“Donald Trump And The End Of Civility”: Rejecting The Virtues Of Teamwork, Common Courtesy And Civility
For a decade we have seen article after article, study after study, comment after comment on the death of civility in our politics. Politicians, pundits and academics worried that gridlock and the paralysis of Washington was heavily due to the nastiness of the political culture and the vitriol inherent in today’s politics.
Well, as Donald Trump might say – you ain’t seen nothing yet!
My friend, Ira Shapiro, wrote a terrific book, “The Last Great Senate,” about the accomplishments of the civil and functional U. S. Senate that we were both privileged to be a part of a few decades ago. Whether it was the Panama Canal treaties, passage of environmental legislation or social security reform, Republicans and Democrats actually worked together, forged compromises and got the people’s business done.
But as Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann chronicled in their book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” published in 2012, the rise of tea party extremists and hard-right ideologues has polarized and paralyzed our constitutional system of government.
And now in 2016, we have Donald Trump, who would make Ornstein and Mann’s world of just a few years ago look like patty-cake. Trump, and many of his colleagues in this race who have followed his lead, has debased the dialogue and engaged in trash talk that would make a pro football player blush. It has truly spiraled out of control.
Facts and logical argument are cast to the wind like confetti; nasty statements about body parts are common and invective like “stupid,” “idiot,” “lightweight,” “choker,” “loser” are used by Trump in nearly every speech and press conference.
No one is writing about a return to civility so long as Trump has seized the stage, forcing a dialogue that has taken American politics even further down into the gutter. In fact, Trump has left many people who should be speaking out speechless instead. Now Republicans and conservative columnists are shaking their heads and wondering why the other candidates and Republican Party leadership have kept their heads in the sand for so long. A flood of pieces by the likes of David Brooks and George Will spell it out perfectly: talking about “the governing cancer” and Trump’s “demagogic cynicism and anti-constitutional authoritarianism.”
But I fault those Republicans and conservative pundits who clearly should have been focusing on this transformation from a government that governed and legislators who legislated into a collection of talking heads whose constant desire is to be on gladiator-TV. Or to give a speech that incites a crowd. Many of them embraced the tea party and chose demagoguery over dialogue.
What has happened to words such as thoughtful, wise, substantive, open-minded and even educated, learned and knowledgeable to describe those in the arena of politics and government? Why are those not the standards we use to judge our leaders?
I am left with the enduring cover image from The New Yorker a number of weeks ago, showing a television set with Donald Trump raging and Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy and Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt looking on in horror.
This is no longer amusing nor something that should be passed off as entertainment. This is not “The Apprentice” or some reality television show. This is real.
If we allow a person like Donald Trump to capture the Republican Party, let alone the country, the price we will pay will be lasting, and the damage will be serious and permanent. This is so far from anything we have experienced; that it has no parallel in our history. He is not, as he says, building a new expanded Republican Party. This “movement” is based on fear and loathing, racism and prejudice, xenophobia and hatred. It is based on our basest instincts, not on our best instincts. It is destructive, not constructive.
With a Trump ascendancy, common courtesy and civility will be considered weaknesses and the politics of irrationalism and fear will triumph. That must not happen.
By: Peter Fenn, Democratic Political Strategist and Head of Fenn Communications; U. S. News and World Report, March 3, 2016
“A Much Smarter Politician”: Donald Trump Has Already Won The GOP Nomination. Now He’s Pivoting To Center
The entire establishment Right and much of the press are singularly obsessed with one question: how do we stop Donald Trump? The GOP is engaged in a “desperate mission” to stop him; Nate Cohn of the New York Times is speculating on how Rubio might be able to win the nomination without winning any Super Tuesday states; GOP strategist Stuart Stevens is offering messaging advice on how Republican candidates can still beat Trump; conservative media figures from RedState to National Review are still frantically trying to advance Marco Rubio’s cause.
But the reality is that barring some unforeseen collapse, Donald Trump has already locked up the GOP nomination. He is a national frontrunner who has come off three consecutive victories. There is no state polled outside of Texas in which Trump does not currently lead–and there he trails local favorite Ted Cruz, who is otherwise flagging behind Marco Rubio, the establishment lane candidate who trails Trump even in his own home state of Florida. The longer the primary season wears on, the more voters’ minds become made up and the loyalty to their preferred candidates hardens.
Some Republicans are hoping that as the field winnows to one or two candidates, Trump’s ceiling will be overcome by the number of Republicans voting against him. But there is no reason to believe that a two-person race will save the GOP from Trump. The evidence suggests that Trump, Carson and Cruz are trading essentially the same pool of voters–the so-called anti-establishment lane. Kasich and Rubio are vying for the same pool of establishment voters. But the key is that in most states, the anti-establishment lane is winning 55-60% of the vote. The only plausible pathway to an establishment victory would involve Kasich dropping out and ceding the field to Rubio even as Carson and Cruz stay in and chip away at Trump’s anti-establishment vote, allowing Rubio to slip in by the back door in a brokered convention. That scenario seems like a distant long shot, especially as an increasing number of politicians like Chris Christie see the handwriting on the wall and begin endorsing Trump.
Some Republican donors have seen the truth of the situation and are already looking into the possibility of an independent run for President–though no credible conservative candidate is yet forthcoming. Some are resigned. Some are in denial. But Trump has almost certainly already locked up the nomination.
That in turn explains some of Trump’s supposedly confusing and heretical behavior for a Republican candidate in recent speeches and debates. Trump has attacked George Bush over 9/11 and Iraq. He has attacked corporate cronyism and medical insurance companies. He has derided the inability of the government to negotiate on Medicare prices. He has spoken kind words about Bernie Sanders and his populist appeal. He has defended Planned Parenthood and his support for universal healthcare.
That’s because Donald Trump is a much smarter politician than almost anyone gives him credit for. Aware that he mostly has the Republican primary sewn up regardless of what he says or does, Trump is already pivoting to center. He is establishing his dual-purpose populist bona fides for the general election as a Jacksonian Democrat–fiercely racist and anti-immigrant, brash and outspoken, autocratic and authoritarian, anti-interventionist, anti-establishment and anti-corruption.
Trump’s pitch is simple: “I can’t be bought, and I’ll put real Americans first.” That includes xenophobic opposition to immigrants and various “others” in society that tickles the fancy of conservative voters, but it also includes anti-offshoring, anti-outsourcing and anti-corporate collusion platforms that will appeal broadly to many Democrats and independents as well.
Democrats, for their part, seem likely to nominate in the general election a candidate who is a quintessential neoliberal establishment figure and long-time supporter of free trade and high finance, and who will make a perfect foil and punching bag for Trump’s populist arguments. Rather than counter and anticipate Trump’s unique appeal, Democrats seem likely instead to believe that exposing Trump’s sleazy past will be enough to turn serious-minded independent voters away from him, and that Trump’s xenophobia will be enough to generate record turnout among the growing number of Hispanic and other minority voters.
Perhaps that’s a good bet. But everyone who has wagered against Trump has had egg on their face so far, even as Bernie Sanders’ parallel populist appeal has also dramatically outperformed expectations (though it will likely fall short.)
Trump may not win the general election. But he will be the Republican nominee, and he’ll be a much tougher general election candidate than most are currently acknowledging.
By: David Atkins, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, February 27, 2016
“Ideological Malleability”: Why Trump Could Be Tougher In General Election Than You Think
Donald Trump may not wind up as the Republican nominee for president, but at this point it’s far and away the most likely outcome of the primary race. Having won three of the four contests so far, he’s heading into Super Tuesday six days from now in a position to widen his lead beyond the point where his opponents could catch him.
Which raises an inevitable question: Is he really as terrible a general election candidate as so many people have assumed?
The most rational answer is that we have no idea. If Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio were the nominee, the general election would likely be fairly predictable, in that the debate would revolve around traditional partisan divisions on issues, and we know which states would be competitive and which wouldn’t. But just as Trump’s unique candidacy has defied all that we thought we knew about what matters in primary campaigns — the damage done by outrageous statements, the importance of ideological consistency, the key role played by party elites — so too could a Trump nomination produce an utterly unpredictable general election.
There are still good reasons to think that Trump would be be obliterated by the Democratic nominee. But there’s also a case to be made that Trump would so scramble the election calculus that he could win. Indeed, you might even argue that he has a better shot than a more traditional candidate. Let’s examine each way of looking at the general election.
The case against Trump’s chances begins with the fact that he’s tremendously unpopular. As much as he has thrilled a certain segment of the Republican electorate, everything he has done and said in the primary campaign — the xenophobia, the bigotry, the bombast — has served to alienate him from voters he would need to win the general election. Polls of all Americans, as opposed to just Republicans, show that around 30-35 percent of the public have a favorable impression of Trump, while around 55-60 percent have an unfavorable impression of him.
Furthermore, talking about building a wall with Mexico and rounding up 11 million undocumented immigrants might make the audiences at his rallies cheer, but it won’t play so well with the broader electorate. Everyone understands that the GOP must improve its showing among Latino voters, one of the fastest-growing parts of the electorate, if it’s ever to win back the White House. Trump wouldn’t just fail to improve those numbers, he’d make the bottom fall out: polls have shown (see here or here or here) that Trump is spectacularly unpopular with Latinos, just as you might expect, with approval ratings as low as 11 percent. Furthermore, his nomination would be a terrific mobilization tool to get Latino voters to the polls.
That’s true of other voting groups as well. If you’re not a white guy and Trump hasn’t insulted you yet, he probably will by the end of the primaries. Imagine that the Democratic nominee were Hillary Clinton. How wide will the gender gap be when the potential first woman president is running against a guy who shows such contempt for women and discards each of his wives as soon as she hits her 40s? (Note to Melania: the clock is ticking, so you might want to prepare yourself.)
There’s no doubt that Trump has tapped into something important within the Republican electorate, but that’s where it resides: that combination of anger at their party’s leaders and fear of a changing world sowed the seeds for Trump’s rise. But the general electorate is very different from the Republican electorate: among other things, it’s less white, less Christian, and younger. The positions Trump has taken as he’s appealed to Republicans — overturn Roe v. Wade, loosen gun laws, cut taxes for the wealthy, repeal the Affordable Care Act — are all unpopular with the public at large.
So that’s the case for a Trump defeat in the fall: he’s got the wrong positions on issues, he’s ticked off a lot of voters he’ll need, and he’s generally considered to be an obnoxious jerk.
The argument in favor of a Trump victory has two pieces to it, one about demographics and one about the kind of candidate he’d actually be in a general election. The demographic argument says that Trump has an appeal that other Republicans don’t have. We’ve seen again and again how party leaders (and his opponents) have attacked him for liberal positions he’s held in the past (like being pro-choice and saying nice things about single-payer health care), and even some heresies he’s offered in the present (like his bizarre assertion that George W. Bush was president on September 11, 2001 or his criticism of the Iraq War). Trump’s voters, it turned out, didn’t care. Ideological consistency isn’t important to them, because their affection for Trump is based on other things, like their contempt for Washington and the belief that he’s a “winner,” and if he were president he’d spread his winningness over the whole country, through some process that need not be explained.
Since these beliefs aren’t tied to conservative ideology, they could have appeal beyond Republicans. And even if Trump alienates women, his displays of chest-thumping dominance could appeal to lots and lots of white men, particularly those who are lower on the income and education scales (as Trump said after his Nevada win yesterday, “I love the poorly educated”). That could make Trump competitive in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan that have been in the Democratic column in the last two elections. Unlike other Republicans who have to work to convince voters that they aren’t just on the side of the rich, Trump, an actual rich person, has an economic appeal that has nothing to do with facts but is more about feeling. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders may be leading Trump in general election trial heats, but not by much — just a few points.
It’s the second piece of the puzzle that may be less appreciated at this point. To put it simply, Donald Trump would be a completely different candidate in a general election than the one we see now. Conservatives are justified in being terrified by Trump’s ideological malleability. They look at him and see someone with no true beliefs and no commitments, who will quickly change positions if it suits him. He’s only presenting himself as a conservative Republican now — to the degree that he’s even doing that — because he’s running in a Republican primary.
When conservatives think that, they’re absolutely right. He will indeed transform himself once he has a different audience. We don’t have to wonder about that, because he has said so on more than one occasion. “Once you get to a certain level, it changes,” he told Greta Van Susteren a few weeks ago. “I will be changing very rapidly. I’m very capable of changing to anything I want to change to.”
On another occasion, he told voters in Iowa, “When I’m president, I’m a different person. I can do anything. I can be the most politically correct person that you’ve ever seen.” While ordinary politicians try to convince you of their consistency, Trump proudly says that he’ll turn himself into whatever the situation demands. And if it demands someone who has moderate positions, that’s what he’ll be.
Will the voters buy it? We have no way of knowing, because we haven’t seen that version of Trump yet. But we shouldn’t assume that the fact that most of them dislike the current version means they won’t like the next one.
At the moment, I haven’t decided which of these scenarios I think is more likely, Trump getting blown out and taking the Republican Party with him, or Trump forging a heretofore unseen coalition that carries him to the White House. I lean toward the first, but I can’t tell if that’s because the idea of this despicable buffoon being the most powerful human being on earth is so ghastly, and my judgment derives more from hope than anything else. The truth is that with Trump in a general election, we’d be in uncharted territory. Anything could happen.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; Contributor, The Plum Line Blog, The Washington Post, February 24, 2016
“The Sum Of All Fears”: A Signal From America’s Emergency Broadcast System
On the heels of his dominant victory in last night’s South Carolina Republican primary, does anyone still think that Donald Trump’s rise to the GOP nomination can be stopped?
Trump is, for all intents and purposes, already the GOP nominee, a prospect that should unnerve any American who believes in common decency. His conquest of South Carolina was nothing less than a signal from America’s emergency broadcast system: this is only a test of whether rational America will allow fear and fury to flourish over the course of the next four years.
The thought of this man–this embodiment of every dark, demonic force in American history–becoming the 45th President of the United States chills the blood. What does it say about our educational system that this man was not laughed right out of the political system the moment he announced his candidacy?
He talks about what Mexico allegedly sends to the United States. Imagine what a President Trump would send to the rest of the world: a message that racism, sexism, xenophobia and narcissism are virtues, not vices. A message that reason is for the weak. A message that America has fallen into a deep moral abyss.
I’m scared for my friends’ children. They will be of an impressionable age over the next four years. When they see President Donald Trump on the TV screen, what warped values will penetrate their minds? What flawed lessons will they carry with them for the rest of their lives? Will I have to tell my friends not to let their kids watch President Trump, for the same reason one doesn’t let children watch movies with explicit sex, violence and profanity?
What kind of world will those kids inherit? A Trump victory would be far more devastating for our climate than the Keystone XL pipeline would have been. I guarantee that within 24 hours of a Trump victory, China, India and other major polluters will abandon the Paris climate agreement, reasoning that by electing an unrepentant climate-change denier, America cannot possibly be trusted to hold up its end of the deal. Without that deal, you can say goodbye to a livable future–and say hello to more fires, more floods, more disease, more death. (And by the way, Mr. Kasich, if you’re serious about climate, you will not endorse Trump once you suspend your campaign.)
A part of me wants to believe that hope will ultimately conquer fear, that morality will defeat madness, that progressivism will win over revanchism. Another part of me fears that such hope is an illusion, and that on Election Day, a majority of voters, hooked on the opiate of hate, will rush to the polls for their next fix from Donald the Dealer, this pathetic pusher of prejudice.
What would Marvin Gaye say about this, this dark moment in time? What would Nina Simone say? What would Maya Angelou say? Stevie Wonder once sang about finding joy inside his tears. What if, on the night of November 8, there’s no joy to be found?
I have to believe that hope will survive. Maybe that’s my opiate. Maybe I’m addicted to optimism. Nevertheless, I have yet to abandon my view that in the event Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders cannot go the distance in his quest for the nomination, his passionate and enthusiastic supporters will step back, take stock, and set aside whatever grievances they have with Hillary Clinton, concluding that at the end of the day, an alleged “corporatist” cannot threaten democracy and civility the way an actual crackpot can.
Think about what’s at stake. This country is only so resilient. In 1992, America could have survived four more years of Poppy Bush. In 1996, America could have survived four years of President Bob Dole. In 2008, America could have survived four years of President John McCain. In 2012, America could have even survived four years of President Mitt Romney.
Does anyone think this country could survive four days, much less four years, of President Donald Trump?
The progressives currently feuding over the merits of Clinton v. Sanders will lay down their rhetorical arms and embrace each other as brothers and sisters at the conclusion of the Democratic primary. They will unify as the general election approaches, attending to their tasks with the skill and effectiveness of a veteran worker for a suicide prevention hotline. That analogy is apt, because progressives will, in essence, try to stop the country from cutting its own wrist on November 8.
By: D. R. Tucker, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, February 21, 2016
“A Profound Test Of Their Principles”: Republican Candidates’ Despicably Lukewarm Criticism Of Donald Trump
You may remember that a year ago, Jeb Bush was musing on the Republican primary when he said that a winning GOP candidate would have “to be much more uplifting, much more positive, much more willing to… lose the primary to win the general [election] without violating your principles.” While the assumption at the time was that Bush was thinking mostly about immigration, it turns out that what we might call Bush’s Paradox applies to a whole range of issues.
Right now, the candidates are facing that paradox, in a profound test of their principles. And they’re failing.
The proximate cause is Donald Trump, who has moved from being a comical if repellent figure to being truly ghastly and sinister. As Trump has taken his xenophobia and outright hate-mongering to ever-increasing heights, the most stinging rebuke most of his opponents can offer in response is, “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
You might think I’m misrepresenting their statements, downplaying the degree to which they’ve condemned Trump for his ugly Islamophobic remarks. But if we look closely at what they’ve said, it’s clear that they’re being careful not to criticize him too harshly, lest they offend the voters who seem to be flocking to him precisely because he’s the one giving fullest expression to their hatred and fear.
But before we get to that, a brief review. Trump’s latest bit of demagoguery is a proposal (though I use the term loosely) to prohibit any Muslim from entering the United States — as an immigrant, as a businessperson, even as a tourist. Trump would even apply that to American citizens who had traveled out of the country and want to return. This follows on his extended insistence that “thousands and thousands” of American Muslims celebrated the fall of the World Trade Center, which was notable not just for the fact that it’s false, but for its purpose. In harping on this myth, Trump was trying to convince people that other Americans are untrustworthy, suspect, each one a terrorist sympathizer if not an outright terrorist. Add that to his assertion that mosques should be under surveillance and his toying with the idea of the government keeping a list of all Muslims for regular monitoring.
And it isn’t like Trump’s Islamophobia is unique to him. After the Paris attacks, all the Republican candidates seized on the issue of Syrian refugees to stoke fear of terrorism in the hearts of voters (even though going through the lengthy process of obtaining refugee status is about the most cumbersome and time-consuming way to reach the United States; if the attackers in Paris had wanted to come here, all they would have had to do is buy a plane ticket). Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz both said that we should accept Christian refugees, but not Muslim ones. Ben Carson said that no Muslim should be allowed to be president unless they disavowed their religion.
And how have Trump’s opponents reacted to the river of hate that gushes forth every time he steps up to a microphone? With the utmost care. “I disagree with that proposal,” Ted Cruz said about excluding Muslims from the United States. “Donald Trump is unhinged. His ‘policy’ proposals are not serious,” said Jeb Bush. “I disagree with Donald Trump’s latest proposal,” said Marco Rubio. “His habit of making offensive and outlandish statements will not bring Americans together.” Chris Christie said that the remarks showed that Trump didn’t have enough experience to deal with terrorism. “Unfortunately I think Donald Trump’s over reaction is as dangerous as Obama’s under reaction,” said Carly Fiorina. John Kasich called it “outrageous divisiveness,” mustering the strongest condemnation.
What we have there are varying degrees of disagreement, but about the worst any of them can bring themselves to say is that Trump’s ideas are nutty. Not that he’s a bigot, not that he’s using the politics of hate, not that he’s falling in line with a sordid history of racism. And certainly none of them are speaking directly to American Muslims — just imagine if they pandered to that community the way they pander to a dozen others whose votes they want.
There is one exception, who should be given all the credit he deserves: Lindsey Graham. Trump, Graham said in a recent appearance on CNN, is “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.”
Perhaps it’s because Graham barely registers in the polls that he feels free to speak plainly about Trump, because those polls also show that there’s a substantial audience for what Trump is offering. Republicans give Muslims lower favorability ratings than any other group. One recent poll found that only 49 percent of Iowa Republicans thought Islam should be legal. And ugly anti-Muslim incidents, ranging from harassment to outright hate-crimes, are cropping up all over.
While Trump may not have much support for his specific ideas from other Republicans, the conservative media reinforces the mindset that produces them each and every day. Josh Marshall recently described the discussion of these issues on Fox News as “a whole tapestry of falsehoods, that combined with incitement and hysteria create a mental world in which Donald Trump’s mounting volume of racist incitement is just not at all surprising.” Fox regularly gives airtime to bigots and xenophobes to spout off about the threat not only from abroad but from American Muslims (though a lot of that shows up on other cable networks as well), rhetoric that is echoed on one conservative talk radio show after another. And don’t think Republican politicians don’t know who’s watching and listening.
So is anyone going to be surprised if next week some heavily armed right-wing terrorist walks into a mosque or a Muslim community center and starts killing as many innocent men, women, and children as he can? After all, he keeps hearing about how they’re terrorist sympathizers, how they need to be watched, how they need to be kept out, how they need to suspected and feared and hated.
I don’t know how long this ugly period will last, but I do know that history is going to judge those who created it harshly. And those who stepped carefully around a demagogue like Trump, always worried that they might offend his followers? Their cowardice will be remembered too.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; Contributor, The Week, December 9, 2015
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 