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Robert Klose lives and writes in Orono. His latest book is “Trigger Warning.”
It is a matter of record that, in his last days in office, a solitary and broken Richard Nixon roamed the halls of the White House, talking to the presidential portraits. It struck me that President Donald Trump might be on a similar trajectory.
But how to achieve it? I think the only way to curb his most dangerous impulses and render him inert is the systematic resignation of his cabinet, one after the other, due to epiphanies of self-awareness. I imagine each member stepping up to a lectern and somberly making his brief declaration of conscience. In my imagining, these would be the most prominent:
Marco Rubio: “It is with a heavy heart that I have decided I can no longer responsibly discharge the duties of the office of secretary of state. It has occurred to me that I used to be a reasonable, common-sense conservative. I don’t know how I became a fawning sycophant in oversized shoes, supporting lunatic policies,” I imagine him saying. “I’m mortified when I consider that my parents fled dictatorship in Cuba and I wound up promoting it here in the United States. I don’t know what came over me. And so, out of a desire to spend more time with my family, I bid you Adiós.”
Scott Bessent: “It has been my honor to serve as your secretary of the treasury. However, it came to me in a dream that I was the only economist on earth who imagined he saw the rhyme in the president’s reason of promising lower prices while raising them, of preaching peace while waging war, and spending a billion dollars a day on that war while cutting social services for the neediest Americans,” he says in my imagined scenario. “It no longer makes sense to me, and so, in the interest of spending more time with my family, I must regretfully submit my resignation.”
Robert Kennedy, Jr.: “Ladies and germs! Yesterday I fell and hit my head. When I came to, I realized that I have been wrong all along,” I imagine him saying. “With no training in medicine, I have upended decades of scientific, evidence-based practice by not acknowledging the horrors of life before vaccines, when babies with pertussis coughed until their ribs cracked and children suffering the ravages of polio were encased in iron lungs. I’d also like to apologize for re-introducing measles — which had been declared eradicated in the U.S. — into the lives of my fellow Americans. All I can say is, Oops. I thank you for the opportunity to serve you, but I have decided to spend more time with those members of my family who haven’t disowned me.”
Pete Hegseth: “After deep and extended consideration, I must regretfully submit my resignation as your secretary of defense, I mean war. You see, yesterday my third (or was it my second?) wife handed me a copy of the New Testament and told me, ‘You gotta read this, Pete.’ Well, I did, and I was embarrassed to learn that Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,’ and not, ‘Kill them all!’ How could I have been such a dope?” I fancy him asking. “I guess what I’m saying is, it pays to read books. And so I can no longer continue in good conscience as your warrior-in-chief, out of a need to spend more time with my family. Unfortunately, my family doesn’t want to spend more time with me. And so I have decided to go to Iran and put my shoulder to the wheel of rebuilding the girls’ school I ordered bombed. Wish me luck.”
I think back on leaders like Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, who deliberately placed people in their cabinets with whom they disagreed. They believed this was the only way to encourage healthy debate and shake out the truth of any matter. I believe the current experiment of a president surrounding himself with toadies and bootlickers has been a flop.
I eagerly await the first resignations from Trump’s cabinet, but I am prepared to be disappointed.
