If you’re still working for Trump, his stink won’t ever wash off
Twenty months ago — four months into President Trump’s tenure — I tried my best to warn members of his team that even at that early stage, if you worked for Trump, it was time to quit. Whatever initial enthusiasm you had for the man, whatever your ambitions, however indispensable you thought you were in the attempt to smooth his rough edges, the smart move was to get out.
“https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/18/if-you-work-for-trump-its-time-to-quit/?utm_term=.5bdaa52ff0b9 (Do it now),” I wrote, to preserve your professional reputation or a semblance of dignity.
But if, at this stage, you’re like former White House aide Cliff Sims, recently out with a book about Trump’s discombobulated “Team of Vipers” — but still
telling interviewers how “proud” you were to work for him — you’re too late.
If you’re former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R),
currently on the talk-show circuit, regaling us with tales of Trump’s hubris — mere weeks after
interviewing for the White House chief of staff job — you’re too late. If you’re former congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), and you just accepted the job of acting White House chief of staff — your third Trump administration gig — the word “acting” in your title is an insufficient fig leaf. You’re definitely
acting, just not in the way you think.
There was a window of time during which giving Trump a chance was justifiable out of a sense of duty to country. You might have been vindicated for doing so if Trump had surprised us all and made good on his https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-i-can-be-more-presidential-than-all-us-presidents-except-lincoln/2017/07/25/d416d2ea-7193-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_video.html?utm_term=.2081a39c597d (boast) that, “with the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office.”
But that window closed. You had ample opportunity to see, up close, the capriciousness, vainglory and allergic reaction to facts that the rest of us saw from afar. If you’re just now disavowing Trump, or explaining away your support for him, don’t bother. You own it. Leaving 2016 to 2019 blank on your LinkedIn page won’t save you from disgrace.
In the words of Ed Lover:
C’mon, son. Lack of self-awareness is a terrible quality, even for a toady.
From this point on, any freshly departed Trump staffer’s public postmortem will only help fill in the blanks. It will add nothing to the by-now-plain-as-day big picture: Trump is the worst president ever. Only a suck-up won’t admit it.
If you’re the next press secretary, policy adviser or White House counsel contemplating a melodramatic, self-absolving throwing-in of your Trump-caddying towel, don’t expect hosannas from the public in return for your pseudo-courage. You might hope Trump’s stench will fade, but I’ll still smell it. If there’s any justice left, everybody else will, too. Like a bad ‘80s haircut, your political cowardice will be forever preserved on the Interwebs. Your 15 minutes of shame won’t rehabilitate you, because selling out your Trump-world cronies can’t erase your original sin: selling out your country.
So peddle your fictional nonfiction. Write your anonymous op-eds. It won’t matter. For a year, or two, or more, you stood athwart history
yelling: “Thank you, sir! May I have another?” You served a man bent on division and distraction. You helped him make America
grate again. Even after he leaves office, you won’t be able to live it down.