We Are Not a 'Cabal,' Just Critics of Trump

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/opinion/ben-rhodes-cabal-trump-nsc-memo.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion

We Are Not a ‘Cabal,’ Just Critics of Trump
Never before have a few guys with podcasts, academic postings and Twitter accounts constituted such a powerful evil empire.
By Ben Rhodes
Mr. Rhodes was deputy national security adviser to President Obama.
Aug. 31, 2018

snip//

Last week, The New Yorker published what appears to be a 2017 National Security Council memo that describes me as the leader of a “network” of Obama officials working in concert to “undermine President Trump’s foreign policy.” Sure, all the former Obama officials — including me — have criticized President Trump’s foreign policy, and would like to see Democrats win elections. But the memo is deeply strange. Written in the same language that a normal National Security Council would use to describe Al Qaeda or ISIS, it refers to a “War Room,” “allied journalists,” and an “ops chief.” Never before, it seems, have a few guys with podcasts, academic postings and Twitter accounts constituted such a powerful evil empire.

What’s clear in reading the document, though, is that whoever wrote this conspiracy theory either believes it, or has chosen to believe it. Why does this conspiracy theory mind-set matter? And what does it tell us about the state of our politics today?

First, the memo is a glimpse into a world in which dissent is viewed as dangerous. A group of aides to a president from a different party must be part of some cabal, manipulating the media and working against America’s interests. This goes hand-in-glove with the “deep state” conspiracy, which has led President Trump to disparage the intelligence and law enforcement community, purge the State Department of expertise, urge investigations into political enemies and strip security clearances from former officials.

If you believe — or choose to believe — that dissent is dangerous, then it stands to reason that your National Security Council will focus on domestic political enemies rather than actual threats, like terrorist organizations.

Second, in a politics fueled by conspiracy theory, it becomes impossible to separate a real conspiracy from a fake one. I experienced this dynamic in the investigation into Russia’s intervention in our 2016 election when Republicans publicly accused me of “unmasking” the identities of Trump officials in intelligence documents. I never did this, but that didn’t matter.

By creating conspiracy theories about the Russia investigation and equating them with the actual crime of conspiring with Russia to undermine American democracy, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants want to stir up enough phony equivalence among their supporters to evade accountability.

Third, a democracy cannot function in a politics fueled by conspiracy theories. If the United States government itself is cast as a deep state adversary of the president’s, how can he effectively lead it? If the media or people who hold different opinions are “enemies of the state,” then the compromise upon which democracy depends becomes impossible.

As we career toward the conclusion of the investigation by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, we can sense the coming clash of competing realities: between the facts laid out in carefully prepared legal proceedings, and the countercharges peddled by a president and his supporters who will never accept Mr. Mueller’s findings as anything other than a conspiracy to bring him down.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/opinion/ben-rhodes-cabal-trump-nsc-memo.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion

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