DJT is not a mythical unicorn. He’s an all to real (and revolting) demolition man, i.e., a professional destroyer. And his fanatical followers want to watch him literally tear down (and tear apart) America. Demolition makes space for new things. In this case, very bad things.
Vote on November 3, 2020 to send Trashy Trump to the junkyard of history.
38
Yes, they always knew. And more
"Trump is an idiot, but he gets the job done"
(Blue worker, I interviewed in Syracuse NY)
Alas, it was the educated who sent their jobs to Mexico. Labeled them deplorable, racists, xenophobes
Loved your book review in the NYT (4/11)
"HATE The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism in France " Excellent. Thank you
5
I wonder if the NYT will ever tell it's readers that the entire Russia hoax was to protect Hillary and Obama from their abject corruption. Some of us Deplorables who are widely read on political news knew this 2 years ago, we watched the innuendo and fake experts on cable TV. We read Wikileaks, we saw all the headfakes and never fell for them. So yes, why would this report change anything? Trump is a big fat liar, just like Hillary and just like Obama. You don't like us, you don't like the blue collar man nor do you like the self made new yorker. We don't care. We plan to win the next election too.
19
'Escape From Freedom' by Eric Fromm. The 1949 classic explains why so many people in this world love dictators - also anticipated the GOP love affair with their orange unicorn.
8
Get ready for four more years of sky-screaming. The majority of the US does NOT want socialism, and as long as the left keeps peddling that they'll keep losing. Grow up people. The government isn't supposed to be your momma.
11
Something out of Tacitus sticks in my mind.
He is talking about the Emperor Nero. A teenager when he took power.
He had low tastes. Dignified Senators stared aghast as he took to chariot racing and singing in public and other things. Worse things. Much worse.
But huge elements of the Roman populace (says Tacitus) pretended to be delighted.
Et forte laetabantur.
"And maybe they WERE delighted."
Hey! Check it out. For once--for ONCE!--we have an Emperor just like us. Crude. Given to sporadic fits of violence. Sexually omnivorous.
He's just like us!
We LOVE it!
I can never forget the few videos I've seen of Trump rallies. Where reporters have to be WARNED in advance--don't provoke the natives. Don't call attention to yourselves. Don't create "a disturbance."
Remember--he IS, after all, the PRESIDENT. Some sort of dignity or decorum is called for.
"I'd like to sock him in the FACE!" cried this soon-to-be-elected President at one such rally.
These rallies--these hate-fests!--have continued ever SINCE Mr. Trump moved into the White House.
"Deep calleth unto deep." They all understand each other. Perfectly. As who should say:
"Yeah. We knew from the get-go this guy was a crook--a narcissist--a scam artist.
"But he's OUR crook--OUR narcissist--OUR scam artist.
"Wanna MAKE something of it, Mr. Smarty-pants Cohen?"
Yes. We do. We do indeed.
Relying on OTHER Americans--BETTER Americans--
--than you guys.
21
The only difference between Trump and the people who hate him is that he’s authentically what he seems (tempermental, roguish, rash, combative). He’s competent (economy, combating ISIS, foreign policy and courts) and he’s trying to make things work. The Fake News / Resistance complex are making a lot of money living a lie while trying to suck power from the hands of the people into their own.
In the attacks, slanders and maneuvers against Donald Trump, the agents of the Deep State and their media sycophants have revealed themselves to be far worse than the humanly flawed president they continue to harass out blind hate.
10
I never appreciated how fragile a liberal democracy is---until the Trump presidency. I would have thought that any dangers to our democracy would be more subtle than the boldness of Trump. He is up front and personal about his disdain for the rule of law and the institutions designed to uphold the rule of law--He says this in tweets, at rally's, in interviews--I alone can fix this country and everyone else in DC get go to h--. And yet, except for Mueller, I see little stomach from any institution to confront this obvious threat to our democracy
23
Perhaps you are correct, Mr. Cohen. Perhaps the Mueller Report will not serve to alter the minds of the millions of Trump-enraptured people out in the great American heartland. That is, however, no reason for those of us who have not been mesmerized by Trump's scams and lies to shrug and not fight like hell to both remove him from office and/or to deny him a second term.
I've given up trying to reason with Trump supporters. They are free to believe in unicorns even as those unicorns turn and gore them repeatedly. But that does not mean that I have to believe in them, or pander to and soothe those who do.
15
How did we put this man in the Oval Office? We Democrats did our part by nominating a terrible candidate to oppose him
With Americans disgusted with a political and economic status quo leaving most of us further and further behind, Democrats nominated the ultimate status quo candidate.
Trump did the rest, lying about his real intentions (no surprise there) but at least acknowledging working class concerns.
Republicans nominated a man unfit for the presidency, to their everlasting shame. But Democrats screwed up too.
10
Right now I am dealing with a manic depressive addict/alcoholic in the family.
I wonder how many, like me, cringe at Donald Trump's acting out, mess, harm to others, and tantrums because they are familiar.
He has the relentless energy that is so familiar...able to deliver a crisis and drama day after day.
Lives are damaged and people are hurt.
Donald needed mental health treatment long ago.
44
The author asks, “How did we put this man into office?” The answer is simple. Many common people, obviously with much greater collective wisdom, evaluated which candidate could cure the sluggish over- regulated US economy; which candidate spoke honestly about the looming crisis created by seemingly compassionate, but ultimately impractical immigration laws (which have resulted in a humanitarian disaster); and which candidate would refuse to consider those judges who behind a barrier of lights and penumbras were busy rending useless the common sense wisdom of our great Constitution. Having completed this evaluation, they exercised their right to VOTE for him. The overwhelming evidence of broad based US prosperity shows these citizens were wise. Thank God that we have elections and we don’t appoint Presidents by consulting the NYT editorial board.
13
How did we elect Trump? By comparing him to Hillary! How do you see all Trump’s flaws and none of hers? Apparently you are willing to sacrifice your integrity to score cheap political points. Isn’t that your critique of Trump’s behavior as President? So why would we trust You more than him? Frankly, I am exhausted by all the phony outrage. Somehow, the Left seems to have abandoned its morals while it tries to influence our American values. Even if it was true that Trump was doing it as well, why is that okay for YOU?
8
So now that your little Collusion theater has failed and the legal community is laughing at your Obstruction narrative, all the Left can do is sit back and say, "tsk, tsk".
12
I read a lot of these comments about what the typical NYT reader think a "Trump Supporter" is. I see the bucket they love to put us in. As if they could stick us all in the same bucket and throw names at us and trash us daily. I support Trump. Do I like Trump as a person? No. The point is that I want someone who actually cares about this country, which I believe he does. He is not beholden to any of the US Elitists out there on both sides of the aisle. I love that.
You see if Obama, HRC, Bush, or whoever did anything wrong, their side would pull out all the stops to protect those folks, which they have. Since Trump is not beholden to all these elitists, he has no help. What you folks don't realize is that the Elitists on both sides of the aisle don't care one lick about you. They want you to hate me and people like me. That keeps the population distracted from the real problems. Illegal Immigration is a REAL problem. The Fed monetary shenanigans is a REAL problem. Our trade deficits are a REAL problem. I could go on and on about REAL problems. But the elitists want you focused on FAKE problems like Russia and a room full of internet Facebook advertisers who somehow allowed Trump to win (which is a joke).
As long as we allow the elitists in this country to determine what we care about, you may as well be a puppet. You will listen to Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc and be told how to think. Not me. I am concerned with REAL issues, not Russian spies jumping out of cereal bowls
16
I like unicorns. And when Roger Cohen is not pushing for some war I like him also.
4
Readers ask “why?” Because Trump offered pride and hate to white men and women who felt they had lost their place in the hierarchy. Where once their value was automatic they now faced competition from uppity minorities, educated “elites” and independent women. Even immigrants voted to keep newer immigrants out of their small world. Just as depressed women once bought elixirs from traveling charlatans or salvation from evangelist con men Trump offered an antidote for their deep fear and anger. It hurts to be obsolete in a changing world and workplace. It hurts if your children are facing closed doors because of their bigotry or lack of education. Pride and hate has always been the fuel for wars. Trump offered them both in a tribal “ghost dance” where they would rule again even if there was nothing left.
11
A Google search says that the US meddled in 81 elections since 1946 and Russia in 36. Obviously no NYT writer or reader had any problem when Obama interfered in the Israeli election. I am still puzzled how Russia got the NYT reporter to vote for Trump , that must have been some magical Facebook post. Now we are hearing that Bill Barr is just a groupie for President Trump , unfortunately we do not learn why. I am a simple man and if there is no crime it's hard to obstruct justice in my opinion. I think the Theranos parable is more comparable to the Times than Trump.
9
I am a Trump supporter and I am going to attempt to answer this in 1500 characters as best I can, despite the tone of the piece and other commenters.
It is apropos that it mentions Jay Gatsby, as I have said for some time that Trump IS Jay Gatsby. The theme of that novel, for those who missed it, is that the old money elite will never accept Gatsby as one of their own, no matter how much money he makes or how many parties he throws, because he isn't one of THEM. This is Trump.
Now, if Trump had embraced globalism, and global warming, and every other farce that liberal elites put forward as a means to gain power and "fundamentally transform" America - he would have been accepted - but no.
Trump - whether you believe it or not, can accept it or not, or like it or not - has one goal, to make America work better for the American people. And he has already done that to a great degree.
Trump is braggadocios, hyperbolic, at times profane and not the standard definition of "presidential, I get that. But before the age of 24/7 access you had JFK with his daily affairs and LBJ cussing up a storm and slinging the N word around.
If the NYT would like to contact me, I can go on at length about the average American perspective, if you really want to understand us. That is, if you can hold off disparaging we savages in the hinterlands for long enough, which I doubt.
11
As much as the class and eloquence of Barack Obama is missed it can not be forgotten that his failure to hold Bush/Cheney to account for the war crime of Iraq and the failure to hold to account the bankers who raped the economy and reaped handsome rewards was a huge contributor to the despair and cynicism that fed the rise of Donal Trump.
18
Cohen asks the liberal's most pressing question, "The Trump supporters are not like us. What is wrong with them?"
12
Initially, few people understood that Elizabeth Holmes was plain lying as she sold the promising and revolutionary technology of her company. Biotech is a challenging and intimidating territory: one day, researchers tell us that we must consume loads of vitamin”D”, a few days later another study contradicts it. On the other hand, Bernie Madoff was selling “too-good-to-be-true” returns to savvy investors. They didn’t care how he got such high returns.
Which brings us to Trump. His decades-long sordid reputation in NYC was an open secret. None of those who chose to associate with him were either naive, inexperienced or choir boys. Michael Cohen, for one, would disabuse of this notion. The Mueller Report lists those convicted and those serving time. All corrupt before joining the Trump team. The unicorn thesis is misleading and inappropriate for this column
46
I've been answering the question on how Trump ended up in the Oval Office for more than two years now. In 1992, the American voters gave the compromised candidate, Bill Clinton, a pass on the very things they had NOT given Gary Hart. That sea change in attitude about who might be fit for the highest office in the land put Bill and Hillary in the White House and FOREVER lowered the standard of who could reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Roger Cohen is applying some moralistic purity test about 25 years too late. Had he, and the august NY Times taken on the execrable Clintons in 1992 and called them for what they were, you would not have a President Trump right now. Instead of cherry-picking who can have character flaws based on party affiliation is something in which Roger, and the rest of the sycophantic media, should not be, but are, engaged. An objective look at the Clintons, particularly after the cratering of a similarly flawed man only four years before, would have prevented the average American from accepting subpar candidates, such as Bush Jr., the inexperienced Barack Obama, the feckless John McCain and his Democratic clones, Kerry and Gore. And the moderate but spineless Mitt Romney. Mr. Cohen seems to approach this issue with a clean slate starting in 2016 when all he need do is rewind the clock a quarter century to get the answers to all his questions.
34
Extraordinarily correct. We are all to blame for Trump. From bad, overpaid managers who so enrage and depress their employees that the think, “Trump would fire this guy”, and vote for him, to legitimately scornful conservatives reacting to the smugness of the left (and I am very liberal), and then, of course, the ugliest of our ugly selves—racists, gun nuts, Birchers, and the dazzlingly corrupt Republican politicians who milk them like cows. A witch’s brew of greed, indifference to civil behavior and infinite capability to hate “the other” has come to its boil, and Trump has loomed forth from the caldron.
78
I think the Mueller report WILL move the political needle.
.
in 2018, the endless drumbeat of the false charges helped Democrats. In 2012, the Supreme Court finding Obamacare constitutional helped Obama squeak to re-election.
.
there is a mushy middle out there, and I think the finding of NO COLLUSION WHATSOEVER, in fact a lot of signs of entrapment and whitewashing of Clinton's crimes, are very likely to swing momentum toward Trump and Republicans in 2020.
.
I don't know what advice to give to Democrats. I think Pelosi is on the right track - focus on dinner-table issues.
9
The length of time it took for Mr. Mueller to release his report reveals the basic dilemma for any lawyer who is confronted with the following proposition: "If you take longer to complete your file, you'll be able to charge more."
Mr. Mueller could have easily released an interim report on the Collusion aspect a long time ago. If he knew the answer a week, a month, a year ago - he should have immediately told the American people, given the divisive harm that was being done in the interim.
7
Trump supporters love the way their hero infuriates liberals. They call it Trump derangement syndrome. But you describe the real Trump derangement syndrome very well. It is a belief in unicorns.
The Mueller report spells out Trump's high crimes and misdemeanors in black and white, but for those who only see what they want to see, facts are meaningless. Trump supporters might not like to reason, but they sure can rationalize.
Looking at the faces of Trump supporters in the excellent photograph that accompanies your essay, all I can think of is the huge crowds of ordinary people cheering fascists in the 1930's.
21
Certainly even his supporters know that he bullies, lies and believes he has more privileges that most people.
Trump expressed his view before the election that much of the public would allow him to get away with unthinkable crimes. ["I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters," Trump said during the campaign.]
Thanks to Fox being a shameless propaganda network, Trump’s claim of immunity from consequences has so far been upheld.
It now is imperative that Republican leaders react as strongly as the intelligence community and the Democrats to the situation of Russian electronic warfare discussed in the Mueller report.
And likewise, Republicans need to get over their fear of a bully, and reassert their own role as an equal branch of government, creating a “check and balance” on the executive branch.
5
Hi Roger. I could have saved the readers a lot of trouble here, as well as you a lot of time, if you'd just asked me the question "How did we put this man in the Oval Office?". It's simple: Hillary. With such a corrupt, bankrupt, thoroughly mediocre alternative to Trump, many of us thought, really, we had no choice. As bad as some may think Trump is, he's INFINITELY preferable to Hillary.
Simple - glad I could help.
12
The Mueller report “will not move the needle” domestically but it will have a profound effect abroad. Governments (friends and foes) will study and analyze it carefully, parse and dissect it. They now have evidence that the American President is nothing but a paranoid and incompetent clown. They will find new ways to goad and manipulate him. The guard rails are gone, the adult care center has lost most of its caregivers. He is surrounded by sycophants, crazies and servile underlings. The president is weak, very weak. Adversaries will take advantage of him.
23
glenn Greenwald... paraphrasing, Trump was elected due to widespread
loathing of
politics and the media. And it’s gotten worse.
15
The truly awful hallucinogenic moment is this endless bad trip where as far as the eye can see there's a cult, hypnotized into believing we must do whatever Trump's base will support.
Not just Congress but everyone is tripping.
The sky will fall, the trees devour us, satan will come out of the wallpaper, the music from the amplifiers will turn into hungry twisting anacondas, your best friend will kill you, if you dare to make a stand against this group of banshees beyond the hill we call the Trump base.
Here's news from the community clinic:
If you quit listening to the wise columnists and talking heads who sell it, and if we stop our ears against the endless nightmare howls that we are defeated at precisely when we should seize the moment, when a critical time has materialized, the country could collectively get over this nasty batch of acid.
6
All the great statesmen and fiscal experts that have been leading this country since 1960 have had us in constant military conflict, 19 trillion dollars in debt (at the time of last election) and rigged the Democrat convention to nominate a horribly unpopular candidate. Many thought it was time to try Plan B. Before you start preaching about ethics remind us who kept electing Ted Kennedy, LBJ and Bill Clinton.
12
Better any Democrat than an anarchist, but better Trump than any Democrat, noe thst the Democratic Party is the party of Omar and AOC, the green New Deal and abolish ICE.
6
This man was put in office as a reaction by moral conservatives, in part, to Democratic polices that have led and are leading to the gender-bender public school curriculum. Obama's and Hillary's kids escaped this in a private school. No hate being promoted here of those who are not traditional. Just expression of what parents are saying all over the nation: Do not deconstruct our kids. It's our prerogative to rear them.
9
Massive fraud has marked the Trump presidency since 2015, when he and his wife walked down the stairs at Trump Tower to announce his run for the presidency. That he won in 2016 is the unicorn fantasy of all time brought to life. Who has ever seen a unicorn? No one. And so a self-invented orange man/unicorn was elected by his ignorant base, which will elect him again next year, if the unicorn isn't stopped from running. Or impeached.
We Americans are split between pro- and anti-trump people. After the 2 year investigation and just-released report by the Special Counsel, the appalling finding that the president is a common liar -- "Trump holds the law and truth in utter contempt" -- is the proof of the Mueller pudding. Trump's loyalists have already threatened Democratic members of Congress with death. Have Americans ever been so afraid of their president?
7
The world is currently in a morality vacuum.
We know things are upside down, but we don't have the will power to admit things are all out of kilter. We continue to ignore the situation and shy away from reality and the truth. Society does not go on forever in a veil of lies and deceptions. It has been proven time and again throughout history as we rise and fall. Truth always wins out but there will always be some, along with their followers that push the boundaries and cause devastation along the way. It's as simple as a math equation. There is only one answer to anything and everything. It's the correct answer and the correct answer is based on truth.
2
". . . the way he grasped how hyper-individualism, the money culture, simmering anger, and the collapse of the line between truth and falsehood could be channeled into a victorious presidential campaign."
Or perhaps he grasps that there is a significant portion of the American electorate that is just as amoral as he is. They don't care that he is a greedy, grasping con man because, given the opportunity, they'd do the same as he does. All that keeps them from committing crimes is their lack of the true psychopath's fearlessness.
12
How ironic that readers' comments are monitored for civility when discussing Trump, while he boldly displays moral flaws and ignorance that would shame most 5 year olds.
9
Oh cry those bitter tears, Christmas morning arrived and you didn't get what you wanted. Try this, get a candidate who can win, who isn't an objectionable human being (as Hillary was/is), re-learn how to legislate to do things that are good for Americans - and you might be able to win without wishing it to be so. So again I get it, it's all about Trump flaws and not at all about the failings of the Dems - oh, how convenient.
9
We have had two years of intense mainstream press speculation on the Mueller report. What have we learned from the report? That Trump is vulgar and venal? That he's crude and cruel? That he thinks only of himself? That he has no credibility as a protector of the constitution. That he's racist and misogynistic? This is not news. We've known that. That there was no collusion? Trump's world is so dysfunctional that it is likely incapable of the managing the potential complexities of collusion. What I have learned is that I am sick of reading about Trump. I am also learning that the Democratic Party leadership and current assortment of Democratic candidates vying to oppose Trump are uninspiring and unimaginative. It appears to me we will have to find a way to survive another four years of Trump.
8
Trump has proven the whole US political system a scam.
5
You just don't get it, and you probably never will. President Trump is our fighter, he is far from PC, doesn't cow.tow to the media or political elite, puts American interests first. We understand that the standards that the liberals and Dems attack him on are rarely applied to anyone in their own political sphere. You call his crass and brash, call for a "kinder gentler" Republican yet you savaged McCain and Romney when they ran. You call for abortion on demand at any time, guys participating in women's sports, open borders and so called sanctuary cities. you support a woman with unsubstantiated claims against our Supreme Court Nominee yet apply a different standard when it comes to Dem Candidates. You call for a dismantling of the Electoral College when it doesn't suit your goals, a packing of the Supreme Court when you can't win the Senate Majority, bestowing constitutional rights on illegals, drastically restricting the Second Amendment while allowing the 1st amendment to be ignored on college campuses dominated by liberal professors. And you wonder why we support President Trump?
13
I respect you and admire your work, Mr. Cohen, but please read "Take My Question Please!" by William Safire in the New York Times Magazine, July 26, 1998, pg. 10.
1
“How, in short, he could become the orange icon of the Age of the Unicorn.“
His achievement was Putin’s achievement.
Without the precision magnifying glass aimed at our fault lines, American society, warts and all, would not have elected or embraced Donald J. Trump.
5
Roger is right in saying that Trump supporters knew he was a scam artist (in New York they use the phrase blowhard). He, and many others in reply, can't understand how people can still support him. The reasons for this fall into 2 general categories. First, many object to the social agenda they believe was forced upon them: diversity, affirmative action, transgender bathrooms, black lives matter, illegal immigration. Second, they care not about the man but about what the man is doing: standing up for America, scrapping the Iran agreement, calling out Islamic extremism, supporting Israel, getting other countries to pay more for their participation in NATO, getting China to change its trade practices, meeting with North Korea, fighting illegal immigration, installing judges who in their mind will apply the Constitution rather than editing it, and most joyously, calling out the bias and hypocrisy of left leaning media. Further, even if the credit should go to Obama, under Trump's tenure the economy is booming for all: stocks are up, unemployment is at historic lows (including for so-called marginalized populations), businesses are very busy, and both inflation and interest rates remain low. For Trump supporters, having a bad man who agrees with them on social issues and accomplishes good things is much better than a good man who supports a progressive social agenda and accomplishes little.
8
"How did we put this man in the Oval Office?" Easy. Hillary did a terrible job of hiding her disdain of straight white men and they returned the favor. If she made even the slightest effort to appeal to them and not to blame them for every evil that afflicts our country - and world for that matter - she'd be President today.
7
"How did we put this man in the Oval Office?" I think that old movie about Elmer Gantry provides some answers. One could also ask how we put Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and Trump's other Congressional enablers in office? Or how anyone could have so little self-respect as to associate with or want to work for this presidential buffoon? I even wonder why Melania would want to stay in this accursed union?
4
Technically speaking, Trump supporters didn't allow Trump into the Oval Office so much as Democratic insiders who decided Clinton was the nominee no matter what. Honestly, Trump should have been incapable of winning the election even with illegal assistance. Unfortunately, he now has the advantage of incumbency so team Clinton only made the next candidate's job that much harder.
As for unicorns though, have you ever seen a narwhal's tusk? I can forgive premodern thinkers for believing in unicorns. The idea really isn't that outrageous once you see the physical tusk of a narwhal. If if you wanted to be honest about your discovery, how do you explain a rare ocean going mammal with a tusk to a group of people who have never even seen the ocean. Easier to just say it comes from a special type of horse.
Besides, symbolism is useful. Why else are we still using unicorns as a metaphor today? It's an easy way to convey a complex idea. Unicorns don't need to exist to be linguistically useful. Unicorns are actually easier than some words because you can make an actual visual association in your head. For contrast, try defining treppenwitz. Now try to picture treppenwitz in your head. I dare you.
1
I don’t think Trump voters accept or understand that Trump is a con man. Trump voters are Fox watchers. Even the brightest people I know that watch Fox parrot the same message and believe the following Republican mantras they have been told for years:
1. The wealthier I am (being the very rich) the better it is for you (being the much poorer).
2. Having a gun, or better yet many guns, will protect you from all the many, many bad guys out there - and they’re coming now and I kind of wish they would - I am ready to defend myself.
3. America for Americans. (This one is very timely)
4. Women must have every baby possible - wasting a fertilized human egg is murder.
5. Don’t care about the other person’s well-being (physical, health-wise, mental, economic, etc.), it doesn’t affect me and costs too much money.
6. Only white people are the real Americans - everyone else dishonest and stupid.
7. Jesus was white. And a Christian. Other religions are a sham. And within the Protestant realm, for each denomination that could include all others.
8. My “charity” is better than your equality.
9. Knowledge - meh. Education - only if it gets you a high-paying job.
The theme running through all of these beliefs, and probably lots more I haven’t thought of right now is “me.” Our society is an amazingly selfish, materialistic one. Trump is pretty much the most public icon of our corrupt, materialistic society. People like that, and believe in it.
11
Of course they knew. Trumps now famous and undeniably true "Fifth Avenue" aphorism was his modern distillation of the "Emperor's New Clothes".
And they convinced themselves that as president he'd be "their con artist", working on their behalf.
All those stiffs that he suckered at "Trump University" and his hotel contractors, well, they must have deserved it at some level.
And even better, he was a racist con artist who taunted every country on the globe and was going to build a wall to keep everybody out.
Looking back on that election, it really wasn't even a fair fight. When somebody can literally say anything and automatically have 40% of the people with them, it's going to be an uphill battle all the way.
6
OMG! Trump symbolizes this and reflects that about American political culture and culture generally? Give us a break. Get over yourself. Trump's reactions to being vilified, attacked and rabidly and maliciously torn apart using innuendo, unnamed sources and opinions cloaked as facts were if anything understated. He should have fired Mueller and Rosenstein and told the Justice Department to conduct an investigation of the FBI, Clapper, Comey, Clinton and the entire criminal gang associated with the truly corrupt Obama administration that attempted to silence political opponents using the IRS, had all the evidence of those crimes destroyed before our very eyes, and in the case of Benghazi, HRC's illegal private server, when additional evidence was destroyed, and other cases, lied, obfuscated, misled and generally acted in the same way expected of a criminal organization. Then he should have invited Congress to investigate him on Russian collusion all it wants and dare them to impeach him! This outrageous investigation has cost tens of millions, divided the nation and given Trump's political and media opponents the opportunity to accuse him maliciously, all on a totally false premise. Private citizens who committed no crimes were targeted, spied upon and ruined financially along with their reputations. Mueller knew by late 2017 that no collusion had ever occurred yet turned to investigate the idea that perhaps there was obstruction--of a crime he knew didn't happen! Disgusting!
6
Pretty easy to see why...Obama swung the country too far left and this was the result. Have to hope that someone with more centrist views emerges for the democrats and that person beats trump.
1
Obama was not a progressive he was a centrist
10
Thanks, Mr. Cohen, for your excellent method of connecting the trees of corruption to the forest of greed and hypocrisy that have been allowed to run rampant throughout our dystopian American
society. All of us, some much more culpable than others, bear the responsibility for their complacency and complicity in enabling the
treasonous behavior of our most formidable sworn enemies.
We are now no longer living in a true democracy. Better, yet obviously worse, to call it a true kakistocracy.
Vote.
4
History shows that people sometimes get tired of rules and responsibility. Cranks and soothsayers come along and allow decency to be shoved aside and a time of vulgarity and criminality takes hold. Ukraine is in such a space willing to put a TV comedian in the presidents chair. Brazil and Italy had colorful 'leaders' The US has had a good run and people are not at all pleased. Trump will be re-elected if the Democrats nominate a dull politician. The republic will survive.
1
Perhaps the mirror Trump holds up is to us, and tens of.millions of his supporters had every reason to know that he is a scam artist, but if so, why do so many of these same people hold themselves up as the defenders of "American" values and identity ?
3
Underlying much of the delusional fervor that brought Trump to the White House was the belief that Washington ("the swamp") was so dysfunctional and corrupt that only a wrecking ball could set things right. This, of course, is the same ends-before-means rationalization that elevated fascism and has empowered dictators down through the ages. Dysfunction and corruption have always been real enough in our politics. But to think that we have become so ungovernable that only a strongman like Trump can save us is a myth debunked by history, time and time again.
6
"Trump’s tens of millions of supporters know all this. They knew he was a scam artist before they voted for him in 2016."
Cohen is dehumanizing Trump supporters. They aren't a monolithic blob. Some knew he was a scam artist. Some thought he was just telling it like it is. Some voted for him because they figured he would appoint conservative Justices, and didn't care one way or the other about his personal qualities. No doubt there are plenty of other categories of Trump voters. They are human beings and stereotyping them is offensive. As Hillary Clinton found out.
7
This is no longer about our politics, this is about what kind of people we are. This the Trump voters share. You may put a name to it.
6
Trump won his election by about 70,000 votes - which means 30-40k votes another way would have flushed him. Is Donald Trump more popular today than he was on Election Day? Are his beautiful Bridges and Roads Infrastructure Plan or Healthcare for All winning any converts? Nope. The media needs to stop talking about Trump in such sweeping, breathy terms and focus on the truth. He is an embattled, wounded animal defended by a well funded, morally challenged cabal of Republican Senators. There aren’t going to be enough Trumpers to save him, man your station and report the truth. This column is no better than his inauguration numbers - “Based on what?” I say.
14
There is a difference between lying--denial of provable facts-and hyping--predictive blather about future, albeit completely improbable events. Trump is a master of both. But it is the blather than inspires most of his followers (the ones that aren't getting rich off his policies or who believe that beating back abortion rights and gun control are the keys to a brighter tomorrow). Key elements of blather: the wall will get rid of the Mexicans; we'll replace Obamacare with something far greater; we'll make America great again. You can't "prove" that the blather is a lie. This is the big distinction between Trump and Theranos, and it's critically important. We can only hope that some percentage of Trump voters (say 15%) will get the message that neither the blather nor the lies are acceptable in the person we choose to lead us starting in January 2021.
4
I am concerned that too many of us are still looking for "someone else" or for vague "Constitutional mechanisms" to save us.
It's easy (and not wrong) to blame dark money, Russian interference, GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression, and Clinton Campaign errors for Trump's "victory".
Likewise, it's easy to be grateful that things aren't even worse -- that we had "guardrails in place" to limit the depredations of the foul, corrupt, narcissistic demagogue who occupies the Oval Office.
But should the survival of American democracy and the rule of law really depend on the moment-by-moment decisions of Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein and Don McGahn?
If a vast majority of American citizens aren't motivated to march in protest against the criminals, to register and vote for sane, non-corrupt grownup leaders, then can we be saved? Would we even deserve to be saved? It's time to ACT.
5
Kudos to the NYT for running another photo of a crowd of Trump supporters gaga with ecstasy at being in his presence with this essay. Someday, if we survive, we'll look back at those photos and see what we see in the crowd close-ups in the Riefenstahl films of the 1930's.
11
Perhaps those that voted for Hillary in the primaries should spend some time reflecting on what they did. They selected someone even worse than Trump.
Combine that with identity politics, condescension, insults and derision from voters, media and candidates... and the end result is Trump.
5
The American capitalist system doesn't work for millions of people.
They don't understand why they're struggling and look for blame.
Trump gives them people and institutions to blame and his pledge to destroy the system.
Those followers relish Trump's lawlessness and mess....it feels like he is blowing things up for them.
6
As a student of Buddhism in my early years, I learned about impermanence....and emptiness. That everything fabricated is subject to unraveling, even stars and galaxies. And that nothing inherently exists independently, that everything is interconnected, what Zen master Thich Naht Hahn called interbeing.
Falsehood vaporizes, comes apart, what remains is only truth which itself is empty of existence.
This taught me to be optimistic, because truth persists survives endures, once falsehood falls away. We can only hope that Trump's followers will begin to see the falsehoods he spins for what they are, and begin to appreciate the efforts being made to reveal these falsehoods. Our kids need to learn these lessons, they cannot be taught that rich white people can never be caught or held accountable for their lies deceptions and cover ups.
5
As always, I look forward to your insights. I believe the core supporters of Trump are united by one thing, their overriding hatred and distrust of Liberals, embodied in Hillary, Pelosi and now some of the new members of Congress. They don’t see or hear anything else. What’s more disturbing are the traditional Republicans, who know he’s a corrupt sleeze, but support him anyway. Something about a tax cut.
5
The true Unicorn is a left that is self aware enough to realize its own failings and the role it has played in destroying the moral standards of the presidency themselves. I've said it once, and will say it again ---Trump is not sui generis. We should all get back to the business of identifying serious leaders with experience and then allowing our institutions to do what they do. Trump was elected constitutionally and no amount of rewriting the rules by the Left will change that. Shame on you all for trying it.
2
If the question begged of all America is how did we elect this man as president, the answer is breathtakingly simple: The choice was him or Hillary.
Hillary was so detested and so off - putting to the non-left elite that it allowed this buffoon to win the Presidency. She will be described as the most alienating candidate by history and the one person that couldn’t beat Trump.
This is harder for many to accept then to understand.
Sometimes the simple answer is the best one and and an over-analysis is not needed.
Please don’t comment if your point is she won the popular vote. That’s meaningless as we have an electoral college in place by design that all candidates know about before they orchestrate their campaign.
10
It’s difficult for me to accept “he still has America in his thrall”. We know there’s no there there. If one simply listens to the man’s attempt at speech, it cannot be denied that there’s a void in intellect. What’s left? Lies, fabrications, fantasies, the nuclear codes. This is not Theranos. We have much to fear, and each person who enables this insanity must be held to account.
4
"Leonardo da Vinci wrote that only “fair maidens” could appease the unicorn’s ferocity. The unicorn never existed. It was collective fantasy. That did not make belief in it less tenacious."
I never thought I'd see the day that a country as advanced as ours would become so divided on simple facts. Many have compared this president and his followers and sycophants to the Jim Jones cult, and how he managed to convince folks to drink poison in honor of his personality.
What the president has done is convince about 40% of the country that he speaks the truth and the non-FOX media are trafficking in conspiracies. In other words--even if what the leader says flies in the face of reality, his people deny said reality and say, yes, your crowd size was truly larger than Obama's.
This country has had its fair share of conspiracy leaders and cults, but never at the level of head of state.
What Trump is doing, with the aid of Bill Barr, is re-programming the hearts and minds of "his" 40% of the country.
It's no less frightening today than when he took office. Correction: it is more frightening, because the stakes are higher.
5
Mr Cohen is wrong when he says,”Trump’s tens of millions of supporters know all this. They knew he was a scam artist before they voted for him in 2016.” The real problem lies with the millions who repeatedly said that Trump was an honest man speaking his mind. A large portion of the electorate was unable or unwilling to recognize that a pathological liar was telling them what they wanted to hear in a tone they reveled in.
Somehow the same nation that once voted for feel good “Hope and change” became the land of “Lock her up”. Sadly there is one thing the Mueller report simply cannot do. That is tell us how to restore some basic levels of decency and integrity.
5
The other option was the one that pushed the whole Russian Collusion delusion onto the public.
We elected the better of the two candidates.
4
"If everyone lives roughly the same lies about the same thing there is no one to call them liars. They jointly establish their own sanity and themselves as normal."
-Ernest Becker, "The Denial of Death"
When he penned that observation of human behavior, in the early '70s, Becker perfectly anticipated the Trump Republican Party.
The lies go on.
6
Trump is only a symptom, not cause, of what we see in the mirror, the mirror of popular culture.
if we are not gloriously successful, cool and popular,it must be because of some malfeasance, oppression somewhere, even if we havent found or punished it yet.
yes, Theranos is an example, Elizabeth Holmes fooled people - smart people for longer than Trum has managed.
Although George Shultz is a poor example - he did not know that USSR was going to collapse, until after it actually did.
2
Did you?
He got more than the 270 electoral votes. And will get more next time.
Never in the history of the US has there been such an effort by the FBI to surveil a Presidential Candidate and remove a President from office. Now that the Russian collusion theory has failed miserably; Democrats have picked up a obstruction of justice movement. Would there have been obstruction of justice if there was no coup attempt. It Is like accusing a person for shooting and killing thieves who attacked him.
5
“Trump supporters always knew he was a scam artists “. Many did not . They believed his lies,admired his crudeness,and thought he could alone make things right . Hillary had issues. She was a woman, a Clinton and came across as an elitist. The republican hounding on Benghazi and email issues cost her votes. But for all her issues,the majority still voted for her. It was the minority that was conned by this “scam artist “and many still are. It is this minority that could put him back in office. If Democrats are to win the next election,they must forget the muller report and show this minority that the Democrats ideas are better than the opposition and also focus on the ineptitude of this current scam artist.
3
The number of phone solicitations I receive every day imply that a large proportion of the American public are scam artist themselves. So why should we be surprise that they don’t care that the president is scam artist too.
1
We did put him in office and thank God we did! We'll do it again in 2020, thank you.
4
I am not a Trump fan. However, we got Trump because the left tried to give us Hillary. The Clintons are corrupt if anyone is. We will continue to have Trump for four more years, because the left wants to give us more and more abortion, intersectionalism, and every other crazy idea out there, all well chiding us for not being smart enough or accepting enough. If that is not bad enough, the left tears down our religious beliefs and tells that we should not be accepted. Trump is no angel, but at least he doesn't spit in our faces and mock who we are.
5
This is a mock discussion, highlighted by the usual false equivalency. Trump supporters, if they have anything to say at all (note the eerie silence of Republican Senators and Representatives), regurgitate the talking points of Barr, Trump and Murdoch. They have not read the Report and have no interest in doing so. I hardly bother anymore. It is like talking to a wall.
3
Whether Elizabeth Holmes, Donald Trump and family, or so many of the other “Unicorns” currently roaming among us, one thing we can say about them is that they always seem to “magically” (if ever) avoid seeing the inside of a prison cell. Alas.
1
Mueller and his reports were also a unicorn.
It doesn't matter what it says, people already know what they believe about it.
3
At least here in flyover country, trump can do no wrong, never lies and it is all about the liburals and media attacks. They never believed for a minute he was a scam artist. With the report, you can show them chapter and verse and they immediately claim the report is all fake news. You can show them videotape of his contradictory statements and they believe both. You can't change that mindset and belief. All you do is pity them for their delusion.
5
This may explain Trump’s statement earlier this week when speaking of Barr that "he's been a fantastic attorney general, he's grabbed it by the horn.” My wife and I assumed that was just Trump’s mangled reference to wrangling a steer by grabbing it by the horns. Now we know it was a unicorn reference....how clever our President!
Mr Cohen and just about everyone else who examines the Trump "Unicorn" phenomenon is wrong when he asserts that Trump's supporters always knew he was a scammer. While I've gotten a few Trump supporters to acknowledge they'd like him to "get a grip" on his Tweeting, most of them see him as heroic.
All of them see Democrats, and the Clintons in particular, as vile abusers of the public trust.
The same goes for the Obamas. Michelle Obama is reviled for her perceived hatred of America based on a comment or two which hardly prove anything but her genuine desire to speak her truth.
No, Trump supporters, it seems, recognize something in the president that gives them reason to believe they're safe from the scourge of Democrats, for now at least.
They don't vote for Democrats and they won't vote for Democrats anytime soon.
4
How did we end up with Trump as President?
How did the political and cultural elite fail so badly that 63 million people in the right places voting for him knowing a great deal about his character and demeanor?
If you are looking for 'root causes', look in the mirror.
2
It was a binary choice for president, and for some of us it involved policies, not personality. Hopefully the Democrats will run a candidate in 2020 with a policy agenda that can win a national electoral college victory. Running as "not Trump" didn't work in 2016 and it won't work in 2020.
3
The day that the people in charge can wake up and admit we did not put this man in the Presidency is the day we can move the needle forward.
I can't understand why it's a bridge too far for someone...anyone in some legal position of authority to recognize this election was stolen.
When that day arrives we maybe on the way to fixing this mess. Until then, we are lost.
2
I sent the following email to my two United States senators:
"Robert Mueller's report clarifies that Russian agents worked to influence our last election through cyber-intrusions and selective hacking and release of the Democratic Party's private communications. It also reveals that close associates of President Trump had contact with Russian agents who were engaged in these activities, and that President Trump tried to obstruct the investigation into Russian interference on numerous occasions. Finally, Mr. Mueller asserts that current DOJ rules make it impossible to indict a sitting president, and that it is up to the legislative branch to assert its constitutional obligation to act as a check on an autocratic executive branch. William Clinton was impeached for lying about having extramarital sex. Senator Burr/Tillis, why isn't the legislature acting against an executive branch that attempted to obstruct an investigation into a hostile foreign power's efforts to corrupt our last presidential election?"
I urge all Americans, of either party, who care about keeping intact the separation of powers and American rule of law, to send a similar message to their congressional representatives.
3
Mr Cohen aptly describes our current situation. I believe Trump supporters fall into a few groups ie those propagandized into actually believing much of his rhetoric, those who recognize his deception and support his agenda to "drain the swamp", those who will vote Republican regardless of the consequences, those who believe he is sent from God and those who simply believe in using pure political power to advance their agenda.These groups are aided by the what is left of the Republican party, right-wing media and the evangelical community.The rest of us remain appalled at how far our country has fallen . I still have difficulty comprehending this phenomenon.
2
Mr. Cohen's notion of the unicorn and anecdote about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos are not much of an explanation for the question he posed: "How did we put this man in the Oval Office?"
Better to lay blame at the feet of people who worship democracy, handing the Republican nomination over to uninformed primary voters, and small-minded pursuit of power, in which Democrats ran an insider who would have served their incumbent elite. Respect and service went by the boards.
2
How do we explain Trump's rise?
Not by any triumphs but by cascades of failure . The culmination of a long decline in democracy. The subjugation of all values to the dollar.
The trouble with Trump is that he is not a harbinger but a solid place holder in our fall. That the country chose someone so unfit to govern may reveal a country not fit to govern.
11
Just like the "memo" that came out years ago, everybody worried about what was going to be in the memo, when all that Trump needed was a memo. Trump would make it be whatever he wanted it to be, regardless of the contents.
Same thing with the Mueller report. The report is out and Trump is molding it to his purposes. The content merely describes the available paths to Trump's personal ends.
Trump supporters love it. They knew he was right when he said he could shoot someone on Times Square and not lose a vote. In this they are getting to see how it's done. "In thrall" seems a mild way of putting it. "Messiah" might be closer.
3
Excellent portrayal of American twenty first century culture - hyper- individualism, fake news, only money focused searching for Unicorns. The main question is how we reached this point. The answer is - elite liberal culture systematically destroyed through post modernism thought culture the traditional values of life and this allowed the conservatives create their own world of fake news, fantasy of right to life, trading the boundary of falsehood, and the old tribalism. How we bring the normalcy in this culture - return to roots. Community, humanity, churches and temples and honesty in life to bring back the family culture. The current trend in the social media does not give a positive sense that we are going on that direction - we may slowly evolve in to a new kind of species that is more an animal and less a human.
3
Please don’t insult animals. They are not avaricious, only humans are.
3
Actually, I do think there was a reason why Trump was elected, or at least one of the biggest reasons, and the failure to confront this by Mr. Cohen and New York Times writers, as well as Democratic politicians, is a reason that Mr. Trump may win again. That reason is out of control immigration. An excellent column about this was that of David Frum, which appeared recently in the Atlantic Monhly, and then in the Times. There are a great number of Americans, and I am one, who strongly oppose large scale immigration, on several grounds, but principally environmntal. While many of these potential voters may be racist, there ar many who are not, but who are concerned with the economics of many unskilled workers arriving, the effect on the wages of low income American workers, the problems with health systems and schools, and on and on. There is also the moral issue of our displacing other species by population growth and development. I would never support Mr. Trump, but I will also not vote for any Democratic candidate who does not oppose large scale immigration, both legal and illegal.
5
@Wan
It's also because his supporters know they need someone who will stand up to the despicable, immoral and rabidly partisan people on the other side who will do and say anything to destroy their opponents. Yes, we very much appreciate his ability to target these bullies and cut them down to size. They, not him, are beyond redemption.
2
"How did we put this man in the Oval Office?"
Well, the short answer is, there was no better choice.
I think most people who voted for Trump will say that if 2 people had stood for similar principles and similar policy goals - but one was Trump and the other someone known for honesty, integrity, and patriotism - they would have voted for the other.
But the Republican party was incapable of delivering someone like that, and the Republican voting base was fed up with elitists in the party leadership now indistinguishable from Democrats - particularly in regard to statism and corporatism.
So the voting base tossed out the elitists, and gave the nod to Trump, who was willing to take a bulldozer to the DC political apparatus, which it needs.
A second element- probably the most important - was having Hillary Clinton as an opponent, a moderate compared to most Democrats but also a cold ruthless progressive leftist with a nasty streak, complete contempt for the citizenry at large, and a personal life that had always balanced on the razor's edge between innocence and imprisonment - a fact ignored by those carping about Trump's business practices. Or have you all forgot how many of her Whitewater associates went to prison, already....
Having her stand up and inform 50% of the population that they were deplorable, was both, in character, and perfect. She owns personal responsibility for the us-vs-them we have today. Sanders and the rest are a joke.
That's how we put him in.
14
@Objectivist
Precisely. But for me, a reluctant supporter, the behavior of Democrats and their supporters since the election has given me additional reasons to support him. The anti-Semetic, oh so PC Democrat party that wants to destroy the pillars of American democracy along with the Trump administration, is too dangerous and needs someone like Trump to confront them without fear and attack them relentlessly. They are ruthless and amoral, as the Kavanaugh hearings revealed, and at the moment only a president like him is capable of standing up to such a sleazy crowd of angry and bitter partisans.
3
The one thing this column gets wrong is saying that Trump knew how to run a victorious presidential campaign. Sure, he knew how to tap into the anger and resentment of his supporters and con them into thinking he was a successful businessman, and he did indeed win. But he didn’t want to win and didn’t think he would. He just didn’t want to be embarrassed. He was just as surprised by his win as the rest of us.
4
@ Mike: correct, his campaign was a PR gig to further his brand. We know that his victory was accidental and he was devastated (and scared). Instead of making a billion he now had to work for half a million a year.
5
I agree that those who work with Trump know that he lies, cheats and can't be trusted. But I think it may be a fantasy of the left that his core supporters know this. William Saletan makes a strong argument in his article "Trump’s Followers Believe His Lies About the Wall" that Trump's supporters do not believe he lies. I think it is important for the left to understand that Trump supporters have been convinced by decades of Fox News and right wing propaganda that the mainstream press are the ones who lie. So now they now turn to Trump to hear what the real truth is. There is something very seductive in the feeling that you are getting the inside story that others are not privy to. It allows people who otherwise have little power or influence to feel that they are better than those poor smucks who are taken in by the lies of the elites and mainstream media.
167
@dj sims
No, supporters of Trump see how maligned, illogical and rabid his detractors are and how on the most important issues and political promises he has kept his word. They understand that his lashing out about an investigation based on a phony allegation created by a document paid for and disseminated by the HRC campaign and the DNC and pushed along by corrupt officials and senior members of the Obama administration, was a pperfectly normal human response to being falsely and unfairly attacked.
9
@dj sims
It's not disbelief, it's that, so long as Trump opposes the urban Left, we'll tolerate just about anything from him. The wall we really want is one that contains urban-Leftism in the cities and keeps it from further infecting the rest of the country.
7
@dj sims We know all about Trump. He is like a cross between Clint Eastwood and 007. The nice quiet townsfolk are minding their own business farming and mining for gold and the bad guys ride into town shooting people and burn down the church. The people have to hire a mean ugly gunslinger to take care of business and Clint Eastwood rides in to do the dirty work. They know he isn't a church-goin' upstanding citizen. The UK is a civilized society that doesn't believe in murder, yet, they have to license a killer to stand up to the barbaric threats to the nation. Trump is our champion and he is doing good work on behalf of the little guy who has been taking a lot of abuse lately.
7
How does someone like Trump gather so much power while bringing nothing of substance to the table. The comparison with Theranos is apt and provides insight. Both Trump and Holmes promised to be disrupters. In the latter case, technically ignorant wealthy white men were seduced by Holmes charm and youthful looks. Holmes was temporarily able to control her circumstance by controlling information. However, the truth was eventually revealed, her supporters eventually acknowledged their humiliation, and she awaits trial.
The significant difference between Trump and Holmes is Trump’s actions are public which turns his supporters into accomplices.
Mueller, the purveyor of truth, has now released his findings. We will learn soon enough if America has a conscience. In the meantime, formerly reputable people continue to sacrifice themselves for someone who brings nothing to the table.
95
@RonR
Nothing of substance to the table.
1) A roaring economy while the world's economy has slowed.
2) Low Unemployment
3) End of ISIS and ending of wars
5
@RonR What he brings to the table is access to power, control over others.
5
@RonR, trump did not do it on his own. He had plenty of enablers.
5
How do people become so sure of what others are thinking? Many times I read here what his supporters are thinking? How do you accomplish this magical understanding? I want that power.
10
A fabulous piece, Mr. Cohen. But I object to your claim that unicorns do not exist. We unicorns, who live in the clouds, are a sorely threatened species due to the ever diminishing supply of maidens. Seriously, you are a fine writer. Thanks.
7
"The Mueller report won’t move the political needle. Trump supporters always knew he was a scam artist."
And in far too many cases, they not only embraced him for it, but cheered him on. That is why I am skeptical of those who assert the 2020 ballot box will be the real comeuppance for Trump. It certainly was not in 2016.
22
Roger Cohen's opinion piece is an example of accurately seeing the facts and then putting forward the wrong question and thus avoiding to really face these facts.
Roger Cohen correctly states that 'Trump's tens of millions of supporters (...) knew he was a scam artist before they voted for him in 2016'. His question is: 'How did we put this man in the Oval Office?' When you really face these facts, the question is not 'how' but why these tens of millions have voted for Trump, knowing he is a scam artist.
An answer too? It's already there when Trump did indeed once say that his voters are exactly like him, only that they are poor, For tens of millions - women and men - Trump is a like minded person, a guy like themselves or a guy like the guys they have to deal with themselves. All this means there is no easy fix. In order for the Trump phenomenon to get 'fixed', for tens of millions it must dawn that they themselves should and can better their way of doing and treating other people.
18
Trump is the sort of person no wise person has anything to do with.
4
@Joost Beversluis -- "When you really face these facts"
There are more facts to face.
We were told for over a year that the election was going to be Bush III vs Clinton II. They each raised over $100 million before anyone else got going.
People rebelled, especially Republicans against Bush. He never got anywhere. But then who did they have to choose? Little Marco Rubio, who had to have a donor bail out his personal credit card?
Then the Republican race came down to Satan vs Trump. The last man standing against Trump was Ted Cruz. He's a Senator, and the whole Senate was said to hate him. That was the opposition.
Then it was Trump vs Hillary. She asked the key question herself, "Why is this close?" Why wasn't she "50 points ahead?"
There are a lot of answers to that question. It isn't all Putin. And all of them are also, "you really face these facts."
1
Roger Cohen has one of the finest minds for analyzing and articulating the meaning of our cultural and political moment. He and Frank Rich are exquisitely gifted observers. But even these gifted two have yet to find and reveal the SOURCE for Trump’s rise and the support they receive from 40%. I view the source as a generalized evil - but that doesn’t really descibe and pinpoint it’s roots. Is it fear? Cynicism? Hatred? Selfishness? Anarchy? I want to know and understand.
41
@Dissatisfied It is the feeling of losing one’s place in the hierarchy. White men are no longer potential heroes, minorities can rise above them and women can earn more and leave them. Their education is insufficient for the new workplace where physical strength does not confer dominance. They are seen as crude. They are left out of globalization and can be proud only in rural areas or small towns that their children leave. Just as depressed women once bought exlixers from traveling grifters and salvation from revival con men they hide their fear by hating. Trump sold them pride and hate, the elixir that starts wars.
12
@Dissatisfied It is most definitely fear.
2
@Dissatisfied
Propaganda works quickly when fully embraced by the most powerful and wealthy human beings on the planet. When metastasized with a Republican Senate, the propaganda feeds the cynics of American promise. Trump's white hatred is very profitable and cancerous. The Democratic Party's tepid responses and polite patience are no cure. We would rather devour our own and watch the patient die.
4
A Canadian psychotherapist notes that a person is "all things" at once: kind and cruel, loving and hating, sophisticated and naive, intelligent and dumb, principled and primitive. Still, there's a basic decency and humanity, which this president lacks. I believe many of us are secretly afraid that the "dark side" will win again, in the way a child feels a bully has ultimate power. That fear will break only when a Democrat wins the presidency in 2020.
21
The “ say anything” fool has tremendous power in this unicorn park. The appeal is freedom. In this case freedom to look down on others and indulge in a reverie of revenge.
The Second World War was likely conceived in a similar atmosphere.
21
@RjW
The diminishing supply of maidens is Trump’s fault, too.
The only way for the US to recover and start healing itself is for the voters to turn this administration out. After all, ignorance, fear, hatred and, above all, apathy is what brought us to this. This corrupt, mendacious conman is where he is because enough people, fully aware of his unfitness, voted for him anyway or stayed home.
Ordinary people voted him in, ordinary people should vote him out. It's our job, not Congress'.
6
@Bruce Gunia -- "The only way for the US to recover and start healing itself is for the voters to turn this administration out."
Great. But what choice will they be given?
Will it be a choice of status quo ante, everything was great until Trump came along?
If that is the choice, Trump could win again.
It could still be a lot better than that, but it is not at all clear that it will be.
7
@Mark Thomason Trump could, and probably will, win again in 2020. He is backed by some of the wealthiest men in the world. They control everything. American voters don't have a chance because too many sit at home on election days.
5
@Mark Thomason
I'm not exactly enamored of the candidates myself but at least the Democrats are offering solutions and not just pandering to hate and fear. And in any case, a random name from the Pittsburgh phone book would be better than the current occupant. If he's re-elected, well, who was it said people get the government they deserve.
And I'll take the status quo over burning down the whole house. But I'm afraid I don't have much confidence in the average voter.
There are many iterations of The King's New Clothes laced through today's headlines. Recalling the images set forth in the little fairy tale I read as a child, the misrepresentation seemed so obvious.
But, in fact, not so. Magical thinking is alive and well, never handles deception well and is vertically integrated through financial strata.
Look around us and celebrate the stupidity that brought us here.
5
This isn't intended as a criticism of Mr. Cohen's excellent column, but I do wish that he --or one of the many other writers who cites Trump's reference to Roy Cohn -- would include a sentence or two about Trump's eventual heartlessness toward Cohn. Cohn's loyalty to Trump was total and unwavering, but Trump dropped Cohn completely when he learned that Cohn was dying of AIDS. It was as though Cohn had never existed. I find that very relevant -- and ironic -- in the current context of Trump's demand for unswerving obedience from his staff and appointees.
85
At the risk of sounding too sanguine, I suggest that Roger Cohen and others are wrong in the belief that the Mueller report will not “move the political needle” against Donald Trump.
While it is true that Trump’s followers have always known that he is a “scam artist,” the Mueller report shows by chapter and verse that Donald Trump is far more malevolent and mentally disturbed than a run-of-the-mill grifter.
For the political base convinced that Donald Trump told lies on their behalf to shake a Washington elite which needed shaking, some are beginning to see that they have been fooled by their hero. A person who has been fooled feels foolish, and no one likes that feeling.
For the Republican cognoscenti, convinced that they were using Trump’s fake populism to advance their own selfish agenda, some are seeing that the Trump operation is too ugly and dirty. They fear it will fall, and they are suddenly scared.
The political needle is moving, and the movement will accelerate.
12
We can find a little hope in the thought that America -- not even at its worst, but in its feckless meanderings between worst and best -- has always been pretty much this way.
4
“They (Trump supporters) knew he was a scam artist before they voted for him in 2016.”
No, Mr. Cohen, I don’t think they did or do. They love him.
“One of the reasons the report is devastating is that its portrait of an iniquitous presidency once again begs a question of all Americans: How did we put this man in the Oval Office?”
Gerrymandering: the corrupt practice of manipulating local districts.
Voter suppression: the corrupt practice of denying people of color the right to vote.
Roger Cohen, a simple explanation is corruption. The Republican Party is thoroughly corrupt. From GOP leadership like Trump and McConnell, to local Party hacks, to the average, backwoods Southerner, corruption has invaded every nook and corner of the Party. For Republicans, corruption is simply a way of doing business, an accepted way of living - an extension of capitalism.
And what’s worse is that nobody cares about corruption except Democrats and it’s corrosive effect on society.
America has turned a corner. Never to return.
40
@PC Gerrymandering has nothing to do with electoral politics. Nor the composition of the U.S. Senate. Agreed it's a horrible practice that the feckless Supreme Court will likely rubber-stamp, but it only explains so much, not all.
1
@PC
Enough with the voter suppression ploy, America elected a bi-racial president twice before this election.
It was an ABH - Anybody But Hillary - situation for enough voters that allowed Trump to win.
A last minute Comey declaration was the final nail in her political coffin (thankfully).
Call it what is was.
1
The truth about the unicorn is that eventually truth will out, and the reality of our presidential unicorn will be disclosed, although many myths will continue, such as the belief that mangoes can "cause malaria" (only bites by the Anopheles mosquito are known to "cause malaria".)
3
The Mueller report lays out a roadmap for indicting Trump until the summer of 2022 for his corrupt conduct through the summer of 2017. Statute of limitations are five years for the corrupt conduct specified in the report.
Knowing as much should be great motivation for every American to vote in favor of the rule of law in the November 2020 elections thus allowing indictments against Donald Trump to start being written on Jan 21st, 2021.
The irony of that possibility is Donald Trump said he was going to tell the DOJ to seek indictments against Hillary Clinton. What may actually occur is that American voters will tell the DOJ to indict Trump.
7
The astonishing feature of the Trump phenomenon centers on the man's ability to recreate himself in full view of the American electorate. A onetime supporter of abortion rights, he has transformed himself into the darling of right-to-life voters. Contemptuous of religion for the first 70 years of his life, Trump has managed to convince many evangelicals that God picked him to "save" America. A man whose business career depended on foreign financing and labor, he has now emerged as a champion of American workers and production facilities.
The transparently bogus nature of this metamorphosis has not surprised Trump's critics or troubled his hardcore supporters. The latter, I suspect, care little about the real man behind the orange facade. So long as he appoints the right judges, pretends to espouse Christian values, and promises to restore well-paying industrial jobs to this country, they will follow him down any rabbit hole, oblivious to the threat he poses to American ideals and institutions.
Thus Mr. Cohen correctly argues that the Mueller report will change few minds. For the majority of voters, who loathe Trump, the revelations merely confirm their worst fears. In the judgment of the true believers, Mueller's findings do not offset the president's success in creating a more conservative judiciary and crafting a xenophobic America-first foreign policy.
To win in 2020, the Dems must expose the sham behind the promises.
22
Cohen is right about many of Trump's supporters knowing he is a scam artist. I would still hope that many more of his voters would change their mind about their support after learning the extent of the scamming, and I believe enough in democracy to let the chips fall where they may in the 2020 election rather than in Impeachment proceedings. Warren and hopefully several other Senators and Representatives are shocked enough to push for Impeachment. Their arguments will serve to educate the public during the upcoming campaign, but in the end the people should decide. Now only about a half of eligible voters actually go to the polls. If we bumped that up to 60% we would already have a government more responsive to the needs of the majority than we do now.
4
Trump never tries to solve problems. That's hard work. He plays golf instead. And he tells stories. Democrats should forage the enemy for tactics.
Trump ran on shoring up Social Security and Medicare, repealing and replacing the ACA with something much better and cheaper, and building a wall and making Mexico pay for it. He has done none of these things. His only “accomplishments” are tax cuts for the wealthy and not being indicted (so far). He did not run on these issues.
Democrats constantly worry about purity tests. Why do they agonize about these, terrified of the slightest appearance of impropriety? Republicans tend to vote as a unit, while Democrats are like herding cats. Democratic candidates cannot even consistently count on their own voting base!
Democrats can campaign on Medicare for all. Then they can work to shore up the ACA. They can campaign on the Green New Deal. Then they can make reasonable efforts to address climate change. They should tell *good stories* during the campaign. Then they should do the best they can *after* they are elected.
We have Trump and the extremely wealthy, instilling fear, persuading us to fight among ourselves, turning us against our own best interests, tricking us into looking the other way while they take away what little we have left.
There are powerful forces operating against the greater good. Democrats need to invest in solidarity. We need unity. We need to take our country back from those who would take it for themselves.
58
Americans enjoyed The Sopranos. Now they enjoy The Trumps.
The lesson here is that many Americans don’t seriously believe that voting makes a difference. Look at the voter turnout in all possible elections, not just the “majors”. Most Americans do not vote.
We would not have had Trump without the Trump Voter. However, the Trump Voter only has influence because most Americans can’t be bothered to show up at the polls.
55
@Andrew M. You are so right. The count by eligible voters in 2016 was:
Clinton 29%
Trump 28%
3rd Party candidates ~3%
Didn't Vote 40%
The electoral college has something to do with the pathetic turnout, but that shouldn't apply in swing states.
Apathy can be as dangerous as misguided enthusiasm.
7
I think it's mostly a case of TMI. We all have a constant stream of information coming on those things we call smart phones demanding our attention constantly. Texts from family, co-workers, Facebook, Twitter, news feeds, etc. Very few of us take the time anymore to sit down and really try to understand anything. We read People magazine, not Newsweek. We hang on news about Harry and Megan but not Brexit.
8
Mr Cohen says Trump supporters knew he was a scam artist before they voted for him. This hypothesis is open to question, to say the least of it.
Donald himself said in 1998 that if he were to run for president, he would do so as a Republican because "they’re the dumbest group of voters in the country".
His steadfast support from these voters in opinion polls, and the stranglehold they exert on Congressional Republicans, is a triumphant vindication of his cynical assessment of all of them.
37
@We'll always have Paris
According to Snopes, Pilitifact and Truthorfiction, Trump never did say that about Republicans. I do not support Trump, but let's stick to the truth.
3
Leonardo da Vinci said only a fair maiden could appease the unicorn's ferocity. I can think of one unicorn who is appeased by porn actresses and Playboy models, something else we knew about Trump before he was elected.
12
It is not “us,” thank you very much. Sixty-three million people voted against this degenerate.
88
@LMT More actually. Many more voted for others.
8
Although those who voted for others than Clinton were indirectly voting for Trump.
5
Ed Rendell, former two term Governor of Pennsylvania, said "in politics hate is a far stronger motivator than love." Kevin Phillips, a strategist and implementer of Nixon's 1968 Southern Strategy
said "the secret to politics is understanding who hates who."
Nixon played that game well. He knew he could make political hay be railing against the Faculty of Harvard and the New York Times.
Trump, probably with the help of some sophisticated help from the Russians, found the key to what white working class voters in the upper mid west literally couldn't stand. It turned out to be everything and anything about the Clintons.
Trump has demonstrated that if he is good enough at scratching his supporters "hate itch" they actually enjoy the fact that he's a stone cold liar. The only things Trump's people won't accept from their hero is thinking, reading or admitting a mistake.
74
My brother voted for Donald Trump in 2016. He knew that Trump was a lying, thieving, carnival-barking con-man with numerous bankruptcies to his name. My brother also knew that Trump was the epitome of a self-dealing scammer whose only care in the world was about himself. He voted for him anyway.
Why then did he vote for this person? He wanted somebody to "clean house with a blow torch," so to speak. It is true that the state of our republic warrants a house cleaning, perhaps an artful renovation - something in my humble opinion that should not necessitate the use of a blow torch.
Indeed what these voters got instead was a serial arsonist, who is interested in burning down the house rather than cleaning it. I really think that's what they were hoping for all along - a reckless vandal, a blow torch wielding arsonist, a nihilist - not someone who would just "clean house."
The country does indeed need a house cleaning, not a burn down. Sane voters can start the cleaning by tossing this man and all his trash out of the White House in 2020.
219
@Tom
Thank you Tom.You write about your bother and his like much more vividly than Maureen Dowd does about her brother. You have highlighted some Trump's base better than the reporters and pundits have. The fire throwers' level of anger is so deep and destructive no wonder they are so hard to reach. It will take years of great leadership and meaningful help for those feeling so disenfranchised to put their blow torches away. We need to work together in order to get there.
66
@Tom This is exactly what I have concluded about the hard-core and I fear there is no way to reach them. On the other hand I know many Trump voters who have woken up. My gut told me Hillary Clinton would lose after the release of her emails. My gut tells me now that the tide has turned against the malignancy in the White House. I hope my gut is right.
15
@Tom
My brother also voted for Trump, and his stated reason is because he believed he would "help the military." I've never pressed him on that because I like having family. I'm ashamed to say he also thought Trump was great on 'The Apprentice.' His financial failures are overblown--after all, the guy still flies around in his own jet plane.
It wasn't just him, most of my family voted for Trump. Ostensibly, it was because they wanted 'law enforcement.' Crime in Chicago, Mexicans crossing the border, Muslims coming in droves--bad. All bad. All totally out of control. The female members of my family are distressed at treatment of families at the border, so they're not so keen on Trump anymore, but the men are still all 'law enforcement.'
None of them ever talk about 'cleaning house with a blow torch.' I think that's because they're not Fox News watchers. The extreme 'blow the whole thing up' ideology comes directly from the right wingnuts who hate the government.
Your brother is just lost--I think he'll vote for Trump again because, as you say, he knew all along that he's a grifter and liar. My family? That's harder to gauge--they sold themselves a bill of goods, and I'm hoping they've realized their mistake.
My point is that there were two types of Trump voters--the ones who deliberately voted for the con-man (lots of rich people in that category,) and the ones who deluded themselves. It's the delusional ones that will determine the outcome next time.
16
Unfortunately, I don’t view Mr. Trump as a person harnessing gluttony, deception and unbridled narcissism. He is the product, not the producer.
What else did one imagine would happen in the Age of the Advertiser?
Trump is the natural result of our times. He is an angry Chauncey Gardener.
14
“There’s a sucker born every minute.”
8
@Zareen
I think P. T. Barnum would say now that there's an infinite number born every nanosecond.
12
The reason 45* "never had a lawyer who took notes,” is because they were taping him - at least in Michael Cohen's case.
And Cohen's "question of all Americans: How did we put this man in the Oval Office ?" deserves an answer. The answer being that a deeply corrupted GOP'er leadership did not exercise their duty of making sure an utterly unqualified, temperamentally unsuited, corrupt candidate did not make it through their primary process to possible nomination at their convention. The same corrupt cabal of GOP'ers who pretended Scalia's death did not create a SCOTUS vacancy that could be filled by a Dem POTUS in the last 11 months of his (2nd) 48 month term.
That corrupt GOP'er leadership is responsible for Rolling Trumpster Fire 45* ever getting anywhere near their ticket without being vetted through his tax returns.
So now, Dems have their Oaths to fulfill; they must decide if they will do nothing - being Complicit with all the GOP'ers - or will Dems see they are required to defend the Constitution, and play their role once the particulars of misconduct and malfeasance have been presented ?
These are heady issues, which boil down to 'do words mean anything at all ?'
We have the words of the Constitution, the words of our laws, the words of Congress's Oaths, the words of the Mueller Report - will any of the words mean anything, or will Dems join GOP'ers in being Complicit ?
20
@R. Law Agree, but add another reason his attorneys never took notes is that nothing Trump said was worth noting - and that hasn't actually changed. Note taking now is for one reason - cover your posterior!
"How did we put this man in the oval office?" Well, I didn't elect him, and neither did you, Roger. Red America put Trump in office, and blue America was helpless to stop him. We have 2 countries now, with no reconciliation in sight. It's no good trying to defeat him in 2020, because Trump has no intention of leaving the White House and going straight to jail. He knows he has a well armed militia--that far outnumbers our armed forces--that will do his bidding. We are headed for war. It's just so frustrating that Democrats don't see this coming.
14
We all believe in unicorns which is why we buy lottery tickets. Which is exactly why Trump will get re-elected. Hope he will not leave the country in same financial mess as Bush did. Because we believe in unicorns Bush has gained respect after a few months.
7
If anyone needs analysis it is not Trump. His malfeasance as a candidate and as president has been out in the open for everyone to see and document. There is no subterfuge to his lies, his hypocrisy, his threats, his lack of basic human decency. He mimicked a disabled NY Times reporter on stage. He threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans in front of cameras after they suffered the worst natural disaster in their history. He is who he always was, a charlatan without a conscience.
No, it is not Trump who needs analysis, though he must be removed from office. It is the American voter who can be so easily fooled by a wizard who does not even have to hide behind a curtain that needs correctives. It is the American voter who gets their news from social media that needs to change. It is the American voter who does not even know that Medicare is a Federal program that need re-education. It is the American voter who believes that a former Secretary of State and Senator should be "locked up" or that Mexico should pay for an American border wall, that needs help.
The disaster that is the Trump Presidency is 100% American made. Russia or any other foreign entity could never do what the American voter did to American democracy.
174
Trumps been getting away with his fraudulent activities for decades, but now as President he is being exposed to public scrutiny like never before. And the Mueller Report is devastating in its portrayal of his abhorrent behavior.
His behavior will continue unabated through next year, and America will likely say enough is enough. A new President will be elected and Trump will leave in disgrace.
But that's not the end, the Southern District of New York is waiting for him, and the arm of justice will grab hold of him.
20
The part I like here is the idea of Trump as a mirror. Before he won Trump was a joke - a comedic man-child who peaked in the 1980s with a life worthy of mediocre rap songs and gaudy pop culture cameos that were about excess and derision from those born into wealth with better self-esteem and those whose wealth was earned and maintained through skill and dedication. We ignored how dangerous he was because we never looked that closely at him or at the folks willing to believe him or at the people willing to use him for their ends.
9
The only inevitable way forward is to divide, formally. If the Party of Trump prefers Trump and the end of our institutions as a United States Government with a deliberate Congress and all the systems that have supported this deliberative body, then the national separation must begin. The Republicans are as out of control as this President. The worship of a vicious and inept leader is not keeping anyone safe. Each of the fifty states need to vote with a sweeping resolution to dissolve the national interest and bid adieu. It's time. If the Republican Party refuses to stop this unicorn, then they have no capacity to stop Russia or other tides of national despair. Red states' public educations and health care have been intentionally dissolving for decades. This has prepared their citizens to vote for corrosive Republican legislatures who voice contempt and hatred of the "other." The United States is not working. Russia knows how to exploit our national, political hatred expertly. Trump is their current prize. The rest of us are next. Destabilizing legal immigration is the next bot lands of Russian influence. Trump drinks their deadly immigration moves as a lumbering cow. The Russians know this President, and his Republicans will sit and do nothing as the blood begins to run deep in the streets of our border states. It's the new America, unless we divide, and are forced to be neighbors again.
12
@purpledot
So long as the Democrats promote AOC, Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff, et al as the defacto recognized voices of the party, the party is promoting failure. A complete lack of a vision of anything except hating the current administration is a non starter.
Get your collective act together or you will be crying foul for years to come.
No, in fact he doesn't have America in his thrall although he does have somewhere between 40 and 45% of the country lapping up his tweets (the rest of us collectively despise the man). As for WHY that large a percentage of our fellow citizens adore the man like the evil step-father they never had, I'm afraid that the usually incisive Mr. Cohen has employed too much verbiage pondering the situation. His base has been trained by the right-wing media, the people they've elected (who only a few years ago were trying to convince themselves that the GOP needed to appeal to Latinos!) and the CEOs who've purchased them for the sake of favorable rates of taxation to believe that it's those "other people" who have driven them to the brink of bankruptcy. And so the original birther won them over as soon as he blurted out the outrageous and obvious lie that all Mexican immigrants ("except maybe for a few good ones") were rapists and murderers. In short, he demonstrated then and since that he hates all of the same people they do- Latinos, blacks, Muslims, immigrants, gays, Jews, transgendered individuals, working women. Sure, why blame the actual elites- those of inherited wealth who somehow manage to contribute less money to the tax base than their own secretaries do and who decline to pay reasonable salaries (let alone profit-sharing) to the staff members who largely create that wealth- when there are all those foreigners around earning next to nothing?
comment submitted 4/18 10:52 PM
26
You can't account for Trump's popularity without mentioning that he legitimizes racism, sexism and religious bigotry. Without those he could have held his rallies in his living room.
109
I don't really buy the Holmes analogy. The only plausible explanation for her fraud is that she believed her engineers would have enough time and, after financings, money to actually develop droplet-only blood tests. After all, if centuries of our ancestry can be tracked from a smear of our saliva, why should routine blood tests require ampules of serum? That would make her a calculating gambler.
Trump is just different. He's a genius-level manipulator and con man, but concomitantly sociopathic and probably worse.
The Kissingers of the world couldn't resist Holmes, and the abandoned losers of Appalachia and the rust belt can't resist Trump. Trump is far more dangerous and despicable, but the susceptibility of his supporters is way more poignant.
20
"The only plausible explanation for her fraud..."
A far more plausible explanation for the fraud is that she wanted to get rich and famous.
8
@michael
A 'calculating gambler' with other people's money when those other people based their investment on a pack of complete and utter lies is called fraud. Everybody knows that, including Elizabeth Holmes.
Please don't give this woman any benefit of the doubt. At least the Lyfts and Ubers of the world are honest--hey, we're losing money hand over fist, but next year will be different! At least investors know what the deal is going in--if you think the strategy has merit, go for it.
You want to take calculated risks? You do it with your own money, or you get investors to believe in the 'vision.' You don't lie.
3
Should we still have reasonable doubts about Trump's integrity and fitness for office?
Most readers of the NYT are beyond those reasonable doubts but it appears that Trump still has a strong core of supporters who seem to have abdicated any critical thinking. Their blind faith in Trump is reinforced by the constant propaganda from Fox News and some Machiavelli in the GOP.
This to me is mass delusion and proof, if there was a need of it, that gullibility is still one of the main driving forces in human societies. Trump might be known one day as one of the great prophets of our time, obviously a fake prophet, but a prophet nonetheless. Because Trumpism is not a political movement, it is a new faith (new, even so it uses tools as old as humanity itself). But faiths do unravel or wear off too. In case of Trumpism, it couldn't be soon enough.
72
@Fly on the wall Trump knows exactly what he's doing. His crassness isn't surprising, isn't accidental, it's intentional, it's carefully calculated & by his standards it's working quite well. It plays perfectly to his base & they love it, so he'll keep doing it as much as possible. From a strategic & tactical standpoint, it's brilliant. It's always open season on liberals & progressives. There's absolutely no downside to attacking, shaming, & irritating them with relentless abandon. The mainstream press can rage & shout about the Mueller report until there's ice on the equator. It won't change the mind of one person who voted for him. The more you complain the more he will rub it in your face. Isn't that obvious? What progressives & their co-dependents will never be able to see is that Trump supporters revel in the non-stop drama, are galvanized when he punches back. Far from being embarrassed by his antics, they're thrilled by it & in their heart of hearts can't get enough of it. He's their champion.
28
@Fly on the wall
What we need is a thorough investigation and prosecution of the players the created the Mueller Investigation. How shameful. We hear of people being falsely accused and harassed and going to jail for crimes that they did not commit. Some lucky ones have been released after 10 or 20 years. After enduring the violence and rapes in jail.
And this to a POTUS. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty. Even after the Mueller report is out, the Democrats just cant stop.
4
@Bill Brown
Yep. The consummation Devoutly to be wish'd is the annihilation of the "liberals & progressives." If Trump can achieve that, great!
2
Not a unicorn, in Trumps case. More of a chimera, a mythical creature, a hybrid of parts from different animals. And for his GOP, an illusion, a delusion, a phantom. At this late date, he still has true believers and Collaborators. Most of us knew what He was, is and will forever be: a lifelong Conman. Period.
19
Mr. Cohen, one critical reason Trump is President is the antiquated, distorting Electoral College. Again: Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million more actual votes of the citizens of the United States. Add to that the votes that foolishly went to the Libertarian candidate (about 4.5 million), Green Party spoiler Jill Stein (more than 1.4 million) and an independent candidate (over 700,000) and it’s clear most American voters were anything but dazzled by the White House huckster.
10
This is the Twilight Zone presidency.
McConnell and Putin are the wizards, and Trump is the pin ball, ricocheting and wrecking our country.
He will not be reined in, he must be voted out.
11
“Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.”
Does anybody think that William Barr would ever take notes while Trump was discussing his latest scheme?
Seems unlikely doesn't it? The President must be thrilled. Barr is smarter than Michael Cohen, less abrasive than Roy Cohn, but just as unethical of both of them.
Another "hallucinogenic moment" in this attack on America's system of government was watching Barr openly lie about what was in the Mueller report that he was about to release.
Barr, like Trump, knows that lying is no sin in today's GOP.
But to the question of "How did we put this man in the Oval Office?" I take issue with Mr. Cohen's answer that "To deflect responsibility is too easy".
It's easy because the answer obvious.
We have a anti-democracy con artist in the Oval Office because 63 million Americans failed a basic responsibility of citizenship and voted for a career white collar criminal.
"Frustrated and angry" is no more an excuse for that failure of voting despite what hand-wringing pundits say, than it is for Trump's multiple acts of obstruction of justice despite what William Barr says
Responsible adults do not believe in Unicorns. And they do not believe Trump. Or William Barr.
18
Perhaps Eric Swallwell put it best this evening when he said that he was less interested in harming Trump than in stopping Trump from continuing to harm America. Just the fact that Trump thinks that Roy Cohn, one of the scourges of, and vile stains on, public life and the legal profession was a “great lawyer” speaks volumes about the low standards he holds for both himself and the country over which he ostensibly presides. Of course, so does the revelation in Mueller’s report that Trump had the temerity to ask Rod Rosenstein to hold a press conference claiming that he, not Trump, had fired FBI Director James Comey. Just when you think he can’t stoop any lower....
189
@Steve Griffith harmong America with lower unemployment, higher wages and a growing economy?
1
If large numbers of Americans support a leader who they acknowledge to be a liar, deceiver, a person devoid of morality, and a person contemptuous of the law, then the rest of the world needs to start rethinking its relationship with the USA. Whether or not Trump gets re-elected the sickness will still be there.
22
@Greg Thank you, Greg. I'm at a loss to understand why America's plummeting reputation and standing with the rest of the world is such a low priority. The sickness will be still be here no matter how 2020 shakes out. It may have manifested itself more thoroughly in the States, but it's a global sickness to be sure.
3
Trump supporters say they are "Christians," while steadfastly supporting the most unprincipled, unapologetically amoral, mendacious and untrustworthy man ever to occupy the White House.
Trump supporters demand that immigrants, asylum seekers and minorities scrupulously comply with the law, while standing behind a man who holds the law, law enforcement and courts in utter contempt, all the while turning a blind eye to the violence and lawlessness emanating from their own "conservative" ranks.
It is pointless to attempt to reason with such people. They're living in a world of self-delusion; they know it; and they absolutely refuse to allow anyone to call them on it.
32
Americans have been watching television far too long and are trying to make it into reality somehow. That's impossible. Grow up fast, America!
9
The sickness, which is us, capsulizes Roger Cohen's Opinion. He vividly expresses the disgusting and disastrous reality of the Donald J. Trump from his existence and election to his presidency. While calling up another faker, Theranos, and the chumps Shultz, Obama and Biden that fell for her. Cohen knows that in the big picture the chumps are us. Mueller and been clear and exact in calling a spade a spade, yet, so many of us don't care. Trump has fueled the war between us, and it looks like that is where it will stay. Could we possibly give Trump, the corruption, the cruelty, the grand and petty larceny, the fog shading truth and the ruined democracy a pass? Helplessness surrounds us. We'd rather fight with one another than face the consequence of defeat by the forces of evil, ignorance, self-interest, greed, fear and weakness.
7
It really is enigmatic when thinking how one should approach the millions of people who still support Trump. I mean, I watch Fox News and get the mindset - they want to beat the liberals. It's a game and Trump and the Russians helped them win a round.
I guess all the Democrats can do is stick to policies that will improve the lives of the Trump supporters and convince them that they can vote their best interest while maintaining their values.
There will be no impeachment. But the next election really is a reckoning for America. If we elect this man to a second term, I honestly don't see how we come back from that.
363
@David
Don't be so sure about no impeachment. There are 10 investigations in the Mueller report that are redacted. One is likely an investigation of Trump money laundering for the Russians, which has been long suspected in international financial circles long before he ran for office. If true, that criminality provides both the "kompromat" for Russian control of Trump, and proof of the clear and present danger he poses to America and the free world. Follow the money.
36
@Kevin Comeau
So wrong. Liberals literally can't see or appreciate their own despicable behavior and ignore by assigning the same motives to their opponents they themselves pursue. They only want to win? Really? Liberals claimed the Mueller report would be definitive. Now that that has failed in getting the results they sought they want never ending investigations and fishing expeditions into Trump's taxes, businesses, family and anything else they can think of. Let's see the reaction when a Democrat president is subjected to the same sort of scrutiny.
7
@David
Democrat policies have been too liberal and are hurting the USA. The Democrats are turning more liberal and there is no near term possibility of dialing back.
Just look at the comments here. They are all on Trump but none on Theranos or Bill Clinton and his foundation. I have watched this foundation and Bill work closely with a man who made a fortune robbing an American company of its technology, forcing his senior staff make contributions to Democrats and giving them bonuses in compensation. Bill seems to have too many dirty people around him too but it is all OK. It is interesting that Trump's only crime for being so unpopular is stealing the vote and the WH from Hillary Clinton.
5
The Mueller report is proving to be a Rorschach Test about Trump. Those of us who can’t brook Trump’s irresponsibility and lies see in the findings the reckless man who never belonged in the White House. Those who disregard or even enjoy his sleaziness aren’t going to suddenly be bothered by the portrait of dishonesty and mafia like use of power that has been evident from the start.
The Mueller report was also almost bound to be a disappointment, so high were hopes riding on it.
But it shouldn’t take an investigation to point us to what is obvious: Trump’s conduct is unacceptable for a leader. What has transpired since Trump took office counts as much as what happened during his campaign.
And it is up to make sure that Trump is rendered a verdict that, no, he has not earned a second term. And it is up to the Democratic candidates to show themselves as worthy, not simply that Trump is not.
295
@NM
The thing I hold on to most tenaciously is the thought that there surely cannot be many people who will join those tens of millions, whereas there must be some who will drop out - or stay at home on November 3rd next year.
The next most tenacious thought is that in 60+ years of watching presidential elections I have never seen so many reports of Democrats getting their act together. More than one fellow octogenarian I know has become politically active FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. If the weather is kind on 11-3-2020 we say well see all records for voter turnout broken.
Let each of us do what we can to make that happen.
138
@NM so true....sadly he IS acceptable to millions of his supporters on whom I focus. Trump is a dime a dozen NYC charlatan. What worries me is the acceptance.
38
@NMYes, and with all these fine candidates, let's hope that we get no one but the best!
13
Great article and amazing how we cling to our mythology; near proof that it is real and it is us.
3
He does have America in his thrall. Almost half the country will not even consider another candidate next year. Democrats usually don’t like Trump but still enjoy the spectacle he provides as fodder for shows on CNN and MSNBC.
It’s unbelievable that Trump can win another term after two years of denigrating the office and, as the Mueller report demonstrates, took collusion with Russians to the threshold of criminality while committing at least ten counts of obstruction, all clearly spelled out in the report.
31
Mueller did his job. Now Congress needs to do its job in defending the Constitution.
102
It is interesting that Cohen used Holmes as an example of how someone who had structured a company such as Theranos so she was in complete control and tolerated no questions as to the vision and course that she set, no matter that the facts and science showed her method could not work.
Trump assumes the same, that his mere wishing something to be true will be. And he imagines himself to be the smartest one in the room, a phrase that had been used to ridicule Obama in the past.
In the end, Holmes' world collapsed around her. Theranos dissolved into the dust that it was created from.
Trump's time is near. The difficult to understand silence from good people, elected Republicans who surely can see the truth, will have to erode soon, and with it any resistance to holding Trump accountable. The Yes Men will vanish, and when it happens, I predict the reckoning will happen fast.
24
Robert Mueller is supposed to be an institutional man. No institution is more important than our constitutional form of government. Since his "friend" Bill Barr has put his thumb on the scale and undercut Mueller's report, it will be incumbent on Mueller to volunteer to speak to House committees as soon as possible to tell us The Truth and insist that Trump must be held responsible. If he does not, he is an "institutionalist" in the worst sense of the term.
And all of his special counsel attorneys should come forward to support him.
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@Donna
And Mueller should unveil the redactions if asked. It’ll be a quite a test of character. Tests that so many Americans have flunked lately.
12
Rational people vote for politicians who will represent the best interests of themselves, their family, their community and their country. Trump and his choice of team members can be relied on to do none of the above. Trump's interest is self-interest and personal ego culture. It does not matter who Trump's benefactors are. They are too often far from the USA.
25
If he losses in 2020, will he step down? And if he doesn’t, will his supporters think that’s just fine?
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@Mark C
When Trump loses and his term ends no one will follow or obey his demands, not the military, not the secret service, no one in authority. He will be done. He will be evicted if he resists (but he won't because he is a coward, among all his other faults).
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@Mark C What a foolish question about Trump stepping down. It isn't his choice to make. This country would never tolerate it, and no official force is at his command when the clock ticks over at the transfer moment.
11
@Mark C I doubt he will allow the 2020 presidential election to proceed, rather than face an impending defeat. This will go to SCOTUS, but it will take time during which Trump will sit in the White House or MaraLago, railing, defending himself, stoking his supporters. Who would command the Army or Secret Service to remove him?
2
The great unknown is whether Donald Trump can continue to evade normalcy by winning an election even though his opponent got millions more votes and by replacing centuries of norms with a malicious contempt for convention and virtue. Until we recognize that much of his power is generated from millions of Americans who've been abandoned by both political parties, we may well continue to be victimized, if not by Trump, then by a grifter with a more pleasing delivery and better camouflage.
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@Eric Caine
It is not just Trump supporters who have been "abandoned by both political parties". At a time when our income inequality is greater than ever, akin to the roaring 1920s, it's most of the rest of us as well.
12
Virtue does not exist in the United States of America. Corruption is in its place.
8
"The Mueller report won’t move the political needle. Trump’s tens of millions of supporters know all this. They knew he was a scam artist before they voted for him in 2016.... How did we put this man in the Oval Office?"
The lesson of Trump is that the national consensus supporting sanity, honesty and basic decency is weaker and more fragile than most of us believed. In a country truly committed to integrity and the rule of law, Trump would have been long ago tossed out. We can't manage that because his level of popular support is sufficient to prevent Republican politicians from opposing him. Cohen is right to suggest that we are now well beyond the point where new revelations of Trump's perfidy will change any voter's mind.
If nothing else, this insight should put the impeachment question into proper perspective. Trump will not be impeached because a Republican Senate will not vote to oust him no matter how overwhelming the case. The only potential chink in the armor might appear in early 2020 after the filing deadlines for Senate candidates pass in various red states. A Republican senator who quietly objects to Trump might become slightly braver after the window for being "primaried" from the right has shut. If there is to be an impeachment opportunity, it will be in early 2020.
Democratic investigations should continue, but not mainly in response to a slight future chance of impeachment success. The real key is maintaining opposition morale in a time of endless siege.
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@woofer -- "The real key is maintaining opposition morale in a time of endless siege."
Will that be done by trying to maintain peak Outrage for years, or by offering up real hope in the form of policies people need and want?
The opposition seems to be splitting into two camps around that. It is Nadler vs Bernie as much as it is Nadler vs Trump.
3
@woofer: "In a country truly committed to integrity and the rule of law, Trump would have been long ago tossed out."
And there's the rub. Trump's con-game is to remind people of how imperfect the country is by repeating false equivalencies and outright lies. Those who have long felt the injustices either embrace Trump's "truth telling" or cynically turn away and refuse to vote.
3