It’s not so easy to leave your tribe

In Cassidy Hutchinson’s book I see a familiar story

Watching Cassidy Hutchinson gain steam as she appears in the media to discuss the fall of the Trump White House, I find myself recalling the young woman I questioned at the January 6 Congressional investigation hearings. The one who was still torn between her sense of duty and loyalty. The one who reminded me of my own transformation from a committed partisan to someone who felt obligated to speak out on democracy’s behalf.

Of course, Hutchinson’s story, which she shares in her new book Enough, is unique as it is told by the top aide of Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. She spent untold hours in the 45th president’s company, watching as he schemed to block Joe Biden’s election, explaining to Meadows, “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is too embarrassing.”

Everyday readers will be captivated by Hutchinson’s anecdotes that find Meadows burning documents in his White House fireplace and Trump refusing to wear a Covid-blocking face mask because his orangey  bronzer would rub off on the straps. However, I was more taken by how she was affected by a culture that stressed loyalty above everything. She recalls attending a dinner where the president asked if everyone present was, within “The circle of trust.” He was assured when an aide replied, “Don’t worry sir.  Everyone here is family.”

Hutchinson was too young and inexperienced to recognize that whenever someone draws you in with an expression like “we’re all family,” your BS detector should sound a very loud alarm. I don’t care if it’s a group of coworkers, a football team, or the cast of a Hollywood movie, people who insist you regard them as family are asking for too much. You have one family, where you should find at least some support no matter what. Eventually the White House “family” would tell her, “The President thinks you’re disloyal…that you’re a leaker.”

In my real family, after my break with Trump and the Republican Party,  I was subject to a blistering attack from some of my relatives. Fortunately, my parents took the opposite tack, backing me with love. In Hutchinson’s family the most untrustworthy person was her father. When she turned to him for help, he refused and thrust a fistful of bills at her and asked her to pay them. He, like the Trumpists at the White House, regarded her as a traitor to the tribe and he refused to back her. Other family members did give her moral support but no one in the clan could pay for the lawyers she would need as she was subpoenaed to appear before our committee and Justice Department prosecutors.

At first Hutchinson shaded her testimony, pushing aside hundreds of questions with claims of ignorance and of faulty memory. But when she came back for more interviews, she corrected herself, and offered key evidence about how Trump and others fomented his supporters’ January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.  She’ll be criticized by people who think she should have made a clean break and by others who will say she should have never taken a White House job in the first place. My own experience compels me to say, “It’s not so easy.”

Like Hutchinson I was raised in a family where it was natural to become a Republican. Like her I joined the party, climbed the career ladder and, as a member of Congress, found myself eager to support my tribe. I didn’t consider making a serious break until Trumps first impeachment over his effort to use military aid to Ukraine for selfish political purposes. In the end I found a way to stay on the GOP side, despite my strong doubts. I finally made the break as the January 6 rioters poured into the building, driving duly elected senators and representatives out.  I, like Hutchinson, had enough.

As I view her struggle I see, someone who, like many, threw herself into the work of making something good out of the Trump presidency while hoping to help prevent  the worse. The GOP was part of her identity. Turning away from Trump required the ability to step outside herself in ways few can do, and to conclude that she had been wrong all along. She made the right choice, when very few of those around her, people she had long respected, did not.

Before you judge Cassidy Hutchinson, put yourself in her position and ask, “Would I throw away my status, declare that I had been wrong, and make the same jump?” Having walked the same walk, I have my doubts.