On transitions, “fake jobs”, corruption, secrecy, and managing grief

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Today’s edition ran longer, at 2,355 words; if you would rather I had sent multiple shorter dispatches focused on one subject or have other feedback, just let me know at alex@governing.digital.

A close election, not a “landslide”

Some perspective from the New York Times is merited: “By traditional numeric measures, Trump’s victory was neither unprecedented nor a landslide.” 1.6 points is “one of the smallest margins of victory in the popular vote since the 19th century”

That scans as a repudiation of the incumbent, not a mandate or a landslide. Don’t accept either framing in 2025 if it’s used to justify unpopular policies or illiberal actions.

On Gaetz-keeping 

Since I last wrote to you, former Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as U.S. Attorney General. 

As I read his resignation letter, Gaetz can still take the oath of office to be a Member of 119th Congress in January 2025, but he says he will not do so. His withdrawal is a victory for the rule of law and the role of the Senate as a bulwark against unfit officials gaining power. That doesn’t mean all is well: President-Elect Trump has since nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to be U.S.A.G. 

If you’ve forgotten, back in 2016 Trump paid a penalty to the IRS for violating the law by contributing $25,000 to a campaign committee supporting Bondi from his foundation. She subsequently dropped an investigation into his foundation. His history of paying to sway attorneys general was well-documented.

In 2025, we will see how an attorney general — maybe Bondi, maybe not — is able to run the Justice Department in the context of the first convicted felon to be elected president, much less adjudicates federal crimes when they are referred by whistleblowers. 

Trump escaped jury trials and conviction for retaining classified records and conspiring to overturn the because of the election, not because was found not guilty. Anyone who expresses certainty about what happens next when he regains power risks their credibility, though we can predict it will involve revenge and retribution for narcissistic injuries.

On corruption, cronyism, and criminality

Trump maladministered the most chaotic, corrupt administration in American history. There is no reason to expect anything other than more brazen abuses or entrusted power for personal profit. The oligarchs named to the Cabinet this last two weeks signal a government of, by, and for billionaires. 

What we don’t know yet is how well the guardrails of our beleaguered institutions and their stewards will hold against kakistocracy and presidential powers, including the backstop of a Supreme Court that chose to defy the intent of America’s founding generation and place a man above the law by granting an immunity for official acts that can be found nowhere in our Constitution.

I was struck by a post over the weekend by Rick Stengel, who served with honor in the State Department after a long career in journalism. 

He’s right that secret donations to a transition are a recipe for corruption, cronyism, and criminality. 

He’s wrong about Trump’s partisans and Republicans in Congress objecting.

After all, Trump’s supporters were fine with him not disclosing his taxes and divesting from his businesses 8 years ago, allowing the appearance of pervasive corruption, & then 4 years of him taking emoluments. 

Record corporate donations to Trump’s inauguration were only disclosed months later because they had to be. Trump won’t sign ethics agreements nor disclose and divest unless forced to do so. 

Eight years ago, good governance advocates like me called on Trump to disclose his taxes & digest from conflicts of interest. He did neither. Emolumental corruption flowed like dirty water through the people’s house, rotting American government from the head.

Four years ago, I was part of a coalition of advocates who called on the White House Congress to close loopholes and codify shredded norms in anti-corruption and good governance reforms. They mostly did neither, choosing an omnibus bill that foundered and failed instead of targeted legislation.

Now, Trump is running a secretive transition. He is not signing an ethics agreement to evade disclosure requirements & record-keeping. He is closing the presidential transition’s doors to accountability, creating optimal rooms for corruption. No FBI background checks opens a postern gate to hidden influence & foreign entanglements.

I’m grateful to Senator Warren for sending a letter to the General Services Administration on Thursday, but it’s not sufficient: The national security risk must be addressed by Congress — and the silence from President Biden must be challenged.

Pardoning turkeys but not speaking out about a secret transition with no ethics agreements is a dereliction of duty. It’s untenable not to see this as a clear domestic threat to the Constitution, as grim as that reality may be, and proceed differently. 

That doesn’t mean not cooperating with a peaceful transition: it means spinning up a presidential task force to vet nominees and calling on the Senate to hold hearings now, not in January. Call Congress back into session, as needed.

On incipient authoritarianism in the White House

This interview with the woman President-elect Trump designated as White House Press Secretary is revealing, with respect to how the incoming administration understands its relationship to the free press and the role journalism plays in a democracy. 

The role of a White House Communications Director is to communicate a President’s messages to the American people, engaging us about policies, and providing us with accurate information about public business. 

A Press Secretary’s historic role has been to provide factual answers about public business for journalists and uphold press access. They’re not just a “messenger.” That’s someone’s else’s job. Calling our free press “dishonest” echoes autocratic attacks on press freedom. 

The reason journalists are adversarial to President-Elect Trump is because that is the role of the free press for every elected leader — much less a politician who lies, has been impeached for corruption and inciting insurrection, convicted for 34 felonies, and indicted for conspiring to overturn an election by defrauding the American people. 

If he and his staff view members of the press as hostile, consider why: Trump calls journalists and journalism “fake news” to delegitimize both. No President should do this, but Trump is singular in American history in echoing Mao and Stalin by falsely calling journalists the “enemy of the people.”

It was a feature of 20th century authoritarianism to attack the free press to chill reporting and cast doubt on investigations, using state-run media to tell the “truth” that news media “won’t” & describing foreign correspondents as liars & spies. (Lüggenpresse, in German.)

In the 21st century, aspiring authoritarian officials repeat the lies of the party leader and celebrate partisan podcasters and social media influencers who pass along their propaganda unchecked, unverified, and uncorroborated through the editorial layers that produce sound, factual journalism. 

American news media can and should get much better, faster, on reporting on the authoritarian playbook. Winter is coming.

As climate disasters accelerate, governments must text better

There’s a lot of focus on social media these days, to the detriment of other channels. Historic flooding in Spain killed hundreds of people who might have been saved if they’d been warned.

As the New York Times reported, a local government official “was made aware of the existence of an emergency text-messaging system at 8 PM” as floods swept in, but “only at 8:11 did a general alert go out urging people to find shelter. By then, many residents were up to their chins in water.”  

Governments everywhere must “go direct” better, & faster, using tests and notifications as climate-fueled disasters and public health emergencies accelerate. The next pandemic is closer than we imagine.

The First Amendment is for all Americans 

Last week, I commended a Capitol Police officer who defused a tense confrontation between anti-war protesters & people upset by their demonstration. 

I watched him explain to an irate man how their rules uphold First Amendment rights, including limiting counter-protest that drowns out the free speech of a permitted protest. It was extraordinary policing. 

The protest continued & the aggrieved party moved on, better educated on our shared constitutional rights in a revered civic space that remains re-opened to all Americans.

On “fake jobs” & imaginary agencies

In 2016, “fake news” was adopted from reporting on faux news websites & social media, & used in an authoritarian play to delegitimize journalism, journalists, & news media. It worked. The frame was institutionalized by Trump, adopted by autocrats globally.

In 2020, “fake votes” was used in an authoritarian play to undermine trust. It worked. Tens of millions of Americans now believe a “rigged election” was stolen. Some came to DC & engage in insurrection, believing the lies. A “Big Lie” went endemic. Tellingly, however, many of those voices casting doubt on election integrity went silent after Trump won. 

In 2024, “fake jobs” has now entered our national lexicon, thanks to Elon Musk. 

I’ll have more to say about the imaginary “Department of Government Efficiency” and what it means in the future, but it’s important to say right now that there is no “Department of Government Efficiency” yet. 

At this point, we still don’t know what it is, or will be. It may be a think tank with limitless resources and no direct authority.

We can say it’s not an agency, because Congress has not created it. All we have is Trump’s untrustworthy words. There is no charter or executive order creating a new White House office yet — much less an act of Congress creating a commission, like 9/11. The Grace Commission is the closest antecedent, or Biden’s Court commission, recently. For now, read Don Moynihan:

“ I am increasingly skeptical that Muskawamy will operate under any kind of federal oversight or supervision.¹ Instead, it will be an unofficial working group feeding ideas to the White House and Congress.“

“If I am correct, we are seeing what is effectively a privatization of government reform, where the richest man in the world is treated as a powerful Cabinet official while avoiding even the most basic forms of accountability that would come with the job. The Washington Post reports that Musk is not incorporating input from people who understand government, but instead is drawing from private sector billionaires who have been redpilled on Twitter and whose common interest is hostility to regulation.”

On election grief

We continue to grapple with two competing visions for the United States: a pluralistic, multiracial union that began emerging in 1964 after the greatest peaceful moment in world history, and the authoritarian republic built to accommodate and justify the evil institution of chattel slavery with the poisonous fiction of race. The latter strain is ascendant.

I recommend reading this conversation on democracy and reactionary illiberal movements between Zach Beauchamp and Shikha Dalmia to explore this subject.

Previous generations of Americans didn’t give up working to perfect our union for the first quarter millennium of our existence. Now it’s our turn.

I read a Scientific American interview about election grief with Pauline Boss, an emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota who worked for half a century as a psychotherapist. I found it valuable. Maybe you will, too:

“Change is necessary. If a system of human beings doesn’t change, they die. And right now I think we’re on the precipice of not wanting to change, and that’s not a good thing. That’s going backward. I think we should work toward bringing about change now at the community level, wherever you have power and agency, whatever level you have it at. Maybe it’s just in your family, maybe it’s just in yourself, or maybe it is in your community or state or nation or globally. But work for change—because change is the one thing that will keep us going.”

Boss says we should cultivate tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, as part of building resilience for what’s ahead. It’s all actionable advice: 

“Go see some improvisation at the theater. Go to listen to some jazz music, which is totally improvisation. Do something different that you’ve never done before. Learn a new language; go travel in a foreign country alone. Get to know some people you never knew before that are unlike yourself. Stretch yourself; reach out; do something different. Take a hike on a new path.”

And so this weekend, I went hiking on a new trail. 

Along the way, I saw an icon of American history.

“This hand-hewn log cabin was built in Aquasco, Maryland around 1880 as a farm tenant house. This one up & one down design with one room & a loft was typically used for slave cabins during the early 1800s. By the late 1800s, it was the standard style for most low-income households in rural America.”

President Lincoln grew up in a cabin just like it, in 1809, 214 years ago. Much has changed since then. Much has not. 

I’ve learned how to mitigate my grief over the for decades.

This isn’t my first rodeo, or the second.

I’ve been hiking, walking, cycling, or rowing every day this month.

I picked myself up, & began working for change again. 

I’ve continued co-parenting a sick child.

I’m trying to learn a new language, in fits and starts. 

I’ve kept calm, carrying on.

I hope you find a way to do so, too.