Tag: Donald J. Trump

Read I Crossed Back Into a State of Denial by David FrumDavid Frum (The Atlantic)
At the Canada-U.S. border, I encountered a study in contrasts.

It did not have to be this way. But as Trump aptly said of himself and his policy, “It is what it is.” He accepted more disease in hopes of stimulating a stronger economy and winning reelection. He’s waiting now for the return on that bet. As so often in his reckless career, his speculation seems to be that if the bet wins, he pockets the proceeds. And if the bet fails? The losses fall on others. ❧

A very apt description of Trump’s life philosophy. Also a broad perspective at how many Republicans and Libertarians seem to view the world economically: privatizing profits and socializing losses.
Annotated on September 06, 2020 at 10:55AM

Read Why Trump Supporters Can’t Admit Who He Really Is by Peter Wehner (The Atlantic)
Nothing bonds a group more tightly than a common enemy that is perceived as a mortal threat.

A powerful tribal identity bonds the president to his supporters. As Amy Chua, the author of Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, has argued, the tribal instinct is not just to belong, but also to exclude and to attack. “When groups feel threatened,” Chua writes, “they retreat into tribalism. They close ranks and become more insular, more defensive, more punitive, more us-versus-them.” ❧

Annotated on September 06, 2020 at 10:34AM

“Motivation conditions cognition,” Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, wisely told me. Very few Trump supporters I know are able to offer an honest appraisal of the man. To do so creates too much cognitive dissonance. ❧

Annotated on September 06, 2020 at 10:36AM

That they are defending a person who is fundamentally malicious, even if he makes judicial appointments of which they approve, is too painful for them to admit. ❧

But surely in the multi-millions of Republicans, they could find someone who could also appoint those judges, but not have the myriad moral failings that Trump does. For surely if they can’t, then they’re doomed to failure and misery sooner or later.
Annotated on September 06, 2020 at 10:38AM

But what’s different in this case is that Trump, because of the corruption that seems to pervade every area of his life and his damaged psychological and emotional state, has shown us just how much people will accept in their leaders as a result of “negative partisanship,” the force that binds parties together less in common purpose than in opposition to a shared opponent. ❧

Annotated on September 06, 2020 at 10:41AM

Read Kellyanne Conway to leave the White House at the end of the month, citing the need to focus on her family (Washington Post)
Her husband George Conway, a conservative lawyer and outspoken critic of the president, is also stepping back from his role on the Lincoln Project, an outside group of Republicans devoted to defeating Trump in November.
Apparently both she and her husband are “disappearing”. Makes one wonder what is going on? Is there real family trouble, or is she simply jumping a sinking ship and he’s helping to provide the cover?
Read ‘Christianity Will Have Power’ (nytimes.com)
Donald Trump made a promise to white evangelical Christians, whose support can seem mystifying to the outside observer.
I still don’t get the persecution complex part at all. Has Fox News and others really been pushing the “culture wars” bit this far? How do they not understand how these viewpoints clash so heavily with the message of The Bible? Love your neighbor as yourself? 
Read The American Death Cult by Anil Dash (Anil Dash)
A significant percentage of conservative culture in America defines “freedom” as death. This is causing a lot more problems right now than even its usual horrible effects. Some explanation, for those who may not have context. Why do we need to have guns? To protect our freedoms! Well, what about
Read The latest excuses for Trump’s ‘white power’ tweet reveal his weakness by Greg SargentGreg Sargent (Washington Post)
President Trump’s reelection message is that white America is under siege — that white Americans are on the losing end of a race war. But what if white America — or, at least, a large chunk of it — isn’t buying the story that Trump is peddling?
Watched June 18, 2020 - PBS NewsHour from PBS
Thursday on the NewsHour, the Supreme Court hands President Trump a major legal defeat on immigration, a cornerstone of his agenda. Plus: How officials in the U.S. and abroad are responding to John Bolton’s claims, Stacey Abrams on voting rights in America, weighing the risks of reopening, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on coronavirus in his state and grieving Italians demand the truth on the pandemic.
I haven’t been watching the news very much for the past several months. It’s just too depressing and infuriating, but needs to be done every now and then.
Read The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus (nytimes.com)
Experts inside and outside the government identified the threat early on and sought to raise alarms even as President Trump was moving slowly. Read some of what they had to say among themselves at critical moments.

Angela de Marco: God, you people work just like the mob! There’s no difference.
Regional Director Franklin: Oh, there’s a big difference, Mrs. de Marco. The mob is run by murdering, thieving, lying, cheating psychopaths. We work for the President of the United States of America.

—Married to the Mob (Orion, 1988)