Charles M. Blow: Trump's Lasting Legacy

[babylonsister]

Trump’s Lasting Legacy
America has changed under this president.
By Charles M. Blow
Dec. 15, 2019



The impending impeachment of Donald Trump will be a rebuke, but it will not be a restraint.

Indeed, if the Senate votes to acquit Trump, as it is expected to do, the precedent will be set, and the die will be cast: A president can do almost anything to win re-election. And he can do anything at all to avoid accountability.

This is the new America, one in which all the old rules have been wiped away, one in which corruption is tolerated, one in which truth is denigrated, one in which tyrants are venerated.

It is tempting to think of this moment, this presidency, as a blip or an anomaly, as a horrible mistake the country made and will soon redress. But, I think that take is ill considered and overly optimistic.

What has happened in America under Trump is a tectonic shift that is generating an unthinkable realignment. Trump has poked and prodded the limits of acceptability, and he has found them to be not fixed, but flexible. He has continuously stretched the range of acceptable behavior. In fact, a post-impeachment Trump, punished but still in power, is likely to be even more emboldened and unbound.

At the same time, the American people have had their own sense of what is acceptable stretched and reset. The unthinkable seems to be happening daily. Television news is an unending string of “breaking news” banners. Investigations and exposés by the press may dazzle and awe, but the moments they produce are mere blips. Keeping track of all the corruption and grift is exhausting, and maybe that’s the point.

Trump and his administration have so overwhelmed the country with successive outrages that it all begins to flatten out, to smooth out, to become a kind of toxic new normal.

more...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/opinion/donald-trump-legacy.html?fbclid=IwAR1XXE6YYD81DWbQO7u7mi--XjW35zJJj_zN0sNoQvCLzUjM5V8OLOjtxFQ

[bullwinkle428]

1. K&R - this needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

[tanyev]

2. Republicans will suddenly rediscover their obsession with oversight and the rule of law

the second a Democratic president is elected.

[calimary]

11. Yep. That'll be the test.

I imagine they’re already setting up for an attempted “payback impeachment.”

I distinctly recall hearing references to “payback for Nixon” during the Clinton impeachment. These bastards were just lying in wait, and holding a big fat grudge.

Bastards.

Good Grief, I hate the damn GOP.

[Poiuyt]

16. The next Democratic president and his/her administration will have to be squeaky clean

[Aristus]

18. The last one was, and they still ragged him to the dogs and back.

[Poiuyt]

19. True, but they weren't able to nail him with anything

We know republicans will be trying their hardest so it's vital that the next Dem president not give them a foothold.

[iluvtennis]

21. Exactly....but then we can claim they've set a precedence. nt

[MarianJack]

3. Whenever my siblings and I were doing something boneheaded, which was frequently...

...my father would look at us and ask one simple question.

Did I ever tell you about the guy who kept hitting himself in the head with a hammer because it felt so good when he stopped?

THAT is the Dolt45 "administration" to a friggin' "T!"

RESIST!

[MyOwnPeace]

7. Now THAT..........

was a wise Father!

[GusBob]

4. How many times have you heard

How low can he go?

Bit by bit step by step. Like the frog in the pot on the stove

Hitler did the same thing, gradually

[PatrickforO]

5. We are in real danger of permanently losing this republic.

If we don't cast Trump out of office in 2020, I fear anything good this country ever stood for will be doomed, and all the bad stuff this country ever stood for will be amplified, magnified until that's all that is left.

[KPN]

12. Right there with you on that. It's frightening.

[NewJeffCT]

6. That's why we need to utilize the strategy Tim Wise mentioned a few months ago

Focus on Trump's racism and sexism ONLY - use that to drive turnout with African American voters and Women. Too many scandals with Trump erodes their power with the media - every scandal is overshadowed by a new scandal later in that day or the next day and is soon old news and forgotten a week later. Sure, mention other issues as they come up, but keep the focus on a few issues.

Look how that worked in 2016 - Clinton - the focus was on emails, both DNC and her own; Trump, new scandal every day, many that would have tanked ANY previous candidate of either party. However, in the minds of the media, Clinton's one fake scandal was given equal weight to dozens upon dozens of Trump scandals.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Pepsidog]

15. Yes and a positive message about return to common decency, respect for one another. Attack Trump's

directly about being a liar, cheat, racists etc. didn’t work before. But a a message about who we are and what we stand for might resonate. We are all tired of living the daily Trump grind. We are all sullied by how he has taken America to new lows and divided us. After 8 years of Bush, Obama’s positive message was welcomed. We just need the right person to deliver that message. Michelle Obama.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. That would, surely, guarantee that his corruption and lies are normalised

If you focus solely on his racism and sexism (which were, of course, fully on display in 2016 - the campaign start of calling Mexicans rapists and killers, "grab 'em by the pussy" etc.), then you are saying that we shouldn't talk about his illegal, anti-constitutional acts, or his constant lying.

Perhaps there is some magic formula by which that focus would persuade more women and African-Americans to turn out to vote against him, but even if that gamble were to prove correct, then you would have got rid of him in 2020, but left in place the precedent Blow worries about - that it's OK for a president to break the law to get re-elected. You'd just be saying "yeah, but he better not be racist or sexist while he's doing it".

[NewJeffCT]

25. Focusing on David Duke's racism

didn't mean his corruption and malfeasance were normalized - by defeating him resoundingly the 2nd time, it repudiated David Duke entirely. He was essentially out of politics for over 20 years until Trump came along.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. You don't seem to understand the OP

It's not about "what's the best way of getting Trump to lose the 2020 election"; it's about "Trump and the Republicans are normalizing the theft of elections by presidential candidates and presidents", and your proposal is to turn a blind eye to that theft. Saying "Duke wasn't elected again" doesn't help prevent the trashing of constitutional norms, does it? Hell, it doesn't even show that racist or sexist candidates were never elected again in the USA after Duke. The point of the OP is that it's not just Trump that's a problem.

[coti]

30. Totally agreed.

This is about saving democracy. Democracy, and our other fundamental values, is where our focus needs to be.

[olegramps]

8. I can only add that this not something new but only intersified by each succeeding administration.

Every Republican administration from Nixon on has been rocked by lawlessness with dozens sent to prison. The Republican Party is lawless criminal enterprise. It can not reformed, but only destroyed if we are to have a society based on law and not men.

[Wounded Bear]

13. Trump is the culmination of the shit Repubs have been doing since Nixon...

TBS.

[olegramps]

20. I hope that more and more people of good faith come to realize what is happening.

[KPN]

14. And we as a society gave them a relative pass

in the past. We addressed all of it as white collar crime, with an air of forgiveness and comity. We moved on for the good of the nation as opposed to condemning the past. We operated foolishly on the basis of trust, that these as a whole are basically good people in the end. All the while they took note of their gains and, emboldened, plotted further to defeat democracy.

[Ferrets are Cool]

9. A "New Normal" is what we absolutely must NOT allow nt

[RobertDevereaux]

22. Absolutely agreed.

NEVER NORMALIZE this toxic behavior!

[NRaleighLiberal]

10. I predicted normalization on election theft night.

should not all be a surprise to anyone paying attention to our current culture and state of the so-called media.

[fwvinson]

17. One World Order?

Isn't that the one world order that these "tea-partier's" have been crying and yelling about for 30+ years?

[appalachiablue]

23. Exhausting your opponent, making them expend effort, is an age-old tactic

-> "Keeping track of all the corruption and grift is exhausting, and maybe that’s the point."

[bronxiteforever]

26. +1

[coti]

29. This is another reason why our focus needs to be on our affirmative values.

Values like truth, decency/kindness, voting integrity, checks and balances, and fairness. It keeps us from continually responding to others' crap and saves energy.

[coti]

28. I disagree we'll see a new normal. What we're seeing is a reminder.

There will be, and there already is, a pushback against this. It is a demand to re-establish what is important to our society, to stop taking our values for granted. To put laws and processes in place that protect those values in a world that is changing extremely quickly, and to educate people.

And why does everyone seem to so easily dismiss or forget that the people encouraging the lies and corruption are in the MINORITY, here? The decency of the majority of the American people remains.

One thing, among many, we're going to need to do to protect our democracy is get rid of the Electoral College. It's encouraging this corruption and has done incredible damage over the years.

[Hekate]

31. There's truth in every word. Thanks for this by Charles Blow. nt