MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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G.O.P. Squirms as Trump Veers Off Script With Abuse Remarks
By artappraiser on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 1:10am |By Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns @ NYTimes.com, Feb. 10
[....] The president’s seeming indifference to claims of abuse infuriated Republicans, who were already confronting a surge of activism from Democratic women driven to protest, raise money and run for office because of their fervent opposition to Mr. Trump. “This is coming, this is real,” Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, said recently about the female-fueled wave of liberal energy [....]
“For members or anybody else who cares about keeping control of Congress, if you find yourself talking about anything but the middle-class tax cut, shut up and stop talking,” fumed Corry Bliss, who runs the primary House Republican “super PAC,” the Congressional Leadership Fund. “Any time spent on TV talking about anything but how we’re helping the middle class is a waste of time and does nothing to help us win in 2018.” [....]
Many Americans are still uncertain that they will benefit from the tax measure, Mr. Bliss conceded. He cited a wave of private polling and focus groups that his organization has conducted this year revealing much of the electorate to be skeptical that they would receive a tax cut from the bill, which was signed into law in December.
That is in part because of what mainstream Republicans describe as a destructive cycle of incentives: Mr. Trump reacts to Fox News segments about the Russia investigation or another controversy, encouraging more such coverage and prompting House conservatives from largely safe seats to make their own incendiary comments, which win them television invitations and attention from the president. Such notoriety might help those lawmakers in their deep red districts, but they do nothing for the party’s overall political standing.
“These guys are performing for the president when they go on TV,” said Jason Roe, a longtime Republican strategist who is consulting on a series of at-risk House districts in California. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a first-term Republican who is one of Mr. Trump’s most visible champions outside the White House staff, all but said as much [....]
URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/us/politics/tax-cuts-election-message-trump.html
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by artappraiser on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 1:38am
Absolutely fascinating and hilarious, ran across more on Bannon's opinion mentioned in the above; Bannon's real ascared of the liberal wimmins:
Steve Bannon Is Worried Oprah Is Going To Destroy Trump's Presidency
According to extracts published in CNN, Bannon was obsessed with the women of Hollywood's reaction to the #MeToo movement and the new Time's Up campaign, warning that it was part of a new "anti-patriarchy" movement.
By Amber Jameison @ BuzzFeed.com, Feb. 10
Etc...Is like he's become Camille Paglia's doppelganger or something...Recommended, CHECK IT OUT...
by artappraiser on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 1:54am
Dave Remnick @ NewYorker.com: A Reckoning with Women Awaits Trump. Even Steve Bannon recognizes that female voters will punish Donald Trump for his cavalier dismissal of domestic-abuse allegations.
by artappraiser on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 11:38pm
When it comes to powerful men accused of sexual assault Donald Trump is all about due process.
by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 9:38am
Yes. But then: comes to mind that exactly that was what the "vast right wing conspiracy" used to go after Bill Clinton: that Paula Jones get her day in court concerning accusations of sexual harassment by the governor of Arkansas. How did it end up? With impeachment, because the president can't be taken to court, but he can be tempted to lie about sexual infidelity.
Just yesterday I ran across this op-ed by S.V. Date at HuffPost bring up a similar conundrum, as regards how so many on his staff can't get security clearances:
Which in the end brought to my mind the whole process of electing a president where we have an electoral college to supposedly serve, among other things, as a break on populist error, where majority vote might become "the mob" and elect an unqualified person. And the current president's campaign manipulated that system, so that the result was counter what was intended by the system. Here, the majority vote was the rational, sensible vote, even including many voters who rationally "held their nose", kept their emotions controlled, and voted for someone they weren't that crazy about just so this other very unqualified person wouldn't become president.
I'm confused. Nothing works anymore....
by artappraiser on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 4:04pm
More "nothing works anymore" and confusion: back to the lead article on this thread. Those that supposedly know how the Republicans can win elections are basically advising that the president is bad for them because he won't stay on the message they should want to sell and overall is just trouble and bad news. But they feel stuck with him because 1/3 of populace likes someone in charge who shoots off his mouth from his gut, even if hypocritically at times, because to many in that 1/3 that is honest emotion of a normal person countering carefully crafted rational messages.Those in that 1/3 don't care if it is narcissist disorder underlying the mouth shooting off, because this particular narcissist's disorder is all about an instinctual desire for "ratings" and instinctual understanding of what will get "ratings." And they need that 1/3 to win.
Somebody's got to stop feeding the troll? But they won't, can't. Because even we analytical news junkies won't and can't. This is why I have found the op-eds trying of Andrés Miguel Rondón at WaPo, trying to introduce lessons from Venezuela, so intriguing.
Forget the difference in ideology, between Chavistas and Trumpistas, what should both big political parties be doing to keep the country from going off the rails with an egotistical demagogue on top?
The original article has this great phrasing: what mainstream Republicans describe as a destructive cycle of incentives.
by artappraiser on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 4:29pm
Part of the dynamic with Trump's 1/3 is a result of evolution in communications strategies in our day. Much more is understood about what moves people. The reason why Trump could, probably correctly, say he could shoot someone in downtown NYC and his supporters would still love him is because the 1/3 has been exposed to relentless demonization of "liberals" and "Democrats" by a media subsystem it chooses to get its "news"/entertainment from.
If I believed about "liberals" and Democrats what the Fox/Murdoch ecosystem is devoted to ensuring its followers believes about such folks--and as Ted Koppel said when he had his on-air conversation with Sean Hannity not too long ago, they are very good at what they do--I might "conclude" as well that the enemy of my enemies is someone I will stand by, no matter.
There does seem to be a very real decline of respect for facts across large swaths of our culture. Factual small "t" truth has become increasingly relativized and politicized. Couple this with the following: (1) the colossal decline in confidence in government, media and other institutions--which that very same media subculture has also been extremely effective in engineering; (2) the immense destabilization of the middle class and the increasing perception and experience of individuals and families being on their own to deal with come what may, with an impotent or out of touch government watching helplessly and without any evident clue what to do to ameliorate it; (3) mounting environmental existential threats, with water shortages and wacky weather being the visible manifestations for those intent on rejecting or ignoring the climate change science; and (4) continued unresponsiveness to the needs of, and an uptick in scapegoating of, women, people of color, religious minorities, basically almost everyone except white men--and you have something like a crisis of legitimacy and lack of confidence that the system can and will respond.
So maybe not quite anything goes, not quite yet, perhaps. But amidst the disorientation and despair, a lot of stuff passes that previously did not pass.
I know. These are pretty depressing thoughts. Current trajectory needs to be turned around soon, on many fronts. One reason why the 2018 midterms need to result in an utter vanquishing of Republican party candidates, at all levels of government. They and their supporters are instigators and enablers. They are very much part of the problem and not just in the way. And they need to be resoundingly rejected by the voters in a way that compels enough in this troglodyte party to pay attention to electoral viability, rethink some things, and make some changes.
This sort of electoral verdict would appear to be very much within the capacity of the electorate to deliver, even given the thuggish, reactionary, voter suppression strategy the GOP has worked so hard to implement and the very real meddling with our elections that is going on and being systematically ignored, where not actively encouraged and abetted, by the Administration and GOP majority in Congress.
This sort of a verdict, or something quite close to it, was in fact delivered in Virginia last year. One and done, with another electoral debacle in 2020, will not suffice, either. But first things first. The first rule when one is in a hole one does not want to be in is...to stop digging.
by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 02/12/2018 - 11:28am
Thanks for all the thoughtful input.
Yes, the Fox Hannity et. al. thing is one and same with the troll, that is very obvious, we all know that for a fact, he watches them and then tweets their memes right away. It is one big troll being.
I was more thinking about like us and the New York Times and Washington Post. et. al. feeding that. We let them frame the national discussion, we help feed the culture war divisiveness that they are trying to provoke which distracts from what's really going on. But things have changed on that front. In the past, that was purposeful to enable the GOP to enact stuff. Now it's working against them, too! Because it is no longer done purposefully, it is done wily nily all based on a narcissist demagogue's needs. I.E. here: none of them want to be seen as excusing domestic abuse.
Anyone willing to read political news used to be able to figure out what the GOP was after and what they were trying to distract with. Now they don't even know themselves if they are to cotton to the 1/3 that approve of this crazy demagogue. He is training everyone that they don't have to have a coherent political message, or at least that if they can find someone with charismatic appeal, they can forget all that.
This is not about winning near future elections, it's about governing. And having a functioning Congress. As to near future elections, the 2/3 of the electorate is mad enough to take care of that, unless Dems really screw up. Rather my confusion is about new and scary ways of running for office, governing and our system dysfunctioning, using the system against the purposes it was meant for. Including things like freedom of speech and the press, and the electoral college and gerrymandered districts, etc. He has shown the way into a new paradigm. That he is always on top of the "faux news" thing is not a coincidence.That 1/3 does not like our system, they love that he continuously co-opts it, they love that he upset and continues to upset the GOP establishment as well as the Dems. That is what is new. A lot of what Trump did and Trump still does is new and gives politicos all kinds of challenges to their standard modus operandi and at the same time gives them new ideas of how things can be manipulated.
A lot of this is confirmed by what I read in Michael Lewis' article, which I posted separately in news. about what populist Steve Bannon thinks.Scroll down to the last section of the piece for that.
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/12/2018 - 4:07pm
So what's different is that the trolling just now is incoherent and irrational, from the standpoint of those who actually do have a coherent agenda? And the demonstration that even as some or many of the efforts can be thwarted or rolled back, some leak through and succeed? At least for the near term. And if for the near term, perhaps for the longer term, so the thinking might go...the previously unthinkable or unimaginable becomes thinkable and imaginable.
by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 02/12/2018 - 4:39pm
I think you are correct that we are looking at an inversion of a process intended to limit the potential for democratic consensus to sweep away the establishment of institutions. The Electoral College was set up to give more power to local elites. While it is true that the procedure defended institutions, it is also true that it was a part of a very unstable dynamic that has developed the sharply confrontational nature of our Republic. The "local elites" who agreed to the idea at first were hell bent upon killing each other a few generations later.
So, I am agreed with those who call for the end of the practice but am concerned that it be done in a way that doesn't just replicate the violence by some other means.
I don't see Trump as a populist who tricked the machine into putting him into power. He is a "local elite" hired by various localities to perform a service. That he is coo-coo for-cocoa puffs on the job is proof that he is delivering on his end of the deal. What the College failed to anticipate is not a new way for mobs to get more power but a market strategy that favors existing stakeholders above all but assures you that you will get a cut too. But not all of you. There will be winners and losers. Roll the bones.
by moat on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 6:05pm
Very thought provoking, moat, thanks much, this kind of sharing of thoughts is exactly what I like about this place.
This is especially most excellent:
That he is coo-coo for-cocoa puffs on the job is proof that he is delivering on his end of the deal. What the College failed to anticipate is not a new way for mobs to get more power but a market strategy that favors existing stakeholders above all but assures you that you will get a cut too.
It may even be predicting how the future works....social media et. al.....
by artappraiser on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 6:30pm
From a constitutional standpoint, the major safeguard the founders established to try to prevent abuse of the impeachment clause was the 2/3 vote required in the Senate to convict. It was thought that this barrier would tend to discourage use of the clause for routine political harassment purposes.
Of course this occurred during our republic's wet behind the ears phase where we were in the early stages of an exciting experiment in republican government and had just liberated ourselves from a compellingly constructed--for many but by no means all--enemy meant to be viewed as such by all in the newly liberated colonies.
The founders were highly aware of, and went to great lengths to be responsive in the constitution to, the potential mischief that could be caused by political factions. But there were no political parties back then, which may have set some upper limit tendencies on the absolute size of political factions. (There was nothing like today's radical, unmoored, craven GOP.) There was no mass, instantaneous, 24/7 communication then. Less was known about how the human brain works and how to steer its workings in desired directions. There wasn't anything like a massive, deliberately and brilliantly organized effort to relativize and politicize fact or the possibility of impartially acknowledged fact.
All of the above is just another way of saying that the concept of due process does not exist in a cultural, legal, and political vacuum. It can be twisted, ignored, used for ignoble purposes, etc. The major check on that has to be what can pass for acceptable in a given society and culture at a given time. If the abuse of the concept of due process is not met with adequate ridicule, resistance, and rejection, it can more easily continue to be abused, including through the sort of highly selective misuse of it we see playing out now.
by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 02/12/2018 - 11:45am
When it comes to powerful men accused of sexual assault Donald Trump is all about due process.
by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 02/11/2018 - 9:38am