Revenge in the White House

There is no job more insecure than that of a civil servant in the White House. Every day the American press reports on the dismissal of some senior official of the Donald Trump Administration. Some inspire jokes. In the three long years in which Trump has exercised histrionic power from the Oval Office, it is estimated that more than a hundred positions have been renewed, and some even for a third time. One of the most surprising dismissals was that of John Bolton, National Security Advisor and the hawk who most identified with the president's toughest and most belligerent policies. At the time, no one could explain the reasons for such a sudden dismissal. Bolton had occupied very relevant positions such as that of ambassador to the UN, where he had left evidence of his radicalism.

He was passing for being the first "Trumpeter" of the White House staff. His disagreements with the Secretary of State and the Pentagon were frequent, but Trump agreed with many of his arguments and was the main companion on the most unexpected trips, such as his meetings with the North Korean leader, which ended these days with the bombing of the South Korean liaison office.

The doubts about a bad relationship between him and the President were his refusal to testify in the impeachment process against Trump, which would have undoubtedly influenced the votes. But in the meantime, Bolton was not enjoying his retirement. For a few months he wrote his memoirs, which are now being released, and they are the most explosive and devastating testimony of Trump and his often surrealistic performance. Trump turned in a desperate attempt to prevent them from being published, something that freedom of the press makes little less than impossible in the United States. The reason given by the White House was that it spread lies and revealed matters of a secretive nature. But the book was already in print many thousands of copies distributed in many countries.

It is a real settling of scores where the President is accused of being incompetent, shamefully ignorant and corrupt. Some of the revelations he makes are as if, in a meeting with the President of China, Xi Jinping, in the middle of negotiations, he asked him to help him win re-election. Something that already had the precedent in a meeting with the president of Ukraine. He also wanted to invade Venezuela. The change of positions in high-level negotiations puzzled both his interlocutors and the members of the Administration who accompanied him. As a sign of his lack of culture, Bolton tells us that he believed, and maintained in public, that Finland was part of Russia. He also recommended to Jinping that he confine the million Uyghurs to internment camps as a punishment for practicing the Muslim religion. 

Bolton's many revelations about his decisions confirm something that was already known. The high officials, aware of some nonsense, write the orders that Trump comes up with, present them to him for signature and, once signed, hide them without executing them. The question is whether, with these revelations, the appalling policy against the coronavirus - which has already caused 120,000 deaths - and the rebellion by African Americans, there will be many sensible citizens who will vote for him in November?