In Chapter 6 of The Case for Trump, Hanson outlines the unprecedented acceptance to Trump’s presidency by various parts of society. The chapter initially discusses the New York Times article published by an anonymous “senior official”, who wrote about a group of government officials looking to undermine Trump’s presidency. The author of the article states “Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader” (169). Hanson highlights the anonymous author’s many attacks on Trumps characters and methodologies, but argues that the anonymous author does not cite any particular acts that are “illegal, dangerous, or unethical, much less unprecedented in presidential history” (171). Essentially, the anonymous author has chosen to oppose Trump not based on a series of explicit wrongdoings, but on his unpresidential and unprecedented proceedings in office.
Further, Hanson highlights the various attacks on Trump during eulogies during John McCain’s funeral, highlighting another unprecedented event. The funeral was politicized in yet another attempt to make Trump look bad. The chapter characterizes these undermining organizations as a deep state, or an organization within the government looking to undermine the leader. Hanson highlights that man great past empires also had deep states within them, such as Imperial Spain, Renaissance Venice, and Byzantium’s Constantinople.
An interesting argument by Hanson stems from Trump’s goal to “drain the swamp”, or get rid of the existing deep states in Washington instead of sustaining them. Because of this, Trump essentially “ran against Democrats, the Republican establishment, and the deep state” (181). Because of this, Trump had a very small group of people in Washington to choose from to fill his cabinet. Overall, Hanson argues that Trump’s presidency has been quite antithetical to the typical presidency and he has faced opposition from both interior governmental forces and exterior media and other institutions.