Federal government

Despite all the precautions and double-checks, at some level everything ends up a matter of trust. And in the case of Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, much of that trust was violated. Why couldn't the military trust him? Why do we have to trust him? The documents against Jack Teixeira, the twenty-one-year-old airman first class who is accused of leaking classified documents, indicate that he was granted a top secret security clearance in 2021, which was required for his job as a computer network technician in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. While that may sound like an exceptional degree of access for such a junior service member, having top secret/SCI (sensitive compartmentalized information) clearance in that kind of job is standard.

After attending NatCon, the recent National Conservatism conference featuring academics, wonks, theologians, and politicians like Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, and Ron DeSantis, I realized there are two factions within American conservatism: Team Frodo and Team Boromir. Readers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring remember Frodo as the hobbit tasked with destroying the Ring of Power lest it fall into the hands of the evil Sauron. Boromir was the traveling companion who urged Frodo to let him use the Ring’s power against their enemies. “Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need?” he asked. “Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy.

This is the sort of stage Donald Trump relishes. An Oval Office address during prime time is his chance to seize the political crisis crippling the federal government and turn it into a decisive win. It plays to his strengths: the connection with ordinary Americans; on-screen charisma; the opportunity for a big reveal. The Nancy and Chuck show – the Democratic party’s rejoinder to be broadcast from the Capitol – offers nothing in the way of that star power. But Trump needs to do more than turn up and rely on the Resolute Desk to do the work for him, channeling the power of previous presidents who have addressed the nation in time of crisis. Make no mistake, he is backed into a corner.