Sinclair Lewis is being recognized more and more, I notice*
by Tom Sullivan
Wasn’t this guy was supposed to be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross?
WH Sr. Policy Adviser Stephen Miller: "The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned" pic.twitter.com/sn3GyFATPD— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) February 12, 2017
Think Progress on White House policy advisor, Stephen Miller:
Senior White House Policy Advisor Stephen Miller raised plenty of eyebrows on Sunday as the perused the talk-show circuit talking about cases of voter fraud (that don’t exist) and Steve Bannon’s lack of involvement in drafting executive orders (which, according to most reports, is the exact opposite of the truth).
But perhaps his most alarming statement was in reference to the federal judges in Washington rejecting President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.
“I think that it’s been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government,” Miller told John Dickerson of CBS News, as first noted by Will Saletan of Slate. “The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”
sorry.
We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
sorry.
Or maybe not:
White House senior advisor doubles down on unsubstantiated NH voter fraud claims: “Voter fraud is a serious problem in this country” pic.twitter.com/xVDqHMAgYV— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) February 12, 2017
Trump & crew fraudulent claim of voter fraud is the new birtherism — a baseless lie whose purpose is to delegitimize US electoral democracy.— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) February 12, 2017
It’s no wonder Trump likes Miller. Secondhand hearsay is his idea of proof. (In a proper, Trumpish court, that will be enough to convict.) Deliberately implying registration discrepancies are the same as fraudulent votes without having to produce any illegal votes or fraudulent voters is a Machiavellian artifice. It doesn’t matter to members of this White House what the truth is, only what they can get enough people to believe.
To build support for even harsher voting restrictions on American citizens of the wrong persuasion, they need the right kind of people to believe “massive numbers” of the wrong kind of people are “cancelling out the franchise of lawful citizens.” They don’t need no evidence. They don’t have to show you any stinkin’ perpetrators, either. Perhaps this is another reason evangelicals bought into Trump: because he and his people can spew bullshit forcefully and with such supreme confidence.
As Bill McKibben once wrote:
The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they’re talking about. They’re like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track.
Look straight into the camera and lie through your teeth. Boldly. Do it with enough panache and you will fool some of the people all of the time. At this pace, the Trump White House will be moving up soon to selling prayer cloths and prosperity plans. After all, Trump did that once already with his phony university.
*(Yes, I know.)