Trump and his family are self described business folks. While their legacy in business is debatable, that they come from the corporate world not political becomes more obvious everyday. We don’t know yet if Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia last year but the Trump family isn’t making it easy for innocence to be considered.
This week Donald Trump Jr. became the center of the Russian storm. After days of having his ever changing story disproven by leaks, he released the emails in question. They did not vindicate him. When asked if he would like information on Clinton gathered by Russia to aid his father, he says he would love it. He brought Kushner and Manafort to the meeting, the Russian lawyer ended up not having anything on Clinton. Leaving us in a situation where we know that the Trump campaign would have colluded but not if they did.
Ignore the discussion of impeachment for a moment. What other implications are there? One is a revelation behind the curtain. Political operators have long been portrayed as ruthless anything goes types in movies but the real political world always had norms and bounds. I’m not saying they are knights of the round table. Yet even the Gore campaign called the FBI when someone leaked Bush’s campaign bible to them. This event shows the business world core of the Trump universe one where damning emails end in a fine and mea culpas but in politics things end differently just ask Abramoff.
The anti-left media keeps yelling Ukraine like its Benghazi (as a waste of time). A low level former staffer is not the same as a high campaign advisor and candidate’s child. Manafort did in fact lobby for pro Russia candidates in Ukraine and was unable to hide it. Whether the decision to remove support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion from the GOP platform came from Manafort is unknown. In the end, evidence from a foreign public investigation is not close to the same as a foreign nation stealing documents from a political opponent to aid a candidate. As Watergate taught us having your own countrymen steal documents is damning without foreign involvement.
The emails aren’t a smoking gun for criminal proceedings but they without a doubt bolster Mueller’s investigation. One can only wonder what subpeonas will uncover.
-E.C. Fiori
Tag: clinton
Day 151: Found Them
Day 110: The Incredible Smallness of the Modern World
It has been a struggle to post this last week. To find a purpose in doing so. In a world so determined to end itself, I feel attempting to stop the suicide to be a grain of sand caught in the oceanic drift.
On the right, a crowd whose empathy ends with their outer dermal layer. On the left, a crowd who see empathy as an end or rather see no further than feeling.
AHCA is a bad bill. It hasn’t been scored by the CBO and as such there is no analysis what it will do. It will cause people to lose coverage and thats enough for it to not live up to the GOP promise. They forgot the dead can’t vote.
P.C. Culture is a failed solution to real problems in society. After 27 years of academic witch hunts, it fractured the Dems coalition. Pushing former leftists into the Alt-Right. Kids still get gunned down by cops for no reason everyday.
The Alt-Right a vague coalition of reactionaries to whom 1950 is still hell. They are the product of the bubbles we built. Rejected by all, they have come to raze and pillage and rape. Armored in our beloved Irony, they are immune to shame and guilt. They are the priests and flocks of whataboutism and the ultimate product of the internet. They are something new. They wish to supplant democracy and install a CEO, one without a board to answer to.
Those of us outside their circle must decide if we wish to live in a society that self-governs or to bow. That decision must begin with real bipartisanship from both sides. ACA was always more conservative in its solution than progressive. The GOP could repair it and show alternative to single payer healthcare. Progressivism needs to promote concrete quantifiable solutions and worry less about when an ally trips. Those would be baby steps.
Art doesn’t function as a window and politics isn’t a football game. We can either accept the world and save democracy or drown in our own shit.
-E.C. Fiori
Day 94: A Coronation Interrupted, A Hundred Days of Solitude, and The Celebrity Vote
Ninety four days of a Trump presidency has had the expected effect. Staggering incompetence in every area, international and domestic faux pas at every turn. No nuclear war, which more and more is the yardstick for failure. Modern generations seem to have forgotten that fact that with thermonuclear war, we’re all in the trenches. Major population centers are exactly what they aim for.
But I’d like to take a moment to return to the end of last year, when Trump won the election no one expected him to. In a way, Trump has never acted out of character. He has yet to “pivot” towards a more rational, “presidential” way of governing, instead being the brusque, uninformed cartoon we’ve known him as for decades. Campaign or President, that is the man.
No, the person who failed was Hillary Clinton. My use of the word “failed” and not “lost” is crucial here, because I don’t think the 2016 election should have been a contest. This still isn’t a popular opinion among democrats, and I can’t figure out why. What has confirmed my suspicion is the book (first of a tidal wave I’m sure) from two Hillary Campaign staffers: Shattered.
It is, of course, the story of a campaign going awry, complete with an increasingly tight circle of access to the queen herself, now confirming the “American Emperor” analogy as applicable on the right and left. There were loyalty tests, both for those in the campaign and in congress, and a hilarious amount of frustration at Bernie Sanders.
What shocked me though, was the complete failure of Hillary to come up with a reason for running for president. It seems like the simplest undergraduate poly-sci major piece of advice to a candidate: “have a message”. Give people a reason to vote for you.
And yet, this is exactly what “I’m with her” Hillary failed to do. It almost became a running joke inside the campaign, the best they were able to settle on being “It’s her turn!” When they spoke to democrats, they were pleased to find most of them agreed that Hillary wasn’t “evil”. Jesus. Trump was a godsend, allowing them to focus on his weekly scandals instead of addressing the fact that there was no reason for Hillary to be President.
The real lesson of this election was the peril of a race between two celebrities. One a reality tv star, the other the most famous politician on the planet. Just as Trump’s celebrity fueled his rise and victory, it was Hillary’s celebrity in her own party that doomed her, the circle of advisers too tight, the alienation from the average American too great.
If there is something that has irked me over these past 100 days, it’s the betrayal on the part of democrats in confronting Hillary’s persistent inability to be elected. Their failure is now ours. 1367 days to go.
-Jack Delaney
Day 1: The Progressives Don’t Stand a Chance
One woman proclaims identity politics will save the democrats and by proxy America.
The Atlantic lambasted his inaugural address for being too dark.
I frothed at Trump’s convention acceptance speech, it was the call of a dictator. The bellicose voice raging for law and order that stemmed from him and him alone.
We saw a different man swear the oath. He spoke of returning Washington to the people. Rhetoric not matched by his cabinet picks. Is he still unqualified and indifferent to that fact? Yes. Still a threat through his conflicts of interest? Yes. Will any unconstitutional action be fought? Yes. But when we been attacking every action we become the problem. If we believe that our elections have meaning. If we hold our republic dear. We make the government work.
Democrats must give up federal gun control. It is best left as a local matter. Democrats need to expand their geographical horizons. Get serious in discussing internal investment.
All of us must sacrifice for the republic whether it be taxes, investing through higher wages in our neighbors. Accept many if not most Americans are hurting from a vast number if issues but inequality brings us all down. By resolving inequality the people will have more ability to enact change through monetary power.
Jihad is growing and changing. Russia wants us to become savages under Trump. China is changing. Our current phase of timid imperialism has come to an end. The allies of NATO can pay the 2% for their share. It is still a bargain. The UN must go the way of the League of Nations and be rechartered for the age of multinational nonstate actors from terrorist to corporation.
Do I think Trump is the right man? I sure as hell didn’t vote for him. He got the job anyway and he must do what’s required.
-E.C. Fiori
Day 71: cowardice and those who practice it
A fake news editor didn’t want to be known to protect his reputation while he flung shot for a dollar. Cameron Harris is his name and any potential employer should remember and see his spineless nature. I hope he can’t work a job for the rest of his life, a scarlet Google search. I hope the money he made peddling trash is the only dollars he earns.
Harris, a Trump supporter, says he can’t believe that his fellow Trumpers believed his postings but still voted for the man and published libelous filth. He is the shittiest form of human, a being who stands for nothing but self profit. He wasn’t even trying to help Trump but exploit fellow citizens.
The NY Times should be ashamed of their profile of Harris. He has been rewarded for his dishonesty. His Twitter is full of claims of major publications publishing fake news. The most recent being Buzzfeed and the Trump dossier. I disagree with Buzzfeed’s publishing of the unverified document. However there is a massive difference between Buzzfeed’s actions and Harris’, he never believed his claims to be true and doctored evidence to falsify his claim. He deserves jail time for his intentional and knowingly false smears.
His defense of everyone in politics stretches the truth is ridiculous. First it isn’t an argument just a cliche. Second there is a difference between misunderstanding and lying. No wonder he supports the grandest liar to ever enter American politics. Harris and his ilk are leeches in our politics and need to be drained from the swamp. I doubt Trump has that kind of courage being a spineless draft dodger and career huckster.
Update: He has been fired
-E.C. Fiori
Day 40: What is the Ministry of Truth?
Facebook’s announcement of an experimental partnership between third party fact checkers: Snopes, PolitiFact, the AP, ABC news, and factcheck.org. Where people request certain links to be factchecked and if they are and found to be false or misleading a warning without reasons behind the warning will pop up before the article opens. Many people on the left and right are wary of this development. For many conservatives, a third of the fact checkers (AP and ABC news excluded) have a liberal bias. For many on the left, this is an expansion of corporate control of media trying to take away their “truth”.
Facebook has the legal right to control its platform that it lets us use. I do think that it can be worrisome to think that there will be blind faith in the warning. I think that this is an opportunity for us all to challenge our dogmas. We all could use a hand in expanding our worldviews and many times that hand needs to come from the opposition. Not saying we are all wrong all the time, but we need to be fluid in our responses. Adapt to the situation at hand not the one in the mind. I think that this experiment is a good step forward and should be expanded to include more viewpoints. We need some radical changes but those changes aren’t possible without agreement and I am speaking about Climate Change. It truly is a bipartisan problem that will alter every human’s life. In the age of Elon Musk, no one can question the possibilities in renewable energy that could occur. I believe we need to support if not with funds than beneficial regulations that aid his innovations while improving the quality of life for his labor. We need to use Capitalism to challenge ourselves for real innovation rather than use our money for novelty add ons. We need the hoarded wealth to be reinvested into the American Dream. None of which is possible without dialogue. If fact checking and discussions not in comments but in researched detail can engage us with each other than it is worth trying. Facebook as a form of communication and a company must respect their power. I think this is a step towards a better social media environment in the age of bullshit heralded by Trump and Putin.
-E. C. Fiori
Day 37: Order without Tyranny
Trump and the war on fact is continuing strong without a winner. The situation has had me reflect on order and authoritarianism. While people who seek order often fall into an authoritarian mindset, I feel that the stability and empowerment that comes from structure cannot always be bad. Also Trump may be the most egregious liar on the national stage but the democrats and establishment GOP have been lying by omission for years.
Globalization creates winners and losers on both sides of the trade divide. The losers make a large percentage of Trump support. I’m not just speaking to the blue collar but the college educated Trump voter as well. While underemployment is down from the recession it is still there and not disappearing. Education doesn’t make one immune to losing, the opposite of what economists often parade. 30 years of ignoring the downslides bubbled into Trump, who his supporters forgive for his bullshit because they feel they have been fed bullshit by everyone else as well.
We can’t normalize Trump’s Orwellian reality making but cannot continue our own omissions. We can’t avoid the hard truths anymore or worst underperform on our promises to each other. The recovery passed most of us by including many Clinton voters. I still believe she was the best candidate on any of the stages. I believe she would have brought new industry into the empty factories across America. She at the very least didn’t have a business to promote at the expense of any of ours. I know many of my fellow Americans disagree with that and that is okay. However allowing Trump to revise recorded industry cannot continue. He has said what he has said even if you believe it was just exaggerating the situation. He can try to walk back a statement but never can it be erased.
Day 36: What We Failed to Do
As we approach the end of the Obama era and his legacy, it becomes clearer the ways that the Democrats failed most Americans. The first major failure was present day and the second is still coming.
In the mortgage crisis, what began under Bush continued under Obama no holds corporate charity which funded a long and many times illegal campaign by the bailed out companies against the working class, they already screwed once. While all of TARP, GM, and the other bailouts couldn’t only be directed at the public a majority should have been and the debt righted. Instead the creators of the bubble all got a chance to get double paid and as the countless post 2008 banking scandals show, the industry succeeded in their attempt. Now as he leaves office the inequality gap has widened. There is a great piece in the Atlantic about this legacy.
The second is still mostly to come but it is the Democrats focus and reliance on Silicon Valley. The tech industry has become dominated by large monopolies like Google who owns even me to be sure. An industry of big money small workforce. Where the few control massive fortunes without selling anything but ruin and remove vast swathes of employment. Much of the disruption is literally coded loopholes around needed regulations. When things go wrong, we the people are left holding the bag when unsafe services are allowed to be rendered. In many ways this election is a reputation of the cosmopolitan values of tech and their greed. Even if it was electing one of the few people who might be greedier than the tech moguls. As they continue to destroy our ability to provide, we must ask ourselves what are we getting in return for their virtual luxury.
-E.C. Fiori
Day 32: A Rose by Any Other Name
Identity politics has always existed. White Supremacy is perhaps the oldest modern form. In all forms it relies on tribal dogma to create a world view. This world view does not always conform to the world. In an piece for NPR, Tasneem Raja writes “why it’s never been more important to continue talking — and arguing, and complaining, and venting — about identity in America. To continue interrogating whiteness as a construct, even as we discuss the economic woes of many white Americans. To continue asking why so many of our superheroes are white and male, even as we push to better understand the defeat and humiliation felt by many flesh-and-blood white men in our country.” Superheroes aren’t real. Movies and television aren’t real. The media wastes an incredible amount of time watching other media and reporting on what the media tells them. No wonder we built our own echo chambers, the mirror that was journalism has become a fun house. There are serious deep seated economic ills that affect all Americans that creates a fear of the other. While diverse entertainment options are important. Everyone should be able to share their voice. Art is not as important as economic stability. Few liberals argue that many of the goals of identity politics aren’t noble, but the tactics are ineffective at best. As television moves from viewership numbers to subscriber totals, the actual viewership of any given program matters less. Thus the explosion of perspectives on pay or SVOD entertainment. These shows at their peak with the rare exception have a twentieth of the viewership of the classic model flagship CBS. If content can shape the viewership than the viewership matters. Identity politics by dividing citizens based on birth features encourages white nationalism. If being matters then Whiteness matters. If what was pop culture is white culture then the Whiteness of it matters too. In a country that is still majority white for the next three decades and depending on immigration changes longer, that demographic has power.
The average American white male was the loser of globalism. The Trump supporter is similar to a study on rats as written in the New York Times, “The best verified animal model of depression consists of social defeat. A dominant rat is placed in a cage with a younger, stronger rat from another group. When the dominant rat is defeated, several features emerge. The defeated rat is reclusive, hyper-vigilant, avoidant, and shows an incapacity to experience pleasure.” The Obama coalition was a moment for a future America. A moment of change. The now reviled and then reviled as well white American male was an important piece of the coalition, the Midwestern firewall. The professional class has always been dominant; the working class had their fiefdoms maybe not to the charm of a New Yorker but a loving community home to the residents. That has been stolen and the working class re-dominated. The recession recover deepened the destruction of their middle class world of the last thirty years. Longer than many of the preachers of Identity have been living. 2016 will be remembered as the year that Americans first had the chance to elect a government focused on all citizens but both Trump and Clinton relied on identity. Trump did the math and Clinton expected shame to continue to hold the peace. The basket of deplorables comment probably ended her campaign. Trump did a barebone dog whistle to be sure but Clinton attacked the one group she needed because of identity politics. Being a first isn’t an enough, a campaign is more than a self- esteem booster. That last part is intended to the Trump voters and the chaos they chose as well.
We are a broken people divided. The New York Times has an op-ed about not going easy on the failures of men. Especially taking aim at the concept as men as the breadwinner and that being the sole responsibility. While I agree that men and woman should do portional housework based on earnings level. The problem is not just that men do less housework or are selfish about the tasks. It is that the stay at home dad is an undesired solution. Here is an interesting Dear Sugar on the subject. Women are more likely to cheat and divorce as the breadwinner. This dissonance is tearing apart our families. We cannot just shame a better tomorrow. So much of the strife and divisions center on money and for some luxury. I think if the pay ratio dropped from the average of 204: 1 CEO to worker to 50:1 at every company, we would see an American renaissance. I think that it would aid the race and gender and sexuality pay gap and earnings gap. I think it would ease the financial burden on families and save marriages. It would rise up all peoples and exclude no American from the better tomorrow. New divisions will not heal the old ones. Shame is not persuasion.
-E.C. Fiori
The Radical Centrists 