Loyalty to Trump (sun king) isn't enough [View all]

[niyad]

Loyalty to Trump isn’t enough

Tillerson: ‘I have never considered leaving this post’
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addressed Oct. 4 news reports that he'd considered resigning his post. (The Washington Post)
By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer October 5 at 7:49 PM

Do President Trump’s Cabinet members have to call him “Dear Leader” when graced by his august presence? Must they enter the Oval Office on bended knee? Do they weep with joy when he reaches out a delicate hand and pats their bowed heads? One of the most appalling aspects of the Trump presidency is the sycophancy he requires of the officials who serve him. Trump demands not just loyalty but flattery, too. He insists that his courtiers treat his pronouncements, however absurd or offensive, as infallible holy writ. Members of his Cabinet have made a humiliating bargain: humor him, suck up to him, and maybe — just maybe — he will leave you alone and let you make policy. Or maybe not. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been working as best he knows how to address the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program through diplomacy. Trump undercut him with a tweet, saying Tillerson was “wasting his time.”

If Trump actually believes there is a viable military solution to the North Korea problem, he’s even crazier and more dangerous than I thought. More likely, in my view, is that Trump is annoyed at Tillerson for being insufficiently servile. I doubt the president has forgotten or forgiven Tillerson’s reaction to Trump’s deeply offensive “many sides” analysis of Charlottesville. “The president speaks for himself,” Tillerson coldly said.

And Trump clearly went ballistic Wednesday at the NBC News report that Tillerson, during a meeting with defense officials, had referred to him as a “moron.” The president loosed a flurry of tweets claiming the whole thing was “fake news,” culminating in a demand Thursday for a congressional investigation of news outlets whose reporting he does not like.

This is happening in the United States.

Tillerson is no diplomatic genius, but he is no flunky, either. He occupies an office established by the Constitution and once held by Thomas Jefferson. It was painful to see him have to call a news conference — which he never does — to deny that he actually called the president a moron. Except that he didn’t deny it. He later sent out a spokeswoman to say “the secretary does not use that type of language.”


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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/loyalty-to-trump-isnt-enough/2017/10/05/297a9d30-a9fb-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html?utm_term=.e74d6f05fc94