So Trump has been very busy doing nothing this week.
He declared a national emergency and then went off to play a couple of rounds of golf and haunt an omelette station. Because at a time of crisis, you want to make sure your chief executive is under par and well-fed.
He took to his twitter feed and claimed that senator Richard Burr has declared there is no evidence of collusion with the Russians, despite the fact that the investigation is in fact ongoing, that Democrats disagree with the assertion, and that Burr’s committee lacks the investigative powers of the Mueller probe.
He declared that the wall was already partly built. No. All that happened was that some repairs were recently completed on an already built structure and the money for the repairs came from the Obama administration.
He also roundly condemned Alec Baldwin for his dead-on Trump impressions on SNL, and also went after Jussie Smollett for allegedly faking the assault on himself and blaming it on guys wearing MAGA hats. That really burned Trump’s biscuits. How dare Smollett set up hat-wearing racists for a non-existent personal attack! He singlehandedly made millions of people look bad, even though their own statements and actions have served to make them look far worse.
What I find more problematic is the people he did NOT weigh in against.
1). Christopher Hasson. Hasson is, or more properly was, a coast guard lieutenant and self-proclaimed white supremacist who was planning to kill a ton of people in order to spark a race war. That apparently did not reach Trump’s radar. Not a single word condemning his plans. Then again, he never does. On the rare occasions when he does tweet about some new actions by a racist, or a racist’s assault, the tone and style of the tweet changes which indicates it is being written by someone else.
2). Putin. Putin gave his state of the country speech on Wednesday and basically threatened the United States. He said, in part, “Russia will be forced to create and deploy new types of weapons that could be used not only against the territories where a direct threat to us comes from, but also against the territories where decision-making centers directing the use of missile systems threatening us are located. The capability of such weapons, including the time to reach those centers, will be equivalent to the threats against Russia.” If that wasn’t specific enough, he went on to say, “Among the ruling class” in the United States are many people who are too captivated by ideas of their exceptionalism and their superiority over the entire rest of the world. But do they know how to count? Surely they do. Let them first calculate the range and speed of our advanced weapons systems, and then make decisions on the threats against our country.”
So Putin basically threatened to fire missiles at us.
Trump’s response? Did he tell Putin to screw off? Did he rage over how the strong man threatens nuclear rain on the country he’s sworn to protect?
Of course not. The Department of Justice, that he attacked. The FBI, that he went after. A comic actor, a bad actor, those were worth going after. But one of the most notable threats currently facing the United States?
Complete silence.
There is a genuine possibility that the Mueller investigation could be released while Trump is in Vietnam (speaking of Vietnam, it’s worth noting that in five generations of the Trump family, not a single member has served in the military) meeting with his newest best friend, Kim Jong-un, primarily as a gambit to try and win a Nobel peace prize. Let’s hope he seeks refuge there to avoid arrest.
PAD
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Every time Trump leaves the country I half expect him to seek asylum and not come back.
all of Hasson’s targets were Democrats, or reporters on CNN or MSNBC
therefore, Trump does *not* care.
that’s exactly why he hasn’t tweeted about it.
Of course, the scariest thing about Christopher Hasson is that he was a law-enforcement agent despite being a skinhead for the last 30 years.
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The FBI released a study some years ago about infiltration of the law enforcement and the military by white nationalists. Yes, the FBI, not some “Cultural Marxist Fake News” newspaper or something (though I gather that that is how Trump sees the FBI).
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Of course, Jussie Smollett’s stunt pales by comparision, but he is still a šhìŧhëád. I am really not a fan of the identitarian branch of leftism, and Jussie really went above and beyond in proving the critics right.
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He is an “intersectional” minority that is actually a very privileged individual – affluent, famous, handsome, educated, successful – but I’m sure calling him privileged would be tantamount to heresy if he had not pulled this silly stunt. But a privileged fool he is.
Man, you don’t know the half of it.
This article is from over a year ago, published by Military Times (a somewhat right leaning outfit):
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2017/10/23/military-times-poll-one-in-four-troops-sees-white-nationalism-in-the-ranks/
This may not be quite as isolated as people think.
Just to be clear “somewhat right” is like Republican, not extremist.
It reports on the military… obviously.
Something really should be done about this issue. Unfortunately, a Democrat US President in 2020 seeking to purge the military and law enforcement from white nationalists would face a shitstorm.
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Of course, if there were any whiff of black nationalists or Latino nationalists or Muslim nationalists in these institutions, right-wingers would be screaming bloody murder.
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I do think part of the problem is that the left has drifted away from patriotism since the 1960s. It’s incredible to me how they routinely leave it to the right. When Trump first showed himself as an ally of the Russians, I thought THAT was the time of the left to take it back and wrap itself in the flag, but the American left is too enamored of a certain… I wouldn’t say anti-americanism, but they’
(Continuing because I posted too soon)
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They are too enmeshed in the idea that being proud of American traditions and ideals is a thing of the Right. They always seem slightly ashamed and afraid of being seen as supporters of American Exceptionalism or jingoism or something.
I do think my parents generation in the 60s created a certain min set, I think there is a larger component.
In the 70s, left or right, Americans had trouble getting their patriot mojo going.
After Vietnam, Watergate, gas line, the hostage crisis, and rising crime rates, can you really blame them?
It was more that Reagan took that image and pushed against it specifically, evoking a nostalgia for patriotism of the past.
When he set the right up i that light, well the left had to be perceived as unpatriotic. It didn’t help that they were the ones doing most of the criticizing.
Yes, criticizing your government IS patriot, but liberals had to go against flashy forms of patriotism, and be stuck trying to explain the nitty gritty of things.
It isn’t like the Wall Street guys voting right wing for Reaganomics were doing anything all that patriotic.
But, the Cold War ended, and things became okay, and patriotism seemed less important… until 9/11.
Then came the USA PATRIOT Act (the actual name, it is an abbreviation), enhanced interrogation (aka torture), and two wars.
And any time you were critical you were called unpatriotic, or said to hate the troops.
So doing things to help the country (Depending on one’s views, certainly mine), was falsely labeled as unpatriotic.
Since liberalism is often about moving forward from what is… it will always be seen by many as against an identity.
That is a great summation of why the left is leery of patriotism, but I still think it’s a mistake both in philosophy and strategy.
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The left should never have allowed the right to define patriotism as unwavering obedience to whatever the current crop of GOP policitians dictated.
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The left should have always been careful in making very clear that they were criticizing wrong policies taken in America’s name, and not America itself.
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Current SJWs are multiculturalists that don’t seem interested in making this distinction clear, and more centrist leftists are often globalists who don’t think the distinction is very important. But it is very important in the long run, it’s very important to get back sympathy in the army, and more important of all, it’s essential to offer a Democrat version of patriotism to inoculate America against MAGA-style populism.
I think IO pick up what you’re laying.
When the New Deal was pushed, they didn’t say America was horrible place with horrible people.
When the Civil Rights movement was being championed (which was admittedly more generational and regional than left v. right)they didn’t dámņ the American Dream.
They simply said this is what it is to fulfill the American promise to every one.
When Harry Truman spoke to the NAACP in the late 40s he said he was fighting for every American. That kind of language is important.
As a straight white guy, I don’t view myself as losing any power (maybe because I never really had any personally), but rather allowing women, people of color, and gay people to get an equal chance as me.
The funny thing is, directly after WWII, when we may have been at our most patriotic, we DID have liberal patriotism.
Spreading the American way of life around the world, and improving the lots of others was very much considered patriotic.
Social programs were considered patriotic. Eisenhower expanded the New Deal.
You can love your country, and still believe it can be better. You can believe in your county’s ideas and acknowledge it hasn’t always lived up to it.
And while I do think sympathy from the army is good, the working class used to be the bread and butter of Democrats. A Union employee was almost a guaranteed vote liberal.
As someone who saw long time liberals vote Trump out of desperation,. and then be depressed when he didn’t deliver, I can say that is not only where the votes are, it is where the important work is to be done.
There has been too much courting of Silicon Valley, and not the people they are pricing out of their apartments.
The fact is, if you reach that, you will get the army. Most soldiers aren’t career, ensuring a well paid job afterward is a good start.
However, the sad truth is, the army is complicated.
There are many reasons that people enlist.
One is the deification the U.S. sometimes does to the armed forces. I think this is a very unhealthy attitude.
The branches of the military are jobs, and like any other there are good people and bad people. You hope for more good.
But I think it is the deification that brings in the dangerous elements.
I am glad the military exists. I have people who have and do serve that I care about very deeply. That does not mean I will pretend everyone in it is a saint.
It does personally motivate me to make sure that when they come home they are taken care of, and not sent to places to die for no reason.
As long as the right wing pretends everyone in the armed forces is beyond reproach, and are automatically perfect, it will be an uphill battle.
… For some of the armed forces, not all or even most. But truth be told, right wing or left, those are not the ones I would worry about joining up with such gross organizations.
Hope you read this, took me a while to answer.
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But yeah, that is what I’m talking about.
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The thing is, most people rarely support causes and politicians because they cooly considered the benefits of it. No, they do it because there is a story that wins them over.
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I worry about 2020, I worry that a Democrat candidate will try to borrow too much of the SJWs playbook. Those storylines are nowhere near as attractive as they think. I’m not just talking about white folks tired of hearing how horrible their privilege is, or people being annoyed over fights over symbols like statues and blackface.
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It’s that even minorities themselves aren’t as onboard with this stuff as the SJWs think, IMO. You can’t remove Trump by appealing to stuff that only the campus crowd or the hip media crowd really cares about.
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I read a great article the other day about how Hilary Clinton failed to win over blacks in rust belt states. Black folks that were very enthusiastic about Bernie Sanders, despite pundits telling us that Bernie Sanders didn’t know how to “talk to black people”.
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Because pundits consider the campus crowd, the social justice activists, as the only legitimate voice of minorities. But I bet most minorities actually have basic needs that aren’t so different from the needs of the white working class.
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I do admit that not all the issues SJWs get riled about are fluffy and symbolic. Police violence targeting black and brown people is very real. Sexual abuse and domestic violence is very real (I mean real violence, not, “micro-agression”, “male gaze”, “Aziz Ansari is a bad date” stuff).
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But I think the fight against this stuff would be much more effective if you had a storyline that is inclusive, instead of divisive. A storyline that reflected the fact that most people want injustice and oppression to end, instead of a theory of privilege that seems to say “you white male bášŧárd, this ugly stuff benefits YOU, even if you’re not the one pulling the trigger or striking that woman.”
On a different note: what did you think of the latest Orville episode “Identity: Part I”?
Trump did comment on Hasson the day you posted this entry, Peter:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/431211-trump-responds-to-coast-guard-official-accused-of-terror-plot-its-a
However, he only did so after reporters asked him about it. He certainly did not tweet about it or say anything about it until he was prompted to, unlike the way he does so regarding events that he can parlay into enflaming his base.
Why are you sticking up for Trump so much lately?
I’m not sure how pointing out he finally commented on it later in the day this was posted but only because he was prompted to and then only that one time is “sticking up” for Trump.
Thank you, Jerry. I was going to say just that, but you beat me to it. 🙂
First he attacks the Green New Deal, and now he’s saying that PAD was wrong about his slam on Trump, when he was actually right.
It hasn’t been mentioned in any news reports, but I wonder if Mr. Hassan had individual resentment over his rank/pay grade? He was described as a Coast Guard Lieutenant (O-3) while in his fifties, with previous experience in two other services. I’ve been told that one drop in rank is standard when transferring from one service to another, which if true would mean that all other conditions being equal, he would have been a Commander (O-5) had he maintained a more usual service history. If I understand correctly, ranking O-3 at his age in any of the services would be an indication that further promotion would be difficult, perhaps even unlikely.
hi peter have you voiced your opinion on the trump approval of the ruby mountain deal?
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/ruby-mountains-oil-and-gas-08-02-2018.php