It's my opinion that overcoming partisanship is a vital step in restoring US politics.
Parties (and thus partisanship) exist because people disagree about political questions and policies. "Overcoming partisanship" sounds a lot like trying to get the politics out of politics.
I find it difficult to interact with those who say the problem is the Republicans generally because it suggests (to my mind at least) that the only alternative is to institute a Democrat one-party state instead.
"Republicans generally" are the ones who produced, support, and enable the Trump presidency. I'm not sure there's any workable analysis that considers Trump a problem that doesn't take into account this important fact. The Republican party has spent the last four decades laying the groundwork for someone a lot like Donald Trump so I can't help feeling that their claims to be shocked (shocked!) that their monster machine is churning out monsters are a bit hard to credit as sincere.
I think there is generally more cross-party politics in the UK, say, than in the USA.
I'm not sure only the Republicans would be capable of producing a Trump (wasn't he a Democrat until opportunism suggested otherwise?). The point being that his worst defects aren't purely Republican ones. Whether he would have made the nomination as a Democrat is moot, I suppose.
Give me a freaking break. I AM a Republican. Even though I must say it with a &(*^(% load of shame right now (I'm at work, hence I'm avoiding the usual f-bombs). And I LIKED Obama. And I can't STAND Trump.
And there are more of us. Plenty more of us. doing what we &*^*%^$ can, which is certainly not enough, or this nightmare would be over already. I talk to these people daily. I know we exist. Stop demonizing us, Trump does an effective enough job of that already.
And yes, I DID vote for Clinton. Because I could see this coming, and I'm not a T^$%*%*(% idiot.
I'm not sure only the Republicans would be capable of producing a Trump (wasn't he a Democrat until opportunism suggested otherwise?).
If we're talking about producing Trump as person you're probably right. If we're talking about producing Trump (or someone very much like him) as a viable candidate for high office then the Republican party's last four decades of pandering to racists, aggressive anti-intellectualism, downplaying sexism and sexual harassment as an issue, and building a parallel system of various media entities to promote propaganda and dismiss any contrary information as "fake news" then the Republican party apparatus has been doing its best to produce a Trump-like candidate for quite a while.
The GOP establishment really didn't want Trump to get the nomination, or to win. But I agree with Croesos that they 'sowed the wind' and I don't have much sympathy with them over 'reaping the whirlwind'.
The Republican party has spent the last four decades laying the groundwork for someone a lot like Donald Trump so I can't help feeling that their claims to be shocked (shocked!) that their monster machine is churning out monsters are a bit hard to credit as sincere.
And if you read the NYT op-ed, the things that staffer is shocked about aren't even the things that most remotely progressive people would be shocked about. He's all in favour of the tax cuts and deregulation, for example.
Furthermore, his examples of this supposed resistance are a little underwhelming. He says that Trump originally didn't want to expel that many Russian diplomats over the Litvinenko poisoning, but "his national-security team knew better", so the diplomats were kicked out. I'm not seeing how this is any more dramatic than just saying "Trump didn't want to do something, but his advisers convinced him it was a good idea."
Which is hardly unprecedented. Carter wanted to pull US troops out of Korea, and was opposed in this policy by almost everyone from Zbigniew Brzezinski on downward. Eventually, he was shown a reconnaissance photo of North Korean troops, purportedly proving that there were more of them than previously assumed. So he reversed the policy.
The kicker is that, after leaving office, Carter publicaly stated that he thought the photo had been doctored. Even if that's not true, the fact that a sitting president BELIEVED that he was being hoodwinked by his own national-security shows you just how much disconnect there can be at high levels.
Messing with the mind of the political incumbent is something all administrators understand. As Sir Humphrey said "Our job is to make sure the Prime Minister is not confused" i.e by advice contrary to civil service policy. And then of course there is the red box trick - put the more "difficult" papers at the bottom of the box. (Experienced ministers learn to turn the contents of the red box upside down).
But I think what the anonymous administrator is talking about is of a different order to that. The need to exercise control over Trump (and covert resistance to him) is way past normal "gatekeeper" practice as traditionally exercised by bureaucrats.
I'm a little surprised by the French reaction, Eutychus. I thought French bureacrats were past masters of Sir Humphrey-style gatekeepering, and so would see the dilemma for what it was.
I'm a little surprised by the French reaction, Eutychus. I thought French bureacrats were past masters of Sir Humphrey-style gatekeepering, and so would see the dilemma for what it was.
Semi-educated guess here, but I'm gonna speculate that, given that France has a presidential system, people might be used to thinking of the president as a powerful figure, and be a bit shocked to hear that he's being undermined by others?
I know I've heard Americans express anger when congress blocks "our president" from doing what he wants to do, even though the whole system was designed from the outset to check the power of the president against congress.
The GOP establishment really didn't want Trump to get the nomination, or to win. But I agree with Croesos that they 'sowed the wind' and I don't have much sympathy with them over 'reaping the whirlwind'.
This. 100% this. Whilst Trump doesn't represent honest republicans. They played with fire and now Washington is burning.
But Trump is far more damaging than any old republican. In the UK, trust of America will easily be rebuilt; we are fairly cynical at the best of times and tied by our common history. (Doesn't matter how much of that is myth, it's how Brits feel). But in the non-English-speaking world, it will probably take decades to regain trust. And with Russian aggression, Chinese self-interest and a Middle East as unstable as ever, that is a very dangerous state of affairs.
Trump has appointed extreme (and sometimes unqualified) judges to life-appointments. That's not going away.
Trump's damage could be very long lasting- think Hoover. OTOH a big reaction- like Roosevelt - and so much more, culturally, could be a real boon for the U.S. Dear American friends; your move. And God bless you.
On a lighter note, the following came up on my Facebook feed this morning (I'm paraphrasing a bit as I can't find it again, and I can't remember the exact wording, but this was the drift):
Barron Trump's article in the New York Times is very well-written for a 12-year-old, isn't it?
On a lighter note, the following came up on my Facebook feed this morning (I'm paraphrasing a bit as I can't find it again, and I can't remember the exact wording, but this was the drift):
Barron Trump's article in the New York Times is very well-written for a 12-year-old, isn't it?
I really miss the laughing/banging my head on the wall emoji! So I'll just go with ROTFLMAO!
There's a difference between someone who enacts policies one disagrees with profoundly but who does so by the book, and throwing the book out of the window. Trump has done the latter and - as this op-ed shows - is encouraging others to do the same. Recognising that threat ought to take the debate above partisan considerations.
The problem is this argument ignores how much one party has generated a particular political culture that makes throwing the book out of the window far more likely.
In the hours after the New York Times published the anonymous Op-Ed from "a senior official in the Trump administration" trashing the president ("I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration"), two senior administration officials reached out to Axios to say the author stole the words right out of their mouths.
"I find the reaction to the NYT op-ed fascinating — that people seem so shocked that there is a resistance from the inside," one senior official said. "A lot of us [were] wishing we’d been the writer, I suspect ... I hope he [Trump] knows — maybe he does? — that there are dozens and dozens of us."
"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not? — Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
Yeah, I went Godwin. Spoiler alert:
that "one great shocking occasion" which caused everyone to rise up never came.
Brief summary - it kinda points the finger at Pence for a variety of reasons, after doing some linguistic analysis on the article and comparing it to writings of some of the possible White House officials. Whilst it may be possible that someone has tried to implicate Pence (use of the word "lodestar" for example), I would have thought that these deeper linguistic traits may be much harder to fake (or to obscure).
that "one great shocking occasion" which caused everyone to rise up never came.
Well, I'm reading Madelaine Albright's book on Fascism, she makes similar points.
AFZ
P.S. In case it wasn't clear above - my reference to Hoover was the chain of events from the Wall Street Crash and American isolationism to the Second World War. Not the only cause, of course but important ones nonetheless.
Brief summary - it kinda points the finger at Pence for a variety of reasons, after doing some linguistic analysis on the article and comparing it to writings of some of the possible White House officials. Whilst it may be possible that someone has tried to implicate Pence (use of the word "lodestar" for example), I would have thought that these deeper linguistic traits may be much harder to fake (or to obscure).
The thing that struck me was the reference to 'a top official.' Whoever said "There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next" must recognise that quote. So, if it's an accurate quote, this person is now a position to out them. Unless the author is really stupid, he/she must trust this person.
The article concludes by admitting that the same analysis software says the article itself was written by the same author. This tea-leaf gazing tells you nothing more than the fact that a copy editor edited it, in my semi-professional view.
Watching successive WH officials deny writing it is quite fun though.
As an American, I suppose I should know this, but I don't: can the President "fire" a Vice President? I mean, the Veep is, technically, an elected official, albeit one elected on a ticket with the President.
Here in Delaware, at the State level, we still have separate elections for Governor and Lt. Governor. In theory, you could therefore have them be of different parties (and I believe that has happened in the past). As a separate elected post, the Governor cannto fire the Lt. Gov.
You know, let me save this draft and do some research.
And I'm back. As I suspected, the answer is No. The President cannot fire the Veep. So Pence is one of the few Government officials who could write the column without fear of being told he was now unemployed.
The article concludes by admitting that the same analysis software says the article itself was written by the same author. This tea-leaf gazing tells you nothing more than the fact that a copy editor edited it, in my semi-professional view.
I'm inclined to agree at the moment. BUT....
Unless the NYT staff have been really REALLY assiduous in covering the linguistic tracks of the original author, I would have thought that a deeper level of analysis might offer up some additional clues. After all - isn't this the kind of approach that has led to Biblical scholars deciding which "Pauline Epistles" were really written by Paul or not?
Unless the NYT staff have been really REALLY assiduous in covering the linguistic tracks of the original author, I would have thought that a deeper level of analysis might offer up some additional clues. After all - isn't this the kind of approach that has led to Biblical scholars deciding which "Pauline Epistles" were really written by Paul or not?
It is. Which is why I have such a low opinion of said Pauline studies...
So trumpy cannot fire this pence vice-president. What better way to write an article than to have it seem like it was pence. Now if pence resigned, at least it wouldn't out of the downspout and into the sewer if pence becomes the president. All I've seen about pence is awful.
But in the non-English-speaking world, it will probably take decades to regain trust. And with Russian aggression, Chinese self-interest and a Middle East as unstable as ever, that is a very dangerous state of affairs.
As I've probably mentioned before, in South Korea, Trump's policy toward the DPRK, which his opponents in the US insist on portraying as "sucking up to thugs", has actually been quite well-received by the current government, which is centre-left, and advocates detete-ish policies toward the North(even leading some on the Right to accuse them of being virtual Communists).
Not that this is the be-all-and-end-all of Trump's relations with foreign countries, but seeing the disconnect between how his policies are received over here, and how the Democrats and others are PORTRAYING their reception over here, has led me to be somewhat suspicious of this "selling out our allies" narrative.
But in the non-English-speaking world, it will probably take decades to regain trust. And with Russian aggression, Chinese self-interest and a Middle East as unstable as ever, that is a very dangerous state of affairs.
As I've probably mentioned before, in South Korea, Trump's policy toward the DPRK, which his opponents in the US insist on portraying as "sucking up to thugs", has actually been quite well-received by the current government, which is centre-left, and advocates detete-ish policies toward the North(even leading some on the Right to accuse them of being virtual Communists).
Not that this is the be-all-and-end-all of Trump's relations with foreign countries, but seeing the disconnect between how his policies are received over here, and how the Democrats and others are PORTRAYING their reception over here, has led me to be somewhat suspicious of this "selling out our allies" narrative.
Can you point to an example of how Democrats have portrayed the reception of Trump's policies in South Korea? I've seen lots of criticism of Trump on this issue, but a portrayal of South Korean views doesn't seem to figure prominently.
How well-received were his previous barrages of threats and insults, would you say?
What Security Agreement has Trump reneged on? The Iranian Security Agreement. Trump is the only one that withdrew. All other signatories are upholding it. Even Iran has not violated it.
His questioning of the NATO partnership certainly is unsettling.
The withdrawal of the Paris Agreement, while not a security treaty, has long-term military implications.
Who wrote the anonymous op-ed in the New York Times? Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC The Last Word thinks it is Dan Coates. The op-ed centered on international affairs. And O Donnell thinks it would be someone at the end of their political career. Coates fits the bill.
Unless the NYT staff have been really REALLY assiduous in covering the linguistic tracks of the original author, I would have thought that a deeper level of analysis might offer up some additional clues. After all - isn't this the kind of approach that has led to Biblical scholars deciding which "Pauline Epistles" were really written by Paul or not?
@Lamb Chopped said exactly what I wanted to say about that!
seeing the disconnect between how his policies are received over here, and how the Democrats and others are PORTRAYING their reception over here, has led me to be somewhat suspicious of this "selling out our allies" narrative.
I would tentatively agree with @stetson that Trump's policies are in general portrayed in a less negative light outside the Muslim world and the West.
What Security Agreement has Trump reneged on? The Iranian Security Agreement. Trump is the only one that withdrew. All other signatories are upholding it. Even Iran has not violated it.
Two points...
1. By "security agreement", I assumed what was meant was "military alliance".
2.
Republicans.
I do agree, tearing up that agreement was a really bad thing to do.
As for NATO, well publically spouting off against an alliance isn't the most politic thing to do, but, given the apparent affection for said alliance, I don't think the US will have trouble convincing people to stay in it after Trump is gone. (That being the original point of discussion here, ie. how it Trump harming future adminiostrations.)
Trust takes ages to build and an instant to destroy. While Trump is clearly the untrustworthy person here, his actions rub off on the institutions that allowed him to reach the presidency. The damage to US diplomatic credibility will outlast him.
I wonder... Look at how Obama was feted after George W; or did I misread and in diplomatic and other circles the thaw took a bit longer...? I guessed if we got a Madame Charismatic President next all may be forgiven: and forgotten.
I wonder... Look at how Obama was feted after George W; or did I misread and in diplomatic and other circles the thaw took a bit longer...? I guessed if we got a Madame Charismatic President next all may be forgiven: and forgotten.
Not to brag about my political acumen, but during the Bush years, when anti-Americanism(as opposed to anti-POTUSism) was at levels not reached since, and people were predicting that this was surely the end of the USA's ability to lead anything, I predicted to my friends that once the Democrats took the White House again, everything would be forgiven.
Eutychus:
Yes, I would say that the view of Trump over here in Korea is less negative than in the west. The media and much of public opinion seems to have picked up on the idea that he's an odball, but his dovish position on the DPRK seems to have muted the negative sentiment.
On the other hand, GW Bush, now that guy was hated over here.
Trump has singled out the NYT and CNN for his most vociferous Fake Press criticisms. I suggest this is a sign that he regards their credibility as the biggest threat to his personal survival and aggrandisement strategy, of which the whole Fake News thing is a central part. 'Don't believe them. They are not to be trusted'.
Under more normal circumstances I would have said that the anonymous op ed was not wise. But these are not normal circumstances. The GOP controlled Congress is not currently providing any real check or balance on Trump's behaviour. The DoJ is under siege. The Supreme Court gives substantial evidence in its rulings of its current politicisation, and is probably going further that way.
Before the mid terms, the most effective control can only be exercised by mainstream media and the freedoms to publish. So that is what is happening. Time will tell whether the oxygen of publicity will impact the mid terms. I hope it does. In this context I think Woodward and the NYT may have done a good job in defending the constitution and underlining real causes for concern. Yes, it's double edged. But better than silence, I think.
I think the next President of the United States will have a tremendous well of good will by not being Donald Trump. Trump, I predict, will become an insult in American politics. If you try to fire someone by Twitter, for example, you will be accused of being like Trump and you will have to defend yourself. I think American institutions, conventions and practices will snap back into place once Trump is gone because he is ultimately such a freak occurrence. In any event, political conventions and practices have always been malleable in the US, Australia and everywhere else. What counts in a democracy is having the numbers. All of these predictions are null and void if America elects someone with similar characteristics to Trump, like Michael Avenetti, Stormy Daniel's lawyer, who indicated last month that he was considering running in the 2020 election as a Democrat.
As for the author of that op-ed, I have it on very good authority that it is
Betsy DeVos. DeVos is Qanon, but she's flipping.
Finally, I quite like Marco Rubio for President, policy issues to one side. Two incidents influence me. It took guts to go to that forum in Florida after the Parkland massacre. He got up there and took it. I admire him for it. Second, and more importantly, yesterday he threatened to punch Alex Jones in the face on the steps of Congress in front of a media pack.
I'm a little surprised by the French reaction, Eutychus. I thought French bureacrats were past masters of Sir Humphrey-style gatekeepering, and so would see the dilemma for what it was.
A late reply to this: yes, but they wouldn't publish anonymous op-eds about it.
Unless the NYT staff have been really REALLY assiduous in covering the linguistic tracks of the original author, I would have thought that a deeper level of analysis might offer up some additional clues. After all - isn't this the kind of approach that has led to Biblical scholars deciding which "Pauline Epistles" were really written by Paul or not?
A more relevant example would be using those techniques to identify Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors. Contemporary writers typically have a larger corpus of work to draw comparisons from than Paul does, much of which is unambiguously verified as theirs.
While my feelings about the author of the NYT piece are largely negative, I do wonder what calculations went into his/her decision to publish it. The fact is, this author WILL eventually get outed. When or by whom, I don't know; it took 30 years to learn the identity of Deep Throat. But her/his authorship will eventually become public; too many people with too many threads and hints to track are trying to find this out. That fact (and the author's awareness of it) must play some sort of role in the decision to reach out to the NYT. I don't know who or what this eventual knowledge advantages, but that must have been part of the decision: "This will work in my favor when . . ."
The Republican party has spent the last four decades laying the groundwork for someone a lot like Donald Trump so I can't help feeling that their claims to be shocked (shocked!) that their monster machine is churning out monsters are a bit hard to credit as sincere.
And if you read the NYT op-ed, the things that staffer is shocked about aren't even the things that most remotely progressive people would be shocked about. He's all in favour of the tax cuts and deregulation, for example.
Furthermore, his examples of this supposed resistance are a little underwhelming. He says that Trump originally didn't want to expel that many Russian diplomats over the Litvinenko poisoning, but "his national-security team knew better", so the diplomats were kicked out. I'm not seeing how this is any more dramatic than just saying "Trump didn't want to do something, but his advisers convinced him it was a good idea."
Which is hardly unprecedented. Carter wanted to pull US troops out of Korea, and was opposed in this policy by almost everyone from Zbigniew Brzezinski on downward. Eventually, he was shown a reconnaissance photo of North Korean troops, purportedly proving that there were more of them than previously assumed. So he reversed the policy.
The kicker is that, after leaving office, Carter publicaly stated that he thought the photo had been doctored. Even if that's not true, the fact that a sitting president BELIEVED that he was being hoodwinked by his own national-security shows you just how much disconnect there can be at high levels.
He wasn't so very different to Eisenhower who didn't believe the information General Curtis LeMay was giving him concerning the "Bomber gap" between the USA and the USSR. That waas why the U-2 was built and kept away from the Strategic Air Command, the very part of the US AirForce commanded by LeMay.
There are just two things Trump and Eisenhower have in common. A fondness for golf is one of them.
While my feelings about the author of the NYT piece are largely negative, I do wonder what calculations went into his/her decision to publish it. The fact is, this author WILL eventually get outed. When or by whom, I don't know; it took 30 years to learn the identity of Deep Throat. But her/his authorship will eventually become public; too many people with too many threads and hints to track are trying to find this out. That fact (and the author's awareness of it) must play some sort of role in the decision to reach out to the NYT. I don't know who or what this eventual knowledge advantages, but that must have been part of the decision: "This will work in my favor when . . ."
I wonder whether they were trapped in some way by the fake news press, and this is the result of some sort of deal. Even as I type I realise that this is even more unlikely than Betsy DeVos writing it.
I don't know who or what this eventual knowledge advantages, but that must have been part of the decision: "This will work in my favor when . . ."
Just because the author of the piece thinks of themselves as the adult in the room doesn't mean that they are the adult in the room. Trump may have an egregious case of Dunning-Kruger, but that doesn't mean that the people around him don't have it also. These are people who by their own admission are unable to organise for a President they consider actually incapable of the job to be sacked as actually incapable of the job. I'd also question the wisdom, when you're secretly manipulating the President to control his destructive tendencies, of announcing to the world and the President that that's what's going on.
Interestingly the vice president can "fire" the president under certain circumstances. From the Twenty-Fifth Amendment:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
The intention was to cover events where the president is physically incapacitated (e.g. a comatose president) but the language is general enough that it would seem to cover mental incapacity as well. The catch is that Pence would have to get a majority of the cabinet to back him, plus two-thirds of both houses of Congress when Trump inevitably disputes his removal.
I don't know who or what this eventual knowledge advantages, but that must have been part of the decision: "This will work in my favor when . . ."
There are two plausible explanations I've run across. The first is that the author assumes the Trump administration is doomed, and doomed in a way that will involve very messy public revelations that will taint anyone involved at a high level. Thus they're counting on being able to point to this op-ed in a few years to say "see, I was resisting the whole time!" A somewhat similar thing happened between November 4, 2008 and January 20, 2009 when a whole bunch of newly-minted "independents" claimed with a straight face that they'd never heard of this "George W. Bush" person. If this explanation is true the author is likely a somewhat younger person who hopes to have a government job (or at least a job lobbying the government) in the future.
The second explanation is that the op-ed is intended to calm down marginal Republican voters ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections. In other words it's meant to re-assure voters who lean right (but not the true believers, who need no such re-assurances) that even though Trump is becoming noticeably less hinged all the time that "there are adults in the room" who can mitigate his worst impulses and therefore there's no need to do anything crazy like vote for a Democrat. If this is the explanation the author is someone who doesn't care if they work in government again, so either someone older or someone who's already a "made man" within the American right who can always count on a cushy think-tank job or being made a Fox News commentator or some other position within the wingnut welfare network.
I don't know who or what this eventual knowledge advantages, but that must have been part of the decision: "This will work in my favor when . . ."
Just because the author of the piece thinks of themselves as the adult in the room doesn't mean that they are the adult in the room. Trump may have an egregious case of Dunning-Kruger, but that doesn't mean that the people around him don't have it also. These are people who by their own admission are unable to organise for a President they consider actually incapable of the job to be sacked as actually incapable of the job. I'd also question the wisdom, when you're secretly manipulating the President to control his destructive tendencies, of announcing to the world and the President that that's what's going on.
I'm not claiming otherwise. Personally, I no longer believe there are any actual adults in residence at or reporting to the work stations within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm just pointing out that the author of the NYT Op-Ed must be counting on getting outed, and must believe that eventuality will somehow work in her/his/their/its favor.
How are Americans going to neutralize the influence of the wealthy and powerful people and their organizations that got the U.S. into this mess? trumpy as a the guy the rich and powerful wanted, and still want. Considering this coming into my feed this morning:
for I regard this contest as one to determine who shall rule this free country - the people through their governmental agents or a few ruthless and domineering men, whose wealth makes them peculiarly formidable, because they hide behind the breastworks of corporate organization. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1907, https://archive.org/stream/addressofpreside00roo/addressofpreside00roo_djvu.txt )
Which included the comment that after more than 2 centuries American democracy is showing its age. Designed for the immediate political needs of wealthy slave-owning oligarchs in the 18th century, the constitution has required frequent patching. How is it going to patch this so a smarter trumpy 2.0 doesn't get into power and really eff up the USA, taking the world down with it?
Finally, I quite like Marco Rubio for President, policy issues to one side. Two incidents influence me. It took guts to go to that forum in Florida after the Parkland massacre. He got up there and took it. I admire him for it. Second, and more importantly, yesterday he threatened to punch Alex Jones in the face on the steps of Congress in front of a media pack.
I was pleased about Rubio's reaction to Alex Jones. But, No! A thousand times no to Rubio being president. His nose is firmly stuck to Trump's behind, and his voting record proves his lack of concern for the little people like me.
There are some Republicans who do care about all their constituents, but they're far outnumbered by the ones who only seem to care for the wealthy individuals and corporations.
[tangent] Right here in Rubio's home state, the Republicans kowtowing to Big Sugar has made an ecological mess of the waters. Because of it, people have gotten very sick, our tourism industry has been devastated and the sea life is dead. In fact, I got pneumonia because of it. We need a president who will work for all the people, the environment and will again appreciate our allies and give the stink eye to our enemies.[/tangent]
I'm just pointing out that the author of the NYT Op-Ed must be counting on getting outed
It seems to me quite possible that they think they're too smart for that to happen to them.
Anybody dumb enough to believe they can't be outed (esp. with slavering hordes of investigative journalists now hot on the trail -- God knows why, it's just another distraction from the trumpies trying to avoid returning caged kidnap victims to their parents) is beyond hope, and shows that there really are no adults in the room.
It's a lose-lose-lose proposition 360 degrees around.
Finally, I quite like Marco Rubio for President, policy issues to one side. Two incidents influence me. It took guts to go to that forum in Florida after the Parkland massacre. He got up there and took it. I admire him for it. Second, and more importantly, yesterday he threatened to punch Alex Jones in the face on the steps of Congress in front of a media pack.
I was pleased about Rubio's reaction to Alex Jones. But, No! A thousand times no to Rubio being president. His nose is firmly stuck to Trump's behind, and his voting record proves his lack of concern for the little people like me.
It's probably just luck-of-the-draw that Rubio was the guy who got on record threatening to punch Jones. That's likely a pretty common reaction among people who have to deal with him.
Which included the comment that after more than 2 centuries American democracy is showing its age. Designed for the immediate political needs of wealthy slave-owning oligarchs in the 18th century, the constitution has required frequent patching. How is it going to patch this so a smarter trumpy 2.0 doesn't get into power and really eff up the USA, taking the world down with it?
Blogger Dan Nexon points out that the current Republican Party is dedicated to rolling back many of the patches that were installed during past crises.
As Scott [ one of Nexon's co-bloggers ] routinely points out, the Republican party and its Supreme Court appointments are pushing an antebellum vision of federalism, one that requires ignoring how the Reconstruction Amendments expressly changed the American political system. Obviously, this vision involves undermining the Second Reconstruction, especially when it comes to voting rights. The results have been depressingly predictable.
Whether or not the agenda is to return to Lochner, or merely to significantly curtail federal regulatory power in favor of business, the GOP and its justices clearly want some kind of rollback of the New Deal bargain on both the policy and legal fronts. They are very far along in giving capital a decisive advantage over labor.
Finally, consider the GOP’s efforts to destroy campaign-finance regulations, the attempt to appoint a proponent of the unitary theory of the executive to the Supreme Court, de facto abandonment of oversight of corruption and policy processes in the executive branch. Such goals and behavior aggregate to an effort — intentional or not — to undermine post-Watergate reforms and efforts to extend that spirit, such as McCain–Feingold.
What do all of these have in common? Each of them involves undermining, or rolling back, important “patches” to the Constitutional order — essentially, formal or informal kludges that responded to threats to, or outright breakdowns, of the US political system.
Nexon goes on to discuss the various political crises and the "patches" that were applied as correctives, all of which seem to be opposed by the Republican Party as it exists today. He also warns against "valoriz[ing] constitutional orders that produced crises, failed, and even led to civil war". The whole thing is worth a read if you like that sort of thing, and not that long.
Parties (and thus partisanship) exist because people disagree about political questions and policies. "Overcoming partisanship" sounds a lot like trying to get the politics out of politics.
It used to be the case that faction was considered a serious danger to republican societies. (Although I find that in the Federal Papers Madison thinks that the most dangerous faction is considered to be the majority of non-property owners, which doesn't make me think terribly well of him.)
I suppose it depends on how you think an electoral system should work. There are electoral systems, for instance those that are Condorcet-compliant, that attempt to find the candidate that is acceptable to the greatest part of the population. A first-past-the-post electoral system isn't one of them.
I suppose it depends on how you think an electoral system should work. There are electoral systems, for instance those that are Condorcet-compliant, that attempt to find the candidate that is acceptable to the greatest part of the population. A first-past-the-post electoral system isn't one of them.
People disagree about political questions. Tinkering with the election process isn't going to change this, or keep them from forming groups to advance their agendas.
Comments
Parties (and thus partisanship) exist because people disagree about political questions and policies. "Overcoming partisanship" sounds a lot like trying to get the politics out of politics.
"Republicans generally" are the ones who produced, support, and enable the Trump presidency. I'm not sure there's any workable analysis that considers Trump a problem that doesn't take into account this important fact. The Republican party has spent the last four decades laying the groundwork for someone a lot like Donald Trump so I can't help feeling that their claims to be shocked (shocked!) that their monster machine is churning out monsters are a bit hard to credit as sincere.
I think there is generally more cross-party politics in the UK, say, than in the USA.
I'm not sure only the Republicans would be capable of producing a Trump (wasn't he a Democrat until opportunism suggested otherwise?). The point being that his worst defects aren't purely Republican ones. Whether he would have made the nomination as a Democrat is moot, I suppose.
And there are more of us. Plenty more of us. doing what we &*^*%^$ can, which is certainly not enough, or this nightmare would be over already. I talk to these people daily. I know we exist. Stop demonizing us, Trump does an effective enough job of that already.
And yes, I DID vote for Clinton. Because I could see this coming, and I'm not a T^$%*%*(% idiot.
If we're talking about producing Trump as person you're probably right. If we're talking about producing Trump (or someone very much like him) as a viable candidate for high office then the Republican party's last four decades of pandering to racists, aggressive anti-intellectualism, downplaying sexism and sexual harassment as an issue, and building a parallel system of various media entities to promote propaganda and dismiss any contrary information as "fake news" then the Republican party apparatus has been doing its best to produce a Trump-like candidate for quite a while.
And if you read the NYT op-ed, the things that staffer is shocked about aren't even the things that most remotely progressive people would be shocked about. He's all in favour of the tax cuts and deregulation, for example.
Furthermore, his examples of this supposed resistance are a little underwhelming. He says that Trump originally didn't want to expel that many Russian diplomats over the Litvinenko poisoning, but "his national-security team knew better", so the diplomats were kicked out. I'm not seeing how this is any more dramatic than just saying "Trump didn't want to do something, but his advisers convinced him it was a good idea."
Which is hardly unprecedented. Carter wanted to pull US troops out of Korea, and was opposed in this policy by almost everyone from Zbigniew Brzezinski on downward. Eventually, he was shown a reconnaissance photo of North Korean troops, purportedly proving that there were more of them than previously assumed. So he reversed the policy.
The kicker is that, after leaving office, Carter publicaly stated that he thought the photo had been doctored. Even if that's not true, the fact that a sitting president BELIEVED that he was being hoodwinked by his own national-security shows you just how much disconnect there can be at high levels.
But I think what the anonymous administrator is talking about is of a different order to that. The need to exercise control over Trump (and covert resistance to him) is way past normal "gatekeeper" practice as traditionally exercised by bureaucrats.
I'm a little surprised by the French reaction, Eutychus. I thought French bureacrats were past masters of Sir Humphrey-style gatekeepering, and so would see the dilemma for what it was.
Semi-educated guess here, but I'm gonna speculate that, given that France has a presidential system, people might be used to thinking of the president as a powerful figure, and be a bit shocked to hear that he's being undermined by others?
I know I've heard Americans express anger when congress blocks "our president" from doing what he wants to do, even though the whole system was designed from the outset to check the power of the president against congress.
This. 100% this. Whilst Trump doesn't represent honest republicans. They played with fire and now Washington is burning.
But Trump is far more damaging than any old republican. In the UK, trust of America will easily be rebuilt; we are fairly cynical at the best of times and tied by our common history. (Doesn't matter how much of that is myth, it's how Brits feel). But in the non-English-speaking world, it will probably take decades to regain trust. And with Russian aggression, Chinese self-interest and a Middle East as unstable as ever, that is a very dangerous state of affairs.
Trump has appointed extreme (and sometimes unqualified) judges to life-appointments. That's not going away.
Trump's damage could be very long lasting- think Hoover. OTOH a big reaction- like Roosevelt - and so much more, culturally, could be a real boon for the U.S. Dear American friends; your move. And God bless you.
AFZ
Barron Trump's article in the New York Times is very well-written for a 12-year-old, isn't it?
I really miss the laughing/banging my head on the wall emoji! So I'll just go with ROTFLMAO!
The problem is this argument ignores how much one party has generated a particular political culture that makes throwing the book out of the window far more likely.
Encouraging on a certain level, but it also reminded me of this bit from They Thought They Were Free:
Yeah, I went Godwin. Spoiler alert:
Brief summary - it kinda points the finger at Pence for a variety of reasons, after doing some linguistic analysis on the article and comparing it to writings of some of the possible White House officials. Whilst it may be possible that someone has tried to implicate Pence (use of the word "lodestar" for example), I would have thought that these deeper linguistic traits may be much harder to fake (or to obscure).
[Fixed link. -Gwai]
Well, I'm reading Madelaine Albright's book on Fascism, she makes similar points.
AFZ
P.S. In case it wasn't clear above - my reference to Hoover was the chain of events from the Wall Street Crash and American isolationism to the Second World War. Not the only cause, of course but important ones nonetheless.
My other guess is that there will be a rash of 'I am Spartacus' declarations in due course.
The thing that struck me was the reference to 'a top official.' Whoever said "There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next" must recognise that quote. So, if it's an accurate quote, this person is now a position to out them. Unless the author is really stupid, he/she must trust this person.
AFZ
[Fixed link - Gwai]
The article concludes by admitting that the same analysis software says the article itself was written by the same author. This tea-leaf gazing tells you nothing more than the fact that a copy editor edited it, in my semi-professional view.
Watching successive WH officials deny writing it is quite fun though.
As an American, I suppose I should know this, but I don't: can the President "fire" a Vice President? I mean, the Veep is, technically, an elected official, albeit one elected on a ticket with the President.
Here in Delaware, at the State level, we still have separate elections for Governor and Lt. Governor. In theory, you could therefore have them be of different parties (and I believe that has happened in the past). As a separate elected post, the Governor cannto fire the Lt. Gov.
You know, let me save this draft and do some research.
And I'm back. As I suspected, the answer is No. The President cannot fire the Veep. So Pence is one of the few Government officials who could write the column without fear of being told he was now unemployed.
But that is probably just a coincidence.
I'm inclined to agree at the moment. BUT....
Unless the NYT staff have been really REALLY assiduous in covering the linguistic tracks of the original author, I would have thought that a deeper level of analysis might offer up some additional clues. After all - isn't this the kind of approach that has led to Biblical scholars deciding which "Pauline Epistles" were really written by Paul or not?
Agreed. Especially as at least one of them is likely to be telling porkies.
It is. Which is why I have such a low opinion of said Pauline studies...
As I've probably mentioned before, in South Korea, Trump's policy toward the DPRK, which his opponents in the US insist on portraying as "sucking up to thugs", has actually been quite well-received by the current government, which is centre-left, and advocates detete-ish policies toward the North(even leading some on the Right to accuse them of being virtual Communists).
Not that this is the be-all-and-end-all of Trump's relations with foreign countries, but seeing the disconnect between how his policies are received over here, and how the Democrats and others are PORTRAYING their reception over here, has led me to be somewhat suspicious of this "selling out our allies" narrative.
How well-received were his previous barrages of threats and insults, would you say?
His questioning of the NATO partnership certainly is unsettling.
The withdrawal of the Paris Agreement, while not a security treaty, has long-term military implications.
Who wrote the anonymous op-ed in the New York Times? Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC The Last Word thinks it is Dan Coates. The op-ed centered on international affairs. And O Donnell thinks it would be someone at the end of their political career. Coates fits the bill.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2018/09/06/michael-moore-claims-trump-ran-president-because-gwen-stefani/1210403002/
That's an interesting observation and a more salient one than textual analysis in my view.
Plus the fact that "his" denial didn't come from the man himself but someone on his staff, making it easier to walk back later if needs be.
Pence surely has the most to gain if Trump is removed from office, doesn't he?
I would tentatively agree with @stetson that Trump's policies are in general portrayed in a less negative light outside the Muslim world and the West.
Two points...
1. By "security agreement", I assumed what was meant was "military alliance".
2.
I do agree, tearing up that agreement was a really bad thing to do.
As for NATO, well publically spouting off against an alliance isn't the most politic thing to do, but, given the apparent affection for said alliance, I don't think the US will have trouble convincing people to stay in it after Trump is gone. (That being the original point of discussion here, ie. how it Trump harming future adminiostrations.)
Not to brag about my political acumen, but during the Bush years, when anti-Americanism(as opposed to anti-POTUSism) was at levels not reached since, and people were predicting that this was surely the end of the USA's ability to lead anything, I predicted to my friends that once the Democrats took the White House again, everything would be forgiven.
Eutychus:
Yes, I would say that the view of Trump over here in Korea is less negative than in the west. The media and much of public opinion seems to have picked up on the idea that he's an odball, but his dovish position on the DPRK seems to have muted the negative sentiment.
On the other hand, GW Bush, now that guy was hated over here.
Under more normal circumstances I would have said that the anonymous op ed was not wise. But these are not normal circumstances. The GOP controlled Congress is not currently providing any real check or balance on Trump's behaviour. The DoJ is under siege. The Supreme Court gives substantial evidence in its rulings of its current politicisation, and is probably going further that way.
Before the mid terms, the most effective control can only be exercised by mainstream media and the freedoms to publish. So that is what is happening. Time will tell whether the oxygen of publicity will impact the mid terms. I hope it does. In this context I think Woodward and the NYT may have done a good job in defending the constitution and underlining real causes for concern. Yes, it's double edged. But better than silence, I think.
As for the author of that op-ed, I have it on very good authority that it is
Finally, I quite like Marco Rubio for President, policy issues to one side. Two incidents influence me. It took guts to go to that forum in Florida after the Parkland massacre. He got up there and took it. I admire him for it. Second, and more importantly, yesterday he threatened to punch Alex Jones in the face on the steps of Congress in front of a media pack.
A more relevant example would be using those techniques to identify Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors. Contemporary writers typically have a larger corpus of work to draw comparisons from than Paul does, much of which is unambiguously verified as theirs.
He wasn't so very different to Eisenhower who didn't believe the information General Curtis LeMay was giving him concerning the "Bomber gap" between the USA and the USSR. That waas why the U-2 was built and kept away from the Strategic Air Command, the very part of the US AirForce commanded by LeMay.
There are just two things Trump and Eisenhower have in common. A fondness for golf is one of them.
I wonder whether they were trapped in some way by the fake news press, and this is the result of some sort of deal. Even as I type I realise that this is even more unlikely than Betsy DeVos writing it.
Interestingly the vice president can "fire" the president under certain circumstances. From the Twenty-Fifth Amendment:
The intention was to cover events where the president is physically incapacitated (e.g. a comatose president) but the language is general enough that it would seem to cover mental incapacity as well. The catch is that Pence would have to get a majority of the cabinet to back him, plus two-thirds of both houses of Congress when Trump inevitably disputes his removal.
Mark Felt had the advantage of not having his own words in print, but rather filtered through the typewriters of Woodward and Bernstein.
There are two plausible explanations I've run across. The first is that the author assumes the Trump administration is doomed, and doomed in a way that will involve very messy public revelations that will taint anyone involved at a high level. Thus they're counting on being able to point to this op-ed in a few years to say "see, I was resisting the whole time!" A somewhat similar thing happened between November 4, 2008 and January 20, 2009 when a whole bunch of newly-minted "independents" claimed with a straight face that they'd never heard of this "George W. Bush" person. If this explanation is true the author is likely a somewhat younger person who hopes to have a government job (or at least a job lobbying the government) in the future.
The second explanation is that the op-ed is intended to calm down marginal Republican voters ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections. In other words it's meant to re-assure voters who lean right (but not the true believers, who need no such re-assurances) that even though Trump is becoming noticeably less hinged all the time that "there are adults in the room" who can mitigate his worst impulses and therefore there's no need to do anything crazy like vote for a Democrat. If this is the explanation the author is someone who doesn't care if they work in government again, so either someone older or someone who's already a "made man" within the American right who can always count on a cushy think-tank job or being made a Fox News commentator or some other position within the wingnut welfare network.
I'm not claiming otherwise. Personally, I no longer believe there are any actual adults in residence at or reporting to the work stations within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm just pointing out that the author of the NYT Op-Ed must be counting on getting outed, and must believe that eventuality will somehow work in her/his/their/its favor.
Which included the comment that after more than 2 centuries American democracy is showing its age. Designed for the immediate political needs of wealthy slave-owning oligarchs in the 18th century, the constitution has required frequent patching. How is it going to patch this so a smarter trumpy 2.0 doesn't get into power and really eff up the USA, taking the world down with it?
I was pleased about Rubio's reaction to Alex Jones. But, No! A thousand times no to Rubio being president. His nose is firmly stuck to Trump's behind, and his voting record proves his lack of concern for the little people like me.
There are some Republicans who do care about all their constituents, but they're far outnumbered by the ones who only seem to care for the wealthy individuals and corporations.
[tangent] Right here in Rubio's home state, the Republicans kowtowing to Big Sugar has made an ecological mess of the waters. Because of it, people have gotten very sick, our tourism industry has been devastated and the sea life is dead. In fact, I got pneumonia because of it. We need a president who will work for all the people, the environment and will again appreciate our allies and give the stink eye to our enemies.[/tangent]
Anybody dumb enough to believe they can't be outed (esp. with slavering hordes of investigative journalists now hot on the trail -- God knows why, it's just another distraction from the trumpies trying to avoid returning caged kidnap victims to their parents) is beyond hope, and shows that there really are no adults in the room.
It's a lose-lose-lose proposition 360 degrees around.
It's probably just luck-of-the-draw that Rubio was the guy who got on record threatening to punch Jones. That's likely a pretty common reaction among people who have to deal with him.
Slate explicates the irony of the Rubio vs. Jones exchange. TL/DR: Rubio was expressing concern about people like Jones being banned from social media, and Jones decided to take that moment to attack him.
Blogger Dan Nexon points out that the current Republican Party is dedicated to rolling back many of the patches that were installed during past crises.
Nexon goes on to discuss the various political crises and the "patches" that were applied as correctives, all of which seem to be opposed by the Republican Party as it exists today. He also warns against "valoriz[ing] constitutional orders that produced crises, failed, and even led to civil war". The whole thing is worth a read if you like that sort of thing, and not that long.
I suppose it depends on how you think an electoral system should work. There are electoral systems, for instance those that are Condorcet-compliant, that attempt to find the candidate that is acceptable to the greatest part of the population. A first-past-the-post electoral system isn't one of them.
People disagree about political questions. Tinkering with the election process isn't going to change this, or keep them from forming groups to advance their agendas.