Assuming you’ve been reading my posts over the last ten months or so, can you imagine how badly this tries my patience?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
that is some really nasty shit there. NYT is pushing the idea of Trump the Independent, facts be damned.
The last few days have shown clearly, there isn’t anyone else in the media with your understanding of congressional procedure. You have indeed predicted this with nearly the certainty of astronomers describing the path of the eclipse, and the rest of them refuse to accept that there are laws of physics and still think a dragon ate the sun.
of course, national media isn’t here to explain facts to us. Accuracy would get in the way of maximizing their own power and profit.
This is a great contender for stupidest take on Trump’s budget deal. As Booman as repeatedly stated, Trump really had no other choice. Scott Lemieux over at LGM also makes the point that the only reason his deal with an opposing party is at all notable is because he’s governed exclusively from the far right thus far.
That’s right. They make it seem like it’s some brilliant, almost inscrutable strategy to negotiate with the other party, when, until fairly recently, that was normal.
Trump’s “strategies”…however he arrives at them…are indeed inscrutable. That is their power. They have also…and this is undeniable, considering his rapid rise to the presidency and his continued presence in the office despite an unprecedentedly concerted and sustained attack by almost the entire political and social establishment and its mass media…they have also been quite successful.
He can now claim a solid 30% of the electorate as his constituency…quite possibly a higher percentage than that of either of the two major parties …and is beginning to the two parties off against each other in Congress. Whichever party throws in with him will get a goodly percentage of his constituency as payment for that particular satanic deal.
Are they selling their souls to the devil?
That is a certainly a possibility, only neither party has shown much “soul” for well over 50 years. I believe that they have both already sold theirs to the corporate devils.
All Trump is doing is applying to lease them from their corporate owners.
Watch.
He ain’t nearly finished with his run yet.
Watch.
AG
Josh Marshall scoffs at even calling this a deal.
Uh, hand up here in the back?
The fact he is not as malleable as St. Ronnie Alzheimer does not mean he is an “independent”.
He is a mid-functioning sociopath doing what sociopaths do: what works for them and f-ck everybody else.
Sociopath and malignant narcissist surely do it for me. But I am trying to come up with something more political and not just psychological. Any ideas?
Yes — the best of very few available options, as Booman’s been saying.
Total trash. The NYT is dignifying his complete lack of competence and understanding of governance with the label “independent.” I’ve been searching for a term to describe what he is. Bull in a china shop? Rogue? Surely we can come with a label that actually describes what he is. But independent surely isn’t it.
Opportunist.
“Opportunists” are independent.
That’s what makes them opportunists.
The question is not about whether Trump is an “opportunist;” it’s about his moral fiber. For example, FDR was an “opportunist” as well. That’s how he became…and remained…president. His aims were what differed.
“I saw my opportunities and I took ’em” said the 19th century Tammany Hall ward heeler George Washington Plunkitt.
The story of politics since the Stone Age.
Bet on it.
AG
Republican. He is a Republican.
This is the best take. He’s just a republican. A truly shitty individual, but a republican thru and thru.
I’d say that pretty well hits the nail on the head.
Josh’s pithy take on this: “…it’s quite something to see how rapidly a number of mainstream media voices have moved from Trump as far-right ideologue putting racist revanchism at the center of statecraft to Trump as post-ideological, pragmatic dealmaker. Serious, what are you people thinking?”
Agree completely.
Is this different from the MSM (and a raft of Democrats) declaring that bombing Syrian made Trump “presidential?”
Of course you meant to type Obama, right?
What’s with your “of course?”
I said/typed exactly what I meant. (And within the context of this thread, it wouldn’t even have made sense with your fantasy of an error on my part.)
Trump lobbed missiles into Syria and people cheered. Except for those that were outraged by his act and the cheering.
I apologize for misunderstanding you.
I can’t remember which idiot it was, but someone wrote “donald trump became president tonight.”
Is it any wonder that our elites are generally held in contempt?
As I recall, that quote was from the vastly overrated blowhard on CNN, an alleged “intellectual”, one Fareed Zakaria, who obviously likes him some good bombing and muscular presidenting.
CNN’s Van Jones, once a fairly intelligent on-air commenter who seemed promising, made a similar comment at the time.
Fareed Zakaria and Van Jones are among them; there is quite a list.
Not that different. Both are of course proof that Trump is better than Obama, the Syria raid showing that Trump is a heroic enforcer of red lines (though the stupid raid didn’t even have any effect on the Assad government) and the debt ceiling agreement showing that Trump is a wonderful bipartisan compromiser (though as Boo has been telling us it was impossible for him to have done anything different).
Bollocks! Your adolescent fantasies of those that are anti-war and New Deal Democrats and using your fantasies in an attempt to smear those that are honest, open, and consistent about where they stand on major issues only reflects on you.
Being in construction 45 years has taught me one very important life lesson.
When a company uses a positive descriptive word in their company name like,
‘Honest Plumbing Co.’
‘Perfectly Flat Drywall’
‘We do it right Electrical’
then you need to look elsewhere.
.
Do you know what she is talking about?
I think the transmission from Red Square got garbled.
I was wondering that too. Seemed so wildly inapropos to what was said.
Seeing Obama ignore the establishment and not strike Syria was probably the moment of his term I was most proud of him. I cant think of any of the other mainstream dems that would have done, certainly not HRC or Biden.
yaz, I think they are a little different. Trump had no option about raising the debt ceiling but shooting missiles off for no apparent strategic purpose is, to me anyway, a mistake and unforced error. In any case, he had a choice there.
Just goes to show how much of a meritocracy we are!! Especially since Haberman’s father also works at the NYT.
Recently described Haberman as a mediocre propagandist that totally sucks as a journalist.
Me, too. And as Josh has pointed out, it wasn’t even that much of a deal.
The bar has been set. Anytime Trump constructs a paragraph that says anything of substance instead of having 5 sentences repeating ‘what I propose will be huge and beautiful’, anytime he doesn’t insult your mother, anytime he doesn’t insist that Nazis can be good, the shock will make many praise him and some even laud him as a great president.
OK – maybe I am as dumb as I look, but I thought that legislation only can come up for a vote if the REPUBLICAN MAJORITY agrees to let it come up for a vote. Am I wrong here? Trump can cut whatever deals he wants with Democrats, but if the Republicans do not put the matter on the floor for a vote, it DOES NOT HAPPEN.
So all this reporting about Trump cutting a deal misses the bigger point (made on this site, by Booman), that Trump just provided cover for the Republicans – that is all it was: one big smoke screen.
Trump is not an Independent – in this instance he was a shill. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Here’s a roundup of some more interesting fallout from the Trump, Chuck and Nancy love fest.
https:/www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/09/10/conservatives-attack-trump-after-
deal-with-democrats/644523001
Idiotic “analysis” from Peter Baker in the New York Times which completely misses the obvious point that Trump had no choice and no leverage. Right-wing Republicans claim Trump held all the cards and so much of the MSM swallows it hook, line and sinker.
That said, it would not shock me if Trump decided he likes the positive media he’s getting and switched tactics. He could, for example, team up with Democrats and a few Republicans to strengthen the ACA, perhaps rebranding it Trumpcare. He’s have to force Ryan to bring it to the floor but I bet he could.
Of course I’ll believe it when and if we see it. That we’ve seen nothing of the sort is what makes this sort of infantile reporting so stupid. For the media to write something intelligent, it must first acknowledge what is. Sure, Trump could do something new, but it needs to be presented as merely a possibility. Also, it would be helpful to analyze the risks because right now he’s relying on Republicans to protect his back when a fair investigation on any of a number of fronts could bring him down.
I doubt we’ll see any true change in tactics. I cited back when he was first elected the transformation of Schwarzenegger and how it transformed politics in California. But it’s hard to see Trump having the same room to maneuver or the intelligence to execute the strategy.
This piece in Slate does it up right:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/09/10/you_know_who_else_was_always_displaying_newfound_p
ragmatism.html
Holy guacamole! So eerily similar to the tripe coming from the MSM right now, innit?
The NYT defends the interests of rich and powerful New Yorkers. News at 11.
Lolz, anyone else notice how similar Booman and J-Rub are these days? That has to be a sign of hope, right?
https:/www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/09/11/im-not-buying-the-new-conventional-wis
dom-about-trump?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.a1923b0e8e27
The white people at the NYT are desperate to make their white supremacist savior a fully functioning administrator. They’ll pounce on even the tiniest thing that supports that narrative.
Once again, the “failing NY Times” seems to be deliberately crafting a myth about Trump. Don’t know if this article is meant to be click bait or what but I thought Baker was better than this. Trump is a direct product of his following like psilocybin mushrooms growing out of cow shit and Trump is equally hallucinogenic except minus the enjoyment. This is why the GOP Congress has not moved against him in any serious way. They know he represents a solid chunk of the GOP electorate; he’s erratic and psychotic and probably increasingly senile but his policy positions solidly reflect 50 years of GOP rightwing ideology.