"It’s time for all our social-media-addicted dictators — in the D.C. swamp and in Silicon Valley — to have their wings clipped." How about covering them with tar and feathers and chase them out of town?
11
But, but, but, her emails...! And Benghazi, too!
22
Isn't it time for the media to stop with "Mr. Trump" this and "Trump" that and call him as he is -- "Dumb Bum Donny," now and forevermore. Please lead the way Ms. Dowd.
11
Trump is president because too many people took normal for granted.
Too many people thought they could stay home or vote for someone who could not win or not vote the top of the ticket because they relied on other Americans NOT to vote for a lying bigot birther sexual predator useful idiot Russian asset con artist failed business flim-flam man.
Trump is a minority president. Now, We the People of the United States have to vote against Trump and ALL his GOP enablers.
We get the government we deserve, and we deserve better than this.
41
Back to the cataclysms of 1939, a world of influence spheres and Hitlers and Stalins bowing to each other over the backs of the great states of Europe. A world in which Russian mastery over land will compete with American mastery over the oceans. The death spiral for civilization. America First. Russia First.
7
Just stuff the Obama was aloof and professorial stuff Maureen, get over whatever is your real beef with Obama or at least keep it to yourself. I’d give a body part to have him back at the White House today.
51
"Trump always seems like someone who walked out of a Vegas steam bath in 1959. And now the whole country is starting to smell of moth balls."
Someone give Ms. Dowd a Pulitzer!
16
OK: the Trump base is beside itself with the "wonderful economy" and "employment is up" thing.
Wonder if those stats count people in the "gig" economy, with no benefits (health insurance, pensions, silly little things like that) and no job security.....often working 2-3 jobs to survive???
Homeless shelter numbers are up and deaths by opioids are through the roof...."every day 130 people die from opioid overdoses"....from https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis
Meanwhile Trump/GOP is doing their best to drill for oil off EVERY coast line in the U.S. (remember the BP "Deep Horizon" explosion and oil spill?) see:
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/report-little-has-changed-in-oil-drilling-safety-since-bp-oil-spill/77-dd5b7eb5-4129-4c75-9c7f-eb14410cda55
Oh, yeah, and then there's that silly thing about keeping the Arctic pristine (because there are just so many of them, after all!).....
Not to speak of the EPA rolling back on pollution standards...see:
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060100271....this is predicted to lead to 139,000 deaths.
But none of this matters since the economy is "hot" (despite many experts feeling that Trump is merely riding the impetus of Obama administration work; just as Obama took the "fall" for the recession caused by GW Bush's actions as President).
27
It's funny how the *real* dystopian path gets completely ignored -- yet again. The truth is that, in today's United States, people are already fully lodged in their chosen partisan mindset that the only thing propaganda can do is allow people to pat their own backs. It does nothing to change minds. Anyone with the slightest self-awareness would realize that. However, it's more convenient to believe that those who disagree with you are either stupid (mostly) or the *victims* of a form of mind control or evil influence. How else could they possibly vote Trump/Clinton?
6
Longest economic expansion, record employment (including minorities), and a robust stock market. Dystopia, really?
4
It is time that Rudy relieve millions of us of his nonsense by returning to obscurity and staying there.
22
“Then (Trump) compared Mr. Buttigieg to the adolescent, gaptoothed cartoon mascot for Mad magazine. “Alfred E. Neuman cannot become president of the United States,” the president said in an interview with Politico on Friday.
--- The Times today.
It took me about 2 minutes while Trump was coming down the elevator to fully understand that he was a fool, a knave and a bozo capable of ruining this country who could never be elected.
A tragic mistake on my part, because I had been about to embark on a massive fundraising campaign on behalf of Alfred E. Neuman, a man of intelligence, impeccable character and humor who would have mopped the floor with Trump and made a fine President.
Mr. “What, me worry?” vs. Mr. “I’ll keep you worried.” Ah, what a terrible loss!
https://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2012/11/06/alfred-e-neuman-for-president-let-him-finish-the-job
5
Outrageous to use a trimmed photograph like Giuliani's of anybody.
2
You, me, everyone has a filter between their thoughts and their words, except Trump who spews sensational lies, hate, and anger. The Television industry knows it. They are the Psychlops. The garbage on Television appeals to Americans. Television loves to hypnotize viewers and then to instill their poison. They control the viewers and Trump learned how they do it. They are the Psychlops. They use base instincts of hate, anger, sympathy, flashing screens, and fast talk to enslave you.
They devoted a Billion dollars of free airtime to Trump before the election. They are the psychlops, and it's scaring me that you are not publishing my comments.
3
I don't understand Ms. Dowd's perspective on Obama. It was not his aloofness that rendered him ineffectual: it was the American people, who threw the Democrats overboard after electing them merely two years before in 2008, and the obstructionist Republicans who squashed his every initiative thereafter that transformed his presidency into an accomplish-nothing yawn.
Indeed, Obama came roaring out of the gate with bold proposals for health care, recession stimuli and climate change action. We can thank the Republicans that all we have to show for it now is a battered ACA.
38
Rudy “Never Was America’s Mayor” Giuliani might, like his boss, like to slap insulting nicknames on perceived enemies —-such as “SleepyCreepy Joe” Biden. Well, since turnabout is fair play, he’s a good moniker for Rudy and Donnie: “Dumb and Dumber.”
17
Obama was wildly popular despite his 'aloofness', in fact he was re-elected, or have you forgotten that, Ms. Dowd? We're tired of hearing about Obama's and Hillary's ostensible faults from one who cheered the protofascist buffoon all the way to his election. Give it a rest.
36
We do have a ready-made panacea to those vile "social-media-addicted dictators". In fact she is conveniently located in the same residence as one of the chief offenders whom you rail against, Ms. Dowd. Her name is Melania. Her strategic weapon to slay this worldwide menace is code named "Be Best". She will be our savior.
1
Would the New York Times columnists PLEASE stop repeating Trump's demeaning nicknames for other people.
Making up a nasty nickname and calling someone that is so sixth grade bullying.
Please stop enabling our 12-year-old President.
28
What a strange column for Maureen, my favorite muck raker. Some clever discussion. Some obtuse rambling. No consistency. Next time, more focus and better form, Maureen. We miss you.
5
Vegas steam bath indeed. Can't wait until he's gone off building condos with his love in North Korea
8
i got into trouble recently by saying that we are being governed by tweet...... the person incorrectly assumed that i was singling out his hero, trump. in reality, everything is discussed and "debated" on twitter and other social media before or in place of any actual legislating. it is a sad way to run a country.
2
In the end we know not the reasons that Trump was elected. What is known is this: according to instate surveys there were six states that were too close to call, six states that were equally likely to go to either Clinton or Trump. Outside of those states, Clinton had an electoral college lead, but not enough electoral college votes to win.
The coinflip states went 5:1 for Trump, a 9.3% chance. A longshot, but not statistically significant. Russians? Weather? Candidate campaign strength or weakness? Anti-flyover sentiment? Gender bias? Racial backlash after Obama?
We just cannot ever know, any more than we can say why a coin comes up heads, or tails. It happened. In the past.
And we can be certain that in 2020, another election will be held, but who the candidates will be, what the weather will be, what the Russians and Chinese will do, how large the turnout...even whether the election by decided by the national popular vote or the electoral college are possibilities, but not certainties.
5
@Nat Ehrlich
How right you are! and yet we blither on and on about our "democracy."
1
Even "progressive" media beyond Fox panders to 45 and echos his inane tweets. Find a better way to tell the true story without giving him voice and undue coverage, playing into his tiny hands just as the media collaborated in his campaign. The Russians did not help but we did this to ourselves. Come on fourth estate do your job!
15
Amen! Or as the Russian Governor of the Americas might phrase it, "Clip their wings".
4
As long as enough Americans stay bogged down in the bipartisan bickering that is on display in these comments and in media, America will remain mired and stuck in the mud of political dysfunction.
We are our own worst enemy.
Political leadership will remain useless in solving problems because their dysfunction thrives when we don't hold them accountable at the ballot box.
Those of you who immediately blame the other party for our collective ills, ignoring the pathetic leadership and failings of your own party, are part of the problem.
Both sides are failing us.
That is the key message of Dowd's writing, whether she intends it or not.
While Russia hacks, China steals, NKOREA launches in defiance, Iran hacks, potholes grow in size and number, healthcare remains broken and education flounders...
...our peacocks in Washington and their lobbyist buddies enjoy riches and free reign with no accountability.
WAKE UP.
CLEAR THE SYSTEM OF THEM ALL AND RERACK WITH NEW PEOPLE.
It's time for silent and vast majority in the middle to rise up and vote them out.
3
Hey, Maureen!
Was it really that necessary to use the bouquet of my grandmother's coat closet, to describe the state of the country?
An outhouse in late-July would have been better.
7
Need "to have their wings clipped." and that doesn't refer only to social media. So tell me, how's that going?
Let me answer. After a Democratic House takeback, it's not going well at all. The layers of confusion are thickening and the Dems are choking on Trump refusals. Congress is powerless.
America is tied up in knots and will be that way for the foreseeable future. Trumps efforts to shut down American law and decency is working like a charm and social media is working right beside him.
7
With "America First," his defense of Neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville chanting "Jews will not replace us, his tariff wars, his support for white nationalists, his overt racism, his infatuation with dictators,t his is not the Ozzie and Harriet 1950's. This is the darkness that descended on the world in the 1930's! And make no mistake, as it was then it is now a fight for the very survival of our democracy against authoritarian rule. The Constitution is under attack from within and fear has been let loose in the land. This the time to both "Remember Pearl Harbor!" and "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" This is the time to for all patriots to enlist in the fight for the survival of our "rule of law" against the "rule of Trump." The dystopia has arrived.
10
Dems, you don't have a coherent message or a candidate with the stature, toughness and common-sense to win.
Yes, the Russkis used social media to enable the crazy guy to win. But don't forget, those hacks worked because they exposed HRC's hypocrisy and venality--and she herself issued the stupid (and insulting) "deplorables" remark.
You're blaming the hackers who basically exposed the toxic nature of the Left and its self-righteous and entitled leadership.
Time is running out. Get real fast.
6
"When Barack Obama was elected, it felt like we were moving to a bold, gleaming future with a young, appealing president"
All you need to know about this hyper partisan "columnist." Note the hubristic use of "we." It did NOT feel like that to many of us (call us the other "we"), and even if we find trump the man distasteful, we'll take him several times over the regulation happy politically correct statist "fantasy" of barack obama. keep bleating to the echo chamber, dowd.
5
The 2016 election seems to have revealed some puzzling voting patterns: people who said they voted twice for Obama but then voted for Trump (who promised to undo anything Obama had as much as thought about), Sanders supporters who voted for Trump (I think I’ve heard of this), and Sanders supporters who did not vote or who voted in such a way as to lend support to Trump. I have yet to read an analysis explaining these phenomena.
5
@RM
Pres. O. came after the disastrous Bush the Lesser years. The one with war crimes and the second worse depression ever. Pres. O's "Hope 'n Change" wasn't what was promised despite saving the country. People soured upon gov. and Trump conned change, or at least to screw up totally the establishment. That as predicted was a lie.
https://www.npr.org/2016/11/15/502032052/lots-of-people-voted-for-obama-and-trump-heres-where-in-3-charts
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/
The 12% of Sanders primary voters who flipped to Trump, as studied, were predominantly Republicans and Indy's leaning Right. A tiny percentage when compared to the 10 million Dems that flipped.
An estimated 3% of Sanders primary voters went to Stein/Johnson.
An estimated 3% or Sanders primary voters stayed home. Most fired up primary voters do vote in the general. Again, a fraction of a % when compared to the 96 million of eligible voters who stayed home.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/24/16194086/bernie-trump-voters-study
4
Maureen, you just don't get it with" But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness." Obama's presidency was stifled by Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republican traitors in congress. Until you start acknowledging that the Republican led congress is equally responsible for the current mess, I won't consider your columns to be worth reading.
20
The accompanying picture of Giuliani is near perfection! It tells the whole story of the Trump Admin...crazy eyed and loony, while also telling the story of the Trumplodites; crazy eyed and loony in their adoration. As well as how the rest of us feel. Like we're going crazy, and this face - that looks like the one I express when watching TV news or listen to a news podcast - will be our permanent face!
8
Imagine the creative ego-gratification moving in the Sociopathic Personality
Disorder was in theOval Office, as he and his cohorts like Rudy plot
the coming Year against the Army of Democrats plotting Simply to Unseat
Individual#1. (I wish "Dystopic" was a real word. I would use it for a
descriptive term for the state of our Country. We are going in an apparent
state of Being where we have an "elected President" who "serves"
Primarily Himself, meanwhile in ubiquitous Center Of Media Attention, while
a Herd Of Democrats girds itself to Unseat the "Seated One". In my house, we Never miss a Vote. I will have a yard-Sign, "Please Vote",
with no name. Our self-centered Leader will Brag about the mass of Money...just to oppose him. Meanwhile, of course, the Appeals are
flooding in from .....Guess Who? I Will Vote....but Not for the Dystopic Party.
Well thanks - in part - to your harpooning of all things Clinton here we are.
You might not have liked what another 4-8 years of Clintonism would have brought, but one thing is for sure, it would have been better than this.
You had a part in this mess even if somehow you conveniently want to ignore that fact every time you write.
But hey, like the rest of the media - including the "but her emails" types at your very paper - you get to be employed and move on to your next target without ever feeling the effects or consequences of the messes you helped make.
We truly never reward expertise in this world anymore. You're one of the prime exhibits.
17
There is no doubt that Russian hackers were behind a broad and effective campaign to disrupt the election. The real reason that Trump (Fox) and his Republican syncophants in congress will never concede this point is because doing so would tacitly confirm that he is an illegitimate president.
This also explains the unwillingness of Trump and the Republicans (especially Graham and McConnell) to prospectively prevent this from happening again. Their failure to act and their breathtaking ongoing encouragment of this strategy is an abrogation of their oath to protect and defend this country.
6
I'm a little chilled at the idea of regulating social media. Who will do the regulating? How will they decide what's allowed and what's not. I have friends who believe that vapor trails are killing us, but I wouldn't dream of censoring their comments. We need to promote the ability to question the things we read on social media and call out fake news when we see it, not suppress it. Much of it can be stopped in its tracks by a quick visit to Snopes.com.
4
A very disturbing essay, Maureen, and one which we should all take to heart. The problem with Vol. I of the Mueller Report is that it couldn't come up with any indictable material on trump's cronies. It hemmed and hawed whether or not U.S. Code statutes had been violated, punted on Flynn, Gates and Papadopoulos, about whom the report was happy because they had already been indicted, obviating any position on them that the report might have had.
This all means that not only can the Russians attack us again, it means that all the president's men, like Giuliani, can do the same things again and not be indicted. This is why Giuliani is off galavanting around the globe. Maybe congress will come up with laws against encouraging the destruction of our democracy?
Yes, old man trump has figured out what Twitter is good for. The medium that allows no debate, no gray area; it's either left or right, right or wrong, black or white. Truth is immaterial. Trump saw that right away. As trump is truth-impaired, he realized that he could post his childish, manipulative behavior on line to get attention and stir a bunch of exceedingly naive Twitter users.
And Facebook is a more extensive noise box. The Russians have advanced the Cold War; it couldn't use its nuclear weapons, but it can drop its media bombs into Facebook. It's better than a nuclear weapon, because instead of killing people, you get them to work for you.
When Putin talks with trump, it gets him to our heartland.
3
Trump and his criminal cronies are perpetrating a prolonged, ruthless stress test of our democratic institutions and traditions. If our country survives these dark times essentially intact, we should emerge much stronger for our struggle, despite our overwhelming cynicism.
Alternately, our institutions may become too dysfunctional to return to relevance. It is our responsibility to choose and decide the outcome.
5
Just because Trump manages to dominate the news cycle with his obsessive tweets & creating so many messes in the world so that he can try to deflect attention from his daily failures to some other problem he ginned up (Paris Accords, fights with our allies, Iran, China, North Korea, etc.).
I don't know why the media can't keep Trump's falling presidency into perspective.
Here is one example. Trump's approval rating based on Gallup polls had fallen dramatically by May 2019 among almost all groups that supported him in Jan. 2017:
From Jan. 2017-May 2019, Trump's approval ratings dropped most dramatically for:
Income $100K+: 62%-31%= 32% drop
Ages 18-29: 51%-23%=28% drop
Ages 65+: 68%-41%=27% drop
Ages 55-64: 58%-323%=26% drop
Education less than college: 63%-41%=22% drop
Trump's support comes from those who consider themselves Republicans--no matter how badly Trump performs and how awful the messes he makes:
Republicans: 87%-83%
Even support among whites dropped: 61%-44%=17%; also a 17% drop among males.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/trump-approval-rating-polls/
So no wonder Trump, McConnell, and the ethically and legally challenged GOP politicians will do "anything" to hold Trump's base together--with lots of help from Fox (but Fox is a small niche audience at .7% of the U.S. population).
Take heart Never Trumpers. Trump support is not what it once was (despite media coverage). Trump never reached total support of 50% of us.
If we vote, we can win.
8
Norman Mailer, always astute, prescient, observed in 1970's a disquieting trend towards uniformity,,with increased numbers of folks thinking alike, even using the same vocabulary,and nowhere is this more clearly exemplified today than in, among other news outlets, the Comments section of the Times newspaper. in which 80 to 90 percent of the interventions published r anti Trump and his supporters, and all of whom excoriate him and his aficionados using the same disparaging vocabulary. Even that fabulist, convicted swindler, "denommee" Sororkin going to stony lonesome for several years was compared to Trump, accused also of shading the truth. Group think is alive and well, and since most folks download the day's news from their cellphones w/0 questioning the validity of the sources, trend has increased. Friend of mine, Jean Monneret whom I knew in Algeria and who lived in the Maison Carree neighborhood of Algiers, near Belcourt where Camus spent his childhood, and whom I provided with primary source interviews with OAS veterans which he used to write his obra magister, "La Phase Finale de la Guerre d'Algerie,"(l'Harmattan 2000) coined the term, "la pensee unique,"which puts it all in focus, and which translates as "there's only one way to think:political correctness."That is the major weakness of journalism today, and explains why the term "fake news " has gained such currency.
3
"Trump always seems like someone who walked out of a Vegas steam bath in 1959." One of your best lines, Maureen. And this relic even has a ' 50s hairstyle to go with it, complete with ducktails. Yes, sadly, he has "mastered" social media to make it the instrumentality of his demagoguery. We can only hope that he will drive that use into the ground and expose himself for who he really is, even to those benighted souls who still believe in him, misspellings and incoherent rants notwithstanding.
3
They mired us in two interminable wars in "Flintstones territory"
Really? "Flintstones territory?" I'm pretty sure the histories of Afghanistan and Iraq merit evaluations a little more complex (and less derogatory) than that.
3
@Matt M
Yes, I thought that was an unfortunate phrase also... disrespectful to the countries being referred to- or if not intended that way, too ambiguous.
3
Majority voters may, or may not, have anything to say about the next presidential election winner--or, for that matter, who dominates the U.S. Senate--but they do have something to say about what they read on the plethora of social media sites. And they can choose reputable, online newspaper sites for their news instead of Facebook, et al. But, they won't because this country stopped educating its citizens in civics years ago.
1
Somehow, I don't think making social media "more accountable to the American people," the intelligence of whom H.L. Mencken claimed no one had ever lost money underestimating, is going to fix anything. The sour oppositional puritanism of rural America and the credulousness of undereducated America and their appetites for apocalyptic fairy tales and gossip long predates the electronic media, which only found a better way to monetize them than the supermarket tabloid. This won't be fixed by a public that, when it is not broadcasting far and wide the intimate details of its life is fretting about its privacy.
2
MoDo can't help herself taking a shot at Obama. (I agree that we thought we were getting FDR and got a second Bill Clinton without the scandals.)
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness."
No mention of the GOP meeting on the eve of Obama's first inaugural in which they determined their strategy to block every possible Obama-led initiative and then two years later, McConnell's pledge that his number one job was to make Obama a one-term president. Just note that such a pledge is not included in McConnell's oath of office; you know, Party before Country, for sure.
5
Odd article. Is Maureen Dowd really living in a dystopia? We may not have a utopia, but things look pretty good.
I wouldn't worry much about Russian interference in our elections. They did two things, neither of which mattered. They trolled social media looking to meddle. That feeble effort was a drop in a bucket.
And the Russians hacked the DNC emails, which embarrassed the DNC but caused no lasting damage (except for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who lost her job that was in jeopardy already).
Hillary Clinton thinks the Russians threw the election to Donald Trump, but that's more delusion than reality. We should be careful -- the Russians do have strong cyberattack capability. But election meddling is not an attack.
As for Facebook, breaking up the company is not going to do anything. Make them get rid of WhatsApp and Instagram and you still have the same problem you started with. Same with regulation. Government regulators have a terrible track record with fast-moving tech. They can't keep up and do more harm than help.
The solution? Do nothing. The problems are working themselves out. Government is only a minor part of our lives. For the most part, it doesn't matter.
1
@John Smithson
Two quibbles...the DNC hacks confirmed to the public the political parties aren't democratic. Nor do they have to be. As the DNC confirmed in court defending it's breaking of it's own charter and it's money laundering/handling
Lasting damage? A whole mess of voters turned off and leaving/left said DNC. Trust broken. Corruption confirmed.
As for DWS, she was high-fived and given a place high up in the Clinton campaign the same day of her firing. Job done and awarded appropriately.
2
If Maureen’s column paints a bleak picture, the comments section is even darker.
I have the same fears, but it’s not helpful just to tally up the obstacles. The only way out is forward, not back.
I agree with @MKKW. I’ll vote for the Democrat, regardless, as I have always voted my party. But, please let it be someone new, not Biden. (If the press keeps reporting the 2020 campaign like it’s a horse race, they are ill serving our democracy. Biden is not the favorite in my informal polling. We want to know more about the candidates!)
I don’t plan to expatriate myself, and then smugly and nostalgically weep for what has been lost because I don’t like what’s happening politically. My plan is to stay and fight for my country, in my small, individual way.
What gives me hope is getting to see the future in my high school classroom, in a school whose student body is composed of an ethically, religiously, and racially diverse group of kids, many of whom are immigrants and immigrants’ children, lower- to middle-income families, mostly. I have one white student this year (an immigrant) out of approximately 160 students. Though facing a world with much greater challenges, economically and environmentally, these kids seem more motivated, smarter, and kinder than my generation was. They give me faith that the country will be in good hands.
3
The critique is historically sound but I believe it focuses on a small u Utopian visions while completely missing the more prevalent Utopian dream of our day.
Today we are faced with a new Utopian vision which exalts self perception and a world in which everyone is free to define themselves as they please as the way to a flourishing life and world. In this worldview, being a person is no longer depended on having a specific type of body.
It is actually just a rebirth of Platonic dualism, a worldview that in no way supported full rights for all humans (woman, children and anyone branded a slave, though human, were not full persons as a human body was not enough to give rights).
So as we normalize this dualism and forget its dehumanizing legacy from the past, we will surely usher in a dystopian world in which being human is not enough to ensure that you have full protection under the law.
it should be noted that this utopian view is increasingly supported by both sides of the aisle. The few that oppose it are treated as the heretics of the past and would be burned at the stake if we did not later ourselves for being too humanitarian for this behaviour. But given enough time, such horrors might re emerge as Utopianism always gives way to genocidal behaviour. We can't build a perfect world without a few sacrifices they reason.
1
If the facts are what they are, it would be irresponsible for Pres. Trump not to ask DOJ officials to look into the allegation, no matter who is making them.
1
As in 2016, we are taking our focus off of the issues of social justice (adequate access to healthcare, education, social security, respect for the concerns of the economically and socially marginalized, a living wage, a habitable planet) that have long been Senator Sanders' preoccupations, and which he has succeeded in bringing into the national conversation.
But the party will attempt to quash him, because suburban white-collar democrats, especially as they become more affluent, are more comfortable with neoliberalism, from which the hope to become richer, than actual liberalism, which animated the Democratic coalition from FDR through LBJ and almost RFK, the period when America took on some ideas that might be described as Democratic Socialism (e.g. Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, etc), became the world power, and was much admired, rather than despised and derided, by the citizens of parliamentary democracies around the world, many of whom were fairly realistic in their appraisals.
Now we are being told that female candidates are being Hillaried. Will someone please tell Democrats that they are yet again, in those turn of phrase, being "neolibed," and in a sense "Hillaried" once again.
Please no return to 2016, and dividing the parties on issues like a the "highest glass ceiling in the world." Thatcher was no friend to women, and neither was the tough-on-crime, hawkish, student of war-criminal Kissinger, Wall St darling, Hillary. Substantive issues. Please.
8
Giuliani isn't going to appear so someone in his stead will. Tying that in with the rest of the article the fact that communication is instant and done globally over the internet whether or not he makes the trip is pointless . His announcement and the change of mind was merely a distraction for us mere mortals. It has been proven there are no repercussions for seeking and accepting foreign aid in the elections especially when you do it out in the open. Assigning innocence and inexperience to meetings, passing data does not fly since Manafort was aware of the laws. He had flaunted, abused them in the past as part of his resume which was why the Trump team engaged him in the first place. Should Trump run and be defeated expect him to file lawsuits in fifty states, against opposing candidates, members of Congress who did not support him, the Democratic Party and their largest donors as a start. Who knows? He could include the mayor of London.
4
I have a suggestion: Democrats too must find a country to support them during the next election. Let's say Italy. The next election would be conducted like an international soccer competition, Italy against the Ukraine. Citizens of those countries would cheer their respective teams as they now do in soccer. The following US election could feature China versus Brazil, for example. In case of tie the American people could choose a winner.
3
Obama’s presidency was bogged down by interminable Republican obstruction and dirty tricks!
16
"All of us, if we are of reflective habit, like and admire men whose fundamental beliefs differ radically from our own. But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or count himself lost. … All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken, The Evening Sun, Baltimore (26 July 1920)."
16
@A. Stanton
Exactly! Very apt.
@A. Stanton wow! mencken was 100 years ahead of his time, but so right
1
Let’s toss the moth balls and get out the scissors.
I have yet to learn of a grand technological creation that couldn't be used for both good and evil. I remember the CB radios that were taken over by vulgar pornographic minds that ruined them for all of us. Facebook has brought out the weirdness of everyday citizens. Who, outside of close family cares if your 2-year-old is potty trained? Disclosure, I don't do Facebook. Comments on the Times and the WaPo do more to divide us than enlighten us. AOL is the worst. In face to face conversations, we are much more civil than when responding to a comment on digital media of any kind. And in most cases we are anyomous. We were already divided before the Russians got involved, the trolls just took advantage of of our divisive natures.
3
Let's not forget that at any moment - right this moment - Mitch McConnell could craft a bill that could severely curtail influence in elections. The fact that he does not - and his enablers do not call for one - points to the obvious fact: they are traitors to the country. Traitors. Happy to welcome foreign influence for their own gains. I'd love to see them all on on trial.
17
not only traitors, but bought cheap. you would think McConnell would demand to be viceroy, at least, or total dominion over a sizeable and rich colony. he is conniving, but his mind and outlook are constricted. what does he want? a do-over on the Civil War is what his tactics and policies telescope.
2
Don't forget the Senate Politburo Chief and his cult of enablers(McConnell,Graham,Tillis ,Collins to name a few)
McConnell went even further. When Congress wanted to act, the Senate Majority Leader expressed doubt about the intelligence that Russia was attacking the United States and stopped Congress from taking action against Russia.
The Republican Party prevented President Obama and the Democrats from doing anything to stop the Russian attack. In hindsight, we now know that this is because Republicans were also benefiting from the Russian activities.
Trump knows why Obama didn’t do anything to stop his treason. Mitch McConnell is the reason why Russia was able to attack our country. McConnell was also a big part of why Trump was able to win the election.
18
It's gonna be hard for Ms. Dowd and her media colleagues to ignore the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden scandal re Joe's interference in the Ukraine investigation against Hunter (by getting the prosecutor fired). And equally hard for them to ignore Hunter's unseemly activities in China, even when Joe tries to pooh-pooh it ("C'mon, guys, it's China" [thereby implicitly slighting those of Chinese descent]). But I'm confident that she and they will somehow find a way to do so.
3
@Uysses
They are trying their best. Ukraine was used by the Clinton campaign to channel dirt on Trump and by the Bidens as their piggy bank. But reading the spin in NYT, one would think none of that ever happened. Guess criminal behaviour and corruption are par for the course when it comes to Democrats because they are very own NYT’s patrons but Trump must be impeached because he thought about firing Mueller (and his phoney investigation) in his dreams.
2
Beware Democratic presidential candidates. In a nation largely comprised of low IQ voters, Trump’s diabolical genius lay in reducing the daunting complexity of our national issues, which even he has difficulty grasping, to a cartoon-sized Road Runner plot. Enter “SleepyCreepyJoe.”
6
How many Russians were there at the Trump Tower meeting?
Looks like the Democrats really hate it when Republicans do to Dems what the Dems did to them. It's like Sideshow Bob and a field of rakes.
I suppose the the primary difference between the Democrats and Republicans in this matter is that the Republicans are announcing their intent ahead of time to the public, whereas, the Democrats kept their operation covered up for as long as possible and are still denying their intent.
Excellent article by Dowd - sad reminder of the state of our nation as we approach 2020.
2
Social media are a potential problem but the main one at the present is TV news, both Fox on cable, which is an obvious propaganda outlet, and the networks, which are more interested in getting ratings and selling advertising than getting at the truth.
5
"Obama's aloofness" - just couldn't help yourself, could you? Have to throw in an insult to make it look as the playing field could ever be equal in this nightmare caused entirely by the GOP and their greed.
15
Be it that the Internet is the driving force of 21st century voters, will clipping its wings result in some democratic utopia? Going back to a century with no radio, TV or Internet opinions of those times were on a par with those of present day NYT opinions.
Hamilton speaking on authority “attempts to exercise those powers would contribute nothing to the splendor of national government” and Madison “It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests and render them all subservient to the public good.”
Despite such refreshing viewpoints America went on to permit slavery for another 100 years
2
Trump wants the Russian interference for 2020. And, yes, there is plenty of evidence that he and his conspired with the Russians for 2016, just not enough, in the judgment of the Justice Department, for a criminal conviction (proof beyond a reasonable doubt). It was enough evidence for me, and it should be enough for Congress and the American voters. If only the media would tell it as it is. If only.
4
We've already been pushed back to the 1950's long ago in the Reagan-Moral Majority Cold War era. Trump and his fellow "strongmen" around the world have pushed so hard, they've pushed the world back to the 1930's.
6
What’s most surprising and depressing is not that the Russians were so successful in their social networking misinformation, but that after their work was revealed, there are sixty million or more of my fellow citizens who don’t understand or don’t care that they were duped. My money is on: don’t care.
Trump gives his base fresh reasons every day to stick it to the Democrats. And the base loves it because, like Mitch McConnell, they care less about the democracy than they do about a political win. The world’s greatest political system can’t succeed when half the population no longer cares about the truth.
12
I'm looking forward to Maureen's Utopian view of Comey, Brennan, Clapper & Baker after the Inspector General's report comes out with criminal referrals. The psychosis is so deep still clinging to the delusion of collusion, they'll paint the criminal act of bureaucrats trying to undermine an election as justified.
There will be a reckoning, but it still won't change a thing. "Belief" can be a horrible thing.
2
About two hours ago, I read the article about the Assad Holocaust. I was thinking all manner of expletives and revenge, almost thrown into a psychotic despair of knowing the world is lost.
Now after having cooled off and becoming more thoughtful of solutions and glad the comments forum for that article were down so I wouldn't spew regrettable ideas, I now have read this essay twice and have a clearer proposal for a path forward.
The three great powers of the world, the Eagle, the Bear, and the Dragon are all now at conflict politically. Putin is a Monster aligned with China and is taking advantage of the confusion of the election trouble and Trump's daily shock and awe to gain a foothold in our hemisphere. This must be acknowledged as a reason why Putin wanted Trump elected.
It's apparent to me that the world leaders are playing crisis management over their perception of Armageddon in the future, or may have occurred in the past. I can write; Trump is cultivated by Evangelicals to believe it now. Putin is taking advantage of our religious preoccupation, and Xi just doesn't get it.
Trouble is, Putin is behind so much trouble. He's former K.G.B. like Bush was son of C.I.A.
The trade war is a diversion. We should be friends with China. Russia is the Problem. Get them out of our hemisphere. Get a trade deal with China. Jam Russia.
While you all think you can stop a prophecy, you are all unwittingly making it happen. Jam Russia. They are behind Assad and Iran.
3
The Dems and the liberal press need to focus at least ½ the time on what unities people, what makes people human, all the things Trump and the boring Rs can’t do. The GOP is all about division, money and power. Put on some hiking books and walk through the national parks (these are to enjoy unless climate change ravages them and the Rs shut them down). Join a Miami or Phoenix, or Nashville book club and discuss literature. Milk a cows. Travel to Europe and Japan and Mexico (not to discuss politics but to remind people how interesting the rest of the world is). Show you have a sense of humor. Attend an arts festival to highlight the achievements of Hispanics, blacks, women, Jews, and other groups. Go to a 4H club. Go to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game. What I wouldn’t give for a journalist at a debate to ask – What books do you like to read? When was the last time you had someone to dinner who didn’t look like you – what did you talk about? What’s your vision for the year 2075? Sure, Congress has to go after Trump’s obstruction…Sure, discussions about the 1%, healthcare, jobs, etc. are critical. But there’s got to be a counterbalance. The counterbalance (Make America United Again. Make America human again) is something the Ds can do and the Rs, especially DT, can’t.
7
Make America Friendly Again!
2
Discuss the role of state propaganda--Fox News--in getting Trump to power and keeping him there. Talk about the Times' failure to seriously investigate his shady financial and moral past until its very recent (and excellent) stories. Tell us again how he's "wriggled off the hook"---since scores of investigations in the House and, more importantly, jurisdictions around the country are still continuing.
5
Maureen is correct; however, the problem she describes is deeper and wider than she may imagine. Info-warfare is like the scab on a diseased skin. Underneath it is info-anarchy, a symptom of cultural and cognitive collapse on a social scale. The tech world conquers the instructed and disciplined mind. Written, approved, and tested rules (e.g., the Constitution, historical docs) no longer count. History is power, an"opinion." Ethno-racial controversies? they cancel each other out. Guns make Truth. Patience? that's for 'losers'. We won't be in power when the climate collapses, who cares. Rudi is going to Ukraine! oops, he's not. Trump will give you all the money he never owned!
Belief and desire! google a word and we'll feed you the narrative. That's google, not Facebook.
2
"The Russians are stealing the election through facebook posts and twitter messages!!!"
"Republicans are old white men who are slowly dying off."
Do you not get the disconnect? I am a white conservative Texan and I don't use facebook or twitter. I don't know anyone who uses them. My brothers don't, my dad doesn't, mom doesn't, no one uses it. I have never read a single Trump tweet and apparently I am better off for it. Still voting for him next time though. You should see my bank account. He's doing wonders for it, your's too I imagine. Unless Putin submits an article to the Wall Street Journal, Russian meddling will have as much effect this time around as it did last time.
I’ll take a president whom the worst can be said is that he’s professorially aloof over one who behaves like the worst prepared, most disruptive and perpetually disrespectful legacy student in class. Any day.
12
Insightful column as usual. But it misses a key point -- Trump was not elected because of Russian bots. He was elected because the Democratic hierarchy colluded to squash Bernie Sanders, an honorable man who likely would have defeated Trump. Then the bungling Trump campaign got a late-game assist from a bungling James Comey who shed new shade on an already shady Clinton political machine. The Russians did not throw the election, but they must be howling at this American tragicomedy.
118
@John Jabo That's such a weird way of interpreting the results of primaries in which Hillary Clinton got more votes. The way Bernie Sanders supporters talk about him sounds uncomfortably similar to me to the way Donald Trump supporters talk about the president.
117
@John Jabo
So tired of Berniebusters. He's got great ideas, but his rockstar ambience of love of playing the hero are not matched by his ability to distinguish between friend and foe, and willingness to undercut his allies. I sympathize with his enjoyment of center stage, but he's done some harm, just enough to help Republicans dominate, but that's more than too much.
I'm tired of elderly white men with my way or the highway stuff. Biden too, from a different direction, convinced you can hobnob with enemies without having the goalposts moved.
43
@John Jabo Quite wrong. In a general election, Democrats depend on getting overwhelming turnout among minority voters. Clinton won big among minorities, but did not get as much as Obama - and it made that 70,000 vote difference. Sanders does very poorly with minorities, and this year, he does poorly with the women who were responsible for flipping the House in 2018.
64
Do we no longer have the “...Anti-Trust Act...”?
Let's wait and see what (Kevin's) Kavanaugh brings us as far as the abortion rights you hand-wring over.
Somehow, I suspect it will be "Barry's" aloofness, as if aloofness equates with a shameful war that has killed hundreds of thousands, including thousands of our own GI's (while leaving thousand without limbs), or Trump's peculiar brand of lunacy, siding with a murderous dictator after we spent 50 years freeing the likes of Catholic Poland and Hungary from the Iron Curtain that same dictator was maintaining and now re-cultivating, apparently successfully.
Assez grande pourriture morale partout, non?
Oh, but those emails...Ms Dowd. Hilary was not perfect for sure...so we deserved our country being erased and sold off? None of this is a surprise. Obama was close to perfect by comparison....yet you still need to diss him. Sad!
5
Why aren't people expected to think? You don't have to believe internet drivel. The basic truth is out there if you try a bit to find it and dont blindly believe the first echo from your personal echo chamber. So now the government is supposed to protect us from our own gullibility? Or we need to "break up" platforms that carry "fake news''......into what? Uh... smaller platforms? How bout dont be stupid and hit the delete button often.
1
Maureen - do you and your colleagues in journalism and the media think you are part of the problem? You used snarky nicknames for Obama - Barry - for years and now we have you spreading Trump’s nickname for Biden. Please stop. It added nothing to the point of your piece other than to do Trump’s work for him. Where pray tell is your nickname for Trump? And you continue the false equivalency between the ‘aloof’ Obama and INDIVIDUAL 1. To compare Obama’s inability to move the intransigent McConnell and Tea Party Neanderthals (Boehner’s term - not mine) to Trump’s lawlessness is ridiculous. And to write an article like this without giving Mitch McConnell star billing is also missing a very big picture. He and the Republican Party thwarted Obama’s attempts to warn the public which is unconscionable. Although - surprised you didn’t print out Obama’s unfortunate timidity there.
With that said - what the Democrats need to do is secure our elections at the state level where they can and take a lesson from Trump’s playbook and greatly improve their messaging to the electorate that this is about our democracy and not ‘politics.’ I still don’t think the public gets it. Too much focus on ‘collusion’ by the media and Democrats. This is about an attack by a foreign adversary that played us for fools and that the REPUBLICANS encouraged and took advantage of.
That is your message. A foreign adversary wants the Republicans to remain in power. WHY?
9
"He didn’t even bother to bring it [Russian election interference] up in his recent phone call with his pal Vlad."
Why does anyone continue to take this president at his word when he is a confirmed chronic liar? trump lies about almost everything so why would we believe that during a top secret conversation with Putin, Mueller and elections never came up? He continues to play Americans for fools.
3
Ms. Dowd must be quite intellectually lazy to think nothing came of the smoking gun June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting between the campaign "brain trust" (Manafort, Kushner, and Don Jr) and three top level Russians-- the government-connected attorney, top computer hacker, and expert spy. The Russians explicitly offerred "dirt on Hillary" in the form of thousands of stolen private DNC and Clinton campaign emails. They offerred and PROVIDED all the dirt by transferring the stolen property to Wikileaks and it WAS expertly released.
In exchange, Russia wanted targeted economic sanctions relief from the Magnitsky Act, and wanted a favorable "peace plan" legalizing their hostile occupation of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Trump campaign officials including Mike Flynn and Manafort floated sanctions relief and the exact same "peace plan" during the transition, but those plans were exposed by great investigative journalism and therefore not implemented.
I'm so, so tired of cynical complacency around all these topics. Please Maureen, do your homework next time.
6
Hear, hear!
1
Whole thing’s gotten so out of hand...
Giuliani supposed to have only been referred to as "a respected former NYC mayor" in the media...
But then an alarmed Bloomberg threatened to sue, because of possible confusion...
Now, we'll never know what secrets his hizzoner’s dossier would've revealed...
With this, only option for the GOP deplorable-demographic is to assume that – whatever bad things the Dems say Trump has done, or will or might do – the Dem candidate has done 2X worse...
The only proper way to have settled this would have been old white mano a mano...
The GOP should’ve pitted their “respected former NYC mayor” against the Dem’s “respected former NYC mayor”...
Only then would we all be able to sleep at night, even prior to 11/4/20...
PS
As far as Si Valley’s utopia being your Hudson Valley’s dystopia...
If their hyperopia hadn’t enabled a cornucopia that’s even uplifted Ethiopia...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/travel/ethiopia-train-harar-addis-ababa.html
“...In the nine years since my first visit, a lot had changed in Ethiopia. The economy had boomed, with years of sustained 10 percent annual growth yielding significant jumps in life expectancy, living standards and GDP...
You’d still be using a corded princess phone for your upcoming tête-à-tête with Archie W M-B – just like you’re likely still wearing eyeglasses for your presbyopia...
Best description ever: “Trump always seems like someone who walked out of a Vegas steam bath in 1959. And now the whole country is starting to smell of moth balls.”
3
Books folks....books...especially History books......
Books on tape.....books on screens.....books however you
can get them......serious periodicals.....great newspapers...
we might just up our smarts........
and it might help us to identify what is idiotic more readily
although never forget that a picture is worth a thousand words .........See Rudy below.......
4
That piece was a bit discombobulated!
5
If we're in retro mode Donald Trump is the quintessential " Ugly American ". Loud, loutish, and a serial molester of the truth, he creates chaos, and contaminates everyone he comes in contact with. Rudy Giuliani is his bufoonish sidekick. Trump's toxic presidency is enabled by the insidious sycophancy of Mitch McConnell and the feckless banality of senators like Lindsey Graham. Trump's policy ignorance, and lack of respect for the separation of powers,have taken an ominous turn as a trade war with China looms, subpoena's are ignored, and a carrier task force moves into the Persian Gulf to threaten Iran.
1
Biden and his son need to be prosecuted
May be the reason Giuliani canceled his trip is that he was told by the Ukrainians that they do not have any translator able to translate the peculiar English of Giuliani, like his new definition of truth.
1
Maureen, your “crazy posse” description reminded me of the 1950’s TV show, and now politically incorrect , “The Cisco Kid.” If there ever was a real life Pancho, Rudy Giuliani is that man.
2
Welcome back Maureen!
So America has found another way to lose? Foreign trolls and bots are dictating to the United States? What an achievement. Can you think of a more definitive defeat? You've been getting pretty good at losing since the 1970s. If you tolerate this situation, it will become yet another lower norm. Get off your disorganized backsides and fix it.
3
Thank you, Maureen!
1
It took Ms. Dowd so long to get to the point in this rambling opinion piece that she just about lost me. Why all the unnecessary background information if you just wanted to discuss social media and how it is influencing the voters?
In my opinion, for four months in 2001, Rudy Giuliani could hardly do anything wrong. Before and after 9/11, however, he can hardly do anything right. This latest exploit is his most egregious, but it is in service to the even more egregious Trump. As a commentator noted, Trump has dragged us back to the 1950s if not the 1850s. Except for the music and how the cars looked, I didn't have a whole lot of fun in the 1950s with its sick politics and social strictures, and I find history sadly repeating itself but without the good-looking cars or the honest rock and roll.
Trump was the king of yellow press. He reveled in infamy, and scandals are his assets! A creature of shamelessness and cheap cover stories.
Twitter is the new yellow press, Trump figured out he can apply his old tricks and do the ultimate con.
Do not try to get into the ring on his turf, he will be uglier, wrestling him will bring anyone down. You can not do anything to one with no shame.
1
Wasn't Rudy Giuliani's original reason for going to Kiev to speak to a Jewish organization and then drop in on the new comedian-come-lately president? That organization and the new prez should be thankful, they just dodged a bullet and some fangs. As to the two evils, Zuckerberg and Trump, the former was a kid when the reins of power descended into his hands and the latter never grew up. Two childlike figures with enormous influence at their command places us in an imperfect storm. Clipping their wings still leaves them the ground to move about on. Better to go for their power and remove their tails that end as a spade.
1
It just riles me that the party of small government (the Republicans) has installed a mad dictator.
2
This article seems disjointed, starting with a just criticism of Giuliani, then veering into Russian interference in the 2016 election as reported by Mueller, then a paragraph on the disastrous Bush Cheney era, then another on Obama's alleged personal weaknesses, and ending with a conclusion that social media has created a global dystopia.
1
I don't know how to say in American that Zelensky's wikipedia entry screams he is the legitimate leader of the world's democracies now that the USA can't be considered democratic.
1
It seems clear that Vladimir Putin promised the Republican party a concervative judiciary if they supported his puppet for President.
After all these two ideologies make ideal collaborators as they both want Liberalism annihilated.
The real question at this point is... what else is Putin, who is possibly the most powerful White Supremicist in the world, promising the Republican party for their on-going support of his agenda and his democracy destroying President?
Too bad Peter Boyle isn't around to play Rudy in the movie!
The NYT article says Democrats assailed Giuliani, accusing him of activity evoking that at the center of the recently concluded special counsel’s investigation.
“Today, Giuliani admitted to seeking political help from a foreign power. Again,” said Adam Schiff--calling this “immoral, unethical, unpatriotic and, now, standard procedure.”
Senator Chris Murphy said Giuliani’s engagement with the Ukrainians amounted to “private foreign policy engagement,”...“I am deeply concerned about the implications of this for United States foreign policy.”
Rudy G calls this 'spin'.
Advisors to the new Ukranian president advised him not to meet with Giuliani.
Gosh, how could they??
You couldn't make this up ...it's downright weird.
.
It’s as if Putin gave trump a playbook on “winning” elections. “The Cheaters Guide to Dictatorial Leadership,” or “4000 Lies They Always Believe.”
Has anybody thought of boycotting Facebook et al?
Maureen Dowd seems to forget that Trump squeaked into the Oval Office by winning via the electoral college--not just by his use of social media which Barach Obama more successfully exploited. It would be nice if this columnist relied more on facts than her fantasies du jour.
1
how do you say "wings clipped" in social media?
As the country sinks closer into autocracy and with the Democrats essentially spineless in their resistance to the wannabe dictator the words of James Carville ring true. "it's the economy stupid." If this is what it takes then let it crash.
1
you got this one right
Social media. Streaming of terrorism, Christchurch. 2016 Election tampering. Daily Twitter decrying/providing false news. The new normal.
Great picture of Rudy G attached to the op-ed. It captures the chaos and absurdity of this administration. It's a still photo, but somehow it gyrates and vibrates with scary clownish horror. The horror.
3
Nothing will happen. Congress is an ineffective puddle of mediocrity and the White House is occupied by a Russian stooge. Fox propaganda will reinforce the right-wing myth of America under siege by armies of illegal aliens. Donald Trump will be re-elected. Republicans will lie, cheat and steal to keep political power. The moneyed class will prevail and the NRA will giggle all the way to the bank with its Russian friends. So goes modern life in the USA.
1
And not only abortion but contraception will become illegal.
1
Money holds the clipper.
If we thought we couldn't be shocked any further, then crazy Rudy G says he's going to Ukraine, so a foreign nation will give him dirt on the son of he who might challenge Rudy's boss, etc etc.
THEN, cancels the trip, blaming Dem spin.
What does the world think of the USA?
This is an unreality TV show. A remake of Alice in Wonderland as a political horror story with weird characters.
And right up Maureen Dowd's alley.
I wish so much, Maureen, that you had not turned your efforts and your talents to getting Trump elected.
3
Yikes, that photo!! I am going to have nightmares tonight.
Sleepy-Creepy Joe needs a counterpart. Try Meany-Weany Trummpkoff, as in dummpfkoff. German definition: blockhead.
3
@Schimsa
Good one we need a name the dems can use to refer to Trump. Lets start a contest. Something like
Poor Little Richard - ( He's broke and we know he has a little Richard)
King Liar
Don the Con
Bankruptcyman
We need more
3
“We’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.”
I thought that was called "obstruction of justice."
And it wasn't social media that got 63% of women to vote for an alleged child molester over a Democrat in the 2017 Alabama Senate race.
3
so well said! yes!!!
Giuliani was likely going to warn the new Ukrainian Television actor President we were on to the Television scam elections here and there.
Collectively, the MSM propaganda and falsehoods, reach hundreds of millions of persons. Many of them are left with bizarre believes such as that SCOTUS is a actually a foreign agent. Similarly, where real evidence exists of collusion with foreigners to be involved in our elections and money trails are established and undisputed, the facts get retouched like old May Day Moscow parade photographs. Same is now happening with the Biden affair.
Since Ms. Dowd has established her reputation as an armchair psychiatrist in the W years, let’s try this experiment. What would be the coverage if Trump Jr got millions in fees and 1.5 billion hedge fund deal from Putin affiliated foreign politicians while the dad is in the WH?
Welcome to Marx lite dystopia.
In the beginning man discovered how to make and use fire.
The inexorable human descent into darkness followed. Right?
Written language, the wheel, the spear alcohol, tobacco, radio, gun powder, TNT, television, antibiotics, the pill, nuclear fission and fusion ,the transistor, the chip and the Internet... up from or back to the Stone Age?
The basic truth is that all science and technology has costs and benefits that devolve and evolve over human space and time.
The one and only biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species began in Africa 300,000+ years ago. Programmed by nature and nurture to crave fat, salt, sugar, habitat, water kin and sex by any means necessary. Including conflict and cooperation.
On average about 2-5% of Asian and European DNA is extinct Denovisan and Neanderthal. The fact that two ancient Neanderthals like Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump can use social media technology is not surprising.
Efficient simplifacton access to the masses is what drives innovations. Plus the love and worship of money and the deadliest sin aka pride.
1
Dowd: "But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness." Have you forgotten about Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and all the rabid Repubs who made it their #1 goal to hamstring Obama? Had any other president ever been called a liar out loud while delivering his State of the Union address? Maureen's remarkably selective memory is showing.
6
Just a reminder: Bush/Cheney/Feith et al certainly did dark things leading us into the sewers of the Near East. But the New York Times and other elements of the "establishment" were right there alongside, cheering them on and predicting great things about the imposition of democracy. What claptrap and how short Ms. Dowd's memory seems to be.
3
So Barack for Maureen was “aloof”
And with too much “book learning” to boot.
Well now we’ve got the Trumps
And Vlad plays us for chumps
Our Democracy gone in a “poof!”
323
@Susan
Shades of Larry Eisenberg!!
11
@Susan Where's Larry?
6
You are spot on, Maureen , when you complain that Trump has been yanking us back to the 50’s .I lived through the 50’s and seventy years later have no desire to return to this era.The similarities are obvious.McCarthy was a divider and spread fear and loathing and was abetted by Roy Cohn.Trump is a divider and has apparently found his Roy Cohn.When you take the 50’s and add the challenges of an unchecked social media, you do indeed have a dystopia.
217
@JANET MICHAEL -- Yes, it's true that during the historical McCarthy hearings, innocent (mostly) Americans were being accused by members of Congress of collaborating with the Russian menace to influence our government and that today, members of Congress are again, accusing innocent (mostly) Americans of collaborating with the Russian menace to influence our government.
Now, who is pulling us back to the bad old days of the 50s?
1
@JANET MICHAEL
But, was the GOP Congress also so co-opted and corrupt back then that they robotically defended and covered up for an out of control President no matter how badly he violated the Constitution?
16
@JANET MICHAEL How long before we have a dystopian existence on the level of what the Chinese are about to roll out across their land? Facial recognition software watching their every move, all the while being scored by minders and AI which determine each citizen's value to the state. The lower a citizen's score, the more rights are withdrawn by the State. Timothy Leary and George Orwell were both right, in equal measure.
7
It's possible -- even likely -- that Mueller and McGahn -- will not testify.
It's possible -- even likely -- that we will not ever see Trump's tax returns.
It's possible -- even likely -- that Trump will refuse to leave office when he is defeated in 2020.
It's possible -- even likely -- that eventually this whole business will be battled out on the streets.
4
In other news we find that generic drug manufacturers conspired over cocktails at the 19th hole to inflate drug prices. So I suppose the Russian bots will smother social media with an expose of leftist plans to kill free enterprise & introduce Soviet style commissars to oversee production & distribution in the USA.
This preoccupation with dummies seems fixated on the success of those influencing the dummies. Why don't we, the enlightened, try influencing the dummies too?
3
Is this an existential cry from a denizen of the fast disappearing class of media intermediaries print devision?
I am a dinosaur as I have read three newspapers a day (currently The Guardian, The NYT and the WSJ) for the last 60 years. As I have lived in Foreign countries over the years I have taken in the FT, SDZ< SCM and Le Monde. I am also a magazine addict: Wired, The New Yorker. The Atlantic and the NYRB. I listen and do not view. I abhor Facebook Etc as an intrusion on my privacy.
Maureen and I will disappear into the sunset together!
"And, while he was over there, Giuliani was going to try to pick up some fresh ammo to use against Hunter Biden, who served on the board of an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch, in an effort to hurt the Democratic rival he now calls “SleepyCreepy Joe.”
As a citizen, I am content to leave it to the CIA and FBI to decide if seeking "dirt" on Bidens is in the interest of national security.
I am appalled that the two dingbats, Rudi and Donald, prefer to get their information from Ukrainian oligarchs than from the US intelligence services.
Trump voters, do you really think a guy like Trump who sees every issue large or small only through the warped lens of his own self interest, is th one you want making decisions that will affect you? Everything Trump does is biased toward self protection and self promotion. He has no interest in the needs of his voters or any other Americans.
5
Every GOP Congressperson has the opportunity to read the current redacted version of the Mueller Report.....I would wager that NONE have done so. You cannot read that report and not come away with a number of frightening conclusions:
1) The Trump campaign had more Russian contacts than anyone knew, clearly welcomed all the assistance, did not report these contacts and lied about each and every one. We need better laws if such unethical and unpatriotic behavior does not rise to the level of criminal conspiracy.
2) Donald J Trump used intimidation, mendacity and disregard of potential consequences to obstruct justice on NUMEROUS occasions.
3) The only reason, stated clearly in the report, for failure to indict with charge of “obstruction of justice” was the OLC guideline on impropriety of indicting a sitting POTUS.
You don’t even need an open mind to see this, you just need a mind. That the GOP has rushed to their “case closed” position and that Barr and Trump will do everything possible to prevent public hearings of testimony from Mueller and McGhan tells you everything you need to know about how scandalous this Report actually is. None of these people deserve your vote in 2020.
6
Correct, my Congresswoman Stefanik NY Republican, issued a letter that sounds like Barr's 4 page report. Stefanik did not mention anything about obstruction. I'll be calling all of her offices this week about this and her fear of holding a true open scheduled town hall meeting with all of her constituents.
4
Seriously does anybody believe Giuliani is all there? He acts like a character in a Inspector Clouseau movie.
9
Time to not only breakup Facebook but also Google Amazon Netflix Uber? AirBnB? The latter two may not matter in a few years.
If Giuliani can get to the bottom and provenance of the Steele dossier, I hope he consults with Lucifer if need be.
Why are Liberals so terrified of receiving the full truth on 2016.
1
Liberals are not afraid of truth. We allow every zit on the skin of our candidates to be publicly biopsied. That is mainly why two of our victories in this miserable century were turned to defeats in the EC and we merely shrugged, and accepted it by blaming the candidate for being flawed. Gore and Clinton-- neither would have dragged us into costly and needless wars; neither would be destroying our system with the glee of trump and the shameless GOP.
2
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness. "
Oh, please.
4
He stumbled into a fortune based on a lucky roommate situation
so funny!!!!!
1
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness...."
President Obama gave 20 million Americans access to health care. President Obama offered us TPP. That is not "aloofness." Maureen, please, stop mollifying Kevin.
5
Consider the original Utopian turned Dystopian Television industry;
After many decades of countless cop shows full of gun play, there is rampant killing with guns and a culture no more advanced than the old west's lynch mob days.
American Television devoted a Billion dollars of free airtime to help elect their favorite actor, Trump.
There was a report that Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager had some dealing with state owned Russian Television.
Manafort also helped a Russian puppet Ukranian President. Now Ukraine is or will have a Television actor as President.
Trump was an N.B.C. show actor. N.B.C. was in Russia to broadcast the Olympics there.
Appearances of major Government leaders on Television talk shows occur mostly on Sunday Mornings when everyone is home watching TV.
The Television industry is well connected to governments and their police forces. I remember one department in particular was so used to using the Television industry, that they had a dedicated "Media Relations Department".
Even FOX News blatantly serves the Republicans unabashedly as an outright propaganda arm. So why did Australian Rupert Murdoch migrate here to destroy the peace in our nation? My suspicion involves the C.I.A. who likes partnerships with billionaires.
Just remember "Shock and Awe". It's hard to consider our lives except by day to day mass confusion by a manipulated mass media.
Disorder of minds is the "New World Order".
Save yourselves; turn off your Televisions.
1
Facebook and Putin did not elect Trump. The failure of Mrs. Clinton is the fault of Mrs. Clinton. But she and her fans like Ms. Dowd refuse to take responsibility for her failure. So they blame the dreaded Foreign Foe and Social Media instead. Ms. Dowd is guilty of the same xenophobia as the demagogue Trump. Ten minutes after the Democrats regain power the US military will be defending America's freedom in the Baltics and Poland . . . .
I love “viscous cycle”. You may have meant “vicious”, but the image of politicians in Washington wading around and around in swampy goo seems just right.
3
I take exception to the " Vegas Steam Bath ". He, and his entire insane posse would melt from steam, as they are Wax figures. With brains to match. Otherwise, good Job.
Seriously.
3
Well, the best line was “Trump always seems like someone who walked out of a Vegas steam bath in 1959”. OMG - so descriptive and creepily spot on. Sorry I lost the thread of the article when I read that. Can America please get the world out of this nightmarish unsettling dystopia in 2020....PLEASE.
1
Why does Ms. Dowd's assessment of President Obama's performance fail to mention the absolute blockade conducted by Mr. McConnell and the GOP to hinder any meaning performance by the President? Although Ms. Dowd's snark is often entertaining, it flops when she cuts corners on the truth.
8
Whoa, talk about unfair to Barack Obama. "But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness." What bogged down his presidency in addition to the Bush disasters was that he was black, and the GOP was not going to let the first black president get one single thing accomplished. So outraged were that they couldn't stop the ACA that they have spent the last 9 years non-stop working hard to take away American's health insurance and are finally succeeding.
The GOP used the exact same obstruction at every single thing he tried to accomplish, including his SCOTUS nominee. McConnell honed his obstruction chops on Obama and now keeps them sharp protecting at the cost of the security of our country, the racist, criminal buffoon that followed, not coincidentally, the first black President.
5
It seems that consigliere, Rudy the Mouth, is the real clown not the newly elected president of Ukraine. Of course, it's "collusion" with a foreign government interfering [aka "meddling'] in a political campaign, but that didn't stop them in 2016. But why go all the way to Kiev for "dirt" on Biden when the "400 lb guy on a bed" [aka the "troll farm"] in St. Petersburg can dig it up for you? As for the so-called "social" media, it needs to return to its original purpose to connect family and friends with one another and no one else. It should never have become an unlicensed, unregulated dispenser of "fake news." But don't expect the zombie Trumpublicans to do anything about it nor Mark Zuckerberg and other media titans either. We're in a 21st century digital war where the very survival of the Constitution hangs in the balance. And with Republicans rigging of the election through gerrymandering, "ethnic cleansing" of the voter rolls, and Voter ID laws, it will take another blue tsunami like 2018 to dump Trump and retake the Senate. This election like 1860 will not just be between a Democrat and a Republican (Trump), but between the utopia of our Constitutional "rule of law" or the dystopia that is the autocratic "rule of Trump" that is now playing in a House hearing room near you.
1
Sure, Rudy is meeting with Ukrainians. I'm guessing that by Ukrainians, you mean Russian intelligence agents. 2020 is right around the corner.
2
Oh! How I pine for the good ole days when Nikita Krushev pounded his shoe on the table and said, "We will bury you!"
Well maybe not exactly, but Russian history has always been complex. They are used to it, expect it and know how to live with great intrigue and uncertainty. The Trump crowd is out witted and out matched.
If we don't rid ourselves of the, cheeseburger narcissist we might end up with Borscht. Giuliani can throw his malarkey around all he wants. In the end he's just a clown who pounds his tongue into a microphone.
4
“But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness.”
That’s right, Maureen. If Obama had only been more passionate and angry the racists in this country would have loved him. You really have figured out what was going on during the Obama years.
3
" to collude with a foreign power to fix the election.....
Giuliani had his bags packed for a trip to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, to meet with the president-elect — who made his name playing a president on a TV comedy."
Ukraine is many things. It is certainly "foreign", at least from a non-Ukranian perspective, but a "power"? Hardly.
Maybe Mr. Trump is planning a comedy-reality comeback and sought tips from Mr. Volodymyr Zelensky. There is a difference though between the two. Mr. Zelensky has connections to oligarchs. Mr. Trump is a failed pseudo-oligarch, but a comedy star.
Who will get higher ratings, time will tell.
1
I would not say Trump is off the hook.
Pelosi knows she’s got Trump right where she wants him.
Every time the House subpoenas evidence and witnesses, and the Trump team then refuses to comply and is in contempt, every time Trump then claims “executive privilege,” he is obstructing justice in plain sight.
Who needs an impeachment trial?
As the Speaker said, the President is impeaching himself.
So, all the House needs to do is keep pursuing the truth.
Subpoena, hold in contempt, wait for the claim of executive privilege, go to court. Repeat as often as necessary to get ALL the facts out.
I want to know if Trump is a traitor. I want to know what he told Russia when they knew he had lied to America about Trump Tower. All I know so far is that he has obstructed justice so much it is very hard to get to the truth.
Do not impeach until ALL the facts are out.
And if Trump, with his minority base, and the Senate they hold hostage, and the sycophant Supreme Court keep blocking access to ALL the facts, then don’t impeach — yet — but instead make 2020 a referendum on the Truth.
Trump has been building his bogus brand his whole life.
No Democrat will have the same name recognition — Trump himself said bad press is better than no press.
The only opponent that can beat Trump in 2020 is THE TRUTH.
If The Truth comes out before 2020, it will beat Trump.
If Trump and his cronies keep blocking the The Truth until 2020, then the election will be about The Truth.
1
Trump is ill. He's a very sick man. But the Republicans? What are they? I can forgive Trump though he makes me dizzy with anger because he can't help it. He has shown us all who he is. But the Republicans? What are they?
I have discovered that who I despise is Senator Susan Collins, my senator. Miss Wishy Washy Who Wants It Both Ways, who inherited Margaret Chase Smith's state but not her bravery, not her honesty, not her patriotism. She gave Tory Bill Barr her vote of confidence - and as I watched I knew he was a con man, perfect to serve Dear Leader. I watched as she gave her vote to Kavy (I like beer!) Boy, who is readying any and all votes, no matter what, in favor of Dear Leader.
What is the matter with her, with all the Republicans? Lust for power, no morals, no patriotism, supporting an autocrat who would be King? All the above?
That is what baffles me. And scares me. Is there no Republican who can withstand a tweet? Not one can do the right thing because of their fear of this tyrant bully? Can they not coalesce and band together to withstand his fury? Are they children?
They are who I despise now.
7
Maureen, I am sad that you failed to mention Mitch McConnell's intransigence in thwarting the Obama agenda.
3
Never mind Utopia, the whole world seems topsy turvy now. Neo-fascism spreading across Europe and the USA; Democracy threatened once again as history repeats itself - but what blows my mind is our dead head Republicans in the Senate. Who are these people? Have they no shame at all - permitting our very being as a democracy to rot in the vileness of this presidency?
They lie, they obfuscate , they pretend not to see , hear or remember their oath to the constitution. We elected them - some in the senate for too many years - too brain dead to defend the rights of the people. I, for one, am weary of the criminality and feel hopeless that we can clean it up and bury it in the annals of
a dark history.
3
Very nice.....but the collective sanity it would take to right this ship is in short supply....
2
Say what you will, those good old honest patriotic Americans in middle America do not believe a word of what you say. Dishonest Donald has been sued almost 5000 times for stiffing contractors, and he has sued back just as many times to keep them tied up in the courts, it is a racket and he is being sued under RICO. The suit against his fake university was a RICO suit, he has make up so many stories and just plain lies that it is hard to keep track, and guess what his GOP buddies seem to find ways to spin them as something Obama did, or even John McCain. Kimberly Strassel in the WSJ treats him with Marino Woll gloves.
His voting base in those states now underwater believe everything he tells them, they think he can make the rivers run backward too. It takes a dishonest man to con a dishonest man, and those soy bean farms seem to be full of them. And as for the GOP, joining in with Don the swindler is just like joining in the mob, it is a criminal organization also.
Please tell me how anyone can expect him to keep his word abut anything? What is the mentality of his sycophants, what do they expect to get out of it? When will it be stopped?
1
Nice thought but the"social-media dictators in the swamp and in Silicon Valley" are going to do NOTHING!
1
"Silicon Valley’s touted utopia helped deliver our current dystopia."
In one simply sentence the great Ms Dowd states the most overwhelming challenge facing the Western World. The only thing she failed to mention is the incredible tech narcissism that rages among the Lords of Coding that gave birth to Narcissist in Chief.
Bigly challenges lay before us...very bigly indeed.
2
We smugly congratulated ourselves for the 40 years after Watergate, telling each other how "the system worked" and how "checks and balances" would keep us safe from any real danger from a mad American president. We weren't banking on a mad president who surrounds himself with other madmen and madwomen, who all drank deep of that special witchy Kool-Aid that is the Republican Party of the 2000-and-teens. That picture of Rudy says it all. Sorry kids, there are no, zero Republicans who will come to the aid of their country when it most needs it. Get used to it.
4
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by....his own professorial aloofness." Ummm, no. Obama's presidency was bogged down by a Republican party that couldn't stand the idea that Americans elected, and then re-elected, the first black President.
5
"Hunter Biden, who served on the board of an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch"
Let us face facts. It was not Trump who worked for a Ukrainian oligarch, it was the son of our vice-president.
After the violent overthrow of Yanukovych, Mr. Obama recognized the new government, clearly the result of a coup and sent both Biden and Kerry to Kiev. This was in fact contrary to US law which forbids support of governments which come about as a result of a coup, but Mr. Obama knew that he would have the press on his side.
I thought it was both immoral and wrong and thumbing his nose at Putin brought a reaction. Russia took over Crimea which they are still holding.
But "Hey, it is all Trump's fault!" (smile). And as I know well, Trump abuse sells at the New York Times.
2
Trump was correct about one thing--DC, Silicon Valley, and corporate America is a swamp filled with predators ready to swallow up or bite the body parts of our citizenry. Deep in this swamp is a perfect storm of corporate greed-->deregulation-->GOP dirty tricks. Instead of draining this swamp of malfeasance our president feeds one official after another into its swirling waters.
97
@Amanda Jones
Actually, he did drain the swamp -- just enough to expose the deplorable creatures so he could select his cabinet & political appointees!
16
@Amanda Jones
And increasing the speed with which our republic spirals toward autocracy.
18
Maureen-I know it’s obligatory, but don’t you think it’s more than a little weird that your column sign off is
“I invite you to follow me on Facebook and Twitter”?
Could maybe you be the first to sign off from the sign off?
10
"It’s time for all our social-media-addicted dictators — in the D.C. swamp and in Silicon Valley — to have their wings clipped."
And yet. . .
"I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@MaureenDowd) and join me on Facebook."
5
Abraham Lincoln was prescient when in 1838 he said: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” While external influences feed our ignorance and biases, it is really us who put weight to ideas.
However, what does one do to combat the fabrications of an American demagogue who can deliver his message in the vernacular of the affected? Or a gaggle of ideologues in Congress who want to use the demagogue as a means to an end? Should we fight lies with reason? Reason only works with reasonable people. If you are talking to someone who believes first and rationalizes later, it is hard to use reason as a tool. You’ve convinced the convincible, but the demagogue is more entertaining for the affected.
2
Dowd fails to cite a third factor in this dystopian nightmare - right-wing media. None of the Trump/Giuliani spin about Ukraine or the “Deep State” or any of their other gibberish would matter if they weren’t playing to a poorly-informed, bitter, paranoid audience. Exactly the audience that Fox News (and Breitbart and Limbaugh et al) has carefully built over the past 20 years. The Trumpists’ fairy tales about Ukraine/witch hunts/uranium/Seth Rich can’t work with an NPR audience, for example. Because NPR carefully and objectively explains how Trump is fabricating all of his fairy tales out of whole cloth. Trump can only get away with his lies with MAGA voters, and even then only if those lies are reinforced by the MAGA-voter bloc’s favorite “news” sources. The alliance between Trump, the GOP and Fox is insidious, and destructive to our democracy.
400
@John Ranta Thank you John, I mention that frequently here however your explanation is more precise than mine. FOX News is like The World Wide Wrestling Federation of News. Lots of glitter to keep the masses tuned in but obviously fake and easy to spot as such. What is worse is the hatred they spread against the Democrats and embellished lies against any candidate on the left they see as a threat to the Republican agenda. Every arguement I have with a Republican is laced with lies from FOX News. It is an addiction every bit as destabilizing as the Opioid Crises.
28
@John Ranta
MAGA= Make America Grift Again.
7
Unfortunately, Russian trolls and social media's pervasiveness can give rise to dystopian figures such as Trump, only if the electorate is susceptible. We have entered an era of anti-science, climate change denial, misogyny, racism, avariciousness etc, because it is easier to be an ignorant person then a thoughtful individual. To become a mature, rational human being requires self examination, inquisitiveness, empathy, and a desire to evolve throughout one's existence, among many other factors. It entails work and the realization that the sum is greater then the whole when living in a society. Trump has merely held a mirror up to the American psyche and revealed is for who we are, or perhaps, who we have become. The image is not very appealing.
143
@Peter
As I read this, I was struck at what neoliberalism has done to our education system. We educate to standards and our system is focused on maximizing test scores that presumptively reflect how well our students are achieving and "learning." However, Civics is not one of those tests, the tests focus on math, English, and science. We follow prescribed scope and sequences and should teachers try to teach current events, they can be accused of politicking; so they don't.
Our educational system does not teach Civics, does not teach critical thinking (although they pretend to - but that's not valued in the standardized tests), nor does it promote political and social awareness. As long as a student passes the test and the schools can report increased test scores, all is well.
It is no wonder to me that we are in the state we are now in. When sections of the populace are so poorly educated that they believe the tripe presented on state media (Fox, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), then we can't expect anything different than our current circumstance.
25
@Peter
As customers being sold to through deceiving narratives many hours a day, I guess we have become receptive to bigger and bigger lies.
Like Fox News is "news", buying more weapons will make us safer ...
Unfortunately appearance trumps reality for long enough for people to make careers of fabricating whole cloth fiction moving money, people labor in questionable directions and setting us on unsustainable path.
The Trump presidency as you said is another symptom of this societal weakness.
15
Social media, cable news, unlimited hours of "do it your way" TV programming and massive consumer marketing that tells us to buy, buy, buy to make ourselves better has made us all feel that we can do a better job than those idiots in Washington.
So 60 million or thereabouts decided to do just that, put one of their own in the White House. It turns out that the job isn't so days after all. The social media, TV made man is hollow inside, not one genuine feeling lives inside him.
Blaming social media is like blaming the gun. It isn't going anywhere so we better regulate it to keep it where it should be - for sport or entertainment.
But the real problem will still persist which is the gullibility of a good portion of Americans who have for decades allowed themselves to be manipulated into thinking that progress, which is what all good futures should be, is bad. Republican leadership has taken that instinct for holding onto the past and used it to push their power hungry agenda. social media has just accelerated it.
The 2020 election looks like it may be a choice of nostalgia - Biden or Trump. I personally would prefer a more forward looking option. The soundbite world we live in doesn't make room for nuance and thoughtful discussion - just the binary our world is made of - yes or no, good or bad, right or wrong, 0 or 1.
58
@MKKW
"Blaming social media is like blaming the gun. It isn't going anywhere so we better regulate it to keep it where it should be - for sport or entertainment. "
Best comment all week.
9
I'd disagree Trump is off the hook. There's still the frightening possibility he might get off the hook but things don't appear to be moving in that direction. I don't think Trump is walking away without a formal censure even if McConnell succeeds in preventing removal.
Speaking of McConnell, I don't see how you can mention Obama's presidency getting bogged down without mentioning McConnell. The Senate is arguably a much bigger threat to the Republic than Russian meddling. Trump is nothing without GOP complacency. The Trump presidency should be a dead letter. McConnell's support is the only thing rendering Putin's interference effective.
Meanwhile, the news media did Giuliani a favor. They should have waited to break the story until after Giuliani traveled to Kiev. As bad as the optics are now, they would have been worse if Giuliani had actually taken the trip. The good news is Giuliani is almost certainly under US intelligence surveillance now if he wasn't already.
And then we have Zuckerberg. Here's the thing I don't get. How is social media so effective at sabotaging democracy? I don't know a single technology literate person who trusts Facebook as a source for anything but baby pictures and selfies. I don't understand how billions of fake accounts can gain any sort of traction.
That's assuming you use Facebook with any sort of regularity in the first place. A nuclear bomb could go off. Facebook isn't going to be the place I hear about it.
5
Keep believing this, it will guarantee Mr. Trump another four years.
It’s good to see Maureen joining the paranoid mobs attacking Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and Google. In all the fevered furor I’ve yet to see proof that any person has been harmed by their intentional, or even unintentional, actions.
All the outrage regarding privacy seems to boil down to advertisers showing items of special interest to me. Sorry outraged folks, I don’t feel damaged and I’m grateful to take advantage of Google and Facebook’s freely available services.
In fact, the main motivation for these attacks seems to be hatred for anyone who makes money.
1
@Charlierf
The harm is not merely data collection. There is harm to our country when a foreign adversary can use FB to interfere with our election and, arguably, determine the outcome. There is harm when white supremacist groups (or any other terrorist groups) can promote themselves, recruit and organize anti-democratic, even criminal behavior in the privacy of our homes. That's only the beginning of a list. Hopefully, you get the idea.
Congress, our first branch of government, needs to hold impeachment hearings and exercise a check on this lawless, amoral chief executive. Obstruction is an impeachable offense and so is the failure to fulfill your oath of office. This president fails in this regard every time he dismisses Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election and refuses to be proactive in ensuring that our electoral process is safe-guarded going forward. Instead our so-called commander-in-chief befriends the murderous dictator that perpetrated this attack on our democracy. If these actions are not reflective of what the framers of our constitution had in mind when they wrote the impeachment clause, then the president is effectively above the law and our republican form of government is a sham.
1
@Carolyn Faggioni
Impeachment is meaningless without a remedy. Given the current membership of the Senate, Trump cannot be removed from office. It will, however, help the Republicans to tarnish the Democratic Party as the party of petty partisanship. The risk of a Trump re-election or even a Republican House outweigh any satisfaction resulting from impeaching Trump.
1
@A2CJS
I specifically called for impeachment hearings. The public needs to be informed. Hearings will fulfill that purpose. 95% of Americans have not read Mueller’s report and most aren’t aware of Giuliani’s planned trip to the Ukraine. Of course the Senate will not convict the President but if House Democrats do not counter the Trump/Barr/Giuliani spin machine then 2020 will be a repeat of 2016. Giuliani’s trip was all about getting a foreign power to help win an election that they’re not capable of winning without interference. Expect more of the same if Democrats fight from weakness. It’s not petty partisanship to fight to preserve our democratic institutions.
2
There's lots of precedent for this audacity of Trump et al. going back again and again despite the narrowest of escapes. Listen to the Fresh Air interview last week about his financial dealings in the 90s. One bankruptcy and one default after another, each one larger than the last, and somehow they kept getting credit--with Deutsche Bank. It only takes one mark left for a successful con.Or, sadly, these days, about 40% of the American electorate.
But also: Iraq as Flintstones. Really? It was not Flintstones until we got there. What a horrible and incorrect thing to say. Especially since in Iraq were precisely the ORIGINS of civilization.
3
It will only get worse. Taylor Swift’s new overplayed song “Me!” sums up our selfie-obsessed, overexposed, sound bite nation.
Sigh. I have put this off long enough; holding onto a sliver of American optimistic hope. But alas, I no longer recognize my country...and I’m not that old (54). I believe it is finally time for many of us to leave these shores. Denmark and its “socialist” (horrors!) democracy looks like utopia to me.
1
Blaming this on the manipulation of "Social Media" sounds as if Ms. Dowd is hiding from the fact that, given the opportunity to fully oppose trump leading up to the 2016 election, she gave him a voice through her brother Kevin.
Now that Ms. Dowd is an "enemy of the people" it seems the tone has changed given the recognition of what is really at stake: Freedom of the Press. At the same time, she is not accepting responsibility for her part in this Dystopia, seeking instead to shift responsibility.
4
When social media becomes a narcotic, therin lies the problem. I look at the bottom of Maureen's column and there is the invitation to join her on Twitter and Facebook. Certainly doesn't look like any wing clipping to me. Maureen, you are expecting the drug dealer (or pharmaceutical company) to self regulate . If the government wanted to keep Facebook a manageable entity, it would never allowed it to get this big. You think Mitch or Charles or Dianne or Susan have the techno savviness to do it? I absolutely have no idea why large companies used to be too big and were limiting competition and had their wings clipped, but now there is no limit to the amount of boxing out the competition. And in the current Republican world, regulation is about as acceptable as grabbing a woman by the shoulders and kissing her hair. So don't expect any clipping. I don't use social media. Never have. Never will. And I am doing just fine, thank you. If people said enough of this and backed away, that would be all the hint Zuckerberg needs that maybe he went too far. But after weeks of oxycontin for that nagging back pain, another day certainly won't be a problem. Everybody does it. Will we discover that Zuckerberg KNEW years ago the public would get hooked on Facebook and now society wants a piece of his flesh. That should take care of the problem.
1
To control Zukerberg's monster simply stop using Facebook.
That photo of Rudy scared the daylights out of me! Does anyone take that man seriously? Biden was right when he said about Rudy, all he says is a noun, a verb, and 911. He is disgrace to the country, so therefore, he is the perfect lawyer for an even bigger disgrace. I can recall when he was mayor right before September 11th, New Yorkers couldn't stand him. As for myself, I could never stand him. He also had the great idea, against all advice, due to the attempted bring down of the World Trade Center 8 years before, to put his emergency disaster center in the WTC. He, like Trump, is also a great judge of character. He appointed Bernie Kerik as Police Commissioner. He turned out to be a felon, and like Rudy, a philanderer. A perfect choice, actually.
3
I still don't understand why Trump gets all the blame/credit for "yanking us back to the ’50s — on abortion, on climate change, on women’s rights, on regulations. Most devastatingly, he’s turning back the clock with the judiciary." In my mind, the blame is 90% on the Republicans, maybe 10% Trump.
What Trump doesn't get enough credit for is his role of distracter-in-chief. The media and therefore observers and readers are so fixated on Trump's antics, they have lost sight that the Republican Party is dismantling government, marginalizing the rule of law, and ignoring the Constitution to execute a coup d'état - substituting democracy for an authoritarian regime beholden to the plutocrats! They have been working toward this moment in time for over 30 years.
America could never have fallen so far, so fast without the aid of timid and feckless Democrats who refuse to stand with We the People. Now in our darkest hour since the founding of the U.S., Democrats are taking part in the theater of the absurd. They are in a quandary about how to win the presidency in 2020. Never mind the Senate where most of the damage is occurring. Now, who's putting party before country??
2
The military invented the internet as a means of having a web like network of all installations such that if one site went down, all others could still communicate.
So now that our defensive network has been sabotaged by Russia in an offensive manner, how do we proceed?
In the simplest terms, we either isolate our nation's internet to defend ourselves against cyberattacks, or, we jam the heck out of Russia which I favor.
You might ask yourselves; why would I profess such a radical technologically disabling attack if the number of people led by the K.G.B. man Putin is small? The Russian people elected him.
Giuliani was a major player in the campaign. They are outed. It's panic time.
1
Let's collectively purchase Twitter and then close it down. Who's in?
1
Legally, the 'crime' of Bill Clinton was that he lied under oath. Trump has avoided lying under oath, by never going under oath. The GOP vowed to impeach him for misleading America, for violating the high standards of his office. The same politicians now defend Trump's behavior. Why? Because the ends justify the means. The GOP rank and file will be outraged when a Dem does something that might be in violation of the spirit of the Constitution. When Trump does something blatantly, and clearly un-Constitutional, no problem. How do they reconcile this inconsistency? Simply: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Yes, I just insulted those who fail this test. Time to acknowledge not everyone is equal in their cognitive capacities.
I'm always glad to see a new column from you, Ms, Dowd. But you seem to be rightly tired of roasting Trumpism with trademark wit.
I'm tired of the interminable time and space that esteemed media give to the swamp thing. It's a sickly surreal symbiosis: Esteemed media have to cover the presidency, and the tabloid factor is so good for ad sales. And Trump needs to prostitute the press as PR channel.
"It's time" for it to end. But it won't. He'll weaponize legal procedure to run out the clock. He'll play victim to Congressional due diligence.
He's not just an autocratic puppet of Wall Street (those happy fellows). His attorneys are proving that our hallowed Constitution allows the courts to protect an imperial Executive (actually, just a real estate salesman) from the people's business.
The Founders wanted to avoid having a king. Well, they did that. But American law allows for a paper emperor with discretionary control of national security. The Founders couldn't imagine how Constitutionality could turn America into a banana republic.
1
social media allows Americans to shout at each other without (mostly) suffering the consequences. Trump is likely to win re-election, especially if the stock market remains strong. Americans enjoy slaying each other (virtually), although there is a steady rise in actual slaying, in the form of massacres. None dare call it White Terror. Oh, what a lovely civil war !
1
This all works in conjunction with schools and parents no longer teaching critical thinking and American Civics. I can't believe how many Americans, including apparently the entire Republican Party and Trump base, are blithely dismissing a US president not only not defending and protecting the country from an attack on our democracy and country by a foreign adversary, and who is being pretty overt in his desire for Russian's help again in 2020, but how has also terrorized and attacked the FBI and his own intelligence services as part of that quest to defend and protect Putin and Russia and their attack on the US! Just shocking.
1
Maureen, I do not have face book account and do not follow Donald's tweets. It was Donald's dystopia outright at the beginning. There was no utopia for folks like you and sane folks.
Utopia only belongs in our to dreams but dystonia has taken over trumps world.
Both trump and Giuliani are old men have nothing to lose they think, so they lie and cheat throughout their lives.
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld dragged us all into a war and now we are suffering from the consequences, soldiers come back with PTSD .and severe mental illness, disfigured and has no money to treat themselves .
While trump is not done ruining the Country George Bush is painting those soldiers.
Dick Cheney with someone elses heart and Donald Rumsfeld instead of jail are still lecturing around.
1
FB ought to be regulated the way the Nuclear power industry is regulated—it’s almost as dangerous to us as the improper transport of nuclear materials.
The fault for our current bout of Dystopia lies within ourselves. We have become the willing slaves of social media as well as becoming addicted to the cable networks that only reflect our ideological point of view. Donald Trump is the first down payment on this new age of ignorance and he is unlikely to be the last refrain.
As an aside, Rudy Giuliani can weave his web of deceit but without facing consequences/legal liability because he surely would be found 'innocent by reason of mental defect'.
“We’re not meddling in an election,” Rudy Giuliani protested to The Times’s Ken Vogel. “We’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.” Says the man who was once a federal prosecutor. What a switch!
I will take Obama's professorial aloofness over Trump's, Giuliani's or McConnell's blindness to what they are doing to America. I prefer Obama and Biden to Trump and Pence. At least two former people could be alone in a room with women, could be trusted to read difficult reports, and, for the most part told the truth. The latter two can't be trusted to tell the time.
If it was possible to turn back time, I'd unelect Nixon. A good bit of what is occurring now is due to Nixon and Watergate.
5/11/2019 11:05pm
2
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness."
Now, now, Maureen...let's not entirely excuse Barack for what occurred on his watch, please. Don't forget...for most of his two terms in office, Obama's Russia policy amounted to one attempt after another to appease or otherwise accommodate Vlad Putin.
Putin's meddling in the 2016 presidential election was the inevitable consequence of Obama's stubborn and continuing timidity where Russia and Putin were concerned. Putin had nothing but contempt for Obama at the end, and with ample reason.
In fact, when Barack issued his final set of milquetoast sanctions and rote diplomatic expulsions as he was leaving office, Putin's reaction was absolutely priceless:
Vlad decided to invite the children of U.S. diplomats stationed in Russia to a PARTY...!
You couldn't make it up.
I'm a 67 year old, twice widowed architect. Like a lot of people I have done a number of bone headed stupid things in my life, but no one died. One of the smartest things I did years ago was to refuse to buy a smart phone and to refuse to be on Facebook. I'm still proud of that. We need to rein him in and tank his stock value.
2
Zuckerberg cannot see beyond the money his idea creates. Trump cannot see anything but the enhancement of his brand, his own personal “greatness.” Neither has the vision to see beyond themselves and say, “My god, what have I done?”
1
The Russians and the North Koreans don't need any missiles
when they have loose cannon Trump rolling around the deck.
If it weren't so tragic it would make for good comedy.
The sixty year old Putin scored ten goals (set-up) in a recent ice hockey match and then fell flat on his face.
Maybe we should organize an ice hockey tournament...China
North Korea, Russia and the USA. The winner gets to write the
new trade agreement and run Facebook.
1
"It’s time for all our social-media-addicted dictators — in the D.C. swamp and in Silicon Valley — to have their wings clipped"
Well, yes but the twit is out of bottle and he's not going back in. If the wild west of social media is tamed, there is always old reliable FOX News and a plethora of white supremacist websites masquerading as conservative Christian news sites and blogs visited by many fine white people who admire Donald Trump. Social media does need regulating and the anonymity of posting should be re-evaluated as well. Donald Trump needs a filter or perhaps an industrial size scrubber for the pollutants that billow out of him impulsively.
Social media and Donald Trump are both easy targets for those of us seeking a more civil and fair America and a more honorable and honest government. An unfettered social media is being used as a tool or enabler of hate speech and disinformation. Likewise, Donald Trump cannily uses hate sppech to provoke and divide America, feeding his ego and retaining power and wealth but he isn't the cause of hate speech and incivility.
The bigger, more vexing issue is why so many Americans lack empathy and act as is they have no moral compass,rallying around Donald Trump, sanctioning his perpetual lying, poisonous speech and overall vulgarity. Why do so many of these same individuals believe Donald Trump, an arrogant, egocentric coastal elite, NY City real estate developer with a dodgy business history, cares about anyone but himself?
3
Trump didn’t win because he had Russia’s help. He won because Hillary Clinton was his opponent. The corporate Democrats don’t recognize how disgusting they look to the average person struggling to stay afloat. People voted for Trump because they felt they had nothing to lose.
1
Neither Hughes, not the editors, nor Maureen Dowd in this article make it clear how breaking up Facebook would reduce Russian interference. If there were three Facebooks, then the Russian's would interfere in all three of them. What is the logic of this?
2
"They (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) mired us in two interminable wars in Flintstones territory when we should have been looking ahead.
Is that supposed to be witty?
1
True story. Posted a short video of an outdoor kid fest where a group sang some song. Yesterday. This is in Barcelona. Video was maybe 45 seconds. Facebook muted the video! Immediately. You could see the performers but not hear the song. And, they notified me by email that they had muted it because I might not own the rights to the song! It’s kinda stupid as I think it was a Catalan children’s tune but I wasn’t sure. Anyway, are we happy that Facebook protected copyright laws or disturbed at the invasive efficiency of Zuckerburg? And his people? 🤔.
1
My modest proposal for today is that the press quit covering all the idiotic things 45 says on Twitter. A fire without oxygen burns out.
3
Ms. Dowd, your antipathy to our president is palpable. But are we really in dystopia? Lowest unemployment rate (especially for African Americans and Hispanics) in half a century, wages rising faster than in they have in decades, labor participation rate increasing as people who had given up come back into the workforce. Are things really so bad?
15
@Robert Yes they are bad. At what cost? Will we survive this? And, I do not put it past this admin to cook the books on these stats.
60
@Robert
The president influences economic policy, not the economy. The economy was on an upward trend when Trump took office. He’s riding a wave (and seemingly doing his best to make sure it crests as soon as possible).
At any rate, a president’s effectiveness and fitness for office should be measured by a lot more than economic indicators.
75
@Robert What does the employment rate really mean? Holding down three jobs just to make ends meet.
68
To me, the most frightening aspect of all this in not the enablers such as Facebook, Russia, Guiliani, etc. It has become the lack of judgment and moral fiber of those being used. How can they not see? Figure that one out and we will have a revelation and revolution against the control too many Americans have allowed over their lives.
I can'y buy the narrative that the public's only role is as the victim. However, tens of millions daily celebrate their victimhood in one fashion or another using social media and media sources. It has become a disease whereby any charlatan with a well-spun message is preferable to scepticism and plain old common sense.
There have been warnings aplenty. Rome's leaders feared the Gracchi's control over the mob. Marx had his lumpen-proletariat. Our founders believed in democracy, but largely for those who achieved stature. The truly brave assertion of the 20th century was that everyman could in fact be trusted to make decisions. The problem is that it worked better when their lives were on the upswing. When things started going south, democracy was tested once again by grievance and resentment and the resultant bad choices.
So how do we protect democracy from millions who prefers the stimulation of adrenaline to stimulating debate fostered by knowledge and norms? For too many, their purpose is the further stimulation of narcissistic self-pity rather than the higher demands of democracy and citizenship.
82
@Tom How? I think the only answer is leadership, to bring us out of victim hood and into "plain old common sense" as you so aptly put it. But, easier said than found, I know.....
3
@Tom It may be time to consider that the founders' faith in the American citizenry was misplaced. They were just wrong.
I like to think that by Nov 2020, most of the voting electorate will have seen the utter nonsense and absurdity of Trump and his presidency; that it will be easy to overcome the votes of foolish Trump apologists and admirers. It would seem a no-brainer, but like the founders, I have as much chance of being wrong, as right.
4
Remember that Facebook's motto was to "move fast and break things." Sound familiar? Like a motto that Trump's team embraced, to destroy the "deep state," or as we know it the administrative structure of the government? Both Facebook and Trump are products of a culture that tips toward narcissism and nihilism. Hard powers to combat, and I'm afraid that there's no going back from the edge we're approaching.
4
@Marilyn
But when will the Democrats wise up, and use the media, too? My fear is that they will not stop rambling on and lose in 2020!
I suggest that Democrats need repetition, repetition...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, they might look for campaign songs and mottoes. They might sing Leonard Cohen's prophetic "Democracy" song:
"Democracy is coming to the USA."
I sense a new democratic wave of resistance to Trump.
Would Maureen care to discuss the words of "Democracy"?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Democracy is coming to the USA."
1
The real scandal coming from the mueller report is not only has trump done nothing about Russian interference, he claims it didn't happen. where is the congressional investigation on the seriousness of Russian interference? which dem candidate is beating trump daily like a drum about the simple fact that he is not protecting us? forget about a crime hard to understand. trump is failing to protect us.
25
Maureen Dowd has always had the ability to stimulate my thinking. I think we have to correct our day to day, neighbor to neighbor and local interactions before we will be immnized against Trump's vicious twitters. I learned not to use mean nicknames in elementary school--says something about Trump's education, doesn't it. We can blame Facebook for selling us for money, but I can hardly bear deleting it as I love the pictures and notes from my family in Kansas and friends everywhere. We shouldn't forget the pluses of Facebook.
Dowd's observations remind us our political history and its waterfall down to the present day. We must all absorb all we can and fight the abuse of our democracy. We must not sleep through this all because we have become accustomed to the insanity. We may be almost helpless as individuals--how can I stop the cruelty of separating children from parents, the lowering of the poverty line, the horribly increased risk of wars? But together we can do something to make things better.
8
Not sure how necessary nor smooth the transition between the first part of this piece and the second part really is. If it was supposed to be a doubleheader, then please label it that way.
Let's just hope that we'll only have to suffer from Trump for another year. If not, we're doomed. As for the Frankensteinian social media evils, at least we have some self-imposed options to govern ourselves and 'just say no.'
What's the lesser of those two evils? I'd say the latter instead of the former.
What's the best way to achieve both sooner rather than later?
Vote.
12
Ms. Dowd points out how information technologies focus and amplify our human weaknesses and biases. Social media in particular features heavily in her analysis of what is wrong with our world. Now weaponized by enemies foreign and domestic, it boosted phony content to put Trump in the White House. Her solution is the cry of the moment, break up Facebook and our problems will be in the past.
Nonsense. Most of our problems are outside of Facebook and even outside of social media. Even plain old analog media on TV and radio is helping feed bigotry with a steady diet of Trumped-up news stories.
We are also discovering the frailty of our institutions. The packing of the federal courts looks to bend the Judiciary to the whims of Trump and the GOP. The Senate has generally stopped its oversight function of the Executive Branch. The president and his associates blithely spurn Congressional subpoenas. Given enough time, especially four more years of GOP rule, there will be wholesale changes to regulations. Picking one at random, we will not assess the full impact of mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants that will add an extra 11,000 premature deaths each year. (https://www.brookings.edu)
Breaking up social media giants is needed, but there are other threats that are not afraid of the light. They move in the open to concentrate power, limit our access to information, frustrate our recourse in the courts, and hamper American liberty. That’s news.
32
@David Potenziani
It's news that our country has ways to deal with, the most basic being a free and fair election. This is the cornerstone of a democracy. It is also the one most at risk from a threat we have yet to fully comprehend. It's not just Trump, it's how he got there.
5
President Obama should have been regarded, questioned and held accountable for his policies, actions and words like any other President; like the elected representative and politician he was.
That he was treated like the second coming is a large part of the problem and why we have Trump.
'Utopia', which does not really exist, is certainly not unquestioned allegiance and starry eyed celebrity worship.
Politics and public policy is not religion. Elected representatives are not delivering us to some higher moral purpose. They are simply charged with acting in our best collective interest.
That the Obama presidency was elevated to 'utopia' is exactly why there is a feeling of dystopia. Public policy and government should never have been seen as an emotional, spiritual or psychological salvation to begin with.
7
I agree—but I don’t see how to keep people from pinning messianic hopes on candidates. In the case of trump’s candidacy and presidency, the messianic rhetoric is often literally biblical. Too many voters want salvation, not policy, and charisma, not competence.
20
@AnnaT And that each side allows precedents to be set that only strengthen political leaders and harden divisions because they see their views not just as perspectives but actual universal truths.
The other is evil so the ends must justify the means. Then they are surprised when those means are used against them. We have to dial it all back and using words like ‘utopia’ and ‘dystopia’ are counter productive and arguably dangerous.
@CNNNNC
Read the piece again. Maureen Dowd used the word “utopia” to describe the supposed promise of technology and social media, not the Obama presidency. Obama most certainly was held accountable for his mistakes and the consequences of his policies, by this columnist and the media generally. How many times did we hear about his infamous “red line,” or his promise that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, or Solyndra, or Fast and Furious? The list goes on.
Compare that treatment to the current president, whose environmental, social, and foreign policies are scorching the landscape, and who seems intent on appointing the least qualified individuals to important positions. He’s also unethical and corrupt, and it’s those qualities that command the most attention while the damage he does on the name of “governance” doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
The use of social media has had another corrosive effect on society and democracy: people aren’t reading good books.
I just finished Philip Roth’s brilliant parable of innocence and disillusion, American Pastoral, set during the Vietnam War. One of the more resonant passages: “The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that—well, lucky you.”
Isn’t that a wonderful insight? And I got it by ignoring my phone, and immersing myself for hours in Swede Levov’s world. After I was finished, I was happier, a little more enlightened, and less eager to see updates in my news feed on Facebook.
13
I used to like this column but not anymore. Today´s is like a hodge podge of disconnected things that starts with Giuliani and end up with "Mark´s power." What is Mark´s "power" anyway? He runs a big company, yes, but doesn´t Twitter´s CEO have as much power too since it has millions of people, including the president, trying to influence people´s thoughts and minds with their tweets? Don´t the president´s tweets, even when they are lies, have more power to influence his base than any post on Facebook?
14
@T. Silva
Wasn’t it named twitter because they knew it would mostly be used by “twits”?
1
Except that Trump will never support any action against social media. Like the Electoral College, social media works to his advantage the way it is now, so why try to change it?
10
I once tried quitting Facebook. This was about 7 years ago. I immediately received a warning that my contents - photos, contacts, everything - would disappear. But Facebook reassured me that it would give me a two week grace period (as if I'd I temporarily lost my mind and just needed some time to come back to my senses).
"Unretrievable!" it warned again and again. The two week deadline passed, but I kept getting second chance notices. Finally some months passed without hearing from Facebook and just when I thought I was finally free forever up pops my fully functioning Facebook account. I realized Facebook was like a bad penny. There seemed not much I could do about it. The machinery of Facebook was obviously able to override my decision-making process. Now, after some years have passed, I'm thinking of trying again. Maybe Mark is treading lighter these days, and I can finally achieved that promised unretrievable status.
11
@Lilla Victoria
I tried Facebook one time and have never been back. I just don't get it. "Put it on Facebook" is what I hear from others (to others). I ask Why?
I am 75 and I suppose that's the problem.
It was interesting to read Howard Stern's interview in the midst of wading through this gigantic landfill of a presidency. Howard Stern is a similar icon thrown up from the material spinning in the drum of popular culture. Stern's sensibilities or lack thereof charmed the jaded, awakened an ironic rebellion against political correctness long ago. His audience wanted to hear him taking people down to size. reducing guests to a pile of reactions, and grinning in their mutual shame, bonding with him on the lowest human level. We've been working on how to get back to adolescence for a very long time.
14
A system with alleged checks and balances is only as good as the strength of the next link. Don’t blame Trump, or the voters who elected him. Trump can’t help himself, his behavior is well beyond acceptable norms and a case study for many aspiring mental health enthusiasts, while his electorate got hoodwinked just like many tourists buying fake Rolexes on Canal Street. (The watch looks real until it ain’t.) The real problem lies w/ Mitch McConell and his band of thieves, the weakest link, who have stolen now for 6+ years any semblance of democracy out from our very noses. In many respects, Mitch yields more power w/ abusive, un-democratic tendencies than the man in the WH, a residence I now sadly refer to as the Ecuadorian Embassy.
60
We as individuals could end social medias' disfunction tomorrow. Drop Facebook and Twitter, and use the phone to talk to people and a fax if you really need to. Even write a letter and mail it. Walk down the hall and talk to your coworker rather than email them. These simple technologies and habits were effective and healthy, but didn't undermine democracy. Social media and web technology has made us lazy, and we are loosing our society because of it. Brave New World meets 1984. Heck, I think I'll go to B&N in the morning and pick up a paper copy of the Sunday Times. They still print paper copies don't they?
26
@Buba Brown
it ain't new now. people buy into lies and propaganda. they always have.
1
Well before electronic gadgets, we had politicians and parties. Some of our pols started to call themselves Conservatives and Liberals (now Progressives). They thought the new terms made ‘em seem smart — they had an “ideology” now and operated above the level of mere issues. Nearly 50 years later, it’s no surprise that conservatives (including pretender Trump) want to live in the past, while progressives view change as positive. Duh.
In those same years we watched a parade of scandals: Nixon, Iran-Contra, Clinton, Bush’s neocon war and bank disaster. But bad pols were defended by bad political parties. Parties tried to keep on winning by dividing and conquering groups of voters. It’s easy to appeal to people’s worst instincts when they’ve been hit with a depression and lost their house or job. Remember 2010? Deficit spending and tea were all the rage.
Don’t figure we can blame Silicon Valley — or Obama’s “professorial aloofness” (jeez, Ms Dowd) either. If we’re too dumb to value goodness, fairness, equality, our country, and the future of our world, then let’s simply use Twitter or Facebook to kiss mankind goodbye. No great loss.
18
I’m a business man and psychologist. I ask my anxious clients( 10 yrs old-60)to turn off “jealous book” , Instagram, snap chat, and What’s app as an exposure or response prevention experiment. Findings: Similar withdrawal symptoms as narcotics and alcohol at first , including suicidal thoughts, then relief from FOMO and worries about worrying what’s happening next. What would America be like if we truly trusted ourselves? Answer:FREE and that means Free from Trump too. You may consider this experiment for you and your family.
Good luck!
13
@Paul L.
What about fake preachers (liar giant churchies) and propaganda newspapers like the National Enquirer? What about FOXNews? Fascists did not have social media back in the early 20th century. I don't think the issue is with the transmitter. I think the issue is with the receiver.
1
@Mogwai You’re right let the buyer beware. And at the same time the rapid fire information leads to situations like Christchurch due to social media. See NYT article. Even the Prime Minister of New Zealand saw the footage she didn’t purchase or ask for. Propaganda has been around for centuries, but not delivered like this. Clinically the Enquirer and Fox or CNN are unhealthy. Monitor how many negative stories vs positive and you can see why it’s best to train the mind in other ways. Good luck!
1
Big Brother is here---now. We are all under surveillance and mind manipulation. It is time to wake up and take action.
Facebook and Twitter are mechanisms of totalitarian control and must be abolished.
15
@Michael Dowd
Nope. They are merely the current scapegoats. Instead of blaming all the useless and mindless people for fascism, you all are blaming the medium. The medium is only the message. The problem lies in the receivers.
1
All over the map, dear, but I love it.
Keep it coming.
5
Trump may try to bring the US back to the 50s on abortion but in other fields he is worse than Ike who had an idea or two about foreign policy (no atom bomb in Asia, Suez but also a similar animus toward Iran).
Now Hillary Clinton did try to find dirt on Trump in Ukraine (see Politico (Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire) and the Steele dossier, now discredited, was an attempt, first by Republicans opposed to the conman then by Clinton to find dirt on Trump in Russia. But we now know about the lies (Cohen did not go to Prague) See the notes of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11, 2016.
When the full Mueller report is known and Mueller testifies in Congress awkward things will become public and embarrass Trump, the GOP but also Hillary Clinton and there is a risk of Russiagate becoming intelgate--as after the other intel driven conspiracy theory of Iraqi WMDs. Mueller pushed this conspiracy theory, remember?
Peter Van Buren, a courageous whistleblower, can give Times readers an idea of what Mueller can expect if he is grilled in Congress. (American conservative, May 1).
One wonders why when there are so many areas where the Dems could have really resisted or attacked the atrocity in chief they chose a hare-brained conspiracy suggested by Brennan and Clapper (who don't care about voter purges, the environment or socio-economic equality).
1
@Pierre The Steele dossier, far from discredited, is meant to provide leads, not truths. Much of it has been accurate which is miraculous when you think about it. Thus, the assertion that Cohen's trip to Prague is a "lie" is nasty spin. Raw intelligence is not about truth or lies.
1
The Steele dossier, which was initiated by Republicans, has never been “discredited.” It never pretended to be anything more than a collection of rumors and stories. I’m just disappointed that Cohen never went to Prague. I urge him to travel there after his stay in prison. What a beautiful city!
1
@Pierre
Too much whacky info ..... one thing : the Steele dossier has been discredited BY REPUBLICANS.
Social media have become huge swamps, and an end run around truth and fact. But even "regulated" or in some way cleaned up, we are still left with last century's problem, Rupert Murdoch, Fox "News", and the emerging scourge of Sinclair Broadcasting ,Rush Limbaugh's syndicator and a bastion of right-wing messaging disguised as news. Free speech is great, but billionaire's propaganda outlets are not free, they are money-minting hate-spewing forums for deplorables.
16
An uneducated population is the real problem...recall DJT saying, “I love the poorly educated” - he has good reason to “love” the red hats, they buy his merchandise AND they buy his ignorance.
@dave Umm, lets get off the high horse of thinking we are the good people amd since they disagree with us, they logically must be bad people. We on the left have the mirror images of all you reference.
If you want the "deplorables" to change their minds, maybe we start with no longer acting deplorably blind towards our own failings? Otherwise, people are going to continue throwing bricks through our glass houses, amd frankly I don't blame them.
Obama’s presidency was bogged down by Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner. Period. Never forget this fact.
74
Rudy may not be flying to Ukraine, but I'm sure Jared can teach him how to have those same conversations on WhatsApp.
Great photo, by the way. The eyes truly are the windows to the soul.
27
"Besides Mark Zuckerberg, Trump is the most successful exploiter of social media in history — and he’s 72."
I would disagree with this. The most successful exploiter of social media would be Vlad and his gang of Russian jackers and trolls, because not only was it successful in its goal of helping to get Trump elected, they did it all while unknown. Trump's success hasn't been in exploiting social media. His success comes from exploiting a serious and dangerous breakdown in civility, knowledge, even humanity in about 40% of the American electorate. Trump's Tweeting reflects his personality of narcissism, perpetual victimhood, perpetually seeking revenge, vulgarity, lying, kindergarten-level name calling, and evidence of a man who can't control his rage. It should have repulsed Americans and caused 90% to reject him outright, but the frightening thing is that the 40% either love it, or admit they wish he's top his Tweeting...but ignore it, along with his Access Hollywood admission of serial sexual assault mocking. disabled person, attacking a veteran for having been captured, attacking a Gold Star couple, lying to us over 10,000 times now, defending Putin, while attacking his own law enforcement and intelligence, over an attack on our democracy by Putin (clearly wanting Putin's help again in 2020), etc., for reasons which escape me. But no, Russia is the most successful exploiter of social media.
29
Amusing, but horribly frightening, and correct, in your aside comment about the judiciary. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are time bombs waiting to explode every civil rights achievement of the last 50 years.
24
Our nation, indeed, any country of this world will never be part of a Utopia. Nations are made up of people, and sorry to say and admit we are all flawed. Ah, but a Dystopia, well that is a different story. According to my new "dictionary," Alexa tells me that the above means: A society characterized by human misery... And miserable so many of us are now due to the miserable beings inhabiting the White House. Before our eyes, downright unconstitutional behavior is exemplified daily, hourly, by Trump and his minions. I am sure many of Maureen's readers figuratively - perhaps literally - fell out of their chairs upon hearing of Guiliani's doomed trip to the Ukraine, ostensibly to "investigate" a few of his boss's nemeses. The gall! What is really dystopic, dysfunctioning, and diseased is that Trump is getting away with everything. And it is not only his supporters who see and hear no evil (although apparently speak it), but also his GOP Senators with the malevolent Mitch leading his pack of wolves. What to do, what to do... How about heeding those words written in this column, to paraphrase: Time to clip those wings. 2020.
9
I hear the phrase, "wings clipped"... but how?
When DOJ is in Presidents' pocket,
when Republicans --despite confirmation from multiple prosecutors-- of president's obstruction are saying "case closed" in funeral tones,
when President is denying to comply with any subpoena, when on one has checked him for terminating our deal in Climate change accord,
when Senate is more than ready to block any act to help better governance,
when you have two SC judges who believe in an executive power like the word of God,
when our foreign policy is in shambles,
when representation in senate is based on size of the land not population (which is an oxymoron),
when...
Everything is stacked against the good and the rule-of-law.
To tell you the truth, American politics is hurling itself into a Stygian Dark.
So, tell me again, where is that ray of light?....
12
I support most of this opinion particularly the conclusion “It’s time for all our social-media-addicted dictators — in the D.C. swamp and in Silicon Valley — to have their wings clipped.”
As a computer designer for 30 years , many in Silicon Valley, I mention technology , unlike science, has two distinct predictors of future outcomes. First, is the designers personal and corporate intentions and achievements. But the second is market acceptance and proven value.market , Mark Zuckenberg helped the market value of Facebook but he did not determine it. Some say many social media insiders might appreciate a better regulated but level playing field .
Rather ‘wings clipped’, the might find it a smoking attractive.haircut. But peoples tastes aside, the population ,and the regulated market must speak loudly. The must be ready to ‘clip wings.’
3
Fox News had a hand in the mess we’re now in. Blame Social media all you want but Donald and his followers all take their cue from Fox et al.
16
@GlennK
What America needs is ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE
GET RID OF MONEY IN POLITICS (no more Cititzens United, no more Money equals free speech).
Then Fox News would lose it’s power.
1
@GlennK The wings most urgently in need of clipping belong to Rupert Murdoch & Sons. Bring the evil pterosaur and his greedy offspring down from their lofty perch above the law and shut down their hate-spewing, democracy-destroying propaganda machine.
1
Clip the wings of social media but leave Fox News intact.
How is that going to improve things?
11
Facebook?? What about Fox? How long has Fox been broadcasting? And approximately when did things begin to go south for the US? Coincidence, correlation, or causation? You make the call. We are in deep trouble.
17
“Besides Mark Zuckerberg, Trump is the most successful exploiter of social media in history — and he’s 72.”
Ms. Dowd is absolutely right and Democrats better buckle up because despite the fact that our Dear Leader never reads, disdains intelligence reports, lies all the time and it’s always about his grievances, Trump is a virtuoso in playing the suckers learning his ‘policies’ on Twitter.
After the Mueller report came out, Trump’s poll numbers climbed to 46% as he looks forward to more distractions with Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. His tariff distraction with China only encourages people to shop at Dollar General because the place can’t raise most of their Chinese-made goods above a buck.
In 2016, the media couldn’t get enough of Trump rallies as cable news broke away to cover all of the ugly rants about Mexicans, disabled people, the press, etc.
Now the newsrooms hang on every tweet as do foreign governments because it’s the only source of direction while Trump’s advisers ask ambassadors, “ Do you know what’s going on because we don’t.”
Democrats need to pay heed and tighten their chinstraps because next year, Trump will be playing the only game he knows through Twitter and we have seen how devastating it can be.
6
The arrogance of a totally divided corrupt and failing country is sad indeed for someone who loves America and knows a lot more truth and a great deal more humility might be the only things that might save America.
Zelensky is no vacuous script reader like the catastrophic Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Zelensky is educated and informed and possesses a law degree and whose understanding allowed him to become the President elect of Ukraine despite his Jewishness.
It wasn't that long ago that a future Attorney General of the USA, Matthew Whittaker stated in an Iowa Senate primary that only Christians should be allowed to be judges.
A century and half ago my maternal ancestors fled the Ukraine and a century and a half later I fight for the words to tell my American grandchildren that it is time to get out while the getting is good and Ukraine may very well be a safe haven as Canada can't afford to decide whether the USA is friend or foe because the answer is not that difficult.
6
I cringe whenever Maureen Dowd refers to President Obama as aloof. I'm African American and I've been called arrogant, overly confident, and yes, aloof. At times these perceived characterizations have made their way into my employment evaluations, and the results weren't good. What Ms. Dowd is doing to Obama is no different than this. She’s grab ahold of a perceived character flaw and is diminishing President Obama’s achievements because of it. It's called stereotyping. For the past few years I’ve been fortunate to obtain Obamacare after going years without health insurance. President Obama got the job done. It’s just plain silly to even mention the word ”aloof” amidst such an accomplishment. Stop it!
30
@Marilyn I don't doubt the stereotypes, and I empathize with the impacts they have, but the fact remains that African Americans are human and as such can be every bit as fallible, arrogant, and aloof as any other human. I cannot speak to your experience, but whether or not Obama was aloof, is a valid discussion. A discussion that should be informed by the stereotypes you mention, but a valid topic all the same. He is/was a politician elected to represent us and if he is aloof or arrogant, some folks are going to decide he does not have their interests at heart. Which, as we have seen, makes maintaining his achievements more difficult.
What Leno used to play for laughs, college students who couldn't name the there branches of government, Trump played for votes. Who Waters plays for ratings, no one being able to read a map, Trump plays for suckers. Who Kimmel embarrasses for sport, Trump honors for real. The perfect storm of ignorance known as the 16 election began a whole lot longer ago than social media. Students learned plagiarism on their desktops, bad spelling on their laptops and zoning out on their consoles. They were softened up for social media by a total lack of cognitive skills, critical thinking, and a sense of purpose.
8
Can we practice by making Mitch McConnell accountable to the American people ??
26
The pundits warning that the Russians are coming to hack our elections always seem to forget suggesting such retro solutions as paper ballots and voting by mail.
It's amazing that a Russian troll farm that spent about a hundred grand on cheesy Facebook ads had more influence over the last election than the corporate media giving Trump an estimated $5 billion in free air time.
Meddling has always been the name of the US Imperium's game. We get all upset about Rudy going to Ukraine to meddle, but we're either indifferent to Trump's attempted coup in Venezuela or are else we're cheering it on. The "resistance" to this Clown King does have its limits, especially if it interferes with the overriding interests of the multinational oil industry. Those standing to gain from intervention in Venezuela (and maybe Iran) are not so much the citizens as it is the Koch Brothers and Exxon-Mobil.
The pre-Trump "Utopia" that Joe Biden wants to return us to were lost decades for the majority of Americans. Trump won because he rightly sensed that the Dystopia he now presides over was already a done deal for them. Too bad people are still falling for his con.
Trump's sin is that he's ripped the mask right off the establishment, whose previous leaders were so well-read and so glibly platitudinous.
Replacement of this column's grotesque bug-eyed pic of Giuliani with Munch's "The Scream" would be a much more accurate assessment of the national zeitgeist.
https://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/
8
hink"Trump always seems like someone who walked out of a Vegas steam bath in 1959."
So, so true and exact. Why else do I always think "Rat Pack" when I think of the Trump persona? The man is of another time. Probably another planet/reality, come to think about it.
4
This is just too rich. Trump’s administration is rife with nepotism, cronyism, conflicts of interest and abuses of power, yet he thinks he will make Joe Biden look corrupt.
17
It’s a great recitation of the past few years Maureen. Succinct and to the point. But you are a long Time Washington insider, so what is your opinion of where this ends or what we as a country should do?
1
Rudy Giuliani was appointed as US attorney by Ronald ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!") Reagan. Rudy used his stint as the US attorney to get elected as New York City's mayor.
Rudy's fall since then has been quite sad. He has gone on to defend with Donald ("No collusion" with Russia) Trump, who planned to build "Trump Tower Moscow" and give Putin a $50 million penthouse for free. Now Rudy wants to collude with Ukraine.
Regan would be so proud of Rudy.
8
Spot on, Maureen.
Facebook has become an anti-social goldmine.The Russians use Facebook to sowing discord in foreign elections such as Brexit. Facebook and has also fueled religious wars around the globe. Facebook was used on a massive scale by Russian trolls who posted thousands of lies about Hillary in key swing states. With Republican polling data from Manafort, Russian Facebook ads specifically targeted voters in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania - the battleground states that gave Trump the Electoral Vote by a mere 70,000 in total.
Also. using social media like Twitter to attack legitimate news sources is now a huge part of Trump's Big Lie strategy. Trump has told 10,000 lies since taking office. Twitter is his ideal broadcast tower.
Social media, particularly the leader Facebook, have developed faster than the speed of light as a force in modern communication. In the face of the vast profits to be made, these companies, like the fossil fuel industry, will never be effective self-regulators. Ads are Facebook's biggest source of income. They will never truly control site content or abuse of personal information if it impacts their bottom line.
Silicon Valley once proudly touted Google's "Don't be Evil" motto. That is a thing of the past- it is now all about share price. This means there must be powerful legislation in the US and around the globe to regulate these unscrupulous social media giants. Billions of unaware Facebook users are nothing but ad bait.
90
Oh, what I wouldn't give for some professional aloofness in the Oval Office again. I admire President Obama's self-control and character. A man of integrity.
29
The many causes of this national disaster mentioned in this piece and the comments make me weep for my country. Donald Trump is the greatest self-inflicted wound in the history of the United States.
The only focus at this point must be rallying around the Democratic candidate whoever it is - step one in the long, long rehabilitation process must be winning in 2020. With a majority of voters clearly and strongly anti-Trump the only way he wins is if we fight among ourselves and refuse to compromise to win the election. Bernie, Biden....anyone else, I really don't care at this point - we have a choice - support the Democrat or suffer through another 4 years of this 3-ring circus - there is no other opiton.
My fear is that even the vile Trump and McConnell and their Republican enablers will not be enough to force the obvious compromise and sacrifice necessary for the survival of the country as we know it.
28
@Frank Roseavelt
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I think removing McConnell and the GOP majority in the Senate is more important than removing Trump. Mitch McConnell has done more damage to this country than Trump ever dreamed of.
10
The main problem with social media is that it is largely monopolistic, ubiquitous and censored in accordance with the owners' view of what is most likely to maximize profit.
11
I am so glad to see the focus on Volume I of the Mueller Report. It is chilling and it's not unrelated to the obstruction detailed in Volume II. But for the obstruction, it's highly likely Mueller might have found evidence of a conspiracy. Why the cover-up and obstruction of the connections to the Russian effort, even assuming coordination in plain sight doesn't equal conspiracy (Russia, if you're listening . . .)?
29
@Julie Shields
Thank you! Not sure why the media and journalists haven’t focused on the obstruction committed by others on the Trump ‘team.’ Lying. Pleading the Fifth etc. Destruction of emails? Remember how apoplectic they were over the ‘missing emails?’
And I still don’t understand why Junior wasn’t charged for Trump Tower. Because he didn’t understand the law? Since when is that an excuse? Because they couldn’t put ‘value’ on the campaign ‘contributions?’ Well then time for some updates to the laws. And while they are at it, pass some laws about financial disclosure and divestment for POTUS.
It is clear that ‘norms’ aren’t cutting it anymore.
5
I don’t know anything about what behavior by a lawyer is deemed illegal or unprofessional. But it seems to me that someone who has such knowledge needs to be looking into what this man is doing and saying. From my point of view Giuliani has to be breaking some code of professional responsibility at the very least and action needs to be taken to address this. He needs to pay fines or be disbarred if he isn’t following professional ethics and if he is breaking the law, he needs to go to jail.
38
Trump's skill set with the social media and the paying media is not inherently "dictatorial." It's personal. The marketplace of social media is relatively open to everyone as long as the platforms are kept open to all. The more backwards-looking view is that the disestablishment of the formerly-dominant media via the internet is anti-democratic. In the 1919 Abrams case, Holmes, with Brandeis joining in dissent, objected that WWI-era leafleters against the war lacked the specific intent to violate the Espionage Act. Despite his own Brahminesque arrogance on a personal level, Holmes observed that protecting the "marketplace of ideas" is a core American project.
4
This is the predictable Trumpian cycle, over and over, whether domestic or foreign policy:
1. Stoke fear and anger.
2. Threaten or terminate any symbols of stability, like international organizations, treaties, relationships with allies and normal diplomacy.
3. Then point to the chaos and instability you created and tell your base that there are dangers everywhere and “I alone can fix it.”
4. Rinse and repeat.
Unfortunately, we’re seeing the cycle accelerate as we get closer to 2020, as he realizes that most of his promises have not come to fruition.
41
The Republicans have been very adapt at conflating the words, “consumer protections” with “regulations” while turning regulations into another one of their focus group synthesized ugly words. One of the most important functions of government is to protect the people from the tyranny and abuse of large corporations. With out consumer protections, corporations will continue to chase profit at the expense of anything that gets in their way. It is time for a trust busting, monopoly ending, Teddy Rosevelt revolution. If we are going to turn back the clocks, let’s go back to the days when the government served the people and not the corporations.
37
I am an optimist, trump is but an aberration, Russians interference the same as its Vlad trying to tell his citizens that his model of government is far better than the west
But again and again, the fundamentals are stacked against trumpism and vlad.
For the former, his term will end, voters will get enlightened, science and facts will endure
For the latter, it’s simply not sustainable, what with emigration of the young and educated, the fact that Russian is but a third world resource based economy, does not produce anything, its government expenditures for non productive sectors of the economy like the military, early death of men etc etc
Democracy and liberalism and the western model will survive though its painful to watch it under assault
17
Wish I could be as optimistic about the survival of Democracy in the U.S. after Trump...if there is an after...
18
Corporate unspooling is geared for dominance of the market, supported by 'advertising', to a captive audience's attention towards consumption of their products...and the profit motive, if not greed, of the Social Media magnates. This, with little, if any, regulation and public supervision. Although supposed to multiply social intercourse, it also allowed malevolent dudes to create chaos and disinformation for self gain, a great disservice to the public. It's high time they get their wings clipped. This circus for folks entertainment has a Trumpian price, our loss of trust in democratic institutions and a rise in cynicism of what's true...or not.
10
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness." ...and by the Mitch McConnell's plot to obstruct any and all of President Obama's initiatives.
107
@joan Yes. And Obama's aloofness made it easier for McConnell.
I loved having Obama as our president. Best in my lifetime (which started when Harry was in the White House). But hero worship is always a bad idea.
Not taking on the big financial institutions right at the start with tough talk and strong actions was a disastrous mistake. President Obama needed to find a way to stop firms from paying bonuses to their employees with taxpayers' money. Needed to tell Geitner to get lost.
Under Obama the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill. Then-Speaker Boehner never even brought it up for a vote. Obama and the other Democrats should have been relentless in castigating Boehner for his cowardice. Called him the Cowardly Speaker every time they mentioned him.
But President Obama thought the Republicans' fever would pass if he was reasonable enough. That didn't work.
44
I completely agree with you.
Obama’s lofty bipartisan ambitions translated into a big disappointment in this backing off Wall Street, he chose Geitner, and Summers who were already terribly bad signs of impending pro Wall Street NeoCon cave. Later précédents for Trump also including cracking down on whistleblowers, too. Then he’s left a lasting impression world wide of being President drone strike.
12
@Jack Toner
It’s important that you mention Truman. The challenges he faced were so complex that they would have completely overwhelmed a less authentic person. The simultaneous catastrophes that Obama was presented with: two unwinnable wars, financial exploitation, blatantly obstructionist Congress, and unbridled disrespect, (remember ‘you lie!’ utter by a profoundly dishonorable member from South Carolina).
Cleaning the Augean Stables might serve as a metaphor. Or, perhaps cleaning up after the Fraternity party of Bush and his cronies.
Aloof might be a substitute for acceptance of the task at hand, while masking the essential unfairness of his lot. Jackie Robinson might have been seen that way as well. Courageous self-control is not a weakness.
4
It is a barren comfort to read these columns and comments but the fact is that we are ruining our own delightful experiment.
The saddest part is that those who have been conned and still feast on hate are the ones who will be hurt the most.
It's sad because I could care less and sad because after a family history that stretches back to the the 1700's - I'm ashamed of my country, ashamed of our blind greed, and more afraid than I have ever been.
That knock on the door may come and it may even come because of this posting.
28
@Michelle Teas...agreed---more than agreed, in fact, Michelle. It's possible to navigate tyrants. We've done it before in the 19th Century. The difference now is the tyrant has enough electoral support due to both cultural decay and system flaws which allow Minorty Rule. That, coupled with the complexities of unbridled capitalist puppeteers controlling both the balanced, and unbalanced among us, this "country" has been effectively dead for about half a century. I never thought I would give up, given that's not in my gene's, but I'm a about there, and considering pulling the rip cord after retirement in a few years. I'm afraid we're past the point of no return. I hope I'm wrong, but I no longer think so.
8
@Michelle Teas
One of my ancestors fought with General Washington against the British. I plan to stand on the roof and scream about this guy till the knock comes, and then I will scream as they drag me away.
Sic semper tyrannis.
1
Besides Mark Zuckerberg, Trump is the most successful exploiter of social media in history — and he’s 72. Wonderful, Maureen!
But when will the Democrats wise up, and use the media, too?
My fear is that they will not stop rambling on and lose in 2020!
Let me suggest that Democrats need repetition, repetition...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, they might look for campaign songs and mottoes.
They might sing Leonard Cohen's prophetic "Democracy" song:
"Democracy is coming to the USA."
I sense a new democratic wave of resistance to Trump, now.
Would Maureen care to discuss the words of "Democracy"?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Democracy is coming to the USA."
6
I have a weak heart, so I am being put on a strict Trump regime. I'm allowed to read 1 Mrs. Dowd and watch 2 Morning Jo shows per week. I'm more than happy to stay away from CNN (who gave us Trump) and any Con-Away slash Sanders gigs.
What I found the craziest thing of late is that Trump was so happy with the report that, according to him, exonerated him completely, only to move heaven and earth not to have it published.
Guiliani's antics are encouraging though. It shows where the real pain and angst is situated.
22
"After an uproar, Giuliani canceled the trip late Friday night, saying he thought he was being “set up,” and that Democrats were trying to “spin” the trip."
Pretty rich from the president's chief spinner. And of course, he blames it on Democrats. At least somethings never change with Giuliani, who has already changed so much he's almost unrecognizable, as in that Twilight-Zone caricature photo.
From what I've read so far, yes, Volume 1 of the Mueller is more depressing than the many stories developed here and at other publications since Mueller set to work.
But of course, most depressing of all is that they're at it again, with the possible addition of North Korea and China, all with cyber-influencing skills of their own.
Wouldn't it be great (and surprising) if this go round, Russia and the others decided to drive the president mad by meddling for Democrats?
If nothing else, it might teach him that when bad deeds go unpunished, the consequence might be the opposite of what you expect.
18
"Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes...his own professorial aloofness..."
Ms Dowd omits the systematic aspersion and obstruction by GOP and Associates--character and policy assassination--in Congress itself as well as Faux News and only then on Social Media.
The "aloofness" may be defended as an attempt to rise above the foul fray of GOP politics. He tried to demonstrate intelligence, integrity and civility. As well as first hand knowledge of life in black America and (some of) Asia--an anthropologist's son. He recognized China's attempt to be THE international economic superpower--thus his "TransPacific Union"--seeking Pacific economic peace.
For contrast see Krugman on Trump's China tariffs--a tax paid by American consumers; simple minded bullying well loved by his base base.
As Dowd once said Americans didn't deserve him. They got what they deserve. But she shouldn't blame Obama for not being her Superhero. Obama himself said he'd rather his presidency "lost" than "won" by cheating, bullying or lying. Not a problem for Trump and Trumpies. But foreign relations is not a zero-sum game.
The US won WWII; but Truman/Marshall saved civilization.
29
@Michael Kubara I love Obama but obviously he wasn't perfect.
As for "cheating, lying or bullying", did FDR engage in those? He used the bully pulpit to castigate the malefactors of great wealth. Sounds to me like telling it like it is.
5
Maureen, let’s give credit where credit is due.
Hillary Clinton ran a poor campaign. She could not distance herself in the eyes of the public from her past acts, coupled with the e-mail fiasco, and her demeaning comments on Middle America. The anybody but Hillary view was of her own doing. She still blames everyone but herself for the loss. Obama did not throw his support behind her. Do you wonder why?
Social Media did not cost HRC the election. Her arrogance did. The Good Humor Man could have beaten Trump. What’s next in the array of liberal arguments “the dog ate my absentee ballot “?
8
@George I missed the part where "Obama did not throw his support behind her."
I agree she ran a bad campaign. She's actually a pretty bad politician. It was a crying shame no one but Bernie (sorry to what's his name) challenged her. You know, like Obama did in 2008. If she could be denied the nomination then it could have happened again in 2016. But Bernie was a bit too far to the left and scared off enough Democrats for her to squeak by.
But that doesn't mean that Russian meddling wasn't also a factor. If Trump had won convincingly then I'd agree it was a non-factor. But he didn't.
I'm not making excuses. I'm just taking a clear-eyed look at the facts. Changing an amazingly small number of votes in three key states would have given us a second President Clinton.
Why did a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch want detailed polling information from Manafort? Seems like a reasonable hypothesis that it was so the Russians could make their social media efforts more effective. But proving such a thing in a court of law would be quite difficult.
21
The Russians and their clueless ally Trump, apparently understand our weaknesses better than we do.
So, if our dysfunctional government addresses the dystopian societal woes exploited by our enemies via social media, then perhaps we can begin to ponder why so many us prefer escapism vs. reality; alternative facts vs. facts; a con artist vs. pragmatist; Limbaugh vs. scientists; and Trump vs. any other breathing mammal.
7
Trump uses Twitter simply because he's impatient, impulsive and can't think in complete sentences or whole paragraphs. Social media works for him because 99 percent of his base just wants the bullet points gleaned from whatever show on Fox that Trump tuned in on. They don't want real, complicated ideas, they want short and simple words from Trump that reinforces their own impulses. They are never going to change, nor will Trump. It reminds me of the 3 monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The only way to overcome this group, and their Orange Emperor, is to vote in overwhelming numbers that will crush any charges of a stolen or illegitimate election. It's entirely up to us.
33
With friends like Chris Hughes, Zuckerberg will never need another enemy. So Zuckerberg is a dictator who needs his wings clipped? Give me a break. This is over the top. Facebook is a luxury not a necessity. It would close shop next month if people walked away from it. And anyone can. I have. So have many of my friends. It's voluntary. Just because it isn't a "woke" company is no justification for demanding antitrust actions. Why is the only answer progressives have for any problem is more regulation? Facebook had an impact on Trump winning the 2016 election? This is demonstrably false. But for arguments sake lets say it's true. So what. Would these same people complain if Facebook had swung the race in Hillary's favor? Absolutely not. We all know that. So lets stop the hypocrisy. Maybe establishment institutions despise the fact that the internet is going to leave them behind, obliterating their influence. Maybe they can't stand the fact the "people" who's will on Earth they purport to represent will need them less & less. Facebook can't be trusted to regulate itself but our politicians are willing to do it for us. They can be trusted? Of course they can. People step away from the ledge & come inside. This is the same government that can't even get a regular budget passed without shutting the entire system down. The same government that struggles to get the anything done due political gridlock. Yet you are going to find the political capital to regulate this company? Right!
3
For the record, Robert Mueller did not investigate "collusion." Mueller writes in Vol. 1 that “in evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of ‘collusion."
Collusion is not of itself a legal term and yet, the press continuously parrots Trump's false narrative that Mueller found him innocent of exactly that. You'd think they'd get it right by now.
Instances of what are obvious collusion were documented with a frequency that was chilling by Mr. Mueller but he determined that they did not reach the high bar of criminal conspiracy.
Rest assured, there was collusion and it would be stupid not to expect it again in 2020.
27
Done, done, done with America. Truman Capote knew where to live.. NYC and bella Italia.
3
@AK
Also done with America. We now live in beautiful Italia, permanently. A country where healthcare is a right and owning a gun is not.
Our excellent healthcare here costs less than Medicare and besides the beauty, arts and splendid lifestyle you can actually be out at all hours even in big cities without the fear of possibly being shot or violently accosted.
But it still hurts to see what is happening to our former country.
7
There does seem to be some malign presence—be it Russia, Facebook, low-information voters, Steve Bannon or the ghost of Roy Cohen—driving this moment in history. Or maybe it’s the unholy combination of all of them whipping up this retrograde juggernaut. One thing seems clear: Trump, who has the vision and attention span of a squirrel, is merely along for the ride.
21
Also, the media moguls that own tv and radio stations have been allowed to buy and own more and more consolidated markets as they get perks from Republican politicians.
14
The interference is already acknowledged to be planned for our next election and trump is going to do nothing.
I wonder if the dems have anything to say about this. Or anything really. So weak...
4
Ms. Dowd names all the usual suspects, starting with the Nixon duo Cheney and Rumsfeld, and W who hired them, all the way to Trump. She even has a dig at Obama for his "professorial aloofness" but recognized that he was "bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes."
All of which brings me to the one she does not point a finger at: herself. Her vituperative columns that constantly targeted HRC before the 2016 election for well over a year took its toll. I am not saying that Ms. Dowd was solely responsible for HRC's loss, but there is no question in my mind (and many others' minds) that she had a part to play in getting Trump elected.
The Russians interfered in the 2016 election, HRC was not a perfect candidate, she did not campaign in critical states, Comey's announcement was badly timed, and Trump (disingenuously) framed a simplistic and populist message that many Americans easily and mistakenly swallowed; none of this is novel news. But to this list I'll have to add the constant drip-drip-drip of Ms. Dowd's put down of HRC.
She is part of the coterie that helped birth today's dystopia. Neither her colleague David Brooks, who frequently issues soft criticisms of Trump, Trumpsim, and the GOP, nor she has yet issued a heartfelt apology for bringing down HRC and giving us the orange one.
44
Twitter should issue a show us your taxes (40 years worth) or will cancel your Twitter account ultimatum.
6
Many things mentioned in this column are true, or can be interpreted as truth in era of Trump's birtherism
However, to be fair, Ms Dowd, maybe your aloofness could rival that of President Obama. Unfortunately, the difference between a columnist and a journalist is that the former has a point of view while the latter is suppose to report facts. More importantly, a columnist is an influencer even before the advent of social media a la Facebook.
So, like it or not, you have drawn criticism because you pretend to sit on the fence and make criticism to everyone - except yourself. Sadly, damage is done. Sadly, except for Trump & crew, who would still bring up Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton, as if the latter were still holding offices, there is no more Barry to kick around anymore. Incidentally, just that alone has justified why Mr Obama wanted to stay professorial aloofness.
So, yes, Giuliani has passed the stage of any respect from anyone, anything he has done as the federal persecutor orNYC Mayor is dwarfed by his association with Trump, but maybe columnists of all stripes want to engage in some introspection as well. Comparing Mr Obama's professorial aloofness to the monstrosities the Trump gang has committed is just fake equivalency
24
this a slander on the 50's.....during that decade we had a bipartisan commitment to the new deal, now we have a president who wages relentless war on the poor, the sick, and the old (even if they don't hear abut it), back then we had a president who woud execute the rule of law even if he didn't want to, recall Ike and the conflict at Central High in Little Rock, and back then we had the higest rate of unionization, now unions are ever closer to extinction. So imagine a 1950s without a Civil Rights movement, where the Klan runs free of presidential criticism, where the life saving programs of the New Deal are no more and then through in a president who would have sold out our elections to Stalin if there were investment opportunities for his family. That is the country we have now...sort of makes you long for any other time or place, doesn't it?
8
Social media, which has allowed more people to speak their minds, speak truth to power, to lie and to tell the truth, than any form of speech in American history, needs its wings clipped, writes Dowd. I wonder, though, as we approach year four of the Trump nightmare, as hints of the Sixth Great Extinction become real, are there not more important national issues than clipping the feathers of Facebook and Twitter?
2
Ms. Dowd speaks of the need to clip wings. While I agree, I wish it were so easy. If we want the folks in power to act, well just take another look at our Senate.
Sadly, but naturally, only through education can people free themselves of being manipulated. To do so, they must first become educated.
The NYT reported recently about how global warming is hardly taught at all in our schools. Similarly, I believe Civics Courses and Ethics are little taught (except perhaps the drive against bullying, all the while ignoring the prime "adult" example daily seen in our lives.) The ongoing government battles would fill any such course with great fodder for student debate, but are untouched, being way too contemporary for our lock-stepped educators.
The schools I visit never question the effects of social media, but rather use it to enthrall students into art and video projects. Its potentially sinister side in not mentioned.
Critical thinking is at a low. (Each semester I give a complete nonsensical class of idiotic "facts" to try goad my students to challenge me and not just write down falsehoods for the test. I have to go back and explain almost every lie.
I believe eye-opening education is the primary key to the future.
10
When I get up in the morning before the news comes on I feel light and look forward to embracing the new day.
Then I realize we are all in the loop of insanity where the same soap opera is playing on all the stations. With the loop sometimes we feel that we are watching in slow motion the train wreck that are our political leaders.
There was a time in the not so distant past where character , integrity, brilliance, trust , morality walked the corridors of the White House .
We need to get America’s Mayor off the air waves , vote to return to a civil society where normal scholars not ridiculous idealogy that doesn’t put food on the table but a fair agenda to once again walk the corridors of the White House
10
I can't complain here, Maureen, you've captured the ironies and hypocrisies of our time with laser precision .
And kudos for the horrible noir Giuliani, straight out of the Twilight Zone. I think his latest verbal gymnastics--"We're not meddling in an election, we're meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do"--totally eclipses "Truth isn't truth" (or something to that effect).
It would be a neat trick for the president to walk out of a Vegas steam room at age 13, but I agree: his birth year may have been 1946, but his "brand" is more Hefner than boomer, more lounge lizard than yuppie.
And yet, the man who hates computers because of their indelible trail works his fingers to the bone typing insults alongside major policy shifts.
He's like an old man-child perpetually irritating his parents--and the world--while getting help from the craziest pair Rod Serling could have come up with: Vladimir Putin and Mark Zuckerberg.
291
@ChristineMcM, Hugh Hefner had more class, intelligence and sensitivity in a minute then Donald Trump will have in two lifetimes. Just one example: I would bet that Trump never read the majority of leading and pioneering authors whose work Playboy published in its prime.
9
@ChristineMcM. Spot on, Christine. As usual.
7
@ChristineMcM: Yes, Giuliani is a master of doublespeak.
7
Trump will push the limits until they push back. The GOP has been doing it for decades; Trump has just accelerated it.
Impeachment becomes more important every day. The longer Trump and the GOP go without consequences for their assault on democracy, the worse things will get and the harder it will be to turn things around - if at all.
10
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness." A professorial approach to problems which you constantly hammered then could be useful about now. No?
And don't forget, Obama’s presidency was also hampered by the Republicans led my Mitch McConnell whose stated goal was to oppose everything that originated from the Democrats, no matter how favorable to their base. Obama made some good headway despite it all without the constant scandal, corruption and division we see with Trump and his GOP enablers.
22
The U.S. Constitution is a utopian document. The right wing who are "dissing" it are the dystopians.
The Founding Fathers did everything they could to create a more perfect union founded on the principles embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
We need to protect the United States Constitution and, if we survive, legislate protections so that the dissing of the Constitution never happens again.
6
We could use monopoly laws, but we also have another route available to limit social media.
Consider the analogy to broadcast media. The usable electronic spectrum is a finite resource. It is owned by the public and licensed to broadcasters subject to annual review of good behavior.
Some social media uses the electronic spectrum via cell towers. Public ownership of the airwaves can be asserted in the same ways.
Some social media uses land lines. Like telephone lines and electric lines and natural gas lines, those are strung across our lives and our roads are dug up for them. Many of them are regulated now because they must have this public wide access along and under our government-owned roads on the government owned easements. That can be licensed too.
We can reach social media by regulatory means already at hand and already used for analogous technology needs.
We don't need to break up a monopoly, if we can limit its license to function as it does.
16
@Mark Thomason This comment, asserting that the Internet used resources similar to TV stations, is so technologically wrong it must be rebutted. Without writing a dissertation no, due to packet technology, there is vastly more bandwidth over private networks. True 4G and 5G run over airwaves, like old fashioned TV, but the tech is so different — and the airwaves open to the public, unlike TV stations — that the comparison is, at best, superficial.
The Internet is private. And so was AT&T and Standard Oil and those monopolies were reigned in and regulated. Even Avery Dennison was blocked from selling their mailing label division to 3M due to antitrust laws. If the government is worried about the cost of mailing labels enough to do systematic enforcement actions they should be even the more so about the power of the internet giants.
5
@Mark Thomason
"Consider the analogy to broadcast media. The usable electronic spectrum is a finite resource. It is owned by the public and licensed to broadcasters subject to annual review of good behavior."
I believe the GOP got rid of this principle when they killed the Fairness Doctrine in 1988 under Reagan. It was a great check against outright lying and manipulation of gullible members of the public through the airwaves-- something that frustrated those eager to exploit this gullibility. It was not by chance that Rush Limbaugh's radio show started in earnest in 1988 when the Fairness Doctrine was killed. The doctrine must be reinstated to have any semblance of rational and civil discourse in America; otherwise the land will inevitably be transformed into a haven for anarchists and fascists. Just wait until the Russians are thoroughly done with us after another couple of rounds....
7
Bring back the Sherman Act, bring back real antitrust.
Jettison the nonsensical anti-Antitrust doctrines of "consumer welfare" concocted by conservative ideologues at the University of Chicago Law School and then adopted by our reactionary jurists, including the late Justice Scalia, who actually sang the praises of monopoly power in his infamous Trinko decision.
Antitrust saved us from the first Gilded Era and restored US prosperity and US democracy for generations -- with inevitable business cycles and other great disruptions, but with the necessary intervention of antitrust our nation remained both a market economy and a democracy.
The conservatives have tried to gut antitrust since the 1970s. It is urgently necessary that we revive antitrust -- if we wish to preserve our distinctive way of life premised on private business, free enterprise, and genuine democracy.
Otherwise, the only choices on the menu are (1) a corrupt oligarchy, which is what we have now; or (2) repressive government regulation, enacted in good faith but with bad consequences, which is what we will have if enough people become sufficiently fed up with our current corrupt oligarchy. Neither option promotes prosperity or happiness for the greatest number.
Bring back antitrust. Along with public infrastructure and addressing climate change, it is the great challenge of our times.
29
Of course this is all too scary but when we have a reporter who can come up with a description of Trump as "someone who always looks as though he just stepped out of a Vegas steam bath in 1959." there seems to be levity, hope and light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe the rest of the country will realize who Trump truly is and just how backward his thinking is and vote him out!
35
There is so much in this article to which to raise a quizzical eyebrow. But let us just throw a dart and hit, say, this one assertion: "But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness." Professorial aloofness? Didn't Mitch McConnell vow to make Obama a one-term president and devote the rest of the two terms to live up to that promise? Despite that, the president tried his best to schoomze with Mitch until he had to give up in exasperation. "You have a beer with Mitch!" he said in mock despair when advised to charm the implacable senate majority leader. If Obama adopted professorial aloofness, that was all he could do to maintain the dignity of the office besieged by unprecedented, racially motivated hostility.
400
@Partha Neogy
EXACTLY!
13
@Partha Neogy
I remember watching and listening as a group of white male congressional white men led by Mitch and the now deposed Eric Cantor promised to make Obama a one term president. My thought at the time was that they looked like a group of aggrieved landowners who didn't want that black man to be in their neighborhood. My white female opinion of them hasn't changed. They are racists.
9
Pretty good summary of the current state of the state, Maureen--and that's coming from someone who has not often seen eye to eye with you.
I hope, though, you have this appropriately archived, so it can one day be found by the extraterrestrial archaeologists sifting through the ruins of our civilization; it will certainly help them reconstruct the narrative of our decline.
22
I guess we can all agree that the GOP is living up to its promise to take America back. The only question now is how far back do they want to take it?
58
@Tom Q...yes....very far back. Or one could say much of America has 'been taken'---bamboozled, deluded and suckered.
1
He wasn't cleared of collusion. The Trump campaign made literally hundreds of contacts with Russians. There simply wasn't sufficient proof that a prosecutor could bring charges of criminal conspiracy. But collude they most certainly did.
126
I voted for Barack Obama twice and am glad I did. I admire him. He possesses a combination of important qualities which I want to find in a president.
However, I must differ from some other Obama supporters here and admit that it's reasonable enough to write of his "professorial aloofness" as a factor that tended to bog down his presidency. True, those words may be taken to imply a didactic nature tinged with disdain, so let's call it "above-the-fray intellectuality" instead.
This aspect of Obama's public persona was widely remarked during his presidency, even by sympathetic commentators. Of course it can be seen as either a vice or a virtue, and as either incidental or crucial. The problem was that, in the political environment of the time, it did the work of a crucial vice.
Just as a mediocre mind may get ahead by dint of brute cunning and emotional rapport, a brilliant one may get bogged down without enough strength in those areas. The inevitable upshot is to be faulted for "professorial aloofness".
20
@Longestaffe....yes Obama had an opposing party whose main aim was to defeat his every proposal. He gets sympathy for this.
But I still wonder--- how hard did he fight back, vs in some ways cooperating, or being too passive?
Why didn't he travel across America to explain and fight for the public option? That would have competed with big profit insurance calling the shots.
Why did he put Wall St bankers in his cabinet after the crash to 'save the economy'? Why didn't he try restore bank regulations that Bill Clinton and GOP had recklessly repealed in the '90s?
Why didn't he try to sell it?
32
@Meredith
Thanks for your reply. I think you've identified some weaknesses in Obama's presidency.
Obama does deserve the credit he gets for saving the economy, but it might have been done with less ground given to the bankers.
8
@Meredith
Yes to your insights. Obama went in vowing to work with Republicans and that's what he did until he finally realized they were as locked up as Fort Knox. It took far too long for him to reach that point.
Thank you, also, for the very sensible question "Why didn't he travel across America to explain and fight for the public option?" I would say the ACA should be nicknamed Pelosi Care and not Obamacare. If he had traveled around to sell ACA one half as much as he did the TPP Partnership, I believe we would have had a much better plan. I could never understand why he was mostly silent during some very tense moments when it seemed the whole thing would fall through and it was Pelosi who wouldn't let it die !
Why couldn't he put some protections in the bank bailout for all those people with underwater mortgages?
On the surface, some very significant failures but we can not know how some of these failures were due to Republican obstructionism.
Kinda like the Republican mess we have now.
16
I'm worried that social media is more powerful than government. Why would Facebook or Twitter allow themselves to be broken up?
If a few Russians could influence millions of voters, how much more effective would retaliation launched from the "inside" of Facebook or Twitter be against threats by the government to usurp their power?
22
@kim brand
Licensing !
1
No surprise that someone whose campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again” would have a reactionary, regressive political agenda. The surprise is that his party, who call themselves ‘conservatives’ and who claim to be guardians of our Constitution, encourage Trump to erase our separation of powers and to place himself above the law.
91
Facebook is only one company that needs broken up. Economic power is concentrated much too heavily in the hands of a few companies. Most markets now are dominated by a few companies. Social media is only one, but it is a glaring example of the limits of capitalism
One can be a capitalist and appreciate the limitations inherent in any system, including capitalism. Let's hope that the next administration will trust bust, ala Teddy Roosevelt.
37
@PB
retired attorney F/70 + Luddite
Imagine my horror when I discovered that Z had engineered his ownership of FB shares in a way that gives no one power to discipline or remove him. The exact power intended to be vested in corporate Boards. And our SEC allowed FB to become a publicly-traded company knowing that Z was the ONLY boss.
I welcomed Mr Hughes', Z's room mate and co-developer of FB from day one, page one everywhere recommendation that FB be split. Z doesn't care about the money. He does care about uncontestable control.
This is a very very scary place for our world to be with this very very young man's limited experience and wisdom.
1
@sarah: Just like Al Capone is very much like Mother Theresa I assume. Both are humans...
1
"The fears and ire of Americans who felt displaced and left behind intensified and metastasized across social media."
The fears and ire that Obama apparently induced included fear of all the utopian "Great Society" things which LBJ did. It wasn't Vietnam they were angry about; it was the civil rights act, the voting rights act, the fair housing act (a particular burr for Trump and his father), Foodstamps, Headstart, Medicare, Medicaid and the one law Trump hates the most, the immigration act of 1965, which prohibits discrimination in legal immigration on the basis of race, religion or country of origin. It is useful to note that Trump was at Penn when LBJ was president.
50
@James Ricciardi
Are we sure trump even went to college or is he even a graduate. Never saw a transcript wonder if he even passed. Maybe his father just paid for the degree. He didn’t go to Viet Nam when the minorities were being drafted . Oh I forgot he was the rich son of a KKK member who was arrested do even then no rules applied to him.
Hatred is a poison that has infected the Trump family and his administrative minions.
Unfortunately is hate and ignorance has infected the country and the world.
3
Dear Maureen,
I almost always enjoy your column, if for no other reason than your crisp prose.
I acknowledge that social media does influence the polity to some extent, but maybe, because I am an old coot, social media does not move me.
Still, it is disturbing to think that an "educated" population would believe the ridiculous pronouncements made by our politicians as published on Facebook or Twitter. Still history shows us that "social media" has many forms and those who manipulate it best will prevail.
Social media is very democratic but I am not sure that is a good thing.
13
Indeed, this is part of the truth about the problem we face. But it's not enough.
Social media only focus and magnify our inattention and addiction to "virtual" worlds. Marketing, portable entertainment, and convenience are likely to bring us to the point of extinction. I'm not joking. Our habits of consumption have become so far removed from reality that it is not surprising that the new billionaires are making a lot of money as we cultivate the emotions that cause TV executives to woo us with the scream track.
What exactly about an emotion that makes us want to scream is so much more important than lifting our eyes from our devices and seeing the world around us?
Just look at the packaging and waste as you go on a safari to your local megastore.
The earth itself is real; unless we check in to that reality, we are in for steadily bigger and bigger reminders that we're out of whack.
40
Whenever any progress is made in this country it's always after millions have been hurt, cheated or killed. Every civil rights advance had to be forced down the throats of so-called conservatives and we did it with guns and soldiers at universities, high schools and elementary grades.
Eighty-five years after Social Security was enacted Republicans still hate it and fifty-nine years after Medicare became law they want it back. Even though we each paid for it, even though it was never an "entitlement."
We're going to have to shove Trump back down their throats too. They're all Trumps.
395
@Nick Adams You say, of Social Security and Medicare:
Even though we each paid for it, even though it was never an "entitlement." (scare quotes in the original)
For the millionth time, the fact that we pay for these programs is precisely what makes them entitlements, unlike, say, Medicaid, which is means tested.
It is Republicans who believe we are not entitled to these programs. Please don’t do their job for them.
22
@Marty
retired AMA attorney F/70
Also means-tested is Medicare Part A debited from Social Security payments monthly.
But you knew that because you've read the statute and implementing regulations, right?
For the record, neither "entitlement" nor "means testing" (adj or verb) is in the statute. Save our fights for words and accuracy that matter?
15
@Marty....Branding is important (see “death panels”). So we should stop calling Medicare and Social Security entitlements, and refer to them for what these are: lifelines and safety nets.
20
“But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness.”
The former is correct and will also certainly be true of whomever succeeds Trump. Some presidents, though not Trump, really do ‘inherit a mess.’
But the latter accusation is wrong, no matter how many times Ms. Dowd throws that at President Obama. He was an intelligent, disciplined and responsible person, which is what we need in a leader. It is unfortunate that this columnist never fully appreciated President Obama while he was in office, but it is unthinkable that now, even with the contrast against the ignorant, duplicitous Donald Trump, our 44th President still isn’t given his due.
629
@NM
Plenty of Americans give our wonderful President Obama his due. He will also be remembered as the last president of a democracy unless we get off our terrified rear ends.
As a family member admitted "I did not always agree with his policies but I never worried about the country."
35
Good response.
10
@NM. Maureen likes glad handers. Remember that most politicians display this trait. Unusually, Obama did not. This taste for glad handers is Maureen's personal weakness, much like her infatuation for Hollywood glitz.
10
Maureen -- your columns of late have been very good, placing blame squarely on grifter-in-chief and his co-joined Republican party of lies, spite, propaganda, tax cuts, envrironmental spoliation, hypocrisy, prejudice and pyromania.
But then came your inevitable snark about Obama, your second favorite target (after Hillary of course), accusing him of aloofness. As if. Mitch McConnell announced at the beginning of his very successful two term Presidency that the Republican Party would stand for only one thing -- to make Obama a one term President, and failing at that, to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Obstruct a health insurance plan based on the Heritage Foundation's design, obstruct fights against foreign interference, obstruct his ability to nominate judges, obstruct his economic policies, obstruct anything and everything. Every single Republican signed on.
And yet, in the face of this unprecedented disloyal, unpatriotic, unhinged, opposition, he succeeded wildly. Rescuing the economy, saving the car industry, giving health insurance to millions, restoring the United State's reputation globally, restoring dignity and morality to our government, pushing forward the Paris climate accords, and so much more.
Only to be followed by the most destructive, hateful, vindictive, anti-American cabal in our history.
Please keep your targets where they belong, squarely on the occupant and the Republican Party, so come 2020 there will still be something to save.
1112
@Fuego
She is right to target Obama. Nice guy, but inexperienced.
"Change you can believe in" or whatever his campaign slogan was did not deliver a lot beyond Obamacare, and as a self-employed individual breaking through the subsidy limits, I can no longer afford insurance. Obama did not get us out of Syria, and while he moved us in the right direction on global warming, we are still years behind where we need to be in reigning in big business, giving every child a good education, and giving Dreamers permanent status. Obama wasted some good crises, notably in controlling banks, and now we need some really progressive leaders to get us where we need to be. We won't get there by doing this with a Clintonian outlook. Like the Great Depression, it is time for some real change.
26
@Rod Stevens The subsidies can easily be increased. Bills are in Congress and ready to go.
Republicans will not vote on them (in the Senate). The global warming accord can be approved, the Republicans will approve the treaty. The Dreamers can be allowed to stay, the Republicans will consider it. Local taxpayers can increase funding for local education. Most local voters aren't interested. The banks were reigned in by the CFPB, the Republicans have now dismantled it.
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands, even millions of Americans now have health care and pre-existing conditions covered. And costs, since Obama got the ACA passed, have risen slower in the health care space than prior to the ACA. So, if you cannot afford healthcare now, it would have been worse had the ACA not been passed. Quit voting Republican - and don't bother with Jill Stein or Ralph Nader either.
148
@Almighty Dollar...sure, it would have been worse....that's always the rationalization. That's the real damage of Trump---he makes even mediocre Dems today look like saints.
ACA is a great improvement over the previous system, but that was a human rights violation by 20th C standards of modern nations, as it bankrupted many citizens, and left multi millions with no access.
But ACA is a GOP plan that subsidizes insurance profits. as it still leaves out multi millions, and is the world's most expensive and profitable HC system.
In other democracies, the govts don't subsidize insurance profits---they REGULATE insurance premium rates ---so the citizens who elect the govt can afford insurance.
Here that's labeled unacceptable, left wing, big govt interference in corporate proftits.
We deserve better, at least equal to other nations, but many Americans have been conditioned not to demand the rights that citizens of other democracies have achieved.
So now with the Trump/GOP atrocity, we're so thankful for the high profit ACA, which no other democracy would put up with.
35
It goes without saying that Trump didn’t invent social media, but he is the social media president. Social media is on a collision course with government regulation. It is also at odds with the first amendment. Here is the conundrum. Why would the social media president want to regulate Twitter, et al, before the 2020 election.
15
@Dennis C It seems to me that Trump uses social media so much because he is incapable of composing a substantive, well considered speech, and unable to deliver one accurately if it is written for him. He appears to be composed mainly of rage and fear, so communicating in thoughtful sentences is never going to be his thing.
14
Donald Trump was aided by a foreign adversary in gaining the presidency. If that is not illegal, if that is not disqualifying, if that is not even unacceptable by the vast majority of the american public, then the republic was a zombie - already dead but still functioning.
114
A fine article, but you're looking past the elephant in the room. Sure, the Russians helped Trump, and Trump cheated to win, but none of that would have been possible without Fox News keeping 35% of our country under a spell. 35% of the people honestly believe Russia's interference is a hoax, and that Hillary and others are part of a deep state cabal, and everything else Murdoch's disinformation machine tells them to believe.
And even worse, Fox News teaches its acolytes to become ENRAGED at even the mere suggestion of reality. It's one thing to convince people to believe lies, but train them to completely freak out at the first sign of the truth? Now THAT'S some brainwashing.
You can't stop the Trump fascism train unless and until you tip public opinion, and you will never breach the 35% of Trump cultists while Fox News continues to run its propaganda machine.
Turn off Fox News and it will be like at the end of THEY LIVE, red state citizens rubbing their eyes as they see reality again for the first time in a while.
212
@Todd unfortunately (or not) you can't turn off Fox News. The only thought that comes to me at this moment is to help people to register to vote and to encourage them to vote out Trump. And if you know anybody from Kentucky, see if you can talk to them about McConnell, obviously an extremely dangerous individual.
9
I've only seen Kate McKinnon do that "crazy eyes" thing as "Rudy" on SNL, I'd never seen the original. He should really stop doing that.
26
Remember how Rudy Giuliani once remarked that President Obama was insufficiently patriotic and had not been raised to really love our country? Now Giuliani has shed any pretense of patriotism, turning to another country for interference with our own politics. Giuliani and Trump can hide behind all the flags they want to, but they are traitors and nowhere near the protector of America that President Obama was.
321
@NM
Yes, indeed. You have landed a well deserved uppercut. How I wish they had the shame to feel it!
21
@NM I agree and thank you!
10
Young Rudy would have indicted Old Rudy.
10
Giuliani’s dispatch to the Ukraine for dirt on Biden is not different from Trump asking Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s old emails. And, incidentally, does not reflect on Trump having no fear of competing with Biden, whatever he says.
34
The GOP protects Trump with his tax returns and the Mueller report because Republicans love the tax cuts. Trump also gives them what they most crave: the courts. Republicans understand how much power resides in the judiciary and that judicial appointments are unelected positions. The deficit and national debt are now used simply as excuses to stymie Democratic initiatives. We have really gone off the cliff.
Joe Biden has recently been up by more than 30 percentage points. If Democrats could learn to stop trying to eat him alive, then he could save his strength and get through the primaries, his biggest hurdles. Polls already indicate that he can beat Trump next year. Democrats need to accept that they cannot have it all. They need to drop the identity politics to move forward. They should rally around Biden.
Facebook is one huge problem. Others include climate change, health care, public education, infrastructure, international relations, and wealth, income, gender and racial inequality.
Americans are being lead by a tribe of Republican fools. Remember hope and change? It is time for a return to that. We should hope for change. And we need to work as hard as we can to get there.
74
@Blue Moon
President Obama had the right idea when he picked Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden was a formidable campaigner and a politically savvy asset in the White House. Biden has the best chance of appealing to the broadest swath of people. Tipping a few states in 2020 is what we need to win the Electoral College. Let’s get sanity and responsibility back to the presidency, and never mind the purity tests and identity politics.
25
@Blue Moon If Biden is elected then we have the same old state we had in 2016 which created Trump.
Biden is Hillary in drag, but with a better bedside and smarmier manner.
Biden wants to go back there and again ignore regular people and dance to the tune of the elites.
His save the planet plan is the same one Obama had though two years have passed and we are even in more dire straits and it was not enough to save us two years ago. The house is on fire and he wants a moderate plan and to appease the oil and gas industry and their employees, please! What all these burning up the planet industries tout is that so many jobs will be lost if we actually acclimate to green energy, but what they hide is that many more new jobs will be created.
Honestly aren't you darned tired of coal and black lung and the oil spillage and our country trying to steal other counties' oil using some kind of lousy excuse for a needless war, or ha ha humanitarian reasons?
And don't get me started on the dangers of nuclear energy. Japan anyone? Still spewing radiation right, no one dares to talk about what is happening to the Pacific ocean or the West Coast beaches and the sea life.
3
@NM
Exactly! Democrats are losing the courts and cannot get legislation through Congress. They just don't have enough power. It's unclear what the House will do with impeachment, but the Senate will not convict. Joe Biden is the best thing Democrats have right now. Voters are pushing him far out in front in the polls. We should listen to them. We should rally behind Biden and concentrate on the task at hand: Trump cannot win another term. When that primary goal is achieved, we can begin to recover. We should not get ahead of ourselves; we should not overextend. We cannot have it all. We need to be realistic. Biden can get us there. His faults pale in comparison to those of Trump. Let's give the guy a break. We do not have much time left.
5
While social media no doubt figure in the rise of Trump, an even bigger factor is backing from the plutocrats who now command the ranks and files of Republicans in Congress. The ascendance of Donald Trump isn't an anomaly. It's the result of a decades-long plan to roll back the New Deal and restore the American oligarchy it crippled.
At first those who created the monster were shocked by just how ugly it really is, but once they realized it would do their bidding in regards to taxes and the Supreme Court, they were all aboard. Trump's ability to distract and enchant the masses is a nice bonus. It's always an advantage that no one is watching while you loot the nation's treasure.
47
We, a rickety democracy at best, are well on our way to devolving into a dystopia. Step by ugly step.
Amid the constant distractions from his self-induced chaos, Mussolini wannabe Donald Trump has now even hijacked the traditional Fourth of July festivities in the nation's capital, changed the staging and made himself the centerpiece. Surely, Barr, Giuliani and his other enablers see no problem with that.
That, among so many other daily outrages by this shameless presidential demagogue, revives an especially relevant question from our history: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
Of course not.
And if there are any people out there who think he's going to consider the results of the 2020 election legitimate if he's not declared the winner, they're kidding themselves. He'll stay in office by abusing whatever powers he deems necessary while disregarding, with impunity, the other two supposedly coequal branches of government. Which he's already doing, anyway.
Whether we're currently in a constitutional "crisis," or "confrontation," or whatever, is merely a matter of semantics. The much larger issue is that the Trump train is racing toward its final destination -- an American autocracy -- while we watch what had been known as the rule of law collapse into ruins.
56
@Dotconnector
Oh no, don't tell me that 4th of July military parade, or whatever it is, is actually "on"?
For some reason, envisioning it takes me back to those hilarious, palace guard uniforms Nixon dreamed up. Remember those? Lots of glitter and epaulets, big hats?
4
It often is the unintended consequences that end up sneaking up on us with greater harm and pathology.
9
"It’s time for all our social-media-addicted dictators — in the D.C. swamp and in Silicon Valley — to have their wings clipped." How? The genie is out of the bottle, and with the current administration the likelihood of more regulation of social media is highly unlikely. It has been the perfect vehicle for spreading disinformation quickly. It is the "The Modern Prometheus" and "1984" combined. Only with a change of administration will any reigning in be likely to occur. Even then it is doubtful much could be done. The only thing that might happen is that people will get bored of social media and move on to whatever is coming next, as happened with emails.
As for Giuliani, his planned, now aborted trip to Kiev must have been too much "in your face" for even the Republicans. Of course it's the Democrats' fault that he has cancelled his trip! Certainly something to do with Clinton or Obama. They want everything kept quiet as concerns any collaboration with foreign powers. They want to use back channels for that.
Giuliani's dubbing of Biden as "SleepyCreepyJoe" is rich coming from one of the creepiest people out there. Ugh!
Will the Russians interfere with our next election? According to some in our intelligence community they already are, and no doubt social media is playing a role as well as them having the ability to hack just about everything electronic out there. Trump will be the beneficiary once again of his Russian boyfriend's largesse. We need a big win in 2020.
23
Hughes didn't bungle this swing district. I'm a pink liberal, and met Sean Eldridge multiple times. Sean's a nice guy but he had zero political experience and it showed. Gibson won in a walk. I knew Gibson, and he was a smart non-crazy Republican. He left in 2016 as he said he would, and Republicans held the seat. 2 years later, Delgado won the seat back from Republican Faso by showing clear evidence of political aptitude.
9
What's more chilling to me than Vol. I is what Nancy Pelosi said this week. That unless Trump is defeated by a huge margin he will not go quietly back to NY. He and the Russians have cast so much doubt in election integrity that even if he DOES lose by a huge margin, chaos will still ensue. Remember how he claimed that the popular vote was fraudulently inflated by 3 million votes?
That's what we really need to be concerned about. I don't think people realize what Trump is capable of.
234
@JJS
retired federal attorney F/70
I predict that the man in The White House will be desperately seeking asylum in Moscow within hours after losing in November 2020. We all will know the NY State AG's charges, criminal/jail and civil monetary penalties, being prepared for delivery to him and his gang/family at 12:01PM when Chief Justice Roberts swears in the new President. We all will know everything NY State has on these thugs long before January 2021.
And Putin's smug smile the day this man makes this request will be special: "No. Stay home even if there are armed cops or Secret Service agents chasing you."
On the fear end of the identical immigration cruelty he's been doling out to our immigrants seeking lawful asylum under long-established U.S. law and practices.
Only thing left for the rest of us to figure out in 2021 is how to get Trump+Jeff Sessions+Stephen Miller in the docket at The Hague. For crimes against humanity at our Southern borders.
15
@n.c.fl
I hear you loud and clear. It's infuriating coupled with a sense of powerlessness.
1
Disappointingly, this article feels as if it's written in the past tense as opposed to the present and the future.
Please, take a chance and tell what we really need to know about what happens next instead of merely repeating what we already know.
That way, even if you're wrong, we'll all have benefited from warning us.
Thanks.
30
Trump's wings will not be clipped. In fact, assuming he loses in 2020 (please, God), the next administration will have to figure out how to ignore a constant barrage of tweets emanating from NYC and Miami filled with bragging, commentary of the current POTUS' behavior, decisions, and policies, and desperate attempts to make himself the center of attention at every moment. Short of death, likely nothing will make Trump give up Twitter, his drug of choice.
173
@Anne-Marie Hislop
Assuming Trump loses in 2020, fewer people will give a fig about his tweets and twitters. And, as a private citizen, he'll go back to just making himself great, not the rest of us.
20
@Ellen
Could not agree with you less. Even if Trump loses (and that is a coin flip) he will still have millions of followers who will believe the election was rigged or stolen. They will continue to hang on his every word.
Win or lose in 2020, the damage that was done in 2016 will be with us for the rest of Trump's life.
33
@Anne-Marie Hislop
Don't be so sure that Trump will leave the White House if he loses.
6
Maureen, your headline is dystopia, and yet your article finishes with an attack on the power of social media and how Mark Zuckerberg is exploiting it and only second to him is Trump's ability to use it.
I do not think that Trump has abilities in social media, yes the media, but that's it.
But if this country did not have a good portion of the people feeling so left behind and so alienated then I do not think social media would have a chance. The situation was a long time coming with Regan to begin with and Clinton abolishing welfare as we know it, then he signed into law repealing the Glass-Steagall law which lead to the financial crisis. Then Bush was awful and moved us further to the right; no one questioned his invasion of Iraq, Obama had most people convinced that he went on record against the Iraq war which was false. I don't think he did a lot for his people or the poor; I,think he wanted to change the way people were eligible for benefits and food stamps which would have given them a lot less but this was defeated.
The fact is the Democrats were no longer associated with the working class and we paid dearly for this.
No Maureen, it's not social media. This was along time coming and like any person who affects history, Trump came at the right time to move forward with an agenda that was set in place; we were ripe for this.
12
@Ellen I agree with Ellen. Social media is but a tool reflecting the culture. Sure, it needs to be controlled, but what's the chance of that when uncontrolled capitalism is at the root of today's social unrest.
8
Obama was the original green new deal person and Democrats have been trying to raise the minimum wage, which would have put more money into more people’s pockets. Obama tried to give federal money to states for high-speed rail development.
Almost everything that Obama along with Democrats proposed to improve people’s lives the Republicans opposed, screaming about a deficit crisis. Remember that?
Their goal was to prevent people’s lives from improving and make him a one term president.
They couldn’t have put up these roadblocks without people supporting them, people who feared Obama was a Muslim socialist fascist who wasn’t born in the U.S.
Now the same people who bought all that have lived in places least helped and left behind. So now in their rage they voted for someone who’s openly a “nationalist,” i.e., a fascist, who’s only helping them by channeling their hatred and racism. Everything else he’s doing for most of his supporters include poisoning their water, threatening their health care and keeping them poor.
2
Maureen gives social media too much credit for the ascendancy of Trump. The 2016 election was a perfect storm of voters who felt ignored, the deadly letter from Jim Comey, Jill Stein, and a maladroit candidate. Russian trolls undoubtedly played a part but were not decisive, that we can tell, to the outcome. Social media is a megaphone that amplifies discontent and many discordant voices, but it is not the root problem. It is like focusing on hair loss on a person who has cancer.
20
@nancy hicks
Sadly you left the primary factor off your otherwise mostly correct list, which was that the choice other than Trump was Hilary and she was a horrendous candidate.
Probably the only person in politics that could lose to an abrasive and detestable neophyte like Trump. The Democrats rigged the primaries for her and it was a disastrous error in judgment on their part.
Thankfully the electorate was awake enough not to put her in the WH.
1
"But Obama’s presidency was bogged down by W.’s epic mistakes and his own professorial aloofness."
No Mitch M and Paul Ryan, who were just total helpful.
106
@GladF7 - You know it's difficult for Maureen to write a column without taking a shot at Obama.
4
There is another part of the technology that was leveraged. The ability to use the scooped personal data, and use it to create targeting algorithms for political operators and foreign influence operations; Cambridge Analytica is a case in point. Perfect, precision strike tools for attacking Democratic election processes. If political operators can use algorithms to do insanely precise gerrymandering, the same technology can be used for precision operations. I don't think we've completely investigated the possibility of precision, undetectable (unless you are looking very closely) cyber operations against the actual voting machines and voting rolls either. Taken together, it can explain how a despot is now in the highest office of the land on a margin of 76K votes, while the winner of the popular vote, by millions, is sidelined.
33
I belong to no social media platforms.
Today I bought Peach flavored Perrier and called to confirm an appointment with Ayer's, a basement drain company based in Michigan.
Within an hour, while reading Op-Eds in the Post and in the Times, I had ads pop up on my screen for Peach flavored Perrier and Ayer's systems.
We are beyond Orwell's wildest imagination.
443
@two cents And if I just look at a shoe on Macys web site, I get that shoe showing up on the top of one of the social media platforms I use. Privacy went bye bye a long time ago.
58
@two cents
I, too, found that the supermarket kept track of what I bought and put me on other companies' mailing lists. I am considering using cash instead of a debit card. Would that make sense (after all, my bank is right next to the supermarket)?
20
@Sagrid
I use no social media. Zero, never have. If I ever look at a product, an ad will show up on the NYT site. For weeks, even months. On almost every page.
20 years ago, I thought, wow--you can look at and buy stuff on the internet. Now, because of tracking, I'm disinclined to ever shop on the internet.
15
Why worry about Facebook when pundits do not worry about the state of the intelligence of the average American voter? I am sorry to say, but to believe what Russian hackers threw on Facebook is to admit that you cannot tell the difference between the conspiracy of fiction and the truth of basic logic. What the Russians did in 2016 revealed to me that there is a paucity of education in the American electorate. It is sad to admit that there are people in this country that cannot separate the wheat from the chaff.
466
@Rick Morris While acknowledging your point, it might be willful ignorance on the part of Trump's constituents as well. At least some of them. The Republican Party has been cultivating this nihilistic world view for quite awhile now. You are seeing it in action now with the Republican-majority senate. If your constituency treats political competition, not as competing ideas to be weighed and evaluated, but as mindless football game where you simply back your team no matter what, regardless (literally "without regard") for consequences, the "educated" can be swept-up in the same mindless enterprise.
57
@Rick Morris
It is much easier to blame the Russians than it is to accept the fact that our nation is so broken that millions of Americans thought Trump had the answer. And many millions more were willing to say 'up yours' to the status quo.
53
@Concernicus
Or worse yet...multimillions were willing to continue the status quo.
And to top it off, those same multimillions want to again go back to that previous status quo yet again! Same people, same policies, run by the same establishments, that a huge swath voted against last election. Lessons not learned and not cared about.
7
I am sure that the social media literati are already at their keypads suggesting that this column in an ancient, mainstream, paper media is an expression of pure jealousy.
They opine that has never touched the numbers of people that Facebook and our brethren do.
No doubt true but, as does so much these days, in conflates quantity with quality.
It is time for some to "speak truth to power", as the Quakers put it in a 1952 essay, to the tech megalomaniacs of Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
Failure to do was presciently suggested in a 1909 essay by E.M. Forster, "The Machine Stops".
28
Giuliani was going to do what Hillary did, with the Steele Dossier. It was wrong then and so its wrong now. But it is judged either way depending on whose side it benefits.
7
@Mark Thomason
Hillary's campaign took over opposition research where Republicans left off. Rudy was on his way to Ukraine to pressure the current and newly elected administrations to open investigations to favor Trump, regardless of the truth. Give the Trump team credit -- this is an entirely new frontier in dirty tricks and corruption.
37
@Michelle -- "Hillary's campaign took over opposition research where Republicans left off."
That is a very misleading partial truth.
The objectionable portion, the Steele Dossier itself, dates entirely from after the takeover by the Hillary campaign.
Anyway, one Never Trump origin to another does not clean it up when it is pursued, then pushed hard in use.
@Mark Thomason
Why do you keep repeating a proven falsehood about Hillary Clinton and the Steele dossier? The genesis of that began with a Stop/Never Trump group in 2016, not the Clinton campaign. The dossier came into the hands of the Clinton operatives in the summer of that year, upon which it was referred to the FBI. Mr. Thomason, your disdain for HRC is undoubted by all of us who read the comments here. But personal dislike should never be a substitute for facts. Indeed what Giuliani was going to do was wrong. But you Clinton haters are once again applying a false equivalency here. Your tendency to repeatedly do that where the former Secretary of State and our current lawless President is concerned greatly contributed to the perilous road the United States is now traversing. I hope the Times actually prints this, instead of somehow deeming the telling of truth uncivil.
8
How you can ensure fair elections:
Don’t watch TV.
Read several local and national newspapers with a variety of opinions.
And most important of all, always vote.
More elections have been lost because of no-shows than almost any other cause. You will never get perfect candidates. Remember the saying, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Our choices are rarely saints. We should always vote; we should always assume that people we disagree will always vote.
76
Expecting perfection may be the enemy of the good, but the good may be nothing more than a feeble excuse not to try for something better. Really, are we happy to settle for “the good?” Have we no aspirations? The perfect may not be attainable but at least it provides a worthy target even if you can never actually hit it dead center.
15
@Richard Frank
"The perfect may not be attainable but at least it provides a worthy target even if you never actually hit it dead center."
Never actually hitting it dead center is the definition of the good.
11
@Melvyn Magree I like your words of down to earth advice. Democrats especially want to love their candidates as if liking them is not enough. As it stands any one of the horde among the Dems running for prez would be a welcome improvement over Trump. He will never be impeached because the Democratic party leadership does not have the guts to do the right thing and take action against our crooked fake president. As if not impeaching Trump guarantees a victory in 2020. Getting out the vote - as you say - appears to be our best shot. But then there's that electoral college thing ...
13
I agree that Volume 1 is more chilling than Volume 2 -- The obstruction in Volume 2 is crass and obvious (we knew that anyway) but Volume 1 is more scary (to me) because it is seemingly impossible to stop. Plus, the danger from Russia is different than it was in the 50's and 60's. Then, we thought we had a government that wanted to kill us or take us over; now, we have a nominal "government" that acts largely through non-governmental means. The hacking was done by a real government agency, but all the attempted contacts were from "private citizens", business executives that were part of the informal Putin Mob.
It reminds me of the early 1900's when government was largely irrelevant in the face of private companies and business tycoons. We need a combination of Elliot Ness and Theodore Roosevelt.
131
Go figure indeed. Is Rudy G any different than all the other trump enablers? Did anyone really not see this level of authoritarian coming from trump the candidate? some I assume are god people.
52
The human brain seems ill equipped to process the flood of "information" that makes our world today. Our bonobo brains respond to fear and tribalism. Co-operation, the long view, how science works etc are addled by our brain stem's past. Cat videos are no help.
96
@I'm here - That kind of attitude and a $5 cup of coffee will get you nowhere. And the bonobos are not in agreement.
@I'm here
I like cat videos and they help!
@I'm here
No, that would be our chimpanzee brains; we’re closer to chimps than bonobos. Too bad for us.
1
Mo says:
"Boosted by all the phony content on social media during the campaign, and by his own adeptness using Twitter as a saber, Donald Trump got into the White House and began yanking us back to the ’50s — on abortion, on climate change, on women’s rights, on regulations. Most devastatingly, he’s turning back the clock with the judiciary."
which leaves out the critical factor that most 'boosting' was from GOP'er leaders who did not have to ever put this guy on a ballot in any primary - if they had just insisted he produce his taxes.
The Radical GOP'er leadership rot was out in the open from the day they pretended a Dem POTUS had no constitutional Executive power to fill an empty SCOTUS seat past the 36th month of his 48 month term of office.
This crowd accepted Clear & Present Danger 45* in order to pack the Judiciary with a Federalist Society Dream Team, and said GOP'er leaders should go to ruin with 'Individual-1/No Collusion' 45* in November 2020.
It is a mark of their Radicalism that 34 incumbent GOP'ers quit the House before the 2018 mid-terms after supporting the White House for 2 years, rather than ever face their voters again - whom they had failed to represent during those 2 years. This 'party over country' virus is still rampant in the Senate and the GOP as a whole, and must be rooted out, just as the White House needs cleansing.
547
@R. Law
retired federal attorney F/70
OR these Rs quit for the same reason Senator Enzi retired? They'd finished their redistribution of all current and future wealth with the 2017 tax law.
Watch Marketwatch's weekly report on how slowly our Treasuries are selling because our debt is so huge.
And remember that China owns roughly 40% of our Treasury/taxpayer-guaranteed debt. Imagine what would happen if Xi decided to dump just a tiny fraction of that pile on world markets in one day?
This is not Obama replacing Bush in 2020 to try to clean up debt. We're at historic levels that may be unmanageable by anyone. That's the Bloomberg report on last week's CA meeting of Fed and economists noodling something called "MMI." Modern Monetary imagine this or this or this to counter our coming recession.
Find and read Jeremy Grantham's Marketwatch forecast about this country and possibly much of the Western ("developed") markets moving from average 6% yield on invested money over the last 100 years to untenable under 2% inflation that guarantees average yield somewhere under that number. For decades.
And little room to drop borrowing rates as we did 2008-2018 to spur spending over saving. When next year's recession arrives.
92
@n.c.fl-This summary deserves a fuller column. Thank you.
3
@n.c.fl
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/investor-credited-with-calling-the-2008-crisis-says-the-next-20-years-in-the-stock-market-will-break-a-lot-of-hearts-2019-03-07
Everyone should listen to Grantham's words on climate change and how it will effect the market.
3
The trouble with the social media "uber alles" thesis as the root of our political dysfunction is that it leaves little agency to the American voters. Hillary Clinton and her inept campaign made most of their mistakes or created a receptive audience for manipulative messages. Russia has been engaged in this kind of electoral subversion around the world since World War II. In short, a great deal of the stealing of the 2016 happened in plain sight.
The public response to more vigorous trade enforcement indicates that for a lot of Americans the neo-liberalism accompanying globalization was leading them to their own personal dystopias. They got off the bus--simple as that.
The fundamental problem is not one monopoly in one new emerging information space but rather the complete monopolization and oligopolization of the entire American economy.
Breakup Facebook and you're still left with a "so what" moment.
If 2016 was just an aberration due to manipulation, well fine, elect Joe Biden and the aberration gets reversed. But what if it was something deeper and more profound? Is Biden the answer then?
16
@Paul A Myers
Hardly a "perfect" system, Capitalism presents all but the few propertied classes with myriad problems which they feel incapable of solving. Getting off the bus is a minor first step, which is why their personal dystopias. The fundamental question, after Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, and all the more palpable production monopolies, is from where does power emerge and having done so, how is it sustained. "The reason of things" in modern times turns towards Veblen for answers when the supposed blessings of laissez faire fail to deliver for the great mass of people who suffer from a variety of narcoses. The "deeper and more profound answer" to be found there is the psychological taboo's appeal and the benighted satisfaction with illegitimacy. With only 40% of the eligible voting population participating in elections the substance of which is dictated by the rich, the veritable rubber stamp is observed and acceded to. The matter of the past, a wild-eyed surmise about something which never really was in terms of satisfaction with representative government, begs for dirigist redress, but it is nowhere to be found, except in State Capitalism, considered as a stage in the dialectical development of socialism where, after a time, the State withers away and democratic socialism prevails. For the Democrats, there is no answer for it was they (her) who were likely complicit in the election fraud. Russia is an easy scapegoat for people so afflicted.
2
@Paul A Myers ~
Hillary Hatred lives on. Her campaign wasn't so inept since she won the popular vote by almost 3 million.
Putin’s hostility towards Clinton drew much less attention in 2016 than his bromance with trump. There was a lot of animosity between the two and James Comey went so far as to say that the Russian president hated Hillary .
"According to the US intelligence agencies and politicians on both sides of the US political scene, Mr Putin rolled out the ultimate revenge in 2015 and 2016." (abc.net.au/news)
The Russian stealth campaign against her was smart, ruthless and shrewdly targeted in WI, MI and PA. I think it swung the election.
6
The problem is not with technology; its inherent moral value is neutral, and by definition, becomes more sophisticated with time. The problem is in human nature which, unfortunately, is not improving over the ages. It is our darkest traits - gullibility, tribalism, selfishness, vindictiveness, shortsightedness, intellectual laziness, to name a few - which continue to be our own undoing.
155
@NM
You would think that with every decimal that gets added to the bank accounts of those that have more than they could ever spend in thousands of lifetimes, that they might want to change our world for the better, instead of buying up the next company, or making another app.
Having said that I am still confident that we (as a society) will come to a different understand of what it is to simply be.
It will probably come when we are faced collectively with our mortality (no fuel, food or water) and then we will have to decide ultimately if all of those zeroes after the decimal point mean anything at all. ( they won't )
All we can do in the meantime is keep pushing, and keep educating the best we can with the time we have. As always friend, keep the faith.
87
@NM
"Human nature" is what we are stuck with. If technology exacerbates our failures, as it often does, then technology is the problem.
19
@FunkyIrishman Thank you.I always look forward to your posts,realistic but full of hope.I too hope the majority will win, over the greed that has overtaken our society.I do believe the millennials,who are so maligned,will be a turning point in changing our society for the better.I have 2 sons who are outraged by what is happening ,along with all of their friends.I'm a Baby Boomer,all of my friends are also outraged.We can change the course for the better.Yes,"keep the faith"!
25
"When the Vatican complains that you’re dragging the U.S. “back to the past,” you know you’re in trouble."
If you have lived long enough, it is easy to see the past is not a place to which we want to return. That past toxic pollution of air, water and land from industrial and automotive sources.
It also subjected more than half of the population to discrimination, assault and dependency from which they are still recovering.
Our manufacturing sector fell behind the world from lack of investment, making steel from WWI era mills and inferior cars and trucks.
Ineffective treatments and drug overuse were hallmarks of our medical system while scientific evidence of efficacy was ignored.
Fraudulent for-profit diploma mills were loading up students with life altering debt and useless or no degrees.
And our foreign policy involved horrific wars, interfering with the elections of 85 countries, funding terrorist groups and supporting dictators.
Only a couple of years ago, it looked like the US was leaving the past behind. Now it looks more like the country is dividing into go-forward and go-back.
Some 23 states formed the United States Climate Alliance after Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, committing to achieve carbon reduction of 26% to 28% according to the original agreement.
States are winning suits against the Federal government in virtually every area of Trump policy.
Our future could be growing inequality between states going forward and back.
68
@Look Ahead
There does seem to be a looming divide between "progressive" states (albeit big problems within them, including homelessness/high housing costs) and poorer, usually more rural and conservative states. This is exactly why we need to squint hard and find presidential candidates who don't exacerbate the problem.
9
@Look Ahead
Your last sentence implies we have not had "growing inequality between states going forward and back."
Wrong -- that has always defined the differences in the income and wealth characteristics of the states. It's just that the mix of states in each condition may have changed over time. That was healthy.
What we face now is he prospect of a growing rigidity in which states go forward and which go back -- and the attendant divergence in contributions to the Federal government. How much longer will the rich states be willing to subsidize the poor ones, especially when the latter have too much power in the Senate and the Electoral College due to some quirks we inherited from compromises made by very divergent states in the late Eighteenth century?
9
@Ellen, it’s funny you should talk about our current crop of presidential candidates. I’ve always been a Cory Booker fan, even with some of his most obvious faults. But lately, I’ve been thinking we need someone MORE progressive, more drastic. Then I saw David Axelrod last night interviewing him. If you listen closely, you hear the thoughts of a genuine patriot, a smart, grounded person that could pull us back together. More and more, my thinking is that, while we will always have ideological issues, we as a country can get back to a time when we weren’t looking at each other so skeptically, where we were decent to each other. Maybe Cory is the one to help us get back to that place, even as he addresses racial, economic and gender inequity. I know his faults...I’ve been following him since he first ran against Sharpe James. He did take money from Wall Street, he does sensationalize on occasion. But, his heart is in the right place, he’s wicked smart and he can bring together varied groups of people, except those who are so, so bigoted. I’m rethinking him. Watch the show, The Axe Files. You’ll see.
3
Even if the report had clear cut evidence and the author(s) gave the conclusion that impeachment was a necessity, we all knew that republicans in the Senate would have put party over country and never voted to convict.
So, the report is only the BEGINNING, and nothing is off the table as of yet (especially since there are myriad of state investigations), inclusive of Impeachment. The author of the report has not testified as of yet, and the full un-redacted report has not even been seen yet.
We are FAR, FAR from anyone wriggling off the hook.
Having said all that, if Democrats do not even start the proceedings for impeachment, then they will have already lost the 2020 election. (me own personal opinion).
The Speaker of the House is playing old school politics (which I am not sure will work - we shall see) while there is build up to overwhelming sentiment to start proceedings. In the meantime the administration and President are going to drag their heels on everything, to let the conservative judges decide. That may or many not work as well.
There is fatigue to go around, but I think the consensus of the vast majority of the country is that change must come at all costs. That feeling is not going to go away.
It is only getting amplified by every 140 character dictate.
61
@FunkyIrishman hi there. Tried yesterday, but the censors didn't like my friendly tones (not the first time) ...
Keep up the great work, fellow toiler in the vineyard!
4
@Susan
Ola. Aye, there are many changes afoot that are making it harder to have a conversation. but I find if you write more than a paragraph or two, that the comment has an easier time of getting through.
(no more toiling - I spent a day the other day attacking all of them - be gone ! ) I also now see that me own comment does not get through on the first time. SIgh...
You keep up the great work too friend.
2
@Susan
Allo' Allo'. Aye, there are many changes afoot that are making it harder to have a conversation. but I find if you write more than a paragraph or two, that the comment has an easier time of getting through.
(no more toiling - I spent a day the other day attacking all of them - be gone ! )
2
The president isn’t dragging us back to the ‘50s as much as he’s revealing that we never really left. The seething passions, the incipient racism, the misogyny and the resentments that infect large pockets of the population are still there.
But our leaders—with some awful exceptions—have been better than that. They set the tone that a modern country must set in order to thrive, or at least be taken seriously. They helped us aspire to be better than the worst of us.
Until this president was elected, the candidates we had to choose from were all well-educated, well-read and eloquent speakers who exhibited public decorum, despite some notable dalliances behind the scenes.
This time, however, a crass and vulgar individual who had little respect for the law, honesty and decorum ran for office, propelled by a social media that reached not our best and brightest but the lowest common denominator among the population.
His crassness was seen as refreshing by some. He insulted, demeaned, womanized and groped his way into the hearts of folks who had long been ignored or disdained by intelligent candidates. Their time had arrived.
Social media was the conduit that didn’t drain the swamp, but pumped it into the population, much to their delight.
This genie will be hard to force back into the bottle. We may have to adapt to a new world order. And the world my never be the same.
855
@gemli
"Until this president was elected, the candidates we had to choose from were all well-educated, well-read and eloquent speakers who exhibited public decorum, despite some notable dalliances behind the scenes."
Did you watch any of the Republican presidential primary debates of the last 20 years? Do you remember the Bush Cheney years? The behavior of the Republican Congress under Obama or Clinton?
299
@gemli - Yes, Mo says:
"Boosted by all the phony content on social media during the campaign, and by his own adeptness using Twitter as a saber, Donald Trump got into the White House and began yanking us back to the ’50s — on abortion, on climate change, on women’s rights, on regulations. Most devastatingly, he’s turning back the clock with the judiciary."
but she leaves out the critical factor that the most 'boosting' was from GOP'er leaders who did not have to ever put this guy on a ballot - if they had just insisted he produce his taxes.
The Radical GOP'er leadership rot was out in the open from the day they pretended a Dem POTUS has no constitutional Executive power to fill an empty SCOTUS seat past the 36th month of a 48 month term of office.
This crowd accepted Clear & Present Danger 45* in order to pack the Judiciary with a Federalist Society Dream Team, and said GOP'er leaders should go to ruin with 'Individual-1/No Collusion' 45* in November 2020.
It is a mark of their Radicalism that 34 incumbent GOP'ers quit the House before the 2018 mid-terms after supporting the White House for 2 years, rather than ever face their voters again - whom they had failed to represent during those 2 years.
The 'party over country' virus is still rampant in the Senate and the GOP as a whole, and must be rooted out, just as the White House needs cleansing.
271
@Martin The first time I could take issue with @Gemli, there was nary a good one in the bunch. In fact, I can't name one who could have been president.
27
"It’s time for all our social-media-addicted dictators — in the D.C. swamp and in Silicon Valley — to have their wings clipped."
Yes, but how. Trump we can impeach or vote out of office- failing that we've pretty much earned our fate, but the power of obscene wealth is like diamonds- forever.
We have this viscous cycle that is almost impossible to get out of, money buys politicians and politicians keep tilting the system in favor of donors in exchange for donations and perks of many colors.
Politicians, mostly Republican ones, have a Supreme court set up for another generation that enforces a twisted interpretation of freedom of speech that allows oligarchs to use their money secretively to brainwash voters and influence politicians.
When you control as much media as a Zuck or a Dock your wings are pretty hard to reach way up there in Olympus. Even a Koch is lots easier to let fly and land where it wants if you wish to stay in office.
To clip the wings of these dragons, serious campaign finance reform, probably ultimately in the form of a constitutional amendment will be needed. Never mind the decades that may require.
If you think that this Supreme Court will enforce the Sherman Act in a manner adequate to support genuine democracy in this country you are delusionally optimistic. The majority of them were handpicked to serve the oligarchy.
176
@alan haigh
The trouble with the notion of "campaign finance reform" is that those receiving the corporate/1% payola would have to vote for it. While we're waiting for that to happen, we can at least take a close look at politicians running for office who refuse to take that cash. Warren and Sanders fit that description in the presidential race.
24
@Ellen There are groups out there working to get an article V amendment. One is Wolf-pac.com Go join and work to get California on the list of states to agree.
5
@alan haigh. That’s how it worked in Turkey am definitely how it worked in Maduro’s Venezuela. First to go is the Judiciary. After that, elections are bought, districts gerrymandered and voters suppressed. All quite legal and all anti-democratic.
11
Not just Silicon Valley.
The stunted growth in wages, studies have shown, parallels the existence of market domination in various industries and in various places. Software, banking, fossil fuels and many other industries are controlled by a few large players. This is illegal, of course, but Trump (and Bush 43 and Obama and Clinton before them) stopped filing anti-trust actions in federal court.
This is why, despite significant productivity gains, American workers can't get a raise (after real inflation).
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@ed connor
I've read from more than one source that if the hourly wage had kept up with CEO raises and perks it would be $33/hour instead of $7.25.
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@ed connor
Well ed connor, maybe you haven’t noticed, but American workers are now in wage competition with 2.3 billion Chinese and Indians overseas, and, unmentionably, 21 million illegal immigrant here at home.
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