GOP Establishment Shrugs As Democracy Crumbles Under Trump

Steven Rosenfeld

GOP Establishment Shrugs As Democracy Crumbles Under Trump

May 1, 2017 3:29 pm

It’s become the new abnormal.

Trump’s decrees, accusations, posturing. His transparent lies, threats, reversals. Then comes the clean-up crew, the White House propagandists, pretending he’s serious.

Half the media plays it straight, according Trump a gravitas unsupported by facts or details. Others, from TV comedians to seasoned political columnists, cannot. Whatever being presidential or serious governing is, they know that’s not Trump.

One-hundred days in, what are we to make of this confusing mess? So many conceits and balls are in the air. We know he likes it that way. Ending Obamacare. Giving the super rich a trillion-dollar tax cut. Building the wall with Mexico. Reviving king coal.

America has become a new dystopia. People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, believe what they want to believe. The latest spin from Establishment Republicans—who abhor Trump—is he is a bumbling but harmless fool. They believe they have his number—he’s easily provoked, pushed, manipulated. In the end, all bark and no bite.

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/gop-establishment-shrugs-democracy-crumbles-trump/

The Mistake Christians Made in Defending Bill OReilly

By KATELYN BEATYMAY 2, 2017

Institutions plagued by sexual assault scandals tend to look alike: They are usually insular organizations that resist external checks and revolve around authoritative men.

This characterization fits Fox News, which recently fired its host Bill O’Reilly after sexual harassment allegations against him (and pressure from advertisers) mounted. But it is also applies to the white evangelical Christian community. This group is not a monolith, but its social hierarchy often functions like the military, a university or private business. It’s not a coincidence that conservative evangelical leaders tend to resist taking harassment and assault claims seriously.

Eric Metaxas, a best-selling Christian author, tweeted after the firing that Mr. O’Reilly’s ouster was “tremendously sad” and that his show had been a “blessing to millions.” When people responding to his tweet noted that he was silent on the harassment itself, he wrote “Jesus loves Bill O’Reilly” and told his followers to pray for their enemies.

https://twitter.com/ericmetaxas/status/854773930976051202

Many Christian leaders responded to Donald Trump’s bragging about sexual assault with a similar line of defense. Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, the country’s largest Christian college, said that “we’re all sinners” and that Mr. Trump had apologized. (In fact, Mr. Trump has said that he doesn’t ask God for forgiveness and didn’t need to ask his wife for it either.) Mr. Falwell later claimed to have proof that the women accusing Mr. Trump of sexual harassment were lying.

David Brody, a correspondent with the Christian Broadcasting Network, excused Mr. Trump’s language at the time by saying, “We all sin every single day.” Jim Garlow, a prominent California pastor, refused to “cast any stones” at Mr. Trump, invoking Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel of John. He then called Hillary Clinton a modern-day Herod who would kill all the unborn babies if elected.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/opinion/bill-oreilly-shielded-by-christians.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=opinion

The Collapse of American Identity

By ROBERT P. JONESMAY 2, 2017

Robert P. Jones, the chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, is the author of “The End of White Christian America.”

After the British writer G. K. Chesterton visited the United States for the first time, he remarked that America was “a nation with the soul of a church.”

Mr. Chesterton wasn’t referring to the nation’s religiosity but to its formation around a set of core political beliefs enshrined in founding “sacred texts,” like the Declaration of Independence. He noted that the United States, unlike European countries, did not rely on ethnic kinship, cultural character or a “national type” for a shared identity.

The profoundness of the American experiment, he argued, was that it aspired to create “a home out of vagabonds and a nation out of exiles” united by voluntary assent to commonly held political beliefs.

But recent survey data provides troubling evidence that a shared sense of national identity is unraveling, with two mutually exclusive narratives emerging along party lines. At the heart of this divide are opposing reactions to changing demographics and culture. The shock waves from these transformations — harnessed effectively by Donald Trump’s campaign — are reorienting the political parties from the more familiar liberal-versus-conservative alignment to new poles of cultural pluralism and monism.

An Associated Press-NORC poll found nearly mirror-opposite partisan reactions to the question of what kind of culture is important for American identity. Sixty-six percent of Democrats, compared with only 35 percent of Republicans, said the mixing of cultures and values from around the world was extremely or very important to American identity. Similarly, 64 percent of Republicans, compared with 32 percent of Democrats, saw a culture grounded in Christian religious beliefs as extremely or very important.

These divergent orientations can also be seen in a recent poll by P.R.R.I. that explored partisan perceptions of which groups are facing discrimination in the country. Like Americans overall, large majorities of Democrats believe minority groups such as African-Americans, immigrants, Muslims and gay and transgender people face a lot of discrimination in the country. Only about one in five Democrats say that majority groups such as Christians or whites face a lot of discrimination.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/opinion/the-collapse-of-american-identity.html?emc=edit_th_20170502&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284

Donald Trump Embraces Another Despot - By the NYT Editorial Board

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The United States has long seen itself as a beacon of democracy and a global advocate of human rights and the rule of law. It has faltered, sometimes badly, undermining leaders whose views did not fit its strategic objectives and replacing them with pliant despots. Yet for the most part American presidents, Republican and Democratic, have believed that the United States should provide a moral compass to the world, encouraging people to pursue their right to self-government and human dignity and rebuking foreign leaders who fall short.

Like so much else under President Trump, though, this idea has now been turned on its head and people are worried about the very survival of the values on which America built its reputation and helped construct an entire international system, including the United Nations. The latest example is Mr. Trump’s decision to invite Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, to the White House.

Though the Philippines is an ally and a democracy, Mr. Duterte is neither a democratic leader nor a worthy ally. For about two decades as mayor of Davao, he was accused of allowing death squads to roam the city and kill freely. Most victims were poor drug users and low-level criminals, but bystanders, children and political opponents were also caught up in the bloodshed.

After his election last year, Mr. Duterte took the killing campaign nationwide, effectively giving free license to the police and vigilantes. He has boasted about his tenure in Davao, and admitted to personally killing three kidnappers without trial. The mayhem got so bad that last week a Filipino lawyer formally asked the International Criminal Court to charge Mr. Duterte and 11 officials with mass murder and crimes against humanity over the extrajudicial killings of nearly 10,000 people over the past three decades.

During the last administration, Mr. Duterte disrespected President Barack Obama by calling him the “son of a whore” and threatened to abandon his country’s alliance with the United States for one with China. This is obviously not a man who should be welcomed to the White House.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/donald-trump-embraces-rodrigo-duterte.html?emc=edit_th_20170502&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284

No cut in salt, fewer grains: Gov't eases school meal rules

Source: Associated Press




By MARY CLARE JALONICK
1 hour ago

LEESBURG, Va. (AP) — Schools won't have to cut more salt from meals just yet and some will be able to serve kids fewer whole grains, under changes to federal nutrition standards announced Monday.

The move by the Trump administration partially rolls back rules championed by former first lady Michelle Obama as part of her healthy eating initiative.

As his first major action in office, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the department will delay an upcoming requirement to lower the amount of sodium in meals while continuing to allow waivers for regulations that all grains on the lunch line must be 50 percent whole grain. Schools could also serve 1 percent flavored milk instead of the nonfat now required.

"If kids aren't eating the food, and it's ending up in the trash, they aren't getting any nutrition — thus undermining the intent of the program," said Perdue, who traveled to a school in Leesburg, Virginia, to make the announcement.

Read more: https://www.apnews.com/81e28e35eeed4fed98c46a49f32044cd/Trump-administration-to-roll-back-some-school-meal-standards?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP_Politics

AND PIGS CAN FLY -- Trump: Steve Bannon Is Actually 'Alt-Left'

In an interview with Bloomberg News published on Monday, President Donald Trump claimed that infighting in his White House had subsided—infighting that a month ago was described by administration officials to The Daily Beast as “nonstop.” In doing so, Trump praised his White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, who just last month the president was publicly dissing.

Trump also revealed his own nickname for Bannon’s nationalist (and hard-right) ideology: "alt-left," a riff on the term “alt-right,” for which Bannon previously said the website Breitbart served as “the platform.”

“Bannon’s more of a libertarian than anything else, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told Bloomberg News.

Bannon does not identify as libertarian; he self-IDs as a right-wing, anti-globalist “nationalist,” and libertarians widely loathe Bannon. Bannon has, however, once called himself a “Leninist,” in style if not substance or ideology. Ironically, when Steve Bannon tried to set up a Breitbart India, the Mumbai-based writer Amit Varma, who he met with to launch the enterprise, rejected the idea on the grounds of being a pro-immigration, pro-gay-rights libertarian, as The Daily Beast reported in March.

—Asawin Suebsaeng

###

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/05/01/trump-steve-bannon-is-actually-alt-left?via=desktop&source=copyurl

Wilbur Ross Says Syria Missile Strike Was 'After-Dinner Entertainment' at Mar-a-Lago

Source: Variety



MAY 1, 2017 | 02:03PM PT

Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recalled the scene at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, when the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was interrupted by the strike on Syria.

“Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria,” Ross said. “It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.” As the crowd laughed, Ross added: “The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment.”

Ross, a billionaire financier, is new to government service. In the lunchtime conversation with David Rubenstein, co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, Ross reflected on his first impressions of public service.

“I’ve been heartened,” he said. “I thought the quality of people in the government was not as high as it has turned out to be. There are actually quite a lot of very good, very serious, very intelligent people wanting to do their best. It’s just they’ve been trapped in a fundamentally dysfunctional system.”

Read more: http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/wilbur-ross-commerce-secretary-syria-missile-strike-tax-cuts-1202405269/

Donald Trump's Andrew Jackson-Civil War Answer Is All Steve Bannon

President Trump’s revisionist, Andrew Jackson-related history can be traced to none other than Steve Bannon.

ASAWIN SUEBSAENG0 5.01.17 11:07 AM ET

-snip-

If you’re wondering why Donald Trump enjoys chatting about Andrew Jackson so much, the answer to that question is Stephen Bannon, the chief strategist in the Trump White House.

As The Daily Beast reported in March, Bannon has, since the 2016 presidential campaign, actively pushed Trump to learn more about Jackson and to play up comparisons, however flawed, between Jackson’s populism and Trumpian nationalist-populist rhetoric and themes. In March, Trump even made a high-profile visit to Jackson’s Nashville tomb, where Trump solemnly saluted the deceased president.

President Trump’s love affair with the ghost of President Jackson is a relatively newfound one. For instance, @realDonaldTrump’s only other pre-2017 tweet about Jackson was tweeted in July 2013, when he wrote: “Interesting… the last time a Democrat succeeded a two-term Democratic pres. was in 1836 when Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson.”
Bannon, the former head of Breitbart and a longtime “history nerd,” would often discuss Jackson’s historical legacy and image with Trump on, and after, the campaign trail, and how the two political figures had a lot in common, according to officials in the Trump campaign, presidential transition, and administration speaking to The Daily Beast.

“During the race, Trump would say he had heard this pundit or this person making the comparison, and Steve would encourage him and tell him how it was true,” a Trump campaign adviser, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said in March. “It was a way to flatter Trump, too. Bannon and Trump talked about a lot, but this was the president they had casual conversations about the most.”

According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Bannon had suggested and had given Trump a “reading list” of articles and biographies on Jackson, and literature on Jacksonian democracy and populism. Stephen Miller, another top Trump adviser, also recommended and offered related reading material to Trump, one senior Trump administration official said.

-snip-

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/01/donald-trump-s-andrew-jackson-civil-war-answer-is-all-steve-bannon

Hunting down runaway slaves: The cruel ads of Andrew Jackson and 'the master class'

By DeNeen L. Brown May 1 at 10:20 AM



“Stop the Runaway,” Andrew Jackson urged in an ad placed in the Tennessee Gazette in October 1804. The future president gave a detailed description: A “Mulatto Man Slave, about thirty years old, six feet and an inch high, stout made and active, talks sensible, stoops in his walk, and has a remarkable large foot, broad across the root of the toes — will pass for a free man.…”

Jackson, who would become the country’s seventh commander in chief in 1829, promised anyone who captured this “Mulatto Man Slave” a reward of $50, plus “reasonable” expenses paid. Jackson added a line that some historians find particularly cruel.

It offered “ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred.”

The ad was signed, “ANDREW JACKSON, Near Nashville, State of Tennessee.”

Jackson, whose face is on the $20 bill and to whom President Trump paid homage in March, owned about 150 enslaved people at The Hermitage, his estate near Nashville, when he died in 1845, according to records. On Monday, President Trump created a furor when he suggested in an interview an interview with the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito that Jackson could have prevented the Civil War.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/04/11/hunting-down-runaway-slaves-the-cruel-ads-of-andrew-jackson-and-the-master-class/?utm_term=.a16a6965ca70&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1

Jake Tapper issues brutal takedown of Trump's dictator praise