Time to push Mattis and Tillerson
by digby
Former Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis spoke at an event on Friday and was quoted saying this:
If we start unifying and understanding each other's point of view instead of calling people names or enemies of the state or terrorists or anything else then I think we can start putting it back together. But I am less concerned right now with foreign enemies than I am with what we're doing to ourselves.
That's nice. His opaque allusions to Trump by bringing up "enemies of the state' notwithstanding, I'm with former Clinton campaign official Joel Payne who came back with this harsh but accurate assessment of the general on MSNBC:
Yeah, I'd say another fear is people like General Mattis or Rex Tillerson or others who have been in the president's inner circle who've decided that his cone of silence to not talk about their experience in the Trump White House. What I call truth to power. With all due respect tot he general, I understand that that is something he takes very seriously as a [former] uniformed member of our armed services but he also has a responsibility to the public to report on what he saw and to share what he saw.
So I think that's a cop out. General Mattis has been taking a path at taking responsibility for his role in propping up the Trump administration and for allowing a lot of the things we're debating here today to happen and to go forward. I wish General Mattis would use his voice and speak up.
One of the only ways disinformation and propaganda can be beaten back is for those being targeted to see their own respected voices challenge it. Nothing I say or the mainstream media will have any effect. But people like Mattis might. He was a General. Tillerson too. A big CEO.
And yes, I know that they all get dismissed as "Never Trumpers." But you can't really break through the cult, at least not until Trump loses. The people who might break away from the GOP if they see people like this telling it like it is? White college educated men. The majority of them are sticking with Trump, many out of pocket book concerns but plenty who just don't want to see what is going on. Men like Mattis and Tillerson might get through to them.
The Democrats don't need many of them. But in those suburbs of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan etc, it could make the difference.
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