Perhaps no concept is more central to understanding the former Soviet system of totalitarianism than the apparatchik. The parallel deployment of party overseers to keep an eye on every facet of government activity defined what evolved in Russia beginning with the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. Both the clear line in the sand between civil servant necessary to make the trains run on time and party politicos there to make certain nothing counterrevolutionary went unnoticed, and the unspoken understanding apparatchiks generally had the final word, was the steroid required to distinguish Soviet despotism from run-of-the-mill authoritarians.
Indeed, throughout the Cold War the good faith and bipartisan confidence succeeding Presidential administrations afforded to careerists who constituted American bureaucracy provided the unarguable contrast of democracy’s superiority to what diplomat and historian George Kennan labeled the Kremlin’s “jealous preoccupations.” In fact our ability to vanquish the exceptions to this rule, most notably McCarthyism, have only strengthened our appreciation for it. Many now understand old Joe McCarthy could learn a few things from Donald Trump about baselessly attacking career public servants. What’s playing out in the House’s impeachment inquiry is a struggle to turn back a principle tenant of our first Fox/AM Presidency: that government is inherently incompetent and corrupt, requiring a political class to “drain the swamp” and ensure MAGA priorities are carried out despite the fact many contradict the mission statements of the departments they now infect.
Taylor, Kent, Yovanovitch, Vindman, Morrison all have testified to how jarringly irregular the Trump scheme to extort Ukrainian cooperation against Joe Biden was. From the moment EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland clumsily inserted himself into the policy stream Kyivgate has fully embodied Trumpism’s seditious war against the professional class US governance has always nurtured and depended on. These impeachment hearings clarify what anyone paying attention ascertained near three years ago, a Trump Presidency can only be a clash between the nihilist rabidity that propelled his candidacy and the steady competence of careerists with a job to do.
Sondland was merely a Soviet-style apparatchik, a prototype of what a Fox/AM Presidency seeks to deploy throughout US society, not only at the federal but state and local levels as well. From his first incursions into US-Ukraine relations Sondland made sure everyone with skin in the game knew he was a Trumpie, with direct authorization from the man himself to bend whatever continuity existed to White House whims. However things had been done, whatever best practices and communication flows had been established, would not be recognized if they became obstacles to White House objectives. As Taylor made clear, once Sondland got involved there became two US policies which almost immediately forced a choice of allegiance on the professionals, as they were now forced to participate in what they knew wasn’t either normal or appropriate. Guiliani was watching.
GOP House Intelligence Committee members last week found themselves in the unenviable position of either attacking the credibility of exemplary public servants or tacitly accepting the obvious: an open and shut case of impeachable extortion against a foreign country for the purpose of corrupting the 2020 US Presidential election. This dilemma was heightened still further when, as she was testifying, the POTUS actually tweeted out an attack against the ambassador he fired without cause. What to do?
The pasta they decided stuck most to the wall was to argue it is a President’s prerogative to be preoccupied with disloyalty, domestic or foreign. Executive intrigue eclipsing pesky things like the national interest is not for career foreign service officers to consider. Stick to your pay grade. Indeed, Republican Counsel Stephen Castor spent much of his time fleshing out conspiracy narratives in an effort to somehow create empathy for Trump’s grievance and paranoia of Ukraine as one of his original haters. Witnessing both Taylor and Kent struggle to follow along felt surreal and clarified the chasm between institutional competence and Fox/AM chaos, rationality and the fantasy martyrdom Trump always seeks to embrace when attacking institutions tasked with checking his recklessness.
The race to the bottom by Fox personalities is always neck and neck; lately the leader is Greg Gutfeld. Caustically nasty and utterly inane, to feel anything more substantive than a pressing desire to get back however many minutes of life one just wasted watching the shrill imp’s tired routine, requires checking even trace thoughtfulness at the remote. Yet and still, Gutfeld’s toxicity toward Marie Yovanovitch this weekend was illuminating, and perfectly illustrated this President’s reign of ugly vindictiveness. “Boo hoo,” Gutfeld taunted referring to the former ambassador’s testimony. The entitled snowflake had it coming… good for Trump. It’s us against them, and we know which one she is. Good riddance. You’re fired!
Any hesitation believing Gutfeld’s venom didn’t reflect the President’s thinking to the last wretched syllable wouldn’t survive a glance at his Twitter feed, where he proudly retweeted Rush Limbaugh’s take on Trump versus careerists. Rushbo gushed he had never supported Trump more than during last week’s proceedings:
“You elected Donald Trump to drain the Swamp, well, dismissing people like Yovanovitch is what that looks like. Dismissing people like Kent..and Taylor, dismissing everybody involved from the Obama holdover days trying to undermine Trump, getting rid of those people, dismissing them, this is what it looks like. It was never going to be claen (sic) they were never going to sit by idly and just let Trump do this!”
The articles of impeachment against Trump practically write themselves, and like his idiotic real time attack against Yovanovitch exemplified, he is far too unhinged to sweat adding to the list as he goes. But underwriting everything the Democrats do must be a clear understanding what’s most endangered by this atrocious Presidency…. the competence and integrity of US government institutions reflected in the ability of qualified careerists to do their jobs, free of apparatchiks looking for disloyalty to MAGA’s nihilism.
It’s an established fact the White House has no talent pool or even a functioning process to replace the exodus of qualified professionals hightailing it for no other reason than who is now President. A burgeoning class of Trumpie tattletales looking over the shoulders or outright excluding career professionals from policy and its execution portends disaster for the nation’s future as, forget world leader or even adequate provider of basic services, but a going democratic concern as well. House Republicans, in their defense of the President’s wretched Ukrainian scheme, are making clear that’s not a concern to them…. maintaining power, even if it requires the Sovietization of American government is just another consequence of Decision 16’….. get over it. That’s how ruin proceeds and four more years is not sustainable. BC