What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[crazy canuck]

How can the Onion compete with that?

[grumbler]

How can the Onion compete with that?

 

[The Minsky Moment]

No one could hope to keep up with Trump's own famed work ethic.  Those poor golf balls never seem to catch a break from the battering.

[Caliga]

He might as well just come out and say 'I hate n*****s.'  Everyone knows that's what's really behind that, and his core base would applaud and agree.

[Solmyr]

So Sergio Gor, Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, might be a Russian spy. He claims to have been born in Malta, but Maltese authorities do not confirm this.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-accuses-trump-aide-sergio-gor-of-federal-crime-as-feud-explodes/

[The Brain]

So Sergio Gor, Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, might be a Russian spy. He claims to have been born in Malta, but Maltese authorities do not confirm this.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-accuses-trump-aide-sergio-gor-of-federal-crime-as-feud-explodes/

The books are horrible.

[frunk]

It's sad when Chinese and Russian agents start fighting over control of the US.  Why can't they play nice and split it down the middle?

[mongers]

It's sad when Chinese and Russian agents start fighting over control of the US.  Why can't they play nice and split it down the middle?

 

[Tamas]

So Sergio Gor, Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, might be a Russian spy. He claims to have been born in Malta, but Maltese authorities do not confirm this.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-accuses-trump-aide-sergio-gor-of-federal-crime-as-feud-explodes/

So I hope this is one of those things the Democrats will start blowing up.

I don't get it why is my newsfeed (well, the Guardian, a Hungarian site, and you guys) choke full of catchy-because it's-meme-y-and/or-horrible stuff from Trump and NOTHING from the Democrats?

And don't tell it's because Trump is POTUS, that's bollocks it was the exact same when he was not.

It's the same thing I have seen in Hungary. Orban after trying everything else finally found a shtick that worked in 1998 and then even though losing the election in 2002 and then 2006 it was all OrbanOrbanOrbanOrban in the media.

The same way Farage is in the UK and Boris Johnson was. There was absolutely nothing saving us from Johnson becoming PM and there's nothing saving us from having Farage as PM either.

[Syt]

Used to be a time politicians stepped down for stuff like that (e.g. chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974).

[Crazy_Ivan80]

So Sergio Gor, Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, might be a Russian spy. He claims to have been born in Malta, but Maltese authorities do not confirm this.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-accuses-trump-aide-sergio-gor-of-federal-crime-as-feud-explodes/

So I hope this is one of those things the Democrats will start blowing up.

they're a spent force

[Sheilbh]

So I hope this is one of those things the Democrats will start blowing up.

I don't get it why is my newsfeed (well, the Guardian, a Hungarian site, and you guys) choke full of catchy-because it's-meme-y-and/or-horrible stuff from Trump and NOTHING from the Democrats?

A little bit in their defence I think there are practical issues. The Democrats have lost all of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives - there is very little they can actually do. In the UK I think the most difficult job in politics is leader of the opposition because you have to fight for attention every step of the way, because the government can do things - they can announce things, they can spend money, they can pass legislation. That's true-ish in the US right now (though they're not passing much legislation) and there isn't even a LOTO role. Governors to an extent can play a more useful role here I think.

Less defensibly I think the Democrats are split and focusing on internal arguments/maintaining control of the party (remind you of anyone) - see the Hogg fight, the criticism of Sanders' Stop Oligarchy rallies (which are attracting huge crowds) etc. Separate from that I think there are Democrats who think there's a crisis going on and other who are, to an extent, behaving as if it's BAU - Schumer for example. So I think it's impossible (even more than normal) to talk of the Democrats coherently.

Obviously I'm of the view that whether it's the Stop Oligarchy rallies or the No Kings protests that there is a huge appetite for people to be mobilised politically that the Democrats should absolutely be trying to harness. And I lean far more to the it's a crisis and not BAU. But I think it is worth saying that even with that the Democrats lost badly (and their approval rating is at historic lows and below the GOP) so they have a limited base of political power to leverage.

It's the same thing I have seen in Hungary. Orban after trying everything else finally found a shtick that worked in 1998 and then even though losing the election in 2002 and then 2006 it was all OrbanOrbanOrbanOrban in the media.

The same way Farage is in the UK and Boris Johnson was. There was absolutely nothing saving us from Johnson becoming PM and there's nothing saving us from having Farage as PM either.

Well you know my views but you have to fight and beat them politically and electorally. It's not enough to rely on constitutions or law because they are meaningless figleafs for political power that all rely on, as Lord Hennessy puts it, "good chaps". Similarly pearl clutching, appealing to norms or defence of existing institutions will not work because (as we repeatedly see in elections everywhere) those have lost legitimacy in the eyes of the public - we need to rebuild trust, earn trustworthiness in those institutions again not just appeal to them. And I don't think there's an epistemological approach to victory - fact checking chryons, or one more scandal is not going to change the picture - it is substantially priced in in the public's opinions.

The key is mobilising people politically, uniting opposition forces against that opponent rather than each other and taking them on politically by offering an alternative vision of change/the future (not eternally trying to return to the politics of Obama or Clinton eras or the 90s because that's gone). And I'd add that if people do look at fascism and the thirties as a precedent the only example I can think of a strong fascist movement emerging and being beaten is the French Popular Front - uniting the forces of the left, mass mobilisation and a strong alternative pitch. Whereas I think street violence or "punch a Nazi" which just tended to radicalise the centre and liberals towards the parties of "order".

[Admiral Yi]

Used to be a time politicians stepped down for stuff like that (e.g. chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974).

Willy's spies were actual spies, not might be spies.

[Sheilbh]

Total aside but there's a fantastic Michael Frayn play on Brandt and the spy called Democracy. Production I saw had Roger Allam as Brandt and Conleth Hill as Gunther Guillaume - it was really good (to the point that I remember it, especially Allam's Brandt, 20+ years later).

[Admiral Yi]

The key is mobilising people politically, uniting opposition forces against that opponent rather than each other and taking them on politically by offering an alternative vision of change/the future (not eternally trying to return to the politics of Obama or Clinton eras or the 90s because that's gone). And I'd add that if people do look at fascism and the thirties as a precedent the only example I can think of a strong fascist movement emerging and being beaten is the French Popular Front - uniting the forces of the left, mass mobilisation and a strong alternative pitch. Whereas I think street violence or "punch a Nazi" which just tended to radicalise the centre and liberals towards the parties of "order".

What role did mass mobilization play in helping the Popular Front win?