I read a lot so sometimes I’ll forget where I saw something. The other day I noticed someone make the observation that one reason it’s hard to get good electoral reform is that the winners of elections are always fairly satisfied with the outcome regardless of any abnormalities or problems that may have occurred. And I suppose, in a case like Donald Trump’s, there may be an element of worry that acknowledging any flaws in the presidential election could damage his legitimacy and undercut the magnitude of his accomplishment. He’s obviously sensitive about the subject as we all witnessed when he went to ridiculous lengths to lie about the size of his inaugural crowds. His repeated insistence that Russian interference is a hoax or fake news designed by Democrats to make excuses for their loss is another indication.
What I’m saying here is that some of Trump’s stunning lack of interest in getting to the bottom of the Russia question could theoretically be chalked up to psychological and political factors that would influence any winning candidate and party.
I try to keep this in mind as a sort of innocent explanation because the overall impression is far less understandable. I think we’re all familiar with the plot device in which a spouse comes under suspicion in the death of their loved one because they aren’t showing a normal or appropriate level of emotion. If we used that analogy in this case, Trump would be the husband who didn’t call 911 when he found his lifeless wife lying on the floor. He’d be the one who tried to stop others from calling the cops. He’d be the one who denied that she’d been murdered at all, hired one of the prime suspects to work for him, and tried to use his influence with the mayor to shut down the investigation. He’d say strangely positive things about the prime suspects and have some exculpatory story about a 400 lb. intruder that no one has ever seen. His lawyer would have extensive ties to people who had a motive to kill his wife. His son-in-law would have met privately with them and tried to conceal that fact. And when interviewed by investigators, he never once would express the slightest concern that his wife was dead or any interest in seeing her killers brought to justice.
A crime has been committed against our country, but Trump was the beneficiary of that crime and is pleased with the outcome. He has no remorse about it. He doesn’t want it investigated.
So, what are the chances that this can all be explained as normal? Is it really different from how any candidate would feel if their election was called into question?
Everything Trump does arouses more suspicion. He doesn’t make the slightest effort to look innocent. There’s no right way to act when your wife is murdered, and sometimes people will act in abnormal ways that make them look guilty even when they are not. They might even say, “I’m so glad that she’s dead and that I just bought this giant life insurance policy. I’m rich!!”
Anything can happen.
That we have a President Trump is proof that anything can happen.
I’m willing to suspend disbelief to a certain degree, but Trump defies all logic. His behavior isn’t just eccentric or egocentric, it’s bizarre. He tells lies, bold-faced, obvious lies that can be clearly proven on tape and he denies them as quickly as they’re challenged.
This in iitself is horrific, that our country is headed by an obvious liar and self-centered mental case. But what makes this even worse is that the Trump supporters and the Republicans go along with it.
They condone the ruination of democracy and what our country was built upon.
Think about that. In order to further their corporate greed and insatiable need for making money, they will support a madman. They will allow any and all lies, subterfuge, and collaboration with known enemies to make money. They risk the lives of American citizens at any cost. That’s what it all boils down to.
Oh, and to stick a thumb in the eyes of the Democrats.
The key point of the autocrat in doing this: Whadday goin ta do about it?
Confusion and then powerlessness — those are the objectives of this learned and ingrained behavior of lots of bosses everywhere.
I never understand this reflexive need to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. We have plenty of evidence that members of Trump’s team were directly involved in attack on our election. Manafort was paid millions to advance the interests of Vladimir Putin. We knew he had been an agent of the Kremlin in Ukraine before Trump even hired him. Roger Stone bragged about his connections to Julian Assange weeks before the vote.
As for Trump himself:
He made comments like that publicly throughout the campaign.
Trump was warned repeatedly that Flynn was under investigation for being a foreign agent. This was before he named him his National Security Adviser. Sally Yates the Trump White House that Flynn was compromised and shouldn’t be given sensitive intelligence. On January 27th she met with McGahn to discuss evidence against him. Trump demanded loyalty from Comey later that night. Yates was fired January 30th after inviting White House Counsel to review the evidence against Flynn. Flynn was fired on February 13th after the Washington Post printed the allegations against him and the political costs of keeping him had become to high. The next day, Comey was invited to dinner and ordered to drop the investigation.
There is no doubt that Flynn would still be working as the security advisor if this hadn’t become public. He would likely be using the back channels arranged by Jared to ensure he could talk to Russia without worrying about American intelligence listening in.
Trump hasn’t shown a lack of interest in the Russia question. His interest has been intense.
Why do you hate peace and friendship between our two great peoples?
Mir i druzhba!
It’s just that all this Russia talk is just a distraction from the core policy issues, mainly the ones I, personally, care about.
Now let us discuss how Brexit effects the underclass of Birmingham, and why they voted for it.
.
Exactly.
Taking away health care from tens of millions of people to fund tax cuts for the rich is only of interest only to a bunch of selfish dirty hippies.
Because we all know that people can only focus on one issue at a time and it is impossible to deal with Problem A while giving any consideration at all to Crisis B.
It’s amazing that otherwise seemingly intelligent people believe this nonsense.
The rudderless, scandal-plagued and flailing white house is actually beneficial to passing Republican priorities in congress via the law of conservation of walking and chewing gum at the same time and we must studiously ignore any of Trump’s scandals in order to combat the Republican agenda.
Please.
Well,
If you had spent months critically analyzing every email on Clinton’s and Potesta’s server, and then people started noticing that the Russians had been feeding them to you .you would want to change the subject. It means you did exactly what the Russians wanted you to do. You were a dupe.
It’s human nature to avoid self reflection when you are complicit in a con. It’s easier not to read about it.
.
No dupe! No dupe! You’re the dupe!
Careful! You will set them to crunching numbers to find their inner solace.
“Here, look at this chart I made…it does not prove anything…but it calms me looking at the numbers”.
.
But it wont matter politically. Currently the voters who are disappointed in Trump say ‘He had a good reason’ or ‘Hes done a lot for the district’ for why their congresscritter voted to take away healthcare.
Great metaphor, Booman. Right on point.
But you must remember that the investigating authorities…the intelligence services and the neocentrists who lost to him (Rats and Dems both)…are prime suspects in the supposed murder.
And…there still remains this one fact.
No body has been produced. At the very least, there has been no hard evidence offered yet hat it was a murder..just a very dumb election.
My own opinion?
They’re all guilty.
AG
Arthur Gilroy, Trump enabler.
#TeamDeza
Centerfielddj, CIA enabler.
Centerfielddj, Neocentrist enabler.
Centerfielddj, Dem enabler.
I am not a “Trump enabler.” I want no part of him or of the rival criminal gangs that are so desperately trying to get rid of him after failing to do so through an entire Republican primary season and a national election.
Jimmy Breslin’s classic “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” comes to mind.
I am no longer sure whether you are simply too stupid to figure this out or a paid neocentrist troll. Neither option recommends itself to me.
Either way…I don’t like your act much.
AG
The nihilistic libertarian doth protest too much, methinks.
The lockstep centrist doesn’t have a clue.
AG
From the day of the election, researchers who have analyzed authoritarian states for years have noted that Trump’s behavior is that of an authoritarian. He continues his appeal outside the structures of government to his base through appealing to vengeance, retaliation, and extrajudiciary methods. He uses his wild statements as loyalty tests for all around him in his administration. Loyalty to the person of the authoritarian Dean Leader is the absolute single value of his rule and all of his strange behavior amounts to various tests of loyalty.
His is the authoritarian face of the capitalist boss that exists in too many workplaces for two many people who don’t have the privilege of “just getting another job”. Those who are stuck in these jobs are having the satisfactions of seeing that ethic applied to the federal workers they’ve long seen as drones. The rest of the US now must live as they do; that’ll show them.
What Trump needs to push his policies are: (1) a large enough minority of voters to act as his base over sufficient geography to deal with Congress and legislatures; (2) a Republican Party that takes an ugly win as a win and will race down to make the changes to make wins permanent and lock down the system; (3) the absence of an effective opposition party that understands how to deal with authoritarianism; (4) a compromised or complacent media that can function as a propaganda machine; (5) the inability to get a quick rollback of constitutional government allowing Trumpism to become institutionalized in the federal government and the Republican Party.
While Democrats and progressives debate his psychology, the political juggernaut rolls on while the Russia story distracts attention. You do understand that McConnell intends to repeal Dodd-Frank and Obamacare on the down-low during the next month while attention is focused on Comey and Mueller? Is anybody ready with a 2018 campaign for really good legislation to run on in 2018? Single-payer health, and broad anti-trust and financial industry regulations bills? Because people are going to need to understand why they suddenly start hurting more with regard to financial transactions and healthcare and need to understand that government does have a role. Indeed, progressive government is the only way that citizens do have control over their affairs but only when the system is uncorrupted by those with money.
We are almost to the point of being able to talk big frameworks of politics again. Time to understand and explain in simple, straightforward language why 50 years of conservative government failed so miserably to bring about freedom, much less peace and prosperity.
Trump’s strange behavior is aimed at never having that conversation through distraction. Trump himself might not be self-conscious about that but some of his key advisors understand it perfectly even if it rubs Bill Kristol and George Will the wrong way. They are still on the conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed by not-conservative-enough politicians.
“While Democrats and progressives debate his psychology, the political juggernaut rolls on while the Russia story distracts attention. You do understand that McConnell intends to repeal Dodd-Frank and Obamacare on the down-low during the next month while attention is focused on Comey and Mueller?”
YES.
Good holy Christ, this is condescending in the extreme. It’s Rand-Paul-asking-Howard-University-students-if-they-knew-Frederick-Douglass-was-a-Republican level condescending.
A chief reason I have reduced the frequency of my daily participation here at the Frog Pond is because I’m helping an organization which is running phone banks into Western States which have Senators who might be persuaded to withhold support for McConnell’s plan to repeal/replace the ACA. The same organization is running multiple bills in my State Legislature and is involved in other local issues. So, yes, I’ve got my eye and we’ve got our eyes on Legislative priorities.
Nevertheless, the investigations of actions by Trump campaign/transition team leaders and emissaries and cutouts of the Russian Federation are of high interest to me.
I am really super sorry that BooMan’s posts about Trump and the Russia investigation appear to irritate you and others. These subjects are extremely important nonetheless. These subjects are particularly important for people who want the Democratic Party at the Federal, State and local levels to push more progressive policies.
You haven’t written much, or perhaps not at all, about the Congressional race in Florida which appears to have partially turned on information which the Russian Federation almost certainly provided to a campaign staffer assisting the Republican in the race. Is this not of concern to you?
Hillary Clinton ran the most progressive, pluralistic platform from a viable general election POTUS candidate in the history of the United States. With all your apparent policy and rhetorical acumen, you continually avoid grappling with the historic liberalism of Clinton’s policy proposals.
Yes, Sanders’ vision was more progressive. Yes, Hillary had to be pushed to include a number of her proposals and emphases. These truths do nothing to eliminate the fact that Hillary Clinton ran the most progressive, pluralistic platform from a viable general election POTUS candidate in the history of the United States.
I feel, day to day, like I am living with competing fantasies from the major American political movements. The 24/7 wild delusions of the right wing are broader, more notorious, and more hostile to our ideologies here, but the delusions from many in the Left are substantial in the damage they are creating as well.
Among these apparent delusions: Russia is engaging in ways which show they want peace and cooperation with the United States. Putin and his Federation are fine with democratic principles and a broad middle class. Putin is not interested in supporting both the President and Trump’s political movement. The Russian Federation will not continue to meddle in American elections and political campaigns in ways which will continue to be intentionally destructive to the goals of liberals/progressives who are aligned with the Bernie and Green Party movements.
If you don’t think Putin and his tightest/most useful allies will not work to destroy Sanders, Warren, and anyone else who might be effective in taking the Party and the national discussion in a more progressive direction, then you’re fooling yourself. In question is whether some people in our Movement will allow their Hillary hatred to lead them to attempt to undermine our collective work to discover what the Russians are doing and how they are doing it so we can successfully counteract it. We’ve got some learning to do here.
We’ve got to stop Putin and his allies. It’s vitally important. I don’t care if some of the people/institutions involved in stopping Putin are ones you dislike and mistrust. I share some of your misgivings. I’ll be weighing the continuing revelations carefully. But to discount wholesale what the intelligence community is delivering even after many of their early revelations about Trump/Russia have been substantiated seems a flawed method of analysis.
On that Russian investigation, there is a full page pictograph on the cast of characters and the gotchas on page 25 of The NY Times today. Jared, Sessions and Flynn seem in trouble for non disclosure and more. Kisylak has all three by the balls. And there is quite a number in the caste there. Now when will they get the bastards.
Occasionally a typo can be oracular. For instance, “quite a number in the caste” . Cool.
There was also an article by Frank Bruni in the Sunday Review section about a seat in NYs 19 th district on the Hudson. You might like it. Seems they keep trying. But they sort of like the elites. Folks who want to buy their way in and live in the city or some other county. Lots of money, but going nowhere. There was this one comment that caught my eye. Might be sorta nice if those trying out understood the local culture, like dairy farms. Teachout was the most recent try out. But the Trump train ran her down.
Or, you might like No More Mister Nice Blog’s masterful evisceration of Bruni:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2017/06/today-in-democrats-in-disarray.html
He makes a good case but out of area elite candidates who know little about, say dairy farming, may not appeal. The best case the democrats have is what happens if Obamacare is repealed. Outside of that I’m not convinced they have a lock. He agrees on Teachout.
But this is what NMMNB says about his GOP opponent:
Granted, that was some time ago, and he’s the incumbent, so it likely has less effect than it otherwise might. In any case, we shall see.
I think the bottom line is you won’t win if you are a carpetbagger.
Bobby Kennedy and Hillary Clinton would beg to differ.
Umm not exactly the same thing. Different times and vastly different people. But have it your way.
It is disingenuous to argue that Mitch McConnell would not try to repeal Dodd-Frank and Obamacare were it not for any cover provided by the Russia investigation.
This is rather self-serving as you now can simply argue, whenever GOP legislation passes simply due to the fact that they control Congress and the Presidency, that it was due to the Russia story.
Further self-serving in that you and others consistently denied and minimized this legitimate story going back to last summer.
No, it’s because they control Congress and the Presidency.
They get to hid from accountability because the Russia story distracts the media and a lot of independent and Democratic voters.
It is fascinating to me that you take the comments on the Frog Pond so personally. This is about the last place that I see that distraction going on on the Democratic side of the blogosphere.
You’re right it is disingenous, but I did not make that argument. Keeping the McConnell moves public and visible is the best policy, and that is not where he is going. Make his policy and maneuver visible and in public view. Thanks for hitting the phones for this. I’m just hoping there cease to be wilting Senate Democrats from this point forward on all issues that McConnell brings up.
Some of us feel that its the Russia story that has helped perhaps more than any other issue in forcing Trump to make political mistakes and display his personal corruption for all to see in ways that even the media can’t obfuscate.
Democrats would have benefited from strict focus on the real dangers of a Trump presidency during the election cycle but instead many were distracted by selective leaks to Wikileaks and the resulting media hysteria. I think we all know who helped instigate that circus.
So, perhaps you can appreciate why it’s logical to take comments that belittle the efficacy of the Russia story in holding Trump accountable personally. I don’t know why we couldn’t both focus on the Russia story and raising awareness of the very real danger and impact of GOP legislation. Both of these things can work to destroy Trump’s image and expose him. They are not mutually exclusive.
Exactly. The scandals embroiling Trump are weakening his already unpopular tenure, with even his base showing some cracks in their support. The legislation being offered up in Congress is unpopular and unwanted. We’re hardly out of the woods, as the recent progress in the Senate in potentially ramming through an AHCA vote late this month shows, but a small percentage of Americans want that to pass. On the activist side, we can continue to pressure these legislators and remind them that they are tying their own futures to a very compromised “president” – many might not care, but some do. Let’s keep doing both – remind our peers that some nastiness is brewing in Congress and that the White House is compromised by the Russia story. And in the meantime – those of us who need to rebuild local party structures are getting to work on that, and at state and national levels damn well better be getting on point in recruiting candidates for 2018. I am guardedly optimistic that we can stop some bad legislation from passing this year (without taking anything for granted, and I am certainly having a few of my own sleepless nights lately), and begin turning the tide over the next couple electoral cycles. We have no choice but to walk and chew gum at the same time. Onward.
If Democrats are going to focus on the Russia story, they have to put more cards on the table to give the story credibility with independents and Republicans.
That means getting the intelligence agencies to tell what they know to the public. And for it to be something no so esoteric that even a Republican will not understand its implications.
I’m not seeing the public impact of the story yet, but maybe the investigation by Mueller or the Congressional hearing will allow that to happen. It won’t be magic, and the timing likely will not affect 2018 although it might affect 2020.
After all, it took two years for Watergate to unfold, and a year to get a hearing that even considered it beyond the stonewalling. We are still at the stonewalling phase in this issue, which is better than six months ago when not enough information had come out to be credible.
What information the defense in the Reality Leigh Winner case will be allowed to bring forward will affect the Russia investigation.
In Watergate, the counterclaim was that the Democrats were trying to reverse a landslide election. The current counterclaim is that Hillary Clinton’s supportive crossover Republican deep state veterans got their buddies still in the intelligence community to carry out a nullifying covert operation to smear Trump. That counterclaim must be squarely answered to get traction on the Russia issue outside the Democratic base. Pretending that Democratic enthusiasm about the issue shows that the public is interested in the issue is how the donkey got its ass handed to it in 2010, 2014, and 2016.
The Russia story will not of itself make the Republicans in Congress go away although it might replace Trump with Pence longterm. There is little that Democratic supporters can do to advance its progress; Democrats in Congress now have the responsibility for making sure it goes somewhere. There are some past decisions by Democratic members of Congress that might haunt and restrain them from doing what is needed in this case. And at this point only the Democratic members of the Intelligence committees have a base of knowledge more than the general public has.
Immediate repeal of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, in contrast, will have very immediate consequences unless the Semate GOP caucus writes delays into their bills. Passage of those bills could be as much a shock to the US electorate as Brexit and NHS wind-down was to the British electorate. Better that the shock occurs before the vote but backlash would be helpful as well.
An authoritarian in power over a nation is most like the operation of a mafia boss. The nation becomes his personal property; there is not law that can restrain him; he can take what he pleases. The only limits on that are the disloyalty or parallel behavior as mafia bosses of his delegated sub-bosses. Thus the Secretary of Interior rigs it to loot our natural resources; the Secretary of HUD wires it for developers; the Director of the EPA unilaterally deregulates polluters; the Secretary of Transportation sets up a bazaar for private lease-back public infrastructure; the Secretary of Education sets up ways for private corporations to loot public school funds.
Sarah Kendzior has the profile:
Sarah Kendzior, Globe and Mail: Comey testimony reveals Trump is running America like a crime boss
The Citizens United decision has its intended impact.
Don’t get infatuated with the intrigue of the Corleones. They never were intended to be role models.
We are at a moment in which the American people are being asked once again whether they really believe in democratic governance and the values necessary to make that happen in a consistent way. It might be time to think what the consequences of what happens when nominally democratic governance changes to governance with no pretense of democratic values. Where is isn’t the fickleness of the popular will that produces arbitrary changes but the arbitrariness of the will of a single person with the power to work their will arbitrarily without reference to any institutions.
Ali Veshi yeasterday talked about Trumps public-private infrastructure plan, a trillion dollar project with $800m private investment. We, the taxpayers, get to pay back the investment and profits thereon. And who can say how much Trump and friends will enrich themselves through their own ” investments”. He never heard of the emouluments clause and neither did anyone of his captains or soldiers in congress. He has already shredded the idea.
So you are right about this. And thanks for that reference to the short article. It certainly does look like a crime family has taken over the government. It is run now by tweets and the bosses desires. Mar-A – Lago and Trump Tower are profit centers in his enterprise. Fire anyone who gets in your way.
We can defeat the Trump bullshit “infrastructure” plan. It’s a matter of the American people rolling up our sleeves and successfully organizing Congress to say No. It’s not on Congress’ plate at the moment.
We’re in a fight on this and everything else. The GOP has to do a lot of things thru Congress; they can’t get everything done thru the Executive, something we were reminded during the Obama Administration. This Congress has achieved very little. We can pile up a lot of wins here.
The biggest thing I think we need at the moment is a large recruitment class of candidates to run on the Do-Nothing Congress. It is a shame to see Steve King’s opposition flub up and run out of gas. Some moderate vetting is in order. And solid training. There are some Democratic state party that now know how to do this; they need to help those in red states get moving rapidly.
If there is criminal malfeasance in the dealings with Russian government officials on the part of the Trump campaign, and if the evidence comes to light in a way that provides public acceptance, that will make that case and the Democratic talking points will not have to mention one thing about it. But talking about each Republican caucus member’s action in the Do-Nothing Congress, chapter and verse, even on the back-benchers might provide some gains in 2018.
I’m not expecting Mueller’s investigation to be done before November 2018, but the collateral damage of it might be visible by then. But the Democrats can’t look like they are pushing a political vendetta against Trump. Ignoring the investigation makes more sense until individual Republican caucus members can be effectively linked to it. Don’t decide that that is going to be the Democrats slam-dunk from the get-go. It won’t be if someone imagines they see a visible hand. That causes backlashes.
It does not serve our policy and electoral interests to ignore outrageous behavior by Trump, his Administration, his transition team and his campaign. Your suggestion that we need to wait near or past the midterms to make hay of these outrages infers that everything is and has been a he said/he said, and that’s just not true.
Kushner surrogates have admitted to the meeting Jared and Flynn took with the Russian Ambassador during the transition where they planned to set up a line of communication which would avoid American security services. That’s totally unacceptable, and it’s only among the outrages which have been openly admitted to, and the extreme policies which they have put down on paper and pixels and are beyond dispute.
You also want to accept another Republican line: unless criminal charges are filed, then it’s all good. That’s a horrible abdication in a number of areas where we may or may not allow us immediate legal redress, areas where Democrats badly need to take strong moral and ideological positions in order to have the legitimacy to lead.
For example, the Department of Justice is now defending the ability for Trump to violate the spirit of the Emoluments Clause. I don’t know how/when/if we will win the legal fight against the DOJ in this area, but I’ll be damned if that means we surrender on such an important area where we can make a point which stands on principles which will help us electorally.
Were you paying attention in 2010? What will drive Democratic gains in 2018 will very likely be Trump’s unpopularity.
Democrats ran on a do-nothing Congress in 2012 and 2014. Did it work?
What do you think the Republicans political strategy since 2008 has been? – it was a political vendetta against Obama. Guess what? – it worked.
Your political analysis here is flawed.
Were this a murder investigation per the analogy, the prosecution would typically be ready to go to trial at this point, having enough circumstantial evidence to do so. And even though there are no bodies or smoking guns, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. With all that we know and what’s in play, what else can it be but guilty, the prosecution argument would go. And juries have been known to routinely convict on even lesser circumstantial evidence.
As for Trump, I suspect to some extent its his tough guy persona, driven by an extreme narcissism and machismo, that makes him want to not only not care about trying to not look guilty, but to wave it in our faces, to essentially say, e.g. “yeah I’m doing it/have done it, so what??” Just like he said once recently, I forget to which reporter, that “I’m the President and you’re not!” Couple that with his rich kid running daddy’s company mindset, who’s always used wealth and the perception of it to get what he wants, no matter how ridiculous or illegal, and his authoritarian view of the Presidency is akin to being a king, provides a good theory for why this fool is the way he is.
More circumstantial evidence: Trump is not a complete fool apparently, because he appears to understand the political landscape enough to know that as long as his base is with him, it forces congressional GOP to provide political cover. And since the first phase of holding a President to account for any legal transgressions is political process and not legal, which he also seems to have some inkling of, or at least those around him have successfully impressed upon him, everything he has done to date has been for the exclusive benefit of his base. Even when doing so has been to the detriment of being able to at least get some things done and lay claim to accomplishments in his first 100 days and beyond.
Given all that, om the “anything can happen” front, I can see Trump muddling through the next four years as president, with maybe some political but zero legal repercussions, thanks to our flawed political system, craven and/or beholden politicians and entertainment obsessed media.
Sad!
Another point of clarity. Those with money, a boss mentality, and a drive toward kleptocracy of the people’s tax money and benefits are undoing American democracy. At one time the Democratic Party stood against people like that. For the last decade, there has been an epidemic in the Republican Party of people like that. Romney and Trump were the first to seek the office of President for themselves. Trump the first to win it. Until that is fixed, we will continue to be in deep trouble.
>>At one time the Democratic Party stood against people like that.
I join you in wanting the Democratic Party to stand against people like that but I’m not sure when that magical moment in time was. FDR and Truman talked that way, but their party was a weird grouping of Dixiecrats, big city machines, labor, and actual liberals. and since then few Democratic politicians have tried running to the left.
But he Dixiecrats were a kinder and gentler bunch then, right?
Not if you were black.
Well there is that.
The Dixiecrats, some of them, were more of a “workingman’s bunch”, especially those in the textile manufacturing areas.
Until the civil rights era, the weird thing about segregated institutions is that they allowed whites to advocate for schools, health care, and more infrastructure.
Even the business owners thought of themselves as “progressive” (techno-scientific). “Conservative” was a word of opprobrium when I was growing up in South Carolina in the 1950s and early 1960s. Of course, that progressive attitude was because the states were on the make for relocated industry from the North and Midwest.
Kinder and gentler? No.
It was a Wednesday. Right after the 1974 mid-terms. For one brief shining moment the Democratic Party was a real social-democratic party.
That’s when the Dems repealed Taft Hartley, enacted Friedman’s negative income tax, reigned in the intelligence community, put in a national health system….
Then Carter screwed everything up. I was there. I remember.
HAHa@ Trump!
More like,
“The Saudi’s gave me suitcases of Krugerrands for my visit there, all the British want to give me is grief! Bad!”
.
you mean he is afraid of a little noise making in Britain?
Kruggerands. Good!
You have to admit…the sounds of Krugerrands jingling together is far nicer than the sounds of thousands of Brits telling you to piss off.
.
I have the sense that the Republicans are at a loss of what to do, too. They may take advantage of the legerdemain, but at the core, I think they are as stuck as the Dems. Trump was not their guy, not in the least. Everyone seems hamstrung. But the burden of finding a way out of the morass falls on the Republicans and their wurlitzer. What will be the final straw that puts that in motion, I wonder?
Here is a short commentary about one part of the Comey testimony.
This,
COMEY: Yes, sir. There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. It was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. It’s not a close call. That happened. That’s about as unfake as you can possibly get. It is very, very serious, which is why it’s so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that. This is about America, not about a particular party.
.
the Russian interference may not have been “about a particular party”, but Comey’s personal interference definitely was.
Actually, it wasn’t.
http://gothamist.com/2016/11/03/giuliani_fbi_friends_apocalypse.php
Unfortunately this was too complicated for anyone’s sound bite.
For the significance of “fuzz” in that statement, none better to explain than Jim Wright, retired chief warrant officer with 20+ years’ experience of intelligence gathering and assessment. It comes via a detailed explanation of how the process works, the varying levels of reliability for conclusions reached, and the significance of Comey choosing to use that particular word. I strongly recommend reading the entire thing before telling me he’s just a tool of the military-industrial Deep State cabal who should be ignored because he’s obviously a fascist enabler who just doesn’t understand the situation.
https://www.facebook.com/Stonekettle/posts/1363089817059751
I think Obama told us the fact of it this last year. So when do they indict the conspirators?
Hopefully Mueller will have an answer for you; I don’t look to the GOP in Congress — no doubt severely compromised themselves — to do anything. It will be … interesting … to see what if anything the Justice Department under Sessions does.
Mueller might do it. Sessions definitely won’t. He’d have to indict himself. And congress won’t do shit either.
Things could get interesting if Mueller’s investigators share info with certain state AG’s, like, say, New York’s. Or if said state authorities are already looking into money laundering and other criminal enterprises they would have the power to move forward with.
Eventually he’s almost certainly going to be fired.
State AG’s would make for a good back up plan, but I doubt his ego will let him go that route.
.
He doesn’t want to hear about it because it’s challenging his victory; it’s raining on the (inaugural) parade.
Once again I’m posting here to disabuse BooMan and others of this persistent idea that you can imbue Trump’s words and actions with any kind of underlying logic or intention. He’s too stupid for any of that.
You know how he says the Russia story is a “plot” by Democrats to undermine his victory and Hillary’s loss? (Because it’s “impossible” for a Republican to win the Electoral college even though it happens every time a Republican wins?) About how he “actually” won the popular vote except for the “fake” votes? How the crowds were bigger than they look in the photos?
We are dealing with a moron and the idiotic ideas that come fleetingly into his head (to be replaced by other ideas) are much more important and characteristic than the amount of lying he does. If anything the idiocy is the root of the lying — meaning, if he weren’t so incapable of thinking rationally he wouldn’t answer questions in such crazy, inconsistent, ridiculous ways.
It’s like watching a child play pretend, “announcing” the stuff that just happened or will happen in his/her ongoing fantasy of being a cowboy or a superhero…or, President.
Trump has only one interest in life — himself — and one value — making money. The ONLY way Trump can make money is by being 100% loyal to Putin, because that is his only possible source of financing.
Those conditions fulfilled, Trump doesn’t care about anything else. There cannot possibly be anything treasonous in what he does, because business is business. And Trump, in his own eyes, is always right.
As far as public perception, he doesn’t care. For Trump there are only two kinds of people — those who believe him no matter what, and everybody else. His view of everybody else is, they can go fuck themselves.
Through this attitude, he gradually weaponizes the people that do believe him. They have become a select group that believes anything he says.
At the time of his inauguration, Trump had a net negative favorability of minus 4, which is the best he has ever done. His favorability has gradually gone down since then and now, six months later, stands at minus 14. In other words, the number of people in that select group is going down, not up. Nevertheless, those are the only people whose opinion he cares about.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/donald-trump-favorable-rating
I find Trumpf less interesting as an American phenomenon rather than as part of a global one. If it hadn’t been this cartoonish buffoon, is it really hard to imagine the GOP selling us a different one (Palin comes immediately to mind.)
Part of what we’re seeing is the crumbling of decrepit moribund institutions. What remains to be seen is whether we humans can develop and implement better replacements without having to murder each other.
Very interesting piece at Vox on relating Nietzsche philosophy to Nietzsche forseeing/fortelling this worldwide phonomenon:
“Nietzsche“