Blowback A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump

by Miles Taylor

A day later, I woke up to an encrypted message from Jim Dao. The New York Times editor who published my anonymous essay had sent me a link. It was an article written by Bret Stephens, entitled “Dear Anonymous Inside the Trump Administration.” The open letter was addressed to the still-masked author. “You… believed that your efforts to resist Trump were often successful,” he wrote. “On foreign policy, you noted, the Administration’s policies were far more sober and serious than the President’s reckless rhetoric. You were wrong. This week proves it.… You must know by now that you are no longer keeping a bad thing from getting worse. All you are doing is disguising how bad it is, thereby helping it to become worse.” Stephens closed with an exhortation. “Trump will never have trouble surrounding himself with ambitious and unscrupulous flunkies. Do you want that to describe you? Get out while you still can, whoever you are.”