Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

TweedleDim and TweedleDoofus

Democrats trolled Donald Trump as Elon Musk’s chief of staff after “President Musk” blew up House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-Louisiana) three-month continuing resolution with a five-word tweet early Wednesday: “This bill should not pass.” TweedleDim is not known for being loquacious.

Before it’s begun, this is what Trump’s second term amounts to (The Daily Beast, emphasis mine):

Elon Musk sticking his fingers in congressional affairs before his new pal Donald Trump is even sworn in as president had many Democrats referring to the tech figure as “President Musk” Wednesday.

The billionaire Tesla CEO successfully lobbied—with Trump’s help—for the death of a bipartisan spending bill Wednesday that would have staved off a shutdown and funded the government through March—leaving the Capitol in chaos as Congress scrambled to keep Washington running as the Christmas holiday looms.

Regarding the pair’s efforts to kill the spending bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson had painstakingly negotiated with Democratic leaders, New York Rep. Daniel Goldman told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “It’s not Donald Trump asking for this. It’s very clearly President Elon Musk asking for this.”

“The fact that Donald Trump has been completely AWOL during these negotiations to the point where only after Elon Musk publicly tweets about his displeasure, about this budget deal,” he continued, “all of a sudden Donald Trump, chief of staff to Elon Musk, comes trotting in and blows up the deal.”

Those of us living in a disaster zone knew we’d be abandoned as soon as election results rolled in on Nov. 5. The CR contained “more than $100 billion in aid for natural disaster survivors, bipartisan health-care policy changes and other unrelated provisions,” reports the Washington Post:

In scrapping Johnson’s plan, Republicans cast doubt on his ability to maintain the speaker’s gavel in next year’s Congress. Johnson must run for the position again when the new House is sworn in on Jan. 3, and enough GOP lawmakers to deny him the position have already declared they won’t support him, according to two members who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Everything Trump touches dies (ETTD), as the Bulwark’s Rick Wilson reminds us. His Republican former colleagues seem not to listen.

Eugene Robinson Wednesday night reminded those with ears to hear what fealty to Trump brings:

Titans of industry and commerce, beware. When you bend the knee to the Mad King, when you shower him with money and bathe him in flattery, he will receive your gifts with apparent gratitude. But he will want more. He will always want more.

Industry’s titans have made pilgimage to Mar-a-Lago to fall at Trump’s feet since his election. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Apple’s Tim Cook (Tim Apple), Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and others. These three kings and others have showered the reborn king with lavish donations to his inauguration.

They may feel a fiduciary duty to shareholders to make the most of their access to Trump (I wouldn’t call it friendship), There are zillions in government contracts and profitable policies on the line, says Robinson.

But the business leaders should remember what it is about our system that has allowed their companies to grow and thrive — the rule of law and the impartiality of justice; immigration policies that welcome brains, talent and ambition from around the world; ample funding for basic research that leads to world-changing breakthroughs. Government shapes this landscape, and Trump threatens to alter it dramatically.

A sharp turn toward nationalism and xenophobia would be bad for the nation and the world, but it would be nothing short of disastrous for companies such as Apple or Meta or Alphabet. Maybe these executives believe they can convince Trump that mass deportations are a bad idea and that immigration greatly boosts the U.S. economy. Or that arbitrary and excessive tariffs would needlessly burden the American consumer. Or that unnecessary regulations should be eliminated with tweezers, not a lawn mower.

But it is hubris characteristic of these moguls to believe Trump won’t trash them as soon as he sees them as disloyal or snatching too much of the attention he cannot live without.

So remind TweedleDoofus that President Musk views him as his chief of staff every chance you get. The sooner Musk, Ramaswamy, and company fall out of Trump’s favor, the less chance the oligarchs will have to turn the U.S. government into their wholly owned subsidiary. They may already see a 25th Amendment solution to his brand of chaos, warns a friend, and J.D. Vance as more controllable.

Move fast. They will.

Thank you sharing this Sanctuary of Sanity with us each day.
Happy Hollandaise!

The House is scrapping Mike Johnson’s year-end spending plan after Republicans had a shit-fit led by chief cheerleader the Real President of the United States, Elon Musk. They are back to the drawing board with the government set to shut down on Friday night. At the end of the day he told his puppet and vice-puppet to bless his efforts publicly and it was done:

Musk spent Wednesday stirring Republicans into a frenzy over the stopgap spending bill filed by Johnson — one loaded up with $100 billion in disaster aid funding, billions more in farm assistance and dozens of other side deals that pushed the final product past 1,500 pages.

His daylong flurry of dozens of postings on his X account appears to have succeeded: President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance came out against the bill this evening, calling instead for a pared-back measure coupled with a debt-limit increase.

Not even disaster funding? Man, that’s cold.

Musk knows nothing about policy, budgets or politics. Politico did a fact check:

But among the 100-plus tweets Musk sent Wednesday were a number of misleading or outright false claims — a worrying start to the mogul’s new role as co-leader of a Trump-blessed effort to slash government funding.

— Government shutdowns aren’t painless: Musk is repeatedly posting on X that a government shutdown wouldn’t have any significant consequences for the country. He responded “YES” to a post that read, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” Another Musk post said a shutdown “doesn’t actually shut down critical functions.”

File this one as a half-truth: Yes, essential government functions and personnel are allowed to continue during a shutdown. But there are significant real-world effects: Other government employees will halt their day-to-day work and miss paychecks. While Social Security checks will go out and mail will be delivered, agency shutdowns cause massive lost productivity. A five-week shutdown from 2018 to 2019 caused the economy to lose about $3 billion, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

— Member pay won’t be raised 40 percent: Both Musk and the X account for his “Department of Government Efficiency” got the facts surrounding lawmaker paychecks wrong: Members of Congress have not had a raise to their $174,000 salaries since 2009, after repeatedly freezing a law implementing automatic cost-of-living increases.

The pending CR does not include a COLA freeze, but that would not result in a 40 percent boost in pay — far from it. The maximum potential pay adjustment would be 3.8 percent, an increase of $6,600. Even if lawmakers had given themselves all 15 years of rejected COLAs — which, again, they are not doing — it would only result in a 31 percent increase, according to the Congressional Research Service.

— Taxpayers aren’t paying for a new stadium: Musk reposted a claim that the bill would provide $3 billion for a new NFL stadium in Washington. Not true: The bill transfers control of the site of the existing RFK Stadium to the D.C. local government for redevelopment, which could potentially include a stadium. No federal funds are changing hands as part of the transaction.

There is a possibility that D.C. taxpayers could eventually be on the hook for the project: Mayor Muriel Bowser has floated using local funding to cover environmental remediation costs and upgrade underlying infrastructure. But any redevelopment plan would be subject to D.C. government approval and wouldn’t involve any federal dollars appropriated in the pending bill.

— The bill isn’t shielding the Jan. 6 committee: Musk said it was “[o]utrageous” that the bill would block House Republicans from investigating the Jan. 6 select committee established in the prior, Democratic-majority Congress. Not exactly: The section of the bill cited by the convicted Jan. 6 rioter that Musk quoted has nothing to do with internal House investigations.

Rather, it’s language meant to clarify that House data stored on outside digital platforms remains under control of House offices — and thus subject to House rules and procedures for accessing it: “A House office shall be deemed to retain possession of any House data of the House office, without regard to the use” of any particular platform, the bill reads.

— No “bioweapon labs” here: Musk reposted a screenshot from a conservative account Libs of Tiktok claiming that the legislation would fund “bioweapon labs.” That is false: The provision in question would establish regional biocontainment laboratories as part of a larger pandemic preparedness plan. Their stated purpose is “conducting biomedical research to support public health and medical preparedness,” not creating bioweapons. The provision is part of a long-sought reauthorization of the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness and Response Act.

This is what happens when you put a red-pilled,conspiracy theorist, politically ignorant troll in charge of the US government. And I’m not talking about Trump.

I really need the inevitable break up between the two Big Narcissists to happen sooner rather than later. Right now it sure looks like Trump is just an old guy playing golf, having dinner with friends and talking to the clouds. Unfortunately there’s a new MAGA King in town and he’s just as bad.

President Musk just took over the Republican Party and blew up the bipartisan agreement on the budget. Now they’ve come up with a GOP-only bill that many Republican members won’t vote for and it needs 60 votes in the Senate.

They will need Democrats to vote for it and this should be their answer:

I offer this excellent piece by Jamelle Bouie with a gift link.He writes that Democrats may be in the minority but they are not yet the opposition and there’s a distinction. An excerpt:

An opposition would use every opportunity it had to demonstrate its resolute stance against the incoming administration. It would do everything in its power to try to seize the public’s attention and make hay of the president-elect’s efforts to put lawlessness at the center of American government. An opposition would highlight the extent to which Donald Trump has no intention of fulfilling his pledge of lower prices and greater economic prosperity for ordinary people and is openly scheming with the billionaire oligarchs who paid for and ran his campaign to gut the social safety net and bring something like Hooverism back from the ash heap of history.

An opposition would treat the proposed nomination of figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth as an early chance to define a second Trump administration as dangerous to the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans. It would prioritize nimble, aggressive leadership over an unbending commitment to seniority and the elevation of whoever is next in line. Above all, an opposition would see that politics is about conflict — or, as Henry Adams famously put it, “the systematic organization of hatreds” — and reject the risk-averse strategies of the past in favor of new blood and new ideas.

It’s about conflict and in this case all they have to do is say no and let the Republicans tear themselves apart:

Please read the Bouie piece and email it to your Democratic Representatives and Senators. They need to know that while we may have taken a break after the Great Disappointment, we are still here and we have expectations.

Bret Stephens of The NY Times has written a fatuous piece abandoning his “Never Trump” status (which, I admit, I didn’t even realize he had obtained. Really?) Anyway, he says Trump’s not bad and never was and everyone is being hysterical. This is something I’m hearing from a lot of people. I’m not going to offer a gift link to it because it’s really not worth it. Unless you have amnesia of the last 10 years it’s anything but persuasive.

Instead I want to direct you to the Bulwark’s JV Last’s response which he has posted outside the paywall so you can click over to read the whole thing. Here is a small piece of it. It’s really good:

I want to take Stephens’s larger point: That Trump’s critics were wrong about the dangers Trump posed in 2016, 2020, and 2024.

It’s impossible to enumerate all of the warnings made about Trump and different people focused on different aspects of the danger he presented. But I think we can reasonably summarize the general concerns as:

• Trump is dangerously ignorant of basic reality.
• He is easy to manipulate.
• In a time of crisis, he can not be trusted to make sound judgments.
• His commitments to democracy and the rule of law are weak and his attraction to authoritarianism is strong.
• In a second term, he would surround himself with dangerous button men and be focused on retribution against perceived domestic enemies.

Now what did the reality of Trump deliver?

• He attempted to blackmail the president of Ukraine into lying about his likely 2020 election opponent.

• His handling of COVID represented the single greatest failure of the federal government in American history.2
  • He disbanded the government’s pandemic response team in 2018.
  • He coddled the Chinese dictator at the outset of the outbreak.
  • He failed to push forward aggressively on the production of testing kits and PPE during the opening months.
  • He muddled public health messaging coming from the government.
  • His one COVID success was the creation of Operation Warp Speed, to accelerate the development of a vaccine. That project worked. But Trump then botched the rollout of the vaccine.
  • And in the wake of the creation of the vaccine, Trump created a political atmosphere in which his supporters turned against first the COVID vaccine and then all vaccines.
• He surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban and committed America to a hard deadline for withdrawal without securing any meaningful concessions from the Islamists.
• He refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and plunged the country into a crisis by lying about it.
• He summoned a mob to Washington on January 6th. He knew that this mob was armed. He directed the mob to march on the Capitol so as to prevent Mike Pence from certifying the electoral vote count. When this mob turned violent, he declined to send the National Guard to break it up.
• He allegedly stole classified government documents and then allegedly lied about it.

I’ve written this before, but the reality of Trump’s first term came pretty close to the worst-case scenarios. It is simply not true that Trump’s critics oversold the danger he represented. If anything, they underestimated it.

He goes on to discuss everything we’re already seeing for Trump II and I think people are very much underestimating his intentions. Whether he’ll be able to accomplish his toxic agenda is yet to be determined.

Never Trumpers and the rest of us who saw what Trump was, and see what he is today, are taking quite a bit of incoming from a number of different directions. We are outside the mainstream right now. But the idea that people who correctly anticipated Trump’s atrocities and called them out in real time are the ones who empowered him, as Stephens contends, is ridiculous. It’s the squishes and hacks like Stephens who are, this very minute, enabling yet another assault on democracy and the rule of law by pretending that he and this freak show he’s putting into government are normal and benign.

I don’t feel like there’s a whole lot I can do about Trump. I’m anything but a billionaire and I don’t have powerful connections. But I can try to convey the truth as I see it as clearly as possible. And what I have been seeing ever since he came down the golden escalator is an unfit, ignorant, immoral, narcissist who has no business being in charge of anything, much less the most powerful country on earth. Just because some people seem to really like all that about him doesn’t make it untrue.

A big shout-out to everyone who has contributed to the annual fundraiser this year. I’m blown away by your generosity and kindness. In times like these it matters more than ever that we all stick together and I am so very grateful that you are sticking with me.

Things are already getting weird in DC. As I wrote earlier, the infighting over the budget has already begun with the co-President Elon Musk threatening GOP members with primaries unless they agree to shut down the government until the congress comes in (apparently failing to understand that they will have an even smaller majority in the House than they do now.) We’re back to the tried and true GOP strategy of “if I hold my breath until I turn blue I will get what I want” and it doesn’t ever work out. So stay tuned for that.

But the Trump Vengeance and Retribution Tour has officially begun as well, which will probably dominate the news once the new congress convenes. And the opening salvo is a House investigation into … Liz Cheney, who is apparently enemy #1.

The NY Times reports:

House Republicans on Tuesday said their one-time colleague, former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, should face a criminal investigation for her role on the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

A 128-page report from the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight said Ms. Cheney should be investigated for witness tampering. It accuses her of colluding with Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who became the committee’s star witness as it examined Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The report — released as Mr. Trump, now the president-elect, has been promising retribution against his political enemies, including Ms. Cheney — accused Ms. Cheney of using the select committee as a tool to attack Mr. Trump. It was spearheaded by Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, the chairman of the oversight subcommittee.

Ms. Cheney defended her work on the select committee in a detailed statement, and called the Republicans’ report “a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth.”

Her full statement:

Update: Don’t watch this if you’re in a public place because you may want to scream “shut up, shut up, shut up!!” and throw your phone across the room. It’s Lara Trump saying Cheney must go to jail, calling January 6th a hoax.

🚨Lara Trump demands JAIL TIME for January 6th COVERUP after report EXPOSES Liz Cheney:

“When you break the law, you go to jail and you serve time. We'll make sure they never forget they tried to destroy this country. Wait until Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard get in there.” pic.twitter.com/DQ3BoSRqET

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 17, 2024

I suspect that they chose Cheney first out of the box as a warning to any apostate stragglers in the caucus. It’s also possible they think she will have no popular support because lefty Dems still hate her while Republicans also loathe her for her heresy against the Dear Leader. I’m not so sure about that.

It’s hard to imagine that this will go anywhere criminally because she didn’t commit a crime. In fact, if anyone was witness tampering it was Trump and his lawyers who were telling Hutchinson to keep her mouth shut. But this will play out as big drama on Capitol Hill. I would even expect Cheney to testify in an open hearing and if I am any judge I also expect she will probably be as good as Hillary Clinton was during the Benghazi hearings. They should be careful what they ask for. However you feel about Cheney, she’s tough as nails.

So, this is just a preview of what we’re in for. I would have thought we’d have a little bit of a break from the crazy until Trump actually gets in office but no such luck. So stay tuned.

If you’d like to help keep this old ship afloat for another year, you can hit one of the buttons below or send something to address on the sidebar. I think we’re going to have our work cut out for us.

Hang in there everybody. It’s going to be a very bumpy flight.

cheers,

digby

And Happy Hollandaise!

You know it’s bad when Fox News joins in on calling out Mike Johnson for breaking his promise on the CR.

"They said it was garbage. I mean, those are your own members calling it that." pic.twitter.com/rsewDFwkPt

— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) December 18, 2024

There’s already trouble in GOP paradise even before Trump takes office. Government funding is about to run out and they need to either pass a budget or punt with a continuing resolution. Otherwise we’re looking, once again, at a government shutdown. There are some Republicans who relish that because they just love to be transgressive. But Speaker Johnson just wants to get past it however he can until Dear Leader can come in and magically make everything work perfectly.

The problem is that the House Republicans are in disarray with some wanting just a clean extension until March while others want to shoot the moon with massive cuts (as usual.) Johnson can’t get anything done unless he gets cooperation from at least a few Democrats as a result.

Grab some popcorn. They’re already at each others’ throats.

Steve Bannon on Speaker Mike Johnson: “He’s a Democrat. He holds the Bible, and he’s got the New Testament wrapped up tight. He can talk happy talk on a handful of social issues, you know, checking his son’s porn sites. All this nonsense…”
pic.twitter.com/iMcEh9Sy8z

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 18, 2024

How can this be called a “continuing resolution” if it includes a 40% pay increase for Congress? https://t.co/qFFUP0eUOH

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024

It doesn't look like Mike Johnson's text thread with Elon Musk is going that well pic.twitter.com/mjArdbDHGu

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 18, 2024

Townhall:

House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked to respond to criticism from conservative lawmakers and Elon Musk over the bloated interim spending bill released Tuesday. 

In a post on X, Musk said the measure “should not pass.” 

During an interview on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning, co-host Steve Doocy pointed to Musk’s response and noted that the only way to pass the bill will be with Democrat support. 

“Well, I was communicating with Elon last night. Elon, Vivek and I are on a text chain together and I was explaining to them the background of this,” Johnson explained. “And Vivek and I talked last night about almost midnight. And he said, ‘Look, I get it.’ And he said, ‘We understand you’re in an impossible position. Everybody knows that.’

“Remember, guys, we still have just a razor-thin margin of Republicans,” Johnson continued. “So any bill has to have Democrat votes. They understand the situation. They said ‘it’s not directed at you, Mr. Speaker, but we don’t like the spending.’ And I said, ‘guess what, fellas? I don’t either.’”

He went on to assure them that once the Democrats are no longer in control in the next Congress they will be able to do what they want. (I don’t think they’re actually “in control” in the House right now and the margin will be even tighter in the next Congress but whatever.)

I think Adam Kinzinger said it best:

America this is not healthy government. Text chains with oligarchs and dorks https://t.co/COsOrRVtny

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) December 18, 2024

Seriously, who elected Musk and Ramaswamy to anything? Ever? This is insane.

Update — lol:

SCOOP: House GOP critics of Mike Johnson’s CR plan are already floating names to get behind instead come the Jan. 3 speaker vote, two lawmakers told me

Three names thrown out: Emmer, Jordan, Donalds

Story TK

— Liz Elkind (@liz_elkind) December 18, 2024

Aaaand, scene!

co-president calling for a government shut down pic.twitter.com/x2LWUHEocy

— Sam Stein (@samstein) December 18, 2024

She was not fired, she quit. And she quit at least partially because she didn’t approve of the Trump bootlicking. It’s much more complicated than that, of course. The government is falling apart for all the same reasons all the governments everywhere are falling apart and she’s in opposition to her former ally Trudeau on a number of issues.

Chrystia Freeland used to be a journalist and a good one. She’s going to run for Prime Minister and I hope she wins. She will not put up with Trump’s bullshit.

Meanwhile, Trump’s continuing on because he has the mind of a 12 year old bully:

He’s trolling, of course. But it also illuminates how idiotically he sees the trade issue. If we buy things from Canada he sees that as a subsidy. Apparently all the goods we are buying are worth nothing? It’s right up there with his insistence that NATO has to pay us “dues” like some Florida fat cat Mar-a-Lago member. It’s so embarrassingly stupid I don’t even know how to explain it.

I realize that by this time most people probably think this silly trolling stuff doesn’t matter and really don’t want to hear about it. But it does. This imbecile is dumbing down the entire world in ways that are going to damage us irreparably. We have some very, very serious problems to confront, the most important of which is climate change. Idiocracy isn’t going to fix that, it’s going to make it worse. And nihilism or exhausted fatalism will only help that happen.

President-elect Trump held his first press conference since the election this week and seemed surprised that he is suddenly so popular with all the wealthy business titans who are making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago like they’re the wise men and he’s the baby Jesus. He actually seemed to be a bit befuddled by his new found popularity among his billionaire pals:

President-elect Trump: "The first term everybody was fighting me, this term everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something." pic.twitter.com/oQLM42KDld

— CSPAN (@cspan) December 16, 2024

He’s not wrong. In his first term it was clear that political and business establishment leaders wanted nothing to do with him. And the media elites who are now elbowing each other out of the way to sit next to him and his major domo Elon Musk at the Mar-a-Lago dining table were openly hostile.

A lot of this love coming from the moneyed elite is easy to understand. After all, he promised to eliminate regulation and give them all tax cuts, so what’s not to like?

But it’s more than that. They all seem to be downright giddy at the prospect of getting up close and personal with the once and future president. It’s a far cry from the way they reacted during Trump’s first term, particularly among the media moguls.

Take just one example: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post said back in 2016 that Trump’s declared refusal to accept the election results unless he won “erodes our democracy around the edges.” He added, “one of the things that makes this country as amazing as it is, we are allowed to criticize and scrutinize our elected leaders,… to try and chill the media and threaten retribution and retaliation, which is what he’s done in a number of cases, it just isn’t appropriate.” The Post famously adopted the first slogan it had ever had in its 140 year history, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, as a declaration of its mission to aggressively cover the Trump presidency.

Now he’s slouching toward Mar-a-Lago currying favor with Trump who has, if anything, gotten much worse than he was eight years ago. Just this week he filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its pollster because they published a pre-election poll that showed Trump losing the election when he ended up winning. It’s ridiculous on its face but after ABC settled a Trump defamation claim earlier this week ( after Debra OConnell, who oversees ABC News, paid a visit to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump, according to Puck News) everyone understands this as an intimidation tactic.

But I’m not sure intimidation tells the whole story either. I also think the wealthy Masters of the Universe see Elon acting as the shadow president, even hosting events and schmoozing foreign leaders, and they want in on the action. The fact that the Big Billionaire is sitting at the table makes these lesser billionaires want to be there too. In a way, they’re clamoring to be “Influencers”, the hippest of all modern professions.

Nonetheless, it is profoundly disturbing to see the media bend the knee for any politician, much less Donald Trump. But I will remind everyone that we’ve actually been here before and pretty recently. It was a different situation and the motives weren’t the same but in some ways their behavior was even worse.

George W. Bush came into office in 2000 through a ruling by the Supreme Court in an election dispute in the state controlled by his brother. Two of the Justices on the court were appointed by his father. He lost the popular vote. Yet the Republicans and many in the media famously told anyone who didn’t like it to “get over it” and that was that.

Bush and the Republicans claimed a mandate and immediately enacted massive tax cuts as usual. There were some slight stirrings among the press and the Democrats in the Congress were gathering some spirit to rein him in and then 9/11 happened and the demands for unity were overwhelming. Bush had a 90% approval rating at one point and as you can see by the graph below it stayed very high for a long time.

The media completely capitulated to him for more than two years. The propaganda spread by the Bush administration was slick and professional but it was deadly. In their quest to fulfill their long-held dream of toppling Iraq leader Saddam Hussein and remake the middle east as a democratic paradise (at the end of a gun) they lied repeatedly and the news media helped them do it. One of the lowest points in New York Times history was when they allowed a Bush sycophant named Judith Miller to publish front page stories about Iraq’s alleged Weapons of Mass destruction which later turned out to be non-existent.

But it wasn’t just lies about the war. The media turned themselves into gushing super fans of George W. Bush. The exalted his brilliance when he stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center with a bullhorn and declared to the assembled workers “I hear you! The whole world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” Soon after, he threw out the first pitch in the third game of the World series at Yankee Stadium and the media swooned over his perfect delivery.

When it became clear that the US was going to war with Iraq, it all took an even darker turn. Dissent was quashed all across society, professors were fired from their jobs for writing allegedly anti-American essays, up and coming journalists were banished for expressing skepticism about the Iraq invasion and long time talk show hosts were fired for hosting guests who spoke out against the war. The repression was very real.

And the adoration for the president continued apace. Do you remember the excitement over this silly stunt?

They made it appear that he had landed the plane himself but of course he didn’t. The sign on the carrier that day said “Mission Accomplished” but he didn’t do that either. The press was completely beside themselves, however, admiring his manly visage and it took a very long time for the country to begin to see him differently.

Bush predictably won re-election in 2004 and once again claimed he had a mandate although it wasn’t any great victory. But his second term was anything but the huge success everyone assumed it would be. They overreached. The government surveillance of Americans, the DOJ attempting to rig the election system, trying to privatize social security, the financial crisis and the bungling of the response to Hurricane Katrina among other things all combined to take Bush’s approval rating down to the high 20s by the time he left office.

I’m not saying it will happen that way this time. Trump and his coterie of billionaires are very ambitious and the right has managed to pollute many of the institutions that existed back then to rein in an authoritarian president. But keep in mind that Trump has even less of a mandate than Bush did and he and his henchmen are less competent. When the global pandemic gave him the chance to become a hero as Bush was after 9/11 he blew it and I wouldn’t assume that he will do any better this time.

I only bring this up to remind everyone that it was only 23 years ago that the media offered themselves as supplicants to a president with a foul agenda just as they are doing today. I acknowledge that the media environment is different now with social media and new disinformation streams that didn’t exist then. But eventually reality always bites. It will bite again.

Salon

Advice for our times

Donald Trump wants to create spectacles (Thunderdome), Josh Marshall observes. His professional wrestling instincts are not a mere joke. “That whole bombast is not only made to make people feel afraid, particularly the people they’re threatening directly, but to create this aura of power and uncheckable power and to knock people back on their heels and make them feel disoriented, demoralized, and all those things,” Marshall tells Greg Sargent’s Daily Blast podcast:

It’s typical Trump to threaten 10 things a day. And his opponents, his enemies are feeling overwhelmed with all the different threats, and he doesn’t actually have to do anything. So it is really important for people both to be prepared for him to do all sorts of crazy stuff, but also to be attuned to that spectacle, which is his greatest power.

Trump’s goal is an America cowed, Marshall says. Maybe he jails people. Maybe he just threatens. Maybe be actually does bring lawsuits, launch investigations. He doesn’t need to follow through on many for people to cower behind silence.

“It’s all out of the world of professional wrestling,” explains Marshall. Trump creating chaos and confusion, Trump’s bombast and menace, is meant to keep his adversaries off balance like a ship tossed at sea (my analogy). Democrats need their version of gyroscopic stabilizers if the Democratic ship expects to maintain way and fire back.

Marshall suggests something like that at TPM:

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory and promised revenge tour, a number of individuals have proposed the creation of an organization or fund which would take on the job of defending the various lawsuits, prosecutions and generalized legal harassment Trump will bring to the table in the next four years. It’s a very good idea. It’s a necessary one. Over the last six weeks I’ve had a number of people reach out to me and ask who is doing this. Where should they send money to fund this effort? This includes people who are in the small-donor category and also very wealthy people who could give in larger sums. So a few days ago I started reaching out to some people in the legal world and anti-Trump world to find out what’s going on, whether any efforts are afoot and who is doing what.

What I found out is that there are at least a couple groups working toward doing something like this. But the efforts seem embryonic. Or at least I wasn’t able to find out too much.

(Readers, if you run across efforts like this, send me links, please.)

Marshall want to see the left counterpunch, now more than ever. Embarrass Trump. Humiliate his attorneys. “That’s the language they understand,” Marshall says:

Marshall: All of these things are baseless, but most of these things are so baseless that you want to embarrass them. That’s the language they understand. Outrage and very normal and understandable reactions, that’s what they’re looking for. It’s the whole cry-more world. They want people to be outraged: How can you do this? This shouldn’t be possible. And I hope that a group like this, and the opposition to Trump more generally, can cultivate a degree of bring it on. Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it, dude, because you will be embarrassed and we love embarrassing you.

Old-line Democrats raised in the pre-internet era of network news eschew any spectacle livelier than a press conference. They want to look dignified. They want to achieve their policy goals even if it means “working across the aisle” with people trying to shiv them. They’d rather front Gerry Connolly than more camera-friendly, more social-media savvy AOC.

Donald Trump couldn’t give a flying f*ck about dignified. He just named Herschel Walker ambassador to the Bahamas, for God’s sake.

Marshall: We need to think big picture. What is the big goal here? It’s creating a population of cowed people. One way you do that is to actually jail people, but there’s a lot of different ways you do that. A lot of this is have the money for the actual court stuff, but also have what is in essence a public communications campaign that is contesting the ground where a lot of this is going to be taking place. You don’t personally need to be subpoenaed or called into a courtroom to make the decision in your head, Man, I better lay low because a lot of bad stuff is happening. You need people who are fighting that fight in the public square, not just in the courtroom.

Or in front of a press room podium. And we need them organized, prepositioned, and properly funded.

We must all hang together, as they saying goes.

Thank you sharing this Sanctuary of Sanity with us each day.
Happy Hollandaise!

“A moment of genuine madness.” — MSNBC’s Chris Hayes

Max: Thunderdome. How do I get in there?
Aunty Entity: That’s easy. Pick a fight!

Two important points this morning.

First, like it or not, the public wants Thunderdome. The press covers Thunderdome. Thunderdome draws eyeballs in this attention economy. Again, and again and again: How many Rocky movies did Stallone make?

Brian Beutler responds both to ABC’s capitulation to Trump and congressional Democrats’ preference for Rep. Gerry Connolly over progressive star AOC for top Oversight Committee post.

“Democrats should imagine how Fox News would fill its airtime if this were a Democratic transition, and then speak and react as if they were creating soundbites for a big, aligned, signal-boosting media company,” Beutler writes. “Democrats should be unashamed to fight [Trump]. In this conservative-dominated media environment? Attract eyeballs, for God’s sake! Pick a fight! (emphasis mine):

Instead, the Democratic leadership has organized against handing the top seat on the House oversight committee to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in the hope of installing Gerry Connolly, a 74-year old cancer patient, to the position. Connolly might not be a bad option in normal times. But over the next two years, Democrats should want an energetic, hungry figure in that role; the leaders prefer a committeeman they can control. If AOC were to become the committee chair in 2026, she would conduct freewheeling oversight; Connolly will heed the leadership and its stubborn aversion to conflict.

Donald Trump gives the people Thunderdome. But Democrats, with their “stubborn aversion to conflict,” won’t pick a fight or promote (in two senses) their best fighters.

Americans want to root for a fighter, to cheer for the underdog who punches back. The fictional George McFly who meekly takes it is cringe-worthy. Nobody wants to vote for him. The guy who cold-cocks Biff Tannen elicits cheers.

Let Republicans shout victimhood to the rooftops.

Slow Learners

Second, congressional Democrats on Tuesday voted to make “old and busted” Connolly the ranking member on the incoming House Oversight Committee over “new hotness” AOC.

Now, there is ageism and there is realism. I’m an old fart by now, just a few years younger than Connolly. I’m done. I’m an adviser. But I know that for a political party to remain vital, vibrant, and competitive, it has to have regular infusions of young blood. (See yesterday’s post.) That’s why two years ago I helped elect Anderson Clayton (then 25) state chair in North Carolina. (Like she needed much help.) But it’s a lesson slow learners among Democrats’ gerontocracy are loathe to accept.

It’s why Democrats should elect WisDems chair Ben Wikler, 43, the next chair of the Democratic National Committee on February 1. And I’d advise all y’all to tell your DNC members to support him. Clayton is up for reelection later in February.

If we’re going to take on Trump, Republican extremists, and move our country forward, the Democratic Party needs to be stronger. I'm running for Chair of the Democratic National Committee to unite the party, fight everywhere, and win. Join me. 🧵

— Ben Wikler (@benwikler.bsky.social) 2024-12-01T14:14:07.554Z

MSNBC’s Chirs Hayes Tuesday night called the choice of Connolly over AOC “a moment of genuine madness.” Democrats’ “old guard” are slow learners.

Update: Kate Aronoff of The New Republic concurs, “The elderly are not too old to govern. But they may, in this case, be too attached to a failed way of doing things…. Pelosi and the old guard’s continued opposition to younger talent seems breathtakingly counterproductive in the face of the Democratic Party’s numerous challenges right now.”

Thank you sharing this Sanctuary of Sanity with us each day.
Happy Hollandaise!