The thing about grown-ups is they are supposed to say when enough is enough. Jim Mattis had obviously had enough when he resigned as Donald Trump’s secretary of defence in December. Now the retired general — and the former leading “adult” in Mr Trump’s administration — says he owes a “duty of silence” to the government in which he could no longer serve. Some attribute Mr Mattis’s coyness to the military code of honour — though he retired from the marines two years before Mr Trump picked him. Either way he joins a small army of people who could damage Mr Trump but have chosen not to.
Such self-effacement is only adding to America’s democratic crisis. In the past three years westerners have discovered that their political systems rely less on the sanctity of the law than on the mettle of people in office. This applies as much to unelected officials in the judiciary, the military and the civil service as to elected politicians. I