PMC Commentary

717 words of very deep thought about a subject not worth writing about

It's impossible for me to estimate with anything close to accuracy how many thousands of words have now been written by liberal and conservative commentators about why the subject of those words — Atlantic magazine's hiring of Kevin Williamson — isn't worth writing about. I've already added my thousand (precisely, 908), and I'm about to add several hundred more. Why? Because a liberal magazine's hiring of a conservative writer is such a ho-hum subject which the reading public couldn't give two aphoristic shits about is a fertile subject we self-professed deep thinkers — i.e., said commentators — must plow, even though doing so is of almost mortifying irrelevance. 

Merely this one, 2017 November entry by National Review's Williamson should have obviated commentators' soul-searching debate at the get-go. Mr. and Mrs. Treasury Secretary, the Mnuchins, wrote Williamson, "are genuinely awful people, of course, absolute national embarrassments whose comprehensive lack of taste or elementary self-awareness is really quite phenomenal to behold, but what is truly awful is that we have reached a point in the stultification and celebritization of our politics that the wife of the Treasury secretary is a public figure about whom one is obliged to have an opinion."

That, gentle reader, is superb style as well as a dead reckoning of truth, and as such has earned a national platform other than the National Review, which harbors no liberal writers. Nonetheless, conservatives such as NR's David French criticize liberal publications for wanting to "cleanse their pages of conservative voices," which, he says, would be an "immense" loss to "American intellectual life." French gives a defense of his hypocrisy short shrift, since he can't defend it. Still, as to his fundamental point, he's right: "Do you [progressives] want any serious intellectual media space where conservative and progressive ideas clash? If you do, then you just might have to endure life alongside immense talents like my friend Kevin Williamson."

Liberals and progressives have denounced Williamson's Atlantic hiring on three counts of merit: The writer once tweeted his agreement with the ultimate logic that if abortion is murder, then women who undergo an abortion should suffer the legal consequences of murder; he professed that gender "is a biological reality" and therefore not optional; and he once referred to a black, East St. Louis prepubescent youth as a "primate." Offensive? Sure. But as Williamson's ideological soulmate, Bret Stephens, preaches, "Let he who is without a bad tweet, a crap sentence or even a deplorable opinion cast the first stone."

Adds Stephens, "Weighed against these charges are hundreds of thousands of words of smart, stylish and often hilarious commentary, criticism and reportage…. The wiser test of acceptability is whether an argument is thoughtful, thought-provoking and offered in good faith."

The latter is something progressive writers brag about — as an item of exclusive possession — and yet progressive bad faith is easy to find. Take, please, HuffPost contributor Noah Berlatsky, who two days ago duped his progressive readers with a flagrant indifference to truth that is truly astonishing. "Trump’s narrow, fluke victory has convinced editors at The New York Times and The Atlantic that what America really wants and needs is more serious conservatism to challenge readers," wrote Berlatsky. As proof of the foolishness of all this, he claimed that the aforementioned Bret Stephens "kicked off his [NYT] tenure with an embarrassing column spouting climate change denial." Either Berlatsky can't read, or he has no trouble with lying. What Stephens actually wrote was that the climate is unquestionably warming and humans have contributed to that warming. "None of this [column]," wrote Stephens quite plainly, "is to deny climate change or the possible severity of its consequences." (Stephens' column addressed the problem of scientific — and political — certainty, not climate change.)

As a socialist, I suffer no fear of confronting conservative policy arguments. Facts tend to scurry from their side, thus refuting their arguments is usually rather effortless. However, authentic conservatism claims not to be an ideology supported by factual evidence; it is, rather, more of a temperament — one of prudence. As such, this democratic socialist can also identify as a conservative, which FDR and Barack Obama implicitly did. And since Kevin Williamson is a conservative of explosive NeverTrump sentiment — reminder: conservatism is not Republicanism — I have no fear of Atlantic's hiring of him.

So there you go — 717 more words on a subject scarcely worth writing about; 735, counting this sentence.

 

The death of conservative madness - Trumpism - could use a push

Michael Gerson asks, "Is it time for anti-Trump conservatives to recognize that they have lost the political and policy battle within the GOP and to accommodate themselves as best they can to an uncomfortable reality?" He notes that "This is the argument of the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Henry Olsen, one of the most thoughtful political analysts on the right."

If that's what typifies the "most thoughtful political" analysis on the right, then the right faces irreversible doom. Any (actual) conservative accommodation with Trumpism is a perfectly ghastly idea. Genuine conservatives would be committing ideological suicide, since Trumpism destroys all others in its path. "Accommodation" would be a euphemism for wholesale capitulation.

This, Gerson shrewdly recognizes while also acknowledging that "Olsen’s historical model is 'fusionism' — a theory associated with conservative thinker Frank Meyer that asserted common political and intellectual ground between social conservatives and libertarians in the middle of the last century." I've read Meyer. He was a former communist who thus adored dialectical thinking — and he was damn good at it. It was Meyer — not Bill Buckley — who in the pages of National Review (and other conservative publications) sketched the fusionism (synthesis) that would prove so politically profitable for the GOP.

"An intellectual dialectic within the Republican coalition is straining to produce a new, more pro-worker synthesis," muses Gerson, "which Olsen himself has long advocated. But this raises the question: Is this a normal political moment?" — and is Trumpism a somewhat normal political movement?

The answer? A pronounced No. Trump's movement is one of unprecedented malice, racism, dehumanization, hostility to the First Amendment and facts, "anger and tribalism." It's a mental disease, an intellectual abyss, a roaming maliciousness and a predatory monster. One respectable option for a conscientious America is to put it out of our misery.

Which leads us to Gerson's "option: For elected leaders to remind Americans who they are and affirm our common bonds. For conservative policy experts to define an agenda of working-class uplift, not an agenda of white resentment — which will consign Republicans to moral squalor and (eventually) to electoral irrelevance. For principled conservatives to hear the call of moral duty and stand up for their beliefs until this madness passes. As it will."

That's an admirable passage; the option of affirming our "common bonds" is among the most wholesome of advocacies. An option dismissed by Gerson is that of a third party (the Republican Party's origin) — "a pipe dream," he writes, since as Olsen wrote, "there simply aren’t enough dissatisfied conservatives."

Here, I'm not so sure of Gerson and Olsen's assessment. Earlier this morning I quoted from Ornstein and Mann's "Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem." In their analytical coda they write, "If [voters] can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center." Perhaps I'm misinterpreting Ornstein and Mann, but I read that as an embrace of a third-party possibility — a possibility I would also embrace.

Many conservatives vote for the supreme ugliness of Trumpism because they find the Democratic Party even uglier. That, to put it bluntly, is idiotic, nonetheless it's the way of more than a few conservatives. So, give them a choice, not an echo. Conservatism's Michael Gersons, its David Frums and George Wills must encourage authentically conservative pols to affirm our common bonds, promote an agenda shorn of white resentment, issue the call of moral duty and stand up for their traditional beliefs. And since Trumpism has swallowed the GOP whole, those pols must do so from the thoughtful confines of a third party.

Would it win? No. But neither will the Republican Party from here on out, with Trump at its helm. The only way for genuine conservatism to survive is to break, decisively, from what passes for conservatism these days. "This madness" will indeed pass, as Gerson notes. But it could use a push.

 

The almost-April fundraiser is almost over

One day remaining. And the ship, I'm glad to report, has righted itself; regular donors to this site have come through beautifully in the last two days — and I thank them. If you've been a regular donor and have yet to renew your support, please do so now by clicking the Donate button to the right. Some first-time donors have also come through, and of course to them I offer the same thanks. Still, I know from my stats reports that there are many regular readers out there who are non-donors. If you are one, I'm asking that you change that status — today. Trust me, you'll feel better, and for damn sure I will. The Donate button to the right awaits your dutiful attention. Any amount is appreciated; I like knowing that the work I do is as well. So please renew your support or offer it fresh, now.

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I'm just as appreciative of you, my readers — and, I hope, contributors. Again, please donate today. Thank you. —PM

 

Laura Ingraham: A case study of Trumpism's vileness - plus two recommendations

As a sideline, my wife used to coordinate yearlong visits by inbound foreign exchange students. This was as much of a hobby with her as it was a sideline; she did it at a probable financial loss, but she loved doing it. Anyway, as part of her efforts to familiarize American teenagers with other cultures, she would have her foreign students speak — some of them in possession of less than ideal English pronunciation — to high school assemblages. Alas, one of them once told a class that he particularly "enjoyed American bitches." Visages of puzzlement swept across the classroom, as it did with my wife. She gently asked the young foreigner for elaboration. "You know, American bitches," he replied. "With all the sand."

Well, this week I'm enjoying the real thing, particularly Laura Ingraham. Her travails, that is. They began Wednesday, when the Fox News primetime host proceeded to do what the network's primetimers do best: bully the weaker among us, or rather, bully those whom the hosts believe are defenseless and thus weak. For the Ingrahams and Hannitys of this world, there are two traditional venues for such vileness — Fox News's air or Twitter's cyberspace, both of which are berths where vileness goes not only to live, but to thrive. Ingraham chose Twitter, tweeting that David Hogg, a survivor of Parkland, Florida's horrific high school massacre, was "Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it." (Hogg has been accepted by Cal Poly, California State University and Florida Atlantic University.) Ingraham's tweet was, ahem, ill-advised — in both its content and her miscalculation as to Hogg's "weakness."

Which is to say, he blasted the bejesus out of her, countertweeting: "Soooo @IngrahamAngle what are your biggest advertisers ... Asking for a friend. #BoycottIngramAdverts." Hogg's brief but muscular missive resulted in Ingraham's (Fox News's) loss of several advertisers; to date, TripAdvisor, Wayfair, Nutrish, Hulu, Nestle, Stitch Fix and Jos. A. Bank. Undoubtedly, others will follow, which makes one rather proud of corporate America's idealistic pragmatism. Rachel Ray's Nutrish told HuffPost, "The comments she has made are not consistent with how we feel people should be treated." TripAdvisor and Wayfair were agreeably harsher: "In our view, these statements focused on a high school student cross the line of decency," said the first, and "The decision of an adult to personally criticize a high school student who has lost his classmates in an unspeakable tragedy is not consistent with our values," said the second.

For most every reaction there is a counter-reaction, and Ingraham's was characteristically emetic. "Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111," she tweeted. "On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland." On reflection? In the spirit of Holy Week? Any upset or hurt? She was blinking out her hypocrisy in Morse code. Prior to her first tweet, Ingraham had time to ponder its filthy foulness. But the greatest numbers among the lowest common denominators of hateful Trumpism is what she shoots for, and on premeditated "reflection" of that — during Holy Week — she had tweeted her vileness.

Hogg was "unimpressed," as the NY Times puts it, by Ingraham's feigned, profits-protecting regret. "She only apologized after we went after her advertisers," he told the Times. "It kind of speaks for itself. I’m not going to stoop to her level and go after her on a personal level. I’m going to go after her advertisers." Hogg, 17, is 10 times more mature than Ingraham, 54. As further proof of this, "Ingraham did not address the controversy on her show, 'The Ingraham Angle,' on Thursday evening," notes HuffPost.

All of which confirms the severe emotional disabilities and intellectual vacancies of Trump-supporting Fox News hosts, their fawning Trumpeteer viewers, and of course Trump himself, who has reduced American conservatism to sandbox tantrums and infantile bullying. When I am personally confronted by Trump's fans, after issuing such example-filled accusations, their retort rarely exceeds witless table-turning: No, it is liberals who are emotionally disabled and intellectually vacant, they cry. There, they leave it. It's that, or even more witless cries about the imaginary crimes of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. One would be a fool to engage such cretinism, for one cannot productively argue with such vast irrationality. It has taken me two years to learn this. David Hogg, 17, understood it from the get-go.

Six years ago, political analysts Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann penned a blockbuster essay, titled "Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem." By "Republicans" the authors chiefly meant the congressional Republican Party and its leaders, although they conceded the party's sick "attitude filters down far deeper than the party leadership. Rank-and-file GOP voters endorse the strategy that the party’s elites have adopted." I would reverse Ornstein-Mann's formulation. Let's just say it: Rank-and-file Republicans are the problem, which filters up to the party's leadership.

The GOP rank and file is infested with malevolent, ill-schooled, intentionally ignorant voters who inspire their party's elites to ever-greater heights of malevolent pandering. In a way, one can't blame Republican pols, for political villainy is precisely what their voters demand. Deprive them of it and they'll elect someone else. So, what to do with America's 30-some-odd percent of subliterate crybabies who hang on Laura Ingraham's every word and Donald J. Trump's every despicability?

My advice is the same as Bill Buckley's advice to Jew-hating, Birch Society-loving conservatives: ostracize them. Ostracize these Trumpeteers at work, at church, on neighborhood walks and at summer neighborhood block parties (if neighborhoods still do such a thing); make it clear that Americans of decency will not tolerate the racism and misogyny and rhetorical violence of America's top villain, Trump; make the Trumpeteers want to throw a shroud of embarrassed invisibility over themselves; and above all, make it clear to wishy-washy independents that Trumpism is broadly understood by decent Americans to be the home of pure evil — which independents can inhabit only at their own risk.

 

Of character, Trump, and a sleazy slice of the electorate

Charles Blow reminds us of Mike Pence's words at a September, 2016 campaign stop at an Arizona church:

I’m old enough to remember back in the last Clinton administration where America really had a debate over whether character mattered to the presidency. We don’t need to have that debate again…. Character matters to the presidency and Donald Trump will bring the highest level of integrity to the highest office in the land. You can count on it.

And that reminded me of a Washington Post entry from yesterday:

[Trump] is a man who has called one of his political opponents "a pussy" at a campaign rally — and has been heard saying in a 2005 recording that he likes to grab women by their genitalia, using the same vulgar word. He curses publicly, even when children are around, and has crudely bragged about the size of his hands. When more than a dozen women accused him of groping or kissing them without their permission, he called them all liars and critiqued one woman’s appearance. He has imitated a journalist with a congenital condition, insisted that some "very fine people" were alongside the white supremacists who gathered in Virginia last summer, and vilified Muslims, minorities and immigrants.

And now Trump is accused of having extramarital affairs with Daniels and former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal that started nearly 12 years ago, soon after his wife gave birth to his youngest son. Both women say they were paid tens of thousands of dollars to keep quiet during the campaign.

Then, the kicker: "Yet 61 percent of Republicans consider the president a good role model for children, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week."

What happened? What happened to America? — not the vestige of Puritan America, the sanctimonious America of Hester Prynne and Mike Pence, but of a nation whose behavior more often than not lived up to its professed values? I can't say I know.

I do, however, know what happened to me; I know the reason for my metamorphosis.

I’m also "old enough to remember back in the last Clinton administration where America really had a debate over whether character mattered to the presidency," to borrow from Pence's mauled English. I scoffed at this seemingly unending debate, which hit its highest (or lowest) point during the 2000 presidential campaign. Somehow, Al Gore inherited the sins of his political father and the erstwhile drunken, cocaine-sniffing George W. Bush exploited the medieval anachronism for all it was worth.

I stood firm in my Montaignean conviction: What did I care if my cook — to use my favorite essayist's example — was drunk in the kitchen, as long as he served up good food? Bill Clinton's untoward dalliances? Pshaw. My political idol, FDR, had his dalliances — though singular — as well, and only Lincoln could rival him as a chief executive and national savior. The debate over presidential "character," I told myself, was nothing but hypermoralistic nonsense, as genuine as Hester's abusers.

But, that was then and this is now. In my darkest nightmares, I never imagined that America would install a Donald J. Trump in the White House. Here's a man to whom "character," whether in office or out, means absolutely nothing; a man who indeed can openly call an opponent a pussy, who can brag about grabbing same, who can talk like a gangster around children, boast of penis size on the campaign trail, sexually assault and verbally abuse women, mock the disabled, praise "very fine" neoNazis, slander religions and minorities and immigrants, and least of all, conduct extramarital affairs like a Jack Kennedy. Trump would be a far better man if he had no character at all. What he does possess is stomach-turning.

So yes, my opinion of character in politics has evolved, given the opposite direction of the unspeakable sleazeball in the White House. How can 61 percent of members of what was once the Grand Old Party consider this jackass a good role model for children? Simply put, because they're as sleazy as Trump. Of them, my opinion hasn't changed.

 

With his help, the iron walls are closing in on Donald J. Trump

"[Trump] is facing the legal equivalent of heading into the NCAA Final Four as the head coach of a local high school basketball team," writes former Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall Eliason. And as the head coach, Trump is no Gene Hackman in Hoosiers.  

Commensurate with the president's resolute bungling of all things great and small, he has somehow managed to drive off the quite possibly indictable John Dowd — who, doubtless with presidential license, offered pardons to Trumpian felons Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort; the clinically unhinged Joe diGenova, who "lasted … less than half a Scaramucci"; and the vastly esteemed Ted Olson, who, with piercing clarity, has classified the Trump administration as one of "turmoil," "chaos" and "confusion."

The really riveting part of the Donald's malfeasance is that it was never content with past crimes alone. Virtually every day reveals some fresh legal horror, post-collusion. His yawningly conspicuous coverups may indeed be worse, from a legal point of view, than his original sins. If Trump were capable of heeding expert advice, by now he might well have been free of imminent legal danger. But, by definition, such a capability is beyond the chronically corrupt Donald Trump. And for that we should be thankful, I suppose, since his habitual corruption will bring him down. Then we'll be free.

The latest, as I've already touched on, is that the president's personal lawyer proffered illicit pardons to the dazzlingly guilty Flynn and Manafort — merely two of the 19 scofflaws involved in Trump's 2016 conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government — in exchange for their noncooperation with Special Counsel Bob Mueller. If you're a Trumpian criminal, then to you the Dudley Do-Right Mueller is instead the prince of fucking darkness. He always gets his man.

Flynn was smart. By promptly turning state's witness, he unsnared himself from Trump's web of indictable corruption. Manafort, however, is only entangling himself more helplessly. As former Deputy Attorney General Harry Litman has noted, "Manafort’s refusal to cooperate can’t be driven by a rational calculation that he has any reasonable chance of escaping conviction." So he's counting on his pardonable belief in "a get-out-of-jail-free card, so long as he keeps quiet."

In that belief, however, there is peril. "The framers did not create the power to pardon as a way for the president to protect himself and his associates" from criminal prosecution, observes Duke University law professor Samuel Buell. In other words, the legal act of a presidential pardon is illegal if performed to conceal illegal activity. So Manafort is screwed. (And of course he's still facing New York state prosecution for financial misdeeds.)

Along with yesterday's revelation of Dowd's unlawful pardons came yet more evidence of Trump & Friends' seminal crime of conspiracy to defraud. Manafort-sidekick and Trump's deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, "had repeated communications during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential race with a business associate tied to Russian intelligence," said the special counsel's office. Gates once identified the "associate," Konstantin Kilimnik, as a former Russian intelligence officer, "who for years was Mr. Manafort’s right-hand man in Ukraine." One doubts that Gates was merely ordering take-out borscht from Mr. Kilimnik.

Against all the oppressive evidence of collusion, obstruction and fraud, the top miscreant, Mr. Trump, is essentially defenseless. Competent lawyers refuse to take him on as a client because he's a scoundrel who shafts creditors and even an association with the pussy-grabbing Trump would stain any respectable law firm. The president has finally achieved what he has unwittingly sought for seven dishonorable decades: isolation, disgrace and pending doom. Were a skilled attorney to get within cattle-prod distance of this imminently indictable chief executive, I imagine his only advice would be — resign, and just hope that everyone then happily forgets about your miserable existence.

 

We need some other word or phrase for Republican hypocrisy

A CNBC survey finds that "Just 32 percent of the public reports having more take home pay because of the tax cuts" — the ones that Donald & Playmates swore were mostly middle-class cuts that would restore America to its greatness (by bankrupting the bejesus out of the public treasury).

But get this: only 38 percent of the 32 percent "say the extra pay helps their financial situation 'a great deal'" or even "a fair amount." Which means that only 12 percent of the public is reporting significant increases in their take-home pay.

Now for the real laugher. Having bankrupted the treasury, increased spending and ballooned deficits in excess of a $1 trillion a year, House Republicans, reports Politico, "will take up a balanced-budget amendment when they return from recess."

And why not? When your base is a feral pack of witless hypocrites who believe the likes of a Louie Gohmert represent the best of American politics, just why the hell not? Neither the base nor the party possesses any shame or sense of responsible governance, so why in God's name would the House leadership propose anything but pure idiocy.

Let no one argue that, when it comes to hypocrisy, some politicians are guiltless. Along with graft in the form of campaign "finance," hypocrisy is the mother's milk of all tub-thumpers. That much, everyone knows. But Republicans have raised the dreck of hypocrisy to a level that was once unimaginable. These pols transcend mere hypocrisy; indeed, since theirs is sui generis, it is unallowably imprecise to even call it hypocrisy. I would say it's more of a satanic farce, but I'm open to other re-labelings that capture the sheer depravity of Republican politics.

 

"Controversy" at Atlantic magazine

At Slate there's an engrossing and endlessly debatable piece (the best kind) by business and economics correspondent Jordan Weissmann, who is most unhappy with Jeffrey Goldberg's latest hire at Atlantic magazine, Kevin Williamson — "a longtime correspondent for the National Review" and "right-wing provocateur," as Weissmann describes him, while quoting Goldberg's principal reasons for taking on the "verbose and hateful troll":

"What am I trying to accomplish by having Kevin write for us? The first answer is this: He’s an excellent reporter who covers parts of the country, and aspects of American life, that we don’t yet cover comprehensively. I happen to think that conservatives made ideologically homeless by the rise of Trump are some of the most interesting people in America, and I want to read them whenever I can….

"I take very seriously the idea that The Atlantic should be a big tent for ideas and argument…. [M]y job is to make sure that we are ideologically diverse. Diversity in all its forms makes us better journalists; it also opens us up to new audiences. I would love to have an Ideas section filled with libertarians, socialists, anarcho-pacifists and theocons, in addition to mainstream liberals and conservatives, all arguing with each other."

Weissmann finds the ideological diversity argument unpersuasive. "After all, the Atlantic doesn’t seem to be making any effort to hire pro-Trump writers," he notes. But can we be sure of this? Were I assigned the task of hiring a pro-Trumper for a national magazine, I'd find myself at a loss. For I can't think of even one who is readable. The reason for this is self-evident. Any brain that is capable of admiring Trump is a brain quite incapable of formulating an elegant English sentence. To respect Trump is to be as intellectually muddled as the object of respect.

Weissmann finds some legitimacy, however, in Goldberg's "most interesting people" rationale. "[I]t appears Williamson despises Donald Trump, and Never Trump conservatives have a lot of cachet these days among left-leaning media outlets that want to show a commitment to publishing a range of views…. While they may have minimal pull in their own party, many are essential reads" — e.g., Bret Stephens (NYT) and David Frum (Atlantic) — "who are good at challenging progressive cultural and policy ideas." (Weissmann submits that "Ross Douthat might be the most talented columnist on the Times staff right now." I'd go with Stephens, whom I probably disagree with as much as Weissmann says he disagrees with Douthat on most issues, except for the detestation of Trump.)

As for Williamson being a good choice to cover the reddest states of America, Weissmann chortles, "given that he loathes them as much as he loathes the president." In what Slate's correspondent understates as a "controversial" passage, Williamson once wrote that "The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die." What's more, adds Weissmann, "Williamson is … an explicit, unrepentant elitist. As he tells it, his rough and financially deprived childhood in Texas taught him that the struggling American 'underclass' is largely responsible for its own bad luck. Today, he worships high culture (he’s a former theater critic who once grabbed a woman’s cellphone and hurled it away when she wouldn’t stop talking during the performance) and rich, talented men…. He views Trump … as an ignorant, vulgar poseur who caters to the worst tendencies of white identity politics."

Now for my say, after which you can tell me I'm full of crap.

I agree with Williamson, of course, that Trump is ignorant and vulgar. But who doesn't? Even some of his supporters will grant you that. As for loathing red-state communities, recognizing their dysfunction and contending that they deserve to die — not the people, literally, but the communities' sociocultural climate — again I'm in agreement with Williamson. Red states, especially their rural outposts, are where intelligence, taste and tolerance are born only to wither and die. Moreover, they abhor the thought of others — you know, "those people" — receiving government assistance of any kind, yet they themselves believe that government should keep their coal mines and manufacturing plants on artificial life support. This guarantees "bad luck." I also prefer high culture to low; I'd attend every performance of the Chicago Symphony if I could afford it, and I would have paid the price of admission merely to see Williamson hurl the woman's cellphone during whatever high culture was in progress. I would disagree with Williamson that rich, talented men deserve my worship, mostly because most were born rich, or were born into the means of developing their talents, which is another privilege not known to so many.

Finally, I very much agree with Goldberg's decision to hire Williamson. It's true that homeless NeverTrump conservatives are "some of the most interesting people in America," and I too "want to read them whenever I can." Their hatred of Trump comes from a different vantage point than mine, which is interesting in itself. But I also want to read them simply because they are, by and large, better writers than most lefties, who tend to be far too serious, even ponderous, and too often humorless.

I, for one, can see why Goldberg hired Williamson, and be sympathetic to it. I can also respect Weissmann's reasons for judging Goldberg's decision a poor one; but it seems to me that the Atlantic will be a "more interesting" place from here on.

 

#FuckHypocrisy

Monday, "The View" cohost Meghan McCain complained, in a bowdlerized way, about the profanity used by 17-year-old Parkland student David Hogg at Saturday's March for Our Lives rally:

"One thing I will say is that you don’t move the narrative when you use language like this. He said, 'It just makes me think what sick blankers out there want to continue to sell more guns, murder our children, and honestly just get reelected. What type of blanking person does that?'"

Fair enough. But here's Ms. McCain's Twitter bio, unbowdlerized hashtag and all: 

 

Trump and the politics of nostalgic incompetence

There's the hype of Trump's talk about revising U.S. trade and cutting government regulations and setting broad new policies. And then there's reality. Now showing are several articles underscoring that reality is swamping the hype, hence hope remains that not too much damage will be done before this swindling charlatan of a chief executive is ousted from office.

In "Trump’s early trade gains could come at future cost," the Washington Post explores the administration's recent South Korea trade deal, which Trump has touted "as vindication for the 'America First' approach.'" Said an administration official last night, "[The U.S.-South Korea] agreement is visionary and innovative, and it underscores a pattern of failure by previous administrations to negotiate fair and reciprocal trade deals." The White House has also touted the agreement as "historic." But as the Post smartly acknowledges, "threatening negotiating partners with tariffs unless they make concessions … is not President Trump's  innovation. It is a tactic that Washington often used before the creation of the World Trade Organization, though one that did little to reduce the bilateral trade deficits that preoccupy the president."

In addition to hearing the administration's hype, you should know the reality, as expressed by the experts who know trade, quoted by the Post. Says Edward Alden, a Council on Foreign Relations trade specialist, "[Trump is] resurrecting the 1980s.... [His trade policy is from] the Reagan playbook. The reason it hasn’t been used in a long time is the U.S. made a decision that binding dispute settlement [through the World Trade Organization] was better than tariffs as a weapon." Phil Levy, formerly a senior economist in the George W. Bush administration, addressed the U.S.-South Korea deal critically: "The expanded quota on autos allows in cars we don’t want to ship. The extended tariff on trucks blocks pickups the Koreans are not exporting. And the limitation on Korean steel exports will make life more difficult for all the U.S. manufacturers who use Korean steel. In what way does this help?"

Politico, in "Trump is winning the trade war — for now," notes the "conviction" of the European Union's trade chief, Cecilia Malmström, "that Trump’s tariffs will come back soon enough to bite him — just as the U.S. steel tariffs did back in 2002, when the resulting trade disruptions cost thousands of American jobs. The implication is clear," writes Politico: "In the long term, Trump will lose." Said Malmström earlier this month in a moment of wild fancy, "I hope that someone in the White House has read the history book." Says Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy: "It doesn’t matter to Trump whether this will hit back at the U.S. economy in the longer term…. It’s a political initiative, not an economic measure." The Europeans are likely to outsmart Trump, however, just as the South Koreans did — who gave him what he wanted politically but protected their economic interests.

On the second matter, Georgetown University law professor Lisa Heinzerling writes reassuringly in "Trump is losing his war on regulations" that the administration is botching pretty much everything. "The courts have found elementary legal mistakes in the Trump administration’s approach to agency decisions. Specifically, they have concluded that the administration has misread legal provisions, ignored factual evidence and bypassed required processes." Thus the courts have repeatedly shot down the administration's anti-reg goals. Heinzerling also notes that "It shouldn’t be too difficult for the Trump administration to avoid these kinds of errors," but "that it has failed to do so, repeatedly, in this first phase of the war on regulation bodes ill for its success in the next phase, which involves not just delaying or suspending existing rules, but actually removing them from the rule books."

In another Post op-ed, "Trump is running on animus autopilot," constitutional lawyer Joshua Matz observes that "A little more than 14 months into Trump’s presidency, a pattern has emerged in cases challenging some of his most despicable decisions," specifically his Muslim and military transgender bans. On the latter, unsurprisingly, "the reasoning offered to support Trump’s policy is riddled with empirical errors and anti-trans stereotypes," which, like Trump's clumsy approach to overturning regulations, makes it rather easy for the courts to step in and stop it. The "pattern" detected by Matz is one of almost breathtaking ineptitude.

"Step One: Trump shoots from the hip in creating policy." Which is to say, "Trump ask[s] a gaggle of incompetents to make good on [some] long-promised [policy]." "Step Two: Trump’s original policy is successfully challenged on legal grounds." What follows is familiar. "His apologists blame 'the resistance,' but often the real culprit is Trump himself. He proudly tweets his own unlawful intentions and sabotages his lawyers’ best arguments.""Step Three: The Trump administration engages in animus laundering." Here, Trump "grudgingly allows his lawyers and advisers to undertake a series of bogus, ends-driven 'reviews,'" whose goal "is to put just enough lipstick on the pig to pretend it isn’t a pig anymore." "Step Four: Trump’s revised policy is again challenged in court." What then follows is also familiar. "The plaintiffs … [then] poke holes in the shoddy, results-oriented justifications advanced by the government. And they emphasize that minor tinkering cannot save a policy whose only reason for existing in the first place was Trump’s desire to harm a vulnerable group."

My apologies for the length of this post. Citing others' in-depth analyses is not the stuff most contemporary blogging is made of. But such analyses are essential not only for understanding the cruelty, shallowness and stupidity of the Trump administration, but what promises to be its ultimate failure. Perhaps most encouraging is that American institutions are holding — preeminently, the courts and the Fourth Estate. What's needed next is the institution of democratic action — for voters to throw the Trump-enabling bums out, and two years later, the chief bum himself.

 

Does Trump himself deserve credit for Russian expulsions?

The expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats by the U.S. government, in coordination with the European Union's retaliatory acts, has some observers, such as Nicholas Burns, who served as an undersecretary of state in the Bush administration, pondering whether or not this White House now deserves credit for taking a harder line against the murderous Putin regime.

Burns answered yes, just minutes ago on MSNBC. But he also rattled off a verbal addendum, which pretty much nullified his preceding praise: The U.S.'s announcement of expulsion was issued by the State Department, not the White House. As with earlier acts of U.S. retaliation for Russian transgressions, Trump always finds a way to distance himself from right-thinking American leadership.

A Kremlin spokesman responded to U.S. actions by saying "We already stated and reconfirm that Russia has never had any relation to this case." Trump has believed the lies of Putin and the Kremlin before — or at least that's what he's said. Why not this time? Why isn't Putin just as believable? Why not ring up Vladimir and congratulate him for having cleared himself of this nefarious business of assassinations on foreign soil?

The horror of Trump is that we wouldn't be at all surprised if, tomorrow, he were to do just that.

 

It only LOOKS like UNMISTAKABLE corruption

CNN reports that "Two companies confirmed earlier this month that they have provided hundreds of millions in loans to [Jared] Kushner's family business, but disputed in letters to Democratic lawmakers that there was a connection between those loans and meetings Kushner had with their executives."

Talk about sarcasm.

CNN also reports that the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, David Apol, notified the White House Counsel's office of Kushner's, ahem, rather suspect activities. He was assured by the office "that they had already begun [the] process" of looking into Kushner's possible violation of laws and regulations.

Uh-huh. Internal investigations possess a stellar record of impartiality and getting the bad guy, especially when he's the son-in-law of a banana republic's tinpot autocrat, who's even guiltier than the Baby Doc grifter.

Well, this certainly seems to be the morning for sarcasm.

 

It coulda been a humorous contender

At the top of the Daily Beast's story, "Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan Latest Lawyers to Decline to Join Trump’s Legal Team," there is a subtitle, which, at first glance, I thought was sarcasm: They consider the opportunity to represent the President to be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot do so.

Clever! I thought. The insincerity positively drips from the page. Well, gee, Mr. President, if this isn't the highest damn honor we've ever had bestowed on us. But, well, furthermore, seeing how you're an incorrigible child, an employee-screwing deadbeat and embarrassingly culpable crook, we'll pass, you pathetic excuse of a wretched demagogue.

That's what I thought the Daily Beast was going for. I loved it, so I should not have read on. For it seems the Beast's Sam Stein and Betsy Woodruff were merely quoting from a statement sent to them by the otherwise wickedly dry lawyers:

"President Trump reached out to Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan to provide legal representation. They were unable to take on the representation due to business conflicts. However they consider the opportunity to represent the President to be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot do so. They wish the president the best and believe he has excellent representation in Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow."

Their decline of the highest honor should not impede the rapid progress Mr. Trump is making in assembling his legal team.

Someday, maybe, this pitiable little man will write or say something truthful. Perhaps on his deathbed, like Lee Atwater. But I'm not counting on it.

 

An almost-April fundraiser

It's that time. Twice a year, outside of the occasional pitch, I ask for your support. And that's what I'll be doing from now through Saturday, in addition to posting fresh pieces, of course. Some of you have already contributed for the year, and I thank you. Most have not, however, since my last appeal was in October. If you're a regular reader and contributor I hope you'll renew your support today by going to the Donate button on the right. (Note: I've been asked before if "the system" accepts checks, and I've misled contributors by saying no. Only recently did I learn that PayPal indeed accepts checks. So if you'd rather not use a debit or credit card online, there you go.) I'm especially interested in seeing first-time contributors. If you enjoy what you find here and find yourself coming here often, please help support this site. This is what I do. I'm not on a university payroll or university pension of any sort, as some believe; this is my income in its totality. I enjoy doing this, and I'd probably do it no matter what. But if you see yourself as a beneficiary of what I enjoy doing, I trust you will help out financially. So please donate today. Again, the Donate button is to the right. In advance, I thank you. —PM

***

It's Wednesday night. It's been slow. I'll be honest, I can now see why more and more sites have gone to a subscription basis. Why give up something for nothing? — indeed a lot for nothing? Readers who contribute regularly wouldn't be disgruntled by having to pay a modest subscription fee, since, in effect, they're already doing that. The question is, Why offer something for nothing, forever, to readers who have no intention of contributing? — those who read the site regularly, in fact every day, which my stats reveal unwaveringly, but rely on others to carry the very modest financial load?. I don't ask for much, but much is what I put in. Some weekdays (I customarily rise between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m.) I invest as much as 12 hours of reading, research, writing and editing and answering queries and so on. I also work weekends — both mornings — because I wish to always present an up-to-date product. But most of all, I invest considerable time in this site because I want a quality product. I don't offer wild rants and sloppy writing, which is the usual internet fare. Instead I do my best to make this site the best. But I need you to balance things out. So please donate today, so that I'm not forced to cut some readers off. That, I really don't wish to do. —PM

 

Dear congressional Republicans: How do you like Trump now?

In politics and religion — the only two topics worth arguing - I find karma more intriguing than character. How many televangelist Tartuffes were brought down in the 1980s and 1990s? — sanctimonious schmucks who masturbated to prostitutes and Mel Brooksian, "Producers"-like scams after lecturing their flock on the devilish perils of weak flesh and material rewards. And how long has it been since Republican pols lectured us on political character? — quite similar schmucks who admonished voters about presidential indiscretions, only to have the garishly philandering Trump boomerang on their opportunistic butts, and now say that good character is nonessential to a first-rate White House.

Not only is the concept of karma alive and well, the reality of its righteous brutality is kicking like never before. The party of God and family has become, perforce, the party of porn stars, Playboy confessors and presidential raunchiness. "None of us — and oh, I have tried," groans Michael Gerson, "will be able to unsee the mental image of [Stormy] Daniels spanking Trump with a rolled-up magazine featuring his picture on the cover." President Clinton may have been defined by a singular blue dress, continues Gerson, but Trump's presidency is awash in "hush money, nondisclosure agreements, legal threats and lies from the White House briefing room podium." The party of God is now straight out of Dante's Circle 8 of hypocrisy.

This is the least of their sins — bankrupting the country and tolerating a presidential traitor are a trifle more grievous — and yet it appears that all things Stormily hypocritical are uppermost in voters' minds. Pennsylvania's Rep. Ryan Costello, for instance, tells the NY Times that he's not running for reelection because "If I had a town hall this week, it would be question after question: 'Do you believe him or do you believe her? Why don’t you believe her?'" While continuing to despise the Clintons, Republicans' evangelical base will of course dismiss Trumpian transgressions out of selective forgiveness. But to win, Republicans need more than hypocritical thumpers.

Notes the Times: "As much as gun control, immigration, the sweeping tax overhaul and other issues are mobilizing voters on the left and the right, the seamy sex allegations and Mr. Trump’s erratic style could end up alienating crucial blocs of suburban voters and politically moderate women who might be drawn to some Republican policies but find the president’s purported sex antics to be reprehensible." This is a shame, actually. An enlightened electorate would vote against Trump's party for the policy wreckage it has caused, not because the prurient Donald likes to be spanked by Forbes magazines. But what the hell. We'll take the dumping of these incompetent clowns any way we can.

And the "big squeeze" seems to be the most suitable way to righteousness. "If [Republican pols] stay faithful to Mr. Trump they risk incurring the wrath of many in the political center," explains the Times, "but if they disavow the president, they risk depressing turnout from their core Republican voters." Now that predicament, you must admit, is a thing of real political beauty.

We can thank karma. After all their moralizing and tsk-tsking and pharisaical speechifying, Republicans have finally met the enemy — which is both themselves and the universe, which just loves to kick the monstrously hypocritical in the magazine-paddled butt.