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Chuck Park wrote in the op-ed that during his almost 10 years in the foreign service he “worked to spread what (he) believed were American values: freedom, fairness and tolerance.”
“But more and more I found myself in a defensive stance, struggling to explain to foreign peoples the blatant contradictions at home,” he wrote.
Park said that after the election of President Donald Trump, he had remained “complacent” and had “let career perks silence (his) 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,” Park wrote.
In an email to CNN, Park clarified that he made the decision to resign before the El Paso shooting, “though it certainly reaffirmed it.”
Writing in the Post, Park noted that he has not seen an “organized resistance from within” to the Trump presidency, but rather “The Complacent State.”
“Among my colleagues at the State Department, I have met neither the unsung hero nor the cunning villain of Deep State lore,” he wrote.
“One thing I agree with the conspiracy theorists about: The Deep State, if it did exist, would be wrong,” he said, noting that foreign service officers pledge to serve at the pleasure of the President — or else they should quit.
Park told CNN that the reception to the piece has been “almost uniformly positive” with “some mea culpas from personal friends still in the service; some offers of support as I transition to whatever is next.”
Asked why he chose to highlight his resignation “in such a public way,” Park said, “I meant the piece more as allocution than a call to action or challenge to people in a similar situation, though most have read it as the latter.”
“Though we are keeping the metaphorical lights on, we are not the heroes that some make us out to be. The real ‘resistance’ must come from American voters in 2020,” he said.
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