At the root of Trump’s new fury: Total contempt for American democracy

from The Washington Post:


Here's what happened after President Trump fired off a tweet accusing former president Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower before the 2016 election. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

THE MORNING PLUM:

President Trump is now wallowing in fury, we are told, because he can’t make the Russia story disappear; he can’t stem the leaks to the media; and he can’t seem to realize his promises. Some reports tell us that unflattering comparisons to Barack Obama’s early accomplishments are “gnawing at Trump,” while others say he went “ballistic” when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe, because it telegraphed capitulation to Trump’s foes.

But all of these things are connected by a common thread: Trump is enraged at being subjected to a system of democratic and institutional constraints, for which he has signaled nothing but absolute, unbridled contempt. The system is pushing back, and he can’t bear it.

On Monday morning, the latest chapter in this tale — Trump’s unsupported accusation that Obama wiretapped his phones — took another turn. Trump’s spokeswoman said on ABC News that Trump does not accept FBI Director James Comey’s claim — which was reported on over the weekend — that no such wiretapping ever happened.

As E.J. Dionne writes, this episode is a “tipping point” in the Trump experiment. Trump leveled the charge based on conservative media. Then, after an internal search for evidence to back it up produced nothing, the White House press secretary called on Congress to investigate it and declared the administration’s work done. While the previous administration did wiretap, the problem is the recklessness and baselessness of Trump’s specific allegations, and the White House’s insistence that the burden of disproving them must fall on others — on Congress and on the FBI. Trump’s allegations must be humored at all costs, simply because he declared them to be true — there can be no admission of error, and worse, the White House has declared itself liberated from the need to even pretend to have evidence to back up even Trump’s most explosive claims.

[Trump needs an intervention] 

This is more than disdain for the truth. It represents profound contempt for our democratic and institutional processes. In this sense, it’s only the latest in what has become a broader pattern:

• When the media accurately reported on Trump’s inaugural crowd sizes, the White House not only contested this on the substance in a laughably absurd manner. It also accused the press of intentionally diminishing Trump’s crowd count, thus trying to delegitimize the news media’s institutional act of holding Trump accountable to factual reality.
• Trump has tweeted that the media is the “enemy of the American people” and has accused the media of covering up terrorist plots. Stephen K. Bannon has railed against the press as “the opposition party.” Trump gave a recent speech heavily devoted to attacking the media, once again for deliberately and knowingly misleading Americans. All this goes far beyond merely questioning the media’s role as an arbiter of truth.
• After getting elected, Trump continued to repeat the lie that millions voted illegally in the election, undermining faith in American democracy. When the media called out this falsehood, the White House threatened an investigation to prove it true, which hasn’t materialized, in effect using the vow of investigations as nothing more than a tool to obfuscate efforts to hold him accountable.
• After a court blocked Trump’s travel ban, Trump questioned the institutional legitimacy of the “so-called judge” in question. He also cast the stay as a threat to our security, even though the ban has no credible national security rationale, something that has now been demonstrated by leaks from the Department of Homeland Security (exactly the sort of leaking that has Trump in a fury). Senior adviser Stephen Miller flatly declared that the ban would be reintroduced in part to demonstrate that Trump’s national security power “will not be questioned,” thus declaring the explicit goal of sweeping away institutional checks on it. And then the White House delayed introduction of the new ban in order to continue basking in good press from his speech to Congress, thus undercutting its own claim that this is an urgent national security matter.
• Trump continues to hold court at Mar-a-Lago, using the power of the presidency to promote his own resort, whose membership fees sink money into his own pockets. The White House publicly intervened in a business dispute involving Trump’s daughter and even tried to steer customers her way, an act which Kellyanne Conway embellished by cheerfully sticking a rhetorical middle finger in the face of anyone who finds such behavior troubling.

We’re witnessing a level of total disdain for basic democratic and institutional processes that defies description, and perhaps calls for a new vocabulary. But the story does not end here. As Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic explain in a great piece, the almost comical lack of good faith that Trump and the White House are showing toward our processes is inspiring an escalation in institutional pushback — from the courts, the media, government leakers, and civil society — that is having much more of a constraining effect than Trump ever could have anticipated. Indeed, the Trump White House’s ongoing conduct is itself producing the very systemic resistance that now has Trump in such a rage.

[Trump: Bonkers, paranoid or trapped?] 

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* BIG MAJORITY WANTS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR ON RUSSIA: A new CNN poll finds that nearly two thirds of Americans want a special prosecutor to examine potential contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign, including a large chunk of Republicans:

Among Republicans, a majority feel Congress can handle the investigation, but a sizable 43 percent support the call for a special prosecutor, as do majorities of Democrats (82 percent) and independents (67 percent). Overall, the poll finds that 65 percent would rather see a special prosecutor handle the investigation, while 32 percent think Congress is capable of handling it.

Meanwhile, the poll finds that Trump’s approval has barely budged — it’s 45 percent — which is odd, since pundits told us that his awesomely “presidential” speech would give him a bump.

* HERE COMES THE NEW, REVISED TRAVEL BAN: The Associated Press reports that Trump’s new immigration ban will be rolled out today or later this week:

The revised order is expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a 90-day U.S. travel ban. That follows pressure from the Pentagon and State Department … Other changes are also expected, including making clear that all existing visas will be honored and no longer singling out Syrian refugees for an indefinite ban. Syrian refugees will now be treated like other refugees and be subjected to a 120-day suspension of the refugee program.

It’s hard to say whether this one will fare better in court, but it’s worth noting that two Department of Homeland Security documents have now leaked undercutting the case for it.

President Trump signed a new executive order on March 6, banning travelers from six majority-Muslim countries seeking new visas from entering the U.S. for 90 days and halting the refugee program for 120 days. Here's how it stacks up with the old travel ban. (Jenny Starrs, Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)

* WHAT A WIRETAP OF TRUMP TOWER WOULD MEAN: Charlie Savage notes that the former president could not legally have wiretapped Trump Tower and adds:

If it was a criminal wiretap, it would mean that the Justice Department had gathered sufficient evidence to convince a federal judge that someone using the phone number or email address probably committed a serious crime. If it was a national security wiretap, it would mean a federal judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had a basis to believe the target was probably an agent of a foreign power, like Russia.

It seems unlikely at best that this happened, but it’s kind of amusing that Trump is alleging it, given what it would really mean in practice.

* DEMS SCHEME TO BLOCK TRUMP’S WALL: Axios reports that Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats are planning to filibuster the funding for Trump’s planned wall on the Mexican border, as a huge symbolic victory:

There’s nothing the Republicans would be willing to offer that could get Trump the eight Democratic Senators he needs to fund the wall … The way Democrats see it, if they can block the wall, they’d crush a central feature of Trump’s political identity. And … Schumer would thrill the Democratic base (though less so the red-state Democratic senators up in 2018).

Okay, but if Democrats really want to deal Trump a big blow on immigration, they should block funding for his proposal to add 10,000 agents to carry out mass deportations.

* RUSSIAN HACKERS TARGET LIBERAL GROUPS: Bloomberg scoops that Russia hackers are targeting a number of progressive groups, demanding “hush money” by using sensitive data they’ve obtained to blackmail them:

The hackers’ targeting of left-leaning groups — and the sifting of emails for sensitive or discrediting information — has set off alarms that the attacks could constitute a fresh wave of Russian government meddling in the U.S. political system … Some of the groups are associated with causes now under attack by the Trump administration.

The coincidences continue to mount.

* GOP HEALTH PLAN WILL ENRAGE EVERYBODY: Paul Krugman explains why the GOP’s repeal-and-replace bill seems destined to infuriate people all across the political spectrum:

Republicans have belatedly discovered what some of us tried to tell them all along: The only way to maintain coverage for the 20 million people who gained insurance thanks to Obamacare is with a plan that, surprise, looks a lot like Obamacare. Sure enough, the new plan reportedly does look like a sort of half-baked version of the Affordable Care Act … it’s enough like Obamacare to infuriate hard-line conservatives, but it weakens key aspects of the law enough to deprive millions of Americans … of essential health care.

But Republicans will be able to claim they finally liberated the country from Obamacare after seven long years of darkness and oppression, so who cares about the details?

* AND THE QUOTE OF THE DAY: Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, on NBC this morning:

“If the president walked across the Potomac, the media would report that he couldn’t swim.”

How long until Trump’s Ministers of Disinformation bash the media for refusing to report that he can walk on water?

John Oliver laughs it up with the Dalai Lama, while talking serious as well. Incredible Interview.

Tibetan Buddhists have suffered deep persecution by the Chinese government. John Oliver sits down with the Dalai Lama to discuss China, the conditions in Tibet, and horse milk.

School of Life Monday SOCIOLOGY - Max Weber

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A New Vision for Youth Justice: Imagining a World Without Youth Prisons

from Sparrow Media:

On any given day 50,000 youth are incarcerated in America’s juvenile justice system. Seemingly harmless names like “training schools” and “academies” are used to obfuscate an archipelago of youth prison environments sprawled across the US where minors are subjected to restraints, brutal violence, and the use of solitary confinement. A group called the Youth First Initiative is taking aim at these facilities with a simple demand, #NoKidsInPrison

Youth First is a growing national constellation of organizations from Kansas, Virginia, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and New Jersey that launched in 2015 with a goal of closing youth prisons. The coalition’s tireless efforts have already lead to commitments to close 5 facilities in 4 states, with many more joining a growing list of facilities under scrutiny from state and federal authorities. This Friday, the Larned Juvenile Correctional Center in Kansas will close after 45 years of operation. The closure of this medium/high security facility, designed to imprison 170 youth, marks a significant victory for Kansans United for Youth Justice, part of the Youth First Initiative.

Today’s political climate underscores the importance of Youth First’s work. While youth incarceration has been on the decline for over a decade (due in part to the efforts of Youth First and myriad other juvenile justice advocates) signals from Trump Administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions raise concerns that the youth prison complex may see renewed vigor.

This short film about Youth First’s efforts was produced by our partners at Balestra Media on behalf of Youth First, with direction from Sparrow’s cofounder Andy Stepanian, Christina DiPasquale of Balestra Media and Jeffrey Wirth of Burning Hearts Media. A full credit list is included below.

Follow Youth First’s work on Twitter, Facebook, or their website

JUST F*CK IT: WILDLY OFFENSIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE T-SHIRTS ARE APPARENTLY ALL THE RAGE IN ASIA

from Dangerous Minds:

It is with a large tip of my heavy metal hair to the excellent Hint Magazine for hipping me to what appears to be a rather bizarre fashion phenomenon afflicting Asian people. The trend in question (or questionable trend if you prefer) concerns the seeming affinity for people of all ages (including children) to wear offensive catchphrase-style t-shirts that are printed in English. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem whatsoever with anyone who believes their sexy parts taste like Pepsi-Cola and who chooses to wear a t-shirt declaring this to be so. But things get a little murky when the person wearing said shirt (which you’ll see below in all its obnoxious glory) is worn by a teenage boy who most likely has NO idea what the shirt is saying about his, ahem, vagina.

Is there a valid explanation for why an elderly Asian man who probably speaks no English might want to wear a t-shirt with a cartoon rooster proudly declaring “There’s nothing like a stiff cock to wake you up in the morning!”? Sure. There must be. But I have no idea what it is. Can you think of a reason why a child would be wearing a shirt that says “Who the Fuck is Jesus?” Though it’s a valid question, most five-year-olds clearly wouldn’t ponder such a pressing theological question because cartoons are a kids number one priority.

Some of the wearers of these offensive tees were snapped wearing them on the streets of New York City, and presumably know what these humorous slogans mean, adding another layer to the mystery. All I can say is this—the nasty message shirts you’re about to see below are, you guessed it, pretty NSFW.

Because of course this kid is a fan of Dead Kennedys.

3 new Sassy Trumps to take your mind off America's never-ending bad trip

from Boing Boing:

Comedian and soothsayer Peter Serafinowicz brings us Three new 'Sassy Trump' episodes.

As with all past Sassy Trumps, the words are 100% Donald J. Trump's own. The voice, Peter's.

bonus:

Darby Crash Band on my Instagram

DARBY CRASH band was a short lived band Darby started playing as, when the GERMS were virtually banned from playing anywhere in LA. Darby had also just come back from an extended visit to London in 1980 at around the time Adam and the Ants were blowing up there, before their major label success, and he was inspired by them to put on his own Native American inspired face paints and garb. The Darby Crash band seen here at the Starwood in West Hollywood mid 1980, they played less than a handful of shows, and played Germs songs with different members of the Germs sometimes in the band as well, until they finally decided to just do a GERMS reunion show that would be his last... as the story is known, Darby took his own life just a week or so after that last show. This is a rare color photo of him with the paint and mohawk during that short period. #punk #Darby #GERMS #GI #hollywood #LexiconDevil #MediaBlitz #RichieDaggersCrime #NoGod #CircleOne #WeMustBleed #DarbyCrashBand

A post shared by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Feb 8, 2017 at 3:43pm PST

NOAM CHOMSKY CALLS FOR ‘MILITANT LABOR MOVEMENT’ TO TRANSFORM AMERICAN POLITICS AND FIGHT TRUMP

from The Inquisitor :

Noam Chomsky, a distinguished professor of linguistics at MIT and a long-time political activist, has called for a “militant labor movement” in the United States to revitalize American politics and take on the Donald Trump administration and the rest of the corporate-owned political establishment.

In a recent Alternet interview, Noam Chomsky explains the rise of right-wing populist movements in Britain and the United States that led to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as largely a reaction to the failures of neoliberal policies of the past several decades to improve the lives of working-class people. In fact, these policies have only served to concentrate wealth in the hands of the rich, increase inflation, and keep wages low. In this light, it’s no mystery why people are looking to new solutions.

Noam Chomsky told the interviewer that neoliberal programs “have just cast a huge number of people to the side. These programs have improved corporate profit, kept wages stagnant, and highly concentrated wealth and power. They’ve undermined democracy.”

Striking workers in 2016. [Image by David McNew/Getty Images]

Chomsky goes on to explain that neoliberal policies in place since the late 1970s in the United States have created a situation where the extremely wealthy are reaping huge rewards while many in the working class are struggling to get ahead. Chomsky explains support for Trump as a function of resentment by certain segments of the population for policies they see as elevating those who haven’t worked as hard as they have while doing nothing to help them increase their quality of life.

“Trump supporters are not necessarily very poor—some of them are moderately well-off, they have jobs, but then, the image that’s been used, which is not a bad one, I think, is that they are people who see themselves as standing in line trying to get ahead. That they’ve worked hard, they’ve ‘done’ their place in line, and they’re stuck there. The people ahead of them are shooting off into the stratosphere, and the people behind them, in their view, are being pushed ahead in the line by the federal government. That’s what the federal government does [in their view]—it takes people who are behind them and who haven’t worked hard enough they way they have, and pushes them ahead by some supportive programs.”

According to the Independent, Noam Chomsky had previously discussed the failure of the Democratic Party to appeal to working class voters by highlighting a need for a “militant labor movement” in the United States, which could appeal to working-class voters let down by empty calls for “hope and change” from Barack Obama and other neoliberal Democrats. Speaking before the crowd at Democracy Now’s 20th-anniversary event in December of last year, Chomsky explained that the seeds of such a movement have already been planted in the movement to elect Bernie Sanders as President in 2016.

“Suppose people like you, the Sanders movement, offered an authentic, constructive program for real hope and change, it would win these people back,” Chomsky said.

“I think many of the Trump voters could have voted for Sanders if there had been the right kind of activism and organization. and those are possibilities. It’s been done in the past under much harsher circumstances.”

Noam Chomsky is correct in recognizing that it has historically been labor movements, and not power-players in the political establishment, who have been the most successful in advancing the interests of the American working-class.

Striking auto workers in 2008. [Image by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images]

According to Worker’s Compass, the labor movement in the early 1950’s did not have a serious ally in Democratic President Harry Truman. Worker solidarity at the time played a large role in advancing the cause of worker’s rights, often in spite of efforts by Truman and the Democrats to counter the labor movement’s goals.

“In 1950 Democrat President Truman tried to smash a strike of 100,000 miners by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act (legislation that greatly restricted strikes),” the article says. “In protest, 270,000 additional miners joined the strike. Soon the mine owners backed down, and the miners won a substantial wage increase.”

Truman, who initially tried to veto the Taft-Hartley Act, nevertheless invoked the law a total of 61 times during his administration, and in 1951, President Truman raised taxes on working people by 12 percent while raising taxes on millionaires by only one percent. This type of duplicitous, anti-worker action continues to haunt the Democratic Party today, whose neoliberal Presidents Clinton and Obama don’t seem very much different from Ronald Reagan in terms of attitudes toward policies to strengthen the working poor and the middle class.

A militant labor movement in the United States, as Noam Chomsky advocates, could go a long way in challenging the pro-corporate neoliberalism that has dominated both parties in American government since the Reagan administration.

School of Life Monday: Why Introspection Matters

Most of our mistakes come down to one crucial error: our failure to understand ourselves well enough. That’s why we need to learn the art of introspection.

- word

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Donald Trump's Tweets As An Early 2000s Emo Song

Frightened by Donald Trump? You don’t know the half of it - George Monbiot

from The Guardian

 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, like other members of Trump’s team, came from a group called Americans for Prosperity. Photograph: UPI / Barcroft Images

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@GeorgeMonbiot

Wednesday 30 November 2016 01.00 ESTLast modified on Tuesday 31 January 2017 10.38 EST

Yes, Donald Trump’s politics are incoherent. But those who surround him know just what they want, and his lack of clarity enhances their power. To understand what is coming, we need to understand who they are. I know all too well, because I have spent the past 15 years fighting them.

Over this time, I have watched as tobacco, coal, oil, chemicals and biotech companies have poured billions of dollars into an international misinformation machine composed of thinktanks, bloggers and fake citizens’ groups. Its purpose is to portray the interests of billionaires as the interests of the common people, to wage war against trade unions and beat down attempts to regulate business and tax the very rich. Now the people who helped run this machine are shaping the government.

I first encountered the machine when writing about climate change. The fury and loathing directed at climate scientists and campaigners seemed incomprehensible until I realised they were fake: the hatred had been paid for. The bloggers and institutes whipping up this anger were funded by oil and coal companies.

Among those I clashed with was Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI calls itself a thinktank, but looks to me like a corporate lobbying group. It is not transparent about its funding, but we now know it has received $2m from ExxonMobil, more than $4m from a group called the Donors Trust (which represents various corporations and billionaires), $800,000 from groups set up by the tycoons Charles and David Koch, and substantial sums from coal, tobacco and pharmaceutical companies.

For years, Ebell and the CEI have attacked efforts to limit climate change, through lobbying, lawsuits and campaigns. An advertisement released by the institute had the punchline “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution. We call it life.”

It has sought to eliminate funding for environmental education, lobbied against the Endangered Species Act, harried climate scientists and campaigned in favour of mountaintop removal by coal companies. In 2004, Ebell sent a memo to one of George W Bush’s staffers calling for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to be sacked. Where is Ebell now? Oh – leading Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Charles and David Koch – who for years have funded extreme pro-corporate politics – might not have been enthusiasts for Trump’s candidacy, but their people were all over his campaign. Until June, Trump’s campaign manager was Corey Lewandowski, who like other members of Trump’s team came from a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP).

This purports to be a grassroots campaign, but it was founded and funded by the Koch brothers. It set up the first Tea Party Facebook page and organised the first Tea Party events. With a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, AFP has campaigned ferociously on issues that coincide with the Koch brothers’ commercial interests in oil, gas, minerals, timber and chemicals.

Donald Trump's first 100 days as president – daily updates

 

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In Michigan, it helped force through the “right to work bill”, in pursuit of what AFP’s local director called “taking the unions out at the knees”. It has campaigned nationwide against action on climate change. It has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into unseating the politicians who won’t do its bidding and replacing them with those who will.

I could fill this newspaper with the names of Trump staffers who have emerged from such groups: people such as Doug Domenech, from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, funded among others by the Koch brothers, Exxon and the Donors Trust; Barry Bennett, whose Alliance for America’s Future (now called One Nation) refused to disclose its donors when challenged; and Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, funded by Exxon and others. This is to say nothing of Trump’s own crashing conflicts of interest. Trump promised to “drain the swamp” of the lobbyists and corporate stooges working in Washington. But it looks as if the only swamps he’ll drain will be real ones, as his team launches its war on the natural world.

Understandably, there has been plenty of coverage of the racists and white supremacists empowered by Trump’s victory. But, gruesome as they are, they’re peripheral to the policies his team will develop. It’s almost comforting, though, to focus on them, for at least we know who they are and what they stand for. By contrast, to penetrate the corporate misinformation machine is to enter a world of mirrors. Spend too long trying to understand it, and the hyporeality vortex will inflict serious damage on your state of mind.

Don’t imagine that other parts of the world are immune. Corporate-funded thinktanks and fake grassroots groups are now everywhere. The fake news we should be worried about is not stories invented by Macedonian teenagers about Hillary Clinton selling arms to Islamic State, but the constant feed of confected scares about unions, tax and regulation drummed up by groups that won’t reveal their interests.

The less transparent they are, the more airtime they receive. The organisation Transparify runs an annual survey of thinktanks. This year’s survey reveals that in the UK only four thinktanks – the Adam Smith Institute, Centre for Policy Studies, Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange – “still consider it acceptable to take money from hidden hands behind closed doors”. And these are the ones that are all over the media.

When the Institute of Economic Affairs, as it so often does, appears on the BBC to argue against regulating tobacco, shouldn’t we be told that it has been funded by tobacco companies since 1963? There’s a similar pattern in the US: the most vocal groups tend to be the most opaque.

As usual, the left and centre (myself included) are beating ourselves up about where we went wrong. There are plenty of answers, but one of them is that we have simply been outspent. Not by a little, but by orders of magnitude. A few billion dollars spent on persuasion buys you all the politics you want. Genuine campaigners, working in their free time, simply cannot match a professional network staffed by thousands of well-paid, unscrupulous people.

You cannot confront a power until you know what it is. Our first task in this struggle is to understand what we face. Only then can we work out what to do.

• Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot. A fully linked version of this column will be published at monbiot.com