Looks like Trump has created an actual, for real, deep state.
Suggestion from another board for the OpEd writer’s codename: Derpthroat.
Yeah, I thought the whole “deep state” thing involved minor but important career bureaucrats, not highly placed, very sensitively positioned people that the PRESIDENT HIMSELF appointed.
They didn’t specifically say Lodestar would lose their job - only that their job would be “jeopardized”. Loser Donald can’t fire Pence, but he could effectively shut him completely out of government since the VP has no Constitutional duties or powers other than casting a tiebreaking vote in the Senate.
ThelmLou is convinced the author is VeepThroat.
The next anonymous NYT editorial is going to consist entirely of sentence fragments, misspellings, random capitalizations and even randomer punctuation. It will be a marvelous account of bigly things and praise for Trump and a promise to have Mexico fund a border wall.
And a reminder that the NYT is failing.
Anonymous? No, it’ll be written by John Miller.
That quote is (more or less) from Edwin Edwards, governor of Louisiana at the time.
He did get convicted of extortion in 2001. So there is hope.
I don’t think it can count as Deep State when it’s people you’re responsible for hiring.
I agree–Trump can hold on to grudges for years, which requires being able to retain the information that someone has wronged him. A goldfish wouldn’t be able to do that.
So, yeah: he’ll prioritize sticking it to the Korean trade deal and… well, al-Assad had better find himself a deep, deep bunker.
I love the image of Trump being unable to find a phone. (They’d have to hide their own phones, too, and the phones of everyone on the White House premises, to make this work. They’d have to stop any visitors and hide their phones, stop all deliveries, and even stop US mail from entering the White House.)
He’d be reduced to getting into a limo and ordering the driver to take him to Walmart so he could buy a phone.
Clever, but if you’re going to misquote me, at least spell my name right.
And this is why they don’t quit and go public, and why I don’t think it’s Pence. Without the IRM, they’ll lose interest, and the worst of the GOP will lose voters.
Assuming Lodestar & Co were part of the campaign, they’re the ones who drove* the real “fake news” machine to victory.
*Working, of course, with Putin. Which is another reason for anonymity: staying out of Mueller’s crosshairs.
[Emphasis added. Without spellcheck, I never would have noticed this wordplay. Well done.]
I agree with this theory on why the op-ed was written. Someone is trying to massage their image (the image of everyone who works in the Trump Administration) and spin it as ‘we are the noble protectors of the nation.’
As for doing it anonymously instead of putting their name on it: someone today mentioned that Cyrus Vance quit in protest (instead of writing an anonymous letter, perhaps) when he disagreed with Carter:
Cyrus Roberts Vance - People - Department History - Office of the Historian
Vance quit and was replaced and the hostages weren’t released until after Carter’s successor Reagan was being inaugurated. But the point the speaker was making was that this quitting-in-protest made barely a ripple in the public consciousness, back then.
Whereas everyone is talking about this anonymous op-ed. So the theory here is that by doing the arguably less-honorable thing (by being anonymous), the writer is accomplishing more. Whether the writer’s goal is to make himself look good, or is actually to inspire some action that could get the mentally-ill incumbent out of the Oval Office (via 25th Amendment or impeachment or a committee of Republicans convincing him to resign)–either way, going the ‘anonymous’ route has made the revelations more powerful than they would otherwise have been.
I heard DeepThwart.
Her and Chuck Tingle.
I don’t think it’s Pence. I think it’s a group.
It was Melania and Ivanka.
I’m sure he’s already writing “Domald Tromp Gets Pounded in the Butt By An Anonymous New York Times Op-Ed”. 
Omarosa thinks it’s a Pence aide, https://www.wsbradio.com/news/national-govt--politics/someone-pence-staff-omarosa-wsb-radio-about-nyt-president-trump/GiVQSkTLyOSnJIvsxyOOLN/
I agree. Given the massive turnover, both from firing and quitting, one more rat leaving the ship wouldn’t make much of an impact.
Now we have Dial T for Trump - The phone call is coming from inside the White House!
That’s the entire point: you have no idea who it is.
We’re left to trust the editorial judgment of a handful of people to make the determination for us. We’re not talking about anonymous insiders debating whether tax cuts for the top 1% are actually helping working class Americans; the op-ed purports to impugn the fitness of the president to carry out the will of half of American voters. This is pretty effing big stuff, so there is no margin for error, misjudgment, or miscalculation. If this “senior adviser” is someone who turns out to be an underwhelming source, it lends credence to the theory that the free press isn’t capable of living up to the responsibility of serving its mission.