Defense Secretary James Mattis learned in May from a colleague that President Donald Trump had made the decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, and scrambled to get his boss on the phone before a formal announcement was made. It wouldn’t be the last time he was caught off guard by a presidential announcement.
A month later, Mattis was informed that Trump had ordered a pause in U.S. military exercises with South Korea only after the president had already promised the concession to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Last week, Trump again blindsided and overruled his defense secretary by publicly directing the Pentagon to create a sixth military branch overseeing operations in space.
The way these recent presidential decisions on major national security issues have played out, as detailed by current and former White House and defense officials, underscores a significant change in Mattis’s role in recent months. The president is relying less and less on the advice of one of the longest-serving members of his cabinet, the officials said.
“They don’t really see eye to eye,” said a former senior White House official who has closely observed the relationship.
It’s a stark contrast to Trump’s early enthusiasm for the retired four-star Marine general he proudly referred to as “Mad Dog.” And while the two men had disagreements from the start — on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects, for instance — Trump still kept Mattis in the loop on major decisions and heeded his counsel.
“He’s never been one of the go-tos in the gang that’s very close to the president,” a senior White House official said. “But the president has a lot of respect for him.”
In recent months, however, the president has cooled on Mattis, in part because he’s come to believe his defense secretary looks down on him and slow-walks his policy directives, according to current and former administration officials.
The dynamic was exacerbated with Trump’s announcement in March that he had chosen John Bolton as national security adviser, a move Mattis opposed, and Mike Pompeo’s confirmation as secretary of state soon after.
The president is now more inclined to rely on his own instincts or the advice of Pompeo and Bolton, three people familiar with the matter said.
Mattis is considered to be one of the last sane advisers around Trump.
This seems self-evident to me but that’s just instinct. Here are some philosophers on the subject of how people who believe in tolerance should think about those who take advantage of that belief and act in intolerant ways. Must we tolerate the intolerant?
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
In 1971, philosopher John Rawls concludes in A Theory of Justice that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance:
“While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger.
In my view, tolerating authoritarianism never ends well. And making false equivalence between authoritarians and those resisting authoritarianism is absurd. But that’s just me.
Right on cue, Fred Hiatt’s Washington Post editorial page, which has no compunction about publishing the words of torture-enthusiast Marc Thiessen, blurted out the most embarrassing single paragraph written about the events at the Red Hen. To wit:
We nonetheless would argue that Ms. Huckabee, and Ms. Nielsen and Mr. Miller, too, should be allowed to eat dinner in peace. Those who are insisting that we are in a special moment justifying incivility should think for a moment how many Americans might find their own special moment. How hard is it to imagine, for example, people who strongly believe that abortion is murder deciding that judges or other officials who protect abortion rights should not be able to live peaceably with their families?
How did any higher primate write this paragraph without coughing up a lung? How did any sentient mammal not red-pencil this paragraph into oblivion? How did Post truck drivers not save their employers severe embarrassment by tossing that entire day’s print run into the Potomac?
For the benefit of those people also living in Fred Hiatt’s Land Without History: abortion providers have been stalked. Their children have been stalked. Their places of business have been vandalized. And, lest we forget, doctors who perform abortions have been fucking killed! They’ve been gunned down in their clinics, in their kitchens, and in their churches. They have not been allowed to live peaceably with their families, Fred, you addlepated Beltway thooleramawn. They haven’t been allowed to live at all. I’m no expert, but I’m fairly sure that a bullet in the head is far more uncivil than a complementary fucking cheese plate. What is wrong with these people?
I’m old enough to remember the raucous town halls of 2010, when the AstroTurfed forces of the Tea Party shouted down members of Congress while men with automatic weapons strolled around the perimeter of arenas in which the President of the United States was speaking. I’m old enough to remember when N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer of Civilization’s Rules and Leader (Perhaps) of The Civilizing Forces, was working out his Universal Lexicography of Insult for the benefit of a party that ate it up with an entrenching tool. Newt also emerged on the electric Twitter machine over the weekend, leaping to SarahHuck’s defense, and that was nearly enough to make me give up English as a hobby.
More at the link.
I’m not going to comment further on the COMPLETELY INSANE reaction to liberals having the temerity to get angry about Trump and express it in social interactions.
Shhhh. Don’t ask for trouble.Submit.
Don’t resist:
Democrats, fix the laws. Don’t RESIST. We are doing a far better job than Bush and Obama, but we need strength and security at the Border! Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. Strong Borders, No Crime!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018
By the way, “stop resisting” is what cops scream at unarmed citizens in handcuffs on the ground while they’re tasing and beating the shit out of them.
“But Godwin’s Law was never meant to block us from challenging the institutionalization of cruelty or the callousness of officials who claim to be just following the law.”
Yes, we must challenge the institutionalization of cruelty. Now is the time to condemn the callousness of officials who claim to be just following the law. Let’s rebuke the people who support cruelty. It’s time to remove from office the officials who put cruelty in place in our country.
I had dinner with some wonderful old friends this evening. One wanted to understand why a certain group of people were supporting what he called “meanness.” He wasn’t talking about the 30 some percent of white men and women who have been marginalized or left behind. Nor the racists or bigots. What was behind the additional 15 to 18 percent of people who still support Trump? These people didn’t fit the “economic insecurity” box. They had money and were smart people.
We discussed people who fit this category. Why were they still supporting Trump? I had some thoughts, I quoted from Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians I talked about the need to be seen as “tough” some men have. I covered the right wing aggrievement that Sam Seder and Digby talk about and the way the conservatives like to “piss off the liberals” that Atrios covers.
But none of those reasons seem to fit this group of people that he and his wife had encountered.
My very smart friend Sara Robinson often directs me to pieces that help explain how conservatives think, like this one. ( Why Trump country is unfazed by the child separation crisis ) The desire to understand is good because we hope understanding will lead to the changing of minds.
Explanations for behaviors are good too. It’s useful to learn that some people believe in cruelty because of X, Y and Z. But even if I can’t understand why someone believes in meanness or cruelty, and I haven’t figured out the process to change them, I CAN still work to stop the implementation of it.
We can try to understand people and also say.
“We as Americans should not be cruel.”
That people believe cruelty is acceptable is a tragedy and a failure of our institutions of education, religion and culture. Today in our country people are working to bring more cruelty into the world. This is tragic.
Cruelty rejects the best values of our country as codified in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Acceptance of cruelty is morally repugnant and is rejected by the major religions that people profess to be part of.
You’re telling me his name is Hey Zeus?
This meanness and cruelty will lead to future economic pain for our country. It crushes human advancement in areas as diverse as science and art. (Just look at the benefits we have gotten from intellectual and artistic refugees for years.)
Culturally the institutionalization of cruelty is horrifying and ugly.
I could go into the myth of the effectiveness of cruelty as a deterrent to immigration, but that’s like discussing the utility of torture. I can point to all the ways that torture doesn’t work, but then we are arguing about something else. It is the institutionalization of cruelty that we are doing now that is horrific. (My friend Dr. Rebecca Gordon, has a lot to say about state sponsored torture and what it means)
One of Dr. Gordon’s many points is that torture has terrible effects to all involved, not just on the person being tortured, but to the person doing the torture.
My friend Interrobang pointed out to me that Americans never put themselves in the position of the person being tortured, just the ones doing the torture.
Americans who support cruel policies and the people who implement them don’t put themselves in the position of the refugee. They see themselves as the one in power in control who can help or not help. I wish these people didn’t feel this way, I’d like to change their minds, but if I can’t I’m not going to start supporting cruelty.
Watch this clip from the Majority Report by CNN at a diner in Arizona talking to supporters of Trump’s policy of state sponsorsed child abuse and cruelty.
You can see three of the ways that the people justify their cruelty.
1) They are bad guys who break the law
2) They are coming here to get our stuff
3) “Stop picking on me for supporting cruel policies!”
I can argue with these people, point out the incorrect and incomplete facts they are holding onto. The truth doesn’t always work for them, though. “I don’t care if you can prove it to me, I still won’t believe you!” What we need to do at the same time is to take steps to stop the institutionalization of cruelty. Some people aren’t going to come around, so we move forward away from their views into a better human and humane future.
There is a tendency in the punditocracy to dismiss President Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric as nothing more than red meat for his worshipful base, passing twitter tantrums or hyperbolic salesmanship. He’s been doing it from the moment he announced his run for president when he insulted Latino immigrants as rapists and continued through the campaign when he endorsed torture, summary executions and banning Muslims from the country. Needless to say, his ongoing paeans to ruthless dictators from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte to his recent love fest with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un show a genuine admiration and respect for the most ruthless and violent tyrants on the planet.
He truly admires them for their willingness and ability to mercilessly rule their countries with an iron fist. His most recent comment about Kim Jong Un, for instance, even betrays a little envy:
“Hey, he is the head of a country, and I mean he is the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”
He later said he was kidding but it really didn’t seem that way. After all he had absurdly stated just a couple of days before about Kim that “his country does love him, his people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor” apparently unconcerned that the “fervor” is coerced under threat of imprisonment or death.
He plans to spend 30 million dollars to try to create some of that fervor for himself next fall:
Parade details for Nov. 11. Will have uniforms. Some planes. Maybe old planes. Tanks are banned. pic.twitter.com/W7xyhLYo9Y
He was said to have loved the North Korean state TV, commenting on how positive the female North Korean news anchor was about Kim Jong Un. He told former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee last week that US media criticism of his summit was “almost treasonous.” That’s not the first time he’s said that failing to adequately praise him amounts to treason. When Democrats did not applaud his alleged achievements in the State of the Union he asked a rally crowd, “can we call that treason? Why not? They certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”
This is a man who insisted that everyone always call him “Mr Trump” when he was in business and insisted on strict formality even among his family members. As president he routinely gathers his cabinet and other members of the government to sit around the big table and robotically extol his virtues. Recall this little pageant from his first cabinet meeting:
Then there’s the downright bizarre order to create a new branch of government called “The Space Force” (against the advice and opinion of every one of his military advisers) to single-handedly upending the international order with a fatuous “philosophy” that the US is some kind of protection racket and must be paid an ever increasing ransom by countries with whom we’ve been allied since World War Two. In these cases and many others, he’s making unilateral moves without regard to any previous understandings or agreements whether informal or subject to domestic and international law.
Over the last few months Trump has cast off anyone in the White House who might have attempted to rein in his worst impulses and is making decisions entirely by the seat of his pants. His authoritarian instincts are no longer confined to the photo-ops. People around him who share those instincts are growing in influence, particularly senior adviser Stephen Miller who drafted Trump’s first Executive Order banning travelers from majority Muslim countries. Recall what he told John Dickerson on Face the Nation in February of 2017 when asked whether the White House had learned anything from the experience:
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. One unelected judge in Seattle cannot remake laws for the entire country. I mean this is just crazy, John, the idea that you have a judge in Seattle say that a foreign national living in Libya has an effective right to enter the United States is — is — is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.
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.
That too was laughed off at the time. He sounded like a North Korean General and no American could possibly take that seriously, right?
But after all the drama, all the turn-over, all the sturm und drang of the past year and half, Miller is still there at the right hand of the president. He’s obviously been instrumental, along with his old boss Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Chief of Staff John Kelly, in the crafting of this abominable new “zero-tolerance” border policy with all that stems from it. And he’s obviously whispering sweet somethings about that unfettered presidential power in Trump’s ears.
On Sunday the president tweeted this, sending shock waves though the media and the political system:
We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents…
….Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit – we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!
This is more thought out than it seems. Over a month ago, Trump was telling Brian Kilmeade on Fox and friends that he wanted to eliminate due process at the border:
“How do you hire thousands of people to be a judge? So it’s ridiculous, we’re going to change the system. We have no choice for the good of our country. Other countries have what’s called security people. People who stand there and say you can’t come in. We have thousands of judges and they need thousands of more judges. The whole system is corrupt. It’s horrible…Whoever heard of a system where you put people through trials? Where do these judges come from?”
There is the US Constitution, of course.And laws. And international treaties. And basic human decency. But Trump does not respect of those things. He is essentially proposing to allow the Border Patrol and ICE to deport anyone since the whole reason for due process is to adjudicate the government’s assertion of guilt. If there’s no due process there’s no way of knowing if these “people who stand there and say you can’t come in” are following the law themselves. Harvard professor of constitutional law Lawrence Tribe told the New York Times:
Trump is making the tyrannical claim that he has the right to serve as prosecutor, judge and jury with respect to all those who enter our country. That is a breathtaking assertion of unbounded power — power without any plausible limit.
That’s what Kim Jong Un does and Trump would like to have that too. Stephen Miller believes he already has it and that we will all soon see that “it will not be questioned.” I don’t think anyone should be laughing anymore. They aren’t joking.
Let’s talk about power. Not star power, real power. For longer than Donald Trump has had breath, the real power of the United States has grown. Perhaps reluctantly at first. Yet over time, its ability to lead, to project power, and its power to wrestle, often painfully, with its many imperfections and improve itself has made it the light symbolized by the torch held aloft in New York harbor.
Spoiled, immature, needy, insecure, manipulative (I could go on), Donald Trump has cultivated star power most of his life, but until now he has never had real power. He does not know how to wield it. Yet he craves more of what he plainly does not know how to use.
At #GunFAIL, David Waldman compiles hundreds of incidents of death and injury suffered by people mishandling firearms. For all gun owners’ claims to being “responsible,” most of the incidents seem to stem from unsafe handling of firearms by people with insufficient regard for their power. Many are law enforcement professionals. Many incidents involve children wounded or killed when they picked up their parents’ unsecured guns.
Imagine the terror of a mother walking into a room and finding her toddler playing with a loaded weapon, knowing it could go off in the seconds before she can cross the room and take it away. Now imagine U.S. allies across the planet realizing the American people have been similarly careless.
You probably don’t have to imagine. Glance at the president’s Twitter account or watch one of his rallies. When he’s not referring to himself in the third person, the person sworn to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States is issuing statements like this:
We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018
Foreign policy consultant Molly K. McKew writes in the Los Angeles Times that Europeans are dumbstruck that at the hands of Trump America is alienating the very allies that make it a superpower. Because its power lies not simply in its military and economy:
Our allies are unnerved. In the midst of starting trade wars (and personality wars) with Canada and Europe, Trump stormed out of the G7 in Charlevoix, removing his signature from the joint communique. His bullying was captured in a now-famous photo of the American president sitting petulant and isolated, surrounded by irritated peers, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaning in.
In Singapore, Trump issued fatuous praise for North Korean tyrant Kim, who — with the complicity of Russia and China — has starved his people in order to build nuclear weapons to threaten the United States. The president’s pledge to end military exercises on the Korean Peninsula delivered to North Korea, Russia and China a prize they have wanted for decades, for which the United States got nothing in return. Our Asian allies were left as shaken as our European ones.
Events inside the U.S. give them more reason for trepidation.
In Europe in particular the images of child migrant detention camps read as a data point in a pattern of troubling behavior. Trump spurred a rally of his supporters to scream about migrants being “animals,” and he talks about them “infesting” the country. When former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden warned of Nazi echoes in Trump’s “zero tolerance policy”, many Americans objected to the comparison. In Germany, however, and in nations that were captive to the U.S.S.R., people nodded. They remember the 1930s, and what it was like to wake up in a country that had slowly gone mad. And they hear that “following silence” from America.
Perhaps their experiences inform their perception of the risk more than does ours. “Responsible” Americans have handed the equivalent of a toddler the equivalent of a very large, loaded gun.
Meantime, “very serious people” insist in the face of what the world can see as a clear and present danger that we maintain decorum. Asking Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave a restaurant or chanting until Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen abandons her dinner is beyond the pale. Even when what prompted the protests was their complicity in abducting infants and toddlers and holding them hostage in cages as leverage to get their migrant parents to give up their right to request asylum.
Shouting is not my style. “Nevertheless,” writes Jennifer Rubin, “it is not altogether a bad thing to show those who think they’re exempt from personal responsibility that their actions bring scorn, exclusion and rejection.” I prefer the Stephen-King creepiness of entire restaurants going silent when a Trump staffer enters. The only conversation audible would be Every Word they speak. If anything, shunning is so conservative an approach to expressing social disapproval, not even the Washington press corps could find fault. (I kid.) Don’t like it? Then as conservative parents might say, you should have thought of that before you did X.
November cannot and may not come soon enough.
* * * * * * * *
For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.
In which Newt Gingrich scolds people for incivility:
The increasing personal nastiness toward people who work for President Trump reflects the left’s understanding that they are losing. Nastiness reflects desperation not strength. They can’t win the argument so they use nastiness. Sad and dangerous.— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) June 23, 2018
No, no, no, Newt. You wrote the book:
Language: A Key Mechanism of Control
Newt Gingrich’s 1996 GOPAC memo
As you know, one of the key points in the GOPAC tapes is that “language matters.” In the video “We are a Majority,” Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning. As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: “I wish I could speak like Newt.”
That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases.
This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media. The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used…
Often we search hard for words to define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.
abuse of power
anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
betray
bizarre
bosses
bureaucracy
cheat
coercion
“compassion” is not enough
collapse(ing)
consequences
corrupt
corruption
criminal rights
crisis
cynicism
decay
deeper
destroy
destructive
devour
disgrace
endanger
excuses
failure (fail)
greed
hypocrisy
ideological
impose
incompetent
insecure
insensitive
intolerant
liberal
lie
limit(s)
machine
mandate(s)
obsolete
pathetic
patronage
permissive attitude
pessimistic
punish (poor …)
radical
red tape
self-serving
selfish
sensationalists
shallow
shame
sick
spend(ing)
stagnation
status quo
steal
taxes
they/them
threaten
traitors
unionized
urgent (cy)
waste
welfare
A few of his greatest hits:
There is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us. (2008)
The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did. (2010)
The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change, and the only way you get change is to vote Republican. (1994)
People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz. (1994)
Democrats will bring to the United States the joys of Soviet-style brutality and the murder of women and children. (1980s)
These people [Democrats] are sick. … They are so consumed by their own power, by a Mussolini-like ego, that their willingness to run over normal human beings and to destroy honest institutions is unending. (1989)
Bad faith should not be rewarded with the benefit of the doubt
by digby
Hey, remember that time Chuck and Nancy and Lindsey and Donald all got together to fix DACA and provide funding for Ann Coulter’s wall? And remember when they struck that deal and everyone was celebrating this new era of bipartisan comity until Stephen Miller and John Kelly told Trump he was being a great big wuss puss so he ostentatiously tore up the deal and told the whole group to go to hell? Yeah, I figured you’d remember that.
Well, now he’s blaming Democrats for failing to pass a bill out of the House that doesn’t need any Democratic votes. (It won’t pass because Trump’s buddies in the Freedom Caucus don’t think it causes enough pain and agony.) And now we have fatuous fools like GOP Congressman Michael McCaul backing him up for the benefit of idiot Trump voters who watch Fox when asked if Trump is off base with his blame game:
“Well, I think our family needs to come together, but the fact is every Democrat voted against a very rational DACA fix. They’ve been talking about DACA for a year now, and we had a bill on the floor that would resolve this issue, legalize the DACA kids, and yet every one of them voted against that. I don’t think that’s operating in good faith either.
And I also think it’s important on the border security piece — I’ve been doing this since I was a federal prosecutor in Texas to chairman of this committee — to deliver on the President’s campaign promise, to build the wall, the technology and get the border secure.”
Sorry. These Republicans made this toxic, poisonous bed and they have to lie in it. The bill in questions would have curbed legal immigration, given DACA recipients a temporary reprieve so that Trump can hold the futures of 800 thousand kids over their heads as a weapon, and funded his stupid goddamned wall. And he probably wouldn’t have signed it anyway.
This is all police state crapola and Democrats are doing the right thing by resisting the urge to “negotiate” with the cheating conman in the White House again.
He loves to talk about “gutting”, usually in a literal sense when he luridly describes people being slashed, stabbed, cut etc. He gets very stimulated by it.
But he made a huge mistake yesterday in Nevada using that term in a different context:
It may seem obvious that this is a loser for Trump and new survey results from Peter Hart bear that out. People are particularly upset by the administration’s decision not to defend the law’s ban on insurance companies discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions.
I think it’s quite likely you’re going to be seeing that “gutted” comment in some ads this fall.
And once again, I have to wonder about the soulless assholes who clap and cheer for this cretin slamming John McCain and bragging that he has gutted the health care system. Who does that?
