On Friday, the President-elect of the United States agreed to pay $25 million for defrauding students of his not-a-university. That settlement includes $1 million in payments to the State of New York for violations of state law. During the campaign, Trump had denied he would ever settle, saying it was “a matter of principle.” However, he’s now treating the $25 million payout as a victory, calling it a “fraction” of his potential losses.
But less than 48 hours later, you won’t find the story on the front of the New York Times, despite New York AG Eric Schneiderman’s dogged work in assembling the case. You wont find it on the front of the Washington Post, despite the outrageous implications of a president paying out tens of millions weeks before taking office. You won’t find it on the Miami Herald, despite the connection between Trump’s “university” and contributions to Florida’s AG that had all the earmarks of old-fashioned bribes.
Because the media still holds Donald Trump to account for nothing and no one. Trump can shock for an hour or a day, but it can’t be a scandal, because for a scandal you have to have some expectations of civil behavior. The press holds Trump to no expectations at all. He’s not just the guy who could shoot someone on 5th Avenue without losing his voters; he’s the guy who could pull that trigger knowing that the story would run, briefly, on page 11. Near the bottom. In small type.
What you will find, on the front page of all three of those national papers, is a story about the President-to-be complaining of the “harassment” his running mate received while attending a play on Broadway. Said harassment consisting of a statement read by one of the cast members after the final curtain.
"Thank you for joining us at Hamilton: An American Musical. We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values, and work on behalf of all of us. Thank you."
Far from being either a humiliation or a harangue, the statement was a plea for that thing Trump said repeatedly he wanted to bring—unity. It’s a request that could have been met with simple reassurance that, of course the president would work to protect the rights of all Americans. Of course.
That’s not what happened. Instead, the President-elect of the United States demanded that the cast members apologize to Mike Pence. Then, still tweeting about it twelve hours later, he insulted the performance of the actors while also calling them “rude and insulting.”
Within an hour of his first tweet, white nationalists had begun an utterly pointless effort to “boycott” a show they never had a prayer of getting into in the first place. Within a day, a flash mob of neo-nazis was on hand to show that diverse cast what harassment is all about. You can bet our new president won’t be demanding an apology on that front.
Now come on in. Let’s pretend that the press still means something long enough to read a few pundits.
Leonard Pitts calls on Trump to own the results of his own actions.
A few days ago, a black woman I know got a text from a friend who asked what she’d be wearing “to the slave auction in January.”
Another friend, who is white, wrote that she is “seriously picturing trains to Auschwitz. I can’t convey how seriously.” …
The other day, my brother reported seeing a pickup truck emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag tooling down the road in L.A. I lived in that city for 34 years, he’s lived there 47. Neither of us can recall ever seeing that before. A few days later, he tells me some random white lady screamed “Nigger!” at him — just that word, no other commentary — because she didn’t like his driving.
White nationalists see in Trump’s victory a reason to celebrate. Worse, they see in actions exactly like those Trump took following Pence’s visit to the theater clear reason to believe that Trump is completely on their side. And while Pitts acknowledges that both slavery and the Holocaust were unique events, that doesn’t mean there can’t be another, equally awful, event in the future.
And I am reminded of German Jews who watched a monumental evil gather itself against them, all the while assuring one another that things weren’t as bad as they seemed, that their country would soon return to its senses. Meantime, the boxcars were lining up.
Trevor Potter talks about what should be on the front page of every paper in the nation.
For the past 40 years, every president has placed his personal investments and assets in a blind trust while in the White House, or has sold everything and held cash equivalents. President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear that he does not plan to set up such a trust, which would require that his company be run by an outsider who has had no previous business relationship with Trump, and that there be virtually no communication between the outside trustee and Trump or his family during his administration.
… Trump says he plans to continue to personally own the Trump Organization, a multibillion-dollar company with business interests around the world, but three of his adult children will operate the firm while he’s in office. This is a colossal mistake. It will produce conflicts of interest of an unprecedented magnitude and create the appearance that he and his family are using his office to enrich themselves, even if they don’t take advantage of the many opportunities to do so. These conflicts will haunt Trump’s presidency unless he changes course.
It won’t “create the appearance that he and his family are using his office to enrich themselves,” for one good reason—Trump and his family will really use his office to enrich themselves. That solves that appearance thing.
Jonathan O'Connell and Mary Jordan on how this conflict is already underway before Trump even sits down in his adjunct DC office.
About 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey, gathered at the Trump International Hotel this week to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.
The event for the diplomatic community, held one week after the election, was in the Lincoln Library, a junior ballroom with 16-foot ceilings and velvet drapes that is also available for rent.
Some attendees won raffle prizes — among them overnight stays at other Trump properties around the world — allowing them to become better acquainted with the business holdings of the new commander in chief.
This is the tiniest, tiniest taste of what’s coming. What’s already happening. Blatant, open currying of political favor by slipping money to the new president.
Guests at the Trump hotel have begun parking themselves in the lobby, ordering expensive cocktails, hoping to see one of the Trump family members or the latest Cabinet pick. One foreign official hoped Trump, famous for the personal interest he takes in his businesses, might check the guest logs himself.
Nicholas Kristof on how Trump manages to make the worst of bad choices.
Early signs of what the Trump administration may look like: A man associated with white supremacy and misogyny will be White House chief strategist; a man rejected for a judgeship because of alleged racism will be attorney general; and an Islamophobe who has taken money from Moscow will be national security adviser.
Yup, yup, and yup. But buck up, there are more than enough white nationalists and rage demons to fill the remaining 3,997 slots. Trump will probably leave out some of the worst. Maybe.
I’ve repeatedly noted that my side lost this election, that elections have consequences, and that President-Elect Donald Trump should be given a chance. He seems intent on blowing that chance.
Everyone who said “Trump deserves a chance” deserves a solid thump to the side of the head and a share of the joint “Stupidest Political Statement of 2016 Award.” And believe me, in this year, winning that award took some serious stupid.
Ruth Marcus sums up the situation on E + 11 …
Less than two weeks into the reality that Donald Trump will be our next president, the situation feels more ominous than on election night.
Trump did just enough on election night to make it seem that he was going to deliver something close to politics as usual. But don’t forget Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.
Sure, all transitions are chaotic, but Trump’s, with the post-election purge of Chris Christie and the New Jersey governor’s loyalists, has started in a particularly chaotic manner. The Christie-led group, I’m told, was actually in reasonably good shape. But who needs preparedness when there are scores to settle, on the part of the candidate or his son-in-law?
… most disturbing, are the unnerving clues about the ideological direction of the Trump administration. A president has the right to assemble advisers with whom he is comfortable and who reflect his views.
But most of his choices so far convey the message that loyalty will be rewarded above all, and that Trump’s election night promise to “bind the wounds of division” was empty rhetoric.
Be careful. Trump may demand you apologize.
Alan Rappeport and Noah Weiland on the big winners of this campaign season.
For years, they have lurked in the web’s dark corners, masking themselves with cartoon images and writing screeds about the demise of white culture under ominous pseudonyms. But on Saturday, in the wake of Donald J. Trump’s surprising election victory, hundreds of his extremist supporters converged on the capital to herald a moment of political ascendance that many had thought to be far away.
In the bowels of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, three blocks from the White House, members of the so-called alt-right movement … celebrated the unexpected march of their white nationalist ideas toward the mainstream, portraying Mr. Trump’s win as validation that the tide had turned in their fight to preserve white culture.
Why would they think that Trump’s win validated their ideas? Because in every poll, those ideas were aligned with a majority of Trump voters. “Deplorables” might not have been good campaign strategy. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t accurate.
Emboldened by Mr. Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, Mr. Forney said he expected people openly associated with the white nationalist movement to run as candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. The rise of populism and the decline of political correctness, he said, presented a rare opportunity.
There’s a lesson in this that’s similar to one learned from the Hundred Years War (or Game of Thrones). Once someone shows that it’s possible to topple the king, organizing to do it again only becomes easier. And easier. Gingrich conservatives ate the traditional Republican Party. Then the Tea Party ate them. Now the white nationalists have swallowed the Tea Party. The only funny thing is, every one of these movements thought they were unique and lasting.
Kathleen Parker puts the media atop the loser list.
Only 18 percent of Americans trust national news and just 22 percent trust local news, according to the Pew Research Center. That said, three-fourths of Americans think news organizations keep political leaders in line, though about the same percentage think the news media are biased.
Not surprisingly, Republicans more than Democrats think this way. It hasn’t helped that Republican politicos and conservative cable and radio outlets have convinced their constituents that the media are the enemy. It seems we’ve forgotten that the purpose of a newspaper, as Chicago Evening Post journalist and humorist Finley Peter Dunne put it in an 1893 column, is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Of all the national outlets during the last year, the Washington Post has at least given voters the courtesy of treating Trump somewhat seriously and subject to some of the scrutiny of a “real candidate.” But even as it’s editorial board was complaining that the Clinton email story was “out of control,” the Post, like the Times, continued to give massive, disproportional attention to the story so that anyone weighing up the ink would have to conclude that it was far more important than anything coming from Trump.
... distrust of legitimate journalism is no joking matter. What happens to democracy when an uninformed, misinformed or disinformed populace tries to make sound decisions? The simple and terrible answer is, democracy fails.
It happened. It failed already. Both the news and the democracy went down. And I’m still not seeing any evidence that the press is going to do a damn thing to remedy the situation.
Ronald Klain has a note for all those Democrats rushing to say they’ll be happy to work with Trump on an infrastructure plan (please read in Admiral Ackbar voice).
Don’t do it. It’s a trap. Backing Trump’s plan is a mistake in policy and political judgment they will regret, as did their Democratic predecessors who voted for Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts in 1981 and George W. Bush’s cuts in 2001.
First, Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors. The Trump plan doesn’t directly fund new roads, bridges, water systems or airports, as did Hillary Clinton’s 2016 infrastructure proposal. Instead, Trump’s plan provides tax breaks to private-sector investors who back profitable construction projects.
Companies don’t even have to prove they are doing something new for Trump’s plan. They can go right on with their plans in progress—and take home a nice pile of cash for things they were going to do anyway.
Dana Milbank says that Trump doesn’t just benefit from fake news, he’s also in the fake news business
For 17 months, Donald Trump treated the nation to a series of outlandish promises. He’ll eliminate the $19 trillion federal debt in eight years. He’ll balance the budget without cutting Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements. He’ll bring back lost coal jobs. He’ll make Mexico pay for a border wall. He’ll deport 12 million illegal immigrants while growing the economy by at least 6 percent.
Those dogs will sleep with those cats, darn it, and they will love it.
Early indications are that Trump plans to continue to fake it. On Thursday night, he tweeted that as a result of his work with Ford, the automaker would keep a plant that makes Lincoln SUVs “in Kentucky — no [sic] Mexico.”
And perhaps the saddest thing? That’s the best-case scenario. Let’s hope that Trump was lying. Lying. Lying. That he has not just no clue about the things he has promised, but no intention of trying to follow through. Because if it’s not fake news, it’ll be a real disaster.
The Washington Post and its biggest competitor.
This year, the adage that “falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after it” doesn’t begin to describe the problem. That idea assumes that the truth eventually catches up. There’s not much evidence of this happening for the millions of people taken in by the fake news stories — like Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump or Mr. Trump pulling ahead of Hillary Clinton in the popular vote — that have spread on social media sites. ...
These hoaxes are not just bouncing around among like-minded conspiracy theorists; candidates and elected officials are sharing them, too. Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, on Thursday tweeted about people who have been paid to riot against Mr. Trump — an idea propagated by fake news stories. A man who wrote a number of false news reports told The Washington Post that Trump supporters and campaign officials often shared his false anti-Clinton posts without bothering to confirm the facts and that he believes his work may have helped elect the Republican nominee.
You know what they say about facts having a liberal bias. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that lies are pulling for the right.
Ross Douthat explains that the problem with Democrats is that they dabbled in “identity politics.” Which, in this year when Republicans ran on unabashed white nationalism, is almost funny enough for a link. Except it’s not. He does invent a word this week—identitarian. It’s a word that he likes so much that he uses it several times in his clear effort to make it catch on. Stop trying to make fetch happen, Ross.
David Leonhardt on who turned out in the turnout.
In the simplest terms, Republican turnout seems to have surged this year, while Democratic turnout stagnated. The Republican surge is easiest to see in those same heartland states that flipped the election.
Douglas Rivers, the chief scientist at YouGov, a research firm, has done an analysis focused on the returns in six states — five that switched from Obama to Trump, and Minnesota, which Trump barely lost. In these states, turnout rose more in conservative areas than in liberal ones. That pattern, obviously, cannot be explained by vote-switching among the white working class.
The “white voters who used to be Dems became Republicans this time” wasn’t the real story of the day, no matter how much attention it’s getting. It’s that Republicans who were already Republicans turned up at the polls. Yes, there were states that were previously in the blue column that went red, but that doesn’t mean masses of voters turned over their card. It means that Trump’s message was more successful in bringing out voters in some areas. It’s not a lesser concern, but it is a different one.
Julian Zelizer on why Obama’s legacy is unlikely to last, and how his strategy brought accoplishment but not victory.
Mr. Obama was a great policy maker, but not a great party builder. In the face of Republican intransigence, he still managed to get things done. But the strategies that made him successful — passing legislation by the narrowest partisan majority, refraining from boasting about what his reforms accomplished and, in the end, falling back on executive orders — are exactly what make his legacy so vulnerable.
Congressional Democrats frequently complained that the president’s approach put them at risk. Seeking to expand government with a hidden hand, his policies were designed in such a way that made it hard for Democrats to claim credit for them. In public, he played down the scale of policies like the stimulus package so that they would not attract too much attention, or criticism. Whereas President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it clear that every public works project was a product of the New Deal, Americans usually had no idea what programs came from Mr. Obama’s stimulus.
Which also makes it easy for Republicans to destroy these programs as they like, taking little heat for rolling back policies many Americans never understood in the first place.
His programs tended to be extraordinarily complex, dependent on byzantine regulatory mechanisms rather than direct federal intervention, so they would be more palatable to moderates. Rather than have the government provide health insurance for all, the Affordable Care Act created exchanges and mandates. The Dodd-Frank bill did not erect strong regulations to enforce reform on Wall Street, but rather a web of rules and incentives.
The biggest legacy Obama may leave? A lesson to the next Democratic president.
Robert Proctor on one of those good legacies that may soon be forgotten.
The good news got pretty much drowned out this month: Yes, 2016 is on track to become the hottest year on record, but thankfully also the third year in a row to see relatively flat growth in global greenhouse gas emissions. With global economic growth on the order of 3 percent a year, we may well have turned a corner toward a sustainable climate economy.
Yes, but …
The bad news, of course, is that the world’s wealthiest nation, home to many of the scholars scrambling to reverse global warming, has elected a new president with little or no interest in the topic. Or an active disinterest. Donald J. Trump is surrounding himself with advisers who are likely to do little to challenge his notion of climate change as a Chinese hoax. People like to think of us as living in an age of information, but a better descriptor might be “the age of ignorance.”
Even though at this point things might continue to improve without malign interference, we should expect … malign interference.
Leonard Pitts in a repeat from Wednesday.
Or so people have been telling me since last week when democracy laid the biggest egg in American history. Well, here is my response: I have no interest in seeing this country heal. And I refuse to come together.
Understand: If this were just about politics, I’d never say something like that. No, I’d do what you’re supposed to when the candidate you favored is defeated. Suck it up.
But my anger is not about any given policy of the new president. No, it is about him, about the election of a fundamentally unsound, unserious and unfit man, a misogynist who brags about sexual assault, a bigot cheered to victory by the Ku Klux Klan. I have no idea how to “heal” woman hating and no desire to “come together” with the Klan.
Nothing that’s happened since that time has given the slightest indication that Pitts was wrong in his assessments.
And in case you had any doubts what the Trump movement is about …
White nationalists from around the country gathered Saturday in downtown Washington to bask in Donald Trump's victory and celebrate what many proclaimed as a coming-out moment in their mission to turn back multiculturalism and eventually create a whites-only "ethno-state" in North America. …
They exalted at the recent pronouncements from Trump Tower, particularly the nomination of officials whose views they said aligned with their own: retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, former Breitbart News chairman Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as attorney general.
"Jeff Sessions being in charge of enforcing civil rights laws makes me want to sing," said one participant from Virginia, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Back to my first point for a moment. Here’s what the Saturday New York Times looked like immediately following Trump’s settlement.
And here’s what it looked like when Comey issued his letter concerning new emails.
If those boxcars are being lined up somewhere, don’t expect to get advanced notice.