#^d 2017-02-05 #^h Weekend Roundup
Picked up this image off Twitter. Looks like we've found our Weekend Roundup motto, for the next four years anyways. More links than usual because so much shit's been happening. Less commentary than in the old days because it's all so straightforwardly obvious.
I had meant to write about Matt Taibbi's book Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus, but should hold off and do that later. I will say that the big problems with the book are due to the concept: it mostly a compilation of previously published pieces, so tends to preserve the moment's misconceptions in amber rather than taking the time to rethink the story from its conclusion in a way that might make more sense of it all. On the other hand, it didn't make sense, and still doesn't make sense, and as the consequences of the election unfold becomes more and more surreal. In Taibbi's defense, he probably had a better grasp both of Trump's appeal and of Clinton's repulsion than any journalist I can think of. Also does a heroic job of not mincing words, and remains exceptionally conscious of how presidential campaigns warp the media space around them. Still, he can't quite believe how it turned out, and neither can I.
A short bit from a New York Times "By the Book" interview with Viet Tranh Nguyen (wrote a novel, The Sympathizer, which my wife read and loved):
I've been reading news and opinion pieces on Facebook and Twitter. They're utterly terrifying and depressing, since my social circle basically thinks that a Trump presidency spells the end of the world. To get out of the echo chamber, I read Donald Trump's Twitter feed. It's utterly terrifying and depressing, and I run back into the echo chamber.
I take comfort in the children's literature that I read to my 3-year-old son. He will tolerate the tales of Beatrix Potter, which I find soothing, but mostly he wants to hear about Batman, Superman, Ghostbusters and Star Wars. The moral clarity is comforting not just for a 3-year-old, but also for many adults. This is why they are relevant to our divided age, where most people identify with the rebels but so many in fact are complicit with the Empire.
The links below, of course, come from the left-liberal echo chamber (well, plus some anti-war paleo-conservatives). They're the ones paying attention (in some cases a welcome change after sleepwalking through the Obama years).
I picked this up off Twitter, but I also saw the video clip (OK, on Saturday Night Live, but it sure looked authentic. Comes from Bill O'Reilly interviewing Trump:
O'REILLY: But he's a killer though. Putin's a killer.
TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What do you think -- our country's so innocent?
There are a lot of things one can say about this. For one thing it's true, which isn't often the case with Trump. But it's hardly a revelation. It's just something that no politician would say -- least of all someone like Obama or the Clintons who have personally signed off on execution orders then gone on to gloat about their killings in public. So you can chalk Trump's admission up to his anti-PC ethic: his willingness to call out truths in blunt language. But more specifically, he's denying O'Reilly resort to a PC cliché. He's saying you can't dismiss working with Putin out of hand because he's a killer. We're all killers here -- Trump joined the club last week in ordering a Seal Team 6 assault in Yemen -- so that hardly disqualifies Putin. The disturbing part is that being a killer is probably something Trump admires in Putin. Back during the campaign, Trump not only vowed to kill ostensible enemies like ISIS, he talked on several occasions about shooting random people on Fifth Avenue, like the ability to do that and not be held accountable would be the pinnacle of freedom. Being elected president doesn't quite afford him that latitude, but it does offer plenty of opportunities to indulge his blood lust. Worse still, Trump's championing of killers helps establish murder as a political and social norm. Sure, assassination has been sanctioned as expedient politics by US presidents at least as far back as Kennedy, but Trump threatens to make it a uniquely new bragging point.
As this and similar stories play out, all sorts of nonsense is likely to ensue. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at Adam Gopnik: Trump's Radical Anti-Americanism. The truth is that America has a long history of split-personality disorder, at once touting lofty progressive intentions while having committed a long series of inexcusable atrocities. So will the real America stand up? At least with the exceptionalist cant you knew they'd try to put on a kind and honorable face. But with Trump and his more bloodthirsty followers, you're liable to get something else: a celebration of the underside of American history, a legacy that celebrates brutal and ruthless conquest.
Some scattered links this week:
Zoë Carpenter/George Zornick: Everything Donald Trump Did in His Second Week as President
Dean Baker: A Trade War Everyone Can Win: Argues a way Mexico can respond to Trump's tariff threats: "announce that it would no longer enforce U.S. patents and copyrights on its soil." He gives some examples where this would save Mexico tons of money, but doesn't go back over some key history. First, the US refused to recognize foreign patents while we were developing our own industrial economy. Second, a major aim of US trade policy for decades now has been our willingness to sacrifice domestic jobs in exchange for more patent/copyright rents. Since jobs mostly affect working people and rents accrue to the already rich, US trade policy has contributed mightily to increasing inequality in America. Also see Baker's End Patent and Copyright Requirements in NAFTA.
Stephen Burd: How the GOP Became For-Profit College Abuse Deniers: As the piece points out, "for-profit" schools have been plagued with fraud as far back as the GI Bill in the 1950s, despite periodic efforts at regulation. Republicans hate it when regulation gets in the way of profit-making, even when profits are fueled mostly by fraud -- cf. many other examples from many other industries -- and education has become something many conservatives feel we need less of, so they can hardly object to it not being done well.
Ira Chernus: Now Who's the Enemy?: "The terror inside Trump's White House."
Susanne Craig/Eric Lipton: Trust Records Show Trump Is Still Closely Tied to His Empire
Yasmeen El Khoudary: Israel: An Inspiration for Trump: "Israel has set a great example of racist bans and walls for Trump to follow." I've said for some time now neocons suffer from an acute case of Israel Envy: all they want is to see America flaunt its power as capriciously and unilaterally as Israel does. The alt-right may be just as envious, but Israel's apartheid policies will be harder for Americans to swallow -- indeed, it's not something many Israelis like to talk about. Also, see William Parry: Donald Trump is wrong about Israel's 'security' wall; also James P Rooney: What Trump Doesn't Understand About Immigration From Mexico.
Jonathan Freedland: First on the White House agenda -- the collapse of the global order. Next, war? Trying to predict where Trump is going by following Steve Bannon: "Bannon is not destroying the old, clunky post-1945 order for the sake of a fairer, more equal, more interdependent world. He seems instead to dream of a bloody, fiery war that will kill millions -- out of which will be forged a new, cleansed and even more dominant America."
Greg Grandin: About That Kissinger Quote Neil Gorsuch Likes . . . : About Trump's Supreme Court nominee, highly touted as a devotee of Antonin Scalia's mystical "originalism" doctrine. The Kissinger quote, which Gorsuch picked to go with his Columbia yearbook photo: "The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer." Also see: David S Cohen: Meet Trump's Supreme Court Nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Of course, I've also seen Neal K Katyal: Why Liberals Should Back Neil Gorsuch: suggests to me that it could have been worse, but I'm not sure how you square the nominee's "commitment to judicial independence" with the guy who wrote the Hobby Lobby decision.
William Hartung: Trump's 5th Bankruptcy: Budget-Busting Trillions to US Department of War Originally from TomDispatch, but Juan Cole's title is more apt. Also: Nick Turse: Will Trump Really Be Isolationist? Or Will He March Us to War?
Fred Kaplan: What Happened Behind the Scenes Before the Yemen Raid? I referred to this assault above.
Anne Kim: The Long-Term Economic Wreckage of Trump's Travel Ban.
Mike Konczal: Trump Picks Wall Street Over Main Street: Trump's first executive order on finance starts to unravel the Dodd-Frank reforms -- any campaign suggestions that he would be tough on banks to the contrary. No big surprise, given that he's already handed the Treasury Department over to Goldman-Sachs. Konczal also wrote: Trump Is Capitalizing on the Anxiety Caused by the End of Steady Employment.
Paul A Kramer: Now Who We Are: "Our xenophobic impulses and loftiest ideals have been in conflict since the founding." And behind the magic word, unsurprisingly, is Frank Luntz.
Nancy LeTourneau: How Can We Believe Anything This Administration Says? Kellyanne Conway, the "Bowling Green massacre," and other "alternative facts."
Daniel Larison: Elliott Abrams Will Be Deputy Secretary of State: Most of Trump's nominees are merely terrible, but sometimes he manages to pick the worst person imaginable. This is one of those cases. Also: Eric Alterman: An Actual American War Criminal May Become Our Second-Ranking Diplomat.
Martin Longman: This Situation Is More Dire Than I Want to Admit and, a day later, his more detailed The 12 Early Warning Signs of Fascism. Not sure I'd call it Fascism, but the sign reads like the GOP platform (not just Trump's agenda).
Jim Newell: The GOP Has No Obamacare Bill. It Does Have a New Buzzword: "Repeal and replace is out. Repair is in.
Sarah Posner: Leaked Draft of Trump's Religious Freedom Order Reveals Sweeping Plans to Legalize Discrimination. Also: Adele Stan: Trump Leads the Religious Right to the Promised Land: "Evangelicals' alignment with Trump shows their affinity for power over morality."
Bernie Sanders; Trump 'Is a Fraud' Sending Nation in 'Authoritarian Direction'
Richard Silverstein: Steve Bannon's Romance with Hollywood Islamophobia, and Steve Bannon, the Church Militant and Global War Against Islam.
Mark Joseph Stern: Why Judge Robart Blocked the Muslim Ban: "There's no constitutional way to implement an unconstitutional order."
Matt Taibbi: Extreme Vetting, but Not for Banks, as well as The Anti-Refugee Movement Is America at Its Most Ignorant.
Ben Walsh: A Citigroup Lawyer Helped Trump Pick Bank Regulators, Then Returned to Work at the Bank: See, it isn't all Goldman-Sachs.
Stephen M Walt: America's New President Is Not a Rational Actor, and Trump Has Already Blown It. Before inauguration Walt also wrote: Trump Doesn't Know What He Doesn't Know About Foreign Policy, where he noted "The president-elect sometimes says the right things, but always does the wrong ones." On the other hand, Walt's been hard to please, as is clear from his final word on Trump's predecessor: Barack Obama Was a Foreign-Policy Failure.
One of the most alarming things Trump has done so far has been his campaign to impose sanctions on Iran amidst much sabre-rattling. Some links: Phyllis Bennis: The Trump Administration Is Recklessly Escalting Tensions With Iran; Juan Cole: Here We Go Again: Trump Admin Threatens Iran; Dan De Luce/Paul McCleary: Yemen Is the First Battleground in Trump's Confrontation With Iran; Ben Norton: Trump and the Saudi king discuss major pact to confront Iran; Patrick Cockburn: Trump's Comments Toward Iran Could Deepen Conflict in the Region; Trita Parsi: What Flynn Could Learn From Kerry About Iran; Daniel Larison: The Trump Administration's Lies About Iran; Muhammad Sahimi: Do Iran's Missile Tests Violate the Nuclear Agreement? (short answer: no).
Also a few links not so directly tied to America's bout of political insanity:
Ann Jones: After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward. Here's Why.
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow: An Ad Hoc Affair: "Jane Jacobs's clear-eyed vision of humanity." Review of Robert Kanigel's biography, Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs, and a recent collection by the late Jacobs, Vital Little Plans.