#even Trump as a presidential candidate is merely a result of our broken system

[hardcandyfilmclub]

This argument does nothing if the Democratic party continues to become increasingly right wing. What does it matter how "dark beautiful navy" a state is if the democrats as an institution are enacting policies that are literally Trump policies rebranded as "bipartisan"? People need to just admit they don't actually have any ideas to address bi-party rightwing drift. There is no plan for what to do with the fact that our government currently offers us two options, a center-right party that is moving further right and faces zero resistance because there is no party to the left of them (Dems) or a far right party that wants to move even further right, and faces some resistance from their opposition party to move policy back to center-right, but only on years the far right party is in power (GOP). And these are your only options, the system is so hostile to anything outside the two party duopoly that the common refrain is to vote third party is to "throw away your vote", or even that to vote third party is effectively voting for the republican candidate. Also I'm speaking specifically about the democratic PARTY, individual dems may be further left than the party as a whole, and many candidates will run on a more left leaning campaign platform (because that's what gets votes from the widest range of the population), but they are ineffective in actually steering the party left because the party itself rejects them. To remain in the party they must go right, or face hostility at every turn from within their own party.

i'm so tired of the "hold your nose and vote blue" people omg. it's like they can't reconcile their awareness that there's no excuse not to vote for dems with their desperation not to lose clout with the online left and like... repeating that all dems are awful does not have a less damaging effect because you tepidly say we should probably vote for them anyway. quit being weasely about it and go help register some people to vote or something, you're not fucking helping (sorry to rant in your inbox lol)

It’s obnoxious and I’ve been sick of it since 2015 at least. And the people venting their spleens at and about the democrats always seem to trail off with “but the republicans are worse” like you’ll go on about how Biden is a moderate piece of shit committing multiple genocides and actively crushing people and leave it off with “but the republicans are worse” and not elaborate?

And it’s always been exaggerated and distorted or inaccurate claims which makes it worse.

I don’t have the patience or the time or the inclination for all of that and America can’t afford that bullshit.

[readyaiminquire]

Not my president? - Understanding charisma.

Note: While I’m reworking this blog’s format, I wanted first to finish a planned series of posts on charisma that I began publishing a while back. Rather than making it a series, I figured I might well play around with a long-form format instead. This post will re-hash some of the information from the earlier post, but this time I promise it will actually reach a conclusion!

With US election campaigns in full swing, and with Democrats hoping to oust Trump from the Oval Office, the question of how Trump won at all has re-emerged. After four chaotic years, no-one Blue would want another four. Despite a laundry list of failures, scandals, and broken promises, will Trump be able to galvanise enough voters – again? Though I am by no means an expert on US politics, I feel that one area that a lot of pundits and commentators have failed to consider is that of his charisma. At the end of the day, it is Trump’s charismatic leadership that allowed him to be elected in the first place - and bear with me on this! We must really begin to look and deconstruct charisma to get to the heart of it all. Make no mistake, charisma serves a fundamentally important function within any democratic system – they would not be able to operate without it. As oxymoronic as it might sound, charismatic leadership is not reserved for the despotic, but it is a process we all engage with.

Who are our charismatic leaders? We think of Gaddafi, Stalin, the Kims in North Korea, or indeed the Ayatollahs in Iran – alongside questionable undercurrents of fooling the masses, abusing one’s power, and the creeping, assured emergence of ever more oppression. Charisma’s negative political baggage, however, doesn’t really help us to understand what it functionally is. So let’s shed all judgement, positive or negative, and instead look at charisma as a process. German sociologist Max Weber succinctly defined charisma as

“a certain quality of an individual person by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men”

In other words, charisma is a sort-of otherworldly quality that sets you apart from the masses. Authority is derived from charismatic qualities. Unlike other forms of authority, such as legal-rational authority (which relies on some sort of legal code, such as, a constitution) or traditional power (where authority is derived from something outside of the system itself, like the divine right to rule), charismatic authority comes from the very simple fact that people want to follow you.

It’s quite evident that Weber effectively sees charisma as some innate and mystical power – some sort of magic you have that makes people want to follow you. So, let’s look at Weber’s definition from a different perspective. Let’s consider charisma as something you do, rather than something you have. Charisma must always be the result of a set of rhetorical actions intended to convince the ‘common man’ that the charismatic person is indeed not common. Through such conviction, the ‘common man’ becomes a willing follower. In his book How to do things with words, J. L. Austin outlines that there are two different kinds of rhetorical actions: referential and performative. Referential actions simply describe the world, which means that it is either right or wrong. Performative actions, on the other hand, doesn’t describe anything at all and therefore cannot be right or wrong, merely successful or unsuccessful. To shamelessly steal an example from Alexei Yurchuk:

“If one makes an oath under appropriate conditions, while internally not intending to keep it, the oath is not made any less powerful in the eyes of those who accept it as such”.

Assuming you accept the above, charisma as something performed has some broad implications in the real world. But to make sense of that, we need to look at the typical Western democratic system.

Democracy comes with an awkward promise: that all people are created equal, and that the whole system is run by the people and for the people, while at the same time requiring elected hierarchies and leaders to effectively function. In other words, democracy only works because we’re willingly giving up our sovereignty to the system – something which, in most situations, might be perceived as deeply undemocratic. This tension, obviously, needs to be resolved somehow. The relationship between the State and the leader is roughly analogous with the relationship between power and authority. The State has power, and without diving far too deep into Foucault, power is inherently relational rather than what we might classify as material. Put simply, it emerges from social structures. In the case of the State, this relational power is very clear when you consider the different experiences and interactions different people – minorities, the homeless, immigrants, the privileged, and so on – have with its representatives. They all have a very different relationship to the State as an entity (anthropologists Veena Das and Deborah Poole refer to this as the ‘centre and the peripheries’, arguing that the best place to ‘see’ the State is the border at which its power breaks down). 

In the same way, the State as an entity is also immaterial – we only interact with representatives of the State (civil servants, politicians, police officers) or we see the outcome of these representatives enforcing the power of the State upon us (laws, regulation, taxes). Authority, on the other hand, is effectively the ability to ‘direct’ power. The leader of the State relates in the same way to its structure, coming to embody the system as a whole, while the structure itself maintains the overarching power relations. 

It is commonly understood that states only ‘work’ as a concept if the people within them act as if they do, something akin to the thought experiment of ‘would war end if all soldiers refused to fight?’. The leader, as the embodiment of the whole structure, begins to play a key role in maintaining this illusion. Much work has been done on this idea of ‘two bodies’. Alexei Yurchuk wrote that this set-up is traditionally very common among kings and other monarchs – in some cases very literally, with dolls being made of the monarch upon their deaths to quite literally give them a second body. The bodies a king inhabited were their ‘individual’ body, i.e. the person itself, and the second being that of the ‘office’ of Kingship, a divine-like body. It is this second regal body, in full regalia upon their throne, surrounded by servants and gold and pomp and circumstance, who is truly the king; the individual person will always simply be the person. This process is largely the same within the modern democratic state: there is the elected individual – the person – then there is the leader (president, prime minister, etc.), the embodiment of authority. 

It is here we must return to what I wrote above about voluntarily submitting. When imagined, the idea of a leader as an embodiment of authority immediately sounds inherently un-democratic; non-democratic at best. It is this tension, alluded to previously, that charisma serves to reconcile. 

It may sound contradictory, but in these cases charisma functions to dictate how – for example – a President can behave. It is what causes world leaders to attend particular events, or why they partake in completely-natural-totally-not-staged photo-ops. It’s not necessarily because they want to, or indeed because they think it’s fooling anyone, but rather because it is what the system requires the leader to do. It is, in other words, charismatic performance. Even more importantly, it is not the individual which fulfils the requirement, but rather them in the function as President. It is their second body, so to speak, which is having their photos taken beside some national memorial. This leads us to the crux of the whole situation: returning to the issue of democracy and leadership. We the people need to willingly submit ourselves to the leader’s authority. This is often done through voting. However, to effectively convince people, the leader must not only follow a particular agenda, philosophy, or give the correct promises, but they must also follow along in the ‘dance’. They must act statesmanlike (stateswomanlike?), to fulfil what we can in practical terms call ‘the minimum amount’ of charisma needed to be considered for leadership at all. In this sense, all democratic leaders are (somewhat) charismatic, by necessity.

Nonetheless, this of course highlights that charisma isn’t binary, despite often being spoken of in terms of haves and have-nots. Instead, we should imagine charisma as a spectrum: two people can be charismatic, and one more so than the other. Indeed, it also means that charisma is individually understood, that is to say, that different people are differently charismatic to different people. Despite the initial Weberian definition, it isn’t a magic spell. It is a performance, a dance, which functions as a safety-vale in Western political systems, a means to reconcile what is seemingly a fundamental contradiction. 

This, of course, has very real-world implications. Let’s turn to an example. A rather thinly veiled metaphor, if you will, but such a reduction of an (obvious) example can help give some grounding – while playing with some nuance. You have Mr Red and Ms Blue, two presidential candidates in a totally hypothetical country. Ms Blue is a well-established politician, with a strong pedigree of various political posts. She’s experienced, educated, well-spoken, intelligent, and internationally respected. Mr Red, a newcomer on the stage, has no background in politics. He is radically outspoken, blunt even, criticised for his lack of experience, his limited rhetoric. His background is as a somewhat successful businessman, a stereotype he fully embraces. He’s divisive, to say the least. I’m sure you’re seeing where I’m going with this.

Within this completely hypothetical country, you have a traditionally large working class, which used to be strong in the past but has since declined as production jobs moved overseas. The perception among this group is that they have been abandoned by the powers that be – abandoned for several generations. They feel they’ve been systematically shut out of politics, unable to make themselves heard (lack of education, money, and so on), while the politicians – across the board – have continued toeing the same line. The established body politic, like Ms Blue, doesn’t much represent, let alone understand, them. Stage right: Enter Mr Red, down a gilded escalator. His rhetoric is outrageous, his promises ridiculous, his beliefs morally bankrupt. No-one believes what he says, not really. But it doesn’t matter. Mr Red wins anyway. He wins every time. Why? Because he dances to the tune of these otherwise marginalised voters. He speaks to them, makes promises for them, and whether he intends to keep these promises or not, or indeed whether he is expected to keep them, is irrelevant. At this stage, it was no longer about his promises but rather because he acted to this otherwise downtrodden group as the State, the leader, is expected to act: he listened to their issues, spoke to them directly, in a language they could connect with, made them a part of his wider political discourse, stepped out of the ivory tower, extended his hand as a candidate for the Presidency. He at this stage fulfilled the minimum amount of necessary charisma to even be considered as someone to follow. To counterweight this, Ms Blue maintained her distance and stance, equating herself with previous ‘establishment’ politicians, and as a result became unelectable: not because of having a worse programme, or lack of political merit, but rather because she became someone impossible for these voters to follow at all. She could not have been voted for, because she didn’t dance at all.

Charisma, though a funny thing, something we’ve all heard of and often instinctively see and understand, operates in not only a perhaps more complex way when dissected, but also with much more material force. In a sense, society as we know it requires a particular ebb and flow of charisma. But even then, it is not as random or magical as often believed; instead, it is simply the result of certain actions, of convincing people that you are indeed charismatic. Weber throughout most of his career maintained that charisma cannot be learned, that it was something you were born with, though he might have changed his mind on this, as an unfinished paper (sadly only a collection of notes) showed that he intended to write a paper on learning charisma after all. This isn’t the topic here, though, but rather to understand charisma as a social performance, a dance, which lies at the heart of the Western political system and discourse. It is a force rarely considered, not often analysed, and if even invoked, done more so to paint a mystical picture of the person in question. 

The funny thing, of course, is that all leaders are charismatic, and necessarily so. Some do it better than others, of course, but without it democracy as we know it wouldn’t be able to function. Without charisma, we would all simply vote for ourselves. 

 Selected bibliography / recommended reading:

Austin, J. L. 1955. How to do things with Words (J. O. Urmson & M. Sbisàeds ). Oxford University Press. 

Das, V. & Poole, D. (eds.) 2004 'Anthropology in the Margins of the State' Santa Fe: Scool of American Research Press; Oxford: James Currey Ltd. 

Hansen, T. & Stepputat, F. 2006 'Sovereignty revisited' Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 35 

Weber, M. 1946 [1919] 'Politics as a vocation'. In Gerth, H.H. and Wright Mills, C. (trans. & eds.) Max Weber: Essays in Sociology pp. 77-128. New York: Oxford University Press

Yurchak, A. 2003 ‘The Soviet hegemony of form’ in ‘Everything was forever, until it was no more’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 45(3): 480-510

Yurchak, A. 2015 'Bodies of Lenin' in Representations vol. 2(2015) pp.116-157 215

[troubleintrump]

Open Letter:

To my Trump-supporting family,

On the morning of November 9, 2016, the America I knew and loved died.  Or rather, I woke that day to discover that it never really existed in the first place. 

Let me explain. 

I grew up in the Deep South.  I was a flag-waving, gun-shooting, red-blooded American boy.  I said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school, got tingles when I heard the national anthem, and fervently accepted that no other country on the planet could ever come close to the grandeur, freedom, and inspiration that the United States of America offered.  We were that City Upon the Hill that was promised to the world – a shining beacon of participatory democracy that everyone else desperately wanted to emulate but could never achieve.  We were tough on our allies, but only because we needed to push them to excel and improve.  Of course, they’d never quite catch up to us economically, politically, or militarily, but hey, that’s the price of not being the USA.  The chants of “USA! USA! USA” weren’t taunts, but merely celebrations of our preeminence.  And anyone’s detractions were just signs of their jealousy.  Because everybody wanted to be American, right?

I was sold the American dream just like the hundreds of millions of my compatriots.  Work hard, pay your dues, and you’ll succeed.  No child left behind.  All in this together.  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.  I joined the Navy and proudly served my country because that’s just what a Southern boy did.  There simply was no higher honor than being part of the vanguard protecting democracy from those who would do us harm.

Even after traveling the world with the Navy and learning that, actually, America didn’t hold a monopoly on freedom, I still wasn’t swayed from my categorical resolution that no country was better. No people could be better.  America resulted from the failures and lessons learned from every other country’s trials and errors.  Mostly errors.  But we corrected them all.  Where other countries had endured the restrictions of authoritarianism or the unfettered chaos of direct democracy, America perfected the balance with our Constitution and its representative democracy.  Sure, we had our own fits-and-starts, which our schools taught – seizure of land and the treatment of Native Americans, the slave trade and oppression of black people, relegation of women to the home – but the America in which I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s had moved past those missteps.  Right?  Wasn’t America now that happy melting pot teeming with opportunity for all, if only you tried hard enough?

Of course not.  But that was how I viewed it.  And I’m sure that’s how you still think of America.  What we did to the Native Americans?  They just need to accept that we civilized them and they should be thankful.  Slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism?  Nah, African Americans need to get over slavery, stop being ghetto thugs, and start accepting responsibility for their own communities.  And women certainly have come a long way – just don’t get too uppity or think you’re entitled to too much of a political view, otherwise you risk losing your innate genteelness.  (If reading this part makes you feel uncomfortable – and it probably does – stop for a second and think about why.  Your discomfort is what’s left of your conscience.)

After I left the Navy and joined the real world, I saw more and more of what this country truly was.  The mistreatment of people of color, the judgment and chastisement of the LGBT community, and the everyday sexism.  Unlike the America taught in schools, this place had a lot of scars, scratches, and quite a few gaping wounds.  But still I thought none of them were terminal.  Surely Bill Clinton (for all his flaws) had it right when he said there was nothing wrong with America that couldn’t be cured by what was right in America.  Surely.

Up until November 8, 2016, I genuinely believed that, despite its myriad shortcomings, America was still the country that stood up to bullies.  It valued intellect and scientific discovery.  Americans may have disagreed on specific policies, but still had faith that public servants genuinely had the country’s best interests at heart.  Immigration built this country.  And we should always, always protect the innocent and welcome those fleeing poverty, war, or famine with open arms.

But America didn’t elect a leader who represents any of those principles.  America didn’t elect a leader with any principles.  And you did that.  You can say you held your nose and voted for the “lesser of two evils,” or that you only voted for Trump because you knew he’d further the policies with which you agreed, even if you found him personally detestable.  But when you and all of the other Trump voters pulled that lever, you weren’t just selecting your preferred presidential candidate.  You were selecting what America was.  And it is nothing like the America I grew up believing in.  To say that your choice and the result it brought about triggered an existential crisis would be an understatement.  My whole life, I’d been an unquestioning, patriotic servant of America because of what I’d believed it stood for.  But in a single night, everything it stood for was revealed as a fraud.  Everything I stood for was a fraud.

So now, two and half years into the alternative reality, I’ve come to grips that this isn’t some insane nightmare.  This is reality.  And seeing how Trump supporters (yourselves included) have behaved since then, I really was a fool for ever believing America stood for anything else. 

I won’t bore you with my journey to “wokeness” or why the things you tolerate literally sicken me.  Sexual predator? “They’re not hot enough to sexually assault.” Racist bully?  “Fake news.”  Uncompassionate bigot?  “They should stay in their own damn countries.”  Even if I had the capacity and patience to expound on every deviation from the America I thought existed, you wouldn’t care.  Why?  Because you’ve stopped listening.  The rise of Fox News means you’ve stopped reading the papers.  And even if you did, you wouldn’t be intrigued or inquisitive about what they say because you’ve bought into the idea that the press is the enemy of the people (except for Fox News and the National Review, which get passes because, well, why?). 

You’ve stopped paying attention to anyone who doesn’t agree with your crystallized view of the world.  You’re the mosquito of the Reagan era, completely unaware the sap has long hardened around you into amber.  And frankly, it’s not even particularly pretty amber.  It’s dull, opaque, muffled.  You can’t see or hear through it and you don’t want to.

But to be honest with you, I’ve lost all interest in trying to break you free.  At first, I really wanted to.  I wanted you to understand how the promise of America was broken.  I wanted you to see so we could find some way to fix it.  But every time I tried, you trotted out some line you heard Trump spew (none of which make any sense whatsoever, by the way) or that some Fox News commentator has conned you into thinking reflects reality.  So I’m done.

The America I believed in doesn’t exist.  Instead, it’s a different country now, irretrievably.  I get a bit melancholy about it sometimes, because promise and hope and opportunity are like political endorphins, and I miss them.  And I miss you.  I miss having conversations about our lives as though you hadn’t abandoned everything we ever believed in.  I miss seeing your smiling faces without having to hold back a political tirade.  I miss spending time with you without constantly wondering how you sleep at night knowing what this country is doing to the defenseless.

Surely by now you’ve seen the AP’s recent photo of an El Salvadoran man and his two and a half year-old daughter who drowned as they fled the violence in their home country, hoping to seek asylum in America.  They drowned because Trump won’t let them claim asylum at the border entry points.  He’s denying them the safety and promise that America used to stand for.  Many observers who haven’t yet fully recognized their prior delusions are saying, “This isn’t what we stand for.”  But it is.  It’s exactly what America stands for.

And that is why I’m done with you and your ilk.  We’re still family; you raised me; we share the same blood.  But we come from and live in two different countries.

Sincerely,

Matthew

[reading-writing-revolution]

Open Letter: To my Trump-supporting family from a Navy Veteran:

To my Trump-supporting family,

On the morning of November 9, 2016, the America I knew and loved died. Or rather, I woke that day to discover that it never really existed in the first place.

Let me explain.

I grew up in the Deep South. I was a flag-waving, gun-shooting, red-blooded American boy. I said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school, got tingles when I heard the national anthem, and fervently accepted that no other country on the planet could ever come close to the grandeur, freedom, and inspiration that the United States of America offered. We were that City Upon the Hill that was promised to the world – a shining beacon of participatory democracy that everyone else desperately wanted to emulate but could never achieve. We were tough on our allies, but only because we needed to push them to excel and improve. Of course, they’d never quite catch up to us economically, politically, or militarily, but hey, that’s the price of not being the USA. The chants of “USA! USA! USA” weren’t taunts, but merely celebrations of our preeminence. And anyone’s detractions were just signs of their jealousy. Because everybody wanted to be American, right?

I was sold the American dream just like the hundreds of millions of my compatriots. Work hard, pay your dues, and you’ll succeed. No child left behind. All in this together. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I joined the Navy and proudly served my country because that’s just what a Southern boy did. There simply was no higher honor than being part of the vanguard protecting democracy from those who would do us harm.

Even after traveling the world with the Navy and learning that, actually, America didn’t hold a monopoly on freedom, I still wasn’t swayed from my categorical resolution that no country was better. No people could be better. America resulted from the failures and lessons learned from every other country’s trials and errors. Mostly errors. But we corrected them all. Where other countries had endured the restrictions of authoritarianism or the unfettered chaos of direct democracy, America perfected the balance with our Constitution and its representative democracy. Sure, we had our own fits-and-starts, which our schools taught – seizure of land and the treatment of Native Americans, the slave trade and oppression of black people, relegation of women to the home – but the America in which I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s had moved past those missteps. Right? Wasn’t America now that happy melting pot teeming with opportunity for all, if only you tried hard enough?

Of course not. But that was how I viewed it. And I’m sure that’s how you still think of America. What we did to the Native Americans? They just need to accept that we civilized them and they should be thankful. Slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism? Nah, African Americans need to get over slavery, stop being ghetto thugs, and start accepting responsibility for their own communities. And women certainly have come a long way – just don’t get too uppity or think you’re entitled to too much of a political view, otherwise you risk losing your innate genteelness. (If reading this part makes you feel uncomfortable – and it probably does – stop for a second and think about why. Your discomfort is what’s left of your conscience.)

After I left the Navy and joined the real world, I saw more and more of what this country truly was. The mistreatment of people of color, the judgment and chastisement of the LGBT community, and the everyday sexism. Unlike the America taught in schools, this place had a lot of scars, scratches, and quite a few gaping wounds. But still I thought none of them were terminal. Surely Bill Clinton (for all his flaws) had it right when he said there was nothing wrong with America that couldn’t be cured by what was right in America. Surely.

Up until November 8, 2016, I genuinely believed that, despite its myriad shortcomings, America was still the country that stood up to bullies. It valued intellect and scientific discovery. Americans may have disagreed on specific policies, but still had faith that public servants genuinely had the country’s best interests at heart. Immigration built this country. And we should always, always protect the innocent and welcome those fleeing poverty, war, or famine with open arms.

But America didn’t elect a leader who represents any of those principles. America didn’t elect a leader with any principles. And you did that. You can say you held your nose and voted for the “lesser of two evils,” or that you only voted for Trump because you knew he’d further the policies with which you agreed, even if you found him personally detestable. But when you and all of the other Trump voters pulled that lever, you weren’t just selecting your preferred presidential candidate. You were selecting what America was. And it is nothing like the America I grew up believing in. To say that your choice and the result it brought about triggered an existential crisis would be an understatement. My whole life, I’d been an unquestioning, patriotic servant of America because of what I’d believed it stood for. But in a single night, everything it stood for was revealed as a fraud. Everything I stood for was a fraud.

So now, two and half years into the alternative reality, I’ve come to grips that this isn’t some insane nightmare. This is reality. And seeing how Trump supporters (yourselves included) have behaved since then, I really was a fool for ever believing America stood for anything else.

I won’t bore you with my journey to “wokeness” or why the things you tolerate literally sicken me. Sexual predator? “They’re not hot enough to sexually assault.” Racist bully? “Fake news.” Uncompassionate bigot? “They should stay in their own damn countries.” Even if I had the capacity and patience to expound on every deviation from the America I thought existed, you wouldn’t care. Why? Because you’ve stopped listening. The rise of Fox News means you’ve stopped reading the papers. And even if you did, you wouldn’t be intrigued or inquisitive about what they say because you’ve bought into the idea that the press is the enemy of the people (except for Fox News and the National Review, which get passes because, well, why?).

You’ve stopped paying attention to anyone who doesn’t agree with your crystallized view of the world. You’re the mosquito of the Reagan era, completely unaware the sap has long hardened around you into amber. And frankly, it’s not even particularly pretty amber. It’s dull, opaque, muffled. You can’t see or hear through it and you don’t want to.

But to be honest with you, I’ve lost all interest in trying to break you free. At first, I really wanted to. I wanted you to understand how the promise of America was broken. I wanted you to see so we could find some way to fix it. But every time I tried, you trotted out some line you heard Trump spew (none of which make any sense whatsoever, by the way) or that some Fox News commentator has conned you into thinking reflects reality. So I’m done.

The America I believed in doesn’t exist. Instead, it’s a different country now, irretrievably. I get a bit melancholy about it sometimes, because promise and hope and opportunity are like political endorphins, and I miss them. And I miss you. I miss having conversations about our lives as though you hadn’t abandoned everything we ever believed in. I miss seeing your smiling faces without having to hold back a political tirade. I miss spending time with you without constantly wondering how you sleep at night knowing what this country is doing to the defenseless.

Surely by now you’ve seen the AP’s recent photo of an El Salvadoran man and his two and a half year-old daughter who drowned as they fled the violence in their home country, hoping to seek asylum in America. They drowned because Trump won’t let them claim asylum at the border entry points. He’s denying them the safety and promise that America used to stand for. Many observers who haven’t yet fully recognized their prior delusions are saying, “This isn’t what we stand for.” But it is. It’s exactly what America stands for.

And that is why I’m done with you and your ilk. We’re still family; you raised me; we share the same blood. But we come from and live in two different countries.

Sincerely,

Matthew

[thepatriot911]

An Obama Briefing, a Mysterious Month-Long Gap, and an Anti-Trump Mission - Guy Benson

We are now getting our first look at a new trove of text messages between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page -- who were having an affair during the 2016 election cycle as they worked on the Clinton email investigation, then later as part of the Mueller probe, from which they've been dismissed.  The messages reinforce some previously-known dynamics, but also raise new questions.  Leah wrote up the basics earlier, but here are a few major takeaways, from my perspective:

(1) In the "old news" file, it's clearer than ever how viscerally Strzok and Page despised Donald Trump as a candidate, lashing out at him as a "f--ing idiot," and calling his election "f--ing terrifying" and depressing. They also didn't think much of their Congressional overseers, referring to the legislative body as "utterly useless" and "contemptible." It appears as though Strzok's disdain for Republicans and GOP voters extended beyond Trump, as he expressed resentment toward the "ignorant hillbillys [sic]" who voted to defeat former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's wife in a Virginia Senate election.  She ran as a Democrat, of course, and was funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars by then-governor Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton ally.  That money flowed to her campaign while McCabe was connected to the Bureau's Clinton email probe.  The exchanges also demonstrate the deep reverence and admiration both agents harbored for their boss at the time, FBI Director James Comey.

(2) One text generating a lot of attention this morning is a message sent on September 2, 2016 (roughly two months before election day) suggesting that President Obama was personally and keenly interested in the specific status of their investigation (see update):

Let's think about this -- the timing is a bit strange here, isn't it?  Remember, Comey announced his determination (the wrong one, in my view) not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton in July of that year (Strzok helped soften anti-Hillary language in Comey's statement).  That decision was made public the month following an infamous 'tarmac meeting' between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the optics of which Strzok called "astoundingly bad" in a newly-disclosed text message to Page.  Comey also began drafting a legal exoneration memo long before the investigation had concluded, before Mrs. Clinton herself was even interviewed, and after top aides were offered immunity and given passes for lying to the FBI.  In late September, the Hillary email probe roared back to life upon the discovery of sensitive emails on the unsecure laptop of ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Huma Abedin.  More on that in a moment.  

But why would Obama want a thorough briefing on "everything" going on in the Clinton probe at a time when it was basically dormant, though technically still open?  Does the 'potus' text necessarily refer to the Clinton investigation?  Or was it about something else?  Keep in mind that these texts were released in connection with a Senate inquiry into the FBI's handling of the Clinton matter, so it might follow that the Hillary email scandal was the relevant subject here.  But given the dates, it's possible that Obama was asking for information on other FBI work, like looking into Russia's election meddling, or scrutinizing the Trump campaign.  We don't have that full context yet, but I'd imagine the DOJ's nonpartisan Inspector General's office (which is conducting its own independent investigation into how the Bureau handled its business on Clinton's emails) does.  If, indeed, Obama was asking for a detailed briefing on the Clinton probe while it was still open, this vow he made on national television months earlier becomes a problem:

"I do not talk to FBI Directors about pending investigations," he said, promising that Mrs. Clinton would not receive any special treatment from his Justice Department.  Keeping those bright lines separate is "institutionally, how we have always operated," he averred.  Critics have long pointed to his public statement that Clinton had not broken the law as evidence of improper presidential meddling.  The FBI was actively on the case at the time, and his pronouncement of the 'proper' conclusion angered some within the Bureau and was attacked by conservatives as an attempt to prejudice an ongoing investigation.  If Obama was also applying pressure behind the scenes, that looks more suspicious, particularly because he asserted outright that talking to FBI Directors about pending investigations is something that he scrupulously avoids.  In this case, it appears he personally solicited such a meeting.  Did he consider the issue no longer "pending"?  Or, again, was he asking for information on a separate matter entirely?  Let's wait and see.

(3) We now know about the existence of an unexplained, one-month gap in between the discovery of Clinton emails on Weiner's laptop, and Comey notifying Congress that this "recent" development was being investigated.  The latter occurred on September 28; the latter on October 28, right before the election.  What explains this delay?  My educated guess is that the answer has something to do with why McCabe was forced out of his position by new FBI Director Christopher Wray last month, not long after Wray had reportedly gone to bat for McCabe in private.  The Inspector General's forthcoming report likely provides insights into this timeline, but I suspect it may turn out that McCabe improperly maneuvered to suppress new Clinton probe developments until after the election was over.  If that's the case, his stall tactics obviously backfired; someone (Comey?) insisted that Congress be made aware of what was happening sooner, that notification -- delayed for weeks, by that point -- was then delivered to Capitol Hill, and the resulting furor contributed to Hillary's loss mere days later.  We will likely glean clarifying, non-spectulative information into this once the IG report is published.

(4) The last piece that seems relevant is this "task" message, which Fox's report understandably links to the much discussed, cryptic anti-Trump "insurance policy" revealed months ago:

Later that month, on Nov. 13, 2016, Page wrote, "I bought all the president's men. Figure I need to brush up on watergate."  The next day, Nov. 14, 2016, Page wrote, “God, being here makes me angry. Lots of high fallutin’ national security talk. Meanwhile we have OUR task ahead of us.” Page’s meaning here is unclear, but according to the Senate report, coupled with Strzok’s Aug. 15 text about an “insurance policy,” further investigation is warranted to find out what actions the two may have taken.

What task? Was it related to their anti-Trump "insurance policy"?  These are serious, unanswered questions. I'll leave you with two mitigating factors that at least partially cut against hair-on-fire outrage over the Strzok/Page texts: First, despite his manifest and intense bias against Trump, Strzok helped draft Comey's letter to Congress about the Weiner laptop development, knowing full well that it would harm her candidacy. Second, as soon as Robert Mueller was informed of this deluge of texts filled with anti-Trump venom, he booted both agents from his team. If the whole system were corrupt and rigged against Trump, the Weiner laptop letter would never have seen the light of day prior to the election, and these anti-Trump partisans would still be on the job with Mueller. It did, and they aren't. Finally, here is my immediate analysis of these revelations on America's Newsroom this morning:

UPDATE - As I surmised, Obama asked for a briefing on Russia meddling, not the Clinton email probe, which was only nominally active at that point:

[unfilteredpatriot]

New Post has been published on Unfiltered Patriot

New Post has been published on http://unfilteredpatriot.com/coincidence-a-fire-at-trump-tower-follows-a-fire-at-clintons-home/

Coincidence? A Fire at Trump Tower Follows a Fire at Clinton’s Home

We don’t typically indulge ourselves in the world of conspiracy theories here at Unfiltered Patriot, but this was too creepy to overlook. On Monday, reports surfaced that a one-alarm fire had broken out at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the gleaming building that serves as Donald Trump’s private residence when he’s not, you know, in Washington carrying out the business of being president. At approximately 7:30 in the morning, New York first responders received a call reporting the small blaze; firefighters had the situation under control by a quarter past eight. Early reports suggested that the fire had started in the HVAC system and that two people had been injured as a result of the outbreak.

“There was a small electrical fire in a cooling tower on the roof of Trump Tower,” the Trump Organization said in a statement. “The FDNY were here within minutes and did an exceptional job. Everything is under control and no evacuations were made.”

Eric Trump, who serves as the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, issued a public statement of his own on Monday. “The New York Fire Department was here within minutes and did an incredible job,” he wrote on Twitter. “The men and women of the FDNY are true heroes and deserve our most sincere thanks and praise!”

This story would hardly be worth mentioning, except for the exceedingly odd timing. As far as we can know or tell, the FDNY has never been called out to Trump Tower to put out a blaze – certainly not since Trump became a national political figure. So how interesting that this should happen exactly five days after a similar fire broke out at Bill and Hillary Clinton’s house in Chappaqua, New York.

From the January 3 Washington Post:

A small fire broke out at Hillary and Bill Clinton’s property in New York and was quickly extinguished Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

The fire started around 2:40 p.m. in a building used by the Secret Service on the Clinton’s property, the Secret Service said in a statement. It was put out by about 3:15 p.m., according to the Associated Press. No one was injured in the blaze.

The Secret Service said that the fire began in a second-floor ceiling of the detached building behind the Clinton’s house used by its agents. It did not say what caused the fire.

Even in the strange political climate that has taken over our country, this coincidence is a little too strange to be believed. Two separate fires at the respective homes of the two 2016 presidential candidates? Within a week of each other? Come on. If you read this in a novel and the author chalked it up to mere chance, you would never pick up another one of his books because he clearly has no idea what he’s doing. Real life isn’t like a novel, though, so we’re willing to concede that this may have actually been nothing more than simple coincidence.

But it definitely makes you wonder…

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[viralhottopics]

Audacity review rallying cry for Obama legacy drowns out Trump ‘death rattle’

Jonathan Chait makes a stirring case for a president who reflected America as it is and will be, even after the dark and destructive Republican interregnum to come

Jonathan Chaits brilliant new book, Audacity, upends the conventional wisdom of the Washington commentariat and a surprising number of liberals that Barack Obamas presidency was little more than eight years of disappointment and broken promises.

Obama accomplished nearly everything he set out to do, Chait writes, before setting out a compelling case that he was one of the most successful presidents of modern times.

Audacity barely mentions the huge strides made by the LGBT community during Obamas administration, including marriage equality, the end of discrimination in the military and the appointment of 11 openly gay federal judges. But Chait, a writer for New York magazine, is quite comprehensive about the Democrats legislative achievements.

Obamas program has already reshaped the economy, healthcare, energy, finance and education in quantifiable ways, Chait writes. Those ways include a record 75 straight months of job growth, a 4.7% unemployment rate, an increase of 9.7% in the incomes of the lowest 10th of American households, the lowest rate of uninsured Americans ever because of the Affordable Care Act, and the most serious reform of the financial system in 75 years through Dodd-Frank.

In one of scores of surprising statistics sprinkled throughout the book, Chait notes that before the financial crisis of 2008, financial firms accounted for a staggering 30% of all corporate profits in the United States.

By 2015, he writes, after the reforms of Dodd-Frank, that share had fallen to 17%. The financial industry, swollen beyond any reasonable scale, has been cut down to size.

While Chait thinks the Trump administration will follow the usual Republican pattern of failing to enforce regulatory laws like Dodd-Frank, Chait thinks it is unlikely to be repealed and therefore will remain on the books to be enforced by a future Democratic president.

Chait reminds us of almost everything we have already forgotten about Obama and the economy: that Republicans began Obamas administration by opposing any stimulus, pretending that all of Franklin Roosevelts early efforts to end the Great Depression had been failures; that even mainstream publications like the Washington Post described a proposed $800bn stimulus as staggering; that nearly all news outlets were obsessed with the danger of federal deficits instead of the pressing problem of huge unemployment created by the 2008 financial crisis.

Initiatives now recognized as great successes, like the rescue of the auto industry, were portrayed by rightwing analysts like Andrew Grossman of the Heritage Foundation as a microcosm of the lawlessness that threatens our freedom and our prosperity. Even Obama appointees like financier Steve Rattner, who led the successful effort to restructure the auto industry, warned the president that the odds that it would succeed were only 51%.

The leader of all America

Chait also recalls the extreme and relentless racial attacks on Obama by Republicans like Newt Gingrich, who said: What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?

Chait counters such offensive nonsense, writing that rather than treating the civil rights movement as a thing apart, Obama placed it at Americas historical center, weaving black Americas story and the larger American narrative into an inseparable fabric. In his speech in Selma in 2015, Obama said: We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea Were the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South. Were the ranch hands and cowboys who opened the West.

Obama: Selma helped determine nations destiny

He portrayed the struggle for black freedom as not merely a part of the American story but as its epitome, Chait writes. If he had allowed himself to be cast as a civil rights leader he would have forfeited his ability to be the leader of all America.

By fusing the civil rights story with the American story, he eliminated the contradiction.

Contrasts with the Republican opposition to Obama and what will come after him are of course stark and frequent. Chait argues that in the fight against climate change, for example, the Paris agreement represented a staggering triumph of cooperative diplomacy.

Only in the United States, he continues, does one of the two major parties question the validity of climate science. So, while presidents from Australia to Norway had to hammer out difficult negotiations with industries and fellow politicians to propose emissions targets they could live with, only Obama had to face down an opposition party that denied that dumping unlimited carbon into the atmosphere amounted to a problem.

Chait did some impressive last-minute rewriting after the surprise presidential election result, and he does a fine job of describing the importance of racism to Donald Trumps success. He also believes Hillary Clintons loss reflected the unusual construction of the electoral college Trumps aging supporters were disproportionately clustered in battleground states, allowing him to prevail despite her clear win in the national vote.

If we can survive the next four years of Republican rule, Chait says, Trumps success will ultimately be viewed as a pyrrhic victory for his party and it is Obamas legacy that will prevail.

The triumph of a blustering, cartoonishly dishonest and manifestly anti-intellectual candidate was a forceful display of the [Republican] partys retreat from seriousness, he writes. [Trumps] ideas did not represent the future of the country envisioned by most Americans, and especially not the youngest ones who would have the most to say about that future.

He was a deadly death rattle, a polarizing and even loathed figure At the end of the 21st century, the vision of American pluralism that is taught to American schoolchildren will not be Trumps.

It will be Obamas.

Charles Kaiser is the author of 1968 in America, The Gay Metropolis and The Cost of Courage

Read more: http://ift.tt/2jc288K

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