President Trump’s exercise of his executive powers, particularly in matters of national security, is increasingly unsettling an array of legal scholars, including conservatives, who say it risks corroding the office of the presidency and has roiled relations between the White House and other agencies. Over the past year, Trump has — without consulting the Office of the Pardon Attorney — granted clemency to a number of individuals, including his political ally Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona county sheriff convicted of criminal contempt related to his department’s targeting of undocumented immigrants. Last month, Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, one of his harshest critics, who has called “treasonous” Trump’s validation of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the expense of U.S. intelligence agencies that concluded Moscow sought to help Trump win the White House. And this month, Trump ordered the declassification of law enforcement material linked to the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, a move the president eventually walked back after protests from the Justice Department and foreign allies.
Constitutionally, such actions are defensible. But the president is “eviscerating precedent and procedure,” said David Rivkin, a conservative constitutional lawyer who was an attorney in the George H.W. Bush and Reagan administrations. “As far as the mechanics of government are concerned, it is creating anger and disharmony on both the side of the political masters and the career people,” he said. “It breeds resistance. It’s negative synergy.” Trump’s unorthodox approach — taking actions, in many cases, without consulting key advisers — may bring a much-needed shake-up to the federal bureaucracy, some conservative scholars say. But others say it not only risks eroding the norms of government, but also may lead Congress and the courts to erect guardrails that constrain the presidency, leaching it of the flexibility integral to its effectiveness. “If Congress inserts itself into these national security processes as a reaction to the way he’s exercising the powers of his office, then the institution of the presidency will actually be left much weaker than he found it,” said Carrie Cordero, who was a senior Justice Department national security lawyer in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Cordero suggested that, should Democrats retake Congress after November’s elections, they may seek to put restraints on Trump by pursuing legislation that bars the president from firing a special prosecutor or requiring that the chief executive first consult the Justice Department before granting pardons.
Debacles coming from the strong-arming
For more on this Trumpian power grab which may end up in a pile of ruble for America, here is the conclusion to trump-administrations-
Distilled to its essence, Trump’s foreign policy relies only on coercion and tactical issue linkage to make it work. Now coercion can net a few concessions here and there, but it usually produces diminishing returns over time. This is particularly true if other actors start to question the institutional and normative structures that have benefited the United States in recent decades. One wonders whether the same dynamic is playing out in domestic politics, with the same results. As president and leader of the GOP, Trump has done things by executive fiat and ramming things through Congress on party-line votes. He also has attempted to bully, browbeat or otherwise insult countervailing institutions. In the process, he has lost his ability to persuade the American people. He is also mobilizing opponents to push back on the more subtle faces of power: See this Henry Farrell tweetstorm for more on this argument. When partisans start talking about court-packing, it’s a bad sign for anyone hoping that the status quo can be preserved. Maybe this will all work out for Trump. He succeeded in renegotiating NAFTA into . . . something very similar to NAFTA but with a more ungainly name. But coercion usually triggers significant costs. The likelihood that Trump will exit the White House after multiple electoral and foreign policy debacles continues to go up. Because the one thing that this president and his advisers cannot grasp is that there’s more to power than coercion.
How much gullibility does it take to believe this overload of Trump propaganda crap?
The answer, a lot!!! But so many do! I’ve been continually amazed & baffled at the naivete exemplified by the conservative base when they constantly fall for the most outrageous lies & conspiracies. And there’s not much introspection going on with that crew, since with all the many conspiracies that have been previously dismissed & discredited, they’ll still believe the next one the echo makes up. It just goes to show how the deviously-crafted Trump propaganda is a powerful force for delusions, gaslighting & subterfuge. But there’s no logical explanation for it, as this next article does try to get into the heads of the modern conservative mindset with all its selfish/petty grievances. Excerpts in this next link are posted below while clicking on kevin-drum/2018/09 can also reveal the rest, providing a timeline of the growing echo-outrage stemming from the culture wars:
I just want to add a quick note to my essay about the culture of conservative grievance from this morning. It’s this: plenty of conservatives believe crazy conspiracy theories. It starts with simple ones like the idea that Democrats orchestrated a detailed, clockwork plan to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of teenage sexual assault in order to derail his Supreme Court nomination. But there are plenty of others. There’s the ever popular “stand down” order in Benghazi. There’s the IRS scandal. There’s the Jade Helm conspiracy theory, which suggested that a large military exercise in the southwest was actually Obama’s first step in getting people used to seeing armed soldiers on their streets. There was the FEMA concentration camp conspiracy theory. And of course there was Pizzagate—which, just to refresh your memory, was a claim that Hillary Clinton and her friends ran a pedophile ring from the basement of a pizza place in Washington DC.
This just scratches the surface. But keep in mind that conspiracy theories are a symptom, not a root cause. After all, how could anyone possibly believe any of this crackpot stuff? It’s simple: these things become believable if you first believe that the opposition party is literally evil enough and well-funded enough to be capable of anything. If they are enemies of the state, dedicated to ruining everything good about America—and they have the power of Hollywood and universities and the press to provide cover—then weird conspiracy theories start to make a lot more sense.
Bottom line: if you believe the opposition is not just the opposition but the enemy, constantly working to destroy conservatism and weaken America, you’ll believe almost anything about them. None of these conspiracy theories make any sense at all without a belief in conservative victimization firmly lodged in your lizard brain. Get rid of that, and you get rid of (most) of the dumbest conspiracy theories. POSTSCRIPT: The best evidence that liberals haven’t (yet) gone down the rabbit hole of treating Republicans as an enemy of the state is the fact that crazy conspiracy theories are so much less common on the left. They just can’t take root unless you believe that the opposition party is capable of pulling off such freakish (and well planned!) stuff.
Which prime-time host is lying?
The next link offers a synopsis of 3 prime-time stars for each of the 3 cable news networks. The one thing for certain as we evaluate these 3 shows, there’s a huge variance in how the news is covered & Hannity is the host who’s demonstrably proven to lie constantly: difference-
If you’ve spent any time watching Fox News or listening to conservative talk radio, rhetoric like this should be instantly recognizable: conspiratorial, steeped in grievance, and swaddled in anger. Watch Sean Hannity’s program on literally any night of the week and you’ll be bombarded with near-identical harangues about shadowy left-wing conspiracies driven by resentment over President Donald Trump’s election and invariably connected somehow to Bill and Hillary Clinton. “The entire basis of Robert Mueller’s so-called investigation is based on a lie and a conspiracy theory that was cooked up by the Obama administration, by Democrats, and by the liberal news media as an excuse for why Hillary Clinton lost the election,” Hannity complained this past January. “Mueller’s investigation has now morphed into a Democratic political hit job.” Compare that to the Supreme Court nominee’s accusation of a “calculated and orchestrated political hit” fueled by “anger about President Trump and the 2016 election” and Clintonite vengeance. Brett Kavanaugh was not a judge in that moment; he was a pro-Trump cable news pundit. To no one’s surprise, Kavanaugh’s testimony was loudly celebrated by the Republican establishment and conservative media. GOP senators who were content to let their proxy counsel speak for them to Dr. Ford abruptly abandoned her to join and echo Kavanaugh’s aggrieved complaint. During and after the hearing, the general reaction was that Kavanaugh was putting on a performance for an audience of one — specifically, Donald Trump, who values this sort of aggressive combativeness (particularly from powerful allies who are facing sexual misconduct allegations). And that’s true insofar as Kavanaugh needed to reassure the man who nominated him, and he succeeded in that effort. But it would be incorrect to view Kavanaugh’s testimony yesterday as some sort of act or contrivance.
The crazy echo is hitting us from all directions
Of course, the goofy milk-toast Fox morning show loves Trump’s combative demeanor coming from the judge, as in his hearing last week he was coached to channel Trump: fox_friends_loves_
Truth & facts don’t matter in that alternate universe, with lying perfectly acceptable in achieving their nefarious ends. The echo overall is very widespread, uses various means to misinform, is extremely disingenuous, deceptive & evil, & worst of all is spreading Trump propaganda that their naive audiences actually believe. That’s why as patriotic Americans, we should all do our part to spread rationally-sane political news, as found here on TheVORACS site. The conservatives who’ve been duped are mentally-conditioned to not believe the real media, it’s all part of the Trump propaganda machine: mainstream-media-is-
More Hillary obsessions, while the prez is a sexist pig & simply a jerk
And why is the echo still going after Hillary? She’s in the past & just doesn’t matter anymore from any current/relevant political narrative: poll-hillary-
There are modern-day Scribes & Pharisees among us
Some renowned religious leaders are also spewing the Trump propaganda. For those of us who are evangelical Christians, we should seek to protect the separation of church & state, which actually serves to protect the faith itself. There’s no need to ever jam religion down the people’s throats, as happens way too often in repressive societies. Let’s let our faith stand on its own merits of love, grace & a better place beyond this life, without relying on the crutch of government or an over-reliance on earthly leaders. I believe many of our faith’s leadership have been exposed as heretics worshipping the wrong king, seen in excerpts from as-jesus-said-nice-guys-
Where to begin? It is worth noting that for some evangelical Christians, the pretense of reluctantly supporting Donald Trump only because of the binary choice with Hillary Clinton has been abandoned. Falwell is calling for an extensive effort at Trump cloning. It is not enough that the president is a cruel, nativist, misogynist hothead. Now the local alderman should aspire to his example. It is paradoxical that some conservative Christians should reject the concept of a “living Constitution” while embracing the “living Beatitudes.” Blessed are the street fighters. Blessed are those who compare their enemies to Nazis. Blessed are the bullies. On second thought, this is less paradoxical than heretical. It is also common in Christian history. In a variety of political and cultural contexts — under the rule of Constantine, and Charlemagne, and the Romanovs, and Mike Pence — Christian believers have turned to government to protect and further their institutional interests. Henry VIII — who practiced his own vigorous form of misogyny — was given the title: “Defender of the Faith.” I suppose some at the time might have reasoned: At least he isn’t a wimp.
With no exception I can think of, the results of becoming a darling of the king have been damaging to the church. Politicians always end up demanding something — a compromise of principle, a blessing of expediency or a pardon for wrong. Access and privilege in politics are not free. The point is demonstrated when a pastor praises a president during the same week that thousands of detained migrant children are moved, under cover of night, to a remote detention facility in Tornillo, Tex. Instead of being a voice for the weak, Falwell provided an alibi for the strong. This is disturbing and discrediting. How can anyone supposedly steeped in the teachings of Jesus be so unaffected by them? The question immediately turns against the questioner. In a hundred less visible ways, how can I be so unaffected by them?
As a lesser matter, this approach is bad politics. Those who accept the preference of the state eventually share in the fate of the state. What happens when new leaders take control, as they always do? How are those identified with the old regime treated by the new? Will a different president accept the sputtering excuses of evangelical leaders who lent their authority to bigotry? It is a fair bet they will be treated in the next Democratic administration like members of the ACLU are treated in this one — as political players, political enemies and political targets. This approach is a formula for institutional failure. When churchmen use the tools of power to protect their institutional interests — rather than demonstrating the defining mission of their institutions — it often ends in scandal. When Catholic bishops turned to payoffs and subterfuge to protect the church, it gathered a terrible guilt and, eventually, a terrible reckoning. When elders in a megachurch seek to protect their pastor from justified charges of sexual exploitation — rather than seeking first the welfare of the exploited — the whole church comes under judgment.
American history offers a hopeful corrective to this tempting dead end. When the state of Connecticut finally disestablished
Congregationalism in 1818, the evangelical pastor and reformer Lyman Beecher was thrown into depression: “It was as dark a day as ever I saw . . . The injury done to the cause of Christ, as we then supposed, was irreparable.” But his despair was temporary. “For several days I suffered what no tongue can tell for the best thing that ever happened to the state of Connecticut . It cut the churches loose from dependence on state support. It threw them wholly on their own resources and on God.” The result of disestablishment was a proliferation of healthy, private institutions. “They say ministers have lost their influence,” Beecher said. “The fact is, they have gained. By voluntary efforts, societies, missions, and revivals, they exert a deeper influence.” It is what evangelicals need at this hour: A higher call than street fighting. A deeper influence than Donald Trump can possibly provide.
Bitter Partisanship stokes the wide divides
Currently being such a bitterly divided nation, our political representation reflects those wide divides as huge as a canyon. The agenda & energy from both parties in recent years have shifted further out on the fringes. The polarization is so entrenched, it’s become too politically risky for our leadership to even consider reaching out to the other side. It’s also become too politically risky for congressional reps to dare propose bipartisan ideas which are actually reasoned & pragmatic, since it’s much easier to blend in & tow the party line to extend their careers in elected office. Even with Jeff Flake making the abundantly reasonable request to let the FBI take a week in checking whether the accusations against Kavanaugh might have validity, certainly before giving the judge a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, but Flake admits he could have never done such a thing if running for reelection: jeff-flake-sorry-state-
That far-right extremist echo which leads the GOP base around by the nose, they had conniption fits over even a week’s delay to confirm Kavanaugh. That’s the same echo which was fine with letting a seat sit empty for a year since Merrick Garland never got so much as a hearing. But the bigger point is we have a broken system of government, which the dysfunction, obstruction & gridlock are sure to continue until leadership is encouraged/learns to reach across the aisle. To ever actually achieve the MAGA slogan, we need a president & congressional representation who can unite us by building consensus with practical bipartisan ideas, not further divide us (as Trump & his congressional cronies are currently doing).
Midterms right around the corner
Make no mistake on what could be at stake in the midterms. It could literally be a choice between democracy or authoritarianism: Midterms-
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