It’s really amazing. There seems to be general agreement that we’re stuck in a re-enactors’ version of the 1930s. The disagreement seems to be over who is playing what part.
It’s really amazing. There seems to be general agreement that we’re stuck in a re-enactors’ version of the 1930s. The disagreement seems to be over who is playing what part.
I think the problem is a surplus of Mussolinis. Mussolini was mentor to Hitler, while Hitler’s Germany was always destined to be a bigger player than Mussolini’s Italy.
So this should be Putin as Mussolini and Trump as Hitler. But Hitler was only evil, he was not also stupid and desperately needy. Plus he actually had plans, ideas, whereas Trump just sits in his pajamas watching TV as his aides try to reduce all documents to the level of a child’s board book.
First as tragedy, then as farce.
Putin can’t play Hitler because Russia 2017 is not Germany 1939. Russia’s just a cold, heavily-armed Saudi Arabia, while Germany was every variety of powerhouse.
I’ve never thought Trump was Hitler. But he’s a flop as Mussolini, too. Mussolini was a newspaper editor, not a stupid man, reckless and ridiculous, but not completely out of his depth. Trump can’t even play Peron or Franco or Papa Doc Duvalier or Trujillo. . . they were all strong men, and Trump is so embarrassingly weak.
No, since November 9th what has worried me, scared me, alienated me from my own country, is not Trump per se, but the 46%. It is shocking to see democracy fail so completely. This was a very simple choice for our national human resources department. a) A dull but completely qualified woman, or b) An unqualified, ineducable, clueless, vulgar ignoramus with crushing personality and mental disorders. Not a hard choice. And yet, 46% of voters got it spectacularly wrong. It’s not Trump’s psychopathy alone that is a concern, it is the failure of the American voter, that’s what sets off my Jewdar.
Lol, another Jew for the Hitler was better than Trump bandwagon. Michael’s no doubt also on Krystol’s “Lets get rid of white people because the dark skinned are easier to enslave” bandwagon.
As I said, best year ever!
…
Anyhow, the premise is off. We’re not re-enacting the Thirties, we’re re-enacting the 1910s and 1920s, but people don’t know enough history to understand that. All they know about 20th Century history is that Hitler was bad and the USA was worse because we put that gay Japanese guy from Star Trek in Auschwitz – or something like that. Hardly a surprise people can’t analogize well when all they know is the George Takei version of WWII and Harry Potter.
I just keep wondering what this year will give me to laugh about next. Is Sacramento down-river from Oroville? That would be sweet! I can just imagine an Edward G. Robinson-type shouting “Where’s your high speed rail now?” as the California legislature gets washed into the bay!
I guess I’m in the minority then, I see few parallels to the 1930’s.
Although I think that history does occasionally repeat itself and frequently rhymes, I think the situation now is pretty unique. It doesn’t even rhyme. I think that trying to draw parallels with European models is questionable. We’re not European. We’re very different.
I sincerely hope that Michael is wrong. Me? I don’t know. I think I have more trust in ordinary Americans who don’t live in California or New York than he does.
It might not be as dire as Michael believes. See, The Two Kinds of Trump Voters.
But I would have to say that if there are any parallels, the 1850s come to mind.
I think the only distinction that many progressives would make between the Nationalists and the Exasperated as characterized in that article is that they would think that the Nationalists are more honest.
Three weeks in and we have the resignation of the National Security Advisor. This goes directly to Trump. Flynn clearly gave the Russians assurances about sanctions, which he could only have done with Trump’s okay. Trump was told about this before>/i> he swore Flynn in. This isn’t even connect the dots, this is a big fat arrow drawn in Sharpie.
“No, since November 9th what has worried me, scared me, alienated me from my own country, is not Trump per se, but the 46%. It is shocking to see democracy fail so completely.”
I actually agree with Michael, except that it’s the viciousness of those going on a public rampage against anything or anyone disagreeing with the “alt left’s” strident, intolerant POV of the world, which causes me worry. What used to be a loyal opposition party to republicans, has now turned into a craziness I’ve never seen before!
The “Grab your Wallet” and “Indivisible” movements,” are but two upshoots creating noise and nuttiness meant to intimidate, discredit, and crush businesses and people from freely operating or voicing dissenting opinions . In fact, if there is any “Fascism” being demonstrated it’s mainly by those who lost the recent presidential election.
As for any similarity to the Tea Party movement backlash, arising in 2010, it was formed to tenaciously push back against big government and the imposition of Obamacare. Their disagreements, however, were exercised through peaceful rallies and passionate townhall debates. Absent was the extreme malice and disrespect shown towards current day R speakers, totally shutting them down, and then requiring police escorts, afterwards, to insure their protection. In fact, the post election disruptive crowds, cropping up everywhere, are less a legitimate protest than a rebellious mob encouraging complete chaos and a loss of human civility.
The voters are just fine. After all, they voted in Maxine Waters, Shiela J Lee, Nancy Pelosi, the always for sale Chock Shumer and some dude worried about too many people tipping Guam over. Hell, as we are frequently reminded, a mojority voted for a woman peddling foreign policy for boring, canned speeches for obscene profits.
SNAFU, although watching a raving lunatic speculate about the psychological state of Trump, FBI conspiracy theories and Trumps butt buddy Boris Badinov is entertaining. When do we hear accusations that Trump has been schtuping an East German babe? Get out the truth serum!
Guarneri:
Your boy took exactly three weeks to set the White House on fire. Three weeks and his NSA quits because he’s been compromised by the Russians. This goes directly to Trump. Trump and Pence are both also compromised by the Russians. And you’re still on about Hillary’s speeches.
Trump swore Flynn in AFTER he’d been told by credible sources that Flynn was a Russian stooge. And then Trump fired the person who warned him.
Let me tell you something. You’re going to be lucky if your president doesn’t end up in Leavenworth. He is a traitor.
I’m glad Flynn is gone and I am also not surprised. He was, long ago, promoted way past his ability and he became an embarrassment to my profession.
I don’t know anything about Flynn, except that initially his credentials appeared impressive. Nonetheless, the longer he was in the public eye, before and after the inauguration of Trump, Flynn increasingly became more of an abrasive”rough edge” in his official capacity rather than a benefit. Consequently, I was relieved to hear he had submitted his resignation.
However, there are analytical minds who have asserted Flynn’s earlier private citizen phone calls with the Russian ambassador, violated nothing. It was ultimately his lack of truthfulness, “cover-up,” that created the ethical breech resulting in him having to go.
I know, for “Trump Haters,” such a high level shake-up, especially associated with a Russian conversation, gleefully supplies them with additional conspiratorial fodder to take the president and his administration down. Conveniently absent, though, from the debate are the hot mic words, of the then president Obama, quietly telling his Russian counterpart that after his reelection he would have more “flexibility.” What comprised such “flexibility,” although loudly rebuked by Republicans, was never generously mined by the press nor officially investigated by congressional oversight. Double standard…?
I’m glad Flynn is gone, too, Andy. For one thing he was much too anti-Iran for my tastes.
The editors of the WSJ did make a couple of good points. Did the NSA have a warrant to eavesdrop on Flynn? Was Trump aware of that?
Andy:
The question is, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” I imagine you recognize the provenance of that question.
Do you believe Flynn was going rogue, or was he acting for Trump?
Do you believe the White House counsel told Trump that DOJ thought Flynn was compromised?
And rather less vital: what kind of an idiot former DIA chief doesn’t know that a phone call with a Russian ambassador is going to be intercepted?
Seriously, Dave? That’s the issue here? Whether the NSA listened in on a Russian ambassador?
Here’s the president’s latest tweet:
“The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?”
Leaks might not be necessary if he continues to deal with crises between the salad and main courses in public restaurants.
There’s more than one issue. Personally, I wouldn’t have picked Flynn. I think that Trump screwed up in tapping him. I was disappointed when he did. Tyro mistake.
But the law needs to be obeyed even in the case of bad people.
Dave:
No. You’re just flat wrong.
Flynn was head of the DIA and if he didn’t know that we bug Russian ambassadors then he is literally (not as a slur, literally) ‘mentally challenged.’ Flynn had knowledge that he was being recorded. He has no beef on that score now.
The issue here is not warrants, the issue here is whether an enemy intelligence agency has very serious leverage amounting to control, over the president of the United States. And everyone needs to stop pretending this isn’t happening.
In early days of Watergate, when I was 19, I fell at first for the “Nixon’s too smart to. . .” line. It was impossible to imagine that Tricky Dick would risk committing a crime against a party and candidate he was guaranteed to beat. And yet, it was true.
This is Watergate sped up to Warp Factor 9. The entire government is leaking like the Titanic. There are dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of Deep Throats. Trump’s Russia ties will come out. His tax returns will come out. His regime is imploding at a speed unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Rats will begin to scurry. Even the GOP Congress won’t be able to keep the lid on.
And Trump has no support beyond his base, no skills that allow him to appeal beyond his base, and even his base is rattled. As of right now the US has no one running national security. 4500 nukes are in the hands of a senile cretin who wanders the White House listening to Breitbart and tweeting drivel, and he doesn’t even have an NSA.
Michael,
As you well know, Nixon committed treason when he interfered with the Paris peace talks in 1968. The GOP and angry white men are his people, and they will be for some time. Right now, it’s a fact that the GOP would rather go after the leaks and shut down the press rather investigate who knew what about Russia, and outside of the left and liberals, nobody will care.
Modulo:
No one cared then. . . until they did. Right now every investigative reporter in the English-speaking world is after this, and the permanent government – as well as the infighting sub-mediocrities in his administration – are spilling their guts. The rats are already eyeballing the life rafts, and when they scamper they will talk.
We are already seeing stories of allies withholding intelligence. We’ll see more. The polls will stay flat or creep downward. Trump will become increasingly frayed. Despondency alternating with impotent rage. Paranoia over the leaks will intensify. We will see more staff shake-ups, more infighting, more disfunction. Grown-ups in Washington will focus on covering their asses, distancing themselves, whispering to the media that they were never part of the crazy.
You know when we all knew Nixon was done for? When he shoved Ron Ziegler. Just under a year later he resigned. And Nixon was tough; Trump is a pussy.
Trump’s base wants to beat up on brown people and gays and have factories re-open in Youngstown, they don’t want this. We’re going to mostly stop them on the first part, and the second part ain’t happening, so the base will make noise but look how ineffectual they’ve been. They don’t have the cohesion or means to keep poor Ivanka’s fashion crap at TJ Maxx. They can’t protect Uber, Nordstrom, Apple or any of the other corporations signaling their rejection of Trump. They don’t need to suddenly have an ‘ah hah!’ moment where they admit they were wrong, they just need to slink away, just like Nixon’s hardhats did.
Ah, and I see the WH is now confirming that Trump knew about Flynn’s calls, and knew he was lying to Pence.
Just like the old days.
“My fellow Americans, I have come to realize that I can’t take care of politics and my businesses at the same time. Washington is just too much of a mess. Bad! Bigly bad! And I really care about my businesses. Anyway, I signed a bunch of executive orders so everything should be fine, and Mike Pence will do a fine job. Bye!”
Here are some laws:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2382
Walter Russell Mead offers a much more reasoned thesis as to What Flynn’s Resignation Really Means. Fundamentally, he posits that Flynn’s personal attributes and temperament just did not fit the rigors of the job.
Dave,
I couldn’t get past the paywall to read the WSJ op-ed, but my understanding is that the Ambassador’s phone was being tapped, not Flynn’s.
I think there has to be more to this story if the whole blackmail theory is accurate. Not telling the VP that Flynn hinted at easing up on Russia is a pretty think reed to try to blackmail someone over. There is probably more to this aspect than what’s been leaked if the blackmail thing isn’t BS.
Michael,
“Do you believe Flynn was going rogue, or was he acting for Trump?”
Don’t know, but the the latter doesn’t make any sense. After all, if he was carrying out Trump’s instructions to wink-wink, nudge-nudge with the Russian Ambassador, why lie to the VP about it later? And again, the reporting on this indicates there were no specific promises made. From the NYT article on the subject: “…Mr. Flynn urged Russia not to retaliate against any sanctions because an overreaction would make any future cooperation more complicated. He never explicitly promised sanctions relief, one former official said, but he appeared to leave the impression that it would be possible.”
Oh, and Flynn won’t be the only one to go. He packed the NSC with his flunkies. They will be quietly removed.
Andy, what about K.C. McFarland?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
This is treason. Full stop. Treason.
And Trump is too stupid to pull off a cover-up. His administration is sinking. He’s leaking in every direction. No one is going to want to go to jail for this creep.
Trump has three paths:
1) A coup. Not likely given that he has very low levels of support and that the FBI and CIA are all over him.
2) Resigns to spend more time with his money.
3) Checks into Leavenworth. Even Pence won’t try to pull a Jerry Ford on this.
Infinitely worse than Watergate. By far the biggest political scandal in American history. Three f-cking weeks.
Oh, wait, there’s a fourth option: he can start a war.
Jan,
I honestly have no idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Michael,
CNN’s take is a bit different than the NYT:
From the NYT article, things that make you go hmmm:
There is possibly more, or just as likely, less, to this story than what’s being reported. These leaks are highly selective in content. The “current and former” officials is instructive. So is the careful wording in the articles, especially in the Times piece, which implies much yet confirms little. The characterizations are quite different – “senior Russian intelligence officials” in the NYT piece are “Russians known to US intelligence” – the first is specific the second is all encompassing.
So, IMO, it’s too early for any conclusions. I think there will have to be formal investigations because, frankly, the credibility of the Trump administration as well as NATSEC establishment (the obvious source for these leaks) are rock bottom.
Andy:
Give it a while. This is being doled out. We get a detail, we watch the Trump administration flail, then we get a second detail. Rinse and repeat. I’m betting there are transcripts yet to come, maybe even recordings. Not to mention a report by an FBI needing to re-establish its ‘impartiality.’ Possibly a tax return. And we’ll get an insider breaking and lawyering up. My money’s on Kellyanne.