I apologize for hitting the same theme over and over again, but I want to present you with this from a former Republican governor of South Carolina who now serves in the House of Representatives. You probably remember Mark Sanford from his remarkable feat of hiking the Appalachian Trail in Argentina with his mistress while officials in the Palmetto State desperately tried to discover their chief executive’s whereabouts. He has seen the new president and he’s not impressed.
But at least a few lawmakers have shown greater alarm at elements of Mr. Trump’s first days. Mr. Sanford recalled a recent conversation with a colleague in his party about the president’s false statements on voter fraud.
“A fellow member turned to me and pointed to it and said, ‘That’s what third-world dictators do,’” Mr. Sanford said. “They just repeat the same misinformation over and over and over again until it sinks in.”
It’s not normal to have a Republican congressman comparing a president of his own party to a third-world dictator because he lies so brazenly and repeatedly in his efforts to establish a false reality. Of course, Sanford was only repeating what his colleague felt. How did he feel?
Mr. Sanford was asked if he shared his peer’s concerns that Mr. Trump had displayed authoritarian tendencies. He paused for a beat.
“I’m going to give anybody the benefit of the doubt,” he said, “over the first three days.”
I’m not sure what’s with all the Republicans counting Trump’s presidency from Monday instead of from Friday noon when it actually began, but the three days are up no matter how you count them. There is a limit to how long you can give someone the benefit of the doubt. We’re stuck with doubt now, and it’s never going to improve.
Also, do you remember in my last piece when I cited the opening of a Washington Post piece to demonstrate the amazing skepticism and hostility with which or our press is already treating Trump?
Well the opening to the New York Times article I cited above may be even rougher:
For months, the strategies have been tested and recalibrated — the senatorial speed-walk, the bemused deflection, the jittery laughter — honed through a presidential campaign season of refutable claims, racially charged rhetoric and tape-recorded boasts of sexual assault.
So when President Trump and his team began their White House tenure with two whoppers, doubling down on false claims about his inauguration crowd and illegal voting in the election, Republicans on Capitol Hill this week assumed their positions.
Again, due credit to the media for changing their tone to meet the challenge of the times, but this isn’t something the country can endure for long. They created Section 4 of the 25th Amendment for a reason. Trump is that reason.
We really need a betting pool on this. An over/under pool, date/time it happens (or doesn’t), etc.
I remain convinced that short of him stroking out, there will be no effort to remove him from office.
Not all the Villagers are onboard with the rough treatment of Twitler. See NPR’s refusal to use the “L” word (lie). Better outlets like ProPublica have no qualms about it. Hell, I even just saw Greg Sargent’s piece in the WaPo have the “L” word in the title.
Reason #1,487 to never give NPR money nor listen to any of their news broadcasts.
gotta tune in with your eyes (ears?) wide open to what you’re getting, i.e., disabused of any notion that it’s “liberal” media, immune to the effect of constant work-the-refs browbeating by rightwingnut propagandists and their Congressional flunkies, or objective and untainted by “Corporate Sponsorship” funding model.
See also my comments in this thread at CEPR. (Shorter: it’s not NPR’s declining to pretend-mindread Trump’s intent-to-deceive to call his falsehoods “lies”; it’s making this the one exception to the reportorial pretend-mindreading they engage in routinely, right along with the rest of the Corporate/Corporate-Captured Media.)
Oh, NPR can go fuck themselves. All of the dislikable effete mannerisms and effete cultural pretensions of liberalism without any of the political insight or social conscience.
I actually wrote, but hey, if it made you feel better, it’s all good I guess.
Excuse me.
Bannon Interview with NYT
Bannon’s a clownish bully. Fuck him. Once you get that he has no power to intimidate the American public, it’s easier to cope with this amateur psy-op routine, albeit a well-funded routine.
Laughter is the best response.
Booman I assume you are advocating and not so much predicting, but what is the scenario where Republicans agree to remove Trump from office? It’s really really hard for me to see.
I’d say it’s when they become convinced that he’ll lose them control of Congress in 2018. They like their cushy jobs.
Among other things, there’s a collective action problem. Unless everybody goes, anyone who goes gets primaried.
National Team (USWNT) youtube videos of international football matches during last couple years (highly recommended).
Commenters have quoted players and/or coach Jill Ellis re: her emphasis on defensive pressing by forwards when other team has the ball deep in their own end (which is obvious in their play). For example, when the opponents have played the ball back to their goalkeeper.
The money quote (and where this seeming non-sequitur of a reply proves it isn’t): “When one goes, we all go.”
I.e., if, say, Alex Morgan pressures the keeper while she’s in possession of the ball, then Christen (and Mallory, Tobin, Carli, Crystal, etc., depending who’s in at the moment) apply pressure with tight marking deep in the opponents’ own end on anyone available for the keeper to pass to. This often pays off with quickly regaining possession, sometimes turning into a good scoring opportunity, and sometimes a goal.
Very effective football strategy.
Not so bad as political strategy either, I agree (though I think you meant GOPers, while I’d mainly like to see it from Dems).
They won’t be convinced of that until after it happens. Then they won’t be in power, but Democrats will help them out by keeping their powder dry and looking forward to 2020 with Cuomo (or possibly even Clinton again).
A NY female yes, but not HRC.
So, Kirsten Gillibrand or Madonna? I like M’s feistiness and willingness to F-bomb the Donald on a live mic in front of hundreds of thousands. Shows cojones, something sorely lacking in the DimWimp party. And if an NPDer and p-grabber like Donald can get elected, why not Madonna.
KG is intriguing, but still a little too soft and on the margins. Of course, plenty of time to correct that. If she could come to her senses on Russian relations, and speak out a bit more, go against the Establishment grain, like Tulsi Gabbard recently did on Syria, then I might get very interested.
Until then, I’m going to watch TG for further signs of political courage and truth-telling.
Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian mole. My bet is she gets primaried. She’s a lunatic.
Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian mole.
LOL!! Get your head out of your ass. She’s tight with Modi(the present PM of India) and that crew. She’s also an Islamophobe(see above).
I read KG is the ponly Senator to oppose all of the traitors nominees. Haven’t verified that yet.
All but Nicky Haley for the UN.
If Trump continues to be a raging and irrational bull in the china shop and GOP humors him to get bill signed, the GOP will be in trouble in the purple states, at least. Hard for me to imagine trump continuing like this without a health emergency, an international crisis or both. GOP Congress would much rather have a reliable signing tool and fellow ideologue like Pence so, all things considered, it’s really just a matter of embarrassment that they’d have had yet another failed GOP presidency (assuming they are any longer capable of embarrassment). In any event, I have a hard time imagining Trump lasting even a year in office.
They need Trump voters.
Without the right carnival barker out front, they get creamed.
And/or when he stops signing everything they put in front of him. As soon as that happens they will get rid of him. I think they were hoping with their man Pries as CoS that they could keep a tighter leash on Trump or at least Bannon. That isn’t happening. Still he will stay in office as long as they feel their chances with him are better than his chances without him.
We are very, very early in this game, and most all of us are pretty much just talking out our asses as to what the future does or does not hold for the Trump Presidency. But as has been cited by many here, Trunp’s antics are a very convenient, actually an almost perfect, smokescreen for the Republican Party ideologues. Cheney and his PNAC crowd got their Black Swan event in the 9/11 attacks. And they exploited it as long as was humanly and politically possible. And now the far right GOP has gotten their Black Swan in Donald Trump. And I don’t expect that anything will happen with regard to Trump, at least until they have completed their decimation of all social progress that has occurred over the last 80 years. That is really the brass ring that is at stake here. Most of these people know they will likely never get another opportunity like this in a million years, so they are more than willing to set aside any concern about the well being, even the continued existence, of this country. They, in fact, are as mad as Trump, only in a slightly different way.
So short of Donald Trump barricading himself in the White House, with his private, heavily armed security team filling the windows and ringing the grounds and picking off anyone trying to stem his psychotic descent into madness, the basic situation is probably not likely to change. Of course, any manner of catastrophic events could change the dynamic, and the center of gravity of this whole thing is about as tenuous and unpredictable as anything we have ever seen. But as long as the Republican Congress continues to have the kind of carte blanche they are enjoying today to destroy any and all progressive advancements, Trump will have enough people in the government enthusiastically willing to prop him up for as long as it takes for them to accomplish their mission.
Every day I see so many of my Democratic friends talking on social media and other places about impeachment. I can only laugh at that idea. It seems so quaint. Does anyone really think that Trump would pay a damn bit of attention, even if something like that happened? Hell no. That’s just not the rules of the game that he is playing. Why do people even suggest that there is still any norms or standards which might be observed by this guy?
What possible means are there to remove this guy from office? I don’t have a clue. All I know is that my confidence that anything within our constitutional means to make it happen is as near to zero as is possible right now, and not actually be zero. I really don’t know if our Founding Fathers envisioned a scenario like what we have today. Sure, they gave us a process to take care of removing an unfit President. But that system depends on the rest of the political body being willing and able to exercise their constiutional duty. And right now, and probably for the foreseeable future, that willingness does not exist. So all we are left with is to drift around, flirting with anarchy and a collapse of what is now not much more than a house of cards.
Precisely, although that’s a lotta Black Swans, haha.
Our various theoretical means of removing a prez don’t cut any mustard since they presume a non-dysfunctional constitutional order, which is long gone. We would need a practical means, and some back-benching Repub saying “I got me a unnamed Repub buddy who said Trump seems sorta like a dictator!” likely isn’t much of a harbinger.
Wake me when the incompetent white electorate starts calling their reps, gravely concerned about the American Madman.
Our only line of defense at this point is elected Dems, who are falling all over themselves coming up with excuses for voting for Dr Pyramid…this while knowing with certainty it will only demoralize and alienate their base. “We’re picking our battles”—as though senate roll call votes are some sort of scarce resource. Jeebus.
There is nothing going to,stop him at least until he finishes destroying that 80 years of,progressive legislation and even then it is not guaranteed. That 25 th amendment sounds about as effective as the electoral college. And our democratic reps will continue to duck and cover and always have a great reason for hiding out. Sometimes I wonder how far we really are from a dictatorship.
I think there is a not insignificant number of people who would welcome Donald Trump as their dictator.
Precisely.
And a not insignificant number of that not insignificant number are extremely well armed. Many well armed and well trained…or even currently employed by…what we used to laughingly call “the armed services.”
People who think Trump is some ignorant dummy are kidding themselves. There is a reason why he made Gen. Mattis…possibly the most admired man in the U.S. by ground troops…the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Bet on it.
This situation is liable to get very deep, very fast. Blitzkrieg in action as far as speed of attack and slowness of defense are concerned. The DC machine is bog slow. The Trump machine is so fast that the DC people still don’t know what’s hitting them or why.
Not really.
Watch.
AG
Wow! And I thought I was “out there”. Tell me more. Are you expecting a false flag staged 9/11 style event or won’t that even be necessary? I’m looking at it from a California POV.
I am “expecting” whatever happens.The possibilities are endless, but the possible preparations are not. Stock your cabinet with ex-military, bankers and corporatists, stock your immediate staff with people who have thoroughly proven to be willing to do anything to get over and establish a private security system?
You’re just being careful.
Right?
But…careful of what!!!???
Careful of strong opposition from PermaGov forces that…for 50+ years…has shown absolutely no qualms about doing whatever it takes to establish the primacy of their own preferences.
This is gang war on a very high level, Doc.
So far?
Trump’s the real Teflon Don.
But you do know what happened to Gotti, right?
Imprisonment, cancer and an early death.
Trump’s already ahead of the game.
ASG
O.K. I’ve got an advantage … I’ve been on the planet for almost 65 years; I’ve accomplished enough … 10X more than my other “family members”. I’m expendable … what I do, I do for “my kids”. Take care.
Doc…
I’ve outlived you already.
The worlds’s oldest 19 year-old. Bet on it
AG
P.S.. The atom bomb and I are kissin’ cousins.
Bet on that as well.
19 … Jesus.
Early ’70s … driving my blue Triumph Spitfire over the crosstown freeway to college … Nixon/Viet Nam war/draft
Top down … music from the tap deck blaring … engine loud as hell. Shit.
Arthur’s excitement is palpable. No surprise from a Ron Paul acolyte; this Congress is the real cure for what ails us, as far as he’s concerned.
You are right, centristfield. I am excited, but not for the reasons that you so often ascribe to me.
Here is what excites me about this situation. The long-lingering, wasting disease that has been taking this country…and much of the rest of the world…steadily down since at least the JFK assassination coup is finally coming to a head. The first real symptoms were the Arab Spring thing, the fires it lit even in failure all over the world…including the Occupy movement here in the U.S….and the whole Brexit/ongoing mass European reaction to the mistakes of the globalists. But the U.S. is the key. U.S. citizens are still largely in the thrall of the Permanent Government Media Complex, However, as Trump’s electoral success showed, that hold is loosening rapidly.
Trump himself and all of his policies? I believe that they will fade rapidly once they also begin to fail, and fail they will. I am already beginning to see signs of Trump Twitter Fatigue in the populace. When his supporters begin to tire of his bullshit, when they begin to realize that they are not better off under His Highness the Twitnizent? Then and only then comes an opportunity for real change instead of
Trump…errr, ahhh..I meant chump change.It’s going to be a horserace between Trump’s aspirations towards complete control and the chaos that will undoubtedly ensue when many of his grandiose plans fail.
I’m betting on evolution.
You?
Still betting on HRC, Pelosi, Schumer and the impossibly finished DNC?
Go read this: The Party’s Over
My sentiments exactly.
Yours?
I don’t think so.
AG
You’re a Ron Paul acolyte. You care nothing for Federal programs which have saved the lives and eased the sufferings of millions and millions of Americans, and still do. Screw you and your pallid, mealymouthed declarations here.
Pallid and mealymouthed I am definitely not, centristfield.
Do you not read what I am writing?
Or more simply…can you not understand what I am writing?
Whatever.
Go away, son.
Y’bother me.
AG
W.C. Fields played misanthropic, bossy blowhards who didn’t care for people.
How appropriate.
On top of everything else…or maybe your basic problem from which all else arises…you have no sense of humor.
Sad…
AG
SAD!
Yeah, you’re no Trump fan, not at all.
The racist doth protest too much, methinks.
-zzzzsffyf
I went so far as to read the 25th Amendment this morning. To have Trump declared “unable to discharge his powers and duties”, you’d have to get Pence & half the cabinet to sign on. And assuming most of his cabinet picks get approved, I don’t see that happening. But if it did happen, and Trump said he really wasn’t disabled, then it takes a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress to remove him.
yes, that’s the thing, he’ll never agree that he’s disabled
Very early indeed. Usually folks get a little too emotional, mostly in positive directions, at the outset of a new presidency. Usually it’s of the hype and hope for major change variety that is supposed to usher in a new golden age for this country.
Very occasionally it’s a feeling of anger and dread, and how fast can we get rid of this guy — Nixon in 68 and 72 come to mind. And heck, even in Tricky’s case, it took two years of investigation plus a nifty bit of self-incriminating evidence in the tapes, as well as a solid Dem congressional majority, to finally force him on to the exit helicopter.
I think we’re stuck with the Donald for 4 yrs. And if there are further election shenanigans by the GOP — very likely — maybe another 4 after that. (I still have the 2020-21 period as a time of a possible Civil War in this country, probably following another dubious election result)
That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing Donnie’s personality disorders put under official scrutiny for 25th Amendment purposes. I love drama, and it would be the ultimate Celebrity Apprentice reality teevee show, only this time with Donald in jeopardy of being fired.
I’d just prefer this be arranged after Donald goes ahead with his detente/rapprochement efforts with the Russkies, and after those efforts have borne fruit and become difficult to reverse. That’s about all his presidency will be good for, if he does manage to defy the Deep State.
Remember in 2009, when the conservative movement and GOP base was demoralized and feeling powerless? They ended up getting off their asses and raising holy hell. This Schleprock routine which too many good people on the Left are taking to these days is a problem. We need to be active. We need to be contacting our Congressmembers and the President. We need to be organizing in our communities. We need to begin preparing for upcoming local, State and Federal elections. We’ll win more if we try more and pull ourselves away from despair.
The President and Congress have engaged more talk than action so far. They’ve prioritized the ACA repeal promise, and as shown in their caucus retreat this week, they are having huge problems getting together on their replacement policies and are highly aware they cannot fully tear down major ACA structures without replacing them. This is almost certainly going to take up a huge portion of this year’s legislative calendar, which will delay their other plans to repeal the 21st and 20th Centuries. And delay in their plans will turn into failure to execute much of their plans if each and every one of us does what needs to be done, as often as possible.
Our movement is not represented by the majority in Washington D.C., but our movement is the plurality in the U.S. and should become more cohesive and durable in response to Orange Mussolini. Take comfort and confidence in that as we walk, one step after another, into the headwinds.
Don’t apologize. I don’t get this griping over pointing out that outrageous crap is outrageous crap.
Does this need explaining or is this a lube reference?
Mark Sanford, having intimate experience of Argentina would know stories about what dictators do.
Trump’s personality drives him in a dictatorial manner; his experience as a capitalist boss does as well. Remember the sign: Rules of this place: 1. The boss can do no wrong. 2. When the boss does wrong, refer to rule #1.
There are lots of, too many organizations that run exactly that way and they get worse in a down labor market. Trump’s “The Apprentice” was predicated on the office game of seeing who gets fired next in those toxic working environments.
There is a huge literature in political science about who authoritarian governments move quickly from the pre-existing situation to tightly-rule totalitarian regimes. The first step involves having checks and balances removed. The first check for Trump should be the Republican caucus in Congress, but it isn’t so far, despite at the press quotes and anonymous sources.
What that literature says is that the juggernaut started in the beginning is generally given the benefit of the doubt until its power is locked in and it is too late. When there is no honeymoon and immediate resistance (real, not rhetorical resistance) that power never gets locked in, sooner or later the orders don’t get obeyed, and the regime falls apart.
What advocates of resistance instead of Resistance ™-Send Me Money advocate is immediate, forceful, and huge real resistance. It will take more than just one Women’s March to do that. It will also take focusing on bringing down Trump and Pence to the requirements of the office and not the size of their ambitions. What militates against that is losers’ propensity to form circular firing squads about the past instead of focusing on the present.
Every cabinet secretary that gets confirmed legitimizes for the next four years Trump’s direction on policy or the ambiguity (and thus the freedom for arbitrary action) by the President and the cabinet Secretary.)
It is very important that there be more mainstream nominees in the positions of Attorney General, Secretary of Education, Secreatary of Health and Human Services, and other remaining cabinet secretaries to be confirmed. The Democrats in the past week have given away the direction for national and homeland security policy. It has not saved them from opposition in their districts and states in 2018 and 2020. Claire McCaskill seems the next up to go, and her opposition to #blacklivesmatter will cost her in the same way that Blue Democrats running from Obama cost them in 2010 and 2014.
Trump pressured Park Service to back up his claims about crowd size
just how puerile “our” new Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief really is.
Have I mentioned lately how fucked we are?
We. Are. So. Fucked.