Foreign Service Officer Resigns Over Trump Administration's Incoherent Policies

By John Amato — August 12, 2019

Chuck Park abruptly resigned from the Trump administration last week and wrote a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post to explain why:

According to a certain type of right-leaning conspiracy theorist, that would make me part of “The Deep State” — a shadowy government within the government that puts its own interests above the expressed wishes of the electorate. Adherents to this theory believe that thousands of federal workers like me are plotting furiously to subvert the Trump administration at every turn. Many on the left, too, hope that such a resistance is secretly working to save the nation from the worst impulses of President Trump. They have it all wrong. Your federal bureaucracy under this president? Call it “The Complacent State” instead.

He's part of the U.S. diplomatic corps. He finds it impossible to do his job. Some in the corps are trying, but many are simply keeping their heads down and complying.

Chuck Park calls it "The Complacent State":

The Complacent State sighs when the president blocks travel by Muslim immigrants; shakes its head when he defends Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; averts its gaze from images of children in detention camps. Then it complies with orders.

Trump and his minions in the media used the faux " deep state" conspiracies to thwart the Mueller investigations. And Trump knows many in the state department and in the foreign services do not want to lose their jobs so many have remained silent while Trump denigrates them at every turn.

I’m ashamed of how long it took me to make this decision. My excuse might be disappointing, if familiar to many of my colleagues: I let career perks silence my conscience. I let free housing, the countdown to a pension and the prestige of representing a powerful nation overseas distract me from ideals that once seemed so clear to me. I can’t do that anymore.

Talking with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Park shared some more thoughts on his resignation.

Cooper said he hears a lot of laughter coming from around the world because of Trump and it's not because of some joke they heard.

Park said foreign leaders are unsettled by Trump, but still believe in America as a whole and he said there isn't "a coherent America to project to the world."

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