The Covid-19 pandemic has provided extra time for reflection about the past and future direction of our nation. Simultaneously, however, the daily news cycle—dominated by news of the pandemic and President Trump’s antics—and now by widespread civil unrest arising from George Floyd’s killing—occludes wider vision. It may be timely for this retired lawyer and public servant to record his concerns about the many-faceted regression that we are undergoing. For ease of exposition, I register these concerns in order of biographical chronology and not necessarily significance—although all are significant.
Race Relations—In my lifetime, the nation has made extraordinary progress in redressing our “original sin” of slavery. When I was a teenager, in Washington D.C. and Easton, both were segregated. African Americans were excluded from restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, and were directed to separate schools. While I was in college in the early 1960s, the Civil Rights movement crested with King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial and Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Civil Rights legislation. Since those times, progress toward racial equality and justice has been uneven but dramatic in overall result. That the nation would elect an African American president in 2008 would have been inconceivable in 1962.
The cynicism with which President Trump has repeatedly appealed to baser instincts of some of his supporters and rekindled opposition to hard-won racial justice is both obvious and appalling.
Global Trade—In law school, I conducted an extensive analysis of how the United States led the post-war world to adopt liberalized international trade agreements. The key was moving away from narrow demands for bilateral “reciprocity” to a realization that broadened, multilateral trade relations under fair standards redounded to the benefit of all parties. The preoccupation of the Trump Administration with narrow forms of reciprocity has penalized U.S. consumers who bear the burden of higher tariffs and has jeopardized the continuation of robust international commerce. Certainly, there has been a need to call China to account for some of its illiberal practices, but imposition of so-called “national security” tariffs on Canadian steel is proof of the mindlessness of Trump’s ignorant and counterproductive trade policies. Here again, we regress.
Intelligence Community—I did my compulsory military service at the Central Intelligence Agency. There I worked with extraordinarily bright and patriotic colleagues. Though my first-hand knowledge is very much out of date, I remain persuaded of the integrity of intelligence professionals and of the importance of the intelligence community to the nation’s wellbeing.
It is deeply regressive for the President to ignore or disparage the work of intelligence professionals and woefully degrade the quality of the Director of National Intelligence.
Nuclear Arms—My father dedicated his career to nuclear arms control. From his example, wide reading, and brief direct involvement with nuclear weapons issues in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, I have long been persuaded of the paramount importance of limiting the prospects for renewed use of such weapons. In the past half-century, real progress has occurred in the reduction of nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia. Also, although to a lesser extent, the proliferation of nuclear weapons capacity has been limited. Most importantly, major weapons states have grown in their realization that nuclear weapons have no practical military utility even if necessary to maintain deterrence against their potential use.
The Trump Administration has threatened use of nuclear weapons against North Korea, given notice of withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range- Nuclear Forces Agreement, armed submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles with which to fight a “limited” nuclear war in the Baltic region, announced withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty, and hinted at the possible resumption of nuclear testing. In the view of this author, the Administration’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement is a serious mistake and may lead to further proliferation of nuclear weapons programs in the world’s most unstable region. Trump’s recklessness and ignorance in pursuing such policies led his first Secretary of State to call him an (expletive deleted) moron.
Rule of Law—In 1973, I served in the Office of the U.S. Attorney General in a period when the Justice Department successfully prosecuted a corrupt Vice President and resisted the effort of the Nixon White House to terminate a Special Prosecutor investigation that ultimately led to President Nixon’s resignation. These events helped reinforce the principle that the DOJ should be independent from untoward political pressures. Until the present Administration and the appointment of William Barr, these ideals largely prevailed for 45 years.
Although the Mueller investigation and the House Impeachment proceedings uncovered behavior on the part of President Trump as bad or worse than that of President Nixon, Trump has been insulated from accountability by the Attorney General Barr and by Republicans in the Senate. The apparent involvement of the White House in sentencing decisions and in terminating the prosecution of General Flynn is further evidence of regressive politicization of our justice system.
Global Institutions and Alliances—In 1977, I served in the State Department in an ongoing effort to negotiate a new Law of the Sea Convention affecting access to ocean resources, freedom of navigation and protection of the environment. The resulting convention, which has been approved by the vast majority of countries, but not the U.S., has high relevance with disputes looming over the South China Sea and the Arctic. This experience reinforced my belief in the importance of international agreements regarding global “commons” such as the ocean and my awareness of the difficulty of forging consensus in the U.S. regarding such agreements.
The Trump administration has shown a consistent disregard for international organizations and endeavors; witness recent withdrawal from the World Health Organization in the midst of a global pandemic, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and severe downgrade in the stature and qualifications of our U.N. representation. The President’s frequent expressions of doubt about the NATO alliance are additional evidence of his ignorance of the national interest in international cooperation. The American public has always been ambivalent about global engagements. It has been the responsibility of Presidents to overcome this ambivalence and, in so doing, serve the national interest. Trump’s regressive approach is to do the opposite—by pandering to nativist and nationalist sentiment. Not the least consequence of Trump’s behavior may be to cede international leadership to the Chinese. Yet, not so long ago, we proudly considered ourselves the “indispensable nation.”
Protection of the Environment–For nearly 30 years in private law practice, my principal involvement was with federal and state environmental law and regulation. Often, I was called upon to argue that particular provisions were overly stringent and not justified by any sober weighing of costs and benefits. Much of the time, my role was to explain to clients what they needed to do to comply with legal standards. I took away an understanding that environmental laws were necessary and often beneficial. Indeed, corporate clients welcomed uniform federal standards to ease the conduct of business throughout the 50 states in lieu of complying with a patchwork of rules. Nearly all federal environmental laws are the product of Republican Administrations, beginning in the Nixon era.
The Trump Administration has systematically undercut this network of environmental standards under the banner of reducing regulatory burdens –especially for the coal industry and to highlight its rejection of climate science as a supposed “hoax.” The coal industry is in severe decline for economic reasons independent of environmental regulations. And climate change is demonstrably not a hoax. Here again, the Trump Administration’s regressive behavior is cynical and ignorant. Indeed, some major corporations actively oppose parts of Trump’s deregulatory agenda. Closer to home, the Administration has sought to radically reduce funding for EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program and has declined to enforce its undertakings.
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Many Republicans say that they wish Trump would stop tweeting nonsense, but they otherwise like some of his policies. Given Trump’s regressive undercutting of decades of national endeavors previously supported by Republicans, Independents, and Democrats, it is difficult to divine what policies these present-day “Republicans” embrace. Possibly this recounting of one retiree’s perception of Trump’s broader, non-Twitter conduct will persuade a few, open-minded citizens, that the 2020 election will have profound consequences.
J.T. Smith served in the CIA, the Department of Health Education and Welfare, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce and the Department of State before becoming a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling. He retired to Easton in 2005.