Tag Archives: US Politics

Donald Trump gets away with bullshit: The magical secrets that help him con the press

Trump simply isn’t concerned with the truth of anything he says. He’ll elude the media until they understand that

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz

Credit: AP/John Lochner

The reality of Donald Trump’s months-long dominance of the GOP primary race has suddenly started sinking in with political elites, as has a new willingness to openly talk about his pervasive lying.

After that, the willingness to start using the word “fascism” was not far behind. The phenomena are related, of course. GOP politics have been based on lies and authoritarianism since at least the time of Richard Nixon. But now it’s happening in a new key, in a higher register. The old system for managing the lies, manipulating their salience, directing and redirecting the anger and adoration they arose, that system has broken down badly in the last several years, and it now seems to have broken down irreparably.

Nate Silver makes a crucial point, however, tweeting, “One can coherently argue that Trump isn’t ‘lying’ so much as bullshitting, in the H.G. Frankfurt sense of the term.” Frankfurt’s book “On Bullshit” argues that bullshitting is a more radical attack on truth than lying is:

[B]ullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant.

Bullshitting is anything but new to politics, of course. So the question really is: how is Trump’s bullshitting different? Although David Roberts doesn’t use the term “bullshit”, he does keenly see the problem in similar terms. The establishment media “don’t mind being properly lied to; it’s all part of the game,” Roberts writes. “What they cannot countenance is being rendered irrelevant. Trump is not kissing the ring.” Trump’s contempt for the media is all part of the proto-fascist package, of course, as well as being the natural outgrowth of decades of media-bashing.

More on Roberts in a moment, but first a nod to what the alternative might be. Jay Rosen has a sharp analysis of how this breakdown in gatekeeping function reflects institutional problems connected to a vapid notion of objectivity, which he’s elsewhere critiqued as “the view from nowhere,” a term he’s been using since 2003. If asked “What’s your agenda in covering the campaign?” they would all reply, “No agenda, just solid coverage.” But the one journalist who’s perhaps done the best job of accurately portraying Trump, Univision’s Jorge Ramos, clearly has an agenda — representing his audience’s intense concern for comprehensive immigration reform — and yet, Rosen notes, that doesn’t prevent him from accurate, incisive reporting; in fact, it helps guide him in that reporting, which has pressured politicians of both parties:

The example of Ramos shows that knowing what you’re for doesn’t have to mean joining the team or taking a party line. It’s possible to maintain your independence, win trust with your audience, and gain a clear sense of purpose when you’re out on the campaign trail. But you have to break with the pack.

Of course, every news organization can’t be Univision, but there other ways to find a different agenda, one that actually connects with what people care about. Rosen links back to 2010 proposal he made for a citizen’s agenda approach, one that would start by asking the public, “What do you want the candidates to be discussing as they compete for votes in this year’s election?” and use that as the foundation to build on. Another approach could be built based on public interest polling of the sort developed by Alan Kay in the 1980s, which I wrote about in October. Alternatives exist. And they provide ways to reconnect media with the broader public they’re supposed to serve. But it takes real courage to pursue them.

That said, let’s return to the question of how things suddenly got so much worse this cycle with Trump. As Roberts points out, GOP truthiness long predated Trump, but the media’s power to restrain it has eroded precipitously. He notes that the right has long been working hard to erode the media’s critical power, with constant accusations of bias to stifle critical media judgments on the one hand, while on the other hand developing “a network of partisan think tanks, advocacy organizations and media outlets that provide a kind of full-spectrum alternative to the mainstream.”

The result, Roberts says, “has been a kind of fragile detente. A certain style of lying has become more or less acceptable, as long as it follows unspoken rules,” rules which Donald Trump is now breaking. Or, to rephrase it in Frankfurt’s terms, one framework of bullshit is being challenged by another. Roberts identifies three rules of lying that Trump has broken:

“1.) Lies about policy are fine; lies about trivial, personal or easily verifiable claims are not.” Trump, however, tells both kinds of lies with impunity.

“2.) Lies are fine as long as an ‘other side’ is provided.” But Trump doesn’t bother with this at all. “He rarely mentions studies or experts, other than occasionally name-dropping Carl Icahn. He rarely mounts anything that could even be characterized as an argument. He simply asserts.” Which leaves journalists fresh out of fig leaves. “He calls their bluff, forcing them to be with him or against him,” which clearly they can’t do using what Rosen calls the “view from nowhere” model they’ve lived within for so long.

“3.) Nine lies are fine as long as the tenth is retracted.” Call it the face-saving rule. In contrast to the constant flood of lies, “when a politician goes overboard and makes an obviously, verifiably false claim about a matter of recorded fact, the media will browbeat him or her into retracting it and apologizing.” It lets the press feel relevant, even powerful. “But Trump does not back down, retract or apologize, ever, not even for the most trivial thing. He refuses to allow journalists and pundits to validate their watchdog role.”

Roberts goes on to make additional significant points — that Trump is basically an opportunist beneficiary, “taking advantage of a faction of the electorate that has been primed to respond to someone like him,” over a period of decades, and that “the social and demographic trends driving the Trump phenomenon are far deeper than Trump himself. They will outlast him.” All that is true, and more. Both Roberts and Rosen deserve to be read and re-read in full.

But I believe that this list of ways that Trump breaks the rules is only a first approximation, primarily because it presents an even-handedness that never actually existed. For example, most of Bill Clinton’s presidency was plagued by ongoing rightwing conspiracist obsessions which filtered into the mainstream media. Most of the really wacky stuff (like the “Clinton body count”) never got through to the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post, but those two bastions of the “liberal media” did carry the torch for the Whitewater investigation, as Gene Lyons documented in Fools for Scandal: How The Media Invented Whitewater. They were instrumental in keeping the investigation alive, most notably by burying the results of the Pillsbury Report, commissioned by the Resolution Trust Corporation, which found the Clintons innocent of any wrongdoing in 1995.

So it’s not really true that the media polices “lies about trivial, personal or easily verifiable claims” whether on the left or the right. Indeed, the explosive growth of conspiracies in the 1990s helped to erode the distinction between such lies and lies about policy. Conspiracy narratives question, reinterpret or outright fabricate facts on the one hand and policies on the other. One hallmark of conspiracist thinking is its self-sealing nature: any evidence that appears to refute it is actually just evidence of an even-deeper conspiracy. The conservative embrace of global warming denialism is a major example of how such thinking has thrown the mainstream media into a semi-permanent state of disarray.

Still, the list Roberts offers is a decent first approximation. If not an iron law, it points to strengths and weaknesses of how the media has generally dealt with lies up till now. What’s more, it helps illuminate the way that Sarah Palin helped set the stage for Trump. In a broader sense, as David Neiwert touched on recently, Palin was a significant figure in the virulent growth of rightwing populism which Trump embodies today, and which is bringing dangerously close to outright fascism.

Perpetuating “lies about trivial, personal or easily verifiable claims” is hardly the worst or most central thing about a movement tending towards fascism, but it is an inescapable ingredient. The sense of grievance is a root sentiment such movements thrive on, and figures like Palin and Trump are master grievance collectors, who never let inconvenient facts stand in their ways: They simply invent new ones to serve their needs. Trump’s breaking of the second lie gets closer to the heart of the fascist direction he’s taking us in: the overthrow of all existing institutions, sweeping them aside as forms of weakness and disease.

With these thoughts in mind, we can look back at a scandal plaguing Sarah Palin as she stepped onto the national stage, and see it in a very different light — the Troopergate scandal. It concerned her abuse of office in pursing a vendetta against her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, attempting to get him fired as state trooper and letting her husband run wild in the process.

There were two more deeply troubling stories about Palin that the press overlooked at the time. The first concerned her long history of involvement with secessionists in the Alaska Indepenence Party, an excellent account of which appeared here in Salon, by David Neiwert and Max Blumenthal. It’s certainly hard to square Palin’s self-identification as a “real American” with years of palling around with folks who want nothing more than to leave America forever, but that’s exactly what Palin did. The second concerned her life-long association with an extremist religious cult movement, known as the Third Wave movement, or the New Apostolic Reformation. It’s part of a wider dominionist movement which seeks to take “dominion” over secular society and government in the U.S. and throughout the world. The mainstream media wouldn’t touch reporting on Palin’s NAR involvement; for that you had to rely on researchers like Bruce Wilson and Rachel Tabachnick at Talk2Action.org.

 

Written by  via SALON

R.I.P., GOP: Party of old, disillusioned white people is dying a slow death

Changing Demographics will be the death knell for the Republican Party — even though it may take White House in ’16

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Credit: Samuel-Warde

No matter who wins the nomination battle, the Republican Party has a much bigger problem: demographics. A new report released by the Center for American Progress analyzed the demographic advantages for Democrats in 2016 and beyond and the results are overwhelmingly positive.

And this should surprise no one.

Observers on both sides have long questioned the Republican Party’s viability in an increasingly progressive and less white America. With every national election, it becomes more obvious that the GOP’s “Southern Strategy,” which exploited racial and cultural resentment for votes, has finally backfired.

As The Nation’s William Greider wrote in October: “The GOP finds itself trapped in a marriage that has not only gone bad but is coming apart in full public view. After five decades of shrewd strategy, the Republican coalition Richard Nixon put together in 1968 – welcoming the segregationist white South into the Party of Lincoln – is no devouring itself in ugly, spiteful recriminations.”

Greider was responding to the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, who left on account of the nihilistic Tea Party caucus. The Tea Party extremists in Congress, like the social conservatives who supported them, are part of a reactionary movement of cultural discontents whose only purpose is to negate and obstruct, and they’ve proven that in office.

This movement, which has consumed the Republican Party, consists primarily of old and disillusioned white people who are rejecting a world that, in many respects, has passed them by. The nativism, the xenophobia, the social hysteria, the religious demagoguery – this is what defines the GOP now, and it stems from the party’s cynical plot to capitalize on cultural angst nearly fifty years ago.

Although it worked in the short and medium-term, the “Southern Strategy” is now the most likely cause of death for the Republican Party. Republicans still hold 31 of 50 state governorships and they control most state legislatures, but that’s not the problem. Today and moving forward, the GOP will find it harder and harder to compete for national elections.

By appealing to the fears of culturally isolated white people, the Republican Party has created an intractable demand-side problem: Gradually, their platform has become dominated by social and religious issues which alienate nearly everyone outside of their base. Given the shifting demographics in this country, this portends doom for the GOP.

From the Center for American Progress report:

“Recent social trends present significant headwinds for Republicans, particularly as they relate to demographic shifts in the country. For years, Republicans could rely on white voters—and, in particular, working-class whites—to constitute a decisive proportion of the electorate and deliver victory. This is no longer the case. As documented in the 2014 “States of Change” report—published jointly by the Center for American Progress, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Brookings Institution—the percentage of white voters in the actual electorate dropped 15 percentage points, from 89 percent in 1976 to 74 percent in 2012. The percentage of white working-class voters dropped even more, decreasing by 26 points over the same period. Future projections in the “States of Change” report suggest that the percentage of eligible white voters in the American electorate will drop to 46 percent by 2060…The decline in the white percentage of the electorate has coincided with stronger Democratic identification and voting patterns among nonwhite voters, as well as increasingly more liberal social views among higher-educated white professionals.”

The writing is on the wall, in other words. In its current form, the GOP can’t survive, not if these projections are even remotely accurate. It will become a regional party, propped up by parochialism and gerrymandered districts. None of this means the Republicans can’t win in 2016. What it does mean, however, is that they’ll have to overcome a significant demographics disadvantage, a disadvantage that will only grow over time.

For the Democrats, the landscape is far more encouraging. Virtually all of the numbers favor a Democratic candidate in 2016:

“If the Democrats receive their 2012 levels of support among these three groups in 2016—an 11-point deficit among white college graduates; a 22-point deficit among white working-class voters; and a 64-point advantage among minority voters—the party will easily win the popular vote by a 6-point margin. If support for the Democrats among minorities declines to our more conservative estimate of 78 percent, they would still win the popular vote by 4 points. If, on top of that diminished minority support, white working-class support replicates the stunning 30-point deficit congressional Democrats suffered in 2014, while support among white college-graduates remains steady, the Democratic candidate would still win the popular vote—albeit by a slender margin. If, however, white college-graduate support also replicates its relatively weak 2014 performance for the Democrats—a 16-point deficit—Republicans would win the popular vote by a single point.”

The popular vote won’t decide the election, but it’s an indication of where the country is politically. The Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential campaigns – that trend will continue and, eventually, it will translate into more and more electoral votes.

In 2016, all the Democrats need to do is hold on to the Obama coalition, and even that’s not entirely necessary. As the CAP report notes, the “sobering reality for Republicans is that the Democratic candidate will be able to absorb mild levels of defections or lower levels of turnout from its core voters in the general election and still capture an Electoral College majority.” Because of its over-reliance on white male voters, however, the GOP can’t win a national election unless turnout is historically low for the Democrats. And they still have to appeal to a cross-section non-ideological working-class voters. But the anger and the bitterness pulsating through their base at the moment will surely turn moderates and independents off, and the GOP can’t afford that.

Whatever happens next year, it’s clear that the GOP is slowly pandering its way into oblivion. The country has changed demographically, culturally, and politically – and the Democrats have changed with it. The Republican Party has not. And if Donald Trump’s present success is any indication, it’s headed in the wrong direction.

 

Written by  via SALON

How Hillary Clinton could win the White House by March

First, crush Marco Rubio, and then take the rest of the year off.

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(Source: Getty Images/ Chip Somodevilla)

Hillary Clinton’s only real competition among Republicans is Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are too extreme for most Americans, and truly leave her unparalleled in experience and political clout.

If Hillary Clinton and her allies are smart, they’ll spend their $50 million-plus campaign war-chest over the next few months making sure Marco Rubio doesn’t get the Republican nomination.

They’ll run ads in the primary states trashing the Florida senator among conservatives — cleverly hiding the source of the ads behind secretive super PACs with conservative-sounding names.

They’ll encourage Democratic activists to cross over to GOP primaries to support Rubio’s extremist opponents.

Hillary herself may even help out by making a couple of high-profile speeches in which she praises Rubio for his “moderation” and “bipartisanship” — especially, she might say, “on the subject of immigration.” Nothing could hurt the young senator more with the GOP base.

Obama could take him golfing.

Following this week’s Republican debate, it looks increasingly like the race is down to three candidates: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, real-estate huckster Donald Trump and Rubio.

If the GOP goes ahead and picks Cruz or Trump, Hillary could probably take the rest of 2016 off to work on her inauguration speech. Both men are extremists, and are traveling with more baggage than Kim Kardashian. The only people who think they are remotely electable in a general election are the increasingly narrow group of people who make up the Republican party base.

We’re talking about people who think “Benghazi” is one of the top three issues facing America.

Who think global warming is a sinister “one-world” plot to take away our pickup trucks and make us all slaves.

And who think 300 million guns are making us all “safe” while 5-year-old Syrian refugees are going to kill us.

The biggest single fact: While individuals rise and fall from poll to poll, overall the four extremist candidates of Trump, Cruz, Rand Paul and Ben Carson have been consistently sharing about 65% in GOP polls.

It’s hard to credit, but the party of Abraham Lincoln has apparently become the party of Jefferson Davis. “Angry white men of the South, arise!” (Yes, Carson, an evangelical Christian, is African-American — showing that even the most conservative coalitions can evolve.)

Meanwhile, the party is losing millennials, professionals, the college-educated, women and Hispanics by wide margins. Good luck with that.

Rubio, on the other hand, could pose a serious challenge to Hillary. He’s a young, telegenic Hispanic American. Her best chance to stop him is now, not next fall.

Yeah, I know, people will say I’m only writing this because I’m part of the fancy-pants, pointy-headed elitist East Coast liberal media and therefore cheering for Hillary.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a member of the media, I stand to gain the most if America elects an extremist wacko who generates lots of news, most of it bad. Trump would be the best. Under President Trump, no journalist would want for a job, and no website for eyeballs — at least until he was impeached, America declared bankruptcy or nuclear war killed us all. Failing Trump, any of the other GOP extremists would be just fine. Among the Democrats, Bernie Sanders would be pretty good for the news business too.

For journalists, Hillary Clinton would be a terrible president. It would be four or eight years of guaranteed boredom — unless she divorced Bill, say, or had a fling with a male intern in the Oval Office.

Yet, facts are facts. At this point, it seems almost certain it’s going to be Clinton and Rubio. And if Hillary Clinton has smarts, she’ll make sure it isn’t Rubio.

Eight years ago, Rush Limbaugh and right-wing Republicans inserted themselves into the Democratic primary process by launching “Operation Chaos.” Perhaps some Democrats may feel it’s time to return the favor.

If pro-Clinton allies are smart, they’ll create new secretive super PACs with names like “Patriots for American Values” and “Veterans for American Families” and “Patriotic American Veterans for American Family Values.”

And then they’ll swamp the airwaves in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere with ads trashing Marco Rubio among conservatives.

Say he’s soft on Hispanics, Muslims and other non-Aryans.

Say he’s for “amnesty.”

Say he’s a “career politician” who’s “never had a real job.”

And take a leaf out of the New York Times’ preposterous stories and say that he’s fiscally irresponsible because he had to pay late fees on his credit cards a couple of times. Oh, yeah, and he once leased a Lexus with his own money.

They’ll tie Rubio’s personal loans to the issue of the rocketing national debt. “If Marco Rubio can’t even handle his own finances, how can we trust him with America’s?” No, it makes no sense, but what’s that got to do with anything?

Stay tuned.

Published: Dec 18, 2015

Group Backing John Kasich Likens Donald Trump to Hippo in New Ad

HIPPO-CRIT

By NICK CORASANITI via NYTimes

New Day for America, a “super PAC” supporting Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, is aggressively attacking Donald J. Trump, now with a mocking commercial titled “Hippo-Crit” that suggests Mr. Trump belongs in the White House about as much as he belongs in a zoo.

On Screen

Mr. Trump and a hippopotamus, their mouths agape, alternate or share the screen, as a visual device resembles the bars of a cage. Both are seemingly “voiced” by the snorts and grunts of an indeterminate off-screen mammal. Unflattering images of Mr. Trump flip or spin away before surveillance-style images show Trump-brand neckties made in China and his “palatial D.C. hotel” being built by “illegal immigrants.” Available to save the day in the end is Mr. Kasich, shown in a contemplative pose beside an American flag and a large, Oval Office-like window.

The Message

Other attacks on aspects of Mr. Trump’s background have whiffed. But this ad pungently goes after Mr. Trump on two of the red-meat issues that have made him so popular with rank-and-file Republicans: illegal immigration and the outsourcing of American jobs.

Fact Check

Mr. Trump’s name-brand ties are indeed made in China, a decision he defended on grounds that China “has manipulated their currency to such a point that it’s impossible for our companies to compete.” The Washington Post found several workers at Mr. Trump’s Washington hotel project who had entered the country illegally. His campaign says the project is following all applicable laws.

Where

On New Hampshire television stations as part of a $2.5 million ad campaign against Mr. Trump.

Takeaway

Attacking Mr. Trump on immigration and jobs — issues on which he has based much of his campaign — and with the sort of ridicule that Mr. Trump has used on others, could gain Mr. Kasich some much-needed attention.

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Chris Christie Reminds Voters, Again and Again, of His Prosecutor Days

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By ALAN RAPPEPORT via NYTimes

Most governors who seek the presidency promote executive experience as their chief credential, regaling voters with tales of big decisions they have made and budgets they have balanced.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey also mentions those things, but lately he has been digging deeper into his résumé. With terrorism taking center stage in the 2016 race, Mr. Christie seems to take the most pride in his days as a federal prosecutor.

Five times during Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, and often unprompted, Mr. Christie managed to work in the fact that he was once a United States attorney in New Jersey. The experience, he argues, makes him best suited to destroy the Islamic State.

“I will tell you this, I’m a former federal prosecutor, I’ve fought terrorists,” Mr. Christie said in opening remarks.

Moments later, when asked how he would alleviate the fear of terrorist attacks that has become pervasive in America, Mr. Christie said that because of his work as a prosecutor he knew that terrorists were planning attacks elsewhere. People have good reason to be worried, he suggested.

“I could tell you this, as a former federal prosecutor, if a center for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, Calif., is now a target for terrorists, that means everywhere in America is a target for these terrorists,” Mr. Christie said.

As rivals debated the details of immigration policy, Mr. Christie jumped in to make the case that Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz were just talkers who knew nothing about really fighting terror. As a prosecutor, he reminded viewers again, he has actually gone up against terrorists.

“This is the difference between having been a federal prosecutor instead of being one of 100 people debating it,” Mr. Christie said, explaining that he had used the Patriot Act to stymie attacks in New Jersey.

Mr. Christie was appointed as federal prosecutor in 2001 and served in that role until 2008, before becoming New Jersey’s governor. His popularity in the state has faded in recent years amid economic turmoil, the George Washington Bridge scandal and frequent travel around the country to raise money and campaign for higher office.

Looking to jump-start his flagging presidential campaign, Mr. Christie has latched onto his experience from the aftermath of attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to remake himself as a national security candidate.

As Tuesday’s debate was winding down, the conversation turned to taking in Syrian refugees. Mr. Christie has taken a hard line on the issue, saying that none should be accepted and pointing to concerns raised by James Comey, the F.B.I. director.

“Now, listen, I’m a former federal prosecutor, I know Jim Comey,” Mr. Christie said, mentioning that the two go way back and had even worked together in law enforcement. “He was the U.S. attorney in Manhattan when I was a U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

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