So how to you defend against something that hasn't happened yet? For example, I know that, ultimately, Trump will tell all colleges and universities, private schools and community colleges, that their students will not be eligible for federal loans or grants if the institution support DEI. But how do we skate to where that puck is going to be?
"Federalist Society types were perfectly content to let Trump slingshot them into the judiciary"
Bottomless moral failures whose "principles" were pure vapor.
The only reason any FS judge votes against Trump is an urge to preserve their own power. In aggregate that's accomplishing a small bit of tenuous good. But if we survive this, we'll still be stuck with them, and with the grotesquely bloated Executive they're (in the aggregate) sustaining. I suspect we could restore constitutional balance in a hot minute if we manage to elect another brown president. SCOTUS conservatives have torched the whole notion of "precedent" in the name of "judicial conservatism/originalism", so let the pendulum swing!
Thanks for your columns. In spite of how unbelievably awful the situation we face is, the fact that there are still rational thoughtful men considering how to better educate the voting public gives me great hope for the future. You ease my heart each time I read cone good sense.
I keep hearing news items and the like about focus groups, polls, etc. looking for Trump voters who now regret their votes. It's a waste of time.
I don't know if there's a name for the phenomenon. It's the extreme expression of the well-known flaw in human reasoning known as Confirmation Bias. When confronted with evidence of a grave error in a previous decision with important consequences, we humans don't merely discount the evidence; we double down on the decision. And the worse the decision has turned out to be, the harder we double down. It's a reasonably effective way to avoid the discomfort of cognitive dissonance or defend the good opinion of ourselves.
Some pundits are hoping Trump's erratic decision-making such as with tarrifs will have terrible consequences, expecting it to cost Trump support. I'm not sure; it may have the perverse of hardening support at least among the True Believers. Who could admit to himself he had had a part, however small, in bringing about, say, 8% inflation and a similar unemployment rate?
Can it be confirmation bias if 47% of the country never hears the truth about what Trump is doing? Fox, OAN and Newsmax spin pure propaganda and the people who watch those networks have been proved not to diversify their information sources.
Fox, OAN etc have convinced heretofore normal people that they cannot trust any other news sources. They could easily find facts but they willfully refuse to look at sources with journalistic standards.
Agree. There was a brief blip in the polls, but I guess Fox news doubled down and Trump's approval has risen again. A huge swath of Americans are not salvageable. Even if Anyone But The GOP wins the next two elections, our democracy will be in the ICU for decades.
I think the people who at first were Trump-critical but then went all-in on defending him - and bashing his critics - might be the most resistant to admitting any error in doing so. It would basically be admitting: "I saw the reality of Trump, but I chose to insist that he's something very different."
I hadn't thought of that. They were doubly wrong. If they were by some means convinced they were wrong, they'd just have to go out and eat worms and die.
Where the Puck is the new "Silent Majority" that supposedly exists in the form of Democrats, and non-voters, and reasonable Republicans in 2025 ... the hearsay is there are fewer voters for Trump than Dems and non-voters the Bulwark Republicans... and, alas, it's a lonnnng time til November 2026 ;-(
But I suspect that America now has a majority-ethos that desires Trump's authoritarian vision.
Despite the fact that JVL aptly pointed out that MAGA's are absolutely clueless in the knowledge that THEY have ushered in a police state that is going to affect Their friends... by their own, as JVL put it: "Stupidity"
Stupidity seems to rule the day.
Bulwark does a pretty good job unpacking and deconstructing the nature of our current times .
Pretty much still a voice in the wilderness I'd sadly say.
After the election in Germany in 1933 Hitler had the same problem with the judiciary. He solved it in record time and I expect the T. Rump criminal enterprise may even move more quickly. Removing and replacing judges seemed to be a long process in 1933 but since legal matters can now move at the speed of light I expect that where is a political will and Project 2025 as the playbook to be executed a way will be found. Mass firings, mass deportations, mass replacement of 'deep state operatives' like judges - what could possibly go wrong?
Trump's allies have written a perverse narrative in which legal and institutional impediments to his will are "corrupt" by definition. Some of them must be aware that he disdains legal and ethical restraints on himself - notwithstanding his expressed distaste for other kinds of criminality. They have certainly heard his unqualified praise of "iron-fisted" dictators. But as long as his amorality and despotic ambitions propel their own agenda, they will continue to say it's his opponents who are the corrupt criminals.
My sister was just reading a trove of letters received by a relative of ours in the late 1930s & 1940s. One letter from 1939 described another letter from a friend in Germany that ended with a PS: "Save the stamp, because it will be valuable when we rule the world!" The recipient carefully detached the stamp, and beneath it was a message in tiny letters: "We are starving."
“In a sternly worded ruling in Federal District Court in Maryland, Judge Xinis instructed the Justice Department to tell her what steps the White House had taken” LOL. Like Susan Collins’s concern, this means nothing. They are not going to comply. When will a court hold them in contempt? When will a judge go after individuals like Kristi Noem? Never mind cutting off the head, go for some wounds to the torso. Ok, that was gross, but I just want a bold move, and the public passivity is maddening.
Sadly, it's not clear Trump will in the end cave to the judiciary or indeed to anyone seeking to keep to the rule of law. What Trump means to do with his power is not fully known - that's how he works it. Does he mean to continue to keep on after his term is up? He's said not, but he can change his mind, or he can find a flunky to act as a figurehead, or. . .or lots of things. He likes to keep his options open, keep people guessing, keep moving. The big test I reckon is the midterms. If it looks like going badly for Republicans, what will he do? The United States may have had enough of him by then, tired of broken promises and exasperated by false bravado. Right now he's behaving in a deliberately increasingly dictatorial manner. The quite childish but effective responses to judges' orders is just a taster. It can and very likely will get a great deal worse.
The important thing to remember is that Trump is a Narcissistic bully. He caves when confronted with real power and anyone with a spine not made of Jello. There's a reason the TACO trade is a thing. If he thinks he can win, he'll grind you to dust. If you punch him hard in the throat, he'll cave and claim it was all part of his master plan to get a good deal on the table.
He is not Hitler who would psychotically fight everyone until he literally had nothing left. He does not have the will or the strength of his convictions to battle a real fight. Resist hard enough and long enough and you'll outlast him.
You need to be concerned about JD Vance, Stephen Miller and the other people behind him who are using Tump for their agendas. Those are the mendacious #*@^ who are far more likely to actually do damage to us if we resist authoritarianism.
We've seen time after time that this administration is cruel, however, that's not the same as being smart. They can be outwitted (seriously, my air fryer is smarter than some of these guys), but there needs to be a real plan in place to make that happen.
While it is true Trump is a narcissistic bully and as bullies do, turns tail when confronted, it is not the important thing. Trump's career in business and in politics is littered with defeats, yet instead of being bankrupt, he is worth billions and instead of being in prison where he belongs, he is President of the United States. His techniques are not rocket science but are difficult to counter as he has had the resources to pretty much fully weaponise the law, and now has the state to pursue his aims and enemies. If he were asked to spell "rule of law" he might say "l-o-o-p-h-o-l-e". "That's a rule innit?" Defeated one place he turns to another. As "47", with the resources of the state and a posse of willing lickspittles, he is roaming widely. Almost every day brings a fresh outrage, an that is part of how it works for him. He is most vulnerable over tariffs - he is simply wrong about them and fully enacted they will have catastrophic consequences. He may finally have boxed himself into a corner. But it remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the most important thing is never to underestimate him, and be ready to fight back.
Yea, to be clear, fighting injustice and ensuring the core values of the US are upheld is something we need to continue to do every day. You don't end up in a good place by being complacent.
I'll be listening carefully to his remarks at and around his reprehensible parade on June 14. In that setting, I expect him to have even more trouble than usual not saying the quiet parts out loud. Very, very loud.
I agree with those who say that as a result of his surviving an assassination attempt, that he really is invincible. Even if he doesn't couch it any way that conforms to religious tradition, he probably feels singularly blessed/supported by the universe.
Yes. After writing the above news flashed that the DOJ is looking into Biden's pardons to see if he was compos mentis at the time. This from the dude who just issued a swag of patently corrupt pardons to sleazeballs. Now Biden's mental fitness will get examined over and over and be used in future propaganda campaigns. Trump is both seriously and serially ugly, knows it and doesn't care. It's working for him.
Man-Baby Donnie Two-dolls has felt entitled his entire life. Why should his dealings with the legal system be any different, especially after the federal judge in South Florida all but spread her legs for him?
She's headed for at least a nomination to the appellate bench. That will be interesting chiefly in order to see whether any Republican senators have even a vestigial gag reflex left.
Joy to hear of judges being judges. Now for the voters (especially some) to go back to reality based voting and perhaps things will go back to pre-Taco days somewhat. To think of the polity tolerating ham-fisted thuggery makes my head hurt. Then again things are happening that beggar imagination. ---Really liked the paen to brevity. I, for one, am long-winded.
So how to you defend against something that hasn't happened yet? For example, I know that, ultimately, Trump will tell all colleges and universities, private schools and community colleges, that their students will not be eligible for federal loans or grants if the institution support DEI. But how do we skate to where that puck is going to be?
"Federalist Society types were perfectly content to let Trump slingshot them into the judiciary"
Bottomless moral failures whose "principles" were pure vapor.
The only reason any FS judge votes against Trump is an urge to preserve their own power. In aggregate that's accomplishing a small bit of tenuous good. But if we survive this, we'll still be stuck with them, and with the grotesquely bloated Executive they're (in the aggregate) sustaining. I suspect we could restore constitutional balance in a hot minute if we manage to elect another brown president. SCOTUS conservatives have torched the whole notion of "precedent" in the name of "judicial conservatism/originalism", so let the pendulum swing!
Thanks for your columns. In spite of how unbelievably awful the situation we face is, the fact that there are still rational thoughtful men considering how to better educate the voting public gives me great hope for the future. You ease my heart each time I read cone good sense.
"....a pattern of deliberate delay and bad faith refusal to comply with court orders...."
How is this different from Feckless Garland's slow-motion work during the Biden Administration? The Courts are broken and need to be fixed.
They're not even remotely similar.
10% into TACO T 2.0? I'm so depressed. Thank goodness for the courts!
I keep hearing news items and the like about focus groups, polls, etc. looking for Trump voters who now regret their votes. It's a waste of time.
I don't know if there's a name for the phenomenon. It's the extreme expression of the well-known flaw in human reasoning known as Confirmation Bias. When confronted with evidence of a grave error in a previous decision with important consequences, we humans don't merely discount the evidence; we double down on the decision. And the worse the decision has turned out to be, the harder we double down. It's a reasonably effective way to avoid the discomfort of cognitive dissonance or defend the good opinion of ourselves.
Some pundits are hoping Trump's erratic decision-making such as with tarrifs will have terrible consequences, expecting it to cost Trump support. I'm not sure; it may have the perverse of hardening support at least among the True Believers. Who could admit to himself he had had a part, however small, in bringing about, say, 8% inflation and a similar unemployment rate?
The "name for the phenomenon" is "cult."
Can it be confirmation bias if 47% of the country never hears the truth about what Trump is doing? Fox, OAN and Newsmax spin pure propaganda and the people who watch those networks have been proved not to diversify their information sources.
Fox, OAN etc have convinced heretofore normal people that they cannot trust any other news sources. They could easily find facts but they willfully refuse to look at sources with journalistic standards.
Agree. There was a brief blip in the polls, but I guess Fox news doubled down and Trump's approval has risen again. A huge swath of Americans are not salvageable. Even if Anyone But The GOP wins the next two elections, our democracy will be in the ICU for decades.
I think the people who at first were Trump-critical but then went all-in on defending him - and bashing his critics - might be the most resistant to admitting any error in doing so. It would basically be admitting: "I saw the reality of Trump, but I chose to insist that he's something very different."
I hadn't thought of that. They were doubly wrong. If they were by some means convinced they were wrong, they'd just have to go out and eat worms and die.
I will never give up on my fellow Americans. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
We will think ahead. And we will think dynamically. MAGA is a Weak Evil Death Cult.
spoiler-alert-not feelinghopefull
Where the Puck is the new "Silent Majority" that supposedly exists in the form of Democrats, and non-voters, and reasonable Republicans in 2025 ... the hearsay is there are fewer voters for Trump than Dems and non-voters the Bulwark Republicans... and, alas, it's a lonnnng time til November 2026 ;-(
But I suspect that America now has a majority-ethos that desires Trump's authoritarian vision.
Despite the fact that JVL aptly pointed out that MAGA's are absolutely clueless in the knowledge that THEY have ushered in a police state that is going to affect Their friends... by their own, as JVL put it: "Stupidity"
Stupidity seems to rule the day.
Bulwark does a pretty good job unpacking and deconstructing the nature of our current times .
Pretty much still a voice in the wilderness I'd sadly say.
#still-at-a-loss
After the election in Germany in 1933 Hitler had the same problem with the judiciary. He solved it in record time and I expect the T. Rump criminal enterprise may even move more quickly. Removing and replacing judges seemed to be a long process in 1933 but since legal matters can now move at the speed of light I expect that where is a political will and Project 2025 as the playbook to be executed a way will be found. Mass firings, mass deportations, mass replacement of 'deep state operatives' like judges - what could possibly go wrong?
Trump's allies have written a perverse narrative in which legal and institutional impediments to his will are "corrupt" by definition. Some of them must be aware that he disdains legal and ethical restraints on himself - notwithstanding his expressed distaste for other kinds of criminality. They have certainly heard his unqualified praise of "iron-fisted" dictators. But as long as his amorality and despotic ambitions propel their own agenda, they will continue to say it's his opponents who are the corrupt criminals.
My sister was just reading a trove of letters received by a relative of ours in the late 1930s & 1940s. One letter from 1939 described another letter from a friend in Germany that ended with a PS: "Save the stamp, because it will be valuable when we rule the world!" The recipient carefully detached the stamp, and beneath it was a message in tiny letters: "We are starving."
You also may want to look at not using Gretsky as a reference any more considering his support of trump. He is not the Canadian icon he once was.
“In a sternly worded ruling in Federal District Court in Maryland, Judge Xinis instructed the Justice Department to tell her what steps the White House had taken” LOL. Like Susan Collins’s concern, this means nothing. They are not going to comply. When will a court hold them in contempt? When will a judge go after individuals like Kristi Noem? Never mind cutting off the head, go for some wounds to the torso. Ok, that was gross, but I just want a bold move, and the public passivity is maddening.
Yes, stern warnings must be followed by actions.
Sadly, it's not clear Trump will in the end cave to the judiciary or indeed to anyone seeking to keep to the rule of law. What Trump means to do with his power is not fully known - that's how he works it. Does he mean to continue to keep on after his term is up? He's said not, but he can change his mind, or he can find a flunky to act as a figurehead, or. . .or lots of things. He likes to keep his options open, keep people guessing, keep moving. The big test I reckon is the midterms. If it looks like going badly for Republicans, what will he do? The United States may have had enough of him by then, tired of broken promises and exasperated by false bravado. Right now he's behaving in a deliberately increasingly dictatorial manner. The quite childish but effective responses to judges' orders is just a taster. It can and very likely will get a great deal worse.
The important thing to remember is that Trump is a Narcissistic bully. He caves when confronted with real power and anyone with a spine not made of Jello. There's a reason the TACO trade is a thing. If he thinks he can win, he'll grind you to dust. If you punch him hard in the throat, he'll cave and claim it was all part of his master plan to get a good deal on the table.
He is not Hitler who would psychotically fight everyone until he literally had nothing left. He does not have the will or the strength of his convictions to battle a real fight. Resist hard enough and long enough and you'll outlast him.
You need to be concerned about JD Vance, Stephen Miller and the other people behind him who are using Tump for their agendas. Those are the mendacious #*@^ who are far more likely to actually do damage to us if we resist authoritarianism.
We've seen time after time that this administration is cruel, however, that's not the same as being smart. They can be outwitted (seriously, my air fryer is smarter than some of these guys), but there needs to be a real plan in place to make that happen.
While it is true Trump is a narcissistic bully and as bullies do, turns tail when confronted, it is not the important thing. Trump's career in business and in politics is littered with defeats, yet instead of being bankrupt, he is worth billions and instead of being in prison where he belongs, he is President of the United States. His techniques are not rocket science but are difficult to counter as he has had the resources to pretty much fully weaponise the law, and now has the state to pursue his aims and enemies. If he were asked to spell "rule of law" he might say "l-o-o-p-h-o-l-e". "That's a rule innit?" Defeated one place he turns to another. As "47", with the resources of the state and a posse of willing lickspittles, he is roaming widely. Almost every day brings a fresh outrage, an that is part of how it works for him. He is most vulnerable over tariffs - he is simply wrong about them and fully enacted they will have catastrophic consequences. He may finally have boxed himself into a corner. But it remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the most important thing is never to underestimate him, and be ready to fight back.
Yea, to be clear, fighting injustice and ensuring the core values of the US are upheld is something we need to continue to do every day. You don't end up in a good place by being complacent.
I'll be listening carefully to his remarks at and around his reprehensible parade on June 14. In that setting, I expect him to have even more trouble than usual not saying the quiet parts out loud. Very, very loud.
I agree with those who say that as a result of his surviving an assassination attempt, that he really is invincible. Even if he doesn't couch it any way that conforms to religious tradition, he probably feels singularly blessed/supported by the universe.
Yes. After writing the above news flashed that the DOJ is looking into Biden's pardons to see if he was compos mentis at the time. This from the dude who just issued a swag of patently corrupt pardons to sleazeballs. Now Biden's mental fitness will get examined over and over and be used in future propaganda campaigns. Trump is both seriously and serially ugly, knows it and doesn't care. It's working for him.
Trump is ugly, but don't let his supporters off the hook. They love what they see in the mirror.
Man-Baby Donnie Two-dolls has felt entitled his entire life. Why should his dealings with the legal system be any different, especially after the federal judge in South Florida all but spread her legs for him?
She's headed for at least a nomination to the appellate bench. That will be interesting chiefly in order to see whether any Republican senators have even a vestigial gag reflex left.
Very doubtful.
Joy to hear of judges being judges. Now for the voters (especially some) to go back to reality based voting and perhaps things will go back to pre-Taco days somewhat. To think of the polity tolerating ham-fisted thuggery makes my head hurt. Then again things are happening that beggar imagination. ---Really liked the paen to brevity. I, for one, am long-winded.
Wayne Gretzky is totally in the tank for Trump. He isn't saving anyone. We Canadians have written him off.