The business sense of it
Why does it surprise anyone that the Neville Chamberlain approach doesn’t work any better with Trump than it did with Hitler?
Late last year, ABC News spent $16 million to settle a defamation lawsuit with President Donald Trump. At the time, you could squint and see the business sense of it: Just pay up, say you’re sorry and this will all blow over.
Or, pay up, say you’re sorry, and next time the demand will be much higher. Which is more likely?
Across Corporate America, companies are learning the hard way that giving Trump what he wants won’t appease him — it will only stoke his appetite. (It seems some folks have forgotten the sage wisdom underpinning Laura Joffe Numeroff’s 1985 classic “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Spoiler alert: The mouse has some more demands.)
Not to mention the sage wisdom underpinning the widespread awareness that Chamberlain got it all profoundly wrong. We have been here before. Chamberlain’s policy was called, with disdain or rage, appeasement. You can’t appease a Hitler and you can’t appease a Trump.
ABC in December agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and pay $1 million in legal fees to the law firm of Trump’s attorney. It also published an editor’s note expressing regret for an on-air misstatement by George Stephanopoulos. The case had centered on the anchor’s imprecise wording around the 2023 verdict that found Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s. (Under New York law, Trump was not found liable for “rape,” as Stephanopoulos had characterized it.)
It doesn’t get any more squalid than that. Our revolting head of state forcibly shoved his revolting hand onto and into Carroll’s crotch, without her invitation or consent. He’s such a revolting human that he makes a big fuss about the word “rape” and extorts money to appease his big fuss. ABC should not have rolled over. Obviously.
Nine months after ABC conceded that fight, the network decided to throw in the towel on a fight that hadn’t even begun.
Just hours after the head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, made vague threats to suspend ABC’s broadcast license over comments by Jimmy Kimmel during his show, the network pulled the plug on the comedian’s late-night show indefinitely.
So, what’s next? Requiring Trump’s approval before hiring any new talent? Firing some old talent just in case Trump might not like them? Begging Trump to send a list of people he would like to see chatting about him on the talk show benches?
On Thursday, Trump and other Republicans insisted that Kimmel’s suspension was a decision driven by poor viewership rather than punishing dissent.
“He had bad ratings more than anything else,” Trump said. Senate Majority Leader John Thune echoed that sentiment, saying Kimmel was simply a victim of market forces and that the network made “economic market decisions.”
…
On Air Force One on Thursday, Trump also appeared to depart from the “business decision” line and acknowledge that he just really doesn’t like being made fun of and thinks networks’ broadcast licenses should be revoked if they air overwhelmingly negative perspectives on him.
“When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do,” he said. “They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
Yes they are. Yes, sir, they are. I would draw your attention to a little document known as the Bill of Rights aka the first ten amendments to the Constitution, in particular the first of said ten. Evening shows are in fact allowed to tell the truth about Donnie from Queens.
And he’s calling for more heads to roll.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115222372625104790
Government by social media. What a treat.
Why am I reminded of this?
YNNB, I had a Dane on my mind too.
The Dane-Geld
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: –
“We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”
And this is called asking for Dane-geld
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: –
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: –
“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
Rudyard Kipling
Hey so was I! In Patrick Stewart’s voice.
Well, if it’s poetry relevant to current affairs you want, here’s a bit of W. H. Auden:
Some good news: federal judge Steven Merryday has just struck down Donald Trump’s $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, book publisher Penguin and two Times reporters.
Link here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/19/trump-nyt-lawsuit-judge-ruling
@4 some years ago Leslie Fish set several Kipling poems to music – here’s Danegeld:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYzZHRwxc-Q
Trumpspeak is like Shakespeare by idiots. He’s got all the intelligence of Polonius, all the good will of Iago, and all the modesty and self-awareness of Lear.
And the loyalty and gratitude of Macbeth.
Good lord that ruling is SCATHING.
Unfortunately it also says Trump can refile, if he can manage to omit the 85 pages of superfluous invective.
I don’t think that Trump has the self-awareness to know he’s been scathed. He’s only going to notice that somebody said “No”, and register nothing else.