Donald Trump announced his candidacy back in June of 2015, and though he got some mention in other articles, I went all the way to November before I did my first piece entirely donated to Donald.
Sixty million people died in World War II, but fascism won. It didn’t win on the battlefield. It didn’t win right away. It won because the same fears, the same greed, the same hatred that fueled its growth in the first part of the twentieth century never went away.
The symbols of fascism became anathema, but the causes … went deep. And gradually, slowly, one step at a time, all those vices became first tolerated, then treated as virtues, and then as the only acceptable view.
That was my view of Trump then — the manifestation of how America had grown not just to accept, but celebrate, all the hatred, prejudice, fear, and repression that marks the worst authoritarian dystopias. And the most horrible thing about what’s probably the most horrible article I ever wrote, is that all of it fell utterly short of being horrible enough.
Like too many people, I thought “no, we’re past that, Americans will never accept this level of racism.” I was wrong. I thought “Americans will never tolerate such blatant sexism.” Wrong again. I thought “Christians will never hand their banner to a man who openly, proudly, daily shapes his life around vengeance, a man who thinks forgiveness itself is contemptable.” I was very, very, wrong.
Now we’ve come to an election year in which the promise of surveillance of those who follow the wrong religion, internment camps, torture and racism, racism, racism is not just a strategy, but a winning strategy.
I said that then, and I was right. Damn it. This week puts us half a year into the Trump regime. And if it looks like the country hasn’t fallen apart yet, it’s only because it never does. Until it’s too late.
Come on in. Let’s look at some punditry.
Leonard Pitts doesn’t want to watch, but can’t look away.
The calendar does not lie. On Thursday, we will be half a year through the Trump Era. And, contrary to his signature promise, America seems less great by the day. Nor are his other promises faring particularly well.
There is no sign of progress on that border wall, much less any idea how he is going to make Mexico pay for the thing. His promise to preserve Medicaid and provide healthcare for everyone has dissolved into a GOP bill that would gut Medicaid and rob millions of their access to healthcare.
Meantime, the guy who once said he would be working so hard he would seldom leave the White House spends more time on golf courses than a groundskeeper.
It didn’t make the graphic, but twice this week Trump stated that the wall was still coming, that Mexico was still paying, and that there was a good chance the wall would be “solar.” Because no one has pointed out to Trump that you don’t mount solar panels on walls.
But for all that Trump has not achieved, there is, I think, one thing he indisputably has. He has taught us to live in a state of perpetual chaos and continuous crisis. Six months later, the White House commands the same horrified attention as a car wreck or a house fire.
In that sense, last week’s revelation that the Trump campaign, in the person of Donald Trump Jr., did in fact collude with a hostile foreign power to influence the 2016 election was just another Tuesday. Sure, it might have been shocking from the Bush or Obama campaigns. But under Trump, we live in a state of routine calamity.
That idea that chaos reigns might make it seem that Trump hasn’t achieved anything. But that’s not true at all. Trump’s achievements aren’t the trivial bills he’s signed or even the executive orders he’s scrawled. Trump has made massive progress diminishing people’s faith in government, their trust in the media, and America’s standing in the world. He’s also completely detached the Republican Party from anything that even resembles either morality or reality, and shown that everyone can play by the same say-anything-with-a-sneer rules by which he reigns. Recovering from Donald Trump will take a generation. If we have it.
Colbert King wonders who’s really at fault here.
The vaudeville show that’s running at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue didn’t book itself into the White House. Nearly 63 million Americans sent that burlesque comedy with headliner Donald Trump to Washington. That 66 million other voters thought otherwise is beside the point. Trump didn’t anoint himself president. Millions put him in office.
Well … about 70,000 in the right places. But yes, millions more besides.
What does that tell us about the country?
Was hatred of President Barack Obama, fear of Hillary Clinton, outrage over America’s perceived direction enough to transfer the reins to Trump?
It’s not as if the Trump on display in the Oval Office is not the same Trump we saw on the campaign trail or on reality TV or out and about touting his businesses. He was, by any yardstick, the most unqualified presidential nominee in modern history.
It tells us that many millions of Americans want to hate. Want to be relieved of attempting to make rational decisions by a “strong leader” who will make those choices for them, no matter how insane or harmful.
Timothy Snyder provides a obituary for conservatism
Conservatives did not usually deny the world of science, but doubted that its findings exhausted all that could be known about humanity. During the terrible ideological battles of the 20th century, American conservatives urged common sense upon liberals and socialists tempted by revolution.
Note that “urged common sense” in this instance translates into “applied truncheons to the heads of uppity factory workers, dropped a few bombs on miners who climbed out of their holes, and generally beat the crap of men, women, and children who failed to recognize that being a good cog meant being a quiet, cheap, replaceable cog. Anyway, whatever nonsense conservatives tell themselves to make abusing workers sound okay, Trump apparently broke it.
The contest between conservatives and the radical right has a history that is worth remembering. Conservatives qualified the Enlightenment of the 18th century by characterizing traditions as the deepest kind of fact. Fascists, by contrast, renounced the Enlightenment and offered willful fictions as the basis for a new form of politics. The mendacity-industrial complex of the Trump administration makes conservatism impossible, and opens the floodgates to the sort of drastic change that conservatives opposed.
Don’t worry. Conservatism was always about making sure that the money stayed in the same small white hands. That won’t change.
Richard Hasen on the often unrecognized fragility of the American experiment.
In just the past few weeks, we learned that in the midst of the 2016 campaign the president’s eldest son, Donald J. Trump Jr., was willing to meet with a woman described to him as a “Russian government attorney” to get dirt on his father’s opponent. Voters across the country asked election officials to remove their names from voting rolls so that their personal information would not be turned over to the Orwellian Election Integrity commission that the president established to try to substantiate his outrageous and false charge that there were three million or more illegal voters in 2016. The president has stacked this commission with a rogues’ gallery of people with reputations for false and exaggerated claims of voter fraud. Democratic and Republican state officials have resisted the commission’s call to turn over voting lists.
Voters removing their names from the rolls so they don’t fall under the scrutiny of Kris Kobach and his merry band of election-smashing Morlocks is exactly what they want. But it’s hard to blame anyone from wanting to avoid the attention of people who aren’t afraid to wreck lives now, admit a mistake never.
And yet as bad as things are, the health of our electoral process is likely to deteriorate further, with some of the threats striking at the very basis of democratic society: our confidence that votes have been fairly and accurately counted. What’s worse, we cannot count on the courts, the president, Congress or state legislatures to save us. It will take bipartisan cooperation among state and local election officials, facilitated by nongovernmental organizations committed to sound principles of election administration, to get us past this dangerous point.
Expect Trump to win the 2020 election with between 95 and 99 percent of the vote. Or he might just go for 100. After all, what are you going to do about it?
The New York Times notes that Trump may be coming through for Russia, but Putin isn’t really delivering for Trump.
Mr. Trump is making sound policy making even harder, though, with his admiration of Mr. Putin and his willingness to surrender the country’s international leadership, which was on display during the Group of 20 meeting in Germany. Mr. Trump is noticeably more comfortable with Mr. Putin than he is with most of America’s democratic allies, despite Mr. Putin’s record of crushing domestic opponents, invading Ukraine and bombing civilians in Syria.
What part of that sentence is supposed to be something Trump would object to?
But that does not mean it is wise to underestimate, as Mr. Trump seems to do, the threat posed by Mr. Putin’s efforts to weaken NATO and the trans-Atlantic alliance, subvert democratic procedures and institutions in Europe and America, wage cyberwarfare, destabilize Ukraine and secure influence in Syria. Some Trump administration officials recognize those hazards; Mr. Trump does not.
Again … which of these things would not make Trump join his son in saying “I love it?” Besides, Trump’s not looking for Russia to deliver for him now. They already paid their part of the deal when outlets like the New York Times devoted page after page to the emails that Russia provided while acting to squash any evidence of Trump’s connection to Russia. Asking where Putin is now, is like asking where you then?
Ruth Marcus and the inability to get anyone to yell fire in a burning theater.
Every week — nearly every day — brings fresh, stomach-churning evidence of President Trump’s unfitness for office. The latest may be the most revolting.
Confronted with incontrovertible proof that his son leapt at the prospect of meeting with a “Russian government attorney” offering to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support” for his candidacy, the president took the position that this was political business as usual.
That’s why Republican leaders have finally marched up to the White House to tell Donald Trump … that they’re really close to fulfilling his campaign pledge on healthcare and, pardon us, sir, but is there anything else we can bring you?
As does Trump’s staggering refusal to recognize the reality of Russian attempts to interfere in the election. What was Trump doing, at this late stage, asking Russian President Vladimir Putin if he meddled?
That’s been clear for a long time. Never admitting Russia’s involvement isn’t a fluke, or a sign of Trump’s disassociative state. It’s both cover from the idea that one day someone might actually throw charges his way, and part of the never-ending battle to kill truth, justice, and the … what was that other thing?
Joshua Green and the world through orange-tinted lenses.
The revelation that Donald Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign manager met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer promising information that would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton was a true bombshell in an era when we have become almost inured to them. Here was proof that members of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign had, at the very least, been eager to collude with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
No one could gainsay the facts: Mr. Trump’s own son published them on Twitter.
As recently as five or 10 years ago, every major news outlet would have treated this set of facts as front-page news and a dire threat to Mr. Trump’s presidency. The conservative press and Republican voters might disagree on certain particulars or points of emphasis. But their view of reality — of what happened and its significance — would have largely comported with that of the mainstream. You’d have had to travel to the political fringe of right-wing talk radio, the Drudge Report and dissident publications like Breitbart News to find an alternative viewpoint that rejected this basic story line.
But now …
Not anymore. Look to the right now and you’re apt to find an alternative reality in which the same set of facts is rearranged to compose an entirely different narrative. On Fox News, host Lou Dobbs offered a representative example on Thursday night, when he described the Donald Trump Jr. email story, with wild-eyed fervor, like this: “This is about a full-on assault by the left, the Democratic Party, to absolutely carry out a coup d’état against President Trump aided by the left-wing media.”
If you haven’t been watching, the reaction from the right to the Trump Jr story has been to turn the knob past eleven. To somewhere around, say, 1939. In Trumpland, they’re ready to burn down the liberal-loving colleges, switch off the Fake News channels, and lock up Democratic leaders for … for being Democratic leaders. I haven’t noticed any of them asking if Trump returned from France with guillotine plans, but I wouldn’t be surprised. By the way, all of that is how you know that the Donald Trump Jr story really worries them.
Kathleen Parker on Trump’s ability to generate unity.
Even the least popular presidents sometimes do great things.
What might Donald Trump’s great thing be? He has unified a divided nation.
He has brought Republicans and Democrats together as only just wars can. He’s brought women, scientists, minorities, teachers, journalists, professors — and no, they’re not all liberal — out of their favorite laptop seats and moved them to march, protest and, most important, run for public office.
He’s also done some pretty astounding things for the careers of John Oliver, Samantha Bee, and Steven Colbert … but on balance, I think I’d take lower ratings and skip the fascism.
A newly formed political action committee — 314 Action — is urging scientists to “Get Elected” and offers help with funding and logistics. Hundreds have signed up. Similarly, Silicon Valley tech magnate Sam Altman — president of Y Combinator, which invests in start-ups such as Dropbox and Airbnb — is offering to fund good candidates for statewide office to create “prosperity through technology, economic fairness and maintaining personal liberty.”
The 314 guys have already run at least one group of candidates through their classes. If you’re thinking about being a candidate (and hey, think about it) odds are you can find a group that will help you get on your feet and be a better candidate.
Frank Bruni on how half a year can feel so, so long.
From the beginning, people around me talked nonstop about the end.
How long could Donald Trump’s presidency possibly last? Would impeachment or the 25th Amendment undo him? Before Trump, few of us even knew of the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to decree the president unfit. But suddenly everybody was up to speed, and no sooner had Trump been inaugurated than the “would you rather” question du jour became him versus Mike Pence. All-purpose lunacy or religious zeal: Choose your governance. Pick your poison.
Actually, I think the Republican leaders would far prefer Trump. Not because Pence wouldn’t give them everything they want with an extra side of gay-hate. But because Trump’s daily disasters are doing Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell a real favor — they keep anyone from looking too closely at what tremnedous f#ck ups these two really are. Mitch McConnell has he leadership ability of a damp string and the strategic talents of General Custer. But the media keeps referring to him as some kind of genius because he only pops out of his shell on instances when there’s some good news (from his POV) to report. Otherwise, he flails around wildly, confident that Trump’s tornado-like swatch of destruction will cover any level of incompetence. And he’s right.
Alyssa Rosenberg has her own review of week 25.
It’s become all too common for prestige dramas to blow past the hour mark simply because tolerant executives are willing to give them the leeway to do so, whether the episode requires it or not. “Sons of Anarchy” set a precedent, bloating out of control in its later seasons, while “Game of Thrones” has managed its sprawling ensemble cast and multiple locations by occasionally venturing over 60 minutes. Though “The Trump Show” has plenty of structural flaws, this week’s episode was a reminder that though this approach has pitfalls, it can also produce substantial narrative rewards.
This jam-packed episode provided an opportunity for some previously minor characters to step to the fore, most notably Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s attorney. Kasowitz’s story followed two arcs that are common among supporting characters on “The Trump Show.” First, his elevation to the national stage cast a sharp and unflattering light on his personal peccadilloes: This week, he was alleged to be a mercurial alcoholic in addition to his already well-established reputation for aggression.
This is a week in which the president’s personal attorney wrote one message saying “I’m on you now. You are fucking with me now. Let’s see who you are. Watch your back , bitch.” and another in which he wrote “I already know where you live, I’m on you. You might as well call me. You will see me. I promise.” And that barely rose to the level of making a ripple. Though it did get Trump to hire yet another lawyer, one who looks like he’s got a cabinet full of Snidely Whiplash brand mustache twirling wax.
I actually have another piece coming up today, which hasn’t happened in a while. It’s a longish bit on science and science reporting that somehow didn’t squeeze in this week, but includes a discussion of environmental apocalypse that really should have gotten more attention — if only Trump’s team could stop being idiots for five minutes.