Great interview, Charlie, enjoyed it! But we've got to look beyond Trump-whoever-Biden and put more emphasis on the extreme threat posed by what the Republican party as a whole has become. It's not just Trump, it's not just the presidency and it's not just Trumpism. From top to bottom it is now the MAGA Liar Autocracy Party either with T…
Great interview, Charlie, enjoyed it! But we've got to look beyond Trump-whoever-Biden and put more emphasis on the extreme threat posed by what the Republican party as a whole has become. It's not just Trump, it's not just the presidency and it's not just Trumpism. From top to bottom it is now the MAGA Liar Autocracy Party either with Trump or without Trump. It has nothing to do with public service and everything to do with public domination, cutting taxes on those at the top, cutting benefits for those at the bottom, cutting public services, and cutting those burdensome government regulations that protect the public.
They're following the playbook of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and Viktor Orban's 12-Point Recipe for Christian Conservative Success - “The first point is that we must play by our own rules. ... The fourth point is that we must have the media because we can only show the insanity of the progressive Left if we have the media to help us.”
[Sidenote: why is CPAC Hungary even a thing? This year's scheduled speakers included Mark Meadows, Kari Lake, Paul Gosar, Rick Santorum and Kevin Roberts (president of Heritage Foundation).]
The Republican party has been taken over at national, state and local levels by MAGA extremists who have left the old rules of spin in the dust as they find that they can get away with engaging in a no-holds-barred campaign of hate, lies, demonization, fraud, intimidation, threats and violence, along with their right wing ecosystem of strategists, think tanks, PR firms, media outlets, influencers, networkers, grassroots organizers, white supremacists, militias, Christian Dominionists, and so on as they coordinate and fight together in waging their outright war against the evil dems, libs, rinos and the administrative state. The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is alive and well and operating quite successfully thank you. And their base loves it.
Having gotten a clearer taste of what they're doing and a clearer view of what they're planning, America needs to stand up against their campaign of hate, lies and public endangerment, vote them out and keep them out. From the school boards to the White House.
Well, yes and no, Ron. You make some good points about how the Republican Party has devolved in general, separate from Trump. But let's look at how, as you say, the current devolved MAGA Republican Party "... has everything to do with public domination, cutting taxes on those at the top, cutting benefits for those at the bottom, cutting public services, and cutting those burdensome government regulations that protect the public." Aren't those pretty much the policy stances of the traditional, un-devolved Republican/Conservatives, with public domination being the possible exception? As I understand it, the idea is that since the free market is much better and more efficient than the government (per Ronald Reagan and his "nine scariest words in the English language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."), then we should cut taxes because wealthy people and their businesses will create wealth that will trickle down to everyone. And we can cut benefits, because there will be far less need for them since the free market will all but eliminate the poor. And we can cut public services, because businesses will efficiently take over maintaining roads and bridges and running the utilities. And we won't need those pesky regulations to ensure clean water and untainted food, because the free market will take care of that too. After all, if people start dying of water and food borne illnesses again, the companies that caused those disasters would be run out of business and more responsible businesses would take over. And to all that, I ask, how has that worked out for us so far? I submit, not well. The free market and the businesses that make it up have one goal: to make as much money as they can. They don't have, and maybe we can't expect them to have, an equal goal of public service. We need some government structure and tax supported regulations to take care of the value of maintaining a safe and humane society.
I'm not sure if this worship of the free market logically leads to the free rein "value" of "get government out of my business so I'm free to do whatever it takes to make money, and the good of society be damned" or not. That's maybe where you're going with your very good analysis of why the problem is beyond Trump.
However, I think I'm in agreement with Charlie in his interview where he says that Trump is in a class of his own as far as his dangerousness to our country. If DeSantis or some Paul Ryan type became president, they would probably continue the freewheeling support of the free market and the continued destruction of the structures that the other side (well, my side, as I think is obvious) thinks we need to contain it, but they would not be the clear and present danger to our constitutional government as would Trump.
Thanks Mary, great comments! Yup, if you lived near a nuclear plant would you really want the nuclear industry to be unregulated? What could go wrong? The Preamble to the Constitution makes pretty clear that our government exists to serve the interests of the people, and the Bill of Rights provides at least some protections for individual freedom. Most businesses are not democratic and do not exist to do either of these. I always remember Tom Harkin when he was running against Bill Clinton asking "Aren't you tired of being trickled on?" Our economy is designed to suck money up from the bottom to the top. I never quite understood why putting more money in at the top is better for those at the bottom than putting more money in at the bottom and let those at the top make more money the old fashioned way - by earning it! :) Freedom comes with responsibility, and we need to have government, business and the people working together for a balance that best serves the interests of all.
As for Trump, yes I agree he would be more dangerous as president than other Republican candidates, though DeSantis would make an awfully effective autocrat. But the other candidates also pose another threat - we know what to expect with Trump, but while some of the other candidates may appear more "normal", would any of them stand up against MAGA and would any of them veto any extremist legislation that could get through Congress if MAGA gets control?
That is a good point. We do know what will happen if Trump gets re-elected--he's told us--but we are just guessing that any other Republican president would stand up against the destructive power of the MAGA legislators backed by the rage-filled MAGA base. I think we are predicting they would but most "normie" Republicans were not predicting how far across the borders of Crazyland so much of the Republican voter base would travel.
I have no doubt that DeSantis would sign any extremist MAGA legislation that came his way, if not push for it to be even more extreme. Some of the rest might advocate for a kinder gentler MAGA, but I can't say that I see any of them actually opposing the MAGA GOP party line in any way. Nikki Haley featured Christian nationalist pastor John Hagee in her campaign kick-off, and I saw Tim Scott yesterday trotting out the "liberal lie that our country is evil". Huh??? And then of course there's also the Supreme Court...
Well we keep saying this to Charlie in different ways and he keeps saying "la la la la la" fingers in ears. I fear that is a problem. The Republicans who think themselves "normies" as opposed to "enablers of authoritarianism" are going to keep the GOP in power to our deaths!
In part, we're seeing the fruit of a long Russian influence operation to persuade religious-social conservatives that Putin's autocratic rule better serves their values than the American democratic system does.
The Kremlin struck gold with a presidential candidate on whom it probably holds kompromat as well as financial leverage; who is predisposed to admire and envy dictators; and whose psychopathology leads him to believe that any roadblock to the fulfillment of his wishes is intrinsically wrong.
Trump's profoundly self-centered view of right and wrong was then tightly joined with a preexisting hostility to the administrative state on grounds of a partisan (Democrat-leaning) slant in the permanent bureaucracy. But what was ostensibly a project of redressing ideological bias in the bureaucracy turned into a belief system centered on whatever Trump wants. All the institutional guardrails intended to prevent the president from acting as a lawless autocrat have been cast as perfidious Deep State attacks on the Duly Elected President - or on the GOP frontrunner. If the law goes after Trump, then the law is corrupt.
This is all helpful to the Kremlin's aim of undermining the American constitutional system.
I have a background as a Soviet/Russian analyst during the waning days of the Cold War and a few years thereafter. I am also an Orthodox Christian with a theology degree. I am quite distressed by the attraction of my fellow Orthodox, as well as many other "conservative" American Christians, to Putin and Russia. I think it is mostly a matter of identity politics, which has recently taken over American politics but has been prevalent in Orthodoxy for centuries.
The notion that Russia is a Christian nation is absurd. It is one of the most secular nations that has ever existed. While 70% of Russians identify as Orthodox Christians, 30% of those 70% also identify as atheists, and only 3% ever attend Orthodox services. Russia cannot even produce enough priests to staff its churches - it has to import priests from Ukraine, a MUCH more Christian country, which produces more priests than its churches need. Russia also has one of the world's highest abortion rates - a fact that Putin's American fans systematically ignore because it doesn't fit the requirements of their political narrative.
It was clear to me by late 2015 - long before the Steele Dossier surfaced - that Trump had corrupt ties to Russia. Don Jr. boasted about the Trump Organization's access to investment funding from Russian oligarchs! That's one of the two main reasons I was a charter member of NeverTrump. (The other was his preference for protectionist trade policy.)
I really do not see the Kremlin in this . I see neighbors, friends and relatives violently reacting to more than a half-century of being scolded by a proliferating mass of professional finger-waggers.
Just saying “professional finger wavers” is another way of saying anyone who tells me I can’t say and do whatever I want even when the group I am part of has an obvious history of transgressive, self-indulgent behaviour. To most it’s saying things that are politically incorrect and ideas of “personal freedoms” like owning and displaying as many guns as you can afford. But this creates a pool of discontent that has been taken by political operatives, turned into a movement and aimed at the normal function of democracy, creating a space for overturning not just political norms but American democracy itself.
Great interview, Charlie, enjoyed it! But we've got to look beyond Trump-whoever-Biden and put more emphasis on the extreme threat posed by what the Republican party as a whole has become. It's not just Trump, it's not just the presidency and it's not just Trumpism. From top to bottom it is now the MAGA Liar Autocracy Party either with Trump or without Trump. It has nothing to do with public service and everything to do with public domination, cutting taxes on those at the top, cutting benefits for those at the bottom, cutting public services, and cutting those burdensome government regulations that protect the public.
They're following the playbook of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and Viktor Orban's 12-Point Recipe for Christian Conservative Success - “The first point is that we must play by our own rules. ... The fourth point is that we must have the media because we can only show the insanity of the progressive Left if we have the media to help us.”
[Sidenote: why is CPAC Hungary even a thing? This year's scheduled speakers included Mark Meadows, Kari Lake, Paul Gosar, Rick Santorum and Kevin Roberts (president of Heritage Foundation).]
The Republican party has been taken over at national, state and local levels by MAGA extremists who have left the old rules of spin in the dust as they find that they can get away with engaging in a no-holds-barred campaign of hate, lies, demonization, fraud, intimidation, threats and violence, along with their right wing ecosystem of strategists, think tanks, PR firms, media outlets, influencers, networkers, grassroots organizers, white supremacists, militias, Christian Dominionists, and so on as they coordinate and fight together in waging their outright war against the evil dems, libs, rinos and the administrative state. The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is alive and well and operating quite successfully thank you. And their base loves it.
Having gotten a clearer taste of what they're doing and a clearer view of what they're planning, America needs to stand up against their campaign of hate, lies and public endangerment, vote them out and keep them out. From the school boards to the White House.
#SaveAmerica #NeverMAGA
Fantastic comment, Ron R.
Well, yes and no, Ron. You make some good points about how the Republican Party has devolved in general, separate from Trump. But let's look at how, as you say, the current devolved MAGA Republican Party "... has everything to do with public domination, cutting taxes on those at the top, cutting benefits for those at the bottom, cutting public services, and cutting those burdensome government regulations that protect the public." Aren't those pretty much the policy stances of the traditional, un-devolved Republican/Conservatives, with public domination being the possible exception? As I understand it, the idea is that since the free market is much better and more efficient than the government (per Ronald Reagan and his "nine scariest words in the English language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."), then we should cut taxes because wealthy people and their businesses will create wealth that will trickle down to everyone. And we can cut benefits, because there will be far less need for them since the free market will all but eliminate the poor. And we can cut public services, because businesses will efficiently take over maintaining roads and bridges and running the utilities. And we won't need those pesky regulations to ensure clean water and untainted food, because the free market will take care of that too. After all, if people start dying of water and food borne illnesses again, the companies that caused those disasters would be run out of business and more responsible businesses would take over. And to all that, I ask, how has that worked out for us so far? I submit, not well. The free market and the businesses that make it up have one goal: to make as much money as they can. They don't have, and maybe we can't expect them to have, an equal goal of public service. We need some government structure and tax supported regulations to take care of the value of maintaining a safe and humane society.
I'm not sure if this worship of the free market logically leads to the free rein "value" of "get government out of my business so I'm free to do whatever it takes to make money, and the good of society be damned" or not. That's maybe where you're going with your very good analysis of why the problem is beyond Trump.
However, I think I'm in agreement with Charlie in his interview where he says that Trump is in a class of his own as far as his dangerousness to our country. If DeSantis or some Paul Ryan type became president, they would probably continue the freewheeling support of the free market and the continued destruction of the structures that the other side (well, my side, as I think is obvious) thinks we need to contain it, but they would not be the clear and present danger to our constitutional government as would Trump.
I would welcome to hear what you think of this.
Thanks Mary, great comments! Yup, if you lived near a nuclear plant would you really want the nuclear industry to be unregulated? What could go wrong? The Preamble to the Constitution makes pretty clear that our government exists to serve the interests of the people, and the Bill of Rights provides at least some protections for individual freedom. Most businesses are not democratic and do not exist to do either of these. I always remember Tom Harkin when he was running against Bill Clinton asking "Aren't you tired of being trickled on?" Our economy is designed to suck money up from the bottom to the top. I never quite understood why putting more money in at the top is better for those at the bottom than putting more money in at the bottom and let those at the top make more money the old fashioned way - by earning it! :) Freedom comes with responsibility, and we need to have government, business and the people working together for a balance that best serves the interests of all.
As for Trump, yes I agree he would be more dangerous as president than other Republican candidates, though DeSantis would make an awfully effective autocrat. But the other candidates also pose another threat - we know what to expect with Trump, but while some of the other candidates may appear more "normal", would any of them stand up against MAGA and would any of them veto any extremist legislation that could get through Congress if MAGA gets control?
That is a good point. We do know what will happen if Trump gets re-elected--he's told us--but we are just guessing that any other Republican president would stand up against the destructive power of the MAGA legislators backed by the rage-filled MAGA base. I think we are predicting they would but most "normie" Republicans were not predicting how far across the borders of Crazyland so much of the Republican voter base would travel.
I have no doubt that DeSantis would sign any extremist MAGA legislation that came his way, if not push for it to be even more extreme. Some of the rest might advocate for a kinder gentler MAGA, but I can't say that I see any of them actually opposing the MAGA GOP party line in any way. Nikki Haley featured Christian nationalist pastor John Hagee in her campaign kick-off, and I saw Tim Scott yesterday trotting out the "liberal lie that our country is evil". Huh??? And then of course there's also the Supreme Court...
Well we keep saying this to Charlie in different ways and he keeps saying "la la la la la" fingers in ears. I fear that is a problem. The Republicans who think themselves "normies" as opposed to "enablers of authoritarianism" are going to keep the GOP in power to our deaths!
In part, we're seeing the fruit of a long Russian influence operation to persuade religious-social conservatives that Putin's autocratic rule better serves their values than the American democratic system does.
The Kremlin struck gold with a presidential candidate on whom it probably holds kompromat as well as financial leverage; who is predisposed to admire and envy dictators; and whose psychopathology leads him to believe that any roadblock to the fulfillment of his wishes is intrinsically wrong.
Trump's profoundly self-centered view of right and wrong was then tightly joined with a preexisting hostility to the administrative state on grounds of a partisan (Democrat-leaning) slant in the permanent bureaucracy. But what was ostensibly a project of redressing ideological bias in the bureaucracy turned into a belief system centered on whatever Trump wants. All the institutional guardrails intended to prevent the president from acting as a lawless autocrat have been cast as perfidious Deep State attacks on the Duly Elected President - or on the GOP frontrunner. If the law goes after Trump, then the law is corrupt.
This is all helpful to the Kremlin's aim of undermining the American constitutional system.
I have a background as a Soviet/Russian analyst during the waning days of the Cold War and a few years thereafter. I am also an Orthodox Christian with a theology degree. I am quite distressed by the attraction of my fellow Orthodox, as well as many other "conservative" American Christians, to Putin and Russia. I think it is mostly a matter of identity politics, which has recently taken over American politics but has been prevalent in Orthodoxy for centuries.
The notion that Russia is a Christian nation is absurd. It is one of the most secular nations that has ever existed. While 70% of Russians identify as Orthodox Christians, 30% of those 70% also identify as atheists, and only 3% ever attend Orthodox services. Russia cannot even produce enough priests to staff its churches - it has to import priests from Ukraine, a MUCH more Christian country, which produces more priests than its churches need. Russia also has one of the world's highest abortion rates - a fact that Putin's American fans systematically ignore because it doesn't fit the requirements of their political narrative.
It was clear to me by late 2015 - long before the Steele Dossier surfaced - that Trump had corrupt ties to Russia. Don Jr. boasted about the Trump Organization's access to investment funding from Russian oligarchs! That's one of the two main reasons I was a charter member of NeverTrump. (The other was his preference for protectionist trade policy.)
I really do not see the Kremlin in this . I see neighbors, friends and relatives violently reacting to more than a half-century of being scolded by a proliferating mass of professional finger-waggers.
Just saying “professional finger wavers” is another way of saying anyone who tells me I can’t say and do whatever I want even when the group I am part of has an obvious history of transgressive, self-indulgent behaviour. To most it’s saying things that are politically incorrect and ideas of “personal freedoms” like owning and displaying as many guns as you can afford. But this creates a pool of discontent that has been taken by political operatives, turned into a movement and aimed at the normal function of democracy, creating a space for overturning not just political norms but American democracy itself.