Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Trump Will Be Hiring

When the Federalist Society is too woke for them, you know the next Trump administration is going to be lit. Rudy, Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman may be “otherwise engaged” but I’m sure there are plenty more where they came from:

Close allies of Donald J. Trump are preparing to populate a new administration with a more aggressive breed of right-wing lawyer, dispensing with traditional conservatives who they believe stymied his agenda in his first term.

The allies have been drawing up lists of lawyers they view as ideologically and temperamentally suited to serve in a second Trump administration. Their aim is to reduce the chances that politically appointed lawyers would frustrate a more radical White House agenda — as they sometimes did when Mr. Trump was in office, by raising objections to his desires for certain harsher immigration policies or for greater personal control over the Justice Department, among others.

Now, as Trump allies grow more confident in an election victory next fall, several outside groups, staffed by former Trump officials who are expected to serve in senior roles if he wins, have begun parallel personnel efforts. At the start of Mr. Trump’s term, his administration relied on the influential Federalist Society, the conservative legal network whose members filled key executive branch legal roles and whose leader helped select his judicial nominations. But in a striking shift, Trump allies are building new recruiting pipelines separate from the Federalist Society.

These back-room discussions were described by seven people with knowledge of the planning, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. In addition, The New York Times interviewed former senior lawyers in the Trump administration and other allies who have remained close to the president and are likely to serve in a second term.

The interviews reveal a significant break within the conservative movement. Top Trump allies have come to view their party’s legal elites — even leaders with seemingly impeccable conservative credentials — as out of step with their movement.

“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell T. Vought, a former senior Trump administration official who runs a think tank with close ties to the former president. He argued that many elite conservative lawyers had proved to be too timid when, in his view, the survival of the nation is at stake.

Such comments may surprise those who view the Federalist Society as hard-line conservatives. But the move away from the group reflects the continuing evolution of the Republican Party in the Trump era and an effort among those now in his inner circle to prepare to take control of the government in a way unseen in modern presidential history.

Two of the allies leading the push are Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s former senior adviser, and John McEntee, another trusted aide whom the then-president had empowered in 2020 to rid his administration of political appointees perceived as disloyal or obstructive.

You know all about Miller, of course. He’s the odious mastermind of Trump’s worst policies on immigration. McEntee isn’t as well known. He’s Trump’s former body man. (He made sure Trump had plenty of diet coke at all times) who was promoted to top hatchet man in the final year.

This story says everything you need to know about Trump’s next term. I don’t know if the average voter is paying attention but the Republican officials who know better and are planning to support him are actually worse than he is at this point.

NEW: @SpeakerJohnson on CBO score for his Israel aid package: “Only in Washington when you cut spending do they call it an increase in the deficit” pic.twitter.com/8C0fY5THGt

— Kelly Phares (@kellyfphares) November 1, 2023

Here’s the reality:

House Republicans’ plan to pay for emergency aid to Israel by cutting the Internal Revenue Service’s budget would increase the deficit by $90 billion over 10 years, the chief of the tax agency said Tuesday.

This shouldn’t be hard for anyone to understand. By cutting funding for the tax collection agency, they will end up collected fewer taxes. Therefore, not only will we spend $14 billion for the emergency aid it will actually cost $90 billion more because of this silly stunt designed to make the right wing media pundits happy. It’s hard to imagine this isn’t just a gigantic troll.

Maga Mike isn’t even trying to pretend he’s not a wingnuts wingnut:

It didn’t take long for the new House speaker, Mike Johnson, to demonstrate to the world that he will not be a serious partner for American allies or for those who still believe that governing is not a petty little game.

On Monday, only five days after being elevated to one of the most important leadership roles in the country, he upended a major foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, meekly obeying those Republican House members who see their main role as disengaging from the world and taking self-destructive potshots at Democrats. Nothing in Mr. Johnson’s record suggested he might try to shore up America’s leadership in the world, but his actions show that his new position has not added any gravitas to his thinking; he’s just pandering to his cronies in the far right wing.

Specifically, he stripped money for Ukraine and Taiwan from the $105 billion package requested by President Biden, leaving only the $14.3 billion the administration wants to send to Israel. But then he imposed a condition on the Israel money: Mr. Biden must agree to cut the same amount out of the money the Internal Revenue Service uses to chase down high-income tax cheats. So essentially the U.S. can protect Israel as long as it also protects rich white-collar criminals.

The I.R.S., of course, has nothing to do with the war between Israel and Hamas, but it has everything to do with the Republican desire to score political points whenever possible. Ever since Mr. Biden won $80 billion for stronger I.R.S. enforcement in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Republicans have made that money a target, exploiting the agency’s Sheriff-of-Nottingham public image by trying to delude ordinary taxpayers into believing the extra funds meant the agency was coming after them.

But the aim of the extra enforcement was always the wealthy, whose complex tax fraud schemes cost the Treasury billions every year. Reducing the I.R.S. budget would actually widen the deficit, the opposite of what Republicans claim they care about.

But in the end, the I.R.S. cut isn’t really going to happen, as House Republicans know, because Mr. Johnson’s bill will die in the Senate, where many leading Republicans already oppose it. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, has made it clear the final bill will have to include money for Ukraine, and hawks like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have said the Ukraine money was related to Israel’s war against Hamas.

“Hamas was just hosted by the Russians in Moscow,” Mr. Graham said, adding, about Ukraine, “I think breaking them out sends the wrong signal.”

Other Republicans like Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina agreed with the White House that cutting the I.R.S. budget made little sense in the context of national security.

But making sense isn’t really Mr. Johnson’s game. He’s got a few calculations going on that show the kind of cynical strategic planning that current passes for politics in the House. By throwing in the I.R.S. cut, he gets to show the same extremists who deposed his predecessor that he can play rough with the White House. The move will presumably get some House Democrats to vote against the bill, and then Republicans can run misleading attack ads saying those Democrats oppose aid to Israel, as many members are already anticipating.“The new Republican speaker has chosen to put a poison pill” in the aid bill, Representative Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, told Axios. “The politicizing of Israel in a time of war is nothing short of disgraceful.”

[…]

If Mr. Johnson has substantive objections to helping Ukraine and Israel that justify the legislative impediments he is constructing, he should state what they are. There is room for a debate over conditions that could be imposed on military aid for Israel, including a detailed plan to protect civilians in the Gaza campaign, or, as my colleague Thomas Friedman has suggested, an agreement not to construct one new settlement in the West Bank outside existing settlement blocs and to rebuild the Palestinian Authority and the two-state solution at the expense of Hamas.

But that would require a serious discussion with serious people. And Mr. Johnson has now shown that he has no place in that room

He’s not called Maga Mike for nothing.

I hate the discourse around Israel Gaza. It’s as depressing a situation as I’ve encountered in my whole life and I can’t see how it ends.

It’s important to listen to the actual words of Hamas:
– Israel must be eliminated, more attacks are coming
– Killing of Jews/Americans in Israel is justified
– Loss of life in Gaza is acceptable, as we are a “nation of martyrs” https://t.co/gsThS9nTzp

— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 1, 2023

This man is in Lebanon.

And then this:

Galit Distel Atbaryan, a Likud Party member of parliament who served as minister for public diplomacy in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government until last month, calls today for a “cruel and vengeful” Israeli military to “erase” Gaza from “the face of the earth.”
(h/t @muhammadshehad2) https://t.co/tNUboKfm5C

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 1, 2023

Hitting a refugee camp once to purportedly kill a Hamas commander ensconced within it is contrary to the laws of war. Hitting it two more times after claiming you’ve already killed him is openly contemptuous of international human rights concerns. https://t.co/bdqpTABzbe

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 1, 2023

It’s just all so awful. Anyone who thinks this is morally simple beyond the obvious “all killing of innocent civilians is wrong and war is bad” is deluding themselves. It’s a horrifying mess.

Trump’s three favorite children will be testifying over the next week. Which one is the smart one?

If all goes according to plan, Donald Trump Jr. will testify at the Trump Organization’s fraud trial in New York on Wednesday, as the first of the Trump offspring to be called to the stand, Eric Trump is scheduled to appear on Thursday and Ivanka Trump will reportedly testify next week. Their illustrious father is himself slated to appear on Monday, which will actually be the second time Donald Trump has personally taken the stand in this case. The first of those was a brief appearance last week, when he was cited for violating the gag order imposed by the judge and ordered to pay $10,000. In any event, we can expect quite a show over the next week, with the Trump family band in full effect.

You may (or may not) recall a deeply strange Trump press conference after the 2016 election, when he claimed he was “turning over” the business to Donald Jr. and Eric, while insisting he didn’t need to do it but wanted to because he “didn’t like the way it looked.” His tax attorney, Sheri Dillon, spoke at length about the arrangement, standing before a table piled high with documents that Trump had supposedly signed but wouldn’t allow the press to examine. In fact, Trump never personally divested from the Trump Organization or his nested network of companies in any way, and continued to market his golf resorts and hotels from the White House — talking them up whenever he got the chance and staying in them wherever he traveled, often at significant cost to the taxpayers. Foreign agents and supplicants of all kinds filled the family coffers, spending millions of dollars at Trump properties to curry favor and gain access during his entire four-year term (and thereafter). It was the most flagrantly corrupt behavior of any president in American history.

But none of that is the actual subject of this fraud trial. Trump was a corrupt businessman for many decades before that, and New York Attorney General Letitia James has collected a massive amount of evidence, which the judge in this case has already determined to prove that Trump’s company has defrauded investors, banks and insurance companies of hundreds of millions over the years, largely by placing much higher values on their properties and businesses than the actual numbers could justify. The trial now taking place will determine what penalty the Trumps should pay.

James is asking for a $250 million fine, and also seeks to bar Trump and his company from any commercial real estate deals in New York or loans from any New York bank for the next five years. Furthermore, she wants to permanently ban Trump and his two adult sons from running any companies in the state. Justice Arthur Engoron has already ruled that the Trumps should be stripped of control over their signature New York properties, although that order has been stayed until this trial is complete. In other words, it’s a lot.

It’s likely that Donald Trump Jr. will testify that he really didn’t know much of anything about the company, and to be fair that’s probably true. He’s not the “smart one.” It actually appears that Eric Trump, despite his dunderhead reputation, was far more involved in running the place. He took the Fifth more than 500 times during his pre-trial deposition and also testified, “I pour concrete. I manage properties. I don’t focus on appraisals. It’s just not what I do in my day-to-day responsibilities.” But other testimony by Trump Organization employees has suggested he was highly involved and James has documents to prove it. And, please: There’s no evidence to suggest that Eric spent much time with the concrete mixer. That’s just ridiculous, even if the Trumps like to pretend that because they are in real estate they do construction work instead of sitting behind desks wearing nice suits like the pampered Richie Riches they’ve always been. 

But what about Ivanka, you ask? Where is she in all this? Well, Trump’s favorite got lucky once again when the courts decided she wasn’t a party to this case because her main involvement in Trump’s schemes took place outside the statute of limitations. At first, it looked like she could skip all this unpleasantness, but James has now called her as a witness and Engoron agreed that her testimony was relevant. (Ivanka’s lawyers have until the end of the day on Wednesday to appeal that decision.)

Honestly, if any family member knows the details of the Trump companies’ inflated valuations, it would be Ivanka. She was the main reason Deutsche Bank agreed to work with Trump in the first place, and bank officials apparently understood her to be the heir apparent. Forbes magazine dealt with Trump’s valuation problems for years, and Ivanka was right in the thick of it. As the magazine reported this week:

The attorney general will have plenty of questions for Donald Trump’s eldest daughter. Ivanka helped lead the acquisition of two assets at the center of the lawsuit, the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. and the Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami. She also lived in another property caught up in the proceedings, a condo building named Trump Park Avenue in New York City.

The article describe a meeting Forbes staffers had with Donald Trump  in 2015 when he tried to convince them he was far richer than he actually was. After the meeting began, they were “spontaneously” joined by “little Ivanka,” who proceeded to give them a totally bogus valuation on the National Doral resort mentioned above. She and Trump worked the room like a tag team, massively inflating the club’s worth and insisting it had no debt when in fact there were liabilities of more than $100 million. Virtually every detail of the Doral deal they presented was fiction. 

That, it would seem, was Ivanka’s job. She did it with condo sales in the Caribbean and Mexico, she did it with investment banks and she did it with the financial press. Nobody in the family, except perhaps Donald Trump himself, knows more about the Trump Organization’s systematic overvaluation of its businesses and properties than she does. It’s possible that she wasn’t intimately involved with the craptastic paperwork the Trumps submitted to the various entities that lent them money and sold them insurance, but her special relationship with Deutsche Bank would lead one to suspect she did.

If Ivanka were to take the stand and tell the truth, she could take down the company. She’s not on trial so she has no personal exposure, and at this point her husband, Jared Kushner, is now wealthier than Trump, what with all his payoffs — sorry, his financing — from the Saudis and other foreign entities he got to know well while working in the White House. Ivanka doesn’t need to inherit Trump’s money. But of course that’s not how it’s likely to go. It’s far more likely that Ivanka will have come down with the same case of amnesia that has afflicted her brothers. Through thick and thin, she’s still Daddy’s girl.

Salon

“The embodiment of white Christian nationalism in a tailored suit”

Democrats could find it a challenge to turn House Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson into a Republican boogeyman before the 2024 elections, the Washington Post suggests. His “mild manner” and previous low profile makes him less of a household name than Nancy Pelosi before the right tried to tag every Democrat running as a clone of “San Francisco liberal” Pelosi.

Nonetheless, the DNC and DCCC campaigns think publicizing “Johnson’s views on the 2020 election (he worked to overturn the results), abortion (he has talked of banning it nationally) and social programs (he has advocated cutting Social Security and Medicare)” can be a useful campaign weapon against Republicans.

There is lots of Beltway he said/she said in the Post story. “Republican strategists say Democrats are misguided if they think they can turn Johnson into a mascot for the entire GOP” even though Democrats have gotten a nice fundraising bump from Johnson’s elevation. Republicans helpfully caution that if Democrats focus too much on Johnson, “they will not be talking about issues that voters truly care about like the economy, crime and the border.” As if Republicans actually run on policy these days.

Oh, tut-tut, say Democrats:

“There is a very good chance he is going to end up being a boogeyman and/or he will end up being the embodiment of the MAGA extremism of the Republican conference,” said Viet Shelton, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which coordinates the party’s House races.

MAGA Mike is not “a serious partner for American allies or for those who still believe that governing is not a petty little game,” declares David Firestone of the New York Times Editorial Board:

Specifically, he stripped money for Ukraine and Taiwan from the $105 billion package requested by President Biden, leaving only the $14.3 billion the administration wants to send to Israel. But then he imposed a condition on the Israel money: Mr. Biden must agree to cut the same amount out of the money the Internal Revenue Service uses to chase down high-income tax cheats. So essentially the U.S. can protect Israel as long as it also protects rich white-collar criminals.

Thomas B. Edsall jumps in to examine Johnson’s Christian nationalism:

“Johnson is a clear rebuttal to the overall liberal societal drift that’s happening in the United States,” Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, wrote by email in response to my query. “His views are far out of step with the average American and even with a significant number of Republicans.”

Yet significant Republicans such as Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the engineer of the former speaker’s ouster, thinks Johnson (Gaetz calls him MAGA Mike) is just the guy for thumbing reactionary noses at the left and any Republicans who never jumped on the MAGA train.

Matt Gaetz to Steve Bannon: "If you don't think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you're not paying attention." pic.twitter.com/Fl5l3iO4i9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 25, 2023

“If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention,” Gaetz told Steve Bannon, calling Johnson “honorable and righteous.” Gaetz is an authority on honorable and righteous.

Refreshing to see Matt Gaetz fuck someone over 18

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) October 3, 2023

But I digress. Edsall continues:

Robert Jones, president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, described Johnson in an email as “the embodiment of white Christian nationalism in a tailored suit.”

What is Christian nationalism? Christianity Today describes it as the “belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Popularly, Christian nationalists assert that America is and must remain a ‘Christian nation’ — not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future.”

Johnson’s election as speaker, Jones went on to say, “is one more confirmation that the Republican Party — a party that is 68 percent white and Christian in a country that is 42 percent white and Christian — has embraced its role as the party of white Christian nationalism.”

Jones argued that “while Johnson is more polished than other right-wing leaders of the G.O.P. who support this worldview, his record and previous public statements indicate that he’s a near textbook example of white Christian nationalism — the belief that God intended America to be a new promised land for European Christians.”

As is Edsall’s habit, he cites polling and several other academics. What does it mean for the country that dominant within the GOP are Christian nationalists with a mandate from God to turn the U.S. into an anti-democratic, authoritarian theocracy? Democrats with the stomach for it could turn that into one helluva set of explosive campaign ads.

And how does a Christian nationalist justify undying support for Donald Trump, self-absorbed, amoral hedonist?

Perhaps Johnson thinks of Trump the same way Trump thinks of evangelicals: “as a means to an end, people to be used, suckers to be played.” Good luck, MAGA Mike, in getting the better of Trump in that deal.

I don’t know. The photo of mild-mannered Johnson that the Post placed atop its story immediately evoked Leland Townsend, the similarly mild-mannered, conservatively dressed ally of demons in Paramount’s EVIL. Mild-mannered and conservatively dressed can be creepy as hell.

EU foreign policy chief “appalled” by civilian casualties

The Guardian this morning:

The Rafah crossing has opened to allow a limited number of people to cross from beseiged Gaza into Egypt. It is expected that foreign nationals, dual-passport holders and some of the most seriously injured will be allowed through by Egyptian authorities, in a deal said to be brokered by Qatar.

Images showed families and vehicles queueing up to exit Gaza, amid reports that Egypt would allow in 81 seriously injured people. A line of ambulances was seen waiting to take the sick and injured.

AFP reports it was not immediately clear how many people managed to leave via Rafah on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, but live footage from the scene showed crowds of people entering the Palestinian side of the terminal. It said 400 foreigners and dual nationals were expected to make the crossing.

Like relief supplies trickling into Gaza, it’s not enough.

“Laws of war and humanity must always apply”

Seconds ago:

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has issued a strongly-worded statement stressing that he is “appalled” by casualties at the Jabalia refugee camp and “laws of war and humanity must always apply.”

In a thread posted to social media he wrote:

Building on EU Council’s clear stance that Israel has the right to defend itself in line with international humanitarian law and ensuring the protection of all civilians, I am appalled by the high number of casualties following the bombing by Israel of the Jabalia refugee camp.

UNSG António Guterres reminded that IHL [international humanitarian law] cannot be applied selectively, including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution. The right to self-defence should always be balanced by the obligation to spare civilians to the greatest extent possible.

Laws of war and humanity must always apply, including when it comes to humanitarian assistance. With the unfolding tragedy in Gaza, the European Union has been calling since last week for humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs.

With each passing day, as the situation becomes more and more dire, this is more urgent than ever. The safety and the protection of civilians is not only a moral, but a legal obligation.

Borrell is not the only one appalled. According to The New Republic, “CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was left stunned on Tuesday as an Israel Defence Forces spokesman confirmed that Israel was responsible for the bombing of a refugee camp in Gaza.” The Jabalia refugee camp lies north of the so-called safety zone declared by the Israelis.

The attacks “left scores of dead and wounded…. The Gaza Health Ministry and the director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital said hundreds of people were killed or injured in the attack,” per the Washington Post:

The blasts left a deep crater and crumbled buildings. Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense emergency services, said about 20 buildings were destroyed. The breakdown of dead and wounded was not immediately clear amid ongoing rescue efforts.

You were warned

“We…were focused on this commander,” IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told Blitzer.

TNR:

“But even if that Hamas commander was there amidst all those Palestinian refugees who are in that Jabalya refugee camp, Israel still went ahead and dropped a bomb there attempting to kill this Hamas commander knowing that a lot of innocent civilians—men, women, and children—presumably would be killed?” Blitzer asked. “Is that what I’m hearing?”

“That’s not what you’re hearing,” Hect replied. “This is a very complicated battlespace. There could be infrastructure there, there could be tunnels there. We’re still looking into it.”

“But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians—men, women, and children—in that refugee camp as well, right?” Blitzer asked again.

“This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. We as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians who are not involved with Hamas, please move south.”

“Yeah I’m just trying to get a bit more information. You knew there were civilians there, you knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees, but you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill this Hamas commander.”

CNN's Wolf Blitzer: You knew that there were innocent civilians in that refugee camp, right?

IDF spox: This is the tragedy of war. We told them to move south.

Blitzer: So you decided to drop the bomb anyway.

IDF spox: We’re doing everything we can to minimize civilian deaths. pic.twitter.com/oAtW7jV0pc

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 31, 2023

Apologies to those offended, but Hecht’s comments made me think of “Baghdad Bob.“

It shouldn’t be hard to say this. It’s the only way.

This isn’t the first time that’s happened in this country

We truly are living in a cold civil war — and it’s heating up quickly:

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said he was disowned by his family after he left Congress and “lost the trust” of Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“So, I had family that sent a certified letter disowning me,” Kinzinger said in a CNN interview Monday. “They said I’ve lost the trust of great men like Sean Hannity, which is funny, but they believe that. They said I was a member of the devil’s army.”

The prominent critic of former President Trump said his decision to leave Congress over his disagreements with the GOP caused waves of death threats against himself and his family.

“You know, we had people that would call and threaten to kill my, at the time, 5-month-old child, or say they wish he would die,” he said.

The former congressman was previewing his new book, “Renegade,” which was released Tuesday.

Kinzinger also said it’s a “tough question” whether he still considers himself a Republican.

“I do, only in that because I don’t wanna give up on that fight. And this country needs two healthy parties, a healthy Democratic Party and a healthy Republican,” he said. “So I’m not gonna give up that title.”

But he committed to voting for President Biden if he faces a rematch against Trump in 2024, saying another Trump term would be “authoritarianism,” warning about the potential for a second insurrection in the style of Jan. 6, 2021.

I don’t think there’s much hope for the Republican party personally but if a disaffected GOPer does think it’s worth saving this is the approach they should take. You don’t say you’re going to sit it out or that you might vote for Trump because you can’t stand the Democrats. The situation is clear and it is dire. Anyone who enables Trump is part of the problem.

Jamelle Bouie asks what freedom means in a country the fetishizes guns:

In Anthony Mann’s 1950 western “Winchester ’73,” a rare and much-desired Winchester rifle brings misery and death to the unlucky souls who manage to bring it into their possession. In the West as brought to you by Mann — and his star, a troubled and morally ambiguous Jimmy Stewart — the gun isn’t a symbol of freedom as much as it is a curse, destined to ruin everyone who covets its power.

It was a theme echoed that year in the Joseph H. Lewis noir “Gun Crazy,” a take of sorts on the story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Our protagonists in this film are two young people so enamored of the power of guns — and the freedom they seem to provide — that they go on a wanton spree of theft and murder. It ends, predictably, with their own deaths.

In both films, guns become truly dangerous when they become a fetish: an object worshiped for its supposed power and symbolic meaning. Guns, Mann and Lewis seem to say, aren’t actually totems of freedom or liberty or youth; they are instruments of death and should be treated accordingly.

I thought of both movies last week during the manhunt for Robert Card, the 40-year-old suspect in a mass shooting that killed 18 people at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine.

For nearly two days after the shooting, no one knew where Card was. He was armed and dangerous and on the run. To prevent any more loss of life, law enforcement authorities urged tens of thousands of residents of Southern Maine to shelter in place with their doors locked. He was found on Friday night, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

Card is believed to have used an AR-15-style rifle in the shootings. Introduced to civilian buyers in 1964, the Armalite Rifle 15 Sporter and its offspring are now some of the most popular rifles in the United States and a potent symbol of what guns mean to tens of millions of Americans. “It’s an icon,” one owner told The New York Times in a 2018 feature on the AR-15 and similar weapons. “It’s a symbol of freedom. To me, it is America’s rifle.”

That, in fact, is how gun manufacturers have promoted the rifle — not as a tool for hobbyists and sportsmen but as a lifestyle accessory that stands for freedom, individualism and masculine self-sufficiency. “Stand out and blend in all at the same time,” reads one 2011 advertisement for a camouflage-finished assault-style rifle.

It’s not just about the AR-15, of course. For many Americans, the right to own a gun is liberty itself — the very definition of what it means to live in a free country. But the question raised by the Maine shooting, and especially the lockdown that followed, is just how free that freedom is.

How free are you really when you know that a trip to the grocery store or a morning in prayer or a day at school or a night at the movies can end in your death at the hands of a gun? How free are you really when you protest on behalf of a cause you believe in and are met on the street by armed counterdemonstrators? How free are you really when state authorities have to lock down a city so that they can stop a mass shooter from striking again?

You are not free at all. Your speech certainly isn’t free when it means that any nut with a gun can point it at you and tell you to shut up. Your freedom of assembly isn’t free when you go to a protest and a bunch of gun-wielding zealots is standing to the side menacing you. Your aren’t free to exercise your religion when bigots and crazy men can enter your house of worship and gun you down. And you also aren’t free when you can’t go to school or a bowling alley or a nightclub or a movie theater or a grocery story without looking over your shoulder and being prepared to run and hide when you hear a loud pop because some insane person with a semi-automatic weapon might have decided that he needed to express his fealty to the constitution that day. That’s a funny definition of freedom.

This is not normal, people. The whole country is living in a state of subliminal terror all the time because greedy gun manufacturers and stupid asses with insecurities are holding us hostage with their need for dominance.

Wow Mayorkas just slammed Hawley pic.twitter.com/ctZnnGLxbS

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 31, 2023

That exchange was horrible. If you see the whole thing, Big Man Hawley hammers Mayorkas about an employee at DHS who apparently posted support for Hamas on October 7, demanding that he explain how this could happen and refusing to let him talk.  Hawley is a jackass but his attitude is reflective of this crude, macho attitude that’s fueling the rise of authoritarianism. 

I really hope most Americans understand this much at least:

Roughly 80 percent of Israelis blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition government for the Hamas catastrophe, according to a poll by the Hebrew newspaper Maariv. During the unfolding pogrom, and in the days and in the weeks after, the utter lack of effective, empathetic action by the government has left Israelis fuming. (Government inaction left a void that volunteers, including thousands who participated in pro-democracy protests, are now filling.)

After an announcement of a new phase in the Gaza military action (about which many Israelis have mixed emotions), Netanyahu declared at roughly 1 a.m. on Sunday, “Contrary to the false claims: Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of Hamas’s war intentions.” He added, “On the contrary, all the security officials, including the head of military intelligence and the head of the Shin Bet, assessed that Hamas had been deterred and was looking for a settlement. This assessment was submitted again and again to the prime minister and the cabinet by all the security forces and intelligence community, up until the outbreak of the war.”

In saying so, Netanyahu is both crediting Hamas with the element of surprise and daring supporters to remain mum in the face of his self-serving comment. This was very much akin to four-times indicted former president Donald Trump’s declaration that Hezbollah was “very smart.”

The reaction was fierce and immediate. Benny Gantz, the leader of a major opposition party who agreed to be part of a special war cabinet, denounced the tweet. “On this morning in particular, I want to support and strengthen all the security forces and [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers, including the IDF chief of staff, the head of military intelligence, the head of the Shin Bet,” Gantz added early Sunday. “When we are at war, leadership must display responsibility, make the correct decisions and strengthen the forces in a way that they will understand what we demand from them …. [T]he prime minister must retract his statement.”

Likewise,“Netanyahu crossed a red line tonight,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid. “While IDF soldiers and officers are fighting bravely against Hamas and Hezbollah, [the PM] is trying to blame them, instead of supporting them. The efforts to evade responsibility and place blame on the security establishment weakens the IDF while it is fighting Israel’s enemies.”

Former intelligence and military leaders also weighed in. And, for a brief moment, it seemed that Netanyahu might be at risk of losing power during the war, as some foreign policy critics have urged.

Utterly cornered, Netanyahu did something he rarely does: He apologized. “Facing a barrage of criticism, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deleted a controversial social media post on Sunday in which he blamed the defense and intelligence establishment for giving him faulty assessments before the deadly Hamas attack on Oct. 7,” Haaretz reported. “The prime minister then published a new tweet. ‘I was wrong,’ he wrote, adding that ‘the things I said following the press conference should not have been said, and I apologize for that. I fully support the heads of [Israel’s] security services.”

He did not, however, take full responsibility for the calamity.

Shortly after Netanyahu took down his tweet, I received an email from a trusted Knesset source: “Netanyahu’s tweet last night as a new low point. When you think it can’t get worse … it does.”

Boy, did that sound familiar to anyone who has witnessed Trump’s career. Just when you think Trump cannot do more damage to undermine democracy, debase political language, sow violence and enable racism, he, too, hits new lows.

The controversy of the Israeli prime minister’s tweet reminds us how much Netanyahu resembles Trump. These are men who continually insist only they speak for the country, only they can shield it from harm. They dehumanize and demonize any opposition and cannot display a modicum of empathy. And when their own incompetence leads to avoidable deaths (e.g., a Hamas attack, a raging pandemic), they deflect and cast blame elsewhere. Impulsive, afraid of humiliation and tone-deaf, they never learn their lesson, as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) incredulously claimed Trump would do after his first impeachment. They never improve; they only get worse.

“Netanyahu displays the classic strongman attributes of prioritizing self-preservation,” historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat told me. “He was laser-focused on ‘judicial reform’ to the detriment of national security, and he allied with extremists such as Itamar Ben Gvir who were a destabilizing influence.” She continued, “Add in the strongman syndrome of not listening to experts (from intelligence and military sectors) who warned him of the consequences of his actions and we have another case of toll of autocratic models of leadership.”

These personality traits are not unique to Trump and Netanyahu. A psychology study in Nature journal found:

Given authoritarians’ general willingness to submit to traditional authorities, combined with their intolerance of ambiguity and need for closure, it is perhaps unsurprising that right-wing authoritarianism predicts tolerance for, and susceptibility to, misinformation. Authoritarianism also fosters conspiratorial thinking about politics, especially if the conspiracy supports the status quo. … [T]hose who are high in right-wing authoritarianism will go to great lengths to protect the in-group — including believing the unbelievable and other ‘alternative facts’ propagated by in-group authorities. The implications of right-wing authoritarianism thereby extend beyond out-group perceptions and into areas that impact public health and safety.

Consider another example: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Surrounding himself with flunkies unable to tell him he is wrong, cut off from objective sources of information, convinced of his own infallibility and lacking any empathy, he blundered into a brutal, bloody and unwinnable invasion of Ukraine. The ensuing war is bringing his country massive death, economic ruin, social implosion and international isolation.

Netanyahu’s outburst can serve as a warning to Israelis. Authoritarian figures of his ilk never learn, never reform and never take responsibility. If Israeli society wants to recover and avoid repeated errors perpetrated by strongmen, it must get new leadership — preferably before more damage can be done.

It is delusional to believe that narcissistic strongmen like Netanyahu and Trump can keep a nation safe. They only care about themselves. Since they literally believe “l’etat, c’est moi” everything they do is calculated for how it will affect them. This seems so obvious to me that I can’t believe it needs to be said. But it needs to be said.