The Conversation -- November 9, 2024
A Gentleman & a Scoundrel. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden will host ... Donald J. Trump at the White House on Wednesday, extending a presidential tradition to his onetime rival that Mr. Trump did not offer four years ago after Mr. Biden defeated him.... [Although in 2016, he said he would do so,] Mr. Trump did not seek his predecessor's counsel and spent much of his time in office insulting Mr. Obama and seeking to undo the former president's agenda." ~~~
~~~ We've heard about the following before, but just a reminder that Trump is screwing up from way before the get-go. The sphere of this particular failing is hardly surprising. Moreover, this "oversight" is without any doubt a mere speck in the coliseum of corruption that will follow. But it's all hunky dory -- because Supremes. ~~~
~~~ Ken Bensinger of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has not yet submitted a legally required ethics pledge stating that he will avoid conflicts of interest and other ethical concerns while in office, raising concerns that his refusal to do so will hamper the smooth transition to power. Mr. Trump's transition team was required to submit the ethics plan by Oct. 1, according to the Presidential Transition Act. While the transition team's leadership has privately drafted an ethics code and a conflict-of-interest statement governing its staff, those documents do not include language, required under the law, that explains how Mr. Trump himself will address conflicts of interest during his presidency. Since Mr. Trump created his transition team in August, it has refused to participate in the normal handoff process, which typically begins months before the election. It has missed multiple deadlines for signing required agreements governing the process. That has prevented Mr. Trump's transition team from participating in national security briefings or gaining access to federal agencies to begin the complicated work of preparing to take control of the government on Jan. 20, 2025."
⭐ Heather Cox Richardson on Substack: "Social media has been flooded today [Saturday] with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices.... There are also stories that voters who chose Trump to lower household expenses are unhappy to discover that their undocumented relatives are in danger of deportation.... Meanwhile, Trump's advisors told Jim VandeHei and MIke Allen of Axios that ... they plan to hit the ground running with tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, deregulation, and increased gas and oil production.... In The New Republic today, Michael Tomasky reinforced that voters chose Trump in 2024 not because of the economy or inflation, or anything else, but because of how they perceived those issues -- which is not the same thing." Read on. Richardson draws a parallel between the way the right-wing media conned the nitwits and the way white supremacists conned the goobers during the decades before and after the Civil War. Thanks to laura h. for the link. ~~~
~~~ Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "Millions of people who desperately want more progressive policies cast their ballots for a man whose agenda is exactly the opposite of what they want.... In state after state, voters backed both Trump and ballot initiatives that advanced and protected progressive goals.... The problem wasn't Democratic policy or messaging. It's ignorance.... When voters have factual information about the candidates, they prefer Democrats.... Increasing numbers of Americans have a media diet that is mostly a bunch of lies, conspiracy theories, irrelevant diatribes and other such bunkum.... When it looked like Project 2025 might hurt him politically, Trump, shameless as usual, said he knew nothing about it.... [But Steve Bannon said the other day,] 'Now that the election is over, I think we can finally say that, yeah, actually, Project 2025 is the agenda.'" Thanks to laura h. for the link.
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We have fought the good fight,
We have finished the race,
We have kept the faith.
Now there is in store for us
The crown of righteousness.
Marie: The question now is how we wear our crowns. Uneasy rests the head. There are a number of courses we can take. The test for each of us will be how we balance our possibilities, as they are not all mutually exclusive. Revolution and resistance may be best reserved for the young. But perhaps not. Perhaps some of us will show the resilience of children, the strength of young people, the wisdom of the aged. Absent evil, there are no heroes. For many of us, adjustment may be the best route. Maybe we can learn from those who have survived and even thrived in totalitarian states. In any event, I aim to find a place in this new world order.
Barak Ravid of Axios: "Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday included two surprises: Elon Musk was also on the line, and Zelensky was somewhat reassured by what he heard from the president-elect, two sources with knowledge of the call tell Axios.... Three sources briefed on the call all told Axios that Zelensky felt the call went well and that it did not increase his anxiety about Trump's victory.... Musk also weighed in during the call to say he will continue supporting Ukraine through his Starlink satellites, the sources said." (Also linked yesterday.)
Ben Rhodes in a New York Times op-ed: In this century, "the playbook for transforming a democracy into a soft autocracy was clear: Win power with a populist message against elites. Redraw parliamentary districts. Change voting laws. Harass civil society. Pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs. Enrich cronies through corruption. Buy up newspapers and television stations and turn them into right-wing propaganda. Use social media to energize supporters. Wrap it up in an Us versus Them message: Us, the 'real' Russians or Hungarians or Americans, against a rotating cast of Them: the migrants, the Muslims, the liberals, the gays, George Soros and on and on.... Republican policies from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush did far more than Democrats to create this mess. But Mr. Trump's crusade against the past elites of his own party -- from the Bush family to Mitch McConnell -- credentialed him with a public hungry for accountability, while the Harris campaign's embrace of Dick Cheney conveyed the opposite message." Rhodes has some suggestions for Democratic-led reform, but they don't seem much different from what Democrats have been attempting all along. (Also linked yesterday.)
Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "Representative Nancy Pelosi ... suggested this week that it would have been better for the Democratic Party if President Biden had abandoned his re-election campaign sooner and the party had then held a competitive primary process to replace him. In an interview on Thursday with The New York Times, Ms. Pelosi said what was widely reported around the time Mr. Biden dropped out: that she believed it was implicitly understood that his exit would be followed by an internal party competition for a new nominee, instead of an anointment of Vice President Kamala Harris.... '... I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don't know that.... And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.'" An ABC News report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Marie: Akhilleus, in yesterday's Comments, reminds me that here's something we should know:
Lauren Aratani of the Guardian: "Business leaders were swift to offer their congratulations to Donald Trump on his election victory, less than four years after they criticized him for his role in the January 6 insurrection. Some of tech's business leaders, including Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Apple's Tim Cook all publicly congratulated Trump for his win." Read on. The list is long and nauseating. These people who prostrate themselves before him should know he is a rapidly-metastisizing malignancy, and they are doing their bit to grow the cancer. (Also linked yesterday.)
Kevin Collier, et al., of NBC News: "Bomb threats sent to polling places and ballot-counting locations in at least five battleground states across the U.S. Tuesday targeted mostly Democratic counties, an NBC News analysis has found. The full extent of who received the bomb threats is not clear. None are believed to have been deemed credible. NBC News compiled a list of 67 locations in 19 counties, based on local news reports and state and local election officials' statements, all of which appear to have received similar threats. Of the 67 locations, 56 were in 11 counties that voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, including the eight most populated."
Eric Tucker & Larry Neumeister of the AP: "The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week's election with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect. Investigators learned of the plan to kill Trump from Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots. Shakeri told investigators that a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to ... assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.... Shakeri is at large and remains in Iran. Two other men were arrested on charges that Shakeri recruited them to follow and kill prominent Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, who has endured multiple Iranian murder-for-hire plots foiled by law enforcement." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The DOJ's press release, which makes what is alleged to have gone down slightly clearer than does the AP report, is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Maegan Vazquez of the Washington Post: "Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida) said in a statement on Friday that he was recently notified by police that he was the target of a potential assassination plot and that a suspect was arrested near his Florida residence.... 'The individual in question was arrested not far from my home; he is a former felon who was in possession of a rifle, a suppressor, and body armor,' Moskowitz's statement said. 'Found with him was a manifesto that, among other things, included antisemitic rhetoric and only my name on the "target" list. There are many other details that I will not disclose as I do not want to interfere with an ongoing investigation.'"
Roger Cohen of the New York Times: "Disillusionment with the world that emerged from the Cold War has fueled a long-gathering revolt against the established order.... More dangers abound than when Mr. Trump won in 2016. In a world of rival powers where the post-1945 order seems largely dead, wars rage in Europe and the Middle East.... To this mire will now be added the chaotic, impulsive, high-risk approach to foreign policy described with near unanimity by Mr. Trump's top aides during his first term, as well as his expressed contempt for NATO and the European Union, anchors of postwar Western security and stability, and his threats of confrontation with China in the form of punishing tariffs. A turbulent world and a turbulent personality make for a dangerous mix." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Cohen's "explanation" for the rise of autocrats, including Trump, may seem to fit the what we're experiencing largely because part of that "explanation" is, "In the absence of a shared reality, or shared facts, or a shared threat, reason had no weight beside emotion," according to a French political scientist. But that excuse for stupid notwithstanding, how could millions upon millions of people say to themselves, "What would be best for me and and my family would be to relinquish the few rights and privileges we have"? Perhaps they think that having the ability to mow down their neighbors with their personal arsenals of assault weapons is the only right they need. But are they so dense that it does not occur to them that not only the neighbors but also the strongman have arsenals as well? Do they not understand that the strongman is far more likely to turn on them than to protect them once they have given him permission to dominate them?
Dan Lamothe & Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "The Pentagon said Friday that it will send 'a small number' of U.S. defense contractors to Ukraine, where they will repair advanced American-made weapons, including F-16 fighter jets, Bradley fighting vehicles and air defense systems, donated by Western allies amid Russia's invasion. The development comes in the closing weeks of the Biden administration while there is deep uncertainty over ... Donald Trump's intent to sustain the extensive military and economic assistance Washington has provided the government in Kyiv over nearly three years of conflict. [President] Biden has steadfastly opposed putting Americans in harm's way to aid Ukraine, while Trump, who spoke with Ukraine's president after securing reelection Wednesday, has objected to the expense and vowed to bring the war to an end -- possibly on terms unfavorable to Kyiv. The U.S.-funded contractors will be far from the front lines and won't be fighting Russian forces, defense officials said...."
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Illinois. John O'Connor & Corey Williams of the AP: "A federal judge on Friday overturned Illinois' ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that strictly interpret the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms. U.S. District Judge Stephen P. McGlynn, of the Southern District of Illinois, issued a permanent injunction he said applies universally, not just to the lawsuit's plaintiffs. He decided, however, that the injunction would not take effect for 30 days. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul responded speedily, filing a notice of appeal Friday evening. The Protect Illinois Communities Act, signed into law in January 2023 by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, took effect Jan. 1. It bans AR-15 rifles and similar guns, large-capacity magazines and an assortment of attachments largely in response to the 2022 Independence Day shooting at a parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park." McGlynn is a Trump appointee.
News Lede
New York Times: "About 100 firefighters were working to put out a brush fire in a heavily wooded section of Prospect Park in Brooklyn on Friday night, prompting officials to warn residents to stay away as they used drones to identify hot spots.... Mayor Eric Adams said in a post on X that the city was under a red flag warning for fire risk on Friday night because of dry conditions and strong winds."
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Reader Comments (11)
A useful anachronistic motto: Way back in the 70's I had a desk job that was Sisyphean, started in the dark and ended in the next dark, not by the clock but by the clearing of tasks. On the desk there was an old gooseneck fluorescent desk lamp, the gray metal hood about 18 inches long. On the left side of the hood was scratched, as if by paper clip, the words "orp not." On the right side was "thole. " These had apparently been scratched out by a predecessor.
I looked them up.
"Orp" is Scottish, and means vi "to fret morosely."
"Thole" is also vi, and means "endure. "
Orp not, thole. A good bumper sticker, if you can keep it.
Patrick,
My Irish grandmother expressed a similar sentiment (without the "vi," which calls on knowledge I don't possess):
"It's a great life, if you don't weaken," her version of the "stiff upper lip" that has long been out of American vogue.
We'd rather whine.
I was annoyed to hear David Axelrod yesterday blame the defeat on being "a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party, [that] lends itself to the kind of backlash that we’ve seen.”
Amanda Marcotte, in Salon, instead, notes that "the pundits, journalists, and political consultants engaged in the lengthy post-mortem about Donald Trump's horrific victory Tuesday are avoiding the most obvious cause: ignorance."
...
"What we're seeing is millions of Americans changing their media environment from boring, fact-based stuff to QAnon conspiracy theories, right-wing influencers who use sex and shock value to hook people, and an infinite number of unsourced memes making outrageous claims."
Political Discordance
Heather Cox Richardson in yesterday's Letters from an American quoted from the Marcotte piece while writing about social media posts of "Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices" and other new realities. She also described earlier efforts where "white southern leaders made sure that voters did not have access to news that came from outside the American South, and instead steeped them in white supremacist information. "
Misinformation
Good Morning All,
I've not yet had time to listen this, and thought it may be of interest to readers here. Heather Cox Richardson is interviewed by Jon Stewart on his The Weekly Show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7cKOaBdFWo
Media Consumption
"The link between media consumption and public opinion"
On Brand
"The Mississippi Senate discriminated against a Black attorney by paying her about half of what her white colleagues were paid for doing the same job, the U.S. Justice Department says in a lawsuit it filed Friday.
The Senate office employed only white attorneys for at least 34 years before Metcalfe was hired, and she was the only Black attorney on staff during her time there, the lawsuit said.
Metcalfe’s starting salary was $55,000, while other Senate staff attorneys were paid $95,550 to $121,800, according to the lawsuit."
Rachel Maddow
“This is what we're on this Earth to do as American citizens in this generation.”
Look out for Article Five. Has anyone heard or seen anything on the proposed call for a constitutional convention as authorized in Article Five of the Constitution? This has been active for years and last I heard way back before the election it had more than 20 of the required 26 petitions from the state legislatures. This could do anything from authorizing amendments to a total rewrite.
From Balloon Juice on Trump voters
Will Stancil
"My working theory for What’s Gone Wrong is that the plethora of media sources have enabled extremist ideologies - not by LIMITING people’s exposure to ideas, but by INCREASING it. This enables people to select whichever narrative supports their inner emotional universe best.
Ultimately most of these extreme ideologies are about intellectual laziness and indulgence – substituting prejudice and simplicity and emotion for the hard work of thinking through complicated problems, confronting uncertainty, and developing a consistent set of beliefs."
RAS,
On Stancil.
Yup. Yup. Yup.
Well, it is Saturday and no one seems to agree on "what went wrong." But it seems like the loudest Dems are interested in trying to see which one of us was wrong, not how the other side became a tsunami of lies and vulgarity. David Axelrod needs to retire. He handled a campaign many years ago and hasn't shut up since.
I went to Heather Cox Richardson and she pretty much summed it up: The other side lies and lied continually and continuously, they have apparently the cheapest, easiest media to spread the lies, and no one on their side is even mildly interested in truth or education. I don't really feel comforted by treatises on how it was in former Confederate days-- this is so much a different world that the comparison is futile.
I will refuse to my dying day to blame Kamala or her campaign OR Biden, although it would have been more helpful if he had decided not to run. Duh... But it didn't go that way. Frankly, I am more interested in what possessed women, suburban women (white, of course--) to think this piece of toxic protoplasm and his cronies was going to care about anything most of us care about. Why didn't they vote for a future that included them? As for young bratty men, who knows why they do anything, if it doesn't involve getting some on the side...As for the Russians, Democrats have been sounding alarm bells since the first impeachment, and the Senate unworthies did not care at all, or believe it was happening.
I really think the educational system is dying. How so many people are "shocked" to find out tariffs "might" hurt them, and all the tax cuts and sweetheart deals will go to everyone who does not live in East Bumfuck, Utah-- how is everyone so stupid? Now education will be on the back burner until 2028 and who knows if anyone will know anything by then. Maybe we all will just want to shop at Costco and watch Wheel of Fortune as others get richer, and who cares if we remember anything that happened before 2008...
I heard a rant clip of Steve Bannon, Mr. Jailbird Smelly, although that may describe the Fat Orange Stinky also, and it was not frightening, it was horrifying because this man will have power now. Just think. The most odious men (of course, men--) will be in the hallowed halls that they tried to take by force a mere four years ago. Nothing will be done, especially if the House remains the same number, and the emperor pardons himself, but we will all be stupider and poorer and out of favor, and perhaps Dems will have regretted their usual gentle ways. Why is Biden going out of his way to talk to these jackals? They deserve nothing. Nothing.
Me? Naw, you think I am angry? I am so angry I am spitting. Still.