19 Nov 2016 10:32 pm
I told conservatives to work for Trump. One talk with his team changed my mind.
I am a national security Never-Trumper who, after the election, made the case that young conservatives should volunteer to serve in the new administration, warily, their undated letters of resignation ready.
That advice, I have concluded, was wrong.
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The tenor of the Trump team, from everything I see, read and hear, is such that, for a garden-variety Republican policy specialist, service in the early phase of the administration would carry a high risk of compromising one’s integrity and reputation.
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He gets credit for becoming a statesman when he says something any newly elected president might say (“I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future”) — and then reverts to tweeting against demonstrators and the New York Times.
By all accounts, his ignorance, and that of his entourage, about the executive branch is fathomless.
It’s not even clear that he accepts that he should live in the White House rather than in his gilt-smeared penthouse in New York.