Right-wing radio host and documentarian John Ziegler confessed that there was a time he “would have rejoiced at the demise of such a far left zealot” but now wrings his hands that Franken’s resignation “will set an incredibly dangerous precedent which will likely cause chaos and injustice in the future.” Wednesday night, Newt Gingrich — Newt Gingrich! Of all people! — said Franken’s critics were motivated by “this weird puritanism which feels a compulsion to go out and lynch people without a trial.”
.. Much as rape is not opportunistic groping and exposing oneself is not child molestation, there’s a whole scale of consequences available between death and “no longer having an extraordinarily prestigious and well-paying job.”
.. He might have been denied “due process,” but that’s not because he won’t appear in front of the Ethics Committee, which will drop its recently opened investigation if he leaves the Senate; it’s because he’s not being criminally charged. His life won’t just not be over, it won’t even be ruined — he’s a wealthy man with many friends who show no sign of desertion. And I can’t see a man with Franken’s sizable talents and ego ever totally disappearing from the national stage.
.. The standards of evidence necessary to decide you don’t want to
- go see someone’s movie, or
- laugh at his jokes, or
- watch him read the news while you get dressed, or
- elect him to the Senate
are not the same as the ones required to put such men in prison.
.. Indeed, if we listen to those who wail that taking someone’s punditry gig and book contract is the same as if you “kill a guy,”
The Peril of Trump’s Populist Foreign Policy
His style of deal-making prizes uncertainty and brinkmanship, without a plan for what comes next.
Mr. Trump’s foreign policy reflects his instinct for political realignment at home, based on celebrity populism.
Populist movements feed off grievances and impatience with traditional politics. Frustrations—whether generated by economic distress, social displacement, or cultural challenges—fuel skepticism about institutions and elites. Challengers (who want to become the new elite) attack traditional leaders as out of touch, incompetent and corrupt.
.. First, it professes to reflect the will of a scorned people.
.. Second, populism finds and blames enemies, domestic or foreign, who thwart the people’s will. Mr. Trump has mastered insulting such scapegoats.
.. Third, populism needs “the leader,” who can identify with and embody the will of the people. Like other populist leaders, Mr. Trump attacks the allegedly illegitimate institutions that come between him and the people. His solutions, like those of other populists, are simple. He contends that the establishment uses complexity to obfuscate and cover up misdeeds and mistakes. He claims he will use his deal-making know-how to get results without asking the public to bear costs.
.. Mr. Trump’s foreign policies serve his political purposes, not the nation’s interests
- .. He says the U.S. needs to build a wall to keep Mexicans at bay—and Mexico will pay for it. He asserted he would
- block Muslims from coming to America to harm us.
- His protectionist trade policies are supposed to stop foreigners from creating deficits, stealing jobs, and enriching the corporate elite.
- Mr. Trump also asserts that U.S. allies have been sponging off America. T
- he U.S. military is supposed to hammer enemies and not bother with the cleanup—even if the result, for example in Syria, is an empowered axis of Iran, Shiite militias, Hezbollah and Bashar Assad’s regime.
.. The president’s emphasis on discontinuity—breaking things—demonstrates action while disparaging his predecessors.
.. His style of deal-making prizes uncertainty and brinkmanship, which risks escalation, without a plan for what comes next.
.. Other presidents led an alliance system that recognizes U.S. security is connected to mutual interests in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. Past presidents believed that the U.S. economy would prosper in a world of expanding capitalism
.. Mr. Trump dismisses this U.S.-led international system as outdated, too costly and too restrictive of his case-by-case deal-making.
Institutions:
- .. Trump disdains America’s intelligence agencies and is
- dismantling the State Department. His foils at home are
- the courts,
- the press, a clumsy
- Congress beholden to antiquated procedures, and even
- his own Justice Department.
.. Mr. Trump’s recent trip to Asia reveals that foreigners have taken his measure. They play to his narcissism. He in turn basks in their attention, diminishes his own country by blaming past presidents, and preens with promises of great but unspecified things to come.
.. The president’s need to project an image of personal power—for his domestic audience and his ego—makes him more comfortable with authoritarian leaders. Presidents Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte have noticed, as has part of the Saudi royal family.
.. Sixty percent say alliances with Europe and East Asia either are mutually beneficial or mostly benefit the U.S. Record numbers say international trade is good for consumers (78%), the economy (72%) and job creation (57%). Some 65% support providing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, and only 37% characterize immigration as a critical threat. All these numbers have shifted against Mr. Trump’s positions since the election.
Fascism’s Rising in America Because America Doesn’t Understand Fascism
How History Ends Up Repeating Itself
Fascism is a way to ration a stagnant economy to in-groups. If you understand just one sentence about fascism, let it be that one — because it’s the key. Like everything in life, our love, our fear, our desire, so too, our hate serves a purpose. Fascism exists for a reason: to ration the dwindling fruits of a stagnant economy. Think about it this way: if the harvest suddenly fails, then the crop must be rationed somehow — a way must be found to take from some, and give to others, because markets and prices and so on will begin to leave people hungry. What is that way? Who will get it, and how much?
Well, that way is usually this: blaming a scapegoat for the stagnant economy, for the failed harvest, whether it’s Jews in the 1930s, Muslims and Jews and immgrants today, or virgins and witches in the dark ages. And then therefore excluding those scapegoats from the economy altogether, just as laws were passed to first expropriate, take the possessions of, Jews, and then to push them into ghettoes, then into labour camps, and then, finally, terribly, into
.. Of course, the problem then is that even those chosen few must either dwindle, along with the failed crop, in a vicious circle — or the fascist must declare war, and find someone else’s crop to seize, which is what Germany did. Either way, the point remains.
.. Fascism rations stagnation. It’s so vital I’ll say it again. We have never, ever once seen fascism arising during good times in all of human history because fascism is a way to take from some and give to others — a bad, inhuman, and foolish way to solve a problem: the problem of stagnation, when the harvest begins to fail. But it is a way to solve a problem nonetheless, and until we understand that, we have understood precisely nothing about it at all.
.. The fascist’s hate in this way serves a purpose: it is a social mechanism of rationing in order to solve the problem of stagnation.
.. Myth: our existing institutions will save us from fascism.
Reality: fascism can only arises when those institutions have already failed
.. So the rise of fascism tells us in the strongest terms possible that institutions don’t work anymore—fascism rising is their ultimate failure. That is what we see in America today: an institutional vacuum. Nothing works anymore, does it? Not the law, the media, politics, capitalism, democracy. That is precisely what gave fascism the room, space, fuel, freedom to arise.
In China, Trump Employs Tough Talk, Flattery With Xi
U.S. president blames his predecessors, not Beijing, for ‘unfair’ trade relationship
In Beijing on Thursday, Mr. Trump spoke in unusually conciliatory tones during joint appearances with Mr. Xi, hailing their “very good chemistry” while also expressing hope for forceful action from Beijing.
Mr. Trump blamed past U.S. administrations, rather than Beijing, for what he described as a “very one-sided and unfair” trade relationship, adding, “but we’ll make it fair and it’ll be tremendous to both of us.”
.. Mr. Trump did include tougher talk in his pledge to tackle imbalances: “We must immediately address the unfair trade practices that drive this deficit,” he said. “We really have to look at access, forced technology transfer and the theft of intellectual property, which just by and of itself is costing the United States and its government at least $300 billion a year.”
.. “I told President Trump that the Pacific Ocean is big enough for both China and the U.S.,” he said.
.. “It appears Trump opted to publicly play down U.S.-China differences, praise the Chinese people for what they have achieved, and give Xi Jinping face,” said Bonnie Glaser,
.. Beijing’s strategy appeared to be to flatter Mr. Trump into easing up on pressure over trade and North Korea and acknowledging China’s territorial interests and ambitions for a leading role on the world stage.
.. Mr. Trump had told the Chinese president: “You’re a strong man—you can, I’m sure, solve this for me.”
.. However, he acknowledged that on trade, “the things that have been achieved thus far are pretty small.”
.. Mr. Xi is expected to use his speech to the same forum to press the image of China as the new champion of global free trade, and to encourage other countries to participate in his Belt and Road plan for wide-ranging trade and transport links.