Your writing on Cheney’s funeral is lovely. Evocative of a bygone era, but still startlingly prescient. I was a kid through the entire Bush Admin, hitting middle school when Obama was elected, so Cheney’s deeds and misdeeds were very far away from me. However, this piece had nothing to do with those deeds or misdeeds. This was about a man, and the men and women who came together to honor his life. And what that means in this moment.
(Also, I knew I was right loving Rachel Maddow, and once again I’m proven correct.)
"The Trump presidency won’t end well. The question is whether the harm to the nation can be contained."
Self-goal, America.
And, yeah, the GOP is no longer. My wife and I were discussing Cheney's funeral on a long drive across the northeast, she mostly noting who was not there. Whatever the thing called the Republican Party is, it's not what was known as the Republican Party.
Johnson, what a pathetic clown. I'm surprised Congress has not filed a petition to kick his useless ass out of the chair. He will go down in history as a worthless pencil neck along side a long list of shit speakers. As for the moronic creepy Karoline, plain to see how she got her job. Her knees must still be bruised.
This was inevitable, although overdue. What “strong men” never seem to understand is that it’s impossible to maintain the illusion of invulnerability forever. When you base your governing principle on having an iron grip on power, the minute a crack starts to show, things will begin to break. Iron is strong, but it’s very brittle and there’s nothing underlying that kind of illusion. No foundation to backstop or give people reassurance that everything is not about to go to shit. The weak and cowardly Republicans (virtually all) will be running for the exits as Trump shows more and more not only how vulnerable he is, but how he can no longer protect them or support them effectively. This is why continuing to push on the Epstein files is so important. I don’t know what’s in those files, but I know that Trump is scared of what’s in those files.
Thanks. Have you considered that narcissists, as Trump, cannot recognize consequential guilt or shame? Narcissists lack insight into their fears or behaviors. Perhaps he is incapable of admitting the fact, as you point out, that invulnerability is always ntotally or partially and illusion.
Thanks for commenting. I do not quite understand your reply to my comment, however. Care to please clarify? I will understand if you prefer not to. In Shakespeare, the expression seems to refer to guilt. Trump does not seem capable of such feelings, which strongly suggests that he may be a narcissist, and as such relies on «magical thinking» (Freud first used the expression in «Totem and Tabu,» Chapter 3, 1913). Happy Holidays!
Great observations Tim. Yeah, the old GOP guard is dead as a post. If any of the current GOP want to gain some self respect, try doing the job they were elected to do.
Stealing from the meme, liberals hated MTG for like a decade without threats of violence. Trump makes a frowny face at her and suddenly not only MTG but her family is getting death threats. I would encourage remaining GOP congresspeople to self reflect, but it wouldn't be the first time.
I love it, but we need to get started with concrete action to get our country to a point where citizens will be in the driver's seat. Granted it may take the blue wave to come, so articles of impeachment can be used to reign in the orange king, but this time the Senate has to finish the job. The Roberts Court (I call it the Mich McConnell court), also needs to be firmly held to the code of ethics of which there has been talk. With supreme court justice impeachment as a remedy for violations.
RE Cheap Shots, a recent Huddled Masses post on the NC ICE presence covered locals being thrown to the ground, put in vans and not even asked for their papers. Several of them were US citizens not given a chance to prove their citizenship.
RE: That’s right, folks: to Mike Johnson, looking into a camera and saying that military personnel are under no obligation to follow unlawful orders is morally repulsive behavior. Calling for the immediate arrest, trial, and execution of people who say such things—hey, that’s basically just reading the dictionary. Later in the day, Johnson would clarify that of course he doesn’t agree with the idea that those Democrats should be hanged. But he pleaded again for reporters to recognize that those Dems were the real villains in this saga.
Was there a specific incident or comment that inspired that unlawful orders video? Perhaps there was a Pentagon leak that speaks to something coming up? Does anyone know the inspiration behind the timing of the natsec Dems’ remarks? It doesn’t seem like something you would do out of the blue.
It was an odd type of corruption that pre-Trump era politicians practiced - an assumption of the correctness of your viewpoints, on international affairs and on domestic policy. The naked cowtowing from the 1980's, through the 90's and which still exists today (on an even more accelerated level) to big business, Wall Street and corporate interests.
These are most easily tracked by the lessening of regulations, either through legislation or the regulatory bodies simply refusing to do their job (mostly under Greenspan and his acolytes) and the lessening of taxes on the top earners.
That acqueisence to the financial sector and the drug war, along with the blatant corruption that comes with it, the lack of any meaningful immigration legislation for the last 50 years, the gigantic income gap that has grown between workers and CEO's are all indicators that both parties practiced what had become a legal corruption, with both parties agreeing on the basic rules - rule of law, yes, but the way we interpret it. Constitution, yes (for the most part - remember when changing the definition of torture was a big deal?).
A soft corruption, practiced by people with limited morals paving the way for people with no morals, and yet thinking they were doing the 'best thing for the country' no doubt.
But nothing too crazy - we'll fight over marginal tax rates, over social issues like abortion - after all, it will never actually be struck down, right?
Right?
And then the crazies took over the republican party, and it sank with barely a sigh of regret - not to carry a metaphor too far, in an ocean of despair.
You people of the Bulwark were not rats deserting a sinking ship - you were the stalwart who left the ship that the rats had taken over. For that, I am grateful, and I have grown to like Bill Kristol, and forgive him his erroneous opinions from the past.
As JVL says, good luck, America, this is just getting started, I am afraid, and not the other way around.
I'm behind in my Substacks but I read Kristol's statement sixty seconds after reading Joe Walsh's icy, deliberate indictment to the same end. I was going to turn in thereafter, but I fear there's no way I can do so without simmering down first . . .
Tim, I appreciate your tropism toward being gracious here. But this man was a Trump precursor and hugely encouraged the forces that have taken over the Supreme Court, the Presidency, and the current Congress. He also extraconstitutionally pushed a sitting president out of the way and made the most important decisions during two critical years of American life; decisions that led to anger and disgust that buoyed Trump.
You needed to include at least a sentence alluding to all this, and perhaps giving a source to learn more. By not doing at least this much, you've given support to the view that the "formers" who make up the Bulwark lack the stones and the perspective to effectively oppose Trump and what he represents, and to help us get to a better place beyond Trump.
To Tim:
Your writing on Cheney’s funeral is lovely. Evocative of a bygone era, but still startlingly prescient. I was a kid through the entire Bush Admin, hitting middle school when Obama was elected, so Cheney’s deeds and misdeeds were very far away from me. However, this piece had nothing to do with those deeds or misdeeds. This was about a man, and the men and women who came together to honor his life. And what that means in this moment.
(Also, I knew I was right loving Rachel Maddow, and once again I’m proven correct.)
I've heard all the many years of my life that WOMEN are too temperamental to be President. Yeah, right.
"The Trump presidency won’t end well. The question is whether the harm to the nation can be contained."
Self-goal, America.
And, yeah, the GOP is no longer. My wife and I were discussing Cheney's funeral on a long drive across the northeast, she mostly noting who was not there. Whatever the thing called the Republican Party is, it's not what was known as the Republican Party.
Cheney's GOP wasn't the group of grifters and psychos that it is now, but his GOP was the precursor.
They lied us into war. They tortured. They gerrymandered. They Fox Newsed the kind of voters who could be turned on by a fascist.
Did they think we would forget? Or we would see their manipulating and lies as something else, now that we have something worse to compare to?
It looks like Cheney got the depressing spectacle he deserved.
Johnson, what a pathetic clown. I'm surprised Congress has not filed a petition to kick his useless ass out of the chair. He will go down in history as a worthless pencil neck along side a long list of shit speakers. As for the moronic creepy Karoline, plain to see how she got her job. Her knees must still be bruised.
This was inevitable, although overdue. What “strong men” never seem to understand is that it’s impossible to maintain the illusion of invulnerability forever. When you base your governing principle on having an iron grip on power, the minute a crack starts to show, things will begin to break. Iron is strong, but it’s very brittle and there’s nothing underlying that kind of illusion. No foundation to backstop or give people reassurance that everything is not about to go to shit. The weak and cowardly Republicans (virtually all) will be running for the exits as Trump shows more and more not only how vulnerable he is, but how he can no longer protect them or support them effectively. This is why continuing to push on the Epstein files is so important. I don’t know what’s in those files, but I know that Trump is scared of what’s in those files.
Thanks. Have you considered that narcissists, as Trump, cannot recognize consequential guilt or shame? Narcissists lack insight into their fears or behaviors. Perhaps he is incapable of admitting the fact, as you point out, that invulnerability is always ntotally or partially and illusion.
Trump's "Out, damn spot" over the Epstein Files has been one for the ages.
Thanks for commenting. I do not quite understand your reply to my comment, however. Care to please clarify? I will understand if you prefer not to. In Shakespeare, the expression seems to refer to guilt. Trump does not seem capable of such feelings, which strongly suggests that he may be a narcissist, and as such relies on «magical thinking» (Freud first used the expression in «Totem and Tabu,» Chapter 3, 1913). Happy Holidays!
Great observations Tim. Yeah, the old GOP guard is dead as a post. If any of the current GOP want to gain some self respect, try doing the job they were elected to do.
Tim, that was beautifully written. You should write more, but not if it interferes with your incessant video presence.
Stealing from the meme, liberals hated MTG for like a decade without threats of violence. Trump makes a frowny face at her and suddenly not only MTG but her family is getting death threats. I would encourage remaining GOP congresspeople to self reflect, but it wouldn't be the first time.
I love it, but we need to get started with concrete action to get our country to a point where citizens will be in the driver's seat. Granted it may take the blue wave to come, so articles of impeachment can be used to reign in the orange king, but this time the Senate has to finish the job. The Roberts Court (I call it the Mich McConnell court), also needs to be firmly held to the code of ethics of which there has been talk. With supreme court justice impeachment as a remedy for violations.
Your thoughts?
RE Cheap Shots, a recent Huddled Masses post on the NC ICE presence covered locals being thrown to the ground, put in vans and not even asked for their papers. Several of them were US citizens not given a chance to prove their citizenship.
RE: That’s right, folks: to Mike Johnson, looking into a camera and saying that military personnel are under no obligation to follow unlawful orders is morally repulsive behavior. Calling for the immediate arrest, trial, and execution of people who say such things—hey, that’s basically just reading the dictionary. Later in the day, Johnson would clarify that of course he doesn’t agree with the idea that those Democrats should be hanged. But he pleaded again for reporters to recognize that those Dems were the real villains in this saga.
Was there a specific incident or comment that inspired that unlawful orders video? Perhaps there was a Pentagon leak that speaks to something coming up? Does anyone know the inspiration behind the timing of the natsec Dems’ remarks? It doesn’t seem like something you would do out of the blue.
It was an odd type of corruption that pre-Trump era politicians practiced - an assumption of the correctness of your viewpoints, on international affairs and on domestic policy. The naked cowtowing from the 1980's, through the 90's and which still exists today (on an even more accelerated level) to big business, Wall Street and corporate interests.
These are most easily tracked by the lessening of regulations, either through legislation or the regulatory bodies simply refusing to do their job (mostly under Greenspan and his acolytes) and the lessening of taxes on the top earners.
That acqueisence to the financial sector and the drug war, along with the blatant corruption that comes with it, the lack of any meaningful immigration legislation for the last 50 years, the gigantic income gap that has grown between workers and CEO's are all indicators that both parties practiced what had become a legal corruption, with both parties agreeing on the basic rules - rule of law, yes, but the way we interpret it. Constitution, yes (for the most part - remember when changing the definition of torture was a big deal?).
A soft corruption, practiced by people with limited morals paving the way for people with no morals, and yet thinking they were doing the 'best thing for the country' no doubt.
But nothing too crazy - we'll fight over marginal tax rates, over social issues like abortion - after all, it will never actually be struck down, right?
Right?
And then the crazies took over the republican party, and it sank with barely a sigh of regret - not to carry a metaphor too far, in an ocean of despair.
You people of the Bulwark were not rats deserting a sinking ship - you were the stalwart who left the ship that the rats had taken over. For that, I am grateful, and I have grown to like Bill Kristol, and forgive him his erroneous opinions from the past.
As JVL says, good luck, America, this is just getting started, I am afraid, and not the other way around.
I do hope I am wrong about that.
Ty for the Mark Liebovich book link, Tim. I'm still sad about Tim Russert.
I'm behind in my Substacks but I read Kristol's statement sixty seconds after reading Joe Walsh's icy, deliberate indictment to the same end. I was going to turn in thereafter, but I fear there's no way I can do so without simmering down first . . .
Tim, I appreciate your tropism toward being gracious here. But this man was a Trump precursor and hugely encouraged the forces that have taken over the Supreme Court, the Presidency, and the current Congress. He also extraconstitutionally pushed a sitting president out of the way and made the most important decisions during two critical years of American life; decisions that led to anger and disgust that buoyed Trump.
You needed to include at least a sentence alluding to all this, and perhaps giving a source to learn more. By not doing at least this much, you've given support to the view that the "formers" who make up the Bulwark lack the stones and the perspective to effectively oppose Trump and what he represents, and to help us get to a better place beyond Trump.