A Goblin of Nihilism

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Daniel O’Hehir explains the dark heart of Trump support:

Being impregnable and invulnerable and indeed indecipherable — possessing no inner life, no discernible ideology and no personality — are not bugs in the Trump avatar’s program. They are essential features of its success. If he could fly or read minds or see the future he would be even better suited for the job of American dictator, and given the slipped gears in the reality matrix those possibilities can’t be ruled out. Trump is dangerous precisely because he does not seem like a real person, and the people voting for him do not think they’re voting in a real election with real consequences. He is an empty symbol with no point of reference, a goblin of nihilism wearing a mask of hope.

As an example of “no point of reference,” Matthew Yglesias points out that Trump’s “law and order” speech last night contained no actual crime policies. He spoke of “law and order” over and over, but his only policy statement was —

I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job done.

But to his followers, this doesn’t matter. “The Government” is to them something unreal and alien, like Mordor, and they need an avatar to go in and straighten it out. Exactly what needs straightening and how it’s done doesn’t concern them.

Remember, these are the same people who perpetually complain that The Government, or Political Correctness, or Liberals, or some amorphous thing out there is oppressing them, but they can never provide a concrete example of actual oppression. Nevertheless, they live in a simmering pot of resentment because someone out there disrespects them. And time after time they follow whatever demagogue du jour gives voice to that resentment.

But back to actual Trump — lots of people are pointing to this bit from a New York Times article —

One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before. As a candidate, Kasich declared in March that Trump was “really not prepared to be president of the United States,” and the following month he took the highly unusual step of coordinating with his rival Senator Ted Cruz in an effort to deny Trump the nomination. But according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

Of course. Because Trump has never done anything himself. He’s just the guy who puts up the money to make the deals. The actual building and managing and running of the businesses are done by other people. He seems to think he can be President of the United States and delegate the entire job to others, except for the taking credit part. It’s what he’s always done.

But may I also say that Mike Pence is one of the last people on the planet I’d want in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Meanwhile, word is that Hillary Clinton is going to pick Tim Kaine for her veep. This is not official yet, mind you. But if so, this tells me she’s still not getting the national mood. Kaine is a very “safe” pick — from an establishment perspective — who will excite no one who isn’t already in the tank for her.

Making Derp Great Again

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I caught a bit of Chris Christie’s speech last night and savored the irony of Mr. 26 percent — that’s the percentage of New Jersey registered voters who still think Christie is doing a good job — calling Hillary Clinton “incompetent.”

It occurs to me that both parties are primarily running on scaring the bejeezus out of the voters. Vote for X, because Y will bring about the Apocalypse. But, true to form, the Right is threatening more violence. Josh Marshall:

As we’ve discussed, it’s not normal for one nominee and his convention delegates to be chanting for the opposing party nominee to be put in prison. I felt a bit silly writing that because that is extremely obvious. But it’s not some silly novelty. You go from opposition, to demands for imprisonment and finally for murder. We saw that case with the state rep down in West Virginia. Now we have a Trump delegate and advisor saying Clinton should be “shot for treason.” This kind of incitement is poisonous to the political process and civic life generally. And let’s be honest, it can have horrific consequences. This has the feeling of the crazy talk that was circulating about President Kennedy before November 1963.

And then there’s this:

According to xHamster, one of the leading aggregators of online porn, traffic from users in Cleveland spiked significantly this week as the Republican National Convention got underway. Viewership in the city shot up by 184 percent from its pre-convention average, surpassing traffic the site gets from people in large cities including New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

“This increase is unprecedented,” said Mike Kulich, a spokesman for the web site. “They’re making porn great again.”

Since the GOP platform declares that porn is a public health menace, perhaps they were doing research.

Although it doesn’t quite rise to the level of Clint Eastwood and the Chair, Melania Trump’s partly plagiarized speech has gotten more media attention than whatever it was Chris Christie said last night. The Trump campaign has offered up a number of excuses, until today when a staffer fell on her sword and took the blame. But the damage was done.

Across the country, slack-jawed Republican political operatives and speechwriters expressed expletive-laden bewilderment at the organizational breakdown allowing such an episode to occur.

“It’s like some guy trying to paddle across a river in a rowboat who shoots a hole in his boat,” said Stuart Stevens, who wrote speeches for Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, throughout the 2012 campaign.

In interviews, alarmed Republican speechwriters outlined the layers of formal scrutiny, apparently disregarded by the Trump campaign, traditionally applied to almost every draft of a major convention address. They described word-by-word fact-checking by a dedicated team of experts and computer software designed to catch plagiarism. Several online programs, like DupliChecker, are available at no cost.

The Trump family: Making Derp Great Again.

The 2016 GOP Platform

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Seriously:

The platform demands that lawmakers use religion as a guide when legislating, stipulating “that man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights.”

It also encourages the teaching of the Bible in public schools because, the amendment said, a good understanding of its contents is “indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry.”
And it goes downhill from there. For example, The Wall:

…the Republican platform explicitly states: “We support building a wall along our southern border and protecting all ports of entry. The border wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.”

The GOP isn’t just hostile to same-sex marriage, but to homosexuality itself.

Republicans repeatedly rejected efforts to even mention LGBT Americans by name in their platform. Instead, the GOP includes a defense of “natural marriage” and even embraces “conversion therapy”, the controversial and widely banned practice of trying to convert LGBT individuals to being heterosexual.

The GOP is so hostile to LGBT folks that the committee rejected a proposal to condemn Islamic terrorists’ targeting of LGBT individuals.

This is everything the GOP platform says about the environment:

In its entirety, it states, “We believe sound energy, agriculture, and environmental policy can foster sustainable economic growth. We are also the party of America’s growers and producers, farmers, ranchers, foresters, miners, and all those who bring from the earth the minerals and energy that are the lifeblood of our nation’s historically strong economy. We are the party of traditional conservation: the wise development of resources that keeps in mind the efforts of past generations to secure that bounty and our responsibility to preserve it for the future. Now we want to hear from you. What issues are most important to you?”

Global warming? Not an issue. But there is an open question about whether the platform actually calls for ending all national parks (by turning them over to the states) or just some of them. Snopes points out that the language adopted by the platform committee just calls for “certain federally controlled public lands” to be conveyed to states, but doesn’t say which ones.

Random things:

  • The GOP platform opposes adding gray wolves, prairie chickens and sage grouses to the endangered species list.
  • The platform calls for abolition of the IRS.
  • The platform calls for criminalizing abortion with no exceptions for rape or incense.
  • The platform opposes legalizing marijuana even for medical uses.

What do the Democratic and Republican platforms agree on? Two things I know of:

  • Both platform committees refused to condemn the Trans-Pacific Partnership, even though both presumptive nominees (currently) say they oppose it.
  • Both platform committees have called for a return to Glass Steagall. Everybody hates Wall Street. However, if such a thing comes to pass watch Congress water the hell out of it first.

Notorious RBG Gets Snarky

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been speaking her mind about Donald Trump.

Here’s a look at what Ginsburg, the 83-year-old justice appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993, said about Trump in three interviews.

One note: The media that did the interviews did not publish transcripts of Ginsburg’s complete remarks. What follows are all of the quotes that were published.

Interview July 7, 2016 with Associated Press

Asked what if Trump won the presidency, Ginsburg said: “I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs.”

Interview July 8, 2016 with New York Times

“I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.

Referring to something she thought her late husband, tax lawyer Martin Ginsburg, would have said, she said: “Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand.”

Interview July 11, 2016 with CNN

“He is a faker. He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. … How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that ….

“At first I thought it was funny,” she said of Trump’s early candidacy. “To think that there’s a possibility that he could be president ….

“I think he has gotten so much free publicity ….

“Every other presidential candidate has turned over tax returns.”

Now, all manner of people, including the New York Times editorial board, has the vapors because Supreme Court justices aren’t supposed to say political stuff like that. Trump himself tweeted that “her mind is shot,” which is hilarious coming from him.

Dahlia Lithwick:

There can be no disputing that this conduct was improper under the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, which prohibits judges from endorsing or opposing a candidate for office, and under basic conventions that prohibit judges from overt politicking during election season. We can debate how improper it actually was, but it’s clear she upset the norms that we generally ask judges to respect. And with all due respect, it’s not a legitimate counterargument to claim that it’s OK because Ginsburg is on a lot of tote bags and T-shirts sporting a crown.

The serious arguments in favor of Ginsburg’s conduct are that (1) the nation faces an unparalleled existential threat, at the nomination of a man who imperils the very rule of law and (2) nobody really believes judges are impartial anyhow, so why shouldn’t we celebrate her for ripping off the umpire mask and telling it like it is.

Under the first theory, Ginsburg is correct to expend whatever moral capital she has accrued to say out loud what most politicians are afraid to say, because we are in an extraordinary moment in history, a terrifying period of racism, xenophobia, and violence, and it’s incumbent on even traditionally temperate citizens to speak out. According to this view, the failure to condemn Trump would be its own form of cowardice, and Ginsburg only did what a sane person facing a fascist leader should do. Under the second theory, nobody over age 7 really thinks judges have no political preferences, and it’s better to have them laid bare than hidden under flimsy claims of oracular impartiality.

Like Lithwick, I applaud that first argument. The Trump candidacy shouldn’t be given the dignity of, well, dignity. It’s a joke. He’s a joke.

The Sort of Endorsement

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So today was the big endorsement of Hillary Clinton by Bernie Sanders. Philip Bump points out that his endorsement speech today was very similar to a non-endorsement speech of a month ago. The difference is that he  has been able to push Hillary Clinton to the left on some issues, at least as far as the platform is concerned. Bump concludes,

Sanders’s speech in June bit harder, using words such as “disgrace,” “combat,” “pain” and “starvation.” His comments endorsing Clinton were softer: “transforming,” “fix” and “struggling.”

You can also see where the Democratic platform ended up, based on what Sanders left out. The tuition relief was for public colleges, not all college students. The call for fixing the environment dropped a mention of a tax on carbon (and a ban on fracking, which Sanders also mentioned in June).

This was entirely the point, of course. The goal was for Sanders to make the case to his supporters that Clinton would be a champion for their issues, too — if not all of the issues and if not in the same way. He mirrored what he said a month ago because he was asked to send a message to his team that the revolution would go on, albeit with a new leader.

Except she’ll never be the “leader” to most Sanders supporters. Maybe they’ll vote for her, but they see her more as an obstacle to be manipulated than as a “leader.” I doubt very much she’s going to accomplish anything that the progressive Left wants, even if she tries. Which is another “if.”

William Greider writes,

In this season of political chaos, the party led by Hillary Clinton is holding on to the familiar past it knows—the glory days when New Democrats were the brilliant winners.

Confused and alarmed by the current Republican breakup, the Clinton machine has responded with crab-like caution, maybe hoping to have it both ways. Clinton-Obama veterans agreed early on that 2016 would be Hillary’s turn. She would bring her own assets and could run on her husband’s reputation as the popular, pragmatic centrist. Events did not cooperate. In this season of change, HRC’s new agenda sounds a lot like the same old, same old.

After a review of Bill Clinton’s record as POTUS, which could be seen as a betrayal of blue collar workers and unions, Greider continues,

In political terms, organized labor lost big. It was permanently displaced by Wall Street finance as the most influential constituency of the Clinton-Obama presidencies. The working class has not forgotten this brutal betrayal (pundits scold the losers, urging them to get over it). In fact, desperate working familes are still getting hammered by the ugly consequences.

Millions of high-wage manufacturing jobs were destroyed by cheap labor competition, just as the major corporations had intended. Did Bill Clinton know what he was doing? He’s a shrewd guy, and it’s impossible to believe he was unaware of the domestic destruction he was authorizing. Did Hillary Clinton know? Her silence on the subject is not reassuring.

Political reporters and op-ed economists in the prestigious newspapers continue to dismiss angry workers as deluded or just plain stupid. The tortured denials of what ordinary people know to be true in their own lives drip with class condescension, talking down to people with economic abstractions when their human losses are about real pain. These establishment commentaries typically have two omissions: The reporters seldom talk with the people actually victimized, and the opinion pieces almost never mention what happened to wages.

I still say that the only people who are genuinely enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton are upper-income white people over 50. Others may vote for her, but all the rah-rah is coming from people privileged enough not to notice.

After detailing a lot of ways the Democratic Party continues to sell out working people and blue collar jobs, Greider writes,

I recite these facts to demonstrate how distant the Democratic Party establishment has drifted from the everyday realities of working stiffs. Dem strategists and Clinton advisers, who were cheering progress, didn’t see jobs as an explosive issue for Election 2016. The official unemployment rate was grossly misleading, but it was good fodder or the campaign. The Clinton betrayal was forgotten long ago. Wrong again.

The events of 2016 derailed such optimistic expectations. HRC’s advantage succeeded in scaring off potential competitors for the nomination—all but Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders. Not to worry; the Clinton machine would brush him aside. But Bernie’s eye was on something much bigger than winning the White House (always unlikely for him). Senator Sanders aspired to encourage a “political revolution” that would restore democracy for the people and, not coincidentally, liberate the money-bound Democratic Party from its patrons. Clintonistas never seemed to understand that Bernie meant it. He still does. His clarity and conviction stole the show from HRC.

They still don’t think he means it, btw.

HRC’s dilemma looks like this: To vigorously confront the angry zeitgeist of 2016, the new party of Hillary Clinton would have to turn on the old party of Bill Clinton. To seek ownership of this year’s fed-up rebellion, HRC would have to speak for the anger instead of smothering it with platitudes. She would also need to acknowledge (gently) that vast destruction flowed from her husband’s presidency, but that things are different now.

I don’t think she’s got it in her to do that.

Don’t hold your breath. To execute such a hard-nosed leap, the Clinton machine would have to do a back flip that abandons not just Mr. Bill but also the Wall Street power brokers whom she trusts. Given HRC’s natural caution, it doesn’t seem likely she could ever make that break, especially since she’s still surrounded by Clinton veterans who are dreaming of a blowout election victory in November.

What was going to be Hillary’s best asset has turned into an awkward millstone. People will still ask what she really thinks about the family legacy. The GOP will demand an answer. Hillary’s avoidance doesn’t cut it. If Americans wind up choosing Donald Trump as their president, the faint-hearted Democratic Party will have to share the blame.

Back to the enthusiasm thing. Danielle Kurtzleben at NPR reports that Clinton has a huge enthusiasm gap among young people.

There’s a little good news for Clinton in the poll of 18- to 30-year-olds — in a matchup against Donald Trump, she clearly bests the New York businessman, 38 to 17 percent. But that leaves 45 percent of those young adults who said they were either undecided, wouldn’t vote or would vote for someone else (22 percent).

Another stat that bodes poorly for Clinton: Those who chose her aren’t exactly crazy about her — many instead simply dislike Trump. Those who chose Clinton are about evenly split: 47 percent said they “mainly support” her, while 53 percent said they “mainly oppose” Trump.

Young people may not be much of a factor in November, if large numbers of them remain ambivalent enough to stay home. But that doesn’t speak well for the future of the Democratic Party, either. And I don’t think the “endorsement” from Sanders is going to change that.  The only thing Hillary Clinton has going for her in this election is Donald Trump.

Judging by social media, the Dem party base has its share of older, complacent voters who assume that as long as Hillary Clinton wins in November, everything will be just fine. I don’t know what it would take for them to haul their heads out of their asses. But the true-blue Clintonista lives in a state of denial.

Texas Open Carry and the Dallas Shooting

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Right after last week’s massacre in Dallas I wrote on Facebook,

Today the New York Times explains why the Texas open carry law not only didn’t prevent the massacre; it made law enforcement’s job more complicated.

The Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, described to CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday the amount of confusion the armed protesters initially caused.

He said the event had attracted “20 or 30 people” who “showed up with AR-15 rifles slung across their shoulder.”

“They were wearing gas masks,” Mr. Brown said. “They were wearing bulletproof vests and camo fatigues, for effect, for whatever reason.”

When the shooting started, “they began to run,” he said. And because they ran in the middle of the shooting, he said, the police on the scene viewed them as suspects. “Someone is shooting at you from a perched position, and people are running with AR-15s and camo gear and gas masks and bulletproof vests, they are suspects, until we eliminate that.”

There were also some presumably armed men staging a counter-protest to BLM at the scene. I assume they ran also. It’s a wonder it didn’t turn into a regular battle, though.

Gun nuts gun rights activists have long argued that all mass shootings take place in “gun-free zones,” even though that isn’t actually true.

In a 2014 report, Everytown for Gun Safety, a pro-gun control group, said that from 2009 to July 2014, 18 multiple-victim U.S. shootings–meaning any incident where at least four people were killed with a gun–occurred in places where civilian handguns were allowed.

Of 33 incidents in public spaces, the report said, 18 took place wholly or in part where concealed guns could be lawfully carried. Conversely, no more than 15 incidents “took place entirely in public spaces that were so-called ‘gun-free zones,'” the report said.

The gun culties gun rights activists also like to deny that the presence of armed law enforcement officers count. For example, they will tell you that military bases are “gun free zones” because civilians and non-security personnel are unarmed. But the MPs are armed.

But I don’t think even Wayne LaPierre is demented enough to try to argue the Dallas shooting happened because it was a gun-free zone.

Update on the Dallas Shooting — No “Assault Weapon”

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Following up on what I wrote last week about assault weapons — a news report said the Dallas shooter used an SKS, which is a Soviet-designed semi-automatic carbine that’s been around since the 1940s. The standard SKS has a fixed magazine rather than a detachable one, which means it doesn’t qualify for anybody’s legal definition of “assault weapon.” There are models of the SKS that have detachable magazines, however, and these are illegal in California (at least). But because these weapons lack many of the other standard features attributed to “assault weapons,” they may not be considered assault weapons in some state codes even if they have detachable magazines.

This is an excellent example of why pushing for an “assault weapons” ban is stupid. Ban semi-automatic firearms, period, I say.

Senseless and Stupid

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Somebody must have locked The Donald in the basement this morning long enough to issue a statement in his name that sounds nothing like him. It was bland enough to not piss anybody off, in other words.

Except for one thing.

According to Aaron Blake, the statement included the line “The senseless, tragic deaths of two motorists in Louisiana and Minnesota reminds us how much more needs to be done.” This outraged many wingnuts, who refuse to believe  Alton Sterling and Philando Castile didn’t deserve to die. “I thought Trump supported LE [law enforcement]” mourned one guy.

It is clear that the shooter(s) was not affiliated with Black Lives Matter. BLM has issued a statement disavowing the shootings, and also saying,

Black activists have raised the call for an end to violence, not an escalation of it. Yesterday’s attack was the result of the actions of a lone gunman. To assign the actions of one person to an entire movement is dangerous and irresponsible. We continue our efforts to bring about a better world for all of us.

Some People literally didn’t get the memo. A lot of voices — coming entirely from the Right, from what I see — are calling for escalating violence. For example —

Most notably, Former Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh went on a tweetstorm against the Black Lives Matter movement, and cryptically warned, “This now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives punks. Real America is coming for you.” Because apparently the president of the United States is not “real America.”…

… Naturally, self-proclaimed “Internet supervillain,” Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, also immediately leapt into the fray, declaring Thursday night, “Black Lives Matter now gunning down police officers. Time to classify it as a terrorist organization. We need President @realDonaldTrump.” Drudge Report, likewise, swiftly announced “Black Lives Kill.” And The Blaze’s Tomi Lahren tweeted, then deleted, “Meet the new KKK, they call themselves ‘Black Lives Matter’ but make no mistake, their goals are far from equality.”

And then there’s this:

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called protesters who ran away from the hail of bullets that rained down on Downtown Dallas on Thursday night “hypocrites” during an interview Friday on Fox News.

“All those protesters last night, they turned around and ran the other way expecting the men and women in blue to protect them. What hypocrites!” an audibly emotional Patrick said.

If I believed in hell, I’d want there to be a special room where people like Lt. Gov. Patrick will be forced to write “I’m sorry I was such an idiot” on a blackboard for the rest of eternity. With bad chalk.

More Spontaneous Public Executions

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Two more horrific murders of black men at the hands of police. Details are still coming to light, but it appears Alton Sterling, 37, was selling CDs on the street outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge. A homeless man called the police to tell them Sterling was “brandishing a gun,” but so far no one else who saw Sterling noticed this.  Police showed up, immobilized Sterling on the ground, and then shot and killed him while he was immobilized. I don’t see any other way to interpret the videos of the incident. Sterling may or may not have been carrying a gun, but we’re talking about Louisiana here — very lenient gun laws.

Philando Castile, 32, died in a Minneapolis hospital after being shot by police after being pulled over for driving with a broken tail light. My understanding is that Castile informed the police officer that he was carrying a concealed weapon, for which he had a permit. Then the officer told him to show some ID. Castile reached for his wallet and was shot.

Of course, Sterling and Castile were black. Meanwhile, some white yahoo in Raleigh actually shot at cops and was apprehended without injury.

But right now I want to talk about reactions. As of this writing I don’t believe Donald Trump has made any statement whatsoever about the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. He’s still whining that people called him an anti-Semite, for some reason.

After Alton Sterling’s death Hillary Clinton issued a fairly standard this-is-just-awful statement that says a lot and nothing at the same time. Here ’tis:

“The death of Alton Sterling is a tragedy, and my prayers are with his family, including his five children. From Staten Island to Baltimore, Ferguson to Baton Rouge, too many African American families mourn the loss of a loved one from a police-involved incident. Something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans have reason to believe that our country doesn’t consider them as precious as others because of the color of their skin.

“I am glad the Department of Justice has agreed to a full and thorough review of this shooting. Incidents like this one have undermined the trust between police departments and the communities they serve. We need to rebuild that trust. We need to ensure justice is served. That begins with common sense reforms like ending racial profiling, providing better training on de-escalation and implicit bias, and supporting municipalities that refer the investigation and prosecution of police-involved deaths to independent bodies. All over America, there are police officers demonstrating how to protect the public without resorting to unnecessary force. We need to learn from and build on those examples.

“Progress is possible if we stand together and never waver in our fight to secure the future that every American deserves.”

Can’t really argue with it, except I would have said “atrocity” instead of “tragedy.” But we don’t want to piss off police unions, I guess. And the statement has a kind of boilerplate quality to it that skims the surface too much, to my mind. And how’s about making DOJ reviews automatic after police shootings? Still, it’s something, when what we got from Trump was nothing.

What was it T. S. Eliot wrote — not with a bang, but a whimper? Instead we get lots of bangs, followed by whimpering.