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Sunday, February 12, 2017

Running the image again. I doubt I'll really keep that up for four years, but for now it inspires me to dig up this shit.

Still need to write up something about Matt Taibbi's Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus -- recently read, although it recycles a lot that I had previously read, including a sizable chunk of Taibbi's 2009 book The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire -- an excavation so profound that Maureen Dowd snarfed up a keyword for her own regurgitation of campaign columns, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics (a title which makes me wonder how she would have faired in Taibbi's 2004 Wimblehack -- see Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches From the Dumb Season).

Still, I suspect that the weakness of both Taibbi and Dowd books is their focus on the more obvious story: how ridiculous the Republicans were (a subject that served Taibbi best in 2008 when he compiled his brief Smells Like Dead Elephants before taking the time to craft The Great Deformation). In retrospect, the real story wasn't how Trump won, but how Hillary Clinton lost. Looking ahead, books by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes (Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign, out April 18) and/or Doug Wead (Game of Thorns: The Inside Story of Hillary Clinton's Failed Campaign and Donald Trump's Winning Strategy, February 28) promise some insight (or at least insider dope). Still, I doubt anyone is going to write something that satisfactorily explains the whole election for some time.

One thing that keeps eating at me about the election is that while Trump's polls oscillated repeatedly, falling whenever voters got a chance to compare him side-by-side (as in the debates, or even more strongly comparing the two conventions), then bouncing back on the rare weeks when he didn't say something scandalous, Clinton's polls never came close to topping 50%. She was, in short, always vulnerable, and all Trump needed to get close was a couple weeks where he seemed relatively sane (on top of all that Koch money organizing down ballot, especially in Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and the Midwest). I doubt if any other Republican could have beat Clinton: Trump's ace in the hole was his antithesis to Washington insider-dom, which gave him credibility she couldn't buy (despite massive evidence that he was the crooked one). But just as importantly, Trump suckered her into campaigning on high-minded centrism (including support from nearly everyone in the permanent defense/foreign affairs eatablishment), which weakened her support among traditional Democrats. Any other Republican would have forced her to run as a Democrat, and she would have been better off for that.

Again, it's not that working people rationally thought they'd be better off with Trump. It's just that too many didn't feel any affinity for or solidarity with her. Of course, those who discovered their own reasons for voting against the Republicans -- which includes the left, blacks, Latinos, immigrants, single women, and others the Democrats bank on but don't invest in -- voted for her anyway. But others needed to be reminded of the differences between the parties, and Clinton didn't do a good job at that (nor did Obama give her much to build on, as he almost never blamed Republicans for undermining his efforts).

Meanwhile, Trump's net favorability polling is down to -15.

Some links on the Trump world this week:

• 80,000 March in Raleigh for Voting Rights, Democracy & #MoralResistance

• Andrew Bacevich: Conservatism After Trump: Still identifying as a conservative, he hates Trump's populism (even conceding that Bernie Sanders' would be better). Bacevich is often an astute critic of the American militarism, but his efforts to map himself onto a left-right political line are often embarrassing. Also his effort to salvage the old fascist slogan "America First" -- he argues that Trump "seem[s] determined to gut the concept" without grasping that the main thing the concept tries to do is advance an abstract America above and beyond any actual Americans. Same problem with "Make America Great" which exalts and projects a hypothetical empire that actually does nothing for most Americans.

• Peter Bergen: Trump's terrorism claim is baloney: Searching a media database shows that "78 terrorist incidents the White House cited as under-covered by the media" were the subject of over 80,000 articles.

• Ari Berman: House Republicans Just Voted to Eliminate the Only Federal Agency That Makes Sure Voting Machines Can't Be Hacked

• Michelle Chen: Donald Trump's Real Plan for Coal-Mine Workers: "Safety protections are standing in the way of making coal great again."

• Bryce Covert: Trump's Obsession With Manufacturing Is About Politics, Not Jobs: "Most of us work in the service sector, but you won't hear the president talk about that."

• James Crabtree: Steve Bannon's War on India's High-Tech Economy. Also, John Feffer: Steven Bannon's Real Vision Isn't America First. It's America Alone.

• Amy Davidson: The Ninth Circuit Rejects Trumpism

• Justin Elliott: Inside Trump's watered-down ethics rules: Now a lobbyist helps run federal agency he lobbied: Geoff Burr, who used to lobby "opposing wage standards for federal construction contracts and working against an effort to limit workers' exposure to dangerous silica dust," not works for Trump's Labor Department.

• Philip Giraldi: Iran Hawks Take the White House: Specifically, Michael Flynn ("well known for what his staff referred to as "Flynn facts," things he would say that were demonstrably untrue"). I'm a bit surprised that Trump has come out of the gate so belligerent over Iran. In Syria, for instance, Iran has been allied with Russia in support of Assad and in opposition to ISIS, and Trump and Flynn seem to favor a less antagonistic approach to Russia. It would also make sense for a president who (or so he claims) thought invading Iraq to be a mistake would like to put a little distance between the US and Saudi Arabia's military adventurism (with its obsession over Iran.

  Interesting that David Atkins is already complaining, Why Won't Trump Fire Michael Flynn? Atkins is more worried that Flynn is soft on Russia than too hard on Iran, but in his own lame way this sort of highlights how unsuited Flynn is for a position which has historically required the intellectual flexibility and moral laxity of a McGeorge Bundy or a Condoleezza Rice. Flynn's only qualification was his rabidly hysterical antipathy to everything Obama said or did, so his usefulness to Trump is likely to be very short-lived. Although most likely Flynn will be pushed out by the "intelligence community" itself: see CIA Denies Security Clearance for Top Flynn Aide, and Cummings: It Would Be 'Appropriate' to Revoke Flynn's Security Clearance. The New York Times reports further: Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down, with the Editorial Board adding its two cents: America's So-Called National Security Adviser.

• Dino Grandoni: Exxon's Seven-Year Campaign to Kill an Anti-Corruption Rule Finally Worked

• Sean McElwee: Trump's supporters believe a false narrative of white victimhood -- and the data proves it: that they believe it, not that it's true:

  Trumpism is a movement built around the loss of privilege and perceived social status and a desire to re-create social hierarchy. It is one that requires its adherents to live in a state of constant fear and victimization. This mythology requires extensive ideological work and media filtering to remain true. Conservatives must create an ideological bubble in which crime is out of control (instead of hovering near historic lows), the rate of abortion is rising (instead of falling), refugees are committing terrorist attacks en masse (they aren't at all) and immigrants are taking jobs (it's the capitalists), all while the government is funneling money to undeserving black people (black people receive government support in accordance with their share of the population, despite making up a disproportionately large share of the poor). Conservatives, and many in the general public, believe that Muslims and immigrants (both legal and unauthorized) make up a dramatically larger share of the population than they actually do.

• Bill McKibben: Trump's Pipeline and America's Shame: Trump's decision to restart the Dakota Access Pipeline seen as a renewal of centuries of attacks on Native Americans.

• Kristin Salaky: Spicer: Nordstrom Dropping Ivanka Trump's Line Is 'Direct Attack' on Prez: So the White House press secretary, supposedly a public servant (at least he draws a government paycheck) is working as a lobbyist for the First Daughter's personal business interests? Pretty clear that Trump hasn't separated himself from his family's business interests (as well as that he continues to focus on the petty). Seems to me like this is just the free market in action, and that Ivanka will wind up with new, more demographically appropriate partners -- Cabella's, maybe, or Hobby Lobby?

  Paul Woodward: Trump family brand losing its value noted that Nordstrom's stock closed higher after dumping Ivanka. He also linked to an article, Melania Trump Inc. Imperiled, about how Mrs. Trump is suing the Daily Mail for defamation, claiming that their story undermined her opportunity to cash in on her newfound fame. As the New York Times noted, "President Donald Trump and his family have done little to assuage concerns that they see the White House as a cash cow."

  Michelle Goldberg argues that Kellyanne Conway violated the law by endorsing Ivanka's products on TV, and quotes the relevant section of law, which is indeed pretty clearly applicable. She winds up quoting Larry Noble, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center:

  "The system is based on the assumption that people are going to want to follow the law or enforce it," he says. In 20 days, this administration has exploded that assumption. "They are stress-testing our democracy," says Noble. "What happens if the administration just refuses to follow the laws and Congress doesn't want to do anything about it?"

  Speaking of Spicer, also see Esme Cribb: Spicer: Questioning Success of Yemen Raid Does 'Disservice' to KIA Commando: I would have thought that being sent on that ill-conceived and botched raid was the real disservice to the commando, but you know, when threatened, terrorists always try to hide behind human shields.

• Richard Silverstein: As Bibi Readies for Trump Summit, He Dumps Two-States for "State-Minus": Sounds like a revival of the Bantustan project, although I doubt it's that benign. Also see Ayman Odeh: Israel Bulldozes Democracy:

  Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Netanyahu used blatant race-baiting tactics to win his last election, in 2015. Since then, he has made discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel central to his agenda. This takes many forms; a particularly painful one is his government's racist, unjust land use and housing policies.

• Jacob Sugarman: Officials heate each other: 5 disturbing revelations about what's happening inside Trump's White House: Not a lot of red meat here, but it's totally plausible that factions around Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and Jared Kushner have very different agendas and are prone to sabotaging one another. Also that Trump himself doesn't have a clue.

• Matt Taibbi: The End of Facts in the Trump Era:

  A primary characteristic of any authoritarian situation, from East Germany to high school, is the total uselessness of facts and evidence as a defense against anything. Trump is in the White House because he and his people understood this from the start. His movement isn't about facts. All that matters to his followers is that blame stays fixed in the right direction.

  Glad he mentioned high school, although most of corporate America is even worse (i.e., more authoritarian, or we leftists like to call it, fascist.

• Glenn Thrush/Jennifer Steinhauer: Stephen Miller Is a 'True Believer' Behind Core Trump Policies: Former aide to former Senator Jeff Sessions, now a White House aide "at the epicenter of some of the administration's most provocative moves, from pushing hard for the construction of a wall along the border with Mexico to threatening decades-long trade deals at the heart of Republican economic orthodoxy, to rolling out Mr. Trump's travel ban on seven largely Muslim nations, whose bungled introduction he oversaw."

• Zoe Tillman: Gorsuch Would Join the Supreme Court Millionaires' Club if He's Confirmed

• Jordan Weissmann: The Hot New Corporate PR Strategy? Giving Trump Credit for Stuff He Didn't Do. Like Intel deciding to build a plant in Arizona it was going to build there anyway.

• Matthew Zeitlin: Republicans Are Moving to Scrap Rules That Limit Overdraft Fees

Also a few links not so directly tied to America's bout of political insanity:

• At TomDispatch this week: Tom Engelhardt: Crimes of the Trump Era (a Preview); Raja Menon: Is President Trump Headed for a War with China?. Menon, by the way, has a book called The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention (2016). Regarding China, I'm reminded of a scenario sketched out by the late Chalmers Johnson: suppose a country launched a dumptruck-load of gravel into earth orbit (something well within China's capability); it would in short order destroy every satellite (including China's, but most are American or owned by corporations). Without killing any people, the economic effects would be devastating, and it would cripple America's ability to spy on friend and foe, or indeed to direct foreign wars. I'd argue that this capability all by itself makes China too big to attack (Russia, of course, could do the same, at more cost to itself; moreover, the technology isn't far out for emerging rocket builders, notably Iran and North Korea). Given these realities, the US would be well advised to work on cooperation instead of intimidation. Still, that's not Trump's style, nor is it China's: "Xi Jinping, like Trump, presents himself as a tough guy, sure to trounce his enemies at home and abroad. Retaining that image requirse that he not bend when it comes to defending China's land and honor." Neocon Robert Kagan has his own alarming scenario: Backint Into World War III. But then he's arguing to march forward into conflict, rather than back into it -- which, by the way, he sees Trump doing in his "further accommodation of Russia" (as opposed to his "tough" stance against China).

• Stan Finger: Police seek answers, reversal as aggravated assaults surge: Could a 50% increase in aggravated assault cases since the 2013 passage of Kansas' "open carry" gun law have anything to do with that law? Minds boggle, especially as the delayed opening up of open gun carry on college campuses is looming. One complaint is new gun toters haven't been "properly trained," but wasn't a big part of the 2013 law the elimination of training requirements?

  Also in the Eagle today: Dion Lefler/Stan Finger: Race to replace Pompeo in Congress is down to three candidates: Republicans nominated Brownback crony Ron Estes, while the Democrats are backing civil rights attorney James Thompson, who will hopefully turn the election to replace CIA Director Mike Pompeo into a referendum on the Trump and Brownback administrations. (Salon has a piece by Rosana Hegeman on Thompson.) Also: Dion Lefler: 1,500 Sanders tickets sold so far, leading to move to a bigger venue, who will be speaking in Topeka on February 25.

• Sayed Kashua: Preparing My Kids for the New America: One thing I've long noted is how much the right-wing, traditionally the last bastion of anti-semitism, has grown to admire Israel. So as they consolidate their power, it shouldn't be surprising that they're starting to make America look more like Israel, or that the first to notice would be Palestinians who lived in (and fled from) Israel.

• John McQuaid: Coastal cities in danger: Florida has seen bad effects from Trump-like climate gag orders: North Carolina, too. Also, John Upton: Coastal Cities Could Flood Three Times a Week by 2045.

• Daniel Oppenheimer: Not Yet Falling Apart: "Two thinkers on the left offer a guide to navigating the stormy seas of modernity." Quasi-review of Mark Lilla's The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction, trying to contrast it with Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin (due for a new edition, with Trump eclipsing Palin, as indeed it does get worse, not to mention dumber). Oppenheimer make much of Lilla reviewing (and panning) Robin's book, then not including the review in his short collection (like Robin, the book stakes out the terrain of a broad, systematic study but falls short by recycling old book reviews -- in this case "thinkers" such as Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, Eric Vogelin, and Michel Houllebecq).

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