DISCLAIMER: This essay does not refer to “The Oath Keepers,” the extremist “anti-government American far-right organization associated with the white supremacy and militia movements.” Those who keep their oath to defend the U.S. Constitution by becoming whistleblowers in the era of Trumpery are the heroes referenced here.
Most Americans have complained about the “faceless bureaucrats“ who make up the federal workforce. At the same time, many have grown increasingly cynical about commitments of any kind, including the idea of an oath of allegiance.
Extreme American individualism implies that we have no obligations to anyone but ourselves. The “invisible hand” will somehow take care of the social good. We imagine that federal workers are all just like that IRS agent who seemed so rigid in rejecting our claim that s/he should treat that questionable expense as a legitimate deduction. We pursue our life, liberty, and happiness in illusory isolation, demanding in the same breath that taxes be lowered and that the potholes be fixed.
Most of us never meet the many career professionals who work for the security of the nation in the Department of State, Defense, and several intelligence services. Whatever you, or they, think of national policies or covert practices at a particular time, they take an oath to defend the constitution and the nation. Yes, it can all get quite confusing, especially in an era of endless wars of choice where the national interest is not entirely clear.
Trumpery Destabilizes a Complex System
The current chaos in the executive branch resulting from presidential self-dealing and a paranoid style has turned patriotism on its head. Under these conditions, it is not easy to act as directed and at the same time honor one’s oath of office. Any failure of a civil servant to put the personal political interests of this president above the national interest ostracized, transferred, or “investigated” and vilified on social media.
Foreign Service professionals cannot perform the delicate arts of diplomacy when the president’s impulsive behavior conflicts with established national policies, law, and the Constitution.
The sudden resignation of Kurt Volcker and the removal of career ambassador Marie Yovanovitch reflect the deep corruption that saturates the White House.
As a Reuters story reported on Oct. 1, 2019:
Kurt Volker, who resigned last week as Trump’s special representative for Ukraine, was to go to Capitol Hill to give a deposition to House staff on Thursday, the day he had been asked to appear.
Marie Yovanovitch, who was U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until she was abruptly recalled in May, has agreed to appear on Oct. 11, not on Wednesday as originally requested.
With their deep knowledge of Ukraine, testimony by Yovanovitch and Volker could be especially important to the impeachment probe formally launched by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week.
It looks to me as though these professionals are ready to tell what they know. Yovanovitch will testify this week. Volker has already turned over many documents to Congressional investigators. The same lawyers represent a second White House whistleblower, another intelligence official, as represent the first.
As I watched events unfold over the last couple of years amid growing evidence of erratic executive decisions and operational chaos, along with speculation about impeachment, I thought of the “Seneca Cliff.” In all sorts of complex systems, both physical and human, “progress is slow but ruin is rapid.” The pattern fits the breakdown of mechanical systems, ecosystems, and societies alike. Graphically, it looks like this:
Growth is slow; ruin is rapid. Source: http://thesenecatrap.blogspot.com/
Complex adaptive systems are able to maintain stability because various negative feedback loops moderate any self-amplifying tendency for some subsystems to spin out of control. However, such moderating factors do not always work, or they might not even be present, which usually signals the impending collapse of the system. By applying these principles, we can better understand what happens when political systems begin to spin out of control, then sometimes re-stabilize and other times collapse leading to chaos followed by some new often ruthless regime. Our question is whether the corrupt Trumpist subsystem or the larger system of constitutional democracy will collapse.
Where are the Negative Feedback Loops?
In the present case, we can see that the American political system, ordinarily framed by the principles of the Constitution and assured of some level of stability by officials who take their oaths seriously and enact the operational principles of the system, has begun to spin out of control. The president-who-would-be-king violates constitutional principles, laws, and regulations daily, while routinely lying about everything.
Where are the “checks and balances” that would ordinarily maintain stability? They are there, but Trump routinely ignores or defies them, especially the one called “congressional oversight.” We are not used to an executive that cavalierly refuses to accept constitutionally established institutional relations.
Honor Rises
This is where the Oath Takers come into play. The anonymous White House Whistle-blowers are honoring the oath they took to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. An old military principle is that one should not obey an illegal order, although that rarely happens. When a dictatorial regime runs roughshod over the Constitution and the institutional balance in government by his blatant self-dealing and defying the separation of powers, only those willing to risk retribution and even death by honoring their oath can bring the system back into balance again by informing congressional oversight committees of the wrong-doing they observe. Inspectors General with exceptional access to information have also come forward.
The U.S. political system may right itself yet, once all the information becomes public, forcing senate minions of the aspiring tyrant to knuckle under to public pressure. The road ahead will be rough, but our system may yet stabilize leaving us the opportunity to address the real-world existential emergencies that confront us. When that happens, it will be largely due to the Oath Keepers about whom we might otherwise have known nothing.
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 