Reading legitimate journalism every day leaves me feeling that we are indeed descending into totalitarianism. I don’t know enough about the powers pushing back against this assault on representative government and the rule of law to know if they can contain this threat. I don’t know enough about the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Supreme Court, etc. to know what they can and will try to do. But I wish that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and other wealthy, powerful, Patriots come to our rescue before its too late—before they find their own funds frozen. I wish somebody would save us.
Here are a few of the most insightful pieces I’ve read in the last 24 hours.
In “2018 is the year that will decide if Trumpocracy replaces American democracy: Loyalty to Donald Trump is the new principle of Republican Party politics.” Vox’s Matthew Yglesias explains how blind loyalty their leader is undermining democratic governance.
In “It’s Been an Open Secret All Along,” the Atlantic’s James Fallows notes that “the scandal of Michael Wolff’s new book isn’t its salacious details—it’s that everyone in Washington has known its key themes, and refused to act.”
In “Michael Wolff shows his nuclear button is ‘bigger’ and ‘more powerful’ than Trump’s” the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart sums up his insights about Wolff’s depiction of White House dsyfunction by quoting the celebrated journalist H.L. Mencken,
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
In “Faust on the Potomic” the New York Times’ Paul Krugman concludes:
What this means, among other things, is that expecting the GOP to exercise any oversight or constrain Trump in any way is just foolish at this point. Massive electoral defeat – massive enough to overwhelm gerrymandering and other structural advantages of the right – is the only way out.
And a smaller piece of the puzzle that is easy to miss. In “The GOP is sabotaging this sacred mandate” the Washington Posts’ Catherine Rampell comments on the Republican effort to undermine the census as another way of undermining democracy. When they get the census they want Wyoming will be more populated than California! (An aside. Did you know that Roy Moore won 6 of 7 congressional districts in the recent Alabama senate race because the districts are gerrymandered to assure that 6 congressional representatives will always be Republican.)
I simply can’t let occupy more of my consciousness. I want to think about big things before they arrest us all.
Finally, here is a joke that describes our current situation.
A guy falls from a 50-story building. As he flies by the 25th floor, someone asks how it’s going. “So far, so good!” he says.
A guy falls from a 50-story building. As he flies by the 25th floor, someone asks how it’s going. “So far, so good!” he says.
My version of that joke is short and literate: “Aye Caesar, but not gone.”
More later when I have some time.
A generation or two or three in the future ~ if we make it that far and if the current political/cultural paradigm survives the next mid-term election cycle ~ the people alive then will most surely still be dealing with the repairing of the long-term effects of some the Trump administration’s and current congress’ misguided policies. Their historians will look back, read the Tweets, read the news articles; and they will think to themselves and ask, “They knew. The People knew what these men and a few women were doing. Yet they stood by and, though they wrote about it, they did nothing. Why? How could they have not taken concrete action to stop them?”
I can only hope and pray that Mueller is dotting his I’s and crossing his T’s so that when he finishes the investigation there can be no doubt whatsoever that Trump and his administration absolutely must be impeached and thrown out, and in the next mid-terms sanity once again arises in the voting booths across America and both houses of congress come under Democrat control, effectively neutering the Trump administration.
That’s just what Paul Krugman wrote about in the NY Times in “Faust on the Potomac.”
Ha ha, whoa. Just read that. Great minds…
From my time working for the FBI, the Secret Service, and DHS, and my wife’s time working with Senator Jeff Merkeley (D-OR), I actually feel pretty safe that we are not descending into totalitarianism. Giant bureaucracies just don’t move like that. They just grind on with lots and lots of resistance in the gears. Remember when Obama came to power with both the Senate and the House in Democrat hands and a ridiculously high approval rating? He still didn’t get much done. Trump will do far less. He is destroying civility and the reputation of America, but the US government was specifically designed to stop madmen. I will always remember a staff member from a congressional committee coming to give us a briefing at the FBI about “how Washington worked” who said we people in the Executive Branch of government need to remember that Congress was created with Article I of the Constitution for a reason that the Executive Branch (Article II) was not.
If I sound overconfident on this, it’s mostly to give you the peace of mind to set your consciousness towards the important things I love reading from you! : )
thanks for the advice Ed. And I hope you’re right. JGM
This is silly imo. As if there are vast differences in policies and politicians, right or left. This is the game that fools play so as to avoid the seeing corruption of their own lives. Democracy should never be left to the vote of ignorant or corrupt voters which is the overwhelming majority. This corruption is the mainstay of both the right and the left and to play sides in this is to show your unworthiness as a voter.
While there is corruption on both sides the corruption on the right is so much greater than that of the right. To say otherwise is to fall for a false equivalency. For more see the books of Ornstein and Mann, two conservative scholars.
2021 will decide– he might not leave office that year.
Just yesterday, Teflon Don got more stuff on his pan– but it didn’t stick.