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.

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.

Cold War 2.0?

So a lot of Americans are pissed off at the Russian government right now.  It's now clear that Putin and his cronies played a non-insignificant part in shaping the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election.  Which means that Russia is at least partly responsible for saddling us with an indisputably terrible president.  What's worse, they took away Americans' trust in the electoral process.  Not only is the 2016 election tainted with perceptions of illegitimacy, but there will be a cloud of suspicion hanging over future elections - especially since the government doesn't appear to be doing enough to safeguard the integrity of the voting process.  On top of all that, Russia did more than interfere in the electoral process.  It also stirred up a lot of ill will and worsened the country's polarization.  Look around, listen to what people are saying and read the comments they're leaving on social media: Americans are deeply divided, usually over Trump's policies and conduct.  The fact is, Russia hit us pretty hard, and Americans are right to be furious.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, the US Government has done its own share of meddling in other countries' elections.  I don't say that to defend what the Russian government did, but instead to point out the hypocrisy involved.  Our government doesn't have the moral high ground here, not even by claiming it was done for "very good reasons." It's also hard to promote democracy in other countries while helping to undermine it in those same places.  Now that we're getting a taste of our own medicine, we're realizing how much it sucks. 

Second, whether unintentionally or deliberately, our government has antagonized Russia several times since the end of the Cold War.  Military alliances and campaigns such as the bombing campaign against Serbia (a staunch Russian ally) and the ongoing military presence in the Balkans, the NATO expansion, and attacks against Russia's former allies, including Iraq, have all been perceived as insults at best and provocations at worse.  To get some perspective, imagine how we would feel if the Russian military had done the following: formed a military alliance with Canada, Mexico, and several Latin American nations; bombed and occupied Great Britain; and attacked Israel twice in thirteen years.  I think we'd feel more than a little threatened.

Third, and probably most important, Russia didn't create this mess out of thin air.  It recognized that America was already pretty divided on many issues, and it poured gasoline on a low-grade fire.  There were still healthy feelings of Islamophobia, homophobia, and racial tensions; media outlets willing to publish divisive "news" for ratings and revenue; a decades-long feeling of economic anxiety due to stagnant salaries or poverty wages, growing economic inequality, outsourcing, rising expenses, and ballooning government deficits; civil liberties being chipped away; and the perception of an indifferent political class.  2016 was the "anti-establishment" election; and Hillary Clinton was perceived by some parts of the country as being a significant part of the problem.  Russia simply observed the American political and cultural landscape, and saw its opening.

Russia isn't the only one who sees an opening, though.  The Russian electoral meddling has given a lot of anti-Russian hawks the pretext they've been waiting for to resume the Cold War, people like John "I never met a war I didn't like" Bolton.  You remember him, right? He was George W. Bush's Ambassador to the UN, he was super-hawkish, and he helped sell the flimsy Iraqi WMD intelligence.  Why anyone still listens to him at all is a mystery, yet The Hill recently allowed him to write an op-ed, in which he wrote, "The White House can and should now pivot to the real task ahead, which is dealing strategically and comprehensively with Russia's global efforts to enhance its influence." There are other semi-influential people like Bolton in the Beltway, and they're drooling over the possibility of a confrontation with Russia.  Judging by her policy ideas, Hillary Clinton was one of them - which was one reason I didn't vote for her. Readopting a belligerent posture toward Russia also gives the anti-Russian crowd to downplay or distract people from domestic problems, and considering how many problems this country has, a useful distraction would probably be welcomed by some people.

America has already been through one Cold War, and it wasn't very fun for most people: the threat of nuclear annihilation, anti-Communist witch hunts and infringements on civil liberties, an multi-decade arms race, money diverted away from schools/hospitals/infrastructure/etc, and so on.  Plus, America has a lot of problems at home to solve, and the last thing we need is to focus our attention and resources on an adversary thousands of miles away.  So, let's not do that again, okay?

Fabricated Memos and Credibility Problems

The much-hyped Nunes memo became public a few days ago, and I've been noticing a very interesting reaction to it in various corners of the internet; specifically, a lot of people are buying into it, lock, stock, and barrel.  Now, the memo is obviously a steaming poo pile, but here's the thing: there are a lot of people who believe the memo to be true have a plausible argument for that belief.  I don't mean the hardcore Trump supporters; at this point Trump could tell them he can walk through walls and they'd believe him.  The people I'm thinking of are the ones who have been holding a long-standing suspicion of the government.  All the government.  Because the truth is, there is plenty of good cause for suspicion.

The assorted government agencies tasked with protecting America and its citizens - from TSA to the FBI to the DEA to NSA to CIA - have a credibility problem of their own making.  It's not enough to say they all dropped the ball at one time or another, because "dropping the ball" implies that they failed because of something like bad luck or an innocent mistake.  That's not the case at all.  The credibility problem stems from the fact that these agencies misused their authority in a variety of unsavory ways.  Two successive presidents and countless members of Congress told us we had to accept infringements to our Constitutional rights to combat an amorphous terrorist threat.  The Director of National Intelligence perjured himself.  Police forces began to resemble military units and no-knock SWAT raids became more common.  An intelligence failure allowed an al-Qaida bomber onto a US-bound flight from Ghana through the Netherlands.  And those are only a handful of post-9/11 examples.  Do some digging, and there are many other historical ones: COINTELPRO, Watergate, the McCarthy hearings, the Pentagon Papers, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and countless coups and covert wars. And all the documentation gets hidden behind a "TOP SECRET/NOFORN" label, nobody gets punished, and nothing changes.  Given these organizations' history of past transgressions, it's natural to be skeptical of the FBI.

So does that mean the Nunes memo is correct? No, absolutely not.  First, consider the source: Nunes, Trump, the GOP leadership.  They've all discredited themselves long before this memo became public.  Nunes was already caught trying to cheat on Trump's behalf once; and Trump's accusations fall short when you factor in that two individuals have already pleaded guilty for crimes pertaining to the Russia investigation, that there is a documented paper trail between Trump campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government, and, of course, there was a meeting at Trump Tower in June of 2016.  And those are just the things we all know about.  Add to that Trump and many of his cronies are well-known serial liars and conspiracy-theory peddlers.  Finally, remember that as president, Trump has the authority and the resources to expose any illegal spying if he chooses.  He can declassify NSA intercepts that targeted him, if they exist; he can order the Department of Justice to review the FISA warrants for impropriety.  Occam's Razor says the simplest explanation is more likely to be true.  Ask yourself: is it more likely that the investigation is legitimate and substantive or that the FBI is playing a central role in a broad "deep state" conspiracy against the small group of people in Trump's orbit?

Because that's what this is being packaged as: a deep, sinister conspiracy.  The people pushing this idea performed a very subtle sleight-of-hand, one that's easy to overlook if you're not paying attention.  They shifted the narrative from a claim that the government (in particular, the NSA) is collecting all Americans' communications (true) to an accusation that the government mobilized the resources of the entire intelligence/law enforcement community against the Trump clan in an unlawful attempt to neutralize it (horseshit.)  We're witnessing the birth of a conspiracy theory on par with "9/11 was an inside job" right before our eyes.  This "echo chamber" groupthink would normally be an object of ridicule, except that similar conspiracy theories have already driven people on the extreme fringes to violence not long ago.  That's not something to take lightly.

If we could trust our institutions, there wouldn't be an issue; but our politicians and political appointees have squandered that trust for decades.  Now we're reaping the bitter fruits of that wastefulness.  The agencies, and their civilian overseers, have misused and abused their authority so badly, that now many people reflexively think they're lying and choose to believe con artists like Nunes and Trump instead.  They're the spies who cried wolf, and just like the old fable goes, we're ignoring them at the very time when we should be believing them.

There needs to be serious reform once Trump is no longer president.  He's only the byproduct of some deeper issues, and we need system-wide reform.  He's a complete shit-show, so maybe he'll be the impetus that motivates the people in Washington to finally implement some long-overdue reforms.