There’s a passage from a recent PBS News Hours featuring David Brooks that I think is significant. From the transcript thoughtfully provided by RealClearPolitics:
David Brooks: Yes, I don’t know about that.
But those of us who are trying to rebut populists like Trump have the disadvantage that our elites really do stink. And this is an advantage — example of that.
It was sort of an open secret that the DNC was on Hillary Clinton’s side. We saw it from the schedule of the debates all through the year. They didn’t want to have them, because they didn’t want to give Sanders the platform.
But this goes beyond what even I imagined was the level of collusion. It’s a pretty sleazy economic takeover of a party apparatus, against the bylaws of that apparatus.
It’s just not something a normal campaign that respects institutions and how things should work should do. And so they colluded, apparently, according to Donna Brazile, in a pretty major way. And if you were a Sanders person, you have every right to be completely upset.
A point Pat Lang has been making for some time is that the establishments of both political parties and their apparat, the media, and the federal bureaucracy are presently attempting what he refers to as a “soft coup”. The worst thing that could happen to the country isn’t if they should fail, as many anti-Trumpers think. It’s if they succeed because if they do we cease even having a façade of democracy and the rule of law.
What has been verified this week is that it isn’t only Donald Trump who has a lack of respect for our civil institutions and the rule of law. If Hillary Clinton had won the election, the president would have had exactly those same failings.
One of the other things I found interesting in the exchange cited above is that Mark Shields very clearly has the same take on President Obama that I did and was beaten about the head and shoulders for on several occasions: he didn’t actually like being president, doing what presidents do:
And President Obama just didn’t like politics. He didn’t like the company of politicians. The Democrats lost 979 state legislative seats, 63 House seats, 12 Senate seats. In 19 states, they lost control of both houses of legislature and the governorship during his time.
He didn’t go out and recruit. He was great himself, but not much for — he didn’t like the business. He didn’t like the company of politicians.
But here’s the critical point: President Obama had those failings, too. That’s demonstrable from the miserable record of losses his administration had in cases before the Supreme Court, in his handling of DACA, and any number of other moves by him and his administration.
If we’re going to have a government that is “of laws, not of men” as John Adams put it, we will need to care for process more or at least as much as outcomes. I think that will require lowering the stakes.
The irony is the Clinton wing, through sheer mendacity and hack-level incompetence, has damaged itself to the point it cannot field a viable candidate in 2020 and handed the nomination to Sanders should he want it. If he doesn’t the nomination will go to Warren who is aggressively courting Sanders voters and appears to have concluded her previous “play it safe outside finance” style was a mistake.
Oddly enough, I think Warren could win. Sanders had a lot of support among millennials. They aren’t doing well financially, with thousands in student loan debt, 32 hour/week “full time jobs”, poor benefits, consisting mainly of group insurance plans they bear the full cost of. Capitalism isn’t working for most of them, (spare me the success stories), they are leaning toward socialism.
I would venture to guess that Trump voters are older than Sanders supporters as well which demographically works against Trump four years later.
Whatever you think of Sanders views, he’s old, and looks it. Warren would be the standard bearer. Good old Joe? How does he clean his hands of the Clinton stained Democratic party?
I think, even though Obama was beloved by the Dem’s more strident base, his presidency was generally toxic for the party. So many alarming policies, stances and events occurred on his watch that while acknowledged by common citizens, were denied, factually reconfigured, or muted by his supporters and operatives. There was F & F, the IRS targeting, the stimulus malfeasance, the multitude of goverment know-nothing czars, the growth of regulations and stranglehold of the ever-expanding EPA leading to a listless economy, the lies tucked in the ACA, over-reach of Obama’s executive power, divisive handling of social issues (that were overlooked by the media while they are going after Trump for similar divisiveness with a vengence).
The stench of Benghazi, though, is a matter that continues to disturb me. Somehow there are those who are pacified by the number of hearings on the event, without acknowledging the sloppy way this tragedy was investigated – i.e. spreading misinformation by the Obama/Clinton talking heads, disallowng people on the ground there to speak by demanding NDAs being signed and enforced, the footdragging release of congressional-requested documents/emails, and much more.
At the end of Obama’s tenure in office, the DNC was saddled with a $24 million debt, leading to the rise of HRC’s improprieties. And, now we have Trump to puzzle over – bring continuously bashed by the harsh resistance that has engulfed the Democrat party.
I personally believe both parties have suffered because of their disgraceful political antics. But, the Dems, in particular, seem more frazzled and fragmented by their tortured 8 year run of the past. And, IMO, this won’t bode well for their future until they own their failures and clean up their act. Even socialistic-inclined millennials are turned off by Dems behavior. I also don’t think Eliz Warren will be a viable remedy for what ails that party. As for Trump, he’s a fill-in president, acting more as a political disrupter than a mainstay for the R party.
The claims of a soft coup are overwrought. I read Lang also and I just don’t buy this. The GOP from the very beginning tried to delegitimize the Obama presidency. The Dems are returning the favor. The opposition is acting like the opposition, and Trump cannot even control his own party to get stuff done. There is no soft coup, just the continuing dysfunction of both parties and a continuation of the partisan divide.
Re-reading th eDNC, it islands like they were broke, so the Clintons offered a financial rescue in return for basically running the place.
Steve
I watched New Hours on Friday and was very surprised Mark Shields went after Obama like that. He basically blames Obama, as someone disinterested in politics for leaving the Party vulnerable to the Clintonistas:
“[Brazille’s charges are] proof, more than anything else, to me of how little Barack Obama cared about the Democratic Party or about politics. He was great at getting elected. He got a national majority twice in a row. Nobody had done that since Eisenhower. He was leaving the party $24 million in debt, therefore, vulnerable to Hillary Clinton’s coterie of big givers.”
We’ve had two extreme anti-politics Presidents in a row, with extremely different approaches, but the same fundamental problem.
jan- Please. It is BENGHAZI! Please do it correctly. (8 investigations and at least 3 of them solely by GOP entities, and you still keep at it. Just like all of the other fake scandals. Pretty much everything you claim has been disproved, but you are still going to believe it.)
Steve
PD- I think we are a little schizophrenic about this. OTOH, we seem to want politicians who wheel and deal with other politicians. Trading favors and compromises to get stuff done. OTOH, we want to drain the swamp. Get rid of the back room deals. DO stuff that will benefit us, and not just keep politicians in power.
Steve
It is now Brazile Bombshell Day 3, and still OTB has not noticed.
I rarely read the comments, and the commenters, led by our Famous Fiction Writer, may be up-in-arms.
[…] if they succeed […]
It is now beside the point. The Rubicon has been crossed. Using the FBI, NSA, IRS, etc. against political enemies is now legitimate.
[…] a lack of respect for our civil institutions and the rule of law. […]
Our ‘civil institutions’ do not deserve respect, and the ‘rule of law’ is a club used to beat down anybody who disagrees.
[…] “of laws, not of men†[…]
It has not been a ‘conspiracy theory’. The system has been rigged for quite some time. The deranged are no longer those who think the system is rigged. Now, the deranged are those who deny it.
RE: Warren and Sanders
They are part of the rigged system, and they will do nothing to de-rig it. Once he lost, Sen. Sanders aided and abetted the rigged system. Sen. Warren was too stupid to realize that the system was rigged, or like Bernie, she was ‘along for the ride’.
We are Through the Looking Glass.
@steve, Presidents running as an outsider seems to be a dominant strain that emerged in strength and consistency following Watergate. And the political accomplishments of the people getting elected President seem to get smaller and smaller at least since the end of the Cold War. Since Trump had none, I think we must have hit bottom unless negative political accomplishments become important.
Steve, you were the person I was thinking about when I mentioned people who were perfectly content, “pacified,” by the number of hearings associated with the Benghazi investigation. It’s not the number of hearings, but the ability to have timely cooperation in amassing info to assess the event in a non-biased, accurate way. This was hardly the case for either the timeline, interviews conducted with people actually there, even getting the story correct was obscured by using a film as the scapegoat, rather than telling the election-disturbing “fact” that it was a terrorist attack, publicly on many TV shows, at the UN, etc. This wove a confusing picture right at the onset. Clinton, the SOS, was given a pass at the get go too. And, Obama escaped accountability entirely, as the GOP investigations were hopelessly tied up by obstructive tactics orchestrated frm the WH. By the time these investigations finally limped to the finish line, the Dems had accomplished their strategy – to stall, throw out false leads, obfuscate contrary testimonies, until people no longer were interested in fielding any inquiries into a tragedy that left 4 men dead.
It’s kind of ironic now, with the Niger deaths, the Dems are anxious to have immediate feedback on what happened (within weeks, not years), and are calling it Trump’s Benghazi, even though help was deployed almost immediately to the ambushed soldiers, while none was sent to help the ambassador and others under attack.
You persist in nonsense. Every investigation uncovered the same basic facts. There was no stand down. Help that could be sent, was actually sent. (They really couldn’t send people from Italy. Those who have been on active duty understand this.) So much of what you say above is just false. That is why when the GOP investigated it, they also came up with he same facts as everyone else. All of the conspiracy stuff you claim just doesn’t hold up against the facts of what really happened. Of course, I guess the Tea Party guys who organized the investigation could really be secret Obama supporters and they also fudged the investigations and reports.
Again, as noted in every investigation, at the outset, no one really knew what happened. It took weeks and months to figure it out. There was no cover up. In essence here, you are calling all of the military who participated in these investigations liars. You are accusing the Senators and Congressmen, most of them from the far right wings of the party, of covering up stuff and helping Obama.
Clinton got a pass? When? The GOP was all over this from the start. After having mud on their face over the Egyptian embassy incident they were immediately out to prove that this time they link Obama, and Clinton, to a real scandal.
Just like F&F, the IRS and everything else, you are convinced that Obama did something wrong, and you won’t accept the outcome. Now that Sessions is in office he has access to all of these investigations. Note that he didn’t charge Lerner or go after Obama either. So now you have Sessions involved as a pro-Obama supporter. At what point do you admit this is crazy?
Steve
Steve, the men who particpated in the fire fight have stood by their claims they were told to stand down. The assistant, to the ambassador killed, stood by his story of asking for and getting no help. He, ironically, was the only person “punished,” by being demoted.
HRC told the families of the men killed that the event happened as a reaction to a video, even though her conversations with her daughter, the night of the attack, confirmed she knew differently, from the get go.
The administration immediately fabricated a story line that was false. They passed this on to loved ones and the public for weeks, and then stonewalled those investigating Benghazi. They even tried to blame Republicans for decreasing funds for security at that out post. However, that was quickly debunked.
You’re wrong about Benghazi conspiracies. The aftermath was mainly dogged by blatent attempts to blur many details and truths surrounding this tragedy, and shoving it into the “who cares” archives of the past, as fast as they could.
And, when I read your comments, Steve, they are simply Dem talking points repeated over and over again to assuage any need to make Obama/Clinton accountable for a botched mission in Libya.
jan- Everything you claim comes from conspiracy sites.
The following will come from the 3 GOP investigations.
There was no stand down order. They were asked to wait for a short while so that the militia would know they were friendlies and not get into a firefight with them.
HRC knew no such thing. No one did at that point. A lot of people thought that might be so, but there were mixed messages coming out of Libya so the official assessment of our intelligence agencies was that it was probably a response to the video. There had been killings elsewhere in response to the video.
Not true. Go read what Rice said. (I know you won’t.) What they consistently said was what the intel agencies thought. They said they thought it was the video, but would need an investigation as no one could be sure. There was no stonewalling.
So, maybe Trey Gowdy and the other Republicans are also in on the plot. Maybe Sessions is on it too. They all want to protect Obama with all of those scandals. That is what you have to believe if you also want to believe your conspiracies.
Steve
When the Benghazi attack happened, I asked my dogs if people protesting internet videos bring mortars and RPGs to emphasis their displeasure, and they just looked at me like I was stupid. My dogs knew it was not simply a protest over an internet video, and they are not that smart.
(Bring AK-47’s is not surprising. In shitholes, everybody has an AK-47, and nobody knows how to clear the chamber, correctly.)
Benghazi Report Details Clinton’s Malfeasance and Nonfeasance. A powerline piece, which is hardly a “conspiracy” site.
Powerline’s critique of the official Benghazi Report:
Here is their summary of conclusions:
I. The First Victim of War is Truth: The administration misled the public about the events in Benghazi
Officials at the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, learned almost in real time that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. With the presidential election just 56 days away, rather than tell the people the truth and increase the risk of losing an election, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly. They publicly blamed the deaths on a video-inspired protest they knew never occurred.
It continues on in the piece linked….
Select Committee on Benghazi Refutes many of your stapled-in “talking points,” Steve.
Finally, there is the response of Tyrone Woods widow to the Committee Republicans. Can you imagine the additional grief a widow has to circumvent in having her husband’s death encrusted in politics, in order to protect government officials higher up, i.e. Clinton and Obama!!!!!
“The widow of Benghazi hero Tyrone Woods, Dr. Dorothy Woods, recently thanked Committee Republicans for “doing their job,†and said the report has “given me closure.†She said critics of the committee have “been dismissive. The committee’s been ridiculed. The committee has been, they’ve been criticized. And for them to sincerely do the right thing, to care about Americans, that’s what’s important.â€
Powerline is reliably right-wing on every topic. They do not vary one whit from the party line.
Perhaps more time spent on the facts and the quality of arguments would be better than the ideology of sources.
Janis, that’s your opinion. However, the people contributing to powerline are mostly level-headed lawyers and do not walk lock-step in their commentaries, and instead yield an array of opinions, unlike what so many of the left-leaning publications and media are capable of doing.
BTW, Drew, condemning sources, without even readng their content, is a ploy used by OTB, 24/7. It’s a good way to put an end to bipartisan discussion.