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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
January 6, 2021
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
1/05/2021
Trump's Madness Has Made Fools of Everyone Who Thought He'd Give Up on Overturning the Election
snip//
At his boring-ass, frantic, desperate rally in Dalton, Georgia (motto: "We're a decent piss break between Chattanooga and Atlanta"
yesterday, Trump continued on his Abrams animus, ranting, "Stacey Abrams. What’s with this Stacey Abrams? Your governor and your secretary of state, they’re petrified of Stacey Abrams. What’s that all about?" After saying of Raffensperger that Abrams "took him to the cleaners," Trump finally said what he fucking well meant: "The Dominion voting machines employed in Fulton County. That’s the home of Stacey."
And there it is. See, it's not just that Trump got beaten in Georgia. It's that one of the people who is most responsible for him getting beaten is a woman. A black woman. A black woman and the votes in a majority non-white county. That fucking galls the shit out of him. And he can't get his fellow white Republicans to go along with teaching that uppity black woman a lesson. His appeal to Raffensperger is racist and sexist, and that's the kind of shit that's worked for years for this motherfucker.
I could go on about tons of shit in the phone call and in the rally speech. I could talk about Trump's mobster mentality of cajoling Raffensperger and Germany by saying "you know that" the fraud is real. I could explain the bugfuck insanity of the exchange where Raffensperger said, "Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything" and Trump really responded, "Oh, this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not; it’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less." I could dive into how Trump threatened and begged and appealed to Raffensperger's Republican loyalty. What Trump didn't realize is that he finally met some officials who didn't want to owe anything to him. Yeah, they may still be Republican motherfuckers, but they are motherfuckers who decided not to piss off the entire, huge work force that counted the ballots and ran the election. That shit matters, too.
Instead, as we await the outcome of the Georgia Senate races (after which I'm sure I'll update this), as we await the ratification of the Electoral College vote and the last official declaration that Joe Biden is the president-elect, I'll just say that none of what Trump is doing is the least bit surprising. Of course, it was always going to end with him trying to blow the joint up. It's what he's always done. He defiles everything by making sure that his name is attached to it forever, like his terrible buildings and, now, the presidency. We will have so much work erasing that stain.
Rude Pundit: Trump's Madness Has Made Fools of Everyone Who Thought He'd Give Up on...
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2021/01/trumps-madness-has-made-fools-of.htmlThe Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
1/05/2021
Trump's Madness Has Made Fools of Everyone Who Thought He'd Give Up on Overturning the Election
snip//
At his boring-ass, frantic, desperate rally in Dalton, Georgia (motto: "We're a decent piss break between Chattanooga and Atlanta"
yesterday, Trump continued on his Abrams animus, ranting, "Stacey Abrams. What’s with this Stacey Abrams? Your governor and your secretary of state, they’re petrified of Stacey Abrams. What’s that all about?" After saying of Raffensperger that Abrams "took him to the cleaners," Trump finally said what he fucking well meant: "The Dominion voting machines employed in Fulton County. That’s the home of Stacey."
And there it is. See, it's not just that Trump got beaten in Georgia. It's that one of the people who is most responsible for him getting beaten is a woman. A black woman. A black woman and the votes in a majority non-white county. That fucking galls the shit out of him. And he can't get his fellow white Republicans to go along with teaching that uppity black woman a lesson. His appeal to Raffensperger is racist and sexist, and that's the kind of shit that's worked for years for this motherfucker.
I could go on about tons of shit in the phone call and in the rally speech. I could talk about Trump's mobster mentality of cajoling Raffensperger and Germany by saying "you know that" the fraud is real. I could explain the bugfuck insanity of the exchange where Raffensperger said, "Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything" and Trump really responded, "Oh, this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not; it’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less." I could dive into how Trump threatened and begged and appealed to Raffensperger's Republican loyalty. What Trump didn't realize is that he finally met some officials who didn't want to owe anything to him. Yeah, they may still be Republican motherfuckers, but they are motherfuckers who decided not to piss off the entire, huge work force that counted the ballots and ran the election. That shit matters, too.
Instead, as we await the outcome of the Georgia Senate races (after which I'm sure I'll update this), as we await the ratification of the Electoral College vote and the last official declaration that Joe Biden is the president-elect, I'll just say that none of what Trump is doing is the least bit surprising. Of course, it was always going to end with him trying to blow the joint up. It's what he's always done. He defiles everything by making sure that his name is attached to it forever, like his terrible buildings and, now, the presidency. We will have so much work erasing that stain.
January 6, 2021
Georgia Revolution Is a ‘Fuck You’ Aimed Right at Trump
STAGGERING NIGHT
On an unbelievably heartening night for America, Georgia put an end to the pathetic career of Kelly Loeffler and ushered in a bright new era.
Michael Tomasky, Special Correspondent
Updated Jan. 06, 2021 7:56AM ET / Published Jan. 06, 2021 7:16AM ET
opinion
snip//
It was a staggeringly amazing night. Georgia has elected a Black man and in all likelihood a Jewish man to the United States Senate. Both of them liberal. Georgia. It’s astonishing. And the historical debt paid, especially in Raphael Warnock’s win: The pastor at Martin Luther King’s church is going to be a United States senator.
snip//
This is one of those rare situations in life where it’s impossible to know what to be happiest about.
Maybe about Trump. Picture him fuming over this, confused, pacing, picking up the phone, screaming at whoever, throwing stuff at Hogan Gidley; just think of the dark torment that has clouded his brain, which must physically hurt. He’ll rationalize it away as cheating, of course, but he’ll do that for the precise reason that he’ll know deep down that this was a fuck you aimed right at him.
So that is good. But then, every 30 seconds or so, my brain starts ringing with: “Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell…”
Because this is a repudiation of him, too. There is a price to his oily arrogance, his sneering abuse of democracy, to block a Supreme Court nominee in March of one presidential election year and jam one through in September of the next. You can’t sit on bill after bill after bill designed to help people, from minimum wage to infrastructure. You can’t deny people $2,000 in a COVID relief bill and restore the three-martini lunch. People will say enough.
snip//
The Trump rage machine will heat up again today. If you’re not nervous about these next two weeks, you’re asleep. But at least now there’s light ahead. Or, as Warnock’s famous predecessor in that famous pulpit put it: “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
Georgia Revolution Is a 'Fuck You' Aimed Right at Trump
https://www.thedailybeast.com/georgia-revolution-is-a-fuck-you-aimed-right-at-trump?ref=scrollGeorgia Revolution Is a ‘Fuck You’ Aimed Right at Trump
STAGGERING NIGHT
On an unbelievably heartening night for America, Georgia put an end to the pathetic career of Kelly Loeffler and ushered in a bright new era.
Michael Tomasky, Special Correspondent
Updated Jan. 06, 2021 7:56AM ET / Published Jan. 06, 2021 7:16AM ET
opinion
snip//
It was a staggeringly amazing night. Georgia has elected a Black man and in all likelihood a Jewish man to the United States Senate. Both of them liberal. Georgia. It’s astonishing. And the historical debt paid, especially in Raphael Warnock’s win: The pastor at Martin Luther King’s church is going to be a United States senator.
snip//
This is one of those rare situations in life where it’s impossible to know what to be happiest about.
Maybe about Trump. Picture him fuming over this, confused, pacing, picking up the phone, screaming at whoever, throwing stuff at Hogan Gidley; just think of the dark torment that has clouded his brain, which must physically hurt. He’ll rationalize it away as cheating, of course, but he’ll do that for the precise reason that he’ll know deep down that this was a fuck you aimed right at him.
So that is good. But then, every 30 seconds or so, my brain starts ringing with: “Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell…”
Because this is a repudiation of him, too. There is a price to his oily arrogance, his sneering abuse of democracy, to block a Supreme Court nominee in March of one presidential election year and jam one through in September of the next. You can’t sit on bill after bill after bill designed to help people, from minimum wage to infrastructure. You can’t deny people $2,000 in a COVID relief bill and restore the three-martini lunch. People will say enough.
snip//
The Trump rage machine will heat up again today. If you’re not nervous about these next two weeks, you’re asleep. But at least now there’s light ahead. Or, as Warnock’s famous predecessor in that famous pulpit put it: “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
January 6, 2021
Trump’s Final Insult
January 6, 2021 at 7:56 am EST By Taegan Goddard
Trump's Final Insult
https://politicalwire.com/2021/01/06/trumps-final-insult/Trump’s Final Insult
January 6, 2021 at 7:56 am EST By Taegan Goddard
Kevin Williamson in the National Review:
“I have on many occasions criticized the abuse of the word coup in our politics, but that is what this is: an attempted coup d’état under color of law. It would be entirely appropriate today to impeach Trump a second time and remove him from office before his term ends.”
“No one who has participated in this poisonous buffoonery should ever hold office again. There was a time when there was a plausible if sometimes self-serving rationale for working for the Trump administration — that the president is a clueless poseur surrounded by crackpots and frauds, and that he desperately needs good counsel from responsible adults. But the Trump administration is not currently under the guiding influence of any such responsible adults — and there simply is no defending what it is up to. This cannot be excused or explained away.”
“I have on many occasions criticized the abuse of the word coup in our politics, but that is what this is: an attempted coup d’état under color of law. It would be entirely appropriate today to impeach Trump a second time and remove him from office before his term ends.”
“No one who has participated in this poisonous buffoonery should ever hold office again. There was a time when there was a plausible if sometimes self-serving rationale for working for the Trump administration — that the president is a clueless poseur surrounded by crackpots and frauds, and that he desperately needs good counsel from responsible adults. But the Trump administration is not currently under the guiding influence of any such responsible adults — and there simply is no defending what it is up to. This cannot be excused or explained away.”
January 6, 2021
Trump supporters’ last-ditch downtown DC election protests got off to a bleak start
They began with a speaker encouraging people to spread Covid-19. Really.
By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Jan 5, 2021, 7:10pm EST
President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede the 2020 election to President-elect Joe Biden — and his most fervent supporters are on the same page.
As part of Trump’s last-ditch effort to overturn Biden’s victory, he and his supporters (in and out of Congress) have been hyping Congress’s expected certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory Wednesday as the final opportunity to “stop the steal.” Trump fans planned a slate of protests near the Capitol building in Washington, DC, starting with rallies on Tuesday. Yet another will take place on Wednesday, at which Trump himself says he will speak.
And they’re not off to a great start.
Trump fans began gathering on Tuesday in Freedom Plaza and outside the Capitol, where recently pardoned Trump ally Roger Stone spoke. At the Freedom Plaza event, a variety of fringe far-right speakers alternately profanely denounced antifa, said George Soros “owns” Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, described the coronavirus as “fake” — and, in one especially shocking moment, even encouraged rally attendees, who gathered mostly without masks despite the coronavirus pandemic, to hug each other.
“It’s a mass-spreader event!” said podcast host Clay Clark.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1346531619029594118
more...
https://www.vox.com/22215120/trump-stop-the-steal-protests-downtown-washington-dc-electoral-college
Trump supporters' last-ditch downtown DC election protests got off to a bleak start
Trump supporters’ last-ditch downtown DC election protests got off to a bleak start
They began with a speaker encouraging people to spread Covid-19. Really.
By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Jan 5, 2021, 7:10pm EST
President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede the 2020 election to President-elect Joe Biden — and his most fervent supporters are on the same page.
As part of Trump’s last-ditch effort to overturn Biden’s victory, he and his supporters (in and out of Congress) have been hyping Congress’s expected certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory Wednesday as the final opportunity to “stop the steal.” Trump fans planned a slate of protests near the Capitol building in Washington, DC, starting with rallies on Tuesday. Yet another will take place on Wednesday, at which Trump himself says he will speak.
And they’re not off to a great start.
Trump fans began gathering on Tuesday in Freedom Plaza and outside the Capitol, where recently pardoned Trump ally Roger Stone spoke. At the Freedom Plaza event, a variety of fringe far-right speakers alternately profanely denounced antifa, said George Soros “owns” Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, described the coronavirus as “fake” — and, in one especially shocking moment, even encouraged rally attendees, who gathered mostly without masks despite the coronavirus pandemic, to hug each other.
“It’s a mass-spreader event!” said podcast host Clay Clark.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1346531619029594118
more...
https://www.vox.com/22215120/trump-stop-the-steal-protests-downtown-washington-dc-electoral-college
January 5, 2021
Trump Will Get Away With It and Leave Us With the Mess
By Dahlia Lithwick
Jan 05, 2021
3:33 PM
Donald Trump is ending his presidency as he started it—wholly and unrepentantly himself. With his rambly, menacing call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, threatening vague criminal consequences if he declines to change vote tallies in Trump’s favor and demanding confidential voting information, Trump exits as he entered, on a wave of almost-certain election criming. Already we are hearing that these last frantic actions are too Trumpy to carry sober legal penalties or consequences; as Michelle Goldberg observes, there is almost no appetite to prosecute Trump for anything in part because it is virtually impossible to prove that he has sufficient understanding of fact or law to establish he was doing something unlawful. (Goldberg calls this “the psychopath’s advantage”; I have come to think of it as a blanket preemptive and collective insanity defense.) More concretely, Democrats in Congress and those in the Biden administration seem to feel impelled to look forward and not back, as Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, put it on Monday. The growing consensus seems to be that there are too many other life-and-death priorities facing the government, from COVID to the economy, and that the best thing America can do about Trump and Trumpism is to bury it all in a box and forget it once he is gone, which he will be soon, even if he is still sucking up as much oxygen postelection as he did before.
It’s tempting to say that everything we are witnessing in these last weeks is so deeply Trump-specific that it can be ignored as Trump-specific and then, eventually, forgotten. Whether it’s the pardons for those who may have helped him obstruct justice, or the willful and deliberate exacerbation of the COVID crisis, or these repeated sad little attempted shakedowns of state elections officials, the actions all seem so tragically small, so pathetically self-obsessed, and ultimately so artlessly executed that of course we want to just tie all of it to a boulder and yeet it out into the deepest part of the ocean. But as we witness, this week, what will become either the swan song of the sorriest clown show in American history or the actual demise of a functioning representative democracy, it’s useful to realize that throughout the past four years, the smallness, the tawdriness, and the shabbiness of Trump have been the tools he has used to get away with it all.
Donald Trump has managed to evade consequences for virtually everything he’s attempted—from lying about his taxes, to payoffs to mistresses, to lying about the basis for the Muslim ban, to implementing and denying a family separation program, to inflaming white supremacy, to withholding aid money to Ukraine. All of it just bounces off him and ends up pooled at his feet because so many of the efforts were either dumb and small or transparently vile and lawless. Too stupid or too bold to be countenanced as serious. This pattern of the past four years repeated endlessly on a loop: He would mess himself and walk away, because the very silliness, ugliness, and cheapness—even as it was bound up in grandiosity and excess—protected him. And what we keep missing, when we say the Mueller report wasn’t worth it, or that impeachment wasn’t worth it, or that investigating and prosecuting Trump and all of those who enabled his self-absorbed whims and fits for four years won’t be worth it, is that while Trump is (please, Lord, please) going to go away in two weeks, the smallness and the tawdriness and the silliness have spread throughout government.
snip//
The consequence of four years without consequences isn’t going to be a reversion to all the norms and values that came before. It will be a spreading of anti-democratic, illiberal, and purposively small, petty, performative shabbiness that will always seem, in the moment, too silly to matter, and that will continue to be, going forward, too important to ignore. Trump was always the symptom, not the disease, and our distaste for curing it will mean that we spend the coming years coughing, choking, and gasping for air, from something at once too trivial to hurt us and too contagious to be stopped.
Dahlia Lithwick: Trump Will Get Away With It and Leave Us With the Mess
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/trump-republican-smallness-georgia-call.html?fbclid=IwAR2iY55PhIpE18t0Y0CEV4kkF6OLo-Nl50Mg4iKQHbRfX8nPOXLEF3tu3wwTrump Will Get Away With It and Leave Us With the Mess
By Dahlia Lithwick
Jan 05, 2021
3:33 PM
Donald Trump is ending his presidency as he started it—wholly and unrepentantly himself. With his rambly, menacing call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, threatening vague criminal consequences if he declines to change vote tallies in Trump’s favor and demanding confidential voting information, Trump exits as he entered, on a wave of almost-certain election criming. Already we are hearing that these last frantic actions are too Trumpy to carry sober legal penalties or consequences; as Michelle Goldberg observes, there is almost no appetite to prosecute Trump for anything in part because it is virtually impossible to prove that he has sufficient understanding of fact or law to establish he was doing something unlawful. (Goldberg calls this “the psychopath’s advantage”; I have come to think of it as a blanket preemptive and collective insanity defense.) More concretely, Democrats in Congress and those in the Biden administration seem to feel impelled to look forward and not back, as Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, put it on Monday. The growing consensus seems to be that there are too many other life-and-death priorities facing the government, from COVID to the economy, and that the best thing America can do about Trump and Trumpism is to bury it all in a box and forget it once he is gone, which he will be soon, even if he is still sucking up as much oxygen postelection as he did before.
It’s tempting to say that everything we are witnessing in these last weeks is so deeply Trump-specific that it can be ignored as Trump-specific and then, eventually, forgotten. Whether it’s the pardons for those who may have helped him obstruct justice, or the willful and deliberate exacerbation of the COVID crisis, or these repeated sad little attempted shakedowns of state elections officials, the actions all seem so tragically small, so pathetically self-obsessed, and ultimately so artlessly executed that of course we want to just tie all of it to a boulder and yeet it out into the deepest part of the ocean. But as we witness, this week, what will become either the swan song of the sorriest clown show in American history or the actual demise of a functioning representative democracy, it’s useful to realize that throughout the past four years, the smallness, the tawdriness, and the shabbiness of Trump have been the tools he has used to get away with it all.
Donald Trump has managed to evade consequences for virtually everything he’s attempted—from lying about his taxes, to payoffs to mistresses, to lying about the basis for the Muslim ban, to implementing and denying a family separation program, to inflaming white supremacy, to withholding aid money to Ukraine. All of it just bounces off him and ends up pooled at his feet because so many of the efforts were either dumb and small or transparently vile and lawless. Too stupid or too bold to be countenanced as serious. This pattern of the past four years repeated endlessly on a loop: He would mess himself and walk away, because the very silliness, ugliness, and cheapness—even as it was bound up in grandiosity and excess—protected him. And what we keep missing, when we say the Mueller report wasn’t worth it, or that impeachment wasn’t worth it, or that investigating and prosecuting Trump and all of those who enabled his self-absorbed whims and fits for four years won’t be worth it, is that while Trump is (please, Lord, please) going to go away in two weeks, the smallness and the tawdriness and the silliness have spread throughout government.
snip//
The consequence of four years without consequences isn’t going to be a reversion to all the norms and values that came before. It will be a spreading of anti-democratic, illiberal, and purposively small, petty, performative shabbiness that will always seem, in the moment, too silly to matter, and that will continue to be, going forward, too important to ignore. Trump was always the symptom, not the disease, and our distaste for curing it will mean that we spend the coming years coughing, choking, and gasping for air, from something at once too trivial to hurt us and too contagious to be stopped.
January 5, 2021
Iran Issues Interpol Arrest Request For President Trump Over Top Military Assassination
Take him, please!
Editors' Pick|Jan 5, 2021,09:26am EST|37,738 views
Iran Issues Interpol Arrest Request For President Trump Over Top Military Assassination
Robert Hart
Robert HartForbes Staff
Iran has issued a “red notice” request to international police organization Interpol seeking the arrest of U.S. President Donald Trump and 47 other American officials for the role it says they played in the assassination of top general Qassem Soleimani in early 2020, a move that coincides with the anniversary of Soleimani’s death.
Key Facts
A spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary announced the request Tuesday, Al Jazeera reports, telling journalists that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is very seriously following up on pursuing and punishing those who ordered and executed this crime.”
It is unlikely that the international organization will grant Iran’s request, however, having already rejected a similar request issued from them in June seeking Trump and military officials for “murder and terrorism charges.”
At the time, Interpol said its constitution prevents it from carrying out “any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.”
more...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/01/05/iran-issues-interpol-arrest-request-for-president-trump-over-top-military-assassination/
January 5, 2021
GOP Pollster Sounds Alarms for Republicans
January 5, 2021 at 10:18 am EST By Taegan Goddar
GOP Pollster Sounds Alarms for Republicans
https://politicalwire.com/2021/01/05/gop-pollster-sounds-alarms-for-republicans/GOP Pollster Sounds Alarms for Republicans
January 5, 2021 at 10:18 am EST By Taegan Goddar
GOP pollster and strategist Frank Luntz told CNBC that he believes Democrats hold the upper hand in Tuesday’s Georgia Senate runoff elections, warning of disappointment for Republicans in those pivotal races and in Wednesday’s upcoming Electoral College presidential confirmation vote on Capitol Hill.
Said Luntz: “There is a greater divide in the Republican party than there is in the Democratic party. The party is in the process of tearing itself apart and you don’t do that now, when you’re this close to the most important Senate election, literally, in a lifetime. Democrats are unified, Republicans are not and that’s what gives them the advantage.”
He added: “I think the next 48 hours are going to be among the worst for the GOP.”
Said Luntz: “There is a greater divide in the Republican party than there is in the Democratic party. The party is in the process of tearing itself apart and you don’t do that now, when you’re this close to the most important Senate election, literally, in a lifetime. Democrats are unified, Republicans are not and that’s what gives them the advantage.”
He added: “I think the next 48 hours are going to be among the worst for the GOP.”
January 5, 2021
2 hours ago
The Whigs Blew Up Over Slavery. Will the GOP Blow Up Over Loyalty to Trump?
A split over a principle versus one over a con.
David Corn, Washington, DC, Bureau ChiefBio | Follow
In the 1850s, one of the two dominant political parties in the United States, the Whigs, split into factions and imploded. These days, political commentators speculate that the Republican Party may be stumbling toward a similar cataclysm. There are, of course, significant differences between then and now. But the most fundamental one is that the Whigs blew up over a clash of ideology and today’s GOP is divided by the question of how loyal it should be to an authoritarian seeking to overturn a democratic election. One hundred and seventy years ago, the explosive issue was whether or not to protect a venal system: slavery. Now it is whether or not to protect a delusional man: Donald Trump.
snip//
At the end of the electoral vote challenge, there will be Republicans who stuck with Trump and those who betrayed him. It’s not clear how deep and how long-lasting this split will be. But due to this move, the party risks a serious division over the cheating ways of one man, whose corruption was revealed by the release of the tape of his mob-boss-like phone call to Georgia election officials. The Republicans are not debating big ideas: economic policy, national security, the role of government. The debate is whether to join Trump’s clownish but dangerous attempt at a political coup. There is nothing noble here. Do you accept Trump’s democracy-defying cult of personality or not? For Trump and his followers, this is now what makes a Republican.
In the 1850s, the Whigs fell apart because “Conscience Whigs,” as they were called, bolted from a political entity that could not say no to slavery. This week, the party that grew out of those ashes is torn by allegiance to an unprincipled conniver trying desperately to remain in the White House. What a difference. Then again, maybe not so much. At the heart of this current battle within the GOP is the question of whether the United States is a republic governed by rules and whether power is determined by democratic elections. Trump says screw the rules, power is whatever you can get away with, by any means. A significant number of elected Republicans, by challenging election results without any basis to do so, are trampling on the Constitution and endorsing that brazen authoritarianism. Though they are scurrying to serve a small-minded man, they are illuminating a large and threatening tide within the GOP. And that is certainly worth a fight.
David Corn: The Whigs Blew Up Over Slavery. Will the GOP Blow Up Over Loyalty to Trump?
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/the-whigs-blew-up-over-slavery-will-the-gop-blow-up-over-loyalty-to-trump/2 hours ago
The Whigs Blew Up Over Slavery. Will the GOP Blow Up Over Loyalty to Trump?
A split over a principle versus one over a con.
David Corn, Washington, DC, Bureau ChiefBio | Follow
In the 1850s, one of the two dominant political parties in the United States, the Whigs, split into factions and imploded. These days, political commentators speculate that the Republican Party may be stumbling toward a similar cataclysm. There are, of course, significant differences between then and now. But the most fundamental one is that the Whigs blew up over a clash of ideology and today’s GOP is divided by the question of how loyal it should be to an authoritarian seeking to overturn a democratic election. One hundred and seventy years ago, the explosive issue was whether or not to protect a venal system: slavery. Now it is whether or not to protect a delusional man: Donald Trump.
snip//
At the end of the electoral vote challenge, there will be Republicans who stuck with Trump and those who betrayed him. It’s not clear how deep and how long-lasting this split will be. But due to this move, the party risks a serious division over the cheating ways of one man, whose corruption was revealed by the release of the tape of his mob-boss-like phone call to Georgia election officials. The Republicans are not debating big ideas: economic policy, national security, the role of government. The debate is whether to join Trump’s clownish but dangerous attempt at a political coup. There is nothing noble here. Do you accept Trump’s democracy-defying cult of personality or not? For Trump and his followers, this is now what makes a Republican.
In the 1850s, the Whigs fell apart because “Conscience Whigs,” as they were called, bolted from a political entity that could not say no to slavery. This week, the party that grew out of those ashes is torn by allegiance to an unprincipled conniver trying desperately to remain in the White House. What a difference. Then again, maybe not so much. At the heart of this current battle within the GOP is the question of whether the United States is a republic governed by rules and whether power is determined by democratic elections. Trump says screw the rules, power is whatever you can get away with, by any means. A significant number of elected Republicans, by challenging election results without any basis to do so, are trampling on the Constitution and endorsing that brazen authoritarianism. Though they are scurrying to serve a small-minded man, they are illuminating a large and threatening tide within the GOP. And that is certainly worth a fight.
January 5, 2021
Eric Boehlert: Trump's coup--the press never took it seriously
Trump’s coup—the press never took it seriously
Normalizing doesn't work
Eric Boehlert
54 min ago
snip//
Only in the last few weeks have some mainstream news outlets addressed the obvious nature of Trump's presidency — that he's an unstable, autocratic, pathological liar. Yet I still haven't seen a straight news article where Trump's attempted "coup" is mentioned in the headline.
And that's been a hallmark failure of the press during the Trump era — refusing to use blunt language to describe the madman in the White House. Right on cue, the press embraced a timid storyline following Trump's defeat as he unleashed a vicious campaign against free and fair elections in America. Even after witnessing four years of Trump's erratic and unlawful behavior, newsrooms for the last two months have consistently opted to err on the side of caution by implying Trump's election crusade didn't pose a threat to our democracy and that a lot of it was just political theater — nothing really to worry about.
This, even after Trump held White House discussions with deranged, conspiracy-peddling advisers about possibly imposing martial law in order to secure his election win. That stunning martial law story was badly underplayed by the press. It didn't even appear on the front page of the New York Times, it received page 28 treatment, instead. Wildly downplaying the severity, ABC News referred to the idea of imposing martial law to illegally secure Trump's power as a "scorched earth policy."
And now we have a recorded phone call of a rambling, often incoherent Trump demanding Georgia's secretary of state solicit election fraud, and then Trump threatening the secretary with a "criminal offense" if he did not comply. It's the most compelling evidence yet of Trump's long-running coup attempt, which the press for months has tried to avoid.
Reporters and producers certainly spent months rejecting the use of "coup" following Trump's election defeat, no doubt convinced the word carries too many connotations to be used in the context of American politics. (i.e. Tanks in the streets.) But that's a mistake. "Only one widely understood word captures what Donald Trump is trying to do, even though his acts do not meet its technical definition," Zeynep Tufekci recently argued in The Atlantic. "Trump is attempting to stage some kind of coup, one that is embedded in a broader and ongoing power grab."
We’ve had a sociopath as president for four years, and every newsroom in America was too afraid to say so. On Wednesday, a dozen Republican Senators will try to overturn the election results by rejecting state electors, while Trump urges mobs of supporters to gather in Washington, D.C. to protest his loss. But even those extraordinary facts are not producing the proper media coverage.
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https://pressrun.media/p/the-press-never-thought-trump-would
January 5, 2021
White House Doesn’t Deny Rumors of Trump Fleeing to Scotland Ahead of Biden Inauguration
LOCH HIM UP
Jamie Ross, Reporter
Published Jan. 05, 2021 6:12AM ET
White House Doesn't Deny Rumors of Trump Fleeing to Scotland Ahead of Biden Inauguration
https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-doesnt-deny-rumors-of-trump-fleeing-to-scotland-ahead-of-biden-inaugurationWhite House Doesn’t Deny Rumors of Trump Fleeing to Scotland Ahead of Biden Inauguration
LOCH HIM UP
Jamie Ross, Reporter
Published Jan. 05, 2021 6:12AM ET
Over the weekend, reports in Scotland noted some weird U.S. military activity happening at the airport nearest President Donald Trump’s flagship Scottish golf resort. According to the Sunday Post, surveillance aircraft have been spotted over Trump Turnberry, and a Boeing 757 previously used by the president is scheduled to land at Prestwick Airport on Jan. 19—a day before Joe Biden’s inauguration. Now, with rumors of Trump’s flight gaining traction, the White House has issued a statement. Judd Deere, deputy White House press secretary, downplayed the prospect of Trump’s trip to Scotland—but, interestingly, didn’t deny it. Deere told Fox News: “Anonymous sources who claim to know what the president is or is not considering have no idea. When President Trump has an announcement about his plans for Jan. 20., he will let you know.”
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