The Anonymous Resistance The writer who dares not speak his own name is no hero.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-anonymous-resistance-1536276239
One consequence of having such a polarizing and personally flawed man as President is the degree to which his opponents justify their own destructive excess in response. An example is Cory Booker consciously violating Senate rules Thursday in an attempt to deny Brett Kavanaugh a Supreme Court seat. (See nearby.) Another is the decision by a “senior official” to publish an op-ed in the New York Times describing the internal government “resistance” to Donald Trump.
Let’s stipulate that publishing an article with an anonymous byline is sometimes worth doing, and we have done it ourselves. In 1991 we shielded the name of a woman who was raped amid the debate over publishing the names of victims. We have published op-eds protecting the identities of writers who could face arrest or worse at the hands of dictators or terrorists, while informing readers that the author was using a pseudonym.
We don’t recall offering anonymity to someone in government or American politics, though perhaps we have and we can’t say we would never do so. It would depend on the circumstances. The op-ed in this case doesn’t meet those standards, not least because it isn’t news. The fact that senior Administration officials have been trying to block Mr. Trump’s uninformed policy impulses, and mute his self-destructive anger and narcissism, has been reported hundreds of times.
Recall when Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and others rushed to persuade Mr. Trump not to withdraw from Nafta on a whim in early 2017. Or how Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others persuaded him that NATO is in America’s interests. Or how White House counsel Don McGahn advised Mr. Trump against firing special counsel Robert Mueller. In these and many other cases the cooler heads prevailed, to the country’s benefit.
This week’s op-ed appears to have no such specific or noble purpose. An anonymous writer’s motive is impossible to know, but the op-ed is already having the opposite effect of its self-proclaimed virtue.
Surely the writer knew that such insider criticism in the anti-Trump New York Times would be like waving a red cape in front of a raging bull. Predictably, Mr. Trump is storming on Twitter and going on a mole hunt. Cabinet officers and senior intelligence officials are issuing denials that they are the author, and reporters are trying to get anyone important on the record. The U.S. looks foolish before the world, which makes us wonder if the writer’s real purpose is to assist the looming campaign for impeachment. This is certainly the New York Times agenda.
A willful Mr. Trump will do the opposite of what the writer wants if his identity is discovered. The honorable and more effective way for the author to accomplish his professed goal would have been to have kept working quietly inside the Administration, or resign and speak on the record.
One irony is that the same people praising Anonymous have for months been denouncing all who work for Mr. Trump as moral cretins who will be condemned by history. The anti-Trumpers are calling for purges and ostracism. Yet now Anonymous is a saint for baring his objections without a byline in the bulletin board of the anti-Trump resistance. Brave dude.
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As we wrote before the election, voting for Donald Trump meant taking a large risk on his manifest character flaws to get better policies. Given the binary choice of Mr. Trump or Hillary Clinton, 63 million Americans took a flyer on Mr. Trump without illusions.
On policy, Mr. Trump has been better than we expected, and the economy has climbed to a new growth plateau (even amid a misguided trade war). This is surely why many voters continue to approve of Mr. Trump’s performance despite his tantrums. His judicial picks are excellent, and his foreign-policy actions have been largely sensible—not including his rhetorical fawning over dictators.
The tragedy of this Presidency is that his rants and insults—even toward people who work for him—threaten to overwhelm his policy achievements. They fire up his loyalists but put off millions who expect better from a President. Mr. Trump is now determined against good advice to make this fall’s election a referendum on himself, and if Republicans lose the House the path to his destruction will accelerate.
As in the 2016 election, one argument millions see for supporting this President is the fury and vindictiveness of his opponents. The real heroes of this difficult period are the Mattises and McMasters, the Kudlows and Cohns, the McConnells and Ryans, who’ve worked for the good of the country amid the tumultuous personality in the Oval Office and the fevered resistance.
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