David Frum: Donald Trump Goes Full Fredo

[babylonsister]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/donald-trump-goes-full-fredo/549875/

Donald Trump Goes Full Fredo
But unlike the Godfather character, the president of the United States is backed by powerful people enabling him.

David Frum Jan 6, 2018 Politics


“I can handle things. I’m smart! Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!”

snip//

Michael Wolff’s scathing new book about the Trump White House has sent President Trump spiraling into the most publicly visible meltdown of his presidency. Until now, Trump’s worst moments have occurred behind closed doors, and have become known to the public only second-hand, leaked by worried officials, aides, and advisers. Yesterday and today, we have seen a Trump temper-tantrum in real time on Twitter, extended over hours, punctuated only by stretch of fitful presidential sleep. Trump’s tweets yesterday focused largely on the blockbuster Wolff book, “Fire and Fury.”

It may not be the newsiest—arguably it is the least newsy—but the most important moment in Wolff’s book are words attributed at second or third-hand to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the time of Donald Trump’s election. “He will sign anything we put in front of him.”

Who and what Donald Trump is has been known to everyone and anyone who cared to know for years and decades. Before he was president, he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist. Before he was the country’s leading racist conspiracy theorist, he was a celebrity gameshow host. Before he was a celebrity gameshow host, he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate. Before he was the multi-bankrupt least trusted name in real estate, he was the protege of Roy Cohn’s repeatedly accused of ties to organized crime. From the start, Donald Trump was a man of many secrets, but no mysteries. Inscribed indelibly on the public record were the reasons for responsible people to do everything in their power to bar him from the presidency.

Instead, since he announced his candidacy in mid-2015, Donald Trump has been enabled and protected.

The enabling and protecting not only continues. It accelerates.

snip//

Michael Wolff has done a crucial service, showing more intimately than any reporter yet the true nature of the man at the center of the American system. But without the complicity of other power-holders, Trump would drop from his central position like a tooth from a rotten gum. What we need to do now is widen the camera angle beyond Fredo Trump to the hard-faced men and women over his shoulders. Those are the people who put Trump where he is, and keep him there, corrupting the institutions of American democracy and troubling the peace and security of the world.

[madaboutharry]

1. David Frum is a courages man.

He has been sounding the alarm on this travesty from day one. Who would ever have thought that a man who was George W. Bush's speechwriter would be among the loudest voices in opposition to the Trump presidency? He stepped forward when almost all of his fellow republicans behaved like sheep. David Frum may be a true conservative with conservative ideas I don't agree with, but he is a patriot and has earned my respect.

[erronis]

10. Yes, I do think he has exonerated his sins while speaking for doubleu.

[SusanaMontana41]

2. Every day my anger sets a record.

Several times a day, actually.

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. Good, I was this angry BEFORE he was elected when half of this country

was supporting this vile piece of human excrement.

Finally people are catching up, but it might be too late. I suspect our justice system is about to be shut down where it applies to the traitors and it will go on overdrive against Hillary and the British guy who did the investigation.

Full blown fascism is about to happen.

[Sophia4]

29. Stephen Miller's interview this morning reminded me greatly of the rhetoric of a certain German

dictator whose name I will not use.

What the original dictator did was to impose a rigid, racist, hateful rule by a few people on his nation using the promise that he would take the side of the common man, the man who had suffered through inflation followed by debt followed by few jobs and low pay for those jobs, the hopeless of his Germany at that time.

That is what Trump did. He promised that he would help out and rescue the abandoned, the working people who really want a share of the prosperity the very wealthy enjoy. The promise is just hot air, but it wins votes. The programs that Trump and the Republicans are promoting will do nothing for the working people of our country. Nothing meaningful at all.

Those who lost their homes, their jobs, their savings, their union, their future thanks to world trade, automation and, in their view, immigration saw no hope in the Democratic Party. They voted, along with traditional Republicans, for Trump.

Now Trump did not win the majority of the popular vote. But he did get enough votes in states that were at one time strongly Democratic to win in the electoral college.

And he did it using the kind of promises that were made in Germany to a dispossessed, struggling, indebted (Germany owed war debt; we owe personal and government debt) people.

Trump's win is the Democrats' loss. You cannot serve the working American people and also serve the oligarchs. Neither the Democrats nor Trump can do that.

Democrats can offer real solutions to the problems of their time, but they have to offend a few wealthy donors to do it. And if the donors don't understand that it is in the best interest of the American people and of America that Democrats speak out strongly against the interests of the greedy wealthy, then we will continue to have Trump as our leader.

[mr_lebowski]

30. Well said ... yup ...

[Sophia4]

31. I lived in Germany and Austria some years ago -- on the economy -- not as a tourist

or wealthy guest.

The one positive thing that the oldtimers always said about the unmentioned dictator was that when he was in power, people had jobs. There was a war. Specific groups in the population were "deported" and killed or worked to death or near death in prison camps, but people had jobs.

On the other hand, military veterans on the street would stop me knowing I was an American and thank me for the good experiences they had in America when they were war prisoners. I didn't know prior to their stopping me that the US had taken prisoners of war and brought them to work on certain farms in America during the war. Several older men stopped me to thank me so the practice must have been more widespread than anyone could believe. Or did I just run into the few veterans who had been imprisoned here?

Anyway, the emulation of that particular dictator and his policies is striking at moments although I would not say they are alike. The German dictator had speaking ability that Trump does not have. And Trump loves the overly dramatic but has no talent for pageantry, never will. So we will probably be spared the exaggerations of that other dictator.

But some of the similarities are uncanny. Stephen Miller is out of the history book.

[Marcuse]

33. Hundreds of thousands of POWs were interned in the Jim Crow South.

If they were believed to be non dangerous they could come and go as they pleased and were granted the privilege of accessing segregated facilities reserved for whites. German POWs could compete with local blacks in the job market, if they so chose.

[SergeStorms]

36. There were thousands....

in Camps around Mew York State as well. Many of them ended up staying here, never wanting to return to the country of their birth.

[SusanaMontana41]

38. Agree. eom

[SusanaMontana41]

37. I hated him then, too. Plenty of room in my heart to hate him.

[Cosmocat]

3. HE'S the symtom

Not the problem.

[tomp]

11. agreed.

he's a problem, not THE problem. Trump represents the criminality of the american corporate/governmental system. It's always been there, it's just out front now. The fact that we appear to be unable to do anything about trump is because what underlies trump is so deeply entrenched systemically.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

24. Nicely said. Encouraging too.

You remind me that before you can clean up the cockroaches, you have to see they’re there.

It’s always worst at the beginnings of any cleanup job. And this is shining light on the darkest of global secrets, the actual rotten foundations of a polluted structure.

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. HELLO! thank you

He cant do this without the support of real bad people and there has to be a lot of them

[janterry]

4. It's not enough to say this

Frum and others need to spotlight Trump's protectors.

I like Frum and this article might be a start. But I'm waiting for his NEXT article. On McConnell - or whomever else.

Go get them!

[Lonestarblue]

14. Why has there been so little attention paid to McConnell?

McConnell received significant Russian donations to his PAC, and he has done nothing to help control Trump’s worst behavior (admittedly, that may not be possible). I have been perplexed about McConnell’s behavior over refusing to hold a hearing on Merrick Garland. Clinton was a heavy favorite at the time, yet McConnell stated that the next president should choose a Supreme Court justice. Had Clinton won, there was no benefit to waiting since she would have nominated a more liberal justice. I suppose he could have still refused a hearing, but he would have no excuse to wait four years for the 2020 presidential election. So what did he know that led him to believe that waiting for the 2016 election would result in a more favorable justice?

[Jarqui]

5. Hmmm

WaPo: President Trump has made 1,950 false or misleading claims in the 347+ days since taking office
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/02/president-trump-has-made-1949-false-or-misleading-claims-over-347-days/?utm_term=.1ea2763e84a0

70% of what Politifact has evaluated of Trumps words is mostly false, false or pants on fire false
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

Factcheck.org and Snopes do not seem to have stats but their findings are roughly similar to Politifact - that Trump is quite unreliable with what he tells us
https://www.factcheck.org/person/donald-trump/page/45/
https://www.snopes.com/tag/donald-trump/page/54/

Yesterday, Trump claimed he was “like, really smart” and “a very stable genius.”

Question: How can a person claiming to be "like, really smart" and "a very stable genius" get so many things he tells us so blatantly wrong or so easily disproved?

Answer: His claims of being “really smart” and “a very stable genius” are also false and the above links prove it.

Unfortunately here, I haven't been able to tell anyone around here something that most Americans do not already know: he's an idiot.

[Scarsdale]

6. The entire gop

leaders show on a daily basis what little regard they have for the office of the president. Propping up this total moron is really telling. They have no values, no morals and no ethics. To see them standing behind the orange ass while he declares that he is a "stable genius"was disgraceful. The only thing "stable" about this clown is the horse sh** left behind after the horses leave.

[joshdawg]

7. He will sign anything we put in front of him.

And that is the singular reason the cowardly republicans will never let anything happen to trump. They will not impeach, they will not implement the 25th Amendment, and they will never allow law enforcement officials to take him away in handcuffs...............which I would give up a year's salary to see first hand.
Today's republicans are no more than pond scum................and I apologize to pond scum everywhere.

[Lonestarblue]

16. Pence would also sign anything.

Certainly Trump is more of a daily horror show, but Pence could actually be worse as President because he is a sneaky SOB who wants to force his so-called Christian beliefs on the entire nation, and who knows what laws he could push. But McConnell and Ryan could put any legislation in front of him and Pence would sign it. So why the extreme protection for Trump? Are they truly that worried that his base will not vote for Republicans in 2018 if they remove Trump? His base are rabid Republicans! Some might stay home, but most would still vote because Republicans would make up stories that Democrats created an environment that forced them to remoVe Trump. Or does Trump, through his Russian friends, have compromat on them? After all, it was reported that both the DNC and RNC were hacked, but no Republican emails were ever released. We certainly live in curious times!

[ginnyinWI]

18. And this is why they all stand around with such smug looks on their faces!

They've got a rubber stamp in the WH. A boob who will do whatever they want.

These are the puppet masters that have to be thrown out!!

[joshdawg]

35. Yes, yes, and oh, BTW.........YES!

What I wouldn't give to see that smug grin being wiped off their faces.
The only thing republicans crave is power. They are clueless about governing and they don't care.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. "complicity of other power-holder" is exactly right.

Greedy RepubliCONs.

Keep the brands welded together in 2018.

[zentrum]

9. It's a Republican

.....coup. The reason they didn't stop him is----it's a coup!

[NNadir]

12. A beautiful locution this...

"...without the complicity of other power-holders, Trump would drop from his central position like a tooth from a rotten gum. What we need to do now is widen the camera angle beyond Fredo Trump to the hard-faced men and women over his shoulders. Those are the people who put Trump where he is, and keep him there, corrupting the institutions of American democracy and troubling the peace and security of the world."

Depressingly beautiful. This congress is the most outrageously corrupt and venal congress since the years before the American Civil War, a congress that, by the way, led to the disintegration of the United States into a war which, regrettably, we are still fighting, still involving racist fools, although, at least for the time being, we are thankfully fighting this war without guns, for the most part.

[RandomAccess]

23. He's a fine writer, and in my experience

you have to be a fine thinker to be a fine writer. Logic, insight, vocabulary, a sense of the poetic, and more. I'm sure there are many things I'd differ with him about, as he's still a conservative, but he certainly has gained my respect -- and gratitude -- as a valuable anti-Trump voice.

[smirkymonkey]

13. K&R

[louis c]

15. David Frum must read DU

My post yesterday morning.

Link;
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210065212

[Eliot Rosewater]

28. I thought that was familiar, yours came first? Crazy...good for you

[George II]

17. Here you go:

[Paladin]

19. "...a man of many secrets, but no mysteries."

That ought to be carved in granite, someplace, regarding President Fredo. Terrific writing by Frum.

[Buns_of_Fire]

20. There you have it: "President Fredo"

Mario Puzo and John Cazale must be laughing.

[IluvPitties]

21. Great read!

[Perseus]

22. He will sign anything we put in front of him.

That is the KEY of this presidency, Trump is the monkey who can handle a pen.

People need to start paying less attention to the monkey business of Donald Trump, I am not saying we should forget it or let it go, but the focus cannot be so intense on the tweeters and his childish public comments. Everyone needs to focus on McConnell and Ryan, the evil brain behind stupid.

Ryan is a devoted pupil of Ayn Rand, who through fantasy has managed to convince a lot of people that it is ok to be a bastard, a conniving SOB, and Ryan is as narcissistic, and maybe more, than Trump, he just knows how to control it, while Trump does not. That smirk of his shows his narcissistic nature, he is projecting those thoughts he has had since high school of destroying everything in his path that can help anyone in a different economic level as his. He must be removed from office and the efforts and focus must be placed on his democratic opponent to help him win that post.

McConnell, a natural evil being, is more of a follower of Ryan than an idea being, but no credit should be taken from him for all the bad he does on a daily basis.

It is important to understand that Trump does not know what he signs, he may repeat little beats and pieces of the bill he signs, but those amount to the name of the bill, and a few lines of what Ryan and McConnell tell him the bill does. If anyone asked Trump to explain one of those bills he would not go past the "it's a great bill, the greatest!"

Focus on what counts, although Trump and his family should be prosecuted, the real damage is being done behind the scenes.

[BadgerMom]

25. K and R

[wiggs]

32. Glad he mentioned that the Wolff observations about his incompetence and poor

character have been expressed first by others going back to the campaign.

Inscribed indelibly on the public record were the reasons for responsible people to do everything in their power to bar him from the presidency.

We heard a lot of the same stuff from people who knew him well, including 5 of his biographers, before the election and more since. I don't know why the Wolff book needs to stand alone in a vacuum during media discussions. It should be part of an overall discussion that includes endless other sources, including WH insiders, with thorough smart discussion ending in resolution or sense of consensus. There should be no question about what kind of person Trump is...it's all out there. Instead, media and especially RW pundits want the incredibly dangerous issue of an immature, incompetent, compromised president to boil down to Wolff's credibility, the few mistakes in the book, and whether or not Wolff talked with Trump on the phone or in person.

Frum's article is good. Most of what we hear, though, is dumbed down journalism reflecting the anemic state of public discourse that wants ratings over resolution.

[ecstatic]

34. +1000. nt

[Gothmog]

39. K&R