Even as pundits and reporters alike continue to parse through returns, the nauseating and nasty 2016 election is essentially over. And that means it’s time for the #NeverTrump movement to die.
The lingering protests against Trump and his incendiary policies, comments and alleged actions are understandable, because the level of angry rhetoric reached a fever pitch in the waning days of the campaign and people are genuinely scared.
That makes it even more troubling that experienced policy experts are continuing their resistance to Donald Trump – the man who was elected by their peers as the nation’s 45th president.
Dr Peter Mansoor, a former army colonel who was at Gen David Petraeus’ side when they devised the brilliant surge in Iraq, has vowed to never serve in a Trump administration. “He has said too many things that eat away at my ethical and moral foundation that would enable me to serve under him,” he told Business Insider after the election.
He’s not alone. Eliot Cohen, who worked in the Bush state department from 2007 to 2009, gave Trump a chance only to jump the Trump transition ship. “After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away,” he tweeted this week. “They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.”
And progressive groups and some lawmakers are now pressuring Democrats in Congress to put politics ahead of the nation. “It is unacceptable for Democratic leadership to normalize Trump and collaborate with him so long as he continues his bigotry, hatred, and division,” penned MoveOn.org executive director Ilya Sheyman.
But Trump’s very turn-offs are why the nation needs our best and brightest to surround our president-elect right now.
Trump’s a policy novice with no governing experience. In thinking about our president-elect it may be wise to look at the reasons given when Dr Ben Carson took his name out of consideration for a cabinet post.
“Dr Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency,” Carson’s friend Armstrong Williams said of the neurosurgeon this week.
That sentiment also applies to Trump. His business acumen may have had electoral appeal, but his transition team is in shambles because he’s surrounded by political animals who are more focused on doling out favors and exacting political revenge than on governing the greatest nation on earth.
Trump’s tapping of former Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon to be his senior White House adviser has rightly sparked outrage because of the terrifying realization that the man who shepherded and cultivated the alt-right for years will now have the president’s ear on a daily basis.
It’s also troubling that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is vying for an influential seat in the White House. Besides the appointment probably being illegal, Kushner has never been vetted by the American people, lacks any governing experience and is married to Ivanka Trump, who will continue to run Trump enterprises in daddy’s absence.
The urge to avoid this Trumpster fire is understandable. But the president needs a new brain trust – one with knowledge, an understanding of history, clear-eyed vision and dedication to the constitutional principles that make America great.
America can remain a shining city on a hill if Trump is surrounded by the nation’s finest experts, and not his political cronies, alt-right activists, conspiracy theorists and unelected family members. Serving under a President Trump doesn’t require one to bend their morals or basic ethics. If anything it should make government workers more aware of their constitutional obligations that supersede any one person sitting in the Oval Office.
For many it won’t be easy to serve under our soon-to-be President Trump, but your fellow citizens would be forever grateful if you were able to derail even one unethical proposal or to block one wacky idea from coming to fruition, or to stop just one late-night, vengeful tweet from being transmitted.
The United States has always been more than one man, and that’s not going to change just because Donald Trump is our commander-in-chief. That is, unless America’s most talented public servants put themselves and their reputations ahead of the nation in a time of dire need.
