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.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Russian Roulette
Tick-tick-tick--click! Tick-tick-tick--click! Tick-tick-tick--click!
Imagine you're living in a major European city in the summer of 1914. Paris, Vienna, Belgrade, Sofia - it doesn't really matter which one. How would you react to news about the Archduke's assassination? Would you immediately start preparing for the coming war, or would you keep going about your daily life as usual? It seems counter-intuitive now, based on how inevitable World War I looks in hindsight, but at the time, a lot of people weren't concerned about the assassination setting in motion the events it did - partially because there had already been a handful of crises already, and they ultimately ended civilly, without a larger war breaking out.
* In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed part of Bosnia, Russia then menaced Austria-Hungary, and Germany menaced Russia in response.
Tick-tick-tick--click!
* In 1912, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia teamed up to acquire territory from the Ottoman Empire.
Tick-tick-tick--click!
* In 1913, Serbia and Greece turned on their former ally Bulgaria, in a dispute over the spoils of their victory from the previous year.
Tick-tick-tick--click!
* Then, in 1914. . .tick-tick-tick--BANG!
Treating the Archduke's assassination as an unimportant event seems more understandable now, doesn't it? That's the tricky thing about historically significant events: you usually don't know which ones will end up being minor tremors and which ones will blow up into unmanageable crises until later. Maybe much later. And even when times are uneventful and dull, there are always multiple parts of the system at risk of careening out of control. Think of it like driving an old, high-mileage car. It's been through a lot of wear-and-tear, so because of its advanced age, there are multiple potential points of failure. A belt at risk of snapping, a frayed wire, a leaky gasket. Every time you drive it somewhere, you're adding stress to an already strained system.
Nations are like that. There are countless moving pieces, and at any given time, one of them could break down with catastrophic consequences. A crop failure. A terrorist attack. A natural disaster. A financial collapse. There's a constant undercurrent of chaos flowing through a seemingly calm and orderly facade. So it's natural for people to ignore or downplay the potential for chaos constantly unfolding around them. The people who can't or won't exhaust themselves, mentally and emotionally. (They also irritate everyone around them with their constant "The end is nigh" pronouncements - or so I'm told.) There's a danger in that complacency, though. It leads people to assume that because they survived a past crisis, they will also survive the current one.
We're living in one of those uncertain moments right now. Right-wing authoritarianism is on the rise multiple areas throughout the world. Brazil just elected a far-right politician as president. In Germany, a far-right movement is gaining popularity, and Angela Merkel's retirement signals an uncertain future. There's also a far-right resurgence in other parts of Europe. And America, which has long held the title of "Leader of the Free World," is seeing its democratic institutions being eroded from within. Will this be a temporary uptick, or will it lead to a long-term erosion of democracy? Will the international order that has been responsible for over seventy years of relative peace endure, or will we call these "the inter-war years" someday? We can't know for sure, because we're in the middle of these events. But there's no doubt that the storm clouds are gathering.
Tick-tick-tick. . .
Imagine you're living in a major European city in the summer of 1914. Paris, Vienna, Belgrade, Sofia - it doesn't really matter which one. How would you react to news about the Archduke's assassination? Would you immediately start preparing for the coming war, or would you keep going about your daily life as usual? It seems counter-intuitive now, based on how inevitable World War I looks in hindsight, but at the time, a lot of people weren't concerned about the assassination setting in motion the events it did - partially because there had already been a handful of crises already, and they ultimately ended civilly, without a larger war breaking out.
* In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed part of Bosnia, Russia then menaced Austria-Hungary, and Germany menaced Russia in response.
Tick-tick-tick--click!
* In 1912, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia teamed up to acquire territory from the Ottoman Empire.
Tick-tick-tick--click!
* In 1913, Serbia and Greece turned on their former ally Bulgaria, in a dispute over the spoils of their victory from the previous year.
Tick-tick-tick--click!
* Then, in 1914. . .tick-tick-tick--BANG!
Treating the Archduke's assassination as an unimportant event seems more understandable now, doesn't it? That's the tricky thing about historically significant events: you usually don't know which ones will end up being minor tremors and which ones will blow up into unmanageable crises until later. Maybe much later. And even when times are uneventful and dull, there are always multiple parts of the system at risk of careening out of control. Think of it like driving an old, high-mileage car. It's been through a lot of wear-and-tear, so because of its advanced age, there are multiple potential points of failure. A belt at risk of snapping, a frayed wire, a leaky gasket. Every time you drive it somewhere, you're adding stress to an already strained system.
Nations are like that. There are countless moving pieces, and at any given time, one of them could break down with catastrophic consequences. A crop failure. A terrorist attack. A natural disaster. A financial collapse. There's a constant undercurrent of chaos flowing through a seemingly calm and orderly facade. So it's natural for people to ignore or downplay the potential for chaos constantly unfolding around them. The people who can't or won't exhaust themselves, mentally and emotionally. (They also irritate everyone around them with their constant "The end is nigh" pronouncements - or so I'm told.) There's a danger in that complacency, though. It leads people to assume that because they survived a past crisis, they will also survive the current one.
We're living in one of those uncertain moments right now. Right-wing authoritarianism is on the rise multiple areas throughout the world. Brazil just elected a far-right politician as president. In Germany, a far-right movement is gaining popularity, and Angela Merkel's retirement signals an uncertain future. There's also a far-right resurgence in other parts of Europe. And America, which has long held the title of "Leader of the Free World," is seeing its democratic institutions being eroded from within. Will this be a temporary uptick, or will it lead to a long-term erosion of democracy? Will the international order that has been responsible for over seventy years of relative peace endure, or will we call these "the inter-war years" someday? We can't know for sure, because we're in the middle of these events. But there's no doubt that the storm clouds are gathering.
Tick-tick-tick. . .
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Civility From Thee, But Not From Me
Civility.
There's been a lot of calls for more of it in political discourse lately, with very good reason. In the past several days, someone targeted about a dozen prominent political figures with homemade bombs. As far as political violence goes, that's a huge damn deal. Civility seems like a pretty important commodity right now, don't you think? Who would be against that?
Who, indeed? Well, as it turns out, it's some of the people being the loudest in calling for more civility.
Every political ideology has a certain percentage of adherents that see violence as a legitimate tool for achieving their goals or expressing their beliefs, whether it's pounding a metal rod in a tree due to be logged, blowing up an abortion clinic, shooting up a Congressional softball game, or sending homemade bombs through the mail. They fall all along the political spectrum, and no amount of civil discourse will temper their fanaticism because they don't possess a radical thought process.
Traditional political rhetoric reaches these people in a different way. Where a rational person hears a politican's call to action as a cue to volunteer, contact their elected officials, or some other form of political activism, these people interpret the message as a command to destroy property or harm people. That's an unintended consequence of political rhetoric, and there's not much that can be done about it.
However, one of America's two major political parties has been issuing increasingly incendiary rhetoric for months now. From subtle dog whistles like "globalist" and "placeholder" to obvious phrases like "left-wing mob" to ridiculous conspiracy theories. And it's having a measurable effect. Yet if the response to the homemade bombs is any indication, that party doesn't show any signs of changing its rhetoric. President Trump's response to a reporter's question about whether he planned to tone down his rhetoric in the wake of the attempted bombings was basically "LOL, nah." So was Sean Hannity's. Tucker Carlson spun a false equivalency fairy tale. Meanwhile, some right-wing pundits have been aggressively promoting a "false flag" narrative, that the Democrats are behind the homemade bombs.
To put it mildly, this is a disgrace.
Do we need more civility in our political discourse? Someone just tried to assassinate a dozen or so political figures with homemade bombs, so hell yes we do. But I'm sick of hearing any calls for civility coming from the GOP or anyone in the right-wing media. They've been fanning the flames of paranoia and hostility literally for years. With Birtherism. With Benghazi. With Clinton's emails. With Pizzagate. With Seth Rich and Vince Foster conspiracy theories. With discriminatory and needlessly cruel policies. All the while, they cast themselves as the victims and refused to take responsibility for their rhetoric or their actions. To them, "civility" is a unilateral cease-fire, where the other side shuts up and they get to say whatever they want.
I'll take Republican calls for civility seriously when Trump, his minions, and all of Fox News get their own houses in order. When they stop peddling conspiracy theories and outright lies, and stop spewing inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes their political opposition. Their hateful rhetoric is already responsible for one person's death, and there's a good chance we'll see more bloodshed if this continues. As long as they keep fanning the flames, I'll respond to their calls for "civility" with a polite but firm "Go fuck yourselves."
If they want civility, they can show a little first.
There's been a lot of calls for more of it in political discourse lately, with very good reason. In the past several days, someone targeted about a dozen prominent political figures with homemade bombs. As far as political violence goes, that's a huge damn deal. Civility seems like a pretty important commodity right now, don't you think? Who would be against that?
Who, indeed? Well, as it turns out, it's some of the people being the loudest in calling for more civility.
Every political ideology has a certain percentage of adherents that see violence as a legitimate tool for achieving their goals or expressing their beliefs, whether it's pounding a metal rod in a tree due to be logged, blowing up an abortion clinic, shooting up a Congressional softball game, or sending homemade bombs through the mail. They fall all along the political spectrum, and no amount of civil discourse will temper their fanaticism because they don't possess a radical thought process.
Traditional political rhetoric reaches these people in a different way. Where a rational person hears a politican's call to action as a cue to volunteer, contact their elected officials, or some other form of political activism, these people interpret the message as a command to destroy property or harm people. That's an unintended consequence of political rhetoric, and there's not much that can be done about it.
However, one of America's two major political parties has been issuing increasingly incendiary rhetoric for months now. From subtle dog whistles like "globalist" and "placeholder" to obvious phrases like "left-wing mob" to ridiculous conspiracy theories. And it's having a measurable effect. Yet if the response to the homemade bombs is any indication, that party doesn't show any signs of changing its rhetoric. President Trump's response to a reporter's question about whether he planned to tone down his rhetoric in the wake of the attempted bombings was basically "LOL, nah." So was Sean Hannity's. Tucker Carlson spun a false equivalency fairy tale. Meanwhile, some right-wing pundits have been aggressively promoting a "false flag" narrative, that the Democrats are behind the homemade bombs.
To put it mildly, this is a disgrace.
Do we need more civility in our political discourse? Someone just tried to assassinate a dozen or so political figures with homemade bombs, so hell yes we do. But I'm sick of hearing any calls for civility coming from the GOP or anyone in the right-wing media. They've been fanning the flames of paranoia and hostility literally for years. With Birtherism. With Benghazi. With Clinton's emails. With Pizzagate. With Seth Rich and Vince Foster conspiracy theories. With discriminatory and needlessly cruel policies. All the while, they cast themselves as the victims and refused to take responsibility for their rhetoric or their actions. To them, "civility" is a unilateral cease-fire, where the other side shuts up and they get to say whatever they want.
I'll take Republican calls for civility seriously when Trump, his minions, and all of Fox News get their own houses in order. When they stop peddling conspiracy theories and outright lies, and stop spewing inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes their political opposition. Their hateful rhetoric is already responsible for one person's death, and there's a good chance we'll see more bloodshed if this continues. As long as they keep fanning the flames, I'll respond to their calls for "civility" with a polite but firm "Go fuck yourselves."
If they want civility, they can show a little first.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
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.
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.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
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.
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.
Turbulent Seas
There's never a shortage of contemporary Cassandras who forecast America's doom based on a collection of trends and statistical indicators. I'm sure every powerful nation-state going back to ancient Babylon has had its share of them. But sooner or later, one of them ends up getting something right. Like this one. Here's an excerpt from Ed Luce's 2012 book, Time to Start Thinking:
Fast-forward six years, and Luce's analysis turned out to be dead-on. It's not difficult to understand why voters feel disconnected from the two major parties. Consider the major events and trends of the past ten to fifteen years. The 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Wall Street bailout. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. The outsourcing/automation of manufacturing jobs and stagnant wages. Government shut-downs and political brinkmanship. The "Retail Apocalypse." Two quagmire wars. It doesn't take an expert social scientist to understand that a whole lot of people are increasingly uncertain about their futures, and that they view Washington and Wall Street elites as unhelpful and indifferent. It's a simple equation: economic distress + frustration with current system = openness to demagoguery. Just to make things interesting, add a healthy amount of simmering racial resentment.
And so, enter Donald Trump. If you wonder why I rail against him so vocally, it's because he ascended to the presidency at a really bad time. And I'm not just talking about the portion of the population worried about their futures. The day he took office, the NSA was engaging in bulk data collection of Americans' communications, dozens of police forces across the country were utilizing military-grade equipment, the precedent of launching drone strikes against American citizens without due process had been established, and our civil liberties were being eroded in the name of fighting terrorism. It was a farfetched, extreme worst-case scenario, but taken together those things would provide an aspiring autocrat all the tools they needed. So when Trump said things like he'd only acknowledge the election results "if he won," I got a bit nervous.
I'm sure there are many, many servicemembers, police officers, intelligence analysts, and other government workers who refuse to carry out unconstitutional, and potentially, authoritarian-type orders - like spying on citizens because of their political views or anti-Trump activism. There are many public servants who understand the Constitution, who know their history, and who recognize the potential of these programs being used toward undemocratic ends. However, there would still be a significant number who would carry out those orders, and one only needs to look at the past fifty or so years of US history to find examples. Look at Abu Ghraib, COINTELPRO, Operation Northwoods, the Chicago PD "black sites," and several other incidents, to see how easy it is for things to go off the rails.
Meanwhile, nothing is being done to fix any of this. Now maybe there's no easy solution for the economic anxiety stuff, but I'm sure there are ways to alleviate the distress: job retraining programs, government investment in developing industries like nanotechnology and solar energy, etc. But the government could be doing a much better job of cleaning its own house: terminating the bulk collection program, making police forces get rid of the military hardware, strengthening Constitutional protections and curbing Executive power. Yet to nobody's surprise, it's not.
I'm a natural pessimist, but I don't see this ending well unless the political and business classes start acting to make Americans' lives better. The path is wide open for a genuine autocrat to show up, and that person probably won't be as incompetent as Trump has been.
Fast-forward six years, and Luce's analysis turned out to be dead-on. It's not difficult to understand why voters feel disconnected from the two major parties. Consider the major events and trends of the past ten to fifteen years. The 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Wall Street bailout. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. The outsourcing/automation of manufacturing jobs and stagnant wages. Government shut-downs and political brinkmanship. The "Retail Apocalypse." Two quagmire wars. It doesn't take an expert social scientist to understand that a whole lot of people are increasingly uncertain about their futures, and that they view Washington and Wall Street elites as unhelpful and indifferent. It's a simple equation: economic distress + frustration with current system = openness to demagoguery. Just to make things interesting, add a healthy amount of simmering racial resentment.
And so, enter Donald Trump. If you wonder why I rail against him so vocally, it's because he ascended to the presidency at a really bad time. And I'm not just talking about the portion of the population worried about their futures. The day he took office, the NSA was engaging in bulk data collection of Americans' communications, dozens of police forces across the country were utilizing military-grade equipment, the precedent of launching drone strikes against American citizens without due process had been established, and our civil liberties were being eroded in the name of fighting terrorism. It was a farfetched, extreme worst-case scenario, but taken together those things would provide an aspiring autocrat all the tools they needed. So when Trump said things like he'd only acknowledge the election results "if he won," I got a bit nervous.
I'm sure there are many, many servicemembers, police officers, intelligence analysts, and other government workers who refuse to carry out unconstitutional, and potentially, authoritarian-type orders - like spying on citizens because of their political views or anti-Trump activism. There are many public servants who understand the Constitution, who know their history, and who recognize the potential of these programs being used toward undemocratic ends. However, there would still be a significant number who would carry out those orders, and one only needs to look at the past fifty or so years of US history to find examples. Look at Abu Ghraib, COINTELPRO, Operation Northwoods, the Chicago PD "black sites," and several other incidents, to see how easy it is for things to go off the rails.
Meanwhile, nothing is being done to fix any of this. Now maybe there's no easy solution for the economic anxiety stuff, but I'm sure there are ways to alleviate the distress: job retraining programs, government investment in developing industries like nanotechnology and solar energy, etc. But the government could be doing a much better job of cleaning its own house: terminating the bulk collection program, making police forces get rid of the military hardware, strengthening Constitutional protections and curbing Executive power. Yet to nobody's surprise, it's not.
I'm a natural pessimist, but I don't see this ending well unless the political and business classes start acting to make Americans' lives better. The path is wide open for a genuine autocrat to show up, and that person probably won't be as incompetent as Trump has been.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Heroes - When it's Convenient
The latest chapter of the Colin Kaepernick kneeling saga began a few days ago, when Nike made him the face of its latest ad campaign. If you haven't seen the ad in question, here's a link where you can take a look. Predictably, the ad sparked a backlash, signs of which you could see in the news and on social media: photos and videos of people destroying their Nike merchandise, the standard amount of anti-Kaepernick vitriol, and so on. It was a new twist on a familiar tune: Kaepernick is being unpatriotic and disrespectful to the troops and the flag by kneeling, etc etc etc. Basically the same old stuff.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that it is disrespectful (I don't think it is, but I don't presume to speak for all military personnel). If kneeling during the national anthem gets people angry enough to torch their Nike shoes, how angry would they get over the government suppressing a report about contaminated drinking water on military bases? Or appallingly poor medical care at VA clinics? Homeless veterans? Deep cuts to educational benefits? Or how about the biggest one in recent memory: the Bush Administration's unnecessary and completely botched war in Iraq? Even if you believe the WMD intelligence was legitimate (hint: it wasn't), Bush and his team screwed up every significant decision at the start of the war, from ignoring the looting to not sending enough troops to secure the country to the Ba'athist purges.
So if someone cared about the troops not being disrespected, there are much bigger things to get angry about. Yet I'd speculate that there's not a huge amount of overlap in the Venn Diagram of "people who are angry about what Kaepernick's doing" and "people who are angry about all that other stuff."
Curious, isn't it? It's as if some people only care about "the troops" to use them as a political prop, and then forget all about them when it comes to things that really matter.
Like I said, I don't presume to speak for all military personnel. But I'll just give my $.02. At the risk of sounding self-righteous, I'll say that I detest shallow patriotism, and that people angry about Kaepernick and the Nike ad campaign are a classic example of that. Caring about the troops is about more than a coupon at a restaurant or priority boarding at the airport, or flashy parades and magnetic yellow ribbons. It's about taking the time to read up on the challenges they face: the far-flung corners of the world they're sent to, the various missions they're made to undertake, and the difficulties they face when they eventually re-enter the civilian world.
And it is definitely not about allowing the military and the flag to be used as a rhetorical club to hit a particular segment of society. If that's your idea of patriotism, you have a lot to learn.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that it is disrespectful (I don't think it is, but I don't presume to speak for all military personnel). If kneeling during the national anthem gets people angry enough to torch their Nike shoes, how angry would they get over the government suppressing a report about contaminated drinking water on military bases? Or appallingly poor medical care at VA clinics? Homeless veterans? Deep cuts to educational benefits? Or how about the biggest one in recent memory: the Bush Administration's unnecessary and completely botched war in Iraq? Even if you believe the WMD intelligence was legitimate (hint: it wasn't), Bush and his team screwed up every significant decision at the start of the war, from ignoring the looting to not sending enough troops to secure the country to the Ba'athist purges.
So if someone cared about the troops not being disrespected, there are much bigger things to get angry about. Yet I'd speculate that there's not a huge amount of overlap in the Venn Diagram of "people who are angry about what Kaepernick's doing" and "people who are angry about all that other stuff."
Curious, isn't it? It's as if some people only care about "the troops" to use them as a political prop, and then forget all about them when it comes to things that really matter.
Like I said, I don't presume to speak for all military personnel. But I'll just give my $.02. At the risk of sounding self-righteous, I'll say that I detest shallow patriotism, and that people angry about Kaepernick and the Nike ad campaign are a classic example of that. Caring about the troops is about more than a coupon at a restaurant or priority boarding at the airport, or flashy parades and magnetic yellow ribbons. It's about taking the time to read up on the challenges they face: the far-flung corners of the world they're sent to, the various missions they're made to undertake, and the difficulties they face when they eventually re-enter the civilian world.
And it is definitely not about allowing the military and the flag to be used as a rhetorical club to hit a particular segment of society. If that's your idea of patriotism, you have a lot to learn.
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