LOL The heroic efforts of Hippo Barr having US citizens gassed should not be forgotten. On a semi- serious note someone needs to tweet Trump and ask why HE isn’t on money like other Presidents. If someone trolls him well enough, I guarantee you Trump will push to have the treasury put him with his bible in hand on the back of the quarter.
Another way to get him is to ask why he doesn't have a monument in DC yet. It would be the best monument ever, so many people would come...
Jim Mattis finally denounces Trump in spite of the great victory of Lafayette Square https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...nounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/
If you thought her bringing up Churchill and GWB in her earlier defense of the trump gassing Americans for a church/bible photo op" stunt... here she now brings in Martin Luther King...
With one misguided photo op, Trump may have ended up pissing off people in both the religious right and the military, which are two strongholds of his support base. I wonder how many would consider this the final straw on the camel's back, as Mattis seems to have done.
They don’t care. Those who support him are in too deep. There is no admitting wrong while in the midst of collaborating with or supporting a failed government. On that note, I would encourage everyone to read the latest Anne Applebaum piece in The Atlantic. She compares the current state of Trumpism and GOP collaborators with former collaborators of totalitarian Eastern European governments during the Cold War. It is long, but worth the read.
I think that's what they were aiming for. It ended up more like the Mission Accomplished speech. Good article. As soon as I read your summary and not even the article, I thought Yes! She focuses more on how people chose to collaborate or dissent in the ascendancy of Eastern European communism, but what I had immediately thought of was late stage Soviet-style communism when it was very obvious to everyone (not just insiders) the system was corrupt and failing and yet apparatchiks kept supporting it because they feared doing anything else. Nothing as glamorous as the Third Reich or Stalinist Russia vicious but victorious for a time, the Trump Admin feels more like late-Brezhnev, a lumbering dinosaur that has fallen into a tar pit. Separately, we've had a few Republican luminaries on the attack again, George Will and Gen. Mattis most recently. Part of that is just how extremely offensive recent Trump actions have been, I'm sure. But, I think they also smell blood in the water. I think they expect Trump to lose this election, and they want to be out in front and be on the right side of history before that happens. Between now and election day, I'm going to watch conservative defections as a litmus test of Trump's chances. The more famous defectors he has in the final sprint, the worse his chances.
The fact that the current attorney general for the United States can tell such a ridiculous lie like this is, well, trumpian... And yes, this is a good question...
To be fair George Will has never been on the Trump train but I also think republicans are reading the room and ready to jump ship, Sasse was the eye opener for me.
...well hell, friend... ...(and you ARE my friend)... ...we do a piss-poor job of teaching accurate American history HERE... ...why the heck would anybody take time to learn about anybody else's?
I think you're right that the Trump administration, GOP Congress and old-school conservatives who still selfishly align with Trumpism feel like late-stage Soviet nomenklatura. They're collaborating for one reason or another along the lines that Applebaum lays out and I fully expect a wholesale plundering of the cupboards during the lame duck session before January 2021. They're just waiting for the walls to close in on them, go underground for a while and reemerge claiming "I never supported President Trump." Where I worry that you're wrong is Trump's base. By and large, these people are not thinking like it's the 1980s and they're trudging along under an obviously crumbling system. Instead, they're living in the 1950s under a god-king and the constant bombardment of FOX News, talk radio and "facts over feelings" YouTube videos is their Pravda. Look at the takes regarding Mattis: suddenly he's a "deep stater" and "overrated" general who is lucky that Trump gave him the nickname "Mad Dog"! Never mind that that is all obviously false. The draft-dodging, bone-spurring emperor has decreed it so it is to be believed. Trump will contest election results, he will not leave office quietly and he will continue to foment his base so long as he access to, and they willingly indulge in, their daily Prav-dur.
While I think the article and you make some good points, I think the real guiding point we have learned is just how thin the veneer of society is in a democracy. We have had a President that has violated all the generally agreed upon norms and rules of society. He has made a mockery of the checks and balances we have always relied upon. The American people have seen it. The politicians have seen it. Everyone has seen it....... and when people no longer have respect for the offices and mechanisms in place, chaos happens. This is what is happening. So far we are still seeing outsiders. Even Mattis is someone that is no longer on the inside. There is no doubt that these people ARE angry and frustrated. They have no voice at all as their party has been hijacked. I am sure it is very difficult for them. It is going to take a couple of people like Rand Paul or Lindsay Graham or Marco Rubio defecting and stating they will not support the President for there to really be any traction. I think that ONLY happens if supporting the President will cost them electorally. You make a good point about legacy, and being on the wrong side of history but I think we may need to see immediate political consequences. The Republican party is going to be WIDE open if Donald Trump loses. Not only wide open as far as leadership, but also as far as direction and policy. The Democrats are going to be largely hooked to whomever Joe nominates as his VP.
