if he owed Yovanovich an apology): "I have defended every State Department official."
A senior Foreign Service officer to me (on Pompeo et al.): "A bunch of moral cowards lacking in personal decency or a sense of real leadership."
Never in our modern history have we had a president so hostile to the apparatus of his own government. Joe McCarthy inflicted serious damage on governmental institutions and personnel, especially the State Department, but he was one senator abetted by a craven Congress and two pusillanimous presidents until a lone but courageous government lawyer called him out publicly. Suddenly, the tyrant had no clothes and he faded into an alcoholic haze and well earned early death.
Trump and his horde of nihilistic GOP banshees, speaking of civil servants, snarl, "Obama holdovers!" "Deep State!" "Radical unelected bureaucrats!" "Never Trumpers!" And the president actually follows up his anti-government tirades with purges at the FBI and Justice Department, as well as State. What's that his QAnon-addled storm troopers bellow? Ah, yes. "Keeping promises."
Though not the first government-basher to occupy the White House (remember The Gipper?: "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem"), Trump has whipped up the anti-government fever into a frenzy among his moonies.
Apart from servilely fulfilling instructions from his pimp, Vladimir Putin, why does Trump do this? He does it to whip up his base of "low information" zombitrons who gladly cash those government disability checks after wrecking their health with opioids or meth. Trump cleverly taps into a populist contempt and fear of government that harks back to 1776. The unanswered question is how he thinks he can win re-election with 30-something percent of the vote. Even the murky alchemy that is the Electoral College can't fudge that one.
The State Department and its diplomats have always been a favorite bugaboo of populist and arch-conservative politicians. In fact, any institution where the average brain power rises above a 60 IQ level is fair game. Diplomats are rigorously recruited for their intelligence and social skills. But they are popularly viewed as "effete" eggheads who tend to dress well, have good table manners and use proper grammar. How many Hollywood movies can you name that feature diplomats as heroes? Or as anything at all? ("55 Days at Peking" is the only one that readily comes to my mind).
Joe McCarthy, of "While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205" fame was, of course, a Republican. As was Senator Jesse Helms, whose budget-slashing of State and arbitrary blocking of ambassadorial nominees disrupted U.S. diplomacy for many years. He once dismissed U.S. diplomats as a bunch of "do-as-we-please bureaucrats" - about as far from the truth as one can get in describing State's super-cautious functionaries.
I once had a run-in with a Helms staffer. Puffing on a big cigar at a party, he smugly told me, "We're here to help you." The pot-bellied, side-burned Tar Heeler was one of Helms's Einsatzgruppers who spear-headed all manner of destructive actions against the department and its people. I told him, "No thanks. We don't need your 'help'."
Another Helms staffer, a fast-riser with way too much power for a 23-year old ex-campaign agitprop, took a liking to me when I was senior Afghanistan country officer. I think he appreciated my bluntness, but he also was perplexed by Foreign Service officers. In one early encounter, he asked me my political party affiliation. I, in turn, asked him if he posed such a question to military officers. He answered in the negative. "Same principle goes for us," I said, and went on to give the young man a basic civics lesson about government workers.
Years later, he called me out of the blue and asked me out to lunch. More mature, now with a law degree, he was counsel to a Senate committee. He thanked me for enlightening him about how the executive branch works and what civil servants are all about. I like to think I saved one soul from becoming another Einsatzgrupper.
Despite the positive press coverage of the Foreign Service officers who testified in the House impeachment hearings, morale at the State Department is at rock bottom. A recent inspector general’s report documents "hostile and disrespectful treatment" of career employees by Trump political appointees, including "retaliation" for perceived disloyalty. Trump political appointees, like the young Helms staffer, don't get that public servants are apolitical and serve whatever president happens to be in office - no different than the military. Hence, they hold dark suspicions of "Obama holdovers."
Employees have told me they work in an atmosphere of deep caution, often bordering on fear. One Foreign Service officer said, "People were following the Hill hearings very intently, though nobody was saying anything because you couldn’t know whether the person next to you was a political appointee." Another, who recently resigned in protest, said there is a pervasive sense of "learned helplessness." Few believe Secretary Pompeo has their backs, particularly following his studied refusal to defend Marie Yovanovitch.
I fear we ain't seen nothing yet. After Trump's inevitable acquittal, he'll be hell-bent on settling scores, starting with those who testified before Congress in defiance of explicit White House orders not to. A recharged, unfettered Trump will complete the destruction of the State Department and likely go after the intelligence community and FBI in dead earnest. Just as Putin instructed him.