No. It’s one of the shortest, simplest and most important words in the English language. But, when it comes to President Donald Trump, many key players in the US power structure appear stricken with lockjaw.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it’s axiomatic that strongman powers are more typically given than taken. When dealing with an uncompromising and ruthless chief executive, it’s easier to give in and not put up a fight.
Financial calculations are most obvious. The government can use regulatory powers or lucrative government contracts to shape the condition and prospects of a given business, no matter how large. When the President makes it implicitly clear that a merger, for example, won’t be approved by the relevant regulatory body unless some form of acquiescence is forthcoming, in purely pecuniary terms it’s a no-brainer to just give in.
We’ve seen several alarming examples of this since Mr Trump returned to office, and even simply following the election. Mr Trump sued CBS over an interview conducted by its well-known 60 Minutes programme with his then campaign rival, former vice president Kamala Harris. The programme had edited her remarks for broadcast, as is standard practice.
Mr Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit alleged that this editing amounted to consumer fraud and election interference. CBS released the full transcript, which readily demonstrated that the edits were routine and insubstantial.
In July, however, Mr Trump received a $16 million settlement from CBS’s parent company, Paramount, which has been in the process of attempting a merger with Skydance Media. That has just been approved by the Federal Communications Commission, a part of Mr Trump’s executive apparatus.
An earlier collapse came from ABC when Mr Trump sued the network for liable and defamation over remarks made by anchor George Stephanopoulos. In December, even before Mr Trump was back in the White House, ABC settled for $15 million. Again, Mr Trump’s case was weak.
Mr Stephanopoulos said that Mr Trump had been found civilly liable for rape in the E Jean Carroll case. Technically, under New York law, Mr Trump was only found liable for sexual abuse. However, a federal judge repeatedly ruled that Mr Trump had indeed committed rape under the common understanding of the term.
Given the high bar under US law for defamation cases, it is unlikely that Mr Trump would have prevailed. But ABC’s parent company, Disney, with its myriad business empire, preferred to simply cave. It was just easier, and, they may well have calculated, in the long run cheaper that way.
CBS has also just cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a favourite of Mr Trump’s critics because of its relentless and incisive mockery of him. Paramount insists that this was purely a business decision, but given the 60 Minutes settlement, the deeper calculation may have been at least as political.
It’s hardly just the media that is capitulating, often in advance. Several top US law firms such as Paul Weiss have allegedly agreed not to represent Mr Trump’s adversaries or to represent his allies pro bono.
In Mr Trump’s attack on higher education, Harvard University is distinguishing itself by putting up a brave fight in court. However, many other major private universities, most notably Columbia, have given the federal government unprecedented powers over their decision-making.
The administration is using legal and administrative investigations especially into “anti-Semitism”, huge funding cuts and freezes, executive orders and visa restrictions on international students as pressure to force the universities to surrender their autonomy to the White House. And both Columbia and possibly Harvard are allegedly about to give the administration hundreds of millions of dollars in supposed penance for non-existent transgressions.
Social media, too, is folding like a dinner napkin. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, agreed to a $25 million settlement over the suspension of Mr Trump’s account after the January 6, 2021 violent insurrection against Congress. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, also donated $1 million to Mr Trump’s inauguration fund.
The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, has essentially eliminated what had been among the most dynamically critical opinion section in the country regarding Mr Trump, and greatly scaled back negative coverage of him. Needless to say, Mr Bezos’s other companies, most notably Blue Origin, enjoy lucrative dealings with the federal government, including a recently approved $2.3 billion military space contract.
The blue-ribbon in this cavalcade of cowardice obviously would go to Republican Party lawmakers in Congress, except that they are far more vulnerable to Mr Trump’s wrath and less able to fight back than major law firms, huge media organisations and crucial universities.
Harvard has said no. So have several important law firms, including Witmer Hale and Perkins Cole. Even after 10 years of dealing with him, the news media still cannot figure out how to cover Mr Trump without being bamboozled and manipulated, but The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and others show no signs of backing down.
Historically, Americans hardly lack courage. They have died to defend their Constitution and democratic traditions. They faced extreme, even deadly, police brutality in the fight for civil rights. Some went to prison or fled to other countries rather than fight in the misguided, pointless Vietnam War. They have gone to prison rather than betray their values and principles.
But now, with a president clearly acting as a would-be strongman, the caution shown by so many in the US power structure is proving to be his most valuable asset.
It’s not asking much for them to recover the ability to utter the short, simple and profound word, “no”.
