Trump's Dangerous Wannabes

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The Atlantic
@TheAtlantic
"I am struck by how much the Constitution was threatened not only by outsize figures such as Donald Trump, but even more so by mediocre men and women who thought their moment of glory had finally arrived," @RadioFreeTom writes in the Atlantic Daily:

theatlantic.com
Trump’s Dangerous Wannabes
Meet the ambitious mediocrities who almost brought down American democracy.
5:19 PM · Jun 18, 2022

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/06/trumps-dangerous-wannabes/661309/

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https://archive.ph/XpFMh

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The Quiet Ones

Donald Trump, a petty and small man, is nonetheless a larger-than-life public figure. Investigating his attack on our elections is like staring into a klieg light: It is unpleasant, doesn’t reveal very much, and leaves you temporarily blinded to everything around you.

The January 6 committee, however, deserves a great deal of credit for illuminating the dangerous mediocrities on whom Trump relied for his mischief—the men and women who were certain that their moment had finally arrived. These people—call them the Third String—thought that they were finally going to The Show, and they were going to burn the Constitution if that’s what it took to stay there.

Consider, for example, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, a minor Justice Department official who sought to oust his own boss and get Trump to make him the attorney general, after which Clark would try to overturn the election results. (Clark has denied that he attempted the ousting.) “History is calling,” Clark told Trump, in what must have been his most Very Serious Adviser voice.

What kind of person does that? The kind considered “quiet” and “nerdy” by his colleagues, according to a 2021 New York Times profile, but who apparently thought he was slated for greater things. He was “not known for being understated on the topic of himself,” the Times noted. “Where the typical biography on the Justice Department website runs a few paragraphs, Mr. Clark’s includes the elementary school he attended in Philadelphia, a topic he debated in college and that he worked for his college newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.”

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