The Former Trump Presidency Thread

[LordMortis]

I was prepared to go OUTRAGE but that's a long article on innuendo based on one letter to Trump. That or I read totally differently between facts and plans and quotes demonstrating and trusting articles that simple say "administration officials are considering" and "Administration officials are researching". When I read that, I treat it as a headline where I am then shown the consideration or the people researching and their specifics.

I may drive across median on the way home causing a massive crash and grievous bodily harm to many, but then again, meh.

[Skinypupy]

Trump last night:

The Washington Post said I refer to Jeff Sessions as “Mr. Magoo” and Rod Rosenstein as “Mr. Peepers.” This is “according to people with whom the president has spoken.” There are no such people and don’t know these characters...just more Fake & Disgusting News to create ill will!

Trump literally less than 12 hours later:

Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing. Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!

"I would never call people names. The media insinuating that I do is disgusting and divisive! By the way, did I happen to mention Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd, Lyin' Ted, Little Marco, and Crooked Hillary yet today?"

The fact his supporters continually brush shit like this aside drives me fucking nuts. The cognitive dissonance must be physically painful.

[Rip]

He didn't say he didn't call people names. He said he didn't know who Mr. Magoo or Mr. Peepers were so he wouldn't be calling someone those names.

I would hope he can come up with better names than that. How about Col. Sessions and Sgt. Rosenstein, see now that would be funny.

Sure he calls people names which I guess is why people can make shit up and say he called so-and-so whatever. At this point it is just assumed that it must be true.

[Skinypupy]

Oh, he didn’t use those names.

Well, that makes the POTUS continually using juvenile playground insults for anyone who disagrees with him all ok then!

[Rip]

Oh, he didn’t use those names.

Well, that makes the POTUS continually using juvenile playground insults for anyone who disagrees with him all ok then!

I don't care for it, but someone has to be really hard up when the best they can come up with from leaks is he calls people names.

Someone catch my fainting couch.

[GreenGoo]

I'd faint too if I realized the leader of my country was low esteem 8 year old with the emotional stability to match.

It's not the "Magoo" part of the equation that is worrisome.

[Pyperkub]

If anyone placed any long shot bets on Drumpf nationalizing an industry, you might be in for a windfall...
Trump's Latest Plan for Saving Coal Comes From the Cold War

Now, more than a half century later, Trump administration officials are considering using the same statute to keep struggling coal and nuclear power plants online, according to four people familiar with the discussions who asked for anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Under the approach, the administration would invoke sweeping authority in the 68-year-old Defense Production Act, which allows the president to effectively nationalize private industry to ensure the U.S. has resources that could be needed amid a war or after a disaster.
...
The law allows the president to allocate and prioritize contracts for materials, equipment and services. It also empowers the president to provide incentives to modernize and expand the production capacity of critical resources such as energy -- including buying equipment for private companies to use.

I'll be honest... the Republican version of a free market is different than I expected what with all the socialism talk the last few years.

That's because it's more commonly known as National Socialism. ..

[malchior]

It is hilarious that anyone would believe someone is making up these stories for clicks. He said them. Multiple outlets ran these stories. How many times do we have to play the media lies card only to have it confirmed later? And it isn't just the names. He uses these names to undermine the people investigating him and running the nations law enforcement arms. He isn't just immature, he is fucking dangerous, and hand waving it away doesn't make that any less true.

[Defiant]

Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing. Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!

Trump used a (somewhat uncommon) anti-Semitic phrase against a Jewish person. I wouldn't be be surprised if he hadn't known the significance of the phrase (maybe just repeating a phrase an associate has used), but given that he has repeatedly shown that he is (at best) more than willing to make common cause with bigots, it wouldn't surprise me if he knowingly used it.

[malchior]

I hadn't known that one either - so he uses the coded language of neo-Nazis...terrific.

[GreenGoo]

I hadn't known that one either - so he uses the coded language of neo-Nazis...terrific.

+1.

[Paingod]

I had no idea it was a slur. I would have assumed Trump thought the guy looked tired all the time. It is hard to keep up with his bullshit.

The more you know.

[El Guapo]

I didn't know about the slur either. Stonekettle's conclusion is spot-on, though, especially when you remember Trump's established history of retweeting stuff with pretty explicit neo-Nazi / anti-Semitic content (the one that comes to mind is the image of Hillary Clinton over a pile of money with a Star of David on it). I don't think that Trump himself is anti-Semitic exactly, but at a minimum it's pretty clear that he travels in circles with super explicit anti-Semitic discussion / content, and that he's pretty fine with that.

[Smoove_B]

Add me to the list of people that's never heard that particular coded phrasing, though I guess not hanging out with Neo-Nazis would minimize that? Regardless, I absolutely agree that Trump's use is a sign that he's likely been hearing it fro the circles he runs in. The idea that he'd casually toss it into a Tweet is insane, and yet completely within the scope of everything else we've seen since he's taken office.

[Isgrimnur]

The age-old argument of trying to determine ignorance versus maliciousness.

[malchior]

The age-old argument of trying to determine ignorance versus maliciousness.

This one is less murky because it was a odd attack to begin with. As in I was like - whatever the fuck that means. It didn't fit Chuck Todd as a 'pure visual' attack. He doesn't appear tired to me. In the context where neo-Nazi's throw that out as everyday speech then you have to figure he associates that term with Jewish people lazily or intentionally. Either way it would be the end by itself of almost any other President previously in modern times. For him, throw it on the pile of racist or puerile attacks. The important thing IMO is that this implies a drastic downturn in our public discourse level has occurred. We should all be very concerned by episodes like this because someone competent and malicious is going to pick up this ball.

[Remus West]

Racist is as racist does. I'm am done with people suggesting that Trump is not racist nor is he antisemitic. He is clearly both. His words and actions continually display it yet so many people are so horrified by the idea that we elected someone like him to office they continue to suggest it isn't him but his surroundings. Well, fuck him. You will be judged by the company you keep. He is racist. He is antisemitic. End of story.

[Kurth]

Read this article from Vox this morning. Depressing, but it hits my feelings on Trump and American Democracy perfectly.

The myth of an ending: why even removing Trump from office won’t save American democracy
It feels like this moment in history deserves a definitive ending. It won’t get one.
. . .
We fantasize about an early, dramatic end to the Trump years in part because that signals a return to normalcy and a rejection of all the dysfunctions he symbolizes. For more sophisticated observers who know that the forces that produced Trump will continue after he’s gone, you see either a wallowing into dystopia — musing about an American descent into outright tyranny, of the kind occurring in the formerly democratic Hungary and Poland right now. Or you see fantasies of utopia, as in Bernie Sanders’s characterization of the anti-Trump resistance as a broader “political revolution, something long overdue” that will sweep into power “an agenda that works for the working families of our country and not just the billionaire class.”
. . .

The reality is that Trump’s removal or resignation from office, while desirable, would not do much to change the trajectory of America’s political institutions. And the mounting desire for something cataclysmic that could change their trajectory strikes me as dangerous. The best we can do, I fear, is to muddle along and try our best to keep things from getting worse. And the less we accept that, and the more we escape into fantasias of collapse and redemption, the harder making those modest incremental improvements will be.

Tl;dr version: Getting rid of Trump won’t really do shit to change things in a meaningful way. Not that we shouldn’t do it, just that we shouldn’t expect it’s going to fix anything. It won’t.

[malchior]

I agree with that Vox piece entirely. This is a system that just didn't scale. I think he is only missing one piece which is a bizarre fetish for misinterpreting the wishes of our Founding Fathers like some weird cult. A suicide pact by ancestor in a way. Those men were visionaries but couldn't have foreseen how the world changed. Yet we still talk about protecting agrarian states rights like they had any idea that there'd eventually be an artificial 50/50 trade on new states to protect slavery. Or that populations would eventually crowd themselves into cities and stifle their political voice. On top, we are shackled to bad interpretations of the specifics of the long dead's "beliefs" while the big picture stuff like preserving freedom and liberty go in the trash.

[El Guapo]

Read this article from Vox this morning. Depressing, but it hits my feelings on Trump and American Democracy perfectly.

The myth of an ending: why even removing Trump from office won’t save American democracy
It feels like this moment in history deserves a definitive ending. It won’t get one.
. . .
We fantasize about an early, dramatic end to the Trump years in part because that signals a return to normalcy and a rejection of all the dysfunctions he symbolizes. For more sophisticated observers who know that the forces that produced Trump will continue after he’s gone, you see either a wallowing into dystopia — musing about an American descent into outright tyranny, of the kind occurring in the formerly democratic Hungary and Poland right now. Or you see fantasies of utopia, as in Bernie Sanders’s characterization of the anti-Trump resistance as a broader “political revolution, something long overdue” that will sweep into power “an agenda that works for the working families of our country and not just the billionaire class.”
. . .

The reality is that Trump’s removal or resignation from office, while desirable, would not do much to change the trajectory of America’s political institutions. And the mounting desire for something cataclysmic that could change their trajectory strikes me as dangerous. The best we can do, I fear, is to muddle along and try our best to keep things from getting worse. And the less we accept that, and the more we escape into fantasias of collapse and redemption, the harder making those modest incremental improvements will be.

Tl;dr version: Getting rid of Trump won’t really do shit to change things in a meaningful way. Not that we shouldn’t do it, just that we shouldn’t expect it’s going to fix anything. It won’t.

Our political and constitutional structure is pretty deeply broken in a way that getting rid of Trump won't fix, for sure. I read the other day that by 2030 it's expected that 70% of Americans will live within 15 states, which means that 30% of Americans will be electing 70% of the Senate. Which also means that an even smaller minority of Americans will have veto power over all legislation.

But anyway, first step is to put out the current fire, and then go from there.

[LawBeefaroni]

Racist is as racist does. I'm am done with people suggesting that Trump is not racist nor is he antisemitic. He is clearly both. His words and actions continually display it yet so many people are so horrified by the idea that we elected someone like him to office they continue to suggest it isn't him but his surroundings. Well, fuck him. You will be judged by the company you keep. He is racist. He is antisemitic. End of story.

How many "mistakes" does he get. I agree that ignorance is no excuse but I doubt he/his team is in ignorant on this. He basically started his campaign signalling to Nazis.

One time is a mistake. Two times maybe. After that the most generous interpretation is that you're courting racists and Neo-Nazis. The reasonable interpretation is that you're a racist and a neo-Nazi.

[Zarathud]

It's not who elects Senators as much as it is the asshat Senators who rural States elect.

The fix has to start in the Republican Party and voting out all the Tea Party and Trump ideologues. This isn't the first time a political party has gone off the rails.

[El Guapo]

It's not who elects Senators as much as it is the asshat Senators who rural States elect.

ehhhh, it's still largely about who elects Senators. Every region, state, group of people, etc., is going to elect some percentage of people who are asshats. The difference is that rural states will elect a combination of asshats and, uh, non-hats (regular hats?) who will tend to reflect the values of rural areas, and by definition that will reflect the values of a minority of the population, thereby making the result of democracy differ significantly from the wishes of most of the population. Which is a problem over the long run.

[malchior]

It's not who elects Senators as much as it is the asshat Senators who rural States elect.

ehhhh, it's still largely about who elects Senators. Every region, state, group of people, etc., is going to elect some percentage of people who are asshats. The difference is that rural states will elect a combination of asshats and, uh, non-hats (regular hats?) who will tend to reflect the values of rural areas, and by definition that will reflect the values of a minority of the population, thereby making the result of democracy differ significantly from the wishes of most of the population. Which is a problem over the long run.

It also makes it easier for the oligarchs who really run this country to do so. They just have to concentrate resources on an ever shrinking part of the population that "matters". Over time they get more power for less dollars. It is a huge problem that goes way beyond the Republican party.

[tjg_marantz]

Read this article from Vox this morning. Depressing, but it hits my feelings on Trump and American Democracy perfectly.

The myth of an ending: why even removing Trump from office won’t save American democracy
It feels like this moment in history deserves a definitive ending. It won’t get one.
. . .
We fantasize about an early, dramatic end to the Trump years in part because that signals a return to normalcy and a rejection of all the dysfunctions he symbolizes. For more sophisticated observers who know that the forces that produced Trump will continue after he’s gone, you see either a wallowing into dystopia — musing about an American descent into outright tyranny, of the kind occurring in the formerly democratic Hungary and Poland right now. Or you see fantasies of utopia, as in Bernie Sanders’s characterization of the anti-Trump resistance as a broader “political revolution, something long overdue” that will sweep into power “an agenda that works for the working families of our country and not just the billionaire class.”
. . .

The reality is that Trump’s removal or resignation from office, while desirable, would not do much to change the trajectory of America’s political institutions. And the mounting desire for something cataclysmic that could change their trajectory strikes me as dangerous. The best we can do, I fear, is to muddle along and try our best to keep things from getting worse. And the less we accept that, and the more we escape into fantasias of collapse and redemption, the harder making those modest incremental improvements will be.

Tl;dr version: Getting rid of Trump won’t really do shit to change things in a meaningful way. Not that we shouldn’t do it, just that we shouldn’t expect it’s going to fix anything. It won’t.

Our political and constitutional structure is pretty deeply broken in a way that getting rid of Trump won't fix, for sure. I read the other day that by 2030 it's expected that 70% of Americans will live within 15 states, which means that 30% of Americans will be electing 70% of the Senate. Which also means that an even smaller minority of Americans will have veto power over all legislation.

But anyway, first step is to put out the current fire, and then go from there.

Honest question. If your population figures turn out true and such a small portion of the population is able to elect the Senate like that, won't it also mean that the House will go heavy D as those seats are allocated by population (more or less). Thus creating a balance between both the Senate and House. As envisioned by the founding fathers.

If I'm completely off, by all means someone help me out.

I'm assuming that the Senate won't quite get to 70 R 30D and the house won't go 30 R for every 70D. There's always some variance. But I'll assume strong majority in both.

Won't that just force bipartisanship eventually. With some growing pains in the middle.

[gilraen]

Honest question. If your population figures turn out true and such a small portion of the population is able to elect the Senate like that, won't it also mean that the House will go heavy D as those seats are allocated by population (more or less).

In theory...maybe. It'll take a disproportionate Democrat lean due to heavy Republican gerrymandering (House should have already been WAY more D than it is right now, if you just look at the number of voters per party/per state).

[Defiant]

Honest question. If your population figures turn out true and such a small portion of the population is able to elect the Senate like that, won't it also mean that the House will go heavy D as those seats are allocated by population (more or less). Thus creating a balance between both the Senate and House. As envisioned by the founding fathers.

Big states tend to be fairly diverse, with urban, suburban and rural areas, and with both Democratic and Republican leaning populations, so you would expect them both to get a good chunk of house seats, whereas senate seats are winner take all. Also, even without gerrymandering, a lot of Democrats to a small degree gerrymander themselves since they tend to be more centrally located in cities.

(That's not to say small states aren't diverse either, with each party probably having at least 35 or 40% of the population in all but a few states, but when you only have one or two house seats, it's not like it's going to be as representative, gerrymandering aside.)

[El Guapo]

More to the point, in 1929 a dispute over the fact that big urban states were gaining representation at the expense of rural states in the House led to a law capping the number of House seats at 435. My understanding being that this basically limits the natural effect that would otherwise happen as tjg speculates.

[Pyperkub]

More to the point, in 1929 a dispute over the fact that big urban states were gaining representation at the expense of rural states in the House led to a law capping the number of House seats at 435. My understanding being that this basically limits the natural effect that would otherwise happen as tjg speculates.

Very interesting. That would imply to me that it could be undone (or changed) by a simple majority vote.

[Holman]

I think the ideal of the Senate balancing the House is on shakier ground as states sort themselves out into large, diverse, high-opportunity Coastals and empty, increasingly single-industry Flyovers.

It's one thing for Virginia and Massachusetts to see themselves as polities with individuated histories and political interests within the larger union in 1789. A senate where they have equal representation makes sense. But does that still hold in 2030 when the Dakotas and Oklahoma and Wyoming are basically nothing more than fiefdoms of two or three allied companies in the energy sector?

[malchior]

The idea is fatally flawed anyway because there is no power to force bipartisanship. Especially so when one of the parties is completely broken and has a shrinking base. That will force them into either more desperate straits or possibly to find sanity but there are no signs of the latter.

The Republicans have created doctrines to maintain rigid adherence to the party. In the House the Republicans took up the Hastert rule. That gave outsize power to certain fringe caucuses who could band together to get the majority of the majority. In the Senate you have what I'll call the McConnell doctrine of legislative warfare. When not in power they obstruct. When in power they ignore the minority. They abuse the process. We haven't had a successor to McConnell yet but I doubt his protege will suddenly have a change of heart and be a reasonable and non-shitty partisan. And it gets worse the safer the seats become because people tend to vote for incumbents anyway all things considered.

This is a system that has been breaking down relatively quickly for 20 years or so. The good thing is it'll probably take is a major crisis on the level of 2008. That was a relatively rare event. Hopefully we won't see something like that anytime soon but when you think about it - could anyone rely on this cast of incompetents in the administration and this Congress to pull off a 2008 again? No chance. That is probably the only thing I could quibble with the Vox article about. We'll "muddle through" until it fails. And if it fails it'll fail fast.

[Holman]

In the New Yorker:
McMaster and Commander: Can a national-security adviser retain his integrity if the President has none?

When Trump assumed office, N.S.C. staffers initially generated memos for him that resembled those produced for his predecessors: multi-page explications of policy and strategy. But “an edict came down,” a former staffer told me: “ ‘Thin it out.’ ” The staff dutifully trimmed the memos to a single page. “But then word comes back: ‘This is still too much.’ ” A senior Trump aide explained to the staffers that the President is “a visual person,” and asked them to express points “pictorially.”

“By the time I left, we had these cards,” the former staffer said. They are long and narrow, made of heavy stock, and emblazoned with the words “THE WHITE HOUSE” at the top. Trump receives a thick briefing book every night, but nobody harbors the illusion that he reads it. Current and former officials told me that filling out a card is the best way to raise an issue with him in writing. Everything that needs to be conveyed to the President must be boiled down, the former staffer said, to “two or three points, with the syntactical complexity of ‘See Jane run.’ ”

One of Bolton’s first orders of business was to start dismissing people who had worked for McMaster. Bolton was said to be particularly interested in weeding out “Obama holdovers.” Exiled Flynnstones began angling for a triumphant return to the Administration. If you were inclined to believe that McMaster had achieved anything of note during his thirteen months in office, it was hard not to regard the Bolton appointment as Trump’s repudiation of those achievements. Pollack told me that, policy matters aside, McMaster’s focus on process and precedent was a worthy attempt to inculcate in the President a sense of civility and tradition. “That was the endless challenge—trying to convince Donald Trump to live in the house, rather than just burn it down,” Pollack said. Alluding to Bolton’s ascension, he concluded, “Unfortunately, I think we have our answer.”

Long piece, but worth the time.

[GreenGoo]

When Trump assumed office, N.S.C. staffers initially generated memos for him that resembled those produced for his predecessors: multi-page explications of policy and strategy. But “an edict came down,” a former staffer told me: “ ‘Thin it out.’ ” The staff dutifully trimmed the memos to a single page. “But then word comes back: ‘This is still too much.’ ” A senior Trump aide explained to the staffers that the President is “a visual person,” and asked them to express points “pictorially.”

This can't be true. It just can not be.

Pictures to convey NSC memo information?

[malchior]

Is this really surprising?

[Max Peck]

"Look, POTUS, look. See ISIS. See ISIS run."

[El Guapo]

When Trump assumed office, N.S.C. staffers initially generated memos for him that resembled those produced for his predecessors: multi-page explications of policy and strategy. But “an edict came down,” a former staffer told me: “ ‘Thin it out.’ ” The staff dutifully trimmed the memos to a single page. “But then word comes back: ‘This is still too much.’ ” A senior Trump aide explained to the staffers that the President is “a visual person,” and asked them to express points “pictorially.”

This can't be true. It just can not be.

Pictures to convey NSC memo information?

New NSC memos:

[Holman]

This is so weirdly awkward and forced and passive-aggressive.

Meanwhile, you can practically read Macron's mind: "Pour la France. Pour la France. Pour... la... France..."

[Smoove_B]

How? How does President Trump manage to figure out new and innovative ways to continue to lower the bar? It's absolutely amazing.

[El Guapo]

Macron's the one who apparently put the military parade bug in Trump's mind, so I don't feel *too* bad for him.

[GreenGoo]

Macron made a chump of Drumpf in the handshake showdown, so presumably this is revenge. Given Macron's handling of Drumpf in the past, I'm sure this particular offense rolled right off his back.