Wednesday, January 31, 2018

But I'm a Republican!

What's happening in America today is like a slow motion train wreck when the engineer is drunk,  the brakes fail, and the cars head toward a bridge that has just collapsed into a lake. When so much goes wrong at once, if we try to understand what happened, the blow by blow of the cars collapsing on one another as they plunge into the lake does not help us understand.

Much of our current political analysis goes into detail about the awfulness of the current situation, but separating the key elements of the continuing tragedy from other significant factors is difficult, now that so much has gone wrong. Some commentators finish their essays with "This will not end well." But a fair question to that would be - "What makes you so sure this will end?".

Amanda Carpenter writes in Politico "I'm a Republican. Why is My Party Gaslighting America?" OK, but a better question might be, "What Took You So Long to Notice?". Carpenter was communications director for Ted Cruz and wrote speeches for Jim DeMint.

One problem is the title of the piece. Saying "I'm a Republican" is supposed to lend greater credibility to Carpenter than we should afford any person who is a Democrat because she is supposedly going against an established bias. But that logic fails in several ways. The same logic argues that she worked for Ted Cruz, who was the last man standing in the Republican presidential primaries against Trump. The article even notes Trump's attack on Cruz's father, but could also note the attacks on Cruz' wife. If "I am a Republican" is supposed to signify credibility, then similar logic can be employed to counter argue "I am a Ted Cruz operative and therefore any of my criticisms of Trump can not be believed." So credibility needs to be based on a record of, well, credibility, not membership in a particular group.

And, to take this same point, further - ad nauseum - then Rod Rosenstein can be called a "Democrat from Baltimore", which is false on both counts and lifelong Republican Mueller can be accused of favoring the Democrats. Anyone who challenges those claims is suspect. Which leads to anyone who challenges the current occupant of the White House is suspect. Which is how we lose the rule of law and ultimately end up with an autocracy.

If we want to take note of membership in a particular group, we might better pay attention instead to the fact that Amanda Carpenter is only the latest in a growing list of conservative Republican political operatives and former officeholders who are willing to call out Trump for the horror that he represents. These people are to be believed not because they are Republicans, but because their arguments, supported by the facts, make sense!

False balance got us into this mess. Not because balance as a starting point is bad, but balance has its limits. When bad actors are willing to stretch the rules and norms of behavior and behave indecently, efforts at balance become strained.  Political reporters ignore known facts and prior and current patterns of behavior. What if this time, everything that is happening is unlike anything that has ever happened in the past? Assuming that is possible - how could that be impossible? - assuming that is possible, forcing balance becomes false and provides support for deliberately false narratives. The false narrative is taken seriously, sucking energy away from truthful narratives, effectively equating a web of lies with a carefully developed honest story.

Nevertheless the Carpenter article is helpful because it adds to the growing chorus of Republican operatives who are quite conservative, complaining about the Republican-led Congress that is ditching democratic institutions in order to buttress the looming Trumpian autocracy. And Carpenter makes a valuable contribution to public understanding by noting Trump's use of vagueness as a weapon in his arsenal - referring to Trump's penchant throughout his career of "casting vague aspersions". Vague accusations are tougher to rebut precisely due to their vagueness.

And finally she highlights the use of the false narrative as a weapon. When the truth is your enemy, only false narrative can save you. In the case of Trump, there is no detailed story that is any way believable and supported by evidence that can depict him as an innocent party. The only way to buttress his story is to avoid telling it completely and distract with lengthy conspiracy theories about anyone who opposes him.  Obama. Clinton. That worked for a while, but is being stretched thin. So it became Comey and McCabe. But that is not enough. Rosenstein is at risk and, of course, Mueller. For anyone who has not himself committed crimes, supporting Trump through all of this requires an observer to ignore this Trumpian pattern of behavior that has extended to Republicans in Congress.

This is not going well.

Next up: Suspending the 2018 elections as a "temporary" measure.


Thursday, January 25, 2018

Tomorrow is Another Day and Tomorrow Never Comes

"Trump surprises his lawyers and alarms his friends by saying he will talk with Mueller" reads the seemingly innocuous headline in WaPo. But a more accurate headline would say "Trump surprises no one by saying he will talk with Mueller."

Such proclamations from Trump fit a pattern of behavior. When he seems cornered and may even feel cornered, he makes whatever statement which, coming from him, would, if true, best serve his interests. He makes these statements without regard to future events or actual intent, knowing full well that the traditional rules that apply to anyone else do not apply to him. His support is based on faith and the full support of so-called Fox News. No supporter is ever going to hold him to his word.

Presenting himself as eager to talk to Mueller makes him appear both positive and innocent to his supporters and comes at no cost because he will not be held accountable later if he refuses to testify and gives any reason, however implausible, for that refusal. The WaPo piece mentions that the tax returns have never been produced speaking of a "Houdini-like willingness to wiggle out of commitments." But there is a method to this madness:

An implausible and nonsensical excuse for not doing something is more powerful than a reasonable justification - by being illogical, it is irrefutable with logic

Why? Because a reasonable justification can be refuted with reason, with logic and lead to a sensible back-and-forth rational discussion. But Trump survives on illogic and fallacy. There is no way to make rational arguments against irrationality. If supporters are willing to ignore rationality, Trump can get away with this forever.

Take the Trump tweet of May 12, 2017
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

Even though this tweet fits the Trumpian pattern of endless lies and obfuscation - backed into a corner, he comes out with a distracting statement, a justification for the present or a promise for the future built upon a lie.  If you think of Trump as anything like a rational human being, which he is not, you can't help but think - "Oh, so there may be a record of some kind, not exactly tapes, but objective evidence that would make Comey out to be a liar." Just sending us down that road serves the purpose of the day. For Trump, there is no tomorrow to worry about.

For whatever tomorrow brings will just mean a new and different lie - a "surprising" statement according to our reality based, but still often clueless press. In a sane world, Trump would always be presumed lying with every statement he makes and, if at a later date, he was found not to be lying, then the headline would read "The Time That Trump Was Not Lying."


Monday, January 22, 2018

Family Ties or Son of From Russian With Love

The New York Times loves comparing presidents with other presidents. From this perspective, every action by Trump, in order to be understood and evaluated, needs to be compared with the action of a different president, usually beginning with a president of the opposing party and usually more recent to be considered most relevant. As a result, the NYT feeds the Trumpian narrative of blaming Obama for anything bad and taking credit for anything good.

The NYT takes this one step further, adding greater historical perspective in They Were Bad. He May Be Worse, an Opinion piece by historian Sean Wilentz.

The problem with comparing Trump with past presidents, the Times is telling us that past is prologue, there is a spectrum, and we can begin a reasoned analysis by assuming that Trump falls somewhere within that established spectrum.

But what if Trump is the first president who comes into office as the head of an extensive family-run, Russian-backed criminal enterprise. Current investigations, if allowed to proceed, may demonstrate that Trump and his family are dependent on a powerful foreign adversary, a billionaire who controls a vast criminal enterprise of oligarchs and crime families. That is, of course, Putin.

Any opinion article that compares Trump with other U.S. presidents that ignores the possibility (really the likelihood) that Trump is a money launderer for Russian criminals effectively normalizes Trump even while pretending to criticize him with comparisons to the worst presidents.

Trump is the first president who has no background in government or experience as a general in the military. He bears no resemblance to prominent business people in the U.S. by temperment, intellect, or other indicators of capability. If we need to make historical comparisons for better understanding, let's start with organized crime families or other masters of extensive criminal enterprises and then ask, why was no mafia head never president of the U.S.?

Friday, January 12, 2018

The Cowardly Lyin'

Trump's tweet alleging the reason he will not travel to England is such a classic Trump deflect, distract, accuse move, it bears further analysis.

Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!

In England, as in much of Europe, Trump is regarded with disdain, especially due to his efforts to deepen racial resentment. So many Londoners have been prepared to protest any visit, that there has been some question as to whether Trump would dare travel to England and showcase his unpopularity, or whether the invitation to him would be withdrawn.

So he clearly wants to avoid England because he would be met with massive demonstrations of animosity and England might still withdraw the invitation. But that is reality and Trump denies reality:

1. Deny the real reason for cancelling the trip.
2. Deflect attention to Obama, a favorite target, whether or not there is any relevance
3. Distract from the issue of visiting London with an irrelevant subject - the new embassy
4. Accuse the Obama administration of malfeasance (ignoring the role of the Bush administration to relocate the embassy for security reasons)
How long can Trump continue with these tired tactics? At some point, even his supporters might prefer a president who is willing to face reality, admit responsibility and be accountable for his own actions. Blaming Obama, Clinton, Holder, Rice, and Lynch at all times should start to feel strained to these people. In fact, not facing the fact that he is unwelcome in England and lying about his actions betrays a cowardliness. We always knew that he is a bully. And bullies are always cowards deep down. But this latest instance does not involve any bullying. He is just a straight out coward.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

The Free Pass

Sometimes, among business associates, you work together for common cause even though your politics may differ greatly. Your working philosophy to navigate business differences may align well with folks who disagree with you on political issues. So you manage by avoiding the issue entirely, or you only touch on politics occasionally by finding some common ground.

During the presidential campaign of 2016, common ground among generally reasonable people often took the form - "If only we did not have such a terrible choice" without mention of the names of the candidates. The implication was clear. The speaker might as well have been saying "You and I agree that both candidates are terrible, but we may differ.  I will vote for Trump, holding my nose. You will probably vote for Clinton, holding your nose."

The Trump voter was in denial that anyone who is reasonable could actually believe that Clinton was a good choice.

Post-election, everything changes, as it must. That projection of the Republican voter's feelings on to a Democratic voter has morphed with DJT as president in polite company into gently disparaging the daily POTUS tweets. The supposed common ground in this case takes the form - "You and I may differ in our politics, but we can both agree that the president has a bad habit every morning of tweeting whatever pops into his head, no matter how inflammatory or self-aggrandizing"

But the implication of that claim to a shared reality belies the fact that we are living at a time of two vastly different narratives to best describe that reality. Mentioning the daily tweets in casual conversation as if the only problem is this one bad habit, sort of like Obama's cigarette smoking, creates a frame that all he has to do is stop tweeting and everything will be fine.

But it's not fine.

Monday, January 8, 2018

Is This for Real or for Reel?

One of the questions dogging the Time's Up movement at the Golden Globes last night was whether the movement had the legs to accomplish its goals. Virtually every attendee wore black in solidarity with women who are victims of sexual harassment, assault, or abuse in the workplace. Speeches were made.  Unfortunately, one famous woman who had suffered vicious physical assault and abuse in her workplace  - Nancy Kerrigan - suffered the indignity of Allison Janney's acceptance speech for here supporting role in I, Tonya:
source: variety

“I would just like to thank Tonya for sharing her story,” the actress said while pointing to the Olympic figure skater in the audience. “What this movie did is tell a story about class in America, tell a story about the disenfranchised, tell the story about a woman who was not embraced for her individuality, tell a story about truth and the perception of truth in the media and truths we all tell ourselves. It’s an extraordinary movie, and I’m so proud of it.”

Maybe that's why Janney's gown was not quite as much black as others. Harding's story is well known to anyone over age 40 and is straightforward to many of us. In fact, we have been treated to way too many rehashings and attempts by Harding to cash in on her malfeasance in different ways. Harding was implicated in the attack on Kerrigan by a thug battered her leg with a baton, apparently aiming for her knee to knock her out of the U.S. championships and the Olympics. Her husband arranged the attack. Today we might call this 'collusion' between her, her husband and the attacker.

The muddling of reality by Janney in her speech, showing sympathy for the perpetrator of a violent crime, makes one wonder if Hollywood is really up to cleaning up their act on this important problem that extends through society.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

If he is honest, these are my findings

Philip Bump's "We're seeing institutions start to waver as constraints to Trump's impulses" hits on the important point that key U.S. institutions of government showing signs of strain in withstanding Trump's increasing authoritarianism and acts of self-preservation. But Bump's essay also betrays some of the weaknesses of reality based media's struggle with balancing factual reporting with efficiency of descriptions.

So Bump writes that Trump "seems to have internalized a narrative that was common on Fox News..." and

"The president no doubt believes, at least to some extent, that Clinton broke the law either with her email server or with the Clinton Foundation or both."

"It’s not clear what annoys him more: questions about whether he or people on his campaign might have criminally aided the Russian meddling efforts — or questions about the extent to which those efforts might have made the difference."

"Trump fails to understand that the allegations he’s embracing are often specious (a diet heavy in Sean Hannity will do that to you). "

The above statements all report on Trump's state of mind, which the author can not know. The reason that reporters like Bump make objective statement's on state of mind is to economize on language in the interest of clarity. But what they sacrifice is accuracy. Suppose that Trump is mindful that he has committed numerous felonies like money laundering along with his associates. And worse.

Bump is required by archaic journalistic rules not only to avoid assuming the worst, but, for the sake of argument, to assume that the worst is not true. But we do not know that and for that reason, there is no justification to the assumption that we can speak about Trump's state of mind.

Bluntly stated, Trump may not believe Clinton broke the law. And his "annoyance" may be the annoyance that any criminal feels as the law closes in. And, really, he "may not understand" that Hannity's arguments are specious? Why say that unless the objective is to give Trump all benefit of the doubt as if the only history of Trump we know is the history that yields every benefit of the doubt in Trump's favor, which is an unreasonable stretch.

It is frustrating to see a journalist write incisively with compelling examples that the institutions of government are wavering, but to violate basic standards of objectivity - never mind the rules journalists impose on themselves coupled with the exceptions they allow themselves. We know what Trump does. We know what Trump says. There is no need and should be no liberty to speculate on Trump's thoughts and beliefs which are unknowable. These same journalistic standards were turned backwards during the 2016 political campaign when Trump lied incessantly. Reality-based journalists could not bring themselves to say that Trump was lying because that would make him a liar, which would be inflammatory and controversial, seeming non-objective. So the reporters claimed that we could not call Trump's statements lies, not knowing if he believed them himself. Well, if we did not know his thoughts in 2016, we do not know his thoughts now.

The problem with articles like this in Washington Post and New York Times is that they make questionable assumptions due to the self imposed requirement to avoid reasonable assumptions, even tentatively, if those assumptions yield controversial conclusions. As a result, WaPo and NYT political news reporting on Trump and the Republicans in Congress, though well sourced, becomes inferior in drawing conclusions - connecting the dots- to other publications like New York Magazine, Business Insider, and Washington Monthly.

Instead of writing as if we know Trump's thoughts and beliefs, Bump could have pointed out that, in terms of context, the Trump administration actions to advance the prosecution of Hillary Clinton is a natural course of action that dictators take when they are in power and an extension of the deny, deflect, distract, accuse tactics of the 2016 campaign. When you have the power, "accuse" tends to become become investigate and prosecute.

The Trumpian reaction is eerily similar to the Putin playbook. More to come on that.


Tuesday, January 2, 2018

All the Wrong Questions

In Peter Baker's article on December 31, For Trump a Year of Reinventing the Presidency , the NYT writer once again asks all the wrong questions, which means that even if he is acting in good faith, the answers he provides are just plain wrong.

The analysis gets off on the wrong foot with "In ways that were once unimaginable, President Trump has discarded the conventions and norms established by his predecessors. Will that change the institution permanently?"

"Discarded" implies active and possibly thoughtful action, which is not the case. "Instinctive" and "impulsive" would work better here.  And "discarded the conventions and norms of his predecessors" is an incredibly roundabout way of saying that the man lies all the time, encourages hate groups, and insists on zero accountability for himself while blaming others when things go wrong, etc. Why be so kind to him?

"Will that change the institution permanently?" tells us the author is confident that the U.S. as a democratic republic will definitely survive this current situation intact and not be set back 50 years, that free and fair elections and confidence in our institutions - the Congress and the Courts, is in no way under threat. Only the institution of the presidency is being changed dramatically. If only it were so.

It gets worse from there, starting with "But there is one thing he almost never does. 'He very seldom asks how other presidents did this,' said John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff."

This is standard NYT fare. When discussing a president, pivot to a discussion of other presidents immediately. Baker uses Kelly's quote to do this work for him.

The article continues at length, describing how Mr. Trump is changing the presidency, citing many examples, using terms like "unconventional", and jumping back and forth between quoting "supporters of Mr. Trump" and "critics". Of note, the Times quotes the founder of "NewsMax", gently mentioning that he is a friend of Trump, without amplification on the quality and reputation of NewsMax. Before the 2016 election, would the Times have ever quoted NewsMax with such abandon?

And so Jimmy Carter is cited as "another outsider president". OK, true, but is there really any fair comparison with Carter? Isn't that completely misleading? Aren't the differences between Carter and Trump more striking - and more telling - than any similarity could ever be? That's the problem with false equivalence - creating the frame and squeezing the picture into that frame.

Baker normalizes Trump by carefully avoiding mention that the president's behavior fits the pattern of a deeply disordered narcissistic person who is covering up a lot - certainly his incompetence and fragile ego, and who deflects attention from the corruption inherent in maintaining his financial holdings as president. And are we really awaiting the results of the Russia investigation to understand that Trump is seriously compromised on Russia? Trump was never considered a normal business person throughout his career and there is nothing normal about him now. Why is it so difficult to tell the true story?

The article mentions that future presidents may feel more free to lie as if all presidents lack any character.

At the Times, describing reality in politics has become an exercise in creating false equivalencies.

Baker writes:
"Other presidents were not exactly pushovers. Theodore Roosevelt relished taking on tycoons of his era. Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon used government agencies to spy on those who angered them. Mr. Clinton pummeled his tormentor, the independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and George W. Bush at times suggested opponents were soft on terrorism."

I would take issue with some of that. I do not recall Clinton saying much about Ken Starr, but I do recall there was nothing Clinton could do about Starr under the independent counsel law of that time, contrary to Trump's ability to fire Comey and to have Mueller fired if he chooses. Baker's invoking all those prior presidents is a distraction, similar to Trump's own twitter deflections to Hillary Clinton and Obama. What we need is reasoned and detailed analysis of Trump's actions in the interest of forcing accountability. Yet, even with his false comparisons, nowhere in this article does Baker mention that Trump, unlike other presidents, has experienced success avoiding accountability.

And what if the goal is to discredit Mueller no matter what he finds and can prove, knowing that the Republican controlled Congress will take no action?

One wonders what 2018 will bring and how the NYT might report it:

"President Trump ordered a nuclear strike on North Korea this morning, much like Harry Truman who also ordered the launch of nuclear weapons against an Asian foe. "

Or, "Trump's declaration of a national emergency and suspension of Congressional elections in 2018 is unprecedented. No other president, Democrat or Republican has taken such an action. Democratic critics argue that Trump's action is tantamount to a declaration of martial law, making the U.S. similar to a 'banana republic' but the president's supporters, especially in the Republican controlled Congress, deride such criticisms as partisan overreaction, saying that the president is protecting the homeland from unprecedented threats."