The more serious, systemically, is the Russians. Clinton pulls together the most complete account of what we know or should believe, and the story is truly terrifying. Terrifying, not just for what the Russians did — which is terrible enough—but more for how pathetically the public, meaning journalism, reacted.
.. the most terrifying bit of the Clinton account is just how pathetic journalism in America has become.
.. Had this been the Bush administration warning about Russians trying to flip the election against Obama, that would have been heard and believed. The Obama Administration was probably right that its fears would have rendered political.
.. it all ties to the weakness of relying on commercial media to provide America with what America needs to perform its democratic function.
.. No producer is passing the list of stories to be covered on the evening news by the advertising department. But in the discipline of ratings reporting, and the judgments executives make, it is clear to everyone what stories should be covered because it is clear to everyone what stories will sell.
.. It’s not clear American democracy can survive commercial media
.. When you know why you’re doing something and you know there’s nothing more to it and certainly nothing sinister, it’s easy to assume that others will see it the same way. That was a mistake.
This is a perfect account of her — or anyone’s—own psyche. Yet if true, it is a perfect indictment of a campaign. Because of course, no one could have “assum[ed] that others” saw Clinton in the way Clinton and her staff saw Clinton. Everyone in that campaign must have known that way too many in America were incredibly suspicious of her. That suspicion was partly her fault, partly not
.. the consequence of the never-ending attack on her integrity by Sanders, and then Trump was completely predictable. What Clinton faced was an enormous trust gap. And the fundamental question for the campaign should have been, how do we address that gap?
.. How do we convince America that we — certainly more than Trump—want to remake the corruption of DC? How do we become the reformers, at a time when Americans desperately wanted reform?
.. This fact — that Americans desperately wanted reform — is the single most denied fact of DC insiders in both the Republican and Democratic parties.
.. found Americans (both Democrats and Republicans) more dissatisfied with their government than at any time in polling history.
.. Even though her platform on this issue was the most progressive of any major candidate, including Sanders, the fact that she could never make it central to her message convinced me she either didn’t see it or didn’t care about it.
.. Even her book lists reform nowhere on the top issues the Democrats should pursue.
.. This is the core mistake — not just of Clinton, but of too many in the Democratic Party. America is with Reagan—“Government is not the solution. Government is the problem”—not because they believe, like Reagan, that the private market can solve every public problem, but because they believe their government is fundamentally corrupt.
.. They see taxes as a waste — not because the poor don’t deserve help, but because they believe the government is not helping anyone except itself.
.. That blindness leaves the field wide open for the party of no — no taxes, no immigration, no health care, no (more) social security, no protection for privacy, no network neutrality, no family planning, no dreamers.
.. we need to give America a reason to believe there is good in yes. And we will only do that when we convince them that their government works for them—and not the funders, and the lobbyists, and the corporations
Trump Is Going to Make a Huge Mistake on the Iran Deal
President Trump is expected this week to refuse to recertify that Iran is complying with the 2015 nuclear deal, a milestone diplomatic agreement that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Trump seems poised to take that action despite the reality that Iran is not violating the terms of the deal.
- .. In fact, his key national security cabinet officers have publicly said that Iran is meeting its commitments.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with monitoring and verifying the deal, has issued eight reports over the past two years echoing these conclusions.
.. Instead, the president seems prepared to argue that the deal is no longer in the United States’ vital national security interest because of Iran’s other activities in the Middle East
.. rather than take responsibility for deciding the future of the agreement, the president wants to pass the buck. The White House has signaled that after his certification decision, Mr. Trump will urge the Republican-controlled Congress not to reimpose sanctions on Iran that would scuttle the deal. Instead, he hopes Congress will pass new legislation to address concerns that were never part of the nuclear agreement’s original mandate.
.. this decision will breach the trust of America’s partners and isolate our country.
.. If President Trump undermines the nuclear deal, the repercussions for American foreign policy will be disastrous: It will drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, weakening the critical trans-Atlantic relationship and increasing the influence of Iran, Russia and China.
.. when the president travels to China next month seeking support to deal with North Korea’s nuclear program, he will find the Chinese less willing partners. Washington’s credibility will be damaged for the next time we want countries to agree to something, such as
- condemning Iran’s malicious behavior in the Middle East
- or tightening the screws on North Korea.
.. we are likely to lose any possibility of dialogue with North Korea because Pyongyang will assume the United States will not honor its commitments, even on multilateral agreements
.. unjustified unilateral American action will give the Iranians the moral high ground, allowing them to rightly say that it was the United States, not them, who killed the deal. At the same time, if Iran stays in the agreement with the other countries who are party to it, the United States will lose any standing to bring concerns to the Joint Commission
.. The United States, and the world, would lose our eyes and ears on the ground in Iran — the inspectors. This information vacuum could, in short order, lead us to consider military action to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, perhaps leading to a wider war in the Middle East. Given the escalatory cycle we are in with North Korea, as well as Pyongyang’s and the president’s rhetoric, America will be faced with two countries whose nuclear ambitions threaten our security.
..
Iran and our allies in this agreement know that a congressional election is looming, and a tough stance against Tehran could make for appealing campaign ads. The president and the Republican-controlled Congress are not only playing with fire. They are lighting it themselves.
Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin Risk Their Reputations
When Cohn joined the Trump administration, many corporate executives were relieved, seeing him as a steadying influence.
.. Now, unfortunately, both Cohn and Mnuchin are endangering their reputations in their attempts to sell a tax cut.
.. Within the administration, there are real differences among how top officials have behaved and how they are perceived. Several — Tom Price, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and Rex Tillerson — have badly sullied their standing with virtually everyone outside the administration. After long careers, they have turned themselves into punch lines.
.. The clearest exception is Jim Mattis, the defense secretary. Mattis has done so partly by avoiding scandal and minimizing conflicts with Trump. But he has also been careful to set his own ethical boundaries. Can you recall a single time when Mattis has said something outright untrue? I can’t. That’s how he has retained his dignity in the eyes of so many people.
.. In the early stages of promoting Trump’s tax cut, they have made a series of statements that are blatantly false — not merely shadings of truth or questionable claims but outright up-is-down falsehoods mocked by various fact-checkers. The statements make the two look more like Trump press secretaries than serious business executives whom members of Congress can trust.
.. They fall into two main categories. The first is who benefits from the tax plan. “Wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut,” Cohn said on “Good Morning America.” He was echoing a promise that Mnuchin had made before the inauguration: “Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions, so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.”
.. Want to guess how many families in New York State — population 20 million — are wealthy enough that they’re likely to pay any estate tax next year, according to an estimate based on I.R.S. data? Just 470. The number is so low in Montana, Vermont, West Virginia and four other states — likely fewer than 10 families in each — that the I.R.S. doesn’t provide details, to avoid privacy concerns.
.. Then there are the two men’s deficit claims. “This tax plan will cut down the deficits by a trillion dollars,” Mnuchin said. Cohn claimed that “we can pay for the entire tax cut through growth.”
.. The Harvard economist Greg Mankiw coined the phrase “charlatans and cranks” specifically to describe people who claim that tax cuts pay for themselves. And Mankiw is a conservative who’s worked for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.
.. Neither one of them has yet turned 60 years old. These won’t be their last jobs.
What Sincerity Looks Like
a string of references to Swift’s various public beefs — with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, and so on. If Donald Trump or his political enemies made a video about their Twitter wars, it would look like this.
The crucial lyric is “I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me.” The world is full of snakes. The only way to survive is through combat. (“I got smarter. I got harder in the nick of time.”)
This is a song for a society without social trust. Everybody is vying for fame and dominance. Swift was a former innocent who was perpetually being turned into a victim, but she’s learned her lesson. The only way not to be a victim is to be venomous. “Look what you made me do!” she barks over and over.
.. A person has a soul, which is what Chance is worrying about. A brand has a reputation, which is the title of Swift’s next album. A person has private dignity. A brand is a creation for an audience. “I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams,” is how Swift puts it.
.. The second thing you notice is the difference between sincerity and authenticity. In Lionel Trilling’s old distinction, sincerity is what you shoot for in a trusting society. You try to live honestly and straightforwardly into your social roles and relationships. Authenticity is what you shoot for in a distrustful society. You try to liberate your own personality by rebelling against the world around you, by aggressively fighting againstthe society you find so vicious and corrupt.
.. Back in the 1950s, sincerity seemed treacly and boring, and authenticity, in the form of, say, Johnny Cash, seemed daring and new. But now rebellious authenticity is the familiar corporate success formula, and sincerity, like Chance the Rapper’s, is practically revolutionary.