The Worst and the Dimmest

The Atlantic Debacle

Most relatively informed citizens will be aware by now of the biggest news story that has come out of this administration: national security officials accidentally added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal group chat where they discussed operations against the Houthis in Yemen.

Obviously, this is a serious breach of security protocol and seems to have violated several federal laws as well. But to journalists, historians, and—we must imagine— foreign intelligence analysts across the world, it’s a remarkable glimpse inside the process of deliberation of an existing presidency. The minutes of such high councils of state are usually only available years after the fact and are combed through by historians in great detail to understand decision-making processes of past administrations. And since there’s so much that’s confusing and unclear about this regime these revelations are particularly valuable.

My high-level takeaway is “what you see is what you get. These guys might look like idiots, and talk like idiots, but don’t let that fool you: they really are idiots. I suppose there is a small possibility that this was some kind of “op” — an intentional leak to Goldberg and the Atlantic — but to what end? It makes them look amateurish and bad at their jobs. To a president obsessed with image, this is even more important than the actual national security implications.

This leads me to my second point: the shallowness and thoughtlessness of it all. Granted, we did not get to see the actual sit-down meeting of principals that this seems to have come out of, but some real discussion of policy happens on this group chat, which is part of why it’s so scandalous. There is no real strategic rationale described. The only considerations are political and, to some degree, ideological. But they are hastily argued and quickly put aside. Here’s what I mean: the ‘JD Vance’ account objects, writing: “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.” Then he goes on to say: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

Now, historians and political scientists will recognize these sorts of political questions as a normal part of such deliberations: how the public will understand or interpret their actions is usually a primary concern of the elected officials and their aides in the executive branch. So, like all administrations, we now know they do worry about public opinion. But there’s another layer here: as we know from public statements, JD Vance seems to be ideologically committed to his anti-European stance. So his arguments about the public response could be interpreted as mere cover for this agenda. He comes with some very meager argumentation about the composition of trade. Vance is apparently not politically strong enough to push the issue, but feels confident enough to provide a dissenting view. Notably, the State Department is totally silent.

Anybody who has worked in any organization can recognize that Hegseth is not taken particularly seriously. He responds eagerly and enthusiastically, but a little too eagerly and enthusiastically. He’s trying to seem to be a part of the team, in the middle of a process that has essentially taken place without him: “Agree.” Well, that’s all you can do Pete. He’s clearly the least respected member of the chat. Hegseth is a “central casting” hire: he’s a cheerleader meant to go on TV, he’s not a policy guy.

Stephen Miller is the voice of the president in this chat and everyone immediately defers to him. It’s pretty normal for a senior advisor of his type to act as stand-in for the president at such a meeting. It’s also clear that the president’s decisions are final and authoritative, but also they might not make a hell of a lot of sense either politically or strategically, hence Vance’s qualms. It’s Miller’s job to translate. We can plausibly reconstruct what the original meeting with the president was like: he was probably saying stuff like, “We need to look strong, we need to send a message, because Biden was weak.” When the issue of European trade came up, he probably said, “We will make them pay for it,” because that’s the kind of thing he says. Hence Miller’s absurd comments about Europan “remuneration” for the strikes. Inconsistency be damned, the most important for Trump thing is the appearance of strength in any given situation. There’s no long-term planning in evidence. Bombing has failed to budge the Houthis thus far; it’s highly unlikely an intensified campaign will do much more. Of course, “just bomb harder” is sadly something the United States has tried to do many times.

We can finally put to rest all the hypotheticals and theories about Trump’s governance: There’s no 4D chess going on here; the administration is very reactive and tactical; they are not prone to complicated or detailed considerations. They barely even deliberate at all: they do what Trump wants and rationalize it ex post facto.

Reading the chats, I immediately thought about what we know of such meetings in the Cold War era. One thing that sprang to mind were the deliberations in the Kennedy administration that ultimately lead to the coup against Ngô Đình Diệm and his subsequent assassination. Here were detailed and drawn-out discussions, involving many strong differences of opinion among the principal actors, and these are recorded in endless memos, reports, and interagency cables. These documents are still being interpreted: did Kennedy sanction the coup or merely stand aside? While these often agonized discussions were happening the government presented a facade of unity and competence to the public. Of course, such decision-making was not necessarily wise or virtuous: the Diem coup went ahead and was a disaster both politically and morally. And we have the entirety of the Pentagon Papers to attest that even the most apparently well-thought-out and deliberate policies can lead to catastrophe. In fact, a major problem with U.S. decision making in Vietnam is that it was made with the same preoccupation with public relations, image-making, and messaging and willful ignorance about the factual situation on the ground that Trump demonstrates. This group seems determined to replicate the worst episodes of American history at extreme speed. And if even thoughtful and intelligent people can make such grievous world-historical errors then what about totally careless and stupid ones? Can anybody still feel like the country is in good hands?