The Carnival Barker President vs the Coronavirus

I've said this on social media several times: the office of the President of the United States, and the person occupying that office, carry a high level of seriousness.  The responsibilities of the President demand a high degree of seriousness.  The President is not just another average citizen, like Bob the bartender or Joe at the local diner.  His (since all the presidents to date have been men) words wield substantial influence: they can either avert or pave the way to war, they can influence the stock market, they can determine the outcome of an election, or they can shape foreign policy.  A considerable number of people hang on the President's (any president's) every syllable like they were the Words of God themselves.

So when the current President of the United States calls efforts to raise alarms about a potentially global pandemic a politicized hoax, I get more than a little angry.

Here's Donald Trump at a rally in South Carolina last night (Feb 28, 2020), doing his usual disjointed rambling thing: "Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. . .they're politicizing it.  We did one of the great jobs - you say, 'How's President Trump doing?' They go, 'Oh, not good, not good'. . .and this is their new hoax. . ."

And here he is on Twitter: "Anti-Trump Network @CNN doing whatever it can to stoke a national Coronavirus panic. The far left Network pretty much ignoring anyone who they interview who doesn't blame President Trump." @trish_regan @FoxNews Media refuses to discuss the great job our professionals are doing!"

Now, you can interpret those remarks any one of several different ways, but the most generous interpretation is that Trump is calling any criticism of his response to the virus and/or attempts to warn the public about its severity a hoax meant to weaken him politically.

Here are some Coronavirus facts:

• It's already infected somewhere around 80,000 people worldwide
• China, South Korea, Iran, and Italy have all reported outbreaks of varying sizes
• In the past 48 hours, there have been four cases of unknown origin (meaning, none of the victims had recently returned from a country where there was a Coronavirus outbreak) reported in the United States
• One of those four victims has died 

Does this sound like a hoax to you? Or does it sound like something that should be taken seriously?

Trump's "hoax" comments might be believable if he didn't already hamstring America's ability to respond to the Coronavirus by making deep cuts to the CDC, slashing its global disease response budget by 80% and disbanding its global health security team in 2018.  And if he wasn't already getting bipartisan pushback from Congress over these budget cuts.  See, the possibility of a global pandemic has already been on the radar for a while - even the most clueless members of Congress have been aware of that.

But not Trump, evidently.

Here's what could very well happen, thanks to Trump's irresponsibly stupid comments: some people - probably some of Trump's followers -  will believe him when he says the virus is a hoax, so will ignore or mock all the information from public health officials.  They won't practice any of the suggested preventive measures, and we'll have several what should have been easily-preventable cases of Coronavirus in the United States. This isn't that farfetched, when you consider that Trump's "hoax" remarks are being amplified and repeated by the likes of Laura Ingraham, Fox & Friends and Rush Limbaugh, or sitting US Senators are repeating debunked conspiracy theories.

And it's already shaping people's reactions:

What's going to happen if (possibly when) people start getting infected in large numbers? The most optimistic scenario forecasts dozens of infectees and a 1-2% fatality rate. That's a lot of victims.  What about the potential economic hits due to missed work, disrupted global supply chains, the strain on the country's health care network?  We've already seen the effect the Coronavirus is having on the stock market.

Do you feel better about Trump's lackluster approach to tackling the disease, his disdain for many essential government programs and services, or his uninformed, seat-of-the-pants approach to running the country now? I sure as hell don't.

This is why a buffoon like Trump should never have been allowed anywhere near the White House.  The job of President of the United States is no place for the mediocre, the lazy, or the willfully ignorant.  Unfortunately, Trump is all of these things. And if you try to say "We couldn't have known," I'm calling bullshit.  We did know.  After five seconds of hearing Trump give a speech or respond in a debate, we knew.  It was obvious. Trump was thoroughly unfit to be president.

And the inadequate preparation for/response to the Coronavirus is yet another example of his unfitness on display to the entire world.

The Wanna-Be American King

The concept of accountability has gone missing in Washington DC.

Donald Trump was never going to be held accountable.  He's probably never been held accountable in his entire life.  Certainly not since being sworn in as president.  The day after Robert Mueller testified in Congress about his involvement with the Russian government in the 2016 election (in which he only escaped being indicted due to DoJ guidelines), Trump was putting pressure on the Ukrainian government to uncover (or fabricate) "dirt" on the man who he assumed would be his opponent in the 2020 election.  Where a normal person might choose to lay low after such a close call, Trump decided to double down on his corrupt behavior.  He never made a secret of it.  Hell, he openly talked about it in televised interviews.  None of Trump's aides, advisors, or cabinet officials have been able to restrain his worst impulses except around the edges.

And Congress? The co-equal branch of government specifically designed in many ways to act as a check on the Executive branch? The House of Representatives took its responsibility seriously and impeached the president. But the Senate is refusing to do its job.  It ignored the evidence, refused to hear witness testimony, and will very likely acquit Trump in a speedy sham trial a few days from now.  The Senate didn't just fail to hold Trump accountable, it - specifically Senate Republicans - flat-out refused to do so.

So Trump will face zero punishment for attempting to interfere with the 2020 presidential election.  Sure, he's been impeached, and that will be a stain on his legacy forever.  But as far as him suffering any immediate consequences that will prevent him from trying to rig it in his favor?

Zip. Zero. Nada.

Of course, there's the 2020 election itself.  Vote him out of office, right? That is, vote him out of office through the election he's actively trying to cheat in? Sure, piece of cake.

Now, I'm not telling anyone to give up in despair and not vote.  For god's sake, VOTE.  Because this election is probably the most important one in your lifetime.  But don't expect it the Trump campaign to play fair.  Don't be surprised by the traditional Republican tactics like voter suppression, selective voter ID measures, and limited polling sites in Dem-leaning districts.  Don't be surprised if Trump pulls out all the stops - like, say, deploying ICE to polling sites for the purpose of intimidating voters to stay home.  Or worse.

Additionally, Trump will probably do a whole bunch of idiotic, amoral, and illegal stuff between now and November.  And if the past has taught us anything, it's that Trump's antics will push his previous fiasco out of the public consciousness.  It's a well-established pattern at this point: Trump generates a controversy, it dominates the news cycle for a couple days, and is promptly forgotten once Trump makes another bonehead mistake.

Here's an example: have you heard anyone mention Trump's drone assassination of the Iranian general in the last 2-3 days? Trump nearly blundered the United States into a war, and hardly anyone is talking about it now.

Acquitting Trump will be giving him a green light to do whatever he wants, without consequences.  And given some of the things Trump has shown himself to be okay with doing (roughing up protestors, declaring martial law, curtailing the First Amendment, jailing his political opponents) make me extremely nervous.

I'm not saying it's certain that any of these things will happen.  But the chances that they do are a lot further away from zero than they should be.

So. . .thanks, Senate Republicans.

Speaking of that pack of worthless, unprincipled weasels - guess who else won't be held accountable?

Yeah, yeah, I know there's a lot of pent-up anger at the Senate over the impeachment trial's likely outcome.  There sure was after the Senate voted to not allow witnesses, therefore paving the way for the acquittal.  But will that translate to meaningful results at the ballot box? I'm not so sure.  First, there was a lot of anger in the 2018 midterms, too; but despite Democrats making significant gains (the much-hyped "blue wave"), Republicans managed to pick up two seats in the Senate.  They're probably counting on maintaining, if not increasing, their lead in the Senate.

Because despite all the angry phone calls and emails, and the op-eds rightly calling them cowards and worse, they have pollsters who have gauged the public's sentiment and know how their constituents feel.  They've known for a while, which is why they voted the way they did.  So aside from a few vulnerable Senators, they're not sweating reelection.  And if they do unexpectedly lose, they're not worried.  They can find a pundit gig, or a position on a consulting firm, or even just retire.  And in eight or twelve years, "Republican" won't be a dirty word anymore and they can reemerge from the political wilderness.  And Republicans have some experience being the minority party.  If Democrats do retake the Senate, they'll just go into opposition mode and make it incredibly difficult for the Senate (and the White House, if a Democrat gets elected) to do its job.

No, the only thing they're worried about is being excluded from the Big Club, and that only happens if they defy Trump.  Mitt Romney and John Bolton are quickly becoming cautionary tales.

So, to sum up, we've got a president who's unaccountable because his subordinates can't keep him in check, and the Senate simply won't; and fifty-three Senators who are unaccountable because they know the worst outcome for them is the unlikely chance that they don't get reelected.

Where does that leave the country going forward? Well, if Trump loses in 2020 (and that's a big "if" for multiple reasons), expect Republicans to "suddenly" rediscover all the principles and ideals they've been uniformly ignoring since January 2017.  And that creates a dilemma.

A Democrat president (and/or Senate) acting the way Trump has done will further erode the concept of presidential accountability and co-equal branches of government, so the right thing to do would be to heed those calls for accountability.  However, to anyone who remembers Republican behavior throughout the Obama administration knows that Republicans aren't making good faith arguments.  They only care about accountability to the extent they can use it to weaken Democrats and get themselves back into power. Consequently, there's a strong, justifiable argument for telling Republicans to sit down and shut up.  Additionally, if Republicans obstruct simply for the sole purpose of denying Democrats a legislative victory (it was Mitch McConnell's entire strategy from 2010 - 2016), a Democratic president may have to act unilaterally just to keep the government functioning.  It's happened before.

Thus, the Democrats' (and America's) predicament.

Of course, this all depends on the election's outcome.  If Trump gets reelected, it could very well mean the end of Constitutional democracy in America.  And that's not a dramatic exaggeration.  He's already been sent a message that he won't be held accountable no matter what he does.

How far do you think he'll run with that if he gets another four years?

Choose wisely this November.  Because a president that's not accountable to anyone is a king.

The Price of Intellectual Laziness

Donald Trump just kicked a hornet's nest in the Middle East.

A few days ago, the United States, via a drone strike, assassinated the head of the Iranian military's Quds Force.  To understand the significance of this, imagine if a hostile foreign nation assassinated a high-ranking US general or admiral.  Not only that, but one who was deeply admired and respected by the public.  The Iranian government is predictably pissed off about this, and is sure to respond.  How exactly it will do that is unknown, but Iran has a lot of possibilities, ranging from a cyber attack to disrupting the global oil supply by choking off the Strait of Hormuz to terrorist attacks against US overseas installations.  But there's sure to be some form of retaliation, and even a restrained Iranian response could inflict significant damage.  Perhaps even a war.

And this was all set in motion by a man with no long-term strategy, no contingency plans for what might happen next, no national security staff in place to handle the crisis, and no interest or understanding of the world around him.

This is why a president doesn't make seat-of-the-pants decisions.  A good president, anyway.  The job of leading the nation is unimaginably complex, and in reality a president has very little power. There's very little room to maneuver on just about any issue without nudging something else off in a direction you don't want it to go. Sure, a lot of those concerns turn out to be overblown - many of the worst-case "what ifs" the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations had about America supporting France/getting directly involved in Vietnam ended up not coming to pass, and the chances of them occurring were far less likely than any of those presidents believed them to be.  But presidents don't have a crystal ball, though, so it's important to carefully consider the consequences of any given decision.

(For example: Saudi Arabia. We all know eleven of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers came from that country, and there's good reason to believe that the Saudi Royal Family had advance knowledge of the plot.  Maybe they even provided logistical support.  So if anybody deserves an American ass-kicking, it's probably them. But what happens next? Say the US finally does target Saudi Arabia. Really bombs the shit out of it, to the point that we even wipe out the rats and cockroaches. Where does that leave our country? America still depends a lot on Saudi oil, despite efforts over the past few years to develop alternatives. That oil supply dries up if we attack them, which would harm our economy and our day-to-day lives in a big way.  And that's why the US hasn't attacked Saudi Arabia in retaliation for 9/11.)

Of course, maybe nothing bad will happen.  Maybe cooler heads will somehow prevail, and aside from a little chest-thumping rhetoric from both sides, things will revert to the status quo.  Maybe.  I don't have a crystal ball either.

Regardless, Trump's impulsive decision-making process isn't reassuring. At all. He's easily provoked and is more concerned about what kinds of headlines his policies and actions generate than the effects of those policies and decisions.

Not to mention the optics of trying to be a strong, decisive leader is a good way to distract from his impeachment.

And that's why you don't vote for a narcissistic, stubborn, willfully ignorant man-child to serve as president.

When Feudal Fealty Meets Democracy

Quick question.  Who remembers who Eric Shinseki was?

(. . .pause. . .)

Anyone?

(. . .longer pause. . .)

Really? Nobody? *sigh*

Okay, quick recap. Shinseki was an Army general who served from the mid-1960s until 2003.  He had a fairly distinguished career - three Bronze Stars, a pair of Purple Hearts, a handful of combat tours, along with the prerequisites needed to attain the rank of four-star General - but I'm bringing him up because of something that happened at the tail end of his career.

See, Shinseki's final assignment before he retired was Chief of Staff of the Army. For those not familiar with the military's organizational structure, that made him the Army's representative on the Joint Chiefs - which means Shinseki had a fair amount of interaction with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, and the President.  And for the back half of Shinseki's term as Chief of Staff, those three individuals were Richard Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, and George W Bush.

Shinseki and Rumsfeld had a disagreement over a little event known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Specifically, the number of troops that should have comprised the initial invasion force. Rumsfeld thought it should have been between 100K - 150K troops, while Shinseki believed the mission would require several hundred thousand troops.  History eventually vindicated Shinseki, but contradicting Rumsfeld (before Congress, no less) ended up putting him on Rumsfeld's bad side: from then onward, Shinseki was persona non grata with Rumsfeld and the cabal within the Bush Administration who were eager to invade Iraq. Besides making Shinseki a "lame duck," Rumsfeld's very public rebuke had the effect of cowing other senior officers who might have disagreed with one of Rumsfeld's policies, or have given him advice he didn't want to hear.

Okay, you all still with me? You in the back: wake up!

Questions? Oh, you want to know why I'm bringing all this up.  Right, I was just getting to that.

I brought that incident up for two reasons.  First, to illustrate the consequences of politicizing the military.  By undercutting Shinseki, Rumsfeld made it more likely that people would give him advice he wanted to hear, rather than what they believed would work. Look at what happened as a result: the U.S. invaded Iraq with far fewer troops than necessary.  Combined with a handful of other bad decisions, such as bypassing weapons caches and ignoring widespread looting, this meant that the United States lost control of the situation very early on.  Had Rumsfeld gone with Shinseki's recommended troop levels, the U.S. could have had enough personnel to prevent many foreign insurgents from sneaking across the border or maintain civil order.  Now, it's not certain that the additional troops Shinseki recommended would have been enough to contain Iraq, but those troops would have made success more likely. Yet Rumsfeld rejected Shinseki's advice, and that decision came back to haunt the military throughout OIF.  Thousands of people died as a result.

The second reason I brought this up was to tie it to a recent event that probably hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserved.  In the aftermath of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher's court martial for murdering a civilian (quick recap of those events here), President Trump announced on Twitter that he would be instructing the Secretary of the Navy to rescind Navy Achievement Medals for two Navy JAG officers who prosecuted Gallagher's case.

(Quick tangent: before I get to my main point, I want to detour briefly for reasons that will become obvious very quickly.  It looked pretty clear to me that Gallagher used excessive force against an unarmed noncombatant - if I were a juror, I would've voted to convict him - but here's the important part: I think the rumors of excessive force swirling around the case were what caught Trump's attention.  I'm speculating, but based on Trump's past behavior, I think he heard about the case and thought, "That's how we need to start treating enemy combatants. None of this PC, Geneva Conventions bullshit. Brutalize them, kill them, torture them - they're subhuman anyway!")

[Reminder: This is what I think Trump believes. Definitely NOT what I believe.  For an interesting piece on the thought process of people like Trump, click here.]

Okay, now to my main point.  I hope you're all still with me.

It is wildly inappropriate for the president to involve himself with this case, especially by directing the Secretary of the Navy to rescind the prosecutors' awards, which were likely earned for something unrelated to the Gallagher case.  Besides the very blatant micromanaging and flagrant pettiness, it sends a signal to the armed forces: "You get your awards thanks to my generosity.  Make me unhappy, and I'll take them away."

What's that? You think I'm reading too much into this?

I don't think so.  Consider the following:

• Trump's meeting just a few months after his term began, in which the members of his cabinet took turns praising him
• He has a habit of firing any appointee who disagrees with him (Dan Coats) or makes him look bad (Ryan Zinke)
• He's expressed the belief that the heads of government agencies - most notably the Attorney General - exist to serve him, not the country or the agency they oversee
• The USS John McCain incident 

So, if Trump can get away with revoking the awards of someone who displeases him, what's to stop him from doing the same with a promotion or a career-boosting assignment? What's to stop him from meddling with official doctrine or overruling a commander's battlefield decision? What about adding his name to the oath of enlistment, right after the "bear true faith and allegiance to" section?

Trump is under the impression that the armed forces belong to him, not the country or the office of the president.  He's thought so for a long time, and while there's nothing wrong with thinking that, his recent actions subtly bring that thought closer to reality.  It's another tiny crack he's made in the country's democratic foundation - namely, that the military belongs to the office, not to the person occupying it.

So to sum up: yes, I think Trump is gradually trying to make the military loyal to him and him alone. No, I don't think that's a fringe idea anymore.

Class dismissed.

Torching the Rulebook

I'm starting to think Donald Trump really could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and get away with it entirely.  Not only would he not lose any voters, he'd escape any legal consequences as well.

Once I sat down and listed them all, the number of crimes and ethical transgressions he's survived unscathed is staggering.  Professionally, he screwed over American farmers with his trade war, disregarded co-equal branches of government and the concept of separation of powers, tapped his unqualified, un-appointed kids to perform government duties they have no business doing, shared highly-classified intelligence with Russian government officials (Note: as president, he has declassification authority and can legally share whatever he wants with whoever he wants; that doesn't make it a good idea, though), sparked a crisis with Iran, praised multiple dictators and authoritarian-leaning leaders, ignored the Saudi government's murder of an American journalist, obstructed justice by interfering with the Mueller probe, sanctioned the abuse & mistreatment of children, and attacked the free press. 

In his personal life - before and outside of the presidency - he's the subject of double-digit credible accusations of rape and sexual assault (including raping a teenager), accepted assistance from the Russian government during his campaign, raided the government coffers for his golf junkets, and has a track record of racism and sexism.

And those are just the scandals I could remember off the top of my head.  So where are the people and institutions that are supposed to hold him accountable? Well. . .

On one side of the aisle, the GOP is largely enabling him (and has been from the first day of his presidency). Republicans in Congress are reinforcing Trump's lies by repeating them in the media, creating lies of their own, undermining and attempting to derail legitimate investigations into Trump's crimes, shielding Trump and his appointees from oversight and repercussions, blocking attempts to exercise Congressional oversight.  And why? What does the GOP get out of this? The answer is conservative judges in lifetime appointments and continued support from its base.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are well-meaning but timid and ineffective. Based on my observation, they seem to be giving up too easy ("Oh shucks, the Trump administration ignored our subpoena.  Well, we tried.") or refuse to play hardball.  I get they impression they expect this whole mess to work itself out without their influence - that this will all blow over and things will return to normal.  And maybe it will.  I've never made a secret of how much I despise Trump, so maybe my resentment is clouding my judgment. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing about Trump refusing to leave the White House in 2021 or 2025. 

Then again, he's checking off a lot of boxes on the "making yourself a king" list: showing disdain for the separation of powers, grooming his kids as a potential successor, hinting at a possible 3rd term or rejecting an election's outcome if it's unfavorable. (Yes, he might have been joking, but it's telling that he keeps going back to that theme and a lot of humor is spoken in jest.) In just two and a half years, he's made Americans more accepting of undemocratic practices.  His base (somewhere around 35% of the country) supports whatever he does, and the rest are becoming numb to his antics. (Think I'm exaggerating? Less than two weeks ago, a woman came forward with a credible accusation that Trump raped her a few decades ago, and the story has already vanished from the headlines.  Think about that: someone accused the president of a violent crime, and it's already been forgotten.  I'm not the only one to notice this, by the way.) 

So if the public has become inured to that, what else is it downplaying? Unfounded allegations of voter fraud? Baseless criticism of law enforcement? Nepotism? Defying the Constitution and putting himself above the rule of law? Because Trump has done ALL of those things. Now, do I think we're going to wake up the day after the 2020 elections to find MRAPs and M4-toting police officers on every street corner? No. For his many faults, Trump seems adverse to bloodshed. That's what makes me believe he doesn't plan to declare martial law or anything radical like that.  But his conduct is paving the way for a more unscrupulous version of Trump down the road, someone politically savvier and less reserved about using force.  Maybe that's when we DO see the MRAPs and the rifle-carrying cops show up.

What people tolerate, they get more of, and Trump has shown that Americans will tolerate quite a lot. 

And here's another thing: whether you think Trump is an empty gasbag or an American Mussolini, his influence on government will take a long time to go away.  He's reshaped the country's political norms, and not in a good way.  He's made lying more acceptable, he's made bipartisan compromise less likely, and he's shattered future expectations of civility.

We've already seen what that looks like over the past two years - do we really want to see the "on steroids" version of that? I don't think any of us could call that a good thing. So if we want to avoid that fate, we need to fight back.  Hard. 

Even if that means breaking a few rules ourselves.  Because the Democrats need to stop "playing nice." They need to stop believing (or pretending) the GOP is acting in good faith. They need to get a bit more ruthless themselves, inflicting a few metaphorical broken bones and shattered reputations if necessary.  Steamroll over the GOP. If you wonder why I'm focusing on the Democrats instead of the Republicans, it's because the GOP's enabling of Trump has shown it's unfit to govern many times over. (Quick aside: I would not be bothered if the next Democratic president drew inspiration from Reconstruction, and instituted harsh measures like stripping GOP Senators of voting privileges, until such time that it becomes fit to govern again. Because, yes, the modern GOP is that bad.)

Because what we do now will affect what type of government we have over the next 20-30 years.

The Blogger Who Cried "Wolf"

What if I'm wrong? That question has crossed my mind more than once.  Suppose all my fears about Trump's authoritarianism turn out to be unfounded, and it turns out to be part of his shtick all this time - to "own the libs," or whatever.  Man, won't I look foolish, what with all the squawking I've done about how he's a wanna-be autocrat, how he's a threat to democracy, and so on.

It's not like this is unprecedented, after all. Nixon privately wished he could assassinate a nosy journalist, and Obama aggressively prosecuted whistle-blowers and their journalist sources.  The US government has done business with undemocratic regimes in the past, on several occasions. Government crackdowns on protests in the 1960s were significantly more frequent and brutal.  Yet the US hasn't slid into authoritarianism itself, despite having frequent brushes with other authoritarian nations, and even our own elected officials who possess anti-democratic leanings.

And honestly, how much has life changed for the average person since January 2017? Probably not much, for most people.  We still have a free press.  We don't have to worry about the FBI showing up at our door because we participated in a march or voiced our opinion on social media.  We can still vote.  (And yes, there are many cases of voter suppression, but - and I'm not trying to downplay it here - it's another thing that has been going on for years, if not decades.)

So maybe I'm overreacting, and the things I've been pointing out are just "politics as usual." Maybe 2021 arrives, and my worst fear about Trump not stepping down turns out to be unfounded.  If that's the case, my credibility takes a big hit. Not only was I wrong in a big way, I panicked over nothing. I might have even made a handful of other people panic.  If I do end up being wrong, I'll dial back how much I talk about politics and current events substantially. (I'll never shut up completely, though. You're all stuck with me.) I'll also take a hard look at my preconceived notions, to figure out how and why I was so wrong.

But the way I see it, we're not "fine" even if the worst-case scenario never happens.  I compare it to a patient who refuses to make lifestyle changes after a major health scare.  Even if Trump's actions turn out to be an act for whatever reason, they still had the effect of chipping away at the country's democratic institutions.  It will take time and effort to repair them.  And that's the best-case scenario.  What if we don't get that best-case scenario? I'd rather overreact and be wrong, because prevention is easier than reversing the process.









I guess we'll find out in a few years.  In the meantime, I'll keep squawking about it, loudly and often.

The Emperor Has No Clothes - and We've All Known for a While

So . . . The Op-Ed.

The latest act in the Trump Administration's 3-ring circus took place a few days ago, when the New York Times published an op-ed by an alleged "senior official in the Trump administration" which basically confirmed what everyone already knows: Trump's presidency is a absolute fiasco and Trump himself is thoroughly unfit to govern. The op-ed lays out a laundry list of flaws, portraying the president as inconsistent, prone to fits of pique, impulsive, lacking any intellectual curiosity . . . things that were abundantly clear to anyone who was paying attention during the presidential campaign. So, none of Trump's character defects are really a shocking revelation.

Seriously, if they weren't obvious to you, you are a very poor judge of character.

What I found interesting, and maybe a tiny amount irksome, was that the op-ed writer claims to be one of many administration officials actively seeking to thwart Trump's most disastrous policy ideas. The op-ed doesn't mention any specific incidents, but Bob Woodward's book corroborates much of it while also providing specific details. Including (assuming the story is true) removing official papers from the president's desk to prevent him from signing them into policy.

For sure, every president butts heads with his cabinet members, advisors, or other senior officials. It would be naive to think otherwise. In a similar vein, there's often a disconnect between what the president wants and the career bureaucrats charged with making it happen.  Maybe the intent gets lost in communication. (Remember that "telephone" game?) Maybe an agency's office in a rural area doesn't have the resources to adequately implement the directive the way the president envisioned.  Maybe the president's idea is unworkable or runs into conflict with existing policies.  The US government is a big, sprawling bureaucracy, and problems are bound to arise in the process of translating the president's general directives into specific legal or regulatory policy.

There's a difference between problems that typically arise in a presidential principal-agent relationship, and what's going on in the Trump administration.  As much as I'd probably cheer if I knew just what ill-conceived policy ideas Trump's senior officials have derailed, I'm just a bit displeased about how they went about doing it.

And before you think I'm heading there - no.  NO. This is NOT a coup. Here's a good explanation on why it isn't.  Basically, it comes down to the fact that these officials still agree with a large portion of Trump's agenda, and want to keep him in power to see that agenda through. So let's nip that idea in the bud.

But just because it's not a coup doesn't make it okay, though.  Neither does the fact that they're containing one of the worst presidents this country's ever had.  These senior officials, even if they're doing what's right for the country, are still usurping part of the president's authority.  Authority they were never meant to have.  They may have been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but they never ran for election.  Nobody voted them into office.  Nobody knows what positions they have on certain issues - which might tell us what criteria they're using to grade proposed policies.  So what metrics are they using to decide what policies are too awful to be made official? This administration is okay with breaking up families and keeping kids in cages, so it's clearly okay with a lot.  If that policy was approved, how bad must the ones we're not seeing be?

And if Trump is so bad at being president, why don't these officials use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office? Because he's still politically useful.  Here's the best take I've read about the anonymous op-ed so far.  It makes quite a bit of sense, and I happen to agree with almost all of it.

I've said several times that Trump is the predictable outcome of roughly twenty-five years of the GOP's poisoning of American political discourse: science-deniers like Rick Scott and Jim Inhofe, bumbling idiots like Sarah Palin, Louie Gohmert, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Michele Bachmann, and opportunistic partisan obstructionists like Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan.  They all created this monster and now it's rampaging across the countryside.  Only they can't put it down, because now they need it.  Trump demolished fifteen other GOP primary candidates, some of them experienced and capable politicians.  Which means that he is what the GOP base wanted.  Trump redefined what's considered acceptable political conduct, he inspired others like Jim Jordan and Roy Moore to adopt his methods, and now the GOP needs to fall in line behind him if they want to keep winning elections.

Trump is unfit for office, we all knew that.  And in the process of displaying his absolute unfitness, he's removed the last shred of doubt that the GOP is a morally bankrupt political party, equally unfit to govern, and also that the entire right-wing media establishment is a farcical propaganda-peddling machine.  And since the party's leaders are unwilling or unable to develop some political courage and begin the process of  removing Trump from office, the country will continue to watch a reckless, incompetent president crash from one fiasco to the next.

The 3-ring circus continues.

Trump's Helsinki Fiasco

Since Donald Trump became president, I've often reacted to news stories with disgust, anger, frustration, fear, or a combination of the four; but I've only been distressed over current events to the point of losing sleep twice.  November 9, 2016 - the night Trump won the election - was one.  Last night was another.  I have a Chicken Little-type tendency to assume the worst and engage in panicked hyperbole at the earliest sign of bad news, and it's a reflex that I have to work hard to keep in check.  However, in light of recent events, I don't think it's a big stretch to say that the United States is in a bad spot.

On July 16th, in a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump rejected the United States intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, instead choosing to take Russian President Putin at his word.  Trump's refusal to acknowledge this conclusion is significant for two reasons.  First, it wasn't one or two intelligence agencies making that claim, it was the entire intelligence community's unanimous assessment.  Second, on June 13, Special Counsel Mueller had indicted a dozen GRU agents for hacking into the DNC's computer networks (among other targets) to acquire information it intended to use to interfere with the 2016 elections.  That second reason is particularly significant because any case that's going to be made in court requires hard, tangible evidence.  This case, especially.  Mueller is accusing foreign nationals of committing a cyber-crime against US government-affiliated institutions.  Even though the best-case scenario is that the dozen GRU agents will be tried in absentia - if there's a trial at all - Mueller's case needs to be as close to airtight as possible, because of the stakes involved.

Taken together, the intelligence community's assessment and Mueller's indictments mean that the conclusion is pretty conclusive: Russia interfered in the 2016 election.  Yet the President of the United States chose to disregard his own intelligence apparatus' conclusion.

Why did he do that? Or, to ask the question another way, why is Trump so quick to believe Putin? Well, there are a couple of different possibilities.  One is that Trump's ego is driving all of this.  If he had to acknowledge that Russia's interference contributed to his victory, it takes some of the glow off of his win.  That would be a crushing blow to his pride.  Another possibility is Trump's well-documented affinity for dictators and strongmen.  Putin isn't the only authoritarian who Trump has fawned over, but he does seem to hold the place of honor in Trump's hall of heroes.  Yet another possibility is that Trump has a relationship with the Russian government that goes back decades.  Jonathan Chait's recent piece about this has been making the rounds, but Sarah Kendzior has a one-year lead on him.  I'd stop short of calling Trump a Russian "asset" (that word has certain HUMINT connotations), but I think "useful idiot" is more fitting.  I think the Russian government saw Trump as an easy-to-manipulate pawn, and they played him like a fiddle. 

And if the Helsinki presser is any indication, Russia is still playing him.  That is about as terrifying as it gets.  It tells all of America's allies that the President of the United States can't be trusted.  It tells hostile nations that the United States won't push back if another cyber-attack happens.  It tells the world that Trump won't do anything to protect America's national security.  And it tells Russia it has unlimited license to do what it wants.  Trump's performance in Helsinki also adds credibility to long-running suspicions that his loyalty is to Russia.

And while Trump has been enabling Russia, the GOP has been running interference for him.  A handful of its key leaders had a reasonable suspicion in mid-2016 that Trump had an allegiance to Russia, but they kept it a secret.  Its Senate majority leader knew that Russia hacked the DNC, but he refused to publicly confirm that information.  The GOP has tried to undermine Robert Mueller's investigation at every turn - by holding dog-and-pony shows like the Strzok hearings; by spreading falsehoods in the news and on social media; and by refusing to act in response to a growing mountain of evidence that Russia tampered with the 2016 election results, and that the Trump campaign was involved in that effort.

So why is the GOP so committed to helping Trump?

Because the party's future has been tied to Trump since 2015, and it will continue to need him for the next few years.  He helped the GOP win it the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2016, establishing a fast-track for the GOP's legislative agenda.  (Although there have been a handful of self-inflicted injuries.) He appointed ideologically sympathetic judges to several courts, including two (pending Kavanaugh's confirmation) Supreme Court Justices, allowing conservatives to interpret the law for a generation.  And possibly most important of all, he brought a political party that looked like it was dying back to life, by hitting all the right notes that resonate with the conservative base: a tough stance on immigration; a strong, fearsome military; law and order with a draconian flavor; pro-business; anti-regulation - all the things they want to hear.  The fact that his actual track record is pretty dismal is irrelevant.  Trump has hit upon a winning political formula that will keep the GOP in the game for several more election cycles.  And all they have to do is turn a blind eye to someone who never bothered to hide his disdain for American and democratic institutions and ideals.


Which is something they will gladly do, if current events are any indication.  That makes them complicit in Trump's war on American security and well-being.  Putting party over country in normal circumstances is, well, politics.  Putting party over country in the wake of a cyber-attack that most likely influenced the outcome of a presidential election is dereliction of duty.  Trump's conduct in Helsinki shows that he represents a danger to the United States, and he has far exceeded the threshold for being removed from office.  And his enablers in Congress - McConnell, Ryan, Nunes, all of them - I don't know if what they did is considered a crime, but if it is, they should all be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It won't be enough to simply vote them out of office.  Simply voting them out means they become the objects of scorn for a few years, and that's pretty much it. That can't be allowed to happen.  They need to be made into examples, to discourage future of politicians from doing the same thing.  Trials need to be held.  Prison sentences need to be handed down. Safeguards need to be put into place to keep it from happening again. 

Because none of this will simply revert back to normal the day after Trump leaves office.  The damage being done - to our relationships with our allies, to our global reputation, to our citizens' faith in government - will take years to be repaired.  And the longer it goes on, the worse the damage will be. 

. . . And the Zen Master Says, "We'll See."

Gust: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. The boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight..Except the boy can't cause his leg's all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."

Charlie: And the Zen master says, "We'll see."

Gust: So you get it.

Charlie: No.  No, 'cuz I'm stupid.

Gust: You're not stupid, you're just in Congress.

Charlie: Send 'em money. . . 

Gust: Gonna start with the roads, move on to the schools, factories -

Charlie: Gust, now, it's a party.

Gust: - restock the sheep herds.  Give them jobs, give them hope.

Charlie: I'm trying. I'm trying.

Gust: Yeah, well, try harder.

Charlie: I'm fighting for every dollar.

Gust: Yeah.  Yeah.
Charlie: I took you from five million to a billion.  I broke the ice on the Stinger and the Milan.  I got a Democratic congress in lockstep behind a Republican president.

Gust: Well, that's not good enough.  Because I'm gonna hand you a code-word classified NIE right now, and it's gonna tell you that the crazies have started rolling into Kandahar like it's a fucking bathtub drain.    -- Charlie Wilson's War

You can't solve complex problems with simple fixes.

I don't like Donald Trump. Anyone who reads my blog, who follows me on social media, or who knows me in real life knows this. I haven't been shy about expressing my dislike.  And it's not hard to understand why - he's given people countless reasons to despise him.  The problem is that it's easy for that dislike to become an instinctive response - to reflexively say "Trump's screwing up again" when events call for a more nuanced analysis. When that happens, your criticisms become contradictory yourself ("Trump did A Thing which is wrong and stupid", and a few days later, "Trump did the opposite of A Thing, which is also wrong and stupid.") At that point, you've basically become a robot that squawks "Trump sucks" whenever he does anything.  You begin to overlook nuance and exercise critical thinking, and you're completely blind to the possibility of anything good coming out of his decisions.

For example, Trump and the recent NATO summit.  Since becoming president, Trump has repeatedly accused other NATO members of not paying their fair share.  That's a flagrant distortion of the facts, but it's not what I want to write about.  

It's not much of a secret that Trump isn't a big fan of international alliances - trade, military, or otherwise.  He's slammed NATO several times, among other international partnerships.  Here's the plot twist, though: I've never been a big fan of international military alliances and America's global military presence, so you'd think I'd be celebrating someone's efforts to disentangle the US from these commitments.  That's what Trump seems to be doing, little by little, so you'd think I'd be celebrating what he's doing.  Yet, I'm not.

So, why is that?

Is it because I despise Trump so much that I automatically oppose his position, no matter whatever it is? My opinions on a handful of issues have changed so significantly since Trump took office, that some people probably think so.  I've asked myself that more than once, and it's possible.

But it's much more likely that it was obvious from the start of his presidential campaign that Trump wasn't up to the task.  Even overlooking his history of corruption (much of which only came out after the 2016 election), Trump never exhibited the ability or the desire to understand the complexities of any of the issues he would grapple with as president.  

Being president is, obviously, hard.  Every decision the president makes is restricted by a number of factors: economic consequences, domestic and international political considerations, precedent, long-term policy goals, and on and on and on. Seriously, go read any book about a president finding a solution to any given issue, let alone a serious crisis, to see just how many variables they have to consider when tackling the problem. You begin to see just how little room a president has to maneuver.

So back to NATO. For the sake of argument, let's treat it as a given that it's one of those entangling alliances the Founders warned us about. (Whether it really is is a discussion for another time.) How does the United States extract itself from the organization? That's the big question.  NATO has been around since not long after World War II ended, even though the Soviet Union - the adversary it was created to counter - dissolved in the early 1990s. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, there have been four US presidents besides Trump: Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, and Obama.  Why didn't any of them address the question of NATO, and lay the groundwork for scaling back America's involvement? All of them seem to be fairly capable and competent, at least enough to get the ball rolling on this.

There are a couple different explanations for why they didn't.  Maybe it turned out that NATO was in America's interest - that the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. That's the simplest explanation, right? Or maybe it was impossible to examine the partnership with NATO independent of a multitude of other factors, such as international economics, to name just one. Maybe those four presidents looked at the intricate web of connections between America and the other members of NATO, realized that cutting one thread would affect countless other threads, and concluded the sheer complexity made doing so difficult, if not impossible.

Does that mean some sort of "cutting the Gordian knot" solution is the only way out of an otherwise unsolvable problem? I guess in this situation would mean just up and leaving NATO.  How would that play out? Well, here are a few questions that it would raise: 

• What happens to all the US troops stationed in NATO countries? Do they get redeployed to the United States, or stay on US bases in Europe? 
• What happens if they're redeployed - where do we station them, and what do we have them do? Can we muster them out of the military, and can the economy handle the sudden influx of separated troops? 
• What about the bases themselves - do we turn them over to their host nations? Do we need to negotiate new SOFAs with each NATO nation?
• How will this affect current military operations? How will the US get troops from CONUS to the Afghanistan or Iraq theaters? What about supplies? 
• Will this affect trade relationships with the other NATO nations, and if so, how? 
• How will NATO fill the vacuum left by America's withdrawal or downsizing? That is not an insignificant question, and answering it could require enough research to complete a book.

My point here is that, even if you're not a fan of foreign entanglements (which I'm still not), getting out of them is not an impulsive decision.  It will have to be done some day, and it will be painful - and like ripping off a Band-Aid, waiting only makes it hurt worse.

However, it's a decision that should absolutely not be entrusted to someone like Donald Trump - a person who isn't smart or interested enough to understand the scope or consequences of his decisions, who doesn't have any concern for the people who get hurt by his decisions, and whose loyalty to the United States is under heavy suspicion.

So, to recap: making complicated decisions, including ones about America's involvement in NATO, are not off-the-cuff decisions.

Also, Donald Trump is an idiot.

American Values in the Trump Era

I saw a Facebook post over the weekend, containing the line "What the fuck happened, America?" The post's author didn't specifically state what it was written in response to, but it's not hard to guess.  Over the weekend, the story broke that the Trump administration had directed Customs and Border Patrol to specifically begin splitting up families that cross into America's southern border.  The children are housed in Spartan detention camps, while the parents are presumably deported.

Read that again.  The Trump administration ordered CBP to split up families who cross into the United States from the south.  CBP went right along with it, without hesitation.  And many of his followers rationalized what the administration was doing.  Some even cheered.

"What the fuck happened," indeed.

This policy (it is absolutely NOT a law, and don't believe otherwise) is intentionally cruel and appalling; and if you're not shocked by it, you need to recalibrate your moral compass.  But the truth is, it didn't just come out of nowhere - in more ways than one.  First, the United States government has been party to other inhumane practices, both large and small throughout its history.  You probably know of some of the bigger ones: slavery, the Tuskeegee Experiments, interning Japanese-American citizens in WWII, and the Trail of Tears, to name a few.  As for the smaller ones, the ones that immediately come to mind tend to be more recent.  Camp X-Ray, rendition, and "enhanced interrogation" (AKA torture) desensitized us to the government treating non-Americans cruelly.  The TSA enacted increasingly invasive and unnecessary security measures while providing no mechanisms for recourse or accountability for abuses of authority, and many people shrugged their shoulders and accepted its infringements on all of our rights.  Ditto with the NSA and its bulk data collection.  We largely ignored the Pentagon's 1033 Program, which supplied surplus military hardware to police forces across the nation; and just as the old saying about "when all you have is a hammer..." goes, those police units began adopting more aggressive attitudes and tactics.

The CBP's separation of families is a convergence of all the things I just described: the TSA's lack of accountability, police forces' aggressive posture, and Camp X-Ray's barbaric treatment of non-Americans.  And we - American citizens - kind of let it happen by abandoning our civic responsibilities.  The more often we turned a blind eye, or halfheartedly protested, the more these practices became entrenched.  Acceptable.  Widespread.

But that's only part of it.  Another huge factor, as I'm sure you can guess, is President Trump.  The Trump administration's policy of separating families should not be a surprise, if you paid attention to what Trump said and who he surrounded himself with on the campaign trail.  Remember when Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists? That was almost three years ago to the day.  Trump has never bothered to hide his hatred for Latino immigrants or his racism, and now he's pushing policy in line with his attitudes.


As much as Trump is at the center of this, it's not just about him, though.  The family separation policy may have been in the planning for a while, but it was only rolled out recently.  Did you notice how quickly CBP fell in line, though? I don't see many people talking about that, except tangentially.  I've seen a few articles about how indifferent, even cruel, the CBP officers have acted toward the detained children, but AFAIK nobody has asked how they got that way.  Institutional cultures don't shift so radically in such a short time, which means that the CBP behavior we're seeing has been there for a while, just below the surface.  Trump's policies may have drawn that cruelty out, but it didn't create it from scratch.  Regardless, curbing the CBP excesses will be one of many problems this country faces after Trump leaves office.

I often claim that Trump unleashed this country's ugly side.  All the racism, the misogyny, the anti-intellectualism, the corruption and the lying, the obnoxious boasting, and the "burn it all down" style of governing - it didn't originate with Trump.  Like the CBP agents, there were a lot of shitbags who Trump has emboldened.  They will still be here after Trump is gone, and they won't go quietly. The fallout from the Trump administration will shape politics for decades.

Because this is about a lot more than the family separation policy.  It's about Trump's entire worldview, something that informs everything he thinks, says, and does.  Think back to Trump's comments about immigrants being criminals and rapists, and how those comments relate to this current family separation policy.  Now think about other things Trump said during his campaign.  Remember all of his racist and misogynist dog whistles? Remember when he said he'd only acknowledge the election results if he won? Or how he popularized a slogan calling for a political rival to be jailed - and still uses it at rallies and speeches?

Does this mean I think we're on the march toward genocide or a dictatorship? That Trump's going to seize control of the government and declare himself emperor or something, or that we'll be herding immigrants, Muslims, and who knows who else into camps? I honestly don't know, but I'm giving both non-zero possibilities at this point.  I may very well be overreacting, and there's certainly a significant chance I'm wrong.  However, there have been a lot of indicators that Trump wants to do so.  He's installed family members in key posts, centralized the decision-making process, made targeting minorities and other protected classes a common theme of his policies, and fawned over more than one totalitarian despot.  At the same time, the institutional checks meant to keep a president from seizing power are weakened.  The GOP-controlled congress won't stand up to him, because of either cowardice or opportunism - I can't figure out which; and the Democrats suck as an opposition party, because they won't come up with a coherent platform.

They need to, quickly; and they need to fight to win with everything they've got. (Everything legal, of course.) Because if the Trump administration is separating immigrant families today, what will it be doing tomorrow? Will it move on to some other group next after it's done with immigrants, Muslims, or transgender people? As I already said, I don't know.  Nobody can predict the future.  But that's why it's important to smack down any authoritarian policies early, because by the time people are getting marched to the gas chambers, it's too late.

This isn't a debate about policy any more, it's about morality.  Right and wrong.  Trump, the members of his administration, his Republican enablers in Congress, and his supporters - they're all embracing a very immoral and un-American set of values.  History will someday judge them as villains - IF the rest of us do something about it.  Vote, protest, call your elected reps.  Do what you can to render the Party of Trump ineffective as a political movement.  There should be no place for their ideas and policies in American society.

Because history will judge you too.

Much Ado About Nothing

Thoughts on a recent social media circus. . .

The hugely-publicized summit between the United States and North Korea took place a few days ago, and one of the many things about it that struck me as interesting was people's reactions over how both nations' flags were on display.  The American and North Korean flags were posted at the same height, which led some people (although not the ones you think - more on that shortly) to lose their minds.

Honestly, it's a lot of sound and fury over a non-issue.  Here's why.  Every official meeting between two heads of state, as well as many of their ambassadors, cabinet officials, etc, etc, etc, is planned down to the most minor detail according to a long-standing set of customs and courtesies.  They probably come from ancient Roman traditions or practices that became common back when kings and queens were in style.  I don't know the history.  But the point is that neither country improvised this recent summit.

Here's a fun fact: did you know that the US State Department has a branch just for this sort of thing? It's called the Office of the Chief of Protocol.  Here's what it has to say about foreign nations' flags:

Q: What is the order of display for the U.S. flag and a flag of a foreign nation?

A: The two flags should be on separate staffs.  Both flags should be the same size and flown at the same height.  The U.S. flag is flown in the place of honor, which is to the viewer's left.

So, you see, there's already an established procedure in place for this.  I'd bet dollars to donuts that some junior-level worker bees from the US protocol office, and their North Korean counterparts, were feverishly flipping through some thick, hardbound manual to figure out how both nations' flags were displayed.

Do you really think that the same person who can't be bothered to read an intelligence briefing longer than a page seems like a person who gets that involved in the mundane minutiae of a diplomatic ceremony? Hell no.  Relax, folks, he probably had very little to do with planning this ceremony; and he certainly didn't micromanage it down to the last detail. And despite his obvious affinity for authoritarians and strongmen, I can guarantee he didn't order the North Korean flag to be at the same level as the US flag.

But that's exactly what you would think he did, based on the level of outrage from some sources.  I was expecting some vitriol, and I found plenty of it on Twitter.  The anti-Trump crowd was losing its shit.  Now, I can certainly understand where they're coming from.  If you didn't know about the flag protocol, it appeared that the United States was treating Kim Jong Un as an equal.  That's certainly not a good look, given how much blood he has on his hands.  But a lot of people should have known better.  Maybe not about the specific regulation concerning flags, but at least the general awareness that these kinds of meetings are very traditional and ritualistic and based on established precedent?

Hell, I figured that out because I served in the military, where there's a collection of regulations for damn near every formal event: parades, promotion boards, change of command ceremonies, and so on.  The State Department isn't the military, of course, but diplomatic duties involve a fair amount of ceremonies.  Therefore, it's not hard to guess that State has regulations for all of those ceremonies, just as the military does.

The people who were coming down on Trump for the flag non-issue should have realized this, or at least been aware of the possibility.  There are countless valid reasons to hammer on Trump, but if it becomes an instinctive thing to the point someone lets their loathing override their logic, the anti-Trump crowd is devolving into a tribal mob.  I saw what that's like for about eight years, as Hannity, Limbaugh, and a handful of other hacks made it their goal to whip their viewers/listeners into a frothing fury over every little thing. (Hey, remember the "latte salute" incident?) And guess what? It was pretty successful.  If the anti-Trump crowd is going to engage in the same kind of knee-jerk resentment, they've become the mirror image of the Hannity/Limbaugh crowd.  That doesn't help put the country back on the right path.

I'm curious what they expected, though.  Hypothetically, if North Korea ever gives up its nukes and rejoins the global community, there's going to have to be several ceremonies like the one this weekend.  International politics often means associating with unsavory people, even the Scum of the Earth.  It's not like every nation on earth is governed by perfect saints.  On top of that, what would arranging the ceremony to treat Kim as an inferior accomplish? It makes the US look kind of like a bully, and makes North Korea resentful.  History buffs know that humiliating a country like that can sometimes backfire spectacularly.

On the other hand, the people who one might expect to get worked up over the flag display have been largely silent.  Curious (not really, I'm being rhetorical), considering how worked up those people have gotten over similar supposedly disrespectful behavior toward the American flag.  I suspect that if you could draw a Venn diagram of the people who are shrugging and saying "meh" over this particular flag issue and of people who fly into a rage over NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem, it would be a near-perfect circle.  I guess those people forgot to get outraged this time, because they were too busy fawning over their political savior.

Both sides of this brouhaha are letting their tribal instincts override their common sense.  That's hardly a surprise, given how polarized things have gotten.  But this is such a ridiculous thing to get fired up over, especially when there's an unexciting, simple explanation.  (There are a lot of parties who have a stake in seeing the population get worked up over a relatively inconsequential issue, though, and I might tackle that topic in the future.) Tribalism is a helluva drug, though.  It shuts off your critical thinking abilities and turns people into hypocrites.

ADDENDUM: In a postscript to the flag non-issue, President Trump was captured on tape saluting a high-ranking North Korean general.  Now, there is a school of thought that a President shouldn't be saluting AT ALL, in accordance with not blurring the line between the military and its civilian leadership - retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer Jim Wright wrote a great Twitter thread about it, here.  I personally think the Commander in Chief can render a salute without sliding into one of those pseudo-military strongmen that exist around the world, but I do see the logic in what Wright is saying.  However, even if military customs and courtesies permitted the Commander in Chief to render salutes, AR 600-25 states that service members only renders salutes to military officers of friendly foreign nations  The US and North Korea are technically still in a state of war, so North Korea is not a friendly nation by any stretch. 

It's perfectly natural to wonder if the salute was yet another manifestation of Trump's affinity for authoritarian regimes, because there have been so, so many.  But there's a saying that goes, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." I think it applies here.  I'm going to chalk this up to stupidity, even though accidentally saluting an officer in a hostile nation's military seems like a pretty damn big brain fart.  I'm not going to pin this on some sinister authoritarian explanation, but I'm not letting Trump's dumb ass off the hook either.

A Few Thoughts on Weaponized Patriotism

So, it's been a long time since my last post.  Sorry about that, it's been hard to write anything lately.  I haven't had the time to crank anything out, or to mull ideas over the way I like to as part of my creative process.  Also, and this may surprise you, but I haven't had many blog-worthy ideas the past few weeks.  I finally came up with something worth writing about, though; so here we go.

The NFL/national anthem/kneeling controversy was back in the news about a week ago.  It coincidentally resurfaced a few days before Memorial Day, when there's an uptick in patriotic displays.  In a way, I find that convenient, because I see the holiday and the debate over kneeling as being somewhat related.  Memorial Day is meant to acknowledge and honor this country's fallen servicemen and servicewomen, and one of the main criticisms of kneeling during the national anthem is that is disrespectful to those same fallen.

Anyway, the issue made headlines again because the NFL recently released its revised policy concerning kneeling and other forms of protest during the playing of the anthem.  Naturally, President Trump weighed in and the media ran with it, because neither of them can pass up an opportunity to generate sensational clickbait.  I posted a link and a few sentences about it on Facebook (see the screenshot below), but I'd like to expand on it a little.

 

Here are my thoughts.

First, if your opinion resembles Trump's on this issue (or just about any issue, really), you may want to rethink that opinion.  Trump has no concept of things like selflessness, sacrifice, loyalty, duty, courage, or any of the other qualities that make a good soldier; and he doesn't have any interest in showing any respect to the armed forces. (Trump isn't a good human being for that matter, and if someone can't figure that out after ten seconds of hearing him speak, that person is a horrible judge of character.) He has made that clear on countless occasions: he belittled a POW, he disrespected a Gold Star Widow, he still hasn't visited any troops in active combat zones, he made his commencement speech at the 2017 Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony about him--to name a few examples.  He does not give two shits about the flag, the troops, or the country, so he's not someone anybody should look to when it comes to what is or isn't patriotic.  Which leads me to my next point.

Second, anybody who tries to frame patriotism as an in- vs out-group thing should be treated with skepticism.  They usually have an ulterior motive.  It could be an attempt to derail a discussion--calling someone unpatriotic tends to put them on the defensive and reframe the debate really quick. For example, remember the backlash against the Dixie Chicks after they criticized former president Bush in 2003? Or how Joe McCarthy exploited anti-Communist fervor for political gain? You'd think this would be obvious, but there seem to be a lot of people out there who don't get it.  

Third (and last), here are two things that patriotism should not be.  It should not be coercive, and it should not be unquestioning.  You can express your patriotism however you wish, but you should not expect others to express it in the same way.  You should also not shy away from asking the hard questions--particularly to how the armed forces are employed, since "respecting the troops" is at the core of this debate.  Disagreement is not disloyalty, and citizens should be automatically skeptical when the civilian leadership calls for the troops to be committed somewhere around the globe.  American troops are deployed in a number of places that, despite doing work to improve the local conditions, have very little to do with protecting America and its citizens.  Why, for example, are we in Afghanistan some seventeen years later? And how does getting involved in the Syrian civil war make us all safer? These are the questions people need to ask - no, demand - of their elected representatives, and it's not unpatriotic to do so.  

That's all I've got.  I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend, and is enjoying what remains of it.