Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Just chaos and culture war. That’s about it.

Philip Bump digs down a little to find out what really animates them. And it’s not surprising:

One of the central refrains of Donald Trump’s campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — a refrain focused, justifiably, on a general election rematch against President Biden — is that the economy was more robust during his tenure in the White House. Trump and his allies make this argument constantly, one that largely focuses on inflation and that almost necessarily includes an asterisk that excepts the months of the coronavirus pandemic. But any person asked to evaluate the central themes of this race would very quickly identify the economy as a central part of Republican support for the former president.

As it is, it seems, until a competing priority is presented: the need to “preserve American culture and way of life.” Then, the reality emerges.

On Wednesday, PRRI released the results of its annual American Values survey, a look at broad themes in American political and religious thought. It included a number of questions aimed at evaluating how Americans thought political power should be deployed and the motivations for doing so.

Among them was a question that got at the dichotomy above. Respondents were asked if they preferred a presidential candidate who was best at managing the economy or one who was best at being able to “protect and preserve American culture and the American way of life.” It’s a pretty explicit question in differentiating between the humdrum practicalities of stewarding the country and the use of presidential power to influence culture-war battles.

Most Americans preferred the candidate better at the economy. Republicans — and particularly people who most trust Fox News and fringe-right television news channels — chose the presidential candidate willing to “preserve American culture.” (Those who didn’t trust any television news source or trusted mainstream news preferred the economy candidate.)

This result is striking, not surprising. After all, Fox News and its peers have spent an enormous amount of energy portraying the country as threatened by bad actors, from Biden to street-level criminals. At the more extreme end of these presentations, we get things like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s elevation of the Great Replacement Theory, the idea that the country is being intentionally undermined in service to left-wing politics.

It is also not surprising that there is a big shift by generation, with older Americans expressing more interest in a president who will engage in cultural fights. Older Americans are more likely to vote (and be) Republicans, for one thing. But this question also gets at a central theme of Trump’s career in politics. His slogan that he will “make America great again” is necessarily dependent on the idea that the United States has changed for the worse and needs to be redirected. This is an appeal to a nostalgia that younger Americans lack. It is also necessarily reactionary in a way that centers American “culture” and “way of life.”

A separate question asked respondents whether, since the 1950s, “American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the worse.” Three-quarters of Republicans said it had, compared to only a third of Democrats. Among baby boomers, 6 in 10 respondents held that view, as did two-thirds of those in the silent generation.

There was another finding from PRRI that is useful to add to the mix here. Respondents were also asked a question that approximated support for nondemocratic or autocratic deployment of power: Did the country need a leader willing to “break some rules” given how far off track things have gotten?

Most people didn’t agree with this idea. About half of Republicans did, about 20 percentage points more than Democrats. Most of those who most trusted Fox News and the fringe-right news sources agreed that a rule-breaking leader might be the prescription.

Notice the correlation. Those who prefer a presidential candidate who is best at fighting for American culture are more likely to say that a leader should be allowed to break some rules to get America back on track.

This obviously overlaps with Trump’s political career and sheds additional light on the composition of his support. (Among those who view Trump favorably, a majority supports a rule-breaking leader.)

It also offers a different lens for his focus on the economy. He knows he has the support of those voters who are primarily focused on protecting American culture — a nebulous, fraught goal. So he’s making the case to everyone else.

I think this explains why the first Speaker nominee in this congress to get the entire GOP house to vote for him on the first ballot is first and foremost as hard core culture warrior. It’s his entire brand. That’s what made it possible for all the factions to vote for him.

Is how it will go on

Boos … “Shut up! Shut up!” … “Next question” when Rep. Mike Johnson is asked about efforts to overturn 2020 presidential election results … pic.twitter.com/H1O0drK6SE

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) October 25, 2023

As Stuart Stevens said, Johnson is Jim Jordan with a jacket. Congresswoman Virginia Fox screaming “shut up, shut up” says it all.

He’s just been more quiet about it than the showboaters

The Republicans finally found a Speaker:

Mike Johnson, 51, has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2016, and is currently serving his fourth term in the House.

He represents Louisiana’s fourth congressional district, which includes nearly 760,000 residents. Johnson won the seat with the largest margin of victory in his region in more than 50 years, according to a biography on his website.

Of note: After earning both a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from Louisiana State University, Johnson spent nearly 20 years practicing constitutional law.

Johnson then served in the Louisiana Legislature from February 2015 to January 2017.

He and his wife, Kelly Johnson, have been married since 1999 and have four children.

Where does he fit into the GOP landscape?

Johnson was unanimously re-elected as as vice chair of the House Republican Conference for a second time last year.

He also serves as a deputy whip for the 118th Congress, and currently sits on the House Judiciary Committee and on the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

What he’s saying: In a letter to colleagues over the weekend, Johnson said it’s the duty of House Republicans to “chart a new path” and that he has a “clear vision and plan for how to lead.”

He added that until colleagues reached out to encourage him to seek the nomination, “I had never contacted one person about this, and I have never before aspired to the office.”

Between the lines: A well-liked member of leadership, Johnson is widely viewed as a policy-oriented and principled conservative — if not a bit milquetoast, Axios’ Zachary Basu and Juliegrace Brufke report.

Among the eight Republicans who made a pitch for the position, Johnson (R-La.) has seen the greatest share of his sponsored bills become law — 6.5%.

A social conservative, Johnson is a vocal opponent of gay marriage and a supporter of bans on abortion. He typically votes in line with his Republican colleagues and has a 92% rating from the American Conservative Union and 90% from Heritage Action, per NBC News.

Johnson is known to be a Trump ally and was a staunch defender of the former president during the impeachment hearings.

The Louisiana Republican led the amicus brief signed by more than 100 House Republicans in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 election results in four swing states.

The team of former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a driving force of the House Jan. 6 committee and an outspoken Trump critic, released old videos highlighting Johnson’s involvement, as well as a quote in the New York Times that called him “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections,” NBC reports.

He seems awfully nice, don’t you think?

Different worldviews, shaped by a different understanding of history

I was on the Majority Report last Friday and in discussing the Israel War with Sam and Emma I made the point that one of the divides on this issue is generational and it’s for a lot of reasons. Older people like myself were raised in the direct shadow of WWII and “Never Again” is etched on our brains. The war was an everyday part of popular culture, our parents talked about it as if it was yesterday (which it was, to them) and the Holocaust was something immediate and horrifying. (I went to see “The Sorrow and the PIty” twice!)

All that is ancient history to today’s young people who are far more influenced by our culture’s belated recognition of white colonialism and racist violence writ large as their historical touchstone, perhaps made more immediate to them by the actions of the United States after 9/11. It’s a different worldview shaped by different historical experiences.

Both are valid ways to see this current situation and it’s hard to argue either way. In fact, it’s vital that it be seen both ways which is what makes the situation so morally fraught. This piece by Julia Ioffe discusses the Jewish experience which I think is probably not as well understood by some of the young people who are naturally sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, as they should be. This longer historical view may not seem relevant but it is:

Tragedy in Israel

Those who talk about a two-state solution are living in a world that hasn’t existed for a decade. Both sides have hardened to an exclusionary extreme that precludes compromise or coexistence. The events of the last week will ensure that even the embers of those hopes are doused cold.

JULIA IOFFE  October 10, 2023

I’ve started writing this letter many times before deleting it and starting over, in part because, as I noted to Peter Hamby when we recorded our Powers That Be podcast last night, saying anything about Israel-Palestine is a recipe for getting yelled at. But mostly, it’s because I feel that there is so much to say and also nothing to say at all. Still, I’m going to try. I hope you stick with me to the end, because this is messy and thorny and doesn’t lend itself to short, pithy slogans.

I want to start by saying that, like for so many Jews in the world, this is deeply, deeply personal for me. This isn’t just because I have friends and relatives in Israel, though I do. (Ironically, many of them are from Moscow: they just fled the war there 18 months ago.) Like so many modern Jews, I am alive because so many of my grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on up the chain, managed to escape annihilation just in time. Scores and scores didn’t. They haunt my family. And I’m not just talking about the Holocaust, but pogroms, the Crusades, the Khmelnitsky revolt in Ukraine, the antisemitic violence launched against Jewish communities all across Europe because someone owed money to a Jew or it was a Christian holiday or because hey, someone was just in the mood to lock some Jews in a synagogue and set it on fire. 

We’ve been driven to near extinction in Europe many times, and the Holocaust was just the latest salvo. Most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just 350 people because of a population bottleneck that occurred about a thousand years ago, and it wasn’t for happy reasons. And by the way, the reason we were in Christian Europe to begin with—where every country and kingdom would take turns expelling us—is because, in the first and second centuries A.D., the Romans slaughtered us and kicked us out of the place we were originally from, Judea, and then renamed it Palaestina. After the slaughter, the Romans brought 100,000 Jewish slaves from there to ancient Rome, where they were forced to build some of the monuments tourists flock to see today. And still, there was a small but continuous presence in what is now Israel-Palestine from then until now.

I say all this not because I don’t also value Palestinian life—I do—or because I don’t think this place is also Palestinians’ home—I do—but because so many people who are not Jewish do not understand the urgent feeling of scarcity that so many Jews feel about their community. After everything, and especially after the Holocaust killed most European Jews, there is not just a sense of fear that something like this can happen again—after all, it always has—but also that we’re always balancing on the precipice of extinction. So when 1,000 Jews are killed in a single day—the single deadliest day for Jews since the end of the Holocaust—it strikes at something very, very deep in me and, I’m sure, most Jews. 

We see the photos of people who were killed—who look like they could have been our parents, our children, our family members—and we feel that we have been pushed that much closer to the abyss of oblivion. (To pretend that there isn’t some tribal element in all this would be dishonest, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily malign. It all depends on what you do with those feelings, but more on that in a bit.)

The other reason I mention all this brutal history is because I have been stunned at the level of historical illiteracy I’ve seen. (Though seeing Donald Trump, Jr. post that Hamas would have been “no más” if his dad were president, as if he hadn’t already been president and hadn’t already had a chance to make Hamas no más, was something.) But I’m especially concerned by the illiteracy on the left, especially when it comes to the Jewish side of this conflict, because it has real implications for the Democratic Party. The party base, especially its younger and more progressive wings, have been moving steadily on the issue, to a point where now, Democrats are more sympathetic to the cause of the Palestinians than Israelis, as if it is a zero-sum game. 

Two years ago, during the last war between Hamas and Israel, I did a little survey on social media and asked people where Jews came from, originally. Most people said “Europe.” It was deeply telling and explained why, in so many narratives I’ve seen proliferate on social media, Jews are considered the white colonizers of Palestinians and people of color. The Jews, in this narrative, were like the British in Africa, India, and Pakistan: white foreigners who came from far away to subjugate brown people and steal their resources. It’s a nice, easy narrative that fits perfectly into the conversations about the evils of colonialism and systemic racism. And it’s why so many groups on the left have aligned themselves exclusively with the Palestinian cause and see Jews as white aggressors. 

There’s one problem: it’s not quite true. It would be if the British were originally from India or Africa and returned, 2,000 years later, to claim it as theirs. In fact, most of these misguided narratives also leave out the role of British colonial rule and especially the U.N. in creating the state of Israel—as well as an Arab Palestinian state next to it. (Which Palestinians rejected, for some understandable reasons, after which neighboring Arab countries attacked the new Jewish state.) Israel, in other words, wasn’t a rogue state, but one created and recognized by the international community. It wouldn’t have existed without it.

These narratives also completely ignore the fact that not all Jews are white and European. In fact, Jews of color make up around half the Jewish population, and they include Black Jews and Ethiopian Jews. The Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews of North Africa, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and Syria, are not white, and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them were thrown out of their homes and violently dispossessed by these Muslim countries after 1948 in response to the founding of Israel and the dispossession of Palestinians. Do they too have the right of return?

My point here is not to relitigate history or to excuse the actions of the Israeli government, which has pursued an increasingly horrific and dehumanizing policy toward the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, especially under Bibi Netanyahu. (In fact, Bibi has always played with violence, provoking it and ratcheting it up in the occupied territories so that he can come down hard and show Israelis, See? Only I can protect you.) My point is these incomplete narratives—if I’m to put it diplomatically—erase the Jewish connection to the place. They also erase the value of Jewish life. 

We see that kind of erasure, unfortunately, on both sides. Right-wing Israelis claim that Palestinians aren’t a real people and that they don’t have a right to the land. Left-wing Westerners, often with no ties to the region, say that Jews are white colonizers, oppressors who are getting what they deserve. Much of what is being said now on the left in response to this horrific attack is that this is what decolonization looks like, with many reluctant to criticize the Hamas attacks, saying that the blame for it lies solely with Israel, mocking the victims and even reveling in the violence. (To be fair, some, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, decried this as antisemitism.)

I don’t know what will happen or what can happen to solve this. Those who talk about a two-state solution are living in a world that hasn’t existed for a decade. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians seem to want one anymore. They each want a state of their own, a state without the other, and the ethno-nationalism that built Israel—born as it was out of slaughter and oppression—has fueled the ethno-nationalism of the Palestinians, born out of the exact same elements. Both sides have hardened to an exclusionary extreme that precludes compromise or coexistence, and the events of the last week will ensure that even the embers of those hopes are doused cold. Before Saturday, the plan seemed to have been to wait each other out—or, if they were Israelis, ignore the problem and their complicity in it. Now, it is to fight to the death. 

The last time Israel and Hamas fought, in 2021, I had many private conversations with people I didn’t naturally agree with, people who held some of the above views. I said that I felt absolutely hopeless about a two-state solution, but that I also couldn’t imagine how—after everything Israelis have done to Palestinians and Palestinians have done to Israelis—they could live in one country together, serve side by side in one military or one police force. This was, I was told, colonialist thinking. This was how the British thought about Indians—that they were savages incapable of peace. The Palestinians wanted one state where everyone was equal before the law, not retribution, these people told me. I don’t know how Saturday’s massacre and the left’s defense of it as a necessary and expected part of decolonization squares with that. I do know that there are now far fewer ears ready to hear it. And after the retribution that Israel will continue to deliver, I doubt there will be many Palestinians who will want it either. I can’t say I blame them.

I don’t know exactly how this ends, nor do I have any hope that it ends well. It had always been hard for people to hold two contradictory truths simultaneously, that these two deeply traumatized peoples both have a real and legitimate claim to the land, claims that each side has at times acknowledged about the other, claims that have been warped in both camps by emotion and trauma and religion and nationalism into dehumanization and heartlessness, into forgetting that Israeli children and Palestinian children both deserve to live and thrive. Now, it will be impossible, at least for the foreseeable future, though, my god, do I wish it weren’t so.

This is why so many of us just feel hopeless. From the perspective of the history that formed me, I see nothing but blood flowing in both directions. The Jews in Israel have no reason to trust that they will not be slaughtered at some point in the future because that’s how it’s been for them for millennia. This is literally an existential question for them so they are justifiably hyper-vigilant. Unfortunately, that has empowered monsters like Netanyahu who have made their lives even more precarious. Likewise, the Palestinians have been living for over half a century in what amounts to apartheid and it’s getting worse so no one can expect them to accept the status quo either. Powerlessness has opened the door to militants and terrorists exploiting them for their own agendas,.

I realize that’s an embarrassingly simplistic view and for that reason it’s a good thing I’m not a diplomat or a visionary. But I hope against hope that there are some and that people who are a lot smarter and better equipped than I am are working hard to bring about a positive end to all this.

I assume you’ve heard that ABC is reporting that Meadows got an immunity deal with Jack Smith and has told them that he knew the election wasn’t rigged and told Trump that many times (among other things.) If you haven’t seen it, here’s a link to that article.

Nobody is sure who may have leaked this or why but I think it’s pretty clear that it wasn’t Trump’s team. He does not sound pleased.

Their plan to gum up the election might as well be coming from the RNC

As the saga of the House Speaker’s race continues into   week, it’s obvious that this Republican House majority is more dysfunctional than at any time in history. This week was supposed to yield a new crop of candidates, among them at least one or two who could bring about a consensus among the moderates (sic)who hail from Biden districts, the institutionalists who allegedly care about maintaining the US system of government and the nihilists who just want to blow everything up. It’s not going well.

There have been a number of shifting demands from these various factions but we now know that the one inviolate criterion is that any new Speaker must be an election denier. Yesterday, their leader Donald Trump made it very clear that he will not allow anyone who has ever crossed him in that way or any other can be allowed to have gavel. So when Tom Emmer, R-Mn., who voted to certify the election on January 6th, was nominated for the job, Trump trashed him on Truth Social for failing to understand “the Power of the Trump Endorsement” then reportedly got on the phone with members to make his wishes known. Within the hour told a confidante, “he’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”

It’s tempting to see this as a simple Trump ego power play. Emmer didn’t kowtow to the Big Lie so he wanted revenge and he got it. I’m sure that’s a big part of his motivation for interfering that way. After all, what difference can it really make to him who is the Speaker of the House in this congress? Well, if you think about it, it might make a very big difference. If he decides to once again contest the election results if he doesn’t win, having a puppet in the job could be very helpful to his plans to attempt another coup. Does anyone think he wouldn’t try it?

Obviously, he wouldn’t have the same levers of power that he had as president in 2020 to do things like attempt to enlist the Justice Dept. in his scheme. But that was actually a small part of the plot and it failed anyway. Most of what they did was an outside game, with the Team Crazy lawyers taking the lead and attempts to coerce state and local election officials to rig the election after the fact. But it also required the cooperation and participation of “the Republican congressmen” who Trump referred to as his accomplices when pressuring DOJ officials. Many of them were aware of the “fake elector” plot and were more than prepared to step up if Vice President Pence had done his part to usurp the constitution.

It may sound crazy that he would even attempt such a thing again considering all the legal jeopardy he’s facing in both federal and state court for what he did last time. But that’s exactly why he is most likely to try it again. It’s the one sure thing he can count on as a get-out-of-jail free card. (And yes, if he’s found guilty in the Georgia case and he finds his way back to the White House anyway, I’m sure he believes there’s no reasonable enforcement method. Are they going to send the Fulton County sheriff to the White House to bring him to jail? Would the Secret Service let them do it?)

Luckily for Trump there’s an outside group that’s determined to help him do it this time and they’ve got a serious plan. The centrist think tank Third Way has been warning the public about their erstwhile allies No Labels for a while now. (It’s a sign of the times that such a split would happen between two groups allegedly representing the “center.”) Now they’re sounding a deafening alarm.

We’ve known for a while that No Labels has been planning to run an independent candidate which they have assured everyone they would only do if it would not play spoiler and elect Donald Trump. Such assurances have always been empty since their pollster Mark Penn (who is married to Nancy Jacobson, the leader of the organization) has been MAGA friendly for years. Third Way’s memo explains their change of plans:

Since they launched their third-party presidential effort last year, the No Labels Party has repeated a central refrain: “our bipartisan ticket, led either by a Democrat or a Republican, will not be a spoiler — we are in this to win.” But that has now changed. No Labels has made clear that their new plan is to put a Republican at the top of their ticket. And because they can’t win the presidency outright, they’ve indicated that their intention now is to exercise leverage over the winner by denying both major parties 270 Electoral College Votes (ECVs). That radical new plan would ensure a second Trump term.

No Labels spin is that by putting a Republican on the top of the ticket they will be denying Trump a victory but that’s not true. In fact, the whole thing is much more likely to deliver him back to the White House. Their own polling shows that this No Labels ticket could result in denying either party the required 270 electoral votes they need. And we know what that means:

None of this is speculation. No Labels put out a chart based on their new polling that shows their candidate (from either party) can’t win …

Their chief strategist has said publicly they are preparing for a contingent election in which they try to win a few states and deny Trump and Biden 270 electoral votes. This, No Labels believes, would give them leverage to cut a deal by promising their electors’ support to whichever major party candidate they deem more worthy.

It’s very special that No Labels believes it can or should “cut a deal” to install the next president without winning a majority of electoral votes. Apparently, Donald Trump has convinced these supposedly principled centrists that corrupting the election even more than he did is perfectly respectable.

But that’s not what would happen in this situation anyway. They would have to somehow coerce electors into voting their way which isn’t likely so the actual outcome would be that no party reaches the 270 vote threshold and it goes to the House of Representatives where the party that has the most delegations decides. Guess which party has more delegations? The Republicans, all of whom would be ecstatic to have the chance to steal the election for Donald Trump.

If you think this House speaker election is a three ring circus, this would be a nuclear meltdown. But I have to say it’s very fitting that a supercilious centrist group like No Labels would deliver the death blow to American democracy. I’m sure they’ll find a way to blame the Democratic hippies for it anyway.

Salon

Bored? Who has time to be bored?

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi left her post with a historic legacy of accomplishment. There is much there to admire. I wish she’d go back to San Francisco. Or at least leave Congress. She could take Steny Hoyer, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer with her for the good of her party. (Let Republicans clean their own houses.)

Political life in this country is dominated by a gerontocracy that is stunting its growth. Local Democrats are forever lamenting the lack of young blood in their ranks. But look around at the dominance of wrinkles at most any meeting. It’s not a particularly inviting environment for people under 50. And with the oldsters tending to stay in positions of power well beyond their “best by” dates, the young have nowhere to go. Why bother wasting the time?

The Washington Post reports that the trend extends beyond politics:

Yet even beyond Washington, a geriatric elite also controls many other aspects of an aging society, to such an extent that in some professions there are deep concerns about how those roles will be filled in decades to come. In medicine, big business, farming, construction trades, and across much of the American economy, the workforce is getting older and older. In the leadership ranks, the elderly are increasingly staying in command, well past traditional retirement age, which can sometimes limit the positions available to younger workers from a wider variety of backgrounds.

“Why should people at the top of their game retire? This is their life,” Jonathan Evans tells the Post. Evans, a geriatrician in Charlottesville, studies demographics and retirement.

Why? Because while with age comes some degree of experience and wisdom, locking out the young starves society of fresh ideas and innovation at time when both are sorely needed. If we sneer at the ultra-rich for not knowing the meaning of the word ‘enough,’ is it any wonder the young might sneer at the old for not knowing when to move on?

From New Year’s Day 2018: “[A]n organization doesn’t thrive when leaders hang on beyond their time. Nor will young activists join one with the institutional vigor of a men’s fraternal organization.”

Hello?

“Age diversity is super important to a healthy society,” said Brian Spisak, a Harvard public health researcher and business consultant. His research on voters’ attitudes toward the age of political candidates found that “people prefer the look of older leaders to assure stability and younger leaders to explore alternatives.”

When one generation seems to be in charge, he said, the results can be unsettling. In politics and business alike, “when leadership stays too long, they can be stiff and unchanging,” Spisak said. “Older employees bring a ton of practical knowledge … But if you’re staying on and status-hoarding, maybe you’re not really a leader, you’re just somebody in a hierarchy trying to maintain power.”

I remind Democratic Party functionaries that one of their principal jobs as leaders is to train their replacements. But succession planning is often far down their list of priorities.

The Post concedes that the job market is changing, younger job-seekers are job-hopping, and “the old tough-it-out culture” of seniority that once held sway no longer does. But whether in farming or in medicine or in politics, opportunity is more attractive than years of standing in line hearing “it’s not your turn.”

Yes, Joe Biden is older than I’d like. But that problem won’t solve itself until leaders in this country and in both major parties start investing in their country’s future leaders the way they invest in themselves. They need younger blood not just for the cosemetics but for institutional vitality.

William Tate, the 81-year-old mayor of Grapevine, Tex., has held that position for 48 years and he’s convinced his work is keeping him alive. “If you retire, what do you do?” he said. “Your mind and body start shutting down. I would be so bored, I don’t think I’d live very long.”

Bored? Who has time to be bored? Democracy in this country and in the world is at risk. Authoritarianism is on the rise, if not flat-out fascism, fergawdsakes.

“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country” is more than a typing drill. Those who have made their fortunes and reputations are well positioned in their retirements to commit themselves more fully to something greater than status-hoarding and padding their retirement accounts. *

“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” it says in Luke. This country has given much to its oldsters. What is required now is for those with all that age, experience, and influence to pay it forward to the young. Wringing the last drops out a career in power is not the way.

*Update: Something greater meaning to saving democracy while letting a new generation operate it.

File under ‘Sunk-cost fallacy’

Jenna Ellis this week is the fourth Trump attorney to learn the hard way that loyalty to Donald Trump is a fool’s game. David Graham writes in The Atlantic, “Loyalty to Trump is seldom returned, with disastrous results for those who offer it.” Ellis pleaded guilty to a single felony in an Atlanta courtroom and offered a tearful apology:

“As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously and I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my dealings,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”

Another former Trump attorney who received jail time in exchange for his years of fealty to Trump testified against him in the New York fraud trial yesterday in Manhattan.

Graham observes:

If Ellis and Cohen are not in good company, they are at least in big company. Over the years, many people have agreed to work for Trump and put their reputations, to say nothing of criminal records, on the line for him. The former president demands near-total fealty, browbeating and punishing allies for any deviations. (Just ask Representative Tom Emmer, who became the GOP’s latest nominee for speaker of the House today, and then almost immediately became the former nominee, after Trump blasted him on his social-media site.) But when these loyal lieutenants need the favor repaid, Trump ghosts them.

This one-way loyalty has burned boldface names and relative nobodies alike. Many of the people who served in Trump’s administration or served as his allies in Congress have found themselves diminished and sometimes legally ensnared. Many of the people convicted for their participation in the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol have expressed anger at Trump and said they felt hoodwinked by him. He has floated the idea of pardoning them if he regains the presidency. Even if he wins, they should know that his track record of following through is bad.

More are likely to follow these four. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, in particular, although there are other by-now familiar names. Theirs will enter the history books in a chapter following those on Richard Nixon’s Watergate goons and Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contra accomplices.

Part of the explanation is the attractions of power. Like moths to a flame, as it were. But in Trump’s case, our culture of celebrity wealth drew people to him first. Trump knew “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” sold soap long before Robin Leach began doing it in the mid-1980s. Look again at the cover shot on the 2018 New York Times expose on the Trump Organization. It’s a leftover from the Times’ 1976 profile of the self-promoting Trump who we now know claimed “his father’s wealth as his own” to boost his image as a budding real estate mogul. But he conned the Times into believing. Victims of “Anna Delvey” bought her rich girl con as well.

Trump was a fraud then. He is a fraud now.

Many victims of cons delay admitting their mistake. They know in their guts that they’ve been scammed, but hold out hope that thay have not. It’s a defense mechanism against humiliation not unlike the sunk-cost fallacy, “our tendency to follow through on an endeavor if we have already invested time, effort, or money into it, whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits.”

Like Trump’s attorneys, the rest of MAGAstan is so heavily invested in Trumpism that letting it go will be a severe hit to believers’ self-esteem:

The sunk cost fallacy occurs because we are not purely rational decision-makers, and we are often influenced by our emotions. When we have previously invested in a choice, we will likely feel guilty or regretful if we do not follow through. The sunk cost fallacy is associated with commitment bias, where we continue to support our past decisions despite new evidence suggesting that it isn’t the best course of action.

We fail to consider that whatever time, effort, or money we have already expended will not be recovered. We end up making decisions based on past costs instead of present and future costs and benefits, which are the only ones that rationally make a difference.

The sunk cost fallacy may, in part, occur due to loss aversion, which describes that the impact of losses feels much worse to us than the impact of gains. We are more likely to avoid losses than seek out gains. We may feel that our past investment will be ‘lost’ if we don’t follow through on the decision, and make our choice based on loss aversion rather than consider the benefits gained if we do not continue our commitment.

The same applies to cults and to why it’s so hard to escape them. Jan. 6 convicts and Trump’s lieutenants are finding out the hard way. MAGAs are attracted to Trump because many already feel like they’ve lost status in an increasingly multicultural America. He conned them into feeling like society’s winners again. They won’t give that up readily.

We knew he said something but we didn’t know how much.

And it turns out that his book is a pack of lies:

Former President Donald Trump’s final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith’s team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The sources said Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump’s prolific rhetoric regarding the election.

According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being “dishonest” with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, 2020, before final results were in.

“Obviously we didn’t win,” a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith’s team in hindsight.

Trump has called Meadows, one of the former president’s closest and highest-ranking aides in the White House, a “special friend” and “a great chief of staff — as good as it gets.”

The descriptions of what Meadows allegedly told investigators shed further light on the evidence Smith’s team has amassed as it prosecutes Trump for allegedly trying to unlawfully retain power and “spread lies” about the 2020 election. The descriptions also expose how far Trump loyalists like Meadows have gone to support and defend Trump.

Sources told ABC News that Smith’s investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office — a book that promised to “correct the record” on Trump.

ABC News has identified several assertions in the book that appear to be contradicted by what Meadows allegedly told investigators behind closed doors.

According to Meadows’ book, the election was “stolen” and “rigged” with help from “allies in the liberal media,” who ignored “actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze.”

But, as described to ABC News, Meadows privately told Smith’s investigators that — to this day — he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House, and he told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.

‘We did win this election’

Trump was already questioning the integrity of the election months before Election Day. Then, within hours of polls closing on Nov. 3, 2020 — as Trump was beginning to lose key states — Trump claimed on national TV that it was all “a major fraud.”

“Frankly, we did win this election,” Trump declared.

Meadows told investigators earlier this year that he’s long believed Trump was being dishonest when he made that statement, given the fact that votes were still being counted and the results from several states were not in yet.

Nevertheless, public testimony has shown that in the weeks after the election, Meadows helped Trump vet allegations of fraud that were making their way to Trump from people like Rudy Giuliani, whom Trump put in charge of legal efforts to keep Trump in the White House.

But Meadows said that by mid-December, he privately informed Trump that Giuliani hadn’t produced any evidence to back up the many allegations he was making, sources said. Then-attorney general Bill Barr also informed Trump and Meadows in an Oval Office meeting that allegations of election fraud were “not panning out,” as Barr recounted in testimony to Congress last year.

Meadows has said publicly that he believed “a number of allegations” still warranted “further investigation,” and that he “hadn’t reached a conclusion” on the election overall by late December.

Also by then, Trump had run out of legal options. When the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 11, 2020, denied his final court challenge, Trump told Meadows something to the effect of, “Then that’s the end,” or, “So that’s it,” Meadows recalled to investigators, according to sources.

Still, Trump wouldn’t back down, insisting there was widespread fraud but that the Justice Department wasn’t “looking for it,” Barr recalled.

While speaking with investigators, Meadows was specifically asked if Trump ever acknowledged to him that he’d lost the election. Meadows told investigators he never heard Trump say that, according to sources.

On Jan. 2, 2021, Meadows helped set up the now-infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, during which Trump pressed Raffensberger to “find 11,780 votes … because we won the state.”

Meadows has said publicly that he essentially introduced everyone on the call — which is corroborated by transcripts of the call that were made public — and he has said he was simply trying to help them resolve a dispute over Georgia’s election results.

On the call, Trump mentioned allegations of fraudulent ballots hidden in suitcases, which the Justice Department had already taken “a hard look at” and debunked, according to Barr’s testimony.

As described to ABC News, Meadows told Smith’s investigators that, around that time, there were many times he wanted to resign over concerns that the way certain allegations of fraud were being handled could have a negative impact — but he ultimately didn’t leave because he wanted to help ensure a peaceful transfer of power.

‘Sheer volume of falsehoods’

Aided by a ghostwriter, Meadows published his book, “The Chief’s Chief,” nearly a year after Trump left office.

“[T]he sheer volume of falsehoods that have been published about the president’s time in the White House is astounding,” the book says. “I consider this book a small opportunity to correct the record.”

Trump even promoted the book himself, issuing a statement in December 2021 saying the book “rightfully spends much time talking about the large-scale Election Fraud that took place … also known as the Crime of the Century.”

But sources told ABC News that when speaking with Smith’s investigators, Meadows conceded that he doesn’t actually believe some of the statements in his book.

According to the sources, Meadows told investigators that he doesn’t agree with what’s in his book when it says “our many referrals to the Department of Justice were not seriously investigated.”

Meadows told investigators he believes the Justice Department was taking allegations of fraud seriously, properly investigating them, and doing all they could to find legitimate cases of fraud — and he told investigators he relayed all that to Trump a few weeks after the election, the sources said.

Similarly — as described by sources to ABC News — despite Meadows telling investigators that Giuliani never produced evidence of significant fraud in the election, his book refers to Giuliani’s efforts to expose “the fraud, and the dirty tricks on election night.”

“The people who rigged this election knew that eventually, these irregularities would come to light … [So] they conducted the operation, then attacked anyone who dared ask questions about what they had done,” his book says.

Meadows went even further while promoting his book on right-wing media in November 2021. When asked by a podcast host if he believes the outcome of the 2020 election was fraudulent, Meadows responded, “I do believe that there are a number of fraudulent states … I’ve seen at least illegal activity in Pennsylvania [and] in Georgia” — referring to two key states that clinched the White House for Biden.

Under the penalty of perjury, Meadows offered a vastly different assessment to Smith’s investigators, telling them he’s never seen any evidence of fraud that would undermine the election’s outcome, according to what sources told ABC News.

‘I guess these people are more upset’

The final report by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol accused Meadows of including “a number of intentional falsehoods” in his book, but the committee’s report focused on allegations about Trump’s actions on that fateful day, not claims about the election more broadly.

Portions of what Meadows told investigators appear to align with broader testimony that other top White House aides, including former Meadows assistant Cassidy Hutchinson, provided to the House committee, describing a president seemingly hesitant to take decisive action to stop the violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021.

Sources said Meadows confirmed that at one point, as the riots were unfolding, Trump got on a call with then-House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, and told McCarthy, “I guess these people are more upset than you are.”

However, according to what Meadows told investigators, Trump seemed to grow increasingly concerned as he learned more about what was transpiring at the Capitol, and Trump was visibly shaken when he heard that someone had been shot there, sources said.

Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot when she tried to break through a barricaded entrance near the House chamber. Other Trump supporters sustained fatal injuries that day, and a law enforcement officer died after trying to defend the Capitol.

Meadows has not been charged in Smith’s federal case, he has been charged — along with Trump, Giuliani and 16 others — by authorities in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the election results in that state. Four of those charged have already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the prosecution, while the others, including Meadows, Trump and Giuliani, have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

Meadows sought to have the Georgia case against him moved to federal court, but that effort was denied. He is now appealing that decision.

From 2013 to 2020, Meadows represented North Carolina in Congress, where he also led the conservative House Freedom Caucus for two years.

Under the immunity order from Smith’s team, the information Meadows provided to the grand jury earlier this year can’t be used against him in a federal prosecution.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the election-related federal case against him.

A spokesperson for Smith and an attorney for Meadows declined to comment to ABC News for this story. A spokesperson for Trump’s presidential campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There’s a reason he has been keeping a very low profile. Now we know what it is.

They all say they love Trump’s policies. What policies?

Romney: “On the Trump wing of the party, I haven't heard policy other than saying build a wall and he was president for four years and he built 50 miles. And he had a health care plan. Remember that?” @Acyn
pic.twitter.com/0ItAAQIlK5

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) October 23, 2023

Most “moderates” rationalize their support for Trump by saying that while they don’t like his personality so much they really support his policies. And nobody ever asks them to be specific about what politics they liked? His only policies were to reverse anything Obama did, cut taxes and stack the Supreme Court with wingnuts (which would have been done by any Republican) a Muslim ban, a tariff war that cost the country billions, a wall that never got built and that’s about it. His “policies” were just a bunch of half-baked notions from the 1980s and whatever he thought of in the moment.

The “policies” most Republicans support is the “policy” of having their team in power and that’s about it. It doesn’t matter who facilitates it.