Democracy Experts Scorned by Trump Are Plotting to Sabotage Democracy

I have just come across the most remarkable story in the news outlet NOTUS. Its headline is, “Trump Fired Them. Now They’re Plotting to Stop Him,” and yet, despite its explosive subject matter, it is written in the sort of dry, matter-of-fact tone that one would typically associate with a report on the most recent meeting of the county drainage board. In fairness, too little editorial comment is a lesser sin in this type of article than too much, but, given the astounding implications of the facts the author relates, I thought that it deserved a good deal more comment that it received, and so, having picked my jaw up from its new home atop my keyboard, I resolved to provide just that.

The story starts like this:

Some of the democracy-building experts President Donald Trump fired this year from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department are now reapplying the skills and knowledge they built up over decades to undermine Trump’s power.

For years, these officials were stationed across the globe actively supporting opposition movements in autocratic nations. Now they’ve got time, a network of former colleagues and a growing sense of moral indignation.

Ah, interesting. They’re angry with the president, so they’re going to try to persuade their fellow citizens that Trump and his party are bad, or bring a lawsuit against actions they believe to be illegal, or run for office on an anti-Trump platform, then?

Er, no. Actually, that’s not what they mean at all:

“Take it from those of us who worked in authoritarian countries: We’ve become one,” said a currently employed federal official, who spoke to NOTUS on condition of anonymity. “They were so quick to disband AID, the group that supposedly instigates color revolutions. But they’ve done a very foolish thing. You just released a bunch of well-trained individuals into your population. If you kept our offices going and had us play solitaire in the office, it might have been safer to keep your regime.”

Sorry, what? I’ve read this five times now, and I can see no way of comprehending it other than as an insane threat to bring down the American government. The official mentions “color revolutions”; he mentions being representative of “a bunch of well-trained individuals”; and then he says that if the president of the United States wishes to keep his “regime,” he ought not to have fired them. Naturally, this represents a flagrant inversion of how our system of government works. We cannot have a democratic republic if the hired help responds to being let go by endeavoring to stage a coup. Donald Trump was elected fair and square. These bureaucrats were not. To imply that Trump’s presidency cannot survive their dismissal is to reject the American constitutional order root and branch.

The story continues:

The former officials tell NOTUS they’re holding workshops on a tactic called “noncooperation.” They’re building a network of government workers willing to engage in even minor acts of rebellion in the office. And they’re planting the seeds of what they hope could become a nationwide general strike.

Again, for those in the cheap seats: There is no such thing as “noncooperation” or “acts of rebellion” within the executive branch. There are three branches of the national government under our Constitution, and they each have different roles to play. Between them, “noncooperation” and “rebellion” are fine concepts — providing that they each stay within the law. But separation of powers does not exist inside the presidency, and a “network of government workers” that is engaged in insubordination against the elected official to whom they are accountable is not a “check” or a “balance,” but a mutiny.

Or, if one were looking for a slightly more charged word, one might choose . . .

Some in the informal network of Trump opponents are sharing an old CIA pamphlet with allies who still work in the government: It’s called “Simple Sabotage.”

“Widespread practice of simple sabotage will harass and demoralize enemy administrators and police,” it says. “The saboteur may have to reverse his thinking . . . where he formerly thought of keeping his tools sharp, he should now let them grow dull; surfaces that formerly were lubricated now should be sanded; normally diligent, he should now be lazy and careless.”

It is worth stopping for a moment at this juncture to remember that, irony of ironies, this is the response of a group of people whose primary complaint is that they were let go. Typically, when one is disappointed about being fired, one resolves to make it evident that one was far more virtuous, hardworking, loyal, and valuable than had been thought. In this case, by contrast, the cavilers are making an extremely solid case against their being within 100 miles of any position of responsibility ever again. “Don’t fire me, I do good work” is a persuasive case. “Don’t fire me, or I’ll try to destroy you from within by being lazy, dull, and perfidious” is not — especially when it comes from a self-described “democracy-building expert.”

Ultimately, one gets the impression that the cabal is full of people who have rather lost touch with reality. As NOTUS explains:

The community is composed of diplomats and human rights activists who were once on the U.S. government payroll encouraging Latin American dissidents to fight dictators and supporting African independence movements. They were involved to varying degrees with an ultimately successful uprising in the Middle East.

That the “community” cannot distinguish between the United States under Trump and the countries to which they were previously sent is myopic and bizarre. But that failure pales in comparison to the absurdity of the inevitable comparison that is drawn in paragraph nine:

One group that has, until this story, remained under the radar but is starting to play a prominent role in this space is “DemocracyAID.” It has no website or formal legal entity — yet. But it’s already hosting invite-only workshops with federal employees who hear about them from friends, vetting each person before they’re allowed into a trusted circle and teaching them case studies, like the Danish underground insurgency against Nazi occupation.

There it is: “Nazi occupation.” Quite how this is supposed to make sense — let alone stay consistent with the worldview of those who call themselves “democracy officers” — isn’t quite clear. In World War II, Denmark was a sovereign country whose elected government was toppled violently by an illegitimate, unelected foe. Here, the illegitimate, unelected foe is supposed to be the elected president, and the sovereign country with the elected government is supposed to be the unelected bureaucrats who don’t even work there anymore, and — look it’s probably best not to think too hard about it all, and instead to move on to the next analogy that is drawn, which is, of course:

Without skipping a beat, several pointed to “Star Wars” and said the show “Andor” is nothing short of a manual.

“Fascism is not creative,” said one former government expert in conflict. “There’s only so many ways to do it. That’s why it’s almost cliché to the point where we ask, ‘What are we, Darth Vader? The Empire? The Nazis?’ The comparisons draw ridicule because people who don’t know enough about it don’t realize there aren’t too many ways to do it.”

I am, admittedly, not a Certified Democracy Expert, but I don’t actually think that that’s why these comparisons are drawing “ridicule.” Rather, I think that the comparisons are drawing ridicule because they are ridiculous, and that those making them are inspiring opprobrium because they are undermining the plain terms of the Constitution. “Democracy” does not mean “thing I personally like.” “Fascism” does not mean “thing I personally dislike.” And talking merrily about inspiring a “color revolution” in the United States because you dislike your current or former boss is not bravery or iconoclasm; it is lunacy. Despite the nonchalant tone that NOTUS takes, this is not merely another chapter of our quotidian politics; it is rank third-worldism masquerading as democratic principle. It must not stand — not under this president, or the next one, or the one after that. Of all the “light and transient causes,” these are some of the silliest yet. You’re not a “democracy officer”; you’re a very naughty boy.