Month: December 2016

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What we face

by digby

There’s a lot of talk right now about how to resist the Trump onslaught. I wish I had the answer. I know that it doesn’t lie with looking at the past or trying to right the wrongs of the 2016 election. This is a new day and he is unlike anything we’ve faced before. Fighting old wars will enable Trump not beat him.

Chris Hayes said this yesterday and I agree:

We should all be spending more time listening to Hungarians https://t.co/9VICEN5Bxd

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 29, 2016

That article is not encouraging. But it does provide some clarity. This is the best description of what we’re seeing from Trump so far:

Populists govern by swapping issues, as opposed to resolving them. Purposeful randomness, constant ambush, relentless slaloming and red herrings dropped all around are the new normal. Their favorite means of communication is provoking conflict. They do not mind being hated. Their two basic postures of “defending” and “triumphing” are impossible to perform without picking enemies.

Then drop that into a world in which his followers have their own news and conception of reality and you have a major challenge.

I hope to be trying to sort this out in 2017 and I really appreciate all of your contributions to the holiday fundraiser this year to help me make that happen. I don’t have the answers.  But I’m determined to at least try to see this problem as clearly as I can. This is a new situation for America and it’s important to maintain our grip on that central truth or we will not be able to successfully resist what’s coming.

If you are still of a mind to contribute, you can do that below.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

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Ask not what Donald Trump can do for your country but what you can do for Donald Trump.

by digby

It’s gonna be great! Yuuuuge!

President-elect Donald Trump privately told several visitors to his winter retreat in Florida on Wednesday that he is writing the first draft of his inaugural speech and is looking to presidents Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy for inspiration, according to three people familiar with the conversation.

Trump told them that Reagan’s “style” and Kennedy’s articulation of grand national ambitions are central to how he thinks through his own speech, which will be given Jan. 20, the people said.

And while Trump is working closely with Stephen Miller, his aide and speechwriter, on the text, he confided that in recent days he has become more personally involved in the writing process, the people said.

The people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the conversation.

A Trump transition spokesperson was not available for comment.

[At Trump’s inauguration, Franklin Graham, Cardinal Dolan and four more clergy members will pray]

Trump made his private remarks during lunchtime at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., to presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, Bloomberg columnist Margaret Carlson, Democratic lobbyist Thomas Quinn and Newsmax Media chief executive Christopher Ruddy, who is a longtime friend of the president-elect.

While the media and political personalities were dining together as Ruddy’s guests, Trump — who has been at the property for most of late December — ventured over at various points during a two-hour period to speak with them, the people said.

A person familiar with Trump’s comments said he is “enamored with Reagan’s confident style and how he connected with the country.”

“He went on and on about Reagan and how much he admires him. But it wasn’t all about Reagan. He spoke about Kennedy and how he was able to get the country motivated, to go to the moon. He’s thinking about both men as he starts to write the speech, which is something he’s now taking the lead on,” the person said.

The person added that part of the draw to Kennedy is that Trump knows that “what would have been Kennedy’s 100th birthday will come only a few months after his inauguration next year.”

I’m having a very hard time imagining Trump giving a formal address like this. In fact it’s impossible. He’s never give one that he hasn’t deviated from the script to add his usual asides like “and that so important, we’re gonna change that buhleemee.” I don’t know if he can read a real speech, indeed I’m not sure he’s ever watched one all the way through. It seems unlikely. Writing one himself is simply — ridiculous.

Let’s home someone runs it through google before he gives it. Those Trump’s have some issues with plagiarizing speeches…

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

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Another gun proliferation activist dies in an accidental shooting

by digby

From Brad Reed at Raw Story:

M.D. Harmon, a conservative columnist who frequently wrote in favor of gun ownership rights for the Portland Press Herald, died this week after being accidentally shot by a teenage boy.

As the Press Herald itself reports, the 71-year-old Harmon was showing off one of his guns to a 16-year-old boy in his home in Sanford, Maine, on Wednesday. Harmon apparently let the teenager handle the weapon, which went off while the boy was holding it.

Both the teenager and his father were visiting Harmon for undisclosed reasons, and Harmon’s wife has called the shooting an “accidental tragedy.”

Harmon was a dedicated defender of gun ownership rights and would regularly rail against attempts to regulate firearms or even make the use of firearms safer.

In a 2013 column, for instance, Harmon attacked proposed legislation in Maine that would have required gun owners to take a firearm safety course — in fact, he referred to this section of the legislation as “the worst part of the bill.”

“So much for ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” he wrote. “It’s one thing to have the government create limited groups of people not entitled to own firearms for good reasons — felons, the insane, children, etc. — and quite another to have the government think it can require that a free people get official permits to exercise their rights!”

He also criticized President Obama for issuing gun control “fatwas” that tried to mandate background checks at gun shows, as well as a ballot initiative that would have required gun sales to be processed through a federally licensed dealer.

This man chose to take this chance so in some ways he died for his own cause. But that 16 year old kid will have to live with what happened for the rest of his life. And there are thousands of other dead people, including babies and little toddlers, from gunshot wounds because of people who think unfettered gun ownership for fun is some kind of God-given right. In fact, they believe this over the idea that their victims should have health care when they are accidentally shot.

One of the saddest consequences of the Triumph of the Trump is that gun safety has now fallen to the bottom of the pile of issues again. The NRA was instrumental in Trump’s win and they won’t let him forget it. Not that he wants to. He’s all for letting cops and vigilantes alike shoot first and ask questions later.

But the issue will not go away. This country is going to have to deal with this some time. It’s just not going to be during the Trump era.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

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They’re laughing at you Donald

by digby

Trump has been saying for 30 years that foreigners are all laughing at us. Now they really are — for electing that dangerous buffoon:

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s golden quiff, bushy eyebrows and preening gestures were immortalized this week in China — though perhaps not in a way that he would like.

They appeared on a giant rooster statue, just above some three-toed feet and a blood-red wattle that hangs below a gilded nose and mouth.

The statue, which was installed outside a shopping mall in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan, was built to celebrate the coming Year of the Rooster in the Chinese lunar calendar and comes less than a month before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. It is 23 feet tall.
[…]
Inflatable “Trump chicken” replicas were on sale at Taobao, an online shopping bazaar, with a 32-foot version advertised for $1,725.

Casey Latiolais, an illustrator and animator in Seattle, said in a telephone interview that he completed the design in early November for Beijing Reliance Commercial Land, a real estate company that had contacted him through Behance, a website where artists post their portfolios. Mr. Latiolais said the company had asked only for a statue to commemorate the Year of the Rooster and did not mention Mr. Trump.

Mr. Latiolais, 30, declined to comment on why he had given the rooster Trump-like features. But he said he had been surprised by the size of the final product, which is made of fiberglass.

“This was way more yuge than I expected,” he wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Latiolais said that he was also surprised when the statue was “sort of bipartisanly looked at as funny” by his friends and family — including his parents, who voted for Mr. Trump.

It was not the first time since the American presidential election that people in China had likened Mr. Trump to a bird with notable hair.

In November, photos by a Chinese journalist of a golden pheasant with a blond pompadour and a red body circulated widely on social media and were published online by People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main newspaper. The bird, which lives in a safari park in the eastern city of Hangzhou, became a star attraction there and a muse for Hsiaohan Chen, a political cartoonist in Taipei.

He’s a joke. But he’s one of those cruel, dangerous practical jokes.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

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Trump’s media enforcers

by digby

I wrote about Trump and the media for Salon this morning:

Now that the smoke from the election is finally clearing, the challenge facing the Trump opposition is becoming obvious. It is immense. If anyone thought that the Trump campaign was some kind of a show or simply a means to an end and that Trump would “pivot” to a more presidential bearing and attitude, enough time has now passed to put any such hopes to rest. He is as unstable as ever.

Unlike other president-elects, Donald Trump has held no press conferences and is mainly communicating through Twitter. But his choices for his staff and his Cabinet tell some of the story. He remains dependent on his children and close campaign advisers, which were culled from the dregs of the GOP consultant class and right-wing fringe. And his cabinet choices mainly hail from the constituencies of Wall Street, Big Business and the extremist edge of the conservative movement.

But lest anyone think there’s ideological rhyme or reason for his choices, The Washington Post reported that his main concern is simply that they look the part. He admitted that he chose retired Marine Gen. James Mattis because he’s “the closest thing to General George Patton that we have,” but that is assumed to be mainly because he looks a little bit like George C. Scott, who played Patton in the movie. Transition officials said that Trump passed over Senator Bob Corker for Secretary of State because he is too short and he never seriously considered John Bolton for the leading role because of his mustache, which Trump apparently hates. Mitt Romney and ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson were apparently the top choices because of their silver hair and broad shoulders, which fit the image Trump has for a secretary of state.

Trump’s Twitter feed shows a disturbing portrait of a shallow egotist who spends way too much time watching TV and virtually no time learning how to do the most important job in the world. He’s taking credit for things he isn’t doing and ignoring all the norms and rules that usually apply to presidents. In other words, he isn’t changing. And just as the bizarre reality show of a campaign stymied 17 GOP rivals and the campaign of Hillary Clinton, his nascent presidency shows every sign of stymieing the Democrats and the political press.

Political scientist George C. Edwards III at Texas A&M argues in this piece in the Washington Post that all is not lost and that reality will eventually bite when Trump is unable to persuade the people to support him. He says there are four questions that might predict if he can accomplish that:

• Did Trump receive a mandate from the people?
• Do Americans support the general direction of Trump’s policies?
• How polarized is public opinion?
• How malleable is public opinion?

The answer to those questions is obvious. He did not receive a mandate, most Americans do not support the general direction of his policies, public opinion is extremely polarized and the only people whose opinions are malleable in his favor are those who already support him.

Edwards writes:

Although Trump seems to enjoy an extraordinary rapport with his most enthusiastic supporters, the question is whether he can change the views of those who do not support him. The evidence is clear that his efforts are unlikely to succeed. Indeed, presidents find it difficult even to change the views of their fellow partisans who happen to disagree with them on an issue.

He says if presidents fail to accurately assess their level of support and work within that they are prone to overreach and political disaster.

This analysis is comforting, if only because it makes one think we will come back to some sort of equilibrium once Trump fails. But there’s a feeling of whistling past the graveyard about it. Haven’t we been assured over and over again for the past 18 months that Trump was going to “overreach” and suffer “political disaster?” And doesn’t he just keep coming like The Terminator, impervious to all the normal political pitfalls?

The problem we face is that Trump is sui generis and he is operating within a unique circumstance. The party he now leads was already at a peak moment of extremism and are unable and unwilling to act as a moderating force. And the modern media environment has made it possible for a fabulist like Trump to create an alternate narrative that is likely to be believed by millions of his followers, who are already far more gullible than most people.

Politico reported that Republican officials who show any independence are already feeling the heat from Trump’s enforcers. When Representative Bill Flores of Texas rather mildly declared that some of Trump’s policies might not be in keeping with conservative principles he was attacked by Breitbart and Sean Hannity, which sent a horde of Trump supporters calling for his head. And he’s not alone:

“Nobody wants to go first,” said Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who received nasty phone calls, letters and tweets after he penned an August op-ed in The New York Times, calling on Trump to release his tax returns. “People are naturally reticent to be the first out of the block for fear of Sean Hannity, for fear of Breitbart, for fear of local folks.”

And that’s nothing compared to what they are facing if the president himself tweets a call to arms to his millions of supporters.

This is not business as usual. And attempting to deal with this phenomenon as if it is has not worked up until now and is unlikely to work in the future. No typical politician can do what Trump is doing. His followers see him as the ultimate Green Lantern president, a super-hero who doesn’t have to follow the rules. It’s not about reform for them, it’s about magic. Looking back at previous presidencies, or trying to create a “better message” is inadequate when Trump can lie with impunity and offer up a stirring story of success and victory in an alternate media universe. The question is what will work and I don’t think anyone knows the answer.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

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What’s good for Dear Leader is good for America

by digby

Yesterday Trump took a few questions from the press. He said some stupid things that you really have to see to believe. This comment in particular in response to reports of Russian government sponsored hacking of his rivals emails during the election was idiotic:

“I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind the security we need. But I have not spoken with the senators and I will certainly will be over a period of time.”

He’s like a fourth grader who hasn’t read the book for his book report. But it is telling that he has no interest in getting to the bottom of the story one way or the other. He just wants it to go away. Sadly, if Republicans a pleased that foreign agents are meddling in our elections as long as it benefits them and many members of the Democratic base think the US had it coming because of its own misdeeds in the past, then it’s unlikely to be an issue that sticks.

But this seems to be more salient, or at least I would have thought so. When asked about his blatant conflicts of interest and potential for corruption he said this:

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday sought to dismiss concerns about his plans for his sprawling business empire when he assumes office.

“It’s a very routine thing. It’s not a big deal. You people are making that a big deal, the business, because look, No. 1, when I won, they all knew I had a big business all over the place,” Trump told reporters Wednesday outside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“It’s a much bigger business than anybody thought. It’s a great business. But I’m going to have nothing to do with it.”

The president-elect said he plans to hold a press conference sometime in early January to discuss what will happen with his business when he assumes office.

He said he plans to focus on the country and his role as president after Inauguration Day.

“But when I ran, people knew I had a very big business. They elected me I guess partially for that reason,” he added.

“So I think that’s going to work out very easily. It’s actually a very simple situation. It’s not a big deal.”

He has said this before:

Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world.Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016

Now you may think this won’t fly with the public but it seems that people now expect him to use the office for personal gain and his voters are just fine with it. The new You Gov poll asked the question:

Trump’s voters clearly view business interests in general as good for the country (88% of them say what is good for business is good for the country). A smaller majority (58%) agree that what is good for Trump’s business is good for the country. Overall, a majority agree with the former statement, but not the latter.

However, there is agreement that the Trump business interests will matter when the incoming Administration makes decisions. Seven in ten adults believe they will affect the decisions he makes at least somewhat, and even a majority of Trump’s voters agree (though they overwhelmingly believe Trump will put the interests of the country ahead of his own personal interests). Most of the public expect the President-elect to use the Presidency to enrich his family and friends, though most Trump voters disagree.

What do you do with this? It is the very definition of corruption — from a man who ran for office accusing his rival of being so corrupt she belonged in jail. His voters trust him implicitly and yet he has no record of public service and had never done anything in his life to earn such trust from the public. The opposite, in fact. He’s been sued by thousands of people for cheating them. He lies as easily as he breathes. They know this and they don’t care. In fact, they admire him for it.

But what makes these people think that he won’t do it to them? That’s what I don’t get.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

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The Ring has to go to Mordor
by Tom Sullivan

The biggest challenge Democrats face is not Donald Trump, but constitution. Not the one in the National Archives, but their inner constitution.

The Democratic Party as an “establishment” organization is conservative by disposition. When shaken or defeated, or when facing the unknown, like now, such organizations by reflex seek safety in the comfortable and familiar. They shy from risk. Democrats fret about what Republicans might say about them at election time. Inner circles across the country worry about fundraising: regular donors might not support untested, young leaders. Democrats fret about how a new direction might induce “division in the party.” (Translation: chieftains might have less influence going forward). That is,

… they like to be the deciders of whose turn it is. There is a tendency to hang onto power and not to cultivate new leadership possessing skills they don’t understand. Old boys would rather turn over the reins to old chums — regardless of their skills — when they can’t chew the leather anymore.

Institutional reserve leaves Democrats as a party in a perpetual, defensive crouch, looking for all the world more like abused spouses than bold leaders. All defense, as if in the age of Trump they have something left to lose.

This plays out at the local, state, and national levels. You can see it in the race for DNC chair.

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez is (reportedly) the White House’s “safe” pick, someone who won’t rock the boat. Rep. Keith Ellison, the erstwhile Bernie Sanders primary supporter, is the “risky” pick. The election is perceived as a proxy battle between the Clinton and the Sanders factions. But that’s not where the split is. Those personalities are simply the loci.

The real split is between top-down leaders and bottom-up, grassroots activists expected to wait their turn. A top-down establishment holding onto the past with white knuckles is not going to grow the party out of the minority status in which it finds itself. The familiar and comfortable is not what the electorate is thirsting for. Years of service is not enough. Voters want bold, forward-looking leadership. Offer a new generation of activists something less and they’ll stay away. That’s not a promising vehicle for change to anyone under 40 years old.

Plus, all the navel-gazing, internal power struggles rob bandwidth from outward-looking, community-focused activity of the sort on which new activists are interested in spending their limited time and resources. It’s not a story they care to be part of.

Which leads to another obstacle Democrats face on their journey back.

After one of Hillary Clinton’s campaign speeches last summer, my wife said, “She needs to tell stories.” Stories are relatable. A Hollywood writer friend wonders why Democrats cling to pet consultants rather than engaging professionals who craft stories in which people willingly lose themselves, and pay for the experience. Storytelling is the link that builds a connection with voters the way a custom-designed drug molecule binds with a cell’s receptors. Democrats can pull it off for a four-day convention, but as a workaday party Democrats suck at it. Independent progressives too.

I’m not talking about tricksy, Frank Luntz-style, focus-tested wordsmithery, or some messaging magic-bullet, but a compelling narrative in which voters can invest themselves. A monomyth, if you like. Because politics isn’t all policies and strategy and self-interest. It’s about trust and relationships. Wonkish Democrats need to relearn how to build those, to become heroes in their own stories. (Yes, I can hear the cynics now.)

So this week I saw Rogue One — Jyn Erso: will she fight? — just before having a beer with a local elected official. After confiding my concerns about Democrats playing it safe in the age of Trump, my friend summed up the situation in a single, powerful metaphor: “The Ring has to go to Mordor. It won’t help to carry it back to The Shire.”

Thank you. Now if only Democrats will reach inside and find some heroes.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

It’s Holiday Fundraiser time. If you’d like to contribute, you can do so below or use the snail mail address at the top of the left column. Thank you!

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

cheers — digby

QOTD: Trump’s economic adviser

by digby

Lawrence Kudlow:

“Why shouldn’t the president surround himself with successful people? Wealthy folks have no need to steal or engage in corruption.”

Sadly, many of Trump’s voters undoubtedly believe that. It’s the lazy Mexicans and “the blacks” who are stealing from them, not the job creators. They are honest people. They must be or they wouldn’t be rich. Or something.

Sigh.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

CNN got worse ratings than HGTV

by digby

Seriously:

Nikki Justice doesn’t seem like she’d be a big fan of HGTV’s show “Property Brothers.” A first-year astronomy and physics major at Ohio State University, she’s never owned a home, let alone flipped one. But her parents watched regularly, and now Justice tunes in several hours a week to watch one home transformation after another.

“A lot of the news these days is really stressful,” she said. “HGTV is not something that’s going to hurt me. I watch it and dream of what I want for my future house.”

So does Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins, who recently said that he prefers HGTV to ESPN. Taylor Swift shared on Instagram her affection for HGTV’s “Fixer Upper.” And Hillary Clinton said she likes “Love It or List It” and “Beachfront Bargain Hunt,” calling them “relaxing, entertaining and informative.”

The escapist appeal of looking at other people’s beautiful homes turned Home & Garden Television into the third most-watched cable network in 2016, ahead of CNN and behind only Fox News and ESPN. Riding HGTV’s reality shows, parent company Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. has seen its shares rise more than 30 percent this year, outperforming bigger rivals like Walt Disney Co., 21st Century Fox Inc. and Viacom Inc.

I can understand this. CNN became unwatchable during the campaign what with the bizarre Trump-hack panel concept they came up with. I watched because it’s my job but I’ve cut way, way back now. In fact, I’m not watching TV much at all and have switched to listening to classical and jazz just so that I can keep my spirits up. TV is depressing.

I’ll go back at some point. And I do still get a lot out of Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow and some of the other MSNBC hosts who take an adversarial position against right wing bullshit. But for the most part, I just can’t take it. The every day normalization of Donald Trump brings me down and makes it difficult to see things clearly.

There are lots of things to read and watch on line to inform yourself. Even here. Cable news isn’t really necessary at least not in more that specific chunks of time.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

The truth about lying

by digby

Via Media Matters: 

BRIAN STELTER (HOST): Let’s tell some truths about lying, because the way Donald Trump lies has people rethinking some of the basic premises of journalism, like the assumption that everything a president says is automatically news. When President-elect Trump lies so casually, so cynically, the news isn’t so much the false thing he said, it’s that he felt like he could just go ahead and say it, go ahead and lie to you. That’s the story. Why does he bend and flex and twist and warp and distort the truth? Personally I’m curious because I think Trump does it differently than past presidents. His lies are different and deserve scrutiny.

[…]

Court cases involving Trump have shown that he lies even when the truth is really easy to discern. And that’s what we’re seeing all again now. That’s why I think fact-checking is important, but the framing of these stories is even more important. Take Trump’s promotion of this voter fraud conspiracy idea. He said on Twitter “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” The journalistic impulse was to say something like “Trump claims he won the popular vote.” I would suggest to you that better framing is “Trump lies again, embracing a far-right-wing conspiracy theory.” See, focusing on the falsehood creates more confusion and gives the lie even more life. And that’s the wrong way to go. Focusing on Trump’s tendency to buy into BS gets to what’s really going on here. This calls for more reporting and for reporters to show our work, to show that we actually know the truth.

There’s a lot of data out there showing that when people are shown facts it only tends to reinforce their own biases. So what Stelter is saying is true. Journalism cannot rely on simply fact-checking, although it’s important to do it. It has to try to promote truth, not just facts, and that means they have to think hard about ways to talk about politics and government that successfully does that.

At least they’re talking about it. Whether they can actually do it, I don’t know. We are certainly seeing plenty of “if both sides criticize me it means I must be doing something right” defensiveness among journalists. And plenty of plain old “he said/she said” and “both sides do it” takes out there. For instance:

Progressives who insist racism is why Trump won are guilty of the same villainization they decry when others do it. https://t.co/Tgw3XpsAMd

— Jeremy W. Peters (@jwpetersNYT) December 27, 2016

Still, it’s good news that media critics are tackling this seriously. We are in big trouble if we don’t figure out a way to govern from a common reality.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

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