In recent months has been a growing list of people warning about Donald Trump. Warning about who he is and what he would do if elected president a second time.
The list to which I specifically refer is not just any list. It is a special list composed of those who know him best because while he was president they worked alongside.
The reasons for their cautions range from Trump’s being a threat to democracy to his disdain for the truth to his being ill-informed and incurious. To say the warnings are singular in that they are unprecedented is evident. To say that based on everything we have long seen and repeatedly heard they have the ring of truth is equally evident. What is less evident is why given the experience and excellence of these Trump-dissidents the sound of their alarms has been muted. Rather than ringing through the land loud and clear they’ve been hard to hear.
Who are they, these dissidents? Generals and admirals. National security advisers. Cabinet members. Trump’s vice president. They are Americans in the highest echelons of their leadership ranks and yet. And yet their voices have not carried, they have not broken through.
Which is not to say they have had no impact whatsoever. Maybe, cumulatively, they made a modest difference. But they should have made more. We should have been shocked to the core when someone like retired U. S. Marine Corp General and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said that Trump had “nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.” But we were not. Why not?
- Because Americans are inured to Donald Trump – nearly immune to who he is and what he says and does.
- Because Americans are anyway deeply divided.
- Because of all the chatter and clatter – all that clamor coming at Americans every day and night.
- Because of when the criticisms were leveled. The harshest by far were leveled years after Trump left office. Too late.
- Because of how the criticisms were leveled. If you’re going to speak out think how best to be heard. Retired U. S. Army General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff including during the last two years of Trump’s presidency, told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump was a “fascist to the core.” Woodward then dutifully reported what Milley said. But Woodward channeling Milley is far less powerful, far less likely to resonate, than Milley saying whatever he has to say directly.
Today’s news cycle is a fierce and ferocious competition for attention. To break through you must speak very, very loudly, and very, very clearly, and very, very early. If you are too leery and too late there is no chance your voice will be heard as it should.