Rogue Columnist

The impeachment argument

The Constitution provides a remedy for a law-breaking president. He can be impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate. Therein lies the problem in the case of Individual 1.

Even if the House impeached Donald Trump — no sure thing — the Senate would quickly toss the indictment into the circular file. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might never even bring it to a vote. The Senate, with six-year terms and originally not even elected by the people, was intended to be a check on the popular and passing passions expressed by the House. But it has become something more in recent years.

The Senate is now a Republican firewall against any Democratic initiative or electoral gains. With solid control ensured by small primarily red states — Wyoming, with 578,000 people (about the size of Tucson), has the same number of U.S. Senators as California, with a population of 39.6 million. But it also prevents urgent action, whether to address the existential challenge of climate change or the mortal threat to the republic embodied in Trump.

Given this reality, is Speaker Nancy Pelosi correct in saying impeachment is "not worth it"?

Best ex-President

President Carter (center) aboard the USS Los Angeles in 1977, first in its class of highly-advanced nuclear fast-attack submarines. At right is Carter's mentor, Admiral Hyman Rickover, "Father of the Nuclear Navy."

The idea of the treasonous criminal Donald Trump presiding over the funeral of Jimmy Carter is almost too much to bear. At age 94, it's a depressing possibility.

I confess to disliking Carter's presidency. But the man had real accomplishments. A Naval Academy graduate, he is the only president to have qualified in submarines. That means much more than serving in a boat — to "qualify" means an officer or enlisted person must have mastered every task aboard the sub. It's a big deal. Carter intended to make the Navy a career until the death of his father brought him back to Georgia.

With the passing of George H.W. Bush, Carter is the only living president to be a real military veteran.

Along with John Quincy Adams, Carter is the most successful and inspirational former president, from his work with Habitat for Humanity to overseeing elections around the world and carrying out numerous humanitarian and diplomatic missions. He never sought to monetize — and degrade — his office in the way most of his successors have done.

Present at the destruction

In 1969, Dean Acheson's memoir Present at the Creation was published, going on to win the Pulitzer Prize in History a year later. At more than 800 pages, the book remains essential reading, not least because today we are present at the destruction.

As President Truman's Secretary of State — "the clearest thinking, most effective Secretary of State of the twentieth century," as Yale's Gaddis Smith rightly said — Acheson was the lead architect of the post-World War II order. The Marshall Plan, NATO, Bretton Woods, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and more.

As Tom Ricks wrote in Foreign Policy magazine:

It’s useful to remember that the international “system” as we know it today didn’t exist before World War II and would have been unthinkable except for the cataclysm of the war, the deployment of the atom bomb, and the aggression of an implacably hostile Soviet Union.

Truman and Acheson were in unknown territory, leading a country tired of war and ready to revert to its prewar isolation. “History is written backwards but lived forwards,” Acheson says, reflecting on the United States’ leap into the unknown. American leadership was never foreordained.

Trump 2020

Illustration by Carl Muecke

I provoked quite a reaction on Facebook when I predicted that Trump would get away with his many crimes and be reelected. Let me explain.

From the very beginning of winning the Electoral College by 80,000 votes, Trump began violating norms. Instead of "we have one president at a time," he was making all sorts of policy diktats and claiming to save Carrier jobs in Indiana. The media, the only commercial entity deemed so important to the republic's health that its protection was enshrined in the Constitution, largely gave him a pass.

Much worse norms were broken and evidence of massive malfeasance and unfitness for office piled up, and the pattern continued. Some exceptions arose, especially the Washington Post; even the New York Times, which downplayed Trump's known corruption and Russian interference while overplaying the nothingburger of Clinton emails, produced some worthy investigative journalism on the Don. But most people don't get their news from newspapers, and most newspapers are infected by toxic both-sidesism. So the outrageous has become normalized.

The most recent example was the media's pivot away from the Mueller investigation and report, based on a memo from an Attorney General handpicked by Trump to ensure his protection from the rule of law. The actual 400-page report hasn't been seen by reporters or the public. The fierce curiosity and fight for truth by journalists in Watergate has been replaced by, "Nothing to see here, move on."

The desperate hours

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

The resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis moves us into a dangerous new phase of Donald Trump's illegitimate presidency.

I've asked several people who worked in the field as to whether Trump could use the launch codes carried by an aide in the "football" to unilaterally unleash thermonuclear armageddon. The answers are mixed. We do know that at the worst of the Watergate scandal, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger required that any launch order from President Richard Nixon go through him or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger first.

Mattis was our Schlesinger. I never subscribed to the "adults in the room" theory or the "principled conservatives" in the administration working secretly to undercut the worst of Trump's impulses. I come from the older American tradition that doesn't worship people merely because they have stars on their epaulets. Mattis moving directly from being a four-star Marine general to a cabinet post discomfited me (only the uniquely upright George Marshall had done so before). Still, I understood his duty-bound motive. And soon he'll be gone.

Remember, just after the 2016 election when I warned you that things would be worse than you could imagine? I was right, but we're not even halfway down the express elevator to hell. With the Mueller investigation closing in, co-conspirators flipping, the New York Attorney General, and U.S. Attorney from the Southern District in New York — all these probes tightening the web on the Don and his family... He's capable of anything.

Like your life depends on it

"Vote like your life depends on it" is a slogan popular among Democrats. But the large numbers that support Donald Trump (42 percent according to FiveThirtyEight's compilation of polls) obviously think the same from their corner.

Beyond that, I have little to say about polls. After 2016, none of us should trust them. They can be skewed by the Bradley Effect — in this case GOP voters lying about their intentions — vote suppression tactics, gerrymandering, Trump's firehose of lies and distractions, maybe more interference from the Russians. Remember, 80,000 votes in three states decided our fate two years ago. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes — despite the factors listed above, plus media malpractice in overlooking Trump's deep corruption, unfitness for office, and Kremlin meddling.

From where I sit, our lives do depend on at least Democrats winning the House. If Republicans, who are complicit in Trump's corruption and malgovernment, hold all the branches of government, then it's over. I don't see how we come back. It's going to be difficult enough with a hard reactionary Supreme Court thanks to the evil Mitch McConnell (and I don't apply the adjective lightly).

Under continued GOP control, we will not only shirk essential American leadership in addressing human-caused climate change, we will make it worse by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. There's no upper bound to worse, either. This is the greatest existential crisis humanity has faced.

More tax cuts for the wealthy, more cuts to domestic programs, then the big enchiladas: repealing the Affordable Care Act (instead of merely sabotaging it) and coming after Social Security and Medicare. No checks on Trump's power. No accountability for his crimes. Mueller is likely toast. An American Reichstag fire would provide the "president" and his supporters a convenient boost into full-blown authoritarianism. As Paul Krugman points out, Republicans must lie about their intentions because their actual programs are highly unpopular. 

'Constitutional crisis'

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

Every norm broken by the Trump administration, every norm threatened, brings commentary using the words above. Violating the emoluments clause, firing James Comey, threatening the Mueller investigation, leaning on the Attorney General, nominating a manifestly disqualifying Supreme Court Justice while withholding 100,000 pages on him, etc. Constitutional crisis.

The biggest is that the Republican-controlled Congress will not exercise its duty to hold the executive branch to account. It won't because Republicans are getting all the right-wing goodies (tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks) and they fear Trump's base. Checks and balances? We don't need no stinking checks and balances.

Cynical Ben Franklin is looking down, shaking his head. Leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he was approached by a woman who asked whether we would have a monarchy or a republic. Said Franklin, "A republic, if you can keep it."

In reality, the current Constitutional crisis began on Nov. 6th, 2018, when Trump won the Electoral College thanks to 80,000 votes in three states with the help of a hostile foreign power.

No, it preceded that, with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refusing to grant President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland even a hearing, so the GOP might get the seat (as it did). The sainted John McCain promised he would vote against any nominee of a President Hillary Clinton. This was unprecedented.

Or it began in 2000, when the Supreme Court, with the deciding vote cast by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, made the constitutionally unsound decision to intervene in the presidential election, swinging it to George W. Bush.

The Roman Republic died of a thousand cuts. So it is with the American republic. 

McCain, an assessment

A man who made “straight talk” one of his trademarks would surely not be satisfied with the flood of worshipful accolades enshrining him as a unique hero, statesman, and patriot for the ages. My aim is to remedy that.

I put my shoulder to this necessary task knowing that he was admired and even loved by people I respect. They range from Grant Woods to Alfredo Gutierrez and Neil Giuliano. I never much cared for John McCain, both because he did so little to use his prestige and power to help his adopted state, and because his conservatism helped set the table for today’s emergency.

More about that later.

McCain suffered terribly as a prisoner of war and heroically refused an early release as the son of the admiral in charge of Pacific forces. This denied a propaganda coup to the communists.

Still, hundreds of American soldiers, Marines, airmen, and naval aviators suffered at the hands of Hanoi as well.

In World War II, the treatment of Allied POWs by the Japanese was barbaric. After they were liberated, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright who surrendered the Philippines and British Gen. Arthur Percival who surrendered Singapore were positioned beside Douglas MacArthur on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri for the Japanese surrender. Nearly walking skeletons in uniform, their presence was powerful. No one remembers them today.

McCain served 31 years in the Senate. But his legislative record was minimal. This is certainly so compared with giants such as Edward Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Robert Taft, Robert La Follette Sr., Arthur Vandenberg, or Arizona’s Ernest McFarland.

Mac, who served as Senate Majority leader, was the father of the GI Bill. Along with Carl Hayden, another towering figure from Arizona, he worked tirelessly for the Central Arizona Project. So did Sen. Barry Goldwater and Reps. Stewart Udall, Mo Udall, and John J. Rhodes. 

The permanent crisis

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

A few random thoughts as we circle the drain.

The drumbeat asks, why don't Republicans do something about Trump? It's simple. First, he's giving them their heart's desire: A reactionary Supreme Court for decades to come; tax cuts; rollback of regulations; sabotage of the Affordable Care Act, and well on the way to repealing the Nixon administration, Great Society, New Deal, and the Enlightenment. Second, they fear his base. So all the outraged tweets by John McCain and Jeff Flake add up to nothing when they vote to approve Trump's corrupt cabinet and agenda. The GOP has become a cult, far from the party that sent Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes, and Howard Baker to the White House demanding Richard Nixon resign.

What does Putin have on Trump — because the Helsinki disaster resembled what spys call the handler and the asset? Pee tape aside, I suspect it has something to do with money. Speaking of which, one of the least-reported blockbusters was how retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy's son was Trump's banker at Deutsche Bank. Maybe this doesn't prove a quid pro quo over Kennedy leaving the court, but it's another suspicious correlation of forces. I stick with Robert Gates' assessment of Putin: "Stone cold killer."

What really happened at Helsinki, the summit that followed Trump's attack on NATO? We don't know because Trump was alone with the Russians, just as he was in the Oval Office with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in May 2017. Trump dismissed the conclusions of our intelligence agencies about the Russian attack on the 2016 election to favor him. He tried to walk it back, but the damage was done — except for his Fox-zombie base. Trump has long tried to deny the attack. In Helsinki, he initially appeared open to having the Kremlin interrogate former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, a persistent critic. McFaul is only the second ambassador to Moscow to be declared persona non grata (the first being George Kennan, author of the Long Telegram and father of containment). Not even Stalin dared seek to "interview" our ambassador.

Meanwhile, Trump is aggressively destroying the American-led rules-based order that brought unprecedented prosperity and peace among the great powers since 1945. Pax Americana, gone.

It's impossible to be paying attention and not conclude that Donald Trump is a de facto agent of the Russian government. This is without precedent in American history. It is a national security and constitutional crisis. 

I wanted to believe

I've been watching reruns of the original X-Files. Especially before it got too baroque weird in the later seasons, it was one of the best things on television in the 1990s. One thing that most strikes me is how good they look in their suits. We looked good in the '90s. I wore a suit and tie every day. Growing up without much money, this sartorial armor always made me feel wonderful. They were classy, too, not today’s clown short coats and flat-front slacks  

Admittedly, I now mostly live in Seattle, one of the worst-dressed cities in America. But norms are collapsing everywhere. When I boarded a flight recently from Phoenix to Seattle, my fellow passengers were a catalogue of the current American freak show, with their abundant tats, Civil War beards long enough to support a large ecosystem of vermin, and infantile "casual" clothes. Some of the richest businessmen now dress like 15-year-olds in T-shirts, or wreck the sexy design of a suit by going without a tie. It's all a sham. We're less casual in reality than in the 1950s, only the taboos are different and deviancy has not only been defined downward but mainstreamed.

But I watch the X-Files and think about the '90s — we looked good.

From today's perspective, the decade was the latest Fin de siècle, every bit the end of an age as the runup to the Great War. Bill Clinton was in the White House. The economy was enjoying its longest boom in history — widespread, too — and a modest tax increase put us on the way to the first federal surpluses in decades. The nation was at peace. Americans generally agreed on facts. Science was accepted and admired.

My professional life was good, too. Newspapers had yet to be "disrupted" by Craig's List and the internet. I was in demand as a turnaround business editor, and enjoyed helping build top business sections at the Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Enquirer, and Charlotte Observer. Living in Denver and Cincinnati turned me into a committed urbanite.

This isn't the whole story. 

Suffer the children

Everyone on my Twitter feed is in high moral dudgeon about the Trump administration's policy of separating children from illegal immigrant parents. It's compared unfavorably to the World War II Japanese internment, where at least families were kept together. It's Nazis (Godwin's Law notwithstanding)! But, then, nearly everyone on my Twitter feed lives within the blue bubble.

The move is actually shrewd if one wants to curtail illegal immigration: Try to come across and your family will be broken up. One of the biggest issues in our Cold Civil War is anxiety on the part of a substantial number of voters that America will lose its white majority and become a polyglot of multiculturalism. That word is heaven to progressives, hell to the right. Calling them "racists" doesn't change their minds. Indeed, it hardens them.

Yet the right, eschewing intellectuals as hated "elites," lacks the brainpower to engage in asking some serious questions. Can the United States continue to absorb 1 million legal immigrants every year, plus illegals, and remain the United States? This is an issue that pertains to more than competition for jobs and wages. It confronts a future of unsustainable migration as climate change destabilizes Latin America — but they don't believe climate change is real or human caused. And shouldn't America wean itself off cheap, fearful illegal immigrant labor? Shouldn't we penalize employers who hire illegals? As shown with SB 1070, the Anglos want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Thus, the moral high ground is claimed without a fight by progressives. Trump bobs, weaves, and lies — at one point blaming Democrats for the family separations. Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions quoted the Bible out of context to defend the policy. But the Trumpist Anglos keep quiet. They know the score. No minds are changed. Trump could be re-elected in 2020. A Blue Wave in the coming midterms may be an illusion.

Discuss.

 

 

 

The man from no hope

The most important story that likely didn't appear on the front page of your newspaper was that James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, has "no doubt" Russia swung the election for Donald Trump. Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, has spent his career in intelligence. He was unanimously confirmed to the position by the Senate in 2010. Yet aside from the Rachel Maddow show, this bombshell has barely received any coverage.

And so it goes. Almost every day, new incriminating information comes out about this treasonous, corrupt, malevolent presidency. You read it if you partake of the Front Page links on this site. And yet, almost every day I grow more fearful that it will make no difference. Forty-two percent (!) of respondents to the latest Gallup survey support Trump. And given the Bradley Effect, where people lie to pollsters, the number is probably higher.

As I've discussed before, whatever the outcome of the Mueller investigation, no legal action can likely be taken against Trump while he's president. The remedy is impeachment. But the Republican-controlled Congress won't use it. They are getting all their dreams come true — from tax cuts and gutting regulations to erasing the Obama presidency and wrecking the government from the inside. Also, they fear Trump's base.

The Framers put two mechanisms in place to prevent someone like Donald Trump from being president: the Electoral College and impeachment. Both have failed. So much for the GOP's reverence for "originalism" in the Constitution. And to think I'm old enough to remember when Republicans warned us that Democrats would surrender the country to Russia.

'The party of ideas'

Here's something that baffles me about this moment. The right-wing captured Republican Party has complete control over Congress and the White House, as well as growing numbers of federal judges. Damage abounds. But based on their rhetoric and the desire of their voters...

...Why not enact a new version of the Immigration Act of 1924? This was a backlash against decades of record immigration and set strict quotas on people allowed to come, based on their country of origin (hint: big plus for whites, but also no restrictions on Latin Americans). These were in place until 1965 and, uncomfortably for liberals, coincided with the zenith of the American middle class. Congress, firmly in Republican hands and facing no presidential veto, has the absolute power to do this.

...Abolish the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Transportation, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Again, the Republicans have the complete power to do this. None of these entities existed in 1960, when America was "great." Devolve the responsibilities to the states.

...Repeal the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. It's a longstanding article of faith among conservatives that these are both unconstitutional and bad for the economy. Poof! Gone. Strict interpretation of Article 10 would allow states to impose environmental laws — or try to, facing right-wing federal judges — but it's not something enumerated in the Constitution for the national government.

Republicans, never more in lock-step with the most extreme agenda of their party, could do this. It could avoid the third rail of Social Security. True, it can't outlaw abortion (and birth control), force prayer into public schools, or reverse the gains of LGBTQ people. But the above would be monumental victories, on the order of the New Deal, Great Society, or Trump's beloved Jackson era. They might last only two years — but maybe not, given GOP control of the Census, gerrymandering, vote suppression, and divisions among the Democrats.The GOP couldn't accomplish these sweeping changes under Reagan (when it branded itself as "the party of ideas") or George W. Bush. Now it could.

Yet it didn't. This is fascinating.

The sum of all fears

With the firing of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser, and their replacement by unfit, unqualified, and dangerous men...anyone paying attention has a pucker factor of 9.5. The only thing standing between us and World War III is Jim Mattis as Secretary of Defense, and how long until he is replaced by a Fox "News" personality?

The "positive" rejoinder can only be: Don't worry, we'll merely continue to see the President of the United States, run as an asset by the former KGB man in the Kremlin, undermine the norms of self-government, wreck the government from the inside, and shovel in private treasure like the head of a Third World failed state. Happy, brightsiders?

Sometimes, in this nightmarish period since Donald Trump won the second-most votes but still the presidency, I've tried to comfort myself with the notion that he's too lazy and obtuse to become a dictator. After all, Stalin was an intellectual and, as Simon Sebag Montefiore puts it, "a people person" in his rise to supreme power. Mussolini was smart, driven and shrewdly undermined democracy through populism (Republicans couldn't like this Fascism because they hate the trains that would run on time). Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey has been highly competent in setting up his strongman state. Trump, a reality television personality and often-failed developer, is none of these.

But going all the way back to paramedic days — even before,  noticing javelinas in the desert — the most unlikely mammal can react with unpredictable guile and violence if cornered. 

We'll be OK, right?

I don't know.

Arizona history has been a comforting topic of late. Writing on contemporary events is too much. I'm still poleaxed that Hillary Clinton isn't the president, that at best 70,000 voters in three states determined our nightmare, that it had even been that close. The evidence mounts — latest with a blockbuster article in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer —  that Trump is not merely uniquely unqualified for the Oval Office but a traitor, a Russian Quisling. I'm old enough to remember when the Republicans warned that the Democrats would surrender us to Russia. How does one write about these things, even read them, without a certain madness setting in?

David Brooks, the stopped clock of American pundits, recently wrote:

...once the norms of acceptable behavior are violated and once the institutions of government are weakened, it is very hard to re-establish them. Instead, you get this cycle of ever more extreme behavior, as politicians compete to be the most radical outsider. The political center collapses, the normal left/right political categories cease to apply and you see the rise of strange new political groups that are crazier than anything you could have imagined before.... Vladimir Putin’s admirers are surging. The center is still hollowing out. Nothing is inevitable in life, but liberal democracy clearly ain’t going to automatically fix itself.

Indeed. So will we be OK? I'm less worried about nuclear war than two months ago — but that could change in a late-night Trump tweetstorm. Otherwise, who knows. The Roman empire endured for almost 500 years in the West and another thousand years in the East after the death of the Roman Republic. So might it be with the American Empire. Or not, after one or more Sino-American wars and/or the disruption of climate change. But I'm not sure we're going back to the country we knew, flaws notwithstanding.

Lessons from Denver

One went to Denver and the other went wrong

— American folk ballad.

Last fall, we took the train from Seattle to my favorite adopted hometown, Denver. This form of travel is worth the trip — vacation begins when you settle into your seat. Arriving in Denver, I found the city much changed from when I lived here in the 1990s, working for the Rocky Mountain News, and all for the better. Getting off the California Zephyr, the restored Union Station greeted us. Not only is it the hub for Amtrak, but also for the light- and heavy-rail trains on the 122-mile network funded by the 2004 FasTracks referendum. Light rail preceded FasTracks, with the first line from downtown to suburban Littleton opening in 1994. As in Dallas, once people saw how light rail worked, everybody wanted it. Now an electric-powered commuter line also connects to Denver International Airport, along with six light-rail lines and more coming.

Union Station, which recently underwent a $200 million renovation, is breathtaking. The exterior, with its iconic "Travel by Train" neon sign, is cleaned up and the center of vast amounts of mixed-use development. Inside, the once grimy waiting room, has been opened up into a wifi-equipped common area surrounded by shops and restaurants. We stayed at the Crawford Hotel in the station, named after the pioneering downtown developer Dana Crawford. It's a miraculous makeover from when I was among a small number of downtown residents and I would ride my bicycle around the deserted railyard behind the depot. Union Station is the anchor of Lower Downtown, or LoDo, where imposing warehouses from the 19th and early 20th centuries were renovated into lofts, offices, and restaurants. An early brewpub was started here by John Hickenlooper, who went on to become Denver mayor and Colorado governor.

It was a near-run thing. Although preservationists led by Crawford scored a win by saving Larimer Square in the 1960s as a tourist destination, many people were prepared to tear down the majestic but obsolete warehouses of LoDo. Only thanks to mayors Federico "Imagine a Great City" Peña and Wellington Webb, along with developers such as Crawford who had the skills to save and rehabilitate old buildings, was LoDo saved. Railyards made redundant by mergers were turned into a campus for Metropolitan State University, the Community College of Denver and the University of Colorado at Denver. LoDo and nearby areas also attracted Coors Field of the Colorado Rockies and the Pepsi Center where the NBA Denver Nuggets and NHL Colorado Avalanche play. What was mostly abandoned railroad property when I first arrived has been completely rebuilt and knitted into the city.

It's no surprise that Denver is among the 20 finalist cities for Amazon's HQ2, with 50,000 high-paid jobs and $5 billion investment. Denver is a comer, win or lose.

 

The winter of our discontent

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

— Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

We've made it through the first year of the presidency of Donald Trump (let that name attached to that title sink in) without a nuclear war with North Korea. But there's next year.

Meanwhile, despite all the speculation and hope for a Democratic wave in the fall, great damage has been done to the republic. Total Republican control of the federal government resulted in the passage of a ruinous tax bill. Among its worst consequences will be the opportunity costs — no nice things for us, such as high-speed rail or rail transit for our metropolitan areas — because $1.5 trillion will be looted from the Treasury for the very rich. The resulting deficit will embolden Paul Ryan and the GOP-controlled Congress to come after our "entitlements" (read earned benefits). The cabinet is largely staffed by billionaire stooges committed to wrecking from the inside. The administration is rolling back laws to protect the environment and financial system. The people's lands, intended as a sacred trust for future generations, is under assault.

One of the biggest impediments to a Blue wave is the normalization of this norm-breaking, authoritarian-wanna-be president even by the respected press. This situation doesn't have "both sides" — only one. Then there's the lie machine of right-wing media. Beyond that, it must contend with vote suppression, gerrymandering, and no doubt new Russian interference.

 

The awaiting

Illustration by Carl Muecke

I've been trying to lie low on the national circus, write about Phoenix history and transitions. I can add little to the latest social-media driven fads or distractions. It's tempting to watch from the sidelines and wait for this to pass. If it does. Yet every morning I wake up to the reality of the most unfit president we've ever had, the fact that Hillary Clinton should be in the Oval Office, won the most votes, but no... It's tempting tao watch total Republican control of the federal government and think this is the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (e.g. the failed ACA repeal), and wait for some deliverance in next year's elections.

It's a comforting thought, but much is happening behind the latest twitter storm. The Supreme Court has been turned solidly reactionary thanks to Trump getting the vacant seat stolen from President Obama. With the guidance of the right-wing infrastructure such as the Federalist Society, the administration is remaking the federal courts more rapidly than any time in decades. This gift from the Bernie Bros/Susan Sarandon/Jill Stein faction will be with us for many years. Agencies, from the State Department to the EPA, are being wrecked from the inside. Obamacare is being sabotaged despite posting record enrollment. Politicization of the Federal Reserve and the Census carries huge risks, from the health of the economy to the integrity of critical data. Everywhere is a sense of retrograde movement.

That some 70,000 voters in three states determined our election, and perhaps our destiny — can't get that out of my craw. Or the widening disparity between population and representation in the Senate. Or the gerrymandered House, with the risk of worse voter suppression to come. The very structure of Madison's genius creation is showing dangerous cracks. And this is small compared with the pervasive odor of a stolen election, even treason. It doesn't bother the Republican-controlled Congress, the only body that could make things right.

Flake out

Amid all the orgasms about the "heroism" of Jeff Flake's speech on the floor of the Senate is this fact: He stuck around to vote with the Republican majority to deprive customers of the right to sue the banksters.

The soon-to-be-former junior Senator from Arizona is a right-wing Republican. He has a lifetime rating of 93.07 from the American Conservative Union, one of the highest in the Senate (wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III scored 81.62. This gold-standard score rates members on their votes for "conservative causes." He's higher than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

While he said some laudable things, what's he's actually done is quite different. He voted for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would have deprived between 23 million and 26 million of his fellow Americans of health insurance. He voted for every one of Trump's deplorably unqualified and corrupt cabinet members. He opposed sanctions on Russia.

The West Wingnut

While i'm finishing up the next David Mapstone Mystery, talented friend of the blog Carl Muecke has been commenting on the administration in his wonderful way. Until World War III engulfs us, enjoy a laugh:

 

Additive history

I've returned from a long a lovely train trip to Denver, one of adopted hometowns (and what a stunning job they've done with Union Station and LoDo). So I was blessedly off the grid during the latest culture-war battle, over standing or kneeling for the national anthem. At the risk of losing friends among right-thinking people, I am torn about this.

On the one hand, protest has a long history in sports and if one or many of the pro-football millionaires wants to kneel to protest racism, that's his prerogative. Jehovah's Witnesses don't stand. For the players, I'm not sure it's a First Amendment right. I can't write anything I want as a Seattle Times columnist. To be sure, my masters give me wide latitude but there is an invisible fence. I am an employee. Nobody thought my First Amendment Rights were being trampled when the Arizona Republic took away my column because my writings offended the boosters and Real Estate Industrial Complex. Let's also state at the outset that the quisling in the Oval Office has no standing to lecture on anyone's patriotism.

Yet I also couldn't shake two other impressions. First, beyond the symbolism, can anything make amends? What would it take? Even on police shootings of unarmed black men, I have yet to see journalism to tell me whether this is worse now than in, say, the 1960s. It's bad no matter what, but are things getting better as President Obama, who may be remembered as the last American president, said? Or not? This question is beyond my aim today. Second, can't we have any modest civic above politic war, such as standing for the national anthem? We once had a common culture that assumed such things, for all our flaws. I won't even ask if it's a given to stand during the "Hallelujah" chorus. On the anthem, the answer is apparently, no.

On Facebook, my friend Tom Zoellner, one of the smartest people I know, wrote:

Historical reminder: "The Star-Spangled Banner" was a baroque nationalist poem written by a lawyer who helped slaveowners recapture their escaped property. In the third verse (almost always unsung) a line celebrates the murder of African-Americans slaves who had been recruited to fight for their freedom on the British side in the War of 1812. Here's the line: "No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave"

We don't just need to take a knee. We need to look honestly at our history, make hard amends for our national sin of racism, stop trying to pretend this festering wound doesn't exist, and make the USA live up to the sacred ideals implicit in its founding, even though their implementation has been messy, imperfect and painful over the course of 241 years.

Returning to Rogue Columnist

The book is not quite done, but I'm 90 percent there and at least know, finally, how it ends (probably). I promised readers that columns would return in mid-September.

Coming back isn't an easy decision.

I know that nothing I write will change Phoenix's trajectory. It will bring more of the "Talton hates Arizona" claptrap. Nothing I write will alter the nightmare that began after Election Day 2016. I'm so tired of losing so much of the time.

As much as I hate "both sides" false equivalency, I feel increasingly alienated from the loud left, while "conservatism" is not only nihilistic and destructive but in power. It's tempting to watch the past few months and think Trump and the GOP are the gang who can't shoot straight and will soon be swept away. Don't fall for it.

Also, I tend to write what is now put in the genre ghetto of "long-form commentary," so you won't find quick hits, videos, and digital "storytelling" here, either. The photos tend to be limited and mostly as historical galleries.

America last

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Four months into the Trump administration, it's clear that the president's agenda is anything but his promised "America First."

A budget that slashes Medicaid funding between $800 billion and $1.4 trillion won't just hurt "those people." To be sure, it disproportionately hurts minorities in certain states. But 42 percent of Medicaid recipients are white, many of them likely Trump supporters. Many Medicaid recipients have jobs — their employers are able to socialize their healthcare costs while privatizing the profits from the labor of the low-wage workers. America first?

The Republican repeal of Obamacare will leave 23 million Americans without health insurance. It has passed the GOP-controlled House and stopping it in the Senate is by no means assured, even likely. Remember, Obamacare was a market-based plan created by conservatives — but because it was proposed by President Obama, Republicans have devoted years to destroying it. They're doing it now, even though repeal has yet to pass, because of the uncertainty caused in the insurance markets. Every other advanced nation in the world has universal healthcare. We will lose even the modest gains of Obamacare. America will be even more last in healthcare. And all to ensure a tax cut to the rich and, well, because the Republicans like hurting people.

Other advanced, urbanized nations enjoy high-speed rail and modern subway systems in their cities. Trump wants to dismantle Amtrak — a longtime Republican goal — is holding up federal funding to help electrify the commuter-train line in the Bay Area, severely cut aid for transit, and do nothing to advance high-speed rail. Subways and mass-transit systems across the country are ailing. Only a nation with as many rubes as the United States would be oblivious to how far behind we are.

Rule of law vs. rule of men

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Let's be clear about James Comey. He was fired by the president who he was investigating for ties to Russia, in other words treason. Comey's FBI must have been getting close, so Donald Trump acted through his Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who had already recused himself from the Russia probe.

All the rest, about Comey and Hillary's emails (for God's sake), is a distraction or another of Trump's many lies.

At risk is the rule of law and a chilling future. Most immediately, it means Trump can install a crony as FBI Director (Rudy Giuliani?), as he has done in other federal agencies, to wreck from the inside. The independence of the premier federal law enforcement agency would be politicized and compromised. And the investigation into the depth of Trump's connections with the Kremlin — election meddling, money laundering, business connections, blackmail — would be stopped.

If the roles were reversed and the president was Hillary Clinton, she would already be facing impeachment and removal from office. But besides from some tut-tutting by the likes of wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III and Jeff Flake — the Republican-controlled Congress is doing nothing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (with a wife in the Trump cabinet) has defended Trump's action.

The great tax-cut con

The nation's infrastructure is graded D-plus by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Bridges collapse with frightening regularity. Our transportation system is stuck back in the 1970s. While other advanced, urbanized nations have high-speed rail, we've struggled for years merely to keep Amtrak alive, a system that eliminated hundreds of passenger trains when it came into being. We have no manned space program aside from astronauts hitching rides with the Russians. The military is at a breaking point after more than 15 years at undeclared wars. All over the country, cities struggle to keep up or rebuild such basics as parks and bus service. Inequality is at historic highs. Our education system is a shambles. The share of national income going to labor is at historic lows. On and on.

Your tax cuts at work.

The greatest con perpetuated on the American people began with Ronald Reagan, continued with George W. Bush, and now comes again with Donald Trump. That taxes must always be cut, especially for the wealthy and for corporations (which "are people," as Mitt Romney said).

We can't have nice things because of tax cuts. We're rapidly falling into Third World status because of tax cuts. This religion is an unkillable zombie. While Democrats fight over LGBTQI rights, gay marriage, transgender bathrooms, homelessness, "privilege," Confederate monuments, Black Lives Matter, mass incarceration, gun violence, microaggressions and safe spaces on university campuses, free college, pronouns, universal healthcare, and, of course, Her Speeches, Republicans persist with a message as monotonous and simple as the words of the Aflac duck: tax cuts. And it has worked spectacularly as a political weapon.

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.

The life of the Grand Old Party

At least a quarter century past his sell-by date as a credible columnist, George Will is still churning it out for the Washington Post syndicate. Recently, he looked down from his unchanging tower and pronounced that the savior for conservatism is...Doug Ducey.

With the Republicans facing at least a temporary but stunning Waterloo in their attempt to take health insurance from 24 million Americans, Will sought a quantum of solace in Goldwater country. He wrote, "Today’s governor, Doug Ducey, is demonstrating the continuing pertinence of the limited-government conservatism with which Sen. Goldwater shaped the modern GOP, after himself being shaped by life in the leave-me-alone spirit of the wide open spaces of near-frontier Arizona."

The column is worth reading if for no other reason than the skill with which Will elides over the facts. Here are a few:

• Arizona is hardly a creation of "the leave-me-alone spirit of the wide open spaces." Instead, it required the U.S. Army to brutally pacify the Apache, Yavapai, and other Indian tribes. Second was federal land grants for railroads. Third was billions of dollars in federal reclamation to turn the Salt River Valley into American Eden and then a place where millions could live in subdivision pods thanks to cheap water and power. Fourth was the New Deal funding that saved Phoenix, especially, and Arizona more broadly from the Great Depression.

Fifth was the Cold War military spending that created the tech economy in Phoenix and Tucson. And don't forget federal flood-control money that allowed developers to lay down tract houses in what would otherwise be flood plains. Oh, and federal home-loan support and the GI Bill, authored by Arizona's Ernest McFarland, were essential for further subsidizing the state's massive post-World War II population influx. 

Good and hard

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. — H.L. Mencken

Nobody can claim that Donald Trump isn't keeping his campaign promises. After his fashion, of course. He has added so many financiers, billionaire moguls and generals to his swamp that even the most recalcitrant Bernie Bro or Jill Steiner might wish for Hillary. But on the thing that matters most to his voters, white majoritarianism in the form of Muslim bans and the wall, he's delivering. Erasing Obama's legacy — check. Making war on cities with devastating cuts to public investments — check. Rolling back environmental regulations at a time when climate change is growing much worse, cleansing government agencies of competent "elites," and a budget that goes after every GOP bugaboo — check, check, and check.

When 24 million or more Americans — including the vaunted white working class — are deprived of health care, don't count on a midterm backlash. After all, dozens of Republican governors and legislatures refused to set up state ACA exchanges or expand Medicaid and no price was paid. The states got even redder. Trump's continuing discarding of norms, disgracing his office, and the timebomb of his connections with the Kremlin? I doubt any of this will affect his support. And remember, his supporters lie to pollsters, so don't believe his approval ratings. Nothing is too outrageous for them. They don't believe the news. Of course the Kenyan socialist tapped Trump Tower, no matter what the Republican intelligence committee chairmen say.

Trump stands very little chance of returning manufacturing jobs to America. His Commerce Secretary made his fortune in the "rip, strip, and flip" game, destroying companies and jobs. His Labor Secretary has praised robots. The billionaire and financial class he is empowering by cutting taxes and rolling back "burdensome" regulations grows ever richer by screwing working people.

A slew of Republican bills to repeal the New Deal, Great Society, Nixon administration, and the Enlightenment will be signed. Trump's Education Secretary is a charter-school racketeer who is actively hostile to public education. A trade war will result in higher prices at Wal-Mart and lost American jobs. Our standing in the world is already that of a sick joke. No price will be paid. Arizona has proved that, where decades of single-party control has led to disaster. Yet Arizona is redder as a result.

The art of this deal

Carl Muecke's take:

Arizona for everyone

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Outside of a few "elitist" blue enclaves, the United States is headed toward resembling the state we find revealed each week by journalists on Rogue's Arizona's Continuing Crisis. Let me count the ways:

• We're now a one-party nation, with the presidency, House, and Senate in the hands of hardcore right-wing Republicans. Soon the courts will be dominated by Federalist Society judges to validate whatever laws the GOP passes.

• We have a businessman as chief executive. Government is not a business and shouldn't be run like one, but here we are. In the case of America, it is fittingly a developer instead of an ice-cream chain CEO. Arizonans only know the language of developers, so this should be familiar ground. So should the lack of competence by a president with absolutely no public-sector experience and his contempt for it.

• Hostility to immigrants and white majoritarianism are driving policy and keeping the all-important base energized.

• The National Rifle Association is making policy with no Democrat in the White House to veto the madness. Hence, Donald Trump reversed a rule preventing gun purchases by the mentally ill. Can guns in bars and a national concealed-carry "right" be far behind?

Whither the Democrats?

The Wall Street Journal had a story today about Bernie Sanders supporters winning numerous state-level party positions as Democrats search for a way out of their deep wilderness. This might have major consequences as the party selects a national chairman on Saturday.

“It is absolutely imperative that we see a major transformation of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview with the newspaper last week. The party has “to do what has to be done in this country, to bring new energy, new blood.”

I find it interesting that Bernie Sanders, who carried so much damaging-and-false right-wing water against Hillary Clinton in the primary, is so interested in the Democratic Party. He didn't even become a Democrat until late 2015. At least Barry Goldwater, who took over the GOP in 1964 and began its long journey into today's hardcore extreme right organization, was a lifelong Republican.

The simplistic state of play has the Sanders-Elizabeth Warren "populist" wing of the party against the "old guard," denigrated as "corporate Dems" by the insurgents. In reality, the situation is far more complex and I don't see an easy way forward.

Despite President Obama winning two national elections, the Democrats lost hundreds of seats in state legislatures and ultimately both houses of Congress. As FiveThirtyEight reports, "At the beginning of Obama’s term, Democrats controlled 59 percent of state legislatures, while now they control only 31 percent, the lowest percentage for the party since the turn of the 20th century. They held 29 governor’s offices and now have only 16, the party’s lowest number since 1920."

White majoritarianism

Budweiser's "Born the Hard Way" advertisement during the Super Bowl won plaudits for putting today's anti-immigrant sentiment under a harsh light. But it was a stretch. In reality, the white Anglo-Saxon America of the 19th century was generally welcoming of Germans. They were Christian, often Protestant, hard working. Which is not to say the migration was without troubles.

For example, especially after the failed revolutions of 1848, German immigrants transformed Cincinnati. They congregated in the dense neighborhood north of the Miami-Erie Canal. The city's English and Scots-Irish majority sniffed, "There are a lot of Germans over the Rhine," meaning the canal. And the district, still one of America's architectural treasures, gained its name. The Germans brought great beer and helped make Cincinnati a magnificent music city. Before World War I, Cincinnati had many German-language newspapers — these, and much of the German culture, were victims of wartime xenophobia. Later, the German families moved to the west side. Even today, Interstate 75 is called the Sauerkraut Curtain, dividing old German from old English Cincinnati. The Germans assimilated and became some of the city's leading citizens. Samuel Adams beer is based on a recipe from co-founder Jim Koch's great-grandfather.

The Irish were reviled in many cities in the same century. They went on to become among the most American of Americans, producing two presidents. The largest mass lynching in American history was carried out in 1891 against 11 Italian immigrants in New Orleans. Italians, too, assimilated, and became a distinguished (and sometimes, with the Mafia, notorious) part of America. In the early 21st century, the governor of Arizona, most prominent businessman in Phoenix and, ironically, anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County were all Italian-Americans (many of Phoenix's most important earlier leaders were of Jewish extraction). So it went for scores of different ethnic and religious groups who came here. Native fear, discrimination and even atrocities, assimilation and acceptance. America is a credal nation, not an ethnic one. And we have been stronger for it.

The Cold Civil War

Here's a question for readers and friends who served in the military, particularly those who worked with nukes (I know you're there). Can a president order a nuclear strike with no intermediating checks in the National Command Authority?

Everywhere else in the military where nuclear weapons are involved, the "two man rule" applies, from authenticating an Emergency War Order and turning launch keys to even being in the vicinity of warheads and delivery systems. I always thought this applied at the top, where the ironically nicknamed "Mad Dog" Mattis would have to authenticate the so-called Gold Codes along with the president. Mattis is the most rational person in the administration. And yet, people have told me this is wrong: Donald Trump can give the launch order on his own. How about it? With the Martin Bormann/Joseph Goebbels clone Steve Bannon now a member of the National Security Council and an unhinged president, this inquiry takes on a certain...urgency.

The progressives have their marches — many thousands in city centers and airports over the weekend — and they believe they are mighty. Farhad Manjoo, the savvy technology columnist for the New York Times, appears to agree:

We’re witnessing the stirrings of a national popular movement aimed at defeating the policies of Mr. Trump. It is a movement without official leaders. In fact, to a noteworthy degree, the formal apparatus of the Democratic Party has been nearly absent from the uprisings. Unlike the Tea Party and the white-supremacist “alt-right,” the new movement has no name. Call it the alt-left, or, if you want to really drive Mr. Trump up the wall, the alt-majority.

Or call it nothing. Though nameless and decentralized, the movement isn’t chaotic. Because it was hatched on social networks and is dispatched by mobile phones, it appears to be organizationally sophisticated and ferociously savvy about conquering the media.

I'm not so sure. Crowd psychology is a funny thing and it can lead to magical thinking. Some have been mentioning 1968, as if that year of famous civil unrest ushered in a new progressive era. Quite the contrary happened, as the American liberal consensus was shattered and conservatives ("law and order") triumphed. Now I am suspicious of the progressive echo chamber on social media and in "the streets."

There's good reason to be. Donald Trump was elected by nearly 63 million votes. Although this was less by a record margin than the tally Hillary Clinton received, it's difficult to believe many of these Trump voters have buyer's remorse. He is doing exactly what he promised, and fast. I suspect they dig it, to use 1968 slang. It's what they voted for. But they are easy to ignore because they don't hold massive street demonstrations and they don't dominate social media. They just vote. And this has left us with the Republicans in charge of both the White House and Congress, 25 statehouses in entirety (including Arizona), and soon the federal courts. The ramifications of this fact are beyond enumeration.

Reading Trump's mind?

Only a week into this disaster and years to go, here's the great Carl Muecke's take. Have a laugh...or a chill.

The New Confederate Congress

(Illustration by Carl Muecke, click for a larger image)

The framers of the Constitution put three roadblocks in place to prevent a demagogue from assuming or discharging the office of President. One, the Electoral College, has already fallen. The courts, packed with Republican-appointed judges and Supreme Court mini-me Scalias, will also fail to stop the descent into an authoritarian kleptocracy.

That leaves the Congress. Unfortunately for the future of the republic, this Congress is, if anything, a greater threat than the showman-stooge-traitor Donald J. Trump.

Under Republican control, it waged a scorched-earth campaign to undercut President Obama at every juncture. His well-qualified, centrist nominee to the high court was blocked for nearly a year, an unprecedented act. Efforts to build infrastructure and create jobs, to fill the hole in demand caused by the Great Recession, were victims of needless "austerity." Republicans threatened to default on U.S. debt, one of their many hostage-takings to ensure that they "broke him," in the pungent words of former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (now head of the premier right-wing "think tank," the Heritage Foundation).

Now, even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and more people voted for Democrats than Republicans, this minority has total control of the national government. They represent the New Confederacy in our Cold Civil War. The beneficiaries of the vicious backlash to a black president. And they intend to use this power to the fullest.

Transition

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

In the near future, I will examine the Obama presidency. But one thing is certain: For the past eight years, I have slept well knowing this fine, scandal-free man was in the White House. No Drama Obama. History will be very kind to him. He may well be remembered as the last president of the United States.

Now we're headed into an ominous "experiment."

Donald Trump enters the White House with less legitimacy than any president in history. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote by the largest margin ever (tying Obama in 2012). Trump's approval rating is the lowest for an incoming chief executive in history. His Electoral College victory will forever be tainted by the tilting of the election in his favor by Russian intelligence, FBI Director James Comey, and media malpractice — manically overplaying fake Clinton scandals while downplaying or ignoring Trump's massive real scandals and conflicts of interest. And never forget voter suppression. This was the first presidential election after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Nevertheless, Trump and the Republicans are claiming a mandate to undertake a massive shift in our nation's life and trajectory. Taking health care away from 30 million Americans — at least half of whom are in the vaunted white working class — is Job No. 1. But the damage won't stop there.

The Republicans are hot to cut taxes on the rich and eviscerate "entitlements" (read the earned benefits of Social Security and Medicare). To roll back regulations protecting the environment and holding back the looting from anti-competitive mergers, too big to fail banks, and the oligarchs. The latter, along with a proto-junta of generals, stuff his cabinet nominees. If we only see America turned into a banana republic kleptocracy, we'll be lucky.

Now we're talking treason

"We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst." — C.S. Lewis

I'm old enough to remember Republicans continually warning that Democrats would surrender our country to the Russians.

It's funny how things turn out.

The news broke late Friday, a Washington Post story headlined, "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win the White House." It said in part:

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

As I have long contended: crisis reveals character. As in when Phoenix Bishop Thomas O'Brien hit a 43-year-old man with his Buick. Had O'Brien stopped and rendered first aid, called 911, administered last rites, he would have been a hero. Instead, he fled and the next morning called his secretary to arrange for his windshield to be replaced. But another driver got his license tag after the hit-and-run. He became the first Roman Catholic bishop to be convicted of a felony.

Faced with the Washington Post story, President-elect Trump had the opportunity to immediately call for an independent investigation into the Russian penetration of the American election. Instead, he berated the agency and defended Russia. He prepared to name Vladimir Putin's close confident and Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Crisis reveals.

'The white working class'

After the stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton, progressive mandarins are calling for a complete rebuilding of the Democratic Party. Here, for example, is Robert Reich's eight-step program. Unlike the Republicans after defeat, who double down on their ideological convictions and nihilistic congressional maneuvers, it may well happen. And it may be for the good. I don't know.

One thing I doubt is that the Democrats can win back the vaunted white working class. Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, who is challenging Nancy Pelosi for House Minority Leader, said, “We need to speak to their economic interests, that we get it, that we understand, that we talk about those things and we try to fight hard for those things.”

Well, how? President Obama saved General Motors, including the Lordstown, Ohio, assembly. Yet that county supported Trump over Clinton by six points. Obamacare provided more health insurance for whites than for blacks and Hispanics combined. Yet exit polls show whites voted 58 percent for Trump vs. 37 percent for Clinton, who had detailed policy proposals to help working Americans. As you can see from the map above, the Rust Belt states that went for Trump have plenty of counties that were doing well. The same thing with the hard-red South. (Although, as I wrote in the Seattle Times, blue states are the economic superstars for reasons that most red states shun).

Perspective is important. Hillary Clinton has won a larger majority of the popular vote than any candidate in modern history who did not also win the Electoral College. We vote by states, but even here it was a near-run thing. Trump won Michigan's 16 electoral votes by two-tenths of a percentage point (how'd that protest vote work out for you?). In the end, she couldn't get the low-single-digit additional points in key states that Obama had previously won.

Live through this

If you want to argue about who or what is to blame for this catastrophe, I direct you to The Best of the Front Page, where the articles are as definitive as we can be at this point. I suspect mauch, much more will emerge in the coming months and years about Russian intelligence, Wikileaks, media malpractice, and the shenanigans of the FBI.

To the white working class voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan who went for Trump: Fuck you. I refrain from profanity on this site, which has been overused to the point of being trivial, but how else to put it? Your situation is going to be so much worse as a result of what you did. I just wish you weren't taking the rest of us — those who made the majority of the popular vote that went to Hillary Clinton — and the planet down, too. My hope in this election was to avoid national suicide, not make any grand progressive gains which are impossible in this Cold Civil War. Even that modest aim proved impossible. I didn't sign up for this murder-suicide, but here I am.

If I were 30 and in better condition, I'd move to Scandinavia in a heartbeat. If I had been more careful in picking my parents, I'd drop out, go off the grid, keep subscribing to newspapers but not read them, read the great books and history, listen to classical music, opera, and jazz, be thankful for every day. I'd go back to school, learn a foreign language, become an amateur botanist, build a model railroad, re-read everything Shakespeare wrote, vote for what it's worth. I'd write my memoir, even if nobody would publish it.

Unfortunately, I have to work as long as I can, and do so in a calling that requires me to deeply immersed in the news. First as tragedy and then as farce? No, Karl. We're going to get both at the same time, good and hard.

Night falls on the republic

President-elect Trump. Roll that around in your mouth for awhile, see how it tastes.

This is what we get after the most portentous election in American history. The office of what was once quaintly called chief magistrate will be occupied by a temperamental narcissist hustler with no knowledge of statecraft, history, the world, or the Constitution. The republic is over, baby. You just need to decide how you'll live with it.

The pundits and pollsters were surprised. I was not.

For months, I've had a nagging worry. The cultural left grabbed the public square. Gay marriage, now accepted by most Americans, was not enough. We had Black Lives Matter shouting down opposing views and even taking the microphone from Bernie Sanders, whether a police shooting was uncalled for or righteous. The LGBTQI activists pushed into mainstream media to the point of a New York Times story on gender identity change in the first grade. The left weaponized language, such as "white privilege." As if all white people are the same and similarly "privileged." It celebrated the coming minority status of white people, demonized "white American history" through the lens of presentism as a cavalcade of nothing but genocide and oppression. Wrong-thinking academicians were badgered into silence or out of a job. The thought police aggressively patrolled social media.

And through all this, I thought: an increasingly angry number of whites were keeping eerily silent. Until they didn't on election day.

Yes, "fear of losing white privilege," "white nationalism," and no small amount of Obama Derangement Syndrome led to Trump's victory. It wasn't about the economy. But overreaching by the left was perhaps most consequential. And that kills the idea that Bernie Sanders would have been the better candidate. First, he would have been savaged by the right as SOCIALIST! (He was their preferred opponent). But like Hillary Clinton, he would have necessarily been the tribune of a changing country where the opponents of that change get a vote, too.

A version of the Bradley effect was surely at work here, too, where white likely voters told pollsters they were voting for Hillary — but when it came time to vote, the marked Trump. I warned about that, too. At the same time, years of Republican vote suppression efforts came together in this election, with results that were no doubt substantial and perhaps even decisive. As to this latter, most of the media will be so busy "normalizing" Trump that it will go unexamined.

A dozen historic elections

With Donald Trump, the most extreme and unqualified candidate of a major party, in striking distance of winning the presidency, we stand on the edge of the abyss. This election shouldn't be this close. You can use the comments section as an open thread as the next few days unspool. For my contribution, here are a dozen of the most consequential elections, nationally and in Arizona. At the least, they show that elections do indeed matter.

1828: John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson. Adams, the sitting Whig president, was defeated by war hero Jackson. The Whigs stood for the "American System" of internal improvements (infrastructure), a national bank and limiting the spread of slavery. Jackson was just the opposite. Jackson's victory led to the breaking of solemn treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes and their brutal relocation west (denounced by Adams) to open land for slaveholders, among many other ills.

1844: James K. Polk vs. Henry Clay. The defeat of "Harry of the West" not only doomed the American System but eliminated the last chance that the Civil War might have been postponed or avoided. One reason was the familiar partisan circular firing squad. Clay lost votes in New York and Pennsylvania to the abolitionist Liberty Party. It was the death of the Whigs.

With Polk, the nation again had a Southerner determined to extend slavery, including by prosecuting the highly unpopular Mexican War. At one point, Polk considered demanding all the territory to Tampico, but didn't want so many Mexicans brought into the union (they automatically became U.S. citizens with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war). On the other hand, in settling the Oregon Country dispute with Great Britain, he would have settled for the Columbia River as the northern border (in other words, Seattle would be in British Columbia). With Polk, the Civil War became inevitable.

 

'I can't wait for this to end'

I've heard this expression from so many people over the past two weeks, including some who are politically savvy. What world are you living in?

If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, it's not going to end. Donald Trump might refuse to accept the results of the election. Although this might lack any foundation in law — unless the Republican Party had ground to challenge specific state results — it would embolden his hardcore, alt-right supporters. To do...well, they have the guns, don't they?

If she wins but Democrats fail to gain a majority in the Senate, it's not going to end. Republicans have stated explicitly that they will refuse to approve any Supreme Court nominee she puts before the upper house. President Obama's highly qualified, centrist-to-a-fault nominee Merrick Garland has not even been granted a hearing before the Senate.

This is only the beginning. The scorched-earth nihilism shown by a disciplined Republican Congress will only intensify if the party loses the White House yet again. Clinton's cabinet and agency nominees could conceivable be blocked for the next four years. The GOP will stop at nothing, because its members believe only they have the right to rule. This was the party willing to default on U.S. debt and bring on world depression to stick it to That (Black) Man in the White House. Its austerity has prolonged the suffering of millions.

In the elevator, a veteran politician said that Hillary had the ability to get things done LBJ-style. With all due respect, LBJ had solid Democratic majorities in Congress, a mass Republican party with plenty of liberals and centrists, the American liberal consensus still intact, and the nation's sympathy for the martyred John F. Kennedy. None of those things appertain today.

A looming constitutional crisis

In an interview today with a Philadelphia radio station, wealthy Republican Sen. John Sidney McCain III said, "I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up. I promise you. This is where we need the majority."

Any nominee.

Later, according to Talking Points Memo, McCain's office appeared to back slightly away from the statement, saying, "Sen. McCain believes you can only judge people by their record and Hillary Clinton has a clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees. That being said, Sen. McCain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career."

Trust the original blurt as the truth. Trust it, too, because of the unprecedented refusal of the Republican-controlled Senate to even give a hearing to President Obama's nominee, the distinguished federal Judge Merrick Garland, as moderate as they get and recipient of the highest rating from the American Bar Association. It's 215 days and counting  

Before we examine the implications of McCain's statement and the behavior of the Republican Senate, it's worth reminding Arizonans exactly who John McCain is.

Now the action is downticket

A confession: Almost all my close friends as an adult have been women. I haven't spent much time in locker rooms, much less engaged in "locker-room talk," as the Republican presidential nominee excused his language about grabbing pussies. On the ambulance, contrary to the dialogue on the television series Emergency, we talked about only two things: calls and sex. This was even true of the female paramedics. Get two guys as partners and the talk could turn quite bawdy in assessing our lusts-of-the-moment. But it was never what Trump was saying, which was about sexual assault. It gives a sinister meaning to "binders full of women."

Anyone with a passing knowledge of Donald Trump knows he's a pig. If it takes the now infamous tape to bring him down, so be it. So many other statements, actions, and positions should have already done this, including his pledge to imprison his opponent if elected. Like so much else, it is unprecedented in American presidential politics. We're way beyond the need for a Godwin's Law warning when discussing Trump — he is on a Hitlerian path.

It's important to understand that little of the recent Republican abandonment of Trump is based on principle. Wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III was apparently fine with draft-dodger Trump calling him a coward for being imprisoned and tortured by the North Vietnamese. With the primary behind him and Hillary Clinton potentially winning Arizona, suddenly it's OK for McCain to denounce him. And so it goes. They are acting strategically, to prevent losing control of the Senate or even the House.

Another critical fact is that Trump now embodies the GOP after decades of drift into extremism, slaughter of RINOs, and flight from reality ("We create our own reality."). With or without Trump, the party denies mainstream science on climate change, wants to privatize or give to the states our public lands, privatize Social Security and destroy the social safety net, pursue ruinous austerity, appoint activist judges and Supreme Court justices, suppress voting rights, carry on a war against cities, deny women reproductive choice, cut taxes on the richest, "starve the beast" to show "gub'ment is the problem," turn us into a fascist theocracy. Behold the Party of Lincoln. The basic policies would have been the same under nominees Rubio, Kasich, Cruz, Fiorina, Carson, Bush, Jindal, Graham, Perry, Walker, or the strangely still respected Paul Ryan. Remember this. Burn it in your brain.

Fate of the nation

I am writing this before the first presidential debate. I don't plan to watch. Too much brain damage. Nothing that would be said could change my vote for Hillary Clinton. The alternative is national suicide.

So far, the election is playing out pretty much as I suspected. Republicans, even the #NeverTrump crowd such as Sen. Ted Cruz, will dutifully line up and vote for Trump. If the GOP candidate were Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, or George H.W. Bush, I would give him a hearing. But one of our two great mass political parties has gone insane. Donald Trump is not an anomaly. He is the natural outcome of the paranoid style in American politics that long ago took over the Republicans. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater could not win a GOP school-board primary today.

It doesn't matter that Trump is a serial liar, totally unqualified for national office, temperamentally unfit on a frightening level, the most dangerous candidate ever put forward by a major party. They will vote for him.

I don't want to hear about how things would have been different with Bernie. Had he won the nomination and been subjected to months of SOCIALIST!, he would be losing badly in the polls already. To me, your protest votes for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson are just short of treason. And if Trump wins, which he may well do, Mencken's quote that "democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard" will offer no comfort.

Flipping Arizona?

The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll has Hillary Clinton within one point of Donald Trump in Arizona. You read that right. This is in line with a polling average from Real Clear Politics, which even had Clinton slightly ahead during and after both parties' conventions. 

Is it possible that Hillary could flip Arizona to the Democrats? After all, her husband won the state in 1996. I am skeptical.

Bill Clinton won in a very different Arizona. The state was still competitive for Democrats and "experts" predicted that continued population growth would favor the party. Arizona's population expanded by 40 percent in that decade, but it was the "big sort," where people came seeking ideological co-religionists. It was almost entirely on the right. With the exception of the surprise election of St. Janet in 2002 and hopes for her "sensible center," Arizona politics trended ever more rightward. Today not a single statewide office is held by a Democrat.

From the 1980s on, Republicans patiently took control of school boards, municipal offices, tightened their control of the Legislature and Corporation Commission, built a massive infrastructure including fake "think tanks," the charter school racket, private prison racket, and the aid of the Real Estate Industrial Complex. The Democrats never knew what hit 'em. The best Napolitano could do was play defense.

In our Cold Civil War, with the nation more divided than any time since the eve of the Civil War, Arizona sits comfortably in the New Confederacy. I can still start a fight on Facebook by praising light rail (WBIYB).

A death observed

Apparently, most Americans learned about the death spiral of metropolitan newspapers and the consequences from watching John Oliver. Then they went back to kitten videos on social media. None of this is new to readers of Rogue Columnist (see here and here). My aim today is more modest.

As Oliver's well-worth-watching segment was going viral, a few of us were following the demolition of the Charlotte Observer building in downtown (or as the boosters insist ahistorically, Uptown) Charlotte. The photo above shows the work about half done a few weeks ago. The building, which took up a city block, was once as substantial on the Tryon Street side (left) as it remained on the Stonewall Street side in the top photo. Below is the site as of August 29th — all gone.

During my 30 years (!) in the working press, I have been employed by 10 newspapers across the country. I never made it to the New York Times, but I was fortunate to work at some of the finest metro papers in America, among some of the best journalists. The Knight Ridder-owned Observer was one. It was here that I was able to hit my zenith of business-section turnarounds — and the credit goes to my gifted colleagues, I only pointed the way. If I live long enough, I'll tell some of the stories. Unlike the Rocky Mountain News, the Observer is still going, in much more modest leased space (the name isn't even on the building).

But today I mostly want to meditate on the building and its meaning. This classic piece of Knight Ridder hulking architecture was no beauty. But it symbolized the importance and power of the newspaper, which not only committed great journalism but was a large employer. Before the collapse, the typical metro daily could employ 1,500 people or more in real jobs, not "gigs," in a multitude of departments from advertising and dispatch to platemaking and the press room. In the lobby, through large windows, you could watch the massive presses run. From college graduates and creative bohemians to skilled blue-collar workers and high-school dropouts — a major newspaper offered secure work and paths up.

If you had paid your dues at little papers, if you earned a reporting or editing job at a well-respected metro, you knew you had arrived and had much proving to do in order to remain — the imposing building alone told you. The building housed not only a newsroom, but a sizeable manufacturing, advertising, marketing, and distribution center. At one time, trucks from here took bundles of the Charlotte Observer to places across the Carolinas every night. It was a major civic institution — Observer Publisher Rolfe Neill was one of the four or five titans who turned Charlotte from a middling Southern big town into a major metropolis of national consequence, and who revived downtown.

It can happen here

Clowns who say outrageous things, who are completely unqualified for office, are very capable of being elected in America. They are entertaining, underestimated, and disasters in office. The highest office reached so far has been governor — think Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and Lester Maddox in Georgia. Closer to home was Evan Mecham, the governor of Arizona from 1987 until he was impeached and removed from office less than 15 tumultuous months later.

Mecham was a clown, given to conspiracy theories and outrageous statements — his "pickanniny" comment and blaming working women for high divorce rates were only two. But he had support from the state's right wing, especially John Birchers and fellow Mormons. He was a populist, after his fashion. In Mecham's world, the government was the enemy and cause of all ills. He wanted to eliminate income taxes and turn over the public's lands to state interests. A theocrat, Mecham wanted to have prayer in public schools. Threats were everywhere, out to destroy real Americans and the real America.

The toupee'd Glendale car dealer and serially failed newspaper publisher gave Carl Hayden a scare in the 1962 U.S. Senate race. Among his issues was a demand that the United States withdraw from the United Nations. Hayden's longtime aide Roy Elson organized a campaign to "reintroduce" the senator to a state he had served in Washington since 1912, but had attracted large numbers of newcomers since 1956. Hayden won comfortably, but many old Arizonans were unsettled. That anyone could get 45 percent of the vote against the state's indispensable man in the fight for the Central Arizona Project was astounding and deeply disturbing.

Mecham ran outsider campaigns for governor again four times before winning. As in 1962, each election he explicitly ran an insurgent campaign against elites and "the establishment."

His election was a fluke. In the 1986 Republican primary, he faced the respected state House leader Burton Barr, who was supported by the establishment, from Barry Goldwater to the Pulliam press. But Barr, a legislative wizard, ran a sluggish campaign. Turnout was the lowest in 40 years. And Mecham cleverly exploited the grievances and paranoia of newcomer retirees, adding to his Bircher and LDS base — people who did vote. On the Democratic side, and back then Arizona was a competitive state, Carolyn Warner was sandbagged by apartment magnate Bill Schultz, who got out of the race only to reemerge as an independent.

Hillary's moment?

Imagine how social media, cable "news," and talk radio in a misinformed nation would have portrayed some candidates in the past.

A failed one-term congressman, wishy-washy on his party's most important moral issue, no executive experience, too homely for television — and despite the media campaign to make him out as a simple, honest frontiersman, in reality he was a highly successful lawyer for the nation's most powerful industry. His own law partner noted, "his ambition was a little engine that knew no rest." You know him as Abraham Lincoln.

An elitist intellectual, hotheaded, jingoist warmonger, impetuous and too young to be even vice president. Otherwise known as Theodore Roosevelt. The white privilege dandy who concealed his crushing disability and constant pain, running on a balanced-budget promise but in reality holding no fixed ideology and depending on a coalition that included Southern segregationists. That was TR's cousin, Franklin Roosevelt.

On the other hand, there was "the great engineer," a self-made man, the rightly lionized savior of refugees in World War I — the only man who came out of the Paris peace conference of 1919 with his reputation enhanced, according to John Maynard Keynes. This progressive and pragmatic man seemed ideally cut for his time. Yet Herbert Hoover as president was overwhelmed by catastrophe.

You see how it goes. How the digital age distorts. How contingency and crisis reveal character. Now, with the republic facing its greatest danger since the eve of the Civil War, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton steps forward to claim the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

1964

Twenty years before the "San Francisco Democrats" were reviled with such devastating gusto by Jeane Kirkpatrick, there were the San Francisco Republicans. The Grand Old Party held its 1964 national convention in the cavernous Cow Palace that July. The nominee was Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater. While Barry was no [real-estate developer], the party's path to Cleveland arguably began in San Francisco 52 years ago.

The Republican Party then was still a mass American political party, with conservatives, centrists, and liberals. As the Party of Lincoln, it retained the remnant of decades of support by African-Americans. In 1960, Richard Nixon, with a strong civil rights record and the initial backing of Daddy King, neglected to call Martin Luther King Jr. in jail (John F. Kennedy did), a blunder that some scholars have said cost him the presidency. Even so, Republicans, including conservatives from the Midwest, had been essential to enacting the 1964 Civil Rights Act and, a year later, the Voting Rights Act. Without them, Lyndon Johnson would never have been able to overpower the segregationist Southern wing of his own party.

But Goldwater and his supporters staged a revolution in the run-up to the convention, with conservatives capturing the party machinery for the first time since the 1930s. These were not conservatives such as Ohio Rep. William McCullough, a key leader in passage of the Civil Rights Act. Instead, their lineage went back to the reaction against the New Deal, Sen. Joe McCarthy, and "the paranoid style in American politics," a term coined by the political scientist Richard J. Hofstadter in his famous 1964 essay.

It had received little traction with Republican presidential candidates Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower, or even anti-communist Dick Nixon. But thanks to William F. Buckley's National Review (founded in 1955) and Goldwater's 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative, ghostwritten by Brent Bozell, the movement had received new life. It was conservatism 2.0. Behind its appeal were more than anti-communism, a call for low taxes and smaller government, and the perennial claim of Democratic foreign-policy weakness. A special magnet for many disaffected white voters was the right's opposition to the civil rights gains of the era.