Farhad Majoo, once a tech columnist for the NYTimes, has been give a slot on the op-ed pages. He has some bracing after-thoughts about the Mueller Report. Perhaps his opinions are not completely accurate, and they are not easy to contemplate, but they point to the bigger reasons about how and why Trump got elected, and why we shouldn't blame Putin and his fuzzy bears.
"There was no collusion. The president
was not a Manchurian candidate. And we can’t lay the blame for this
whole thing on Vladimir Putin.....Indeed, the truest horror in Mr. Mueller’s finding is that we did not need Mr. Putin
to be pulling the strings. We know now that under our shambolic
democracy, a man as unfit as Mr. Trump really can legitimately acquire
all the terrifying powers of the presidency without being controlled by a
foreign puppet master."
He comes to his conclusion: "From here, the story of 2016 looks rather straightforward: Mr. Trump was
the corrupt, misbegotten choice of a citizenry mired in partisan
mistrust, seething with racial grievance, informed by a beleaguered and
fracturing news media, and laboring under an economic and political
system that had long ceased functioning for all but the wealthiest of
its citizens."
A nice Lenten meditation.
Did any folks here believe that Trump was a Manchurian candidate? Do any folks here still believe it?
ReplyDeleteI've never believed it. I've always thought that Trump's election was legit, according to the rules that apply in the US (i.e. he got a majority of the Electoral College, fairish and squarish). I've sort of assumed that not many people believe the Manchurian Candidate theory. But I guess my assumption could be a reflection of the "bubble" in which I live.
None of this should distract us from the fact that Putin *tried* to influence the election, and certainly seems to have *tried* to corrupt the Trump campaign. Is there any possibility of bipartisan agreement against our common enemy?
Sure Putin tried, and in some respects succeeded, in influencing the election.
ReplyDeleteManjoo's larger point, I think, is that other factors taken into account, summarized in his last paragraph, were weightier. You can agree or disagree with that, but he has some potent pieces of evidence.
For example, his own paper did a lousy job of reporting before the election on Trump before he ever joined the race. He was a crook, a liar, and a cheat. The Times could have done more to inform the nation of the details.
And since I followed Stacy Abram's 2018 race for governor in Georgia, there's good evidence of voter suppression--not just in Georgia and not just in 2018. Yes, Trump might have won anyway, but Manjoo is right to argue that in some states the voting system is organized to keep some people from the polls and to favor others.
One theory is that Putin never wanted Trump to actually become president but only to foment division and weaken a Clinton presidency. Having an idiot with the launch codes for missiles programmed for Moscow might have given him pause. But it HAS worked out well for Putin in some respects, and Trump's pathological egoism and stupidity is manipulable. NATO is certainly weaker, along with our global standing. And perhaps if Trump ever feels the urge to press THE BUTTON, his bone spurs might start to act up anyway.
ReplyDelete"Mr. Trump was the corrupt, misbegotten choice of a citizenry mired in partisan mistrust, seething with racial grievance, informed by a beleaguered and fracturing news media, and laboring under an economic and political system that had long ceased functioning for all but the wealthiest of its citizens."
ReplyDeleteThrough our fault, through our fault, through our most grievous fault.
Here is an interesting article which elaborates on why in some people's minds "lying demagoguery" is a symbolic protest.
ReplyDeleteFrom the article: "Insofar as politicians try to appear as authentic champions of their constituents, lying demagoguery will remain as a socially destructive but individually attractive strategy, from any side of the political spectrum.”
"In such crises, the lying demagogue’s norm-breaking appeals to the aggrieved constituency because those voters see norms as illegitimately imposed by the establishment. Moreover, denigration of the lying demagogue by the establishment adds to the credibility of the lying demagogue as the authentic (if insincere and inconsiderate) voice of the aggrieved."
I definitely think there is something to this when it comes to Trump voters. I saw an article that attributed his popularity to an anti-political-correctness backlash. That makes it sound trivial, but people do resent having standards thrust upon them from outside.
Delete"...a citizenry mired in partisan mistrust, seething with racial grievance, informed by a beleaguered and fracturing news media, and laboring under an economic and political system that had long ceased functioning for all but the wealthiest of its citizens."
ReplyDeleteHow did we get that way? A lot of money has been expended to create those conditions. Take just one, relatively benign, example currently in the news, Stephen Moore. Mr. Moore has been nominated for the Federal Reserve Board by President Trump. Mr. Moore seems to be a nice fellow, well-spoken, no visible swastika tattoos who knows a considerable amount of economic lingo. He does not tend to shout or foam at the mouth. He has done Mr. Trump the honor of speaking well of some of Mr. Trump's economic ideas -- especially tax cuts for the rich. He has not always agreed with Mr. Trump because disagreement is necessary to show he is a serious economist and not a hack. He is currently a (jolly good?) fellow of the Heritage Foundation. But what is a Heritage Foundation "fellow"? It is someone who is hired with rich people's money to write "papers" and appear at "seminars" and on TV to argue in favor of what rich people want. If he were to fail to do that for any period of time, he would be a former fellow. One of Mr. Moore's favorite economic "theories" is the tax cut that "pays for itself." We just had one of those; the deficit is worse than ever; it didn't pay for itself. It never will because it never could. But it is out there, and it will be out there not until Mr. Moore sees the light but until the rich folks who bankroll the Heritage Foundation run out of money, which will be never because their jolly good fellows get appointed to the Federal Reserve Board.
Mr. Moore is the man you call for balance when you are forced to give voice to a left-wing economist who might say that tax cuts lead to less revenue, which leads to the kind of deficits we have. Now, you could find two economists who would treat taxes as economic tools, but that might not be even-handed. Even-handed is to find two economists who will treat taxes as subjects of dogma in different religions. In a democracy, the people need to give dogmatic economics a huge Bronx cheer. But we don't do that anymore. We choose sides.
FYI: Paul Krugman agrees with you!
DeleteHere: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/opinion/stephen-moore-federal-reserve.html
DeleteYes. Krugman is frequently right. There are a couple of conservative economists who don't think much of the appointment, too, although I have to say I hear echoes of the usual faculty lounge backbiting in their comments.
DeleteI was able to access Paul Krugman's column here.
ReplyDeleteMoore seems like a pretty typical Trump appointee. Which means you have to set the bar pretty low and just be thankful it's not someone worse.
About think tanks, I have always held a low opinion of them. Because they are funded by interests which pay their employees to "think" a certain way, and to persuade others to think in that way. Doesn't matter where they fall on the ideological spectrum, the bottom line is that they are ideological.
Yes, that's a good observation, Katherine. Think-tankers are like theological apologists: Let's start with the premise that we're right about everything, and then tailor arguments to persuade people of various stripes to accept that premise. No thinking outside the box of the orthodoxy at hand.
DeleteI don't agree that people associated with think tanks are 'paid to think a certain way'. That makes it sound like the thinkers are hired guns. Maybe some of them are, but I don't think all of them are. I think it's more likely that a think tank has a certain animating philosophy, and that animating philosophy attracts people who like it - specifically, those people are deep thinkers and deep pockets.
DeleteJim, There are think tanks and there are think tanks. See who the funders are and you can sort them out. The givers to Heritage (good Scotch there, though) expect a ROI on every nickel they invest. If they don't get it, their money goes elsewhere.
DeleteRereading Majoo, I was reminded of Edward R. Murrow's conclusion -- 55 years ago this month -- of his take-down of another maniacal egoist who chose his enemies and attacked them with no concern for truth, Sen. Joseph McCarthy:
ReplyDelete"The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'"
I am not yet ready to buy into the notion that somehow the advent of President Trump and all his works and all his empty promises is something that lays collective guilt upon all of us. I don't feel responsible for it. I seriously doubt many folks around here have any material culpability for it. Just speaking for myself, I actively resisted him, including telling my Republican friends not to vote for him.
ReplyDeleteIt was just the perfect storm. He didn't even command a majority of GOP primary votes (and yet compiled a decisive number of delegates) until April 2016, when the result was pretty much foreordained and about 14 of his primary opponents had ended their campaigns. Then he faced an opponent in the general election who was the wrong candidate at the wrong moment.
I think "perfect storm" is a pretty good description, kind of a bomb cyclone.
DeleteI went to my book club meeting last night, and we were discussing how the characters in the book (which was unrelated to politics) could believe in their "alternate reality". One of the members posited that it was because they wanted so badly to believe that it became true in their minds.
Then perhaps this should have been headlined "We Are not Ourselves." That's the title of a novel from a few years ago in which the epigraph, "we are not ourselves," is attributed to King Lear. Presumably he is mad, crazed.
ReplyDeleteWas the "perfect storm" created by a citizenry that can say "we are not ourselves"! Seeing our southern border on the news last night with immigrants huddled under a highway bridges trying to get into the U.S., I couldn't help think it could have been my great-grandmother--or for that matter Donald Trump's or Hillary Clinton's. How have "un-electables" or wholly "inadequates" risen to the top of the food chain? Ourselves have somehow lost track of how to get the "more or less" best people to guide the ship of state.
If I look at our own locals, Mayor deBlasio and Governor Cuomo, I'd have to say that more or less both of them are "inadequates."
Haven't finished a whole cup of coffee yet!
"Inadequates" - it was quite interesting to witness the outpouring of admiration for George HW Bush on the occasion of his death - apparently he was a good deal more popular in death than as president.
DeleteIs there something about the fields of politics and governance that live in tension, such that being good at the one makes one less good at the other? In Chicago, our mayor will be selected next week (well, I guess I should say "their mayor", as I'm outside the city limits these days), and the candidate who seems destined to win, Lori Lightfoot, is, politically speaking, an attractive "package" of personal attributes and policy positions, but politically she's a neophyte. Her opponent, Toni Preckwinkle, is a seasoned politician and a veteran leader - she has been head of the Cook County Board for a couple of terms, she's also the Cook County Democratic Chairperson, she was an alderman for a while. She's got a track record of being an effective administrator, and her web of political, administrative and media relationships is very thick. She would be able to hit the ground running as mayor, whereas Lightfoot presumably will spend the first year+ doing on-the-job training, and will be meeting for the first time quite a few of the people with whom she'll need to get along in order to govern. But the voters' mood apparently is such that they want Lightfoot.
Chicago: I haven't followed the polls so I am astonished that people are going for Lightfoot. You're right Preckwinkle is the quintessential Chicago mayoral candidate. What's going on? Chicagoans are themselves?
DeleteGHW Bush: hard to remember those years. I always thought Dems were okay with him; it was the Republicans who mouthed "no new taxes," and repudiated him.
Don't forget the role that Ross Perot played in that election.
DeleteRereading my comment about GHWB, I think it came out the opposite of what I was trying to call out, which was: in retrospect, he looks like a better president than politician. And he had a pretty strong pre-presidential resume. Kind of the anti-Trump.
DeleteGHWB was the only president between LBJ and a hoped-for future chief executive who had a legitimate claim to be qualified to fill the highest office in the land. And I hold the definer of civilization, New Gingrich, personally responsible for making him a one-term president, with an additional nod toward Ross Perot.
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