New Republic: Donald Trump Is Becoming an Authoritarian Leader Before Our Very Eyes

By Jeet Heer:

The purpose of the Trump administration’s lies is not necessarily to deceive, but to separate the believers from the disbelievers—for the purpose of rewarding the former and punishing the latter. As chess champion Garry Kasparov, an expert in authoritarianism as an outspoken opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, tweeted on Saturday:

Obvious lies serve a purpose for an administration. They watch who challenges them and who loyally repeats them. The people must watch, too.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) January 22, 2017

In an already hyper-partisan political landscape, the Trump administration can blatantly lie, knowing that his base trusts him more than the “dishonest media.” And that’s exactly what Trump did in his CIA speech, which was rife with deceptions and examples of a narcissistic will to reshape the truth. While telling a story about a Time magazine reporter who wrongly reported that Trump removed the Martin Luther King, Jr. bust from the Oval Office (a mistake that was quickly corrected, but which the Trump staff continues to harp on), the president went on a tangent about Time.

“I have been on their cover, like, 14 or 15 times,” he said. “I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine. Like, if Tom Brady is on the cover, it’s one time, because he won the Super Bowl or something, right?  I’ve been on it for 15 times this year. I don’t think that’s a record...that can ever be broken. Do you agree with that? What do you think?” (The all-time record is held by Richard Nixon, who appeared on 55 Time covers.)

Aside from these lies and factual mistakes, Trump’s speech was genuinely weird on a number of a counts. His intended purpose was to mend fences with the agency, with which he’s feuded over their conclusion that Russia interfered in the election to help him defeat Hillary Clinton. Yet he did very little to reassure CIA staff, only briefly acknowledging their sacrifice and service by alluding to a wall commemorating agents who died in line of duty.

Rather, Trump was in full campaign mode, attacking the media (“among the most dishonest human beings on Earth”) and praising himself (“they say, ‘is Donald Trump an intellectual?’ Trust me, I’m like a smart person”). He also indicated the U.S. might reinvade Iraq for imperial plunder. “The old expression, ‘to the victor belong the spoils’—you remember,” he said. “I always used to say, keep the oil...So we should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance.” The entire event was orchestrated like a campaign stop, so much so that Trump even brought along around 40 supporters, who could be heard cheering and clapping during his applause lines.

Turning a speech at an intelligence agency into a political rally is a deep betrayal of political norms. But it is very much in keeping with Trump’s disturbing habit of claiming the armed wing of the state, including the military and law enforcement, as his political allies. He said early in the CIA speech that “the military gave us tremendous percentages of votes. We were unbelievably successful in the election with getting the vote of the military. And probably almost everybody in this room voted for me, but I will not ask you to raise your hands if you did.” At the end of his speech, Trump sounded like a pathetic suitor making his final pitch: “I just wanted to really say that I love you, I respect you. There’s nobody I respect more.”

The Full Story (January 22, 2017)

New Republic: Trump’s War on the Intelligence Community Is All About Ego

By Jeet Heer:

Still, that’s par for the course when it comes to Trump’s tweets. But now we’re learning that his feud with the intelligence community goes beyond Twitter. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Trump believes the nation’s top spy agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has become “bloated” and “politicized.” Trump and his advisors are “also working on a plan to restructure the Central Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the world.” An anonymous source close to the Trump transition told the Journal, “The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized. They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”

As president, Trump would be perfectly within his rights to question findings by the intelligence community and restructure it to suit his needs. He also wouldn’t be the first president to feud with the intelligence community—at his own risk. “No president has ever taken on the CIA and come out looking good,” an unnamed White House official told the Journal. This is perhaps too sweeping a judgement, but there is definitely a troubled history.

* * *

On CNN on Wednesday, former CIA official Philip Mudd said Trump “can question the intelligence. He cannot humiliate the people who have offered their lives to collect that intelligence.” The word “humiliate” is key. The president-elect, as always on Twitter, is playing a game of dominance, asserting his alpha-male right to rule. The problem is that a humiliated intelligence community will also be a hobbled one, much more likely to tell the president what he wants to hear and not offer the critical analysis that informs good decision-making. Such an intelligence community might also seek a more receptive audience, in the form of leaks to the press, and then Trump himself would be the humiliated one.

The Full Story (January 5, 2017)