Month: February 2017

Protesters take to the streets in Mexico

by digby

This will be happening all over the world, I have no doubt. (Well, there may be a few countries run by Trumpian strongmen like the Philippines that won’t be able to …)

Mexicans have held massive protests against US President Donald Trump, hitting back at his anti-Mexican rhetoric and vows to make Mexico pay for a “big, beautiful” border wall between the two countries.

Marches got under way on Sunday in some 20 cities across the country, including the capital, Mexico City, where thousands of people were expected to flood a central avenue dressed in white and waving the red, white and green of the Mexican flag.

Dozens of universities, business associations and civic organisations are backing the protest.

“It is time we citizens combine forces and unite our voices to show our indignation and rejection of President Trump, while contributing to the search for concrete solutions,” said the coalition behind the marches.

US-Mexican relations have plunged to their lowest point in decades since Trump took office on January 20 .

Trump, who launched his presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists,” has infuriated the US’ southern neighbour.

He also announced plans to stop illegal immigration by building a wall on the border and make Mexico pay for it .

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto cancelled a January 31 trip to Washington over Trump’s insistence that Mexico pay for the wall.

Trump has also wrought havoc on the Mexican economy with his threats to terminate the country’s privileged trade relationship with the US, blaming Mexico for the loss of jobs in the country.

The Mexican peso has taken a beating nearly every time Trump insisted on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), attacked carmakers and other companies that manufacture in Mexico, or vowed to slap steep tariffs on Mexican-made goods.

This may steel the resolve of Mexico’s political leadership to resist. And then … who knows?  The last we heard, Trump was threatening to send troops over the border:

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there. You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

The White House said he was just kidding.  I’ll bet the Mexican president laughed and laughed. It’s always funny when some raging nutcase says your military is a bunch of cowards and threatens to invade. Hilarious stuff.

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Politics and Reality radio: Trump’s Getting Rolled by Foreigners; Red Flags for Authoritarianism; Would a General Strike Work?

with Joshua Holland

This week, we begin with a look at Donald Trump’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad first three weeks in office. It turns out that when you have no idea what you’re doing, it’s easy for the pros to walk all over you, and that’s precisely what’s happened to the Trump regime so far.

Then we’ll be joined by Erik Loomis, a labor historian at the University of Rhode Island, to discuss recent calls for a general strike, and Trump’s attempt to drive a wedge into the American labor movement.

Next up is University of Georgia political scientist Cas Mudde, who explains why experts on authoritarian governments are sweating the Trump regime, and then lays out some signs of democratic deconsolidation to watch for in the years to come.

Finally, we’ll speak to Ryan Devereaux from The Intercept, who reports that some of the most disturbing provisions of Trump’s executive orders on immigration have largely flown under the radar as the media focused first on the wall, and then the hamfisted “Muslim ban.”

Playlist — this week’s musical theme is, “nevertheless, she persisted”:
Queen Latifah: “U.N.I.T.Y.”
Rocky Rivera: “Pussy Kills”
Nina Simone: “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life”

As always, you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes, Soundcloud or Podbean.

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Let’s have some of that good old Trumpish populism!

by digby

Because he cares about the plight of the white working class and wants more than anything to help them achieve the American dream:

A few weeks after the election, Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, was summoned to Trump Tower for a discussion about the economy. It would be the first of many such meetings with President-elect Donald J. Trump.

During that sit-down, on Nov. 29, Mr. Cohn briefed Mr. Trump on what he regarded as the chief hurdle to expanding the economy, according to people who were briefed on the discussion: a stronger dollar, which would undermine efforts to create jobs.

Mr. Cohn also argued that the bold infrastructure projects that Mr. Trump envisioned would need private-industry partners, those people said, in order to avoid weighing down the government with costs.

That got Mr. Trump’s attention.

The president-elect turned to the other people in the room — his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon; his chief of staff, Reince Priebus; and Steven T. Mnuchin, his campaign’s chief fund-raiser and Mr. Trump’s nominee to be Treasury secretary — surprised that his infrastructure ideas had such a potential downside.

“Is this true?” Mr. Trump asked the group, according to those people. Heads nodded. “Why did I have to wait to have this guy tell me?” he demanded.

It would not be the only time Mr. Cohn was a lonely voice in Mr. Trump’s inner sanctum. Two and a half months after that initial meeting, with key economic posts in the White House and cabinet still vacant, he has become the go-to figure on matters related to jobs, business and growth. He resigned from his position at Goldman in December to become director of the president’s National Economic Council.

Apparently, he’s been sitting down with the president on a regular basis to tutor him on economics and has formed a separate power base that may offset the white nationalist world domination agenda. So Wall Street has Trump’s ear. Surprise.

He doesn’t seem to be insane, which is a big plus in this administration. But he’s also not a populist which one would think would disturb Trump’s supporters but they don’t seem to care.

The fact is that Trump is not a populist and never was one. He’s a white nationalist, like Bannon, and there are economic elements to that nationalism. But the devil is in the details and Trump doesn’t have a clue about that. (For instance this thing about currency….)

Anyway, here’s what we can look forward to:

Topping Mr. Cohn’s current to-do list: corporate and individual tax reforms, to be carried out at the same time; improvements to infrastructure to create new jobs; and regulatory relief in general.

He is also studying how to revamp the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Trump vowed during the campaign to repeal — a promise that is proving to be more complicated to keep than he had expected.

Mr. Cohn is working with a health care specialist and consulting with House Republicans: Speaker Paul D. Ryan; Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader; and Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the Financial Services Committee. Mr. Cohn is determining which aspects of the act may be worth keeping (allowing people to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26 and mandating coverage of people with pre-existing conditions) and which may not (allowing people to sign up for health insurance outside of the typical enrollment periods).

Orin Snyder, a corporate litigator and longtime friend of Mr. Cohn’s who speaks to him regularly, said, “He is working around the clock, energized and focused like a laser beam on developing the best plan for implementing the president’s economic agenda.”

This account of Mr. Cohn’s role in economic matters, amid the tumultuous first three weeks of the Trump administration, is based on interviews with four people who have observed or been briefed on his transition from Goldman to the White House and his early work in the administration.

Mr. Trump has already vowed to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act, the financial regulation law that was passed in 2010, and has ordered a reassessment of an Obama-era rule requiring financial advisers to act in the best interest of their clients. The efforts have helped push up stock markets, particularly shares of financial companies.

They have also generated outrage in some quarters. “The way I see this, there was a devastating financial crisis just over eight years ago,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said. “Goldman Sachs was at the heart of that crisis. The idea that the president is now going to turn over the country’s economic policy to a senior Goldman executive turns my stomach.”

It is not just that Mr. Cohn, 56, has a prominent role in economic policy; he is one of the few senior administration officials addressing those issues on the job right now. Questions of job creation and financial regulation might fall within the purview of not only the National Economic Council but also of the Council of Economic Advisers — a panel of experts that has historically operated within the White House — and the Treasury secretary. But Mr. Trump indicated on Wednesday that the vacant position of council chairman would not be cabinet-level, and Mr. Mnuchin has yet to be confirmed.

Mr. Cohn collaborates frequently with Mr. Kushner, who is now a senior adviser to Mr. Trump. Along with Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, Mr. Cohn recently helped persuade the president not to pursue an executive order that would have rolled back rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Trump didn’t give any speeches to Goldman Sachs so many people considered him a friend of the working class because he hates multinational trade agreements. Of course if anyone had listened to what he actually said, he doesn’t hate them because they are unfair to American workers, it’s because he thinks “America” can negotiate a better deal for American businesses if they can strong arm other countries one on one. He’s just fine with competition driving down American wages, as long as the competitors are American businesses. In fact, he has said outright that wages have to come down so that we can “compete” with the low wage countries around the world.

I’m sure Cohn agrees with that and will find a way to guide our puerile TV addict president to the right policies. His role, and Mnuchin’s,  will be to make the country very, very safe for billionaires. Bannon and Miller will be fine with all that as long as they can build their walls and crack down on “crime” and Make America White Again.

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by digby

Some call him nutty as a fruitcake. I’m talking about Stephen Miller, formerly of Jeff Sessions’ office now of the Trump White House who’s having his moment in the sun. He had a big profile in the New York Times and appeared on all the morning shows.  It was so nice to see all the mainstream news people treating this fine fellow with such respect.

Here’s an excerpt of a previous profile in Mother Jones:

Stephen Miller, a top aide to Trump’s presidential campaign, will serve as a senior White House adviser for policy, Trump’s transition team announced Tuesday. Miller is a former staffer for the nativist Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), now Trump’s nominee for attorney general. The announcement of Miller’s new role drew praise from white nationalist leader Richard Spencer. “Stephen is a highly competent and tough individual,” Spencer, who famously coined the term “alt-right” to describe the insurgent right-wing movement that has attracted white nationalists and supremacists, told Mother Jones on Wednesday. “So I have no doubt that he will do a great job.”

Spencer and Miller first came to know each other in the late 2000s as students at Duke University, where they both belonged to the Duke Conservative Union. Miller earned notice for standing up for white lacrosse players falsely accused in 2006 of gang raping a black woman. Spencer also defended the Duke lacrosse players, writing about the case for Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative, which later hired him as an editor.

Spencer told me that at Duke, Miller helped him with fundraising and promotion for an on-campus debate on immigration policy that Spencer organized in 2007, featuring influential white nationalist Peter Brimelow. Another former member of the Duke Conservative Union confirms that Miller and Spencer worked together on the event. At DCU meetings, according to a past president of the group, Miller denounced multiculturalism and expressed concerns that immigrants from non-European countries were not assimilating.

“I knew [Miller] very well when I was at Duke,” Spencer told me when I visited him at his home in Whitefish, Montana, a few weeks before the election. “But I am kind of glad no one’s talked about this, because I don’t want to harm Trump.”

Miller wrote about two dozen columns for the Duke Chronicle, and his articles assailed multiculturalism (which he called “segregation”) and paid family leave (which he said results in men getting laid off). He also denied there was systematic racism (which he dubbed “racial paranoia”).

He’s only 30. Those articles were written less than a decade ago.

He is a full-fledged member of what we would have called the far right fringe a few months ago but is now a senior adviser to the President of the United States and a representative of the mainstream of the Republican Party.

He is what we call in the business “a piece of work.”

Anyway, here are a few highlights of his appearances on the morning shows:

On  “Face the Nation”:

“The President of the United States has accomplished more in just a few weeks than many presidents accomplish in an entire administration.”

On the travel ban “Face the Nation”:

“I think that it’s been an important reminder for all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government.”

On  This Week responding to Trump’s inane comment that thousands of people were bused into New Hampshire to illegally vote for Hillary Clinton, explaining why he lost there:

“George, go to New Hampshire. Talk to anybody who has worked in politics there for a long time … I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics. It’s very real. It’s very serious. This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence.”

On General Flynn on Meet the Press:

“They did not give me anything to say … It’s not for me to answer hypothetical. It wouldn’t be responsible. It’s a sensitive matter.”

This is the quality of racist who is serving as senior adviser to the president. And the president loves him.

He especially loves this, I’m sure:

Dickerson: What have you all learned from this experience with the executive order? 

Miller: Well, 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 …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.

Yes, he actually said those words. I added the all caps because you know in your heart that how it sounded in the original German.

Jawohl, mein Kommandant

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Who could have known?

by digby

Does everyone remember this ad from before the election? Well …

About 75,000 white people in the midwest didn’t like this sort of thing so … here we are.

Trump is what you get for forgetting who really matters in this county.

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A moral disruption
by Tom Sullivan

Yesterday was a good day to be heard. In Minneapolis, about 2,000 protesters marched to support immigrants and refugees. Another 2,000 took to the streets in San Diego in support of Planned Parenthood and against moves in Congress to cut funding to women’s health services.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, tens of thousands marched in the 11th Annual Moral March on Raleigh & HKonJ People’s Assembly. The local ABC affiliate reports:

A coalition of social justice advocacy groups organized by the North Carolina NAACP also included speakers focused on opposition to actions by President Donald Trump, particularly on immigration. Other rallies held in Raleigh this year have been critical of Trump.

The “J” in “HK on J” stands for Jones Streets, where state lawmakers meet. Most of Saturday’s marchers oppose policies pushed by the Republican-led legislature.

Saturday’s protesters also pushed for the repeal of House Bill 2, which limits LGBT rights and which bathrooms transgender people can use. Other topics include opposition to gerrymandering in redistricting and to the repeal of former President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Upwards of 80,000 marching in Raleigh today for voting rights, democracy & #moralresistance #MoralMarch via @ncnaacp pic.twitter.com/Q83cpalGUE— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) February 11, 2017

The News and Observer reports:

“A racist and greedy extremism that came to power in North Carolina four years ago now controls the White House and the Congress in D.C.,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP branch, at a speech before the march. “Millions are afraid.

“A loud majority is outraged and the whole world is in turmoil asking what can we do. Well, we know we’ve got a hard fight ahead, but we know how to win.”

Barber has been the leader of the “Moral Monday” movement that has protested GOP state policies in recent years.

Barber has managed what progressive groups have failed to sustain. The Forward Together fusion movement “was based on the simple principle that if the wealthy few were cynical enough to stand together against justice, then we should be smart enough to come together for justice.” His fusion coalition has bought single issue groups out of their silos to work together as a group in a way that confounds the conservative opposition. The issues they tackle, Barber preaches (and he does preach), are beyond right and left. They are about right and wrong.

“And when we examine policy, we’d ask three questions: Is it constitutionally consistent, is it morally defensible, and is it economically sane?”

This casts Barber as a kind of disrupter. While the issues and groups in the movement are clearly left of center, by being careful to avoid partisan branding and affiliations, and by reviving the kind of church leadership that Martin Luther King drew on during the Civil Rights era, the powers that be are somewhat lost in how to assault it. After years of Christian Coalition influence on the Republican politics, some on the left find the mixing among progressive groups uncomfortable. But it would have been hard to find them among the estimated 80,000 marchers yesterday.

Saturday Night at the Movies

Funny about love: Top 10 Romantic Comedies

By Dennis Hartley

With Valentine’s Day nearly upon us, I thought that I would share my top ten favorite romantic comedies with you tonight. So in a non-ranking alphabetical order, here we go:

Amelie-Yes, I know this film has its share of detractors (who are nearly as passionate as Nickelback haters), but Jean-Pierre Juenet’s beautifully realized film has stolen my heart for life. Audrey Tautou literally lights up the screen as a gregarious loner who decides to become a guardian angel (sometimes benign devil) and commit random acts of anonymous kindness. The plight of Amelie’s people in need is suspiciously similar to her own…those who need a little push to come out of self-imposed exiles and revel in life’s simple pleasures. Of course, our heroine is really in search of her own happiness and fulfillment. Does she find it? You’ll have to see for yourself. Whimsical, inventive, life-affirming, and wholly original, Amelie should melt the most cynical of hearts (in theory).

Gregory’s Girl– Scottish writer-director Bill Forsyth’s delightful examination of first love follows gawky teenager Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) as he goes gaga over Dorothy (Dee Hepburn), a fellow soccer player on the school team. Gregory receives advice from an unlikely mentor, his little sister (Allison Forster). While his male classmates put on airs about having deep insights about the opposite sex, they are just as clueless as he. Forsyth gets a lot of mileage out of a basic truth about adolescence-the girls are usually light years ahead of the boys in getting a handle on the mysteries of love. Not as precious as you might think, as Forsyth is a master of low-key anarchy and understated irony. You may have trouble navigating those Scottish accents, but it’s worth the effort. Also with Clare Grogan, whom music fans may recall as the lead singer of 80s new wavers Altered Images, and Red Dwarf fans may recognize as “Kristine Kochanski”.

Play it Again, Sam – I don’t know what it is about this particular Woody Allen vehicle (directed by Herbert Ross), but no matter how many times I have viewed it over the years, I laugh just as hard at all the one-liners as I did the first time I saw it. Annie Hall and Manhattan may be his most highly lauded and artistically accomplished projects, but for pure “laughs per minute”, I would nominate this 1972 entry, with a screenplay adapted by Allen from his own original stage version. Allen portrays a film buff with a Humphrey Bogart obsession. He fantasizes that he’s getting pointers from Bogie’s ghost (played to perfection by Jerry Lacy) who advises him on how to “be a man” and attract the perfect mate. He receives some more pragmatic assistance from his best friends, a married couple (Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts) who fix him up with a series of women (the depictions of the various dating disasters are hilarious beyond description). A classic.

Modern Romance (1981) – In his best romantic comedy (co-written by frequent collaborator Monica Johnson), writer-director Albert Brooks (the inventor of “cringe” comedy) casts himself as a film editor who works for American International Pictures. His obsessive-compulsiveness makes him great at his job, but a pain-in-the-ass to his devoted girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold), who is becoming exasperated with his penchant to impulsively break up with her one day, then beg her to take him back the next. There are many inspired scenes, particularly a sequence where a depressed Brooks takes Quaaludes and drunk dials every woman he’s ever dated (like Bob Newhart, Brooks is a master of “the phone bit”). Another great scene features Brooks and his assistant editor (the late Bruno Kirby, in one of his best roles) laying down Foley tracks in the post-production sessions for a cheesy sci-fi movie. Brooks’ brother, Bob Einstein (a regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm) has a wry cameo as a sportswear clerk. Also with George Kennedy (as “himself”) and real-life film director James L. Brooks (no relation) playing Brooks’ boss.

Next Stop, Wonderland – Writer/director Brad Anderson’s intelligent and easygoing fable about love and serendipity made me a Hope Davis fan for life. Davis plays a laid back Bostonian who finds her love life set adrift after her pompous environmental activist boyfriend (Philip Seymour Hoffman) suddenly decides that dashing off to save the earth is more important than sustaining their relationship. Her story is paralleled with that of a charming and unassuming single fellow (Alan Gelfant) who aspires to become a marine biologist. Both parties find themselves politely deferring to well-meaning friends and relatives who are constantly trying to fix them up with dates. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that these two may be destined to end up together. The film seems to have been inspired by A Man and a Woman, right down to its breezy bossa nova/samba soundtrack.

She’s Gotta Have It – “Please baby please baby please baby please!” One of director Spike Lee’s earlier, funny films (his debut, actually). A sexy, hip, and fiercely independent young woman (Tracy Camilla Johns) juggles relationships with three men, who are all quite aware of each other’s existence. Lee steals his own film by casting himself as the goofiest and most memorable of the three suitors- “Mars”, a trash-talking version of the classic Woody Allen nebbish. Lee milks laughs from the huffing and puffing by the competing paramours, as each jockeys for the alpha position (and makes some keen observations regarding sexist machismo and male vanity). Spike’s dad Bill Lee composed a lovely jazz-pop score. An influential milestone for modern indie cinema.

Sherman’s March – Documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee is truly one of America’s hidden treasures. A genteel Southern neurotic (Woody Allen meets Tennessee Williams), McElwee has been documenting his personal life since the mid 70’s and managed to turn all that footage into some of the funniest and most thought-provoking films that most people have never seen. Viewers weaned on reality TV and Snapchat may wonder “what’s the big deal about one more schmuck making glorified home movies?” but they would be missing an enriching glimpse into the human condition. Sherman’s March actually began as a history piece, a project aiming to retrace the Union general’s path of destruction through the South during the Civil War, but somehow ended up as rumination on the eternal human quest for love and acceptance, filtered through McElwee’s personal search for the perfect mate. Despite its daunting 3 hour length, I’ve found myself returning to this film for repeat viewings over the years, and enjoying it just as much as the first time I saw it. The unofficial “sequel”, Time Indefinite, is worth a peek as well.

Someone to Love (1987) – The perfect Valentine’s Day movie…for dateless singles. Writer-director Henry Jaglom’s films tend to polarize viewers; his work is highly personal, usually steeped in navel-gazing reviews of his own relationships with women. In Someone to Love, Jaglom plays (surprise surprise) a film director, who invites all of his friends who are currently “in between” relationships to join him at a condemned movie theatre on Valentine’s Day for a get-together. Once they arrive, Jaglom admits a small deception-he wants each to explain why they think they are alone on Valentine’s Day, and he wants to document the proceedings on film. Very talky-but fascinating. Featuring Andrea Marcovicci (who had recently broken up with Jaglom at the time of filming), Sally Kellerman, musician Steven Bishop, and, erm, Orson Welles (don’t ask).

The Tall Guy –Deftly directed by British TV comic Mel Smith with a high-brow/low-brow blend of sophisticated cleverness and riotous vulgarity (somehow he makes it work), this is the stuff cult followings are made of. Jeff Goldblum is an American actor working on the London stage, who is love struck by an English nurse (Emma Thompson). Rowan Atkinson is a hoot as Goldblum’s employer, a London stage comic beloved by his audience but an absolute backstage terror to cast and crew. The most hilariously choreographed sex scene ever put on film alone is worth the price of admission; and the extended set-piece, a staged musical version of The Elephant Man (a brilliant takeoff on Andrew Lloyd Webber) had me on the floor. This underrated gem is required viewing.

Two for the Road – A swinging 60s version of Scenes from a Marriage. Director Stanley Donen (Singin’ in the Rain) whips up a cinematic soufflé; folding in a sophisticated script by Frederick Raphael, a generous helping of Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, a dash of colorful European locales, and topping it with a cherry of a score by Henry Mancini. Donen follows the travails of a married couple over the years of their relationship, by constructing a series of non-linear flashbacks and flash-forwards (a structural device that has been utilized since by other filmmakers, but rarely as effectively). While there are a lot of laughs, Two For the Road is, at its heart, a thoughtful meditation on the nature of love and true commitment. Finney and Hepburn have an electric on-screen chemistry.

A few more recommendations:

A Summer’s Tale
Blind Dates
2 Days in New York
Your Sister’s Sister
Tokyo Pop
Midnight in Paris
A Matter of Size
Delicatessen

More reviews at Den of Cinema

—Dennis Hartley

They’re just not that into him

by digby

Well, 71% anyway. Trump does have the strong support of a whopping 29% of the population according to one poll. Another 17% sort of, kind of support him. And the intensity gap is yuuuge. 41% of Americans strongly disapprove of him.

This is from Mark Blumenthal at Survey Monkey:

One striking characteristic of Trump’s initial job rating is the relative intensity of disapproval. In our most recent full week of tracking, for example, far more Americans strongly disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job (41 percent) than strongly approve (29 percent). That gap means that Trump’s overall 46 percent approval rating includes 17 percent who only “somewhat approve” of his performance.

As noted in our analysis of the first SurveyMonkey poll of the Trump presidency, that softer support rests on a combination of hope and partisanship. Among those who only somewhat approved of Trump during his his first week, 73 percent said his inauguration made them feel hopeful, but only 15 percent said they were excited and only 12 percent were proud. The majority of these soft approvers are Republican.

In the second week of the Trump presidency, we asked a national sample of adults to select from a list of personal characteristics and qualities and tell us which apply to President Trump. They could select “all that apply.”

Overall, the traits Americans apply most readily are “stands up for what he believes in,” (44 percent), “can get things done” (38 percent), and tough enough for the job“ (36 percent). At the opposite end of the spectrum, traits like ”honest and trustworthy“ (17 percent), ”shares your values“ (20 percent), ”inspires confidence“ (21 percent) and ”cares about people like you” (22 percent) received far fewer selections.

Of course, a significant number (41 percent) apply “none” of these positive qualities to Trump. Among Democrats and Americans who disapprove of Trump’s performance as president, few are willing to associate any positive traits to the new president.

Among Trump’s soft supporters, the gap is especially pronounced between an appreciation for his outspoken toughness and desire to get things done, on the one hand, and a lack of honesty, empathy and the ability to inspire on the other.

Better than two thirds (68 percent) of those who only somewhat approve of the President say he stands up for his beliefs, and almost as many say he is tough enough for the job (60 percent) and can get things done (59 percent). The soft approvers are far less confident, however, about his ability to keep promises (38 percent) or perform as an effective manager (34 percent), and even fewer (near 20 percent) associate qualities like empathy, shared values or inspiration with the new president. Just 11 percent of the Trump’s soft approvers say “honest and trustworthy” applies to him.

On a more direct question, Americans divide almost evenly on the question about the competence and effectiveness of the Trump administration. Just over half (51 percent) rate the Trump administration as very or somewhat competent so far “in its role of managing the federal government,” while 48 percent say it is not too or not at all competent. Again, not surprisingly, most of those who only “somewhat approve” of Trump as President are also tend to say his administration is only somewhat rather than very competent (68 vs. 23 percent).

Taken together, these results mirror the aspects of Trump’s character highlighted during the campaign and emphasized in the first few weeks of his presidency.

One of the themes of new administration, as the NBC News Politics team recently noted, is how “Trump picks fights with, well, almost anyone.” Those stories help reinforce the perception of his toughness and outspokenness.

The downside of these “sprays of attack,” as CNN’s Jake Tapper called them, are the “sprays of falsehoods coming from the White House” that accompany them. These controversies help further reinforce negative perceptions about Trump’s honesty forged during the campaign.

A second theme has been the flurry of initial executive actions that helped drive the sense, especially among Republicans, that Trump can get things done. But note that relative softness in perceptions of effectiveness among Trump’s least committed supporters. As the NBC Politics team points out, executive actions aside, the Trump team has made little progress so far on his “big ticket agenda items (Obamacare repeal and replace, tax relief, paying for that border wall).”

Again, it is very early in the Trump presidency and the long term trends in his approval rating will be influenced by the direction of economy and by war, peace and scandal, or the lack thereof. However, if the initial flurry of executive action gives way to gridlock and legislative stagnation, perceptions of Trump’s ability to “get things done” may atrophy, and with it, his overall approval rating.

And his overall approval rating is already anemic.

On the other hand, he is still the most powerful man in the world, with or without public approval.  And he’s still a cretinous imbecile.

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Lone wolves are being radicalized by the thousands

by digby

Oh look who’s using those internets to radicalize their followers: 

The number of white nationalists and self-identified Nazi sympathisers on Twitter have multiplied more than 600 per cent in the last four years, outperforming the so-called Islamic State (Isis) in everything from follower counts to number of daily tweets, a new study found.

Researchers at George Washington University’s Programme on Extremism analysed 18 accounts belonging to major white nationalist groups and organisations – such as the American Nazi Party and the National Socialist Movement – mostly located in the US.

These accounts saw a sharp increase in followers, from about 3,500 in 2012 to 22,000 in 2016. The study notes that while Isis stood out for its outreach and recruitment using Twitter since the group’s emergence a few years ago, white nationalist groups have excelled in the medium.

The report underscores the declining influence of Isis on the social media platform as Twitter continues to crackdown on the Islamist militant group. In August, the company said that it shut down roughly 360,000 accounts for what they saw as promoting terrorism.

Yet, the GWU study said that white nationalists are using the site with “relative impunity”.

“On Twitter, Isis’ preferred social platform, American white nationalist movements have seen their followers grow by more than 600 per cent since 2012,” the study, authored by JM Berger, stated. “Today, they outperform Isis in nearly every social metric, from follower counts to tweets per day.”

George Washington University Programme on Extremism
When questioned about the report, a representative for Twitter referred Reuters to their terms of service that prohibit “hateful conduct”.

Donald Trump is a prominent subject among white nationalists on Twitter. According to the study, white nationalist users are “heavily invested” in the Republican’s candidacy. Tweets mentioned Mr Trump more than other popular topics among the groups.

Republican candidate has emerged as a favourite of white supremacist leaders, such as former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, due in part to his hard-line stance against immigration from Mexico and his proposals to prohibit immigration of Muslims from countries like Syria and Afghanistan.

Mr Trump has been publicly rebuked by Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for “taking hate groups mainstream”.

But mentions of Mr Trump and the use of Trump-related hashtags were second only talk of the “white genocide” – the belief that the influx of non-white cultures and increasing diversity in the US are fuelling the extinction of the “white race”.

“Social media activists tweeted hundreds of times per day using repetitive hashtags and slogans associated with this trope,” the study said.

Another finding indicated that racist violence connected to the white nationalist movement – such as Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine black people inside the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina – has “increasingly been tied to online activity”.

I’m not calling for censorship. But this is just a little bit ironic considering the hysterical scaremongering about Muslims. We’ve got a bunch of violent, gun-toting wingnut extremist weirdos in our own midst and their recruiting like crazy. And they seem to really like our new president and his Attorney General. What could go wrong?

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QOTD: Andrew Sullivan

by digby

He’s writing at the Atlantic again. And this observation is keen:

There is no anchor any more. At the core of the administration of the most powerful country on earth, there is, instead, madness.

With someone like this barging into your consciousness every hour of every day, you begin to get a glimpse of what it must be like to live in an autocracy of some kind. Every day in countries unfortunate enough to be ruled by a lone dictator, people are constantly subjected to the Supreme Leader’s presence, in their homes, in their workplaces, as they walk down the street. Big Brother never leaves you alone. His face bears down on you on every flickering screen. He begins to permeate your psyche and soul; he dominates every news cycle and issues pronouncements — each one shocking and destabilizing — round the clock. He delights in constantly provoking and surprising you, so that his monstrous ego can be perennially fed. And because he is also mentally unstable, forever lashing out in manic spasms of pain and anger, you live each day with some measure of trepidation. What will he come out with next? Somehow, he is never in control of himself and yet he is always in control of you.

One of the great achievements of free society in a stable democracy is that many people, for much of the time, need not think about politics at all. The president of a free country may dominate the news cycle many days — but he is not omnipresent — and because we live under the rule of law, we can afford to turn the news off at times. A free society means being free of those who rule over you — to do the things you care about, your passions, your pastimes, your loves — to exult in that blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene. In that sense, it seems to me, we already live in a country with markedly less freedom than we did a month ago. It’s less like living in a democracy than being a child trapped in a house where there is an abusive and unpredictable father, who will brook no reason, respect no counter-argument, admit no error, and always, always up the ante until catastrophe inevitably strikes. This is what I mean by the idea that we are living through an emergency.

Many of us haven’t really slept well since November 8th. I know I haven’t. I feel that my life’s been re-arranged in the same way that a personal emergency would do. Perhaps it’s more acute for me since I write about politics, I don’t know. But I know that most of my friends are still discombobulated and afraid. And in some cases they are getting more afraid as we watch all this unfold.

I knew he was a disaster from the beginning and I have never had a moment of delusion that he was anything but the chaotic, cretinous authoritarian fool he appeared to be. My instincts about such men are well honed and I never questioned them.

What we are living through feels both surreal and hyper-real.

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