I really enjoyed your satirical comments until the end when I realized that your comment that some people would believe it was true struck me. So many are so ignorant and misinformed these days that you can't expect them to understand satire.
41
What an outrageous opinion piece. You do realize that most don't read more than a couple of sentences, right? So, Mr. Friedman, are you ready to face the fire of being a fake news reporter when people start claiming Trump shoots people and gets away with it? Very irresponsible, and frankly, very condescending to Americans that may have different ideas than yourself.
5
Could I then return fire?
25
Here's another scary read: re-write the story and remove the name "Trump" and insert "Adolf Hitler". It reads the same.
11
I think my version is better. New York Times, you need to do a better job of editing.
BREAKING NEWS: TRUMP SHOOTS MAN ON FIFTH AVE., OBAMA ARRESTED
https://www.facebook.com/vernonchikchadwick
23
Very clever and humorous piece today- just what the doctor ordered. !!!!!
10
I think Thomas Friedman should host townhall meetings without political candidates on the stage in major cities. His message is so important for encouraging people to vote in the midterms
13
I'm not criticizing your overall message, but I do wish the publishing of "fake news" would stop. This is the New York Times, not the National Enquirer. Taken out of context (which many will be tempted to do), this piece is very troubling. The last thing the world needs is more confusion about the facts. The last thing liberals need is proof that we support fake news published by our own media.
3
"shoot someone in the middle of fifth avenue"??
trump and his appointees already have done much greater damage than that. check out his administration's "environmental" policy changes, as just one example. he's literally killing us slowly.
28
Wow. The continued comments by Trump supporters making some false equivalency between the president and his predecessor or any other elected official's actions is nothing short of delusional and simply shows their abject party loyalty. Rest assured one day his actions, policies and the manner in which he comports himself will adversely touch you or someone you care about. But even then you'll still have nothing but your party loyalty.
23
When we develop a software, we run tests to see if it can be broken with edge cases and negative scenarios. Well! now we have a edge case of a President that is testing the constituition. And that means, it needs to be fixed and made more robust!
9
@Bertie But the way to fix it is not through a Constitutional Convention which would be a big mistake if one were to be called in the times we live in now. This nation is way too tribal for that.
4
I work on a state university campus. When I ask a group of students to raise their hand if they read a newspaper every day, in a class of fifteen or twenty, generally only one or two will raise their hands. When I asked how many listen to news on the radio...maybe five or six hands will go up, if they watched the news on television...about the same number. When I asked if they read the news online, the largest number of hands went up, but it was always less than half the class. When I asked what sites online they visited for news...only a few were mainstream legacy media or "hard news" sites. Those of us that closely follow the news produced by professional journalists are living in a bubble. If you want to know why citizens are not more upset and protesting in the streets across the country...I think I know why.
41
The only comment I can make about what this article suggests is that I am thankful our government has a series of checks and balances. I remember reading a U.S. history article about establishing the Constitution. In the article in stated that either Thomas Jefferson or John Adams commented that "anyone could become President of the United States". Unfortunately, this prediction has come true. However, the system in place should give us time to recover our stability and continue to grow.
4
Here's what I don't understand.
Evidently "long standing" Justice Department policy is that a sitting president cannot (should not?) be indicted.
What if is proven that he (or she) actually shoots somebody? Still, no indictment?
Seems a bit odd to me that this so-called policy is considered so sacrosanct that it can't (wont?) be reviewed.
20
Nicely done. This piece really encapsulates the mindset of the sociopathic Trump administration and its Republican congressional enablers.
18
Tom you forgot to mention that the day after the man was shot on 5th Ave, President Trump threatened to declared war on North Korea. The main stream media forgot about the crime and started wall the to wall coverage of Trump's new threat. The talking heads had a field day, the income of news outlets went through the roof and the drama continued.
19
"White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that she was looking the other way when the shooting happened so she had no comment, adding: “I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with the president. I’ll get back to you if I have something. But the president has stated many times that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. So he’s just keeping a campaign promise. He did nothing wrong. There are no charges against him. And even though I have no comment, and he has no comment, we’ve commented on this extensively.”"
Who knew Friedman had a sense of humor?
Those of US at a certain age remember, if vaguely, the republican party's hysteria regarding Russia and communism. Now that Russia is a fascist state they have no problem with it.
We are in danger of ceding victory to Putin regarding the cold war; we are in graver danger of ceding victory to Jefferson Davis trump regarding the Civil War.
If Democrats do not retake the House, at least, do not look for another honest or fair election in this country.
If We the People get off our duffs, get to the polls, get our friends and relations to the polls, we stand a chance to survive this monster and the fascist party that spawned him. We stand a chance to rebirth our democracy and really drain the swamp.
It is up to US. Get out and vote like your life and the lives of your children depend on it. They do.
21
Suggestion: Cease using the term "Republican" and "G.O.P." Imagine reading this column -- or any column -- if you replaced that with "Trumper." Seriously. The Republican Party is dead. Only use the term "Trumper." See what it does with your thinking.
9
Make voting mandatory the way it is in Australia.
Change the law so that once a felon has served their time, their right to vote is restored.
Overturn Citizen's United.
Get rid of the Electoral College and have a popular vote.
Make four-year college fee or low-cost for all.
We can turn this ship around, but it will take some backbone and courage.
26
But the guy he shot was an East Coast Elite Liberal. Next question.
8
Lets call it what it is: there is a huge rise in the expression of fascist and white supremacist groups. They have a spokesperson in the Oval Office: Donald Trump. Trump is the Republican Party that depends on these extremists. Trump and his lackeys are trying to paint the mainstream media as left wing fake news- a tactic straight out of the Dictator's Handbook. Truth is not the Truth! Republicans reject everything this country has fought and died for. They have no excuses..Shame on them all.
14
If he did shoot someone on 5th Ave,l he would probably give himself a parade.
6
"What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?"
There is a proper protocol in place for when a Trump Republican shoots somebody on Fifth Avenue in order to demonstrate the irrational hold he has over his base. First, the victim apologizes to the shooter. For example, Mr. Whittington was compelled to apologize to Vice President Cheney after Cheney accidentally shot him in the face. Second, a Congressional investigation is initiated into how President Hillary Clinton and President Obama and their unpatriotic policies are making it hard for Trump Republicans to shoot people for no good reason on Fifth Avenue. After all, Hillary Clinton could have become president. And Clinton and Obama want to take away their guns. Without their guns, how can they put an end to the Hillary Washington, DC pizzeria ring?
11
Further commenting on Donald Trump's shooting of a heckler on Fifth Avenue, White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "I think he’s been very clear that, when attacked he’s going to hit back The American people elected somebody who’s tough, who is smart and who is a fighter. It’s Donald Trump. And I don’t think it’s a surprise to anybody that he fights fire with [gun]fire."
8
I still have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that the Pressident of the United States had someone working for him who was a confirmed Russian agent. Can you imagine the uproar if Clinton or Obama would have even a hint of such a scandal?
21
I live in fear every day of this presidency. The risk to our Democracy seems to grow by the day as the Congressional GOP remains passive and compliant with this evil man in the White House. I think that now they no longer question how to confront or challenge him, they have chosen to use him, and maybe even Putin's election machine, to keep their jobs and their base. It sickens me and I hope the voters get rid of all of them. Some in the GOP should be indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy too because they are helping Trump and, indirectly, Putin.
7
Dear Mr. Friedman,
President Trump already HAS done what you describe, he just did it through incompetence rather than with a gun. His administration, and therefore he, is responsible for the preventable deaths of an estimated 3000 people in Puerto Rico. As far as I can tell, the response has thus far been anodyne articles and sporadic mentions throughout cable news and the world of podcasts. What anger there was has simply melted away. It may not have happened on fifth ave, but he’s a killer alright, and nobody seems to care.
11
@Nelley1947:"One is hopeful and the other is depressing." Funny that I interpreted as the hopeful part is the fact that your millennial didn't know who McCain is. If we ignore all the buffoons (I include McCain in the list) and focus on the promising people like Ocasia-Cortez, Gillum, Tlaib and Teachout we have a chance to recover some of the lost ground. Lost ground from the times of FDR not Bill Clinton that is.
2
Again. The greatest threat to Freedom and Democracy in our country today remains the republican party and its president.
5
Nothing, absolutely nothing will change GOP.
At this point we're ruled by billionaire junta, a real cabal of not so secret society.
Just read this article in a Guardian dated 2016...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/17/dark-money-review-nazi-o...
I'm completely convinced that GOP is implicated in many criminal activity pertaining to 2016 election, that is why they morphed into party of trump, so if he is a criminal which we know he is, same goes for his party.
That is why the assault on FBO, DOJ, etc...full blown cover up operation.
We're in desperate need of party or system that could replace this present rot and criminality in our government.
4
One reason why Trump has not been cut down to size is that like him, his critics also keep focusing on his following. A sort of glorification of his side. Somehow the 40 percent have come to count more than the 60 percent majority.
I say, stop talking about his core. Pay no attention to them. When things go wrong, don't keep repeating that even his latest failings make no difference to his followers.
It makes all the difference to the majority. Why then not report that the majority of Americans got angrier today. They can hardly wait to chuck out the Congressional Republicans who refuse to do their job. Say instead,
Mercury Is Rising On The Left.
Trump's opponents are raring to show their anger, come November. The Repubs Are In Big Trouble.
That would be a real news item, like: The Man Biting A Dog.
Look around you.
Wherever Dems showed energy, Bernie Bro-style, their candidates won. It's time for the Bold. Remember, the Brave and the Free we sing about?
Let the Nut Wing call it socialism or give it any other name. We march by our own drumbeat.
Let's openly advocate that the bulk of the tax cuts must go to the lower 60-70 percent of the population - to increases in social security payments, toward the adequate funding of Medicaid, toward free or concessioned college tuition fee rates for children of the poor and working families. It's only right that all American kids have an equal start in life.
10
One addition to Friedman's brilliant column: Let's not forget that Trump was showing his strong support for the Second Amendment when he shot someone in the street. Shows his terrific support of "open carry" of guns, everywhere and always!
3
I have been wondering, for some time, about what dual citizenship might mean to an individual who somehow "won" an election to high office. I wonder to which country this person would consider her or himself most attached, to whom this person would feel most loyal. I wonder who it would be that this person would want to emulate.
Tribalism is a default setting of Homo sapiens sapiens. Sociobiologists who have been familiar with William Hamilton's altruism equation since the early 1950s realize this. But there is no room in the ideologies of the right or left for science so this game will continue until some violent conclusion. This will be won eventually by the right because it will act in a coordinated fashion under some authoritarian leader while the left is insuring strict adherence to "Democracy" by making sure its decisions are acceptable to all identities.
3
People: we each have only one vote. We need to vote of course AND do as Mr Friedman is doing: urge your families and friends and associates to vote.
3
In reality, Trump has already wreaked far more damage than a "shooting on 5th Ave" ever would.
Trump's complete and utter failure to help the American citizens of Puerto Rico after their devastating hurricane has resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths. It's still a disaster.
But wait until we see the casualties from DJT's rescinding of healthcare coverage for millions of struggling americans.
Bankruptcy and death.
7
In the Florida Republican primary, candidates tried to claim to be more pro-Trump than their opponents. None tried to show any daylight between them and Trump. If any candidate had at any time expressed even the mildest of concerns about Trump, say over the Access Hollywood tape, this candidate was heavily attacked. It remains to be seen how the pro-Trump persons will do in the midterms, but Friedman is certainly correct that Republicans will be useless in checking Trump on anything, no matter how outrageous. These same Republicans may mutter sotto voce to the press about Trump, but praise him to the skies in public.
4
In reading this article this morning, I want to share a note of hope. More and more, people I know who voted for Trump are changing their minds. Arpaio only garnered 10% of the vote last night in Arizona. Military people and military family members are becoming turned off by Mr. Trump's behavior. The media is finally waking up. Even the Republican congress had to recognize Trump's pettiness in regard to McCain's death.
8
The policy of not charging crimes committed by a President until they leave or removed by impeachment is not a hard and fast law; it is merely a Justice Department "policy" that might fit a case like Bill Clinton's improper sexual relationship in the White House and lying about it to Congress and law enforcement agents. It can be changed to fit the circumstances.
This "policy" does not address a case of this seriousness and magnitude: A hostile foreign government (Russia) "invading" our elections to sow discord, disunity, division and chaotic disruption --- not only within our national government and among the people within the United States, but around the world.
Despite wide divisions on political, economic and social issues, the vast majority of us believe in our country and wish to remain strong and unified on behalf of our nation.
I believe when the whole story is revealed to the American people involving the conspiracy between Russia's spy agency with some American citizens' in the Trump campaign, to interfere with and corrupt our 2016 presidential election, a significant shift in public opinion will occur.
Many supporting Trump's social and economic policies will no longer support Trump's effort to avoid conviction for treason, tax evasion, etc.
The people of the U.S. will survive, rising stronger and determined to secure a non-partisan government of honest folks to keep us on track to a better future for all of us, not just the "few".
PEACE LOVE LIGHT
5
Trump is also helping Russia's gas/oil based economy and cold climate with more fossil fuel use, higher prices, and warmer temperatures regardless of consequences for US and rest of world
3
I found this hilarious. Then I realized that this could happen.
5
Who cares other than the victim and the victim’s family if Trump shoots one person on Fifth avenue?
He can send troops into a foreign country that might get thousands killed.
He can launch cruise missiles at a foreign country on a moments notice.
He can start a nuclear conflagration.
Congress abdicated its responsibility long ago for many crucial duties with the consent of the governed.
6
A millennial who works with me did not even know who John McCain was let alone that he died Saturday.
As Winston Churchill said about democracy:
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” and
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
One is hopeful and the other is depressing. As Americans, we need to decide to be engaged or not. Many of our citizens who don't vote, say more than the ones that do.
Scary times.
215
@Nelley1947:"One is hopeful and the other is depressing." Funny that I interpreted as the hopeful part is the fact that your millennial didn't know who McCain is. If we ignore all the buffoons (I include McCain in the list) and focus on the promising people like Ocasia-Cortez, Gillum, Tlaib and Teachout we have a chance to recover some of the lost ground. Lost ground from the times of FDR not Bill Clinton that is.
2
@Nelley1947
It depends on what you want democracy for. Do you want a collective wisdom that helps us choose the best path forward, or do you want to make sure every voice is heard, no matter how irrational and uninformed? These are not the same.
@Nelley1947
People who don't vote don't say anything. It's the plain silence of the voiceless when it comes down to how much they don't participate.
Trump is a Russian through and through. I felt in the early nineties after staying at the Plaza Hotel in NYC after the Trumps bought it and ruined it by gilding the whole place and squeezing all the life out of the place. It was tangible and scary. I couldn't leave quick enough....never been back there either.
7
Trump slyly encourages his base to do his bidding, be it violent or otherwise. For that reason, this "fiction" is very scary.
Some people think that people who oppose Trump hate him. No, we don't necessarily hate him, but we do hate what he stands for: manipulation, lies, immorality, racism, hatred, white supremacy, and all the other negatives that we have been fighting against for the past several years since he emerged as a political candidate.
We won the Cold War and we can win what Friedman calls the post-Cold War. But we must vote on November 6 to do so.
6
If Trump shoots someone on Fifth Avenue, Republicans in Congress will merely mumble something about their thoughts and prayers being with the victim. The NRA will defend the shooting as the president's Second Amendment right to do so. Evangelicals will continue to look the other way as long as their agenda is enacted.
8
In fact an initial thought is "wait, is this true?" Yes, excepting awareness of trump actual shooting. There must be several individuals with body guards. Brilliant and frightening piece by Thomas friedman.
3
One of the embedded problems in this discussion is that Jerry Falwell, Jr. is described as an "evangelical leader." Junior is an attorney who was given the keys to the family vehicle - Liberty University. He is hardly a man of the cloth. His "religion" is money. And that appears to be part and parcel of the entire right-wing of the Republican Party. Ripon, Lincoln, Eisenhower...all gone, to be replaced by Palin, Trump and their hideous offspring.
"Alt-facts," "truth isn't truth," "fake news"...these logical abominations are symptomatic of little closed minds that have spread - virus-like - through a vast swath of the American public. It is political Alzheimer's - a plaque destroying the ability to recall and think, replacing intellect with infantile response. The worst part? The desired end-game has no inherent value, just a repudiation of perceived reality and a laser-like focus on accumulating additional wealth for those who least need it. The question upsets me no end, but how does this not end in revolution? I scan the horizon, but can't find any adults in the room - sensible, sober, self-effacing people who view power and authority as stewardship, not self-aggrandizement.
4
As I watch and listen to the news I am saddened that my children and grandchildren will be the victims of the Republican party and Trump. VOTE.
2
No problemo. Against a thousand eye witnesses easy enough to stack up a presidential pardon and rush on to the golf course. I hate to speculate, but it's not hard to imagine Mr. Trump teeing his ball up in the rough. Thank you Thomas Friedman. Nicely done.
3
@Rose: Who didn't know is a better question in all these cases. The country has been going in the direction of Fascism for quite a while now. People who looked for answers in the stock market, shopping malls, fancy private schools and colleges they could afford for their children, and a sun never seeming to set on the richest empire the world has ever known did not notice it.
Vote November 6 but vote progressive, not Hillary, Schumer and Pelosi look alike. They are the ones who ushered in this era we live in.
2
If you drill down, the question Trump supporters should ask themselves is, what would Trump need to do for me to no longer support him. When I ask my Trumper friends & business associates this question, they can't answer it. To me, that just means they are nothing more than mindless sheep at this point regurgitating the ever changing party line, just like early communists. Maybe they should read the G-d That Failed, but we know that's not going to happen. I've never supported a candidate & blindly granted them carte blanche. Why 80% of Republicans are choosing to do so, I don't know, but all citizens should have a line in the sand, a threshold that can not be crossed, just like we do with our kids & co-workers. Basic boundaries. If you are willing to abdicate agency & no longer care about American morals & norms, then the dark days ahead are only in the 1st inning. At some point Trumpers will realize that they are not conservatives any more, as they are not even trying to conserve what it good and decent about this county, they are really Leninists, trying to burn it all down, while ushering in a new version of dictatorship of the proletariat- aka, those left behind. How long can they go on without a "Kronstadt Moment" well history tells us they can go on for a long time ignoring what is obvious and this negligence allows the bad in this world to rise up, and evil never fails to fill an empty vacuum & quickly. The hard Right would enjoy another civil war, think about that.
8
Over half the electoral college votes went to Trump. These votes belong to real people. Red blooded, card carrying real American people. How did they got to the way they are? Daily dosage of American rhetoric that they are the best, they are the chosen, they are the blessed. No wonder when they started seeing that that was no longer noticeable in their daily lives, they turned to the charlatan that claimed to give them back their never existing Greatness. Sounds similar to good old Adolf and even his southern cousin Benito.
Cut the Gordian cord. Vote Progressive in November and forever. The world will be a better place with people like Bernie running the show and books like The Theory of Justice by Rawls rather than The Art of the Deal by Trump guiding people.
4
@BluntDo some research on how the Electoral College works. Its rules can be modified by their states' legislators. 'Some people' think the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness or should be revised.
@PSmith: thanks. I know exactly how the ancient piece of junk works and I sure hope it will be changed. The fact is that despite its clear game theoretic biases (exposed by academics and pundits gazillion times) it is still there. Nothing in my comment should imply that the state legislators cannot modify its rules. In order to do that we have to have people who wake up from their stupor and tell their state legislators what to change. And if they don't change what needs to be changed dump them for new and enlightened legislators.
But, as long as people believe we are the best, have the best of everything including electoral systems, health insurance, labor policies, educational system, military might, and most importantly God almighty's blessing like no other nation has, we will elect people like Trump.
@Mr. Friedman
Your whatifism scenario is laughable.
Yes. Unfortunately there are acolytes on either side of the aisle that will defend whatever 'their President' does. Yet, given the media landscape, where is the 'Group think' political mentality most prevalent?
FOX is the highest rated cable 'news' station because it's the ONLY conservative-leaning mainstream media outlet available.
__
Trump still refuses to show us his tax returns long after his “audit,” which can only mean he is hiding something. His campaign chairman Paul Manafort is a convicted tax cheat who was trying to keep Putin’s stooge in power in Ukraine. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen is another confessed tax cheat.
__
Trump SHOULD release his tax returns to show Americans how he took advantage of the existing tax laws maybe even CHEATED the IRS out of MILLIONS of dollars without getting caught for the sake of transparency. He'd write a check, admit nothing and move along.
The real question to be answered is IF there was Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to win the 2016? Speculating on Trump's current political behavior with Putin shows Trump is not a career politician.
Manafort's previous business dealings in the Ukraine and guilty plea as well as Cohen's tax conviction and plea agreement demonstrate Trump an idiot attempting to combine the two.
1
As a frequent reader of both the NYT and the Guardian I was quite puzzled reading Friedman's latest piece. Is it imaginable that star columnist Friedman simply overlooked the brilliant satire by Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George which appeared only a few days ago in the British Guardian? We won't know, but the damage is done which is why I think that Friedman should find a way to give credit to the two authors.
4
Is #45 trying to be "POTUSA" for life? Beware, please vote this November!
3
Tom, you forgot to quote Rudy "truth is not truth" Giuliani. May I propose a quotation? "President Trump shot a person on Fifth Avenue who he thought was Michael Cohen. Accordingly, this is clearly a case of justifiable homicide. Perfectly legal! Not a crime! No collusion!"
3
Goethe's Faust boasts in The First Part of the Tragedy, "It burns my heart, Of course, I am smarter than all the shysters, The doctors, and teachers, and scribes, and Christers; No scruple nor doubt could make me ill, I am not afraid of the Devil or hell-". 45 and Faust share this persona. Total confidence in themselves-"I can fix it"- and nary a fear of evil, immorality, the Devil, nor hell. One notable difference between Goethe's Faust and 45 thus far, Faust experiences grace. Faust's redemption comes by way of "The Eternal-Feminine lures to perfection." 45 abhors the Eternal-Feminine and subjugates the temporal feminine. The midterm elections are more than just a vote for democracy, liberty, and justice for all; more than a vote against corruption, and rude and crude politics. The midterm elections are about the restoration of the American vision that evil and immorality are real and must be brought to justice; and goodness and morality matter more. The midterm elections are about restoring the City on the Hill which cannot be hid. Currently America's light is under a bushel, it must be brought out so all can see.
2
Of course, Trump could shoot somebody and get away with it with his loony base. Any old anonymous person would do.
But the base would even more rapidly cheer if that person were off white, female, once knew a democrat, used Google, bought something from Amazon, read the Washington Post or saw a Streep or DeNiro movie.
A double plus if she worked for the media, with ancestors from s-hole places with strange sounding names the base and Trump have never heard of.
And Trump would get three more scoops of ice cream on his yummy dessert if the person were Muslim and took a knee every time she heard the national anthem or somebody yell merry Christmas.
5
How incendiary the headline of this column, how pathetic. Your animus sees no boundaries. What it does is energize me the opposite way you intend. I would imagine nuclear war with North Korea or our economy failing would make you happier to blame the President with excited vigor.
1
You know what you get when you stand with trumpty? Indicted and/or imprisoned as well as filled with shame and regret. So while he can attend a prayer group and warn the evangelicals to stand with him, perhaps they should realize that like all who align with him, except Putin, they’re being played and taken for fools. And when your 2 minutes are up, he’s finished with you unless you’re clever enough to at least get $130k from.
1
Trump sort of did the equivalent with no consequence. Locking innocent kids in cages, kidnapping them from their parents, seems pretty close to shooting someone on the street. And no fallout! This is the most embarrassing country.
4
Only other example in the entire US history quiet similar to that of these fictional, fraudulent, vicious and vindictive attacks being carried out against Mr. Trump─ are the assaults delivered to President Abraham Lincoln by then slave-owning Democrats─ during the American Civil War.
Well, with cops on the scene, he'd get lit up like a Christmas tree.
Oh wait, he's white.
3
Lock him up!
3
I continue to be astonished that anyone believes a word that Trump says or tweets. He is a liar hell-bent on destroying the principles of democracy.
Let's ignore him and put pressure on Congress and the courts to stop this Russification of America.
2
@James: To the Editors: The fact that this comment is a New York Times pick is pathetic. You don't believe this, so why are you highlighting it? Print it if you want but this type of stupid comment calling Obama Socialist and the likes of Bernie, Harris or Warren Socialist/Communist is unacceptable. "Showing both sides" is a ridiculous idea when it comes to this type of invective nonsense. Times Pick, for what? I am sure you would have received plenty of comments from Joseph Goebbels and his crew at the propaganda ministry if we had internet at the time. I am sure your current editor would have "picks" some of those if he or she was alive then.
Fat chance that you will publish my comment let alone "Times pick it", but what the hell.
4
It`s easy to focus on trump, I mean he is so obvious. But trump is just the symptom of the attack on our system of two party rule. And the attacker is Putin and his single party rule. And the Russpublicans have signed a pact to team up with Putin to change our Democratic Republic into a single party Oligarchy. Maybe that is why so many Pubs spend so much time in Russia and why our Congress is acting more like The Duma rather than the democratic body our founders envisioned. trump shows us the future of a single party America, no dissent from the people or the press, no opposition in elections and any that dissent will very possibly be jailed or disappeared, just the way it`s done by Putin in Russia. Welcome to the the new Russmerica Comrade! Vote! Vote to save the soul of America!
1
Wouldn't the shooting be covered by New York City law or New York State law? Why create a panic - among already panicked NYT readers - by speculating on a highly unlikely event?
He's the poster boy for malignant narcissism personality disorder. It's incurable. He is aided and abetted by numerous enablers, who are equally culpable in helping destroy our Democratic norms.
1
If that proverbial 5th Avenue shooting victim was the Pope, his base would rally around to his defense. This modern variant of the Republican Party is the manifestation of THE END of this democracy.
1
What if the number one reason Trump got control of the Presidency was as a result of mass purges of Democrats from the voter rolls?
What if no one talks about it and nothing is done to stop it?
The total number of registered Democratic voters is plummeting. Two million voters have been wiped off the voter rolls since the 2016 election, all coordinated by Kris Kobach and Interstate Crosscheck.
"The Rev. Jesse Jackson and reporter Greg Palast notified the voting chiefs of 26 states that they will be served with federal lawsuits under the National Voter Registration Act within 60 days if they fail to turn over the millions of names of voters wrongly purged from registration rolls."
Brian Kemp, as Secretary of State, removed 591,548 names from the state’s voter rolls in 2017.
http://www.gregpalast.com
Write about this Mr. Friedman. You are wasting time.
1
Today fiction passes more and more as 'real' news so, for a while, I thought I was actually reading a breaking news story italicized for urgency effect! Silly me.
BTW - don't think this cannot happen in Trumerica, the new name of the country formerly called America as ordained by a recent executive order.
1
In fact, he is shooting the America and Americans every day with the support of few minority Americans.
He can't do worse then that.
For Trump to even make such a despicable but truthful statement about the hypnotic control of his base and the Trumplican Party shows how low America has sunk in the value it places upon the duty of the president to follow our Constitution for the United States of America.
I would add that if Trump tweeted he was forming a joint partnership with Putin to help him control America, his would
brainwashed supporters would still claim this is how We Make America Great Again.
2
Trump IS Putin, why doesnt everyone understand that.
2
The irony is lost on people like Tom. Even now, they fail to realize that their histrionics drive people to support Trump. Keep up fantasy pieces like this one, then wonder what happened in November 2020 when Trump is re-elected.
1
What if the person shot by the president was Iowan Mollie Tibbetts? Would the Right still claim the president cannot be arrested, indicted, etc.?
Mr. Friedman , you left out Giuliani's defense: he will sound off with the following statements: 1. It's not a crime for the president to shoot people; he is even allowed to drop atomic bombs to destroy all of humanity! All perfectly legal! 2. He wasn't there . 3. It was a conspiracy where Hillary impersonated Trump and did the shooting. 4. It was self defense. The victim was aiming an AK47 at him. 5. Let Trump be Trump! 6.It's fake news. 7.Watch Fox New and see that Trump had nothing to do with the shooting. 8. Shooting is not shooting even if someone seems to be shot because the man who was not shot started bleeding not because of any shooting but because he had a nose bleed and the nose bleed is not shooting because his nose bled frequently.
1
Friedman is a voice for rational politics in furtherance of democracy
1
Glaring omission from the list similar dynamics: Israel and Netanyahu, who had his culture minister ask: "If we can't control public television editorially, why are we even doing it?" The Israeli supreme court, a relatively functional democratic organ, is being dismantled by the minister of justice, who again- in broad daylight said that the Jewish biblical laws are to get equal weight to democratic principles. Same admiration to Putin.
Republicans? What about the spineless Democrats who won't even talk about impeaching Trump for fear of appearing to actually having a backbone? Disgusting - the whole lot of them.
If Trump did shoot someone in the street, Tom Friedman would be there to condemn it! If Prince Mohammed bin Salman did it, Friedman would be there to explain how it all fits into the reformer portfolio of this dynamic young revolutionary! But what am I saying - shooting is so yesterday when you have stoning and beheading at your disposal.
".....Vice -President Pence who was in the motorcade and witnessed the shooting was described by on-lookers as being in a near catatonic state of admiration and awe at the President's precision marksmanship...."
3
Ridiculous concept. Perhaps the author should only look in the mirror to see what excesses were initiated by the Democrats, promoted by it's progressive base and implemented in this country to get a true measure? It's written all over them, in word and deed. It is what allowed Mr. Trump to be put in office in the first place. After all, he's a product of your bathwater. His dirt is your dirt. His excesses were your excesses. He's learned it all very well. Maybe it's time to examine your own conscience. He's born and raised in NY.
No one is selling love of our democracy, you all are just selling hate us on hate for autocracy. We must experience a love affair with our freedoms.
1
@Mike Wilson, our democracy is a work in process. It isn't very lovable yet.
“Thoughts and prayers. This is not the time to politicize.”
Lou Dobbs of Fox Business News would have said, "Good Heavens! Why on earth was this man standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue."
Jeanine Pirro would have said, "Just look at how hysterical the liberals are over this minor incident. What a great example of Trump Derangement Syndrome."
2
Well, maybe Trump didn’t actually shoot someone. But, a child is dead as a direct result of Trumps policy to separate families.
Joel Rose reports on NPR today that “18 month-old Mariee Juárez died after being detained along with her mother, Yazmin Juárez, at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Her mother says Mariee was a happy, healthy child when they arrived at the U.S. border in March to seek asylum.
“Then they were sent to Dilley. Six weeks after being discharged, her mother says, Mariee died of a treatable respiratory infection that began during her detention.”
Will justice be served? Where are the authorities who will investigate crimes against humanity?
1
You’re right, Mr. Friedman, if Trump did shoot someone, no one would care. It would be just one more idiotic prank he would squirm out of. What would bother his many loyal followers? Realizing that Trump is broke. That’s why he refuses to release his tax returns. No one would care if he cheated. His followers would expect him to. And, I doubt he would go to prison. Probably everyone would pitch in and pay the fine. What they could not abide would be the fact that Trump is not a successful businessman, and he’s not. If he hadn’t become President, essentially forcing foreign dignitaries to stay at his properties, billing the Government exorbitant amounts for his own use of his properties, and other other bills he is probably shoving on us taxpayers, he would be broke. And I’m sure he’s getting some type of a kickback for lowering taxes on the 1%. That’s what he can’t bear for people to know.
1
Mobsters in prison can now actually turn to those around them and boast, “I taught the president everything he knows!”
1
the only way that Trump will lose his 'base" support is if he nukes Utah and/or Alabama. For the rest of us, get out the VOTE !
2
Please. NYT columnists. Russia does not"continue to meddle" Russia continues to wage an assault our democratic process. Please do not use the word the trivial word meddle in this context.
1
Try this. The points here aside one real and present actuality is the ridiculous foreign interpretation of what the first amendment allows that has been variously adopted and imposed on us since the 1980's.
It, this "de-regulated" version of how the amendment functions is the number one thing among a large group of things done by the GOP to facilitate their taking over all 3 branches to subvert the separation of powers checks that balance our system.
It is the only reason the republican propaganda machine Fox news can pose as a "news" organization and say anything at all as if it were news. Prior to that such obviously dishonest and dangerous broadcasting would have been shut down and people jailed/investigated to find out who, why and to what end people had set up to such an unAmerican and diametrically opposed to the very basis of a free society organization.
Sure our president is a mook and his supporter's are apparently unencumbered by reason or rational thought, but the danger we face has been built decades ago, to this end.
Have you ever wondered how people in places like India can suddenly break out into a mass riot and go nuts over something not apparent to us and in ways that seem only to hurt themselves? We are very close to being there now. Didn't El Trumpo just threaten us with violence in the streets if the repubs don't win in Nov in his inimitable passive aggressive cowardly way of saying something while distancing himself from it?
1
Trumps chaotic ready, fire, aim, strategies could be like Kevlar for independent thinking adversaries on Fifth Avenue.
On the other hand, he could shoot cowardly politicians all day long, except that he needs them.
And the slobbering media, just keeps hauling it in.
Nice to see you're finally catching on Tom, except the ground work for this has been being laid for 40 years now.
I have no doubt his supporters would blame it on Hillary Clinton's emails.
3
Of course, Trump is a symptom, not a cause. The underlying cause is a handful of dedicated billionaires who have fashioned a brainwashing machine that dictates reality to about 40% of voters. These puppet masters also have bought and paid for the GOP Congress and over half of State Legislatures.
It is silly to talk as though Congress “thinks” or even has an ideology. What it has is a coterie of vassals serving an Oligarchy of demented wealthy wackos.
3
First, things with Trump will only keep getting worse and it is clear to many that as his world spirals, Trump will show absolutely no restraint in doing everything he can to survive. A cornered animal is the most dangerous animal.
The fate of the mid-term elections for me is much more than just about restoring some checks on this president by Democrats getting control of the House and/or Senate. A Blue wave will also indicate the shrinking core of the Trump supporter.
No doubt he will still be able to fill an arena with red-hatted supporters. But if the exit polls show that millions of people voted against Trump, it will represent the beginning of the end. And slowly from there to the general election in 2020, Trump will join the likes of Palin and McCarthy in the shadows of irrelevance.
This election is all about taking back America. While Russia watches on and plots, it would be a huge victory for freedom and democracy if Americans vote against Trump. That would be a vote against Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, etc. and a warning to Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and the Philippines that America will be great again. We will be that beacon of democracy that reminds all civilizations that they too can have a voice. That they are not alone.
2
If this scenario wasn't so frighteningly plausible, it would be welcome humor. The observation of Ms. Gorbis regarding Russian law, ' if there was a law, there was always a way to bribe and get around it' is beginning to sound a lot like GOP business as usual. Simply substitute 'Trump Executive Order' for 'way to bribe'.
2
I like the new name for this congress: the Duma.
But as for Trump being just like us (referring to Putin/the Russian power elite), no better, now worse, I would say that was not a sincere comment. Is there a world leader who doesn't
play" Trump? And Putin is among the most cunning of world leaders. He surely knows a fool when he sees one. Think back to that picture in the White House with Trump, the Russian ambassador and another Russian official, taken soon after Comey was fired. Trump is telling the Russians he got a load off his back, firing Comey. The Russians are seen laughing. I'm sure they couldn't stifle their laughs even if they tried. That's what I mean; they see him as a fool. Former intelligence heads have said Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset. If so, the Russians may be discovering this asset is dumber than they thought.
3
"But what is at stake in the 2018 midterms is who is going to win the post-Cold War."
I found this opinion partially funny and overall interesting to read. Good these thoughts about Rule of Law. But who is fighting this post-Cold War, and for which political scope? Russia-U.S.A?
Cold War followed War, WWII.
Anyway, the quotation above reminds me in a less military old West-German Cold War joke:
On a meeting president of the CC (of the communist party of the USSR) and the West-German minister for foreign affairs met:
Sovjet president: "But we won the war!
West-German minister: "Of course! Jawohl! But we won the peace :-)"
What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue? If it was a perp, give Trump a medal!
If trump were to shoot "someone" it would help if he had sheriff joe at his side. The sheriff's radar would zero in on a Mexican immigrant walking down the street and trump would be idolized even more by his loony base; maybe even being considered for sainthood.
1
What if the FBI raided Hillary's attorney and seized all his records? What if the number one and number two and various other officials demoted or fired for cause in the FBI including lying under oath? What if Trump had funded a document that the FBI used to get FISA warrants to spy on Hillary's campaign? What if the head investigator had texted to his girl friend he hated Hillary and he was going to stop her and that Hillary should win 100 million to zero? What if...
1
Whatabout, whatabout, whatabout. Why don't you deal with the facts?
@Hank
Case you missed it, the election is over and Trumpy won. Isn't that enough for you? Guess not.
1
Hey he's already done worse. Besides if he wanted to shoot someone he'd get Nunes to do it for him.
4
Racism and sexism is so prevalent in modern American society that Trump very well could shoot someone and the GOP wouldn't care. Racial superiority trumps all for them.
3
Trump has been committing so many moral offenses that he has inoculated the GOP as well as his deplorable base. And now they are immune to any accusations against Trump, no matter how true or nauseating.
Never forget: if anything Trump has said was ever—EVER—said by Obama...
The Don’s Putinisma brings to mind Miss Piggy slobbering all over the Muppet Gorbi (Gorbachev). Miss Piggy and Mr. Trump have much in common: Selfadulation, deceit, fantasizing, demanding praise, puppet hair, easily insulted, underlying aggression, feelings of entitlement, and boundless narcissism.
2
On further review of the pictures Tom the story is this.
It was a Black reporter for the NYT who asked about trump's tax returns.
Apparently he made the serious mistake of holding his pencil in the air. trump took it for an AK47 and fired.
In various parts of trumplandia there was dancing in the streets just as there was in NJ after 9/11. Or so we were told.
Thereports from "Congressional leaders," Faux Propaganda and the WH though are spot-on.
We are in a heapa trouble.
4
Through satirical hyperbole, this column posits a question that many of us have: what could Trump do that would be so low, so terrible that the Republicans in Congress would finally do their constitutional duty to check a thoroughly corrupt President who acts to subvert the rule of law and who values Putin over his own intelligence agencies? If yesterday’s transcript of Trump exhorting evangelical leaders to get their millions of followers to vote in the midterms in order to forestall some sort of apocalyptic bloodshed and the “Christian” leaders’ response of prayerful idolatry and obeisance to Trump doesn’t terrify every American who values their freedom and the rule of law, I don’t know what will.
4
This continuous drumbeat of Trump hatred is so damaging to the country. Friedman is just one of many who refuse to accept the previous election results. Nobody restrained Obama's excesses, held him accountable for his outright lies, miserable economy , his hatred for America or feeble foreign policy. He is one of the reasons we elected Trump. We are not going back to the failed Socialist policies of Obama with some Socialist/Communist candidate put up by the radical left wing of the Democrat party.
27
Spoken like someone who listens only to propaganda. Take some time to study primary sources for yourself and you will find that you are being conned.
4
the majority seldom reflect the future needs - they follow and in this case, they followed a fool; lemmings and wilderbeast lead one into cliffs and gators.
3
"Miserable economy"? What economic statistics do you read?
3
Politicians respond to political incentives. Votes are the most powerful political incentives. Republicans are now Trumppets (as in puppets of Trump). As warped as our system is—and it's in desperate need of reform in many areas—those who pay attention and vote (not to express feelings but to affect the society in which they live) still have the power. Votes are still the ultimate political incentive.
1
He may not have shot anyone on Fifth Avenue, but he made a public pronouncement to his Russian handlers to proceed with their proposal.
Oh, wait . . . that was a joke, right?
97
@Chris
Yes.....people who are rational, and well adjusted took it as a joke. I had a belly laugh when he made the statement.
Perhaps it's time for you to make an appointment to start having chats with a professional therapist.
2
Absurd fictional and pandering opinion piece. We know Trump is bad, although he is a money-maker for the press. Tell us something we haven't heard on a daily basis from every liberal opinion writer.
1
As to the concern of our being coming an other Russia please note some of the shirts photographed Trump rallies, better Russian than a Democrat
1
Sorry Tom. Those of us who support Trump are blind to neither his personality defects nor his peccadillos, just as people like you were not blind to similar, if not worse, faults in JFK, Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton. It just so happens we like most of his global actions which are cutting through decades of unyielding anti-American behavior on the part of friends and foes alike. And he is achieving this not despite his flaws but, interestingly, because of them. Apparently there are situations in which it is ost effective to be the bull in the china shop.
1
Perhaps Trump could shoot himself on fifth avenue and his toadies
blame Obama. Varying "truths" would be spun out from "the Russians did it to Nancy Pelosi did, disguised as Steve Bannon."
The case could go unsolved and books would be written as Pence
becomes President ,abortion is banned and America returns to the strictures of family, sexuality and morality of the early 1950's. We recede to Isolation and America First dominates a crime-ridden country, corrupt and bad, bad to the bone...... sad.
1
Trump/Arpaio 2020 then maybe the made up part could be true?
Trump is an old fashioned yet modern day fascist, racist and our president.
"It" just keeps on getting crazier. It's past time for the Republicans to pull the plug on there monster.
1
What if someone shot you or me? There goes our votes, Tom Friedman.
MAKE AMERICA'S
REAR-VIEWED RUSSIA
WINDSHIELD-FRONT AGAIN
One small correction is needed to Mr. Friedman's column. Mr. Friedman writes:
"— and with the president assaulting the media and the judiciary on a regular basis, "
Mr. Friedman and his supporters also assault the Justice Dept., the FBI, the CIA, immigrants, NFL players, Democrats, and people of color.
2
But, if he shot a dog on Fifth Avenue, that would be another story,
This is just plain silly. Trump would never shoot someone.
To do so would require he take the time and expend the mental energy required to learn how to use a gun.
1
Many Americans are like children who are comforted by Trump's low IQ. They figure he's not smart enough to fool them. This is also why they don't hold him accountable.
3
Vote. Them. Out.
1
Right on!
1
Probably he did shoot someone, after all he is just a mobster. Mobsters Are Governing America....MAGA is an underhanded joke on his followers who are too into their racism, misogyny and mutual funds to care about really clearing the swamp.
1
Mr. Friedman, you are upset speculating Trump might get away with shooting someone, but are curiously silent on the fact the hero you venerate, MBS, rules a country that is about to behead a female protester: Israa al-Ghomgham.
1
I wonder if Trump is purposely doing the "divide and conquer" strategy. Call the press the "enemy of the people". And, about those tariffs, are those really intended to upset and weaken the economy? He insults our traditional allies, and seems to want to weaken NATO. Well we have to figure he got his playbook from Steve Bannon, who thinks we should just "blow everything up". What about his keeping a book of Hitler's speeches next to his bed (as Ivana told us)? We've got to stop this egomaniac.
3
It isn't just "Russification", it is fascism also. Trump is determined to disregard the law when it gets in his way, and his toadies in the House and Senate back him up.
1
We urgently need address voting machine fraud - as per the informative comment from a PA reader a couple days ago under the How Far Fallen article,
"The public has no way of knowing if election results are honest and accurate because our votes are counted in the darkness of cyberspace. Exit polls indicate that Trump did not win the Electoral College. That’s why Jill Stein requested recounts in three suspect swing states. Lawyers for Trump and the Republican Secretaries of State went to court to shut them down. The judges were wrong to stop them.
"One of a number of red flags: It is virtually impossible that there were 75,000 undervotes in the Detroit area (a Democratic stronghold), where people voted for down-ballot races but not the presidency. Trump “won” Michigan by about 10,000 votes."
The voting machines are being hacked and it does not matter whether they are connected to internet; names are being purged and votes are being altered before they are reported.
Fitrakis and Wasserman: Why the U.S. State Department Would Not Certify Trump’s Election as Legitimate https://tinyurl.com/y8a7gqn9
Bev Harris of Hacking Democracy is interviewed by Lou Dobbs https://tinyurl.com/ybvpswpj
How to Steal an Election with Diebold Machine in One Minute (2006) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huBHR9IBSsQ – so, W was also illegitimate?
Bev Harris on the Diebold infections that fractionalize votes once they are cast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KBvTFVoylA
1
You forgot to add that Alan Dershowitz would defend Mafia Don on the basis that he cannot be charged with a crime while in office. He's not above the law...his office of legal counsel decides what the law is.
1
The reason John McCain was so loved by both sides of the aisle is simple: He was an Honest "Country first" man. So hard to find now in the GOP.
The GOP will cover up any 5th avenue shooting claiming it was a democrat if they can so they can stay in power. They are all putting power above country - period. The ones who are not are leaving the GOP or quitting. Not only was John McCain putting country before power or politics he was brave. Not so with those who are quitting.
1
@Patricia In 2008 Senator McCain was called a racist and white supremacist by the left when he was running against President Obama.
How quickly we forget.
1
@Jason A. What Left? I never heard that so don't lump everyone who ever said such a thing into the entire group. Sounds like you are listening to too much FOX (faux) news again.
3
What a terrible article. To suggest first that Trump would just step out of his vehicle and shoot someone then have all the republican Senators and others just brush it off is sheer nonsense.
Why don't you cover the Antifa thugs who cower behind masks and use weapons to attack people they don't like, even media cares and people who are democrats. They just beat up anyone .
1
At the words, "the rot will be everywhere," my mind wanted me to create a rhyming couplet with "tinpot dictator."
Or is this too silly?
It seems obvious that Trump and the GOP are following Hitler's and Putin's playbooks. GOP senators, including Rand Paul and Graham, are now licking Putin's boots.
What is the payoff? How did Putin get so much influence on our GOP leadership? Blackmail? Greed? Or a combination that makes corruption inevitable, and OK with the GOP base?
Sen Warren is right to take the anti-corruption route leading up to the mid-terms. Her platform should also recommend making paper ballots the only legal way to conduct elections. At our government level, local and national, transparency needs to be the norm, not the exception. Seems obvious.
The current MO of the GOP would make Trump's killing on 5th Ave a non-event as Tom states. Wake up voters!!
4
Wow! I didn't know that Thomas Friedman (and for that matter, the New York Times) has a sense of humor.
2
"take what you can, because no one's looking. The cat's away" ......Sounds like the Clintons on exiting the White House for the last time!!
1
This column is utterly childish. Why is the NYT stopping so low as to play the fake news game. Has it really not occurred to anyone on your staff that relentlessly "proving" Trump is a jerk is not going address the horrendous problems of poverty and economic inequality that got him elected in the first place? This seems so, so obvious to us in Europe!
3
Fantasy indeed .... the basis of the sum offer of the Democratic Party ,, Governor Cuomo's appraisal of American greatness is a banner the Dems can white flag
for the entire path to election day this November .. Couple this with faces and statements of the hierarchy of the Donkocrats -- Hillary -- Schumer -- Waters -- Warren
Ocasio-Cortez -- etc and Voila!!! a picture in which any Citizen should see thru that hallowed transparency that
never existed in the eight years of lack under Barack Obama ..
1
@SMPH
Ah, so "the other side" DOES read the NYT!
That's good to know.
Shoot someone? Trump? This headline reminds me of Barney Fife.
1
Slipping into darkness.
3
Republicans will offer their prayers for the victim and move on!
3
Man bites president?
No, president bites man then sues him for not being more tasty.
3
You are the Foreign Affairs correspondent for the NYT. Let's stick to that area. We've heard enough Trump bashing. Would you please tell me why we send billions to Egypt. A dictatorship that oppresses its people. Seems to me the schools of this nation could use that money. Remember the World Is Flat.
2
@Art: Military-industrial complex. Weapons sold to one country beget demand for weapons from other countries.
Brilliant
2
Trump is a multitaskable wonder. Able to do the job of making good on his promises while fighting the garbage slinging Leftist media and socialist clowns on a daily basis. Shut up and enjoy the ride.... nice to see an American economy banging 4.0 + growth and unemployment this low. Makes the previous guy in office look like he was sleeping on the job and derelic with his duties and obligations. Impeachment? Obama should have simply been fired.
1
Don't be surprised if Trump invites Putin to the White House to watch the Fox news broadcast of the November election results.....
2
Trump could slaughter dozens of people on Fifth Avenue and his acolytes would vote for him anyway. You can't win an argument with stupidity. That is what Trump is counting on.
2
The New York Times should not publish opinions such as this in a politically charged climate. It is very clear that the New York Times is imbalanced and biased politically.
All media outlets should publish the facts and allow people to form an opinion.
This article should be deleted.
2
This piece is hysterical, unmoored, and lacks a shred of credibility. So disappointed.
1
President Trump is already inhibiting violence should Democrats take over the House during the midterm elections; his uniquely loyal supporters are listening to their ruler. Civil people understand that the one who instigates violence is as guilty as the one who performs the attack against others.
What kind of people are we when we deliberately ignored our own President’s wrongdoings; how could political greed be stronger than condemning President Trump for advocating and upholding a war against the people of this country? We should look into ourselves to determine whether or not we are good people, honest and with moral uprightness.
2
This is why a sitting president can be indicted, tried and convicted. Either we are a nation of laws, applicable to all, or we have a king. Our founders made that choice, long ago.
2
Yes Tom, your column brought a bit of humor to the irrational insanity that lingers in todays WH. I began picturing someone conjuring up a broadway show, as there is certainly enough material for someone to earn a Tony Award for their efforts. Move over Hamilton.
Sadly though, cannot keep my thoughts, not on donald and the threat many feel he is to this democracy, but on the times he gets to ramble with incoherence at his rallies and watch the cheering with absolute glee from the base that he brought forth to finally find expression. donald's demise will not silence this base. If anything, if not donald, then someone else will rile them up. The base is more dangerous then donald.
There's only one counterbalance to this malignant tide and that is for rational people to do more than complain, Vote people Vote.
4
How about leaving him alone. He is my President and I voted for him!
1
@Chris Anderson I'm sure you had the same philosophy with the previous president...because some people voted for him they should leave him alone. Never forget...your president did not win a majority of the vote.
2
Forget the accordingly part. Just get out and vote. Voter apathy is how we got here in the first place.
Look up who is on the ballot, decide who you will vote for then go vote!
2
@Kim
We need voting machines that are not hacked - doesn't matter if they are not linked to internet. Diebold etc. hackable machines count 80% of the votes in the country, and the hacking strategy includes erasing names and assigning fractions of votes to names under a certain party rather than one full vote per person. https://tinyurl.com/y8a7gqn9 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huBHR9IBSsQ
2
How much of Russia’s ability to meddle in election might be attributable to their having flipped or compelled Ed Snowden, who has been beholden to them for years now?
What so many fail to see is that the Trump Party is all about the 'Thousand Year Reich.' They crave - and lay the groundwork for - the approaching Dictatorship. They wait for the day when they can wear their Trump armbands and salute at his rallies. That day is closer than we think. Read 'Escape from Freedom' by Fromm; or 'The True Believer' by Hoffer. Only then will understand the authoritarian mind of Trumpists (the news media should stop calling it the Republican Party).
1
If he does, he will be arrested for murder. Murder is a state crime and Trump can't pardon himself for a state crime.
2
Nixon. Reagan. Bush. W. Trump. This is a hard right pattern over decades, not a one-off. The others may have couched their rhetoric in more palatable terms but they are all of a kind. They live in a brutal world of unaffordable healthcare, dirty environment, hostility to science, arm's length treatment of minorities, overly aggressive military, and a hyper-armed population.
We are living an American life which is short, nasty and brutish by Republican policy. Most are so worried someone else may get a crumb that they've voted to ban crumbs for all. It's a rather ugly, aggressive country, and the majority of us seem the same.
2
"This Russification of politics is also spreading — to the Philippines, Turkey, Hungary, Poland and maybe soon to Brazil." You neglected to add Israel to the list. Neutering of judiciary? Check. Elevation of Christian (replace with Jewish) values over democratic ones? Check. Kowtowing to oil and gas interests? Check. And there are other parallels, as well. The de-legitimization of minorities, crippling of the opposition, cosying up to dictators, strengthening the defense establishment, and more. Bibi-ism marches proudly alongside Putinism and Trumpism.
1
Discharging a gun in city limits is a municipal offence, so Trump couldn't pardon himself.
Mark Burnett is Dr Frankenstein. How can he an VP Pence who profess to be great Christians act the supplicant to a man who has broken almost all of The 10 Commandments?
2
I strongly suspect he could set up concentration camps with little more than the Times and WSJ outraged. Trump’s conceit that he somehow knows how to get us back to some Golden Age, if only his political enemies can be destroyed, is so utterly depressing and frightening that one is left almost speechless. The man is, quite simply, nuts by any common sense definition of the term. And perhaps the same term applies to his enablers, those attempting to take political advantage of Trump’s pitiful insanity. Shoot a man? He’s in the process of doing worse than that, as Mr. Friedman makes abundantly clear.
2
Trump has never fired a gun. It would scare him half to death. He would have someone else do it, take the credit, then deny it.
4
This country is in grave danger. We have an insane person in the White House and a minority of people who are rabidly defending uncivilized values because they fear the nullification of the white race. Since they live in tribal groups unaffected by exchanges caused by travel and education, they feed each others fears uncontested, while manipulated by corrupt pastors, politicians and oligarchs. The rest of the country is paralyzed by confusion or indifference. I am not exaggerating. In the middle of this, Carter and Pelosi say Trump should not be impeached. What are they thinking? Trump is the Hugo Chavez of this country. He will destroy the US as we know it, not because he us evil. He is insane. And by the way, Trump can be read like an open book. When he accuses others of something it is because he is already doing it. It is typical sociopathic behavior. He accused Hillary of hidden emails when he was in collusion with hacking the elections. He is now accusing the Democrats of violence if they win in November, when in fact he is promoting that the extreme right wing engages in violence to defend his government. He us now accusing Googles algorithms because the Russians will engage in major disinformation again. Moderates, even if you are Republican, you must vote Democratic this time, and deliver the US from impending ruin. And I repeat, I am not exaggerating.
3
Christian values are not the values of the white nationalist. Jesus Christ advocates and exemplifies love and compassion toward all, regardless of skin color, gender, nationality or immigration status.
White nationalists, on the other hand, advocate "defending and securing" the border with Mexico, while completely ignoring the Canadian border. White nationalists are the ones who have no problem with killing the brown immigrants they see as a threat to their existence.
1
You forgot the part where his followers go shoot other people to emulate him and he denies he did anything wrong.
3
How is it possible that the GOP allows all this? Are they nuts? Or just power hungry? Once we step over the line into he kind of [lace described here, will we ever get back our democracy? It's not a place we would want to live in. The comments Trump made to Evangelical pastors the other day forgotten as well....urging home to basically endorse candidates, erosion of separation between church and state, is dangerous as well. And his comments about how little people looked from his office in Trump Tower....that's how he fells about all of us! We are just little ants he feels he can manipulate. Please someone, save us from this monster...vote people, VOTE!
2
You remember that lie tRump told about lowered emission standards will save lives? Well, for some reason I’m on an alt-right email list, and yesterday I got one promoting the fear that if I didn’t write or call my Representative, and give generously, cars will become frail death traps!
My question is: does anyone really believe this nonsense, and if so who could they be? The gritty pic of Obama pointing as if to tell the viewer what to do would be enough to blind a person’s eye to utter balderdash?
Obviously this is substantially a racist movement. One commenter here believed he had to vote for tRump or the liberals would take away his savings. That was his stated rationale, anyway.
1
If the president actually shot someone on 5th Avenue, you can be sure that Republicans would unite in offering "thoughts and prayers."
1
Yep. For Trump.
2
"My biggest challenge in writing all of the above? Worrying that readers wouldn’t realize it was made up". your biggest challenge Mr. Friedman, is not worrying about the readers. NY Times readers, especially yours, are sophisticate, cultured people that understand cynicism. Your biggest challenge is to see reality, to admit to yourself that outside his rough language President Trump is doing all the right things for the USA and up to now very successfully as well. Your biggest challenge Mr. Friedman is to understand that the only thing that many readers will do after reading your column is to vote for "Trump's candidates" in November. I believe that President Trump, in spite his war against the media, actually believes that columns like this one help him because he sees the real world and you the wishful thinking world.
1
Funny, Mr. Friedman, that you weren't concerned about the Democrats protecting Bill Clinton during his Impeachment, but are now about Trump.
Funny you weren't concerned when the major Democratic players tried to rig the 2016 election for HRC against Bernie Sanders. Granted Bernie wasn't a Democrat so to speak, except he voted with them 90% of the time!
Let's get serious here, both major parties are morally corrupt! Thoroughly morally corrupt!
3
Well done, Mr Friedman. Your article explains the way this administration function, and how Trump and his cronies get away with everything, short of shooting someone on 5th avenue. The only way out of this nightmare is to encourage people to vote and rescue our country from the RATS.
3
Canvassing for Democrats here, I often hear “I’m a Republican”, like that is ‘end of story-no more discussion needed.”
Trump admires Manafort because he didn't "break". Trump knows what Manafort knows and is glad he kept it to himself. Trump inadvertently tells the truth from time to time.
1
All those brave men and women that fought to stop the spread of Russia and Communism through Korea and Vietnam deserve so much more than this. The beacon of freedom is flickering and is apparently on the same switch that raises and lowers the flag over the White House.
If the blue wave fails to reach the shore, as many before it have, that beacon will be at the greatest risk of being extinguished since 1860 when the treasonous "sons of the south" had to be violently brought to heel. Complacency breeds totalitarianism and the shocking speed with which so many our countrymen have capitulated to that possibility leads me to believe that we are not a generation worthy of the respect of our forebears. The right and the evangelical blatherers are already framing this as an "endtime" election.
The American working man needs to be keenly aware of where his real interests are this November and stop voting against bogeymen. If not, the devil you know will make you rue the day. Farmers are are on temporary welfare because of this charlatan and still backing this maniac. I don't feel confident.
3
You and Gail Collins could do a duet...the preamble is ironically funny. The reality is something far more sinister.
@Thomas Friedman, I don't disagree with you but this is a remarkable change from your opinions from the 2000s, early 2000s.
You backed W's and Cheney's war against Saddam without verifiable evidence, in fact lies. Even the general public with half a brain knew it. Some of us will never forget that massive black mark against any opinion of yours. And that colossal crime can never be forgotten by right thinking people.
In a more just world that administration, including Colin Powell's speech, now the disgraced general, turned America's opinion against Saddam and should be indicted in the International Court of Justice. Why did we have to change the regime? he was keeping the lid on a hornet's nest that we damaged beyond repair and that has killed a lot of American soldiers and cost us trillions.
But never forget some of us with memories of your writing have long memories and we use up a lot of salt (throwing it...you know what I am referring to?)
We can be excused for ignoring any of your opinions after that and I have. Now you have changed and some of us don't know why but I do agree with you on most of this column. But we are watching...
1
The NYT further marginalizes and sorts itself into the fringe with the steady flow of unhinged pieces like this. Their extraordinary lack of self-awareness is on full display. One needn’t deem it necessary to rise to the defense of Trump’s actions and policies to still recognize the stark hypocrisy with which this news site (along with countless others) sees the end of civilization as we know it in Trump just months after sitting mute during most of the preceding administration that revoked press privileges of news sites that were critical of it, was widely viewed even among liberal journalists as the most opaque and secretive of the modern era, lied to its citizens about the genesis and goals of its greatest domestic legislative initiative, lied to the people about the true nature of a terrorist attack on a US embassy for fear of political fallout leading into an election, saw its IRS blatantly target groups harboring opposing political ideologies, lose a record number of 9-0 (in front of a deeply divided court) Supreme Court cases across a wide range of issues including property rights and religious liberty - and then wonder in the wake of all that, and much more, how so many citizens threw their lot in with Trump. Wake up.
1
Tom, Republicans won't restrain Trump because 99% of them agree with him. He's provided cover for them to fully enact their corrupt, racist policies. The GOP decided more than 20 years ago to put party loyalty over country. They have racists and fascists openly holding elected positions or running this year (see Steve King). Unless reasonable people gain control over some areas of government, what passes for democracy in the U.S. will disappear.
4
Trump would never shoot someone -- on Fifth Ave or anywhere else.
He'd have someone do it for him.
I know you are not Irish, but you made your points as well in this essay as Jonathan Swift, the great Irish satirist and essayist.
I am confident that voters will take your lesson to the polls on November 6.
Didn't a former Russian woman win all of it, cold war and post-cold war, Ayn Rand?
1
MrFriedman, per your scenario the NRA would declare that the Florida ,”Stand Your Ground” law was operable and that Mr.Trump, fearing bodily harm had every right to retaliate with lethal force.
1
I was appalled to learn it was Uncle Sam who had been shot by President Trump. Repeatedly!
1
"What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?"
This is a question that seems to elicit something like grim mirth, and that intrigues me. I've posed this very question here and elsewhere, perhaps two or more months ago, and I've yet to see a serious response.
So to turn serious, what ACTUALLY would (should) happen if Trump did shoot someone on 5th Avenue?? Practically, to what degree is Trump above the law? From what sorts of laws is he immune; are there none that he is not? Is there no red line somewhere between the parking ticket and murder?
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@StanC Everyone forgets there is a credible accusation of murder against this president already!
A woman frightened out of pressing her child rape claim against Trump recalled that when she was in her early teens she attended a Wall Street dealer's sex parties where Trump held sway. After he allegedly raped this woman, she stated in a court deposition that he'd threatened her to keep her mouth shut or she could be "disappeared like little Maria."
I have raised this issue here and elsewhere but it appears too hot to handle. Here is an allegation that a minor was not only raped but then killed and disposed of––and nobody apparently is even willing to ask the questions, much less launch an investigation!
It is abundantly clear that this president is a sexual predator. Right-wing extremists say it doesn't matter. Did he murder a naive girl? Doesn't matter either.
This is the real difference between the two parties. Republicans seize on false allegations or conspiracies and ship them for years even without a shred of evidence.
But Democrats, presented with a credible accusation, forget it in the continual uproar R's manufacture.
It's time R's stopped setting the agenda with their bogus paranoias. This country has real issues. This president may have blood on his hands. There's no statute of limitations for murder. Democrats should demand police investigate what happened to "little Maria."
The Democratic Party has for years now drifted further and further from a coalition of people and groups who proudly stood for social justice, equal opportunity, environmental progressivism, ect, ect.. Instead, monied activists and large corporate interests operate independently, pushing agendas which consolidate power and influence. A couple days ago, Donna Brazile tweeted that the big donors control the Democrat Party.... Building a cohesive Democratic party that serves the traditional base just isn’t in the cards. Historian Thomas Frank spelled out the muriad problems in his book: "Listen Liberal". Myopic leadership, a lack of campaign finance reform along with the consolidation of the communications companies and news organizations has stifled progressive voices while allowing wealthy individuals and other activist groups funded by corporate backers to inhibit dissenting opinions and push for policies that benefit the few... This isn't lost on a large percentage of the population and likely accounts for a significant part of the dismal voter turnout... Incrementalism isn't selling anymore...
1
Trump knows that many Americans are aware of his dangerous illegitimacy. In fact, he has warned that the “left” would be violent if Democrats win the mid-term election, would overthrow “everything he has done”, would attack evangelicals, yesterday. This essay and others like it preach to the choir. But a resolute plan has not been offered by Democrats. They are waiting for the election. It seems like a re-run of the 2004 election where Republican propaganda decried John Kerry’s bravery in Vietnam while Democrats failed to hammer Bush’s military record at home. Waiting for the election results is not enough. Thomas Friedman and others need to tell America how to defeat fascism and end their hesitation.
4
Too bad Mr. Friedman could not have posted a nation-wide Twitter blast with his bit of historical fiction, maybe followed up by a Facebook story and YouTube video. Would that generate the mythical levels of panic (that never occurred) so many years ago with Orson Wells narration of War of the Worlds: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_welles_war_of_t... ?
However much I dislike and disrespect Trump, for so many reasons, I suspect he'd at least be impeached and convicted by Congress. Maybe Judge Kavanaugh would acquiesce to the notion that a sitting president could be indicted in a criminal proceeding, no matter any hypothetical governmental disruption. But maybe that could be another another part of the fictional narrative: SCOTUS would find that he should not be criminally prosecuted just because he is a sitting president.
Excellent essay, Nick.
Trump insults everyone, but one of his biggest insults is to his supporters when he insults their intellect by saying that they’d still vote for him if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. Trump’s followers are too dumb to know that.
Yes, we are in jeopardy of losing our democracy because the Electoral College endorsed the churlishness of some uneducated heartlanders. But before that, our presidential primary system selected trump as a presidential candidate out of 16 more qualified primary candidates. The G.O.P .failed to produce a good presidential candidate.
It is illegal for any of us to overturn our Constitution, but, evidently within our Consititution exists its own demise. The Constitution allowed the ascendancy of trump to the presidency. We have obtained the fascist dictator that elements of this society have always wanted.
But since Reagan, Right Wing media has spun irrational tales that were masked as news; Fox Noise has milked these for lucrative gain. Social media is an ideal territory for spreading lies and deceit, and it is an easy medium for Russian manipulation.
Democracy depends on an educated electorate. Educated people are trump’s bane, so he attacks them by assembling poorly educated heartlanders, evangelicals, and the greedy, such as Hunter, Collins, Manafort, Gates, and the power-seeking evangelical leadership.
Unseating the trump party (formerly Republican) in November will begin our very long return to democracy.
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Sorry, Thom. I did mean you, not Nick It’s vacation. We do need to work for our democracy
1
Who gains from Trumps governmental actions and those of his emboldened Plutocratic GOP?
Perhaps in the short run those rich enough to in some greedy way benefit from GOP prima facie insults against our Country and the People.
Ordinary people have gained nothing on balance from the lot of them and will never gain anything from the lot of them!
Indeed if really honestly and clinically analyzed the Country thus them (and/or their progeny present and future) are being compromised.
But here above I talk about nuts and bolts NOT hearts and minds.
I talk of facts and reason. Of standards for Government by and for the People and the Country's posterity.
Of models that really aim to fulfill objectives and goals to uplift humankind - all of it - and our survival as a species quotient.
Measured thus Trump/GOP are obvious failures.
But what Trump and the Trumpified GOP do give their supporters that supplants any dissatisfaction they may have or hardships they and/or their progeny will face because of GOP/Trump policy is this:
They feed exquisitely the visceral hungers - the hate, the prejudices, the fears, the bigotry, the theological and social elitism that has burned in their hearts and souls for years - things they had to hide well until now.
The dictators of leading up to WW 2 knew the game the GOP now plays. A game that only looks good on the outside - once exposed the rottenness becomes overwhelming for most - the damage undeniable - but it is always too late.
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The US already had its clear choice moment in 2016 and we blew it, and blew it big time. Perhaps Americans have now become more aware and will rectify this mistake in 2018 and move onward in 2020, but I for one am not optimistic.
As long as large parts of the electorate drink the Kool-Aid from Fox news and Republican leaders nothing is going to change. The US is indeed at a turning point and that is only partly Trump's fault, because the rot had already set in long before Dear Leader's arrival on the scene.
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@Jim Dickinson
Again -- this and the previous pres did not legitimately win. Take small comfort in that fact! We need voting machines that are not hacked - doesn't matter if they are not linked to internet. Diebold etc. hackable machines count 80% of the votes in the country, and the hacking strategy includes erasing names and assigning fractions of votes to names under a certain party rather than one full vote per person. This news is coming more to light and we need figure out what we can do about it. https://tinyurl.com/y8a7gqn9 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huBHR9IBSsQ
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If one reads the New Testament, I don’t see the president elevating real Christian values of love, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, concern for the poor.
1
This would be brilliant satire if it wasn’t so close to reality. It’s frightening.
3
One wonders why Mr Friedman, a cold war warrior like Mr. Bolton, has not already joined Trump's team?
After all of his blind love for Saudi Arabia and his non understanding of Russia and Putin, he should be a perfect match for any job description Trump has.
Putin seems to have found a role in Mr. Friedman's columns as being the unconditional villain, the ultimate bad guy.
But there is a huge difference between Putin and Trump and that is that not only is Putin a well educated and accomplished man, and was so even before he went into politics, Putin also cares about his country.
Putin has taken over a country that had a break down and was only a minute away from a terrible crash and he has built up basic structures and services in Russia again.
Which is why Putin in all reality is very much liked at home and even if democratic elections in Russia would be held under let's say European standards, as the US has no acceptable elections standard top speak of, Putin would win them fair and square.
All those things do not apply to Trump.
Trump only tries to play his ego, to line his pockets and he has no education to speak of.
But putting these musings beside, Friedman has a point and that is that Trump has been able to create a bubble for him and his followers in which he is a not only a hero but also a messiah that cannot do anything wrong.
He has created a personality cult of a guru.
And that is the real problem here as it will keep the Republicans from looking at reality.
1
A vicious, point-on column with a pointed teaching moment: vote, or watch the continued destruction of democracy.
1
What is so demoralizing about the Trump Presidency are friends and relatives who, after presenting one moral/ethical/policy failure after another, respond to me: "yes, we knew going in that he had some personal flaws---"some personal flaws." They quickly follow up this admission with the rationale that they support his agenda---that is all that seems to matter. These are the same people that were frothing at the mouth over a supposed false birth certificate. I'm crossing my fingers for the midterms and what looks like a temporary finger in the dike election---but with 40% of our population seemingly in an ends justify the means mentality, anything could happen.
The real problem is that 30% of America would be completely fine if the beginning of your article were true. As long as they have their God, Guns, and No Gays (or minorities), the governemnt and its leaders can do as they please. Unfortunately, with gerrymandering, voter suppression, and a voting system that favors territory over population, that 30% is in control. I'm not very hopeful the Trumpism (Fascism by another name) will not be the law of the land by 2020.
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Interesting, of course the Guardian observed almost the same conversations late last week:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/trump-michael-cohe...
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The only reason Trump could get away with murder is that we now have a Supreme Court filled with justices willing to look the other way. As long as they continue to bolster the racist voting regulations in the States, and decide in favor of big business rather than the rights of workers, we will continue to have elections where the will of the People is ignored.
Since assuming office, Trump has been "shooting" many people and principles in many ways on Fifth Avenue and Main Street.
Any, now long gone, ringing church bells of America "won the cold war", seem as empty as erroneous and inappropriate. Both parties win when there is no war.
In any case, Russia phoenix"ed into a more dangerous nation especially now in league with China and at the end of their rainbow was their Pot of Trump.
"...glorification of oil, gas and mining over science and technology; the elevation of white, Christian, nationalist values; and the neutering of the legislative branch..."
Well, that's one way to put it. Particularly if one wishes to distract from the fact that much of the rot Friedman claims to see is the direct result of leftist policy. Put in place by people inculcated to believe that liberty is slavery, rights are wrong, and society drives individual behavior.
The people claiming that the Republicans are like the Russians, are the same people who have been manipulated by the Russians.
Sustaining essential earth materials industries despite junk science and leftists propaganda is another way to look at it - equally divisive but possibly a little more accurate.
Preservation of the intent of the founders, and the way of life that got this nation where it is today, is another way to look at it, particularly when one considers that the Democratic party platform has nothing constructive to offer this country so it resorts to blaming every problem on racism, a straw man exercise.
A legislative branch that is helping to eradicate the stain of globalist-socialist Progressivism, is a different take on the last comment, and accurate as well.
In the end, the left does what is must do - blame someone else for its problems.
Society is to blame, not the individual. Guns are to blame, not the people who wield them. Republicans are to blame, not the socialists.
Predictable.
2
I’m a life long democrat.
Mr. Friedman, this does not forward the debate responsibly.
Leave the jokes to SNL.
Let’s talk serious , intelligent information and commentary.
You have been a very respected writer.
We NEED your voice to stay unbiased.
The facts will eventually set us free.
Truth is hiding.
Please, stay studious.
Chairman Devin Nunes: "The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will provide a comprehensive, factual report on this incident as soon as it is provided by Fox News."
Secretary Ben Carson: "The truly sad aspect of this matter is that the victim had affordable health insurance, in other words, he was a victim of slavery."
Secretary Rick Perry: "The President was on his way to review potential coal mine sites in Central Park. MAGA!"
The NY Times seems incapable of learning that running yet another negative op-ed about Trump is to his benefit.
His base is already energized and pieces like this serve only to further inspire them (witness the large GOP turnout in the FL gubernatorial primary). Another effect of the of the nearly uniformly negative opinion pieces about Trump is to desensitize independent and moderate voters.
The way to win against Trump is to deny him the spotlight, not to increase his time in it.
With this kind of non-stop Trump coverage, the Times, and most other media, are doing Fox New's job for them and virtually ensuring continuing GOP control of Congress and the re-election of DJT in 2020.
2
This is all good and on point. What are you suggesting we do going forward Mr. Friedman? Find another Hillary or go with Bernie or someone like him? The “post-cold war” will not be won by sticking to the script of Schumer and Pelosi. The Cold War was not won by us, it was lost by the USSR. We were hardly any more ethical and just than they were. They just were more corrupt and focused on the wrong things (they forgot about the consumer mainly).
The built up of the GOP and Trumpism is a sophisticated operation at the local and federal level. I am sure you are familiar with Gordon Lafer’s The One Percent Solution. If not please read it and write about what you think.
The time for the good old is over. Vote in November and vote for the most progressive candidate on the ballot. You cannot go wrong.
4
Democracy apparently is useless if people do not spontaneously respond to the dictates of their consciences and always think whether they will profit from what they do; like helping an old woman cross the street or carrying her groceries.
In another article in the Times today, we learn that Senator McCain had long been portrayed as a villain by Putin's KGB propaganda machine. That would explain Trump's unconscionable attacks on McCain; he was ordered to by Putin. We also had a Secretary of State that appears to have been put in place by the Russians. The source of Manafort's $3.5 million to move into Trump Tower before the election was also the Russians. After bankruptcy, Trump's real estate empire has been financed by the Russians. On the face of it, it appears that both Trump and Manafort have knowingly been acting as Russian agents. In Congress, Republicans recently took action to cover up any campaign contributions funneled through the NRA to them; they are also involved in this. Bannon and Mercer were also cooperating with the Russians through Cambridge Analytica and stolen facebook addresses/profiles used to target voters in U.S.elections. This can't be all smoke. We know that the Russian intent coincides with that of white nationalists in the U.S. If all we are waiting for is the Mueller investigation to confirm the depths of this espionage conspiracy, they might not find it; the Russians may have covered it up.
Where is the will now of Republican Congressmen to live up to their oaths of office, or of Russian fellow travelers like Fox news to show a little patriotism?
And while Russia undermines American Democracy, China is gearing up for a war in the Pacific. Not good.
s.
What a desperately sad state we're in where a parody of the Presidency of the USA seems so entirely close to possible reality. Yes, voters/backers of this nonsense need to wake up and take action and vote accordingly! But tying this mess of our Presidency to Christianity is the most desperate, and erroneous way to point fingers. I did not vote for our current president. As Christians we should be known by our love, humility, grace, mercy and desire to know and tell the truth, and put others first. Do you voters see this in the man who occupies the White House?? Do you see evidence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control? I understand why the press points fingers to Christianity because it's easy, and there are many who line up like lost sheep to follow some inaccurate semblance of what they hope he is. And too, we have faced persecution for 2000+ years and will continue to face this til the end of time. But wake up fellow Christians and realize while we need to respect the office of the presidency, we need to be smart about the reality of how we as a country got in this mess and vote accordingly. God places all sorts of people in office who do good for their country! Don't be duped by a wolf with a well-calculated sheep facade.
Thomas, the Evangelicals, who're still supporting Trump even after their meeting with their president day before yesterday, should pray to Devil instead of Jesus.
Being associated with the Devil himself or the incarnation of Lucifer called Trump, those leaders should be ashamed of calling themselves Christians.
Those apostles have to realize that they're in cahoot with a man who said in his campaign stops that his supporters would still vote for him even if he "shot someone on the Fifth Avenue" the subject of your Op-Ed here.
Although your column is fictional but Trump has such a sway over his followers in the Republican Party who'll look the other way if Trump did shoot someone totally unprovoked.
Even the Senators like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul are ready to trash their best friend John McCain's wishes. They heard Mr. McCain calling Russia's Putin, "a thug."
As no one knows yet how much help the Russia extended to both the above Republican Senator's reelection campaigns, they sure like to overlook Russian intervention in our last election which catapulted not only Trump in the Oval office of White House. The Russians helped majority of the Republican congressional candidates to destroy their Democratic opponents' chances of winning elections.
I cannot believe that Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul and other senior members of the Republican party like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan do not have any clue about Russian intervention in our elections in 2016. The fact is, they do.
3
Unfortunately, your incisive message is probably lost on those who could benefit from your discerning assessment of how blind many of us are to what is happening right before our eyes.
If you could get this published on Fox News perhaps it will have an impact on those too calloused to see, or worse, to care.
2
Shooting someone on 5th Avenue and getting away with it. was bragging it was a pledge an oath he was demanding from his supporters. Maybe that’s why his supporters don’t hold him to a higher standard. They have pledged their support no matter what
Trump has already done the equivalent of murder. Nearly 3000 Americans died in Puerto Rico due to the inaction of his administration. It was all going on in "plain sight".
More thousands of Americans would have died if McCain had not voted the way he did on the "skinny repeal" of Obamacare.
If you can’t actually nail the Russians for causing Hilary Clinton to lose to a racist demagogue like Trump why not blame them for the imaginary responses of Republicans to the imaginary shooting of a Trump critic by the president.
Rather than reckon with the real reasons for Clinton’s defeat, Friedman and his neoliberal cothinkers prefer to make up stories.
Clinton lost because she was the decades-long representative of the same neoliberal policies Friedman has shilled for that have hollowed out the middle class and deepened the desperation of the poor.
Those policies, not the Russians, created the conditions for Trump’s victory. His brand of racist demagoguery was not imported. It is as American as apple pie. It was able to win the presidency only because the multi-racial working class vote was depressed. Part of this was the consequence of deliberate voter suppression measures passed by Republican legislatures, but another part was an increasing unwillingness to buy what neoliberals like Friedman and the Clintons were selling.
This column is it’s own sort of demagoguery. It is addressed to bien pensant readers of the Times who largely wont recognize it as such. But like Trump’s cruder version it works by blurring the line between truth and fiction and by speaking to people’s fears rather than offering them a real alternative.
Trump is awful and I hope the Democrats win the midterms. But without a real left turn I have little faith they will do much to restrain him.
3
Mr. Friedman, let me educate you an what should be of utmost, alarming concern among patriotic Americans (0ther than the silly hypothetical you posit). Mounting evidence that DOJ, FBI, and senior Obama and Clinton campaign officials were colluding to interfere in the 2016 election. This included coordination with Russia to generate phony intel to justify illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign, and (as we learned this week) use of US intelligence assets to try and lure Trump staffers and family members into engaging in activity with the Russian government in order to justify steering the investigation in their direction. This has resulted in a fraudulent investigation the sole purpose of which is to overturn an election, and resulted in thugs kicking down doors in 4AM "no knock" raids, solitary confinement of US citizens for non violent crimes, and legal extortion of the President's associates as well as threats to his family.
This is actually America I'm talking about....not some Soviet style dictatorship, and yet it is actually happening here. We as Americans should be above this type of thing....and that means you.
Chilling analysis. Who knew one lone conman could degrade our great country so much in so short a time? Who knew Republicans would dismantle every platform they ever stood on in order to remain in power? Who knew reason, intellect, culture, even civilization were such thin veneers for so many who had perfected great speech backed up by precisely nothing? Who knew Christian leaders would abandon the teachings of the Great Sermon on the Mount the moment they became inconvenient?
Vote on November 6, 2018. So very much is at stake.
11
@Rose: Who didn't know is a better question in all these cases. The country has been going in the direction of Fascism for quite a while now. People who looked for answers in the stock market, shopping malls, fancy private schools and colleges they could afford for their children, and a sun never seeming to set on the richest empire the world has ever known did not notice it.
Vote November 6 but vote progressive, not Hillary, Schumer and Pelosi look alike. They are the ones who ushered in this era we live in.
As always, Friedman always somehow finds a way to focus ultimately on the evils of Russia, while completely ignoring his good globalist "the world is flat" as in steal American intellectual property and jobs buddy China. Perhaps, it is because Trump's popularity rests on this fundamental undeniable truth that China is a far greater threat than Russia, whereas Friedman's globalist ideas are now considered a dinosaur of the past.
1
HILARIOUS!! But also terrifying.
The bigger question is how do we break the bubbles? Civil war is made more possible every day that we all remain in our bubbles. Trump supporters are spoon fed news and live their full lives without the Times, CNN or NPR breaking into their reverie. They live in a completely other world. I know, because half my extended family live there. A telling moment was when Jim Acosta at CNN rose to salute the flag at a Trump rally. People at the rally were shocked. YOU salute the flag??
Remember how two soap bubbles put together do not always become a bigger bubble. Often they fuse together with a wide, flat, impenetrable wall in between. That’s America today. If Trump shot someone on Fifth Avenue, Mr. Freidman’s Excellent spoof would be EXACTLY what Trump’s base would read. And they’d be just fine with it.
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@Lynne Of the three news sources you quote above, I only trust NPR as a source.
The other two, along with MSNBC, etc.. are all spin machines giving you their version of rhetoric the same way FOX does.
1
@Lynne I find it amusing that Fox News and a few right wing radio pundits have fought ABCCBSCBBMSNBCNBCNPR, social media and most of the liberal print media, to a standstill. And DJT still has a 50% approval rating. Maybe it's last quarter's GDP was bumped up, to 4.2%.
The scenario is definitely possible - we are in the ere of "truth is not truth". In Eastern Philosophy there is a concept of "Maya" - the statement of fact, and we are experiencing this Maya in Trump's America. The question is why so many sensible patriotic Americans are acting in this fashion? If we look history, we see similar events, in Rome during the time of Ceasers, in India before the battle of Palashi and in Germany in 1030-40s These are the contours of shifting historical trajectories of those nations and it seems an invisible hand is driving America to that direction. There are eight points mentioned in the book of David Cannadine's "Victorious Century: The United Kingdom" for the fall of British Empire and many of those points are converging to our American life. The only force that can protect us from this disester is the diverse cultural forces that play under the outward display of American pop culture - a melting pot of bests and beautiful of world civilization.
1
The tax returns should have been the beginning and the end. That was the equivalent of the shooting on Fifth Avenue. And he was right, no-one cared...and all the rest has followed.
2
thank you. excellent article. stunning in its portrayal of reality and implications moving forward.
3
I truly hope this tale never becomes reality, but, given today's political climate, I would not rule it out.
2
This may be an op-ed piece, but it is also truth. There is no bottom to Trump or the GOP's corruption or willingness to ignore it. I'm still a resistor, but I have greatly pared down my anger, frustration, and hopelessness to three simple rules. First, everything I do these days is to protect and strengthen my family and our home. My family is diverse and bi-racial. I often feel that families like mine are in the Trump and GOP cross-hairs. It will take work to keep all of us safe and to survive. Second, vote, vote vote. Do it myself and get everyone I know to the polls in November. And last, speak out as I am doing now. Do it respectfully in support my beliefs and those candidates who support my beliefs. I feel that is all that there is left to do, And, find folks who think and believe as I do, so I can keep some hope alive.
5
It is hard to understand the dynamics of the Trump voter except to assess it in terms of mans tendency to reach and hold on to persons and ideas that validate their system of beliefs that clearly affirm their prejudices and self interest.Those struggling with racial and ethnic issues respond to those highlighting and affirming their prejudices.Those seeking more wealth respond with a desire for more and therefore attach themselves uncritically to promises made by such a person.One can go on but sufficient to say that a lot of people are ready to ignore principles in the service of the self.Trumps supporters with these dynamics are not likely to be swayed by reason and even national interest.
4
Mr. Friedman you are correct when you say that in order for America’s economic and political system to win the ideological war against communist / authoritarianism it needed to present a contrast. The problem is that recently it hasn’t. Income inequality is at record levels, unions are weaker than ever, elected officials seem to care not one bit about the interests of their constituents but jump through hoops to serve the interests of wealthy far away donors and high priced lobbyists. And in many states the districts have been so badly gerrymandered that many people believe their vote doesn’t even count anymore (this perception is reinforced when the Presidential candidate who gets four million more votes than her opponent is declared the loser) The result is that there are large number of people in our country who have completely lost faith in capitalism and our government, and it’s hard to make an argument that they are wrong to feel that way. These are not problems that Russia or Trump created. They just took advantage of a system that had stopped working for average people a long time ago. I do agree that the only chance we have of fixing that system is to never put the GOP in charge of it again.
6
I'm wondering what we the people would have done if one of our earliest presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson) acted like Donald Trump? I believe we the people would have physically removed him from office. This is all because our representative system of government is not working. I never thought we could get to a state of a civilian uprising but Trump might be the catalyst to create this type of radical action. This situation has gotten pathetic.
2
@Curt, There was a streak of Trump in Jefferson, but it was hidden in his considerable vocabulary and fluency of writing.
I see a much more frightening scenario.. Trump looses the 2020 election but refused to concede. Rather he rails against illegal immigrants who he says voted for his Democratic opponent and he calls on all "true Americans" to exercise their second amendment rights, march to Washington, D.C. and protect him and his hold on the White House. Republicans in Congress say that that a long investigation into election day "irregularities" must be conducted, and no final declaration of the election results will be made until that investigation is completed, around 2018.
His supporters arrive in D.C. dressed in brown shirts. They also arrive on Fifth Avenue. A young person wearing an anti-Trump button is shot. Trump says that there are good people on both sides of the issue.
3
Well done.
Another parallel with Russia is one issue "voters". The evalgelicals that ignore intolerance and hate with the aim of overturning Roe vs Wade, the fiscal conservatives that ignore giant deficits in the name of corporate profits. In Russia it's showing the world they are powerful while ignoring domestic welfare.
3
Whenever I hear someone excuse Trump's racism, sexism, and general corruption, I recall the defense of Mussolini, the trains ran on time. The current populist fiction allows Trump to get away with anything. We need a branch of government that can exert some control on a narcissistic mad man. The House looks like the best bet, but it won't change if we continue to complain and Trump's acolytes continue to vote.
4
If he did shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, what is a given is that he won't get indicted, because as we all know a sitting president is just too busy doing important presidential type things to be required to deal with something so trivial.
And I'm sure the new incoming supreme court justice would have no problem concurring with that, what with him being such a stickler for what's in the constitution and all.
See, this is why we have the different branches of government. Congress would undoubtedly start impeachment proceedings immediately, as even they couldn't stand by and do nothing if our president shot somebody indiscriminately and lawlessly.
What's everybody so worried about, anyway?
1
Yes, the problem is clearly with the current Republican Party, the Media that supports them, and the Money behind them. We really don't know enough about the current crop in Congress. What financial interests do these Congressional leaders have, who do they answer to? That might explain a lot about why we have the President we have, how low this party will sink, and how dirty they will play to stay in power.
4
As always you hit the nail right on the head. Your fiction is not far from the future truths. I pray for this nation as it confronts its most deadly enemy in its history: its own president.
6
I’m still hoping that Trumpism proceeds like a troubled marriage headed toward a divorce. Denial runs rampant, with an undercurrent that recognizes there are serious problems. Then at some point the spouse does some one thing more that finally makes you snap. Enough! Clarity has been achieved, and there is no going back. We can count on an unleashed trump to not know when to stop. He thought Helsinki went well, and was totally baffled at the response. He neither understands nor cares about societal boundaries and will eventually do something so outrageous and stupid that the public outcry will be both loud and bipartisan. Perhaps he will retain a shrinking base, but mainstream Republicans will ditch him in droves. Please God, I hope I’m right.
4
You are right. Many of Trump's acolytes will not read far enough to dismiss the opening as satire, and the rest will dismiss it as a nasty liberal conspiracy. This is the crowd that is primed to believe the moon is made of roquefort cheese and that the deep state faked the moon landing to protect a corrupt government's interest in protecting is cheese interests.
Frankly, many in the media are less than correct in lumping all the reactionary populism that animates this crowd of Trump worshipers as conservative, a fact that no doubt has the spirits of Burke and Adams sorely perplexed.
Once you truly realize that this American President has gone from being the leader of the free world to a follower of the Russified world and its leader, you'll vote as if your life truly depends on it.
Exercise that right while it still can make a big difference.
8
I think this time is a very bad time. I thought the times of Reagan and George W. were bad, but compared to Trump, they do seem like true gentleman. They never denigrated women nor gave their fellow Congress people nasty nicknames.
I just cannot believe that the GOP is not objecting to this behavior.
It used to be a pretty venerable party.
It is, after all, the party of Lincoln.
2
It WAS the party of Lincoln...
A perfect description of the nightmare we live in. We need everyone thinking person to vote democrat in November. The first order of business for those of us who love this country more than a tax break is to rid the Congress of republicans. Saving the First Amendment must matter. Saving our environment must matter. Saving dignity, respect, decency must matter. Most republicans in Congress seem to care only for their power. And of course trump cares only for himself, we must never allow his kind in the White House.
7
The anti-Russian tone of this piece weakens the argument.
Republican leadership accepts Trump's outrageous and repugnant behavior because the Party has nothing to offer the American people other than Trump. They cling to Trump because he manages to generate support from a highly vocal and large body of voters which has enabled wealthy donors to realize a tax cut that creates even more wealth for them at a time of rising income inequality.
4
@Vid Beldavs: We know know that Russia has a grudge over dismemberment of the USSR catalyzed by US support of Afghan rebels that denied air superiority to the Russian forces occupying Afghanistan. It isn't much of a leap to expect them to want to return the favor. It's cool that they're doing it with cyber warfare and a Manchurian candidate. At least it is bloodless war.
1
The problem with today's Republican party and Trump is that you can't satirize them because that little lead in is exactly how they would react. Exactly. Hannity would claim a black man fitting Obama's description had been seen with a gun in the area minutes before. The degradation of the Republican party is worse than anything seen since the late 40's when McCarthy was accusing General George C. Marshall of being a Russian agent. Even then there numerous Republicans were willing to speak out against such nonsense. Now?
9
@John
Not Ike
While this column may appeal to many readers who are of the comfortably smug, middle of the road part of the liberal establishment, I just want to say that it is extremely problematic to those of us in the vanguard.
For it is critical when talking about "Russification" to draw a clear line between the Soviet Socialist system, which was just, and the current klepto-capitalist state which Russia is today.
Why is this distinction necessary? Because those of us in the vanguard have finally succeeded in moving the party to where it was trying to go in the late 60's and early 70's - to a full and honest embrace of socialism. Columns like this only serve to confuse the un-woke because columns like this reinforce the myths of the right that socialists in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea were bad. It's like how Venezuela is mercilessly criticized today.
We need to consider this. Consider that last night, we were able to advance the most progressive candidate possible for Florida Governor, and we didn't do too bad in AZ either. We need to also consider the growing embrace of socialism throughout the party, and especially among the young. And we need to consider the fact that socialist policies are all widely popular right now.
Taking a good socialist country like the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics that only collapsed because of pressure from Imperialist Capitalists, and then scapegoating it via comparisons to Trump doesn't help any of us at all!
What really scares me the most after reading this column is that although it’s a parody, it’s not too far fetched. Yesterday, I spoke with my brother who is a retired, very respected doctor. He’s a bone-bared Republican so of course, he’s going to side with his team in most matters. That’s to be expected with any sports fan who will usually side with their team or individual. The difference with most of us so-called TEAM PLAYERS, is that if one of our Athletes commits a murder or a very serious crime, and the evidence is over the top, we’ll concede they’re guilty.
We got into a discussion about McCain, and even though he’s always been an avid supporter of him, yesterday my brother sided with Trump. That the media, other than Fox, was being very unfair to Trump.
That’s what scares me the most about our current political system and the Trump Base. That’s also why what Tom just wrote about isn’t that far off. All of us have to make a stand this election and vote as if our life and future depends on it, because it really does.
13
And speaking of violence, only yesterday he "predicted" that if the Dems lose the midterms they will resort to violence. In his usual way, he was sending a not so subtle message to his own supporters on how they should react to losing.
10
funny until one realizes that this looks like a script for a near term future event
then it is scary.
11
Not the right place - simply the result of frustration: Trumps' ambiguous "warnings" of violence should the GOP lose the midterms in his speech to ministers, for Pete's sake.
This man raises the chilling possibility of violence -- violence he will be safely protected from by government provided forces -- while he prods others into considering violence against his opponents. This is not on Fifth Avenue - it's Main Street. Day after day, hour after hour, he doesn't let up his baiting of "enemies." He splits the population, then splits it more.
I don't know what damage he can inflict over 4 years.
16
Every story at the beginning of this column is so possible that it is more than scary. It is not only plausible, but in some ways it is already happening.
What to do. Vote, vote, vote in November and change the structure in the Congress so that all of this craziness can stop.
Democrats in the Senate need to stop the nominee for the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh, and make sure he does not get enough votes. There has to be at least two outgoing Senators on the Republican side who might not vote for him.
Then tackle all the reversals of policies that have benefited this country, such as environmental standards, reverse the Tax Reform bill and give the right to the Social Security Administration to negotiate drug prices, just for starters.
Regarding the Tax Reform bill, close all loopholes period. This could go a long way in reducing the deficit. Propose a flat tax. Everyone pays their fair share.
Maybe put Warren Buffet in charge of a special group to study this. He is the only wealthy citizen who appears to think our system is out of wack.
8
All this is true and yet confronted with this truth the Trumpian true believer simply points to the perceived condition of the US economy and says everything is fine. As if the recovery from the Great Recession started with the Trump pressidency. As if the eight years of Obama had nothing to do with getting us out of the hole we fell into during the last Republican administration.
We already know, or should, that the booming economy is due to a long slog back from near Depression since 2008. All of us who aren’t in thrall to this President.
Perhaps the country is resilient enough to survive four years of Trump. We’d better hope it’s able to survive eight years because my pessimism regarding the American electorate knows no depths.
19
You are correct people will get what they vote for - more than ever - including if things stay the same the loss of a good portion or all of their Social Security and Medicare.
13
Trump could shoot Omorosa without repercussion.
Trump’s supporters place their President and members of his administration above the law.
It is disturbing that they believe that Paul Manafort should not have been prosecuted because his crimes are usually not prosecuted. Of course, they do not apply the same logic to Hillary Clinton who should be locked up without trial. Trump has stated that Manafort should not be prosecuted because he is a good man.A logical reason might be because the statue of limitations have ran out or because he is a cooperating witness in the Russia probe, but the President’s reason is that he is a good man. Are we really supposed to prosecute or not prosecute someone on the President’s perception of their goodness or badness. This would be no different than any other autocracy.
We now find through Cohen that the Trump organization isn’t beyond faking invoices to cover up misdeeds and possibly take tax deductions for personal expenses. The Trump Foundation is under investigation for paying for personal expenses as charitable expensss. Now the Omorosa episode is raising the possibility that Trump’s political campaign funds are used to pay off political insiders with jobs so they will not reveal what they know about the Trump administration.
Trump and his administration makes the Nixon administration appear to be a bunch of choir boys. Trump only concentrated on shutting down an investigation not finding out the truth.
19
I mostly liked reading this article. I think the characters were largely convincing and it has a point. That he could write this and credibly fear people might take the hypothetical literally suggests American institutions are in trouble.
I also think, whatever your motivation, this is an important election so I hope people vote. It looks important for reasons large and small. We can’t just assume our federal institutions can lose all political support for two consecutive elections, or we really can expect them to become completely political, and corrupt. And there are plenty of local issues that should move us all to vote.
I hope people vote, even if local Republicans have made it very difficult. But I feel like this column jumped the shark. One commenter suggested, if this really has become Russia, how can we believe the opposition has a chance of winning? It will be rigged. It might be, but we should make them rig it if they want to win, so they can’t honestly say that theirs is the government we voted for. And we might win.
The other reason this column goes too far: if this were Russia, it’s hard to imagine Mueller would be in a position to investigate any Republican, but he’s indicted some, won convictions, and is investigating several close to the President. Another story noted Republicans are illegally releasing private information to attack Democratic candidates. But the AP reported the leak. So our democracy is on the ropes, but we’re still in it.
1
In 2018 Democrats and GOP alike will see just how much of a enormous burden Hillary's presence on the 2016 ballot was for Democratic candidates in 2016.
Expect to see a Democratic sweep nationally in 2018 because of 2 factors.
Hillary will not be on the ballot, and also because Trump's performance as president is amazingly vitriolic for most voters.
10
Putin is in charge, make no mistake about it. He feared Clinton. Donald is his puppet.
I'm sorry but this is an irresponsible and horrible title. Don't give the fake president even more cover.
3
Agree with Mr. Friedman's observation that Americanism is being undermined by President Trump. We are now just another country (albeit a rich one); not the leader of the planet.
20
I believe that by now it is generally agreed that President Trump has re-made the GOP in his own image and likeness. In most polls the GOP base supports him with unswerving and unprecedented loyalty: Trump’s approval ratings remain in the 85% to 90% range. GOP voters have circled their wagons and are prepared to protect their president no matter what.
GOP politicians correctly believe that their electability hinges on the support of this Trumpublican base. They also know that if President Trump were to go the way of President Nixon, the GOP would go the way of the pterodactyl. (If Trump were to be impeached or otherwise removed from office, would riots and even open warfare erupt on the nation’s streets?)
Only ironclad proof of Trump’s criminality or a Democratic takeover of both the House and the Senate would likely move a significant number of Republican politicians to state in public what they murmur in private.
Trump’s support among Independents continues to erode. The number of voters who self-identify as likely GOP voters continues to dwindle. A fair number of influential and thoughtful conservatives sense that their party has “left them” and have publicly resigned from the GOP.
If President Donald Trump were to be replaced by President Mike Pence, then “We the People” may well have spattered out of the frying pan only to ricochet radical-far-rightward into the freedom-fries vat.
16
@Andrew G. Bjelland, Sr. I agree that The Republican President has remade the GOP in his own image. Whether Trump's support among independents has eroded is an open question. To the extent that independents vote in primaries, the voter turnout in contested primaries ought to reflect the erosion of GOP support among independents. In recent primaries, Republican turnout in statewide races all too often exceeds Democratic turnout.
4
@OldBoatMan As a registered independent, I am not allowed to vote in the democratic primary, but I will be voting a straight democratic ticket this fall.
1
Trump did not remake the GOP. It was already in its current state. His "genius" was to recognize it and embrace it.
1
Mr. Friedman should give some credit to Andy Borowitz.
In addition, Thomas should consider one of techniques used by presenter's of Andy's pieces in giving a disclaimer beforehand that the piece is satire.
Leaving that 'small' detail to the end of the piece is really playing with fire. If someone not familiar with the concept of satire, like maybe a reader of the 'Enquirer,' should happen across this article left on a NYC subway car seat, stands his ground and wants to try out his latest 'Prime' purchase of a brand new Uzi, someone other than that poor snook on Fifth Ave. is going to get seriously hurt!
4
I agree completely with Mr. Friedman, except for one statement: that Trumpism is elevating white, Christian, nationalist values. I'm white and those aren't my values. And although I'm Jewish, I can say with confidence that the only "Christian" values Mr. Trump elevates are those of the Inquisition. They have nothing to do with the values expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. (I've read it more than once. Bet Mr. Trump never has.)
44
Tom this is the most incisive piece I have read in years because it strikes to the very heart of truth. Would have liked to have added some insightful thoughts but mine pale compared to yours.
Congratulations
23
Fortunately people are doing a lot more than voting. We can't just vote, because every day we allow to go by without expressing outrage gives the message that this is not an outrage.
28
President Trump does not need to be restrained, "let Trump be Trump" as Corey used to say. What this President has done for this country, from the appointment of conservative judges to the economic revival, to fixing unfair trade policies will live on long after he is gone. If the MSM covered any, ANY of his many triumphs his approval rating would be at 75%.
4
What economic revival. Please indicate where this revival is occurring, what industries, jobs etc. What most see is tax cuts for the rich, a spiralling deficit and an immoral and unfit president. You can’t eat Supreme Court Justices, so how is the country better off as a whole?
5
@Gene, most of us don't want conservative judges; they support Citizens United, corporations over people, give the wealthy more power over all of us and seem to detest woman in power. And for all of the bragging about killing regulations, it has caused pollution/emissions to rise and has set us way back in confronting climate change. And as as far as trade policies, talk to a farmer and a car manufacturer about the damage that has done. One industry wins, while 4 others lose. The MSM does report it but you obviously don't believe the facts. Sad.
@Gene
Right and pigs can fly.
Let’s assume for a moment that Trump was involved in something nasty, say, a sex ring with children, operated out of the back room of a pizza parlor.
His clan would argue that the seductive kids were asking for it, and that he was the real victim.
I have considered other extreme fictional scenarios involving Trump, but have failed to come up with one that would negatively affect his poll numbers.
22
If past is prologue, and Donald Trump discharged a weapon in the street, the likely recipient would be his own foot.
The base would cheer his excellent marksmanship.
33
@Lawrence Hope it wouldn't inflame his bone spurs.
Trump has often said or implied that he's above the law and that he could even shoot someone walking down 5th Avenue and get away with it. Brett Kavanaugh, his pick for the supreme court, supports such an expansive view of the presidency. But I doubt if very many Americans would agree.
It's too bad that Senate Democrats won't be able to query Kavanaugh on his record at his September 4 confirmation hearing in that the nonpartisan National Archives has been given insufficient time to produce it.
So what's the purpose of the hearing if it's not to vet the nominee on his record? So I'd urge Senate Democrats to skip this Republican dog and pony show.
16
@Bill Eisen The whole "Federalist Society" is a hand picked collection of stooges selected to obliterate "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Every one of these people is poisonous to justice and liberty.
There may be a silver lining, the demise of the GOP brought down by Trump. Let us hope it is as close as November 6.
11
Let’s see, I have been reading of the impending, imminent demise of the GOP since at least 1974. Then it was Nixon, and the zeitgeist of that time made it feel like the GOP was in existential danger—but it didn’t happen. The feeling in the air that Trump will supposedly bring down the GOP isn’t 10% of what it felt like in 1974. Then, demographics were supposed to be the last nail in the GOP’s coffin lid. I just turned 62, and there are a lot more out-in-the-open Republicans now than there were in the 70s. I realize a lot of Democrats are wishful that Trump will bring down the GOP, as that way they won’t have to work hard to recruit and finance and go out to vote for good Democratic (or Independent) candidates. But nothing happens without sustained hard work over generations. Do you think the Federalist Society, which is single-handedly filling judicial positions at both the state and federal levels at the same rate Krispy Kreme sells donuts, was established yesterday? It just put a 36-year-old Republican lawyer on the Georgia Supreme Court. Yes, only 36 years old and on her way to the 11th Circuit federal court of appeals already.
11
Republicans in Congress are the new "Silent Majority". They say nothing, they do nothing while Trump runs loose.
They all have to go. There is nothing worth saving in the Republican Party, and much that is harmful.
As Kevin Drum notes:
"Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons.
Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it..."
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/08/nos-victi-reipublicae/
54
If that isn’t one perfect paragraph that succinctly summarizes the GOP, I can’t imagine what is. Brilliant.
9
@Larry Roth
Funny how people claim Trump will destroy the Democracy
we have and in reality it is opposition that is doing it.
How can you demand the Republican party be crushed and the earth salted behind.
That sounds like something a fascist would say not something a person who believes in Democracy.
I did not vote for Trump but he won the election because the Constitution determined that electorial votes are more important than actual votes.
Not fair but those are the rules and Trump is the President.
If you really believed in Democracy you would know I am right.
Sad to tell you what you are.
You are ideologue who can only see what they support
and has no ability to see pass their bias.
You don't even think you are bias.
Instead of being a ideologue you probably think you are a idealist.
Your not.
You aren't even capable of individual thought.
You just regurgitate what you hear other people are saying.
I think nearly 3000 dead in Puerto Rico can be considered worse than shooting someone on 5th Avenue.
55
@Norain
It is sad that you can use a tragedy to tear down Trump.
Trump did not kill those people
They died in a hurricane that hit the Island.
Given that the Island had a electrical power system that was in bad repair before the storm and was not designed to resist the winds that the storm threw at her or the basic resources after the storm to help the people there I would say the thousand is a very low number.
Hurricane Katrina not as powerful as the one in that hit Puerto Rico in a city where the population is much lower and did not have a electrical power system that was in need of repair there were almost two thousand fatalities.
@lucky It was the botched recovery that killed them and Trump was responsible for that.
Honestly, Lucky, you believe this tripe?
Trump and his government abandoned Puerto Rico. He did not sent aid in a timely or comprehensive matter. He openly blamed the residents for the hurricane and their plight afterwards.
And he hurled paper towels at them like a teenage girl at a Dunk the Dolly.
Trump failed to remove legislative obstructions to opening the port to receive aid.
Trump allowed the crisis to fester and drag on while he pumped goods, services, and cash to the good people of Texas who actually were suffering due to their own ignorant greed.
I mean, who wouldn't build housing in a flood zone?
Its possible God made the hurricane. But Trump made the disaster.
To be honest, I think that it could well take something utterly horrifying (and tragic) like Trump shooting someone to shock enough Deplorables out of their torpor and into reality.
As a culture, we've become so inured to mass shootings of innocent civilians that even a shooting of a politician no longer seems shocking unless they're actually killed. Sadly, the shooting of Congressman Scalise received barely a shrug compared to the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, just 7 years ago!
To be honest, I blame it all on the Republican-Conservative cabal. I listened to Sean Hannity on the drive home. He told his audience: "Tell the stupid Liberals that you don't want them to move into your state! Tell them that they ruined their own states; don't come ruin ours!" He actually said that! Yes, that's how blatantly the Rabid Right has fomenting hatred within our country; and it's been going on for 20+ years!
That level of hateful rhetoric against our fellow citizens has become acceptable and the norm. It's not a big leap from tyhat to "Well, they deserve to be shot for ruining our country." Actually, people post things like that on Fox News every day! And isn't that basically what Trump said during his campaign rallies? Lock her up; get him outta here; rough him up a bit; etc.
Sadly, I fear that it will take an unthinkable act of destruction or violence to shock the Deplorables, who've been brainwashed to accept overt hatred as the norm.
50
@Paul-A, The fractured United States Congress of fools, who armed up an unregulated militia of religious nuts pining for "Rapture", with 10 million assault weapons to discourage foreign invaders, now cowers in fear of its own monster. The US is governed by its class dunces.
Trump is a very ignorant person. He had no idea that Putin, was short for Rasputin.
17
What is written in this column no longer seems so far-fetched, nor unfortunately, does it seem original.
A very similar column appeared in the Guardian on August 23rd authored by opinion writers by Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George.
I loved the first version, and I loved the NY times take as well, but think credit should be given to the Guardian authors for the idea.
9
We must reform our education system, manly school system. Home schooling and private, often religious, schooling must not be recognized. One of the reasons for our dismal performance as a democracy is very poorly educated voters. That's why it's so easy to spread lies and false propaganda by crooked politicians and highly dishonest industry lobbies, besides religious organizations to coerce vast majority of American voters to vote in a certain way. There are reasons why GOP and liars like Trump want to destroy public education by promoting private charter and home schooling, often promoting certain religious and racial ideology, besides protecting/promoting kids from rich families (making college and university education more expensive also serve the same purpose).
Now USA is among the worst, among developed countries, in terms of percentage of college graduates believing the fairy tales of "intelligent design" or "creationism", and not the well established science of evolution. It's despite the fact that our college education is most expensive and we spend the highest in education and research.
19
You are so right! I hope the Democrats take this in when they win in November. The forces if civilization must fight aggressively to defend the US against obscurantism.
5
It’s hard to comprehend the tremendous amount of energy and time wasted by the free press on Donald Trump.
Why not to learn from the best, somebody called Josip Broz Tito.
As long as he was alive and presided over the non-aligned movement, there was no Iraq-Iran war, no Al Qaeda and no ISIS, and no civil or sectarian wars in Syria and Libya.
Did I forget to mention that he knew how to keep the people united and together even in the ex-Yugoslavia without any help from the NATO while simultaneously eliminating any influence from Moscow in the Balkans?
How many trillions dollars and how many decades did he spend of achieving those amazing results?
No wars, no cost, no victims, no refugees, no terrorism…
Shouldn’t we finally learn those skills if we really wanted to protect our troops and taxpayers?
@Kenan Porobic
You are honoring Tito? Why do so many love fascist dictators?
Yes no wars. Also no freedoms at all. No democracy.
Exactly what trump, Putin and others have been trying to do, get rid of freedoms and democracy.
@Kenan Porobic
Ahhh...you got me!
That is so, so funny!
1
@oogada
ask those who lived during Tito's life right now, forty years later, whether they lived better then or now...
Trump has already done much worse. He may be responsible for one death of a child separated from his parents at the border. But for Trump, there may not have been a white supremacist march in Charlottesville which resulted in the death of a counter protester. Since Trump was elected there has been an increase in hate crimes across the nation some of which have resulted in fatalities. There have been credible predictions of large scale violence if Trump is impeached. It would come as no surprise if Trump helped to instigate that violence, after all it wouldn’t be the first time he’s done so. His base seems undeterred.
23
I could see this zero-empathy president shooting someone on Fifth Avenue just to draw attention to him.
He pulls the levers of government like a toddler banging away at a toy piano.
12
wait, you mean he has not shot anybody on 5th ave?
6
I didn't vote for Trump. I don't like the way he is governing. But this column is completely absurd. And that's saying a lot for Friedman who's fantasies have veered off course lately. First it was Trump is Gotti. Then it was Trump is Hitler. Now it's Trump is Putin! Give me a break. If Trump was anything like Putin, then Jeff Sessions and Robert Mueller would have disappeared and no one would ever uttered their names again. Putin is a cold -blooded killer. Trump isn't. We are getting to the point where most of us are done with the anti Trump newspaper articles,TV segments, & tweets. It's beyond overkill. There is no Trump criticism that is too overwrought, no worries about trajectories that are too implausible, no rhetoric that would be better tamped down. We all see the excesses as they flow through our social-media feeds. Even some of the NYT pundits have fallen over the ledge with their anti Trump venom...Friedman among them. I no longer have any appetite for the non stop wall to wall 24/7 histrionic coverage about the latest Trump blunder. We get it. Trump's not a good President. But stop reminding us of this fact every two seconds. Period. If the Dems get control of Congress in November they should spend their time crafting & passing good legislation. If their intent is to hold hearing on Trump for the next two years then I and many Americans will be very disappointed. Mueller will do his job. If the evidence is there he will bring it to light.
14
@Bill Brown you must have a short attention span, and this tendency in our sleeping electorate enables trump to trample on every single American value on a daily basis... while you criticize the criticism. Some people are paying attention: it's not venom and your discounting of the coverage you call "histrionic" is a disappointing example of how the big lie settles in and becomes accepted... when people like you tire out and start crying for a break. It's fine for you to say he's not a good president, but look how many "voters" are still buying the political equivalent of trump steaks and trump university. When we're being fleeced - every day - to say nothing is, well, collusion.
4
There is a lot of truth to this. MSNBC and CNN do not cover news anymore, only anti-Trump outrage following every tweet outburst. Americans would have no idea what’s going on in the country beyond Trump if they followed the partisan news networks. Very disheartening considering the intellectual firepower in this country. So much of the nation is suffering from a Trump psychosis.
@Bill Brown: Trump imagines himself to be like Putin, Gotti, etc. but never doubt that he is a killer. Not an assassin, more like a random mass murderer. He presents with the same lack of affect and emotional barrenness typical of the psychopath, possessing no ethical or moral firewall other than can he get away with it. He's not constrained by conscience or consequences, and delights in the suffering of others. Unlike mobsters, for whom it's "business, not personal", to Trump everything is personal. He is so plagued by doubt and inadequacy every encounter must be a battle he wins, and in his mind he wins them all.
We didn't know it then, but the end of the cold war wasn't really the end. It was merely the beginning of a brief intermission.
It might have been otherwise, and I believe that it could have been had it not been for a couple of mistakes from the West.
First, it missed an opportunity to reduce friction with Russia when instead of winding up NATO with its "Mission Accomplished", it promoted its expansion to Russia's border. "Russia First" nationalists saw this as a provocation.
Secondly, when the Soviet Union ended, western economic "advisers", mostly devotees of the Chicago school, descended on Moscow and pushed their ultra free-market ideas. Markets and social services collapsed and people were suddenly thrown into poverty with no safety net.
Out of this chaos rose the new Capitalist oligarchs. They are the old Communist apparatchiks who bought state assets at fire sale prices. And at their head is the super oligarch, former KGB officer and trump hero.
So meet Russia's new bosses, same as the old bosses. And meet Russia's new Cold Warriors, same as the old Cold Warriors - except that their man is in the White House, and they are enjoying more success undermining the US than their Soviet predecessors could have dreamed of.
19
Trump is moving into the realm of the disabilty/illness removal provisions of your US Constitution with his threats to GOOGLE....to run and control it LIKE COMMUNIST CHINA! This is the encore to his threats to Canada over his FORCED NAFTA RENEGOTIATIONS. I guess when your big financial advisor, Kudlow, is a former TV host, waddah ya expect. Of course Google has a presence in Canada. Vancouver BC is just up the turnpike from Seattle. They will just relocate to Canada.
6
Good column, only one quibble. We are not only losing the post-cold war, we are also losing WWII.
8
Well, you know, Trump had to do it. Because if he didn't, the Antifa (they're very violent people, you know) would take this country away from us, the real people of America. We are the people who made this country great, and if our president has to shoot someone to keep our country safe, well, he does what he has to do. Its not like Evil Hillary, selling our uranium to commies, or Obama letting China steal our jobs. Trump does what he has to, Trump tells it like it is, and shoots first, and thinks later, if he has to. Now if Jeff Sessions was only doing his job, there wouldn't be this big Witch Hunt trying to destroy our elected president in a socialist coup, because he allegedly shot someone - there's no proof! There no shooting! No Shooting! And even if there was a shooting, it wasn't a crime, because Trump meant to say "shout" at someone, not "shot" at someone. Truth is an over-rated concept. Who you going to believe -- video, witnesses, your lying eyes -- or Trump?
17
Where is the part about Mr. Giuliani claiming that a sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime? If Mr. Trump shot someone in cold blood in full sight of the world, his lawyers say he cannot be indicted, could not be arrested, could not be prosecuted. Immune from all legal consequences. Even for cold blooded murder by his direct hand on the street.
Quite a claim that his lawyers are making. And America seems to buying into it. Of course, Mr. Obama claimed the right to order assassinations of American citizens overseas by drone. What's become of us?
2
Trump we know. And the first question we ask: "Is it illegal?" Not unethical, immoral, unprincipled, unstatesmanlike, unpresidential. Then, I guess, the second question would be: "Is it illegal to shoot someone for mouthing off on Fifth Avenue?" In America, I'm not sure how you would answer that question.
1
The main stream media continues with its 2 year long temper tantrum brought on by Trump Derangement Syndrome. One could see how far gone they were with no hope of return when covering the NATO meeting. Trump takes the Europeans to task for not meeting their spending targets. And the media attacks Trump rather than siding with the US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not one reporter print or TV asking Europeans leaders why they won't meet the NATO responsibilities.
1
@Reader In Wash, DC
Trump stated a week or so before the election thinking Hillary would win "The election is rigged" now who is deranged?
11
@Reader in DC - nobody in NATO needed to be taken to task for anything since everyone who was not already meeting their NATO requirements were on track to meet those requirements within the specified time frame. It is only the delusional Trump who needs to bully and demean and ruin relationships and create problems where there are none. Normal reasonable and thinking people do not support this behavior nor need to take others to task for doing NOTHING wrong. Trump Derangement Syndrome most definitely exists - it is Trump and his supporters who suffer from it. Psychiatric treatment is available, I hope those who believe Trump and support his antics will seek it.
22
If it ended at that point, then maybe their might be an iota of truth to what you say. But it didn't end there - he went to Helsinki and did everything but kiss Putin's, uh, feet in front of the entire world. Is that a symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome? If so, color me quite mad.
If he shot a Black man, Trump's supporters would applaud saying, "The guy was probably fleeing a crime he committed, contemplating a crime or on his way to committing a crime."
11
And Betsy DeVos will also mandate that the Russian language be taught in all public schools.
3
Curious, it is. This column really brought out the Trumpkins. Usually NYT comments are predominantly leftish, reflective, I believe, of the NYT readership in these polarized times. It speaks to TF’s achievement that it was regarded with such animosity - I guess it hit them in a vulnerable place.
But how did they find out? I suspect that most of them are not regular readers of the Times or Freedman. Social media, which have demonstrated the power to herd them like sheep and make them bark like trained dogs? A dark web network? Telephone trees? A bot storm? The world wonders.
20
Obviously, Trump is a demagogue who has conned a sufficient base of followers to strike fear into the hears of Republican politicians whose main interest is self-preservation. Other Republicans are too enamored of the seat of power and too greedy for the benefits thereof that they forget there is a higher calling of country first. That simply is why Democrats must work all the harder this fall -- to remind cowered or greedy Republican politicians that there is a day of reckoning for their ilk. But, should the Democrats be successful, as I fervently hope they will be, they need to take care that they don't fall into the same dysfunctional, venal behavior.
4
It becomes less a shock every day how Trump beat every Republican who ran against him. When it comes to it the dupes there will vote out the Constitution to get reelected. And now Trump want to force the press to publish lies as facts. The Republican Leaderhsip's response is that perhaps God needs to understand they want to be reelected then, then American law, honer and things. It they get another tax break.
1
Given Trump's disdain for judges, courts and people along with his penchant for suggesting violence, I find Friedman's attempt at humor unfunny because Trump and congress are just as callous as he suggests in the opening vignette in real time on a daily basis.
Tom meant well, i'll give him that, but his attempt at a joke is just a bit too shockingly real.
2
@sjm
I don't think he meant it as humorously as you think. It was more about the reality of how trump and his sick base would treat it.
Is it "take what you can" because the "cat's away" or the whole country is becoming a Trumpian <word used by Trump to describe other countries> and there will not be anything left to get legitimately or otherwise?
Now we have actual proof that if Trump has already shot someone on Fifth Avenue, it's likely that he has been able to successfully cover it up, since that would be so much more critical to him, his family and all their futures than covering up something so mundane as yet another affair, which would simply add to his status among his supporters. Witnesses to a shooting would have an accident or disappear, not be bullied or paid off...
I wish you hadn't put in that sneer about a Fox News broadcast "which focused instead on the killing of an Iowa woman by an undocumented immigrant."
Since Trump and his enablers are insensitive to human suffering, we need to be all the more sensitive. That young woman's family is grieving.
3
@Longestaffe
Yes but trump tried to use it for political reasons. He brought it to national attention. Even the family scolded trump for doing so.
2
@Longestaffe Fox used Seth Rich's death to sow division and make up conspiracy theories also. They hurt his family over and over again for political gain. It is Fox who is hurting the families of these people who have lost a loved one. It is Fox who is trying to sow division. It is Fox who lies to us every day of the week and it needs to stop.
@Skip Moreland
Skip, thanks for your reply, but my point is something like "Two wrongs don't make a right." I want those people to be left alone now; neither exploited by one side nor riffed on by the other.
Mr. Friedman's underlying argument is sound about the Republican Party's toady dispensation to Mr. Trump's malapert behavior; however, his repeated allusion to Russia winning some "Post-Cold War" isn't. The Russian Federation does not sit on the other side of some geopolitical see-saw from the United States like the Soviet Union with the fate of the world in the balance. Conjuring up anachronistic references to explain current global hegemony, or even to decipher Mr. Trump's own actions, keeps us from focusing on the real world unfolding in front of us.
While Mr. Friedman or others re-litigate the Cold War, Post-Cold War or even the Crimean War, real power shifts irrevocably dampen our historic ascendancy---and they enure to China. Moreover, there is little anyone can do to stop that trend, which is simply re-establishing China in a place it enjoyed for most of the last 1000 years as the world's largest economy. No, Russia is not "winning" anything.
Now if Mr. Friedman's point is simply that there is something rotten in Moscow, no one could argue that point who looks at the facts. But hyperbole born of shoehorning threadbare, stereotypical Soviet-American dynamics to explain our own political cacophony is sophistry at its worst. And the more it continues, the more we abdicate taking our responsibility for our own democracy. If Mr. Friedman has to dig up history, then de Tocqueville's and de Custine's insights into America and Russia might better inform him.
3
@GuiG
Do you really think Putin, the KGB agent, doesn't want the US destroyed? Because he does. Otherwise he wouldn't be trying to elect people like trump.
Perhaps the essentially oligarchic nature of US politics is now coming clear under Trump? Elections are an instrument of oligarchy--not democracy. The ancient Greeks understood this--we do not. We continue, falsely, to link elections to democracy. Any polity that uses elections to choose its leaders is by definition an oligarchy for the simple reason that elections intrinsically favor the rich, famous, or connected. For the ancient Greeks it was clear that the lottery was the only democratic way to choose leaders. Perhaps our question should be how to protect some liberties in an oligarchy?
1
Apart from some Muslims in the Caucasus and some Asians in eastern Siberia, Russia might just as well be referred to as the Empire of the White People. No "third-world" immigrants are allowed (and no one from the industrialized world seems to be interested in going over). Communism is kaput, replaced by a particularly mendacious form of Capitalism that makes our own country's inequality look benign by comparison. Dissension isn't tolerated and the government can be relied upon by handing its citizens everything they think they need (including health care!). In short, this is exactly the kind of society that Trump's base has been looking for. So why are they still here?
12
@stu freeman
They don't have to move if they make the US like Russia.
What strikes me is the base for trump, who use to be so anti-russia and communist, love Putin and admire his strongman routine. What a switch.
Yet Putin is not seen as communist (he isn't), but as a dictator who will tell them exactly what to do. And that is what the trump base wants. No freedom, no ability to dissent. Everyone the same as exactly like them. Marching in goosestep with those that refuse to join be punished, if not killed.
Putin kills his opponents, kills the journalists and stops the free press, stifles all dissent and trump's base eats it up.
3
@Skip Moreland: Correct on all counts. Russians seem to enjoy having the right to elect their leaders after so many centuries in which they were unable to do so. But it's clear that the leaders they want are latter-day czars who, following the elections, will take all of life's decisions out of their hands. It's hard to figure that Americans would be happy with such a state of affairs but Trump's supporters have proven otherwise.
The thing that really bothered me when Trump made the comment about shooting someone on Fifth Ave, was that it wasn’t said in jest! Trump meant it. He doesn’t know how to joke. He honestly believes that he could shoot someone and that his base would not desert him. He also believes that he can lie, and then lie differently, and then lie another way and then finally tell the truth and that nobody minds! He believes that he can fire whoever he wants and face no consequences. He believes that he can break laws and nobody will come after him. Please, Robert Mueller. Prove him wrong.
23
What if on November 6, 2018, the Democrats don't become the majority in the House or the Senate?
What if the next step by the Russian or North Korean or Chinese or Iranian cyberwarfare geeks is to prevent enough Democratic Party wins for House and Senate seats?
Do we need Trump to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue to demonstrate the Russiafication of America?
I'm scaring myself writing this. Couldn't this happen?
9
Ballots must be hand counted. Perild
Mr. Friedman, the useful part in your column is what to say to Trump voters. Please focus on that question. For satire, we have Andy Borowitz; from you, I'm hoping for insights I lack on how to get non-hopeless Trump voters back. It is _the_ question today; why is so little written on it?
1
@Ilya Shlyakhter
Because there is no getting them back. Trump offers them what they want to hear. He gives them a white america, with white people ruling. Jobs for all the white people. And for the rest, the police will crack down on them.
Sessions has made the justice dept stronger in it's efforts against minorities. He criminalizes them more, stresses the police should be able to use more force against the minority.
This is what trump's base wants. More judges to stop minorities from obtaining or defending their rights. More police action against minorities. More 'moral' judgements against liberal standards of tolerance, diversity, and multi-culturalism.
As one writer stated, all we liberals would have to do to stop such a war was to surrender and allow the minorities to be once again to be discriminated against. To allow them to be able to be bigots openly.
That is the america they want. And nothing is going to change their minds about it.
One thing could be said for this article. It takes for granted that Trump wasn’t, isn’t and won’t be sane, fit...
It is very tiresome to hear or read comments discussing anything said or done by Trump as evidence that Trump is OK or, to use a word no longer uses, has pivoted.
2
If the first part of this column (the faux-news part) were read verbatim on Fox News, their viewers would not catch on. Most don't have the mental faculties needed to tell the difference between satire and fake news, or for that matter, between real and fake news. Those few who could actually tell the difference, well, they're probably the money bags financing this attack on reality as we used to know it in the US, so they would just chuckle and move on, fully satisfied with their success.
Those zombies will be made to walk to the polling stations and pull the lever. To survive, we have to make sure every thinking person votes in November also.
20
It is frightening to contemplate the modern voter suppression and gerrymandering capability. All the Democrats stuffed into districts with no voting booths, and potentially vote miscounts in those districts. And there would continue to be a pretense of free and fair as Republicans win vote after vote and everyone hates them.
4
Another example of Trumpism is the President's renewed attacks on social media and tech companies, including Google, Twitter and Facebook, contending that they were unfairly restricting the presence of conservative views that are supportive of him. This is an ironic complaint for at least two reasons. One, the President seems to be oblivious to or ignore that he frequently has been party to or has created events or news that is unflattering or worse. Two, a further irony arising from Trump’s attacks is that American social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, were soundly criticized following U.S. Intelligence Agencies’ revelations of Russian use of thousands (or millions) of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter to disseminate false information to influence the 2016 U.S. election in Trump’s favor. Specifically, these media platforms were criticized for not self-policing their accounts to identify and eliminate such fake accounts. Now, the President is criticizing these same social media companies for doing what they were previously criticized for not doing. Moreover, he unfairly and pejoratively calls it “censorship”. What is the real reason for Trump's criticism? My guess: perhaps the President, having once benefited from Russian usurpation of our social media, wants to continue to benefit from more of the same?
6
I may be wrong, but I know a few NYC police officers and commanders. A good number of them support Trump. BUT I firmly believe that even the most fervent Trump supporter in the NYPD would immediately lock him up if he were to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue -- or anywhere else in New York City.
I'm fairly confident that the result might be different in some other places in the country, but I can not imagine that any NYPD officer who witnessed such a crime would ignore it. The NYPD is not a police organization like so many others, or like the Republicans in Congress.
4
He wasn't stating a fact, it was a directive to his supporters.
3
Finally, someone writes about the bankrupted and socially-collapsing global military empire- and compares it to China and Russia. Left out: NDAA 2012, already law, with article 1021 (no warrant military arrest of US civilians inside USA) and 1022 ( no right to trial- ever).
1
What we need, Tom, is one-party communist rule. Remember?
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century."
Thomas Friedman, Our One-Party Democracy, ‘The New York Times’, 8 Sep 2009
Wouldn't that be great? Maybe you'd like Elizabeth Warren installed as Emperor of the United States? 'Cause she's 'enlightened'.
3
@CapitalistRoader-- The quote you provide is completely taken out of context. Friedman was criticizing the Republican Congress of 2009 in that column. He began by saying, "There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy which is what we have in America today." He followed with the paragraph you mention, as a way to show that at least China moved forward and got things done. He then contrasted that with the "one-party Democracy" in the US, the one party being the Democrats, because "only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” He described how the Republicans wanted Obama to be unable to pass any legislation. They didn't do their jobs as members of Congress. The Republican Party no longer participated in government, and the US therefore had a "one-party democracy." As you can see, Friedman was in no way calling for or promoting autocracy. Your attempt to smear him and twist his words fails when all the facts are provided. Which is why Trump is against facts--they bring the lies to the light.
21
@Ms. Pea
In 2009, with both chambers of Congress in Democrat hands, including 60 Senate seats, Republicans had no way to influence any legislation no matter what you or Mr. Friedman thought.
The stimulus bill which did no stimulate the economy, the ACA, and any actions implemented by the "Czars" appointed with no Congressional approval were all ideas that Republicans could do nothing to stop. The only thing I can think that Republicans had a hand in was defeating Cap and Trade. But that had to have Dem crossovers to be voted down.
I call it the Trump Stockholm Syndrome. Supporters come back for more because it is easier to believe him than break free and question his policies and behavior.
9
Speaking of Trump's tax returns: In this age of so much leaking, isn't it remarkable that they are still under wraps?
25
@Betaneptune
Maybe, just maybe, they have not been leaked because they don’t exist. Remember in his last debate, he said something about not paying taxes because he was smart?
3
@SCH
Still suppose to file a tax return, even when not paying.
No democracy can survive or even exist with a gullible, uninformed, uneducated electorate. The November election will not be a referendum on the President, but rather on us.
45
@jwgibbs: There's got to be a description of Trump supporters, a general way of describing them.
Let's see...deplorable? Irredeemable? Bitter clingers? What particular word do you think will win the Democrats a majority this time around?
1
@CapitalistRoader The word that I would use that most accurately describes the typical Trump supporter would, unfortunately, never get past the Times’ editor.
@jwgibbs,
Well said. However, I also said the same thing about the 2004 Election and that ended disastrously. Sadly, the U.S. voters have proven previously they don't care about referendums. Let's hope we don't have a repeat of 2004 on November 6 or in 2020.
Actually I think trump would shoot, miss, then insist he killed the man. When the man shows up alive, trump supporters will chase him down and kill him for trump. Trump will continue to tell the story of how he shot someone and how could that be a crime when he said that is what he planned to do. The electorate will be confused and just vote for republicans.
12
America has already lost. Its time for the Liberal States to secede.
25
Just read article about trump telling evangelicals that there will be violence if republicans lose in November & he loses in 2020. What kind of man is this? Will the evangelicals & republicans turn violent. He truly is becoming a dictator.
17
Any man who cheats on his god and wives AND is awarded the Kingdom can't be prosecuted.
3
@A Voter: Bill Clinton? John Kennedy?
1
@CapitalistRoader,
You failed to make your point. Clinton's Presidency is certainly forever tarnished because of the Lewinsky Scandal and in the Court of Public Opinion. And we know how things ended for JFK. Oh, and our Society still idolizes Marilyn Monroe despite the fact that she knew JFK was married. Why does she get a pass on her behavior?
Listen to any Republican senator or Congressman defend Trump and think: Do these people really believe this nonsense or are they thankful for the $50 million Vladimir Putin just deposited in their Swiss bank account? It's pathetic and depressing how easy it has been for Russia to conquer America.
11
What if Hillary Clinton didn't bother to answer the phone in the middle of the night and let 4 US citizens, one an ambassador, die in Libya. Oh wait, that actually happened.
4
@tdg certainly, we all know that the Secretary of State has her own personal army which she can deploy to Libya at a moment's notice.
9
And this excuses Trump how, exactly?
7
@tdg
How is your comment relevant even if it was true.
Your comment might be relevant if Trump was being compared to her in this opinion piece.
Is there a reason to compare them now.
Maybe if she was running against him again there would be but the election is history and she is not running against him so tearing her down does not build him.
3
Mr. Trump is so adept at telling lies. Now, he is asking evangelical church leaders to make sure their members vote, and predicting dire events if Democrats win the majority. Is there no organization or publication that evangelicals respect enough to listen to, that could convince them that Trump lies to them?
5
And Trump himself responded to questions from reporters saying, “What does this have to do with Russia? There is no collusion,” before hurriedly boarding Air Force One for Florida.
2
After he fired the shots, the crowd shouted "lock her up."
20
Actually Tom, Trump supporters would cheer if Trump shot someone...anyone on 5th ave, because it would likely be a New Yorker and Manhattan resident. IOW, not a "real" American. And even if it was a Trump supporter...the sacrifice would be worth it to the cult of Trump.
John Boehner was/is correct...the republican party is asleep somewhere. What there is now is the party/cult of Trump. They will not admit to any issues with "their" president and Trump is free to do as he pleases. No restraints. Not the constitution, not the courts, not the congress. We are close to dictatorship now. How else does it start?
We need to vote as if this is the last opportunity to do so...as it may well be the case. Trumpyublicans, like Trump, do not believe in democracy. Trump wants to be regarded as a god-king. Unless you are looking for a deity to worship and kool-aid to drink, you'd better...
VOTE OUT ALL REPUBLICANS
20
Supposedly a sitting president can't be indicted. If President Trump did shoot and kill someone on Fifth Avenue (or otherwise do someone in), could he be indicted?
4
You really excel in doing absolutely nothing when it come to actually doing something about this political moment!
Thanks for nothing!
Dude, you missed your calling. You should write for Colbert.
3
Friedman, you're losing it. I used to enjoy reading your columns but your Trump fixation has morph from commenting on what is happening to making up scenarios that fit your anti Trump message. Time to disconnect from your flat earth world and calm down.
1
" The Russification of America ? " Seriously ? Seems Mr. Friedman exaggerates as much as the man he condemns for exaggerating . ( r's wife )
2
Among many other issues, does anyone doubt that—short an unmistakable Democratic surge in the midterms—AG Jeff Sessions will be fired soon after? Followed by Paul Manafort’s pardon, immediate peril for the Mueller investigation and all manner of autocratic escalation by Donald Trump.
The jury is very much in: Republicans will not check Trump. If you don’t think the rule of law is at stake, you haven’t been paying attention.
7
Excellent description of the evolution of Trump, who is on track to become America's first strongman president. Given the right circumstances, he might progress to outright tyrant.
The right circumstances are that Republicans maintain control of Congress and they appoint a Trump sympathizer, on the model of Kavanaugh, to the Supreme Court. At that point Trump will have effectively neutralized constitutional checks and balances. There will be none to stop his dictates, and dictate is exactly what he will do.
The signs are chilling right now. As of today, Trump has indicated his willingness to censor Google search, simply because search results turn up nothing but facts about him, which are of course mostly ugly.
As strongman he will quickly and forcefully put an end to the Russia investigation. He will quash even questions about his behavior from anyone in the justice and intelligence communities.
He will stifle all information flow from government agencies, ratchet up the fallacious propaganda from the White House, and more aggressively impede the freedom of the press.
He will promptly build the wall on the southern border with taxpayer money or debt. He will make ever more hostile moves against Latino and Muslim immigrants, illegal or not, while continuing to ignore Russians and Europeans.
He will drive more laws that enrich only the rich, including himself.
Biggest worry about this is that the readers OUGHT TO believe it.
2
The potential truth to all this makes me sick to my stomach. I thought Golf of Tonkin, Nixon, the Gipper (who's divide and conquer political methodology BTW is the model for Putin), Meese, Bush II and Chaney were horrors.
I'm 68. I've seen nothing but lies and killing, on going wars against this that and ourselves since I can remember. But never have I before seen seen such attacks on the fundamental basic laws of our nation, of our country. And no we're not perfect. But the attack on everything including the impeachment of the WVA supreme court to further political aims smacks of dictatorship of the rich.
My farther and other moms and dads didn't sacrifice their lives in WWII for this.
My god people, wake up.
16
I can't believe that the United States of America will be traded for this man. All that we have been and are for that?
9
Possibly your best column ever as far as I can recall, Tom. Kudos.
3
well obviously it would be in self-defense.
1
''Your vote in the midterms matters, because republicans in Congress won’t restrain the president’s excesses.''
By default then Mr. Friedman, you are advocating for every republican to be voted out of office, because they are not doing their Constitutionally obligated duties of being a check on the executive.
We are so happy to have you on the Liberal side. Glad you came to your senses.
5
Completely implausible. Trump would never shoot 'a man.' If a race is not specifically stated, that means it was a white man. He wouldn't do that.
And if the man was non-white, he would just direct his motorcade to swerve and run over him. Do not slow down, driver, there's a pardon in it for you. Trump would throw some paper towels out the window.
Republican leadership wouldn't be briefed - no impact on midterms. Fox would run a story "Hero President stops Illegal voting in its tracks."
4
He got away with promising to release his tax returns and then not following through - that emboldened him to push the envelope.
If you list all the idiotic, inflammatory, violent, contradictory and racist things he's said since he began campaigning until now, and realize that over 90% of Republicans still support him, then yes, there's nothing they wouldn't accept. Nothing. People rarely change teams anyway - but this is something different going on. And it's not going to end well.
He's running scared - not because of Russian collusion - but because of everything else being unearthed in the investigation that will be handed off to the Southern District of NY. He'll never do time - even out of office - but he's probably scared to death of the possibility.
5
Tom has apparently moved out of the USA.
If he were here he’d see a booming economy, full employment, record high stock prices, low inflation, low crime rates, promising interaction with N. Korea, America at peace, progress on trade imbalances, ..... need I go on?
2
@Tuco
Geez, I guess you missed the gigantic deficit - something Republicans used to preach against- the low wages, the fact that all hopeful dialogue with North Korea has stopped ( read Mattis’ statement today), the significant diminishment of our reputation worldwide, the outcry of intelligence and military officers against Trump’s threats to revoke security clearances.
Oh and separation of children from families at the border? Over 500 kids are still missing.
What a success story- if your head is in the sand.
10
@Tuco
He would also see a President that fibs , avoided the US Selective System draft with sore foot spurs ,a President that attacks people directly and personally including black sports figures ,entertainers,any truly strong female politician and is in bed more or less with America's enemy Russia. A President that refused to accept Obama being born in the USA and who just before the election spent almost 25 million dollars to settle with
former students of the failed bigly time Trump university as they were about to sue for your great Trump for theft of tuition. I can add more but as you are blinded by his orange hair dye ,you will say my facts are just that of a liberal.
6
@Tuco
All of which was happening when Obama was president. Low crime rates, well over a decade in the making. N' Korea, well they are making more nuclear material, so that hasn't panned out well.
America at peace? What world do you live in? We are still in Afghan, we still bomb daily people in other countries, there is no peace.
Progress on trade imbalances, trump is clueless why 5% of the world and the richest nation buys more than they export. And why the US set up the trade we have today so that we could get cheap trade goods.
Booming economy and stock market, been going on since Obama turned it around, so has employment steadily going down.
What you don't mention is how that so called booming economy has not raised wages, that the workers are losing ground due to inflation. Even with low inflation. Because the well paying jobs are not coming back. And that tax cut went to the rich and they are not using it for wage increases, they are using it for stock buy backs to make themselves richer.
Not only do you need to go on, you need to see the facts as they are. Trump benefitted from an economy already doing well. And his trade wars and tax cut are going to hurt workers, not help them.
2
What would really Fake News look like?
CNN has recanted a dtory on the air last Friday about Lanny Davis' claims - they were wrong.
BUT CNN still has the uncorrected story playing on its site. THAT is fakery and they would NEVER have done that to a politician they campaigned for like Barack Obama.
This is also proof that there is no longer any journalistic code of ethics being observed there. Such codes center on a lack of bias.
The red Time or Newsweek cover with Trump and the small immigrant child was also clearly FALSE - but it performed its progagandist function and was replayed constantly for weeks in the corrupted media even after it was totally debunked.
3
What if Trump really is the physical expression of our country's deliberate replacing of democratic values with corporate values for the past 30 years? What if we already live under "Inverted Totalitarianism"?
4
@C'est la Blague
That would be TOTALLY ironic since he is the champion of all workers and th old folks sitting on 401k's.
Black unemployment? The lowest ever under Trump.
Latino unemployment? Bingo!
Workers' families being confident in their future economic hopes? The highest every also.
Taxes coming in to the Treasury? ALSO at their highest in years.
We danced with totalitarianism under Mr. Obama and his henchmen Holder, Lynch, Brennan, John Koskinen, and other political soldiers. Nobody wants to go back there - the workers suffered the most.
1
@L'osservatore
Speak to the farmers and Harley Davidson company about the impact on Trump's unthought out Tariffs. He has almost declared war on Canada most likely because Trudeau is smarter and younger then himself , Read the trail of Russian mob money laundered by a few German banks that Trump has benefited from.
Most of what you say ,I just imagine, is part of the new white racist surge that never liked Obama's racial background that now think they are in power, I pray hopefully not for long.
@L'osservatore
All of that happened during Obama's terms. Yet none of you give any credit to him.
Tax revenue is down, not up.
And no worker's confidence isn't high, only his base is foolish enough to think he is going to help them.
This may be the most brilliant and eloquent column you have ever written. It reminds me of a great namesake of yours, who wrote an immortal plea for true patriotism at another moment of crisis in our country's history: Thomas Paine.
7
@John Weeks, yes, Thomas Paine was fearful of a government made up of aristocrats. And although trump is no aristocrat ( there is no nobility in trump’s makeup) he is in a large sense what Paine inferred. Rich and insensitive to the people. Let’s face it, Common Sense and The Rights of Man have nothing to do with this pretender.
6
@John Weeks THE Thomas Paine? Not that FAKE Thomas Payne?
And this just in from John Cornyn:
"Well, there was an allegation made and we need to get to the bottom of the allegation, but I would note that the individual making that charge — his credibility is in tatters, he’s been all over the map in terms of what his story is. So that’s going to have to be judged through the court system, and I think that’s where it should be judged."
Oh wait, that is a standard quote, used on such occasions by Senator Cornyn, who, by the by, is going to be on Dancing With The Stars next season. He can side step like no other.
4
We New Yorkers have always known Donald Trump to be a publicity-hungry, vulgar lout. Look at his buildings, extensions of his ego -- they're all gilded and cheap looking.
I believe that Donald Trump can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and the GOP will give a collective shrug, his followers will laugh and cheer, and the rest of us will look askance and try to carry on because, after all, there's no remedy.
If no one will rid us of this national disgrace, this draft-dodger, this crook who stiffs his contractors and whose bankruptcies discommode only his business partners, whose whole life is dedicated at striking back at truth-sayers, then we are stuck.
We are in big, big trouble.
17
It's pretty clear from the comments written by Trump fans that they will not even consider the answer to Friedman's question. They just attack Friedman, the Times and Democrats (?) for printing it. But, none of them wants to think for a minute about what their reaction might be. Because, in the present climate it's a pretty good bet that Friedman isn't too far off the mark, and that's a little unsettling even for Trump fans. Would that be the final straw for them? Answering that question might reveal some pretty unpleasant qualities in themselves, so it's easy to see why they stick with attacking the writer and the Times.
22
@Ms. Pea,
Actually, it also begs the question: Why do they even bother to read the NYT and then comment at all? I certainly don't waste my time watching Fox News, let alone attacking them for their fake news reporting. Why bother?
1
"What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?"
Nothing will happen. He pardons himself the next day!
6
You forgot to mention that Sanders said there was no collusion.
3
Because you ask, here is what will happen.
First off, his popularity will soar. There will be copy cats all over the country. Republicans will applaud; encourage everyone to do similarly (and agree that they wanted this all along).
NRA will declare victory (if a firearm was used). Religious right in America will take up a collection to pay for Trump's defense. AM radio and Fox will argue that whoever Trump terminated had it coming, and beyond a shadow of doubt was a black Muslim socialist terrorist about to join MS13.
Half of America, already giddy headed after Trump victory will wonder whether the rapture is upon us.
The police will feel free now to plain shoot first and ask questions later. Oh sorry; they are already doing that. My bad.
Second, democrats will complain that they cannot find someone pure enough, so they will sit out the next elections while feeling sorry for ourselves. They will viciously attack any candidate who wants to run for office, unless he agrees to rob all the rich people in America and devote all resources to every single sad sack and hard luck story.
Supreme court justices will be selected by the religious right, and non Christians will not be employed anymore in America.
I guess all this happens in the first week. It gets worse from then on.
Thank you for asking.
14
It’s the economy, stupid. Since Donald Trump was elected president, the stock market has soared and corporate profits are at an all-time high. Those two things affect a lot of people. Elect a Democratic majority and all that will be put in jeopardy.
@1truenorth
Since all of that was true when Obama was president, obviously you are wrong.
As for corporate profits at the highest, that is great for the rich. Unfortunately wages for the workers have not gone up and none of those profits are going to them, only the wealthy.
3
Thank you, Mr. Friedman, for the big laugh albeit a despondent one, since our Country has been subject to this cartoon president for nearly two years too many.
Remember, we vote on Thursday September 13, as a reminder to a staunch Republican acquaintance earlier, who asked if I was a Democrat. A centrist and a stolid citizen was my reply with a glint in my eye. We are retired, but not 'antiquities' yet, and by Don, he added 'Trump can do no wrong'. That's right, I heard it right the first time, and that's his perspective.
Now. It is unlikely that Trump is going to shoot anybody, but half the Country may feel that there is an attempt to break our spirit and what makes us American. There is a good chance that the Republicans are going to win again in November and then deal with the 'excesses' of Trump.
At the funeral for Barbara Bush, there was a fine photo of our last Presidents. The First Lady, Melania Trump, was in attendance on the right-hand side, and although it was a solemn occasion, some of us remembered the Past with hope for the Future.
This wedding between Russia and America has been chaotic and volatile. Our president is looking slightly frayed, and should there be a case of irreconcilable differences in this alliance, it is We The People who are going to be paying a heavy alimony.
4
Here’s what would happen: Trump supporters would rationalize it away and his approval ratings would remain the same or tick up.
Congressional Republicans would say nothing and shield Donald Trump from The Rule of Law. This is what would happen. So, in short, Nothing.
3
Really, what if he did? What if he really shot somebody on Fifth Avenue? Can he be indicted, convicted for murder? But, wait a minute, he is the President, a sitting President who has great, extremely important duties and responsibilities towards our Country which cannot be impeded until he is a free citizen. Right? He's gotten away with so much for which an ordinary citizen would be behind bars for years.
3
If Trump did actually shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, then you’d finally have your first real evidence of him committing an actual crime. How about we hold off on speculating about what Trump supporters will and will not react to until you reach that bare minimum threshold?
1
"What if a Citizen Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?"
There would be dancing in the streets throughout the cosmos!
1
I firmly believe there is a morally destructive force in the White House with a very real presence of mental illness underlying the regime leadership that is focused on bringing about an American Darkages. As hard as I try, I see zero indication of anything other than a truly dangerous agenda, which is passively calling for riots and is fully willing to bring America down with it. Just as the dictators of WWII.
6
Not possible! A man with heel spurs and small hands cannot shoot anyone leave alone on 5 th Ave. I dare him!
1
As I recall, Dick Cheney shot someone in the face. He received an apology from that man...
6
And then you wonder why Trump says the press is the enemy of the people - and so many agree.
Just read this article. Just the mere fact this Friedman would take the effort to write this, and the Times actually print it, proves it.
By the way, did any of you at the Times notice the Dow hit 26000? The Nasdaq hit 8000? Consumer Sentiment unposted its best number since 2000?
The collapsing black and Hispanic unemployment?
Nah. Just write articles like this.
5
@Sports There are some things in life that are more important than money.
7
Are you saying it is OK for our leaders to shoot people on the streets as long as economy is strong and stock indexes keep going up?
9
Until we Democrats have a politician that can REALLY stand up to Trump and his team sort of bully to bully with the presence that Trump has we will be sheep led to you know where.
Sadly It won't come from our two Senator's and my feeling is if we in NY can't stop Trump's fascist like undertakings no one can. Trump is a smart modern day P.T Barnum.
1
As a Christian, I am ashamed that Evangelicals have given you fair reason to conflate Evangelical "Christianity" with white nationalism. A group of liars and con artists are trying to hijack Christianity along with democracy (and the Catholic hierarchy isn't far behind in its sexual deceptions). It is hard to believe that today Evangelical leaders assented to Trump's comments in a White House meeting that the midterms are a referendum on Trump AND Evangelicalism.
He then told them that if the GOP lost the House the Democrats would resort to violence in order to over-turn all that Trump has "done." Trump is actively trying to incite violence. He'd be perfectly willing to start something himself.
Profiles in cowardice and pandering among Congressional Republicans.
10
I don't support Trump but I do not see him as a threat to world peace or to our Democracy.
Trump is not going to shoot and kill a man on fifth Avenue.
Broadway maybe but not on fifth.
See I just made a joke.
Trump was joking when he said that just like was.
Before I vote for the person running against Trump I want to know who this person will be.
I will not vote for this person if I think he or she is worse than Trump is as I do not see Trump as the ultimate evil.
I voted for Hillary Clinton but would not have voted for Sanders.
I sympathize with BLM but condemn their leaders.
I supported Obama but I did not support Obama Care or the Iran agreement.
I will not support a Democrat if that Democrat moves the embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.
Schumer was for moving the embassy to Jerusale so the fact Trump did it didn't make it wrong.
I will not support a Democrat if he increases the tax on the wealthy to a level that someone like Sanders would be happy with.
The wealthy should pay more but then they do now but I am against the idea the money the rich have should be redistributed.
I will not support a Democrat if they are for open borders.
I speak for many Democrats who will not vote for a Democrat that supports any of the above.
I do not want to vote for Trump but I may if the Democrat give me a reason to do so.
I urge the Democratic party to listen to me because if they do not then people like me will vote for Trump and Trump will win.
2
@lucky,
If you can’t see tRump for what he is, then I don’t think I’d want you in our party anyway.
I’m no sanders fan myself and more of a Clinton democrat who would like to reach consensus with the other side of the aisle and incremental progress. But no way is anyone on the left equivalent to tRump.
8
@lucky
It is utterly hilarious that the ones that support Trump are always starting their comments that the don't support him.
As to moving the embassy back to Tel Aviv, no country that halfway intelligent leaders will move their embassies to Jerusalem before the final status of Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian State finally bears fruit.
3
One can only hope that in his complete incompetence the so-called president would end up shooting only himself.
Then the question is, would he even bleed?
6
In the photo of Trump exiting his car, are his lips pursed because he's making some kind of pronouncement, or does he have trouble getting enough oxygen?
His doctor might look into that.
3
My grandfather had a small farm in northern Minnesota. He and grandmother lived there in a worn but welcoming house with an outdoor toilet.
In Hell's Kitchen, in Kew Gardens, in Hamilton Heights, Harlem, you'll run into any number of people who live above their businesses, and some own the buildings. My friend runs a few pubs by my house; she's one. The Chinese couple with their kids running around the kitchen of their restaurant were another.
If you're lucky, you can get a pretty good job as a doorman or super, and some of them also live and work in the same place.
Any of them could have gun licenses; any of them could be carrying at any time, if they have permits; any of them could be attacked at any day or hour just outside their homes / workplaces.
President Trump (nice ring to it, right?) owns Trump Tower, and lived there until he became President, quite luxuriously, I am led to understand. He also kept his offices there. He also was licensed to carry a firearm. And, stupid as someone might have been to try, he may have been attacked on Fifth Avenue, or on the curb, or in his lobby. For all we know, people have tried, and some may have been close calls.
So just you settle down when a law-abiding American who carries a firearm -- at home, at work, as they're out on the town -- hypothesizes that if they had do gun someone down, their friends would be supportive. Happens to innocent people all the time.
Don't mess with gun owners. We have each others' backs.
1
@Paul Klenk Trump had Keith Schiller to rough up people he didn't like. Trump has small hands.
1
If you assert just one single thing out of this piece─ that’s how desperate the Democrats have become. And how badly they have failed in their attacks on Mr. Trump. Having flung so much slime and mud at Mr. Trump, Democrats have run out of even that, now so frantic and despairing, they are using creative writing with “fake” scenarios that never happened ─ and hoping so that their so called college educated liberal followers would hang on. And this piece also point to a lesson for all Americans. As Abraham Lincoln once said “You can fool all the people some of time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time…
@ChandraPrince. - Trump supporters are a MINORITY in the US and their numbers are falling. If anyone is desperate it should be immoral, indecent Trump supporters.
6
To which I reply,for whom the bell tolls
@ChandraPrince
Don’t quote Lincoln to defend Trump. Lincoln would be repulsed.
2
Bottom line: Trump didn't shoot anyone. This is a waste of time.
1
@Wil - I don't believe you, and rumors suggest the opposite is true. To be certain, for the good of everyone involved, Trump should be fully investigated, and all his paperwork, including birth certificate, health records and income taxes, had better be in order.
2
I didn't know he was in Manhattan today.
4
I really laughed my way through this article, but then realized.....this is anything but funny.
6
The primary reason that in 2018 Trump could get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, and none of his supporters would desert him, is because the NYT, WaPo etc insist upon referring to illegal aliens as undocumented immigrants.
Words matter. Trump and his minions refer dishonestly to the conspiracy of Team Trump with agents of the Russian Federation to defraud the USA as 'collusion' because collusion is not a crime. 'Where’s the collusion?', asks Trump rhetorically.
The NYT editorial board and NYT reporters refer equally dishonestly to illegal immigrants as undocumented, even though the accused Iowa killer of Mollie Tibbetts had documents, which were forged. The NYT and WaPo ignore the fact that, according to the Cato Institute report that each newspaper cited, illegal aliens were convicted of murder in Texas at six times the murder rate of legal aliens. Instead the NYT and WaPo claim spuriously and deceptively that the overall murder rate by immigrants is lower than the murder rate by native born Americans. This although we know that pro rata most native born murders are committed by very poor and uneducated African American and Mexican American young men.
3
@ColensoYou might want to revisit your claims. According to the Cato Institute, illegal immigrants DO NOT commit murder or any felony at the same rate as native born citizens.
https://www.cato.org/blog/peter-kirsanows-numerous-errors
7
@Colenso - what the Cato Institute report on immigration actually says about that murder conviction rate : " the native- born rate of convicion was 3.1 perconversation 100,000, the illegal immigrants' conviction rate was 2.6 per 100,000, and legal immigrants' rate was 1 per 100,000..". We must be reading from different Catos, do we? What I noticed about Trump supporters is that, just like their master, they make the "alternative facts" right on the fly, for example the illegal immigrants come to the US "to get on welfare", that California has the highest poverty rate among all states (it doesn't) because of abundance of illegal immigrants, that illegal immigrants bring leprosy to the US (per Lou Dobbs), and so on.
I think at some point we are going to hear that illegal immigrants are drinking American children's blood for breakfast.
12
To stop Trump the Democrats must devise and support economic programs that will restore the economic health of displaced workers and those "left behind".
HRC made fun of these people and called them "deplorables."
She had NO program to help these people gain new jobs that paid a wage equal to the wage of the lost job.
So HRC lost Pa., Wisc., Oh., and Mich., [64 EV] states Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
If racism were the decisive factor in 2016 then these 4 states would not have been won by Obama and lost by HRC.
Note the last Dem presidential candidate to win a majority of the white vote was LBJ in 1964.
2
Ya know, if back in grad school, if I only listened to those conservative professors who warned all this post-modern stuff was going to end in tears...
It's all deconstruction, Nietzschean jokes, and May '68, all good clean fun. That is, until it actually takes over.
Nihilism ain't so funny now...
1
A recent survey, the findings of which were reported in this newspaper, showed that 40% of republicans either approved of or had no problem with Russian interference in the 2016 election. That should be on 10,000 billboards across America.
For further evidence, read Katherine Stewart's article on the National Prayer Breakfast and that Russian spy, then tell me if it doesn't look exactly like a Deep State. Only a right wing one.
America is becoming awful.
16
"Your vote in the midterms matters, because Republicans in Congress won’t restrain the president’s excesses ". Interesting points. But what is the Democratic plan to stop Russian interference? It has to be more than get rid of Trump. Putin could care less who is President. Obama made it clear Russia was the policy focus of the 80's. Funny how Romney was right. So please share with me why as an independent I should vote for a Democratic Socialist platform of free this and free that followed by a tax increase, followed by GDP growth of 1-2%. I voted for Obama twice but little was accomplished. Why should I vote democrat again?
If you want change you have to vote. If you don’t vote, you give the election away. You and thousands of other no-shows. But you won’t be blamed.
It will be the fault of Russian interference. It will be the fault of a minor candidate. It will be the fault of gerrymandering.
Did the Russians make anyone stay away?
Did any third party candidate make anyone stay away?
Bad election laws made it difficult for people to vote in our “democracy”, but did those election “laws” keep all the “opposition” voters from the polls.
If you are a discouraged, registered voter, be sure to vote. If you don’t show up, you will just give more weight to those who would vote differently than you.
And if you are not a registered voter who would otherwise be qualified, be sure to register as soon as possible and vote in November.
Let’s have 90+ turnout in November!
5
What if? Could he be detained? Indicted? Prosecuted? Could he pardon himself after the deed was done? What if, as Brett Kavanaugh asserts, a president is immune from law enforcement while in office? How far, indeed, does such immunity stretch?
2
I believe we, the US of A, are the only country where people file their own tax returns and confess their incomes without some tax people making sure that we don’t lie (we have tax audits instead).
As if on cue, today we hear the tape of Trump predicting violence if the Republicans lose the 2018 election. I wonder who will be encouraging and fomenting that violence? He points to "antifa" but my money is Trump directly or indirectly inciting his followers to protect him. We are in very dangerous territory due to the cowardice of the GOP. One can only ask-- who else has Putin bought besides Trump among the Republicans?
11
What happens if Trump shot someone dead on Fifth Avenue?
Forget about the Republican Congress. The Supreme Court will rule, with Justice Kavanaugh writing for a 5-4 majority, that murder through the use of a gun constitutes a protected activity under the Second Amendment
4
The story that begins this coumn sent chills through me, simply because it sounded all too plausible. Trump's attempt to claim that "people were saying" that someone who looked like Barack Obama actually did the shooting, the handling of the incident by FOX "News" and the reactions of various supporters...all these details sounded like things that really COULD happen. Just consider how disturbing it is that we can talk about the man who actually occupies the Oval Office in terms such as this.
9
Gen. George Washington most likely did just that...
Sad but true.
VOTE in November.
3
Brilliant and so true.
3
Tom's fictional stories are just fiction. In Putin's Russia, his campaign manager will not go to jail, his personal lawyer will not go to jail, leaders who endorsed him first will not go to jail or investigated, TV channels won't be able to publish negative news and criticize him 24/7, newspapers won't be able to publish any negative news, there won't be any special counsel to investigate him, judiciary won't be able to rule against his policies, Tom won't be able to write such a fiction, and so on. Trump's America is totally different. Trump is not doing anything that Putin is doing in Russia, even with a Republican majority. Even with a Republican majority, Trump is not able to do things he promised to the people like a wall, repeal of Obama Care, control of illegal immigration, etc. due to obstruction by Democrats. If Democrats win in the next election, it will be total obstruction. So, if you like what Trump is doing, be careful not to be brainwashed by pundits like Tom Friedman who does not respect the last election results produced by the so called deplorables. Trump may tweet tomorrow calling Tom a "low IQ person", his way of counter punching his haters which his supporters like, but Tom won't like it and he has the freedom to call Trump a dictator for that. In Putin's Russia, Tom may not be there to write another column. In Trump's America, democracy is robust and you can call the President any name. Hope you understand the difference between Trump and Putin.
2
@Alex - I, as a Russian - American, understand the difference between Putin and Trump very well: the former is a serious and thoughtful player, a genuine tough thug, while the latter is just a vain bouncy who aspires to be a Putin, but in fact is just a reality TV version of him.
But that does not mean Trump is not dangerous - he does not have the same breadth of power that Putin does, but is certainly trying to acquire it by assailing and weakening our democratic institutions you referred to. It takes time, took Erdogan, Chavez and Putin over a decade each to do away with democratic institutions in their respective countries.
Those institutions could not be taken for granted as eternal and immutable, they need to be defended lest they decay and fall.
12
Nov 7, 2018 (AP), Washington, D.C. President Donald J. Trump, following Tuesday’s resounding “blue wave,” in which the Democratic Party overwhelmed the Republican Party in the 2018-midterms and re-took the House of Representatives by an astounding 420-35 count and recaptured the Senate by 63-36, today directed the National Guard to take armed measures to secure the voting machines in all 50 states.
The president declared martial law and summoned the armed forces of the Russian Republic of Soviet States to guard and control all nexes of transportation into and out of the country. The president said he is “suspending habeas corpus until such time as all enemies of the state can be identified and detained. My troops are under orders to shoot to kill without asking questions.”
This extraordinary breach of individual and collective freedoms, unprecedented in peacetime, was met with approval by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He said, through a spokesman, “it’s about time we had a president that rooted out anti-American ideas.”
Paul Ryan, who had signaled that he would retire from politics, was asked to “stay on “indefinitely” by Mr. Trump. Mr. Ryan, reached by a Times reporter, said his first priority will be to “replace Social Security and Medicare immediately.” The tax code, he said, will be changed to allow “relief” to the wealthy.
The White House also announced the closing of all newspapers. Fox News was designated as the official state-run media outlet.
4
I would sanction only his self-inflicted gunshot wound. Even in that case, I would regret his violent injury or death.
So many of the Trump Legions care mostly about being anti-everything that was the accepted previous status quo than about moral and ethical issues or fine points. We have fallen so far that I don't recognize us anymore. How did we get here?
9
Do I understand you correctly? Did you really mean to say that that Trumpism and Putinism represent Christian values?
Yes, Trump’s base has many who identify themselves as Christians but that does not mean that the values they hold represent Christian values. Some of his policies regarding pro-life/pro-choice do represent many Christians’ values but his actions are clearly for political reasons. In the long run, i believe the pro-life cause will suffer because of him.
5
Magnificent. It is prophetic but there’s still time to make sure it doesn’t happen. Vote because our future depends on it.
9
I saw on Meet the Press that after Manafort and Cohen were convicted Trump's base approval rating was essentially flat. His lawyer and campaign manager are convicted of crimes and not even the slightest departure in his base.
They're all like "No no, he's still good."
I'd love to see a journalist ask random MAGA supporters what their line would be to leave Trump. Whatever it is, he will cross it between now and 2020.
15
@M., while I'm sure he will, they will simply move the line.
7
I suspect with the trade agreements starting to come in and with all the great economic news, Thomas is starting to see the blue wave ebb back out to sea.
Great economic news for whom? More profits for billionaires — but the same low wages for every one else.
6
@Jack What trade agreements and what great economic news? No trade agreements have been signed. Don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch. Are you forgetting that the current economy is the result of president Obama's efforts but has slowed down this year? My observation of elections this year indicate a Blue wave is coming. Hope you are wearing your bathing suit.
6
Friedman's concern that the beginning of this piece could be mistaken as fact by Trump's acolytes was not misplaced. It is the sorrow of this era and still incredible to me. If we don't put a check on this criminal enterprise in November, I give up.
3
I agree with the Russification concept, but it won’t budge a Trump supporter. The only things that will: a.) if the economy tanks, and b.) if he is caught on a hot mike at a rally denigrating his ditto heads and/or telling someone to get an abortion. His friends embezzling funds from the VA, which is probably happening at Mar A Lago right now, won’t make a dent. No, this is about identity politics, right wing style, and he’s got to besmirch his base before they’ll pull themselves off his ego-salving teet. (I know, it’s a terrible image. But true.)
15
The biggest challenge, Mr. Friedman, is regaining any credibility as a journalist after this essay.
It is remarkable in its disgustingness, unworthy of attention by anyone, even as satire.
You should be ashamed for getting paid to write such trash.
4
Donald Trump is a Russian asset. But the Trump supporters are beyond patriotism, for them it's all about white supremacy. If this is achieved by accepting Putin, then to them Putin is a heck of a guy. Even the white evangelicals will have warm and fuzzy feelings towards Putin. Putin looked at a church once, he's saved! These are absurd times, but so was 1930s Germany.
24
I get it- but the point Friedman is missing is that Trump will almost "literally" have to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue before Republicans desert him. An intentional felony campaign violation is not enough. Trump needs to found guilty of something that truly shocks the conscience. But let's all be patient- there is far more to come in this drama. Given Trump's character, we are bound to be treated to tax evasion, money laundering, conspiracy with the Russians, etc.
6
Yur gettin pretty desparate, eh, Tom? Maybe y'all should head back to Doha or Dubai or wherever it was you were having a hoot golfing with your buddies. Things are really funny in the Middle East since you and your brain trust eliminated Saddam and planted a thousand flowers of democrazy in the desert. Or, y'all could host the Oscars and delite us with your funny bone. Whatever y'all do, Tom, I'm sure y'all will keep us in stitches with your keen sense of humour.
2
Donald and his supporters believe the law doesn’t apply to him! Trumpsitas will support him into hell. They wear t-shirts that say “I’d rather be a Russian than a Democrat “ speaks volumes about their mindset! They’d rather give up their freedoms, including gun ownership to live under the vile Putin!
PLEASE vote on November 6th, get your friends, kids, neighbors to vote! Your freedoms and our democracy depend on YOUR vote!
18
A most ominous clownish scenario, playing to entertain us and divert our attention to the current mafia installed in government, the executive and the legislative seemingly fused together for a more efficient, and effective, destruction of a, by now, moribund democracy. And Fake News Fox Noise, with it's pseudo-reporters at the ready to 'protect' the assailant of the White House (with generous assistance of Putin's Russia) and the G.O.P. cowards safeguarding their miserable seats in congress...by emulating Trump's trampling the truth and any glimmer of reason and common sense. Between you and me Tom, why in hell did we elect this brutus ignoramus, and consummate liar, since we knew of his despicability 'for ever'?
4
Who ya gonna believe? Me or your lyin eyes?
- Liar-in-Chief
4
Millions of us no doubt have idly thought about it in the moment.
2
President Lincoln: “As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
The GOP (which has not been anything approaching a "Party of Lincoln" for eons) is on on the verge of making it unnecessary for anyone like Lincoln to move to Russia to take despotism in its pure form.
9
One point: during the Cold War, the US was restrained by the existence of the Soviet Union. The fact that there was an alternative political and economic system in conflict with the capitalism and (supposedly) democracy represented by the US meant that the US needed to be flexible in how it asserted its form of capitalism, especially with its allies. With the end of the CW, the US made the mistake of thinking that this meant its form of capitalism won. It removed the restraints on its economic ideology (something that had already been happening under Reagan) and, very quickly, the instability, inequality and corruption endemic to an unrestrained capitalism took hold. With Trump (and Bush before him) we are also being treated to a US that is an outright predatory state - one that is intent on using its dominance in the international system to bully and abuse all other states and force them to directly service American interests. Many Americans don't understand that the economic system their leaders created greatly benefited the US, but that domestic politics and ideology failed to spread those benefits to the population. Trump is following policies that will actually damage US economic interests over the long term and accelerate the loss of American standing and power in the world. This is actually a good thing - the US has proved that it cannot be trusted. It now needs to be contained. Regardless of what happens with the mid-terms, this is an irrevocable lesson.
1
Third Avenue, tops. I'm skeptical that he can count to five.
5
Trump is Trump but what is disheartening is the amount of Americans who have no problems with his racism and misogyny Trump has promised to protect White Priviledge and what ever else he does is matterless.Millions of Americans could careless if he said the N word or what part of a womans anatomy he likes to grab.Trump supporters are counting on him to turn the brown horde back and could care less if he is scoundrel.
5
You forgot to mention that KellyAnne and Sarah will assert that the man Trump shot was an illegal alien Mexican rapist. The President was acting to protect Americans and secure our borders. And it was the greatest shot ever -- right through the heart on the first try.
3
As fine a column as you ever wrote.
6
If the man he murdered was of color or a Muslim the Republicans in congress would turn a blind eye and his base would be demanding a celebratory parade.
It is up to the rest of us to push back and push hard. Vote in November, stop the orange crush.
8
If Trump succeeds in pardoning Manafort for tax evasion, evading tax, conveniently leaving a few things out, and failure to file will go mainstream, starting with overseas americans who have never understood why they are filing US tax returns and filing (and paying) where they live outside the country. This is where it starts.
Shame on Congress for allowing Corporations to benefit from Residence Based Taxation, but not
People. Most americans resident abroad are wasting hours of productive time dealing with the 1040, FATCA, etc...while paying high taxes abroad on much easier to file forms. We hate it and we will vote you out...all of you.
1
There are those signs, t-shirts etc., with "I'd rather be Russian than a Democrat." There you go. The premise isn't as far-fetched as reasonable beings might think. These are not reasonable days.
Vote!
7
Friedman speaks disparagingly about Christian values. Something wrong with Christian value? Tell us, Sir, what is wrong. Are you anti-Christian?
1
@Bob Baskerville
Do the evangelists really have christian values? They read a different book than I do. Mine has what christ says, theirs seems to be all old testament, all fire and brimstone, all hate and violence for others who don't believe as they do.
When I talk to them they quote old, I quote new, they come back with old.
I heard one of them a few days ago say that in the ten commandments that gays were condemned. I am still trying to figure out where in the ten commandments there is any mention of gays.
Adultery, yes. But it is ok with them for trump. All those laws in the old testament they quote speak often against adultery, yet they don't say a thing about it.
Ye shall know them by their actions. And they are not christians and that is what Tom was referring to. They support a lying adulterer, a cheat, a bigot and hater. All of which christ was against. Yet they are unwavering in their support.
They are a lot like the 'christians' I grew up with. They only claim to be christians.
@Bob Baskerville - Well, Bob, by hatefully condeming Mexico and Mexicans in the worst possible light, Trump self-admitted to being anti-Catholic... so where does that leave him?
1
I agree with Cody McCall. This horror show has been building for decades -- from the very beginning of the nation itself to be blunt.
As far as Trump goes...ask the disingenuous who support him why they like him and they'll say he improved the economy.
That's like asking a German grandmother why she supported Adolf Hitler, despite knowing who he was and what he did, and the answer, which quickly became a time-worn joke, is always the same: He made the trains run on time.
Trump can and will get away with anything.
Only concerned voters will be able to undo some of the damage.
But, once Pandora's box is fully opened as it is right now, what happens to the millions of rabid Trump supporters after he's gone??
6
Look, I gave no love for Trump, but this unhinged drivel contributes nothing to our national discourse. "Russification"? Excuse me, but no. You are missing the point, Mr. Friedman.
1
I'll sometimes hear a friend or acquaintance equate the NYT with Fox, that is, allege that one is just as corrupt and biased as the other. I hold my tongue. Why engage? It is certainly an untrue charge. But, then NYT opens itself up to this criticism with critical stories/columns about Trump that no one has to write, that have no import. These are not the NYT's specialty. Why do a story last week offering the opinion that Trump talks like a mobster? Why this headline here?
2
@Stacey W This is an opinion piece, clearly labeled, not objective journalism. So of course it is biased. The problem comes when a report is opinion disguised as journalism. Aside from that it is impossible to be 100% bias free.
5
What would happen is Donal Trump would be tried and prosecuted under New York law, which he has no immunity from. Good try though.
1
Would shooting someone on Fifth Avenue delay President Trump’s trip to Stockholm to accept the Nobel Peace Prize?
2
Shoot someone on Fifth Ave. ??
Well, he has and is,, His Trump Charitable Foundation spent as though it were a personal piggy bank,, paintings, lawyers, payoffs to sex partners,, But as he been prosecuted for this? Not a peep. Multiple infidelities?, three that we know for certain,,, again silence. Lies? He has told so many whoppers,, Burger King is running out of buns. He has given aid and encouragement to our enemies and insulted our closest allies,, without censure.
And,, he then makes a plea to churches and religious organization to back him from the pulpit.
He could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot Jimmy Carter,,, and I doubt that the current American Justice System or the Christian (?) church organizations would act at all. They have not so far,, why would they begin?
5
Hey, shooting another human being worked well for Dick Cheney, except for the Fifth Avenue part.
3
Shooting someone on Fifth Avenue by Trump seems like the lesser of Trump's crimes!!
2
What if a Nobel Peace Prize winning President bombed seven majority-Muslim countries at a rate of one bomb every twenty minutes?
He'd get endorsed by the Times and re-elected.
1
What can you possibly be talking about? Certainly not historical facts. Either Obama’s was a secret Muslim, or he bombed 7 Muslim countries? What he is accused of makes my head spin.
1
@joymars
I hope your head stops spinning long enough to read the facts:
"The U.S. dropped an average of 72 bombs every day — the equivalent of three an hour — in 2016, according to an analysis of American strikes around the world.
The report from the Council of Foreign Relations comes as Barack Obama finishes up his presidency — one that began with promises to withdraw from international conflicts.
According to the New York City-based think tank, 26,171 bombs were dropped on Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan during the year."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-bombed-iraq-syria-pakistan-afghan...
Why is it that Friedman is so concerned that no one will restrain Trump from doing exactly what he said he was going to do? I know Friedman and the rest of the Liberal, Socialist and Windbag class are used to politician Presidents , particularly Republicans who claim they're going to reduce the size scope and power of government and then do no such thing and Democrats who swear they're going to give you all kinds of free stuff and it won't cost a penny which is a lie. I guess Friedman and the rest of his elitist, pompous, know it all windbag buddies can't handle someone who does what he says he's going to do. Poltical liars are far more your cup of tea aren't they Tommy. I prefer ones who lie about hookers.
2
@Mike
Hmmm, Trump promised health care for everyone, a free border wall, drain the swamp, bring jobs home, and to hire all the best people. Any of that happening? Trump was elected partly because he promised a bunch of "free stuff". I guess he meant free stuff for his corrupt cronies? Good thing he's such a good con man - better a con man than a socialist in your book.
9
I find it so interesting that the Times asks that comments maintain “civility” when putting forward comments about articles published, especially when dealing with and about Donald Trump.
We have an uncivilized, uncouth, repugnant, repulsive and dishonest President that bombards the country, on a daily basis, with his bombastic ignorance and lies and insane diatribes.
But again, please be civil when dealing with this morally corrupt and unhinged cretin.
Sometimes, it’s better to fight fire with fire. Perhaps the Times should climb down from its lofty perch, and get real, as the saying goes.
5
@Doremus Jessup
AS I mentioned elsewhere in this commentary ,would it not be swell if our 2 Democrat Senators from NY in Washington D.C got real ,why the pussyfooting wimp act from Schumer & Gillibrand about this fibbing President ?
@Doremus Jessup
Yes, I'd like to see the Times solicit personal essays from New Yorkers who had personal run-ins with Trump. It's too bad the rest of the nation failed to understand there was a good reason why Trump never held office in his home state, was never hailed as a NY native-son candidate and was hated as if he was an illegal Mexican immigrant!
Assuming the country survives Trump's presidency, how do we prevent another evil, corrupt and stupid clown from getting elected to the White House?
4
@Martin Easy, run good candidates who aren't corrupt (Clinton) or socialists (Sanders/Warren).
1
Trump could shoot the Pope on 5th Avenue and have sex with Putin, or vice versa and his base would applaud. That is how deranged they are.
10
Advice: if you want to flip Republican voters, don't start out by calling them stupid
@Mike Livingston
There is no flipping them, it is the sane people we try to reach.
The complicit Republicans always followed their most important "Amerika ueber Alles" mantra, namely lowering taxes for their super-rich cronies and to appoint arch - right judges to the Supreme Court.
Welcome to the wedding between an Ex-KGB communist and a fascist one one these shores. What can possibly go wrong?
3
He is too much of a coward to shoot anyone.
All talk, no walk.
6
What if Obama really did spy on his political opponents, direct the IRS to audit opposition groups, blatantly lie knowingly about Obamacare, pay a huge ransom to Iran, trade international radical Islamic extremist terrorists for Beau Berghdal--a traitor, and was at a party "off line" when Benghazi burned. What if...
2
Evidence, please.
2
@JDL
Yet none of that happened. But what trump is doing is happening.
All I have left to say is Mr. Friedman as usual nailed it. I have actually mused to myself how the idiots on the right would handle such an occurrence. My first thought was the man would be blamed for not getting out of the way of the bullets. After all; just because Trump pulled the trigger does not mean he would necessarily be to blame; the bullets were. Of course it would all be some sort of Deep State conspiracy to make poor Donald look bad before the elections. Then there would be a massive smear campaign on whoever the poor sap was; and how shooting a nobody is after all not that big a deal really. Then there would be some right to defend defense like the moron who shot a kid in Florida because he was black and in the wrong place at the wrong time. After all that it would be so politicized the Trump base would say of course Trump should have shot him; he deserved it. Kind of make you wonder what king of Twilight Zone society America is these days Mr. Friedman?! Thank God I live in Canada.
5
What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?
The answer to your question Mr. Friedman, Donald J. trump is a coward, he will never do that , rather hide his ample body below the limousine.
3
It’s almost as if Trump could sexually assault women by kissing them and grabbing their genitals and the Republicans would disparage the traitors who didn’t come to his support.
7
I enjoy arguing as much as anyone, but this is so stupid, there’s no point.
1
Unbelievable. The imagery you have created has already done the damage. Stick to opinion, and not fiction. You show your true self in your laughable entry, and the Times shows its true colors in their editorial (or lack of it) decisions.
1
Thomas L. Friedman is proving up to be excellent fiction writer. Either that or having a breakdown...
1
I wanna have a gig like Friedman , being a partisan hack and getting paid very well by doing the same thing over and over again. I will let you in on a secret , it's people like Friedman who put Trump into office , it's their condescending style and their smug and opinionated drivel that drives me and millions of others to vote for somebody who makes your head explode , you think DNC , you donate to DNC , you vote DNC and you hate and despise Trump ; because of that I will vote for him every day and Sunday twice.
1
Why do you think it will be different this time ? Sides are entrenched and true believers are staying true.
The divide in this country has yet to be addressed. Issues of race, pay inequities, general fear , anger, frustration , and more anger have not be faced.
the4 drum beat of 24/7 news cycles, the immediacy of the internet with its viral nature to spread information at a rate no one can absorb , and the fact that many people are just not very well educated or well read and the judgments they make are just wrong on the facts.
The Russians are not the threat.
Pogo...we have met the enemy and it is us.
5
The GOP will not lose the US House. They have Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers, and countless Republican leaders who contributed to project REDMAP. This was a secret project to use sophisticated software to allow the politicians to pick their voters. It was funded by the Koch Brothers; run by Chris Jankowski (SC), Bob La Brant (MI), Tom Reynolds (NY), Rick Heffley (FL) and others. They claim that REDMAP will allow them to survive a blue wave. After watching what happened in Ohio's 12th district I believe them.
Without the House, there's no impeachment. Without impeachment, Trump will become America's Hitler. Those of us who aren't with him will become targets. We must fight to save our democracy even if means civil war.
4
Well put, mostly!!
My one complaint: “the elevation of... Christian... values.” Neither Trump not Putin has anything to do with “Christian values.” An unnecessary slight; I suggest you explore what true “Christian values” are. They really have nothing to do with positions promoted by some right wing extremists.
2
No doubt Friedman is one of those on the far left that believes
in the demonizing of those horrible white, Christians as well as those who actually still believe in the greatness of the United States...dare I say it, nationalism.
Clearly he's in full agreement that 17 year old white college students must be taught that, even if they don't know it, they are racists by default and privileged no matter what their background, possibly poor, coming from a single family home or even abused.
Thank God for Trump, the line between white, Christian, America loving citizens and the far, far left who actually refer to themselves as progressive.
1
There is nothing remotely funny abut this, and i believe Mr.Friedman and Mr. Krugman are spot on. Look at the evidence. It is happening in slow motion and we're busy so we don't see or feel it.....we will, but it will be too late. Trow da bum's out in Nov. People power. Vote! Vote! Vote!, like everyone's you love lives depended on it because it does.
7
Bill Maher has suggested that the slogan best capturing the Trump-supporter-mindset is: “Better Red than well-read.”
6
Trump shoot somebody? He would miss. Instead he would have his chauffeur do the shooting in private life, a secret service agent today. I would have serious doubts that Trump could hit the broad side of a barn at 5 paces, as my old mountaineer Dad would say. He is not John McCain, or even John Wayne for that matter.
2
Melania was spotted wearing a jacket which read, "I really don't care. Do you?
1
Trump voters will say Trump felt his life was in danger and took action like they expected of him and that's why they voted for him. When you have committed yourself to support a well documented professional fraud and liar, nothing is going to stop you.
2
Trump acts like he is already Putin. He is pushing USA to be like Russia.
It's actually hard to imagine Donald Trump shooting anybody. He'd have someone else do it. When I think of how he might kill somebody, I imagine something more like a hit and run.
3
Moments after Trump shoots someone on Fifth Avenue, the NYPD would immediately surround and disarm him and his secret service entourage. He would be arrested and jailed, pending arraignment for pre-meditated homicide (communicated via a 2016 campaign speech). Scores of witnesses would come forth. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers would surround the jail to ensure justice would be done.
4
Mr.Friedman don't give President Pariah any ideas. He had a week that made him "nuts" according to some staff and will be boiling over with injured feelings because of all the attention being paid to a real American hro all this week. I fully expect him to demand airtime from the networks this Saturday for an that will cut into coverage of the Washington memorial service for Senator Mc Cain. President Pariah will sit behind his desk in Oval Office and announce that he has received a new set of golf clubs that will reduce his handicap "bigly." And the Trumpkins will swoon-and the GOP will do nothing.
1
Here is a suggestion for the paper of record and the Washington Post, stop covering anything this meglomaniac does, says or tweets that isn't an official White House statement or official governmentt action . The press and media are giving this crazy man a platform.
6
This is funny but misses the point. Trump's base doesn't love him despite his misdeeds. They love him because of them.He does everything your mother told you not to do (lie, steal, bully, make racist comments) and he gets away with it! This gives permission to do the same.You no longer have to be ashamed of your bad impulses. You can glory in them.
6
Tom, well, as you know, America needs folk heroes and real ones like Senator McCain are too virtuous so they don't motivate the masses. McCain, after half a decade of captivity and torture said no, that he wouldn't leave until the last man was freed. Trump is more the American-style male hero: more like a rapist than a lover, a gangster than savior, a deadbeat dad than an employer who pays his bills, a Quisling than a Churchill. And America loves those qualities, especially the dumb jocks who don't have to be smart, just cute. I share your sense of horror. I'm glad I'm not a columnist, for this is a very bad time. You offer so much, and the ones who should be reading it, well, they probably can't even sound of the harder words. Please don't quit. I love your stuff.
4
well actually trump would not shoot anyone it would be his bodyguards who did it i.e secret service agents..
If he did shoot someone, it would be Obama's fault for not passing gun. control.
2
I'm saving this article for historical purposes. When people want to know when the NY Times jumped the shark, this will serve as the defining moment.
What a biased, irresponsible and shameless opinion.
After reading yesterday's article about what the media could do better, I was hopeful that the Times would lead the way to restoring the media's credibility.
Then I read this and I am convinced that all hope was misguided.
1
The 5th avenue quote is telling because it is the media itself that makes it all possible for the man. The media has been consistently suckered in to hyping the man they hate.
Without the media he would just be playing golf relatively harmlessly at some tacky club with his name on it..
4
"What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?"
He'd get away with it by blaming Ted Cruz's father.
5
If he can shoot someone dead and not lose support with his high kicking, lock step base, his tax returns that he won't share with us must be really bad...
1
Congressional Republicans provide never ending lip service to Trump
And if it came about, don't bother 'Googling' the 5th Ave. shooting because Sergei Brin and Larry Page have created an anti-Trump algorithm which skews the results towards unfavorable. But Google is not alone in returning negative Internet searches on the big orange fella - so too do Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com, AOL.com, Baidu, Wolframalpha, DuckDuckGo, Crunchbase, Blekko, Buzzsumo and a slew of others... So, the answer of course is a 'Good News For Trump' driven search engine - which only accentuates the positive and works at lightning speed - mainly because there is so little for it to do.
3
Tom, you and your colleagues as well as the paper you write for need to be far less biased in covering this president. Even op-Ed’s need to be balanced with points of view from both side of the political spectrum. You owe that to your readers, especially the ones that pay for a subscription.
If Trump shot someone on Fifth Ave., Alan Dershowitz would say that no law was broken because the president and commander in chief has absolute power.
5
If only it could be that simple for you Dems, that Trump would shoot someone and be impeached. Instead he is doing exactly what he was elected for and improving the lives of Americans everywhere. If Obama hasd done half as much in 8 years as Trump has done in two, then you would not have lost 2016. Elections have consequences, as Obama said, so get over it.
@Paul Garber
Actually Obama did far more and he started with a terrible position. Trump started with the good economy that Obama gave him, low unemployment, rising stock market, etc, all done by Obama that trump inherited.
Just like Trump's claim that he made himself rich (he inherited the wealth from his father), his claim about the economy being his doing is just as false.
1
Donald Trump is not going to shoot anyone. He hasn't committed any crimes, either. At least there is no evidence of that. After a lot of looking.
If you are worried about Russia, think about this. Christopher Steele was an experienced spy, and still has contacts with Russians in high places. The FBI did, and still does (apparently), consider him a credible source. And yet what seems to be a Russian disinformation campaign fooled him completely.
In the summer and fall of 2016 Christopher Steele took around DC some reports he had compiled that told a tale of almost unbelievable intrigue. Russia had compromising material on Donald Trump that showed him cavorting with prostitutes in Moscow. Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager, was working with Russians to win the election, using Carter Page and Michael Cohen as go-betweens. And so on.
We now know that all that was literally unbelievable. It was completely false. Somebody made it up. But who? Had to be the Russians. And not just one of them. Several would have to tell consistent tales to fool Christopher Steele. And to fool the FBI and the Justice Department and four FISA judges.
So the Russian goal of disrupting our democracy has succeeded beyond belief. The president is under investigation indefinitely. Columnists like Tom Friedman find fodder for foolish fiction like this column. Important issues see only neglect.
Vladimir Putin must smile when he thinks about it.
1
@John Smithson
Lot of guilty people for nothing there. Usually when there is nothing there, you don't find liars and criminals. Yet here we have many liars and criminals.
I do agree that Putin is smiling, electing trump was the best thing he has done to destroy the US.
he has not shot someone, he has shot the whole nation through with deceit, cowardice, criminality, immorality, indecency, shame, and anti-american lack of values. he has ripped off the mask of the GOP and showed their complicity and cowardice with regard to all of the above, which means, the anti-Americanism of the GOP. And, he has made it clear that 60 million Americans WANTED him to do just that, so they are also complicit in the destruction of my nation. All of them are disgusting, and my deepest wish is that he, his enablers, and gangland style cronies go to prison after being publicly shamed. Why do I wish that? Because I am a true patriot.
McCain was a hero, but the reason he is being made the heo of heroes is because the president is the man he clearly loves being: a garbage heap.
5
Friedman could pinch hit for Borowitz or the Onion, and Tom Toles could pinch-hit as a columnist. Trump has been truly inspiring to talents like theirs.
trump and guns don't kill people; only decomocrats and undocumented, hard-working and honest immigrants kill people. (Note: Lower caps intended on his name; it's the least I can do--not give him proper noun status.)
4
If he shot a Democrat, a lot of people would cheer.
And I'm not even joking.
2
@Henry Miller
I guess you do not realize it is legal to be a Democrat and Trump walked into the Presidency on luck because many Democrats did not vote ,disliking Hillary ,and wishing for Sen. Bernie Sanders as the Masthead for the Democrats as Presidential candidate .
Trump fake newsing it when sworn in promised to be a President for all American's ,but failed on that promise "bigly" time and caters only to his followers in those staged rallies that support his ego .
Can't wait till 2020 elections when Democrats as with Obama will sweep this country with victories.
1
Love the humor, but in this day and age, humor can became reality real fast.
Just to add:
An NRA spokesperson would have stated that "a good guy with a gun shot a bad guy."
Gov. Rick Scott, would have echoed, that the President was "standing his ground."
3
Your suggestion that voting is the answer is rational and accurate. Your salacious headline is evocative of the the NYT's repetitive, disruptive and questionable rhetoric that serves to negate the message that you are trying to convey to the American public.
But, but...If the president does it,it's NOT illegal!
2
Dear Thomas,
I wouldn't worry about your difficulty in writing the first part of the article. You are a natural comedian. It's one of the funniest pieces you've ever written. Unfortunately, you and most of your readers probably believe that Trump could actually shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it. Sad. Very sad-- to live in such a fearful state.
1
@Mark
Dear Mark,
Have you noticed what Mr. Trump has done to date and gotten away with due to a republican majority that simply does not care what he does? You should. It's pretty sick and amazing at the same time.
8
Isn’t Article 25 exactly, precisely, what was anticipated to be needed right now? Was there ever a time in our history more deserving of that salvation, than now, having a traitor and foreign enemy in the White House?
3
Trump says he has a handgun permit, but his hands are too tiny to hold or shoot a firearm.
2
This kind of a parody . . . not a good move in Trump's age of fake news. We need to rise about Trumpian rhetoric and be the people we want to be. The New York Times. The New York Onion? And not funny nor informative at that. Bad move, Friedman and the Times. What we need is integrity and real news.
Ok, Tom. Now go out there and actively campaign for every Democratic candidate on any ticket you can find. Support even one Republican and your point is moot.
2
Gorbis sums up our past contrast to Russia. “ Strong unions, strong middle class, less inequality and an adequate social safety net. … we had to have rule of law.” And free media.
Today in Russia and US the oligarchs call the shots in govt. Fox News is GOP state media.
Ex Pres Jimmy Carter says big money in US politics “ violates the essence of what made America great...now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery needed to get elected to any office.”
Princeton’s Martin Gilens showed “only the desires of the richest are reflected in lawmaking….average citizens have near zero impact on policy.”
NYTimes 2 Aug 2015: “Small Pool of Rich Donors Dominates Election Giving.”
How do US and Russia each propagandizes to justify this? Our past history is totally different from Russia’s.
Ironic---we're proud that our American colonies overthrew monarchy/aristocratic rule. In 19th/20th C we got universal voting and became a world role model for democracy.
But in the 21st C, our corporate barons now dominate our 3 govt branches. Tsar Trump & courtiers rule for their enrichment and power. Our history has moved into a new phase---backwards.
They use the language of our founding fathers---Freedom, Liberty, Small Govt--- and private profit as the main protector of freedom. This downgrades elected govt working on behalf of the citizens who elect it, as an equal and opposite power against plutocracy.
The US must achieve independence from financial 'aristocracy'.
2
I call his supporters 5th Ave voters. Trump could shoot them and they would still vote for Trump.
8
Really he goes free !
Without question Tom Friedman's opening scenario is a real possibility under this criminal White House and GOP congress. Look how readily #45's base and the GOP back him after every new revelation of wrongdoing. We must vote the lives of ourselves, our children and grandchildren, because this hateful regime is trying to kill us all.
1
Looks like Mr. Friedman was channeling Russel Baker in this opening. Very enjoyable read, albeit depressing to think about.
2
Of course the worst thing of all would be that "Trump Shooting" would show up at the head of a Google search. Sad.
2
There's a cancer in the White House … again. The difference now is that this cancer has a cult following.
5
Every Republican Trump voter needs to write down what they are so angry about and what they think Trump is fixing? We need this documented to start shooting holes into their gripes because they are basically evil, uncaring, reckless, stupid and selfish people at their core. To them tax cuts for the rich and taking away dignity from the poor is more important. Watching that stupid man on TV everyday is a bullet through the soul. He is shooting us every day and still 46% or whatever think he is doing a great job. He hasn't done one thing for this country but expose it's dark side.
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T: "He's sleeping"
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Baby boomers, coming of age in their secure post war democracies, had serious difficulty conceiving how the Nazis were able to rise to power and bring such hell on earth to so many. Were the German people especially vulnerable, thanks to their love of order and regimentation, to the charms of madmen barking orders? Now Baby Boomers especially must be thinking again; silently rethinking their assumptions about the German people, and knowing without a doubt: there but for the grace of...
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Friedman continues to carry Putin's water. In any case if Trump shot someone in the street, my continued support would depend on who he shot...
What if Clinton won? Would the NY Times and all of the commentators in the space learn to relax? Trump is a blowhard and an attention seeker. Stop professing he is some kind of Putin -like figure. I think you all saw the Helsinki press conference... Trump was no match.
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@vector65
That is what scares us, trump is no match for anyone with a brain. He would sell the country out for a newspaper heading praising him.
interesting words on the license plate in trump photo. am i missing something?
After he shot someone on 5th Avenue, to please his base and tweak the rest of us, Trump was spotted wearing a t-shirt with the message, "I shot someone on 5th Avenue and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!"
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Really, can you dive anyy lower.
You've turned a few personality quirks into a vendetta. He is the President, he has many good ideas and significant managment instincts. You have no moral high ground.So why write as if you are the arbiter of all that is ethical.
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@Septickal
"significant managment instincts" but only for his benefit, not for the shareholders of the companies he created, then left in tatters.
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Could Putin shoot someone in Ivanovskaya Square and still be re “elected”? See where we’re headed?
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I can think of at least one good scenario for Trump shooting someone in the middle of 5th Avenue. If only he wasn’t such a narcissist... himself.
Sean Hannity, in his nightly Fox News Hannity Show broadcast after the Friedman column was published, lashed out at the Fake News New York Times, saying it got the story wrong: it wasn’t Trump who pulled the trigger of the gun that shot the man on Fifth Avenue, it was Pete Souza, Barrack Obama’s White House photographer. Hannity said Alex Jones on a radio podcast and Senators Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham vouching from the Senate floor got it right, that Souza did it, by hiding a gun in his camera. Jones, speaking from the notes obtained from the deep state mole, told Friedman to just shut up. Graham, when asked if the Russians had anything to do with the shooting, said Trump was a genius, the best President America has ever had, and that Mueller should be fired.
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Trump is America's nightmare...again and again and again...
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fear mongering at its finest
This goes right to the heart of the problem. Trump is a disaster, but the greater issue is the GOP and it's supporters. Unless the party feels some loss of power from the mid-term elections we will only see a continuation of all this, even after Trump leaves office.
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A more interesting question or perhaps of equal importance is what has Putin got on all the media pundits who are creating a discord and attempting a silent coup in the US. Just like Putin would have wanted. If they have travelled to Russia may be they were compromised too. In that case since they have created a aura of morality around them, they are more likely to betray the US than Trump who never ran on morality and is pushing America first policies. He may tell Putin if putin has something on him "Go ahead make my day"!
After Obama pulled the country out of the 2008 financial debacles and put the economy on strong footings, current years could have been the golden era for the US with the Goldilocks economy, low unemployment and high stock market. This could have been the most opportune time to tackle many vexing foreign policy and domestic issues urgently needing attention. Trump’s artificially created domestic and foreign crises have mired the US in internal fights while China is making strategic worldwide gains on the diplomatic and defense fronts; and Russia is gloating that it has set the fire in the US and now gleefully watching US bleed with self-inflicted wounds. Russia has turned the old dictum - if you cannot beat them join them –on its head. Since Russia cannot beat the US in defense and economic strength, it has sabotaged the US, with witting or unwitting help from Trump, to make it join it as a deflated world power. Trump, amply aided by the inaction of the Republican Party and its leadership, will go down in the history as making USA into a second rate country rather than making the most of the Goldilocks economy. Trump has done a more egregious act than shooting a man on the Fifth Avenue, he has mortally wounded the US institutions and democracy in the broad daylight.
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Friedman makes a good point -- but I have to say a few days ago -- I saw something similar on facebook -- and I think it was a satirical piece published by the Guardian -- can't remember for sure the source -- where they came up with something very close -- imagining how various news outlets such as Fox, Sarah Sanders etc -- would report on such an imagined shooting ---
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Best, most important column yet written by Thomas Friedman.
EVERYONE should read this.
Thank you Mr. Friedman.
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Trump shooting someone on Fifth Avenue would only cause the wounding or death of one person. What he is already doing is causing, and will continue to cause, the death of many.
The Trump administration has launched a multi-faceted attack on our Constitution and our values. What we mostly see is the attack that comes from the top down, assaulting the media, the environment, social programs, medical programs, workplace safety protections, financial regulation, and stacking the courts. What we don't pay enough attention to is the attack on education by Betsy DeVos.
"The base" do not see the destruction. "The base," like the Russians, also say "He's just like me." It's not surprising that most college-educated people did not vote for Trump. If DeVos succeeds in corroding the underpinnings of our public education system, the young people coming up will be more prepared to become part of "the base."
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The Russification of America could get much worse than what Mr. Friedman imagines. The media assault could include fawning opinion pieces on Putin and Russia. Americans could be subjected to ridiculous opinions about how we should "keep rootin’ for Putin." Gullible readers could believe those who write that Russia is nothing to worry about: "Is Vladimir Putin's Russia today a Jeffersonian democracy? Of course not. But it is a huge nation that was tilted in the wrong direction and is now tilted in the right direction. My definition of a country tilted in the right direction is a country where there is enough free market, enough rule of law, enough free press, speech and exchange of ideas that the true agent of change in history -- which is something that takes nine months and 21 years to develop, i.e. a generation -- can grow up, plan its future and realize its potential." The scary part is that these opinions are not made up. They demonstrate just how prescient Mr. Friedman is, especially when it comes to Russia.
Seems to me the focus of all of those who think Trump and the Republicans are behaving in an atrocious fashion, needs to be on getting out the vote. The focus shouldn't be on Trump's base and how dedicated they are. Rather, we need to zoom in on Michelle Obama's initiative, whenweallvote.org. 40%+ of Americans who could have voted in 2016, didn't participate.
Please, support this critical initiative. The former First Lady is right. Get out the vote!
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You are absolutely right, Mr. Friedman. Even though Trump idol Putin may not have pulled the triggers, his orders to kill those not in agreement with him continue. The Russians can not or will not revolt against this man, nor have or will the Republicans do so to Trump. We are all Russians now. Thanks, Donald, Mitch, Paul and white evangelicals.
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It’s already too late if you have to explain this to people. Just tell your children the realities of the world they are inheriting.
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This really is the most important election of my life (at 54). If dems are not able to wrest control of the house, the republicans will continue down this path to oligarchy, which, for whatever reason, seems to be just fine with a large swathe of republicans who would not be anywhere near the top of that oligarchy.
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