PDF Summary:A Warning, by Anonymous

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1. He constantly undermined democratic principles and institutions.

White House officials considered extreme measures to warn the country of the president’s lawless and rash behavior—for instance, resigning en masse the way several top officials did during the Nixon administration after the president fired a special prosecutor, an event dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre. However, Trump’s advisors ultimately rejected the idea for fear it would make things worse—although they got worse anyway.

Final Straw

How bad things were hit home for the author when Trump reacted with pettiness and vindictiveness to the August 25, 2018, death of war hero and former senator and presidential candidate John McCain.

McCain was one of the country’s great statesmen. After his military service, he built an extensive legacy as a public servant, including service as a member of Congress, a two-time presidential candidate, and a U.S. senator. Speakers at his memorial services, including former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, extolled McCain for embodying the principles of service and duty. However, Trump hated McCain and resented the attention he received in death.

His...

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Things were in disarray, and instead of forming a Lincolnesque “team of rivals,” Trump ended up with “rival teams” jockeying for advantage. Factions and conspiracies developed, and the early days in the White House became a real-life version of Trump’s former TV show, The Apprentice. As he’d done on his show, Trump encouraged infighting.

Nonetheless, a cadre of respected, experienced Republicans signed on with the administration, resulting in a fairly competent cabinet. Their presence helped ease worries about his disruptive style and also diminished some of the infighting.

But because they didn’t know Trump, the newcomers were unreasonably optimistic they would be able to focus on governing. Immediately upon interacting with the new chief executive, they could see something was off. Trump remained obsessed with his victory, carrying around electoral maps, which he introduced into nearly every discussion. He continued to focus on defeated opponent Hillary Clinton as well as on his predecessor, Obama.

Quickly displaying his impulsiveness, Trump issued a stream of executive orders intended to negate Obama policies, slash regulations, and spark economic growth. While...

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Defining Character

In our nation’s history, unprincipled presidents have at times succeeded. They’ve broken promises or cheated on their wives, while still pursuing wide foreign policy or championing important domestic causes.

But the good must outweigh the downside rather than the reverse. James Buchanan has been deemed our worst president because his immoral defense of slavery and Southern slaveholders outweighed his efforts to stave off civil war, which might have been a good.

In the end, a president’s character defines his or her presidency. Further, the president’s behavior sets the tone for public discourse and models civic engagement for young people.

History shows us that power tests a leader’s character. Trump has been tested and his character revealed. His character overshadows the character of all Americans because his reputation is also ours. We need to ask ourselves whether it reflects who we are or aspire to be.

The Roman statesman Cicero believed that to be good or moral, a leader had to demonstrate the “cardinal virtues” of wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice—and that morals determined behavior. The rest of this chapter looks at how Trump...

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He wasn’t driven by conservative principles. He’d changed his party registration five times over thirty years, praised Hillary Clinton, and donated to Democrats. He declared himself a conservative when it suited his interests, treating conservatism as another Trump product to be gussied up and branded with the Trump name.

Some Republicans recognized him as an imposter, including the late columnist Charles Krauthammer and at first, radio host Rush Limbaugh. Instead of campaigning on substance, Trump spent his time demeaning other candidates; he treated the primary debates like playground battles. When he did express views, they were anti-conservative—for instance, he expressed interventionist ideas for the economy. He kept winning and Ryan’s inoculation plan failed.

With Trump as president, the Republican Party is now a mass of contradictions. Trump’s greatest deviations from conservative principles have concerned the size of government, defense, immigration, and the economy.

An Advocate for Big Government

Trump is a champion of big government, although he decries Democrats for having socialist views. In some ways, the government under Trump is even larger...

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To Trump, however, civil servants constitute a Deep State trying to thwart and destroy his presidency. What Trump really fears is that they’ll expose his incompetence or self-serving actions. Trump’s flunkies and his promoters on cable television echo the Deep State fantasy to curry favor with him and his base. In reality, members of the Deep State are people Trump doesn’t like.

The idea of a traitorous Deep State has permeated the administration. Public servants in the executive branch may be cut out of the loop on suspicion of being disloyal. Meetings are designated as being for “politicals only,” or restricted to presidential appointees. Sometimes they take place in the secure Situation Room to prevent civil servants from overhearing anything.

Among the problems with the Deep State obsession are the following:

• The only information Trump gets comes from inexperienced political appointees, whom he deems loyal, and who typically agree with him.
• Civil servants, particularly those who question the president’s agenda, aren’t being allowed to do their jobs. As a result, expert opinions are marginalized—for example, scientists studying the effects of climate change...

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Unpredictable Foreign Policy

Trump announced his “America First” foreign policy theme in April 2016, resurrecting the old isolationist slogan, intentionally or not, of those who opposed U.S. involvement in World War II. He also argued that we needed to become more “unpredictable” and stop alerting other nations to what we plan to do. Although his meaning wasn’t clear, the word unpredictable does sum up Trump’s foreign policy.

Partly for lack of direction, Trump’s national security team was slow in coming together. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis had international experience, but they weren’t on board with Trump’s isolationist views. Trump fired his national security advisor Mike Flynn after a few weeks for lying to the FBI about his contacts with high-ranking Russians. For a while, no one seemed to be in charge until Gen. H.R. McMaster replaced Flynn and tried to get everyone on the same page.

The problem was that no one knew what to expect from Trump. He might try to end a trade agreement with Canada after getting angry over a phone call with the prime minister. Or he might want to cut funding to an ally. His actions created...

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The words of our presidents—their writings and speeches—are compiled in volumes called The Public Papers of the Presidents, which are on display near the official entrance to the White House. The words in these volumes shaped our nation and the world. For instance, Abraham Lincoln’s words helped heal the wounds of the Civil War. Rather than inspiring national unity, however, Trump’s words further polarized us and weakened democracy.

His presidential papers will begin with the gloomy portrait of the country—a scene of “American carnage”—painted in his inaugural address: of mothers and children trapped in poverty, factories decaying, our education system failing our children, and rampant crime. And while we hand out money to other countries, they steal our innovations and destroy our jobs.” Trump vowed that under his administration, Americans would start “winning again” and be “unstoppable.”

While these scripted remarks were aggrieved and gloomy in tone, they were far more articulate than most of what Trump says, which is unscripted, crude and divisive.

Encouraging Division

Trump’s words encourage insult and animosity. In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump memorably...

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Trump’s original Republican critics were right about him. Their words remain valid, although the ethics of the people who uttered them have changed.

The ‘Island of Misfits’ and Apologists

Over the years, in his business and television career, Trump built “an island of misfit apprentices.” During the campaign he collected even more—the campaign was “a magnet for third-rate talent.” While many of these people accompanied him to the White House, experienced political hands also were able “to push many of the lackeys aside.”

However, with the decline of the Steady State today, another group is on the rise: apologists.

Chief among them is Mick Mulvaney, who traveled a long way from vehement Trump critic to director of the Office of Management and Budget to acting chief of staff. His approach has been to “Let Trump be Trump.” Rather than challenging the president’s awful ideas, he urges staff to make them work or make them more acceptable. Mulvaney, who had blasted Trump as “a terrible human being,” now seeks to make him a bit less bad.

Embarrassing errors have multiplied.For instance, in his desire to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan at any cost, Trump almost...

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The Twenty-Fifth Amendment

What if the president were mentally unfit to carry out the duties of the office? The Constitution’s Twenty-Fifth Amendment provides a path to removal, but the consequences of taking it are almost unimaginable.

However, at one point, the idea came up in informal conversation. In the weeks after Trump fired FBI director Comey, his “behavior was so erratic …that a number of administration officials worried about his mental state.”

Under the amendment, if Vice President Pence and a majority of the cabinet believed Trump couldn’t perform his duties, they could remove him by providing the Senate president and the Speaker of the House with a “written declaration” that the president is unable to perform his duties and the vice president will immediately become acting president.

This was not an action White House officials were preparing to take. While nearly everyone agreed it was irresponsible to speculate, concerns were so strong that they:

• Talked about what to do if things got worse and what level of instability would warrant removal.
• Created an informal listing of those willing to “huddle to assess the situation if necessary.”
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We can still “drain the swamp” by firing Trump and electing a new Congress. But we need to change as well. As a nation, we need to reflect on who we once were, who we are, and who want to be.

We are headed for civic and moral collapse because we’ve lost an understanding of our history.

Most Americans don’t know why and how our democracy was created and how it works. Many can’t name their state representatives or members of Congress and many don’t vote.

We need a civic revival, in which we relearn the lessons of our nation’s founding and apply them to our modern, technologically driven world. We need to:

• Reclaim truth by rejecting misinformation and refusing to be gullible. This requires changing how we report, consume, and share news, so we aren’t living in different realities.
• Re-learn how to disagree civilly with people who hold different political views. This requires leaving our echo chambers and opening our minds to shared interests.
• Interact face-to-face, in our communities. Participating in voluntary organizations was once a characteristic of American life. We need to engage with each other on issues close to home.
• Educate young people on...