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.
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.[...]
And here his base wanted so desperately to believe -- against all clear evidence to the contrary -- that a "businessman" would be so much more competent in the office than a career politician. If only that were true, we could sleep safer.
ReplyDeleteMencken:
"No one in this world [...] has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
Even more relevant, from same:
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
He wrote that in 1920! Havlevai that he were wrong....!
Time to suspend the Constitution. It's just getting in the way at this point. Or, at least, the First Amendment.
ReplyDeleteDJT way ahead of you there.
ReplyDeleteFrom goodreads.com:
ReplyDeleteWhen you're born into this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America you get a front row seat.
-George Carlin
Hear ya. He's got a great routine, btw, on Clinton, to whom the 1992 voters opined, "At least he's honest!" Look it up.
ReplyDeleteVery true, and very relevant today on the other side of the political aisle.
“At the root of Trump’s new fury: Total contempt for American democracy”
ReplyDeleteAn opposite opinion see https://www.wsj.com/articles/populism-need-not-be-undemocratic-1488931148
Populism Need Not Be Undemocratic
Differences on policy aren’t the same thing as assaults on basic institutions…Although the president vehemently disagreed with the Ninth Circuit on his initial immigration and refugee executive order, he did not disregard the court’s ruling but chose instead to draft a new order. The rule of law remains intact, and so does the independence of the judiciary. If Mr. Trump were to use the Internal Revenue Service or the Federal Communications Commission to suppress media organizations whose views he dislikes, we would face a threat to democracy. This has not happened, and there is little evidence that it will.