“McMaster, whose temper is legendary, frequently blows his top in high-level meetings,” the report notes, citing national security leaks that he believes undercut his authority. McMaster and Steve Bannon also clashed with each other in front of the president during a reported meeting about a strategy on Afghanistan.
Reports Thursday revealed that McMaster concluded that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice did nothing wrong, amidst questions about her decisions to unmask the identities of Trump transition officials communicating with Russians. A letter from McMaster to Rice also surfaced, showing that he assured her that her security clearance would remain intact.
Some of my fellow feminist journalists saw a paradoxical benefit in Trump’s untrammeled misogyny. The flimsy mask of presidential civility Trump could muster has now slipped; we are back to a woman bleeding from her whatever. “Trump’s persistent attacks on women affirm what feminists have been saying all along: that sexism is still pervasive at all levels of American society,” wrote The Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg.
.. I can’t fault Hillary Clinton’s campaign for its failed strategy of trying to hang Trump by his own words, with commercials juxtaposing his nastiness with children and young women.
.. Trump’s sexist recidivism — our nation’s collective, surreal Groundhog Day — shows the diminishing returns of outrage culture as an end in itself. That there would be no consequences, that he never really needed to apologize, has been Trump’s clearest insight, one he learned and perfected long before he got into politics.
.. Learned helplessness, a term psychologists use to describe mute acquiescence in the face of repeated trauma, is what abusers thrive on.
.. hinging political mobilization on someone being offensive has now been perfected by conservative media, which decries political correctness
We know who he alienates by this behavior — and that includes many mainstream Republicans as well as Democrats. But who is the audience he is playing to?
.. Mr. Trump and his die-hard followers delight in the shock value of violating social and political norms. They revel in the thumb in the eye. It’s intrinsic to the president’s appeal to his base, and it’s increasingly clear that either deliberately or impulsively, both his conduct and his policies are aimed at that base and not beyond it.
.. There is something about his swagger, his unabashed embodiment of a time when women were eye candy and arm candy. And there is something about the way he strikes back at women who anger him that seems to resonate for some men.
.. The uncomfortable larger question is whether this president’s behavior is encouraging and unmasking resentments about women’s place in society.
.. “A subset of men whom Trump appeals to is threatened by women in power,” she said. “They feel their dominance in society is threatened. This is not coming — generally — from college-educated men or those in suburban or urban centers with strong economic prospects.”
.. unless other political leaders address class grievances, Mr. Trump’s appeal will continue to resonate.
.. “Trump’s persistent insults to high-profile women play to that part of his base that has long been incensed at a definition of political correctness that includes women, L.G.B.T.Q. people, immigrants and other groups — but leaves out working-class whites nursing the hidden injuries of class,” she said. “So long as class remains unacknowledged as a key source of social disadvantage, Trump’s insults will feel to some of his supporters like a delicious poke-in-the-eye of elites.”
.. Mr. Trump has in fact turned politics into performance art. Some have likened what he does to insult comedy of the type practiced by Don Rickles. But insult comics are quick to point out that there is a crucial difference. “Insult comedy underneath it all is about affection,”
.. “I saw Trump be a roastmaster at the Friars Club, but he doesn’t have the skill to do this kind of thing with the right intention underneath it. Is it entertaining to some? I don’t find these tweets entertaining in the least. It’s off-putting and it gets to a scary bully level.”
.. Others were overjoyed that Mr. Trump was upsetting “snowflakes,”
.. others believed that the president was justifiably striking back against attacks on him from Ms. Brzezinski and her co-host, Joe Scarborough. Some insisted there was no sexism involved, that women aren’t exempt from criticism and have to learn to take it, just as men do.
.. Ms. Matthews thinks Mr. Trump’s reaction is more visceral than strategic. “He can’t stand to be criticized, especially by a woman, and he can’t stop himself from lashing out,” she said. “There is no strategic audience he is winking and nodding to. However there is a segment of his base that enjoys his political incorrectness — even at this extreme — and I would say his misogyny.
.. Yet criticism, even from Republicans, has not deterred Mr. Trump and some of his supporters in the past — witness how many denounced him over the Access Hollywood tapes. The president has paid no discernible political price for his actions. So that leaves the question very much open whether behavior once ruled unthinkable is again permissible in America today.
Why would a diplomat need to know the names of Trump officials?
The new subpoenas seek details of all unmasking requests in 2016 by three people: former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. Democrats claim Ms. Rice needed to unmask names to do her job, though this is questionable given that she wasn’t running counterintelligence investigations. They have a better claim with Mr. Brennan.
But Ms. Power’s job was diplomacy. Unmaskings are supposed to be rare, and if the mere ambassador to the U.N. could demand them, what privacy protection was the Obama White House really offering U.S. citizens?