Tag The Bulwark

Petard, hoist away

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Clown-show fascism describes a regime marked simultaneously by hubristic and defiant assaults on the democratic and constitutional order on the one hand and, on the other, a nearly laughable incompetence in just about every other area of the regime’s activity.

Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, April 28, 2025

We can disagree about the goals of any president. In the before times, we all had some point of departure with what every president wanted to do. It was expected, frankly: any honest observer of and thinker about political issues disagreed with the current administration on something, even when it was a president you had voted for (or even a president you worked for!). That’s one reason why the slavish, Stepford Wives-ish acceptance of every grunt and string of incipid cliches out of TFG by MAGA nation is so hard for me to accept.

But whether or not we agree with the goals of a president, or the means by which he or she tries to accomplish them, we all should demand a president who respects the Constitution and the laws and who doesn’t make things worse while trying to implement his plans. And, as is the case with this president, is not blatantly using his office to enrich himself in so many ways “like you’ve never seen before.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank makes a strong case that “Across the executive branch, in agency after agency, it’s amateur hour under the Trump administration.” The unnerving of the world economy; the chaos at the Pentagon; the threat to Harvard that was sent by mistake; the deportation that was a mistake but we’re powerless to correct it so shut up you federal judges; the firing of thousands of government workers with no plan to pick up the workload — all these and more, and the cruelty inherent in so much of it, have made the whole world nervous about what he might do next.

And let’s not forget the hypocrisy so prominently displayed but never acknowledged at almost every step. Most obvious, at least to me, is the mountain of executive orders. Has this president even tried to get Congress to pass laws to do what he wants? (A Congress he controls, by the way.) I don’t think so. Many self-described conservatives have for years railed any time a Democratic executive implements policies through executive order, screaming about the abuse of power. In this case, both before and during his first term of office, the man who threw a clot over Barack Obama’s use of executive orders

“The country wasn’t based on executive orders,” Trump said at a South Carolina campaign stop in February 2016. “Right now, Obama goes around signing executive orders. He can’t even get along with the Democrats, and he goes around signing all these executive orders. It’s a basic disaster. You can’t do it.”

has proudly done the same thing, but to a greater extent: Fox News reports (yes, that Fox News) that Trump has signed 135 executive orders so far in his second term, smashing the previous record of 99 by Franklin Roosevelt as he began implementing the New Deal. Trump doesn’t want to govern America, he wants to rule it. He wants to issue orders, edicts, diktats, whims-on-paper, and have his wishes carried out…no need to bother the Legislative Branch. (Don’t get me started on Congress’ abdication of its responsibilities.)

Will we get to a point where those who’ve drunk Trump’s Kool-Aid start to see the real world? Maybe: current polling indicates Trump’s approval rating at the end of his first 100 days — 39% — is lower than any president in 80 years, even beating his own record from 2017. Strong majorities believe his economic policies will cause a recession soon, that his administration is trying to avoid complying with court orders, doesn’t respect the rule of law and is going too far to expand presidential powers. As should be expected, “83% of Republicans said they approve of Trump’s work in office, while 93% of Democrats and 60% of independents said they disapprove.” Also to be expected, Trump’s reaction to his poor showing in the polls is to…call for an investigation of the pollsters for election fraud. (Election fraud? There’s no election.) Remember, nothing bad is ever his fault, there’s always some bad person trying to hurt him. So unfair.

What are we to do? Well, you know me — always looking for the positive. I found some in this column in The Guardian in which the foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall expresses confidence that Trump will fall victim to himself. (Remember: “I alone can fix it.”)

Policy failures and personal misconduct do not usually collapse a presidency. The US constitution is inflexible: incompetence is protected; cupidity has a fixed term. Trump is in power until 2029 unless impeached – third time lucky? – for “high crimes and misdemeanors”, or else deemed unfit under section 4 of the 25th amendment.

(snip)

This fight has moral and ethical aspects, too – and, given this is the US, prayer is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who would slay evil-doers. Of the seven deadly sins – vainglory or pride, greed or covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth – Trump is comprehensively, mortally guilty. In Isaiah (13,11), the Lord gives fair warning: “I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant and humiliate the insolence of tyrants.” God knows, maybe he’ll listen. Miracles do happen.

Of all the tools in the tyrant-toppling toolbox, none are so potentially decisive as those supplied by Trump’s own stupidity. Most people understand how worthless a surrender monkey “peace deal” is that rewards Putin and betrays Ukraine. Does Trump seriously believe his support for mass murder in Gaza, threats to attack Iran and reckless bombing of Yemen will end the Middle East conflict and win him a Nobel peace prize?

And then there’s his greed – the blatant, shameless money-grubbing that has already brought accusations of insider trading, oligarchic kleptocracy, and myriad conflicts of interest unpoliced by the 17 government oversight watchdogs Trump capriciously fired. His relatives and businesses are again pursuing foreign sweetheart deals. Corruption on this scale cannot pass unchallenged indefinitely. Avarice alone may be Trump’s undoing.

All this points to one conclusion: as a tyrant, let alone as president, Trump is actually pretty useless – and as his failures, frustrations and fantasies multiply, he will grow ever more dangerously unstable. Trump’s biggest enemy is Trump. Those who would save the US and themselves – at home and abroad – must employ all democratic means to contain, deter, defang and depose him. But right now, the best, brightest hope is that, drowning in hubris, Trump will destroy himself.

So keep a good thought. Meanwhile, we’ll have to put up with one of the most annoying aspects of anything that has to do with you know who: his insistence on being the center of attention in all things. As Tomasky puts it today in The New Republic:

Even the gross incompetencies take us into treacherous territory because they contribute to making this all about one man, the man who must be in front of the cameras every day. He doesn’t have policies so much as he has urges, which he must announce to the world on a constant basis in a desperate plea that we keep him front of mind at all times. Some of those urges are cruel; some of them are a joke. What unites them is that they make the story entirely about him.

That is not how it’s supposed to work in democracies. Which we still are, for now, as we reach this 100-day mark. Only 1,361 to go.

Recommended election reading, for those inexplicably eager for more election news

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

This week both The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post issued the surprise announcement that they will endorse no one in the race for president this year.  Those decisions were made by the owners of the newspapers, who in that capacity have every legal right to make the choice they did.  Just not the moral and ethical rights, not if they want their newspapers to mean anything to the readers they claim to serve.

In the case of the LA Times, as the editorial board prepared a series of editorials leading to an endorsement of California native and former state attorney general and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, it got a message from owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, “with scant internal or public explanation, abruptly vetoing the planned endorsement, informing the board through an intermediary that The Los Angeles Times would make no recommendation in the presidential race.”  Through an intermediary?  Dude didn’t have the guts to deliver the news face to face?  The story at the above link has more.

The choice at the Washington Post, which was expected to endorse the Democratic candidate, too, was to cease any endorsements in presidential elections from now on; it was announced by the paper’s publisher and framed as a choice to maintain neutrality.  That choice has been interpreted as an effort by the owner, Jeff Bezos, to avoid antagonizing the former guy; the Post itself has published the very critical reactions of 17 of its own opinion columnists under this declaration:

The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution. [emphasis added]

Plenty of other papers are making endorsements, of course, including my hometown Houston Chronicle and my birthtown New York Times, both of whom are encouraging a vote for Harris.  And here are a few other recommended readings:

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson with a vivid reminder of the double standard we’ve developed for covering the two major party candidates: high scrutiny for the woman candidate, and a kind of same-old same-old attitude when the former guy “spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish.”

In Slate, Steven Greenhouse with the consideration that the unfathomable (to some) closeness of this contest can be blamed on the richest of the rich Americans who are prioritizing their personal financial well being over the betterment of our country.

At The Bulwark, Will Saletan’s tight summation of just what – specifically – Trump is doing that warrants him being labelled – accurately – as a fascist.

And a lively reminder from The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart of the it-would-be-amusing-if-it-weren’t-so-dangerous reality that the former president is, in point of fact, demonstrably not many the things that his loyal army of supporters say are their reasons for voting for him.  He is, in fact, the opposite of what they say he is, but they can’t/won’t see that.  Sad.