Retired U.S. military officers as well as diplomats have recently voiced alarm over Donald Trump’s presidency.
General James Mattis, Trump’s former secretary of defense, finally broke a long silence and wrote in an article for The Atlantic:
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try,” Mattis wrote. “Instead he tries to divide us.”
Further, he wrote: “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort,”
Mattis is one of several retired officers who have spoken of their alarm at what they see as Trump’s damage to American democracy.
Retired diplomats also have spoken out against politicizing the U.S. Foreign Service. Writes a former assistant secretary of state with over three decades of diplomatic experience:
“By using his public office for personal gain, Trump has affirmed Putin’s long-held conviction—shared by autocrats the world over—that Americans are just as venal and self-absorbed as they are, just more hypocritical about it. For dictators, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, a non-stop advertisement for Western self-dealing.” (William J. Burns, “Demolition of U.S. Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs, 14 October 2019.)
What are we to make of this unprecedented outpouring?
Pointing to a way out, Mattis. writing after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, said, “We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”