Tag: Trump

Fareed Zakaria is also somewhat baffled by J D Vance’s explanations for why impoverished white working class people love Trump. He’s not as baffled as I am, and he’s more polite about it, but he sees some holes in the argument.

The other, larger gap in Vance’s book is race. He speaks about the causes of the anxiety and pain of the white working class, but he describes the causes almost entirely in economic terms. Their jobs have disappeared, their wages have stagnated, their lives have become more unstable. But there is surely something else at work here — the sense that people who look and sound very different are rising up. Surveys, polls and other research confirm that racial identity and anxiety are at the heart of support for Trump.

Vance touches on this sideways, when speaking about the almost pathological suspicion his hillbillies have for Barack Obama. Vance explains that it is because of the president’s accent — “clean, perfect, neutral” — his urban background, his success in the meritocracy, his reliability as a father.

Wait. What? Vance “explains” that Obama’s reliability as a father is a reason for working class people to be pathologically suspicious of him? Why? Do they consider that “elitist” too? Is it snobbish and latte-sipping to be a good parent? If that is what he’s saying it’s just horrifying. It’s a Iago-type reason to hate someone – “He hath a daily beauty in his life/ that makes me ugly.” Apparently Obama makes people feel bad by being a good parent – and instead of trying to be good parents too, they respond by resenting him and supporting a man with no apparent morals of any kind.

“And,” one wants to whisper to Vance, “because he’s black .” After all, over the years the white working class has voted for plenty of Republican and Democratic candidates with fancy degrees and neutral accents. That’s not what makes Obama different.

The white working class has always derived some of its status because there was a minority underclass below it. In his seminal work, “American Slavery, American Freedom,” Edmund Morgan argues that even before the revolution, the introduction of slavery helped dampen class conflict within the white population. No matter how poor you were, there was security in knowing there was someone beneath you.

The rage that is fueling the Trump phenomenon is not just about stagnant wages. It is about a way of life under siege, and it risks producing a “politics of cultural despair.” That phrase was coined by Fritz Stern to describe Germany a century ago. The key to avoiding that fate is not a series of public policies — whether tariffs or tax credits — but enlightened politics, meaning leadership that does not prey on people’s fears and phobias.

Preying on people’s fears and phobias is all that Trump does.

A judge has referred Joe Arpaio for prosecution,

finding that they ignored and misrepresented to subordinates court orders designed to keep the sheriff’s office from racially profiling Latinos.

Federal prosecutors get to decide whether or not to pursue the case. Here’s hoping.

In his decision, Judge Snow removed several of Sheriff Arpaio’s powers, including his ability to oversee internal affairs investigations. The judge had already found that Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies had mishandled and manipulated such investigations, in part to obscure wrongdoing or neglect by deputies.

The lawsuit has already cost taxpayers more than $50 million in legal fees and contributed to Arizona’s reputation for bias against immigrants.

Gov. Doug Ducey has worked to redefine the state’s relationship to Mexico, bruised by the immigration law signed by his predecessor that empowered the police to ask about the legal status of anyone whom they suspected of being in the country illegally. Sheriff Arpaio, meanwhile, has remained a loyal ally of Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, amplifying his calls for a wall along the Southern border, paid for by Mexico.

Lie down with dogs, get up with motherfucking fleas.

The case was filed in 2007 on behalf of Latino drivers who claimed they had been systematically targeted by sheriff’s deputies during traffic stops and immigration patrols. Judge Snow agreed, ordering changes in training and procedures, including a requirement that officers relay by radio the reason for each stop before approaching a driver.

But in May, the judge found Sheriff Arpaio and his top deputies in contempt of court, saying that they had “engaged in multiple acts of misconduct, dishonesty and bad faith” and “demonstrated a persistent disregard for the orders of the court.” His decision to ask the United States attorney’s office to bring criminal charges came despite Sheriff Arpaio’s apologies and pleas by one of his lawyers, Mel McDonald, last month in court.

“One thing I’m convinced, judge, is that you want to see the process succeed,” Mr. McDonald said. He listed reasons against a criminal referral — Sheriff Arpaio’s age (he is 84) and “long career in public service,” his apologies for disrespecting the court’s order, and the “hundreds, if not thousands of hours” already spent to comply with it.

Judge Snow, who conducted the hearing on his feet because of a bad back, told Mr. McDonald that Sheriff Arpaio and Mr. Sheridan had “lied to my face” during the contempt hearings. Then he leaned closer to the microphone and said, “I am through putting up with that kind of stuff, and they’re going to be as responsible for what they do here as any other citizen of Maricopa County.”

Trump’s pals.

The New York Times on Tuesday:

Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chairman ousted last month over charges of sexual harassment, is advising Donald J. Trump in preparation for the all-important presidential debates this fall.

That’s nice, isn’t it? Good opening? Major party candidate for the presidency signs up a guy who was fired because of multiple accusations of sexual harassment. That tells women what Trump thinks of us.

How many women have accused Roger Ailes of sexually harassing them? At least 20.

[A]fter former Fox host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes, at least 20 other women have contacted Carlson’s attorneys too. A handful of those women reached out as witnesses, but almost all of them said they had personally experienced harassment from Ailes — who has denied all allegations so far.

Right now it looks like “at least 20” may be a conservative estimate of the number of women who have stories to tell about Ailes, although it’s not clear just how conservative. In addition to the women who reached out to Carlson’s attorney, numerous women, including current and former Fox employees, have spoken out publicly about their stories. Some have used their real names, and others have shared their stories with reporters anonymously.

Of course, some of the women sharing their stories publicly may also be among the 20-plus women Carlson’s attorneys have heard from. On the other hand, at least a few probably aren’t: Carlson’s attorneys told the Guardian they saw stories published in the Daily Beast that didn’t resemble stories they’d already heard from the women who reached out to them.

And he’s Trump’s buddy, and helping him with his debating skills. Vote the rape ticket.

Via Daily Kos:

More on Trump the friend of the working class.

Questions scrutinizing the hiring of undocumented immigrants at his luxury residential buildings are “pretty pathetic to be honest,” Donald Trump said Wednesday in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Trump also said he “can’t guarantee” that he doesn’t have undocumented immigrants working at his hotel projects since, as he claimed, there are anywhere between 11 and 34 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

…

The interview took place at Trump Tower in New York City, where 200 undocumented Polish immigrants reportedly helped demolish and construct his building decades ago.

Cooper asked if it was “hypocritical” that Trump has painted Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers given that he was involved in a 35-year-old lawsuit by those Polish immigrants, who alleged wage theft. “Anderson, when you have to go back 35 years to tell me about something, I think that’s pretty pathetic, to be honest with you,” Trump replied.

Ah yes. If you cheated 200 immigrants on their wages 35 years ago, then it’s no longer of any interest whatever, not even if you’re running for president. You were just a baby then, so it simply doesn’t matter. It may matter to the workers who were stiffed on their wages, but that’s their problem. They probably weren’t supposed to be here anyway.

Savior of the working class Donald Trump, as reported in the Nation a year ago by Michelle Chen:

While the Donald seeks election to a new post, roughly 500 workers at the hotel are focusing on a very different vote: They’ve been pushing to form a union for months, and are trying to snatch a bit of Trump’s campaign spotlightthis summer to call on him “Make America Great Again” right on his home turf. As a recent ad for the unionization campaign proclaims: “We think that working for Mr. Trump in Las Vegas is a chance to make our lives better…but only if he pays us the same wages and benefits as everyone else working on the Strip.”

No no no, unions are things those pesky elitist snobs who went to Yale talk about; decent working stiffs like Trump want nothing to do with them.

Of course, what do they expect from the man who’s built a brand for himself as a ferocious corporate overlord? His attitude on the campaign trail is as ruthless as his management style, laced with racial invective and almost self-caricaturing jingoism. (Not to mention hypocrisy—just ask the many low-wage immigrant laborers he has exploited over the years). But amid the buffoonery, the local hospitality union, Culinary Workers Union Local 226, is pressing serious charges of labor violations and denouncing his operations as a bastion of union busting in an otherwise union town.

In fact, the nearby Las Vegas strip and downtown area have a roughly 95 percent union density. Local 226, a Nevada affiliate of UNITE HERE, recently sealed several multi-year contracts covering tens of thousands of local food-service workers, housekeepers, and other hospitality staff, featuring wages and benefits topping $20 an hour, full health and retirement benefits, and workplace-grievance procedures. Not surprisingly, Trump’s staff is heavily comprised of immigrants whose terms of work lag behind union hospitality workers in benefits, wages, and job security.

But he’s “relatable.” That’s what counts, right?

86% of the workers had signed “Union Yes” cards.

Nonetheless, according to the union, the management has run a stealth campaign to persuade hotel staff that organizing is not in their best interest.

According to NLRB charges filed by the union, five hotel workers were “unfairly suspended for exercising their legal right to wear a union button and organize their coworkers” last year (they were eventually reinstated with back pay, along with an agreement to post workers rights publicly and not interfere with future organizing). Last June, the union filed new charges alleging the management “violated the federally protected rights of workers to participate in union activities” including “incidents of alleged physical assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, and threats by management.” The workers charged the managers with blocking organizers from distributing pro-union literature in the workers’ dining room, while stealthily allowing anti-union activists to campaign during work hours.

But, we’re told, the working class like him, because he’s not all snooty and educated like that awful Obama and that unspeakable Clinton.

He’s a union-buster, but we’re told with a straight face that he appeals to the working class.

Yesterday on Fresh Air Terry Gross talked to J. D. Vance, who wrote a memoir about growing up in rust-belt Ohio and hill country Kentucky, and being that kind of white working class. It’s an interesting interview, but in the last segment they talk about Trump and how he appeals to Vance’s family and friends – and his answers make no sense to me.

GROSS: I think a lot of people are mystified that working-class people would find anything to relate to in somebody whose accent might sound working class but was born into wealth and has, you know, is a billionaire if you, you know, listen to what he says about his net worth and who has, you know, like, you know, gold all over his many properties. I mean, there’s – he’s – it’s such an extravagantly flaunting it rich lifestyle that he leads. Like, it’s always a little hard to understand why somebody who so strongly identifies as working class would think that somehow he’d be able to best represent their interests.

Well, exactly – plus the fact that the way Trump made his money is building and selling massively expensive condos to massively rich people. He’s all about the big bucks and the people who have them. He calls people who aren’t like him “losers.” He doesn’t have a humane or egalitarian thought in his head.

I’m afraid I think Vance’s reply is unadulterated bullshit.

VANCE: I certainly understand why a lot of folks are surprised. I think a big part of it is just the way that Donald Trump conducts himself. A lot of people feel that you can’t trust anything Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama say, not because they necessarily lied a lot but because they sound so filtered and they sound so rehearsed. Donald Trump, if nothing else, is relatable to the average working-class American because he speaks off the cuff. He’s clearly unfiltered and unrehearsed.

Oh come on. That’s just childish.

And there is something relatable about that, even if, you know, half of the things that he says don’t make any sense or a quarter of the things that he says are offensive. There’s something to be said about relatability. And it’s not, you know – there’s been a lot written about how elite political conversation is not emotionally relatable to big chunks of the country. I think that in a lot of ways, Trump is just the first person to tap into that sense of disconnect in the way that he conducts himself with politics.

Ugh. He may be right about the facts, I don’t know, but the way he frames it is infuriating – as if Clinton and Obama are doing something wrong by being knowledgeable and polite, and it’s better and more “relatable” to be ignorant, rude, and belligerent.

A bit later Gross presses him on that point:

GROSS: I’m just curious, though, in terms of the cultural difference you see between your life and the Clintons’ – like, Hillary Clinton’s mother was, I think, poor. Bill Clinton had a single mother who was somewhere between poor and working class. They have a lot of money now. You have a lot of money now.

VANCE: Yeah. So I think that there are obviously a lot of things that are relatable about Hillary and Bill Clinton. But fundamentally, they’ve surrounded themselves by very elite people who went to very elite universities. And because of that, both in the way they conduct themselves and the things they seem to care about – they just seem very different from the people that I grew up around. And that makes it very hard for me to feel that Clinton – Hillary or Bill Clinton are very relatable.

But campaigns for president aren’t about being everyone’s best friend. Being “relatable” in the sense of not seeming educated should not be a criterion. I get it that everybody’s touchy and on the defensive about people who are more educated than they are, but all the same, you’d think people would also manage to accept that more and better education has its uses for government jobs.

There he is.

Donald Trump speaks at the Republican national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, July 2016. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Trump has done a makeover of his campaign, to make it…more aggressive. Huh. There was I thinking it was already as aggressive as it was possible to be, short of opening fire on everyone in sight. But apparently I was wrong, apparently it was all bunnies and flowers until now.

He’s hired the top guy at Breitbart to run things. That all by itself tells us all we need to know. Imagine if he’s elected: will Milo Yiannopoulos be Secretary of State?

Donald J. Trump has shaken up his presidential campaign for the second time in two months, hiring a top executive from the conservative website Breitbart News and promoting a senior adviser in an effort to right his faltering campaign.

Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, will become the Republican campaign’s chief executive, and Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster for Mr. Trump and his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, will become the campaign manager.

Bill O’Reilly for Attorney General! Pat Buchanan for Secretary of Labor!

People briefed on the move said that it reflected Mr. Trump’s realization that his campaign was at a crisis point. But it indicates that the candidate — who has chafed at making the types of changes his current aides have asked for, even though he had acknowledged they would need to occur — has decided to embrace his aggressive style for the duration of the race.

Who knew he’d ever unembraced it? Not I, certainly.

Mr. Bannon has no experience with political campaigns, but he represents the type of bare-knuckled fighter that the candidate had in Corey Lewandowski, his combative former campaign manager, who was fired on June 20.

Mr. Bannon has been a supporter of Mr. Trump’s pugilistic instincts, which the candidate has made clear in interviews he is uncertain about suppressing. He is also deeply mistrustful of the political establishment, and his website has often been critical of Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who has become a close Trump adviser, has also urged the candidate to dig in and prepare to fight harder, and in a more focused way, in what has quickly become one of the nastiest presidential campaigns in modern United States history.

Yeah, that’s the ticket! You haven’t been disgusting enough yet, Donnie, be even worse.

The candidate has bucked efforts to rein in his impulsive behavior, committing repeated gaffes after telling his aides he planned to adopt a more presidential tone.

He can only do what he can do. He can’t pretend to be more intelligent or thoughtful or decent than he is, because he doesn’t know how, because he isn’t intelligent or thoughtful or decent enough to know. He’s not equipped to pretend to be “more presidential” because he’s inferior goods.

Trump says he’ll “never, ever forgive” voters if he loses the election.

What a strange man. Does he think we care? Does he think we’re all best friends, and we’ll be crushed and mournful and forever saddened if he never forgives us?

Dude, I’ll never ever forgive you for running for this election, but you didn’t ask me and I don’t expect you to care. It works the same way for you. We don’t love you, we’re not your buddies, and we don’t care whether you forgive us or not. We’re not invested in you. We’re just not that into you. We don’t think about you except when you force yourself on our attention the way you’ve been doing. You don’t matter to us except as a threat and an embarrassment.

You’re a vulgar, trashy, nasty little man. We look forward to never thinking about you again.

Ahahahahahahaha – Trump is promising a “test” for immigrants to make sure we don’t let in any terrorists, but what makes that funny is that his proposed test would exclude him. He would fail that test so hard – he would get less than zero. He would owe somebody something, he’d fail it so profoundly.

Donald Trump called Monday for a Cold War-style mobilization against “radical Islamic terror,” repeating and repackaging calls for strict immigration controls — including a new ideological litmus test for Muslim visitors and migrants — and blaming the current level of worldwide terrorist attacks on President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

…

The speech was one in a series of prepared remarks the Republican presidential nominee has scheduled, amid criticism of controversial off-the-cuff policy pronouncements that he has later dismissed as jokes or sarcasm. Reading directly from a TelePrompter, a subdued Trump rarely departed from his script.

The principal new initiative was what Trump called “extreme vetting” for “any hostile attitude towards our country or its principles, or who believed sharia law should supplant American law. . . . Those who did not believe in our Constitution or who support bigotry and hatred will not be admitted for immigration into our country.”

See what I mean? Trump has an intensely hostile attitude toward many of the principles of our country, and he not only supports bigotry and hatred, he foments and incites them. He’s a hate-filled bigot himself, and the core of his campaign is working other people into a frenzy of bigotry and hatred. He’s the worst bigot and hater anyone has seen campaigning for president in living memory. He’s a flaming, proud, noisy, shameless, red-faced bigot and hater. His proposed ideological test would exclude him.

He’s got a fucking nerve lecturing anyone else about bigotry and hatred.

Trump’s campaign whatever Katie Pierson announced on CNN that “We weren’t even in Afghanistan at this time, Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem…” The host stared in consternation, and as soon as he could asked her if she meant to say that, and she looked a bit worried but said yes anyway.

A sharp-eyed commenter pointed out that she’s wearing a necklace of bullets.

Um.

The NY Times:

KISSIMMEE, Fla. — About an hour before Donald J. Trump was set to address a large crowd here on Thursday, Brandon Partin, a Trump supporter, draped a Confederate flag over the front rail just to the right of the stage.

The campaign people and the cops got it taken down, but…that’s Trump’s electorate.

Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Yay, slavery. Cue the patriotic music.

Two NY Times reporters look behind the curtain at Trump Campaign World. It’s not a mellow scene.

Back in June family and friends sat him down and told him he had to get a grip.

He would have to stick to a teleprompter and end his freestyle digressions and insults, like his repeated attacks on a Hispanic federal judge. Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey argued that Mr. Trump had an effective message, if only he would deliver it.

What “effective message”?

Also, of course, “effective” isn’t the same thing as good or useful or productive or workable.

At any rate, he said ok, but it didn’t happen. He got worse instead of better.

Advisers who once hoped a Pygmalion-like transformation would refashion a crudely effective political showman into a plausible American president now increasingly concede that Mr. Trump may be beyond coaching. He has ignored their pleas and counsel as his poll numbers have dropped, boasting to friends about the size of his crowds and maintaining that he can read surveys better than the professionals.

A guy with big crowds has a correspondingly big penis. Scientific fact.

In private, Mr. Trump’s mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say. He veers from barking at members of his staff to grumbling about how he was better off following his own instincts during the primaries and suggesting he should not have heeded their calls for change.

He broods about his souring relationship with the news media, calling Mr. Manafort several times a day to talk about specific stories. Occasionally, Mr. Trump blows off steam in bursts of boyish exuberance: At the end of a fund-raiser on Long Island last week, he playfully buzzed the crowd twice with his helicopter.

Then he playfully strafed them with his AK-47. Never say he can’t be a fun guy.

But in interviews with more than 20 Republicans who are close to Mr. Trump or in communication with his campaign, many of whom insisted on anonymity to avoid clashing with him, they described their nominee as exhausted, frustrated and still bewildered by fine points of the political process and why his incendiary approach seems to be sputtering.

Well no kidding. He’s stupid and ignorant and conceited, so he’s never going to be anything but bewildered by fine points of the political process, not to mention the fine points of policy.

Well Snopes messed this one up.

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump delivered a campaign speech in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in which he called President Obama the “founder of ISIS.”

He made the statement after reiterating the claim that he, Trump, had opposed the war in Iraq, calling it a “terrible mistake” and saying it had destabilized and “unleashed fury” in the Middle East:

And then Obama came in, and normally you want to clean up. He made a bigger mess out of it. He made such a mess. And then you had Hillary with Libya, so sad. In fact, in many respects, you know they honor President Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder. He founded ISIS.  And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton. Co-founder. Crooked Hillary Clinton.

The crowd responded with chants of “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

To be clear, even though Trump has flirted in the past with conspiracy theories about Obama’s supposed allegiance to Islam, he was not literally in this instance claiming that Obama and Clinton were founding members of the radical Islamist group (despite doubling down on the claim in a radio interview the following day). But the context shows he meant it metaphorically, at least, his intent being to lay all the blame for the “fury” unleashed in the Middle East and the rise of ISIS after the Iraq War on the actions or inactions of the Democratic incumbent and presidential nominee (while not mentioning that the war was started during the administration of President George W. Bush).

Excuse me? Yes he was. He said he was, in that interview in which he “doubled down.” You don’t get to say he wasn’t when he himself insisted that he was.

From Right Wing Watch:

Last night, My Faith Votes, the Religious Right effort overseen by Ben Carson that seeks to mobilize millions of Christians to vote in 2016, hosted another teleforum, this one featuring Religious Right activist and pseudo-historian David Barton, who told participants that they will answer to God if they fail to vote for Donald Trump.

Barton ran a pro-Ted Cruz super PAC during the Republican primary, but quicklyshifted his support to Trump once it was clear that he would be the GOP nominee, even going so far as to declare that Trump is obviously “God’s guy” in this election. As such, it came as no surprise to hear Barton tell caller after caller last night that Christians must vote for Trump and will have to answer to God if they don’t.

Barton said that Christians who refuse to support Trump are just looking for “excuses” and would probably have refused to vote for biblical leaders like King David because he was a murderer and adulterer or Noah because “he had trouble with drunkenness” or Lot, who slept with his own daughter.

Oh. Really? So a self-proclaimed “Christian” is saying we should be voting for murderers?

That’s interesting.

Christians who won’t vote for Trump, Barton said, need to realize that “maybe God’s got a different standard than what we do. Maybe at a national leadership level, there are people who do good things for the nation who have character flaws … What God calls great leaders wouldn’t fit your litmus test, but maybe you need to catch up with where God is rather than expecting God to catch up with where you are.”

Oh, excuuuuuuuuuuuse me for thinking that the god that is held up as the touchstone and source of morality might be thought of as disapproving of murder. If Christians are now admitting that their god is all for murder and wants us to vote for murderers, then maybe the pews will really start to empty.

Also, if God does have a different standard (which of course God does, which is one reason we reject God so vehemently), then how does David Barton (or anyone) expect us to know what it is? Conservative Christians do tend to focus more on sex than on harm to others, but even they don’t usually say God thinks murder is okie doke, so I’d love to know how David Barton expects us to figure out what God’s “different standard” is. What do we have to go on? Certainly there’s a lot of goddy murder in the bible, but generations of clerics have insisted that we’re supposed to take all that as a metaphor. What is the source of knowledge of God’s standard? How do we know when we have it right? How do we know what is God’s litmus test as opposed to our litmus test?

“We will stand before God one day and answer for everything we’ve said and thought and done,” he continued. “[God will say,] ‘I gave you your country, what did you do that with?’ ‘Well, I didn’t do anything because I didn’t like any of the candidates.’ Really? You think God is going to buy that? In Matthew 25 and Luke 19, the guy who was given something to do and didn’t do anything with it, he’s the one who got in trouble with the master. He’s going to say, ‘I gave you a vote. What did you do with that vote I gave you?’ ‘Well, I couldn’t use it for anybody.’ And again, we’re back to Matthew 25 and Luke 19 where Jesus turned to him and said, ‘Wait a minute, you didn’t do anything with what I gave you, at all?’ And that is the one who got thrown into outer darkness.”

That’s the weirdest application of the parable of the talents I’ve ever seen.

I think he’s just making it up as he goes along.