Kevin Drum: It’s inevitable that more details are going to emerge about all this—about both the hacking itself and Republican complicity in making use of the Russian material. This is not something that can be forgiven quickly or easily. Republicans may or may not care about this, but they’re going to have live with a smoldering, bitter anger from their Democratic colleagues for a very long time.
18 U.S. Code § 2381 – Treason: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
Lemkin: If we ever have a Democrat in power and/or position to do something about investigating and seeking legal redress, that person will say “I think it’s time to let bygones be bygones. Let’s just keep walking.”
Category: Uncategorized
I’m a PC
A long piece by Ta-Nehesi Coates on Obama (and, basically, race in America) that is predictably excellent, but this little scene really sticks out to me:
The [systematic and complete GOP] obstruction [throughout Obama’s presidency] grew out of narrow political incentives. “If Republicans didn’t cooperate,” Obama told me, “and there was not a portrait of bipartisan cooperation and a functional federal government, then the party in power would pay the price and they could win back the Senate and/or the House. That wasn’t an inaccurate political calculation.”
Obama is not sure of the degree to which individual racism played into this calculation. “I do remember watching Bill Clinton get impeached and Hillary Clinton being accused of killing Vince Foster,” he said. “And if you ask them, I’m sure they would say, ‘No, actually what you’re experiencing is not because you’re black, it’s because you’re a Democrat.’ ”
This is a genuinely and deeply important perception by Obama. It is undeniable that racism figures into much of the baseline Obama hatred/denial (“not my President!” “not a citizen!” and so forth), but baseline crazy is baked right into the mix for any Democrat that holds high office. Period. And an over-reliance on just characterizing this stuff over the last eight years as racism in blanket fashion is definitively of a piece with the “PC run wild” attacks that Trump used to great effect.
Even more importantly, though, is the fact that it’s all too easy to forget what the ground rules are for Democrats as candidates or office-holders. Expect this kind of shit. Run against it. Point it out in off years any time you are near a live microphone. You can never just “move forward,” unilaterally disarm, and take what you perceive to be the high road. Use your foreknowledge and expectation of these asinine talking points to preemptively mock and aggressively belittle your opponents based on the predictability of their spew as opposed to the far easier shortcut “oh, that’s just racist.” Because once you throw those qualifiers in, people on the convincible peripheries just stop listening. It is far easier to show them the crystal clear pattern of noise and falsehood, especially if you’re the one bringing it up and preemptively bludgeoning your opponent with it, than it is to get them to stare into the maw of decades and centuries of systematic privilege from which they have likely benefited…and but also magically admit to that, accept your point, change their worldview, and march right down to vote “D” for the rest of their natural lives.
But, alas, Serious Democrats are against this sort of thing; my dears that simply isn’t done. And this is why they fail.
Meet the Press | Washington Spectator
Superb piece by Rick Perstein, a tiny bit of which is this:
It’s almost like they keep score in editorial offices. Only a certain number of horrifying—which is to say, truthful—things can be allowed in a major publication about our president-elect every day, which then must be balanced by something reassuring. Which is to say, something not true.
You really must read the whole thing. It’s excellent.
Get Over It
Disgraced former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Sunday before the election on Meet the Press: Every foreign gift, every foreign speech — Senator or Secretary of State, everyone, no, it’s not a big charge, it’s the U.S. Constitution. There’s a section in the Constitution called the Emoluments Clause, it says, “No one, nor their spouse can take money from foreigners … I think the real corruption is the lack of the media being willing to be honest about how much lawlessness the Clintons stand for and how much they have ripped off the American people.
Disgraced former Speaker Newt Gingrich as quoted in Politico, after the election: This is a great test case between the pre-Trump and post-Trump worlds. In a pre-Trump world dominated by left-wing ideas, anyone successful is inherently dangerous and should be punished for trying to serve the country. The American people knowingly voted for a businessman whose name is inextricably tied to his fortune. … I’d say to the left wing, get over it.
Lemkin: If the Republic is to survive, Trump will have to be impeached, and it’s going to have to be the GOP that does it. It’s the only way out that includes our extant form of government, such as it is.
…[T]he thing that Mitch McConnell figured out on Day One of my Presidency [is that] people aren’t paying that close attention to how Washington works. They know there are lobbyists, special interests, gridlock; that the powerful have more influence and access than they do. And if things aren’t working, if there’s gridlock, then the only guy that they actually know is supposed to be in charge and supposed to be helping them is the President. And so the very deliberate strategy that Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party generally employed during the course of my Presidency was effective. What they understood was that, if you embraced old-fashioned dealing, trading, horse-trading, bipartisan achievement, people feel better. And, if people feel better, then they feel better about the President’s party, and the President’s party continues. And, if it feels broken, stuck, and everybody is angry, then that hurts the President or the President’s party.
President Barack Obama, talking to David Remnick of the New Yorker. This is, perhaps, the most important concept for the remaining Democrats in Congress to read, read again, memorize, and carve into some very hard rock in each of their offices. It may sound nice to “work with” a President Trump, but helping him only will make things worse. Work the edges. Minimize the pain, but Trumpism and the GOP must be seen to fail, and badly. Short-term bipartisanship is the worst possible reaction to 2016. You must oppose and be clear on the meaning and import of that opposition. You’re going to lose anyway, at least lose in a fashion that is productive long-term and helps shape your desired policy outcomes if and when the Trump era can be brought to an end.
Here Come the Camps
Carl Higbie, former Navy SEAL and spokesman for the pro-Trump Great American PAC: Yeah, and to be perfectly honest, it is legal. They say it will hold constitutional muster. I know the ACLU is gonna challenge it, but I think it’ll pass, and we’ve done it with Iran back – back a while ago. We did it during World War II with Japanese, which, you know, call it what you will, maybe –
FOXNEWS’ MEGYN KELLY: Come on. You’re not – you’re not proposing we go back to the days of internment camps, I hope.
HIGBIE: No, no, no. I’m not proposing that at all, Megyn, but what I am saying is we need to protect America from –
KELLY: You know better than to suggest that. I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that gets people scared, Carl.
HIGBIE: Right, but it’s – I’m just saying there is precedent for it, and I’m not saying I agree with it, but in this case I absolutely believe that a regional based –
KELLY: You can’t be citing Japanese internment camps as precedent for anything the president-elect is gonna do.
HIGBIE: Look, the president needs to protect America first, and if that means having people that are not protected under our Constitution have some sort of registry so we can understand, until we can identify the true threat and where it’s coming from, I support it.
100 days to save the Republic
Storm und Frum
A tweetstorm’s tweetstorm from David Frum:
Slicing away one’s memory lobes an excellent basis for decision-making, so sure (he said with heavy sarcasm). [A Fresh Start for Trump!]
Let’s have a fresh start and forget that the president-elect owes his victory in large part to aid by a hostile foreign intelligence agency
Let’s have a fresh start and pretend that the president-elect didn’t alert allies and enemies that America may ignore its NATO pledges
Let’s have a fresh start and forget that the president-elect remains committed to a religious test for the rights of citizenship
Let’s have a fresh start and never mind that the president elect is a confessed serial sexual assailant
Let’s have a fresh start and who cares that the new administration is already developing fraternal ties to fascist parties in Europe
Let’s have a fresh start and believe that it doesn’t matter that the president-elect owes hundreds of millions to the Bank of China
Let’s have a fresh start, because who is bothered that black, brown, & Muslim fellow citizens have been demeaned and feel terrified?
Let’s have a fresh start, and hope that pro-Trump trolls will cease bullying women into silencing themselves on social media
Let’s have a fresh start, because it will take time to learn how the president-elect has prostituted his office for personal gain
Let’s have a fresh start, because 70 year old men afflicted by narcissistic personality disorder often suddenly become better people
Lets have a fresh start, because it’s only fair play to give would-be kleptocrats a 6-month head start before we act to stop them
Let’s have a fresh start, because Trump’s contemptuous assumption of media gullibility is fully justified.
On Trump’s Final Argument for America: “Corruption”
Lessig lays down what I think are the key take-aways for the Democratic party. Read the whole thing, but I think he nails the “barring disaster, here’s the way forward:
"Trump is not going to “drain the swamp.” He is not going to reform the system. In two years, if the Democrats finally learn to speak the language of America, there will be an endless list of examples of just how the Republicans once again sold out. 2018 could be a shot for the Democrats to gain control of Congress. And if it gains control with the right commitments, it could then enact the reform that would begin to convince America that it might—finally—have a democracy.”
Yep. Not going to come easily, but assuming the institutions survive, this is how we do it.
The process of [the Electoral College] affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist 68. I have the honor to be your obedient servant, D dot Trump.
Lemkin 