Tag Archives: Trump

About Those Conspiracy Theories…

Maybe it’s the Internet, and the ubiquity of social media, but it sometimes seems as if we are living in the age of conspiracy theories. Most of these contemporary versions aren’t just new twists on old standbys–aliens landing Roswell, UFO sightings, people who really killed JFK.  In this age of hyper-partisanship, they tend to focus on political figures.

We saw an explosion of wild accusations when we elected our first African-American President. Obama wasn’t “really” American; he was born in a foreign country (Kenya, or for the more geographically-challenged, Hawaii). He wasn’t really Christian, but Muslim (which in their “minds” evidently equates with being a fellow-traveler of some sort). He was going to confiscate all the guns, eliminate the election and seize continuing power…

Usually, the people susceptible to conspiracy theories are those who find the real world baffling or uncongenial or both. I suppose it is bafflement that may explain a recent theory about Donald Trump’s inexplicable campaign for President.

This theory, which has been making the rounds on social media, rejects the premise that Trump’s self-immolation is due to his significant intellectual, moral and emotional deficits. Reasoning that no one could be as un-self-aware and self-destructive as Trump appears to be, they speculate that it is all part of a nefarious Clinton plot: he is really running to ensure Hillary Clinton’s victory in November.

After all, as one person considering this thesis asked, how would his behavior be any different if he were trying to elect her?

The posts I’ve seen point to Trump’s previous statements complimenting Hillary, his prior campaign contributions to her, and–especially suspicious–reports that he actually talked to the Clintons at some gathering a few months before entering the race. Ergo, they put him up to running a campaign so disastrous that even people who strongly dislike Hillary would vote for her.

What seems to distinguish this particular conspiracy theory from, say, the aliens at Roswell, is that it is offered by people who are generally logical. They are desperately trying to make sense of farce. No sane person, they reason, could possibly behave the way Trump has behaved. It’s one thing to fashion an appeal to white supremacists–that may be reprehensible, but it’s comprehensible. It’s another to constantly lie about matters that are easily fact-checked, to insult individuals and constituencies whose support you desperately need, to display a breathtaking ignorance of the world and the rules governing the country you propose to lead.

It must be an act, part of a clever, if convoluted, plot.

I’m sympathetic to the desire to explain the otherwise inexplicable, but let’s face it; this conspiracy is pretty implausible.

Freud famously said that “sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.” Sometimes, a narcissistic buffoon is just a narcissistic buffoon.

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It’s Not Politics: It’s Morality

Jennifer Rubin is a conservative columnist for the Washington Post. Her column on July 31st was a scathing analysis of Donald Trump and the political and moral challenge his candidacy poses to the GOP.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and vice-presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana (R) knew what they were getting into when they climbed aboard the Donald Trump bandwagon. They had watched him insult minorities, POWs, the disabled and women. They had seen for themselves how utterly ignorant he was about basic policy concepts. They knew he lied about big and small things (e.g., falsely saying he opposed the Iraq War, reneging on charity pledges until shamed by The Post). They knew he’d stiffed and swindled Trump U students. They never should have backed him; they were abetting a vile individual attaining the country’s most powerful office, for which he was patently unfit. Pence went a step further in agreeing to be his running mate, and now travels around the country cheerleading for Trump.

Rubin recounted the now-ubiquitous details of Trump’s attack on the Kahns–a Muslim Gold Star family–and notes in passing that it would be political karma if, after smearing all Muslims, his attack on these particular Muslims was the “bridge too far” that ultimately brought him down.

Rubin’s column wasn’t written to add to the mounting recognition of the danger Trump poses for America, however. It was a challenge to the Republicans who continue to support and enable him.

What does Pence, father of  Marine 2nd Lt. Michael J. Pence, do? He directs the press wanting comment to Trump. Really, that’s it? One wonders how 2nd Lt. Pence — and all the other Americans risking their lives — feel about that. Pence’s silence and continued presence on the ticket suggest he considers Trump within the bounds of normal political discourse. If Pence had a modicum of dignity or decency, he would tell the American people, “I made a terrible mistake. Mr Trump is so morally bankrupt and of such shabby character that I could not possibly serve with him.” Failing to do so, the same should be said of Pence….

The offices of Ryan and McConnell wouldn’t comment on Trump’s slur against Ghazala Khan or ludicrous claim he’s “sacrificed” just as the Khans have. Their spokesmen would only repeat the bosses’ prior remarks on Trump’s Muslim stances. That’s not the point. They know this but they are abdicating moral leadership because they cannot possibly justify their support of Trump. In their silence, they condone Trump and stand with him.

Rubin is unimpressed with the excuse that other Republican candidates find themselves in a difficult bind, unwilling to incur the hostility of Trump’s supporters by distancing themselves from his repugnant accusations.

Republicans who fell in line behind Trump cannot escape the moral stench he emits. He disrespects parents of a fallen warrior; they do as well with their silence. He attacks other Americans, lies habitually and embodies none of the qualities we expect of elected leaders; they demonstrate moral and political cowardice in refusing to condemn him.

At the end of the day, Rubin–and the many other Republicans who have publicly refused to support the GOP nominee–is making a moral argument. For moral individuals, love of country, concern for civility and fair play, and simple intellectual honesty should take precedence over partisan loyalty.

Paul Krugman recently made the same point.

The real sinners here are Republican leaders — people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell — who are actively supporting a candidate whom they know poses a danger to the nation. It’s not hard to see why they’re doing this. Opposing their party’s nominee, no matter how awful he is, would probably end up being a career killer.

But there are times when you’re supposed to put such considerations aside. The willingness of some people who know better to support Donald Trump is understandable; it’s also despicable.

And these columns were written before Trump suggested that “2nd Amendment people” could “take care” of Hillary.

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A Conundrum and a Mea Culpa

A couple of commenters to yesterday’s blog leveled a criticism of my post that I think is valid.

My statement that many of Trump’s supporters are bigots came far too close to the same sort of name-calling that distresses so many of us when Trump engages in it. Although I did say “many” (in an effort to acknowledge that the epithet doesn’t apply to everyone who is supporting him) that statement was both too broad-brush and too dismissive. Flat assertions of that sort do not encourage mutually respectful communication, to put it mildly.

So, mea culpa.

Here’s the conundrum: It has become increasingly obvious that Trump and his most ardent supporters present a “clear and present danger” to American constitutional and social values. As a country, we need to understand the dynamics of this phenomenon, and why a man so manifestly unfit for the Oval Office nevertheless appeals to so many voters.

Survey research suggests that a significant number of Trump supporters are responding to his message of racial grievance and white nationalism–and we can’t afford to ignore that reality. We need to consider what it implies and what to do about it, because even if–even when–Trump loses, those grievances will still be there, waiting to be inflamed by the next demagogue.

We cannot afford to shrug our shoulders and simply hope this ugly moment passes. We need to identify the fault lines and discuss them candidly.

That said, we need to acknowledge–I needed to acknowledge–that some people are supporting Trump because they are loyal Republicans, or because they haven’t followed the election news closely, or because they don’t trust reporting from what Sarah Palin dismisses as the “lame stream media,” or because they’re just “mad as hell and not going to take it [the status quo] any more,” and don’t recognize the likely (disastrous) consequences of electing this particular “disruptor” to the most powerful office on earth.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Trump campaign thus far has been the normalization of nasty, uncivil discourse. It should be possible to conduct even brutally honest analyses of troubling political behavior without sinking into”Trump-like” name-calling.

I intend to be more careful with my own language in the future.

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If I Lose, It Means It Was Rigged

Several news stories yesterday and today, including this one from the Washington Post, have reported on Trump’s most recent tirade not aimed at the Gold Star Kahn family: his dark warnings that the upcoming election looks to be “rigged.”

Translation: I might not win. And if I lose, the only acceptable explanation is that I was robbed.

Evidently, most of the “rigging” is being done by media outlets that–outrageous bias!–are reporting the things Trump says.

Trump’s effort to de-legitimize the (small-d) democratic process and the (big-D) Democratic candidate won’t surprise anyone who has watched the two-year-old that is Donald Trump. Any loss, any slight, is met with belligerence and the equivalent of a child’s “not fair” whine.

If this insistence that only a Trump victory would be “fair” were simply one more manifestation of Trump’s immaturity and narcissism, we could just add it to the list of self-destructive behaviors exhibited by this deeply-flawed candidate.

But although this particular line of attack is unlikely to convince anyone outside his rabid base, it could–like so much of Trump’s snake-oil– further destabilize American politics, and undermine the legitimacy of a President Clinton.

Trump and his supporters have now said in a series of new public remarks that the outcome of the election is likely to be “rigged.” Yesterday, on the campaign trail, Trump said: “I’m afraid the election’s going to be rigged. I have to be honest.”

Meanwhile, longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone is explicitly encouraging Trump to make this case to his supporters. “I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly,” Stone told a friendly interviewer, adding that Trump should start saying this: “If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”

Stone also said: “I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath.”

This attack is eerily akin to situations where a wife who has filed for divorce is murdered by her estranged husband, who says “if I can’t have you, no one can.” The Trump campaign is threatening that if he can’t win, he will create enough doubt about the legitimacy of the electoral process to ensure that the winner is unable to govern.

This isn’t new. It’s a continuation of a tactic employed by those who simply could not accept the reality that an African-American had been elected President. The “birther” movement–with which Trump was heavily involved–was an effort to de-legitimize President Obama, an effort to paint him as a pretender.

Ironically, while the Democrats have certainly not been angels, most recent electoral “rigging” has been done by Republicans.

The GOP has long used allegations of voter fraud to justify efforts to suppress the votes of constituencies most likely to vote Democratic. (During the last few weeks, courts have invalidated voter ID laws in four states, noting that these laws have been carefully targeted to suppress the votes of African-Americans, Latinos, and poor people.)

In-person voting fraud has never been a genuine problem; its incidence is, in the words of one election scholar, “vanishingly small.”

Given the GOP’s persistent efforts to game the system through Voter ID laws and gerrymandering, not to mention the shenanigans in Florida that gave us George W. Bush, it takes some chutzpah to characterize Donald Trump as the victim of election “rigging.” (But if there is one quality Trump undeniably has, it’s chutzpah.)

If the election is close, Trump’s supporters–already divorced from reason and reality–will believe he was robbed, and while that belief may not lead to Stone’s “bloodbath,” it will certainly hobble efforts to restore productive bipartisanship.

If, however, he loses by a landslide–an outcome devoutly to be desired–that conspiracy theory won’t gain traction.

We need to help generate that landslide.

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True Colors

Can you stand one more post about Mike Pence?

Yesterday, a friend shared an email she received from our former Indiana Governor and current Trump toady/VP candidate.

The fundraising plea came as Pence spoke to ALEC, telling the corporate interest group that “I was for ALEC before it was cool!” (Ahem–breaking news, Mike: it still isn’t cool.) ALEC has been behind state-level voter ID measures, draconian immigration-enforcement laws and “Stand Your Ground” legislation–not to mention an anti-environmental agenda centered upon denial of climate change and support of fossil fuels. Those positions have prompted a number of  companies–including Google, AOL, Yahoo, Yelp, eBay, BP and Facebook–to leave the organization.

Pence has always had close ties to ALEC and the Koch Brothers. Other positions he has taken since joining the Trump ticket, however, represent a dramatic change from previous postures. For example, Mr. Conspicuous Piety seems positively eager to support a twice-divorced, foul-mouthed, belligerent buffoon who models behaviors inconsistent with both the culture-war positions for which the Governor was previously known and the civility he actually practiced.

(Speaking of civility: For sheer chutzpah, its hard to top Pence’s recent criticism of Democrats for “name calling.” Psychiatrists have a word for that: projection.)

What really sent me over the edge, however, was the text of the fundraising email shared by my friend.

Friend,

I can’t wait until we have an America we can both be proud of again.

When we have a President who looks out for Americans first.

A President who rips up trade deals that kill American jobs. A President that builds a wall and places our National Security first. A President who will Make America Great Again!

I can’t wait until we have a leader like Donald Trump as our next President.

If you can’t wait either, then I need you to donate today so we can make that happen.

In fact, Donald Trump told me that up until Sunday, he is going to personally match your donation dollar-for-dollar, up to $1 million.

So friend, if you are like me and you can’t wait until we have a President who puts America first, then let’s work together to take our country back today.

Since this plea was written in a foreign language–Lapdog–I hope you’ll permit me to translate.

Friend,

I know I used to be a proponent of free trade, but I’m carrying water for Donald Trump these days, so now I’m all for ripping up trade deals. I’m flexible.

I know I’ve spent years  preaching American exceptionalism, but Donald says America is weak and in terrible shape, so I am obediently parroting that line, too.

On the important issues, after all, Donald and I have long agreed.

Donald and I agree that we need to Make America Great Again because a President who is African-American could not possibly put America first. We need a President more like Putin. Strong.

Donald and I also totally agree that we need to take the country back from the minorities and immigrants and uppity women who are ruining it. We need to return to the good old days, when just being a straight white guy entitled you to run things, and those “others” knew their place.

And I hope you noticed my reference to Donald’s money. That’s the proof that he is qualified to be President. (And don’t go drawing negative conclusions from his refusal to make his tax returns public. If he says you don’t need to see those returns, then you don’t need to see them.) Being a rich white guy is how he knows he’s superior to everyone else, and entitled to be President, even though he is admittedly a monumental, delusional ignoramus.

One thing Hoosiers have learned since Donald Trump swooped in and saved Mike Pence from looming electoral defeat: these two truly deserve each other.

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