Totally agree. Only solution is to vote Demoratic in every election in the fall. Get out and support any get out the vote efforts, either with your pocketbook or your time. Join groups such as Swing Left, March On, MoveOn, Indivisible, Organizing for Action, the Democratic Attorneys General Association, Flippable, the Arena, Center for Popular Democracy Action, National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Latino Victory Fund, the Progressive Turnout Project, NewFounders, Mobilize America, Sister District, Wall of US, Working Families Party, Resist Bot, Stand Up America, Democrats.com, #VoteProChoice, United We Dream and the Collective PAC. Don't expect a Republican congress to protect democracy and be a check on Trump. If it hasn't happened yet, it ain't ever gonna happen. Tell your friends, family and any one else who will listen. Our democracy is at stake.
87
Psychopaths have no shame. Shame, empathy, ethics, moral values, these are the missing elements in the psychopath.
74
"...save for a few real journalists at Fox News like the outstanding Chris Wallace".
An 'outstanding' journalist who has no problem working for a network "with no integrity" is, indeed, shameless.
39
One is put in mind of H.L. Mencken: -- “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
NOTHING creates absurdst thinking and incompetent and ugly behavior like exiting the boundaries of objective thinking where the ignorant masses can revel in their emotional paroxysms of idiocy; totally unfettered by their republican leaders.
The demagogues and bronze age faithheads and the fake fox news propaganda machine are all lined up behind a grifter-in-chief who is a match made in heaven for them.
The good news is that it only hastens their slide into political and economic irrelevence!
19
I know why you win pulitzer prizes. Because you are stunningly upright.
22
But you must remember that the man is a stable genius.
You simply need to employ the correct definition of "stable".
Never before has a President so artfully shoveled manure as has Donald Trump.
32
Lack of shame is the hallmark of a sociopath. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and acts like a duck, what do we have?
31
By tomorrow it will be business as usual in America.
The media hates, hates Trump. This is why the MSM had such a low credibility with the American public as a whole.
If your so afraid of one cable sort of news channel Fox. What does that say about your own convictions.
Integrity Friedman ? Donna Brazile gave Hillary Clinton the questions in a Presidential debate.
Had Hillary Clinton had a shred of integrity she would have refused , making articles like yours and other silly.
At that moment I took off my Bernie sanders bumper sticker off and put Donald Trump sticker on.
I don't care about the Russians , other than their nuclear arsenal, Putin and his hacks are just a bunch of thugs
I'm not OK with Trump right now.
He better get his act together and fast.
5
If the GOP caucus had a strategic brain cell in their collective heads, for their own electoral good they'd be quietly blocking interference by their Very Stable Genius into the increasingly likely probability of criminal conspiracy, and be loudly going all-in on the less partisan critical issue of hardening our cybersecurity infrastructure to protect our voting systems, utility grid, nuclear plants, transportation systems, et al from further tampering. It's obvious Trump won't, and if we don't want a nuclear cooling system mysteriously turned off, it'd be nice to know Republicans are capable of doing something to prevent it. Or is actual governing above their caucus's damned pay-grade?
18
I would just like to remind everyone that the great god Bernie also wanted to trash the TPP. Hillary 2020.
11
Trump and his minions are giving away the soul of America, piece by piece.
27
It is worse -
He actually believes what he hears on Fox -
Utterly clueless.
27
Nov 8, 2016...the day America lost its mind.
30
An untrained puppy would not understand your concern about the carpets. You have allowed him to bark at guests, chew furniture and sleep on the couch. Doo-doo shoulid have been expected. Trump's behaviour would not have been seen as outrageous in earlier times. Lott, Delay and Thurmond as well as Wallace, Bull Connor and others would have been, at the very least, silent supporters. His racist attacks on Mexicans and child brutality of his border police have many comparable events in past decades. Trump and his gang fit into those times. America is a land of immigrants. Many of us are from former European colonies. Trump and his type are laughable as they respond to obvious subcorticate instincts. They are doomed to fail. Evolution is proceeding even as they devolve. Read about Drosophila and the changing envjronment. Dinosaurs also faced challenges.
9
"For starters, you’d sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership, creating a free-trade alliance around American values, standards and interests, with 11 other Pacific economies, creating a trade agreement covering 40 percent of global G.D.P.
Friedman's recipe sounds just like the Clinton recipe that baked us NAFTA and that giant sucking sound of American jobs going South. Oreos made in Mexico, for Mexicans? Huh? Trump's source of power is the demographic that was hurt and continues to be hurt by trade deals made for the benefit of SELECT American companies and not for the benefit of the American people. Dumb is as dumb does.
2
Well said. How many GOP will become connected to the Russian spy one wonders.
8
And yet, despite all this subjective opinion.....millions and millions and millions of Americans continue to completely support the Republican Party and the President. They won’t be reading these comments or even this newspaper, but they will vote in 2020.
Just thought I’d post a reminder.
28
"We’ve never had a president with no shame." Are you forgetting Bill Clinton's antics?
10
Awesome opinion post and very smart. Such an unfortunate combination of (carefully laid out) realities has led to fascism in Germany. America: your time is up intellectualizing! It is happening - to you!
20
His party has no shame either. The only ones truly vocal are the ones leaving or without much to loose. Not even the generals are serious in their criticism.
The president has a spine until he collapses at the feet of Putin.
GOP has no spine, but also they have no shame.
5
Good, cogent assessment. Many of US are sick and tired of the limp statements issued by republicans who then proceed to back their words with zero action. So called, patriots. Not.
Democrats must keep the pressure on republicans: to pass legislation which protects the special counsel, forces trump to release his tax returns plus all info related to Russian dealings (and any other “laundry” from “cleaners” elsewhere), and strengthens sanctions against Russia and Putin himself (starting with releasing info on his personal billions from corruption).
Obviously legislation like this can’t pass until republicans gain a spine and moral compass (doubtful both).
Democrats need to take a page out of mcCONnell’s playbook of ruthlessly pursuing the goal... no matter what. The HUGE difference is that Democrats will NOT be selling lies, nor lying and most importantly they will be working FOR OUR Country. As opposed to the GOParty OVER Country.
Unless Democrats gain control of BOTH the House and Senate there’s no stopping trump and our imperiled democracy will be further weakened.
Time for Americans to wake up and VOTE. For Democrats.
4
I applaud Thomas Friedman's truthful words that speak to this abhorrent abuse of power by both this dangerous president as well as the Republicans who are doing nothing to stop his horrendous actions. Trump is clearly such a narcissist that nothing else matters to him but him. To have elected such an incompetent, ill-prepared, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic man to the highest office brings great shame to our country. I am sickened by the support that such an ill-suited individual continues to enjoy among Republicans; I am literally dumbfounded.
Thank you, Mr. Friedman.
19
Yes, Trump and his base are manifestations of a culture, which in my view is a perverse twist of the "pursuit of happiness" into a shameless pursuit of personal satisfaction. Whoever gets in one's way towards self-gratification is an enemy that needs to be destroyed at all cost. Putin is banking on this culture and judging from the pitiful state of affairs, the former KGB analyst is winning and is likely to keep winning. I hope that the decent people of this country will vote for decency in November. However, I am also preparing for the worst. If Trump's supporters win the elections this fall, we will be doomed.
3
With this performance, I think it is now near impossible politically for Trump and Co. to shut down Mueller's investigation.
Not all Republicans are spineless.
2
"Let the Republicans in Congress do something hard and concrete that shows they love our country more than they fear Trump’s base and I will believe their words." The problem is the the Republicans, like trump's base, do not love this country. How else to explain their vote and support for everything this wrecking ball of a narcissist says, does and is.
Yes, I do look down on their culture of hate, who advocate for anarchy on their terms, bigotry, flat-earth-ism anti-science, inflict their flavor of religion on others, enjoy inflicting added misery on the poor and vulnerable, yada yada yada. Their culture of hate for the freedoms of others that has NO EFFECT ON THEM stands out most.
Now that the World Cup is over, it seems like trump and Putin agreed to renew and escalate their attacks on the Western alliance during their secret 130 minute meeting. Trump can't wait to get his very own medal of friendship from Putin just as Tillerson got.
Madness to his methods. Look at tariffs. Single handedly he raised taxes on everyone. Indeed we get to pay an additional sales tax on the tariff portion above and beyond the cost and sales tax of the product. Double taxation Madness! - way to go trump!
Forget trump's Jekyll and Hyde act - within trump it's all Hyde.
Biggest irony of all is that trump thinks Putin respects him. Now that is funny!
13
Thomas Friedman and David Brooks and Charles Blow and more thoughtful spokespersons are, alas, addressing the choir and not the everyman and everywoman, the Fox News crowd, who occupy the pews. Nor does the leadership of the Republican Party have ears to hear. Nothing but tears and fears at this extraordinary moment or this fledgling democracy. McConnell, your response?
7
Shame implies taking responsibility for one's actions; responsibility for our current crisis lies less with Trump than with the citizens who cast their vote for him. The ability to feel shame is a virtue, and I hope that those who feel shame for having supported Trump do something about it.
5
One of best NYT opinion pieces I have seen, thank you. Quite obviously Trump does NOT have a well-thought out plan, with agreement from competent political advisors. These are the actions of someone way out of their depth, and he doesn't have the savvy to even know it. He lashes out and belittles, while giving way too much credit to those who don't deserve it. We can't expect more of someone who is so dim that he thinks he is doing just fine.
11
The GOP Congress is busy counting Lobby money, getting their shirts clean, and buying suits...
Do any of them even show up for work?
8
What you didn't mention is that Trump, by his own words & actions has acted treasonously & treacherously against his own country & the Constitution he swore to protect & defend. If the Republicans have any decency, let alone spine, they'll get together to oppose him.
There's also Article 25, speaking of spine, not only on the part of the congress but the cabinet as well.
4
Yes, to everything TF wrote on the deplorable, unacceptable president Trump. Yet, why aren't we reading about the "great turn around" that will be revealed at the mid term elections. Have enough GOP districts going to convert to the Dems, have they realized they were duped when they voted Trump into office? First we acknowledge a big mistake was made, we now have fear when we look at what we put into office, but there is one step above fear, not sure what we call it, maybe hopelessness. Yes, when after the elections, nothing has changed....the GOP and their lies control it all, again. I'm beginning to think many are ready to sell their house, take their retirement funds, and move to .....anywhere away from the U.S.
2
Clearly, the USA needs to begin requiring at least a simple written test in the application process to be President of the USA.
22
It is increasingly obvious that the media is missing the point when it talks about the GOP having no spine.
The GOP puts up with Trump because he gives them what they want: conservative judges to pack the bench, crippled regulatory agencies, tax cuts, slashing the social safety net, and a solid base of people who only care about one thing: trashing Democrats, Liberals, and everyone else they hate.
They only hold power through a rigged system that gives them more seats in Congress than Democrats - even though Democrats got more votes over all. They are making it harder to vote for non-GOP loyalists, gerrymandering like mad, and packing the courts who are judges who are fine with this.
The Republican Party will rein in Trump only when they literally have to choose between that and being driven from power - and they're gambling they can hold off that day of reckoning.
That GOP delegation to Moscow on July 4 was a blatant signal that they want more help from Putin in November.
Complicit and criminal. All of them.
24
The trouble is we fail to understand our salesman president sees
Russia as undeveloped territory for Capitalistic investment.
5
Russia, Russia, Russia. It's actually a country with whom we have a lot in common and zero interest to have a rivalry. Let Putin have his sphere of influence, who cares. Our role is to protect our borders, go to work, have a latte, kiss the children good night, and enjoy our lives.
1
I don't blame the Trump supporters for trying to have faith in a party. The Democrats have done nothing for the working class for generations.
Every article about Trump is rehashing, spinning, repeating ad nauseum what a cad he is. He has no shame, no integrity, a criminal, compromised etc. etc. I feel like shouting, "I Get It".
But why don't we just get to the next level and decide how we can rid us of this tyrant? We are a Democracy, the last time I heard. We are not Turkey, Russia, China. Why is that man still standing? Makes me wonder if Democracy is a curse or a blessing.
5
Gomer Pyle: "Shame! Shame! Shame!"
Maybe we can Gomerize the resistance and simply shame a Trump supporter, when we encounter one. It might produce a laugh, thereby opening a closed mind. But then, it might also produce a scream of rage, thereby closing a fist.
Never mind.
Trump is Courtney Massengale in Anton Myrer's book, Once an Eagle (required reading by Marines and at West Point).
Quoted in the book: Aeschylus wrote,
“So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
‘With our own feathers, not by others’ hands,
Are we now smitten.'”
Such a relief to read some rational thought on the subject. Thank you.
2
I feel very scared and uncomfortable with Trump in the WH, but I know he is a tourist there; hopefully, with the GOP absolute majority disappearing for him from November he will become more toothless and perhaps his idiotic rage will turn more comical (the cranking senile grand-uncle who keeps embarrassing us).
I do feel truly scared, madly afraid of the tens of millions of Americans who elected Trump and continue to support him. These people will not be re-converted in 2020, they will still be there. We take the bus with them, drive on the same roads with them, we meet them as parents at our kids' schools...
14
"Also, speaking of sheer madness, so much of the immigration that has swamped Europe of late has come from migrants from Syria and sub-Saharan Africa. Both migrations are the product of political turmoil fed by climate change, the collapse of small-scale agriculture and rapid population growth in the Middle East and Africa. (Ditto Central America.)"
Mr. Friedman seems as mad as Mr. Trump when he writes like this. The migrations from North Africa and the Middle East have nothing to do with the insane political instability resulting from the incessant wars started by America and its European allies? From the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the bombing of Libya? The immigration from Central America has nothing to do with the overthrow of governments by American inspired military coups? The criminal gangs in Guatemala and Honduras have nothing to do with the gangsters deported from the United States and nothing to do with the insane war on drugs driven by American politicians? You are rivaling Mr. Trump in delusion when you peddle such a story, Mr. Friedman. It's all down to climate change, damage to small agriculture, and rapid population growth? Sure these things contribute, by when you wipe history of American and European colonial wars and aggressions you wash history of the truth.
5
If, as Mr. Friedman suggests is needed, the Democrats cannot capture the House and Senate in this midterm given the extant conditions, then both of our national political parties should be relegated to the trash bin of history. Where is there just one single "Give 'em Hell Harry" when our country needs thousands of such office seekers at the local, state, and federal level?
The members of the Republican Party, like Trump, are very willing to have a foreign government interfere in the elections held in the United Sates of America as long as the Republican Party members get re-elected. It appears that democracy has a life span of something like 243 years. Trump and the Republicans, like Roger Stone, will certainly let the USA burn down around them as long as they famously, or infamously, are clearly noted by the Media as the people with the power. Adios America - Hello Putinsky.
2
Thanks Mr Friedman but all of that is simply your subjective view and should be viewed as such.
2
“Sinverguenza”, my aunts and mother used to say of someone who had done something so shameful that there was no English word that adequately described said person’s awful actions. The word to me connoted that shameful person who lacked values completely.
Sinverguenza, djt, sinverguenza indeed.
4
Elected officials want, above all, to be re-elected. This applies to those of both parties. GOP lawmakers believe this requires Trump's big orange stamp of approval.
In a way, this reassures me, in that employment continuity strikes me as a less abhorrent motivation for a GOP legislator than greed, racism, subjugation of women, or the establishment of a Christian theocracy.*
*Vital components of today's GOP plan for America
Fine, fire-breathing rhetoric Tom, and on many accounts I wholeheartedly agree. But you curiously forgot to call out one other epic failure in our current national tragedy, that of the Democratic Party's utter inability to craft a winning platform and nominate candidates who resonate sufficiently with the electorate to get across the goal line on election day. None of our current mess happens if Democrats nominate a person of character and integrity in 2016 and refrain from selling their souls down the identity politics river.
9
@MinnRick
Absolutely correct. They chose to run a venally corrupt influence peddler, a tarmagamt so viscerally unlikeable that the unelectable was actually elected.
2
Is it possible that the Republican Party has been compromised? Is it possible that it isn't just Trump who has been compromised? The arrest of Maria Butina certainly raises the question. Her links to many people on the right may indicate unwitting or willing cooperation and support from Russia for the NRA and possibly political players on the right.
18
@MayCoble,
Dana Rohrabacher has long behaved like a Russian agent and gotten away with it. Devin Nunes now behaves the same way. I hope Mueller has them in his sights also.
1
Right wing sycophants are easily manipulated, sincerely believing their Lost Cause nonsense can be turned into victories if they just believe a little more, and lie a little more.
No wonder the Russians focused on the NRA.
2
Incisive! But I would greatly appreciate Mr. Friedman's addressing the issue of Trump's intelligence, or lack thereof. Increasingly, I see Trump as uninformed and untrained for the job he now holds. Simply put, the so-called Peter principle applies: he has advanced to a position beyond his capabilities to perform. He sometimes brags about his education. But let's see his academic transcripts. His many lies are those of a person who has either been too lazy or too disinterested to discover Truth. Let's see what his IQ really is. And beyond his grades, assuming they were sufficient for him to earn his degree(s), let's take a look at the actual courses he took. Any history, any link whatsoever to his having ever read or studied seriously the workings of American Democracy; also what did/do his teachers think about his reasoning abilities. How do they explain his butchering of the English language; was that really acceptable at Fordham and the Wharton School? And finally , how long has it been since Trump read anything that would enhance his understanding of the presidency? We the people need to know! I have four degrees, yet I would never claim that I know enough to be the president of the United States; my standards are a lot higher than that.
11
I always like to see a little speculation on how these guys get to where they are.
They're not stupid, as we might at first hope. There is some other quality, including psychopathic manipulation, at work in their interaction with people.
If that's the case, who can possibly be prepared for the transactions and outcomes?
There are two mantras so many columnists and American politicians cannot get beyond; Russia's expansion and China's trade manipulation.
No consideration can be given to the fact that the West, specifically through NATO's unnecessary expansion eastward might contribute to Russia's desire to have friendly compliant neighbors. Nor can one attribute China's remarkable success in development and trade a result of her well educated and industrious people.
Should Russia feel jittery about NATO (predominantly American) armed camps on her border? How would we feel about Russian military installations in Mexico?
Should China take advantage of her growing well educated middle class and first rate infrastructure? We did after World War II when everything American was first class and futuristic.
What happened to our infrastructure and educational system?
Perhaps it is time to give up those easy excuses for our own failures and think outside the box about how we project military power and prepare ourselves for the educated population and modern infrastructure that is needed to compete in the 21sr Century.
4
@Marvin Raps: In my opinion, legit points but not reasons for the US to take no action. Yes, Russia felt threatened by the expansion of NATO. But KGB tactics aimed at destabilizing all Western countries -- not an acceptable response. Not one we can condone. (The US "projects" military power in Europe by having thousands of well armed troops there -- and for 70 years NOT using them offensively.) And Yes, China is "feeling its oats," an almost miraculous economic takeoff is taking place, not unlike the US c. 1870-1910 or so. But excluding US companies and making investment and expansion by US (and other western) companies in China very difficult or impossible must be met with a vigorous response. I also agree that the US should invest in education and preach the values of hard work. But neither alone will eliminate exclusionary Chinese policies. By all means China should take advantage of its abundant human resources. But outside companies ought to have a fair shot too. And by the way, if you think the US educational system as a whole has fallen apart, tell that to the thousands of Chinese parents who send their kids to US grade schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities. And the millions more who aspire to that. We need to keep markets open in part to keep funding education; free trade brings prosperity, which pays for schools. In short, Russian spy games and Chinese economic mercantilism cannot be justified or ignored.
4
The TPP, Tom? Really?
That pro-industry, anti-working class compact that allows businesses to sue governments that don't conform to their anti-labor practices?
Please.
The GOP has no spine? The GOP has not opposed Trump, not because of spinelessness, but because they're getting everything they want.
The party with no spine is the Democrats, who can't even keep their own people on a unified course, much less rise to the job of forcefully opposing the GOP.
7
Yeah, that's not what TPP does, either. I sure wish people'd take a few minutes and read up on some basics before they...well, you know.
2
this is a great article and rich material for a counter view to emerge from, a resistance that would see flourishing rather than greatness. Greatness is like conspicuous consumption, you can never be satiated. I live in hope a resistance will emerge but fear for my children and what we are leaving them as issues are no longer sovereign despite border control.
2
Excellent and thoughtful analysis of the destruction that the GOP, Fox are causing the country and the cultural war that Trump’s base is fighting against progressive Americans in an ultimately losing endeavor. Democrats need a united team and a consistent message of inclusivity that addresses the weaker Rust Belt with hope instead of hate. And the hope must be transformed into healing and health as we renegotiate our camaraderie and equality.
5
Trump plus Republican Congress equals a potpourri of gutless traitors. No spine no credibility no integrity. Party and Russia first. America be damned.
15
"Ask any senior U.S. military officer and you’ll be told that our greatest strategic competitive advantage is that we have a network of allies" - sure, as long as you don't ask Kelly or Mattis, or are foolish enough to believe their canned responses.
The fish rots from the head down, but it has been rotting for some time now.
4
The Republican Party has guts. They will tell any lie, serve any billionaire donor, break any sworn vow, destroy any democratic institution, sever any international alliance, suffer any deficit from their tax cuts on the rich and be fawning sycophants to our treasonous President just to stay in power for one more election.
19
As far as I can tell, we have so many economically disenfranchised towns and regions, where they simply feel abandoned by the global multinational economy, for lack of investment and development, that the madness of Trump was able to take over, very much like in the Weimar Republic with the Third Reich. Add a heaping portion of white supremacy and you have a sizeable plurality of the voters supporting sheer madness.
14
Mr. Friedman, thank you. Your voice is consistently the voice of reason, honesty, and sanity. You are certainly accurate about Trump and his actions demonstrating insanity. It's as if Trump has watched one too many con movies and admires how cool and brilliant these characters are presented--except no con artist in real life is ever as clever as how they are depicted in Hollywood films. This is why Trump is mad--he thinks he's the leading man in his own con movie.
8
"The Republican Party has completely lost its way." The Republican Party knows exactly what it is doing, staying in power!
3
Being gutless is endemic to the two-party system which privileges survival over spine. We need insurance against spinelessness - a mechanism installed in our political system - say, a vote of no confidence - to stop a Trump. He is a runaway train and we should have an automatic breaking system in place.
The reason we don’t is that same two-party winner-take-all system in which the majority party is not going to do anything - like challenge their leader - that would compromise their power. And the minority party can be outvoted if they challenge. It’s all nakedly anti-democratic.
Neither party wants to change the two-party system because it works equally for whoever wins. A mechanism that could check the president would also check the party he or she represents – and neither party wants that.
Therefore, it is imperative that The People buck the two-party system and challenge it with other parties to break their stranglehold on our democracy, and to fight for Constitutional changes like a check on presidential behavior. Left to their own devices, the two parties won’t change anything.
And for those who think that the two-party system will work when sanity and bipartisanship return – dream on. We’re in a cultural war; the genie is out of the bottle. To allow the two-party system to continue unchallenged is to guarantee that nothing will change and democracy will be destroyed.
4
Michael Gerson notes that “Much of the G.O.P. is playing down Russian aggression. And it is actively undermining the investigation of that aggression.”
It’s becoming clear that this attempt to play down Russian aggression is because a sizable segment and perhaps a majority of high-ranking Republicans are deeply enamored of Putin’s Russia. And one might say the same for the Republican Party’s staunchest allies: the NRA, white supremacists, and the Christian Right. Furthermore, it appears ever more likely that such infatuation has led many in this shady alliance to become unofficial or official agents of the Russian government.
The rot obviously is much uglier than we thought even a few weeks ago. It imperils the American experiment.
11
Yup. We no longer have a two-party system; we have one party plus a collection of unregistered foreign agents.
1
While Mr. Friedman is spot on in his description of President Trump and the feckless Republican Party, I find his criticism of FOX News disingenuous. Their newscasters- Neal Cavuto, Brett Baier, and Shepard Smith, are excellent reporters who present a balanced perspective and show no hesitation in criticizing the Republicans and President Trump. And their loudmouth Trump apologists, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, are certainly no worse than those on MSNBC and CNN. For heaven sakes, President Obama and the Democrats have had had three broadcast networks, two cable news channels, and NPR radio firmly in their camp for years. Can’t the Republicans have just one?
Stephen R.S. Martin
Cave Creek, AZ
2
No trouble here. This president is (within the limitations of his position) delivering on all of his promises. He promised to try to get along with Russia, nominate supreme court judges from his list, and many other things too numerous to mention. Mr. Corker is my senator, I wish he would just not say anything especially since he is retiring.
2
Perhaps he shoulda mentioned the sell the country out to a vicious KGB colonel part, though, dontcha think?
4
Thomas,
Your column is spot on and echoes my thoughts and those of many others I’m sure. My hopes are:
1. a great overturning of both houses of Congress in favor of Democrats, with the largest voter turnout in history and unhindered by or in spite of Russian interference.
2. completion of the Mueller investigation and appropriate action taken by Congress to bring justice and see that this episode is never repeated.
3. if the President is not removed by Congress, we must vote him out in 2020. The nation will be hard pressed to survive until then. Any longer would be intolerable; each day he is in office is a security threat to the nation.
12
In November, assuming that the GOP and Mr. Trump are handed a loss, what is to prevent him from using the news cycles to declare the election rigged, refuse to vacate the office, set aside the Constitution for ALEC, the States-rightists, the T Partiers, and Dominionists to amend, declare martial law, and continue as the dictator he already is only without any troublesome balance of power? The courts might push back; but who else? The Congress? Law enforcement? Who?
9
Trump and most of GOP have became the bigger terrorist group in the world and the US, i can't imagine how happy their enemy must be.
8
It is becoming more and more obvious that the GOP politicians are a craven lot, to roughly quote Jonathan Swift talking about the human race, amongst the most odious little vermin that have ever suffered to crawl on the face of this earth. Time to remove them from office!
6
Trump is shameless and GOP leaders are spineless. We, the citizens are in trouble. From only super power, we became a laughing stock Russia's puppet country. Shame on us. Because we elect them again and again. The fish get rotten starting from the head. Our nation's head is smelly rotten.
7
Has any Republican ever read “Profiles in Courage”? They have nothing to offer .... never had, never will, and now they are selling the USA down the river. I am so sick of it all!
7
Trump has never had any shame--except maybe at being excluded from Manhattan "society." The GOP has no guts, that's true, but they've been bred that way since the purge of the moderates and since Hastert established the unofficial rule that allows Republicans in the House to cast their votes in comfort. They know that the whips take care of the tallies. The burst housing bubble changed that and gave us the Tea Party. They are nihilistic, and have shown no will to advance an agenda for modern America. The world does not stand still. The population grows. Chip speeds increase, and trading approaches the speed of light. And there's no USSR to scare the daylights out of the voters. Oh, and storms are stormier and unpredictable. But too many GOPers live in the age of Noah and leave the weather and everything else to God. But God helps those who help themselves. We'd better get working on that.
8
What really scares me is the notion that Donald Trump's lies and treachery are an accurate reflection of where our moral compass as a nation is currently pointing. Deny/explain/ justify/deflect all we want, but ultimately Trump's dishonesty is only possible in an environment that on some level is so disillusioned that the people are willing to tacitly accept it.
9
In the 2016 race, Trump, known to most of America for his reality TV show and his self-promoted but mythical abilities as a businessman, was largely an unknown. His unsavory personal history and awkward mis-steps were pretty well-known by folks in the New York media market but most of the nation baby-ducked on 'The Apprentice'. When it came down to it, New Yorkers who knew both Trump and Clinton chose Clinton. How often does a 'favorite son' lose their home state?
The anti-democratic interference by Russians and the GOP in what must be a free and fair election managed to freeze out enough voters to cause slimmer than slim popular vote wins in three key states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 77,000 votes out of 13 million cast (6 per 1,000). [Small enough that BernieBros choosing to vote Clinton rather than Trump in those states could have given her the White House.]
2020 will be a much different story. Trump will be a known incompetent. A known embarrassment. A known serial liar. And depending how deep Mr. Mueller goes, a known collaborator with a foreign power. He won't have much of a record to run on that benefits anyone other than a 1%er. The only way the Democrats lose is if the GOP engineers another theft of a free and fair election using Russian money. Will we let them do it twice? That's up to the voters and thus cannot be completely ruled out.
9
George Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign warned us that Russia was an existential threat to the U.S.and the West. We all, including the then president, scoffed and laughed ... I can't remember Mr Friedman's reaction at the time. Any reminders?
2
Yeah, of the fact that that was Mitt Romney. By the way, the point kinda is that Russia's only a prob because the shabby likes of Trump have refused to do their job.
Our true rival's China, and thanks to these idiots, we're throwing time and energy at a country with about the economy of Italy.
1
Mitt
Why does the (rational, not-Fox) press say that the Republican party "has no spine"? This is letting the Republicans off the hook! McConnell and company care far, far more about getting and keeping power than they care about their country or democracy! Their behavior of the last decade or so should make this point painfully obvious: gerrymandering, voter suppression, the Merrick Garland affair, etc. etc. ad naseum. In short this disgraceful, degenerate state of affairs we find ourselves in is exactly what they've been working hard for!
Patriotic Americans, it's time to rise up against the criminal tyranny of one-party rule by the Republicans. FORGET 2020! THE MIDTERMS MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN AMERICAN HISTORY. VOTE!
4
As everybody bashes Trump voters, my question: Why do the "principled" Jill Stein voters, the "good Republican/Independent" Gary Johnson voters, and the "Bernie or Bust" write-in voters continue to get off scot-free - especially IMO in the media - for their role in Donald Trump's election?(Stein's vote %: 1.1; Johnson's %: 3.3)
Unlike some Trump voters, it's rare to hear a Stein/Johnson voter even admit to their vote, much less regret it. So why is it the only people looked down upon are the prototypical Trump voter stereotype: Working-class white Christian, from the "heartland"? That's not all the people who voted for Trump. So why aren't the others - the affluent, educated voters - also publicly criticized as scary/ destroying our country?
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-...
"Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election."
IMO the "Anyone but Hillary!" voters never get called out for their 2016 votes yet the true-believer Trump voters get dumped on 24/7. But make no mistake: In 2018 it's still the hardcore Stein/Johnson/Bernie Would Have Won groups who aren't going to feel a need to vote Democratic - unless they get the specific (non)Democrats they want. So I ask again: Why do these voters not also get blamed for their part in Donald Trump/Republicans' continuing hold on power?
8
Three artists in Prague climbed to roof of the Prague Palace, to replace the Presidents flag with a giant pair of red underpants. A new flag for a man with no shame. Red underpants stickers can be seen all over Prague.
We need a red underpants movement of our own. No shame, indeed.
the https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/czech-art-activists-scal...
3
Our Allies and foreign competitors and enemies must know by now that they are dealing with a mentally deranged leader with a profound personality disorder. The danger to America is that they will start acting accordingly.
6
@Richard Luettgen: “Getting there is more important for a lot of us than how artfully or smoothly one gets there.”
Wow. You admitted the truth that you and the right do not support democracy or the rule of law. Guess it requires to much artfulness and smoothness. More important to just get there. Lying, cheating, voter suppression, gerrymandering, election interference, propaganda, etc. is all ok. When you’re convinced only your tribe knows best, the principles America was founded on are just in the way.
4
What most of the pundits are missing is the existence of a well planned doctorine about a new world order which Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively pursuing and implementing. It’s the alliance of corrupt, autocractic, nationalist/racist regimes around the world. And one of their main goals is to kill liberal democracy. Domestically, they are transferring America to one of them through destroying the independence of the justice and law enforcement, integrity of the elections, keeping their cronies in the legislative branch at any cost, etc. Internationally, they are destroying the current western alliances (NATO, ...), converting all the liberal democracies to the like of Turkey and Russia.
Journalist should stop portraying the president as an idiot or someone who doesn’t know what he is doing. He knows very well what he is doing.
Mr. Friedman, your conclusion about the importance of the midterm elections is right on the spot. Only if Trump & friends won’t steal the midterm elections with help from Putin. I think there are elaborate, questionable plans to keep GOP’s majority in both chambers. The game plans were probably reviewed, agreed upon in the two hour private meeting with Putin.
2
Thank God for Thomas Friedman- a truth-teller with a spine!
5
Republicans were hysterical when Snowden stole all those secrets.
Republicans were hysterical when Snowden found sanctuary in Russia.
Republicans were outraged that Snowden gave Putin all those secrets.
The so-called president believes his relationship will be beautiful.
Republicans support the so-called president.
And SNOWDEN sold America out??? LOLOLOL
2
There were people who attended lynchings as if were a picnic. These types are still here. The only difference is that today it is not Abraham Lincoln at the helm. On the throne is without a doubt one of the most evil man that has ever lived: anyone who kidnaps children from their parents because he is too dumb or impatient to think of better policy, is evil at the core. The Romans went door to door killing infants fearing the rise of a messiah who would challenge their power. Trump's policies are mentally and emotionally terroristic: yea, that means he has no shame or in Spanish: No tiena cara: He has no face.
4
President Trump ? Ah, You mean King Donald !
The problem starts with a warped and antiquated political system unworthy to be called a democracy. Our electoral college system has burdened us with a President who trailed his closest opponent by 3 million votes. Our legislative system gives us a Senate that can block any legislation allowing only two votes per state regardless of population. It gives us a House or Representatives that distorts the will of the voters via gerrymandering. The entrenched political bosses most likely will allow none of this to be changed. The rest of us must just go on enduring it. We do so, however, with no sense of our vote meaning much, and with ever decreasing sense of national pride or loyalty.
6
Don't even hope for a second that the R's will do anything about it. And it has nothing to do with whether or not they have a backbone. Over the past decade, GOP lawmakers were replaced through elections by a threatening strain elected in by the Christian right constituency. And the Christian right for decades has been pro-Putin. They have a strong admiration for Russia and its authoritarian regime. So, this strain of "American" lawmakers, the biggest national security danger/threat to our country in the history of our country will willingly support Trump. The election of Trump, for the Christian right, secured a win in the executive and legislative branches of government and a win for the Supreme Court. Except for swing states. Those states have a chance to help save our country in the mid-terms. We must give all we've got to in the mid-term election battle. Help organizations like "Rock the Vote" and/or "League of Women Voters" Help get out the vote. Help drive people to the polls if they are unable. This is the fight for the soul of our country.
1
Mr. Friedman has had 2 excellent columns in a row. If Trump had a decent cabinet there may then have been someone to tell the Emperor that he had no clothes. And there is no one shouting it in Congress or senate. There have probably been a president or two that were as incompetent as this one, but they nevwer were able to do the damage this one has already done, because of their party or cabinet or both. Nixon is an example. Hos party had men of conscience in it such as Scott of Pa. and even an extreme rightist as Goldwater that recognized the importance of integrity. We certainly don't have any house and senate leadership with courage and integrity. McConnell is probably equal to Trump in harming our Republic.
3
This is the outcome of the current administration whose agenda was to undo everything developed by the previous one. They missed a big opportunity to fix those things which needed to be fixed and build on the ones that were successful. Instead, they have chosen to start from scratch but without any clear vision of what they want (or need) to replace it with. This is not the populist agenda Trump promised his followers. Rather, it is page after page of empty talking points - all smoke and mirrors.
I've been a left-leaning centrist for decades and have voted for more Democratic than Republican candidates over the years.
I regret that I voted for a majority of Republicans in the 2016 election, which was primarily driven by the choice of candidates and a desire for a change in leadership.
However, less than 2 years into this Republican administration, I realize the error in my judgment and have committed to vote for a straight Democratic ticket in 2016 & 2020.
The 2020 presidential election can't come soon enough for me to correct my erroneous decision to vote for Trump in 2016.
Trump has proven himself not only a poor president but also a person who is incompetent, unethical, immoral and not worthy of holding the office of the President of the United States.
He has put the USA on the wrong national and global course and we must mitigate his misguided, self-serving leadership.
I'm counting on a Blue Tidal Wave in November to send a message to all Republicans that they are also on notice for 2020.
11
Thanks for your thoughts and perspective as a former Trump supporter. We need more people to vote who think critically and can look at the whole package that was voted into power in the last election. The dismantling of environmental protections, the shift of tax burden to the middle class, the lies and open greed of the administration’s appointees, the damage of the USA relations with our allies, and the human rights abuses at our borders is the package that was voted into office in the 2016 elections. It is time for voters to look at the whole picture and ask themselves if this is what they want for themselves and their families.
3
More than pleased that Mr. Friedman references the TPP and Trump's withdrawal. It was truly the most effective way for us to enhance our influence in SE Asia in opposition to the Chinese. But Trump's Obama-blinders only saw it a success--and it was a struggle to get it passed--for his more popular predecessor and object of his petty jealousies. Foolhardy? Basically, the act of a fool and ignoramus.
11
Narcissists are not able to be shamed. No surprise here.
3
Assuming we survive the reign of trump, who will believe us about anything anymore?
6
The United States of America is a mess. It has never looked this bad, this foolish in my lifetime, a life which now spans more than seven decades. The US has lost all credibility. It has lost all we gained since the end of World War II. Through the best of times and the worst, Vietnam and Watergate, America was given the benefit of the doubt. People knew we would return to some semblance of sanity. Not so this time. Now we are looked upon as a laughingstock, a country run by a big bloated buffoon. Even worse, many now look at US as a danger to the stability of the world. We have lowered ourselves so drastically we are now at the depths of despair, allowing a deranged lunatic to run the most powerful nation in history. I am ashamed to be an American, and when we travel abroad I apologize to whomever questions my nationality. Through I detest Trump I say that as an American I accept responsibility for what my country is doing for in a free society all of we Americans have a duty to the world to do good. The election of Trump is the worse thing I could imagine, let alone actually witnessing.
DD
Manhattan
9
“A party with no guts” is a false premise.
Republicans and Trump share the same goal as Trump: profiting off of thrir positions in government.
They are screwing the people and the country BIGLY.
They aren’t going to give it up, even if it destroys the country.
Winning.
9
As Mr. Friedman himself has said, the only way to get past this is to vote for Democrats. Do not elect any Republicans. Not. A. Single. One. Even the rare occasionally sane Republican such as Ben Sasse still VOTES for the Trump agenda to ruin the country (healthcare, taxes, federal bench). Congress, governors, state legislatures, every elective office.
21
Outstanding column except for one proposal. To claim we have any leverage in Syria, let alone enough to stop its refugee flow, is simply wrong. The US hasn't had any meaningful influence in Syria for decades, and has backed a ragtag hobblehoy band of mercenaries and visionaries, most of whom hate each other, who want to overthrow Syria's dictator by force of arms.
1
I see that the Trumpists are still flipped out about Hillary Clnton and Benghazi (whose laughable "investigations," took four times as long as Mueller's so far, without producing anything whatsover), and the Berniacs are still flipped out about Hillary Clinton's not being a saint, like Bernie.
I get the virulent Trumpists--after all, this is really about their revenge and their racism and their hatred and their fear, and always will be--but I would've thought that by now, the Berniacs woulda started murmuring things like, "Hey, maybe there are consequences for my haughtiness!" And, "Gosh, maybe there's a problem when I find myself agreeing with virulent Trumpists about women!"
Or even, "Hey, when I look at the similarity between some of the stuff I say about trade pacts and immigration and shouting people down and what virulent Trumpists say, maybe Jacques Derrida had a point about how coherence in contradiction expresses the force of a desire."
I voted for Clinton, and would have preferred a better choice...but she won the nomination fair and square. Sorry.
However, if you tthink your hatreds are more important than the mess we've landed ourselves in (and WE all did this, so spare me the right wing and fake left wing yack about Deep States and International Bankers), here's a good reason to be annoyed with Clinton:
She came out against TPP. And she darn well knows better. Because just as Friedman says, that treaty was essential to our future, and she politicked.
9
Among the other bases for removing Trump from office is that he must be psychologically afflicted, a compulsive liar. Since almost all are aware that Trump seldom tells the truth and can't tell the same lie two days running, there is no other explanation for his tweets and his interview statements. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to matter to the self-aggrandizing Republican Representatives and Senators.
7
He has no shame but is consumed by fear. Fear of Mueller for what he may discover and fear of Putin for what he will divulge should trump fail to tow the line. Shamelessness and fear: a person might do anything if driven by those emotions.
9
I used to think that the one sliver of hope in the election of Donald J Trump was that it proved that the US had a healthy democracy. In no other western country, could anyone like Trump come to power, I thought. The fact that he had risen from reality TV to the highest office in the land showed that the system was open to people with no political career or background. The way he eviscerated the Republican political establishment during the primaries was a wonder to behold. A new voice was coming to Washington and he was going to add some life and vitality to a moribund system.
Was that all bad?
Well, yes, as things transpire, it was. There is nothing at all special about Trump. We can find his ilk in totalitarian states all around the world — on the supposed left and right. These leaders feed on fear and prejudice, for sure, but most importantly they depend on an ill-informed and ignorant electorate. Trump isn't the symptom of a healthy democracy, he is the final rambling, incoherent words of a democracy on its deathbed. On July 16, 2018, Vladimir V Putin of Russia was on hand to deliver its last rites.
5
Thomas Friedman, I have read many of your columns and most of your books. However, I haven't seen the tone you've used in these last two columns before. There is anger under the words. The words are inspiring, accurate and informative. You speak truth. I love these articles. Keep doing this! We are reading! Call Rachel Maddow. I'd love to see you on her show. You both tell great stories with undeniable truth.
14
Tom Friedman summarizes how President Trump’s policies have and will create havoc in global relations among nations and especially among our allies and friends. He reminds us that Trump wants “to get out of Syria, rather than use our leverage there to try to stabilize its refugee flow.”
I believe that dealing with Syria should have been from the beginning through the prism of American national interest.
In several past comments in the Times, I explained that President Obama’s policy not to face Russia in Syria gave Russia the opportunity of establishing a significant military base in the eastern Mediterranean as a countervailing power to NATO and the EU; so that any military response by NATO in the Ukraine or elsewhere, would be faced with Russia’s reaction behind Western Europe.
It was in Russia’s interest to bomb Syrian civilians with the aim of increasing the flow of Syrian refugees to Europe to destabilize the EU. We are witnessing the political upheavals in several EU countries directly because of the refugee problem.
President Trump should not repeat the same faulty policy towards Syria. Withdrawing from Syria now will only strengthen Russia’s free rein in threatening Western democracies, and that certainly is not in our national interest.
4
Trump came out of his meeting with Putin pleased, and had a press conference that buttressed Putin. He must have been completely shocked watching the TV coverage. He hadn't said anything that he hadn't said before ... you know, the 400-pound man sitting on his bed. True, he has occasionally been forced to say that he believes our intelligence services, but is always careful to question their conclusion.
He has laid such careful groundwork to discredit the Mueller investigation. The House has been so helpful giving Strzok such a hard time, threatening to impeach Rosenstein, implying that the FBI is biased, and that Comey is disgruntled and incompetent. Together, they laid all this groundwork.
Yes, Trump says no collusion, AND he insists Russia didn't even do anything. And Trump thought everyone was onboard with this. To his amazement, so many people are standing up and saying our intelligence services are right AND there was Russian interference!
But now aren't we in a twist? If there was Russian interference, then the FBI needed to look into who is in contact and coordinating with these Russians, didn't they? If there was Russian interference, then Mueller should investigate, shouldn't he? Trump wants to define the reality, but he has failed to convince that Russians did nothing and that inevitably leads straight to the need for Mueller.
Americans now want to know: Who is protecting our 2018 election? We do not trust Trump and the Republicans to do it.
7
There is more at stake than usual in the coming midterms. Our democracy, for example. The unscrupulous among the republicans (and pootin's other toadies) won't go down without a fight, In order to swap out leadership of either the House or Senate, exceptional diligence will be required at precinct, district and state level races to challenge the official count in a timely manner. Anyone who thinks electronic voting systems won't get hacked (again) or break down or have "glitches" is naive. Expect absentee ballots to get lost, long precinct lines, illegal voter ID requests and purged voter rolls to disenfranchise many eligible voters. And we shouldn't discount the potential for violence, incited deliberately by trump. Citizens can hope it doesn't get too ugly but must be ready to act responsibly and challenge irregularities needed.
9
I regularly follow what is happening in the US, Sweden is a small country depending on good relationship with the rest of the world. With Trump as president it is impossible to know what comes next. The whole thing is so crazy that there are times when I think I am in trapped in some mad Peter Sellers comedy.. but it is for real and I am awake..
13
This piece, like so many in the NYT, refers to Trump, and even the Republican Party, as if they were some kind of political Ebola virus, infecting the system. They ARE the system, or the system has made them possible.
Either Trump and the current Republican Party capture the majority of votes, in which case they are legitimate representatives of what the majority of Americans want, tough luck - or they are the beneficiaries of flaws in the American system for electing its government. Whether these are the imbalance in the Senate because of a by now obsolete constitutional need to give disproportionate representation to the then empty states instead of basing representation on a more democratic basis of head counts, or similar flaws in the Electoral College, I don't know. But if those flaws are not addressed (and they can only be remedied through bi-partisan action, which now seems as likely as the creation of a Palestinian state or the Second Coming), Trump is just the first stepping stone in the terminal degradation of the American political system, its government, and the country.
6
To try to understand why this happened to the GOP one needs to go back to the primaries. e know why happened to the country, Democrats didn't vote; in the six sates that Trump flipped votes by Democrats were down by almost a million. Back to the primaries, Trump rolled over everyone. The establishment of both parties had been serving corporations for decades, regardless of how much damage it did. The working class and a fair amount of the middle class got tired of it, and turned to someone who was least speaking to their plight. It's pretty simple actually, At least it was a peaceful 'revolution'.
7
Perfectly put. I just wish more people would listen.
4
Friedman makes sense (except in the Middle East). He reminds one of Charles Krauthamer in his common sense. Now that Charles is gone, Friedman can start to get the attention he often deserves. And this column will help him get that attention.
3
"The G.O.P. has lost its way because it has been selling itself for years to whoever could keep it in power, and that is now Trump and his base."
And they are the big money corporations who can afford the multiple, high-price lobbyists who in turn bribe our Congress to support their industries, their judges, their legal claims (e.g., corporations are people; the Voting Rights Act is no longer needed, etc., etc.), and their bloated tax breaks.
All this in the face of a changing American demographic which otherwise would have voted them to the ranks of a minority party.
Hopefully the strategy is a futile, short-term, rearguard effort as more Americans wake up to their perfidy and take it to the voting booths and return us to a government of, by and for the people.
5
Friedman is right that it is all about culture. A culture that continues to believe in equal opportunity for all in spite of the development of a Class System very much like any other, a culture that encourages it's young to find something they are "passionate" about and pursue it even if it leads to no more than unemployment or minimum wage jobs, a culture where millions believe a social safety net will clash with the "Marlboro man" mirage of self-sufficiency and that needle exchanges will encourage drug use, a culture where affording anything means being able to make the payments, and worst of all, a culture where fear of "judging" results in the absence of normal societal feedback loops that help with boundaries and sensible decision making.
3
Well Friedman, you may not be aware that studies of dogs have revealed that while dogs "demonstrate" remorse for their actions, they do not have the ability to feel remorseful. Remind you of anyone.
5
Mr. Friedman, thank you for clearly and simply critiquing Trump's wacko, futile attempts to stop China's unfair trade practices and efforts to destroy the EU and NATO and replace them with bilateral agreements.
2
With help from Fox propaganda and the Kremlin, Mr. Trump got himself elected. Mr. Trump lies continually. He worships Vladimir Putin. He attacks democratic institutions. He undermines the rule of law. He insults U.S. allies. He has given Mr. Putin tacit approval for annexing Crimea. He has given Mr. Putin a pass for Russian nerve agent attacks against a NATO ally. He has let Mr. Putin see that he will not oppose a Russian move into Eastern Europe. He has made clear that he will not fulfill American obligations to the NATO alliance. For all these reasons, and more, Mr. Trump is unfit for the office he holds. Furthermore, the leadership of the dominant political party in these United States is complicit with Mr. Trump in his high crimes and misdemeanors. Vote in November.
6
So well said.
So Dems - no more third party candidates or stay at home “protest votes” . Your inability to unify to save the country causes me as much despair as the accuracy of this article. You’re all we’ve got, and it will take everyone together. Not splintered and fighting w/each other. Compromise is required of all. Please show me. Make me believe you can do this. And then do it. Because if you can’t, we will have more of this administration’s damaging lunacy, maybe for years and years and years.
14
@jkk You are dictating to the Dems? It didn't work in the last election.
How about no more candidates who are willing to grovel before corporate America? You need some insight into why Trump happened to our country in the first place, and it was much because of statements indicating that we had no recourse but to vote for more of the same, and reassurance that our input was not required. There is no amount of scolding that is going to make that a preferable alternative. The Dems need to have a party again. They need to own their party, which means it cannot be led by somebody who publicly, on the record, insists that a segment of the party will have votes that cancel out thousands of party members' votes, because "we can't have the grassroots choosing the candidate". That is indeed more dangerous than a single election.
3
Totally agree.!Well done.
1
One must have at least a modicum of moral understanding to feel shame.
When you are amoral, you feel no shame because you don't understand the meaning of shame.
At this moment, many of us feel deep shame that our country has leaders without moral anchoring.
7
If there is a "method to his madness" it is being overshadowed by his sheer ineptitude and perhaps his madness.
2
No excuses can be made for Trump. He is unfit for office, a shameless liar, a political ingnoramus, an unpatriotic American, a narcissist, and probably the nastiest human being any of us regular folks would ever meet. Enough already. This is not about Republicans and Democrats....it is about the very foundations of our Republic. Stop him now our democracy becomes the dustbin of history. Parties do not matter...truth, justice, honesty, integrity DO matter. Get out and vote in November or admit you/we were part of the demise of the great American experiment.
11
The moral of this story is one thing: Vote yourself and talk to young people you know and minorities to get them to register to vote and then to actually vote. One college-educated 20 something I talked to didn't even know there was an election coming up and doesn't have time to watch the news. I know that's a stupid excuse because it takes 1 minute to scan headlines, but this is who many younger people are. Apathy on their part and ours is the weapon of choice here. Advocate people!
13
@Regular person - It's also a good idea to let people know about FactCheck and Politifact.
2
Good suggestions, all. The desperate problem we have is that Mr. Trump is simply not capable of complex, sophisticated, strategic thinking. He is DUMB, and to that basic deficit has added aggressiveness, self-absorption, contempt for those he thinks are weak, and reverence for those he thinks are strong. In sum, the United States is now being "led" by an inept, crude, and incompetent man who just can't function in a 21st century environment.
3
@Robert - Dumb and evil, a very bad combination.
Mr. Friedman gives the Republicans a pass (not unexpectedly). They are as much or more shameless than their chosen leader. There is nothing spineless about their lies and corruption. Just because they are beholden to their corporate backers, that does not make them spineless. That simply makes them shameless opportunists.
4
To Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans in Congress: this is your one chance and only chance to reclaim your honor. This is the moment you will be judged by. The President should be removed under the 25th Amendment and Pence will become President. Your internal agenda will remain secure. I am a dedicated progressive Democrat but this goes way beyond party politics.
2
A President With No Shame, A Party With No Guts, and a brainwashed, frightened, selfish electorate with no heart that makes it all possible. I hope we do better in November.
4
From a far away view, whether it the politicians or Trump supporters.... Americans are looking like a group of idiots letting the president of the country get away with such behavior.
I was born & raised in the US. I'm ashamed to admit that.
4
Not to mention supporters with absolutely no brains...
4
trump meeting Putin in Russia without a bi-partisan congressional team was a PUTIN - TRUMP COLLUSION MEETING. Just like the SEVEN SENATOR GOP COLLUSION meeting in Russia on the 4th of July, which did not include any Democrats on the most sacred of American holidays… On that day the GOP kissed Putin's back side...!!! Not one detail of either meeting was made public... Hit tRump and the GOP hard and NEVER stop... VOTE them out...!!!
4
New catch phrase for the Republican Party: I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.
Unless we do something soon to rid us of Trump and his Russpublicans, this will become America's catch phrase too.
James Carville famously said, "It's the economy stupid." The applicable refrain regarding Trump is now, "It's kompromat stupid." Mr. Friedman, you are known for getting to the heart of matters. In this article, you miss the mark.
2
Wow! Two opiners in one day pointing their fingers at F(alse)ox and hate radio for their parts in the current mortal danger that the republican party of t rump now poses to the survival of our democracy and our Nation.
Friedman is right that the Nation needs a conservative party. After all, we haven't had a real conservative on the national scene since Jimmy Carter.
What we need first, though, is a thorough flushing of the republican/fascist/t rump party from our government and our culture.
3
The "outstanding Chris Wallace" who point-blank refused to fact-check a 2016 presidential debate? Doesn't sound like much of a real journalist to me.
9
The problem - the same one Obama faced in 2010 and 2014, dems refuse to vote in mid-terms.
Dems aren't that great when they show up either. They will vote for any unknown clown to "prove a point". The point seems to be, "we'll cut our own throats so we have something to whine about.".
Dems will lose seats again this year - making matters vastly worse. In 2020, with help of putin, trump will win again and dems will lose even more seats, as dems rediscover Jill Stein, Or Ralph Nader, or Howdy Doody.
Everything which the GOP has gotten away with, has been unopposed by the dems
I pity those that can't afford to get out
4
@shrinking food Well, maybe. But I think there is more than enough anger out there, and grassroots organizing, that will see Democrats out to the polls in record numbers. It's taking a book from the GOP, who vote on their passion for issues like gun rights and abortion. This time, it could be the repeal of Roe v Wade, the Russian co-option of the NRA, and Trump and his moat of fools which may see a turnout the likes of which we've never seen before.
5
All I can imagine is that if "trump" actually read this, he'd be laughing so hard. Well, he doesn't laugh because he's not a fully-formed human being. But he knows how to grin.
Mr. Friedman, you still hold a basic premise that "trump" is president of the United States of America in the sense that he cares. He doesn't. He doesn't care about ANY of this. What you call "madness" to him is just opportunities to shake something upside down and see what falls out. To see if there are angles to play. To see if money can be made. To see if it will keep his armed-to-the-gills base on slow simmer. We wants this because otherwise it was very likely he was headed to prison based on a lifetime of criminality of huge proportion. The thing paid $25,000,000 to settle fraud right after his fraudulent election.
So anything and everything is on the table as far as he's concerned. And let's also stop thinking republicans have not crossed over to his dark side with eager complicity. Looking for table scraps. They also do not care about what was formerly know as The United States of America. They've moved on. Announcements forthcoming. Someone has been missioned with designing a new flag. It probably has big brass-colored lettering and starts with "T".
3
"the outstanding Chris Wallace"
Oh, my GOD - I'm laughing so hard my sides are aching!!
I think you have Chris confused with his father, Mike, who was a real journalist.
6
Agree that the GOP is ruined by the madness of its corrupt standard bearer, but the conservatives are huge con jobs in their own right and deserve to go down with the filthy ship they sailed in on.
3
Most of us are familiar with the sarcastic expression "I've seen this movie before." But none of us has ever seen a movie that keeps playing nonstop that depicts the nastiest, stupidest, least competent, foolish, and all around jerk, of a United States president, as the one we have been watching since Donald Trump's behind first touched the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office. We may think we are seeing this movie for free, but not so. The daily price Trump is inflicting is enormous and increasing. We won't know the full cost of the movie for many years, but we do know now it will be staggering. A big hope I have is some day soon Donald Trump will be watching a movie of himself being removed from office. In that event he is bound to say what millions of people around the world are saying now "I've never seen anything like it".
7
Bob Corker, the outspoken Tennessee Senator says “the dam has broken” and that the floodgates of national outrage and embarrassment caused by the president’s Helsinki performance have washed away any bastion of GOP support for the president.
History would suggest otherwise. Republicans were horrified when the president’s Hollywood Access tape was made public. That disclosure would have doomed any aspirant for an elected public office, let alone someone running for president. Yet, when the dust cleared, the Republican Party stood by their nominee who went on to win the big prize.
There may be some consternation about the president’s remarks now but in the days and weeks to come the Helsinki matter will be yesterday’s news and the GOP will carry on as if nothing happened.
Let’s be clear about one thing. The Russian Bear is a huge threat to America, a wily foe that’s well on its way to destroying America and her democratic institutions. The Bear already has in place a mole who has passed herself off as a rabid NRA gun rights activist whose admitted aim is to establish a “back channel” connection with Christian evangelicals who are a powerful Republican voting bloc.
The Russia-Republican Party alliance is no accident and is a cancer that will spread through America’s soul if it isn’t stopped now. Republicans want power, not democracy. The president made that clear enough when he took a knee to his benefactor on Monday.
4
We’ve never had a president with no shame? Doesn’t that depend on what your definition of “is” is?
1
The Fox News propaganda machine will keep this madman in office. His base listens to no one else and Trump knows it. Fox owns the destruction of “The West” as much as the GOP, now “Putin’s Party”. Anything for money and power.
4
@E W
And when Putin is finished with them, they will have neither money nor power.
2
In addition to Friedman’s suggestions we might consider renewed talks about security with South Korea and Japan, selling advanced defense technology to Taiwan and supporting military modernization in Vietnam. Of course that could be part of a discussion with China about its trade practices.
Tom F.
Comey disclosed the RNC computers were also hacked by Russia, but their info not leaked.
That was in Jan 2017.
Time to revisit that date, and the timeline that follows.
The GOP itself may be working against American interests out of fear of revelation by Putin.
It explains a lot of GOP behaviors in the last 1 1/2 years, no?
1
Two thoughts.
1. Trump is unhinged. Of that I'm sure.
2. Over and over we hear (or read): "Trump's base...this, Trump's base...that." I've long thought "Trump's base" is mythical. I still think it's mythical. What's to lose by saying ,"[Unprintable verb] Trump's base," and then do what's right? (That's for you, Congress.)
4
Courageous and Pulitzer-class opinions. We would like to know more about Trump's secret agreements with Putin that the Russian propaganda machine has mentioned.
There has been the smell of betrayal.
Well, I am a liberal and I do look down on Trump supporters.
I also look down on the GOP, because Trump is Republican Number One.
Wish I could find them by looking up or aside, but down is where they are.
If this arouses their hatred, they should give me reason to respect them.
I'm waiting.
7
How much courage would it take you, Mr. Friedman, to state that the GOP, too, is without SHAME? "guts" is more respectable, is it?
We didn't have a problem outlawing the communist party, but we are too timid to call out the GOP an OUTLAW party.
1
Friedman's problem--as well as our Sovietized mass-media--Trump can't be shamed and guilt is not an option. So what to do--attack the party and his supporters as not having the "guts" to manipulate the man as Friedman and his Opinion Kingdom cohorts did with Obama?
Nope, not gonna work: He's doing exactly what they hoped he do--bring chaos to the deep-swamp, to include both the RNC and DNC Politburos.
Keeping up the diatribes is going to be as good as it gets till 2024.
2
To understand Donald J. Trump one only needs to understand Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He cares about one thing, and one thing only: Donald J. Trump. I’m not saying that to judge, that is how the brain works. Every piece of data that enters his brain (verbal, non verbal, tweets, etc) and every piece of data that leaves his brain all must pass through the filter that is his own Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Therefore he is incapable of change without extensive treatment, and that requires an admission of a problem. No amount of handlers will change or temper his thinking. Any information that is damaging to his narcissistic construct will be immediately rejected (e.g. fake news). Shame left the building long before Elvis did. To feel that emotion would lead to severe emotional dysfunction. For Trump, it must be avoided at all costs.
As others have pointed out, Democrats have no spine. They are adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Republicans? It’s personal power over patriotism. Or to quote the Narcissist-In-Chief: SAD
1
I may be missing something, being north of the border, but the lack of a substantial response to yesterday's events from the Democrats is bewildering.
2
When a first guy (who holds the position that is widely seen as the most powerful job in the world) does not have the guts to tell a second guy (the leader of a two-bit country that is dependent on the price of oil for its future) to cut out the nonsense, what does THAT tell you about the first guy?
It tells ME that the first guy must be under the control of the second guy.
Why would that be?
Perhaps the first guy owes so much money to the second guy (or the second guy's pals) that the second guy can do either of two things:
a. Call the debts that the first guy owes, bankrupting him; or
b. Dump the financial records of the first guy onto the internet (or send copies to a few newspapers or cable systems).
The first situation is self-explanatory.
The second is the financial equivalent of the leaking of the DNC emails by Wikileaks (which may be the example the second guy uses to show the first guy how bad it can get). Such a data dump would ruin the reputation of the first guy (assuming he has any financial reputation left). It would also hold him up to public ridicule (which the first guy cannot handle). It would also give the authorities a trove of data with which to charge the first guy with such crimes as tax fraud, failure to pay taxes, and money laundering.
Salacious tapes? Not very shocking after taped comments about grabbing women by their private parts. (The first guy revels in people talking about his sex life, which he then denies.)
6
Republican's with no spine? That's saying they can't help it. That they're unable. They can help it and they're able but they choose not to. They have no moral compass and don't care about the people they have been elected to serve. They are traitors to their country.
5
Fox network has to be reined in. It either must use facts and support American democracy above customers or it should also be viewed as treasonous. Yes, it is treason to work to subvert our Democracy and Fox has been doing it along in the name of ratings. It doesn’t matter who does or how the subversive acts are done. They are treasonous and need to be dealt with for the greater good. No network should be able to lie and use doctored news and remain on air. Period. It is not freedom of speech to use that very Amendment to destroy our form of democracy.
2
'A President With No Shame' - This is nothing new. Bill Clinton had no shame, and still does not, witness his 'I still don't get it' interview in June with NBC’s “Today”- 'Bill Clinton Says He Doesn’t Owe Lewinsky a Private Apology in Light of #MeToo'
Hillary also had no shame, re: private email server, Benghazi and her public position vs her private positions, i.e. intentional deceit. And now we know from yesterday's piece, she was bought and paid for by George Soros.
Trump was elected because of his policy positions. The tremendous baggage, that both Hillary and Trump had, in abundance, was mere background noise. People are getting too worked up on Trump, do not take him too seriously, I doubt that he takes himself too seriously. He auto-corrects sometimes, which is a good sign, but his critics will not give him credit for doing so.
2
So the President get up next to a KGB colonel, murderer and thief and essentially tells the world that the KGB colonel, murderer and thief is right and our own people are wrong, and your gripe is that Donald Trump doesn't get enough credit for auto-correcting sometimes.
Good grief.
7
Donald Trump blurted, the world erupted, and I heard Marlene Dietrich’s great line, from ‘Touch of Evil’: “What does it matter what you say about people?” Trump can eat his ‘wouldn’t’. There’s nothing I care to hear from Republican quislings. The question is, What will people of conscience Do? Where are the principled resignations, Dan Coats, Jon Huntsman Jr.? Protest and vote like democracy depends upon it. No excuses! Do you have your senators on speed dial yet? Looking at you, Susan Collins and Angus King.
1
Way to phone it in. Impotent rage from the 'mustache of understanding', much like the rest of the press. In the face of sheer madness they truckle and pander. It's not fake news, it's servile news. Grow a spine and speak the truth. It's standing right in front of you with a magnificent combover, spouting inanities that you enable.
2
The Republican Party has gone from being the elephant to an octopus; no spine but long tentacles.
2
Maybe the American Experiment has finally run its course. An immoral, incompetent man has been put in charge and congress, which is equal branch capable of checking Executive power, does nothing. The GOP should go the way of the Whig party or change their name to something as sinister as their actions.
President Trump has done more to confront Russia in less than two years than Obama did in eight. He has not sold any more uranium to them. He does not have a problem with a former spouse taking huge payments for speeches in Moscow.
I will conceded that this presser in Helsinki was not Trump's best performance. However, it is not the 'national security crisis' that the left's talking points chortled about all day. What exactly did we give away in Helsinki? How did America capitulate to Moscow? What did we give up? What did Moscow get? How was this presser the same as Pearl Harbor or Krystalnacht? Pearl Harbor cost America nearly 2,000 lives. How many Americans died in Helsinki? Please...get a grip.
The left's obsession with Trump - rooted in it's singular attempt to discredit him at any cost - is bordering on the absurd. Moreover, the left gives Russia far too much credit and power. Russia is arguably a third world nation with a GDP the size of Texas, a shrinking population and military spending that totals only about 15% of the US.
Again, it was not Trump's best effort. It wasn't Obama's best effort in Havanna either when he posed for selfies with Raul Castro. There were no leftist histrionics about Cuba.
3
@Keith. Maybe you should ask people in Kiev, Tallin and Riga what they think has been given away at this “summit”. The war in Ukraine continues and the Baltic states may be next in line. And don’t say it does not concern us. This was what the isolationists in the US were saying as World War 2 was gathering strength in Europe - until Pearl Harbor. Sure, Russia is not the superpower the USSR, was but Putin’s entire purpose in life is to correct this, to make Russia feared and respected again. And military spending is not a measure of military might anymore. We are not in the 20th century. You don’t need tanks when you have hackers and Russia has very good hackers. And finally, newsflash: Obama is no longer President and Cuba is not at war with Europe.
5
May one ask why Trump's endless bragging about his business interests in Russia, the $600 mil in loans from Deutschebank, the other $600 mil he owes Bank of China, the latest gigundo loan to his kids from China via Indonesia, and the sweetheart deal Kushner just got from Kuwait to refi his white elephant of a skyscraper don't seem to get on your radar?
Reagan, too, gave a few little speeches abroad for cashy money, back in the day. Didn't see FOX yelling about that.
So yeah, ex-prezzes have a habit of cashing in via the lecture circuit. I don't like it, but it's right out in the open. Whoop-de-do. But raking in what, two billion from foreign governments and not letting anybody see your tax returns while you're squatting in the Oval Office...
As for the Uranium One thing, I've no idea how to wean virulent Trumpists off Infowars and Hannity. It'll rot yer teeth, though.
1
I agree whole-heartedly with this editorial, but wish to point out that you seem to have misused the term ‘sub-Saharan’, which *excludes* North Africa
1
His supporters think he's playing nine dimensional chess when he couldn't get through a game of checkers.
3
What used to be a democracy led by a government composed ot a president and Congress working together to protect the country and its citizens has now becove a government composed of a self-appointed king supported by a building full of unuchs. Congress has no spine but the male members are lacking another important body part.
1
Analyzing Donald J. TRAITOR and his actions is a waste of time. WHY he does the treasonous things that he does is not worth the effort to find out. In a just world, Robert Mueller is working on finding out those facts and circumstances, and will report his findings, in a report or in indictments, in due course. (Will knowing the reason make the treasonous action somehow "better"? No way, Jose.)
THAT he does the treasonous things that he does is all one needs to know.
THAT the Republicans in Congress have no spine and cannot even speak about the treasonous acts and failures of Donald J. TRAITOR is all you need to know about them.
In the meantime, We the People need to elect the 116th Congress on November 6, 2018 with a majority of Democrats who will actually perform the constitutionally mandated duty of overseeing the Executive Branch of OUR government (not the government that Donald J. TRAITOR thinks he OWNS) .
Nothing less will be sufficient to start to fix the problems that Donald J. TRAITOR is creating.
3
Mr. Friedman left out a few things that Trump and Republicans lack: decency, integrity, honor and yes, patriotism.
The country can't wait for Robert Mueller to come riding in and save us. The traitors have to be confronted now. Shame them, expose them. Don't leave out Fox News propaganda.
If it weren't for the "failing" NYT and CNN and the other legitimate news sources it would be immeasurably worse.
5
This country as we know it is doomed! Mr. Trump went on TV and told us we did not hear what we thought we heard at his Press Conference with Putin Yesterday. He "Misspoke".. And he and his spineless Congress expect us to believe it!!!!!
There seems to be no level he will not stoop to. And nobody can or will call him on it!!!
I Pray the country can survive three more years of Mr. Trump! The rebuilding will be tough, but we can, we must look to the future starting today.
3
There are many other questions- what about the group of republican senators that went to Moscow for July 4th? What did they do in Moscow? Why was it so ignored by the mainstream corporate media? Even ignored by the
Democrats. And then what other senators may be in a situation where Putin’s thugs may also have something on them?
1
Best ever. Thank you, Mr. Friedman.
"We can't do it to you without you," sez the GOP.
Please vote, America!
Someone wrote 'if we don't want to lose our country....'
The USA has already lost.
2
We are really sorry Mr. President but unfortunately you have no redeem points left. Feel free to try again. Good luck.
How can America stop Trump's Republican Enablers if the 2018 and onwards elections are compromised by Russia, China, etc? What is the Plan B for loyal Americans -- to the Constitution, our norms and traditions, and the post-WW2 global order?
If the voting/peaceful protest option fails, only a mass insurrection is left. Which plunges us into a Second Civil War, because even today Trump has the support of at least 50M people, most who own guns. I'm not sure most patriots (never-Trump Republicans, left-leaning independents, and Democrats) are ready for or even capable of that.
I think that we can only begin to fix this national catastrophe by:
1. making Election Day a national holiday,
2. making voting a "mandatory civic obligation" (like standing during the Star Spangled Banner :)) and
3. using paper ballots in elections until the current interference and cyber-intrusion from Russia is successfully blocked.
4
Trump lies through his fake teeth. He meant EXACTLY what he said at the press briefing with Putin. We all know that his English is weak and he is totally senile, but this was his gut talking...he has said the same stuff many times over and his rants on the world stage has sealed his image as a raving lunatic. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely...so can we even afford to wait till November? Trump is hell bent on destroying America and American values. The time for action is now, but these unpatriotic Republicans seem happy to watch on the sidelines. Let's see the transcript of the private meeting. Let's see the tax returns and see the money trail. And the press needs to take a stance; file a lawsuit (like Bloomberg did in other cases) for full disclosure.
2
Trump has no morals and is clearly the most unfit president in American history. Let's get real. It looks like Putin put him over the top in votes in the 3 critical states -Penn., Wisconsin, Michigan. trump is not only unfit and immoral, he is likely illegitimate. The sheer quantity of lies (think "pizza-gate") and vile accusations all contributed to this "fake human" sitting in the WH.
The Repubs are a bunch of frauds with morals and ethics at the same level as trump - they say a few words - no ACTION except support his every wish. Talk about hypocrisy! Trump was not "duly elected", he's had the opportunity that many asked for, and if his disgusting and treasonous performance in kissing Putin's butt in Helsinki is not enough to cause his demise - on top of all his prior lies and madness - our nation has been dumbed down and corrupted beyond anything we imagined.
America - we are being ripped off by a few wealthy immoral hyenas who are stealing us blind (see Repub tax cuts for wealthy in 2017), paying forthe cuts by stealing from the middle class, destroying our future (see "Climate change as hoax"), placed the lowest of life in the White House and own 100% of the congressional Repubs who now vote for their puppet-masters' bank account with total disregard for the American people. Make no mistake - we are being ripped off by the most disgusting group of corrupt liars to ever darken our WH and Congress. Vote for ANYONE with a "D" in front of their name - and VOTE.
3
@EWHEven Ulyses S. Grant, who was a known drunk, is a far better fit as President.
you are joke, where is the outrage at Obama for the open mike comments, the hiding in the corner when Russia took over the crimera, and invaded the ukraine
@herbie212
What was wrong about the open mic?
Obama supposed to do, go to war over Ukraine and Crimea?
And are we supposed to give Trump a pass because of those things?
2
Your trollish remarks bear no resemblance to the truth. Russia was condemned and sanctioned for its invasion of the Ukraine by Obama’s administration. He never met with or even less groveled before Putin the way the current clown occupying the White House has. By the way, Putin troops still occupies Crimea and holds sway in eastern Ukraine. What has he done to move Putin out?
3
Surely the people can take their country back at the ballot box, but what if the ballot box is hacked. If the Russians are still committing cyber crimes right now to fix the election for Republicans and there has been no work done on cyber defense, the Republicans can win again, voters be damned.
2
After the obligatory NEVER TRUMP, invertebrates and Faux News, Tom finally gets around to a concrete alternative to Trump's craziness - the Trans Pacific Partnership. According to Tom, Trump should have championed the TPP, along with secret negotiations with China, as the answer to China's bad faith trade tactics. But, wait, Tom. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernard Sanders were adamantly opposed to the TPP because, as they argued, it screwed American working class people [one may assume jurinalists and gov workers would make out just fine]. All of the players in 2016 disagreed with you, Tom. And, not to mention the suggestion that we open back channels with the Chinese to screw our partners in TPP. So, other than NEVER TRUMP, invertebrates and Faux News, do you have any other brilliant ploys to run the world from Mid-Manhattan? Maybe liberating another Middle Eastern country and saving us all from Saddam's stockpile of WMD? What else you got, Tom?
1
Ah! The Putin White House!
2
"It is by Democrats winning the House, the Senate or both in the midterm elections."
A good start. But local and state elections also need to be in the discussion. That is where many of the rules that disenfranchise voters are made.
Additionally, this won't be a one election cycle cleanse. It will take at least 6 years. The senators who where elected in 2016 need to be held accountable and voted out where indicated.
This is a chronic, not an acute condition.
1
I agree that it's vital that the Democrats win the election this November but I fear that they will again lose because they seem to have lost the knack of running winning campaigns. Trump didn't win the presidency - Hillary lost it with her ineffective campaign, blinded by hubris and the belief that she was a shoe-in. I agree with those who have written that it's vital that the Dems grow a spine - they've got to develop a winning strategy now and really work towards winning or Trumps' minions will again be the victors.
2
I believe Friedman's last sentence says it all. Despite all the complaining and whining about the unfortunate direction America is taking, over the last TEN years two-thirds of the states are controlled by Republicans and they now own all THREE executive branches of the government! If one goes by the polls indicating what Americans really want, Republicans would never get elected, yet, here we are.
Frankly, I really don't know what America is or what it wants anymore because from where I sit, if all you are interested in is a few dollars more in your next paycheck(at the expense of everything else), then this government fits the bill perfectly.
7
AGREED! All I hear from any Republican colleagues is references to their investments. They clearly only value money. I'm teaching my children differently, and so may be most democrats, but look at where it's getting us!
2
in many instances those that voted for trump were awakening to the fact that the republican establishment has been lying to them for decades. telling them that the republican party is the logical home for patriotic hard working (white) people..... as time has gone by this has become less and less believable. they go looking for alternative "news" sources to make sense of it all. the one thing they have not been able to do yet is cast off the effects of the extreme anti liberal propaganda. with hillary running their "news" sources had the perfect candidate on which to tee off. i don't believe we will ever change these people. we need to put them back in the marginal position from which they came and that means voting out republicans at every level of government.
1
The nation is now experiencing what we went through in Idaho so thoroughly after Reagan was elevated to King in 1980. It was Nixon's Southern Strategy on steroids. No one, Republican or Democrat, who expressed desire for compromise survived. The Republicans co-opted the extremists, the Guns n' God crowd, whose hatred and fear is easily manipulated by the ultra-rich like Rupert Murdoch.
5
I cannot think of a single conservative policy in the entire history of the United States that has had a positive impact on the lives of any Americans, except maybe the extremely rich. We don't need a reformed conservative movement, we need conservatism to go the way of the dinosaur.
4
@Casey
Well, we could probably use a balanced budget and reduced national debt. Couldn't hurt.
Reading this "analysis" almost makes Trump look sane. Friedman seems to be priming the pump for the next round of "Just sign the TPP", among other things.
One need not be a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist to recognize the wisdom of Mr. Friedman's words.
But Mr. Trump's base simply doesn't get it. Not only do they seem to love what he does, they love it even when it hurts them. Anger seems to be more important than actually improving their own lives.
This sad situation won't change until Democrats have a majority again and even then, the Trump base will complain when once again, the United States is respected world-wide, we have a stable economy and jobs are high (they will fall due to Trump's antics).
1
It's a feeling of acutely profound helplessness, isn't it. The demagogue plays to specific audiences with ever-changing
stories, lies and showmanship, and gathers a potent following. But once his audience becomes "everyone", he sheds his clothes, bit by bit, and his courtiers in the audience chamber follow suit, bit by bit, until all are as naked as the emperor. Those courtiers once claimed to occupy a high ground of decency, patriotism, "family values" (whatever those are supposed to be), fiscal responsibility and so on. And now? In their nakedness they expose their single driving
principle of gaining and holding power, uncomplicated by any
of the principles they once seemed to at least try
- on occasion- to adhere to. They doubtless believe they're
"saving" the republic, while trashing it. "Throw the rascals
out"? Sadly, I doubt it. The emperor is learning how to hold
on to his crown, and the courtiers are too frightened to oppose him. They'd rather hold on to their posts than out on their clothes. After all, it's working for the emperor, isn't it?
1
"Trump's base" is not the same as, say, "liberal base". Trump's base has either changed into, or rapidly changing into, a bunch of angry people who believe power makes law, law is a tool to be used against their enemies, resent "not being respected" and are also the vast majority of gun-owners.
Anyone else seeing a problem with that?
1
Thank you for having the courage to tell the truth, Mr. Friedman.
Trump is a would-be emperor who is walking naked through the world while his counselors avert their eyes and betray our country with their silence
1
I suppose a healthy conservative party would be good for America. I wouldn't want it to win the Presidency or Congress much before 2032 though. Let's give the Democrats some breathing room. Once again they'll need to clean up after the Republicans before they will be able to develop much of an agenda of their own.
1
Trump is all of these things. Now getting his base to admit he pulled the wool over their eyes is going to be hard. The only thing that all people understand is their pocket. When people start feeling the Economic pinch they will change their minds. Untill then they are sticking to him like glue. I dont Understand it.
Has anyone considered that Trump has placed himself in a such a no-win situation that going along to get along with Putin (whom I fully believe is black-mailing Trump over . . . finances, election tampering, et al) is more important than standing up for America? Would ultimate impeachment be the lesser of two evils when he would only end up back at the top of his financial empire from which he never divested himself in the first place.
Millions of Americans bear responsibility for Trump. Not because they bought into his rhetoric or ideas (such as they are) or even his phony sympathy for the “forgotten man”. They are responsible because they wanted to make the liberals pay. It’s the same kind of petty playground revenge that Trump himself indulges in, and it’s the worst possible reason to hand power to the petulant toddler who now sits in the Oval Office.
The sheer level of incompetence, pettiness, greed, power-grabbing and contempt for those they are meant to serve should, in any other time, bring about necessary change at the highest levels. Instead, it has normalized all these things and made governance by tweet and open deceit the order of the day. Vote out every Republican you can and let the Koch brothers sort ‘em out.
3
This last election was rigged, and the republicans knew it. They obstructed the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice because they Knew they had the election in the bag, and their bagman was the current president. He came with suitcases of money and NRA backing which lined the pockets of the republicans, and loosened their spines. They are afraid to bite the hand which feeds them, because they now realize how unstable that hand is, and that they will go down with him. You pay a price for making a deal with the devil.
3
We have a narcissistic sociopath president, an official State Media in Fox News, and a party with a majority in the House and Senate where a few members will talk but even those will do nothing to oppose the president. The rest of the Republicans are either Trumpists or enablers. The Democrats are only slightly better - a little spine, but not enough. They fear the Trump base too much to really mount any effective opposition. The only hope for the Republic is to elect every single Democrat that we can this fall in the hope that more numbers will give the Democrats more spine. This from a former Republican!
4
I have long wondered how decent people can continue to support this president. I finally get it. It’s about the far right controlling the country and nothing else. There really is nothing this president can do that you will find disgusting.
The Republican Congress is moving forward with it’s agenda to give tax cuts to the rich, to take away any option of basic medical care or education for the poor, to extend their racist, homophobic, misogynistic beliefs into every aspect of government, blow up decades of progress in science and protecting the environment, and shred the constitution and the rule of law.
Our infrastructure is crumbling while Donald Trump gets richer, but why should he care, he never has to ride the subway in NYC. The middle class, working, white population bought into this charade which is even more pathetic. He told them he was one of them, and they fell for it. He threw gasoline on their bigotry and anger, and made anyone who appears different the scapegoat for their unhappiness. He must laugh himself to sleep at night over this.
The GOP has no decency, no concern for human rights, no compassion, or love of country. From so many who call themselves Christians, I witness the most un-Christ-like behavior imaginable. You have proven, beyond any doubt, that there is nothing more important to the GOP than your warped agenda. And for that, Republicans have sold their souls to the devil. Well done.
3
A Political System With No Shame and Two Parties With No Spine
1
Tom has superior talents as an intellect and writer; however, it's hopeless trying to be rational with a manic narcissist and would-be tyrant. Ask Neville Chamberlain. The only rational approach is to get rid of him and restore sanity and rationality and compassion and humanity and empathy to our government. Starting this November. Be sure to register. Be sure to vote.
2
Meanwhile the EU and Japan have just signed one of the biggest free trade deals in history, in contrast to Trump's has a tariff war. The EU is an important US market for direct exports and MNC investment, as well as a bulwark against spreading Russian influence. There are problems but they can be dealt with by negotiation, but Trump does all he can to weaken the EU and NATO, prime objectives of Russian policy. A 'useful idiot' indeed, how Putin was smirking at Helsinki)
2
Our obligation as voters is to vote out the criminals running, and ruining our country. Perhaps the NYTimes should feel some obligation to stop acting like there is some equivalence between the feckless Democrats and the nihilistic Republicans. You have never admitted your culpability in causing the disaster that was the election of Trump by your 20 year relentless campaign to destroy Hillary Clinton.
There never was an equivalence between her truth shading and his pathological lying. Claiming 'both sides are equally radical' is inaccurate, and has given the radical Republicans a free ride. Time to end it. We will do our job and vote, the media should start doing its job too.
4
“Basket of deplorables.” Unfortunate at the time but has landed squarely on congressional GOP.
5
Trump and his following are about one thing: anti-elitism.
Ironically, the rhetoric is anti-elitist but the praxis is to just put more power into dictators like Putin and wannabe dictators like Trump.
I think this is pretty weak as far as criticism or condemnation. Maybe better for Tom to start with the word treason and work your way down from there. This C+ essay is an example of a commentator trying to "seem reasonable". So, the explanation is that Trump is simply deranged? Sure, that's fine and maybe a given, but as Tom knows, we are no longer supposed to blame the mentally ill for their odd behavior. So, this is just one more swing and a miss. Sociopath or not, Trump is a disaster and ought to be impeached. That he has supporters who are a substantial minority of our citizens and is being protected by craven Republican enablers in Congress has absolutely nothing (!) to do with what is right and what is wrong. How we get the right thing to happen is a different matter and needs to wait until November, but flipping the script simply requires the majority to actually express its opinion and vote. People like Tom should stop conflating this all together into a stew. Wrong is wrong, explanations aside. How we right the wrong is a different discussion.
3
Thomas says: “The G.O.P. has lost its way because it has been selling itself for years to whoever could keep it in power”.
For years.
To whoever.
Definition of venality, and treason.
4
I'm tired of hearing "it's not Trump; it's the spineless party" or "It's not Trump; it's his dumb base." Let's get real here. Our country has one of the lowest percentages of eligible voters who actually vote. So, Dems, get yourselves together, come up with a message --and a candidate -- that speaks to those left behind by promises unfulfilled (by both parties) and make sure you and everyone you know takes the time to vote. We can fix our other problems after November 6th. If we lose Nov. 6th, then we're to blame, also.
2
@Salye Stein
Yeah it's a pretty simple message: "Save the republic".
Just keep in mind, Slaye, the worst democrats tried to do for you last time they controlled Congress and the White House was to try to deliver you the guarantee of health coverage. Such a horrible thing to do, right? Contrast that to anything republicans are trying to do to you now. If that stark comparison doesn't help to sort this out for you just a little bit then we truly are lost.
2
@Matthew
Matthew, I do not consider health coverage extreme. I'm for it, of course. I abhor what some Republicans are trying to do to our country and our citizens: repealing all progress that has been made since Roosevelt. Horrible. I'm just talking about the Democrats making sure everyone possible gets out to vote and also making sure we have a winning, resonant message and winning candidate
Tom's insight is exquisite. Whether you are a Trumpian or not, you must be appalled at the subject of a bombastic incompetent
President throwing our wonderful US under the bus.
If not, we get out of the bed on different sides.
1
A short quiz:
Would you recommend a mechanic who cut your brake lines and then charged you for repairing the brakes on all four wheels?
Would you fly on an airline that bragged how its low fares came from skipping all routine maintenance on its aircraft?
If you knew that 90% of Dr. Chop N. Slice's patients died during surgery, would you seek him out for your hernia repair?
If your answer to any of the above questions is YES, our President thanks you for your support.
1
Trump is right: We do need to confront China on its trade restrictions, forced technology transfers and nonreciprocal trade arrangements.
[ No, we do not need to confront China any more than we need to confront Germany or France or Canada. We can work with China on trade issues through the WTO, just as we would with France. ]
The major mistake that Mr Friedman as well as all other journalists make is referring to the Republican base as if this some strong minority within the Republican Party. Ninety percent (90.0 %) of ALL Republicans support and would re-elect Donald Trump. Until that 90% number changes the Republican Congress will remain on its knees groveling to their authoritarian leader. Only when some of that 90 %, many of whom are loyal, intelligent Americans come to their senses will things change.
3
Friedman has is exactly right: it's all about culture. It's all about the culture war. "It" being Trump and Trumpism. If we didn't fight over guns, God and gays, between rural and urban, religious and secular, traditional and progressive - if we saw ourselves first and foremost as Americans rather than these two tribes - Trump wouldn't be anywhere near the presidency.
He exploited and continues to exploit the anger of traditional people who felt mocked, derided and slandered by the left's cultural hegemony. He's a brilliant demagogue.
Take that away from the right - by say, the left declaring victory in the culture wars and moving on - and the GOP, Trump and right wingers don't have any base to whip up.
2
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the reason a “have you no sense of decency” moment won’t happen today is because Republicans gave up all pretense of decency when they bought their ticket on the obscene Trump train, a train that followed the track they’ve been laying for several decades.
9
Friedman fails to consider key evidence already in the public domain. Put simply, some GOP elites and related groups and supporters have over time developed relationships with Russian agents and their associates. It seems this may well have been initially independent of Trump's networks and immediate associates. At some critical point, they joined forces. The GOP has not "lost its way" or "lost its spine". Hostile foreign forces, allied with powerful party, media, and financial interests, now control the party. The rest presume that their fate, at least through 2020, hinges on silent complicity and sometimes worse.
1
The Dems need to stand up for this. They're too focused on not-Trump to stand up for TPP or anything else that you mention.
2
The only thing that will stop Trump is to win this November.
The problem with that: democrats are putting up such left wing candidates, that conservative democrats like me will not vote for them ( see the anti semitic Cortez from Brooklyn)
If you want to win, but up middle of the road candidates, back away from the social issues.
I doubt Democrats can do that.
And... by the way, exactly who is going to run against Trump: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, I hope not..they are too far left.
1
The Republicans are not spineless. They are complicit. They're using Trump to further their goals, most of which are anathema to a majority of Americans.
4
@Clare
BOTH parties are disgusting!
1
We don't need the president to develop shame nor do we need to again get a conservative party. Such nonsense.
We need this president gone by special removal or controlled by a Democratic House.
And we need some real progressive thinkers in the government; neither party of today has modern ideas, policies or are authentic such that the people can see they are sincere and honest. We need thinkers whose honesty shows through and who can surround themselves with people and ideas for the 21st century. The people want health care for all, an elimination of the horrid wealth inequality and a thoughtful foreign policies that can work with other countries, eliminate nuclear weapons and get serious about climate change.
The people are waiting for some real parties that know the meaning of humanism, honesty and truth and can communicate it and live it. And serve all the people not just the elite that has given us oligarchy for decades.
2
Going way back, President Clinton would tell Americans he felt their pain. Today, there is pain, hate and uncertainty shared by so many. Somehow, I believe if Hillary had won the election her Bill, would come up with another strong bromide that would assuage some of these terrible feelings we have.
1
Mr. Friedman is correct that a major electoral change is needed. But voting will not be sufficient to overcome the inevitable excuses of Trump and his collaborators. Under the law, Trump is a criminal and his collaborators are accessories. Until they are tried and jailed, even an election overhaul will not be enough to stigmatize their kind. With criminal consequences the voters who support them will change course. Upping the ante is the only way to insure this doesn’t happen again. Think Germany after WWII.
How come nobody actually sues him for treason? At least we would get this issue sorted out in court as evidence would be presented by both defendant and prosecutor. If Americans won't do it, NATO countries should, making clear that it is the person Trump they are charging and not the US.
1
As usual I agree with most of Mr. Freidman's arguments but he seems to gloss over the major cause - in my humble opinion - of the rise of nationalist sentiment and governments in Europe. And that cause is the flood of - let's be brutally honest here - largely unskilled and uneducated migrants from Southwest Asia and Africa whom working class Europeans - who may be struggling themselves - are expected to happily house, clothe, feed and educate in perpetuity. Human nature is what it is Mr. Freidman - very few of us are Mother Theresas - and I for one totally understand the resentment of Europeans who are being told by their betters how racist they are and how they must pick up the migrant's massive tab to atone for that racism. I don't like the rise of right wing governments in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Poland - but I certainly understand how they got there.
4
@John J. You seem to be saying that, "human nature [being what] it is," the CAUSE (my emphasis) of the rise of populist, xenophobic, and racist nationalism in Europe is immigration. I would suggest that you don't understand causality. The causes of nationalism are complex. To understand them, it's crucial to look beyond what those who stir up populist, xenophobic, and racist nationalism say they are; for those people always have their own agenda.
1
The Republican congress doesn't need a spine as much as it needs a conscience. It takes a lot of nerve to turn your back on America in favor of continuance in office. And that's exactly what the congressional Republicans have done and are doing. Trump can be overlooked; he was never a patriot. His five deferments and bone spur bear this out. Many of the individuals in congress that carry Trump's water, on the other hand, were once true patriots. Now, they're caught up in a herd mentality that blindly follows Trump and allows all sorts of mischief. Since Trump is president and the Republicans are in the majority, there is no end in sight.
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
7
I do wonder if this hallabaloo of TRUMP/PUTIN helsinki meeting is a manifestation of american hubris.We have been meddling in every ones affairs as if we are entitled to it&all of a sudden rudely awakened by a smarter adversary like PUTIN who just showed us a MIRROR.What goes around comes around.Europe took us for granted for decades finds us unpalatable when we start house cleaning.USA has started looking EAST so slowly disentangling itself from the euro baggage allowing them to fend for themselves&we we have a bigger fish to fry called CHINA.Trump might be trying to get PUTIN disentangle himself from the DRAGON's EMBRACE.
Trump is vain. Whether he's beholden to Putin I don't know; but it seems pretty clear that he firmly believes he's the smartest, sharpest guy in the history of the universe. His vanity is so extreme that I honestly can't imagine anyone not being impressed by it. What I don't understand is how come so many of us didn't get the memo that vanity is very dangerous. I gather some people believed that Trump, being as amazingly vain as he is, would somehow use his bigger-than-life vanity to propel himself to bigger-than-life greatness as our POTUS. Time to think again. Vanity doesn't work that way. It is, in fact, VERY dangerous.
2
I did not vote for Mr. Trump, but the constant attacks by the media make me like him more. What has he done that is so wrong?
George Bush Jr. attacked a small country and initiated a war on false pretenses and he received nothing like this treatment from the media. Is it just that Mr. Trump does not come from the existing power structure, and it therefore deserving of such treatment?
1
Having experienced the cultural upheavals of the 1950’s - 1970’s, the goals were quite clear - to be a more perfect Union, a more equal, more fair, more just democratic Republic living up to actively affirming the words in the Constitution. GOP political campaigns have run on taking rights and freedoms away, racial dog whistles have become barks. The current counter-cultural backlash is anti-democratic and corrupt, providing a platform for white nationalist fervor that is immoral on a human level and wrong on a scientific level. Yes, such racism and bigotry have always existed but they are not inherent; such beliefs are choices influenced by a fearful, greedy, and vengeful culture. Trump supporters need to take their blinders off and start thinking in current terms based on actions taking place right before one’s eyes, and the consequences, not simply living in campaign mode and parroting campaign justifications of a conman candidate (Trump is a successful businessman, Trump is an entrepreneur, Trump is a good negotiator). There has been no evidence to support these justifications and plenty to disqualify them. Our democracy is under attack and Donald Trump is aiding and abetting democracy’s enemies. Greed, fear, hatred do not herald positive change. These emotions will not guarantee you a job or make our economy better. These emotions cause inhumanity, inequality, corruption, oppression, suffering, suppression for all. No one is exempt.
1
Mr. Trump is being blackmailed by Russian interests. For me, no other explanation is as plausible. We don't know if this is related to financial things, as we have minimal disclosure on Trump's investments and taxes. It might be related to embarrassing sexual indiscretions. Eventually blackmail fails. It will be quite interesting.
4
With our Congress, and Trump himself acting without principles, no shame, without a backbone, no ethical standards... is there really much of a difference between us the Kremlin?
The Republican party lost its moral compass long ago with a win at any cost--including the integrity of our democracy--attitude. They have backed the corruption of our politics through money by fostering the Supreme Court justices who gave us Citizen's United, they unabashedly foster systematic gerrymandering, and voter suppression. And, of course, they spawned and continue to support the most incompetent and dangerous president in modern history.
2
Thank you, Mr. Friedman. Maybe you've been this angry/concerned all along (since the tragedy of 11/9/16) but I am seeing it for the first time now. And I feel validated. Maybe Trump has done something right but I am at a loss to identify whatever that might be. He did broker a meeting with North Korea which could have been remarkable IF he had spoken up on the issue of human rights even for a millisecond. But he didn't. He fawned over another madman (who is obviously much much smarter than he is). It is inconceivable to me that Trump still has as much support as he does. It is simply shameful. When Trump trashed Justin Trudeau, I was appalled. And then he went on to treat both Angela Merkel badly (again) & tells Theresa May how to run England. Now, the best of all - the debacle of the Putin meeting. Thank you for putting all my own thoughts into words. You are a master of your craft.
1
Mr. Friedman's pet analogy is off. Indeed, a dog can know shame, and can learn from mistakes. You can train a dog to do tricks, to come when called, to wait to use the street rather than your floor as a place to relieve itself. The proper, common house pet to which to compare Trump is, alas, the house cat (of which I am a the proud and exhausted owner of four). They do as they please. They eat what they want, and when they want and how much they want. If they scratch the furniture and you yell, "bad cat," the subject of your ire has not the slightest idea what you are saying, nor would she care if she did. They never learn because they do not give a hoot about anything but themselves (when they sit on your stomach and purr, they are either cold or bored, or both -- sorry, but that is a cat lover's truth).
1
It's not about "guts" for the Republicans. It's simple: the leadership will tolerate anything whatsoever that delivers tax breaks. Embarrassment, erosion of prestige, disruption of norms, possible treason -- nothing matters but delivering more wealth to the wealthy.
1
Regarding Trumps now famous tax returns, explain something to me. If wikileaks can publish highly classified NSA files, why can't someone leak his tax returns to them? Then we will all know once and for all.
5
"And what makes Trump even more powerful and problematic is that this president with no shame is combined with a party with no spine and a major network with no integrity — save for a few real journalists at Fox News like the outstanding Chris Wallace."
If henceforth everyone would refer to it as Fox Spews the world of Trump would make more sense, because the rubbish spewed by Fox is what makes Trump and his followers tick.
1
Then you’d go to the Chinese and say: “Let’s have secret negotiations — no one will lose face, we will present it publicly as win-win — but, just so you know, we will be coming at you with a Euro-Pacific coalition of all your major trading partners and we will be focused on eliminating all your cheating on W.T.O. rules and nonreciprocal trade shenanigans once and for all.”
[ Such an attack on China is disheartening and wrong as a suggestion or policy. China is in no way our adversary. ]
The unfortunate problem to the "Vote Democrat" solution is that in the 20 or so months since the 2016 election the Democrats have not actually put forth any sort of platform on what they stand for and why it is better. What has the party done to demonstrate that they have learned from their failures in that election and their new vision for the future of the country merits voter's trust?
"We're against Trump!" might gain the House and/or Senate in the mid-terms but it is not a long-term strategy nor one that will deliver anything prior to 2020, unless they get veto-proof majorities. To truly achieve anything significant and lasting, the Democrat leadership must lay out the case for why entrusting the country in their hands will not only appeal to their hard core base but also the independents as well as the moderates on both sides.
Anything less just continues the violent pendulum swings between left and right.
3
Every day reveals more strands in the complicated web of money and influence directed towards our majority political party which is funded by the Russians. Mr. Friedman discusses the tut-tutting of G.O.P. senators about Trump's disgraceful performance on the stage at Helsinki--for all the world to see--but doesn't seem to link the amount of campaign funding from the Russians that might be lost if the senators rebuked Trump and demanded his resignation.
The arrest of Maria Butina on Monday was diminished by all the coverage of Trump, but she deserves the scrutiny of our intelligence services and our voters. She may have been a major contact that facilitated Russian funding of the NRA, which contributed $millions to many, many Republican Congressmen. In fact, the NRA has been an important source of funding for many of the G.O.P. politicians who refuse to take serious action against Trump for his seditious words and actions.
7
Trump is no puppy. He is sales/con man who's running the country like he does his business. Hyping his product, getting investors to buy in, and if/when things don't work out, leaving them to absorb the losses, and buying off the disgruntled with settlements/nondisclosure agreements.
The Republicans are not spineless/afraid of their voters - how to explain that those who are not running again are still not speaking out? They are supporting Trump because he is selling their agenda like nobody else in their party could. Cutting taxes for the rich and cutting the safety net for everyone else, so that they will be more motivated to work for less. These are anti New Deal conservatives.
Fox news has always existed to further the conservative agenda, and Murdoch certainly shares Trump's conviction that his wealth entitles him to exercise as much power as he can. Is Murdoch any different than William Randolph Hearst?
Putin may have compromising financial information on Trump, whose golf courses may be used for money laundering, but even if not, is admiration for Putin any different than Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh's admiration for Hitler?
Trump has made it OK to be greedy again. Never apologize and even double down.
15
Mr. Friedman actually agrees with the President on the trade issues with China, but just disagrees with the method of his strategy.
It is disingenuous to say the EU is the United States of Europe. NATO kept the peace for years, but the "network of allies" was absent as Russia took Crimea and threatened Eastern Ukraine.
Pres. Trump seeks a level playing field in both trade and defense, and his courage is overdue to stand vs the complacent Europeans. How can you side with them?
Our country lost its' path of the shining city that Pres. Reagan sought, but threw open its' doors to many opportunists, not just refugees. Pres. Obama literally encouraged more immigrants to our shores to take advantage of our weak immigration laws before the door closed, while he also fueled the gun debate with threats of prohibition on purchases.
Pres. Trump's supporters are not anti-immigrant as they are painted by the liberal press, but rather anti-ILLEGAL immigrant. Over a Century ago, my grandparents came to America under hardship as well, but were restricted by entry requirements and standards, required sponsors who stood for them and helped them assimilate. Every country has standards to meet if you plan to live there, even Canada and Mexico. Why are those standards not discussed in the media?
Mr. Friedman does America no great service except to point out those weaknesses of his supporters.
No, they're anti-immigrant. Why does everyone forget that the Conservatives are calling for a 50% percent reduction in legal immigration?
1
Lies lies and more lies.
It is time for OUR five Past Presidents to step in - together - put The Con Don under citizens' arrest and take over management of OUR United States of America until WE THE PEOPLE elect Socially Conscious Women and men to manage OUR country this November and in 2020.
They can manage until Investigator Mueller completes his investigation and WE THE PEOPLE will DEMAND that The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren who have infiltrated OUR governments at every level are arrested and put in prison for treason.
We are in a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.
These are unprecedented times and they demand unprecedented actions. NOW.
10
As Mr. Friedman succinctly points out, the Republican Party's lust for power has become more important to them than protecting the United States of America. But where will Republican venality lead? What kind of country will we be living in if Republicans succeed in protecting a president who is appealing to the worst instincts of a portion of Americans, destroying our alliances and consorting with our enemy?
And in their lust for power, Republicans have forgotten the true meaning of leadership. Leaders with integrity don't pander to their base. For decades, the Republican Party has used wedge issues to set voters' sleeves on fire. This tactic has succeeded beyond their wildest expectations because of the echo chamber Fox News has provided them. It is a sad irony that the United States granted Fox News founder, Rupert Murdoch, citizenship in 1985 only to see him become complicit in undermining the core American values of fairness and honesty so he could fill his pockets with money. His betrayal has helped create an environment that led to the support of a president who is betraying his own country.
Sometimes it is crucial for an elected official to let voters know when they are wrong or are being mislead. But this requires backbone, and the Republicans have lost theirs.
12
When/if The Democrats get a majority in the House of Representatives, all they have to do is subpoena Trump's tax returns and publish them.
The resulting uproar will make it completely impossible for him to govern, and one way or another he will be driven from office.
11
I say let's give Trump to Russia. Let's see how much he would really love to live in that environment. He can be their chump instead of ours. Please congress will you step up and preserve this country that has been so hard fought......crickets.
5
Trump should just fire Mueller, pardon everyone involved and we can just move on with our lives. If the majority of your readers do not like it then get off the couch and do whatever it takes to register to vote and then vote in every election. It is the only power you have. Stop all this whining. The editorial writers in this newspaper and the people that comment whine more then trump.
@hfdru I live in a district that voted 73% for Trump. What good would it do for me to register new voters and drive my car to take them to the polls just to vote for Republicans? Even if each of them voted Democratic, it wouldn't put a dent in the outcome. The only districts that matter are the purples.
1
That would lead directly to impeachment, either immediately or in January with the new Congress, so yes it indeed would speed up the process of putting this all behind us.
1
We did vote - Hillary got 3 million more votes than the current immoral man now occupying the White House. Perhaps it is time to do away with the Electoral College.
1
Spineless Republicans means that President Putin is firmly in charge!
Expect a red wave to sweep the elections from here on in. (Just like in Russia)
2
Wake up. Republicans didn't stop him for a simple reason: they were in on it. They all knew what what he was doing with the Russians because OBAMA TOLD THEM! And McConnell told Obama if he told the American people McConnell would tell them Obama was tipping the scales for Hillary. Because he knew, and they all knew, exactly what was happening: Treason. They took Russian money from the NRA; they knew Trump was a sociopath, a con man, a liar, a traitor. But they went along to get their tax cut and deregulation for their plutocrat masters. First they were just greedy political prostitutes, liars and criminals posing as fake Christians and "compassionate conservatives." Now they are just traitors. They adhere to our enemies. They give them aid and comfort. They deserve - after the due process they always seek to deny to others - they same firing squad Trump and his family and crooked cronies will eventually face. Traitors. Full penalty of the law to apply, including the death penalty Republicans always so eagerly demand for others: U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 115 › § 2381 - Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
13
Author is so partisan, biased against Trump and his supporters that it is hard to take him seriously as an objective, informative source. Do not believe it is up to Mr. Friedman to define who has spine, a backbone, and who doesn't.If 1 has not been in the "contingent,"in combat,and "a ma connaissance,"Friedman never smashed 3 feet on a duck on the battlefield, then where does he get off judging the courage of others or lack thereof. Members of Navy Seal Team 6, or anyone who has been in military service can judge stamina, since they risked their lives daily in hostile environments, but the author? Gimme a break. Irony of grilling of Strok by G0P lawmakers is that Strok is a 4 year veteran of 101st Airborne, a fact he was too modest to mention. How many members of the House Committee who badgered him relentlessly had even been in the service, much less served in an elite paratroop unit like the witness?Recall also Russia proved a key ally in 1956 when both our nations teamed up to prevent a regional war after Nasser seized control of the Canal. We r the world's superpowers and in event of another global crisis, will be allies once again. O assured Putin through his v.p that "after election(in 2012), he would "have more flexibility!" Sounded like a surrender to me!It was also on 0's watch that Russia seized the Crimea!Some foreign policy record!IDon't forget O's waffling on his red line ultimatum to Assad! No glory in that!TF is a good writer, but lacks fairness!
1
Media bias.... but Obama. Not sure why you bothered to include all those other words when this is really all you said.
@Andrew: Would it be unfair to say that you lack depth, that you appear to be completely a product of the Smartphone generation, and that if I mentioned the names of George SOKOLSKY, John Chamberlain, Joseph Barry inter alios, you would not know whom I was talking about, nor would you care, but they were among our greatest journalists of a bygone era, all syndicated columnists in the Journal American and in the case of Barry, in the New York Post before Murdoch bought it and turned it into a tabloid, but still a good paper. NEWTON MINNOW was right in predicting that t.v.and subsequent advances in electronic communication would make dunces out of all of us, and his Cassandra like hunch was on the money!
What do you get when you combine a madman and an imbecile? Donald Trump. What do you get when you combine stupidity and impotence? The Republicans in Congress. What do you get when you combine Donald Trump and the Republican members of Congress?
A. The weirdest administration, ever.
B. The worst administration, ever.
C. The most dangerous administration, ever.
D. All of the above.
19
How will the thinking electorate defeat the Trump base if the elections are hacked again as they surely will be unless congress quickly passes legislation to protect and secure a true vote? Oh I forgot the base wants to win so they support Russia hacking our elections.
8
I saw my country sold out to Ronald Reagan and the GOP back in the 1980s. I was livid then and although America has been very good to me I cannot help but feel some joy in watching your country getting back some of what it has sown.
How many times today have you heard Reagan say Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall? It was Premier Gorbachev that spoke the words tear down this wall to the East German Chancellor and refused to send troops to East Germany because he was trying to rejoin the family of nations committed to human betterment.
Today Russia has a right wing totalitarian government committed to most of the policies of the GOP and the religious right. You have spent your time justifying neoliberalism and the massive shift of power and wealth upward.
Other than Scalia's perversion of Article 5 of the Bill of Rights Putin's agenda is the GOP agenda.
Trump's judiciary is Putin's judiciary. Putin is a member of the Christian right. Putin is anti-abortion. Putin is a racist. Putin is homophobic. Putin is a Russian nationalist. Putin loves his police and military. Putin is an international terrorist. It wasn't Russia that made El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras Hell on Earth.
The USA is the least mobile of all the Western Democracies, but your country is not a Western democracy you are what Reagan created so many years ago when he destroyed the Soviet regime and let chaos rule until the iron fist of a right wing despot took over. You are Yeltsin's Russia.
5
@Memphrie et Moi
Article the Fifth: No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
I don't think this is the article your referring to.
@J
Article five Bill of Rights passed by the House August 24 1789
Beginning A well regulated Militia
ending with exemption for those religiously scrupulous in not taking up arms.
Nota bene Editorial Board: You approved for publication my original comment on Mr. Friedman's article, but then apparently you had second thoughts, and withdrew it. Fair enough. It's your newspaper, and you have editorial discretion. But I hope you will publish a second version which Alexander Harrison has just submitted, and about which there should be no equivocation, no tergiversation.It's publishable, just like a good painting is "accrochable!"Thanks!
1
They will sell the country straight down the river for their Supreme court pick who they want to ramrod before the midterms and treason be damned. They are all traitors.
11
It's interesting to see the news media talk about how awful Trump is yet, they were the one hanging on every word he uttered during the run up to the election.
Watching the news, they would break from scheduled programming to cover him and there was no substance to his rallies. The press gave him free publicity, especially CNN - to promote nothing but himself and his lousy business.
No doubt there is plenty of blame to go around for opening the gates of hell and unleashing this tyrant on us.
Hillary Clinton does not get off easy either. The gall of her for not campaigning in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Instead, she believed these were in the bag and there was no way she would lose. Guess what, you did to that stupid man.
Don't get me started on the private email server. If rumors are to believe she is thinking of running again, spare us please.
Your book asked what happened, all of the above happened. I despise Donald Trump and what he represents. Needless to say, I no longer watch the news.
4
I don't subscribe to the underlying premise that the Republicans want what's best for America, but they lack the spine to call out trump. They like what's going on; they like the results of trump. Their supporters--the Kochs, the evangelicals, etc.--call for the destruction of the EPA, tax cuts for the wealthy, elimination of the barrier between church and state, etc. and the Republicans dance to those tunes. Trump is crude in his style and some Republicans cringe, but they support him and his policies. The Republicans used to be the vocal anti-communists, disparaging the USSR and the KGB. Now the evangelicals embrace Russia, a number of trump's team and other republicans have ties to Russia. That may be a bridge too far for some of the trump cult (90% of republicans support trump!) so they are all backtracking just a bit, but don't be fooled. They do lack spines, but that's not their greatest fault at the moment. They are opportunists who care only about themselves and their very wealthy donors. America be damned.
6
Tom, your headline says it all. Captured is a statement of fact. Though your piece is one of Opinion, and so it is stated as such, the subject you opine about, the Baby Blimp, hits the proverbial nail on its head. I have never met in my seven plus decades on the planet someone so vacuous, so completely clueless, and yet so cock-sure of his ability. He is as War Hero John McCain put it a disgrace, the worse president in our two and a half centuries. Trump leaves all other contenders for worse president in the dust, all claiming at best a distant second. The simply astounding thing about the GOP and Trump's disciples is their unwillingness to say or do anything about this obvious danger to the nation and the world. And so we need to rely on the only means short of a coup to make our voices heard; the ballot box. Come this November and all the Novembers to follow into the near future we the people must rise up from our easy chairs and get to the polls as if our lives depended upon it. And in this case, in the Age of Trump, and his Reign of Errors, our very lives and millions of others indeed do depend on it.
DD
Manhattan
6
So, those upcoming November elections we are supposed to pin our hopes on........you think the Russians aren’t going to attempt to screw them up?
2
It's quite clear to me that the reason these policies — which of course cannot work, as Mr. Friedman illustrates — continue to be pursued, is that we now have a GOP, and a President, who thrive on chaos. They do not want the world to be safe. They do not want the economy to be strong. The more fearful and chaotic the world and the populace, the more the wealthy and power-mad are able to profit personally, and the better they are able to control people. They can use every disaster to further upend social norms and put into place their own agenda. Read Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine."
3
How sad that a stalemate in Nov. is our idea of a win. Other Western countries are tackling real problems, while we destroy our middle class and become irrelevant on the world stage.
We can't even fix healthcare or infrastructure while Trump demands Europe double their spending on the military.
Our Lobbyocracy is outdated and incapable of tackling real problems. Imagine what we could achieve with a democracy, speedy elections, very little lobby influence, no gerrymandering or electoral college. Trump could never happen in a Parliamentary system. Pinker et al. give me some optimism for the world. Does anyone feel optimistic for the US?
11
The thing that people of roughly my politics have to confront is this: we didn't show in 2010, and 2012, and 2014, and 2016. We didn't care who got on the Court, or who was writing the regs for, say, the EPA. We thought it didn't matter what Outin was up to. We opposed TPP, which we knew zero about, for reasons not very different from Trump. We figured that if we brayed loud enough, people who see the world differently would burst into tears and come on over to the Bright Side.
And above all, we thought our little squabbles and purity crusades were more important than looking at reality, voting for Hillary Clinton and Pelosi and others, whose records we couldn't be bothered to learn. Let alone go do the long, hard work of changing what we are darn well justified in loathing.
Well, welcome to Consequences.
So while I agree with Tom Friedman, might be good to start looking in the mirror. How many things do you AGREE with Trump about? Like "what's the point, the System's rigged," exactly the message he wanted to encourage? You registered to vote? Gonna vote for candidates who have a prayer, or wring your hands about Pelosi all fall?
Are you going to show up, or you want more Consequences?
7
In our democracy, at least for now, power still does derive from the people. If it were not for the Trump supporters--some 40% of America who continue to support Trump irrespective of all evidence--Trump would not be president, and Republicans in Congress might not be mute to Trump's damaging behaviors.
For years Republicans have been tapping into their supporters' raw emotions of grievance, anger, fear, and especially blame, and now that monster is totally uncontrollable by them. To add to it all, Fox News has built a hugely successful business model tapping into the same raw emotions.
We face an immediate need to regain control of Congress in the next election, but we have a longer fight ahead to figure out how to break the value of politicians and businesses from fueling and feeding on this cycle of grievance, anger, fear, and blame.
5
"For starters, you’d sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership, creating a free-trade alliance around American values, standards and interests, with 11 other Pacific economies, creating a trade agreement covering 40 percent of global G.D.P. Then you’d forgo ridiculous steel and aluminum tariffs on our European Union allies and sign them all up instead to join us in our efforts to curb China’s trade abuses, which the E.U. suffers from just as much as we do."
On TPP, every trade pact that we have signed has not reversed a trade imbalance. Columnist please give an example of one that has worked in our favor.
On Europe being hurt by China as much as we have; Germany runs a trade surplus with China. Given that they are the largest economy in Europe, they will have no interest in convincing Europe to take on China.
Columnist complains about Trump not thinking things thru, the columnist is not that far behind.
"Or secures Trump's tax returns" I'd say it's becoming rapidly apparent that the release of those tax returns is now matter of national security.
10
The king cannot rule...has no power...without his court. His enablers---staff, appointees, party leaders, family members, donors and voters make it possible for him to daily destroy our Democratic institutions and world order.
5
But will Democrats be able to win elections if Russia continues hacking?
3
When you vote in November, use a Paper ballot if available in your precinct.
1
The Senators and Representatives take an oath that they "will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." As a registered Republican for the past 40 years I asked my Republican senator and congressman, "Are you a Trump toady, or are you an American." That's what it comes down to. My wife thinks he is a traitor, I think he is a dupe. Either way, he should be impeached.
8
In the immortal words of Kuryz and Willard:
Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.
Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
Willard: I don't see any method at all, sir.
This is a great example of “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We must balance the Republicons in Washington with a blue vote. Bring back integrity and country before party.
7
it is a puzzlement that the best analogy mr friedman, a three-time pulitzer prize winner, can manage is the pathetic puppy pooper.
but ok, if that's the joke it has to be asked if the pet parent who simply scolds and shouts "bad dog" is not as responsible as the puppy, there being no evidence in the analogy that any affection or instructional effort was offered.
so...what is it that mr friedman is after, should trump wimper, droop his ears?
the conclusion, the false equivalent in rhetorical terms, that the absence of puppy signals demonstrates that trump "has no shame," is as shabby as the analogy.
no trump voter here, rather a progressive disappointed that the hijacked democratic party has, like the GOP "...lost its way because it has been selling itself for years to whoever could keep it in power."
further, "there is no one inside his party or base who is going to sustainably stop Trump..." also works for the cadre of democrats and their media friendlies: "there is no one inside," who can stop the drift of the former party of the people toward mindless rage.
the same, too, for “Much of the G.O.P. is playing down Russian aggression."
has anyone played down russian aggression more than obama
when he scolded candidate romney for calling russia "a threat" (instantly echoded by h(r)c and sos kerry).
and was his cooing into medvedev's ear less a kowtow than trump to putin?
so stop the blaming, stop the blather, both parties got us here, lenin's ghost is happy.
1
Does anyone else see the irony ( and dare I say humor?) of Trump's Helsinki debacle and an obit for the author of "None Dare Call It Treason" in the same week ?
5
Missing from the title of this op-ed: "A President With No Shame and a Party With No Spine" is "Trump voters With No Clue & American Democracy With No Integrity".
Can the Trump cult members be "deprogrammed"? No. That's wishful thinking. The cult brainwashing machine of FOX, Alt-Right radio talk-shows, evangelical groups, NRA and racist conspiracy web sites, etc is a well-oiled machine and working beautifully.
Plus, the American Democracy is a rigged system. Republicans have won the popular vote in only one of the last seven presidential elections. The US Supreme Court took away Al Gore's win and gave it to Bush. Regions across USA have unequal electoral power, with or without gerrymandering. 25 percent of Senate seats are controlled by only 5 percent of voters. NY Times' Max Fisher & Amanda Taub can give a fuller run-down. American Democracy is dysfunctional.
Putin & his lapdog will reign supreme for a while yet. US Supreme Court will be stacked with GOP picks. Environmental protection will be wiped out. Students will be further in debt to For-Profit operators, There will be more guns on the streets. Old American alliances will be broken up. The list goes on. USA is looking doomed.
1
If "everything" WERE "just words," Mr Friedman, and "words w/o power change nothing," can a felled prez in Helsinki's empty "WOULDS" make any white noise if change suffices the "WOULDN'T" knots about which nobody knows?
In blaming the refugee crisis "of late" on war in Syria, and climate change, Mr. Friedman, you forgot the pre-emptive war in Iraq, which you were a cheerleader for, which displaced millions in Iraq into Syria, and which ultimately fomented Isis, which is the buzzsaw that has been ripping through Mesopotamia. Accept your responsibility in this, please.
Trump, quite simply, is giving his base what they want. Supreme Court Justices who will send women and doctors who seek abortions to jail. A lift for racists. Hurting women and children who cross the border. Tax gifts to the wealthiest. An end to any solicitation for our environment and the species who inhabit it.
Why on earth would they balk just because he consorts with an enemy intent on destroying our democratic system?
4
Liberals like you don't get it. The Republican way is to be silent in complicity. You have nothing against silence. Trump is still super-popular in America because he is rich and white.
1
Trump, like Hitler and Stalin before him, embodies the inchoate hatreds, resentments and prejudices of a significant minority, or perhaps even a bare majority of Americans, and he animates them and reifies them with his behaviors and policies. He can't be managed or handled because he has a base that is increasingly willing to go to war and die for him in the service of his ascendancy to authoritarian power and the prosecution of their hatred. His openly racist and anti-immigration statements to our European allies make his intentions for America absolutely clear. Trump and his base seek to create an anti-democratic, apartheid state in which black, hispanic, asian, and jewish Americans are stripped of their citizenship and white Americans are returned to their position of absolute supremacy in American society. It's not at all clear that we haven't already let evil too far out of the box to stuff it back in without a war.
7
Beginning November 7, the Republican Party will be a lame-duck nonentity for at least the next 10-20 years.
In fact one wonders if, in a year or so, this decrepit party will even still exist.
1
@Ken
i sure hope you are right!
"And Trump’s base actually hates the people who hate Trump — i.e., liberals who they think look down on members of the base — more than it cares about Trump."
A neighbor of mine, someone whom I have know for 2 years and thought of as a friend, called me "you people" the other day when we got on the topic of politics. I found out she is a rabid trump supporter and thinks Hillary Clinton is a murdering criminal. She thinks that "you people" are disrespectful and nasty towards trump while "her people" were always respectful to Barack Obama, mostly because they would be accused of racism if they were not. She said "you people" want open borders and want to take away guns and murder babies. She would not listen to my reasonable counter-arguments and questions.
I really liked her as a person, now I'm not so sure. Sigh.
6
@Catherine F, believe me when I say, the "you people", e.g. deplorables, generalism is being used by both sides.
@Catherine F
Sorry, don’t waste your time or breath on that neighbor! My mother is exactly of the same ilk and I just gave up. She will believe any nasty lie about the Obamas but won’t believe any of the evidence of Trumps misdeeds. It’s like she is possessed by hate and it is seething away inside of her. Sigh, is right.
I love your clear thinking and your ability to tell it exactly "like it is". Nobody does it better.
James Carville famously said, "It's the economy stupid." The applicable refrain is now, "It's kompromat stupid."
4
The Republican Party is a disgrace. They have forfeited the right to claim their being as a national political party. They seem to operate more as a Mafia family and have no roots in our Constitution. As a country we are in a desperate place. Nov vote appears to be the only answer.
7
Yes, November vote is the issue, and the Democratic Party is the disgrace. Apathetic non-voting blacks, Latinos and students. If you have kids in college, tell them to not bother coming home for Thanksgiving if they didn't register and cast a vote.
1
Mr. Friedman, As usual your insightful analysis is enlightening. As concerns Central America the consumption of cocaine in the U.S. leads the guns, money, corruption, political implosion that sends terrified refuges to our border.
The rot from Venezuela's failed Socialist experiment flows north but much of the blame for Central America's problems lies in the noses of decadent Americans.
2
One other man needs to be called to account for this crisis: Rupert Murdoch. The foreigner whose cable channel has seduced, then shoved large numbers of the American public into neo-fascism.
5
Yes. A news network is not supposed to be a mouthpiece for a demagogue, but that's what they are.
~~ May The Wave Be With You ~~
1
Words that float into thin air are not enough. Republicans, who want to be re-elected, need to demand the Mueller investigation is allowed to conclude. And until it does, no further judge appointments, including the Supreme Court, no more tarriffs, no more anything. A traitor who is possibly guilty of high crimes and treason is to be stopped. Anything else is un-American.
5
"A President With No Shame and a Party With No Spine"
Upon reading the headline, I thought your piece would be about Obama's "nuclear deal" with Iran, and the Dem support thereof.
Then I realized it was another anti-Trump screed.
2
May I ask you to explain specifically--specifically, mind you--precisely what's wrong with the Iran accords? Perhaps you could give us a start by quickly going over the basic methods of producing bomb-grade material that were interrupted by the Accords.
I wonder if the bridge near the Kremlin Tom Friedman offers to sell to anyone who swallows Trump's latest "walk-back" lie is the one where Putin's assassins gunned down his rival, Boris Nemtsov. In Helsinki Trump said if Hillary Clinton were in Russia, she wouldn't have gotten off. Is this what Trump had in mind?
3
Don't you see, Republicans don't want democracy, they want what Putin has, absolute power unrestrained by free and fair elections. Because if we had free and fair and untampered with elections in this country, Republicans would be out of power. Bush and Trump both lost their popular vote. Republicans are not stupid--well, they are stupid but not that stupid--they see the writing on the wall, the changing demographics, their own minority views, etc. How you gonna get brown people to vote for a party that is now openly racist? Well, you can't, so you must pervert the system so that minority rule will prevail: voting restrictions, gerrymandering, packing the court with conservatives who will protect them, letting Russian interfere in our elections. None of this is an accident. Republicans know that if Russia tampers with the mid-term elections it will be to help them, so why push back on such tampering? They let it happen because it benefits them and keeps them in power, and that is ALL they really care about.
3
Madness. The Madness of King Trump. A mature man, a teenager even, would not expect his manipulations and lies to be accepted by responsible adults.
But, you can fool some of the people...
1
The sole reason the large majority of Republicans are willing to let the Russians run roughshod over us (via Trump) is because politician's only have ONE job; that is to 'get re-elected'. Re-election is the only way to keep the gravy train of contributions and lobbyist money flowing.
Republican congressmen absolutely understand and fear the Trump voter base will cut them off the money chute it they resist Trump.
1
The Democrats need to get their collective heads out of the sand and provide alternatives to the Pelosi establishment. Maybe then people will be motivated to vote. Most people are not even registered to vote and typically only a minority of those who are registered actually vote. Trump and the Republicans will have an easy path forward until Democrats figure it out and embrace so-called progressive values just as Republicans have embraced tea-party conservatives and others. At least we know where Republicans stand but Democrats continue to spew mush mouth nonsense in a phony attempt to appear "centrist" under all circumstances. Hence potential voters perceive Democrats as dark and gray whereas Republicans are full of color.
Yep, this is exactly the kind of approach that got us into this mess.
Just vote against Republcans, okay? Work the fancy stuff out later, or the way things are going, you won't get the chance.
With a 90% percent approval rating, with constituents who rail at anyone criticizing their president, the elected Republicans are terrified of the very voters they represent. Speaking out against Trump is not only political suicide it is dangerous and they are running for cover out of fear. They are being squeezed by Trump's unwavering popularity on one side and their own voters on the other. After Helsinki, I believe this dynamic is not going to change one iota and believe the only way back to a moral centre (and any kind of political stability) is through the ballot box.
1
Everyone puts their head in the sand. The simple fact is Donald trump is head of the Republican Party and he won the election with help from Russia. A large part of the Republican Party went along with this arrangement. They have been building that bridge for decades. We have an illegitimate president and a political party that completely denies that their massive involvement with Russia influenced the election. There is no doubt trump won because of Russian involvement. No doubt what so ever. This is a problem so profound that no one can say it. The Republican Party destroyed democracy. What is the remedy? What do we do? Blame Hillary Clinton! Or blame the 64 million people who were defrauded in the election. There is no equivalence and the sins are not washed away so easily.
3
IMHO this is one of the most accurate assessments of Trump and our current crisis. From a psychological perspective, I and others have been saying since Trump announced his campaign that he was without shame ( Well, actually he has a core of malignant shame that is walled off — he doesn’t consciously feel it but it drives his arrogance, need to always be right, and to burnish his brand, that is, his image. His flat, 2 dimensional image because he is empty of anything good at the core. But that is a whole other labyrinth to discuss. Although I cannot help to add that this is why he is so enamored of strongmen and is himself a bully.) Without a conscious sense of shame, there is no bottom, there is no low that is too low. And that is extremely dangerous. And tragically, chillingly, seems to be our position. Falling down a hole with no bottom.
1
Trump has no shame and thin skin and Congress has lust for only power and control. That's a bad mix by any standard. So we either take control from the Republicans in November or go down with the ship. Right now the power hungry Republicans in Congress are are going after their last hope--stacking the courts.
In the event that they lose the house, they will have loaded the now mostly partisan courts by their stacking. It is striking to realize that the Supreme Court is so much of a political body. Law is not the issue of the day.
1
The continually perplexing and frustrating thing (among many) are that Trump's base, until now patriotic, anti-Russian, pro-worker (remember when the left was the party of the people) is supporting this crook and traitor, whose actions will do more to them then to anyone in the 'elite.'
How can this 'base' continue to support someone whom--if they knew him and lived in their town--couldn't make it as a used car salesman?
2
Politics in America is a disgrace. The Democrats are still reeling as to how a total outsider like Trump can get elected. The reason is what I call the Obama Blacklash. Eight years of failed domestic policies. Eight years of setting race relations back 20 years in this country. A non existent foreign policy. In conculsion, America got sick and tired of a president who was a president in name only. So fast forward to Trump. He pandered to the electorates most basic fears. To instill fear, racism, sexism and paranoia in a public that was ripe for the picking. Where do we go from here? Well, first to get rid of Trump. Second, come up with a candidate who is of the people, for the people ,by the people. Not one who caters to special interests, corporate greed.
No Tom, there has never been a healthy conservative party and it's certainly not what we need. A healthy convservative party has always been a white suepremacist party, a party of crony capitalism, voter supression, union busting and and wealth transfer from poor people to the wealthiest Americans.
Trump is the result of years of relentless attacks by Republicans on what made America truely great. We need to stop focussing on him and understand how we got here.
1
Trump admires authoritarian leaders. Putin helped him win the election. In addition he likely helped his business interests. It's easy to envision a scenario where Trump prefers Putin to US Democrats and has convinced himself that it's in the best interest of the USA as well. His "madness" results from his being both unqualified for the job and not very bright.You are right that he and his base feel disrespected by intelligent progressives and enjoy sticking it to them. It seems to me that many who neither like nor respect Trump also enjoy watching those whom they feel look down on them reacting in horror to US policy under this administration. Those swing voters are the ones needed to win elections and they are still up for grabs.
1
You know you're in deep trouble when the leader of the free world embarrasses himself with his erratic and untrustworthy behavior for all to see and hear (and confirmed by members of both parties) without negatively impacting his support from his base.
For those of you waiting for this President's methods to result in anything positive for this nation, I fear you will be waiting for a very long time.
5
Thomas please stop writing to me and start writing for me. Read you own newspaper. If Trump supporters believe his madness is a long game we cannot understand it is not really politics anymore is it? It is religion when you think Trump moves in mysterious ways unclear to us. Thomas, I believe our global trade deals certainly need improvement; we have made a bet that if large corporations make more money then so will all of us. We have lost the second part of that bet and should try to improve on these deals. But not scrap them. But Thomas, I live in California and my single vote matters much less than if I lived in Ohio or Michigan. Stop telling me how I need to vote in the mid-terms and the next presidential contest. Start telling me how to make my count. Write about strategies so I can make my vote matter more. Tell me how to be more effective as a coastal elite.
Last year, Trump praised Putin's suggestion that Russia work with the US to form a joint Cyber-Security unit to allow Russia to help to safeguard US elections, which would effectively give Russia access to our election security. This week in Helsinki, Trump praised Putin's suggestion that the US share with Russia how we collected info for the 12 indicted Russian spies, calling it a great offer, which is to say he thinks it's a good idea to show a hostile foreign nation how US intel agencies catch spies.
And the GOP still think absolutely nothing is fishy here?
7
Here is an excellent summary of the situation, the most bizarre element of which is how the hideousness keeps on going in plain sight. Trump's awareness of the TV-oriented attention span of his base is also at issue here--an attention span of about five seconds. Get out and vote Trumpublicans out!
2
Tom, you're too kind to Chris Wallace and by implication, the other one or two FOX anchors who occasionally wander into fact based reality. What they really do is provide a patina of legitimacy to the corporate/Republican narrative of the day. They basically give some of their credibility to Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.The takeaway for FOX viewers from the Putin interview was supposed to be that Putin is a bad guy, and Trump is an innocent victim, just trying to have better relations and being badly taken advantage of. The follow on from the rest of the FOX supporting cast is that Trump is just doing his job as President, and the evil Democrats and their crooked investigation are trying to bring down this alleged champion of the average American. If Chris Wallace had any real integrity, he'd stop giving cover to this propaganda machine and go to work for a legitimate news organization.
11
Wallace stuck it to Vlad the Putin, as you'd know if you'd watched the interview. And he and a few others--Shepard Smith comes to mind immediately--have actually been fair and balanced.
So while you're going after the shabby likes if Fox&Fiends, perhaps a little honest perspective.
We do not need a "Healthy" conservative party. Conservatism by definition looks backward. We need a strong progressive party. Progressivism by definition looks forward.
1
Thank you once again, Thomas Friedman, for a sober, rational, well-informed analysis of Trump's and the GOP's follies of thought and deed which are undermining our nation and the peace and stability of the world. Yesterday someone wrote, "Tom Friedman for President." I second the motion!!
4
I no longer blame Trump. He is a disgrace to hundreds of years of history. I now blame the Republican Party for their co-conspiracy. I am a proud NON-Republican at this stage.
4
Donald Trump’s attempt to walk back his treasonous public exculpation of Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and his attack on U.S. intelligence and law enforcement was pathetic. Reportedly, the double-negative correction of one word was the brainchild of Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence.
Thomas Friedman is right that the silly clarification was intended only to be used by Trump’s core voters (consumption), Fox News (talking point to feed the core) and Republican senators and representatives (protective cover against real journalists and concerned voters back home).
The nation is in trouble, and the good work of Robert Mueller will be wasted unless Democrats can take either the House or the Senate in the midterms.
Donald Trump is incapable by intellect and instinct of feeling shame or loyalty to anyone except himself.
He knows in his gut that the Republicans on Capitol Hill will fold and that the ultimate judicial arbiter of the issues is in his pocket.
To every Democrat and Independent: Vote like your life depends on it, because it does.
5
While we need to win the House and Senate, the current crop of Russ--Republicans cannot redeem themselves.
4
A very apt heading! It says it all! But is he doing it?
Even if he had colluded with Russia, if he genuinely apologizes for it, the nation, meaning a majority will forgive Donald Trump. He could still leave as a good, if not a great president.
JFK won the election not quite legitimately many suspected. Nixon won the election by back-channel underhanded dealing with North Vietnamese negotiators. But people did not hold those things against either president. Similarly, people would disregard any possible collusion if he apologizes for it. By trying to be perfect he is soiling himself. What a tragedy!
If he humbles himself and worked with both parties, as a "unifier," he will be admired, not ridiculed. He assumes the media would ridicule him & that only his side of the media, Fox News will accept him. And he bends over backwards to please that fringe element. That's sheer stupidity.
He could have improved ACA. He could have raised taxes on the rich. He had sent signals for both. He could have bombed Assad's Syria more. He fought against ISIS & beat ISIS, which is no small achievement - it's as big if not bigger than how Bill Clinton handled the former Yugoslavia crisis.
1
How many hundreds of words, opinions, analyses does it take for us to realize that this person is 100% UNQUALIFIED to have the privilege of leading our country and when and what are we going to do about it?
4
The problem is not Trump. The problem lies with GOP leaders and its hard-core base which now feel "Treason" is a small price to pay for a tax cut or a judicial appointemnt.
2
Yes, many Republicans are acting in a craven manner, but the party with no spine is the Democrats. For example, where is even one member from that side of the aisle using Trump's traitorous actions in Finland to demand that no new SCOTUS nominee be approved until Mueller completes his investigation? Why? Because Trump should not be allowed to pick his own potential judge!
Democrats, the soccer ball is in your court. Hello?
www.newyorkgritty.net
5
Please explain how you stop Kavanagh when you do..not...have...the...votes.
And please, vote this fall; democrats and others didn't show in 2010 and 2014 and 2016, which is why we're in this mess now.
My wealthy landlord and another multimillionaire friend hated Trump at first, especially when he was making anti-semitic statements. However, once they got their recent tax break, which for them is substantial, they vehemently love love love Trump, and defend his every move. For Republicans, it's always been about the money.
3
It time again to revisit the discussion regarding Trump's psychology fitness for office, which surfaced during the presidential champagne. I’m not a trained psychologist but I know a narcissistic pervert when I see one. They suffer from the most destructive form of psychological personality disorder known to mankind. They create a narcissistic bubble around them that hypnotically controls those under their influence and ultimately stains and ruins their lives. Through the power of social media, his State TV Network Fox News, and his Russian allies, he exercises control over his codependent followers and effectively stole the presidency. And now the US and democracies all over the world suffer the consequences of this malignancy .
1
Quite honestly I’ve come to like Trump’s evil, it is so over the top,so dastardly bad,so poorly done. Mr Trump is the piece of sand in the progressive oyster. 11/8/18
2
The Republican party isn't gutless; it is guilty. Guilty of an antidemocratic, protheocratic, pro-authoritarian philosophy that promotes racial animus, wealth vs equality, wealth vs healthcare, and wealth vs childcare. The Republican party does not hold these truths to be self evident: that all people are created equal with the unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Republican party is guilty of being unAmerican.
1
As former Secretary of State Madeline Albright said last night in a PBS interview, regarding Trump's disgraceful capitulation to Putin in Helsinki, "the man has NO PLAN." It is plain to all that Trump is in deep debt to Putin and the oligarchs, most probably financial, though readily compromised in other ways. As may be other U.S. operatives, yet to be named. No one this corrupt and intellectually imbecilic should ever have been given the reins of U.S. government. Trump's voters are as treasonous as he is.
2
Tom and others have been sharpening their quills. We can only hope that the pen is indeed mightier than sword.
1
Donald Trump is a criminal. His speech and support of an "elected" dictator of a country that acts to subvert the U.S. Constitution is treason. It is a high crime which cannot be undone by its perpetrator claiming, "What I mean to say was . . ."
If one enters a bank and says, "This is a robbery. I have a bomb," then exits the building with a bag full of cash, that person has committed a crime. The crime nor the criminal intent would not be erased the next day if he were to claim, "What I mean to say was, 'If I had a bomb, I could probably rob this bank.' Sorry I misspoke, here's your money. I thought I was just making a withdrawal."
This is exactly what Congress and the people of the United States are condoning if DT is allowed to get away with his crime.
9
Trump is a compromised President who acted totally disgracefully. It should be added that Putin made him wait an hour before meeting him. The one silver lining I can see is that I don’t know how anyone can now demand that Mueller “wrap up” his probe.
1
Bill Clinton lost a lot of credibility when he famously stated that "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."
One word can be the single snapshot that defines an individual. So it may be with Donald Trump, and I don't see any credible reason why it...wouldn't...be.
As for the Senate, never have we seen such a large group of invertebrates stand upright while bending over so far.
1
Wow. The rot in the Republican party did not begin with The President Whose Name We Dare Not Utter (so as not to give him any more unwarranted attention; ignore him now and forever more.). Once the GOP began panicking (about the time they realized they had no one in the party with the skills of a Bill Clinton, and got insanely jealous), they have prostituted themselves to any group, no matter how small or extreme, to squeeze more votes out of the stoneheads that constitute these groups. The sooner all of us stop mincing words in the face of this enormous threat the sooner we can begin to repair the damage already done-if we can.
2
You're asking the right questions. Indeed, why didn't Trump build a coalition to present a united front towards China on trade?
Why did he move the goalposts from 2% to 4% at the last minute in reference to NATO members' defense spending?
Because he doesn't REALLY want a solution.
His Putin-assigned task is to tear down the post-WWII alliances and make the world safe for kleptocrats and one-party rule.
1
I read Mr. Friedman's excellent column with a sense of both gratitude and despair. Gratitude for his piece, because he illuminated Trump's and the GOP's pathologies so well. Despair over his piece, for the same reasons.
So I'll turn to another NYC-area popular pundit for energy and inspiration: "Hold tight to your anger, and don't fall to your fears." Bring on your wrecking ball, Mr. Trump. Now that you've done us the favor of making your betrayal of the country crystal clear, more people than ever will be fighting back.
3
Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and Susan Collins talk big but they do nothing. They could solve this problem in 5 minutes but they are lying cowards just like Trump.
8
Both Bernie Sanders and HILLARY CLINTON are on record as opposing the TPP.
1
Then again, there are others who think of NYT as a newspaper with no shame and Mr Friedman as a groupie columnist with no spine.
I must concur with Mr. Friedman's thoughts. Trump's attempted restatement of his words of last Monday is transparently made-up and false. The only hope for effective checks on Trump's increasingly dangerous flirtations with Putin is a realignment of the majority party in the House and Senate. This is not because the Democrats are inherently better people but because the Republican party has bargained away its soul in a lust for power. One of the key statements in Mr. Friedman's article is "The G.O.P. has lost its way because it has been selling itself for years to whoever could keep it in power, and that is now Trump and his base."
2
Gallop poles have currently shown that the number of voters who consider themselves as independents is 43%. 27% identify themselves as Republicans and 29% identify themselves as Democrats.
My question: Why is so much emphasis being placed on the statistics that 90% of Republicans support Trump?
2
This is Bannon Fascism. Time for Impeachment.
3
The NY Times has no shame as it sends its writer hounds howling after nothing except trying to force DJ Trump out of office. Columns like Friedman's in the editorial section, others from the Ed Board, even so-called 'objective' ones by Mark Landler or Maggie Haberman are twisted with hate stemming from the NY Times' severe case of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). What do these journalists think they know?
2
He is a boob and Ryan and McConnell are his Nevel Chambelines!!! THey too should be the target of an independant counsel for their complicit treasonous behavior. Lets see their tax returns and their fund raising returns and who is supporting them! DARK MONEY would surely reveal who is supporting these two! Trumps tax returns would surely reveal is Russian ties, oh Mueller already has those I'm sure, he has had them since day 2!!!!
1
Loudmouth Limbaugh coined a term (actually a crystal clear dog-whistle): "Low information voters". He applies this to urban minorities who, he and his 'conservative' on-air brethren use to describe layabout know-nothings. In fact, it's the Trump defending loyalists who are the low-info voters. Every point Tom makes here is anathema to this bloc. They'd prefer to get ginned up at Trump's rallies, enjoying his hate speech about our allies and climate change being a hoax. Until the opposition can boil down concepts into effective monosyllabic 'good or bad' soundbites, we are just peeing in the ocean.
3
Tom, don't praise anyone from Fox News. Fox News is not a conservatively-leaning media source for which some good journalists might happen to work. Rather, it is the efficient propaganda arm of the fascist revolution in America. Any journalist who works for Fox News has sold out to the very powers that will shut down the genuine free press the instant that they get the chance to do so. If you're a journalist and you work for Fox News, you don't have integrity. I don't care what the quality of your reporting is. Your employer is toxic to your profession.
6
It’s clear to the whole world that Trump is a flat-out crook. Maybe Putin has a tape, or has done a shady financing deal, or has promised a bribe. Or maybe Trump is such a severe and incompetent narcissist he was handled like a puppet without any of that, which puke be even worse. In either event, it is crystal clear he is an incompetent, dangerous fool.
I moved to Europe on a two year work contract. Then Trump was elected and I’ve extended it indefinitely. My employer, a European company, didn’t blink when I said "I don’t want to bring my family back to that."
It’s not just the foreign policy. Children in cages. Modern day SS kicking in doors to arrest immigrants in the dead of night. Trump supporters holding Nazi rallies and calling police on black people for BBQing. The US is quickly devolving into a dark and dangerous place Europe is too familiar with. It’s like watching a bunch of naive children being led to their doom by a villain.
We’re Jewish and when I moved here my parents said "our family barely got out of there alive - you’re crazy." Now, I genuinely worry for them and for all Americans about this path. The Electoral win was a fluke. Enabling him - that’s on purpose, and it’s scary.
8
I’m Jewish too and all the alarm bells have been going off in my head and heart. I’m seriously considering fleeing to Europe too if November doesn’t change things here. Because we WILL eventually be on ‘the list’. I’m just not sure where in Europe is safe either. I thought Italy but they too seem to be heading down the fascism road.
2
Tom, you should be ashamed of calling the President of America a traitor and treasonous. You lost your credibility. It appears that you became part of the fake news and have too much TDS. Republicans criticize the President when warranted and he corrects his mistakes. That is what happened in cases like family separation policy and Russian meddling statement. They have enough spine. As you know Russian meddling was not an issue until Trump got elected and Obama was not interested to take any action against Russian meddling. If anybody betrayed America, it was Obama and Brennan who refused to defend America while Russia was "attacking America". I am sure Trump will defend America better than Obama, Trump's action prove that, but he will also bring Russia to Western orbit.
I still like your columns and hope that you will move away from fringe.
3
Constitution
Art I Sec 8.
1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, . . .;
3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and . . .;
0: To define and punish . . .. Offences against the Law of Nations;
11: To declare War, . . . repel Invasions; . . .;
Sec 9
8: . . .; And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, . . . or foreign State.
Art II
Sec 1
8: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Sec
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Art III
Sec 3
1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. . . .
Art VI
3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; . . .
6
TRUMP TRULY IS Shameless, as narcissists and psychopaths are. He also has no capacity for empathy or remorse. His default position is going through life as if it were a series of food fights. He knows how to sow pandemonium, chaos and mayhem. But when it comes to problem solving, Trump is severely impaired. He learned racial discrimination from his father by refusing to rent apartments he built to African Americans. During his more than 3,500 lawsuits, Trump was under the malign influence of his demented mentor, Roy Cohn, a notorious attorney who was McCarthy's attack dog during the communist witch hunts of the 40s and 50s. Both of them were given Trumped up (pun intended) evidence from the "private files" of J. Edgar Hoover, for whom there was never accountability, leave alone transparency. Had those three men had more power, they would have been as destructive as Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Another thing going against Trump is that his behavior shows him to be disoriented, distractible, forgetful and demented. Trump is medically incapable of fulfilling his oath of office. The 26th Amendment must be invoked.
1
Mr. Friedman, you hit several nails smack on their heads with this column. Congratulations.
3
Maybe we should start addressing him as Comrade Trump?
1
There is something terrible that Putin has on Trump, and it is not just a sex tape,and it is tearing this country apart. I have never seen a political figure much less a president so destructive to the country he has sworn to protect. By disparaging nato is playing in to Putin's hand. I think Trump is a traitor to this country and the men and women who put their live on the line for it. He terrifies me.
2
We have been hearing for years that liberals, elites, coastals, and hollywood Democrats have been looking down on in-landers, heartlanders, rural, plain spoken, regular everyday Americans...also usually known as Republicans. As we watch this President and his party allow for anything and everything, no matter how egregious, to lay waste to our democracy I am left wondering if there is ever a time to look down on those who would back this disaster? What would it take to make it acceptable to call another American a dangerous idiot, fool, or moron? I'm not joking. Somebody please tell me when it's acceptable? Because if not now, when? How long will we wait?
4
Mr Friedman for President...
1
"Spineless" for a reason. Follow the money.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-...
1
Trump has no shame because his parents were epic failures at parenting. Ordinarily you would teach your child right from wrong but in their case they kept bailing him out of trouble. Privileged trouble.
What is surprising is you do not mention shameless Benjamin Netanyahu as well. Did you not know that the trio - Netanyahu Putin and Trump, are up to no good? Netanyahu is as corrupt as his wife has been accused. At least. He has the gall to speak ill of President Obama, while a guest in this country during Obama's tenure. That is pretty shameless and folks like you, never admonished him for bad behavior so he steps up his game with Trump.
Good job Tom for sleeping in the job. Like the rest of NYT.
3
"Trump’s political tools have become Putin’s useful idiots"
Let's compare the 'accomplishments' of your hero master diplomats: Obama&Clinton. Russian annexation of Crimea, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops and aircraft intervention in Syria winning the war for Assad with millions of refugees in Europe resulting with right-wing parties making significant gains in Italy, Germany and eastern Europe.
Now who has the worse foreign policy record?
A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious, but it CANNOT survive treason from within. For the traitor appears not to be a traitor, but all the day, he rots the body politic. Then day becomes night, and the nation's soul is in ashes.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
6
At the top of the conversation in my neighborhood is what will it take for Trump's base to finally turn their back on him for the good of the country. It wasn't the grope/grab 'em tape - which he admitted was true. It wasn't the Stormy Daniels payoff. It wasn't Charlottesville - "good people on both sides" - where he admitted to being a nazi sympathizer. And now, it seems unlikely that his treasonous comments from Helsinki won't change things either.
Just as big as the republican party's "huge source of power"...he can grope, he can lie, he can sympathize with nazi's, he can pay prostitutes to keep quiet, and he can act like a traitor.....and get away with it. So, yes, he can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and nothing will happen to him. He IS shooting all of us. He did it on Monday and nothing has happened to him.
What will it take to save the country?
2
GOP= Grovellers of Putin
NRA= Nest of Russian Agents
Trump Organization= A wholly owned subsidiary of Putin Inc.
Would=wouldn't ???
We are reaching the limits of words and meaning.
1
If Thomas Friedman is sounding the alarms you know it's bad.
2
The President & the Republican Congress Are Independent
He and his behaviors aren't theirs.
They and their behavior are not he.
It isn't cause and effect, but independent.
* * * * *
A president who has no shame. Lawless, dangerous, liar and so forth.
Okay, that's him.
Blackout.
* * * * *
Lights up, illuminating a Republican congress.
Look at what they are doing!
All on their lonesome!
The president isn't causing their behavior.
They're Home Alone! Let's watch.
Look! They support unspeakable things. Look! They have no shame.
Look! They get up in the morning and do cruel, destructive, ugly, stuff.
Shhh! Let's watch and see what they do.
They're being scavengers from all the destruction.
Profiteers.
What heartless, nasty, selfish things they do!
I see self dealing and people getting wealthy.
I see them becoming fat cats.
Listen! They are practicing in front of a mirror.
Saying they aren't like that awful president.
It's moot!
Who cares?
Not me!
I care about what they do. Their activity!
They are very busy and very active.
Busy as a beehive.
Busy taking care of themselves!
They have no shame!
You can't be public servant and do the things they do.
Not without a spine!
Let's hope somebody notices.
Catches them with a spine and throws them out of town.
After that we'll get to that shameless president.
Wasn't it nice not to think of him?
And to get rid of them?
1
America, listen to Mr. Friedman. Now!
Mr. Friedman describes a three-headed monster, where one head is Trump, the other the GOP, and the third FOX.
How do you vanquish a three-headed monster? You have to begin by cutting off one of its heads.
If you were a dragon slayer, how would you go about this task? I for one would begin with the first head that is the easiest to kill, FOX. The network relies on its advertisers and a boycott of those advertisers reaches beyond just Trump's core. Provide a list of FOX's enablers on a daily basis to remind all of us who to avoid when spending our dollars. That could change things and more quickly than the cutting off of head number 2, the GOP.
In lock-step with Trumps unpatriotic self-importance, the GOP is now on the line for the greatest gift they could possibly have given the DNC going into the midterm elections. It is time to ratchet the screws on one issue and one issue alone, that of being a Patriot. Forget the Supreme Court, tax-cuts, abortion, tariffs, etc., the only ballot issue worth pummeling is Patriotism. No back-talking will erase some incredible video of Trump appeasing Hitler. It is a gift that kills the second head.
As for the Trump head, you can wait for 2020 or if you're impatient, seek impeachment or pray for a resignation. Impeachment and resignation make way for Pence who hasn't exactly proven that he won't be just another Trump head regrowth.
1
Godot will arrive before the GOP does the right thing.
With no spines you wonder how they walk erect.
word
2
Donald John Trump, Sr. is beholden to his pet puppet ventriloquist masters Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin. Trump is the latest American President to be baffled and befuddled by the Netanyahu and Putin axis of white supremacist male evil.
Bush imagined that Putin had a soul while Obama deluded himself by a "reset" with Russia. Neither party has a spine that puts American interests and values first. Trump's moral degenerate and imbecile nature and nurture is overt. While Bush and Obama were more covert about their corruption. Obama "won" the Nobel Peace Prize which Trump lust after. MAGA?
1
Trump is a traitor. He is a tyrant. He is neither stable nor a genius. He is a racist. He is a failure at most human endeavors, as a man, as a father, as a husband, as a deal-maker, but most of all as a human being. Some of us have known this for decades. I have nothing but contempt for him, and for the willfully ignorant people who still support him.
9
Trump can lie to us but he shouldn’t think we are stupid. Well, at least not some of us
1
Yes, but can we better define Trump's madness?
------------------------------------------------------------
How about this: Trump has
a FASCI - NATION with
a FASCIST - NATION.
Trump flirts with the ideas of fascism, like a dictator.
This drives the media crazy, and he dominates the media.
The result is that his political supporters worship him, more.
I hope that the Russian fiasco will wake the Democratic Party,
and they will learn how to use the new media to take the House.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1
The republican party took money from Russia via the NRA. Treason!
3
"Both migrations are the product of political turmoil fed by climate change, the collapse of small-scale agriculture and rapid population growth in the Middle East and Africa. (Ditto Central America.) And what is Trump’s policy? Trash all global efforts to mitigate climate change, ban all U.S. government support for family planning overseas — and get out of Syria, rather than use our leverage there to try to stabilize its refugee flow."
Two words: birth control. The start and the end of the world's problems, and we have a president whose party is hell-bent on forcing women, especially poor women, to continue to bear child after child after child. I just don't get it.
4
I still disagree with the part of TPP which gave multinational corporations a degree of sovereignty over the national government which was disgraceful. Corporate power should be checked by the government , not enhanced .
1
In my opinion, President Trump is beholden to President Putin because Russian oligarchs and banks are financing the Trump Organization. They are doing this, in my opinion, because American and other western banks have refused to finance Donald Trump and the Trump Organization since President Trump's multiple bankruptcies.
I think that this situation is very dangerous for our country.
At this time there are no checks or balances on President Trump's behavior. If everyone votes in November 2018 we will, as Mr Friedman states, be able to curb the President's power.
4
Yes, the republicans in power are spineless. Even those that in a very specific instance criticized the president, accept whatever lie he tells next and move on as if nothing had happened. Voting in the mid-term elections has become literally an issue of national security for the US. Russia has something on Trump. Whatever it is, it will certainly be more important for an extreme narcissist than anything else in the world... including peace, economic progress or the lives of others.
Your aside, that we really do need conservatives, is well taken. There is always a point to asking if a particular change is wise, and to query what will be lost if we do change. To ask those questions is smart, but the answers require evidence. Real. Facts. Trump's people are not conservatives at all. They seek to overturn established ways of doing things and are entirely reactionary. It isn't that they engage at all--they are simply having a political tantrum. Hence the big baby balloon.
1
The Democrats need to embrace George Soros and his money. Every time Trump does an act like this, buy out primetime space on the networks, and stream it for free, and have every Democrat you can muster, and whatever Republicans will join you, denouncing it in no uncertain terms, and explaining what it means and why it's a problem. It would be a great way to groom the presidential candidates, to give them a chance to get in front of the public. Having Chuck Schumer, who got his Senate seat by out-mudslinging Al D'Amato, but now comes off like a doddering uncle (hey, I'm old too, sorry Chuck), give a press conference that no one listens to, isn't going to cut it. Saying you're going to introduce a bill, which is never going to go anyplace, also isn't going to cut it. I loved Obama but his big flaw was the ability to speak directly to the public about what he was doing and why. Democrats need to get much better at it, and quickly.
1
The so-called Trump base really didn't get Trump elected. There will always be that Fox news indoctrinated group. It was the swing voters who were swayed by the Russian interference and propoganda in the states targeted by same. The more credence given to the DT base, the more self aggrandized and entitled they feel. Last night's homages to what they 'think' post-Finland was a simpering as Trump's behaviour in Finland. Republicans need to get over the base, if they are indeed afraid of that.
2
Thank you for the big picture (an endangered species these days) and by calling the game by its name.
This article shares many important insights. But one may easily be lost. You say Trump supporters hate his haters and resent those opposing Trump because the base is dissed by the elites. This observation hits at the very core of national division and one that is almost irreconcilable. It is an attitude spawned by Abolitionists from the North and the long simmering shame and anger felt by many southerners over losing the “War of Northern Aggression.” It has produced a monumentally strong and winning right wing conservatism born largely in the South. And lest we forget the South is the most populated region of the country and they voted overwhelmingly for a New Yorker who gave voice to their feelings of inferiority. Those who feel they are outsiders make some of the ripest fruit for authoritarianism.
I absolutely believe Russia has something on Trump and it is something of a financial nature. Is there a way to force him to show his tax returns? It would make total sense to me that a foreign bank, for example the Deutsche Bank, would have sold Trump's obligations contracted with them to Russian banks, and those banks hold Trump hostage with the threat of calling in those loans. We have to remember that the only thing Trump cares about is himself, his money and his family. He is perfectly ready to sell out our entire nation for his own personal ego and interest.
2
Mr. Friedman, looking at a couple comments, everyone has their own axe to grind about your article. I think it is spot on and terrifyingly correct. Trump's madness is his defining characteristic. And in his madness, he wants the world's worst strongman to be his big brother. Trump's ego is driving us all into madness. His madness. Do you or anyone else have any thoughts about how to move Congress to stop this man? We have the November Hope, but each day that goes by makes me more afraid to wait...and with Russia given a green light to interfere with our elections, not much faith in the results. We have Mueller, who is our best hope. Everyday, I hope the FBI will show up at the White House and take trump out in handcuffs because of his criminal acts. Even before he was president, he was a thuggish bully. I have to believe there are reams of paper with evidence of Trump's crimes. His tax returns alone ought to be a goldmine. Anyway, I digress. We Americans must unite and ensure this man is removed from office soon and that the GOP understands this is not about winning or money. It's about our country and its ideals.
Tom, once again, logically walks us through this. But Trump and his supporters feel the way forward is to stick their first in the face of our allies, deny climate change, let the poor, suffering, and refugees wallow in their terrible situation. And they think America will rise to the top and no consequences will befall us for treating the world this way. In short, deal with the world the way Trump deals with banks and subcontractors. Sign the deal, shake hands on it. Then find some loophole to avoid having to keep your end of the bargain. And if those people are unhappy, find someone else to take their place with the next venture. And always have some lackey to take the heat so you don't have to. And always blame the other party for your failure to keep your end of the deal. Well when you can't find anyone else besides Russians to borrow money from and only ruthless dictators to be on your side, don't expect the other countries and their billions of people to sit back and go along with it. Eventually they will find a way to fight back. And don't expect it to be pleasant. Trump has no real friends. So when he stabs America's friends in the back, it means nothing to him. In his world it is not a loss. But don't expect America's friends to forgive and forget so easily. If you thought you have been paying a price up to now, you have not seen anything yet.
3
"Let the Republicans in Congress do something hard and concrete that shows they love our country more than they fear Trump’s base and I will believe their words." And you'd be shaming yourself because of the "fool me twice" rule. Republicans won't accept your invitation to assert patriot values, they're in the business of business, not democracy. They'd distrust your gesture as a bait and swich, the very one that they pulled to get control all three branches of government, and of course, the 4th (The Press.)
2
A party with no guts? They don't care about alienating China, Europe, and colluding with Russia. They DO have guts, because they got what they wanted: a bully president who gets his way. They passed a tax plan that puts all the money in their pockets, and that will bankrupt the country and makes the rest of us slaves of complete poverty. Wait until you see the crash that's coming. They are just waiting to take whatever you have left, but in the end, that will be nothing.
1
Yes. Democrats need to take back the House and Senate.
And if they don’t, it “would” be their own darn fault. “Wouldn’t” it?
1
Could someone explain to me why Trumps’s Helsinki conference with Putin was the big red line he crossed with Russia and not the private chat with Russian operatives in the Oval Office last year? Or the private meetings with Russians at Trump Tower prior to the election? He has been working with (for?) these people right under our noses since the campaign. Why now? This POTUS been a threat to our country and a traitor since day one. An immediate hearing must be convened to get the findings out in public. Why are the Democrats not demanding one? What are they so afraid of?
3
Even more disquieting is the private meeting held between Trump and Putin. More important than the information exchanged would be the promises extracted, the quid pro quo. It would not surprise in the least that Trump is our Bill Haydon, a mole blackmailed into serving Putin. Given the fact we've not seen Trump's tax returns and the Deutsche Bank loans -guaranteed by whom? - it is too easy to arrive at conclusions which imperil Trump's already dubious legitimacy. Had there been one scintilla of similar behavior committed by any sitting Democratic President the entire craven GOP would have immediately discovered that they do, in fact, have a spinal integrity, and cried foul. Continuing to defend Trump disingenuously or simply look the other way does not MAGA. They are risking permanently crippling our great nation.
2
This creature, with no hint of class, intelligence or decency, is an embarrassment to our country, our planet, and our species.
DNC ought to email copies of this article to every high school and college in the country. As also the last op-ed piece by Paul Krugman that appeared in the Times in the last 2-3 days. (At 77 I can't always recall things readily).
1
Certainly, many commenters here express outrage in agreement with Dr. Krugman's route through elections to removing the follow-the-money spineless GOP politicians and saving our republic. But, while the probabilities of a clean sweep in 2018 and even 2020 are only hovering at just above 50%, if it does occur, how are they or we prepared to handle the rage of his often unthinkingly loyal, often violent true believers who believe that we (fill in the pejoratives) have just stolen the keys to the candy store before they've had a taste.
Will enough of the Trump/GOP inevitable economic destruction have hit home by then for majorities to see that there is no candy there? For all our sakes, I hope not.
The battles of the civil rights struggles may offer guidelines in the sense that the Bull Connors may be replaced by the Charlottesville Nazis and their fellow believers around the country. But, if Trump is president, there'll be no equivalent of an honorable President Eisenhower to send troops to quiet civil disorder.
Thus we should be contingently planning offsets to the Trump moral decay on a citizen by citizen basis. Get out the vote? Sure, but we will have to empathetically reach our fellow Trump believer citizens on their ground to help them see their vision that they can work for their families.
Again, though, with the resistance to the civil rights achievements in mind, we may also have place ourselves on the front lines once more for our grandchildren's democracy.
1
I have a problem with Times' opinion writers.
As we move from one Trump outrage to another, on an almost daily basis, we forget whence comes Trump's power to debase the body politic and American democracy. In national politics, white suburban voters run the country. Most in the MSM, and certainly here at the Times, ignore this inconvenient truth. Trump is the ELECTED President of the US and the ipso facto leader of the free world. We can analyze the corrupt pathetic character of Trump all we want but it will not answer the question of why those white suburbanites offer total undying support for Trump.
I think Trump PERFECTLY reflects the values of America's middle class white population, perfectly. If you want to understand Brussels and Helsinki, you need to understand the burghers in those white suburbs first. They are the enablers. Get out to the 'burbs Mr. Freidman the world is being run from there.
As far as the Republican political establishment is concerned, Trump is delivering everything the want to further the plutocracy the GOP establishment champions. (tariffs are an exception) If Trump would just shut up McConnell and Cornyn would love him.
Friedman points out something that other commentators are seldom able to grasp: the deep and abiding hatred that Trump's base has for the rest of the country. They hate liberals; they hate educated people; they hate people on the east coast and the west coast; they hate Muslims, and they don't particularly care for most other religions that are different from their own. Is it any wonder they are so willing to accept treason against the United States when they hate so much of it?
4
The core problem is not Trump but the nature of the GOP: racist, anti-woman, always against the stranger, interested only in the 1%, willing to dance on the graves of poor children denied basic medical care, anchored in the religious hypocrisy of the Old South, and now infested with treason. The GOP is anti-American. It cannot be reasoned with, bargained with, or mollified. Only confronted and destroyed starting in November.
4
You inspire a restatement. The Republicans had better come up with new euphemisms, fast. They have destroyed, itself, the word, Conservative.
Neither party has guts. They're pets. Of the money.
1
Whatever we may feel about Mr Trump's noxious time as president we forget the real culprit is not the blond puppet but the people who put him there. I will never again be able to feel part of a nation which works as a team toward shared goals. I frankly never suspected there was such an enormous underbelly of shallow hate, racism, ineptitude and wild-eyed meanness among "Fellow Americans". How incredibly incompetent must part of our electorate be so to be easily maneuvered by a handful of jokers in some Russian garage? How does one defend against Trumpid epidemic?
4
The essential truth of your headline Mr. Friedman has been the case for a very long time. However, while it takes some of us a bit longer to arrive at that kind of judgement, and no slight to you is thereby intended, I disagree in non conventional terms with your characterization of Trump having “no shame!”
In fact, Trump is roiling in shame. That is the very structure of his personality! His narcissistic grandiosity is the over-arching facade to his foundational shame. Psychotherapists can, if they choose to do so, confirm that characterization, but they have for the most part chosen not to do so - to their shame in your use of conventional language!
It is one thing to have elected such an emotionally damaged individual to a first term; it is quite another to continue to politically support him. Trump needs to be jettisoned by all emotionally and psychologically healthy individuals, whether they be legislators or simply Joe and Sally citizen. He will never present for what he and we really need: his psychotherapy, but his continued “character disordered” presence in the White House is an affront to all who consider themselves Americans.
1
To answer an old question about what IS is, yesterday shameless Trump, bumbling over written notes, once again explained what IS isn't: It WOULDN'T be the truth, it WOULD be more lies. It WOULD be more of his betrayal of America, it WOULDN'T be upholding the Presidential oath he took. I WOULD love to see a firm and proper bipartisan stance against this amoral man and his kind. Now WOULDN'T that be nice? But I'm afraid that Mr. Friedman is right; it ISN'T going to happen.
3
Trump cares first and foremost about TRUMP. He is USING the office of the Presidency in whatever way he can, to further his business empire. Leopards don’t change spots. He is who he is, and he will act according to what works best for his own selfish world. Until the Republicans put absolute pressure on this CHUMP, he will not capitulate. As for Trump’s LYING on a daily basis ...expect more and more...on and on...incessant. Cuz he gets away with it. Maybe we’re gonna have a Revolution.
Mmm-- Obama said the same thing about the Russians? Why is it that so many want to leave out such inconveniences?
This will end not with a bang, but with a whimper.
1
The GOP along with the executive are for all intent and purpose traitors to this country. They have forsaken democratic values for the right to dictate policy. The only patriotism they practice is to the good of the party. They are a party of like minded Trump narcissists. Unfortunately for them they are so deep into this betrayal of America that there is no safe or comfortable exit available. As Trump goes so will they. It now is just a matter of time before we are able to put and end to this disgraceful and traitorous love affair between Putin Trump and the GOP. It can’t come soon enough.
1
We need a call for impeachment by EVERYONE. All sides.
We need the Democrats to get passionate about calling a fraud a fraud and backing it up with advertising on major stations. You need to rally people who, on their own, sit home and watch FOX and believe everything said there. To create change we need leadership. Leaders can't be afraid. The Democrats are afraid to be bold and cut their losses. Let Schumer and Pelosi study Dr. King and Gandhi and then act. Fearlessly.
We need to call FOX a tabloid station. Repeatedly.
We need the Koch Brothers "libertarian" views to be publicized to the public, as most people do not understand how pervasive they are and that they want the complete destruction of our government (not unlike Putin.) Ditto all the billionaires funding the GOP Congress.
Mitch McConnell's feet need to be held to the fire. He is a hypocrite who places his own power above the good of the country.
Let all the living Presidents: Carter, both Bushes, Clinton, Obama and the Vice Presidents stand together and call for Trump's resignation or impeachment. TOGETHER.
Those with influence have to find some courage, some unshakable guts.
The New York Times needs to run a headline across the entire top of the paper. President violates oath to defend the USA. Come on, NYT, of all the papers in the USA, you are the one to start this ball rolling, or are you afraid, too? Put your business on the line for the sake of the national free press and our democracy.
6
I didn't get past the first paragraph yet ... but 'the puppy' after a few times will also learn not to go on the rug and use the paper, and eventually to wait to go outside. Not Donald Trump .. He never learns to do the right thing.
1
If we ever get a healthy conservative party again it will not be named Republican as they have completely gone over the deep end.
1
Beating this Republican Party in the midterms won't be enough. They'll have to be beaten repeatedly, until the Trump base gives up, and Fox News finds a less sociopathic business model.
Yes, I do know the odds of all that happening. But nothing lasts forever, and every mountain climb starts with a single step.
2
The world will be divided into two groups: those who acknowledged that Donald Trump was a traitor in debt to the Russians, and those who denied, deflected, and pivoted to "what about Hillary and Obama?" They are not the President of the United States. Trump is. Your family, your friends, your business associates will want to know: At this critical juncture in our nation's history, whose side were you on? The Trump/Putin party, or the American Party? Sometimes you have to choose. This is one of those times.
3
The most we'll hear from this GOP are passive comments, (blah, blah blah) followed by no actions. This trump posse will continue to hold on to their majority like a pack of bulldogs.
Fire and brimstone, the 'enemies of the state' is an easy sell. His holier than thou, primarily white followers will never be swayed.
"words without power change nothing" No truer words have been shared Mr. Friedman.
Our only hope, our only power is a historical voter turnout in November. Taking back the majority of the senate and/or house. If the universe were to smile upon us, both. Vote
1
Yes, Republicans and Fox are the issue coupled with folks like Ross Douthat that continue to give a treasonous Trump cover. Douthat in his column today says he thinks all this is just Trump being Trump, as if that is an excuse for a shoddy President, who is committing treason but not really aware of it. Most telling in Mr. Douthat’s column is that he isn’t taking any comments, a sure sign of guilt. If you cannot defend your columns, then they should not be published. So yes, Republicans, Fox News and certainly columnists should be all taken to task for their support of a treasonous President. They are providing support for the enemy within. They should be ashamed of themselves. This is not freedom of speech when our form of American democracy is at risk. No one should be free to destroy that democracy just because of some amendment.
Excuse me. Yesterday you said president's conduct was treasonous. Now you're saying, Let's get law to protect Mueller. Or stronger Russia sanctions. Or subpoena tax returns. But if president's really acted treasonously, don't you have to call on legislators to impeach?
Mr. Friedman's contemptuous, sarcastic dismissal of Trump's claim that he misspoke--"if you believe that, I have a bridge near the Kremlin I'd love to sell you"--is welcome and right on the money.
But take away the sarcasm, and Mr. Friedman is stating a fact. It's obvious to any sentient person that Trump's apology--in effect, "when I said up I obviously meant down"--is a lie. Any one who says it isn't is either 1) lying himself (hello Senator Rob Portman of Ohio), or 2) a tool in the culture war who's been convinced by Fox News, as Mr. Friedman says, that hating on "the liberals" is the sine qua non of politics.
My question is why such a simple observation of fact--Trump's apology is utterly incredible on its face--is restricted here to opinion columns. It's a fact. That liars, or the deluded, disagree is not a reason to treat it as an opinion that requires discussion, defense, and respectful treatment of "the other side."
The Republican party a couple of decades ago zeroed in on an enormous weakness in our public sphere: the assumption that spokespeople for both sides of major issues of our day say reasonable things that require respectful treatment. We learned in the run-up to the Iraq war that it's not so; we learned the same in the matter of climate change. Etc. When is the nickel going to drop for the people who run the New York Times?
2
"Also, speaking of sheer madness, so much of the immigration that has swamped Europe of late has come from migrants from Syria..... fed by climate change, the collapse of small-scale agriculture and rapid population growth in the Middle East and Africa."
Mr. Friedman, I know that climate change is a big deal with you, but have you missed the last few years in Syria? Mr. Assad slaughtering hundreds of thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands. Was that climate change? To claim that Mr. Friedman is madness. You should know better.
"And what makes Trump even more powerful and problematic is that this president with no shame is combined with a party with no spine and a major network with no integrity."
Yup, everybody else is to blame. And the opposition? The Democrats who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory?
What are they offering?
The president may have no shame, but both parties are spineless.
You might be surprised about 2020.
Hint: it will not depend on climate-change issues in Syria.
1
"It is by Democrats winning the House, the Senate or both in the midterm elections." Fat chance, since Democrats don't vote, or at least 40% of them don't vote. Why would November be any different? Democratic voters - the Alfred E. Neuman of voters: "What me worry". Republicans are guilty for deliberately destroying democracy for dollars, Democrats are guilty for destroying democracy by not being patriotic and voting.
In November vote. If you don't, anything Trump does is YOUR fault.
3
The GOP is tied at the hip to Trump, they won’t change till we elect a new Congress.
1
Why don't we just have a genetically designed president? Someone with the compassion of Mother Teresa or Gandhi. With the brilliant creativity of Steve Jobs. The business savvy of Warren Buffet. The combined charm and charisma of Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and George Clooney. And because we are all a little bit vain, the good looks of Halle Berry and Brad Pitt. We haven't had a good president in over 50 years. No president in the last 50 years has done anything to create any meaningful and lasting prosperity in this country and I do not singularly define prosperity as money. All of you people emoting on this site about an emotionally motivated opinion article are not paying attention to what is actually happening. Good luck.
Vote like your life in a free democratic nation depends upon it - its abundantly clear the GOP has sold its soul.
Bravo Mr. Friedman, You said it all. Thank you.
These words of wisdom and alarm are hallmarks of responsible, cerebral journalism, a clarion calling out much like Thomas Paine's "Common Sense."
Fox News is an out-of -control propaganda machine aiding and abetting the destruction of the American government and its Constitutional framework. Apologies and spins to legitimize treasonous words and actions abuse the privilege that allows access to the airwaves.
When Mitch McConnell barely addresses these threats, slumping before TV cameras as he "warns" Russia not to do this again, America has been warned: There is no leadership in the Republican Party.
Since the NRA wing of the Republican Party took over, using stormtrooper intimidation tactics popular with the militia crowd, a drift to the authoritarian right became a tsunami. Trump is a byproduct of that madness with that special brand of his own madness so noted in this piece. Wayne Lapierre and the KGB-NRA now control our nation and only a boot to the neck of that mob will stop them. Beauregard Sessions is just their handmaiden, so let's hope (and even pray) the Deep State in NSA, FBI and CIA save us from this poison.
We are seeing it right before our eyes, how an out of control, inexperienced, compromised, racist leader is given cover by underlings and a propaganda network. I'm sure if Trump declared suspending civil rights necessary, Fox and his followers in Congress would find ways to justify arresting people. If he tries to fire Mueller and Rosenstein before they can complete their work (maybe Putin has counselled Trump on what to do), I can only imagine how terrible the scenario will be. And Putin celebrates.
3
Let's put a finer point on it.
There is no Republican Party, but the Confederate Party (we often call them Evangelicals).
The Confederacy of the Old South Slave States tried from 1860 to 1865 to gain foreign support for their war with union, and they could care less if our nation is united and secure. In fact, they oppose the union, and will keep fighting the Culture War (formerly known a the Civil War) until we recognize who they are and deal with them appropriately.
They are Evangelical Confederates, not Republicans.
3
I am reminded of a extreme right winger who wrote a book many yrs ago, called None dare call it treason, ie a defense of right wing demagogues like Sen. McCarthy.
This article is a version of that except now it is in reverse and true.
1
@Paul- Ironically he died yesterday. I did not know it when I wrote my post.
1
There’s your evidence people for all to see in Trumps’s astonishing press conference in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin. Trump laid bare in language even his die hard supporters could understand that Russian interests come before American interests. We don’t need Mueller’s investigation when Trumps’s own words condemn him as a traitor. When is the GOP going to put America first and do something about this imposter in the White House?
Putin's puppet is in debt to Russia for a 1/2 billion dollars...follow the money and demand tax returns!
4
Fox News is the enemy of the people. I think something should be done about their collusion with anything trump. I think they should have to register as a PAC and forced to say on air every single day that their opinions are more feelings th
3
Too late. We're already lacking Merrick Garland and probably going to be stuck wirh Kavanaugh for the rest of my life cause we all know Mitch is going to ram it through and the rest of the gutless wonders known as the Republican party will acquiesce as well.
When you've lost your spine as a party and your orange uncle scares you every time he opens his mouth, you don't deserve reelection.
We can only hope the rest of the voting public wakes up to reality
3
The truth (via Tom Friedman) has spoken, all on the evidence biting our behinds already. Although it is essential for the democrats to oust the cowed and irresponsible republicans abusing power, but to oust an irredeemably corrupt bully in the Oval Office. Trump is so insecure, and immature, and so used to lying and cheating, it has become second nature...to the point he himself may not be able to tell fact from fantasy. And whenever he is not lying, it is by an 'honest' mistake. Trump is a traitor to all we hold dear, liberty and prudence to do what's right, however hard and hazardous. Between you and me Tom, How in the world did we elect such a thug to the highest office in the land...to begin with? Are we that crazy?
1
The primary axiom of Republicans is that whatever any of them do, liberals/elites are worse. Worse than Russian leaders, worse than terrorists, worse than criminals. This irrational axiom is their “get out of jail free” card for any transgressions.
I found it amusing you compared a puppy to Trump. After that fiasco in Helsinki I thought of Trump as a puppy, tail wagging, yelping, running around trying to curry favor with his master. Unfortunately Putin hates puppies.
1
What are you talking about- punishments? Remove Trump from office. Congress, it is your job to protect the American people. Impeach, fire, arrest Trump now! Remove him from power now, If you are American-protect us-now!
Trump is an evil threat to America!
3
It doesn't matter if the explanation for the POTUS' behavior is mental illness, ill intent, or incompetence, wrapped in shamelessness. It doesn't matter because we would not be seeing this behavior, were it not for the behavior of Congress. It is the Republican Party that is *shameless* and the Democratic Party that is spineless. To call the Republican Party "spineless" implies that they would behave correctly, were it not for their lack of courage. But we know this to be false. It was the Republicans that *shamelessly* refused to discuss any SCOTUS nomination from the previous president. It is the Republicans that *shamelessly* ignore the children that are gunned down in the vacuum of our disgusting lack of gun control. It is the Republican Party that has created the monstrous situation we are in now, with a President that would be a laughing stock of the world, were it not for the tragic state we find ourselves in. Attributing the power to have caused such havoc in the Western world (and entire world) to the President himself is a grave mistake, I think. It is attributing power to the puppet whose movements are controlled by the shameless within the country (the Republicans) and the enemies outside (Russia). And the Democrats are asleep.
1
Oh, Trump has shame. But when ashamed, he doesn't lower his tail and drop his head. He lashes out. And what he's ashamed of is the idea that he's an illegitimate president. He lashes out at our allies and the media because they criticize him. He doesn't lash out at Putin or Kim Jong Un because they don't. And the whole Mueller thing has one big finger pointing right at him, screaming, "You didn't really win this thing." So he pushes his shoulders back and starts spouting...
1
I used to wonder why the Republicans keep mum in light of all these Trump blunders...now I know why. Trump supporters ...
1
GOP: What do you read, my lord?
Trump: Words. Words. Words.
Of course in the corrupted halls of Elsinore, Hamlet was making a point that potential power of words lies in their context and interpretation. "Would" or "wouldn't" are, Trump would have us believe, just words.
Talk is cheap, GOP. You're about to lose a generation of potential voters who have lived their entire life through digital words and images. They are most adept at spotting posers, liars, cheats and crooks. How convenient you support a single person who is a walking almalgam all of those corrupt traits and how fortuitous that he can be hashtagged in a single word-#COWARD.
2
When Trump was miraculously "elected" I told my family and friends that "Russia did it" and many said, "Oh yeah, sure..." meaning "that is pretty far fetched." And now I believe that the most recent conversation between Trump and Putin - in which no one but translators were allowed to hear - was not about any Peepee tape, but about Trump getting Russia's help to sway the Midterm Elections! Trump's primary motivation is to stay the most powerful man on earth - he can not lose to a Democratic Congress that would curb him. He'll give Putin anything his Russian heart desires to get some more expert hacking of the voting records and machines! That's why he thinks it's a brilliant idea to invite the Russians to "help" us protect our computers!!! SO - I beg those who are highly skilled in computers to get to work immediately to protect the next election - including the lies being sent by foreigners posing as Americans on social media!!!
The majority of Americans did NOT vote for Trump and now there are probably many more who want him out of office and locked up in prison or at least in a hospital for extremely dangerous narcissists! The next election must reflect the truth and not discard legitimate votes or turn away legitimate voters.
We can't wait for the next elections - we have to protect the election process now - in every way possible!
P.S. Trump does not support democracy.
1
Trump told us during his campaign that he could shoot a random stranger on Fifth Avenue and his supporters wouldn’t care. It is clear now after his spirited defense of Putin in Helsinki, that he has given Russia’s KGB thug-in-chief and his henchmen permission to do the same to our electoral process.
1
After the almost daily barrage of lying and posturing and more lying, I am very glad to read Tom Friedman analysis, which relies on years of experience and study, respect for reason and clear expression.
1
Hit the nail smack on the head.
The Republican ideology will work fine for one-per-centers.
Fox Friends are happy to hate, no questions needed.
America will be fine provided we make happy talk with the other big boys.
The only choice is Democrat across the board!
1
You completely understate the problem. The GOPs birtherism, Benghazi hearings, email investigations, etc. etc. are Russian-like active measures. When 90% of Republican believe that obama is not an American citizen you have a political party that uses fascist methodology to weaken American for political control and opens it to Russian propaganda. In fact the ties between Russia and the GOP are extremely close. No doubt they had common cause with Putin and rode along with his help—anything to destroy Clinton. Fox News is a GOP creation. It worked well with birtherism and Benghazi. But it seeded the ground for trump—it is what they asked for and it is what they got. Hello Neil Gorsuch, the appointment that destroyed the Supreme Court. The leadership of the Republican Party is Fox News. Not one GOP member will stand up to trump because Fox News will destroy them.
The greatest threat to American and global security is the Republican Party! It has to be dismantled.
3
Your piece, Mr. Friedman, reminds me of that dreadful scene in "The Matrix."
When What-s-his-name is actually shown Earth as it is. Devastated. A ruin.
You want to look somewhere else.
Point by point, you run down the ghastly list. If only this. . . .if only that. . . .if only the other. . . .
All this PLUS: the miserable impotence of the GOP. The utter shamelessness of our President. . . .
". . . .who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbors' eyes."
(Yeats)
You touch on something not too many have touched on
How to say this tactfully? Those elements in Mr. Trump's base--none too many, thank God!--
. . who are just plain malignant.
, , who genuinely wish evil. To other people. To our country.
. .who want (as Mr. Wehner pointed out) "to burn down the village."
Well--why? Why on earth?
I don't know. But the goal never changes. It is. . ..
. . .to strike out at the hated "liberals"--a term which now means simply "people I don't like." "Elites." "Smart people." People who "despise me." "Collegiate types." "Urban types." You name it. Could be anyone.
Could be you, Mr. Friedman.
Or me.
I saw a photo of a sign not long ago.
"Liberals. If you impeach Trump, better go for your guns."
Will it come to that?
Will it?
God help us!
4
I wish Mr. Friedman were our president.
1
Tom - the biggest takeaway from this column is the loathing Trump’s base has for the rest of us. Until Trump brought it out during the campaign, I honestly didn’t realize that my NY license plates would amount to ‘driving while black’ to certain citizens. All your rational suggestions don’t amount to anything because Trump and his base are arsonists and anarchists. Destruction. Turmoil. Pain. Payback. This is what drives Trump and his base. They go to rallies to hear the zilllionaire scream Lock Her Up. They don’t care about the stock market or national security and God knows they don’t care about the planet. As long as their leader is wreaking havoc, they are content. All the better when he is attacked by the dishonest media (Failing NYT!).
You got it right. This is a culture war, not a battle of policy ideas.
1
The headline could just as easily have read : A party with no shame and a president with no spine
3
A slightly different hue and I suspect even the GOP would recognize he's a traitor.
It’s not the party with no spine, it’s the President with no spine. I believe Mr Trump behaved as a coward. Unwilling to face down Mr Putin, he could only say what he had to say hiding behind his desk at a safe distance. Mr Trump is the Commander in Chief of the US military. What is wrong with this picture?
Remember folks.....
The Republican Party Platform was changed regarding our ‘FOE”
At the request of Trump’s campaign
When Manafort et al came on board.
Maybe like Baldrick in the Blackadder TV series, Trump has "a cunning plan"
I only disagree on one point: that Donald has no shame. I think he has a deep core of shame that he desperately defends against feeling; DT knows on some level that he cannot compare to "the elites", people who completely outclass him and who see him as a joke. He is a textbook case of malignant narcissism and will destroy anything in his wake rather than feel his inadequacy. And he is decompensating on the world stage. I imagine that all of this condemnation of his judgement and intellect is causing him intense pain, which he expresses as rage, which makes him extremely dangerous.
As for shame, it is the majority of the American people who are feeling it profoundly, given that we have an amoral moron for a president and are doing NOTHING to stop his reign of error.
6
And how is the republicans lap dog approach different from mr. Friedman’s approach to Saudi Arabia?
No shame?
Trump has great personal pride,
but absolutely no brains and he is an agent of Putin,
knowingly or not.
It is not that Trump has no shame,
he has no brains.
Unacceptable for a President of the USA.
1
Mr Friedman,
Please, please, please run for president in 2020. I'll move back to the US and campaign for you.
1
A Party with no shame, brain or guts.
Hello Thomas, good work.
I added no brain because Mr Trump's base is incapable of independent thought.
Painful !
Please, will folks please spend a few minutes a day watching FOX propaganda. Apart from the occasional blip of journalism, FOX is mostly mindless drivel, driven mostly by long legged beauties with an erect man in the middle. A male buffoon appears at 6 pm.
Even FOXers seemed embarrassed by DJT's buffoon show in Helsinki. But only for half a day.
FOX news is like the village well, where gossip is exchanged. But there is no feedback.
Backfire effect.
I saw it again yesterday when I gave one of my Texans
the recent NYTimes editorial..."Someone should tell DJT about Americas high tariffs."
"Canada imported $792 million of US dairy products, but the U.S. only imported $149 million of Canadian dairy."
The Texan still banged on about Mr Trump's claim about the Canadian 270% tariff on US dairy products.
I offered a highlited copy of the NYT editorial to the Texan so he could read it at leisure. He refused to take it...and said "you're watching too much CNN."
saludos de sunny Yucatan
ancient Canadian economist
ps
Did the precipitous decline begin with the
"weapons of mass destruction" scam.
google rumsfeld freedom fries 2003
1
There is a mirror image when it comes to the Republican Party. Their supporters constantly vote against their own self-interests. And so does the party. In this case since it is the party in power, they vote against the country’s self-interest.
We have lost our allies, we’ve lost our self-respect and international respect. We’ve lost our trading partners. We’re practically destroying NATO.
Boko Haram, ISIS, Nazi Germany and now the United States are parties to separating parents from children.
We have surely lost our way.
2
Republicans refuse to see the wild elephant in their room.
1
The GREAT APOSTROPHE COVER UP( came out after your column?) already accepted by Congress and probably more importantly his voters. Yes, McCain and a few others bleat out in the meadow unheard, unaccepted by most Republicans. Just look at the warm pap Lindsey Graham utters daily on Trump or the tsk tsks from other Republicans followed with that's Trump but you know judges, abortion are just so much more important. Go over to GOP news organ called FOX and overwhelmingly they applaud his Summit meeting. Listen to Tucker Carlson or Minister of propaganda Hannity.
If Congress wont act VOTERS must or is Trump who America is? Please VOTE!!!!!
2
Sociopaths don't experience shame or guilt. That is what makes them so dangerous.
4
Donald Trump is market-testing barbarism and authoritarianism. He is Il Duce, and he’s working his way towards formation of a new Axis.
Spot on.
2
My local Fox channel reported this morning that DJT did “a complete 180”
Boy, talk about fake news
2
So we have a geriatric madman in the White House enabled by cowardly Republican lawmakers. But what has happened to the previously outspoken Russophobes in the White House? Although I always thought Bolton was an insufferable neocon and the worst U.N. ambassador we ever had, he at least had no illusions about the Kremlin. And Secretary or State First-in-his-Class-at-West-Point Pompeo was supposed to be the smartest man in the room when it came to controlling of the "Stable Genius." Instead the stable door was left open, the genius escaped to his Russian handler in Helsinki and we now have a national security emergency.
3
How can liberals, or any other rational person, not look down at Trump supporters? They're party first, country second, low information voters who elected a lying, narcissist, con man to be the most powerful man in the world. How can anyone respect them when they take perverted glee in the havoc he creates with his sheer stupidity. Then they delight in doubling down with heir support when presented with irrefutable evidence of Trump's idiocy. Worse still, they elected spineless, subservient, hypocritical republicans that willfully allow this catastophic behavior to a majority in Congress. How or why should anyone resect them?
3
No shame, no guilt, excessive lying, self-aggrandizement, inability to emparhize, and impulsive talking and decision making. Isn't this the definition of a sociopath?
1
Why would Republicans "grow a spine" when they agree with Trump? Trump is their unmasked ego, he is the ultimate Republican- unabashedly racist, classist, sexist, greedy, kicking our allies in the shins, bullying, lying constantly, sucking up to dictators, and saying and doing anything to stay in power. That's what the Republican party stands for, and now you can add treason to the list.
Like it or not, Trump is the GOP, and the GOP is Trump- now and for all time. When Trump curled up like a ball at Putin's feet, all the GOP could offer were pathetic grumbles. Why would they take action? After all, Mitch McConnell himself was fine with keeping the Russian interference secret before the election despite President Obama wanting to inform the nation. Republicans have shown repeatedly for years that there is nothing they won't do - cheat, steal, and now collude- to gain power. The Republican party deserves to be voted out of power for a generation for excusing everything this repulsive cretin does, and for selling our nation out to Russia.
2
I guess it's a tribute to the incredible power of the right wing's dark money programs and the dominance of the right's multi-sided media propaganda machine when I say that I have never seen a group of politicians as frightened of their so-called base as are the Republicans. Their frightened behavior ranges from the openly sophomoric and bullying tactics of the Freedom Caucus to the "let's not upset the President" approach of Senator Cornyn. But the saddest of the fearful are the likes of Ryan, Corker, and Flake, who are so very careful to hedge every criticism of Trump with a knowing wink to "the base," a wink that says that they will do nothing to rock the boat. After all, they leave Congress with the expectation of rewards from the dark money centers and noise-machine makers that got them to Washington in the first place. They fear that they may not be properly "rewarded for their service" if they make too much noise.
1
Until the leaders of the Republican Party put loyalty to country ahead of loyalty to party the madness of Trump will continue. It is obvious by now that Trump lacks the competence,the integrity,the experience and the temperament to be an effective president. Trump must be told by Republican leaders to step aside or face impeachment proceedings.It is time to end this long national nightmare. NOW!!!
3
Trump is safe. The GOP has a SCOTUS to install, which is all they have to show the base.....they won't mess with this.
1
In order for the Democrats to win the midterms they need UNITY!
Let the many Democratic voices sing their song loudly, but when it comes to crunch time unify!
1
Mr. Friedman,how can you say the Republican party has no spine? Why only yesterday Mitch McConnell said mean words to Vladimir Putin to the effect that" you had better not do that again." If that doesn't stop this former KGB guy in his tracks, I don't know what will.
4
Focus, focus, focus. The only way to redeem the US democracy is to use our ONE PERSON/ONE VOTE in a concentrated effort to support Democrats, to remove the Republicans from power. Don't vote for third party candidates if you want the Republicans to lose power. Vote for Democrats. If you look at the vote spread from the 2016 election, it is the voters for the third party that made the difference for Trump. In my own precinct, which is small, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 10 votes. Jill Stein got 10 votes and the libertarian candidate got several votes. In NY it didn't impact the outcome but in other states it did. So stop dreaming and FOCUS. Put your vote where it counts. Don't believe the propaganda against the Democrats and the so-called "deep state". Vote the Republicans out. To do that everyone with a brain needs to rally behind the Democratic Party. This is about taking power away from people who are abusing it. This is about saving democracy and the future of Social Security and doing something about global warming. This is about saving the National Parks and the National Lands and the Park Rangers from being abused by the power of insanity and mean spirited willfulness. This is about having a voice in our own government.
3
The left's angst centers on Russia's attempted meddling in the 2016 elections and their belief that Trump colluded with Russia. Where was their anger when China hacked into US government computer networks and stole the identities of millions of people? I recall President Obama meeting with General Secretary Xi after the Chinese hacking was exposed and it certainly was not a confrontational encounter.
Any honest Republican, and there are many, would admit that the Republicans made a Faustian bargain to accept Trumpism in return for conservative judicial appointments, deregulation and tax reductions. Like poor Faust, they got what they asked for and are now paying, and making us all pay, the gruesome price, the surrender of democracy.
2
Yes, well, exactly. Of course we could write a book, as many have, on the numerous mistakes and foreign policy disasters of American history. The phoney, trumped-up Vietnam War which was a travesty conjured by the otherwise admirable LBJ; and the phoney, trumped-up Iraq invasion of Bush Light to name a very few.
But right now the electoral defeat of the Republican Party and President Donald John Trump in the next several election cycles is absolutely necessary to save the Great Experiment upon which so many have dreamed and labored and defended for 242 years. For my family it has been the Promised Land. I love America, despite her failures in achieving that “more Perfect Union.”
Now we are testing yet again “whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”
Please, we must not fail. Register early and vote. Defeat Trump, the midern GOP, Trump-TV, and Vladimir Putin. Vote like your life depends upon it because it does.
1
Until Trump’s base realize that it’s FOX that’s actually fake news, that they’ve been duped and taken by Trump and that he and the GOP are acting against their interests while constantly lying by outlandishly claiming the opposite ... then nothing will change. And as long as all three (Trump, GOP and Fox) continue to sell the heinous chimera that MAGA means white privilege, the base will buy the farm, including trade barriers, loss of friends as neighbors, unaffordable healthcare, terrible public education. an environment based on the recent Chinese model of dirty industries and perhaps most importantly demagogic facism. Trump’s base wakes up and repudiates racist politics, America could well destroy itself because of all the evil that gets bolted on to it.
3
Here's the truth of it: our President engaged in treasonous behavior openly in Helsinki. How I would have loved to see President Trump arrested as he departed Air Force One to put an end to this nightmare. He needs to be impeached immediately, removed from office, and go before a court of law.
4
We have a Manchurian president. Everything he does for America has dire consequences for the future. His lack of a coherent environmental policy, the attack on the Affordable Care Act, his attack on our allies and Nato, tariff policies, the tax law and increase defense spending, and his Supreme Court appointments are harmful to the nation. Instead of draining the swamp, he has made it worse. Instead of making America great again, he is making Russia great again. Putin put the right person in the Oval Office.
1
In light of all the documented computer hacking that goes on ALL THE TIME, does anyone really believe that our voting machines are "Tiger Team-tested", secured, air-tight and locked down?
Really??
2
It will be interesting to see what kind of 'October Surprise' Trump and Putin ironed out in that two hour meeting.
2
The Republican Party has serious demographic issues. It's older, white adherents are dying out. Consequently it plays harder at firing up it's base to encourage them to get out-to-vote through racial,ethnic, and cultural fear. All you have to do to see this is look at the audience at Trump "rallys". I think the Republican Party WILL eventually change: one funeral at a time.
I’m far less interested in our wacky lackey’s absence of shame than I am Congress’s lack of spine, especially its Republican members, and its lack of good judgment, at that level once called statesmanship. Statesmanship is good politics and it’s bad politics that is allowing this insanity to continue. McConnell and Ryan may actually think they’re doing right by the country by taking advantage of the chaos, but their refusal to marshall Congressional power in defense of these attacks on democracy, by the President of the United States, no less, will go down in infamy, to use a phrase from a rather different historical context.
1
The Rs "broke it, so they bought it". The Rs elected Trump. The Rs do what Trump demands. The Rs could control Trump, but they do not. Occasional mild tut-tutting of Trump means nothing, zero, Zed. Every R running for office or power is guilty -- fully and should be rejected and shunned in every way. There is nothing to talk about, absolutely nothing. That time has passed. Defeat Rs and deprive them of as much power as is possible is the only workable answer. NOW in 11/18. DO IT!!!
1
A very strong column Mr. Friedman. A very strong defeat is needed of this GOP-turned-treasonous party. This cannot happen soon enough.
About the reasons for political upheaval and immigration in the Middle East, Mr. Friedman, how could you leave out the war we started in Iraq that snowballed?
It has taken a while, but columnists' writing is finally catching up to reality of this president and his party. Rather than reacting to each unique outrage, we are getting better at writing about this disloyal, vapid, spiteful president with coherence and grounding in American values. While the person holding the office of president doesn't read and doesn't engage in critical reflection, many of the rest of us do. It's important that we accept what we see with our eyes and feel in our hearts as this administration undoes a Western alliance that has led the world since WW2.
2
A president with no shame and a party with no spine. And now we are a country where the rule of law is being undermined every day. It takes a person with intelligence to feel shame. It takes a party that remembers its oath to support the constitution to have a spine. Trump and the Republicans spend each day with the the words I, me, mine rather than the words my country, my responsibility, my integrity. It amazes me that all these people can look at themselves in the mirror each day. And today the president announced that he "misspoke". Each day our country sinks deeper into the morass. The children removed from their parents, the conditions under which many of them are held, the lies and equivocations, the attacks on health care, the money for the rich, the constant attacks on the poor, the trade problems created by a president who has no understanding of trade - and on and on. I despair for the soul of our country. Sadly the Thomas Friedman columns, the Charles Blow columns, the Paul Krugman columns have no effect on the Fox TV viewers. I see no end to this as long as Donald Trump is in office and he is given the bully pulpit to lie each day.
2
More troubling items:
1. Treasury says "dark money" need not disclose their identities. Citizens United on steroids. So, Putin can contribute to the Party of Trump at will?
2. Hannity and Carlson are both traitors. Carlson belittles the importance of Putin's crusade of interfering with our elections by saying that Mexico and South American countries are planting brown people in our electorate by the millions.
3. Can we add Murdoch to our "Most Wanted Criminal" list?
3
We seem to be at a total loss. I agree with you about nurturing our allies against our adversaries. But President Obama pioneered our Syrian policy and Hillary Clinton opposed the TPP. And our European Allies just slapped Goggle with a $5B fine. We are living in “Bizzarro World”.
Trumps supporters are permanently in the WWWF wing of the Republican Party. What thrills them is the equivalent of seeing people in big houses dragged out into the street and humiliated. The reds are playing their envy into hatred of people who are smarter and richer than them. It's playing their fear of losing their exulted status into a virulent hatred of minorities. Modern digital technology has given it exponential, global reach, appeal and power. Trump has seized the fulminating geysers of Twitter, Facebook, Sinclair, and Fox. American democracy is in a state of septic shock.
Vote in new blood this November.
1
All these facts are true, but they suffer from such a high level of inherent interdependent complexity that they are hard to understand for those people of higher intelligence who loved Trump's speech in Helsinki.
Clearly, he has a simpler master plan and we must have faith in him.
I am thus appealing to my fellow dim-witted Americans who have not yet seen the light: Do not resist, support our President!
Trust him, he knows best. Even though we may not always understand what he says, which is changing on a daily basis. He has just trouble with the English language. Russian is so much easier!
Even if it hurts, even if we lose our jobs, health insurance and social security checks. Even if America is going to be scorned by the rest of the world and our children and grandchildren will have to forgo education and go back to laboring in the fields and live in houses without air conditioning.
Sacrifices must be made!
To take the puppy analogy further, this is how the Trump administration would respond:
1. There is no mess, it doesn't exist, it is all Fake News.
2. If there is a mess, Trump didn't do it, Hillary did, or Obama or the Deep State.
3. If there is a mess and Trump did to it then that doesn't matter because the mess is good. If Trump did it that makes it good, because he is the president and whatever the president does is good. Except the dishonest media will never admit that.
Dear America, the rest of the world watches you in despair.
4
You could not be more correct. I pray that everyone reads this and please vote to get the R’s out of power.
1
The GOP has made their deal with the devil. Trump gets the voters excited, and republicans get to push through their long-sought-after policies. But at what price? What will be left of our democracy after the inevitable revelations of the Mueller investigation leave us trusting no one and nothing, least of all traitorous republicans? So you get a Supreme Court, and a tax cut, and you destroyed the environment, and defied your "family values" to lock up "illegals. Trump has weakened our standing around the world. I guess they call this winning. I see them holding a trophy over the skeleton of what was once a great country. But they'll have lost it all and have no one to blame but themselves. Sounds suicidal to me.
2
"...there is no one inside his party or base who is going to sustainably stop Trump from being himself and doing whatever he bloody pleases. ."
It appears that when DT cancelled joint military exercises between South Korea & the USA he had consulted no one. Not our military, not white house staff, and not our State Dept. The list goes on....
Be afraid.
1
The fact that the line containing the phrase “bring the perpetrators to justice” was stricken from his mealy mouthed “correction”, shows that he has zero intention of fulfilling his oath to the constitution - to faithfully uphold the law.
1
Well reasoned and stated.
For 70 years America has been the undisputed leader of the Free World. After this week they are no longer following us. Through 2016 they looked to us. Now they just stare at us ... in disbelief.
3
The GOP has done nothing less than the Star Wars equivalent of going to the Dark Side with one important difference: they coddle and support a colossally inept, vicious (continuos, willful prevarication counts as such) and arrogant child who, no dangerously intelligent Darth Vader, way in over his infantile head, with a GOP and Fox News Bodyguard shamelessly aiding and abetting their spoiled brat, threatens our national security to a point that we may soon have a United States we no longer recognize. The damage sustained, perhaps irreparable, will satisfy many of Putin's goals, thanks to Trump and his enablers in in Congress.
To paraphrase Hillary Clinton's remark:
"Great World Cup. Question for the GOP: Whose team do you play for? The United States of America or Trump, his base and Russia?"
2
The party w/ no spine... Perhaps many of them are also subject to Compromat - Having accepted dirty, dark money from the NRA / Russia connection.
Certainly - I think it is obvious - they actively wish to continue to get help from Russia... just like in 2016.
Many of twisted / bent / corrupt Congressmen probably want MORE help than they got then...
(Mark these words.)
How much faith does anyone have that voting machines in Blue districts will break down less, than in Red one, for example?
2
The question needs to be asked: What if we simply can't wait for an election? What if it becomes even more obvious, beyond the the ability of even Fox to ignore or spin, that Trump is dangerously delusional, and might cause massive loss of life or unrepairable damage to America's standing in the world. Cowards always hope somebody else will do what is needed and take the heat. GOP jelly-bags in Congress will let him do anything, quaking in fear as they do, lest they offend the vicious ignoramuses that comprise their base. What do we do if Congress fails us in the face of immanent danger? I tell you what we do, we shut the whole thing down. No business, no traffic, no school, no government activity. Fill the streets of DC with more people than can be fit into the stadiums and then slowly, relentlessly and peacefully, close in on the White House until the pimple is expelled. Trump needs to understand that if he doesn't cut a deal and resign fast, he will be forced out in one of the more time-honored traditions, after which he will be lucky to spend the rest of his toxic life in jail.
2
It is interesting that Mr. Friedman uses an opening metaphor that has long described my view of Donald Trump’s modus operandi. Though unpleasantly scatalogical, it goes like this: The Donald comes into a room of people and relieves himself in the middle of the floor. There is general disgust. Noses are pinched. He is told to clean up the mess. He tries, but only makes it worse. Then he laughs and leaves the room. Noses are unpinched. Maybe it’s not so bad after all.
2
When Trump is no longer useful to Putin, perhaps Putin will gloat over his control over him by releasing what he has on Trump.
Trump has been a celebrity for thirty five years, and has visited Russia starting thirty years ago.
Mt guess is, a stunning amount of financial and sexual information that will leave his most ardent supporters slack jawed.
1
OK. We get it. Over and over again. We get it, feel it, and commiserate about it.
We're in a real constitutional pickle with this president with no character, no class, no scruples, talking out of both sides of his mouth, and his base buys it.
And he has the power, the wheel, the plan to go on his authoritarian path, demeaning the press, the people, the very office.
He calls sit fake news but won't have stenos record the actual words. Why? We know why.
Like a battered wife with no real power or guts or plan, we stay helpless to make a real move to freedom.
We get it.
Now what is our democracy going to do about it?
7
Exactly Tom. The solution is taking back both Houses. I hope that the majority of citizens are just as furious watching Trump's odd behavior and poor governance and this will propel huge numbers of Democratic voters to the polls. This traitor deserves his day in court and the only person saying, "You're fired", will be the Federal Judge that sentences him.
2
And if the Russians flip the mid-term elections? What then?
3
I disagree completely. I like him and would vote for him again.
How did we as a nation become this ? Let us hope we can pick ourselves up this fall.
@2cents...We chose this...as unbelievable as that may seem...I hope we pick ourselves up...not sure how much more we can take as a nation...it's always difficult to get up from a fall !!
Trump’s base will follow him over the cliff. The irony is that there is no doubt in my mind that, in private, Trump makes fun of his base for being gullible chumps. “I love the poorly educated.” Oh, for a recording of what he really thinks of his base for all to hear.
10
The Times should keep the tax return issue visible, up front, EVERY DAY.
The tax returns are the key to what Trump is hiding.
4
Keep writing. We need the Press more than ever. But we need more. We need demonstrations on college campuses. We need volunteers to enroll voters. We need religious leaders to actually lead, without fear. We need to shame the racist, sexist and corrupt fundamentalist segments of society even if they can still sleep well at night. The nation is at a crossroads. Democracy is teetering in the balance. Don't let one insane man destroy sixty years of progress.
13
Trump's opportunistic championing of the birther movement initially gratified his need for attention and ultimately rocketed him to highest power. Now his job #1 is to please the birthers out there by defiling everything that reminds them of Obama: TTP, the Iran Deal, the Affordable Care Act, even intangibles like morality and basic decency - signature traits of Obama, are fodder for Trump's rampage. Trump more and more resembles a dull witted ten year old playing with matches.
2
Mr. Friedman shines once again, as he reminds us:
1. Watch the GOP's actions not words.
2. Trump supporters hate liberals more than they like Trump.
3. This is not a political war; it's a culture war.
5
I get the sense that the Republicans believe that they cannot get elected without the help of the Russians. First they decided they needed the Southern segregationists; there weren't enough country-club Republicans. Now it just looks to me that they are willing to tolerate the Russians because, hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
2
I really do not see how this plays to trumps base. I believe they love him because of his strong man, knock em dead approach to everything and everyone. He didn't show that with Russia, he stood there acting like a meek child beside Putin who acted like the one in charge. Also, trump and the GOP also always say how there was meddling in 2016 but it didn't change the vote count, how can anyone sat that it did or it didn't? As for Chris Wallace, I wish he would go to any other network as he has no credibility on fox.
3
Very well said. Now if people would only put down the phones and facebook for 5 minutes to actually read something of importance. dream on.
3
Well we know there is something that will shame him and that is whatever it is that Putin has on him. It is enough of a threat that keeps him on a short, Russian leash. We may never know exactly what that is, but Mueller will get enough pieces of the puzzle that even McConnell can't ignore the threat to our democracy that is Trump- and his band of grifters. The circle is getting smaller and smaller and the bull's eye is that traitor.
9
Trumps whole identity with his voters is based on racism and Fox has been right there right along with him. His voters have become convinced they are under attack in their lily white neighbourhoods in the fly over US.
The Republican Party started this back in the days of Nixon and Reagan, back then it done with dog whistles not so much in the Trump era. This is just the logical conclusion of decades of this strategy coming home to roost.
The Republican Party knows they are not a majority party and their actions trying to restrict voting under the guise of voting fraud bear this out for anyone paying attention.
I’m convinced the Russia collusion goes deeper than Trump and includes some members of possibly the Republican house. This explains their seeming panic at the Mueller investigation it’s not just a Trumps skin they are trying to save.
I’ve long since given up hope that any Republican is going to come to rescue our country from this disaster, let’s get real Mitch McConnel can’t wipe the smirk off his face over the theft of a Supreme Court seat. The job of saving the nation will fall on the 60 percent of us with our eyes wide open both young and old.
4