The USA
I have no clue why this happened. Surely it can't have something to do with a poor majority being ruled by a rich minority, right? That would be irresponsible to point out as a cause, correct?
A quick note on the two articles of impeachment that are about to pass the House in the coming days. I think they are poorly written. This is what a committee of Democrats came up with over a weekend? Well, honestly, can any academic come up with something great over a weekend? I still have dreams about having to write 20-page papers over a single weekend, which I did back in my University days. Results were mixed. I remember if I started a paper more than a week before the due date, results were far better.
My issue is not with the opening resolution. That’s actually okay, since it paraphrases the resolutions from both the Nixon and Clinton drafts. That’s a little cheeky. Fine.
But I find the language of each article to be intentionally weak. They are intentionally devoid of details. In fact, they allude to crimes and actions, but don’t detail them. The document seems to assume he reader knows the details. I find this unacceptable.
I also lament the dryness and repetition of the language. Both articles begin with the identical summary of the power of the House of Representatives to impeach the president. Why not begin the first article with “President Donald J. Trump abused his power and violated his oath of office”? Why not strengthen the second article to read “President Donald J. Trump abused the power of his office to obstruct both the House of Representatives and to obstruct justice in the Independent Counsel investigation, between 2017 and 2019”? Expand it, Democrats. The Mueller investigation and the withholding of aid from Ukraine are part of one big criminal conspiracy to improve Trump’s odds of winning an election.
These thin articles lack deals and impact. The words don’t punch. The seriousness of the articles are not conveyed in the language. The English language is incredible in that there are many ways to convey a message or tell a story. These articles don’t leverage the inherent strengths of the English language.
There are those who agree and disagree with this assessment. Fred Kaplan of The Washington Post argues that the articles are incomplete and weak. His colleague, Dhalia Lithwick, concedes that they are weak and lacking details, but they had to be in order to reduce the amount of words the Republicans could chew on, rant about and distort.
I will always look to the proposed articles by Brianne Gorod and Elizabeth Wydra as what could have been. They are fantastic. Notice how each article begins:
Article I
In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has abused the office of the presidency by employing the powers of the office to advance his own political interests, rather than the interests of the nation….
Article II
In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has abused the powers of his office to try to prevent his wrongdoing and abuses of the public trust from being discovered….
Article III
In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has been personally enriching himself in violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause….
That is how it should have been done. Start each article with the point and then list details below. These articles would have been home runs. They detail the crimes, and name those who did the crimes (Trump, Giuliani, Mulvaney). They even tie the president’s decision to abandon the Kurds in Syria to his plans for a Trump Tower in Istanbul.
Instead we have the worst-written articles of impeachment in US history. Look, we know Trump will be acquitted next month and will probably be re-elected. But why couldn’t the Democrats come up with articles that would be remembered and admired for decades to come?
The opposition party is like the articles themselves: Lacking clarity, conviction and courage.
We’re so doomed in 2020.
Trump’s best jokes have been when he pardons turkeys. Seriously, he tries. While he doesn’t land his jokes with a jocular lightness, you can see that he’s not at all mad when he roasts his opponents while pardoning turkeys.
But this comment earlier today was not a joke. This was another embarrassment. Just before Trump signed the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Coin Act, he quipped:
"I'm curious why wasn't it done a long time ago? And also, I guess the answer to that is because now I'm president, we get things done."
Uh huh. Right.
Why wait a hundred years for a centennial celebration, when, with a little foresight, you could have arranged this during the Obama administration, on the 90th, or even the 95th. It takes a genius -a genius I tell you- to see things this clearly. No wonder, as Rick Perry reminds us, God wanted Trump in the White House.
One of these California congressmen is in very serious trouble.
Brianne Gorod and Elizabeth Wydra put together three fantastic, hypothetical articles of impeachment against Donald Trump in The New Republic. They are detailed, yet focused. And it’s precisely what the Democrats should put together in December. They don’t need any more public witness testimony. It is time to impeach.
I suspect that the the articles written by Gorod and Wydra will align closely with the real indictment the House Judiciary Committee will approve sometime in December. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee will probably prosecute the case before the Senate. Yesterday, we saw a preview of his closing arguments. It ought to be a slam-dunk case, but he will fail to persuade more than two Republican senators to vote guilty.
Based on the law and the evidence, the Senate should vote to remove the criminal president from office in January, but barring a miracle, that won't happen. Instead, it will fall to the voters to remedy the horrible mistake they made three years ago. If Trump is re-elected, we can probably write finis to our little democratic experiment in the United States.
Watching Trump this fall has been fucking beautiful. He is not taking his political death well. He never learned how to do the damn job. He’s dumb. He got caught trying to force one or more countries to believe an insane conspiracy and assist him in discouraging Democrats from voting in 2020. And he couldn’t enjoy one good day because of his own ineptitude and inability to stop talking. This has been amazing. It would be a little more amazing if he was paranoid, drinking and trashing the White House. But it’s still amazing.
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. No one does.
The title of this post says it all. The shit hit the fan last week. The Democrats should never have taken their recess. The Republic is burning down.
Donald Trump decided to play lawyer. He had the White House council send off a raving, angry letter to three of the four Democratic chairs leading the impeachment inquiry, confirming that we are in the midst of a long-standing constitutional crisis. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the primary author of the letter was Trump himself. But more significantly, Trump also destabilized northeastern Syria, while the two goons who hired Rudy Giuliani are claiming to be part of a joint defense arrangement with the president and the Russian mob. Seriously, read that piece by Marcy Wheeler. In a week of historic events, John Dowd’s letter to the House Intelligence Committee is as significant as any Nixon quote from the Watergate saga.
I wrote the paragraphs below last week before it was confirmed on Saturday October 12 that the president, and not a real lawyer, wrote that letter:
I really like George Conway's reply to Trump’s letter. The White House letter is manifestly an impeachable offense. Article One gives the House of Representatives the "sole power of impeachment", and neither the executive nor the judicial branch can dictate the process the House chooses to use to discharge that duty. The White House is showing absolute contempt for the House's constitutional authority, and presuming to tell the Speaker what process she must follow! It's hard to believe that the White House counsel actually went to law school and passed the bar exam. Oh, and by the way, Trump has apparently given the president of Turkey the green light to invade northern Syria and massacre the Kurdish fighters who lost about 11,000 men fighting ISIS as our allies. So much for Trumpian loyalty, and so much for a coherent foreign policy. The orange one must go.
But I'm still very concerned that higher courts will agree with Trump. Then the Republic and the Constitution are officially dead. We first examined this when the administration started to refuse to share documents with the House in April, as well as start to block people from testifying. This breakage of the constitution is now unprecedented. And what is the remedy? The military is with Trump. The police departments from coast to coast are with Trump. Are we suddenly inches away from a Pinochet-style junta? Who has the power to restore regular order?
Fiona Hill’s testimony to the House ought to spell the end of Trump. In a normal world, we would be free of him and the GOP.
This is, “I’m not a crook.” This is, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” Only much, much worse. Someone spare a thought for Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö. American Democracy: “Keep it going on.”
Trump’s first TV / YouTube appearance, around 13:00 today.
Notable moments:
07:25: Trump claims that the Democrats have been trying to impeach him since January 2017. That’s partially true.
11:05: Trump demands to know the identity of the whistleblower and the leaker(s). Calls them spies.
14:40: Trump tells a “Sir Story.”
15:50: Trump confirms that “Fake News” is now “Corrupt News.”
And Trump’s second appearance, around 15:00.
Notable moments:
26:49: Trump: I knew there were many people listening to my July 25 call, so it couldn’t have been improper.
31:10: Trump accuses House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff of helping to write the Whistleblower report. A shocking new defense talking point.
34:40: Trump boasts that he can handle the political storm. I believe him. He lives on stress.
39:05: “Stable Genius”
39:55: Trump threatens to sue people over how he was treated in the 2016 election and the Mueller investigation. He seems to imply that he wants to sue the DOJ/FBI, which are under his control.
41:20: Trump: Nancy Pelosi hands out subpoenas “like they’re cookies.” Mmmmm. Cookies.
44:40: “Biden and his son are stone cold crooked.”
45:05: The question that should eventually destroy Trump: “What did you want President Zelinsky to do about Vice President Biden and his son, Hunter?” Trump blows up a little. Keep asking him that exact question.
UPDATE, October 3 2019: The Rude Pundit: Trump’s Madness Today By The Numbers
Mayor Warren Wilhelm’s dismal, embarrassing presidential campaign taught me something: New York City has too many elected positions. We got on just fine without a mayor for four months. We don’t need a mayor. We also don’t need borough presidents, who are basically cheerleaders for their respective boroughs. All we really need is the City Council, the CCRB and the City Comptroller. Maybe the Council can appoint a city manager -a de-facto mayor- that they can hire and fire at will. But the Council has the power. The Mayor is just a public face and figurehead. The mayor of New York has always been a dead end job. But now I realize it is an unnecessary job. Let’s revise the city charter and get rid of the office.
An interesting footnote to de Blasio’s four-month vacation, er, I mean campaign, is that he was tailed and harassed by the PBA and the NYPD. The police decided to do a little work slowdown in response to the firing of one of their own who murdered a low-level offender on the street. And what happened? New Yorkers had a slightly better summer as a result. Up until to the UN General Assembly, I saw fewer cops, and I felt no less safe.
So thank you for the work slowdown, NYPD! Our hearts are breaking for the poor, unappreciated NYPD rank and file. To my knowledge, the police have never been held accountable for their behavior. They have been groomed to expect that incompetence and even murderous misbehavior will-and should-be dismissed, with no ill consequences for the police. If that really begins to change, it will constitute a revolutionary moment in police/community relations.
Imagine a New York with fewer cops and no mayor. One can dream. I dream of just that, in federalized city known as the District of Gotham.
Donald J. Trump sold us out. All 350 Million of us. He did it to make a few million and gain an advantage in his re-election bid. His plan is to have foreign nations kneecap whoever Democrat is leading the nomination race. This week it is Joe Biden. Next week it could be Elizabeth Warren.
The crimes of Donald Trump are so much simpler than Bob Mueller or we realized. For years we asked, “What do foreign nations have on Trump?” What they have is his simple, desperate need to cheat and win the 2020 election. Oh sure, he wants to make a few million on the side. And yes, he is a money launderer, a fraudster and tax cheat. He probably owes some mobsters and oligarchs money as well. But Russia isn't hanging a sex scandal or some elaborate crime over Trump. They just know that nothing means more to him than winning another term.
All these crimes related to foreign policy and phone calls boil down his desperate need to cheat in the upcoming election. And since he needs to cheat at elections (just like his golf game), they know exactly what he wants. And all Trump has to do to get it is sell out 350 Million Americans. So he trades favors with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel (the embassy move), Turkey, the UAE and Ukraine. All of those nations would agree to an exchange of favors. Putin, in particular loves the mild destabilization of NATO and the EU. He probably wishes it was in chaos, but he’ll take whatever he can get. Our closest allies wouldn't help Trump win an election. These are the shady actors he's dealing with. Now we know, after digging for 3 years. We know what Trump is all about. Now what are we going to do and how quickly?
He sold us out. We knew he punched us in the gut. Now we know when and how many times. How does it feel, America?
The whistleblower did his homework. He knew how to format his complaint. It took him days to write it. The right-wing claim that a lawyer wrote it is nonsense. A good CIA agent would have looked at other complaints in the public record for guidance on how to write one himself. He knew what it took to make it presentable to Congress. No lawyer necessary. He's an investigator. He researched and wrote it himself.
Oh, and I swear to fucking gawd, if the news media makes-up a cute name for this crime, like Ukraine-gate, my head will explode. Nothing is a -gate. Only Watergate is a -gate!
Not one computer to be seen in this office. Little boy Trump needs big colorful pictures.
August 2019 is the month this presidency crashed and burned. Donald Trump has 55 Million guaranteed votes in November 2020, sure. But a president cannot remain in office being president only for the bigots, racists, xenophobes and deplorables. He hasn't won any new support in the states he needs to win: Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. Slandering over 4 Million Jews certainly didn't cushion his 200,000 vote lead in Florida.
Oh, and there might be a recession coming sooner rather than later? Yeah, sooner.
In my previous post on Trump’s catastrophic August, I hinted that it could get worse in the final eight days. Okay, I actually wanted it to be worse. And holy shit, did it ever. Donald Trump ended his August with massive mistakes, being distracted (when isn’t he?) and by breaking laws. This incredible crash and burn extended into Labor Day weekend, so I will count that weekend as part of Trump’s August downfall.
And I am not exaggerating here. Trump is not liking his job. He is working less. He is losing his temper more. And the only comfort he has at night, is that 55 Million Americans love him. He is their hero. They believe anything he says. They believe he never called white nationalists “very fine people.” They believe that he sacrificed his billionaire lifestyle to selflessly serve as President. In fact, they believe his claim that he has lost billions in net worth since becoming president. They will never fail to believe him.
I believe it!
Where do I start? Remember in my previous post I wrote that bad things happen in August? That was a reference to the fact that both World Wars began in August. And that’s perfect place to start, because Donald Trump was scheduled to fly to Denmark to make a bid for Greenland, and then go to Poland to help them mark the start of WWII. You know, the 80th anniversary of Germany invading Poland. August 1939. Well we know the Denmark trip was canceled. And so too was the Poland trip. Hurricane Dorian had formed in the Atlantic and was threatening to strike Puerto Rico and northern Florida. Trump canceled his trip to Poland so he could “focus” on tracking Hurricane Dorian, and sent a message of “congratulations” to Poland through yet another bonkers White House lawn press gaggle. He seriously had no idea what the trip to Poland was for, aside from an opportunity to eat red meat and socialize with white people. And how did he “focus” on Hurricane Dorian? You know how he worked that weekend. Fuck this guy.
The end of August was a colossal, criminal thud. Trump is insisting that next year’s G7 summit be held at his golf club at Doral (Miami). He sent Pence to his resort in Ireland, when Pence’s meaningless meetings were 300 miles east, in Dublin. And Trump found time to attack someone who really, really bothered him: Debra Messing. Trump has no interest to prove to the world that he’s normal. He’s ill, and he seems to accentuate his illness as part of his marketing.
We don’t need a president right now. The office is incredibly powerful. But having Trump in that office is incredibly dangerous and volatile. He has already commited a long list of impeachable offenses. He continues to commit crimes, with impunity, and without any fear of punishment. Our lives are in danger. Fact. It would be simply be better and safer to have an empty White House for the next 16 months. Tell all Federal agencies to follow the policies as they existed in December 2016 and set on auto-pilot. Fucking hell.
All the lectures and all the talking-down to Liberals to be civil are bullshit. Complete bad faith bullshit. The following is a good example why.
I visited a War Relocation Center (a WWII Japanese-American concentration camp) for the first time this month. It was the first of ten camps built, in Hunt Idaho, which opened in August 1942. I walked the land, walked the trails, and spent some time in the tiny, silent and somber visitors center. But one of the first things I saw, aside from a replica of a sentry tower at the entrance, was a pickup truck. An overweight middle-aged couple owned it. They were walking around the monument parking area, reading the interpretive signs. They seemed to be engaged for the few minutes they were there. They were visiting the park on a bright, sunny Saturday in the Idaho desert. They could be at one of the parks in Twin Falls, full of barbecues, lawn games, dogs and cold beer. But they came to this sad prison camp site for a reason. I assume they came to learn.
But the pickup truck threw me off. It was a slightly lifted American truck. That’s normal in Idaho. I Can appreciate modified pickup trucks myself. The decals on the rear window are what I noticed. There was a skeleton hand raising a middle finger. There was a decal reading, “I burn diesel. Mind if I smoke?” And there was the classic Calvin-like character taking a piss. He was pissing on the word “Liberals”. So here was a little irony. A Republican couple (I’ve stopped calling them Trump supporters now - if one is a Republican, then that’s redundant, and also dated once they have a new leader) was visiting a prison camp that held US citizens, while on the same day, the party and administration they support is holding immigrants of all ages in multiple prison camps. I didn’t see them turn around and leave, but that’s what they did. They opted not to go further onto the walking trails with more interpretive signs. I guess they finally understood that reading about peoples’ constitutional rights being revoked and peoples’ rights to freely move taken away conflicted with their “own the Libs” worldview.
I’m pretty sure Republicans would love to send all registered Democrats into prison camps. We’re just the majority that keeps getting in the way once in a while. Donald Trump doesn’t want an approval rating from anyone who voted against him. He just wants a 100% approval rating from Republicans. He’s the president for the ruling minority only. Everyone else might as well not exist.
If you are the president for only 60 Million voters, a 50% approval rating (which he doesn’t have) is a perfect score. Screenshot captured 09/16/2019.
I thought about those current facts, but then I thought about the pissing decal again. I would love to put a Fuck Trump, or Death to Deplorables (maybe a “Deplorables Hunting License”) decal on my Lincoln. I advocate that if anyone is a registered Republican, they are hostile members of a hate group that needs to be deported, put into prison camps, or simply executed. This nation would be immediately better if we killed-off the 60 Million or so voting Republicans who are making life miserable for the 70 or so Million who have never voted Republican. They are making life miserable for the majority simply because they want to. There is no unity and harmony in this nation anymore. So fuck it. Kill all the Republicans. Let’s fix this mess.
The Drei Pfeile (Three Arrows) symbol of the anti-fascist parties of Germany. Used by ANTIFA groups today.
But I can never put that argument on my house, front lawn or motor vehicle. It would be a matter of days until my vehicle’s rear window was smashed by a tire iron. See, the Right Wing gets to troll, insult, threaten, harass, and taunt. They can decorate their vehicles with thin blue lines, punisher skulls, crosses, pro Republican slogans, anti-BLM stickers, anti-immigrant slogans, confederate flags, stickers against colored people and stickers with misogynist meanings. We liberals cannot do that. Even if we tried, it wouldn’t be long before a social media moderator, employer, journalist, or right-wing deplorable on the street called us out for it, damaged our property, or terminated our employment. We liberals still live in a civil society. It was the 60 Million deplorables who left it. Let me make that crystal clear: the 60 Million deplorables broke their social contract. They are an anti-social hate group that wants to burn the Republic down rather than share it with anyone who disagrees with their ideology.
I wouldn’t dare slash the tires or smash the window of a truck that had a confederate flag or an anti-liberal sticker on it. The owner very likely has a gun. And more important, I don’t damage other people’s property. But if I put an Antifa sticker on my vehicle, I’m pretty sure some deplorable would call the cops on me, especially in my excursions into Pennsylvania or upstate New York. The deplorables get to bully and retaliate. They get to call the cops. They are allowed to brandish their weapons. We Liberals aren’t allowed to open our mouths, let alone strap an AR-15 to our backs. Even when we have the facts on our side, we lose. Facts and truth are useless today.
An “Open Carry” rally in Campbell, Ohio, 2010.
Remember the rules that applied to Jackie Robinson? There was an unwritten rule that he was not allowed to reply to insults or taunts, and he was not allowed to throw a punch at anyone who hit him. It would be the end of his career. Similar rules apply to us liberals.
Now I know that my fellow liberals would tell me that this is not a problem. Deplorables go low, we go high. We don’t damage property or threaten to shoot Republicans. We don’t drop to their level. But there are a few rebels like me who believe that if we aren’t allowed to bully and troll them back, then we’ll never be rid of them. Shouldn’t we try to get rid of them? Maybe get rid of is too strong a term. Isn’t it time we tamed the deplorables (do you like the 1984 Reagan Bear in the Woods ad reference there)?
Put another way: The bedbugs are a metaphor. The bedbugs are Republicans. You know what I mean? And did you see what happened to a fellow liberal when he made that joke? It strengthens my argument, folks. We liberals can’t joke about the deplorables. Nor can we express our rage through art. We are told to keep it civil. The right-wing is a protected class.
If shaming worked, I’d advocate shaming the deplorables. But that no longer works. We need to tame them. Isolate them. Sometimes insult them, and make sure they don’t hurt more people. Who knows how many of them want to go on a gun rampage on election day next year? A lot of violent men might go over the edge next year.
I badly want to put an Antifa sticker on my Lincoln. I really do. But I Love my Lincoln, and I don’t want some white nationalist with a tire iron or gun anywhere near it. I know I can’t make the deplorables go away. And I also know that I can’t wish them away. They will always be a significant and destructive minority in this country. They can threaten and intimidate. And they know that most of them will never lose a job or serve prison time because of it. I just think that’s wrong.
Yeah. It is wrong.
All Republicans need to be banned from office. The party is a hate group that wants to destroy the republic to appease the 40% of Americans who support them. But let’s just rip the Senate in today’s post.
The latest, credible allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh again show us why the Republicans are a disgrace. They could have nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Court. She’s next in line. But they just had to ram through this sexual predator, liar, and utter scumbag. Sooner of later, Kavanaugh and Thomas will be gone. I hope through impeachment, but I can’t expect the Democrats to reverse these grave mistakes.
The new allegations have made the push to remove Susan Collins more intense. As bad as Susan Collins is, the performance of Lindsey Graham during the Kavanaugh hearings was even worse. He was vitriolic, irrational, and a disgrace to the Senate. It past time both he and Susan Collins were shown the exit.
I should have a post up soon about the last week of Donald Trump’s catastrophic August Until then, I want to share this important point by Tom Socca in Slate this morning. I’m sure other smart pundits and academics have brought this up in articles, books, and lectures. However this is a great way to explain how the GOP went through a radical change in the decades preceding Trump. This change, of course, paved the way for Trump and future GOP leaders. It shouldn’t be surprising that it goes back to the to first Democrat to win the White House after a 12 year drought - Bill Clinton. We know that the GOP treated Jimmy Carter as an illegitimate president while he was in office, and for decades afterward. With Clinton, the disrespect extended to what could have (should have) been interpreted as a constitutional crisis: the Federal government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996.
At the time, the feeling was that the House, led by Newt Gingrich, was throwing a tantrum and they would come around to accept the fact that they would have to work with Clinton. But they sent strong signals that forever changed the GOP. The GOP no longer had to work with anyone. They could seriously obstruct the mechanisms of government. Don’t like a policy or the Affordable Care Act? Shut down the government. Or how about ensuring that a Democrat can never nominate a Supreme Court justice if the GOP holds the US Senate? That’s the new rule. or how about the recent scenario in Oregon where the GOP realized that it couldn’t stop a carbon tax bill from becoming law. They just disappeared (and the Democrats inexplicably took the bill off the Governor’s desk, which is another story).
Ronald Reagan floated the idea of doing away with anything founded by Democrats. That includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, AMTRAK, the EPA, and the Civil Rights Act. Today, the idea has progressed under this logic to oppose anything that was not only led or founded by Democrats, but anything that is shared, or meant for everyone on US soil. That would include National Parks and Monuments, highways, public roads, municipal water systems, and even the Statue of Liberty, the example that Socca uses this morning.
I have written here that today’s Republican party would rather burn the Republic down than respect a political party that represents the majority of citizens. Republicans don’t want to share a country with brown people and women. We intellectuals are finally constructing the history of how our Republic caught fire 25 years ago. The party divide is logical, but also mad. It extends to the media we consume, the sneakers we wear, the cars we drive and the restaurant brands we choose. It’s logical. It’s mad. And it’s also unsustainable, as the Republic burns.
I have shared this before: August can be terrible. I love it. It’s summer. But in modern world history, it’s awful.
August 2017 was a total disaster for Donald Trump. August 2018 had some major setbacks, some obstruction, and some foreshadowing of future news regarding Trump’s racism. But this August has been the worst August of Trump’s first term. There are still 8 days left to this August. And there will be at least one more Trump August.
Let’s start with how this month began, with the aftermath of two gun massacres and this - this sick, twisted, bizarre photo. This is perhaps the most obscene thing a US president and his spouse has ever done. It was this moment that we should have realized that Donald J. Trump had lost his mind. But we needed some more insanity to draw that conclusion.
It came the following week, with news that after a conversation with Senator Tom Cotton months ago, Trump became mildly obsessed with a plan for the US to purchase Greenland from Denmark. Once Trump publicly admitted the news leak (relatively rare for him), the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin declared that Trump had “lost it.” She finished her piece with this:
..the media and Congress should stop pretending Trump is fit to govern. He’s not. He needs to go as soon as possible, by whatever legal or electoral means possible.
But wait. There would be more. Donald Trump believes that he has done more than any president before him. On Israeli relations, he naturally thinks that he has had the most success. He also naturally thinks that any service he provides to Israel should translate into American Jewish voter support. So when he saw poll numbers showing that he will receive fewer votes from practicing Jews in 2020 than in 2016, he decided to launch a fierce, anti-semitic attack. Just as he weaponized racism against Democrats of color last month, he did it again to American Jews this month. And just in case there was any doubt or confusion as to what he meant, he repeated it, more clearly, the next day. Even the Donald Trump from 2018 might have tried to explain away his remarks via tweet, or called the video footage “fake news.” But this time, he doubled down on his bigotry and showed it off to the whole world.
When Trump launched racist attacks against Freshman Democrats of color last month, pundits tried to analyze and explain them. Even this blogger saw his racist attacks as a campaign strategy. But this month, there’s no explanation needed. Trump dropped an atomic bomb of hatred and bigotry. The Washington Post’s Dahlia Lithwick wrote:
So, Donald Trump, who just in the past two days refused to visit Denmark because it wouldn’t sell Greenland, tossed an anti-Semitic canard out to see how it landed on American Jews, retweeted a conspiracy theorist who claims Trump is the king of the Jews, reversed himself on gun policy and payroll taxes, and mulled ending birthright citizenship by way of executive order, just keeps on trucking. No check in sight.
Within the same 22 hours or so that he slandered nearly 5 Million Americans, Trump angrily canceled his state visit to Denmark. It confirmed that Trump didn’t really want to go to Denmark in the first place, even though he invited himself to visit just a few weeks ago, leaving the Danish royals, Danish government and the US State Department very little time to set up the visit and associated events.
Last year, I wrote in this blog that the Trump presidency is unsustainable. He will complete his term (or terms), but his presidency and the Republic will crash and burn before the end of his tenure. To my amazement and surprise, significant journalists are now reflecting this point of view, 30 months into his presidency. In the same piece quoted above, Dahlia Lithwick writes in terms I haven’t seen her use before. She has called Trump unfit many times, but this was -to my knowledge- the first time she acknowledged that Trump is seriously hurting us. In previous months, Trump’s tweets, erratic behavior, insults towards allies and canceled trips (how many now? two?) were analyzed as distractions from his policies and destruction of government agencies. Allies would invite him to visit less often than previous presidents, and when he would visit, they would treat him to comfort food and parades. The advice was, ignore the drama, focus on the administration’s policies, resist the administration in the courts, and wait for Trump to go away. Then, we should all encourage the next Democratic president to restore some normalcy, clean up Trump’s mess, and begin the long process of repairing the Republic.
But now, in August of 2019, there is this realization that we were sadly mistaken to wait for the next Democratic president. Trump’s presidency is destroying us. It isn’t just the policies. It’s everything he does. We need a president to be a leader and a healer. Trump only wants to pour gasoline over everything. His slander, insults, rage, temper tantrums, excessive personal time, his ignorance and his inability to think about the future are taking a serious toll on the public. The Trump presidency is destroying our national morale. It is destroying our mental health and national psyche. It is bringing a recession sooner than expected. It is making us lose sleep. It is making us drink more. And it is even, possibly, making us commit suicide more than before - especially the poor white people who voted for him. We’re in the Trump maliese. It makes the Carter malaise look like a wonderfully stable, fun and happy time. I will insist to the end that it was, dammit.
Dahlia Lithwick’s piece was prompted by an article by Matt Ford in The New Republic. It goes into detail about just how American life is much more difficult under Donald Trump. Simply put, why are we doing this to ourselves? I thought his last point was incredibly strong. Life is too short to live another day with this lunatic as our president:
He largely spends his days as president in unstructured “executive time” where he fields calls from outside advisers and ingests massive quantities of raw Fox News coverage. The work of solving the nation’s problems, except insofar as it rallies his supporters and keeps him in office, is a largely secondary concern. Soon after Trump took office, White House aides tried to persuade him that the national debt would become unsustainable in the future. “Yeah, but I won’t be here,” he reportedly replied. Trump’s time may be limited, but so is ours.
Which brings us to a third piece written within 24 hours of the previous two. James Fallows of The Atlantic explains that Trump would simply be unable to hold employment for 30 months if he were on a corporate or non-profit board, a company executive, or perhaps his best example, an airline pilot.
It took 30 months, but Trump has finally gone full lunatic. It started with twisted photos from Dayton and El Paso three weeks ago, and it continues with Greenland, full anti-semitism, and erratic economic policy. He rocked the markets again today. Just a president pouring gasoline on everything. The House should have opened impeachment proceedings in February. They were warned. They must open formal impeachment hearings immediately, even if it is only to strengthen the guardrails to keep this president -and the republic- from falling off a cliff. Trump's wear and tear on the citizenry is finally showing. We've very tired, and we’ve had enough. The House shouldn’t be in recess. it should be working on articles of Impeachment six days a week.
The final Trump Tower press conference on August 15 2017 was incredible. But so was this press gaggle on August 21 2019. The two together show a man who is not just unfit for office, but incredibly unhinged, angry and dangerous to us all.
If you drink, please continue to do so. Responsibly, of course.
You can print the headline now: "Trump wins second term by the thinnest of margins: One electoral college vote: Wisconsin." The Democrats are beyond sad. They are not a political party. They are mainly a bunch of inept, elderly politicians who can't win against memes and fake news stories spreading like wildfire on social media. No can win against that. Issues and likability used to matter. Now it is rage and lies all over the Internet. The Information Superhighway that was supposed to expand the public sphere and make us more informed is now a major factor of our downfall. This blog was born out of the 1990s cultural and media studies theories on what the Internet could be. And now this is a journal of the downfall of American society.
I’m not sure how Trump leaves the White House. But I am sure that his final years are at Mar-a-Lago. He’s no longer a new yorker. He is a Forida man going forward. I don’t think he could come back to New York ever again, given the odds that he could be indicted by the state Attorney General.
The Border Patrol obviously has a fascist problem. As is usually the case, this rot spreads from the top, by cynical politicians who know how to mine the treasure trove of grievance, resentment, and scapegoating which is the source of the power of this malign movement. Americans who look upon the horrible mistreatment of the immigrants from Central America as nothing which should concern them, ought to realize that there are many other groups who would be targets of attack and persecution by a fascist government. Socialists, liberals, Democrats, “bleeding heart do-gooders,” ‘Never Trump’ Republicans, intellectuals, experts-in short, anyone or any group which runs afoul the new “truth,” or shows insufficient enthusiasm for the great leader, may find themselves a despised minority, defined by the leaders of the government as enemies of the people. I hope I’m wrong, but the signs are dire. And in any event, the mess Trump has made cannot be cleaned-up by the next congress or Democratic president. Trump has energized fascists who were already in government, and has brought a lot of new fascists into government.
Donald Trump is more friendly and warm with Kim than any other world leader at the G20. He doesn’t know what American freedom is. He doesn’t respect the history of the Korean war. He doesn’t respect our allies. It is time for our allies to recall their ambassadors and cut all diplomatic ties with the US. There need to be serious consequences for this betrayal. Today, Donald Trump betrayed every free person on earth. Fuck this. Fuck him. And fuck us.
Trump’s supporters love it when he breaks things, is contrarian, or causes retired generals and pundits to condemn his actions. If he bombed New York, they would praise him. They will love what he did today, but it was an attack on our freedom and an insult to every US citizen. Full stop. And frankly, fuck what they think or like.