Chris Cillizza, formerly of the Washington Post, presently of CNN, eternally a buffoon, wrote today that he thought Trump’s United Nations address was “much more poetic” than Trump’s prior speeches. From this, one can say that CNN wastes at least as much money as Cillizza’s salary & benefits. (There are, probably, vile limericks that are…
Trump
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Resistance, Trump
Truths About Trump
by JOHN ADAMS •
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Politics, Trump, Trump-Russia
The Premature Question
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Daily Beast, Joy Reid asks What’s Going to Happen When the Trumpists Realize the America They Yearn for Is Gone? It’s an interesting question, perhaps, but more importantly it’s a premature one. We’ve a long road ahead before Trumpism is finished, and you’ll excuse me if the time for pondering life after…
Trump
Trump’s Stifling Techniques
by JOHN ADAMS •
Consider three basic rhetorical techniques that Trump (borrowing from the Soviets and Putin) so often uses (blatant lies, whataboutism, and that a given contention is obvious) and one finds that each technique is designed to avoid discussion, to avoid inquiry, to end debate. He aims to stifle. 1. Blatant falsehoods. Trump lies or makes false…
Politics, Trump
What’s Left
by JOHN ADAMS •
It was Secretary Clinton who, during the campaign, controversially but memorably asserted that “[t]o just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables,’” Hillary Clinton said at a New York fundraiser on Sept. 9. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there…
Local Government, Politics, Trump
Trump’s the Failure We Always Knew He Would Be
by JOHN ADAMS •
Writing in the Journal Sentinel, Craig Gilbert finds that Donald Trump has squandered chance to broaden base, increase popularity, polls show: “He’s done nothing to expand his base and, if anything, he’s sort of where he was, or experiencing greater erosion,” says Lee Miringoff, who conducted polls this month for NBC/Marist in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that showed Trump with…
America, Bigotry, Federal Government, Television, Trump
Sec. of State Tillerson Distances America from Trump
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’m no fan of Rex Tillerson, an American Secretary of State who is a recipient — from dictator Vladimir Putin — of the Russian Order of Friendship, but even Tillerson had the sense to disclaim the stain that Trump has spread over this country. In the clip below, on Fox News, Tillerson makes clear that…
City, Politics, Trump
‘Enough is enough’
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Los Angeles Times editorial board plainly states the truth about these times: These are not normal times. The man in the White House is reckless and unmanageable, a danger to the Constitution, a threat to our democratic institutions. Last week some of his worst qualities were on display: his moral vacuity and his disregard…
Alt-Right, America, Film, History, Liberty, Trump
Don’t Be a Sucker
by JOHN ADAMS •
In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, the United States Government, fighting on both sides of the world, commissioned a short film about fascism entitled Don’t Be a Sucker. The film describes the fight in which America was embroiled in the style and vernacular of that time; it’s even more compelling to me…
City, Politics, Trump
Molly Ball on ‘The Trump Show’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Covering Trump’s recent appearance in West Virginia, Molly Ball writes that “HUNTINGTON, W.V.—Every day brings new drama, but the Trump Show’s themes remain the same. He’s come to tell his people that everyone else is wrong and they are right…. They have come here, more or less, to be lied to: Trump, in his speech,…
Politics, Trump
Too Little, Too Late
by JOHN ADAMS •
Brian Beutler writes that Jeff Flake’s Ridiculous, Fake Anti-Trump Rebellion Should Terrify Republicans: [U.S. Senator from Arizona Jeff] Flake now professes alarm about Trump’s “affection for strongmen and authoritarians,” yet has done next to nothing with his extraordinary power—including a seat on the Foreign Relations Committee—to stop Trump from presiding over a pro-authoritarian administration. Only a handful of…
Authoritarianism, Politics, Trump
“The Leader is the Party and the Party is the Leader”
by JOHN ADAMS •
Embed from Getty Images Trumpist Kayleigh McEnany has left CNN (where she appeared as a Trump surrogate), for both Trump TV and the Republican National Committee as the RNC spokesperson. Evan McMullin, a conservative opponent of Trumpism, rightly (but too optimistically, I think) observes that “[i]nstead of doubling down on Trumpism, GOP leadership would be well served…
City, Politics, Trump
When Lions Meow
by JOHN ADAMS •
No one is obligated to think about politics, let alone write about politics. (Indeed, in a more libertarian world, for example, the state would be smaller, and there would be fewer political matters of which to speak and write.) In Whitewater and cities nearby, however, there are more than a few who have public, political…
City, Economics, Economy, Education, Immigration, Trump
Anti-Immigration Measures, Wrong Yet Again
by JOHN ADAMS •
Embed from Getty Images An anti-immigration position is for economics something like a flat-earth position would be for natural science: one may hold it only through either ignorance or disorder. (The ignorance would have to be profound, as even the weakest grasp of economics would incline a rational person to acknowledge the benefits of a…