https://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/anonymous-speaks/Anonymous SpeaksI’ve tried to explain this phenomenon before. The short explanation is: every bureaucrat in Washington believes he or she should be president, no matter who technically holds the title. This is true in all agencies, at all levels. Never mind the claim that the author is a “senior official” somewhere or other. Anyone from the level of deputy assistant secretary to special assistants to Senate-confirmed ranks can make such a claim. If you want documentation, have a peek at all those employees expected to show up for work during a “government shutdown.” They’re all desperate to be classified “essential.”
It’s what Washington is all about. It isn’t treasonous or cowardly, it’s about ambition. You cannot imagine it until you see it unfold. When I worked for then-Secretary of State Haig, I was in a staff meeting one morning where Haig gave an explicit order to an assistant secretary, who of course responded, “Yes, sir.” Whereupon, within hours, he did the opposite. And kept his job! Really.
Anonymous has no end of allies, who are misdescribed as “resistance from within.” The New York Times op-ed could have been written most any time in the past many decades. Of course these ambitious cloak their ambition in the rhetoric of the “higher good.” As Anonymous says, “But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of the republic.”
What does this mean in simple English? It means that the bureaucrats have seen many presidents come and go, but they—Anonymous et al.—are still there, and will still be there post-Trump. So they will continue to work for smart policy, which is to say THEIR policy, never mind what that clod in the White House may want.
Meanwhile, I’m grateful the editors at the New York Times have helped clarify the workings of the swamp. It’s crucial to recognize that this is a long-standing and very widespread phenomenon. Funny how these “essential” officials are the very same swamp dwellers who purport to fear a Trump dictatorship, when they so often impose their own views without a proper policy debate.
