Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson makes some good points.
I spent part of my convalescence from a recent illness reading some of the comprehensive timelines of the Russia investigation… In all of this, there is a spectacular accumulation of lies. Lies on disclosure forms. Lies at confirmation hearings. Lies on Twitter. Lies in the White House briefing room. Lies to the FBI. Self-protective lies by the attorney general. Blocking and tackling lies by Vice President Pence. This is, with a few exceptions, a group of people for whom truth, political honor, ethics and integrity mean nothing.
What are the implications? President Trump and others in his administration are about to be hit by a legal tidal wave. We look at the Russia scandal and see lies. A skilled prosecutor sees leverage. People caught in criminal violations make more cooperative witnesses. Robert S. Mueller III and his A-team of investigators have plenty of stupidity and venality to work with. They are investigating an administration riven by internal hatreds — also the prosecutor’s friend. And Trump has already alienated many potential allies in a public contest between himself and Mueller. A number of elected Republicans, particularly in the Senate, would watch this showdown with popcorn.
If you haven’t already, you should set aside some time to read about the blockbuster from NBC News and Reuters on the astounding criminality surrounding the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower project in Panama City. The people involved in selling those units for Trump have been accused and in several cases convicted of everything from pimping to working in the human slave trade to kidnapping to laundering money for South American drug kingpins. This, all in a project that Trump set aside to be Ivanka’s “baby”- her introduction to the real estate game. Many of these people were Russians and the same is true of their customers, who in most cases never occupied the properties they “bought” with their dirty money.
During a recent visit by NBC News, the Trump Ocean Club appeared to be largely empty, with virtually no one in the restaurants at night. The hallways were consistently empty. The lights were off in many of the units after dark. Ventura said most of his clients never intended to live in the Trump Ocean Club.
Imagine what someone with Robert Mueller’s resources can discover about Trump’s business practices. He’s already taken the chairman of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, down for money laundering dirty Russian money, and that’s just scratching the surface.
We don’t know what all has already been discovered, but we can rest assured that it’s unsavory and won’t stand the light of day. A lot of people keep asking why the Trump folks haven’t been more cooperative and forthcoming. Why have they lied so frequently? Why don’t they get out in front of the story? Get it all out there, even if it’s politically damaging, so that they can be cleared of the central charge of cooperation with the Russians in their plans to disrupt and discredit our electoral system?
The most obvious answer is that they’re guilty as charged. But the other, more innocent explanation is that they’re, as Gerson puts it, “a group of people for whom truth, political honor, ethics and integrity mean nothing.” In other words, they’re collectively so divorced from normal standards of ethics and legality that they’re incapable of imagining how to behave in an innocent manner, even when they didn’t actually have the competence to pull off some grand conspiracy.
I imagine Mueller will help us to define the line between these two theories, and I suspect we’ll see a lot of both. We’ll see people acting as free agents and also people acting under orders. We’ll see people who were deliberately coordinating with Russians and people who were being played by them. We’ll see all kinds of motive and possibilities for blackmail, but we’ll also see foolish idealists who didn’t know any better. I don’t think it will all come out as a clean narrative.
But one thing that will be clear is that people have lied to Congress and the press and to the American people and to federal investigators. Those charges will be clear-cut. The one question everyone wants to know the answer to is why Donald Trump treats Vladimir Putin so kindly and everyone else in the world with so little respect. There may be one big obvious answer to that, or there may be dozens of small ambiguous ones.
We’ll just have to watch when that legal tidal wave comes in.
Or, in other words, “guilty as charged”. Being guilty does not presuppose a particular motivation. There will be a lot of motives in this motley group – but they’ll all be guilty.
Also “Blocking and tackling lies by Vice President Pence.” is a great line. They do act like a lot of them have CTE, especially Trump himself.
essentially meaningless in this context.
Interesting because I was headed here armed with the same blockquote and curtadams beat me to it — but I don’t think we’re reacting the same way.
Of course “ignorance of the law is no defense” (unless it’s insanity). But the distinction being drawn is important and enlightening.
When the Russians came to Donald, Jr. and said, “We’ve got information about Hillary” and he replied, “I love it!” — without the slightest apparent awareness that this would be dirty pool at best and treasonous at worst — he illustrated an important quality of Trump thinking, and of modern post-Goldwater conservatism in general. It’s not that the ends justify the means — or, that the “means” are bad, and cannot be justified publicly but must be concealed (as in Nixon’s case) — it’s a deeper innocence of all morality and ethics and law; a kind of child-like “I’m going to eat the cookie because it’s right there in front of me and I want it and I can’t understand this ‘No’ the adults are saying to me.” The “means” don’t even count, or even exist, just like the truth doesn’t exist; you just say or do whatever it takes to get what you want.
The fact that Trump’s entire campaign was overtly built on this — we “take the oil”; we torture; we break our international agreements because he doesn’t like them — or that his Presidency has worked this way — firing Comey; asking for loyalty oaths — shouldn’t surprise us any more than anyone reading Mein Kampf should have been surprised by anything Hitler went on to do.
But in this country it’s a deeper, more frightening and systemic problem; Trump and his gang have made guileless lawlessness normal. They really need to be forced to defend it in the public court.
…and anyone who tries to restrain me is a commie.
That’s modern conservatism from the beginning.
That was different from GWB and his cronies, how? It’s darkly funny that I’m sure it doesn’t register with an immoral twit himself like Gerson.
When you mentioned Goldwater, I thought you were going to make this point: Goldwater established the rightwing conservative philosophy of extreme individualism and the corollary that government represents the oppression of the individual and “collectivism” (or, more positively, the commonwealth). Extreme individualism invariably leads to a disregard for the Rule of Law since the latter is interpreted as infringing on individual freedom and that is, of course, evil. The GOP, at that point, stopped being a responsible political party although it took another 25 years or so to get to to Newt and the final madness. It’s a pretty straight line to Trump from there.
WHEN?
In the meantime, the sand is shifting under our feet!
Most fact and science based policies are being dismantled. Experts (as in Department of State, Department of Energy) are being dispersed! Civil rights are being dispensed away with. Medicare, Medicaid are being destroyed. All the while CBP beefs up its muscles.
When will we see some modicum of justice, not the scums like Manafort and Papadopolous, but getting closer to those who the Republican party is protecting?
It may be a pyrrhic victory!
I love that Sherrod Brown went after Orin Hatch over trickle down. Nice!
If this hideous tax cuts for the rich bill becomes law, it needs to become the rallying cry of the Democrats in 2018. If the Democrats don’t flip at least the Senate, this country is in deep trouble.
I think you mean the house. While there are fewer seats to flip in the Senate, the majority of the seats in play are in red states.
You need the Senate to protect the federal courts from The Federalist Society, packing the courts with right-wing judges.
And McKaskill asks Hatch about cuts to Medicaid.
It’s McCasskill. No “k”. But, yes, we need all Democrats next year
No K? I’ll be a monkeys uncle. Shoulda looked it up. She kinda nailed Orin in that exchange. Nice to see.
and neither yet realizes it.
Even as you misspelled it, “McCasskill” does have a k (see, right there, I even emphasized it for you).
What it doesn’t have is the extra “s” you threw in.
Not only has DT and company alienated potential allies, there is a whole raft of ‘moderate Republicans’ who are sitting on the sidelines (like your speech writer) prepared to assist in the take down rather than provide cover.
I want Pence to go down with this ship, too. Is anyone paying attention to what he is up to at all?
Pence is involved but only since the Convention so his misdeeds probably mainly date to the transition and afterwards. Those are probably enough to really damage him politically (even though he is a pretty dumb bag of rocks anyway). But whether it’s enough to boot him from Presidential succession is doubtful.
OTOH, even if Mueller finds Trump guilty of multiple federal crimes, I still doubt that he will be impeached.
IF DJT was impeached, I am not sure he would resign.
He would probably be more hobbled than he is right now, but the Republicans in Congress would not mind having full control.
Not only has DT and company alienated potential allies, there is a whole raft of ‘moderate Republicans’ who are sitting on the sidelines (like your speech writer) prepared to assist in the take down rather than provide cover.
Which speechwriter do you mean? Gerson? Do you know his history at all? Have people flushed C- Augustus down the memory hole already?
Amend ‘Moderate’ to out of power.
for Bush.
Not saying that negates validity of any valid, Reality-based position taken by Gerson as quoted by booman.
Jus’ sayin’.
I thought it was David Frum. According to Slate, it turns out that you are right. Gerson changed Frum’s “axis of hatred” to “axis of evil.”
. . . to check my recollection before posting the comment (sorry, probably shoulda linked it).
One of the uncomfortable things about Trump is that terrible people write about how terrible Trump is.
They’re not suddenly good people.
But they’re not wrong.
And then we have the context of an article out today that Trump lies on average 5 times a day.
So many lies out of this admin that the insiders have turned into whack a mole teams chasing after the lies with another lie to cover up. Chasing their tails much?
Yes.
But how many times a day did the Obama regime lie?
On mass surveillance.
On drone warfare.
On armed forces footprints …overt and covert.
On alliances with anti-“democratic” regimes.
Give me a break!!!
AG
Both sides do it!
Both sides do it!
Not a dime’s worth of difference!
They’re all the same!
Bet on it.
[insert giant chicken]
The right wing nut and Ron Paul enthusiast again displays his enthusiasm for helping Trump loot, pillage and oppress. The Ron Paul enthusiast’s white privilege and ignorance protects him.
The tower in Panama is an example of what the new rich do with their money. They do not create jobs. They plant their money in real estate. There are blocks of pricey brownstones in Manhattan sitting empty. There are neighborhoods in London that sit empty.
Or this is just money laundering. They buy real estate and then buy million dollar rugs that no one can produce a purchase order of proof of delivery or pay $20,000 to have the rugs cleaned in a unit that is all hard wood floors. Maybe they just sell the property to one shell co. and then to another.
Booman didn’t even quote my favorite line from the op-ed: “We are witnessing what happens when right-wing politics becomes untethered from morality and religion.” Untethered from morality, definitely. Untethered fron religion? Well, just look at Roy Moore for why I am not convinced about that.
There are various flavors of religion.
Part of this discussion goes to religion.
“WashPo on Moore as con man“
Well, then, Roy Moore is an example of religion having become unmoored from both morality and history. I also agree he’s a con man. Moore and Trump, birds of a feather.
But is Moore really religious?
That 10 Commandments rock is about publicity seeking and provocation. (Moore, like Trump, fosters divisiveness as a political strategy.)
That monument does nothing about religious practice or proselytizing, all it does is insult those people who do not want it there.
Trump got a lot of juice from that Apprentice show. His name became a valuable property and he didn’t care who used it so long as he was paid handsomely.
Because unlike Hillary, who would already have started a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine by now, Trump is a tireless seeker of peace and friendship between our two great peoples.
Mir i druzhba, y’all.
That’s how our GOP Comrades say it down here in the South.
Yes! And like our own Dear Leader Trump we are “Dizzy With Success”.
We are all true Southern Patriots and not at all GRU agents! We deny that completely!”
And we smile when we say that. Damn right, we do.
I knew you’d get it if anybody would.
The problem as I see it is that in a thousand ways, large and small, The Republicans no longer value our democratic institutions. The only thing they value is retention of political power, and financing and support from the 1%. Gerrymandering, ignoring decades of procedural precedent in the Senate, openly embracing lies as fact, and refusing to challenge a genuine fascist in the White House, are now their tools of governance. They clearly couldn’t care less about the welfare of ordinary Americans.
Democratic politicians are scorned as the modern forms of the Gracchi brothers, and the rest of us are despised as latter day plebeians, unworthy of full participation in their government, the “permanent Republican majority,” never mind what it takes to maintain it.
Then why do people still vote for them?
(and yes I have read What’s the matter with Kansas.)
>>why do people still vote for them?
This entire article is EXACTLY why I bet the over on the Democrats 30% chance of winning control of the Senate by holding all of their seats and picking up 3 more, an almost impossible task, but if the wave is high enough, it could happen.
The GOP is going to be fending off indictments from now till election day. They might try and indict Hillary for something because they are desperate to hold onto power, but nobody outside their echo chamber really cares about Hillary because she lost. She has no power. The GOP has all the power and their victimization is just pathetic and unconvincing. They are always the victims of vile liberal plots, but it’s just an impossible sell when they are in obviously charge of everything, controlling every branch of federal government and most of the state governments too.
They have total control and are just screwing up spectacularly – passing legislation so toxic that they can’t even debate it. How is that supposed to get them re-elected? They think their voters just won’t care?
Some will care that their health care premiums are going up, or they are losing coverage altogether due to GOP sabotage, and they will know to blame Trump and the Republican party in November.
Only 10% will figure it out perhaps, but a shift of 10% is a tidal wave!