Nothing lasts forever, so it’s best to move on before the stench gets bad
Twitter is a hellsite at the best of times, and I have no interest in Musk’s version.
The failure of all the “free speech” (meaning fascist) Twitter alternatives is that there’s no fun in being an unrepentant asshole if you can’t be an asshole towards people who disagree with you. Liberals and other sane people stayed away from Gab, Getter, and Truth Social in droves, so the bullies got lonely and bored. Those sites flopped.
Musk thinks he can solve this by taking over a place already packed with victims to bully, like fish in a barrel. What he doesn’t understand is that Twitter is not a company, it’s a community, and you can’t buy a community. He can take over the site, but he can’t make us stay to get bullied. Moreover, he can’t force us to legitimize the bigotry and other extremism by allowing ourselves to be targeted.
Musk is like the new landlord who raises the rent, stops doing maintenance, and eyes conversion into a condo. Overnight, the place we called home is no more. Thing is, we can move out at the drop of a hat. And that’s what I’m doing: I’m leaving.
Where am I going? Possibly nowhere. If a viable alternative to Twitter springs up and a critical mass settles, I’ll join. For now, I’m /u/TruthSandwichBlog on Reddit and For now, I’m @TruthSandwich on CounterSocial, and I don’t intend to shut down this blog, either, so subscribing is one way to stay in touch.
You should be able to see an image of what my Twitter profile looked like on 2022/04/25. It shows that I posted over 180k tweets over the course of 3 years, most of them RTs of things I found interesting and thought others might benefit from. I’ve engaged with the famous and the not so famous. I’ve made friends and enemies.
Overall, I’m proud of what I’ve done and I’m happy with what I learned and the people I connected with, but I’m leaving Twitter, and so should you.
So long, and thanks for all the tweets.
P.S.
As a public service, I’m going to try to leave this post open for comment, so that anyone who wishes to can use it as a community blackboard to tell each other where they went. Good luck out there.
P.P.S.
I tried Reddit. It didn’t work out. So now I’m trying CounterSocial.
P.P.P.S.
On 11/19/22, Musk opened the floodgates of hell by reinstating Trump’s Twitter account. I took this as a hint that it was time to leave, so I’ve deactivated my account. I can be found on CounterSocial as @TruthSandwich and on Mastodon as @truthsandwich@masto.ai@truthsandwich@qoto.org @truthsandwich@toad.social.
Al Franken, Kirsten Gillibrand, and the politics of accusations and blowback
Note the shadow beneath the fingers; he’s not touching her.
This one’s personal. So there’ll be no food analogies segueing into the topic. I’ll just get right to it.
In the wake of Gillibrand’s departure, I’ve been arguing on Twitter about what happened to Al Franken, and one of the points I made is that the injustice of it only harms the #MeToo movement. Franken never got his day in court; he was pushed out before the investigation which he demanded had a chance to clear (or damn) him.
So, in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m going to reveal the one time I was accused of sexual harassment. This way, you can decide if my defense of Franken is just self-serving, personal bias from a creep. Or, at the very least, you can calibrate against whatever bias you detect.
To protect the guilty, I’m going to avoid sharing most of the details, but I’ll otherwise do my best to be accurate. I’m also going to stick to gender-neutral terms, quite intentionally. It’ll be interesting to see what assumptions readers make.
So, at some indefinite but fairly distant point in the past, I joined an unspecified large company and encountered a co-worker whom I found attractive. They didn’t work in the same part of the company or in the same role, but I did run into them from time to time. And when I did, I was distracted.
There was evidence that the attraction was mutual, but I was still recovering from a relationship that had ended badly and wasn’t really in the market. Besides, dating a coworker seemed like a bad idea at the time. In fact, it turned out to be. But my common sense had to contend with more basic urges, and it was a losing battle.
About six months later, you could cut the sexual tension with a waterjet. It was so noticeable that co-workers were openly commenting about it. The gist of the peanut gallery’s good-natured but nosey remarks was that, if we weren’t already a couple, we should be. We should just get it over with, or get a room already. That room turned out to be an elevator.
At the end of a workday, we wound up alone together in an elevator heading for the streets, and it was awkward. In the middle of my desperate attempt at small talk, they interrupted to question me about why we weren’t dating yet. I didn’t have an answer to that, so I suggested that we should have dinner together. I remember that we were both pretty happy about this at the time. We were relieved, after all that will-they/won’t-they tension.
Later that week, it was the Friday of our first date. I was surprised and wary when my manager sternly called me into his office, and even more so when I noticed that he had a witness in there with him. I could tell that this wasn’t going to be a casual chat.
He didn’t waste any time: he told me flatly that I had been accused of the sexual harassment of a co-worker and that this was a very serious matter. I honestly wasn’t sure what to make of it all. My first thought was that maybe my date had second thoughts or something, but I’d just seen them in the hallway and they seemed enthusiastic about our plans for the evening.
So I asked my boss whom I was accused of harassing. He wouldn’t say. I then asked who had accused me. Same response. More annoyed than flustered, I pointed out that, if I didn’t know what this was about, then I couldn’t say anything, either. That stumped him, so the meeting ended. However, my relationship with my manager took a big hit.
That night, over Chinese food, I told my date this story and they laughed about it, as confused by the whole thing as I was. That dinner went well, and over the course of the next month or so, we went out a few more times before we broke it off, amicably and by mutual agreement. We just didn’t have that much in common, despite that attraction. And after we’d given in to it, we found that there was no basis for anything deeper.
Still, whenever we bumped into each other in the office, it became clear that the sexual tension had not gone away, and had perhaps gotten worse because we knew what we were missing. We tried to keep things professional, but there were still many awkward moments. We even relapsed briefly, kissing in the elevator, before immediately coming to our senses. After that, we did our best never to be alone together, with mixed results.
We hadn’t told our co-workers that we’d been dating, so we didn’t have to tell them once we stopped. As a result, they continued the comments about how we’d make a cute couple and all that. I wanted to just say to them that, no, we weren’t really compatible. But I hadn’t forgotten that bizarre yet scary sexual harassment accusation, so I kept my mouth shut.
To this day, I have to wonder if the relationship would have gone better if we hadn’t had to keep it on the down low. Probably not, but still, I have to wonder. It doesn’t matter. By that point, I had accumulated a variety of good reasons to leave this job, besides my misadventures in dating, so I started looking. It didn’t take long for me to find a place that would let me make a fresh start. When things are uncomfortable, leaving is the natural reaction.
Before I left, I did find out more about that sexual harassment claim, through a backchannel. It turns out that, as the timing suggested, it had actually been about my date. However, the accusation came from a third party; a co-worker who had hit on them and been rebuffed. Presumably, they saw me as a rival and went after me out of some sort of jealousy.
The bottom line is that I was falsely accused of sexual harassment, so I naturally have some sympathy for others who face such allegations. In my case, it didn’t really amount to anything, but I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that I faced a faceless claim against me and had no way to defend myself. About half of Franken’s accusers were likewise anonymous and the one who started the whole thing had questionable motives, much as my rival did.
I also knew my job was on the line, and the fact that my manager didn’t have my back was further motivation not to bother sticking around. That’s why I don’t blame Franken for resigning under pressure when his own party threw him under the bus. It’s not a sign of guilt, but of despair; of wanting to get away from a situation that’s unpleasant and uncomfortable, when those you count on to protect you from unfair treatment are not on your side.
Some people might read this heavily-censored autobiographical account and take home the idea that I’m only defending Franken because I was falsely accused myself. Others, I hope, will consider that my experiences have made me more sensitive to how it feels to be on the receiving end of such an accusation, and more sympathetic to someone who gives up when they lose faith in their colleagues.
My sympathy is not one-sided, because I’ve been on the other end of things. I was sexually harassed earlier in my career, by my own manager. It was a quid-pro-quo request in order to keep my job, and I chose to leave, but didn’t bother reporting it.
When I talk about the problem of false accusations, what bothers me most is that, because there is so much stigma and risk around accusing someone of sexual harassment or worse, most claims made publicly and without the shield of anonymity are true. As a result, every visible instance of a false claim is used to undermine the legitimate ones that vastly outnumber them. I don’t want my defense of one particular person to be abused into a defense of the guilty.
This is what I meant when I said that the Franken debacle harms #MeToo. There is a culture of exaggerating the risk of false claims so as to undermine victims, and what feeds this narrative are the rare exceptions: the illegitimateaccusations that get disproportionate publicity precisely because of their rareness. “Man bites dog” is newsworthy, “dog bites man” is not, so you’d think from reading the papers that dogs fear men biting them and not the other way around.
The only way to undermine this attempt at intimidation is to starve it of support. Yes, #MeToo taught us to #BelieveWomen, but this has to mean that we take their claims seriously and investigate them neutrally, not that we rush to judgment in either direction. False accusations hurt real people, not just the falsely accused but the victims who aren’t believed because there’ve been a few well-publicized false accusations. So we need to trust but verify, not trust blindly.
Some accusations are malicious, others stem from some level of misunderstanding, but the overwhelming majority are legitimate. These legitimate accusations are the ones we need to protect by blocking the illegitimate and mistaken. Moreover, as Pence shows us, a world where women are seen as an occupational risk is not good for women. Excessive zeal to punish the guilty creates harmful blowback that hurts the innocent.
We use aluminum for foil these days, not tin, because it is cheaper and stronger, but we persist in calling it tin. The tin foil is inaccurately named, and everybody knows it, but I’m not proposing a swift, orderly change because this isn’t some sort of conspiracy, just imprecise language.
Whatever we call the foil, it’s pretty useful. I like to line pans and cookie sheets with it so that I don’t have to scrub them, but it’s also good for covering the thin parts of large pieces of meat to prevent burning, and of course, for storage. One thing I don’t do with it is wrap it around my head and wear it as a hat, because I’m no conspiracy theorist.
We laugh at conspiracy theorists, and we are right to do so. Whether it’s the nuts who claim we faked the moon landing or the loons who say the government is controlling our minds with fluoridation or chemtrails or microwaves, they are fools to believe as they do, and doubly so for thinking us fools for disbelieving. Perhaps the worst theories are the ones that are fundamentally political and often blatantly racist: consider such antisemitic favorites as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the blood libel, and Holocaust denialism.
At heart, conspiracy theories posit simple-sounding, emotionally-satisfying explanations for why specific things are bad. As a result—instead of having to deal with a cause that is abstract, speculative, and statistical—believers have a villain to hate.
The psychological rewards are obvious: if there’s a bad guy, then they’re the good guy. If there’s a secret plot that is hidden from all eyes, then they’re special for seeing right through it and being in the know. And if there’s something horrible that they really want to do to other people (see above), there’s a justification so overwhelming that it is (ahem) hard to believe.
Conspiracy theorists believe as they do because they want to, not because they have to. The evidence didn’t force them to accept the conclusion; the conclusion was accepted regardless of or even despite the evidence because it was desirable in itself and for what it brings. Sometimes, they posit these theories to explain away inconvenient truths that they cannot accept. And often, those who create and spread these lies do so on a knowing, self-serving basis.
What gives it away is just how unwilling they are to consider that they might be wrong. They believe (or say they do) because they want it to be true, not because it is. They implicitly recognize this, which is why they overreact to criticism by doubling down (“the more you try to dissuade me, the more convinced I become”), circular reasoning (“the fact that you’re denying it is proof that it must be true”), and paranoia used to reject expertise (“trust no one”).
But not every theory about conspiracies is a conspiracy theory in the normal sense, because there are two necessary elements. The first element of a proper conspiracy theory is that it’s about an action, often an ongoing one, that requires the long-term cooperation of many people who are working in concert to achieve their goals.
This part is actually easy; it’s literally the whole point of a political party or a corporation or a glee club (which is why we should never trust any of them unconditionally, especially not glee clubs). People “conspire”, in this limited sense, all the time, often quite successfully. The second element, which turns out to be the tricky part, is that the conspiracy has to effectively remain secret. After all, it’s not much of a conspiracy if everyone knows. Or is it?
What makes conspiracies implausible, even ridiculous, is that the more people they supposedly involve and the broader the supposed actions are and the longer they supposedly go on, the less likely it is for them to keep it all secret. With so many people, it’s only a matter of time before one of them spills the beans, or screws the pooch and is noticed.
Sure, you can try to explain this away by positing secondary conspiracies to silence, discredit, and even kill those who tell the truth about the primary one, but it quickly stretches all credulity. Two can keep a secret, if one is dead. True secrecy therefore requires a murder spree.
Consider one theory about a truly depraved conspiracy. Imagine if a prominent individual, such as a slimy, Jewish Wall Street billionaire who owns a gossip magazine, were to make a habit of hiring girls—and I do mean “girls”, as many were in their early teens—to “massage” him and perform various sex acts, sometimes by forcing them physically.
Further, imagine if he had “lent” these girls out to famous, powerful people to generate blackmail material and ensure that he was owed favors so he was able to continue enjoying his child sex ring unbothered by law enforcement. Imagine if this involved over 75 victims and went on for over 6 years. Imagine if this remained an open secret; known by many but not acknowledged, much less acted upon appropriately.
Preposterous! Except that it happened and you probably know all about it.
Ok, fine, it happened, but it’s not a proper conspiracy theory because he was unable to keep it up indefinitely. He was, however, able to keep it under wraps for a long time, and then almost entirely avoid the consequences of his crimes. He got “the deal of a lifetime”, and pretty much walked away scott free.
This travesty of justice has since received increased scrutiny, and now he’s under arrest again, so perhaps the arm of the law is long enough that even he can’t escape it, but if so, then the wheels of justice have turned exceedingly slowly, perhaps too slowly. He’s 66 years old right now, and still filthy rich, so he just might be able to drag this out until he dies. If not, he’ll die in jail, which would be just.
The lesson here is that the sort of thing that would be easy to dismiss as a conspiracy theory can actually happen in real life, it just can’t be kept secret forever. It may, however, be possible for the guilty to get away with it for quite a while. The dirty deed would not be a secret, but it also would not be broadly accepted as factual, much less result in intervention and punishment.
Now consider another theory about a conspiracy, this time with even bigger stakes. Imagine if a corrupt foreign government were to use hacking, social networks, and sexy spies to compromise powerful political organizations and even a major party so as to ensure that their asset becomes the American president. This is wild shit, straight out of the Manchurian Candidate, and yet the claim came from President Jimmy Carter and is supported by the conclusions of 16 intelligence agencies.
It turns out that it’s entirely possible to do this sort of thing, at least if you’re Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and to get away with it for years, though not to keep it secret. It’s been in plain sight since the primaries, but there is a gap between the truth being apparent to anyone paying attention and it being incontrovertible to the point where it cannot be ignored, even by those who would prefer to.
So far, nothing much has happened to Trump, and he may yet get re-elected instead of impeached. He may get away with it, even though his presidency is entirely illegitimate and he is a corrupt, traitorous pawn of Russia. He only has one term left, and he’s 73 and in poor health. The grave may get him before justice ever does.
There is precedent for this. Consider that Nixon was not just guilty of ordering the break-in of the DNC HQ in the Watergate Hotel, but was variously corrupt and criminal, yet it took years for him to be brought to justice. Even then, most of his violations were ignored, and he dodged the bullet by getting pardoned instead of being impeached. He never even faced criminal charges.
So, where does this leave us? Well, Carter has pointed out that the American emperor wears no clothes. Mueller did, too, albeit in drier terms and at greater length. The wheels of justice are turning, however slowly, and we can only hope that they grind exceedingly fine. Even if we never stop Trump, perhaps we can purge the Russian taint from the American right wing and block the political aspirations of the next generation of fascists, including Trump’s own children.
In the meantime, we should expect that anyone who mentions the plain fact that Trump is a traitor and the fake president can expect to be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. With so much evidence, though, you’d have to wear a tin foil hat and pull it down over your eyes to deny the plain truth about the man in the Oval Office. The real conspiracy theory is the idea that Trump is the legitimate POTUS.
One of these days, I’ll finally get around to writing up a long, comprehensive rant about what populism is, and incidentally, why it’s terrible. But today is not that day.
Today is the day that a populist resistance led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez succeeded in discouraging Amazon from opening HQ2 in NYC. It’s not Brexit, but it’s a similarly idiotic removal of their own nose to spite their face. Instead of bargaining with Bezos over the magnitude of the incentives, they beat “corporate greed” by preventing thousands of high-paying high-tech jobs from coming to a part of the city that could use them.
Despite these populists claiming to speak for the people, as usual, Amazon’s new office had overwhelming support among New Yorkers. Now the local politicians who chased Bezos out are going to have to face an angry, unforgiving electorate. Perhaps we’ll see some new faces there.
But what’s interesting to me is that Bezos is not only the target of AOC and the rest of the populist left, but of Trump and the rest of the populist right. Of course, Trump despises Bezos because he’s everything Trump isn’t: the self-made richest man in the world, someone who runs businesses that provides a valuable contribution to society, and is respected if not necessarily beloved.
Trump, on the other hand, has lied repeatedly to inflate his wealth—he most likely has less than $3B—and this was inherited, not earned. He got nearly half a billion dollars from daddy (close to $2B when adjusted for inflation), and he did it while criminally evading inheritance tax. If he had taken this fortune and invested it very conservatively, he’d have more money today than he’s gained from a lifetime of grifting. Moreover, he’s despised in America and worldwide. Trump is a loser and Bezos is a winner.
What’s in the news at the time of this writing is the National Enquirer’s attempt to blackmail Bezos with sex texts and dick pics. This is relevant because the Enquirer is not just a purveyor of sleaze, but an arm of the same right-wing propaganda mill that gave us Fox and Breitbart. It actively assisted Trump through a catch-and-kill scheme to cover up one of Trump’s many affairs. The leak came from the Trump-loving brother of Bezos’ mistress and the threat was politically motivated; it was Pecker’s way of apologizing to Trump for flipping on him.
Bezos called their bluff and now they’re in serious trouble, as they’ve violated their non-prosecution agreement with Mueller, much as Manafort violated his plea deal. Frankly, he probably should have called AOC’s bluff, as well, demanding that they offer their own terms for how they would get Amazon HQ2 into NYC. When they refused, it would have been a PR win, but that’s all.
Now, to be clear, Bezos is not a saint. There is room for reasonable people to hold nuanced views and practice selective opposition. But nuance and selectivity are not what populists are known for, and it’s not what we’re seeing here. Instead, both extremes are launching self-destructive attacks for political and personal gain.
So, what does it mean when populists on the left and right alike are opposed to a single person? Well, there’s that old truism about how everything—or at least all meat—tastes like chicken. It’s the same with populism; whether left or right, despite ostensibly being on opposite sides, they have more in common with each other than with the sane middle. Only chicken is delicious and nutritious while populism is idiotic and toxic.
When I attended a public high school, I was indoctrinated in the civil religion of representative democracy.
Under this ideology, voting is seen as a non-partisan good, the very basis of the legitimacy of our government. No matter how much we might disagree on matters of policy or who should be in charge, we all agree that the path to victory is to appeal to the voters. The government is the will of the people, so the people must be allowed to speak.
It turns out that Mitch McConnell, like the rest of the Republican leaders, is a disbeliever in this civil religion; a voting rights atheist. He’s not merely against the Democratic party, but against democracy itself. We know this because he said so, in pretty much those words.
In response to HR 1, the anti-corruption bill that the Democrats are symbolically proposing, McConnell has not only dismissed it as “not going to go anywhere”, he has tipped his hand about how he really sees voting. You see, this bill includes making election day a federal holiday, thus ensuring that citizens will be able to vote without interference from their jobs or the need to take their kids to school. This can be expected to increase participation rates, especially among those who don’t own cars and have little flexibility in their hours; the urban poor who lean Democratic.
McConnell gives up the game when he insists that helping people vote is a Democratic “power grab“. He’s admitting that his party is not the one that the people would choose if they were allowed to choose. Worse, he doesn’t want them to be allowed to choose, because he puts his party’s success above democracy itself. He doesn’t want the legitimate winner to be in charge, he wants his own party to be in charge no matter what the voters want.
This is consistent with decades of Republican-led voter suppression, which includes gerrymandering, felony disenfranchisement, closing polling sites, limiting polling hours, blocking early and mail-in voting, purging the rolls, and outright fraud. And then there’s their quid-pro-quo agreement with hostile foreign powers to use hacking and social media to sway the vote.
The Republicans are not the patriots, they are traitors. They are not the loyal opposition, they are a criminal coup. We should not treat them as anything better than what they are. We should not meet them in the middle, or assume the best. They are scum.
I was asked about Kirsten Gillibrand and the short answer is that, like many liberals, I do not forgive her for her opportunism in going along with the despicable Republican attack against Al Franken. Before I comment, here’s what other Democratic donors have said about what she did.
“I viewed it as self-serving, as opportunistic ― unforgivable in my view,” said Rosalind Fink, a New York donor. “Since then, I have not purposely attended any fundraiser where she was there. And there is absolutely no way I will support her.”
Fink said she condemned Franken’s behavior, but she believed the Senate should have investigated the allegations thoroughly before forcing him out.
“I think it was a big mistake,” said Irene Finel Honigman, another Clinton donor from New York, adding, “I was not that impressed with her to begin with. I think she certainly had potential, but as for many people, this kind of sealed the deal.”
Another donor, who like many others asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, called Gillibrand a “ruthless opportunist.”
“That’s the knock on her, and that’s what this proved,” he said. “She saw an opportunity to be out front, and regardless of the ramifications, she took it.”
Susie Tompkins Buell, a major Democratic Party donor who has championed female politicians, also said she was reconsidering her support for senators who called for Franken to resign.
Note that this blatant, cynical abuse of the #MeToo movement was originated by a political hack: a Republican who was a Fox talking head. She started off by tweeting a picture that she claimed was of him groping her. Look at it. Note how his hands are nowhere near her, he’s mugging for the camera, and she doesn’t look like she’s even asleep. He’s a comedian clowning around, not a sexual predator.
Franken’s reaction was not to try to sweep it all under the rug, but to ask for due process. He requested to be investigated formally by the Senate Ethics Committee, confident that the accusations would not hold up to careful review. He never got his day in court, so to speak, because Gillibrand threw him under the bus, leading a couple of dozen spineless Democrats into a circular firing squad to force him out.
Below is a photo of the entire squad, and it includes presidential hopefuls such as Brown, Harris, Sanders, Booker, and Warren. I hold this against all of them, but I might be willing to forgive anyone but the ringleader.
Gillibrand is dead to me. We already have a soulless opportunist in the White House; we don’t need another. If she would sell out Franken, she would sell out the country. We can do better than this, and we should.
Tulsi Gabbard just announced her presidential bid, but she’s completely unacceptable because of her track record of bigotry. It’s 2019: bigotry is the near-exclusive domain of the Republicans.
So, what did this DINO do?
In 2003, she voted against a bill to oblige hospitals to “provide emergency contraception immediately” to survivors of sexual assault, because it did not contain a “conscience clause,” to allow providers with a religious objection to opt out. She supported government surveillance efforts, warning that the “demand for unfettered civil liberties” could make the nation vulnerable to terrorists. And she joined her father’s battle against what she called “homosexual extremists.” In 1998, Mike Gabbard had successfully pushed for an amendment to the Hawaii State Constitution, to permit the legislature to ban same-sex marriage, which it did. Six years later, Tulsi Gabbard led a protest against a bill that would have legalized civil unions for same-sex couples. That same year, in the Hawaii State House, she delivered a long, fierce speech against a proposed resolution meant to target anti-gay bullying in public schools. She objected to the idea of students being taught that homosexuality is “normal and natural,” and worried that passing the resolution would have the effect of “inviting homosexual-advocacy organizations into our schools to promote their agenda to our vulnerable youth.”
Really, there’s not a lot for me to say here. There is no walking back from this, no evolving, no excuses.
Sure, all things being equal, I’d prefer a woman, but not this one. We can do better. I’m keeping an eye on Klobuchar because she has mid-west appeal without being on the wrong side of the culture war.
I’ll keep this very simple: Trump is a mob boss and this mythical wall is his protection racket.
“Nice country you got there. Would be a shame if someone broke it.”
His MO is to take something away, and then demand payment in order to return it. That’s what he’s doing now with the federal government.
The only way to communicate with him is to speak his own language: power. Start impeaching him on any of the many, many good reasons that exist.
Impeachment is, by design, immune to veto. It cannot be ignored and no temper tantrum or extortion attempt can silence it. It’s how you call the big baby’s bluff.
Essentially, this would dare the Republican politicians to go on record in support of allowing Trump to starve the country. It’s political suicide for them if they stand by their con man.
It’s national suicide to allow Trump to get his way, because it’s not just about a few billion dollars thrown away on a boondoggle. It’s about Trump flexing his power to overcome the checks and balances designed to prevent autocracy.
Letting Trump bully the country ensures a future of bullying, a further drift away from democracy and towards fascism.
When I heard that Trump was going on air during prime time to lie about the desperate need for a border wall or fence or whatever, the anticipation was that he would use the manufactured crisis to declare a state of emergency so as to expand his powers to a proper dictatorial level. This was to be his own personal Reichstadt fire.
It’s almost a let-down that he limited himself to fomenting violence against immigrants with salacious and factually inaccurate stories about the horrors of brown people. By normal standards, this is still horrific, but by the super-low standards of Trump’s new normal, it’s nothing. Clearly, the normalization of corruption and incompetence has continued unabated.
On the one hand, his failure to grab power leaves me with much less to write about. On the other, democracy gets another reprieve. So, on the whole, it’s something of a wash. Stll, instead of something meaty to chew on, all we have are crumbs.
One crumb: Occasio-Cortez appeared on Maddow, sharply contrasting her populist, anti-intellectual approach to politics with the host’s detail-oriented wonkishness. I wasn’t impressed by her performance, and I get the impression that this is true for Maddow as well. AOC is what you get when a low-information voter becomes a politician.
Another crumb: The ongoing revelations about Manafort’s treasonous interaction with Russia — this time, it’s about sharing polling data — combined with the announcement that Rosenstein is leaving soon both point to the Mueller investigation coming to a close. The real story is in the impact of his conclusions, and the worst thing that could happen is nothing.
