There’s squandering decency and then there’s squandering democracy. Trump moves the US toward a post-Soviet satellite autocracy, currently in a HR reign of terror against impeachment witnesses. Expect a Senate subpoena for the whistleblower.
1/ Trump equates himself with the America. What’s good for him, is good for the country.
That was his legal defense in Ukraine Operation Shakedown: What he was doing was in the national best interests. It also benefitted him. (Because he doesn't separate the two)
2/ I wrote about that here👇
Magyar talks about the three stages of establishing autocracy.
- Stage one, the “autocratic attempt,” is when potential regime change from democracy to autocracy is still reversible. That's where we are.
3/ Stage two is what Magyar calls the “autocratic breakthrough.”
- The final stage is a full mafia state.
We talk about Trump running a “shadow” foreign policy alongside (and often in conflict with) the official State Department foreign policy.
4/ But @mashagessen , relying on Magyar's work, explains that we are “using the wrong language."
5/ What he can do, however, is destroy the institutions that traditionally conduct foreign policy, in this case, the State Department, staffed by career diplomats.
Mafia states—like Putin’s Russia—develop as the government takes over businesses.
6/ As the ruler consolidates power and his hold over the nation, both wealth and power come to be concentrated in one person.
Eventually, the entire state comes under the control of the head of the family. In other words, the ruler ends up owning the country.
7/ When this happens, the ruler’s personal interests and the interests of the nation become meshed into one. Trump has been open about his admiration for Putin, the head of a powerful mafia state.
So the head of a mafia state is directly analogous to a mafia don.
8/ In this NBC Think piece (which I co-authored with @glennkirschner2) we compare Trump’s methods to the Godfather’s.
9/ Levitsky and Ziblatt, in this book and in other lectures and articles, chart the way out.
I’m working on a thread right now about positive steps being taken to dislodge Trump and his mafia state.
Interesting.
Unintended consequences: To save conservatism at any cost, you have to break rules.
Once the rules are broken, all fairness is gone. Those who voted for rule breakers thinking they'll benefit, but they suffer when there are no rules.
Though a majority of senators agreed that President Trump had done wrong, the Senate cleared him of wrongdoing. They acquitted him even though he expressed no contrition and even though his agent, Rudy Giuliani, had just stated that he, with Trump’s permission, would go on committing the same behavior that got Trump impeached.
The president had broken the law, cheated in his reelection, abused a vulnerable ally by withholding military aid, emboldened a foe and concealed the facts — and there would be no consequences. His fellow Republicans rejected even the symbolic sanction of censure.
In a funny way, it’s probably just as fruitful to examine Trump’s East Room remarks by looking at the negative space: Who didn’t Trump thank in his bizarro-world Oscar speech?
He thanks his lawyers. He thanked many of the less-intellectually vigorous members of Congress. He thanked his third wife and his daughter, Ivanka. He thanked the New York Post.
Who’s missing? This guy!
If the fates of Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort and Roger Stone are any guide, this does not bode well.
But maybe Rudy will be okay. After all, while Trump was doing his thing, his other personal lawyer—sorry, “personal lawyer”—Bill Barr, sat in the front row, nodding along.
thebulwark.com/...