The crisis of legitimacy

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Donald Trump lost the popular vote by a historic margin, three million votes. He never released his tax returns. He asked for, and received, the help of Russian intelligence in hacking the Democrats and undermining his challenger, Hillary Clinton. He is in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, has not stepped back from his tangled business interests, has stuffed his cabinet with similarly compromised billionaires. His first National Security Adviser was a Russian agent. The fate of 319 million Americans was decided by 77,744 votes in three states out of more than 136 million ballots cast nationwide. Now he has claimed a mandate to radically remake America.

For many, if not most, of Hillary Clinton voters, Trump is an illegitimate president.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stymied President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, an unprecedented act. Garland received neither a hearing nor a vote. McConnell recently executed the "nuclear option," denying the filibuster to Democrats so he could assure the confirmation of the arch-conservative Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. For millions of Americans, we now have an illegitimate Supreme Court, too.

The reaction of Republicans is along the lines of, "This is how we felt during the Obama presidency, too." This is symptomatic of our Cold Civil War. But Obama was soundly elected and re-elected. He was careful to preserve continuity with his predecessor, George W. Bush, observed every norm, and governed from the center — even using the Republican health-care plan as the template for the Affordable Care Act.

This is different.

When W. was elected despite losing the popular vote, Democrats weren't happy but only a fringe questioned his lawful right to take office — even though many had hesitations about the outcome being decided in the Supreme Court (thanks, Sandy) rather than the House of Representatives, as the Constitution required. And before 9/11, Bush governed from the center. Remember his work with Sen. Ted Kennedy on No Child Left Behind?

Nothing like this has happened in my lifetime, although we began drifting that way with many conservatives adopting the posture that Bill Clinton was an illegitimate president. Soon this would be applied to any Democrat that won the White House. To find a comparable analogy, we must go back to the election of 1860, when Southerners refused to accept the victory of Abraham Lincoln and Southern states began to leave the union.

Today, states are much weaker. We also have an enormous standing military and national security state. These would make short work of any blue-state secession. That is, unless the military itself fragmented. Then things would get, as they say in the South...interesting.

The media will do its best to normalize Trump. To do so is shameful, but the search for "balance" will continue, even if the facts suffer. But it won't work. For one thing, Trump himself will not be normalized. He will continue to be reckless, impulsive, a wanna-be authoritarian putting his family in positions of power while acceding to the worst of Republican ideology. Even if Trump's "skinny budget" and embrace of plutocrats totally shafts his white working class base, they will stay with him. They love the strongman. They support white majoritarianism above all. They form a core that, along with the vote suppression of red states, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, and a right-wing Supreme Court, makes me wonder if Democrats will ever be allowed to win again.

The damage will be worse than most imagine and long-lasting: to climate, the commons, transportation, science and research, the social safety net, the public's lands, the environment, health and safety. If the Republicans can get their act together, they're coming for our "entitlements."

Trump has the nuclear codes. To be sure, Vladimir Putin has something on him at best. At worst, Trump and his cronies such as Rex Tillerson have such deep business connections to Russia that "America First" will be a sick joke. On the other hand, we're dealing with an unstable illegitimate president who has asked why we have nuclear weapons if we don't use them. He disdains expert opinions. He makes Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II look like a steady statesman by comparison. It's been more than seven decades since we've had a war among major powers — just long enough for memories to fade and dangerous illusions to set in.

Meanwhile, we have millions of educated, reflective Americans who refuse to accept this man. As they should. This is perilous territory.

 

Comments

[Bradley Dranka]

It is difficult to accept Trump because he so lacks the width and breadth of history necessary to comprehending, understanding, and interacting with today's world.

He is truly a "rube" ripe for the taking--and the potential consequences are unsettling, to put it mildly. Not just the specter of the ego-driven blunders that could lead to nuclear war, but the ill-informed miscalculations such as cutting foreign aid that will only play into China's long-term plans to increase their influence worldwide.

I can only hope Trump learns that the Presidency is much more finesse and balance than the "bold move" and "big stick" approach that his bully mentality favors. It's one thing when so many in the electorate are globally illiterate. It's much more serious when the most powerful man in the world shows that same tone-deafness.

[B. Franklin]

Donald J. Trump is 70 years old.

He's not going to learn anything about the Presidency--or anything else.

He is incapable of intellectual growth of any kind.

He is what he is.

God help us all.

Even the dopes and dupes who voted for him.

[Cal Lash]

Princess Ivanka and her faithful manservant Jared will not save us but bury us even deeper.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ivanka-trump-helped-convince-her-father-to-strike-syria-eric-trump-says-2017-4

[Concern Troll]

LoL- such a wonderful bow to our deepstate- now Trump can tar them with the mess that is Syria- see- bombing did nothing, so I ain't gonna bother to do that again.

Now the generals are up again with NorK, and if they screw it up, the Prez will fully pivot to the Chinese and tell them to clean up their rogue state on their damned border tuit suite. And that is exactly what they threatened NorK with, a Chinese cleanup intervention. They would be dealing with several million who can walk to the Chinese border in a couple of days, and they have no desire to deal with the collapse of the NorK mess.

All of this Bannon out crap is simply smoke and mirrors- that is a huge chunk of his base, and they will get a wall and deportations, along with trade renegotiations.

Whatever- Trump is doing what he always said he would do, deals, and threats.

If no deal, move on, there is so much he can do, so on he goes to the next thing.

Four years of this will be exhausting.

As for Ivanka and dead babies, her hubby did his job repping Israel, and the bombs fell right where they should, and Bannon was pushed out of the way at exactly the right moment. Funny how we don't investigate the most obvious influence on our government by a foreign power.

Meanwhile, the opposition continues to sound like a bunch of hippies, while that base continues to seeth- just like the ALEC crew continues to threaten the tea party fools into their agenda here in Aridzone.

That tea party bunch will bite Trump unless he gives them enough red meat, and Bannon is an important part of assuring them they get their due.

And Kushivanka had better understand the heartland better than their friends in I and Davos, or they just might find that base will desert them for the next savior- and that one will not give them the time of day.

In short, Trump plays a dangerous game, and just might end up the Hindenberg character in this drama.

The main role of savior is now unfilled.

And that is the part that is terrifying- because fascism can indeed prevail now with the unrest starting to percolate in America, and the economic stagnation and repression by the elites.

Fools, the rich are fools.

And their nakedly opportunistic looting begins to anger the middle and lower classes.

But time is going to delay this for a while, until the fool drops over the edge and real calamity arrives.

[Cal Lash]

George Lincoln Rockwell is back from the dead accompanied by the ghosts of Ford and Lindberg. I hear the drum beats of the coming of the second civil war. Heil, Heil.

[Bradley Dranka]

There is a new, and loud, voice of intolerance and barely-contained fury at "the different" in America. It is shown to the world by the push for the "wall" and restricting immigration.

This is my counterpoint to the valid claim about sovereignty in that we have the right to police and enforce border security. My argument is that we have let this "porous" border go on for so long that other countries feel it should stay that way. We have enabled that attitude outside our borders by letting the border be porous for decades. Accompanying much of the "close the border" talk is bigotry and racism that was always there--and simply is out in the open for all to see. Other countries and their ex-pats in the U.S. see, hear, and feel that bias against "difference." They, rightly or wrongly, often come to the conclusion that U.S. is NOT the tolerant and accepting country it once was. That intolerance is being broadcast around the world as the new "ugly America" under Trump.

That is beginning to show up in a 40% drop in foreign student applications at U.S. universities--and likely is a contributing factor to the "quiet border." As those lessened immigration numbers percolate over months and years, we in the U.S. will likely be the real losers by a lack of intellectual and grunt-level manpower. This will only result in America being the loser by having LESS of the labor pool it needs to compete with the rest of the world.

[soleri]

There's so much cynicism in this country about government, the bureaucracy, and political discourse that a near majority of American voters decided to "shake things up" by electing a man-child with the attention span of a nine-year old boy. The same people who depend on Social Security checks, on food inspections, and air traffic controllers decided to send Washington a message. That a compulsive liar was deemed preferable to a wonkish lawyer with a charisma deficit could only happen in a nation where TV is a stronger vector for "values" than mere civics. Even today, the battle-lines remain clearly drawn. We're supposed to "give Trump a chance" because only Republicans get to interpret squeaker elections as mandates for radical change.

Imagine if Hillary Clinton had been elected but lost the popular vote by nearly 3,000,000. Imagine, if you will, Republicans pledging to undo this injustice by any means necessary, including impeachment. Consider the vitriol she and her supporters would be subjected to if she also had a host of mysterious Russian connections in her background. Does anyone doubt that there would be actual violence under those circumstances?

Trump didn't start this fire. A party of white nationalists did over 40 years ago. It took that long for political norms to attenuate to the point that an avowed pyromaniac could somehow bamboozle the boobs into electing him Fire Marshall. We're not going to undo this mess by ridding ourselves of this crazy man-child. It's much too late for that. The Republican Party has been playing with matches for decades so the house burning down should not surprise anyone. You don't simply call up your insurance company and ask for a new democracy because the old one is gone. It doesn't work like that. Better be careful what you wish for, government haters. You're about to get what you deserve, good and hard.

[Bradley Dranka]

soleri, it was often said, in the years 2010-2013, as I heard on KTAR in Phoenix, that government haters were in effect closet anarchists. While Limbaugh and Co. vehemently denied it, it was brought up enough about the anti-government wing of the Republican party that it had plausibility. I'm sure many of those people became staunch Trump supporters. Certainly Trump's fumbling and stumbling could qualify on some level as stillborn government. It is unsettling to think this could be the new normal for 4 years.

[Mary Tooley]

Soleri rocks!

[DoggieCombover]

I saw Louie C.K. sum this up in the most succinct manner the other night, he said "I was all worked up about Trump as some new kind of evil, but now I realize he's just a lying sack of shit."

[Bradley Dranka]

Trump is mercurial, impatient and prone to the one-upmanship of machismo. The chances of some relatively small action by Assad or Jong Un being read as DEFCON 2 or 1 by Trump are much greater because he wants to be the biggest bully in the room.

But Trump simply mirrors his core supporters in their American "triumphalist," "God is on our side," arrogance. These folks wanted a bully in charge: When their kin go off to fight the wars they desired, I wonder if they'll still think conflict is worth the price they'll pay?

[Cal Lash]

Doggiecombover:
"Truth does not exist in such an imperfect world. That is what I recall when I look back through the haze".
Michael Blake
Like a Running Dog
And
Author of Dancing with the Wolves

[Cal Lash]

Brad, I think U might like this!
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/trump-at-war/

[Bradley Dranka]

Cal, I read the article, and it was only somewhat reassuring on the military potentially standing up to Trump were he to get too obnoxiously impatient and demand total war on a perceived sleight (I'm being only HALF-sarcastic here).

The three examples the article cited of military "backbone" displayed toward Presidents involved Democrats. In MacArthur's case, he wanted to use nuclear bombs on North Korea.

The military is well-known to be mainly conservative, and the Republicans have played to that for decades. Taking this conservative political bent into consideration, my great fear is the military enabling Trump to commit a gross blunder that is destabilizing to the point of a multi-nation conflict that could spiral out of control.

The consequences of that should be unthinkable, but I fear there many within the military that are "theologized" to the point of believing, like many within the evangelical right wing, that God is on America's side. That delusion makes them believe that, in a war of both civilizations and religions, they will ascend to Heaven for being God's soldiers.

How different is THAT from what Al Qaeda and ISIS believe?

[Cal Lash]

Front pages:Phoenix cardiology pioneer Dr. Alberto Benchimol dies.

Speaking of doctors the world could use some of the following now.

"Chekhov, in short, invented a new kind of literature at Sakhalin. It was a literature inflected with clinical humanity—a literature of keen, nearly medical observation about human nature and its imperfections and perversions, but also a literature of expansive sensitivity and tenderness".

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/love-in-the-time-of-numbness-or-doctor-chekhov-writer?mbid=nl_TNY%20Template%20-%20With%20Photo%20(157)&CNDID=48614199&spMailingID=10826852&spUserID=MTc5Mjg4MTEyMTI0S0&spJobID=1141145145&spReportId=MTE0MTE0NTE0NQS2

[Bradley Dranka]

I am quite astonished that such an "ugly American" as Trump, in his eminence of the "ugly American," a hyper-aggressive, tone-deaf, uber-patri-idiot having an overinflated opinion of themselves and ZERO tolerance for ANY dissenting opinions in his own arrogant and willfully ignorant "gospiel," is telling Kim Jong Un "to behave!"

[Cal Lash]

If Trump and Jong had a one on one belly bump war, I predict Kim would put Donald in the dirt.
But Kim Jong and his fellow generals need to be gone. And maybe Mad Dog Mattis will lead a charge to the white house?

[Bradley Dranka]

Kim Jong Un is an idiot and just as megalomaniacal as Trump, Putin and Assad.
They all deserve each other.

[Ruben Perez]

Kim Jong Un at the pearly gates.

Kim, "I understand if I accept Jesus as my savior, my sins are forgiven."

St. Pete, "That is correct."

Kim, "So, I get to come in?"

St. Pete, "With that haircut?"

Kim, "yes."

St. Pete, "The down elevator is over there. Have a nice eternity."

[Cal Lash]

Plains Indians called him Yellow Hair.

[Cal Lash]

Per Vine Deloria Jr, Yellow Hair died for your sins.

[Ruckus]

You're a good writer, Jon, but woefully uninformed on political issues. Do you even know who the Rothchilds are or how the Federal Reserve works?

Trump was the lesser of two evils, by far. Perhaps your perception is overly tainted by having lived in a bland suburbia full of conservative NPC's. But you're a bit of an NPC yourself...