Another shit show year comes to a close.
Next year will likely be worse.
Predictions for 2019:
- Global recession caused by a breakdown in international trade caused by Trump and Brexit.
- Some sort of military adventure. My guess? Venezuela.
- Trump will grow even more erratic as the noose closes around him, and what few competent people around remain slowly depart.
- The Democratic primary will start before Valentine's Day, making everyone sick of everyone by Memorial Day.
- Putin will overreach somewhere, most likely Ukraine. It will trigger an international crisis that Trump will be unable to handle.
Happy New Year.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Will This Stuff Hold?
Trump's daily outrages on the regulatory scene continue to mount. This one is simply indefensible.
The question a far-sighted business man should ask is whether these rollbacks will last one day longer than Trump's presidency. Why would you rollback to earlier regulatory frameworks, when they could snap back in 2021?
The cost-savings of these regulatory moves are negligible, but they might even be less than negligible, since they might not even happen at all. Or rather a few Don Blankenship types might roll them back, just to kill some poor people, but outside of that, who would work to undermine regulations that will simply return in two dozen months?
The question a far-sighted business man should ask is whether these rollbacks will last one day longer than Trump's presidency. Why would you rollback to earlier regulatory frameworks, when they could snap back in 2021?
The cost-savings of these regulatory moves are negligible, but they might even be less than negligible, since they might not even happen at all. Or rather a few Don Blankenship types might roll them back, just to kill some poor people, but outside of that, who would work to undermine regulations that will simply return in two dozen months?
Friday, December 28, 2018
Blackwater Nation
One of the ominous trends of the past 30 years has been the privatization of many functions of the state. During the Cheney Regency, this process was extended into the military, creating a network of private armies. Blackwater, founded by Betsy DeVos's brother Eric Prince, was the most extreme example of this.
As Josh Marshall points out, one of the underlying stories behind the Trump/Russia scandal and now the allegations of fraud in Alabama is that you have private intelligence firms - freelance CIAs - doing all sorts of ratfucking in our elections and overseas.
After Watergate, there was a necessary fumigating of our politics. If we don't seize the same opportunity at the end of Trumpistan, I'm not sure we can ever become the nation we once were.
As Josh Marshall points out, one of the underlying stories behind the Trump/Russia scandal and now the allegations of fraud in Alabama is that you have private intelligence firms - freelance CIAs - doing all sorts of ratfucking in our elections and overseas.
After Watergate, there was a necessary fumigating of our politics. If we don't seize the same opportunity at the end of Trumpistan, I'm not sure we can ever become the nation we once were.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Is He Though?
I respect the hell out of Martin Longman's political insights, but he's suggesting that the current allegations of proof that Michael Cohen visited Prague and met with Russians during the campaign could be the end of the line for Trump. There's some suggestion that Mueller knows this, Trump knows Mueller knows this and this is why Trump has been freaking out.
But I will remain skeptical that there is anything Trump can do that would cause 20 Republican Senators to remove him from office. They are simply too afraid of their own voters.
But I will remain skeptical that there is anything Trump can do that would cause 20 Republican Senators to remove him from office. They are simply too afraid of their own voters.
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Taking A Wee Break
I'm going to see what 48 hours of not following the news does to my mental health.
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Simple
There are parts of being President that should be easy, but only if you're a normal human being. Trump is not a normal human being.
Monday, December 24, 2018
What Next, An Ongoing Series
Merry Almost Christmas.
Trump forced out Mattis early, because someone with 3rd grade reading comprehension finally explained that Mattis' resignation letter was more like a broadside.
Meanwhile, the markets continue to tank, and Jon Oliver Cosplay enthusiast, Steve Mnuchin, has made things worse. The markets are collapsing for any number of reasons. The normal business cycle is taking hold. Wages never rose in the recovery, keeping demand just OK. Trump's trade war has been a disaster. Markets don't like instability, and Trump is unstable. The GOP tax cut was squandered on stock buybacks which artificially inflated the markets, which are now coming back to reality.
The thing is, as you probably heard over the past 18 months, Trump's poll numbers are historically bad for a President during an economic expansion. Once the economy tips into recession, Trump has not shown the sort of ability that would let him run a real estate business, much less the world's largest economy. The collapsing economy will drive him poll numbers down even further at precisely the moment more and more news about his criminality will come to the surface and more and more GOP leaders edge away from him. We can count on him to respond poorly.
Buckle up.
Trump forced out Mattis early, because someone with 3rd grade reading comprehension finally explained that Mattis' resignation letter was more like a broadside.
Meanwhile, the markets continue to tank, and Jon Oliver Cosplay enthusiast, Steve Mnuchin, has made things worse. The markets are collapsing for any number of reasons. The normal business cycle is taking hold. Wages never rose in the recovery, keeping demand just OK. Trump's trade war has been a disaster. Markets don't like instability, and Trump is unstable. The GOP tax cut was squandered on stock buybacks which artificially inflated the markets, which are now coming back to reality.
The thing is, as you probably heard over the past 18 months, Trump's poll numbers are historically bad for a President during an economic expansion. Once the economy tips into recession, Trump has not shown the sort of ability that would let him run a real estate business, much less the world's largest economy. The collapsing economy will drive him poll numbers down even further at precisely the moment more and more news about his criminality will come to the surface and more and more GOP leaders edge away from him. We can count on him to respond poorly.
Buckle up.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
A Wrestling Issue
Lots if pixels have been spilled over a young wrestler from New Jersey who had to chose between cutting his dreadlocks and forfeiting his match. Much of it is poorly informed, including calls to fire the trainer who cut his hair. That's just nuts, as she was following his directives. There's plenty of responsibility to go around.
The referee has a troubling history with racism, which removes much benefit of the doubt he should be given. It seems from secondary reporting that Andrew Johnson, the wrestler, did not have a legal head covering. This is not a racist rule. All wrestlers who have long hair must have it covered. However, it seems as if Johnson's cover was not legal.
There are two reasons why it wasn't legal and I have heard both apply. First, the head cover must by attached to his protective head gear, and perhaps it wasn't. Or he may have had too large a corporate logo on it. If the former, the referee was in his rights to prohibit the wrestler from competing, however, these issues should have been addressed before the meet. The rule says that any special equipment (and the head covering is special equipment) must be inspected when the referee arrives on site. Because the referee waited until Johnson approached the mat ready to wrestle, there was no time to make a reasoned decision. That's WHY these decisions should have been made before the meet. Once the referee started running injury time, Johnson and his coach had 90 seconds to make a decision and implement it. Adrenaline is pumping, competitive spirits are up, no one should be expected to make a good decision in that time frame. Again, that's why these rulings happen well before wrestling starts.
If the issue was the size of a corporate logo, then that's a brand new rule, and the referee should've issued a warning and told him to become compliant by next match. It's still early in the season, and a little understanding goes a long way. If it was an issue of the logo, the ref and the National Federation will have some awkward explaining to do. People have noted that he wrestled earlier in the season with his head covering. That doesn't mean he was in compliance, because some refs pay little attention to those things. The only previous matches were at tournaments, where those details often go unaddressed. Again, this is where the referee's judgment comes into play, and again where he failed.
The coach also bears more responsibility than I originally thought. He's responsible for having his wrestler properly equipped. If Johnson had been given a proper, legal head cover and lost it, that's one thing. But it sounds like the coach and school didn't provide a legal cover. Perhaps he should have forfeited the match. Again, the referee put him in a terrible position. Johnson's match was the second match of the meet, so the coach had no idea if that 6 points would've mattered. Again, that's why these issues should've been addressed before the meet.
When faced with the prospect of forfeiting or having his hair cut, Johnson chose to have his hair cut. He was put in an impossible position. The trainer simply had the scissors, and she was also operating under time constraints. It would've been even worse if she had taken her time, Johnson had his dreads cut off and the 90 seconds would've expired. The idea that she did something terrible is just something I can't understand. You might as well blame the scissors themselves.
Johnson was forced to make a decision because a referee applied a rule at the wrong time. The rule itself is proper and not racist or sexist. And yes, I've seen white boys have their hair cut. I once cut a boy's hair - at his request - so he could lose the .10 of a pound he needed to make weight. Any wrestler with long hair has to have a legal hair cover. It should be inspected before the meet.
Andrew Johnson was failed by the referee and his coach. But he didn't fail, and I applaud him for that.
The referee has a troubling history with racism, which removes much benefit of the doubt he should be given. It seems from secondary reporting that Andrew Johnson, the wrestler, did not have a legal head covering. This is not a racist rule. All wrestlers who have long hair must have it covered. However, it seems as if Johnson's cover was not legal.
There are two reasons why it wasn't legal and I have heard both apply. First, the head cover must by attached to his protective head gear, and perhaps it wasn't. Or he may have had too large a corporate logo on it. If the former, the referee was in his rights to prohibit the wrestler from competing, however, these issues should have been addressed before the meet. The rule says that any special equipment (and the head covering is special equipment) must be inspected when the referee arrives on site. Because the referee waited until Johnson approached the mat ready to wrestle, there was no time to make a reasoned decision. That's WHY these decisions should have been made before the meet. Once the referee started running injury time, Johnson and his coach had 90 seconds to make a decision and implement it. Adrenaline is pumping, competitive spirits are up, no one should be expected to make a good decision in that time frame. Again, that's why these rulings happen well before wrestling starts.
If the issue was the size of a corporate logo, then that's a brand new rule, and the referee should've issued a warning and told him to become compliant by next match. It's still early in the season, and a little understanding goes a long way. If it was an issue of the logo, the ref and the National Federation will have some awkward explaining to do. People have noted that he wrestled earlier in the season with his head covering. That doesn't mean he was in compliance, because some refs pay little attention to those things. The only previous matches were at tournaments, where those details often go unaddressed. Again, this is where the referee's judgment comes into play, and again where he failed.
The coach also bears more responsibility than I originally thought. He's responsible for having his wrestler properly equipped. If Johnson had been given a proper, legal head cover and lost it, that's one thing. But it sounds like the coach and school didn't provide a legal cover. Perhaps he should have forfeited the match. Again, the referee put him in a terrible position. Johnson's match was the second match of the meet, so the coach had no idea if that 6 points would've mattered. Again, that's why these issues should've been addressed before the meet.
When faced with the prospect of forfeiting or having his hair cut, Johnson chose to have his hair cut. He was put in an impossible position. The trainer simply had the scissors, and she was also operating under time constraints. It would've been even worse if she had taken her time, Johnson had his dreads cut off and the 90 seconds would've expired. The idea that she did something terrible is just something I can't understand. You might as well blame the scissors themselves.
Johnson was forced to make a decision because a referee applied a rule at the wrong time. The rule itself is proper and not racist or sexist. And yes, I've seen white boys have their hair cut. I once cut a boy's hair - at his request - so he could lose the .10 of a pound he needed to make weight. Any wrestler with long hair has to have a legal hair cover. It should be inspected before the meet.
Andrew Johnson was failed by the referee and his coach. But he didn't fail, and I applaud him for that.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Dear Leader
Yes, yes, we were right about Trump. Whoopee. Gives me no pleasure to say that.
There are two stories that are worth noting about our national descent into madness. The first involves Kingpin cosplay enthusiast and acting AG, Matt Whitaker. Trump fired racist hobbit Jeff Sessions because Sessions insisted on acting like a racist AG rather than as Trump's personal lawyer. To be clear, Trump was fine with him as a racist AG, he just wanted "his own Roy Cohn." Whitaker, who is as much an open sewer of public corruption as most late-stage Trumpistas, still feels bound by bits and scraps of law. Trump will not be able to find an AG who is corrupt enough for him, which will be like a hot knife into his gaping narcissistic wound.
Next, we have rumors that Trump wants to fire Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell was one of Trump's few non-bonkers appointments, similar to Mattis or McMaster. If he were to fire Powell, the tumult that we have seen in the stock markets these past weeks would look tame by comparison. Trumponomics have already caused pain through his trade wars, his regressive GOP tax cut and now the government shutdown. If he fires the Chairman of the Fed, all hell will break loose.
The basic reason why he's upset with a toady like Whitaker and a non-toady like Powell is that they don't show sufficient obeisance to Dear Leader, Hair Furor.
Trump is a Cult of Personality that only he and the small sliver of deranged supporters believe in.
There are two stories that are worth noting about our national descent into madness. The first involves Kingpin cosplay enthusiast and acting AG, Matt Whitaker. Trump fired racist hobbit Jeff Sessions because Sessions insisted on acting like a racist AG rather than as Trump's personal lawyer. To be clear, Trump was fine with him as a racist AG, he just wanted "his own Roy Cohn." Whitaker, who is as much an open sewer of public corruption as most late-stage Trumpistas, still feels bound by bits and scraps of law. Trump will not be able to find an AG who is corrupt enough for him, which will be like a hot knife into his gaping narcissistic wound.
Next, we have rumors that Trump wants to fire Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell was one of Trump's few non-bonkers appointments, similar to Mattis or McMaster. If he were to fire Powell, the tumult that we have seen in the stock markets these past weeks would look tame by comparison. Trumponomics have already caused pain through his trade wars, his regressive GOP tax cut and now the government shutdown. If he fires the Chairman of the Fed, all hell will break loose.
The basic reason why he's upset with a toady like Whitaker and a non-toady like Powell is that they don't show sufficient obeisance to Dear Leader, Hair Furor.
Trump is a Cult of Personality that only he and the small sliver of deranged supporters believe in.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Yesterday Was A Very Long Year
There was enough news crammed into yesterday to fill a small book. And yet there is no guarantee that today or next week won't have the same flood of chaos and conflict and disturbing revelations that yesterday had.
We started with the news that Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker was told to recuse himself from the Mueller probe, so he simply ignored them and turned to political advisers who told him not to. Again, remember the howling shitstorm because Loretta Lynch met briefly with Bill Clinton while the Justice Department was investigating Hillary's email server? Clinton acted indiscreetly, but there is zero evidence it had any impact on Lynch or the Justice Department, but it led to days of coverage. This is a more significant story and it was snowed over before the reporting had been completed.
We have the continued drop of the stock market, which is caused by both an over-expansion or the market caused by the supply-side tax cut, Trump's trade wars, Trump's unstable governance and Trump's looming government shutdown. The Trump Recession is coming, and his incompetence and fealty to bad conservative ideas will likely make it much worse than it needs to be.
Ah, yes, the government shutdown. Congress basically had found a way to get out of yet another inability to govern, when Trump got berated by the Howler Monkeys of the Far Right. Limbaugh, Coulter, Fox and Friends and others lambasted him for not getting his stupid, expensive and inefficient wall. So he's going to shutdown the government. Right before Christmas. Newt Gingrich - possibly the next White House Chief of Staff - saw his political ascendancy derailed when he shut down the government at Christmas time. Trump is already spiraling, so it will be interesting to see what effect this will have on his poll numbers. He might rally he base, but this will further drive independents towards the Democrats, and make independents of a few more Republicans.
Finally, the day ended with the bombshell that James Mattis will resign. There is a legitimate debate over how long America should remain tethered to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq/Syria there is at least the compelling interest of containing and defeating ISIS while supporting our only true friends in the region: the Kurds. I've lost track of why we are staying in Afghanistan, besides the fact that the people who likely take over Afghanistan are objectively terrible.
The real issue is that Mattis was one of the few people surrounding Trump who wasn't a toady or an incompetent. Secondarily, there is the issue of WHY Trump decided to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. The people who benefit from this decision are - roughly speaking - Putin, Erdogan, Bin Salman and perhaps Khamenei. Certainly Putin benefits by seeing Americans leave Afghanistan and his proxy state in Syria. Erdogan could see an opportunity to chastise the Kurds. One group of people who were clearly not consulted were the National Security establishment - the very group that has been alarmed by Trump's closeness with our enemies.
Meanwhile, we had the spectacle of the House GOP pushing through a bill to fund that stupid wall that will die in the Senate, which will hasten the government shutting down in a few hours. So craven and lickspittle is the Republican legislature that they meekly roll over whenever Trump barks the latest nonsense he heard on Fox News or Limbaugh.
Things will not get better when the Democrats take the House in two weeks. If they had captured the Senate, things might have gotten better, because they could exercise real constraints on Trump's Cabinet appointments. Instead, while we will get a clearer public picture of Trump's criminality, it will only enlarge his feeling of being besieged. All the "bright red lines" he spoke of in 2017 - his taxes, his real estate business, his charities - will come under investigation. We already know he's guilty of serial crimes. As more and more comes to light, as his children, perhaps, get arrested, he will lash out more and more trying to distract from the closing circle.
And yet, as yesterday showed, there is increasing evidence that the GOP will do absolutely nothing to protect the country from his increasingly erratic tantrums.
We haven't hit rock bottom.
I'm not sure we even know what that looks like.
We started with the news that Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker was told to recuse himself from the Mueller probe, so he simply ignored them and turned to political advisers who told him not to. Again, remember the howling shitstorm because Loretta Lynch met briefly with Bill Clinton while the Justice Department was investigating Hillary's email server? Clinton acted indiscreetly, but there is zero evidence it had any impact on Lynch or the Justice Department, but it led to days of coverage. This is a more significant story and it was snowed over before the reporting had been completed.
We have the continued drop of the stock market, which is caused by both an over-expansion or the market caused by the supply-side tax cut, Trump's trade wars, Trump's unstable governance and Trump's looming government shutdown. The Trump Recession is coming, and his incompetence and fealty to bad conservative ideas will likely make it much worse than it needs to be.
Ah, yes, the government shutdown. Congress basically had found a way to get out of yet another inability to govern, when Trump got berated by the Howler Monkeys of the Far Right. Limbaugh, Coulter, Fox and Friends and others lambasted him for not getting his stupid, expensive and inefficient wall. So he's going to shutdown the government. Right before Christmas. Newt Gingrich - possibly the next White House Chief of Staff - saw his political ascendancy derailed when he shut down the government at Christmas time. Trump is already spiraling, so it will be interesting to see what effect this will have on his poll numbers. He might rally he base, but this will further drive independents towards the Democrats, and make independents of a few more Republicans.
Finally, the day ended with the bombshell that James Mattis will resign. There is a legitimate debate over how long America should remain tethered to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq/Syria there is at least the compelling interest of containing and defeating ISIS while supporting our only true friends in the region: the Kurds. I've lost track of why we are staying in Afghanistan, besides the fact that the people who likely take over Afghanistan are objectively terrible.
The real issue is that Mattis was one of the few people surrounding Trump who wasn't a toady or an incompetent. Secondarily, there is the issue of WHY Trump decided to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. The people who benefit from this decision are - roughly speaking - Putin, Erdogan, Bin Salman and perhaps Khamenei. Certainly Putin benefits by seeing Americans leave Afghanistan and his proxy state in Syria. Erdogan could see an opportunity to chastise the Kurds. One group of people who were clearly not consulted were the National Security establishment - the very group that has been alarmed by Trump's closeness with our enemies.
Meanwhile, we had the spectacle of the House GOP pushing through a bill to fund that stupid wall that will die in the Senate, which will hasten the government shutting down in a few hours. So craven and lickspittle is the Republican legislature that they meekly roll over whenever Trump barks the latest nonsense he heard on Fox News or Limbaugh.
Things will not get better when the Democrats take the House in two weeks. If they had captured the Senate, things might have gotten better, because they could exercise real constraints on Trump's Cabinet appointments. Instead, while we will get a clearer public picture of Trump's criminality, it will only enlarge his feeling of being besieged. All the "bright red lines" he spoke of in 2017 - his taxes, his real estate business, his charities - will come under investigation. We already know he's guilty of serial crimes. As more and more comes to light, as his children, perhaps, get arrested, he will lash out more and more trying to distract from the closing circle.
And yet, as yesterday showed, there is increasing evidence that the GOP will do absolutely nothing to protect the country from his increasingly erratic tantrums.
We haven't hit rock bottom.
I'm not sure we even know what that looks like.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Speech
There is some predictable intramural squabbling over efforts by some to create a boycott against Tucker Carlson. Carlson's career trajectory was George Will, right down to the bow tie. He was a more or less middle-of-the-road neo-conservative partisan who had been scrubbed clean by his years at St.George's and Trinity College. He was Marc Thiessen with a slightly less punchable face.
Upon landing at Fox, Carlson began has journey to dark, beating heart of Trumpistan. He started with the usual bullshit Clinton scandals and the various oddball guests, but he wasn't full on Hannity yet. Instead, as Trump's brand of vicious, racist, xenophobic politics ascended, Carlson hopped on for the ride. While few people necessarily believe that Carlson believes everything he's saying, that somehow makes it even worse. Jeannine Piro and Sean Hannity are open sewers of humanity. They are simply terrible people. Carlson actually brought his children to interview at our school and was warm and respectful, even to our resident Labour Socialist.
Carlson has moved into the language and cadence of white nationalism, just recently claiming that immigrants make America "poorer and dirtier." Anyone with some historical literacy can see the parallels to the language of other ethno-nationalists. Whether you're a Nazi in 1937 or a Hutu in 1994, you use the language that best dehumanizes your targets so that you can commit whatever atrocities you wish.
Carlson - and probably most Trumpists - probably don't want to kill immigrants. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on outright murder. But the death of children doesn't bother them, because they have denied the humanity of people like 7-year old Jacklin Maquin, who died in the care of the Border Patrol. They don't care about the impact of family separation. They don't care about tear gassing non-violent crowds.
The language Carlson and others use matters.
As a result, groups on the left are trying to punish Carlson's advertisers. This has made some people itchy. On the one hand, it is trying to shut down a form of speech that some people find offensive. That does present a "slippery slope" problem. I would raise two counterpoints.
First, the Fox News phenomena is literally destroying American civic life. Fear is the ultimate well-spring and fertilizer of authoritarianism. Keep people scared enough, and they will believe any lie you tell them that both feeds and focuses their fear. Fox has been a gusher of lies and fear mongering for years now. Trump's rise and his continued support have their roots in the dark soil of Fox. Pushing back against that is incredibly important, especially when it carries the terrifying roots of Nuremburg with it.
Second, one of the real problems in American politics right now is that there is a clear majority that favor Democratic policies and ideas. This majority is centered in cities, but appears to be moving into the suburbs. Because of the archaic design of our government, poorer, rural areas are drastically over-represented in the Senate and Electoral College. Even the Blue Wave couldn't dent the natural gerrymander of the Senate. Progressive political pressure - by default - has to be economic.
Carlson will continue to get advertising dollars from catheter companies, orthotic shoe salesmen and doomsday preppers. But if an insurance company or airline wants the business of younger, urban and suburban people, advertising on someone who uses racist language should be problematic for them.
This shouldn't be a "both sides" issue, it should be a wrong side/right side. And if one side is echoing the language of dictators and fascists, then those people should be called out. Richards Spencer and Milo Yannniwhatever should not speak on a college campus again. There are, indeed, ideas too toxic for the public discourse. Jefferson said:
If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
While that's laudable within the context of 1801, that precedes modern, mass democracy with its threat of demagogues and misinformation. It's also an excuse that lead to Ft. Sumter. Jefferson believed in reason, but we are discovering just how weak a force reason is on our politics.
Back during the states attorneys general lawsuit against Big Tobacco, they interviewed a smoker, asking them why they smoked with the warning label right on the package. One replied that if that stuff was really true, they couldn't sell cigarettes. Think about that. It's that context that informed me that maybe some forms of expression are beyond the pale. This is what leads a gunman into a newspaper office or a school or a pizza parlor. This is what leads a lunatic to mail pipe bombs.
So, while I hear the arguments for free speech, right now is a crisis. And Tucker Carlson is not owed anything by his advertisers.
Upon landing at Fox, Carlson began has journey to dark, beating heart of Trumpistan. He started with the usual bullshit Clinton scandals and the various oddball guests, but he wasn't full on Hannity yet. Instead, as Trump's brand of vicious, racist, xenophobic politics ascended, Carlson hopped on for the ride. While few people necessarily believe that Carlson believes everything he's saying, that somehow makes it even worse. Jeannine Piro and Sean Hannity are open sewers of humanity. They are simply terrible people. Carlson actually brought his children to interview at our school and was warm and respectful, even to our resident Labour Socialist.
Carlson has moved into the language and cadence of white nationalism, just recently claiming that immigrants make America "poorer and dirtier." Anyone with some historical literacy can see the parallels to the language of other ethno-nationalists. Whether you're a Nazi in 1937 or a Hutu in 1994, you use the language that best dehumanizes your targets so that you can commit whatever atrocities you wish.
Carlson - and probably most Trumpists - probably don't want to kill immigrants. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on outright murder. But the death of children doesn't bother them, because they have denied the humanity of people like 7-year old Jacklin Maquin, who died in the care of the Border Patrol. They don't care about the impact of family separation. They don't care about tear gassing non-violent crowds.
The language Carlson and others use matters.
As a result, groups on the left are trying to punish Carlson's advertisers. This has made some people itchy. On the one hand, it is trying to shut down a form of speech that some people find offensive. That does present a "slippery slope" problem. I would raise two counterpoints.
First, the Fox News phenomena is literally destroying American civic life. Fear is the ultimate well-spring and fertilizer of authoritarianism. Keep people scared enough, and they will believe any lie you tell them that both feeds and focuses their fear. Fox has been a gusher of lies and fear mongering for years now. Trump's rise and his continued support have their roots in the dark soil of Fox. Pushing back against that is incredibly important, especially when it carries the terrifying roots of Nuremburg with it.
Second, one of the real problems in American politics right now is that there is a clear majority that favor Democratic policies and ideas. This majority is centered in cities, but appears to be moving into the suburbs. Because of the archaic design of our government, poorer, rural areas are drastically over-represented in the Senate and Electoral College. Even the Blue Wave couldn't dent the natural gerrymander of the Senate. Progressive political pressure - by default - has to be economic.
Carlson will continue to get advertising dollars from catheter companies, orthotic shoe salesmen and doomsday preppers. But if an insurance company or airline wants the business of younger, urban and suburban people, advertising on someone who uses racist language should be problematic for them.
This shouldn't be a "both sides" issue, it should be a wrong side/right side. And if one side is echoing the language of dictators and fascists, then those people should be called out. Richards Spencer and Milo Yannniwhatever should not speak on a college campus again. There are, indeed, ideas too toxic for the public discourse. Jefferson said:
If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
While that's laudable within the context of 1801, that precedes modern, mass democracy with its threat of demagogues and misinformation. It's also an excuse that lead to Ft. Sumter. Jefferson believed in reason, but we are discovering just how weak a force reason is on our politics.
Back during the states attorneys general lawsuit against Big Tobacco, they interviewed a smoker, asking them why they smoked with the warning label right on the package. One replied that if that stuff was really true, they couldn't sell cigarettes. Think about that. It's that context that informed me that maybe some forms of expression are beyond the pale. This is what leads a gunman into a newspaper office or a school or a pizza parlor. This is what leads a lunatic to mail pipe bombs.
So, while I hear the arguments for free speech, right now is a crisis. And Tucker Carlson is not owed anything by his advertisers.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Stupid Watergate
Jesus....
Giuliani denies there is a letter with Trump's signature.
There is a letter with Trump's signature.
Every time you think, "Well what if X turned out to be true? Wouldn't that make a difference?" And then it turns out X is, indeed, true. And yet Republicans cling to Trump despite it all.
We've always assumed there was a breaking point. I don't know that this is true.
I mean, let's just step back and consider a story you likely missed yesterday: Trump's charity was a crime. Again, in a normal universe, that would be a major scandal. Huge. But in Trumpistan, it can barely squeeze out ten others just as bad.
Giuliani denies there is a letter with Trump's signature.
There is a letter with Trump's signature.
Every time you think, "Well what if X turned out to be true? Wouldn't that make a difference?" And then it turns out X is, indeed, true. And yet Republicans cling to Trump despite it all.
We've always assumed there was a breaking point. I don't know that this is true.
I mean, let's just step back and consider a story you likely missed yesterday: Trump's charity was a crime. Again, in a normal universe, that would be a major scandal. Huge. But in Trumpistan, it can barely squeeze out ten others just as bad.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
The Jackpot And The Threat
As always in Trumpistan, the Bad and Terrible comes at you so fast and in such volume that it can be hard to keep up. As we've processed the Twelve Days of Mueller, certain nuggets have slipped through the cracks. One of the biggest is probably the AMI/National Enquirer story.
The Enquirer was basically Trump's media shield. They would buy up damaging stories - and the exclusive rights to publish them - and stick them in a safe somewhere. In other words, there is a trove of damaging Trump stories, and Mueller has them. Now we have a former editor, who presumably has seen most of those documents, who claims that there is outright evidence of criminal activity by Jared and Ivanka.
When we look around the Trump Clan, there has always been a desperate effort by certain media voices to normalize them whenever possible. Don, Jr. and Eric were hopeless from the start, but efforts to make Ivanka, Jared and Melania somehow less complicit in the awfulness of Trumpistan are falling apart. Melania is a Birther, an awful woman with cruelty stitched into her DNA. But let's look at Ivanka and Jared.
These two are the Michael Corleones of this saga. They are well scrubbed: boarding schools and Ivy League degrees. They don't tweet semi-literate screeds in an Adderall fueled rage at 4:30AM. They are quiet, respectable...and absolutely crooked and incompetent, too. Jared has failed upwards and likely turned his privileged position in the White House into outright graft. A lot of the sucking up to Prince Muhammad bin Salman has been Jared's doing. Perhaps calling them Michael Corleone is too generous, since at least Michael was competent.
What seems inevitable in all this is that as the walls collapse around Trump, they will take his children with him. I dunno, maybe Tiffany escapes. Everything Fred Trump built and illegally siphoned to his son and that has been built for Fred's grandchildren will whither away. That's fine.
My worry is that imagine if Trump had been more like Ivanka. What if he had been more Choate/Georgetown/UPenn and less Queens slumlord? What if he had not tweeted so much? What if he had buried the cruelty better? What if he hadn't praised the Charlottesville Nazis, but simply issued a banal statement and then done nothing to counter the rise of RW extremism?
It is hard to separate Trump's politics from his policies. But the GOP has, for years, been thumping the base with shit it doesn't really believe - abortion, for instance - in order to pursue the goals it does - stripping away everything possible from the working classes of the country to give to the rich. Someone will come along and whisper all the parts that Trump shouts. He or she will be slick and say the right thing at parties or before the press. Tom Cotton seems a likely candidate, Harvard with a Bronze Star, devoid of empathy or kindness, nakedly Machiavellian.
And the press will fall for it. And 49% of strategically dispersed Americans will fall for it. Probably not in 2020 or 2024, while the lingering stench of Trumpistan still lingers over the body politic. But sooner rather than later, someone will be Trump without the vulgarity; without the catalog of easily defined crimes.
That day scares the shit out of me.
The Enquirer was basically Trump's media shield. They would buy up damaging stories - and the exclusive rights to publish them - and stick them in a safe somewhere. In other words, there is a trove of damaging Trump stories, and Mueller has them. Now we have a former editor, who presumably has seen most of those documents, who claims that there is outright evidence of criminal activity by Jared and Ivanka.
When we look around the Trump Clan, there has always been a desperate effort by certain media voices to normalize them whenever possible. Don, Jr. and Eric were hopeless from the start, but efforts to make Ivanka, Jared and Melania somehow less complicit in the awfulness of Trumpistan are falling apart. Melania is a Birther, an awful woman with cruelty stitched into her DNA. But let's look at Ivanka and Jared.
These two are the Michael Corleones of this saga. They are well scrubbed: boarding schools and Ivy League degrees. They don't tweet semi-literate screeds in an Adderall fueled rage at 4:30AM. They are quiet, respectable...and absolutely crooked and incompetent, too. Jared has failed upwards and likely turned his privileged position in the White House into outright graft. A lot of the sucking up to Prince Muhammad bin Salman has been Jared's doing. Perhaps calling them Michael Corleone is too generous, since at least Michael was competent.
What seems inevitable in all this is that as the walls collapse around Trump, they will take his children with him. I dunno, maybe Tiffany escapes. Everything Fred Trump built and illegally siphoned to his son and that has been built for Fred's grandchildren will whither away. That's fine.
My worry is that imagine if Trump had been more like Ivanka. What if he had been more Choate/Georgetown/UPenn and less Queens slumlord? What if he had not tweeted so much? What if he had buried the cruelty better? What if he hadn't praised the Charlottesville Nazis, but simply issued a banal statement and then done nothing to counter the rise of RW extremism?
It is hard to separate Trump's politics from his policies. But the GOP has, for years, been thumping the base with shit it doesn't really believe - abortion, for instance - in order to pursue the goals it does - stripping away everything possible from the working classes of the country to give to the rich. Someone will come along and whisper all the parts that Trump shouts. He or she will be slick and say the right thing at parties or before the press. Tom Cotton seems a likely candidate, Harvard with a Bronze Star, devoid of empathy or kindness, nakedly Machiavellian.
And the press will fall for it. And 49% of strategically dispersed Americans will fall for it. Probably not in 2020 or 2024, while the lingering stench of Trumpistan still lingers over the body politic. But sooner rather than later, someone will be Trump without the vulgarity; without the catalog of easily defined crimes.
That day scares the shit out of me.
Monday, December 17, 2018
Democrats
Here are two stories that I find really interesting.
First, New Jersey Democrats thought they would steal a page from Wisconsin Republicans and gerrymander the hell out of their districts. When people - including prominent Democrats - objected, they withdrew the plan.
Second, Andrew Cuomo is a fairly lame politician by most standards. He's a bit tone deaf on certain issues and slow to realize the change that is coming to Left of Center politics. However, he appears to have taken to heart the primary challenge he got from Cynthia Nixon and is embracing a lot of interesting proposals.
Meanwhile, Republicans continue to push forward assaults on democracy.
Simplifying things, one party is capable of being shamed and convinced, and one party isn't.
First, New Jersey Democrats thought they would steal a page from Wisconsin Republicans and gerrymander the hell out of their districts. When people - including prominent Democrats - objected, they withdrew the plan.
Second, Andrew Cuomo is a fairly lame politician by most standards. He's a bit tone deaf on certain issues and slow to realize the change that is coming to Left of Center politics. However, he appears to have taken to heart the primary challenge he got from Cynthia Nixon and is embracing a lot of interesting proposals.
Meanwhile, Republicans continue to push forward assaults on democracy.
Simplifying things, one party is capable of being shamed and convinced, and one party isn't.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
The Ostrich Caucus
Republicans are being asked about Trump's criminality, and they are burying their heads in the sand. This, in many ways, is a continuation of the Fox News effect. The Republican Party, as I have often stated, is a comfortable opposition party, but can't handle actual governance. This is because they fundamentally have come to believe that government should do the very least possible. That's nice as a theory from the 1700s, but it's insufficient for the modern world.
Ensconced in their comfortable ideological and informational bubble, they have not had to deal with unpleasant facts. Trump himself might be the best example of this. He never knew that being President meant being responsible for both his actions and the governance of the country.
But facts have an unwelcome way of making themselves felt.
The Senate GOP can run from the microphones as much as they want, but the public facts are already incredibly damning. That dynamic will only get worse as the Democrats gain subpoena power.
Keep asking. They can only evade the truth for so long.
UPDATE: Similar point.
Ensconced in their comfortable ideological and informational bubble, they have not had to deal with unpleasant facts. Trump himself might be the best example of this. He never knew that being President meant being responsible for both his actions and the governance of the country.
But facts have an unwelcome way of making themselves felt.
The Senate GOP can run from the microphones as much as they want, but the public facts are already incredibly damning. That dynamic will only get worse as the Democrats gain subpoena power.
Keep asking. They can only evade the truth for so long.
UPDATE: Similar point.
Friday, December 14, 2018
Today In The Republican War On Democracy
Two-thirds of Florida voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that restores voting rights to certain felons who have completed the terms of their sentences. It is an extraordinary measure that could have major implications in a state that always seems to vote 51-49 on just about anything. Given how many minorities are living under felony drug possession convictions, this has the possibility of changing the nature of Florida elections.
Now - in a move that should shock exactly no one - the Republican governor and Secretary of State are talking about not implementing the amendment until the legislature weighs in. The point of the referendum was to remove the legislature from the equation. As someone in the article says, it should be self-executing.
Ultimately, as so often is the case in our modern republic, the courts will have to weigh in so that American citizens can vote. Of course, Republicans have been stacking the courts with ideologues.
It's Florida. It's elections.
Did anyone think this would be easy?
Now - in a move that should shock exactly no one - the Republican governor and Secretary of State are talking about not implementing the amendment until the legislature weighs in. The point of the referendum was to remove the legislature from the equation. As someone in the article says, it should be self-executing.
Ultimately, as so often is the case in our modern republic, the courts will have to weigh in so that American citizens can vote. Of course, Republicans have been stacking the courts with ideologues.
It's Florida. It's elections.
Did anyone think this would be easy?
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Art Of The Dull
Jon Chait has a nice take on how the Democrats masterfully managed to exploit the subtle cracks in Mr. Masterful Negotiator.
I'm not sure we can overstate the potential damage Trump is doing that we can't even see right now. He is an emotional toddler and a fundamentally stupid man in early/mid stages of cognitive decline. What we saw in that Oval Office meeting was the Live-TV version of what the Russians and Chinese and Saudis and many other countries have known all along.
I'm not sure we can overstate the potential damage Trump is doing that we can't even see right now. He is an emotional toddler and a fundamentally stupid man in early/mid stages of cognitive decline. What we saw in that Oval Office meeting was the Live-TV version of what the Russians and Chinese and Saudis and many other countries have known all along.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
You're Out Of Your Depth, Donnie
Yesterday's surreal press availability with Trump, Pelosi and Schumer in the Oval Office was a master class in just what a simpering dumbfuck the President of the United States is.
First, let's enjoy the spectacle of a man whose understanding of Congress never extended beyond Schoolhouse Rock trying to lecture Nancy Freaking Pelosi on counting votes. No Speaker in my lifetime has been a better vote whip than Nancy Freaking Pelosi. Mansplaining? Mansplaining.
Second, if reports are accurate (and they usually are), Trump left the meeting in a huff, threw his little notecards from his tiny little hands, threatened to call another press conference and then backed down. I've been saying for years that the modern GOP is a sustained tantrum against the 21st century. Trump is the Toddler in Chief throwing hissy fits whenever he gets challenged and has to eat his carrots before he gets pudding.
Third, Trump has been attacked at a remove for the past two years. Protests, the White House Press Corps, talking heads on CNN...all of these have been a little bit removed or buffered by the respect we accord the President as Head of State. Foreign leaders have not called Trump out on his dumbassedness, because they realize that on some fundamental level, they have to work with him. Like it or not, they have to find a way to appease the man-baby. Pelosi and Schumer are under no such obligation. They have demonstrated what the next two years will be like for Trump.
We know that Trump is a raging narcissist and that narcissists are fundamentally fragile egos who build lies around themselves to hide from the howling wound inside them. As a "reality TV" star, Trump has never really been exposed to actual reality. That was the subtext of the Access Hollywood tape, that he can "get away with anything." The Presidency is stripping every layer of lie that bare. But it is going to get exponentially worse when Democrats get the gavels in January. This was only a taste of what can be expected.
Of course, you have the typical display of abject craven surrender from GOP "leaders" in the Congress, so much of this will degenerate into a partisan feud, when it should be seen as an effort to preserve American rule of law and democracy. (Though it's an open question whether the Republican Party cares about that anymore.) As Trump accumulates psychic wounds, how will that manifest in actions?
That's profoundly scary to contemplate.
First, let's enjoy the spectacle of a man whose understanding of Congress never extended beyond Schoolhouse Rock trying to lecture Nancy Freaking Pelosi on counting votes. No Speaker in my lifetime has been a better vote whip than Nancy Freaking Pelosi. Mansplaining? Mansplaining.
Second, if reports are accurate (and they usually are), Trump left the meeting in a huff, threw his little notecards from his tiny little hands, threatened to call another press conference and then backed down. I've been saying for years that the modern GOP is a sustained tantrum against the 21st century. Trump is the Toddler in Chief throwing hissy fits whenever he gets challenged and has to eat his carrots before he gets pudding.
Third, Trump has been attacked at a remove for the past two years. Protests, the White House Press Corps, talking heads on CNN...all of these have been a little bit removed or buffered by the respect we accord the President as Head of State. Foreign leaders have not called Trump out on his dumbassedness, because they realize that on some fundamental level, they have to work with him. Like it or not, they have to find a way to appease the man-baby. Pelosi and Schumer are under no such obligation. They have demonstrated what the next two years will be like for Trump.
We know that Trump is a raging narcissist and that narcissists are fundamentally fragile egos who build lies around themselves to hide from the howling wound inside them. As a "reality TV" star, Trump has never really been exposed to actual reality. That was the subtext of the Access Hollywood tape, that he can "get away with anything." The Presidency is stripping every layer of lie that bare. But it is going to get exponentially worse when Democrats get the gavels in January. This was only a taste of what can be expected.
Of course, you have the typical display of abject craven surrender from GOP "leaders" in the Congress, so much of this will degenerate into a partisan feud, when it should be seen as an effort to preserve American rule of law and democracy. (Though it's an open question whether the Republican Party cares about that anymore.) As Trump accumulates psychic wounds, how will that manifest in actions?
That's profoundly scary to contemplate.
Impressive
One constant of the Bush Years was the unfailingly poor ability of Bill Kristol to predict future events. An avowed and consistent Never Trumper, Kristol has since come around to evidence-based thinking.
Megan McCardle has now taken on the mantle of World's Worst Pundit. Her argument - if you want to dignify it with the label - is that Democrats are the ones really in jeopardy because of Mueller's probe.
Yup.
Democrats.
McCardle, as is her practice, twists every available fact into a substantial enough pretzel to fit her preconceptions. Queen of the Hot Takes, she has decided that if everything we know to be true wasn't true, that would really mean what it means. She "argues" that the Clinton Impeachment was kinda sketchy (true) and therefore the Trump Impeachment would be kinda sketchy (false equivalency). Her assertion is that Mueller might not have enough evidence to warrant impeachment.
Let's see what we ALREADY KNOW. Trump directed his lawyer to engage in campaign finance violations in terms of his hush money to various mistresses. He then orchestrated a cover-up of those violations. We know that he has charged Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Konstantin Kilminik, George Papadopolous and Michael Flynn. Gates, Cohen and Flynn have been singing like canaries. We have reason to believe he's circling in on evidence of physical meetings between Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and others with Julian Assange, the cutout used by Russia to influence the election.
In McCardle's mind, this is terrible news for Democrats.
Megan McCardle has now taken on the mantle of World's Worst Pundit. Her argument - if you want to dignify it with the label - is that Democrats are the ones really in jeopardy because of Mueller's probe.
Yup.
Democrats.
McCardle, as is her practice, twists every available fact into a substantial enough pretzel to fit her preconceptions. Queen of the Hot Takes, she has decided that if everything we know to be true wasn't true, that would really mean what it means. She "argues" that the Clinton Impeachment was kinda sketchy (true) and therefore the Trump Impeachment would be kinda sketchy (false equivalency). Her assertion is that Mueller might not have enough evidence to warrant impeachment.
Let's see what we ALREADY KNOW. Trump directed his lawyer to engage in campaign finance violations in terms of his hush money to various mistresses. He then orchestrated a cover-up of those violations. We know that he has charged Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Konstantin Kilminik, George Papadopolous and Michael Flynn. Gates, Cohen and Flynn have been singing like canaries. We have reason to believe he's circling in on evidence of physical meetings between Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and others with Julian Assange, the cutout used by Russia to influence the election.
In McCardle's mind, this is terrible news for Democrats.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Going Swimmingly
Brexit is going well. Yesterday, a Labour MP grabbed the ceremonial mace that represents Royal authority and tried to leave the Commons. This would have effectively shut down the House of Commons until it was returned. It's....bonkers, but there you have it.
This is the best metaphor for what is going on in Britain right now.
Basically, everyone know Brexit is a slowly unfolding disaster, but no one in power has the courage to do anything about it.
Given Trump's trade wars, rising interest rates, stagnant wages and the overall business cycle, I think we are on the verge of another recession. A Hard Brexit could be the match that lights the bonfire.
This is the best metaphor for what is going on in Britain right now.
Basically, everyone know Brexit is a slowly unfolding disaster, but no one in power has the courage to do anything about it.
Given Trump's trade wars, rising interest rates, stagnant wages and the overall business cycle, I think we are on the verge of another recession. A Hard Brexit could be the match that lights the bonfire.
Monday, December 10, 2018
Woocoodanode
Robby Mook makes a point I've been trying to make for some time now. These "revelations" from Mueller are not really revelations at all. They add, perhaps, some more evidence to the already heaping piles of evidence of what Democrats were saying in 2016: Russia wanted Trump to win, Trump wanted Russian help, they conspired together to help him win. As Mook points out, this was the consensus of the cyber-intelligence community. As we also know, Mitch McConnell - arguably a worse human being than Donald Trump - effectively blocked the report from the DNI that would have shared this information with the voting public
We knew all this in 2016.
As Mook points out, we have been fucked over by "Both Sides" journalism. There was an example this weekend of how persistent and pervasive "Both Sides" is. Chuck Todd, the spirit of Both Sides made flesh to walk amongst us, was reporting on the unprecedented efforts by Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan to strip a newly elected Democratic governor of much of his power. He concluded by saying that Democrats have done the same thing when they have been in the same situation. This is bullshit. The only time I can remember anything similar was when a Democratic governor took in North Carolina two years ago. This is part of a concerted effort by Republicans to thwart democracy, because they are losing the support of a majority of voters. There is no Democratic equivalent.
Back in 2016, any accusation against Trump had to be balanced by an accusation against Clinton. If Trump was on tape bragging about sexual assault, what about Clinton's emails? If Trump was apparently in cahoots with Wikileaks, what about Uranium One? If Trump defrauded Trump University students and contractors, while using his charity as a slush fund, what about the Clinton Foundation.
Look, I've engaged in Both Sides when I teach. I get the impulse to be impartial, to try not to take sides. But the past two years, I've given up. Yes, I reach for a John Kasich or John McCain or Lisa Murkowski to try and show "not all Republicans." I try and make a case for Burkean Conservatism, because there's real merit there. But there is no way to look at Trump and McConnell's Republican Party, remain objective and say: "Both Sides."
The depressing fact is that American liberals have been right far more often than they have been wrong. Right about Iraq. Right about tax cuts. Right about deregulation. Right about Trump. History has shown this to be true. And we are right about income inequality and global warming, too.
But it won't matter, as long as everything is framed as a binary story where each side is given value because of the nature of American journalism.
We knew all this in 2016.
As Mook points out, we have been fucked over by "Both Sides" journalism. There was an example this weekend of how persistent and pervasive "Both Sides" is. Chuck Todd, the spirit of Both Sides made flesh to walk amongst us, was reporting on the unprecedented efforts by Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan to strip a newly elected Democratic governor of much of his power. He concluded by saying that Democrats have done the same thing when they have been in the same situation. This is bullshit. The only time I can remember anything similar was when a Democratic governor took in North Carolina two years ago. This is part of a concerted effort by Republicans to thwart democracy, because they are losing the support of a majority of voters. There is no Democratic equivalent.
Back in 2016, any accusation against Trump had to be balanced by an accusation against Clinton. If Trump was on tape bragging about sexual assault, what about Clinton's emails? If Trump was apparently in cahoots with Wikileaks, what about Uranium One? If Trump defrauded Trump University students and contractors, while using his charity as a slush fund, what about the Clinton Foundation.
Look, I've engaged in Both Sides when I teach. I get the impulse to be impartial, to try not to take sides. But the past two years, I've given up. Yes, I reach for a John Kasich or John McCain or Lisa Murkowski to try and show "not all Republicans." I try and make a case for Burkean Conservatism, because there's real merit there. But there is no way to look at Trump and McConnell's Republican Party, remain objective and say: "Both Sides."
The depressing fact is that American liberals have been right far more often than they have been wrong. Right about Iraq. Right about tax cuts. Right about deregulation. Right about Trump. History has shown this to be true. And we are right about income inequality and global warming, too.
But it won't matter, as long as everything is framed as a binary story where each side is given value because of the nature of American journalism.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
The Damage
We know the following:
- Trump is very credibly accused of campaign finance crimes.
- Trump is very credibly accused of conspiring to cover up those campaign finance crimes.
- Trump is very credibly accused of conspiring to work with a foreign power to influence elections.
- Trump is very credibly accused of conspiring to cover up those crimes.
We also know the following:
- The Republicans will do absolutely nothing about it.
Back in the 1840s and 1850s, Northern abolitionists made the argument that slavery was a moral abomination. It wasn't simply that slavery was incompatible with American ideals or disadvantaged white labor, it was that slave holding was a sin and slaveholders sinners. In response, the slaveholding South made arguments that slavery was actually a morally positive institution, because slavery elevated the slaves. Take a moment to think about what you have to convince yourself of, if you want to prove that slavery was good for the slave.
That's where the modern GOP is. Trump will be credibly accused of a multitude of crimes, as will the people around him and his family. The GOP - in order to defend the indefensible - will twist itself into knots to justify Trump's behavior.
The damage to our politics will last longer than Trump's hold on the Oval Office.
- Trump is very credibly accused of campaign finance crimes.
- Trump is very credibly accused of conspiring to cover up those campaign finance crimes.
- Trump is very credibly accused of conspiring to work with a foreign power to influence elections.
- Trump is very credibly accused of conspiring to cover up those crimes.
We also know the following:
- The Republicans will do absolutely nothing about it.
Back in the 1840s and 1850s, Northern abolitionists made the argument that slavery was a moral abomination. It wasn't simply that slavery was incompatible with American ideals or disadvantaged white labor, it was that slave holding was a sin and slaveholders sinners. In response, the slaveholding South made arguments that slavery was actually a morally positive institution, because slavery elevated the slaves. Take a moment to think about what you have to convince yourself of, if you want to prove that slavery was good for the slave.
That's where the modern GOP is. Trump will be credibly accused of a multitude of crimes, as will the people around him and his family. The GOP - in order to defend the indefensible - will twist itself into knots to justify Trump's behavior.
The damage to our politics will last longer than Trump's hold on the Oval Office.
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Yeah...So
Much of what Mueller has been dribbling out the last few days is what those of us who cared to try and follow these threads have known all along. Russia helped the Trump campaign in many different ways. As (I think) Josh Marshall pointed out, the dumbest and worst explanation always is the right one - Trump's Razor.
What Mueller is doing to putting the evidence into the record. And, yes, this is the biggest scandal in the history of the presidency. And the Russia stuff is only part of it. There's emoluments. There's various garden variety scandals up and down the administration that feels like the Harding Administration. Typically, the Unholy Trinity of Presidential Scandals consists of Grant (the Whiskey Ring, Fisk and Gould), Harding (Teapot Dome, the Veteran's Department scandal) and Nixon (Watergate, Agnew). Watergate is obviously the most damaging, because of its abuse of power.
Trump has likely blown through all of those. He has the base corruption of the Whiskey Ring and Teapot Dome, the abuse of power and cover-up of Nixon. He combines it with monumental stupidity. Grant and Harding were, at least, personally honest. They trusted people around them far more than they should have. Nixon was personally involved in the corruption, but he at least had native intelligence and enough respect for the Republican Party to step down when asked.
Trump has none of these things. He is all the worst of Grant and Harding, trusting figures like Stephen Miller, Ryan Zinke, Tom Price, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. He has the personal involvement of Nixon, without the intelligence to understand that there are in fact limits on his power.
So, this is the most corrupt, scandalous administration in history. The response by the GOP - both its voters and its elected officials - is a resounding...so, what?
It's not just Trump.
It never has been.
What Mueller is doing to putting the evidence into the record. And, yes, this is the biggest scandal in the history of the presidency. And the Russia stuff is only part of it. There's emoluments. There's various garden variety scandals up and down the administration that feels like the Harding Administration. Typically, the Unholy Trinity of Presidential Scandals consists of Grant (the Whiskey Ring, Fisk and Gould), Harding (Teapot Dome, the Veteran's Department scandal) and Nixon (Watergate, Agnew). Watergate is obviously the most damaging, because of its abuse of power.
Trump has likely blown through all of those. He has the base corruption of the Whiskey Ring and Teapot Dome, the abuse of power and cover-up of Nixon. He combines it with monumental stupidity. Grant and Harding were, at least, personally honest. They trusted people around them far more than they should have. Nixon was personally involved in the corruption, but he at least had native intelligence and enough respect for the Republican Party to step down when asked.
Trump has none of these things. He is all the worst of Grant and Harding, trusting figures like Stephen Miller, Ryan Zinke, Tom Price, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. He has the personal involvement of Nixon, without the intelligence to understand that there are in fact limits on his power.
So, this is the most corrupt, scandalous administration in history. The response by the GOP - both its voters and its elected officials - is a resounding...so, what?
It's not just Trump.
It never has been.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Government By Dow Jones
Donald Trump now owns ten of the worst twenty single day declines in the history of the stock market. This has all happened since the 2017 tax cut that funneled massive amounts of wealth to the stock market class.
Be skeptical of the claims that Wall Street is fundamentally the same as Main Street. If anything, the volatility of the stock market is likely because large amounts of capital are flowing into and out of stocks with no regard to the underlying value of a company or the health of the economy.
However...massive inequality is not healthy for the economy. Trade wars are not healthy for the economy. Economic expansions always end.
We will be in a recession by 2020.
Be skeptical of the claims that Wall Street is fundamentally the same as Main Street. If anything, the volatility of the stock market is likely because large amounts of capital are flowing into and out of stocks with no regard to the underlying value of a company or the health of the economy.
However...massive inequality is not healthy for the economy. Trade wars are not healthy for the economy. Economic expansions always end.
We will be in a recession by 2020.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Unamerican
What is going on in Wisconsin and Michigan should surprise no one who has watched the modern GOP evolve into what is fundamentally an un-American party. The GOP has basically decided that elections only count when their candidate wins, and if fraud happens to keep a Republican in office, so be it. Their concern for electoral fraud extends as far as their own electoral gains. They have gerrymandered Wisconsin so profoundly that Democrats won 190,000 more votes in state assembly elections and Republicans wound up with a super-majority of seats.
If American democracy - such as it is - depends on an accurate counting of votes in order to determine whom the people desire to govern them, then the GOP can safely be described as a party that no longer believes this. They want to rule, and if that includes turning a blind eye to Russian interference in our elections, then they will do that. Even if it includes elevating literally the worst person in our nation's history to the highest office in the land and then protecting him from legitimate consequences...
How can we describe the GOP as anything but an authoritarian party in the service of plutocrats and white nationalists?
If American democracy - such as it is - depends on an accurate counting of votes in order to determine whom the people desire to govern them, then the GOP can safely be described as a party that no longer believes this. They want to rule, and if that includes turning a blind eye to Russian interference in our elections, then they will do that. Even if it includes elevating literally the worst person in our nation's history to the highest office in the land and then protecting him from legitimate consequences...
How can we describe the GOP as anything but an authoritarian party in the service of plutocrats and white nationalists?
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Well...OK, Then
I read this whole piece about a Confederate nostalgic who insisted that slavery was not the root cause of the Civil War. We've just covered the war and Reconstruction in class, and so all of this is fresh in my mind.
I grew up in the vestiges of the Lost Cause. Lord knows my grandparents believed it and my dad mostly did, too. Trying to budge him wasn't easy. Some of it was his lack of desire to read the scholarship that has come out in the last 75 years, but there is something deeply rooted in human nature that makes us turn away from evidence that discomfits us.
The evidence that slavery was the root cause of the Civil War is overwhelming. It is possible to cherry pick certain words and deeds to convince yourself otherwise. Lincoln didn't mention slavery much in the early years of the war (though Confederate leaders did). The reason was his desire to keep slave states like Maryland and Kentucky in the Union. (Lincoln quipped: "I'd like to have God on my side, but I have to have Kentucky.") As he himself noted, the longer the war went on, the more firmly cemented those states became to the North. He also disavowed full emancipation until 1862. However, Lincoln's position - and the reason for Southern secession - was not the existence of slavery, but its spread. Lincoln refused to allow slavery to spread west into territories like Kansas, and his opinion was shared by millions of Northerners who were not abolitionists; they were Free Soilers. The EXISTENCE of slavery was not why the South seceded, although they assumed that Lincoln was lying about his desire to leave slavery in place where it existed. The SPREAD of slavery was very much on Lincoln's mind. The South had lost the slave/free state balance in the Senate and it would never come back, unless they annexed more territory to the South. There was an effort to annex Cuba in 1854, specifically to add slave states to the Union.
Motivated reasoning has come to define much of what I believe about American politics, and it exists to some degree on both sides. Liberals, by definition, try and adapt their beliefs to existing evidence, but they can fall into a trap that has them ignore contradictory evidence, just like anyone else. What is so pervasive right now among the American Right is a complete distrust of objective and expert data. Climate change is a stand-in for economics, history, other forms of science...the list goes on. Fox and the RW infosphere have created millions of Americans like Confederate Frank.
I don't know if we can survive them.
I grew up in the vestiges of the Lost Cause. Lord knows my grandparents believed it and my dad mostly did, too. Trying to budge him wasn't easy. Some of it was his lack of desire to read the scholarship that has come out in the last 75 years, but there is something deeply rooted in human nature that makes us turn away from evidence that discomfits us.
The evidence that slavery was the root cause of the Civil War is overwhelming. It is possible to cherry pick certain words and deeds to convince yourself otherwise. Lincoln didn't mention slavery much in the early years of the war (though Confederate leaders did). The reason was his desire to keep slave states like Maryland and Kentucky in the Union. (Lincoln quipped: "I'd like to have God on my side, but I have to have Kentucky.") As he himself noted, the longer the war went on, the more firmly cemented those states became to the North. He also disavowed full emancipation until 1862. However, Lincoln's position - and the reason for Southern secession - was not the existence of slavery, but its spread. Lincoln refused to allow slavery to spread west into territories like Kansas, and his opinion was shared by millions of Northerners who were not abolitionists; they were Free Soilers. The EXISTENCE of slavery was not why the South seceded, although they assumed that Lincoln was lying about his desire to leave slavery in place where it existed. The SPREAD of slavery was very much on Lincoln's mind. The South had lost the slave/free state balance in the Senate and it would never come back, unless they annexed more territory to the South. There was an effort to annex Cuba in 1854, specifically to add slave states to the Union.
Motivated reasoning has come to define much of what I believe about American politics, and it exists to some degree on both sides. Liberals, by definition, try and adapt their beliefs to existing evidence, but they can fall into a trap that has them ignore contradictory evidence, just like anyone else. What is so pervasive right now among the American Right is a complete distrust of objective and expert data. Climate change is a stand-in for economics, history, other forms of science...the list goes on. Fox and the RW infosphere have created millions of Americans like Confederate Frank.
I don't know if we can survive them.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
More Depressing News
Right now, everything sucks. I don't want to do jack shit, I'm tired, I hurt, I have too much work to do...Happy Holidays!
And then we have this. Basically, we have passed the point of no return on climate change. Things - and by things I mean hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods and attendant refugee crises - are going to worse, probably much worse.
What's depressing is the Yellow Vest protests in France are about a fuel tax that was instituted to combat carbon emissions. Macron "did the right thing" to address the spiraling crisis that will change human society forever. It will cost him the presidency.
That's the reality of yet another problem with democracy in the age of instant information and instant anger. Macron did the thing that needed doing and he gets riots in the streets. How many of those rioters will vote for Le Pen, when climate refugees show up in Marseilles?
Everything sucks...
And then we have this. Basically, we have passed the point of no return on climate change. Things - and by things I mean hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods and attendant refugee crises - are going to worse, probably much worse.
What's depressing is the Yellow Vest protests in France are about a fuel tax that was instituted to combat carbon emissions. Macron "did the right thing" to address the spiraling crisis that will change human society forever. It will cost him the presidency.
That's the reality of yet another problem with democracy in the age of instant information and instant anger. Macron did the thing that needed doing and he gets riots in the streets. How many of those rioters will vote for Le Pen, when climate refugees show up in Marseilles?
Everything sucks...
Monday, December 3, 2018
Online Revolutionaries
This is an interesting development noted by Anne Applebaum. There have been widespread protests by a group in France calling themselves the Yellow Vests or Gilets Jaunes. They are protesting...stuff. Now, protesting is about as French as you can get. As a country that has never really owned the dark side of it famous revolution, there is a consistent trend of taking to the barricades.
However, Applebaum notes two things.
First, there is a lot of anger out there. Second, that anger travels faster and harder on the internet than it ever could before. Time is the great perspective-giver. It cools passion. The internet does not allow for a cooling off period. It magnifies the Hottest Takes, the Purest Outrage. It has become clear that it gives an amplifier to the most extreme voices. There were always Nazis sitting in their basement, fondling their replica Nazi gear. Now they have their own Reddits, 4Chans and so on. They dive into their various echo chambers and come back angrier and purer than when they went in.
It isn't clear to me whether liberal democracy (or social democracy) can survive this. Both movements intend to disarm the Jacobins and the Brown Shirts by creating consensus. You drain the anger of revolutionaries by providing answers to problems. Social Security short circuits Socialism. But now there is nothing to stop the angriest voices from dominating from the fringes. This creates disorder, and - if Thomas Hobbes is right - disorder creates authoritarianism. If France degenerates into chaos, they will look to someone like Le Pen to lead them out. As Trump has proven, these demagogues can't actually solve any problems, but that won't matter.
It's a dark time. It's the 1930s, but different. I don't know where we go from here.
However, Applebaum notes two things.
First, there is a lot of anger out there. Second, that anger travels faster and harder on the internet than it ever could before. Time is the great perspective-giver. It cools passion. The internet does not allow for a cooling off period. It magnifies the Hottest Takes, the Purest Outrage. It has become clear that it gives an amplifier to the most extreme voices. There were always Nazis sitting in their basement, fondling their replica Nazi gear. Now they have their own Reddits, 4Chans and so on. They dive into their various echo chambers and come back angrier and purer than when they went in.
It isn't clear to me whether liberal democracy (or social democracy) can survive this. Both movements intend to disarm the Jacobins and the Brown Shirts by creating consensus. You drain the anger of revolutionaries by providing answers to problems. Social Security short circuits Socialism. But now there is nothing to stop the angriest voices from dominating from the fringes. This creates disorder, and - if Thomas Hobbes is right - disorder creates authoritarianism. If France degenerates into chaos, they will look to someone like Le Pen to lead them out. As Trump has proven, these demagogues can't actually solve any problems, but that won't matter.
It's a dark time. It's the 1930s, but different. I don't know where we go from here.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Bush Assessed
The assessments of George H.W. Bush have started to roll in, and perhaps not surprisingly they are all over the place. Bush was apparently guilty of the same sort of handsy behavior that ended Al Franken's political career. He tended to grope and grab women at various times.
He also signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, a true landmark piece of legislation that continues to provide protection and possibilities to millions of Americans.
He also pardoned the main figures in the Iran Contra Scandal, including ones that could have implicated him in wrong doing. Iran Contra is easily the worst government scandal between Watergate and the myriad and on going crimes of the Trump Maladministration. It involved a direct conspiracy by important figures in the White House to violate the law and cover those crimes up.
There were the numerous foreign policy victories, like the subtle management of the ending of the Cold War, the impressive coalition building of the Persian Gulf War. (A friend of mine argued that Bush tacitly let Saddam invade Kuwait and then let him stay in power afterwards. That doesn't make much sense. I think 2003 proved the folly of going to Baghdad.)
But there was the abject cravenness in the face of the Tiananmen catastrophe. There was the hypocritical invasion of Panama, done at least to help cover up Noriega's role in Iran Contra and various drug schemes.
There was the moderate stance on immigration and taxing and spending. These positions have become impossible for Republicans in Washington to embrace. Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 all either embraced immigration reform or tried to, yet the Republican Party has moved so far to the White Nationalist right that those positions are anathema to the party now. Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge means that once again a Republican Congress has shredded fiscal discipline in pursuit of tax cuts to the rich. HW did not do that.
But any assessment of Bush has to address the extraordinarily racist and cynical campaigns he ran in 1988 and 1992. Bush's campaigns were prime examples of the Republican movement to "otherize" the Democratic Party. His graceful note to Bill Clinton during the transition is held up as an example of how we don't have to be nasty in our politics. But this stands in sharp contrast to every campaign he ran. As I said yesterday, I was taken in by his attacks on Dukakis. The "Tank Ad" was what what convinced me: vapid, cynical and shallow. "Willie Horton" remains shorthand for racist demagoguery.
There was David Souter. There was Clarence Thomas.
Bush was a complicated Republican, back when Republicans allowed themselves to be complicated. Today, they have become a party of orthodoxy and deference to ideological authority. His contest in 1992 with the odious Pat Buchanan gave him a sheen of respectability when it came to some issues that perhaps he didn't deserve. He was a much better president than his son, and any comparisons to Trump are almost pointless.
Bush was the last pragmatic Republican, but he was also the progenitor of our nasty, divisive, racist politics. You can't simply blame that on Lee Atwater. They were his campaigns.
UPDATE: This is fair.
He also signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, a true landmark piece of legislation that continues to provide protection and possibilities to millions of Americans.
He also pardoned the main figures in the Iran Contra Scandal, including ones that could have implicated him in wrong doing. Iran Contra is easily the worst government scandal between Watergate and the myriad and on going crimes of the Trump Maladministration. It involved a direct conspiracy by important figures in the White House to violate the law and cover those crimes up.
There were the numerous foreign policy victories, like the subtle management of the ending of the Cold War, the impressive coalition building of the Persian Gulf War. (A friend of mine argued that Bush tacitly let Saddam invade Kuwait and then let him stay in power afterwards. That doesn't make much sense. I think 2003 proved the folly of going to Baghdad.)
But there was the abject cravenness in the face of the Tiananmen catastrophe. There was the hypocritical invasion of Panama, done at least to help cover up Noriega's role in Iran Contra and various drug schemes.
There was the moderate stance on immigration and taxing and spending. These positions have become impossible for Republicans in Washington to embrace. Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 all either embraced immigration reform or tried to, yet the Republican Party has moved so far to the White Nationalist right that those positions are anathema to the party now. Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge means that once again a Republican Congress has shredded fiscal discipline in pursuit of tax cuts to the rich. HW did not do that.
But any assessment of Bush has to address the extraordinarily racist and cynical campaigns he ran in 1988 and 1992. Bush's campaigns were prime examples of the Republican movement to "otherize" the Democratic Party. His graceful note to Bill Clinton during the transition is held up as an example of how we don't have to be nasty in our politics. But this stands in sharp contrast to every campaign he ran. As I said yesterday, I was taken in by his attacks on Dukakis. The "Tank Ad" was what what convinced me: vapid, cynical and shallow. "Willie Horton" remains shorthand for racist demagoguery.
There was David Souter. There was Clarence Thomas.
Bush was a complicated Republican, back when Republicans allowed themselves to be complicated. Today, they have become a party of orthodoxy and deference to ideological authority. His contest in 1992 with the odious Pat Buchanan gave him a sheen of respectability when it came to some issues that perhaps he didn't deserve. He was a much better president than his son, and any comparisons to Trump are almost pointless.
Bush was the last pragmatic Republican, but he was also the progenitor of our nasty, divisive, racist politics. You can't simply blame that on Lee Atwater. They were his campaigns.
UPDATE: This is fair.
Saturday, December 1, 2018
41
My first presidential vote was for Walter Mondale. My second was for George H.W. Bush. I was taken in, a bit, by the ad campaign depicting Mike Dukakis as an ineffectual wimp. I don't necessarily regret that vote, except for Clarence Thomas.
Four years later, Pat Buchanan challenged Bush from the Revanchist Right. While he lost, it was a sign of the coming lurch into racism, ignorance and grievance that typifies the far right in America today.
I would be very surprised of Trump was invited to the funeral.
Four years later, Pat Buchanan challenged Bush from the Revanchist Right. While he lost, it was a sign of the coming lurch into racism, ignorance and grievance that typifies the far right in America today.
I would be very surprised of Trump was invited to the funeral.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)