defrog | Entries tagged with trump dynasty

Well, that’s apparently that. Barring any weird disasters (and I’m including COVID-19 and deranged assassins here), it looks like it’s going to be Joe Biden vs D. Trump in November.

So a few thoughts on that.

1. There’s a lot of ink being written on where it went wrong for Sanders – some of it sensible, some of it otherwise. For me, the most sensible analysis is rooted in the point that Sanders was campaigning against the Democratic Party Establishment as much as he was against Trump. Turns out that wasn’t such a hot idea.

2. As I’ve said elsewhere, I wasn’t especially thrilled with either Biden or Sanders as a Demo nominee. And if those had been the only two choices in my state primary, I think I ultimately would have gone with Biden for the sole reason that (as I’ve mentioned before) I do think he stands a better chance to beat Trump than Sanders would have for the same reason he’s the presumptive nominee – he’s better at building the broader, diverse base of support the DP is going to need.

3. Speaking of which, in a nice plot twist, Sanders has not only endorsed Biden, but has joined forces with him to form working groups (consisting of staff from both of their campaigns) to shape the Democratic Party’s approach to six issues: climate change, criminal justice, the economy, education, health care, and immigration. Personally I find this encouraging – not just that Sanders is willing to work with Biden (albeit to have as much influence on his platform as possible) but that Biden is willing to listen to him.

But then that’s always been Biden’s strength – as I said, he’s always been a coalition guy, and the DP is a coalition party. He knows that if he’s going to lead the Demos to victory, he needs to get everyone involved, and that includes the progressives who supported Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Obviously the result isn't going to the Socialist Utopia that Sanders fans want, but it will probably beat the alternative.

4. On the downside, Biden’s dealmaking skills have traditionally reached across the aisle – which in normal times would be okay, but these are not normal times. The GOP is firmly in Trump Cult Batshit Fascism territory, and I don't expect that to change if Trump loses. Even if the Demos are able to take back Congress, I fully expect the GOP to do with Biden exactly what they did with Obama (and would have done with Sanders) – stonewall, obfuscate, weep and wail about socialist tyranny and generally do everything possible to trip him up and ensure Biden doesn’t sign a single gawdamn bill that comes anywhere close to universal healthcare or whatever.

Consequently, any attempts by Biden to bridge that divide and win GOP votes essentially means making deals with a party that has embraced white supremacy, xenophobia, fascism and gaslighting as a way of life – which is not only a bad look and morally suspect even by political standards, but also raises the question of what his legislative proposals will look like after the GOP committee reps get through with them, and whether the results would be worse than doing nothing at all.

5. That’s assuming Biden defeats Trump, which is the other big question. As I’ve said before, I would have voted for Marianne Williamson over Trump, so Biden already has my vote. But I am expecting Trump to win, despite the fact that as far back as September, Biden has mostly faired better in the polls in a hypothetical Biden vs Trump race, sometimes by as much 11 points on average. But lately it’s been a single-digit advantage, and Biden has yet to see a post-Sanders bounce in the polls.

Of course, it’s a long way to November, and we have a new wild card in the form of COVID-19. Assuming the coronavirus itself doesn’t take out Biden or Trump, the havoc it’s wreaking on the economy and unemployment are eroding the one advantage any incumbent POTUS has: how well the economy is doing. Trump’s handling of the crisis arguably isn't helping, though whether that will hurt him will depend on how many people (particularly Republicans) die from COVID-19 and how many of the surviving cult members either blame Trump or continue to believe his schtick that all this is somehow the fault of the Obama Deep State and the Fake News Conspiracy.

Then there’s the effect of COVID-19 on Election Day itself – if enough states are still in lockdown, and if the Trump admin succeeds in hobbling or even shuttering the USPS (which could impact mail-in votes), voter turnout will be impacted significantly, and certainly Trump thinks that will work in the GOP’s favor.

And even if COVID-19 is brought under control in time, there’s still the Russiabots.

So really, 2020 is looking like the most wildly unpredictable POTUS election in ages, possibly ever – at least for now. By the time we get to September, we may have a better idea. The one thing we know for sure (or should) is that we can’t take a Biden victory for granted, no matter how badly Trump screws up. So I’m going into this on the assumption that Trump can (and will) win. I will thoroughly enjoy being proven wrong.

Last man standing,

This is dF

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I didn’t watch the debate, no. As I’ve probably mentioned before, my state primary is over, so it’s no longer up to me which one gets the nomination, and I will be voting for the nominee regardless of who it turns out to be. (And this was true even when Marianne Williamson was still running.)

Still, I do have thoughts about the Biden vs Bernie battle. Would you like to hear them? Too bad, I’m posting this anyway.

1. One perennial question I’ve had is why the hardcore progressive wing seemed adamant on supporting Bernie over, say, Elizabeth Warren, who showed promise early on and policy-wise is as progressive as you would want. So why not her?

According to NPR (who interviewed several progressive orgs who support Bernie), it appears to be mainly about settling scores with the DNC. To paraphrase: Bernie performed great in 2016 and would be POTUS now if the DNC hadn't screwed him, so 2020 is the big chance for Bernie fans to prove they were right all along that Bernie was a more electable choice against Trump than HRC.

2. Speaking of the DNC, now that Biden is suddenly running away with this, the conspiracy tropes are back – the DNC and the Mainstream Media (this being the same MSM that Trump calls the Enemy Of The People) are actively conspiring to hand the nomination to Biden.

Yes. Well of course, I mean, what other explanation could there possibly BE that your preferred candidate is getting less votes? It can’t POSSIBLY be because most voters don’t like him as much as you do.

3. A lot of it comes down to this ideological debate about “the party decides” vs “the people decide” who the nominee should be, and that’s a fair question. That said, the last time the DNC left it to the people to decide that, we ended up with a second Nixon term.

So I find it odd that Bernie fans are furious that the DNC is trying to influence which candidate is going to represent it in the POTUS election. Of COURSE it is. Political parties are generally in the business of winning elections so they can drive the ship of state for as long as they can, which means they prefer the nominee be someone who can actually win. So of course they’re going to work the phones and call in favors to try and swing the endorsements to their preferred candidate. That’s how this works.

Whether you think it SHOULDN’T work that way is another matter. But that’s how this game is currently played.

More to the point, Sanders isn't even a Democrat. He’s a lifelong independent using the Demo Party to run because he knows third-party candidates have no chance. He slams the Establishment Demos every chance he gets, and his supporters talk at length about kicking the Establishment Demos out of power so REAL progressives can take over the party and turn it into the hardcore left-wing party they think it ought to be and needs to be to defeat the GOP.

And they have the nerve to complain that the Establishment DNC isn’t just letting them do that? You pick a fight with a bear, you can’t complain if the bear fights back.

4. A lot of this also comes down to a disagreement over electability. The DNC remains convinced that you can’t win by appealing only to the base – you have to be able to reach the mods, the fence-sitters, the casual voters who aren’t all that interested in politics, etc. The Bernie camp seems convinced the base is big enough, and the only thing holding back the undecideds or non-voters is the lack of a true progressive alternative to the GOP.

The problem is that electability is really, really hard to determine. Obviously, the candidate’s base will always think their candidate is the most electable because they have the best ideas, the best leadership qualities, the best ideological purity or whatever. The problem is that they think all of this should be blindingly obvious to any other voter with a lick of sense.

Only it doesn’t work that way. Lots of voters are not as politically engaged as the hardcore base, and they vote for the damnedest reasons. Often they’ll vote on a single issue that matters the most to them, even if the candidate’s other ideas are stupid or reprehensible. Sometimes they’ll vote for the most painfully superficial of reasons. My mom used to cast her vote based on who seemed the most pleasant. History proves repeatedly that being the smoothest smartest talker in the room with the best and boldest ideas doesn't guarantee a win.

That’s why I think the mod/swing vote still matters. As hard as it may be to believe, not everyone sees Trump as a corrupt megalomaniacal racist dingbat, or at least thinks that any old Democrat would do a better job.

Which is also why I think Biden has an edge here, and it’s why he’s winning. The weakness of the Bernie campaign is the often outspoken belief that they’re so obviously right about everything that anyone else who can’t see that is plainly a blithering idiot or a corporate stooge.

This Twitter thread explains why this is not a winning strategy, but the upshot is that if you want to appeal beyond the base, you need a message that brings them onside rather than insults them or treats them as part of the problem you're proposing to solve.

5. For progressives dismayed at a Biden Presidency, THIS Twitter thread offers a reminder that you do have a back-up plan: pressure Biden further to the left than he is. This is how it’s been done for a long time – when you don’t get the perfect ideological candidate (and it’s rare that you do), you pressure the one you do get to at least meet you halfway on as many issues as possible, because he/she needs your votes too.

Yes, that means compromise and hard work. Tough toenails.

6. For all that, though, as I’ve said before, I’m still not convinced either Biden or Sanders can beat Trump anyway.

Perhaps COVID-19 will change that. Trump’s response has been disastrous, and if enough people die as a result, even the GOP may be finally convinced he’s not worth the effort. Or, since the GOP insists that COVID-19 is a glorified head cold, maybe the coronavirus will thin their ranks out enough to give the Demos a numbers advantage.

Mind you, I don’t WANT that to happen. But I think it’s possible that the outcome of COVID-19 will have a direct impact on Trump’s chances if things get really bad. There’s only so much he can blame on Obama.

7. The other thing I can’t help thinking about (and I’m sure I’m not the only one) is the fact that all three of the remaining viable POTUS candidates are in the high-risk demographic for COVID-19. Just imagine the possible scenarios implicit in this.

Again, I don’t want that to happen. But if it does, the impact on the election will be absolute higgledy-piggledy.

Don’t let us get sick,

This is dF

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And so Trump has been acquitted by the Senate – inasmuch as anyone can be “acquitted” in a rigged trial in which everyone knows you’re guilty but the majority of the jury doesn’t care because you're their golden boy.

I have thoughts:

1. It’s hard to be disappointed in a result that we all saw coming all the way down 5^th Avenue. Mitch McConnell told you in advance how this was going to go. And while some liberals have complained about the Democrats’ overall impeachment strategy, the truth is it didn’t matter what their strategy was – the fix was in even before Mueller time.

2. It’s worth keeping a historical perspective – the outcome was ostensibly no different than any other impeachment trial. No POTUS has ever been removed from office via impeachment precisely because the trial vote inevitably splits along party lines without a two-thirds majority. (Okay, Mitt Romney is the sole exception, for all the good it did. And, you know, good for him.)

3. The other predictable outcome is Trump’s babbling, unhinged, free-verse “TOTAL EXONERATION” victory dance, which he will be performing every chance he gets from now until Doomsday. And of course, he will continue to do exactly what he’s been doing, only with the assurance that the GOP will cover for him and absolutely no one will be able to stop him. Characters like Lamar Alexander and Susan Collins who are going around saying “I think Trump has learned not to do it again” are either delusional or just trolling the libs.

You can also expect him to exact revenge on witnesses, Romney, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, James Comey, John Bolton, CNN and everyone else he hates for disloyalty. (Note: by “revenge” I’m mainly thinking of rage tweets, empty threats and firing anyone he can have fired, not arrests and assassinations, but on the other hand, who really knows at this stage?)

4. In a way it’s just as well when you think about the outcome of a conviction result – namely, President Pence, who would inherit Trump’s cult, who in turn would be so apoplectically outraged as to make the Evil Godless Crooked Demos pay by doing God knows what. And you can pretty much bet Trump himself would pour as much gasoline on that particular garbage fire as possible.

5. Which is why I stand by my current prediction that Trump is very likely going to be re-elected. After everything he’s gotten away with, there’s no reason to assume his base will abandon him now. Also, the economy’s technically great, which generally helps incumbents (even whacky ones).

6. I’ve posted about this before, but all of this raises the valid question of the utter uselessness of impeachment as a control against corruption, and if we should resign ourselves to the notion that the President will always be above the law and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. If that’s not the country we want, we should probably give this some serious thought while there’s still a chance to do something about it.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to leave this Bloom County comic from 1981 here. Because Berke Breathed knows what time it is.

Scott free,

This is dF

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I don’t have a whole lot to say about Trump’s SOTU campaign speech. But here’s a few things:

1. Nancy Pelosi tearing up the transcript was delicious political theatre. The only way she could have improved on it was to set it on fire (which probably would have violated the building code, but still).

2. As for the inevitable civility debate, well, I’ve posted about that before, but in this specific case: (1) I don’t think any of the Demos did anything that qualifies as “uncivil”, and (2) Republicans lost their credibility to lecture anyone about decorum and civility during the SOTU address somewhere around the time Joe Wilson got a little rowdy.

(And yes, I know about Fred Guttenberg doing something similar, but (1) he’s not a Congressperson and (2) he’s entitled to get emotional, all things considered.)

3. Rush Limbaugh’s Medal of Freedom – I guess it's only fair, since Trump has been ripping off Limbaugh’s schtick for years and really owes his entire presidency to the groundwork that race-baiting demagogues like Limbaugh laid for him.

4. While some may be tempted to give Trump credit for not spending most of his time complaining about impeachment or insulting his enemies and sticking mostly to his imagined accomplishments and upcoming policies, Ana Marie Cox offers the best response:

“Giving a speech that’s marginally competent while still banning immigrants, keeping kids in cages, taking assistance from those in need, and practicing relentless corruption isn’t much of an accomplishment, it’s another kind of lie.”

Which is apropos, as his speech was chock full of those, too.

Tear it up,

This is dF

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Where’s the mushroom clouds? Where’s the nuclear winter? Where’s the radioactive mutants?

Et cetera.

So yes. Here we go again, eh?

Obviously it’s way too early to talk about what exactly is going to be the blowback from the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. Predictions range from “Iranian people will now have freedom” to “World War III”. And I’m no expert on foreign policy, but I do have a blog and I do read other blogs, so here's a few unsolicited thoughts:

1. The US is effectively at war with Iran. Assassinating Soleimani wasn’t the equivalent of taking out some top-level ISIS or Taliban official. It was a direct and deliberate attack on a top official of a foreign govt. That’s an act of war by any standard.

2. The Trump admin has given official reasons for killing Soleimani, but there’s no reason to believe any of them are truthful – partly because the US govt in general has a history of exaggerating or outright lying to justify wars against podunk countries, but also because both Trump and Pompeo have a long track record of stating untrue things about Iran. In fact, Trump has a much longer and well-documented history of saying untrue things about all kinds of things several times a day, every day. Even Mike Pence is in on the act, claiming falsely that Soleimani was directly complicit in helping the 9/11 terrorists (see what he did there?).

As for the real reason, who knows? It’s possible Trump wanted a distraction from his impeachment, or a way to ensure re-election, or to justify a more hardline approach to immigration, especially regarding Muslims. It’s also possible Trump had no idea who Soleimani was until Fox News told him who he’d just had killed. But I don’t believe this happened now simply because Soleimani was an “imminent threat”. We’ve heard that one before – it wasn’t true then, and I doubt it’s true now.

3. Many of the Middle East experts who seem to have some kind of sense think the chances of this blossoming into a full-scale conventional war are not high – at least not right away –because for all the bluster and dick-waving, neither side wants one. The Iranian govt knows it doesn’t have the military capability to beat the US, and Trump supposedly doesn’t particularly want another Iraq on his hands, if only because he’d rather spend the money building his wall. Also, as Suzanne Maloney, deputy director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, has told Vox, the current Iranian govt doesn’t have a whole lot of support at home right now, so they’re tasked with maintaining internal stability while trying to figure out how to respond in a way that hurts the US.

4. On the other hand, neither Trump nor Ayatollah Khamenei can really be counted on to be the voice of reason and restraint here, especially as they continuously provoke each other. Everything depends on what Iran does in response, how Trump responds to that, how Khamenei responds to Trump’s response, etc and so on up the escalation ladder until they’ve painted themselves into the very corner they were hoping to avoid. I’m not optimistic that either of these guys will make smart decisions that lead to any kind of truce.

If anything, Trump will be real wild card in this equation, because he has no sense of (or interest in) military strategy, doesn’t listen to advisers, constantly contradicts statements from his own people on Twitter, and generally makes decisions based on how it benefits/enriches him personally and how much applause it will get at his next rally.

Meanwhile, the supposed official strategy for killing Soleimani – the neocon ~~wet dream~~ strategy of escalation is a deterrent – tends not to work when the target has already attacked you in the past.

5. Even without a ground war, we’re in for rough times. Iran’s immediate response is likely to take the form of terrorist attacks, assassinations (regionally of not in the US) and – most importantly – cyberwarfare. The latter is probably the most underappreciated aspect of this – Iran has formidable cyberwar capabilities, and we know this because they’ve used them in the past. Their arsenal isn’t as massive as the US (or Russia or China), but they can still pack a punch.

How big a punch depends on how good our cyberdefense capabilities are and our overall cyber strategy. The bad news: the current National Cyber Strategy of the Trump admin emphasizes offense over defense. From a security standpoint that’s a bad idea, not least because pre-emptive cyber attacks (just like real world attacks such as, say, the one the Trump admin just pulled om Iran) typically invite retaliation – which means you need sufficient defense of your systems.

Which we may or may not have.

6. So all up, things are looking grim. Whether it results in World War 3 remains to be seen. Personally I think that’s overblown, but as I say, the wild card is that the commander-in-chief is an erratic ignorant egotistical blowhard who sees Muslims in general as the enemy of the US and tends to make snap decisions without thinking about them.

And that’s bad enough without the fact that Trump is (1) surrounded by neocon sycophants who thought Iraq War 2 was a great idea and would like to throw more American military might around, (2) backed by a compliant GOP who will go along with any cockamamie idea he gins up, and (3) championed by the biggest cable TV news network in the country who will do their part in cheerleading the war and labelling whoever second-guesses Trump as a traitor.

So it’s hard to be optimistic when your only hope is that Iran will be the voice of reason, because it’s a fair bet Trump won’t be.

Whee.

Your new favorite quagmire,

This is dF

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So Trump has been impeached by the House, and is fast on his way to acquittal in the Senate, after which Trump will double down, blather on about total exoneration and go on to commit as many high crimes and misdemeanors as he can before granting himself a third term.

Which is of course exactly how we knew this was going to play out. Yes, I know some of that hasn’t happened yet. But we’ve always known that with the Senate controlled by Mitch McConnell, Trump would be acquitted of any impeachment result, regardless of what he did, and his response to the Mueller Report is a good indication of how he’s going to treat his inevitable acquittal.

So, here’s some thoughts in the form of an FAQ:

1. Was there any point to this at all?

Well, we were asking that question back when Trumpeachment looked like a real possibility during the Mueller investigation, because as I say, we knew back then Trump would be acquitted. I wrote about this before, but the short version of the “pro-impeachment” argument was this: You should least do it on principle. And if you can’t remove him, you can at least hurt his re-election chances (and the GOP Congresspeople defending him) by exposing and documenting his high crimes and misdemeanors.

2. Did that work?

It doesn’t look like it. According to FiveThirtyEight, while more people are in favour of impeachment, the needle hasn't moved much in terms of election polls.

That could change, of course. But beyond that, I think Trump will not only survive impeachment, he’ll very likely win a second term.

3. Wait, did you just say Trump could actually be re-elected?

Yes.

4. Despite … [gestures vaguely at everything]

Yep.

Obviously that’s going to depend on what happens over the next few months – who gets the Demo nomination, the magnitude of Trump’s next batch of scandals, the government’s willingness to keep Russia and whoever else from engineering the election, etc.

But the polls show him either leading against various Demo frontrunners in several states or within spitting distance. His approval rating is still in the low 40s. He has an established cult, his own news channel, American Jesus and Russian hackers on his side. And remember that the 2016 polls assured us that Trump wouldn’t win. So did his behaviour. And yet he did. He can damn well do it again.

Also, ethnonationalist autocracy is very much in vogue right now. Boris Johnson is the UK version of Trump – a xenophobic, racist, sexist, pathological liar with bad hair – and he still won. So let’s not pretend it can't happen here. If it couldn’t, Hillary Clinton would be POTUS and Republicans would be impeaching her.

5. Well … hell.

That’s not a question. But yeah.

6. I see the House is stalling on handing over the impeachment articles to the Senate. Can they do that?

As far as I know, yes. I don’t think they can hold off indefinitely, but there’s no rule saying you have to hand them over right away.

7. Okay, in that case, why stall?

The official reason seems to be to force McConnell to promise a fair trial and call witnesses that the House didn’t or couldn’t. John Dean suggested something like this a couple of weeks ago – his idea was to just keep the articles, continue investigating Trump and make the list of impeachment articles even longer. Either way, the idea is to keep the issue alive so that Trump can’t move past it, and if he’s re-elected, then send them. Maybe if the GOP loses the Senate – or at least loses McConnell – Trump could be convicted and removed.

8. Right. Would THAT work?

Doubtful. McConnell doesn’t blink when it comes to these things – as far as he’s concerned, there’s no way this ends without Trump being acquitted. Also, the longer this goes on, says this guy at The Atlantic, the more Trump and the GOP will milk it to the point where it might backfire politically on the Demos.

I’m not sure if I agree with that – it depends on how long the delay goes on, but I don’t think the Demos would lose a lot of support over it. But it won’t get them a fair trial or a better chance at removing Trump, either. So apart from the satisfaction of letting Trump stew for awhile, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.

9. Okay, so if impeachment can’t get rid of an unhinged crook like Trump, is there any point in even having it in the Constitution?

Well, I don't know if it’s worth the effort to take impeachment out of the Constitution, but it’s fair to say it’s a pretty useless provision, at least in an age of hyperpartisan politics. That said, it’s worth remembering only two other POTUSs were impeached in history, and neither of them was convicted by the Senate, so in that sense the Trump case is only unusual in the sense that no one in his party is breaking ranks.

10. If impeachment is useless and we’re going to go along with the notion that sitting presidents can’t be indicted, isn’t that tantamount to admitting the POTUS is above the law and can do whatever he wants?

Pretty much, yes. Which is why I think that if we as a country think that the POTUS should be held accountable under the law, we probably need to rethink how all of this works.

The catch is that it’s trickier than it sounds. The Founding Fathers spent a whole lot of time debating this very issue, because you don’t want to make it too easy to remove a popularly elected leader. There’s a very simple reason for this: if it were easy to kick out a duly elected POTUS, the party out of power would do it every chance they got, even just for spite or revenge or whatever.

There may be a workable way to do it. But I do think we need to have a very serious public discussion about this, because Trump has shown how bad the limitations of impeachment are.

11. Does Trump’s acquittal mean future Presidents will feel free to blackmail foreign leaders into investigating his political opponents and obstructing any investigation into his crimes?

They might. On the other hand, I’m not convinced precedent matters for things like this in the sense that political parties typically tend to operate on the principle that it’s only illegal or immoral when the opposition does it, and that’s even more true today. For example, if (say) President Biden did the exact same things Trump has done, and if the GOP has the votes, they’d impeach him in a heartbeat and argue it's not hypocrisy because Trump was innocent and Biden is guilty so they're two obviously different situations, yadda yadda yadda.

12. About that third term …

Ha ha. No. Maybe in the fantasy world he and the GOP live in where impeachment of Republican presidents is not allowed in the Constitution. But not here.

13. Any other pithy observations?

The House Republican defense during the impeachment vote was stunning in its hyperbole and diversity. Which is a nice way of saying they had no coherent defense of Trump and just threw as much batshit out there as they could.

Someone else already noted how in normal times, the GOP would have its people get up there with a fairly unified set of talking points that basically says, “We’re not convinced that Trump did anything worthy of impeachment, and we think it’s better to let the voters decide in November 2020.”

Instead, It was like the only instruction they got from the party leaders was: “Maximum bombast, be creative, have fun.”

So the defense has been … diverse. The President did nothing wrong, Democratic witch hunt, Democratic coup, Democrats hate Republicans, impeachment is unconstitutional, Biden is the real criminal here, Jesus got more due process, etc. If ever you needed an indication that the GOP is all in on Trump and will defend every scummy thing he does, no matter how ludicrous it sounds, well, this is it.

14. America is doomed, right?

In the short term, probably. I think the system can ultimately withstand whatever damage Team Trump inflicts on it. But the next few years don’t look good.

For one thing, history tells us Trump will come out of this thinking he can do whatever he wants and no one can touch him. If you thought he was an insane despotic man-child before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

What’s worse, he will whip his loyal subjects into a frenzy over this. He’s already branded Democrats and the media traitors and enemies of the country – he’ll dial that up to 12, and take zero responsibility for what his followers do after that. As I’ve said elsewhere, Trump is a temporary problem – the real danger is the 43% of the country who unequivocally support him.

To be clear, this would be the case whether the Demos attempted to impeach Trump or not. So I’m not saying it would have been better to not impeach. I’m saying we got way bigger problems. As John Scalzi has said before (and I agree): Trump is the symptom, not the disease.

Going nowhere,

This is dF

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Tung Chung
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Meanwhile, apart from the District Council election, the other wild-card development in the HK protest saga is Trump signing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA), which means HK could lose its special trading status with the US if Congress decides HK and/or China is coming down too hard on protesters, free speech and liberty in general.

Protesters are thrilled. Beijing is the opposite of that.

Is it a game changer? I’m skeptical. Here’s why:

1. For a start, it’s technically redundant. As this lengthy but worthwhile post from Julian Ku at Lawfare explains, most of the provisions in the HKHRDA already exist in some form or other, such as visa protections for Hong Kong residents, targeted sanctions and the ability of Congress to revoke HK’s “special status” in terms of trade and investment.

The key difference is that the HKHRDA expands the criteria for “special status” re-evaluation and requires Congress to review it once a year. According to Ku, it’s worthwhile for that and the symbolism inherent in telling China that while Congress rarely agrees on anything, it’s so united on this issue that even Trump couldn’t afford to blow it off. Which brings us to:

2. To be honest, I’m surprised Trump signed it, because he clearly didn't want to. I’m pretty sure he would have preferred to use the threat of signing it as a negotiating tool in his trade war with China. I suspect the only reason he did sign is because Congress has the votes to override a veto and Trump didn’t want to give Nervous Nancy, Little Marco and Lyin’ Ted the satisfaction of beating him at something.

I’m 100% positive he didn’t do it because he cares about the people of HK. The clue is in his signing statement – notice who he mentions first, and “out of respect”. That should give you an idea of where his priorities lie.

3. The same goes for the GOP Congresspeople who were fronting the bill – especially McConnell, Rubio, Cruz et al. They’re mainly in it for the anti-China grandstanding. China has been and remains a favorite and easy target for Republicans who still fancy themselves as anti-Commie heroes and like to be seen bashing totalitarian dictatorships. (See also: the GOP’s war on Huawei.)

4. Consequently, any subsequent enforcement of the bill is inherently going to be a political decision.

This matters because Hongkongers see the bill first and foremost as an issue of justice and human rights specific to HK’s situation. For Congress (and again, for Republicans especially), it’s partly that, but it’s mainly a tool for achieving American foreign policy objectives regarding China and elsewhere.

Put simply, as this analysis from Lausan Collective argues, the law exists mainly to further America’s economic and geopolitical interests, which historically have typically been prioritized above human rights. That means enforcement is likely to be selective, circumstantial and ultimately self-serving. The HKHRDA might be good for HK at face value – but it comes at a cost that, on a macro level, could make things worse.

5. Which is why I cringe when local people declare Trump, Rubio, Cruz and McConnell heroes and saviors for standing with HK People™.

Granted, this is because I happen to believe Trump is a racist, sexist, corrupt, mentally unhinged dictator-wannabe, and the GOP is a mass of spineless sycophants enabling and encouraging him.

All that aside, I don’t believe Rubio, Cruz and McConnell really care about HK people except as some abstract representation of the general fight for freedom from Beijing oppression that they can use in a speech. Trump cares more about winning his trade war with China, and generally sees HK as an inconvenient but possibly useful negotiating tool.

In fact, I’m not convinced he even understands what’s going on in HK. This is after all the same guy who reckoned Xi could sort the whole thing out in one “personal meeting” with the protesters (who infamously have no leaders to speak of), and also recently said the only reason Xi hasn’t sent in the tanks yet is because he, Donald J Trump, personally told him not to, yr welcome.

6. So all up, I think the protesters celebrating the HKHRDA should be prepared for disappointment – at least if they’re depending solely on the US to be their champion to the point of producing results.

7. That said, some HK protest groups seem to understand this – which is why they’re now hoping to get other countries like Canada, Germany, Australia and the UK to pass similar measures on the reasonable grounds that neither Carrie Lam nor Beijing is likely to give in to pressure from the US alone, but if enough countries join in, they will be forced to rethink their approach.

(If nothing else, getting the UK to pass its own HKHRDA will put pressure on Lam and other govt leaders who have British passports that they might be banking on as escape hatches in case China finally brings the hammer down on HK.)

This makes sense as far as it goes, because I really don’t believe the HKHRDA on its own will move the needle much in terms of how Lam handles the protests from this point on. Piling on the pressure from other countries might – and if nothing else, other such laws might actually have some teeth to them.

In any case, it’s going to take time for Lam and/or Beijing to feel the heat. Until then, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Just another bill,

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Or, "I wasn’t going to post anything about the election until I saw a Marianne Williamson debate clip set to the Twin Peaks soundtrack”.

I know nobody wants political content on this account but it's 2:30am and I am awake and putting Marianne Williamson's speech to Twin Peaks music pic.twitter.com/fSjP5wzrnR
— I will meet you on that field. (@BoxrecGrey) June 28, 2019

And so here we are.

I haven’t posted anything about Election 2020 for three reasons: (1) the life of a freelancer is a lot busier than I thought, (2) it’s only July and there’s like 30 candidates running, so I don’t have much to say until the field thins out a bit, and (3) honestly I already know who I’m voting for in the general election, and it ain’t Trump or anything even remotely Republican.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I’m not especially enamored with Democrats, but since the GOP has absolutely nothing to offer me right now except light fascism, white identity shenanigans, guns for everyone, BFF dictators and concentration camps for brown kids, the Demos pretty much get my vote by default right now. Frankly, I’m prepared to vote for Williamson at this point. Or even Joe Biden.

But now that we’ve survived the first round of Demo debates, I figure I might as well get this out of the way.

Who do I want to win the Demo nomination?

It’s still too early for me to settle on just one, but right now I’m most impressed with (in no particular order):

Elizabeth Warren: she’s whip-smart and has a plan for everything. Her only weaknesses for me are (1) I’m not convinced that her plan to break up Big Tech is the right solution for that particular problem, and (2) her age, which I only object to in that her political views have been shaped by the Vietnam era, which I’d just as soon we move on from.

Kamala Harris: also whip-smart, doesn’t have a plan for everything, but seems like she would be good at finding people who do.

Pete Buttigieg: Calm and rational never looked more appealing. Also, there’s a lot of novelty value (not being gay so much as being gay and a Christian who for once seems more interested in what Jesus actually taught rather than wrapping the Bible in an American flag – he’s also a war vet, which used to be a minimum requirement for a POTUS candidate, though of course it’s not today).

That’s kind of it. Regarding the only other “serious” candidates:

Cory Booker: I don’t really have enough of a handle on him to make an informed decision yet.

Beto O’Rourke: His best qualification is frightening Ted Cruz. Which is braggable. Still, he’s just not making much of an impression on me right now.

Bernie Sanders: Nope. Too old, politically speaking. Okay, so is Warren, but she talks a better game and her plans (mostly) seem a lot more convincing.

Handsome Joe Biden: Also too old, and he seems to be banking on two key points: (1) he’s not Trump, and (2) see Point 1. Which wouldn’t be a problem except that he seems jolly convinced that once you remove Trump from the picture, everything will be back to normal in terms of bipartisan relations where Congress could roll up its sleeves and get things done and have a cordial beer at the end of the day despite political differences.

Which I don’t think has been true since 1994, or at least since 2001. Put simply, Trump isn’t the cause of the GOP swinging far-right, he’s the consequence, albeit perhaps an unintended one. In any case, how Biden could blather on about bipartisanship and civility after serving with Obama for two terms – and with Mitch McConnell still running the Senate – is beyond me. It strongly suggests he wasn't paying attention. If I wanted that qualification in a POTUS … well, I’d have it right now, wouldn’t I?

“My time is up,” indeed.

As for the rest of the field, I’m pretty sure they’re all in it for a Veep slot, a cabinet post or a book deal, so unless one of them breaks out (and right now, Julian Castro seems the most likely candidate to do so), I’m going to consider them also-rans for the time being.

Although again, I would vote for any of them over Trump. It will be the fastest vote ever – I’ll just take enough time to make sure I know where the Demo boxes are and tick them all. Boom, done.

Who do I think will win the Demo nomination?

Man, who knows? It’s freaking June. Ask

bedsitter23 , he has a far better handle on this than I do.

I will say that I don’t see Biden hanging onto his lead. He’s getting by mainly on name recognition, statesmanship, having Obama on his resumé and appealing to the Establishment, but with the Demo base pulling more to the left, he’ll need to do more than that. I expect his campaign will eventually do a Jeb! and he’ll fade into the background. I also think that Harris and/or Warren are more likely to capitalize on that than Sanders. As for Buttigieg, I like calm and rational, but it seems most Demos aren't really in the mood for calm these days. And who could blame them?

Whoever wins the Demo nomination, will they beat Trump?

They might, but I would not count on it. Electoral college and Russia jokes aside, Trump was never supposed to win in 2016. We all know how that went, which means we also know that the usual things that would sink any traditional candidacy do not apply to Trump. The GOP is in full lockstep behind him, as is Fox News, and Trump has had 2.5 years to insulate himself with his “Fake News/Enemy of the People” schtick. Also, the economy is technically doing well. Whoever goes up against him either has to break enough people out of that alt-reality echo chamber or hope that Trump’s poll numbers are as factual as the average Trump rally speech.

Again, it’s way too early to tell. But at this stage a resounding Trump defeat only looks obvious to liberals who already hate him and people like me who know demagoguery and a gibbering idiot when we see it. He did it once. He could do it again.

Register to vote,

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So now the Mueller report is publicly available (redacted, of course) and the hot take now is:

Mueller was indeed looking very narrowly at the Russian conspiracy part, but leaves no doubt that Russians were meddling in the election to help Trump, and Trump campaign officials were keen to get some help from them.
The reasons Mueller punted on obstruction were (1) he was working under the legal notion that a sitting president can’t be indicted, and he didn’t want to put that to the test, and (2) most of Trump’s attempts at obstruction were thwarted by his own people.
While Mueller didn’t think criminal indictments were feasible, he definitely hinted that impeachment was an option based on his findings.
The media, for the most part, got the story more or less right in terms of what happened.
William Barr's 4-page summary and pre-release press conference is so at odds with the content of the report that it's difficult not to conclude he was hoping to spin perception of the report in favor of Trump.
The report is a damning indictment of Barack Obama because he knew the Russians were interfering in the election and didn’t lift a finger to stop them. (Okay, the Mueller doesn’t say anything remotely close to that – that’s coming exclusively from conservative pundits because well OBVIOUSLY.)

Anyway, there’s a lot to unpack (this Lawfare blog post is very long but worth reading for a good initial analysis), but the report’s public release brings us to the next question: do Demos impeach him or not?

The current debate (such as it is) goes something like this:

FUCK YES
Well hold on, there’s an election on, see, and …

To expand on these:

1. Impeach: It’s not just about the Mueller report (which would be enough), it’s the totality of Trump’s entire presidency, from using it to enrich his business and installing his family into key posts without security clearance to his racist immigration policies, and general denigration of the dignity of the office. He had help from Russia (whether he actively colluded or not) to get elected. He is in every way unfit for the job. The process of impeachment was created for this very situation. If we don’t even try, we’re basically giving him a free pass and telling every POTUS to follow that they can abuse the office as much as they want without consequences, and democracy will be further undermined. We can’t let politics keep us from our constitutional duty.

2. Don’t impeach: Well, yes we can, because impeachment by design is a political procedure, not a legal one, so it’s reasonable to consider the political implications. On that note, there’s no point to impeachment because we know Trump will be acquitted, which means the ONLY way we’re getting rid of this clown is to beat him in 2020, and we can’t afford to blow it, not least by giving him tons of political witch-hunt ammo at a time when current polls suggest the majority of voters are NOT in favor of impeaching Trump. So, if defeating him in 2020 is the only way to kick him out of office, let’s focus on that.

So for me, since I assume both sides of this agree that they want Trump to lose his re-election bid, the two key questions to ask are (1) will a full-on impeachment bid (which we already know will fail) backfire spectacularly and ensure a second Trump term? And (2) is it worth putting principles and ‘constitutional duty’ first in the name of protecting American democracy if there’s a real risk that it could strengthen Trump’s push towards authoritarianism?

This of course raises the question of how big a political risk impeachment is. It’s possible as the trial goes on – and as more evidence of shenanigans comes to light – public opinion will shift in favor of it, and even if it doesn’t, the continual focus on Trump’s behaviour could at least hurt his re-election prospects. Some are already pointing to the apparent fact that the Mueller report indicates that either Russia has compromising sex tapes of Trump, or Trump thinks they do, which raises blackmail concerns. (I remember a lot of people justifying Clinton’s impeachment by saying his sexual proclivities could make the POTUS vulnerable to foreign blackmail – surely the same people would apply the same standard to Trump hahahahaha no, I know.) Maybe that could be an angle?

If nothing else, the redacted Mueller report did manage to knock Trump’s approval ratings down to 37% (from around 40%).

On the other hand, Trump could bounce back from that – certainly by now the Trump/GOP/Fox News machine is so perfectly aligned (and inoculated by the Fake News Enemy Of The People meme) that they’ll be able to maintain the Hoax Witch Hunt Total Exoneration meme with the base and maybe build his ratings back up to the low 40s. I know that sounds impossible, but then it seemed impossible in 2016 that Trump could ever win as scandal after scandal piled up.

So I think the Impeach Now camp is kidding itself if it thinks it thinks even an unsuccessful impeachment trial will increase his chance of losing in 2020.

But don’t get me wrong – I’m sympathetic to them, because I gather that they're also motivated by the fact that they absolutely cannot stand the idea of Trump getting away with this. Which he’s likely to do – whether he leaves office on 2020 or 2024, Trump will likely never spend a day in jail for what he’s done, and at least 40% of the country will swear blind until the end of time that he was a great president persecuted by the Evil Liberal Fake News Cabal run by the Barack Obama Deep State.

I hate that too. But let's be honest – impeaching Trump won’t fix that, and it won’t be a deterrent for the next Trump or Nixon or whoever. That’s because – like it or not – if the American democratic system is exploited by a crooked POTUS, the only remedies are the ballot box or impeachment (or the 25th Amendment, but that’s only for specific cases). And any effort to change that (especially if it involves constitutional tweaking) is likely to either fail or inadvertently make things worse.

Remember that there’s a reason it’s hard to unseat a POTUS – at its heart, impeachment is the political act of undoing the results of a democratic election. Yes, in this case we’re talking about a POTUS who not only lost the pop vote, but also benefited from outside interference from Russia. But the former is technically legit, and the latter has no legal recourse in terms of do-overs. If we do try to reform the system, it requires both sides to agree to the changes. And that’s a tall order in 2019 America.

So to come back to the question of impeachment: should the Demo-controlled House impeach Trump on the principle of constitutional duty?

My personal opinion: sure, go ahead, just don’t be stupid about it. Have a strategy that takes into consideration the political consequences – don’t pretend they don’t exist or don’t matter. Be mindful also that Trump will be acquitted – and set yr expectations and goals accordingly. The mission is not to kick Trump out of office early – it’s to defeat him in 2020.

If you can run an impeachment trial that helps accomplish that goal, great. If not, I’d rather you didn’t, because at this stage I’m not convinced that standing on principle is worth the tradeoff of four more years of Trumpapalooza.

The teaches of impeaches,

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I’ve been too busy to blog about the Mueller report, which is probably just as well since it’s one of those potboilers that is going to be unfolding for quite awhile.

And I’m not sure what I could add, but I’ll give it a shot.

1. It’s hard to comment more on the report until we see it – which it seems every Republican in America does not want to happen. Which should tell you something about their “total exoneration” nonsense. It’s safe to assume there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s damaging to Trump, even if he can’t be actually prosecuted for any of it.

2. And in fact, we don’t really know that he can’t be, at least as far as the Obstruction of Justice part. Mueller left it open, possibly because he’d decided he went as far as he could go with it and wanted to make sure the work continued – perhaps with Congress.

3. Predictable MAGA hysteria notwithstanding, there’s now a lot of hand-wringing, soul-searching and fingerpointing about how the media got the Trump-Russia story wrong. Or did they?

Matt Taibbi certainly thinks so. Timothy L. O’Brien of Bloomberg thinks Matt is kinda nuts.

As usual, I’m somewhere in the middle. I think Taibbi is cherrypicking radical examples (Maddow, MSNBC in general, Daily Beast, Jonathan Chait’s New Yorker story, etc) to paint the entire media with the same brush, but I do agree with his overall concern – that the media had to be really careful how they treated the Mueller investigation, especially at a time when Trump is actively stoking up anti-media fervor and labelling all critical stories of him as one-sided Fake News. And in the end, many of them gave in to their sensationalist tendencies that turned out to play right into his hands.

On the other hand, the build-up of the Mueller case was as much the product of people on Twitter and social media who passed around otherwise sober stories as though they were smoking guns. Liberals and other anti-Trumpers were reading more into what was there, conflated allegations with proof, and were banking on Mueller to nail the bastard, put him in jail and save the country, even though anyone who paid the slightest attention knew that Mueller was never going to do that. His job wasn’t to arrest Trump (which he probably can’t do anyway) – it was to look into specific allegations and report his findings to the AG, who would then decide what to do with them. And even if the AG wasn’t a pro-Trump appointee, the most he/she would likely do is hand over to Congress for impeachment proceedings – which, as I mentioned earlier, isn’t going to happen.

So I think media coverage was only part of the problem.

Also, I don’t agree with Taibbi’s claim that RussiaGate was a myth that the media clung to because it was the perfect explanation for why they totally failed to see Trump’s election victory coming. It may well be the case that Trump didn’t actively conspire with Russia to win the election, but it’s already well established that (1) Russian hackers did in fact attempt to influence the outcome of the election, (2) they succeeded, and (3) there was some sort of oddball connection between Trump and Russia that Trump and his associates did not want revealed to the point that they were willing to lie to the FBI and Congress about it. Indeed, five Trump associates are now in jail precisely for doing that, and a sixth one has been arrested. You can thank Mueller for all of those, as well as the 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer who have also been indicted.

Some myth.

I take Taibbi’s point that the media is supposed to respect the “innocent until proven guilty” tenet of due process, and it’s true that the media’s sensationalist tendencies tend to blur those lines, especially with TV news. But let’s not pretend there was no basis for the Trump-Russia stories, or that the Mueller report proves the entire mass media industry got it wrong.

4. Meanwhile, as you might imagine, I am not at all impressed with Team MAGA’s “Total Exoneration b/w Democrats and Fake News Media Colluded to Destroy Trump” line, complete with the authoritarian schtick of naming names, accusations of treason and making “recommendations” that TV producers think twice about booking anyone on their list.

But then I’m not the target consumer – the MAGA base is. They’ll be screaming the “baseless witch hunt” conspiracy between now and the next election, and every effort by Demos to investigate further (and the media’s coverage of it) will be presented as evidence of that – and their base will devour every word.

Taibbi argues that’s why Demos and the media really need to move on from Mueller (at least until the report is released) if they want to maintain credibility – why hand them ammo if you don’t have to? That might be true, but it’s also true that Team MAGA manufactures its own ammo, so they’d be screaming “baseless witch hunt” even if Mueller had produced smoking guns.

5. Meanwhile, there is of course also the matter of all those other federal and state investigations into a wide range of shenanigans allegedly committed by Trump and/or his minions, as well as the question of whether Trump colluded with Russia in a different way (i.e. by giving them sanctions relief for the express purpose of enriching himself even though he knew at the time Russia was attempting to hack the election).

Those should continue to be investigated and reported, of course, but as far as impeaching Trump or convincing the GOP to abandon him, you can pretty much forget it. The witch-hunt narrative is pretty much set in stone, and the GOP is all-in with Trump at this stage. In terms of election strategy, it’s probably time to stop using scandals as a weapon – Trump has essentially immunized himself from that (and it certainly didn’t stop him from getting elected in the first place).

Going nowhere,

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"Emergency! intro" (Watch on YouTube)

Trump has declared his national emergency over the wall (or lack thereof), and I only just now have found some time to blog it, but luckily this may be the easiest blog post ever, so it won’t take much of your time.

1. There of course is no emergency except for the one that exists in Trump’s empty little head. And there are no reliable facts or statistics to back that up except for the super-secret ones Trump makes up in that same head. Which says a lot, because he could only get away with this in a time where people have conned themselves into believing that any fact that contradicts their worldview or their POTUS is fake news.

2. Obviously this raises some issues over the ability of a POTUS to use otherwise legal national-emergency powers to circumvent Congress when it doesn’t give him what he wants. That said, I am generally not impressed with the modicum of Republican handwringing over this. We’ve seen this before – Trump does/says something radical/insane, some Republicans say, “Well, I don’t really agree …” then they eventually back him.

Some people have tried the “Look, if you allow this, the next Democratic POTUS will have the same powers and the precedent to use them for, say, banning assault rifles, and it’ll be all yr fault” argument. Unfortunately, we tried that back when when Bush Jr was President – he started wars all over the Middle East after 9/11 and gave himself wartime powers to curtail liberties, set up torture camps , etc to “fight” terrorism, and Demos made the same argument – “You realize if Hillary becomes President, she’ll have all these powers too, right?” Repubs didn't care then, and when Obama became POTUS they just complained about Presidential overreach as if it was never a problem until Obama took office.

The message is clear: only presidents in the Opposition Party have too much power. Presidents from your own party never ever do, even when they have the exact same powers. And they will never see the dissonance between these statements no matter how much time you take to explain it to them.

3. I don’t know what the outcome of the lawsuits will be, but I will say I don’t think it matters from a political POV because, as some have already pointed out, Trump – ironically – doesn't really want a wall that badly. He wants to be seen by his base demanding that wall and scrapping with libtards to get it so he can get cheap pops at his ego rallies. It doesn't matter if the courts rule against him, because he can simply blame the libtards, the activist judges and the fake news media. And his base will accept that.

Over the wall,

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Following the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford (which I didn’t watch, no) and the subsequent reactions, I do have a few things to add.

1. I believe her.

2. I’m not sure it matters, because the (male) GOP senators have made perfectly clear that they don’t care whether she’s telling the truth or not.

If they care about anything, it’s the terrifying prospect that their entire careers could be ended by any woman who decides to accuse them of sexual misconduct no matter how long ago it may have happened. And I’m sure the rise of #MeToo and #WhyIDidntReport has made them all too aware of the fact that women are more likely to be believed these days if they do step forward – which is a change from the good old days when you could just slut-shame them into silence and men could get on with their productive lives.

Kavanaugh’s statement pretty much encapsulates all of that. He’s not just proclaiming his innocence (which would be understandable and natural, whether it’s true or not). He’s trying to rally all men everywhere to his defense with the dire warning that if we let Blasey Ford get away with this, none of us are safe. We will all become unemployable at the mere hint of an allegation. And it will be all the fault of Democrats.

3. So, to summarize Points 1 and 2, the basic message the GOP is pushing here is: (1) we don't care what Kavanaugh did in his past or who got hurt, we want him on the SCOTUS bench and that’s all we care about, (2) a man’s career is far, far more important than the trauma of any woman he has sexually victimized, and (3) if we believe Dr Blasey Ford, we have to believe all women who make such allegations, and we all know where that leads – all men will be unemployed or in prison, and you can thank the f***ing femi-Nazi Democrats for that.

All of which is hard to take seriously, given that the GOP is perfectly credulous when it comes to allegations of sexual assault/harassment against people like, say, Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner and Al Franken. And honestly, the notion that all of this is a plot by Democrats to keep Kavanaugh off the bench doesn’t hold up when you remember that the number of women materializing out of nowhere to accuse Neil Gorsuch of sexual assault/harassment is [checks notes] zero.

4. The other GOP message here is, of course, “boys will be boys”. And it’s a message that at least some teenage girls are hearing loud and clear.

5. Trump has (finally) instructed the FBI to investigate, which is perhaps telling, given how Trump generally seems to think the job of the FBI is to put his personal enemies in jail. Maybe he’s hoping they’ll put Dr Blasey Ford in jail for lying to Congress? Or they’ll find out Hillary Clinton put her up to all this and put HER in jail? Or maybe he wants to know what boofing is so he can know if he’s done that yet? I don’t know.

6. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that no matter what the FBI finds, Kavanaugh is going to be confirmed, simply because that’s just how the current GOP leadership works. As long as you’re onboard with their ideology, they don't care if yr a gibbering idiot, a pathological liar who pals around with ruthless dictators, or a serial philanderer who pays his mistresses hush money and brags about being rich enough to get away with pussy-grabbing at will – so long as you get results.

I dunno. It’s hard to imagine the GOP dropping Kavanaugh now, and I’m not convinced holdouts like Flake, Murkowski and Collins will vote against him when push comes to shove. At this stage, I’m afraid the only way Kavanaugh isn’t getting confirmed is if he decides it’s not worth it and withdraws.

I’ll be more than happy to be proven wrong. But, you know, given how this admin has a history of hiring the most unqualified people possible to fill job positions, I’m not optimistic.

Getting away with it,

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I started writing this post back when Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and the big concern then was (1) Trump forced him to retire because Kennedy’s son is tied to Russia somehow (which might be true but there's no hard evidence of this) and (2) Trump’s nominated replacement, Brett Kavanaugh, is a radical Trump conservative whose sole qualification for Republicans is his ability to overturn Roe v Wade and affirm the legal power of Trump to pardon himself for whatever crimes Robert Mueller eventually charges him with.

Obviously the concerns have piled on since then, thanks to Dr Christine Blasey Ford informing us what young teenage Brett used to get up to.

So, okay, a few things:

1. Roe v Wade: personally I think Kavanaugh’s political opinions may not necessarily be an indicator of how he would rule, if only because (1) it depends on the specific case brought before SCOTUS and the legal decisions that brought it to them, etc and so on, because that’s what they tend to rule on, and (2) my experience with the Supremes has been that they don’t always vote along predictable party lines (Kennedy being a case in point – he’s a staunch conservative who legalized gay marriage nationwide). So I don’t know that Kavanaugh’s confirmation would automatically spell the end of Roe v Wade. But obviously I can’t rule it out either.

2. Self pardons: Trump has been declaring loudly that he can totally pardon himself, and that sitting POTUSes can’t be indicted anyway. The thing is, he might technically be right. We don't really know for sure because it’s never really been tested. This Snopes article has a good breakdown of the legal arguments, but the upshot is that the Constitution grants the POTUS virtually unlimited power to pardon people, and there’s nothing in there that says he CAN’T pardon himself, with the exception of impeachment charges, which the Founding Fathers™ ultimately decided was the best remedy for a corrupt, criminal president. There may be a case of applying common law (i.e. you can’t be the judge at yr own trial), but there’s no guarantee any judge will rule that way, whether it’s Kavanaugh, Kennedy or anyone else on the bench.

3. Boys will be boys: All I can really say about Dr Ford’s allegations for now is that it’s helped shine a spotlight (again) on the fact that many Republican men are really, really, REALLY bad at talking about rape and sexual assault/harassment – which is especially egregious in the wake of #MeToo, which evidently convinced Republicans that the proper response to rape/sexual assault/harassment allegations is to double down on insisting it must be the victim’s fault somehow, or boys will be boys, or the perp has suffered enough and we don't want to ruin his entire life over one transgression, and we’re sure he’s sorry about it and it won't happen again – all of which basically add up to the message that the feelings of the accused man always matter more than the feelings of his female victim. (Unless the accused man is Al Franken or Anthony Weiner, in which case by all means, ruin his life and make an example of him.)

So yeah, obviously my sympathies lie more with Dr Ford at this moment, and the conservatives defending Kavanaugh have pretty much zero credibility with me.

4. The Return Of Anita Hill: We’ve sort of been here before with Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, which some fear will be a precedent for both how Dr Ford will be treated by the Senate Judiciary and Kavanaugh’s eventual confirmation despite her allegations.

On the bright side, according to this article, two key differences are (1) there were no women on the Senate Judiciary committee in 1991, but there are several today, and (2) #MeToo has changed the conversation we usually have about these kinds of things (except for Republican men, of course).

On the other hand, a number of Republican women have stepped up to defend Kavanaugh (not counting those 65 high-school “friends”), and one even said that even if Ford isn’t lying, so what?:

… we’re talking about a 17-year-old boy in high school with testosterone running high. Tell me, what boy hasn’t done this in high school?” Gina Sosa asked.

Well, sure. Every teenage boy goes through that period where he corners a girl at a party, turns up the music so no one can hear her protest and then covering up her mouth as he tries to force her to have sex with him. Everyone knows that.

So yeah, there’s a good chance that Christine Ford is going to be the new Anita Hill in the sense that the Senators are going to do their damnedest to badger, humiliate and discredit her, and the result is likely to be that Kavanaugh gets to be the new Clarence Thomas – because it does seem as though the current stance of the GOP is: “You know what? We honestly couldn’t care less if Kavanaugh rapes every woman he meets, films them all and posts them on YouTube so long as we get a guy on the SCOTUS bench who will rule in our favor.”

I might be wrong about Kavanaugh’s chances, but to be honest I think the only way he’s not getting this job at this stage is if he drops out voluntarily.

5. For the record, even before Christine Ford came into play, I personally didn’t think Kavanaugh should be confirmed – at least not with 100,000 pages of his judicial records being withheld. The fact that they are being withheld – and by Trump’s insistence – is in itself suspicious.

Redacted,

This is dF

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ITEM: D.Trump has issued a ~~decree~~ executive order putting an end to the policy of separating child immigrants from their families at the border – this being the policy that he and his staff have simultaneously said was (1) not his policy, (2) totally legal, (3) entirely the fault of Democrats, (4) Biblically justified, (5) intended as a deterrent to illegal immigrants, (6) upholding the law of the land, (6) something that only an act of Congress could stop and (7) non-existent.

(NOTE: To be clear, the policy wasn’t specifically to separate families. The policy was to arrest everyone and try the adults as criminals – which resulted in families being separated. And ~~baby jails~~ tender age shelters.)

As you may know, the good news is ICE won’t be separating families anymore. The bad news: kids will still be put in jail (albeit together with their parents), and most of the kids who have already been separated are probably going to stay that way for awhile, because nothing in the EO provides for it.

This Vox explainer and this article from New Republic covers the basics of what the EO does and doesn’t do. A few extra comments from me for bloggery purposes:

1. It’s important to understand that that what Trump actually wants is the ability to arrest every single illegal immigrant (regardless of age), prosecute them as criminals and keep them jail together for as long as it takes to process and deport them. The Flores Settlement apparently prevents that, and Trump wants to get rid of Flores so that he can detain immigrants indefinitely. In fact, as I understand it, the EO is essentially designed to ensure a court case to challenge Flores, provided Congress doesn’t overrule it first.

So the EO isn’t really about reuniting families or ending a barbaric practice – it’s about giving the Trump admin legal powers of indefinite detention for illegal immigrants.

2. That’s important to remember because let's never forget that the Trump admin does not care one bit about kids being ripped from their families, and doesn't see that as a bad or immoral thing in itself.

I feel confident in saying this because they were perfectly fine with it until it turned out to be a political liability that even Fox News couldn’t mitigate. And since this admin typically doubles down on unpopular statements and decisions (not least because Trump’s MAGA base loves his hardline – womp womp), I’m assuming they’re only changing gears now because (1) Trump wants to force the aforementioned legal battle, and (2) they realized quickly it was too expensive and troublesome to build tent cities or find places to put all those kids. Put simply, for TrumpCo, this is not about doing the right thing – it's about the cold logistical fact it's cheaper and easier to keep families together.

3. Which is another thing – apart from the policy being morally vile, it was also badly planned and incompetently executed. Apparently it never occurred to anyone in TrumpCo to work out the logistics of arresting literally every illegal they caught, the caseload involved, and just where they would keep these people in the interim. It seems pretty obvious no one in charge of this bothered to think beyond “arrest ‘em and deport ‘em”.

4. In any case, the EO does not excuse in any way what TrumpCo has done to these families so far, why they’re doing it, and how they’ve sold it to the MAGA base. They still own that, and they will continue to do so long after these families are reunited (if they ever are – and it doesn’t look so good right now).

5. As for Melania Trump’s jacket … I think the only reason to pay any attention to it at all is to point out that it was intended as a sideshow distraction. Because let’s stop to think for a moment of just who in the POTUS/FLOTUS ecosystem thought that jacket was a good idea, and why.

I mean, seriously – yr sending FLOTUS to the Texas border to visit the separated families that the left are making so much noise about. And she has this jacket that she is going to be seen wearing in plain sight in the midst of all that fury. It’s inconceivable to me that it never occurred to anyone involved that the jacket might be controversial or send an unintended message.

Which is why I’m assuming that was the entire point.

I do wonder just where Melania fits into this – did it ever occur to her wearing that jacket at this time would be a bad idea? What did she think people would say about it? What did she want them to think? Did Trump make her wear it? Did she wear it to gaslight Donald?

I don’t know. And the answers aren't important right now in the context of the bigger issue at hand. But I don’t believe for a second it was an unfortunate coincidence. And I don’t believe for a second it’s a comment on “fake news”.

We care a lot,

This is dF

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We need to talk about DJ Trump and Jeff Bo Sessions and their zero tolerance immigration policy.

Because, damn.

1. The first thing to understand is that the legal situation and the process involved – and US immigration policy in general – is a lot more complicated than a lot of media reports make out. I recommend this Vox explainer and this NYT article for a reasonably detailed rundown of the nature and the history of the current policy.

The upshot: (1) This is an extension of a problem that’s been ongoing since at least the Bush II admin, (2) while there isn’t literally a policy instructing ICE to separate families at the border, there is a policy that treats all immigrants without papers as criminals, which is resulting in having their kids taken away (because you can’t keep yr kids with you in federal jail), and (3) the US govt isn’t set up to handle the logistics issues that this policy creates, which is a reason why they’re now looking at ~~concentration camps~~ tent cities. (More on that last point here.)

2. History aside, obviously it’s a monstrous policy for a couple of reasons: (1) obviously it's traumatic for the families, especially the children, and (2) it shows a distinct lack of empathy and humanity on the part of the Trump admin. They’re treating these people as (at best) statistics on a chart and (at worst) subhuman criminals who might as well be honorary members of MS-13 or whatever. It’s the kind of policy you'd expect from a guy who has been spewing rhetoric for the last few years about immigrants being terrorists, rapists, drug lords and animals.

3. Even if it’s just rhetoric to Trump, it’s practically gospel to his fan base who defend his policy as a law and order issue only – literally, if you happen to be Jeff Sessions, who can’t seem to keep a grin off his face when he talks about the admin’s current immigration crackdown. All I have to say about his Romans 13:1 crack has already been covered by Stephen Colbert. (Also, as others have pointed out, Romans 13:1 is irrelevant in a country that’s supposed to separate church and state.)

The whole law and order thing, for me, is mostly people trying to win an argument on a technicality – the law is the law, and if you don’t want to suffer the consequences, don’t break the law, what could be simpler? As if the “consequences” are justified no matter how extreme. All that says to me is these people see having yr kids taken away from you as just punishment for having the gall to take a shortcut in seeking a better life in the USA – and they’ve given no thought to what this actually involves doing to other human beings.

(I’ll add too that many people who deploy the “law and order” argument are also using it mainly because they do see immigrants as terrorists, rapists, drug lords and animals.)

4. For people whose fallback position is, “Look, like it or not, illegal immigration is a real problem and we need to fix how we deal with it," my response is this:

Yes, illegal immigration is a real problem (though not to the extremes that Trump Co claim), and the US needs to reform its policy to deal with it. The Big Question is how you deal with that problem, and the lengths (or in this case, depths) yr willing to go to “fix” it.

As it stands, our “fix” seems to require a certain amount of cruelty (see here, here and here) to carry out. And that means the people who carry it out – or support it – have to be okay with that level of cruelty. Whether cruelty is the intention or simply a consequence of zero-tolerance – or, even more cynically, an unfortunate but necessary political bargaining chip – it means these people think it’s okay to do this to illegal immigrants and their children. Trump can go on all he likes about having no choice because the law won’t let him keep families together – the prospect of separating them didn’t stop him from okaying the policy that is resulting in cruelty.

5. Also, regarding Trump’s claim that this is all the Democrats’ fault – that’s horseshit. What he’s saying is, “I wouldn’t have to do this if you’d give me an immigration reform bill that overturns the Flores Settlement, makes it harder to apply for asylum, allows indefinite detention and gives me my Wall™ money.”

Which is basically the same mentality as the average movie bad guy who takes people hostage and tells the hero, “Give me what I want and no one has to die – and if they do, it’s yr fault, not mine.”

It’s even more incredulous given that (1) the Democrats don’t control any branch of the govt, and (2) the current MO of the GOP is to slap together bills with no Demo input at all and force a vote (preferably in the middle of the night). And in any case, it’s insane to force Demos to vote for a bill they otherwise wouldn’t support simply to end Trump’s own cruel practice (which, by the way, it wouldn’t).

So, yeah – the situation is more complex than it looks, but regardless, Trump’s zero-tolerance policy is cruel political theater rooted in xenophobia and enabled by populist fear and racism that relies on denigrating the victims to sub-human status to justify it. It’s not just about the policy itself – it’s about the fact that too many people (from the Trump admin to its fan base and most if not all of the GOP) either don’t care about the consequences of that policy on real humans, or think that’s a small price to pay to achieve the fulfillment of their political ideology.

Theatre of cruelty,

This is dF

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And while I was typing the last post, Samantha Bee is in trouble for calling Ivanka Trump the c-word. And naturally conservatives want TBS to fire her and cancel her show – allegedly in the name of fairness since Rosanne Barr was sacked by ABC for doing the same thing.

Also bloggable!

1. It’s not the same thing at all. Barr’s tweet was not only offensive, but also racist, which is bad enough on its own terms, and worse in the context of the times – racism is ascending in power with the aim of disenfranchising everyone who isn’t a white Christian male. Bee’s rant wasn’t racist or sexist, and didn’t contribute to Ivanka’s (or anyone’s) disenfranchisement in any way. It was just rude and offensive.

2. Assuming Bee keeps her job, it’s only a double standard if the “standard” being applied is civility and decorum. Which it’s not – we know this because (1) their favorite POTUS insults their political enemies almost daily and they love it, and (2) my Facebook/Twitter feeds are full of conservative memes about Obama being an ape, Michelle Obama being a man (and an ape), Chelsea Clinton being ugly, Rosie O’Donnell being fat, and libtards being stupid, little easily-offended snowflakes who can't take a joke.

So all this conservative handwringing about Samantha Bee is so much schadenfreude to me. They don't care about Bee’s use of the c-word – they only care who she said it about. If Bee had said it about Hillary Clinton, she’d be getting a White House invite by now.

(To be fair, too, I think a lot of liberals don’t really care about double standards either – I know plenty who loved what Bee said and think she has nothing to apologize for. Same old story – it’s truthful when I say it about yr side, and an offensive smear when you say it about my side, blah blah blah.)

4. All that aside, should Bee have said it? Probably not – partly because political discourse is toxic enough as it is, but mainly because it provided the perfect excuse for everyone to ignore the overall point Bee was trying to make regarding the insensitive obliviousness of Ivanka Trump posting a sweet photo of herself and her child when ICE is busy forcibly separating immigrant kids from their parents. Bee herself has said as much.
https://www.themarysue.com/samantha-bee-ivanka-trump-sorry-not-sorry/

5. Some sponsors are boycotting Full Frontal as a result – and, you know, fair is fair.

6. I’ve seen people claim that Trump demanding that TBS fire Bee is a clear First Amendment violation because it’s the government ordering a show off the air – which is something the 1A explicitly forbids.

Personally, I don’t agree with that evaluation (yet) because Trump doesn’t have any actual power to force TBS to cancel the show. It would only be a 1A violation if he actually succeeded in enforcing his demand with government power. For example, if he directly targets TBS with blackmail or an executive order, or has Bee or TBS’ head of programming arrested, then yes, that would be an egregious 1A violation.

If he uses the White House as a bully pulpit to actively encourage advertisers to boycott the show – or to encourage his fan base to boycott the advertisers – that’s a grey area, but I don’t know if it would pass muster in a constitutional court case.

Anyway, until any of that happens, it’s just more of Trump’s usual autocratic bluster.

To Bee or not to Bee,

This is dF

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The internet is aflame over Trump’s latest race-baiting immigrant comment – namely that he called immigrants “animals”.

Or did he?

Which is the main takeaway of this Vox explainer about the whole thing, which is worth reading, because it makes a few very important points regarding the state of political discourse in the Trump era:

1. Context matters
2. People are basically talking past each other to make political points
3. Trump is a babbling idiot who doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time.

Okay, the article doesn’t say that last one explicitly – but it does make the point that a major problem with divining what Trump supposedly intended to say vs what we all heard him say is that he has a tendency to veer off on tangents that perhaps only make sense in his own head.

Have you ever had a conversation where the other person switched topics in their head but didn’t signal this to you, and so you think they’re still talking about what you were talking about previously but they’re actually talking about or referring to something else?

Trump is basically like that. Anything he says doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the immediate topic, or indeed the previous sentence. Which is why, when you review the conversation in which he made his “animals” comment, it’s in no way obvious that he is talking about MS-13 gang members exclusively. Even if he thought in his head that’s who he was referring to, you can’t tell that from the transcript.

And this is a problem because, of course, he’s the POTUS. What the POTUS says matters. And when you have no idea what he means when he says something, you invite misinterpretation on both sides to the point that it can become a distraction from real issues – such as the fact that Trump’s aggressive immigration policy is not as focused on “the worst of the worst” like he claims. (Or the fact that statistically, the Obama admin deported more non-criminal immigrants than the Trump admin has, although Trump is certainly trying to beat that record.)

So if there’s a takeaway worth remembering, it’s that the current head of the USA – and the person currently and enthusiastically backed by the GOP – is an inarticulate boob who says whatever pops into his head as if it’s true (which it frequently isn’t), and real policies are being carried out based on this.

For example, Trump may have been referring only to MS-13, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some ICE agents are trying to justify arrests of DACA kids by pretending they’re gang members. Which is not to say Trump specifically ordered them to do so – I think the more racist ICE agents are hearing what he says and interpreting it to mean that as far as Trump is concerned, they’re all potential gang members, so why not use that as a pretense?

It’s like all the racists and Nazis and alt-right characters who feel that Trump has their back, even though he’s never really specifically said that he does, and has never explicitly said pro-racist/Nazi things. But it sure can be interpreted that way. (Yes, I’m aware that Trump allegedly uses coded language, but that only works if you KNOW it’s coded language, and I swear at least 60% of the ‘code words’ racists use to say racist things without sounding racist are things I had no idea were code words in the first place – so it’s plausible to me that Trump doesn't know them either.)

And of course all of this is why it's so easy to conclude that Trump meant all (non-white) immigrants are animals, because it's not like he doesn't have a history of saying things like that.

What’d I say,

This is dF

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Crossposts: https://def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com/1418307.html

When Trump gave his SOTU address, some news media inevitably tried to rate it in terms of “Was it Presidential?” Which in this case means, “Did Trump give a reasonably coherent speech that focused on problems and solutions instead of his usual shambling improv performances where he spends most of the time praising himself, insulting his enemies and making up alt-facts as he goes along?”

Some of us were thinking, “It doesn’t matter – he’ll do what he always does when he seems to do something that seems remotely ‘Presidential’: his next speech will be a return to form.”

Sure enough:

In between testimonials from Ohioans about the benefits of the tax reform law, Trump went way off script, unleashing a series of complaints about Democrats’ chilly reaction to his recent State of the Union speech (“Can we call that treason? Why not?”) […]

And so much for his alleged call to unity.

Predictably Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other Trump fans are deploying the old “It’s just a joke, man! Lighten up, snowflake!” defense. And I’ll admit, when I heard it I got the impression that he probably meant it in the same way that Ted Nugent meant that crack about Hillary Clinton giving his AR-15 a blowjob: a throwaway comment to entertain the base. I don’t think he wants to put all the Demos in jail for it any more than Nugent literally wanted to shoot Hillary in the face. It’s basically a cheap pop for the fans, and I doubt seriously he put any thought into it beyond that.

But:

1. As much as I hate alt-universe arguments, let’s admit that the same people defending him would be having a conniption fit if (say) President Hillary made the same “joke”.

2. They would be right to do so because the POTUS doesn't get to make “jokes” like that. When you hold the highest position of authority in one of the major superpowers on the planet, people tend to take what you say seriously. That can have consequences. Think of it this way: if you think the US is supposed to be championing values like freedom and democracy and The American Way, then defining treason as everyone who didn’t applaud yr speech (even as a joke) is the opposite of that. There are dictators worldwide who actually DO put the opposition in jail for treason (whatever that may mean) who may now be thinking, “See? Even the US has our back on this.”

3. Context also matters. When you have a tendency to embrace authoritarian ideas and say authoritarian things, making jokes about “treason” isn’t all that funny – except maybe to Trump fans who actually wouldn’t mind seeing Trump’s long list of political enemies locked up for treason.

The fact that most of Trump’s authoritarian leanings haven’t managed to subvert democracy very much (so far) – as well as the fact that even if he was serious about the treason comment, he either wouldn’t act on it or would try and fail – is beside the point. The point is that words matter – words have power, and when they’re backed with authority, they have even more power to the point that even if the speaker is only kidding, there’s no guarantee his followers will take it as such.

4. Which is kind of the real issue here – the problem isn’t so much what Trump personally meant by it (or thought he meant) as what his hardcore legions of fans think he meant.

Fans like this guy.

Or this guy.

Or these guys.

Or these guys.

Or … well, you get the idea.

These people may not comprise the majority of the population, but they comprise enough of the population to make life harder for the non-white non-straight/non-cis people who have to deal with Trumpers (or the mere possibility of Trumper abuse) on a daily basis (to say nothing of the ones who are also immigrants).

And I have little doubt that at least some of them already see liberals as “traitors” to America, and would love to see them all locked up in Gitmo or deported to Mexico or whatever. Just ask Trump’s favorite radio personality Alex Jones. Or Dana Loesch and her Clenched Fist Of Truth™. Or Ann Whatshername.

5. Caveat: I suspect many of them think “treason”, “un-American” and “unpatriotic” mean the exact same thing, which of course they don’t. I suspect this because some conservatives have rolled out “whataboutism” arguments about how some Democrat politicians have accused Republicans of being “un-American” and “unpatriotic”, so why can’t Trump joke about treason?

Well, because most of them weren’t POTUS when they said it, and because – unlike actual treason – being “un-American” and “unpatriotic” aren’t crimes. They’re bog-standard clichéd political insults.

And in any case, whataboutism is a stupid defense – it’s basically saying, “Your guy did it so it’s okay of my guy does it.”

Then again, you go with what works, I guess.

You can’t say that on television,

This is dF

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I presume you know enough about Devin Nunes and his memo that I don’t need to provide a backgrounder.

Here are some links you can read for that, as well as decent analysis of the memo.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/1/16956290/nunes-memo-release-the-memo-fbi-russia

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/opinion/devin-nunes-memo.html

https://www.justsecurity.org/51778/qa-nunes-memo/

I can add a few comments in the name of bloggery:

1. Obviously there’s so much we don’t know that it's hard to make any accurate judgement about the memo’s significance – by itself it doesn't add up to much either way.

But based on what I’ve read so far, I’m going with the “nothingburger” camp. Even if the FBI didn’t inform FISC about the origins of the Steele dossier (and Nunes offers no hard proof of this), at most you could say that the FBI investigators made some mistakes or cut some corners. And because this is all related to one person (Carter Page) who was already under investigation, in the context of a larger investigation that began well before Page became part of it, I don’t see how this one alleged misstep amounts to discrediting the entire Russia investigation.

2. For that matter, I don't see why the FBI’s use of the Steele dossier – even in part – would discredit the investigation as a pro-Democrat plot against Trump. Nunes and the GOP are claiming it proves bias because the dossier was funded by Democrats, but we already know that Steele was initially hired by a conservative publication, the Washington Free Beacon, which was anti-Trump. And Nunes’ own memo admits the FBI started the investigation months before Steele handed the dossier to them.

3. I think what interests me the most is that in order for the Nunes memo to be nearly as explosive a slam-dunk as Nunes, Trump and Fox News makes out, it requires one to buy into a specific narrative, as summed up nicely in this series of charts, as well as by the following summation by Asha Rangappa at Just Security):

In sum, the Nunes Memo reportedly alleges that at least a dozen FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors fabricated evidence, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to commit perjury, lucked out on being randomly assigned Judge Low Blood Sugar who looked the other way, and – coincidentally – ended up obtaining evidence that justified extending the initial FISA surveillance.

We’re also expected to believe this is all part of a Deep State™ operation by Democrats to overthrow the Presidency, even though the investigation began before Trump even won an election he was widely expected to lose (and did, if you go by the pop vote), and even though literally all players in the FBI side of the investigation are (or at least were appointed by) Republicans – to include James Comey, who apparently was so determined to overthrow Trump that he actually helped him win by announcing that he was reopening his investigation into Hillary’s emails in light of new evidence (which turned out to be nothing).

So, no. I prefer the simpler explanation: Trump and his minions are up to their necks in Russian ties, and at least some of them knowingly accepted help from the Russians to meddle in the election (or perhaps were blackmailed into it), and their only hope of getting away with it is by discrediting the entire FBI. I also think Trump is motivated as much by the sheer fact that proof of Russian interference would imply he couldn’t win without someone cheating on his behalf, and his ego simply won’t stand for it. I also suspect his proof lies in the notion that if the FBI was truly independent, Hillary would already be in Guantanamo Bay by now.

I don’t have any proof of that. But neither do the Deep State people. Anyway, that’s my prediction.

4. A quick word about the US Deep State™: bullshit.

5. A few more words about the US Deep State™: I think it’s bullshit in the sense that the term was coined to describe situations like the one in Turkey. The US is nowhere close to that situation except in the minds of paranoid Fox News personalities.

That said, I’m aware that The Left has their own version of the Deep State: the one in which intelligence and security agencies – the “permanent government” – have their own agenda, and have the ability to use their powers of secret surveillance to subvert democracy by secretly undermining an existing administration with “anonymous” leaks. Glenn Greenwald (who I usually agree with more often than not) has argued that the Trump/Russia scandal looks suspiciously like disinformation, that we shouldn't trust it at face value, and Democrats are enabling the Deep State simply because it's currently targeting the opposition.

The main difference: Trump/Hannity think (or pretend to think) the Deep State is a Democrat creation (probably by Obama) to subvert Republican power exclusively. Greenwald's version is that the only side the Deep State takes is its own, and that the real story isn’t that they’re taking aim at Trump, but the fact that they can do it at all. You can’t support them for doing it to Trump and ignore the fact that they could just as easily do it to Hillary, or Bernie, or anyone else.

I would agree that intel agencies have far more surveillance power than they should, and the potential for abuse is real. And we’ve seen what an FBI with a political agenda and free reign looks like (see: J Edgar Hoover). But again, none of this has achieved Erdogan-level Deep State. And we do have laws today that prevent any FBI director from being the next Hoover. In any case, I think this is a separate issue from the Trump/Russia investigation.

6. But as always, so what? Team Trump/Fox and their fans live in their own alt-reality where Obama and Hillary run the Deep State™ with the help of the Liberal Fake News Media (funded by George Soros) and are actively plotting to take over America and the world. It’s not original, but it’s a handy way to explain away anything negative about their man The Donald, and the Nunes memo SO proves that.

7. But then it could all be disinformation, couldn't it? The Russians, the CIA, the FBI, Fox News – it could all be run by Chinese hackers or a network of AI twitterbots some high school kid released as a prank. For all you know, I'm one of those bots and I autogenerated this just to mess with you.

Etc and so on.

Up from the deep.

This is dF

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I didn’t watch it, no.

Although that’s not a political statement in itself. Many liberals were calling for a boycott to lower Trump’s ratings, which is as fine a goal as any. But the thing is that I generally don’t watch SOTU speeches anyway. I’m happy to wait for the highlights reel and executive summary from various news outlets. And they’re really more for the base – sort of like how business press releases aren’t for the press, they’re for the shareholders.

And anyway, it doesn’t matter how low Trump’s first SOTU ratings were because Trump lives in TrumpWorld where his ratings are always the highest of any POTUS ever, and anyone who says otherwise is fake news.

(On the subject of ratings, the numbers do indicate that Trump’s first SOTU ratings were pretty low, but as some have pointed out, those numbers doesn’t include streaming video. So maybe if you factor those in, he might rank higher. The point is, Trump doesn't know that, he just assumes his ratings are the highest ever because why wouldn’t they be?)

Also, as I understand it, Trump’s speech went pretty much the way I expected it to go – he spent most of the time talking about himself, how great his Presidency is, and how America’s only serious problems are ISIS, North Korea and immigrants. Most of what he said about all of the above was inaccurate, exaggerated or flat-out fiction. And he didn’t offer any concrete plans to solve any of those problems.

Ho hum.

It basically sounds like any other Big Speech Trump has made, except that he managed to stay mostly on script and didn’t spend most of it bashing Hillary and CNN. Which I guess is an accomplishment by Trump standards, but in the context of everything else (Russia, Nazis, the FBI, Puerto Rico, golf, porn star payoffs, 3am Twitter rants, the list goes on) it doesn't really count for much.

Not with me, anyway. I’m sure plenty of Republicans feel otherwise. That’s to be expected.

And that’s why I didn't watch the SOTU. The end.

Switched off,

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BIDEN MY TIME
JOE MALARKEY VS COL SANDERS
ACQUITTERS NEVER WIN (EXCEPT WHEN THEY DO)
THE STATE OF THE UNION IS ON FIRE (2020 EDITION)
THIS IS NOT THE WORLD WAR 3 I WAS PROMISED
THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE IMPEACHMENT CLUB
A WELL-INTENTIONED BUT SOMEWHAT MISPLACED HONG KONG THANKSGIVING
EVERYONE ELSE IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, WHY CAN’T I?
TO IMPEACH OR NOT IMPEACH
MUELLER REPORTS, YOU DECIDE
IF THIS HAD BEEN AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY …
OKAY, SO THAT WASN’T MY ONLY POST ABOUT BRETT KAVANAUGH
A TRUMP SUPREME (OR: ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT BRETT KAVANAUGH)
GOOD NEWS, KIDS! YOU GET TO GO TO JAIL WITH MOM AND DAD! ENJOY YR STAY!
WE DESTROY THE FAMILY (IMMIGRANT VERSION)
ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT SAMANTHA BEE’S C-WORD
DONALD J TRUMP’S ‘ANIMAL HOUSE’
NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON. EXCEPT TRUMP. HE'LL TOTALLY CALL IT THAT. EVEN IF IT’S NOT.
ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT THE NUNES MEMO
STATE OF THE UNION FEBRUARY 3, 2018

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Entries tagged with trump dynasty

BIDEN MY TIME

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ACQUITTERS NEVER WIN (EXCEPT WHEN THEY DO)

THE STATE OF THE UNION IS ON FIRE (2020 EDITION)

THIS IS NOT THE WORLD WAR 3 I WAS PROMISED

THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE IMPEACHMENT CLUB

A WELL-INTENTIONED BUT SOMEWHAT MISPLACED HONG KONG THANKSGIVING

EVERYONE ELSE IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, WHY CAN’T I?

TO IMPEACH OR NOT IMPEACH

MUELLER REPORTS, YOU DECIDE

IF THIS HAD BEEN AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY …

OKAY, SO THAT WASN’T MY ONLY POST ABOUT BRETT KAVANAUGH

A TRUMP SUPREME (OR: ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT BRETT KAVANAUGH)

GOOD NEWS, KIDS! YOU GET TO GO TO JAIL WITH MOM AND DAD! ENJOY YR STAY!

WE DESTROY THE FAMILY (IMMIGRANT VERSION)

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT SAMANTHA BEE’S C-WORD

DONALD J TRUMP’S ‘ANIMAL HOUSE’

NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON. EXCEPT TRUMP. HE'LL TOTALLY CALL IT THAT. EVEN IF IT’S NOT.

ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ABOUT THE NUNES MEMO

STATE OF THE UNION FEBRUARY 3, 2018

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