Actually, this is not just 21st century. I just finished a bio of Adolph Hitler. Many of the same undermining tactics were part of Hitler's play book. Sure, violence happened even before the war, but wooing the public, painting himself as their savior, focusing on grievances, creating hatred of the 'other' (for Hitler, Communists, Jews, victors of WWI who imposed the Versailles Treaty; for Trump, liberals, elites, the media, foreign allies, immigrants), and promising an Eden for those who follow along was a central part of the plan.
The comparisons between Trump and Hitler are notable - messianic self-image, demands for loyalty, willingness to trash those who don't fall to their knees, sewing division, preaching hatred etc. I came away, though, convinced that Trump is no Hitler. Trump is too chaotic. Hitler was far more ideological, focused, and not mentally lazy in the way that Trump is.
Ultimately, Trump's lack of ideology and lack of core principles makes him far more likely to change positions and even step along side the opposition since his only goal is personal, i.e., Trump wins. The real danger with Trump is not the man himself, but the ideologues with whom he surrounds himself.
387
@Anne-Marie Hislop all Trump needs is someone who is dedicated to him and who focusses on the things he currently "skips" over. It wouldn't take much to tip the balance now. The GOP has what it wants, a great many of the richest corporations and families in America have what they want. Wealth is often equated with virtue and intelligence. (After all, anyone who cannot find a job cannot be all that smart. That's what most of us are taught even when it's not true.) Great wealth allows people and corporations to carry out actions that if they were done by you or I, would be considered criminal. Wealth can't buy happiness but it does buy influence, freedom from accountability, and the illusion of brilliance. That last is why enough Americans voted for Trump to put him in office.
74
@Anne-Marie Hislop
I visited two museums in Holland today dedicated to those who lost their lives in two massive bombing battles by the Nazis in 1944. Part of the turning points in both were the 82 nd Airborne. The parallels between Trump and Hitler are real and simply frightening.
60
@Anne-Marie Hislop
"The ideologues with whom he surrounds himself", indeed--Mitch McConnell, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and, until today, John Bolton. One might perhaps include Jared Kushner, since he's so cozy with MBS, and Putin.
54
We need new and better laws to prevent a one-man state department. We need to use the laws we have at present as well.
15
We are only three steps away from a total dictatorship:
1) Rig the next election.
2) Replace Ginsberg on the Supreme Court.
3) Get McConnell to end presidential term limits.
And that's it. Checkmate. Game over.
BTW: The first two steps already have corollaries in the last few years. And the third will be easily accomplished once the first two have been completed.
The only thing that can prevent this is an overwhelming showing by Democrats at the polls. And I'm talking upwards of 70%. And the chances of that are next to nil.
The Republicans just love their little Fuhrer! I wonder if they'll still feel the same after he starts WWIII? Probably. After all, the lesson of history is a history of lessons unlearned and then forgotten.
Ah, well...
34
What can we do to change our present course toward autocracy? 1. Abolish the Electoral College. 2. Overturn Citizens United. 3. Eliminate lifetime appoints to the federal bench including the Supreme Court. 4. Return to paper ballots. 5. Hold election day(s) on weekends. 6. Register and vote! Shame on us for having less than 50% turnout in most elections.
44
So frightening and disappointing that the U.S. Constitution seems helpless to save itself and the country. This 18th century document should've been binned long ago and replaced with something more effective.
Even though most complain because of the confusing rhetoric of the 2nd Amendment, the archaic Electoral College, and others, no one has to my knowledge has exposed the weakness of the, document in stopping the assent of dictators.
23
This is why House Democrats need to proceed ASAP with impeachment. To do otherwise is simply looking the other way at crimes that seriously undermine our democracy. If that's not unacceptable, what is?
Voters will eventually reward those who have principles. Stop triangulating and take a stand.
19
Democracy need not die in the territory formerly known as the United States of America, just as democracy was not allowed to die in the formerly sovereign, but despotic states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. When good men and women of courage are willing to fight for the inalienable rights of man, despots tremble.
11
Ironically, I recently finished re-watching yet again (for now more times than I can count) Ken Burns's "Vietnam" documentary series and the PBS documentary series from the 80s, "Vietnam: A Television History."
I was young then, and, despite many setbacks along the way, I had hope that things could be turned around; they were, but not until after more than 58,000 lives were lost (and I consider the four Kent State students in that total).
Now I am old, and, whether it is despair or merely the cynicism that comes with old age, I see little cause for hope now. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." I weep for our children and grandchildren, and for the dream lost.
Someone please point me toward a barricade. At my age, freedom truly is "just another word for nothing left to lose."
21
Professor, you didn't get the MEMO'S about the weather machine in the White House basement, or Trump's crystal ball? Or, that Trump has an unkown wing at GITMO for Cabinet nominees who refused to sign loyalty oaths?
2
Most Canadians i've talked with are convinced that our neighbour is heading down the Russian/Israeli far-right path to nowhere good. If America falls humanity as a whole will sink into darkness.
20
Trump needs to go before he ruins the whole country. The people who are voting for him need to grow up and learn what a fool and liar he is. This is not his country it is our country get out there and make a difference don't let the grand experiment die because of this man. He is sick and insane. Everything is for him not the rest of the country. He lies and his followers get in line to do his bidding. Wake up America and end this nightmare before it is too late. Why aren't the college students and other young people up in arms and taking over the streets. That is how the Vietnam War was stopped and how the Civil Rights movement made the county better than it had been. Get busy don't let America die to satisfy the ego of one man. Fight for your and our rights.
24
I've finally got my mind around negative interest rates.
They should be viewed as a tax on wealth, a storage fee for the vast wealth of the 1%. There is no free parking. Wealthy women who put their furs away for the season should have to pay for cold storage. That's where the world's wealth is -- in cold storage!
It's not out in the real world "creating jobs." It's parked in the vaults of the wealthy, maybe in the form of Treasuries or in CD's or other places of safekeeping. There's so much of it, that, of course, there's a storage fee!
The stock market is also not a place of investment. It's a recirculating pool of wealth like the water in a swimming pool. When stock prices start to slide, corporations buy back shares to maintain PE ratios and prevent a shareholder insurrection. When the corporations run out of cash, they borrow at the ridiculously low interest rates to buy back more shares. Apple, which has $24 billion of cash, just borrowed $7 billion to buy back shares.
Yes, it's a racket, just like a Ponzi Scheme. But you can make good money off a Ponzi scheme, provided you're not the last sucker in the chain.
7
Paul,
Thank you for the piece. When Jewish books were burnt in Germany, when Jews could not practice their profession, etc started right around 1934. It took another five more years for the second world war to start.
In America, the slide to Republican dictatorship started when Mitch McConnell openly said he was not bringing Merrick Garland's supreme court nomination for a vote around February 2016. All the Republicans and most of the independents kept quiet. So it will be a few more years before Trump may say that he would not hand over power to another democrat, if that were to happen! Peoples' threshold of tolerance has gone up tremendously. It is no more shocking for President Trump to act bizarre. Everyday some new shenanigan/s happen. Then people forget yesterday's shenanigan, because today's is so worse! So until the Republican electorate wakes up we have not a prayer. You think the Joint Chiefs of Staff will order tanks to face the White House for Mr. Trump to hand over power?
But thank you for waking up a citizenry who seem to pay not much attention.
12
It is estimated that 50 to 70% of the world produced oil is used for transportation, with cars and trucks using the vast majority of it. A 10% mileage improvement is a 6% decrease in demand for oil.
2017 global oil production and was estimated at $2trn. 6% of that is $120bn. That’s the amount the oil industry stands to lose, a year, if California and everybody else implemented more responsible minimum mileage targets. The impact on oil prices and its ripple effect would be significant as well.
This is obviously an incomplete and grossly oversimplified view of the numbers. My point is that Trump is just doing old things in a new way. American democracy has always been driven by the underlying priorities of big money. What changed is that now the gloves are off and the masks are down. While the left and right are too busy getting at each other’s throats with no compromise in sight, the big boys and girls keep doing what they do.
8
"And it’s happening here as we speak." Not only that, it has happened in the past, also. The difference now is not that it is happening but that it is so blatant and attacks such large, prestigious targets. That's when individuals start fearing for themselves -- even doubting their ballots are secret and fearful of pulling the lever that will being the black helicopters. You're right, we're on that road; I just hope we can get off of it without violence. Of course, a Congress and Supreme Court committed to the Constitution would help a lot. The only thing the Republicans were right about, too bad we didn't listen then, is the runaway power of the Presidency and how Presidential power needs to be better constrained.
2
Democracy in the USA has been replaced by the confederate states of america.
5
Expect the Trump gauleiters any day -- breaking your LED bulbs so you can look your best in incandescent light; burning your paper straws so you can delight in the endless entertainment of sucking Diet Cola through twirly straws; vandalizing your electric car so you can enjoy the smell of them emissions and pulling down the windmills to protect you from the wind cancers. Republicans call it "small government" and it's the dour taste of tomorrow, today.
8
"You just wake up one morning and realize that it’s gone." The end of Democracy can be realized in one day, morning November 8th after trump is re-elected. If Trump is re-elected it will be because, Russian interference, The electoral college, (that can be argued as anti Democracy), and the voters who vote for Trump, will all be part of the end of Democracy! Americans who vote against their own best interest. Hitler was voted into power the same way. And the same way Republican leaders grant Trump extraordinary powers to violate the constitution and call opposition, partisan Politics!
7
We felt the same hopeless horror under 2 terms of Bush Jr.
2
And the blame/credit for destroying America goes to: THE GOP! Especially the Senate. They've sold out our country for their greed-filled dreams and do NOTHING to stop the insanity.
Trump is insane. No question about it. What are the sycophants and carpet baggers that support him?
12
We can interpret this so many ways, but for myself, I believe it goes back to Pres Bush bringing half of Texas with him and they all got Civil Service 11 which left no jobs for the local and state police to move up. This caused the much increased police staff to start eying their neighbor's property and in a New York minute, people were out of their homes given the bum's rush out of town. Then we were double-whammied with school shooters while the cops made sure of funding by nullifying the Constitution establishing a blood bank of Civil Forfeiture, guaranteeing themselves jobs as the states authorized legal marijuana but the Feds did not.
You see, once we got more police, there was no more money, the state legislatures backed off this hot potato of firing cops, and the cops took over the job of funding themselves admirably. Who says America is not Democratic, ask the cops!
1
When people tell you who they are, believe them. Trump has told us for years that he is petty, self-interested, a non-reader and a non-learner and greedy, just for starters. He has shown from day 1 as a president that personal loyalty is more important than loyalty to country. He has signed countless executive orders of iffy legality, often struck down in court, in his attempt to be a dictator of the ilk to which he kowtows. Thus, we must believe his authoritarian bent and work at every moment to thwart it for the good of our country. Otherwise, we may well be looking at how our democracy dies.
11
I was 16 when I first heard the "My Generation" lyric, "Hope I die before I get old" … and doubted that I ever would (hope so, that is).
Now, with 70 years, I wonder if, with the world 'as it is,' and being a citizen of a country that would disgrace itself so thoroughly as to elect (sort of) one such as trump as President -- and then (still worse?) 'abide' his vain and continuous mockery of our laws, our morals, our reputation and our 'well-being,' I'm not sure I want to get much older.
6
In reading this article Japanese people should substitute their present prime minister for Mr. Trump and consider whether democracy is dying in Japan.
2
Aided and abetted by the GOP.
4
on a small note, I love that you use 'fulsome' in both its right and wrong meanings at once. (second last graph). Thanks!
1
Krugman is being a bit of a drama queen here. I mostly agree with the facts presented, but he's ignoring the many polls showing Trump's unpopularity. Trump has done his damage, but a Democratic president can reverse most of it - surely all of his imbecilic executive orders. If the vast majority of Americans were on board with Trump at this point, then I would worry. Of course, the only poll that matters is the one on Nov. 3, 2020.
1
Living through the lies, deceit, and ignorant policies perpetrated by the Trump administration - and the members of Congress who continuously fall in line with him - are my worst nightmare: where I am in a perilous situation, screaming for help. But even though my mouth is wide open and I am trying, trying to scream with all my might, I cannot make a sound, and so no. one. hears me.
I feel like this every time I call my Senator, my Congressman, heck, even my state elected officials. It is extremely frustrating and increasingly - frightening.
3
I think the worst thing I hear come out of his mouth is that "Democrats hate America." Who does he think he is, to paint other people as unpatriotic or evil? (I know, I know.) I have put up with his party and their self-centered goals for years, and have never considered that they "hate America." They love themselves. Period.
Oh, God.
8
Both political parties have made me hate America.
Next would be the administration suing left-leaning publications for election tampering, collusion, treason, and undermining the state.
6
I have, for quite some time now, felt the America of the United States of America slipping away. Little by little day by day the great experiment of our republic is being stolen by exactly what our founding fathers thought they were protecting it from. Checks and balances, 3 equal houses to keep our democracy from collapsing under the weight of a an out of control branch that is slowly destroying what we say we revere. We the people must stand up and utilize the best and perhaps the only tool that we have been given...and that now remains...We must take control. Vote to keep our democratic republic safe. If we do not, we the sheeple will find that it is our America that has burned while we fiddle around with what to do about an unfit POTUS.
6
NOTICE: I read in WAPO that Trump is considering having the US Government take the homeless off the streets in California and detain them.
It would be a horror show: more Trump Concentration camps. Separation of homeless children from homeless parents? Unthinkable. Hopefully it goes down the drain and takes Trump with it.
https://beta.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/10/trump-pushing-major-crackdown-homeless-camps-california-with-aides-discussing-moving-residents-government-backed-facilities/
1
GCM
Laguna Niguel, CA 23m ago
said: "Americans may be lazy and complacent, but there will come a time when we'll go to the streets if the madness in White House worsens."
WHEN exactly will we Americans WAKE UP and GET OFF our butts to REVOLT and MARCH against this corrupt orange despot and his corrupt cronies?
Because the Madness has been worsening daily since BEFORE election day, but Americans seem to have fallen in a Deep Sleep!
Trump is dangerous, and it's amazing how Americans are
5
We should have been marching against Bush Jr.
6
So.....
who will be lined up at the stadiums in front of the firing squads.
No one?
2
Our democracy died years ago. We gradually became a Lobbyocracy. If we don't act soon, we may have a feudal system.
4
Until he’s out of our WH
Democracy is dead
Putin’s running our executive branch of government while many Republicans willingly cooperate.
Vote vote vote!!!
3
yes, but who will count your vote?
1
Amen Paul !
Spoken as a True Patriot, ...Thank You Sir !!
45 is the result of the Expanded Presidential Powers that has been going on for Decades and He benefits from Our current Corrupted political system that values Greed & Graft over Duty to God or Country !!!
America is in the control of Perverted billionaires, white nationalists and conservative evangelicals,
…Only Further Decay will follow unless We Wake the _ Up !
Booting Bullies Out Won't Be Pretty but It Must Be Done to Preserve Democracies Everywhere !!
VIVA AMERICA !!!
7
Racism: wrecking societies since the dawn of time
4
Democracy dies by living in your head, trying to figure out how democracy dies, while democracy dies all around you.
The sad truth is, democracy seems to have a habit of unravelling, perhaps it's not as stable as we would like to believe. Consider the following:
The death of Athenian Democracy
Beginning, on its first emergence from an earlier aristocratic phase, with an energy that inspired without shattering the forms of discipline and law, it dissolved by degrees this coherent whole into an anarchy of individual wills, drawn deeper and deeper, in pursuit of mean and egoistic ends, into political fraud and commercial chicanery, till the tradition of the gentleman and the soldier was choked by the dust of adventurers and swindlers, and the people who fathers had fought and prevailed at Marathon and Salamis, fell as they deserved, by treachery from within as much as by force from without, into the grasp of the Macedonian conqueror.
G. Lowes Dickinson
The Greek View of Life, 1896
3
When NOAA came out and supported Trump, it reminded me of the excellent miniseries Chernobyl, which I just finished watching a few weeks ago. How State propaganda and the party line superseded dissemination of life-saving facts and evidence to the public about the disaster.
I recognized NOAA's support of Trump as a more critical and scary turn in our country than this zig-zaggy ride has been so far.
13
If somebody has to sound the alarm it means it's already happened.
7
In conversation with another couple last night, my husband and I discovered that not one of us believes anything anyone working in this administration says. Not one thing. After sharpie gate, Barr, and all Trump's lies, etc., we found that all credibility is gone. Frightening times indeed.
14
Every living thing dies. Even non-living things like corporations die. All empires will die and many have. The Egyptian, Greek, British, Roman, Chinese, Third Reich, they are all gone. The question is not so much how soon or how long before they go, but what and when a new Empire will arise. I like this argument except for one big caveat. Many empires, if they don’t rot away from within, eventually fail from the attritions of war. If that is required today to challenge a failing, fading empire, today’s weapons of mass destruction will pretty much assure no empires will emerage out of it and the empire of humans will be gone from this world. I’d rather see us fade away from internal rot, and it seems more and more that may be the way ours goes. At least until good wine runs out.
5
John Graybeard has the most # of Reader Picks and for very good reason as he is 100% correct about what we must do: Vote Democratic in every ballot for every position. Period.
We have the votes and now we need the conviction and courage to do just that. Banish these Un-American Republican politicians from office forever before they destroy the country and what it stands for. There has never been a time more important moment in modern history. I know we've heard that phrase before but this time there is no disputing it.
7
I've been voting Democrat since the 1980s (most of my voting life, and almost everyone I've ever voted for), and basically they have treated me just as shabbily as the GOP. Bullying and taxing, lying to me, cheating and threatening me. I've never felt that I've lived in a democracy. Maybe you have to be rich and white to have ever had that delusion.
2
"How Democracy Dies, American Way:
Sharpies, auto emissions and the weaponization of policy."
Not really!
Democracy dies when Cheney and Rumsfeld can take over Government by playing tricks on the ancient constitution with the help of the likes of Antonin Scalia, who then get a seat on the SCOTUS.
It dies when a gang finds some gullible mouthpiece to present congress with "proof" of WMDs and then declares war.
It dies when the rate of unionization among private corporation workers falls below 7 percent from five times higher in the 1930s.
It dies when Citizens United is born.
It dies when Koch Brothers tell politicians what to do in congress (including getting all sorts of fancy named, patriotic sounding think tanks writing the legislation for them).
It dies when the President of the United States can get away without releasing his taxes.
It dies when Mitch McConnell is born.
It dies when McConnell is paired with Chuckie Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
You want more?
10
"If you aren’t worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention."
Yes we are worried. We first depended on the opposition party that some of us voted for to stand firm and take the lead in opposition. But...as the failed impeachment inquiry push showed, they fell down on their jobs. Just to preserve their jobs and power.
Are Americans even aware what is going on politically? It looks like the people have to take the lead, our politicians will not. What's next? protests and rioting in the streets like the 60s and 70s?
3
We have enough doomsday material to last until doomsday. If I can't stomach the headline I can't read the content. How about some commentary on socialist solutions?
2
I find it ironic that trump is acting more and more like Chairman Mao. Pretty soon we’re going to see the Red Guard storm out of the NRA headquarters.
3
There is a book by Milton Mayer called "They Thought They Were Free: the Germans 1933-45. My copy was published in 1966. Mayer interviews ten former Nazis to find out how and why they became Nazis. It is the same playbook that is now happening in these United States and it is REALLY scary. This has happened before, it could have been prevented, it wasn't prevented by weak and hesitant government and viola! Yes, our president is really hellbent on destroying democracy. Lets hope that there is still voting by next November.
8
Trump is merely the inevitable culmination of a ruinous process that has been underway for decades and that has created the “imperial presidency”, as brilliantly outlined by the American author and political scientist Chalmers Johnson. As Dr. Johnson summarized in in his book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic: “...the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire.” I’ve long thought Johnson’s work has not received sufficient attention.
5
When the Cold War ended, the NeoLiberals claimed a victory that was not theirs and used that "mandate" to radically change not only the former Warsaw Pact states but the rest of the developed world as well. This was done without voters asking for it or being asked if they wanted it.
There is a book to be written to show how it all went awry- title it "How we lost the won the Cold War and lost the peace". Where we are politically has many roots in that time and in those actions.
1
One reason career government workers may "cave" to trump is because they don't want to be fired, like McCabe at the FBI, who was fired the day before he planned to retire. Being fired means not only losing your income, but also losing pension and other benefits. I don't blame them for not putting their career and benefits in jeopardy. They have families and bills to pay. Honestly, if you've put in 20 or 30 years, losing your pension because of Trump is just not worth it. I think people are just trying to get through to another president and a more sane administration.
4
I am a student of literature and a student of history...and 80 years old. For the first time in my life I an truly frightened for the future of my country. TWhat we are experiencing today is Senator Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC hearings (with a Thank You to one of my high school teachers for enlightening us on his nefarious activities) to an egregious degree.
Fortunately we had Edward R. Murrow (and an active press) to challenge McCarthy and restore some stability. (Watch the film Good Night and Good Luck for insight).
The press needs to do today what is its mission: "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." (Quote from the film Inherit the Wind--loosely based on the Scopes Trial of 1925 on freedom of thought ad expression). I am not suggesting that the press is not stepping up. I am asking the press to keep on investigating and publishing the truth.
11
Pres. Trump's policies amount to State Capitalism (Statism, Authoritarian Capitalism).
As such, his actions will become an example for students to learn in my history, government, and economics courses.
3
Take a look at emission and mileage standards in major markets across the world. A series of simple internet searches makes it easy.
The Obama era rules essentially are in line with the rest of the car buying world. If american manufacturers want to sell automobiles in Europe, Japan, etc., they will make cars that meet those standards.
Rolling back those standards is idiocy, pure and simple from a business standpoint. The automobile market is global. The days when US auto makers could ignore foreign competition in the domestic market ended half a century ago. Companies that make higher mileage lower polluting cars will sell them at home and abroad.
Trump hates Obama, he hates California, it remains to be seen if he hates the other states that are allied with California's desire to control pollution in its own state. Going out of business to stroke Trump's ego is a bad move for car companies or any other industry.
221
@AnEconomicCynic
Yes, this is very true, thank you !! And, the global market as a whole is finally responsible for taking sustainable actions. If these resilient actions are not respected, maintained, and improved, very soon in geologic time, there will be nothing left to argue about.
23
Outstandingly good article. Respect, Mr. Krugman.
11
The leaders in NOAA who caved instead of resigned over principle, should be fired by the next administration for cowardice. Maybe it's up to Congress to ensure that government agencies should be held accountable for their adherence to the truth rather than adherence to the executive.
4
In the past dictatorships have risen out of economic hardships. Today’s dictator’s are rising due to ideological “hardships” . Globalization has reduced economic hardships but has surprisingly unnerved the traditional racial and religious ideologies of the world. The pain of seeing your traditional thoughts shattered can be worse than any economic hardship. The West’s obsession with white male superiority, the Middle East and Turkey’s obsession with Islam, and generally the obsession with Nationalism is giving rise to Dictators inspite of a lack of any economic or physical threat.
3
Blame the Republican Party. They have to go.
7
Donegal..
It isn't pacifism you see. It is apathy. Too many Americans would gladly trade liberty for security...and as Benjamin Franklin once suggested, when you do that you get neither.
8
The slide began when the Chicago School became ascendant and convinced Americans they weren't citizens of a community but were, rather, consumers in competition with each other for governmental goods and services.
That'd be the latter 1970s. It's been downhill from there and Trump is merely the end result. Unless the nearly 50% of us who haven't voted since 1974 do something next year, it's unlikely we'll ever get our government back.
2
Why does the NYT regularly, consistently, and bizarrely ignore what we all know to be true, namely that no coverage of Trump is complete or accurate without firm acknowledgment, every single time, that he’s a pathological liar and deeply mentally unsound. The man is non compos mentis. Why isn't the NYT writing about this? I mean, how can you fail to mention in every article that the president of the United States is 100% straight-up insane in virtually every way?
16
All symptoms not the underlying problems. Decrease in funding and deemphasis on public education has resulted in a reduction in critical thinking ability. Concentration of wealth has resulted in reduced opportunity as well as outsized ability to influence policy and perpetuate wealth concentration. The gov't we have is a reflection of U.S. DOJ nonsense is propped up by DJT, DJT's malfeasance is propped up by R's in the Senate, R's in the Senate are propped up by the electorate. We get the gov't that we deserve.
7
@Basic. Where is this decrease in public education? There is no reduced opportunity . California certainly gets the government it deserves.
1
And how does one characterize the use of the FBI and CIA and NSA in corrupting the political process and instigating a charade of a political scandal involving Russian collusion with the Trump campaign? To my mind, at least, it seems a few degrees more alarming than a disputed weather map.
6
Anne-Marie Hislop is right to bring up Hitler, but there's a wider problem in our society.
The historian Fritz Stern was already trying to sound the alarm in a speech he gave in 2005 about disturbing attitudes among Americans. (Stern had written a book about three German conservatives, showing how they had – however unintentionally – promoted attitudes that paved the way for the Nazis.) Below are two quotations from Tom Reiss’s NYT review of another book – one of which comments on the speech Stern had recently given, drawing parallels between attitudes in the U.S. and in Germany before WW2.
“[Stern] talked about a group of 1920's intellectuals known as the "conservative revolutionaries," who "denounced liberalism as the greatest, most invidious threat, and attacked it for its tolerance, rationality and cosmopolitan culture," and about how Hitler had used religion to appeal to the German public."
Later in the same review: “Rather than looking for obvious parallels among contemporary dictators who ape the style of the Nazis, Stern looks for the nihilistic undercurrents in our own educated, commercial societies. Hunger and poverty have little to do with the politics of cultural despair. It thrives especially well at moments of plenty and prosperity, when people have enough social advantages to dwell on their inner alienations and resentments.”
4
Simply put Dr. Krugman...the Trump administration is the 21st century edition of the Borgias. Trump as Rodrigo, Ivanka as Lucretia, Jared as Cesare. The only difference is that the 21st century, and perhaps our saving grace, it that the 21st century version is incompetent.
4
@Vimy18. Such drama. I always thought the Clintons were the Borgias.
It’s treason. Trump and the GOP are engaged in ongoing treasonous acts to undermine the health and welfare of the United States. And with a single purpose: to transfer as much wealth as possible into their hands. It’s about as evil as things get.
5
@Gary Shaffer. Please look up the definition of treason. It seems like someone spying on the opposing political party qualifies. That would mean Comey, Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Obama.
1
I am glad I don't believe every headline I read in the NYTimes. Otherwise I'd be continually depressed.
I have more faith in Americans than Paul Krugman. We will get through this. This is not the end of anything or the death of anything. It is a process and we are learning. Look at the 2016 Congressional wins. Diverse, young, and yes - outspoken. Aren't we lucky that we can be so out spoken with the military showing up at our door to take us away.
Now, if we can get our act together enough to get around to humanism again -- good immigration policy, good climate policy, better civil rights...get rid of the greed, delusion, and hatred folks.
3
I have no faith in America. It started with liars and tax evaders who promised liberty and practiced slavery. It was rotten right from the start.
1
Profoundly worried... and profoundly frightened by the relative indifference to what is happening (right before our /their eyes... by a large part of the feeble-mind of the country (the people, so to speak) ...and then beyond that, even more distressed by the fact that seemingly all the members of the other major political party, seem to approve, not care or intentionally want to ignore all of it.. including the obvious of what de-evolutions like this will eventually mean for them and for their country... least of all, for us.
3
I'm reading a book on the American civil war and just finished the battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln's address at Gettysburg really drove home for me how much the idealism and goals of our young country have died. It's starting to seem like perhaps the deaths that took place there were in vain after all.
1
There are plenty of idealistic people who are marching against violence, sexism and climate change, idealists who are going to prison to help immigrants at the border, idealists who rescue wildlife and other animals, who are trying to be "green," vegans, etc. They just don't have enough money or power. Idealists seldom have either.
Do advocates of capitalism and free enterprise have anywhere left to turn? Republicans have gone over the edge into full-blown Stalinism while Democrats prescribe an antidote in the form of social democracy, the "lite" brand of socialism that governed Western Europe through the latter half of the 20th century. Social democracy may have worked, but how do you sell it to Americans?
Mr. Krugman:
We should also pay attention to what Beijing is doing to Cathay Pacific In Hong Kong. Its no. 1 and no. 2 were fired for not reigning in their employees political activism. Of course they have a president for life and mass surveillance of its citizens. We may be heading in that direction if we don’t pay attention.
4
No longer can we trust the NOAA, nor the Justice Department, nor the Environmental Protection Agency, nor the President, nor the Senate, nor the Supreme Court, in fact, not any Republican.
If Trump were indeed an agent of Russia, how would his policies be any different from what they are now?
6
Logically, imposing higher standards than ordered legitimately by the Federal government in any way is problematic.
If a state government wants to challenge the legitimacy of the order of the federal government, they should bring it to the federal court to correct it. That's democracy.
1
What happened to States Rights?
Are they only applicable to Republicans’ need to purge voter rolls?
3
Think about this. If a Dem gets in in four years, they’ll be required to switch back. If an R gets in the next time, will they be required to switch again? That’s just ridiculous. Especially when the motivation is Trump’s petty spite toward Obama.
1
States rights should have died with the Civil War, and states rights is why you have states polluting other states, racist laws, etc. The GOP loves states rights - without it you would not have the electoral college, and without the electoral college, the GOP would not have won the 2000 or the 2016 presidential elections.
1
Where Mr Krugman sees our society's march towards authoritarianism as being guided by nefarious hands, I see it as simple decline.
"Democracy" is hard to grasp. One has to understand civil institutions that place checks on many things. The cost is immediate whereas the benefit is more nebulous. Imagine all the steps needed to build a shoe factory in Los Angeles. Public hearings, a multitude of permits, endless negotiations with community groups, etc.
Authoritarianism is simple to grasp. Only a few people are in power. To build a shoe factory, just convince a few people it's profitable. Only much later will the polluting cost of tanning leather and processing rubber be exacted on society.
The USA is not losing its democratic ideals to a plotting authoritarian. The USA is merely devolving from a complex system of democracy into a simpler system of authoritarianism.
Donald Trump relies on an impeachable source in this country to carry out his plans to dismantle democracy in the US......
He relies on its people who have no interest in their government, other than how it affects them.......and
who don't know enough about what democracy is or how it works.
They only concern themselves about themselves.....and by doing so fail their country.
They should know that their lives and their interests mean nothing if the system of government they rely on is being stripped of
its strengths......The buck you don't mind that he is making is coming out of your pocket.
this is just another example of the failure to properly educate
our people.....No ability to analyze, evaluate or research facts
is what leads to so many who can fall prey to policies which rob them of all the benefits of citizenship.
10
On the economic causes (Wonkish)
1. Democracies rest on a stable middle class
2. As a society becomes more unequal, populism rises
3. Inequality rose in America due to globalization.
4. Populism is the outcome of inequality
References
"GLOBALIZATION'S RISE IN recent decades has widened income inequality in the U.S."
""More recently there has been a growing consensus that trade, driven in part by the integration of China into the world economy, has played a role in rising income inequality in many high-income countries," the study authors wrote"
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/globalization-boosted-income-inequality-study-says
"Motivated by the recent rise of populism in western democracies, we develop a model in which a populist backlash emerges endogenously in a growing economy. In the model, voters dislike inequality, .. Economic growth exacerbates inequality due to heterogeneity in risk aversion. In response to rising inequality, rich-country voters optimally elect a populist promising to end globalization."
https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/inequality-aversion-populism-and-the-backlash-against-globalization/
Professor Krugman crucially contributed to this development by advocating , throughout his career, increased globalization, declaring it harmless
He was as modern research shows, wrong, but now bewails the outcome of what he advocated - without understanding its political consequences.
2
Remember the Lysenko affair? How about the great famine in China? These are just the most prominent examples of authoritarian governments supporting fake science and suppressing scientific fact. Thought control leads to every other kind of control.
6
Thanks Mr. Krugman, but why is it you and not the Democrats who are constantly sounding this alarm? When Trump took out his Sharpie, he may as well have been crossing out sections of the Constitution he doesn't like, such as free speech. Where is the outrage?
If Obama had pulled SharpieGate, and intimidated NOAA to go along with his lies under threat of a purge, the Republicans would be screaming bloody murder 24-7. Where is the coordinated attack from the Democrats?
The party is so lame when it comes to messaging that I fear Trump will be reelected. And the only message will be what clueless leader dictates.
257
@mivogo Joe Biden IS sounding the alarm. This - in my view - is the strongest part of Biden's campaign message.
18
@mivogo
Yes, they must be more vocal. They are in Washington doing good work but no one knows that! They must put the pen down and start letting everyone understand and appreciate that they are involved. Are they? You wouldn’t know it and I think that’s what you mean!
14
@mivogo It's not a complete excuse, but Congress was on recess for August and last week, following Labor Day. I suspect that makes things a bit more difficult to coordinate.
But the Democrats had better get with it now that they're back!
15
America dies every time a republican suppresses another American from voting.
America dies every time Trump and his co-conspirators fail to speak the truth.
America dies every time our courts have a new unqualified judge to sit on the bench.
America dies when the Democrats are frightened of their own shadows, and hesitate to subpoena and drag a wretched offical to our courts.
America dies every time our Department of Justice has a despicable, political hack, attorney general.
13
In 1962 I was warned by my father who had left Germany in 1935, because of Hitler's ascendency -- it was not easy and the youngest brother who would not have been allowed to enter the USA went to France where he studied and joined the Resistance... was warned that the USA could well become just like Germany... so here we are 50 years later...
13
"If even weather forecasters are expected to be apologists for Dear Leader, the corruption of our institutions is truly complete."
If?
11
We have tens of thousands of hard working government employees who do their jobs well and keep the US running. The department heads are the lickspittle Trump appointees who bow to his madness, not the rank and file. These "bosses" are idealogues kneeling to the great leader. Mr. Krugman needs to believe that the majority of Americans do believe in science and what's right and will come out in 2020 and throw Trump and his circus onto the trash.
7
The main thing saving this country at the moment is the possibility that one of the extremely qualified Democratic candidates for president might win. They are our strongest bulwark against the the anti-American tendencies of Trump and his traitorous supporters.
9
In light of the most recent "apparent" coercion of NOAA in what appears to be an increasing slide to autocracy, I find myself rereading George Orwell's classics "Animal Farm" and "!984". In his 2003 introduction to these monumental works, the polemicist Christopher Hitchens writes "Orwell had an innate understanding of what Nietzsche called the "master-slave" relationship. He knew that there are guilty thrills to be obtained by domination, and he also realised what few people appreciate...that there are also guilty thrills to be had from subjecting and abusing oneself."
Are we no longer capable of outrage? The future is in our hands.
8
Surely you know, Paul, anti-trust laws were first used against the very group that fought for them—organized labor. Years ago Rush Limbaugh had the meteorologist who forecast rain on the day of his event to modify his forecast. It rained. So you see, all of this is as American as apple pie. What isn’t? Democracy.
2
What's surprised me is how little it takes to impose autocratic rule: ignore norms, bully and threaten to fire people, and be willing to humiliate them publicly.
Some point to General Mattis as someone who stood up for principle. And yet on news shows he's gone out of his way to blame the system, blame both sides, blame increasing partisanship, anything other than pointing to the obvious culprit or to acknowledge our dangerous shift from democracy.
I'm constantly puzzled that people who leave the administration say almost nothing. What do they have to lose? Fear of Trump's trolls? Dependence on Trump for some new position? Fear that they'll be kept off Fox News? Worried that they'll break their non-disclosure agreements? I wish the Times would pursue this angle.
10
A shiver went through me when I heard that NOAA had lied to back up this egomaniac president. We are over the edge into
dear leader worship.
229
@Darchitect What evidence do you have that NOAA "lied" to protect the president? NOAA issued several earlier forecasts that did include a small SE corner of Alabama that could have been impacted by Dorian.
4
@Darchitect At one point before Dorian decimated the Bahamas, some of the models used in forecasting saw Dorian crossing south-central Florida, restrengthening in the Gulf of Mexico and moving on shore somewhere between northern Florida and Louisiana. It is possible that Trump fixated on those early possibilities. We all know that his brain capacity is limited, and he may not have updated himself. There are more serious problems with Trump than Sharpiegate.
3
@Barbara I disagree. The fact that he couldn't let it go and HAD to be right says that he knew what he was doing and why. He wants to be the only source of truth. A classic authoritarian play.
38
When political leaders start arguing with the weather, it's only a matter of time before the purges begin and we are all sent down country to raise yaks in Yunnan. Mao Zedong started the Great Leap Forward by arguing with his agronomists about the distance between each planted rice sprout. Using the Great Soviet Science of Lysenkoism, Mao argued that the agronomist's science was Capitalist Pig-Doggery and that the rice seedlings could be planted even closer together, therefore yielding double the rice crop. He was wrong. The crop failed. One thing lead to another and 50 million Chinese died of famine between 1958 and 1960.
Arguing with Earth Science is probably THE sign your political leaders have gone off the deep end.
20
This comment responds to your newsletter today as much as this article. It is worth remembering that a major factor contributing to the Great Famine (1958-1961) in China—the world’s worst human-created disaster, at least until a full accounting of climate change can be made—was the misstating of official numbers (agricultural reports among others) by governments at the local and provincial levels for the purpose of achieving political benefit. Estimates of the death toll (the regime in Beijing to this day refuses to release any authoritative numbers) range from 15 to 30 million souls. Official statistics can, in some instances, have life or death consequences.
11
A powerful analysis pointing out a real possibility that little by little we are chipping away at the safeguards of our democracy.
In the past, the innate decency of most politicians--buttressed by our traditions not to go too far in demonizing opponents-- served to protect our democracy. There were "things" no one did---like lying incessantly, always flip-flopping so that no one knew a final decision, treating children and older migrants with the utmost cruelty with no regard for future development or lives, and using a black marker to manufacture utter fanciful fabrications. "Weaponization" of apolitical government institutions (like our weather agencies) was a no-no, respected by all.There was decency that politicians expected of themselves.
But that is all gone, vanished, under Trump, and our democracy is now seriously threatened. Anything goes, the most unethical actions, the most swamp-like characters into positions of power, the aura of immorality that pervades all---catering to an ego-sensitive bumpkin who demands total loyalty and fires all who whisper "no"---all decency gone.
2020 will decide whether we remain a beacon of light unto nations.
6
Fortunately the GOP base is limited, and their politics so obviously self-serving, that it's hard to imagine that they won't ultimately lose in elections. Can't fool all the people all the time. However, that won't stop the minority party from using every trick in the book to cling to power despite the demographics that are clearly going to swamp them unless they can craft an ideological/theological coalition that ignores economic self-interest. Americans may be lazy and complacent, but there will come a time when we'll go to the streets if the madness in White House worsens. And the stock market will plunge, which is the ultimate rejection for Trump.
5
What some of the NOAA bureaucrats are doing to promote climate hysteria—in essence, cherry picking and manipulating data from the past 100 years to show a phantom warming, is of far more concern than this insignificant, no news Alabama thing. It is the left, with their arrogance and naïveté about what is real and what is simply a fantasy, that puts us at great risk.
1
The American Military is also saluting Trump and landing at the small Scotland airport near his money-losing golf resort paying more for fuel and having military officers use taxpayer money to stay at the resort. Impeachment must be the solution for Trump, Pence and Barr to restore justice in the US.
8
What's most concerning is that John Roberts, who clearly is a partisan but also appears to be smart enough to see that our democracy is at stake, is enabling Trump's subversion. From time to time he'll cast a vote that slows the march to authoritarianism, such as with the census citizenship question. But, on the biggest, most damaging issues, such as the gerrymandering case, he is more than willing to ignore the facts and use twisted logic to forward the cause of the GOP and the Federalist Society.
He must know that the powers he is giving to the executive branch will be abused by Trump. I can only guess that he thinks Trump is a one-termer who can do only limited damage in the little time he has left, and that these powers will be helpful to the cause in the hands of future GOP presidents who aren't "stable geniuses" that pose existential threats to the country. That's a high-risk game.
6
Article in the European press about a contract between Google and ICE.
Hundreds of Google employee signing a petition denouncing that anti democratic involvement of a private company into state policies and putting its clients in danger.
Where in the US press ?
2
We are past the point of convincing trump supporters of anything since they are willing to back anything and everything he does. If we weren't past that point I'd recommend the asset podcast dot org for any who truly wish to know the facts behind the entire trumpian con. With that said I will continue to push for impeachment and a solid working/middleclass/sbo platform along the lines of:
1-Education: K-12 and beyond. Free and low cost options for post K-12 education and training will power the economy for the remainder of this century. Renovation of K-12 schooling along with community based solutions, better pay, and the recruitment and retention of quality teachers.
2-An entire redesign of our national infrastructure which includes our energy grid and energy production along with transportation and public buildings. Focus on renewables. #1 above goes hand in hand with this plank. Trained, educated workforce for good paying jobs.
3-Healthcare for all at an easily affordable price. There's lots of existing models. Let's examine them all and come up with a hybrid of the best that works for us.
4-A complete overhaul of taxation and banking which provides more transparency and places the burden of taxation where it belongs--on those who profit the most.
5-Term limits and campaign finance reform. 3 term limit for Senate. 16-20 year limit on SC justices.
6-Election reform: Secure elections, end of gerrymandering, remove electoral college. End Citizens United.
5
Outstanding column, Mr. Krugman. You've articulated what many of us have been thinking for some time.
5
So let me get this straight: Exceeding, rather than meeting the guidelines his administration established, saving consumers at the gas pump, and at the same time helping US automakers stay competitive with foreign automakers (don't think "spend more at the pump" is gonna sell many new cars), is cause for the AG to open antitrust investigation? Yeah, sure, let's keep big gov't out of our free market capitalism. Any Republicans weighed in on this yet?
10
The car companies are reasonably worried that Trump will lose and the Obama rules will be reinstated by Dems and other reasonable appointees. It's easier for them to stick with their plans than to retool twice--once for lax new regulations and again for climate-facing ones. I find their behavior entirely understandable from a business point of view alone.
188
More importantly, they have to exist in a global market. And that market will not reward gas guzzlers for long.
71
@Andy Makar It already doesn't. By world standards, the Toyota Hilux is massive. It's a 4 cylinder truck that Toyota makes larger, makes the engine more powerful, and sells as a small truck here. When was the last time you saw a two door hatchback? They're everywhere in Europe and Asia. The only reason we have our gas guzzlers is that we're such a massive part of the market.
15
@Michael Simon
I’m over in the Netherlands. There simply are no big cars, and many are hybrids.
24
A significant contributor to the growing rot in our government and the rising threat to our liberty and our democracy is apathy.
Too many Americans care mostly, or even only, about shopping and social media and celebrities. I suppose this is so because there isn't much reason to hope for improved prosperity and because our local communities offer, in most cases, very little opportunity for engagement.
There's also naivete. I surmise that most Americans simply do not believe that a dictatorship or the evil of fascism could ever descend here, no matter what. They've been told that we are a "shining city on a hill" and that "God" has "blessed" us, after all.
And there's arrogance. Our country has long convinced itself that all we do is right and good, all we are is noble, and, of course, that we are in control of our own destiny. Americans can surely affect the future of this country, but a cursory look at our history shows that these suppositions are not entirely correct.
So here we are, with the most corrupt president in that history holding power and a party supporting him that seems to be comfortable with authoritarianism. What do we do?
Electing Democrats to run the House of Representatives has not done much to change things. Maybe it's time for a Democracy Movement, one that reminds Americans of the true gift that we have received: the responsibility of self-government.
5
Its not Trump. Its the long-standing Republican agenda to remove regulations that constrain businesses from endangering the health, safety and financial security of Americans. Trump only provided the opening for the party to flood government agencies and courts with its acolytes. If this agenda is to be reversed the focus has to be on regaining voting control not only of the federal government but also of state legislatures that enable Republicans to retain control through redistricting, a practice this Supreme Court, which the party has now captured, is unwilling to address.
5
What can I do?
I know we have an authoritarian regime. Yes, Paul, I'm paying attention, but what am I supposed to do? Yes, of course, a year from now I will vote for whatever candidate the Democratic Party nominates, but what about right now?
Who has a plan for what to do right now?
I'm listening. I'll do it. But what?
Help me figure out what I'm supposed to do. Please.
13
I would add the $30 billion payout to Trump's base, i.e. farmers. The trade war is going to raise taxes for all Americans who shop at places like Walmart, yet farmers get a large slice of welfare. This is not because China's retaliation affects them. It's because they are staunch Republicans and Trump supporters. Farmers better be sure that what goes around doesn't eventually come around (because it always does). The rest of us don't need to buy American farm products anymore than China does.
6
@Phil Those farmers whom you despise keep you and your family well-fed.
What’s it gonna take to pierce the anonymity of “the Justice Department”? Who are the lawyers doing these things? Name them. Ask them how their work comports with their professional duties and oaths of office. Has any justice department lawyer been held accountable for acts done to further Trump’s agenda that breached the code of conduct required of all lawyers? Have Justice lawyers been allowed to make frivolous or false claims with impunity that no private lawyer could make without risking his license to practice law?
9
I have a name for you—Jay Suglow. Surely he’s under indictment for the corrupt management of his nonprofit that extracts millions from the poorest, most ignorant Americans and distributes them to his family members. Surely.
If we do manage to oust Trump in 2020, then the presidency needs new limitations. It should be walled off from the Justice Department, and other organs of law enforcement entirely. The executive order and signing statement powers should be clipped or done away with. And new anti-corruption standards instituted.
Previously the office of the Presidency was deified and fetished. You can still hear sycophantic journalists jawboning about the need to "respect" the office of the Presidency.
We need to do away with all that childish nonsense now. The Presidency is an administrative role whose purpose is to admin the laws passed by Congress. By default, the President is "commander and chief" of the military -- that's not meant to make the President a military figure, that's meant to put the military under civilian command.
The puffed grandeur of the Presidency needs to be ended.
7
Why are we not following the example of Puerto Rico in protesting this corruption. How bad will it have to get before we see mass demonstrations day after day? Will it be too late?
12
Absolutely accurate.
We are in the full throes of a very real attempt to effect one-party rule via division, coercion, and now intimidation. This is by design: Gingrich & Rove have acknowledged as much.
(All while the naieve, kumbaya Dems cry about ‘fair play’).
It is nothing less than a coup, and it is happenning drop-by-drop, right under our nose, promulgated by the very factions among us which most loudly shed crocolile tears for ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty.’
For Shame!
5
Trump must be defeated next year. Will he go quietly? No, he will claim the election was rigged and his sycophants and lackies in congress and in the administration will agree and attempt to undue the election. I'm not holding my breath but the Dems must win MI and WI and OH and PA and FL so that no argument can be made that Trump actually won.
3
I use to vote for some Republicans, but now it seems our only hope to save the USA is to vote Democratic. In the past, I could vote based on an individual's beliefs and actions, not by a party. In less than 3 years I have lost hope in our government.
10
Ironic to the hilt that Republican presidents disdain large government and then use it to weaken and throttle democracy (cf. Nixon, Reagan, Trump).
Carl Jung might call that political enantiodromia, a peculiar Republican syndrome.
JFK, LBJ, Carter never caught that virus. Clinton did to a significant extent: "The era of big government is over." Obama was a good friend to the big banks: He allowed them to carry on as before. (Yes, I twice voted for him.) Even FDR, my personal hero, had flaws: He knew of the Pearl Harbor attack before it happened; attempted to pack the SC; prohibited Jews escaping Nazi Germany to dock their ship here.)
But overall Democratic presidents are true friends of the working man and woman. They know government is an effective tool for building a better, more just America; Repubs can't, or won't, see that.
Too bad, I had wished that we as one nation could understand, appreciate, and act on the existential fact that we're all in the same boat.
6
Democracies have come all along and die for a very simple reason.The upper cognitive classes(meaning people with IQ of 120+) find ways to tailor the entire economy to fit their needs creating structures so they will not have to work while at the same time appropriating more and more of society's resources.Eventually they shoot themselves at the foot by causing a backlash by the rest of the people who truly have to work harder and harder for a living.Sometimes the backlash is extremely harsh culminating in regimes like the ones in Soviet Union or Nazi Germany and sometimes it can be less murderous.But make no mistake.Our American Democracy is slowly dying and the backlash is long overdue.The election of DT is just a small taste of the thing to come
6
Unless we continue the relentless resistance to this illegitimate far right radical extremist regime.
He backs down ,like the bully he and they are. And a major reason thE bullying has intensified is that these extremist right wing radicals and their useful idiot realize: their days are numbered.do as much damage as they can in their time left in office
Explains the wave of GOP retirements. But not the impending jail time due the whole lot of them
VOTE
11
Just curious, when Obama told the Republicans "President Obama to Republicans: I won. Deal with it. - The ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com › news › the-fix › 2013/10/17 › presiden...
Oct 17, 2013 - (It's not the first time Obama has used the "I won" construct. Remember the health-care summit in early 2010 when Obama told Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): ... toto because he won reelection isn't representing their constituents well. ... when the two teams can't even agree on what the rules should be or what ...
When Obama told Republicans he had "Wielding A Pen And A Phone, Obama Goes It Alone : NPR
https://www.npr.org › 2014/01/20 › wielding-a-pen-and-a-phone-obama-go...
Jan 20, 2014 - President Obama has a couple tools at his disposal that let him bypass ... The administration says the president is still willing to work with Congress, but ... "I've got a pen to take executive actions where Congress won't, and I've got a ... While Republicans see this as another example of executive overreach, ...
PAUL, WHERE WERE YOU THEN?
Politics was never meant to be a profession. Unfortunately, the MSM has made it into one. Shame on You!!!
2
Such a familiar playbook, from Fascist Germany to the USSR. Propaganda tells you what to believe, when black is white, and 2 2=5. They shall soon pass an Arithmetic Law in Congress.
5
Just a quote from Sinclair Lewis' (1936) "It Can't Happen Here":
“I am addressing my own boys, the Minute Men, everywhere in America! To you and you only I look for help to make America a proud, rich land again. You have been scorned. They thought you were the ‘lower classes.’ They wouldn’t give you jobs. They told you to sneak off like bums and get relief. They said you were no good, because you were poor. I tell you that you are the highest lords of the land — the aristocracy — the makers of the new America of freedom and justice. Boys! I need you! Help me — help me to help you! Stand fast! Anybody tries to block you — give the swine the point of your bayonet!”
6
Exactly. And do I have to reminder other readers that Trump's base, the MAGAT'S, are totally in line with what Trump is doing here. Republicans actually HATE democracy. Republicans love Putin. If they wish for any changes in Trump, it's that he act more like Putin.
So...when it comes to voter suppression...don't fool yourself into thinking that republicans only want to suppress minority turnout...they want to suppress anyone who they believe wouldn't vote for them. What Hitler had, what Putin has is rule by bullies. Democracy is a joke. Trump and his base want the same for the USA.
We are at war...not just with the Taliban, ISIS and Russia, but with the white supremacists that dominate the republican party.
Vote like your life depends on it...because it does.
7
Ha! The liberals are owned. They are triggered so easily.
As America starts to burn, the Republicans are happy with their Arsonist-in-Chief.
1
Seems to many that the politicalization of the FBI and the weaponization of the IRS and the adoration of MSM came very close to that day.
The IRS has been a weapon for a long time, mostly against the poor, minorities, and anyone who fights for our civil rights - after all, they went after MLK and Ralph Nader, but couldn't find anything on them.
Thank you for this column.
But please, can we call it what it is?
Fascism.
Trump isn't a king, or autocrat or dictator.
He's a fascist.
He works straight out of Hitler's playbook.
And we seem powerless to stop him.
Rather, Congress won't stop him.
I wonder if Moscow Mitch really believes he's immune from the twisted mind and power of a fascist.
I have news for him: he's not.
Stephen Miller better watch out, too.
It can happen here and it can happen to anyone.
11
We need a revolution.
6
Putin clearly routinely murders his opponents.
5
I parachuted myself from Mexico, a pseudo democracy captured by one party (PRI)… just to fall in another Mexico with a different name: USA.
Darn!
7
Next time try Canada!
Let's all look forward to breathing more dirty, filthy, toxic air.
2
One word (in solid caps and followed by exclamation points for emphasis): IMPEACH!!!
3
What will it take for Republicans to understand that continuing to support this wannabe despot is not in their electoral interests? The fact that such a large percentage of them (88% according to recent polls) continue to support him in spite of his obviously impaired mental acuity invokes a sense of cognitive dissonance.
While writing this I just heard that John Bolton resigned (or was fired depending on who you believe). Our country is in peril of being destroyed from within. It's well past time for Republicans to put the country ahead of party politics.
7
Well, now it's up to us. We the People must muster in huge numbers and vote to save our nation.
Trump/Republicans have cancelled primaries in several states already. He doesn't want any challenges apparently.
If you are a Republican who is uneasy about losing our democracy to a dictator, please this one time vote Blue. Or at least don't vote Trump.
3
Trump is like the scaly thing on top of a melanoma. It's ugly, but its what's underneath that kills you. This country has been inching towards oligarchy for decades now, and the Democrats lost because they were unable to reverse that slide. Never mind the fact that the Republicans wouldn't let them; many of those who voted for Trump did so as an act of temper or desperation. Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind.
Trump might lose in 2020, but if we can't reverse the slide into oligarchy, his eventual replacement will be better behaved and far more effective.
2
@mlbex Correction, the Democrats lots not because they couldn't reverse the slide, they lost because they embraced it. They love wall street $$$$ as much as the GOP and a lot of voters felt betrayed! Only pronblem is that instead of voting new progressive dems in, they decided to vote for the GOP which makes no sense at all!!!
1
@Stevered: I was giving some of them the benefit of the doubt, but you are probably right.
I'd vote for a monkey instead of Trump, but if they want my loyalty beyond 2020, Tthey need to convince me that they are working for me and not for Wall St.
1
American Democracy did not really ever exist. We stared as an proto-apartheid state formed on land stolen from its rightful owners. In more recent times, after a pretty brief (in historical context) of the FDR era, we got back to the process of killing democracy with Reagan. Cheney acted as it’s undertaker and Trump is the clown trying to nail the coffin shut.
Revolutions not miracles are needed to bring something back from near death. Bernie and/or Warren for 2020 and beyond!
6
It isn't hard to see that the controlling elite in the GOP have been engaged in a decades long project to subvert our democracy while preserving an appearance of legitimacy, but even they must be surprised by the sudden rise of Trump and his blatantly dishonest and hypocritical assaults on our political system and its institutions and traditions. The demonization of the government and of people who disagree has been a standard GOP tactic but Trump takes it to a new level. Trump is an instinctive autocrat but cognitively immature, much like a spoiled child with a mean streak, and he is dangerous.
2
Trump honestly believes that anyone who opposes him is a disloyal traitor. Although he suffers from delusions, the fact that so many support him shows that our system of government is in peril and may not be able to recover even after Trump is no longer with us.
2
The biggest threat to our democracy is voter apathy and Citizens United corporate money . Only 60% of registered voters showed up at the polls in 2016. Trump was slid in to office with votes from about 25% of the eligible electorate. Republican election scams paid for with dark money depend on poor voter turnout.
Get out the vote to save our democracy from a total descent into corporate fascism.
4
Regarding the seemingly pointless "jihad against environmental rules": Does anybody realize that there will be winners as well as losers from climate change? For example, Canadian farmers will be growing more corn than Iowa and Nebraska.
And who will be the biggest winner of all, with year-round-ice-free ports and endless resources from the Arctic and Siberia??? That's right -- Russia!
In any question about Trump, you need to ask "WWVW?" or What Would Vladimir Want?
2
Does America want a dictatorship ? We will find out in 2020 as Trump will launch attacks vs all his distractors using the force of the federal govt a dictator of sorts if he is vindicated on his M.O.
1
The issue here is executive power. The President should have far less control over the government period!
2
Effective opposition withers away.?? It's true that the Republican Congress has been spineless, but the judiciary has opposed many of Trump's measures. In recent weeks several Republicans have voiced their opposition to his policies. Trump is in trouble because effective opposition is building, not withering away.
The U.S. is not like Turkey or Russia. Professor Krugman's assessment is too gloomy.
Government officials need to remind their cabinet secretaries and the president that officials are obligated to follow the rules. If a cabinet secretary or president directs them to violate the rules by, for example, reporting false information when the mandate is to provide accurate information, then the officials must refuse. Even in the military, an unlawful order must not be carried out. And an order to NOAA is far from a military order to the troops.
If the president and/or a cabinet secretary tries to fire the official, the official should get legal representation and get a court to impose an injunction to stay the firing. Let the president and his weak-willed minions get tied up in court while the courageous official continues to do her/his job.
It is time for true patriots to hold the president accountable, especially those who have sufficient seniority and will still have decent pensions, even if, ultimately, the court decided that they must be fired for contradicting an order from Trump.
Why anyone in Congress or the government is intimidated by Trump is beyond comprehension. The "but he is the president . . . " excuse no longer cuts it.
3
The Levinsky-Ziblatt book was excellent but I believe Gordon Lafer’s The One Percent Solution is much more of a systematic study of the decline into the current state of affairs. I don’t know if Professor Krugman is familiar with it but I highly recommended it to everyone who wants to understand the causes.
3
The contents of this article is exactly what the democratic candidates running for president should be focusing on instead of bickering with each other on the debate stage as they have been doing. We are talking about preserving our democracy. What is more important then that?
5
Preserving? We haven’t had much of it to begin with. Reagan killed what FDR put together.
You want democracy? Vote for Bernie and/or Warren in 2020.
2
One thing I note about Krugman's columns:
When the economy goes well, it is all dire warnings about democracy and social justice. But let the Dow fall for a couple of hundred points, and PKs inner economist wakes up, and goes wonkish on us about the impending disaster. Like clockwork. So today... it's Sharpiegate. And it's frightening.
Under the GOP we are working our way to becoming a failed state with all the anarchy that follows. It is essential that the Democrats win the next election across the board it we are to have any hope of restoring liberal democracy in the U.S.
6
The threat becomes more real in a country with so many low IQ and uninformed voters.
6
whimper......
1
Every government needs a tool or backbone to show their strength & leadership to the people. The backbone of today's world is built on money and economic standings. America was able to impress the world because they were able to show how their capitalistic system was able to rapidly grow their economy into number one, but they often re-direct that credit to their democratic government style.
But with the modern realization that this system creates huge inequalities between rich and poor, the backbone for which America uses is now limited. If you add in the addition of the corruption antics and ego of Trump's leadership, its no surprised that the world starts to realize its the not the style of government, but its leaders putting forth a vision to benefit its own people... A vision that can be properly carried out through any type of government whether its democratic or not.
2
To be honest, I hate both parties so much, I have fantasies of being liberated by a foreign army, preferably Canadian.
In the past we heard, "America is a nation of laws and institutions, not men". Well, it's pretty clear that those laws and institutions are administered by men (and a few women). When these administrators are corrupt, our laws are not enforced and our institutions fail to protect the Constitution. We must wrest control of our government from the Republican Party, whose abdication of their constitutional responsibilities reveal to us all the vulnerability of the Founders design. Then the new Democratic majority must enshrine in law a series of "De-trumpification" measures to prevent this current assault on the Constitution from happening again.
3
What "democracy" signifies varies depending upon
one's color preference, blue, red, or purple. "Populist
democracy", of the warped sort found in parts of eastern Europe is autocratic in nature, with media and other liberal democratic institutions subservient to a party and its leader, except for symbolic and token opposition, confined mostly to large city ghettos, and present just to help keep alive an illusion of living in a democracy.
This populist form claims historical roots with a native people, and is reluctant or hostile to inclusion of "others" whose historical connection to the state is supposedly dubious.
In red zones of this country there are dominant currents of thought that are not too dissimilar to what is found elsewhere. Its symbolic flags are christian fundamentalism, white privilege, and gun ownership. The idea of sharing an equal social status with the "other" is objectionable, tolerated only when obligatory, and subverted (legally) if possible.
Nonetheless, those who share such feelings do
not necessarily think of themselves as antidemocratic. They are just not "liberals", that is, believers in a liberal democracy as it is more widely understood in the blue zones of the country.
How they rationalize their convictions as being "democratic",
given that they're autocratic in nature, has to do with how their family, communal, and educational institutions helped form their incomplete understanding of the meaning of "democracy".
1
Does democracy die when leftist lawyers shop around for liked minded district court judges who will impose their whims as law upon an entire nation?
2
Would wager “leftist” lawyers have not cornered the market on the time-tested practice of judge/court shopping.
5
Years and years ago, I felt the U.S. was beginning to resemble the Roman Empire at its demise. I think we are there now.
9
Dr. Krugman,
A large number of unemployed people would be a major threat to democracy.
Unemployment is now at a historic low. Trump must be doing something right.
Personally, I would prefer a job from Trump than a handout from Bernie.
Also, I would like to buy an insurance plan that fits my needs not whatever Bernie things I should have.
Likewise, endless wars are also a threat to democracy. Trump does not like war. It might have something to do with him being in the hospitality business but whatever his reason I, too am sick of invading other countries for no sane purpose.
Prosperity and peace which Trump is offering us are not threats to democracy.
2
@Eric: Those who trade freedom for security deserve neither.
2
@Eric
How much does that Trump job pay? Good luck being able to afford that quality 2020 healthcare plan on 1980 dollars.
3
@Eric "Unemployment is now at a historic low. Trump must be doing something right."
You must have just graduated from college and walked into a $60,000 year job that allows you to pay off your college debt and buy all the things you need without going back into hock, just like all the other 2017-2019 graduates. Right? What a life Trump has provided!
Am I wrong? Are you making $9/hr? Well, that's OK. On $18,000 a year, you've got enough money to buy whatever health plan you would like, not the one that Bernie would force on you. Just give up the luxury of eating.
There will be a war if Trump finds no other way to boost his support. It just won't be against Scotland. Iran, though? He's not against war as long as his children don't have to serve.
They say Mussolini got the trains to run on time and for a while Hitler gave the German people jobs and low inflation compared to the mess the disorganized democratic parties and the winning allies in WWI caused, so he was certainly able to call himself a populist. No doubt the same could be said about Pres. Xi. I would plan to move to Shanghai just in case Bernie defeats Pres. Trump next November. However, there are 18 others still running who are not democratic socialists, and in any case, Congress will not pass Bernie's panoply of legislation any more than they have passed anything (but the tax cut for the wealthy) for Trump. But get ready for the move to a place where you will feel more comfortable in 2021.
1
Mr. Trump has already tilted supreme
court to conservatism and will gain
total control if he wins second term.
He is trying to control Federal
Reserve system with his barrage
of criticism direct at its chairman.
Give him second term and democracy
will be completely strangulated. USA
will have authoritarian system. 1984
will arrive at long last 36 years later.
10
Why didn't the hierarchy at NOAA resign rather than carry out the order? Similar to hierarchy at Justice refusing to carry out Nixon's order to fire the special council.
People need to stand up.
12
@tibeau Exactly. Everyone in a position to call out what a train wreck this president is needs to start being completely frank about it. Not strident, not baiting his base, but civil and matter-of-fact. This morning Condoleezza Rice was asked if she'd vote for Trump in 2020. She declined to say. But oh how I wish she and others of her standing in the leadership community would answer, "Not in a million years."
3
Donald Trump lost by 3 million votes. We should never have a President that did not win at least a plurality of votes. It's undemocratic. We desperately need to get more states on board with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which would cause each state to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This would make every vote count, which is the only fair way to elect the leader of the entire country. Anything else is a form of rigging the election, with potentially disastrous results.
11
So what do you have to say now about the unrest in the 60's? Today's youth moan and text instead of marching and shouting. They blame boomers for their plight and go to Starbucks (sorry, probably uncool now, a kombucha cafe?) and argue about whose tatoo is more ironic. The youth are impotent, and worried about if they're in a 'safe space'. Meanwhile homegrown right wing terrorists are the main concern of the FBI, while local police and vets are the guys in that graphic. Border agents mock government officials and fantasize killing and rape on social media. Steve King and Louis Gohmert are still employed as government reps, and adulant crowds chant for unlawful acts against other legislators. Fox News preaches sedition every night. The USA is done, stick a fork in it. Or get out and FIGHT while you can.
7
@JP Can we be sure that moaning and texting won't be more effective than marching, after which Nixon won every state but Massachusetts in 1972? Good theater but faulty political strategy, as it turned out. When young people are noisy and destructive, they alienate their elders, regardless of whether the young end up being right or wrong in the eyes of history. Ever seen twenty-five high school or college kids suddenly show up in the same place at the same time on their bicycles and skateboards? (Well, I live in Japan, so, bicycles and skateboards.) Seemingly out of the blue from many directions. That's what I want to see happen at all 117,000 voting places in the USA in 2020. Flash mobs of young people texting each other to show up to register and vote one day every year or at least every two years. Whether we will see that or not, I surely don't know. But I'd be happy to see a new sort of "silent majority" form for the nation's future without a lot of fanfare. I applaud what young people are doing in Hong Kong because the Chinese government has long since prevented the election of anyone who is not a shill for Beijing to a powerful post. We can prevent the necessity for that sort of action by the simple casting of ballots in unprecedented numbers in the next and future elections. If young people find a way to do it quietly, more power to them.
As far as I'm concern we don't have two party governing anymore, the GOP in it's present reincarnation is dead & over, hopefully forever.
Whoever votes for this skeleton is openly voting for totalitarian rule.
For anyone who seriously wants to move the country in a different path, the choice is crystal clear!
Vote!!!
Let's the impeachment proceeding start!
7
We haven't had two parties in a long time, we have one party, the party of the rich.
1
Trump's war against Amazon is also a war against The Amazon. If the leader of the free world is leading a "jihad against environmental regulation," who has the moral authority to ask Brazil not to burn the whole thing down?
3
Another example of the use of DoJ as a tool of intimidation: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2019/09/03/department-justice-action-against-nacac-may-be-seriously-disruptive
DoJ is trying to strip away the ethics code that protects college applicants from over-aggressive college recruitment. If you think Varsity Blues was bad, just wait until you see the garbage that will happen when DoJ eviscerates the college admissions ethics code...all in the name of "fair competition for colleges".
3
As far as I'm concern we don't have two party governing anymore, the GOP in it's present reincarnation is dead & over, hopefully forever.
Whoever votes for this skeleton is openly voting for totalitarian rule.
For anyone who seriously wants to move the country in a different path, the choice is crystal clear!
Vote!!!
Let's the impeachment proceeding start!
2
the sky is falling! the sky is falling!!
good lord. who else besides the koolaid drinkers reads this hysteria? you mean our democracy is at risk...more than the threats posed by the alien/sedition act, imprisoning Japanese americans in camps, trying to pack the supreme court, jim crow, slavery etc etc? somehow our democracy can survive all that...but not the trump administration?
uh huh. unbelievable silliness. trump derangement syndrome just gets worse and worse.
2
@Ari Weitzner: It was at risk at those times too. People rose to its defense and it survived.
The Trump administration is the symptom, not the disease. Oligarchy brought down the Greek democracies, and turned Rome from a republic to an empire. The slow but steady march to the right is finally doing what its designers intended, and unless the center can resist, we will become a democracy in name only.
This is the threat du jour but it is just as real.
8
I’d be fascinated to know just which facts you think Krugman got wrong.
4
@mlbex. you kinda miss the point. america's democracy is enormously resilient, and to think seriously that our very democracy is at risk, is just sheer hysteria, if we were able to survive all the things i mentioned above. it's a matter of degree here. i bet 1.5 zilion dollars that our democracy won't die because of trump. i'll give you 5 billion:1 odds, too. that's my point. no one would take my bet in a million years, because everyone knows how strong and resilient our democracy is. i wish everyone would calm down and stop with the hyperbole. we criticize trump for his hyperbole and exaggeration, and krugman is actually no better.
1
But don't you remember. A Category 5 hurricane hit Alabama last weekend.
Winston Smith, Ministry of Truth.
7
we are afraid, very afraid
3
It’s easy to blame Trump for everything, but the sad reality is that a third of Americans prefer fascism to liberal democracy.
11
Trump is a product of the Wall Street Me Decade “destroy your competitor or he will destroy you” mentality... he sees threats everywhere he looks.
You know the scene in American Psycho where Patrick Bateman loses his mind over the superiority of his colleague’s business card (which is identical to every other card on the table, so it’s absurd)? That’s what I thought about when Trump flipped out and drew on a weather map with a sharpie. Bateman stabbed a homeless man to remedy his perceived inferiority... Trump took a sharpie to reality to deal with his... really, it’s the same kind of narcissistic thinking.
4
How many of us censor ourselves in public debate, as here in the NYT comments section or on social media?
3
It’s amazing that Paul Krugman is still flogging the fake Sharpie incident, which has been throughly debunked.
In response to the Sharpie controversy, the NOAA released a statement that said: “From Wednesday, August 28, through Monday, September 2, the information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama. This is clearly demonstrated in Hurricane Advisories #15 through #41, which can be viewed at the following link.
The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”
Someone—perhaps Trump himself—used a Sharpie to make a printout of an animated whether map show the same thing as the animated map on the National Hurricane Center website. The animated map shows Dorian crossing the Florida Panhandle and brushing Alabama before turning northeast. That the author would refer to the Sharpie innocent as cause for impeachment indicates how weak the case for impeachment really is.
You can view the animated map, which displays dates at the top, at https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN_graphics.php?product=wind_probs_34_F120
2
@William Case
Great post. They have nothing and are desperate.
1
I hadn’t known that “debunked,” meant, “completely credulous regarding statements from Trump appointees who were being yelled at by Wilbur Ross.”
Thanks.
By the way, ever ask yourself why the president of the United States didn’t just skip the Sharpie, and show the map that you claim proves him right?
4
@Robert
Why would Trump invent a false hurricane forecast?
Did you follow the link provided to the animated map? Do you really think the National Hurricane Center faked it?
You would have to be a complete conspiracy theory nut to believe that?
2
It doesn’t help that Congress has a timid leader in Nancy Pelosi who is afraid of the president. It’s absurd when Pelosi has the gall to say “no one is above the law.” Right. Pelosi just sits on the sidelines while this President does whatever he wants with complete disregard to the law. Don’t send a mouse to do a lion’s job.
1
The Trump Republican Party has become the Republican Communist Party of America, and their leader orders American businesses what to make, what to sell and not sell, hands out socialist welfare payments, arranges for taxpayer military funds to be funneled into his private businesses, and grooms his children as future presidents.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has arisen, right here on the American continent.
As in the old USSR and Russia today, there is voter suppression and age-old tricks in balloting, but we have to overcome this 5-10% deficit and, as John Graybeard writes, vote Democratic everywhere. It might be our last chance.
6
Unfortunately Trump is just a symptom. The Republican party has been enabling this lurch to feudalism by first corrupting the federal judiciary to allow gaming the electoral system which has in turn emboldened the party to effectively disenfranchise the Democrats through gerrymandering and voter registration purges. If democracy fails the the republic fails because of unrepresentative legislatures.
5
FEC is understaffed and doesn't have the quorum to vote and made decisions. Mitch McConnell is a fraud for refusing to nominate new members so the Election Commission can do its job. One can almost guarantee that voting fraud will occur, sponsored by the Republicans, and they won't get caught and stopped in time. This is a recipe for disaster.
4
Unfortunately, most Trump voters will be either voluntarily blind to this logic or unable to comprehend it. By the time they do - if they do - they will be choking on unclean air and drowning in polluted water, and relying on a dismantled healthcare system. Sadly so will the rest of us. (And perhaps Emperor Donald will be playing golf in Bedminster wearing a gas mask....)
3
I do agree with your opinion. I also find it a Greek Tragedy.
What I mean is that the inevitable outcome of this situation is either capitulation to it an being a economic slave or outright revolution to truly make America great again --- being based on the rule of law and not men.
The Greek Tragedy part is the fact that The Left has both philosophically and practically disarmed itself.
The Left has lost both the mental capability to fight and is systematically disarming itself so it would not have the tools needed to fight even if it found the backbone to do so.
Cry for the Bill of Rights and pity the Sheep Generation.
1
The good news is that in the U.K., in Italy, in Turkey, and, yes, in Russia the forces for democracy have secured solid victories in recent weeks. In Hong Kong the citizenry is fighting to preserve the democratic institutions they had and want to make sure they have and will have. And there is a decent chance that the world has seen the last of Bibi Netanyahu. The world has awoken to the rise of authoritarians and many are rejecting those who would pervert their democratic institutions. I believe that the USA will thoroughly renounce Trump and will renew its constitutional order, strengthening the role of Congress and diminishing the prerogatives that Congress had given the Executive to exercise with discretion. Obviously, not everyone can be entrusted with great power. Hail Trump!
I get the sickening feeling that we "ain't seen nuthin' yet". As campaign season comes into full swing next year, and 'Dear Leader' gets backed further and further into a corner, he will lash out more often and with more severity. This is because he knows that once he no longer has his hands on the levers of governmental power, the DOJ, Congress, and AGs from multiple states will come knocking. And (hopefully) he will finally have to pay the piper.
Just simply thinking about how more frequently his rallies of hatred, lies and self adulation will happen, tearing at our nation's very fabric, is depressing me already.
6
" ... it’s clearly an attempt at weaponizing antitrust actions, turning them into a tool of intimidation."
There is a reason that fictional stories of revolution frequently start with the cry, "Hang the lawyers!"
1
We in the United States are living in an upside-down world. Usually it's the right that runs scared. Scared of gays ruining marriage, scared of immigrants ruining the country, scared of 'big government', scared of programs to help the poor, scared of women's empowerment, scared of anyone who isn't white and christian, scared of the loss of 'family values', scared of 'bad guys' with guns. Now that democracy is being turned on its head, it's time for us on the left to run scared too.
Is this what they wanted all along? I'm scared to think so. And I'm scared to think about what happens in a country where we're all scared of everything and everyone. Scary times indeed.
1
Hmmm. I never thought that "Sharpiegate" was funny. Not even for a second. It is an embarrassment, along with the Subsequent response. Worse yet, it is a corruption. It is a corruption of the American way of fact-based analysis and reporting of plain, simple facts derived from the analysis of complex input. When will the State Department country alerts be weaponized? Suddenly, it will safe for Americans to travel to North Korea? So, yes, the American democracy is hanging on by a thread to a would be dictator who displays less competence than most any middle-schooler.
4
How much more will it take before Congress does it's Constitutional duty and commences an impeachment inquiry against this outlaw? How many more democratic institutions must this rogue corrupt before he's removed from office? Congress, get busy! Pelosi, 13% of Americans backed Nixons impeachment when it commenced. As it progressed and the Americans saw what a crook he was the number rose. Still, half of republicans supported him the day he left office. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". "If you build it, they will come".
3
"What's it like to be a crime boss?" Why don't our reporters ask Trump that on every occasion? Corollaries might be, "How did you become a crime boss" or "Do you consider those who work for, including your children, to be partners in Crime?"
2
We have a history of democratic movements, civil rights, anti-war, progressive movements, but I fear that time may have past. However, we must now begin our own anti-fascist movement. That is how far we have fallen. We will need protests in the street and national strikes. Anything to strike back as authoritarians take democracy from us. We may have one shot left in the 2020 election. We’ll see, but the fascists seems to be better organized and motivated, if smaller in number. The Electoral College will serve their purposes though.
3
I’ve seen this coming for nearly two years and have concluded that supporters of the current regime are enemies of the United States and I don’t care how many flags they wrap themselves in.
What to do?
I’m an old man and I can’t do much accept support people that believe in liberty and democracy and to aggressively take financial and retail business support away from any individual or company that has a whiff of Trumpism.
I don’t care if it’s a brain surgeon or tennis teacher, if you’re a Trump person, you’re on my no go list.
6
@Al I can't even talk to my family. And some of them are military. They shut their eyes and their ears. I can't wait for this regime to be over. Maybe I'll be able to sleep again.
1
I play golf with a nice fellow. Educated guy, an attorney. Voted for Trump even while thinking Trump is a buffoon or worse and will do so again because we have "peace and prosperity", likes the judges he picked and appreciates his support for Israel.
We're doomed.
5
You're right about all of it. But you left out the military. If Trump diverts military planes to a wee Scottish airport so those planes can fill-up at commercial rates and keep some struggling wee airport afloat so folks can still reach his dwindling golf resort, well, where are we here? And then, when the military powers that be, are questioned about a blatant violation of procedure calculated to line Trump's personal pockets and the military is non-responsive and mute...well, then, the Orange Supremacist is beginning to control the military. And we are in big trouble. But we have done nothing, really, to stop this guy. We have let him eat to dullness, feasting on the carcass of the United States of America.
2
Please IDENTIFY a moment in American history when there was DEMOCRACY in the United States?
Was it in North Carolina in 2018 where the GOP conducted the biggest election fraud in American political history (you believe that? this has always been we are just seeing it)?
When has there been a democracy? When?
1
We are certainly seeing the implementation of a crypto-fascist state in America. That is, Trump is using the power of the state to attack his domestic political enemies.
We knew this is his nature the day he announced in 2015. The GOP primary opponents knew this. You, I, everybody knew this.
Yet here he is in all his horrid, lurid glory.
Some seem to think he will find a bottom below which he will not venture.
Not so.
A dictator will reach as low and wide as needed to destroy all opposition, criticism, or even earnest advice of any kind whatsoever.
I thought the nation could endure 2 years max of this fellow, and the '18 cycle combined with the righteous actions of our institutions would at minimum stop him or better yet be rid of him.
That has failed to happen, and the '20 cycle remedy may be too late.
Kids, the 2016 election WAS the firewall.
3
The latest weather blunder proves what we have always known about Donald Trump, that he is a neofascist pretending to be the president of a democratic country.
If we do not heed these warning signs now we are going to spend the next 20 years repairing the damage that the Trump administration will have done to this country.
And for Republicans in Congress, locating their courage , not to mention their senses, may be a hard thing to do for them but they had better find some intestinal fortitude quickly because they are the ones who will likely go down in history as the biggest fools of our time .
1
That’s why it’s not funny at all when they cheer, “Lock her up.” Someday, they just might.
2
I don't get the mistrust and cynicism about government, which elected the impostor who is in the White House. All the hate radio, hate talk and hate thinking which have corroded our moral and civic fabric...Too much money in elections, too much fear about differences...not enough listening and not enough courage.
1
When democracy dies, you freedom dies.
When democracy dies, everyone you know and love loses their freedom.
When democracy dies, you might as well be living in Russia, under Putin.
When democracy dies, Trump will be your king, and your next rulers will be Queen Ivanka and Prince Jared.
1
In Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, the travelers arrive in San Francisco just before an election. The streets are teeming with people, and at first they think that an important office must be at stake. Yet it turns out to be something minor, like a justice of the peace. Verne is simply making the point that Americans are more engaged than other people, and that this is something to be admired, despite its occasional absurdity.
It’s true that women and Indians couldn’t vote in those days, and that the slave laborers taken from Africa had not gotten far from the guard’s whip, but the trend in America for many years was towards greater engagement and participation.
I had always thought that Americans took pride in this part of their history, but I think now that this was naive. A great many obviously didn’t, and their children seem have grown up hating their own country.
It has been my experience that people in high administrative positions share the same "don't make wave" character. Unfortunately when faced with a potential dictator in the making, these people do not have what it takes to push him back. Hence the unavoidable slide into dictatorship.
2
Countries like Russia, Hungary and Turkey were emerging democracies, in the sense that they had long traditions of authoritarianism and only recently tried people power. The USA has a long tradition of democracy - the country is founded on freedom - and is now going through this horrible period of authoritarianism, which has exposed the weaknesses of a democracy that needs to embrace diversity, face reality and re-regulate industries like financial services, energy and communications technology. America was founded as a response to authoritarian rule and its people will overcome. The world is counting on them.
Krugman is describing the process of ultimate death by slowly heating the frog's watery home until it's painlessly killed. Which why I am suggesting the following:
Rather than the impeachment hearing being of complex legal breaches, it should be of a single count, similar to that of President Clinton. His crime was trivial, lying about his affair with another adult, yet it may have made the difference in Republicans winning the next election.
My point is simple, that Trump's warning to the people of Alabama to prepare for a catastrophe was a high crime, as it diverted resources from actually saving the lives of those who were in the path of this hurricane. And now he has exacerbated this by attempting to punish those who disclosed his distortion.
This would be an action that did occur, just as Clinton's did. In a matter of weeks this could be before the Senate for trial. The facts will be aired, and then the Republican senators will have to go on record for either ignoring this malfeasance, or acknowledging it represents innumerable actions that are antithetical to the office of President.
The poetic term is "synedoche" It's the best chance to illustrate the underlying purpose of impeachment of our constitution.
1
Never ever, ever vote gop for any office anywhere ever again.
3
I'm a lifelong Liberal Democrat with a penchant for fiscal restraint and a focus on education, healthcare and climate change, each of which is going to be astronomically expensive to fix -- but we're going to have to pay. In this context, I will have absolutely no problem weaponizing any governmental mechanism that allows my party to jam my priorities down the throat of the GOP, with an emphasis on Trumpers, and have metaphorical tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue and Main Street of every red state town. Whatever it takes. If we have to deny the other half's representation -- like ours has been denied -- I no longer care. I've already accepted that our country will never be the same. His tanks have already through every blue state's cities and towns. We can no longer afford to be the party of restraint -- while still remaining the party of reason. Nothing is off the table.
2
But this is frightening.
It's so important to not only speculate on present harsh conditions but to consider how we reached this abysmal point in American democracy and what steps can be taken to prevent it happening again.
Consider: We came out of the Bush presidency to be promised by Obama of the great changes he was determined to make. He failed to deliver, the income of the average American continued to stagnate while that of the wealthiest 1% went up 250%, causing great dissatisfaction among many voters and setting the nation up for trump.
It's important for liberals to recognize the momentous failure and danger involved if we choose any but a Democratic candidate who has consistently (not just now that liberalism is fashionable) supported the interests of the people in health-care, education, a minimum wage of $15 and control of the big banks that were instrumental in bringing about the crash of '08.
It is also important for Mr. Krugman, with his great knowledge and in this dire point in our history, to express who this candidate could be and support him. As he certainly shows himself to be aware, it's no time to be indecisive.
“...and support him”. See, that is a large part of the problem. Maybe you meant to include 52 per cent of the population in the pronoun “him” but despite best intentions, you didn’t. Call it the tyranny of political correctness if that is your true thinking, but realize that old, lazy mental habits of exclusion won’t do anymore. The way forward is not the way backward and excluding the possibility of women by the way you think and speak will fail because that is part of why we are here, facing extinction of life on our planet and the solidifying of dictatorship in the United States.
3
Your column is better late than never, Paul. Democracy finally died on Nov. 5, 2016 when Trump was elected with 3,000,000 votes less than Hillary. The Electoral College has repeatedly destroyed democracy. The EC is indestructible. This impasse will soon lead to the dissolution of the Union after Civil War 2.0.
1
Business plans for auto efficiency will move forward for two reasons:
1. R&D spend has been moving forward to produce efficient engines.
2. Image.
The later makes the most compelling reason why capitalism will move forward.
Actually, I would welcome the Justice Department to bring such lawsuits and see where they head until they get the the Federal level and the Supreme Court.
It’s time we tested our own tires of democracy!
2
Krugman should say what aspects of democracy he is concerneed about. If its the bulk of the public having much say in what legislation is enacted thats a long time ago. If its elections themselves being fixed or the Press saying what it wants that is arguably still Present. A good statement of what Krugman means by democracy would be useful. Is Great Britain a democracy now? Why?
I will be happy to buy my next car from any company that supports the emission standards we've all agreed will help the planet.
6
Democracy dies when people don't vote. Democracy dies when people do not engage. Democracy dies when the two political parties in a two party country can't be trusted. Democracy dies when the rich control the politicians. Democracy dies when no one bats an eye over a 100 billion dollar fighter jet, and everyone screams about free healthcare. We are a people united by a common history and common culture but divided by our politicians. If you want to kill democracy , divide and conquer is the way to go.
6
Wow. And I thought US democracy died with tax at source (withholding tax) under the Revenue Act of 1861 made into constitutional law under the 16th Amendment. No government should be paid in advance or have the right to withhold income from its citizens. Its citizens should be free to pay up to a year later (for example), in tranches, and of course pay interest if they are late. The Patriot Act was also another death knell.
The one thing we can do to save democracy is defeat not only Trump but all Republicans in 2020. Work for a Democratic candidate and give money, help register voters, start now demanding a paper backup if your county or state does not have it, encourage others to vote early to avoid long lines that may keep some from voting, especially in bad weather, support Democratic student organizations on campuses to get out the youth vote. If you are an employer, hold a meeting to encourage employees to register and to vote and make clear that they may vote during work hours without penalty. Petition local newspapers and radio stations to provide all necessary information about registration and voting, especially registration deadlines and ID requirements and locations of voting sites, especially if any have been changed. This is THE election all patriotic citizens MUST participate in.
4
I'm paying attention. If you can't see me, I'm in that growing mass in the political shadows where the polls aren't conducted.
3
I guess I'm not sophisticated enough to understand why the auto industry can't just proceed with their current plans. If the government lowers standards does that mean car makers must lower theirs?
3
As I understand it, other car makers could undercut by producing cheaper, more polluting cars unless there are standards. But you’re right, most articles and commentary leave that part out.
1
@M.M. The government standards are a joke to begin with. When first enacted, trucks were about 10% of sales. Now, more than half. Why? Different standards. Anyone getting 30 mpg in their SUV’s? Heck, a convertible PT Cruiser is titled as a truck. Trump should just let the Obama standards stand. Watch the companies start to complain.
@MM
I think I read somewhere that the government is thinking they will make a case by saying that these car manufacturers in CA are cutting out other car automakers who won’t sign on for the continuation of the stricter emissions standards.
This is our government, turning into a plutocracy under the direction of Don The Con Vladimir trump and his lackey henchman AG.
1
All true, but we can safeguard our liberal democratic republic by voting for a new administration in 14 months, and possibly a Dem majority in the Senate. So all is not lost, unless we remain complacent, and that seems less likely given the 2018 result in Congress and the flurry of Repubs deciding not to run next year. Our aggressively free press doesn't get everything right the first time, but usually does and gets corrected by--the free press itself. It's good to be concerned and motivated, but not to be paralyzed with discouragement. Thank you for the column.
8
When the constitution was approved, lanes were established to keep powers separated. Congress, over generations, have refused to stay in their lane. Talks of packing the courts or limiting the executive branch continue. Why hasn’t congress seen fit to limit executive orders? Why hasn’t congress retained the authority to regulate the powers to be at war for years without approval? Why has congress allowed the Chevron ruling, that gives the executive branch almost unlimited interpretations of the laws they pass. Congress needs to adapt to controlling the authorities they have to check the authority of the executive branch, regardless of who controls the presidency. Instead, they wait until the next time they control the presidency to enact policies that they refuse to agree on. Leaving major decisions to be decided to the few who represent the judicial branch is what ruins democracy. Congress has nobody to blame but themselves.
7
If there is one thing one that would ensure Trump's re-election and with it the complete degradation of America's democracy, what would that be?
"Medicare for All."
I know, I know. The very idea of is enough to enrage most Democratic voters. But please hear me out, because the prospect of another four years of a Trump administration is even more abhorrent.
First, health care, as most of us recognize, is now the most important, or one of the most important issues, for American voters. They will be paying attention.
Second, we are already well aware, and polls confirm, that support for Medicare for All - and therefore Democratic candidates - declines significantly when voters learn that they will have to give up their employer sponsored policies and pay more in taxes.
Third - what is not well known - under Medicare for All, abortions will be funded by tax-payers' money. This is a deal-breaker for voters. When polled on this, support for Medicare for All collapses to a mere 13%.
Remember, Republicans will use this. Can anyone doubt that the Republican machine will make this item number one in their campaign? Of course not.
It's time to face reality. Sanders' plan is a sure path to defeat in 2020.
7
Thank you, Prof. Krugman. An important column.
7
For me to understand this column I need a clear definition of Democracy. With the simpler definition (free elections to select government officials) we cannot envision as imminent something as democracy dying in the near future. With more rigorous or complex definitions, we can get to the other extreme in which democracy has been nonexistent for most of the time since the declaration of Independence, and even for quite large periods after the Civil war. However, I am an optimist and expect that a Democratic America for all is on its way to be established for good. It may still be a hard way at times, but we are moving.
2
Cue in the orchestra.
1
Why is the US becoming an illiberal democracy? Perhaps it is because Americans want to be protected from the liberal political economy of creative destruction and open borders. There is little reason for them to venerate the system of checks and balances that gave us the Iraq War and the Great Financial Crisis.
1
There is lots of risk associated with the '20 presidential election. Thankfully, the Democrat Party leadership/establishment is making sure that no viable candidate poses any risk whatsoever to the Democrat Party leadership/establishment.
Democracy works even at times when you wish it wouldn't. This nation elected Trump. And yes the absurd archaic architecture of our political system allowed him to do it without winning a majority of votes. But a hate filled demagogue like Trump should never win a single state. That he did win is a symptom of a sickness of soul that has been eating away at our nation for decades. We've come to believe that government is always the problem, never the solution, and we elected Trump to fix it. Oops.
10
Have they lost their minds? That kind of stuff is not going to fly with most people in the 21st century and so they will be ridiculed and eventually voted out.
The damage is devastating and ongoing, and Trump's election, while something of a fluke, was no accident. Hopefully, it will make responsible Americans see that this precious thing we've kept going (through worse than this) is in peril and that it's up to us to save it. V O T E.
4
I can assure you that one party rule is as alive and well in SF and Beijing.
3
Another parallel in the destruction of democracy is Venezuela, who prior to Chavez was a budding democracy with a free press that was systematically undermined by Chavez mostly by wielding and perverting official power through official channels. And now, some 15 years later, it is almost complete, with Maduro (who replaced Chavez when he died of cancer, but has none of the political sense or tactics) finishing it off with smash-and-grab tactics, like starving and battling his opponents in the streets.
3
Dr.Krugman maybe right in saying that democracies slide into autocracies.He cites Turkey&Russia.Krugman quotes the book”How democracies die”to buttress his views.There is no doubt that intensity of democracy varies,depending on mood of a nation or current ruler.
Democracy also depends on what people want.As a noted economist,Krugman is aware economics has a lot to do how people feel at a given time on how much democracy they want.
If you question people on a trade-off between democracy&immediate concerns,they will individually choose their needs.In the last century,there are too many examples of people choosing anti- democratic rulers for their needs.Presently we see there are unwritten contracts between hard governments like China&people,where people accept hard rulers for progress.
But Krugman misses one point:How much blame to assign to the government before which a hard democracy appears?Is Obama to blame for Trump?Did Obama rule poorly which allowed Trump to govern as he pleases?Or in the case of Russia,did Boris Yeltsin ruin government&allow Putin to emerge as a saviour?In case of Turkey,did immediate past rulers before Erdogan give bad governance,which created Erdogan?
Krugman may examine how much blame to assign democratic rulers before the dictator.I observe hard rulers take advantage of the failures of predecessors. Corruption,bad governance,economic failures help lead to anti- democratic rulers.Hard rulers also get help from diverse complicit power centres secretly
Those who are in concord with the President are political appointees which allows a form of pork barrel I didn't realize.
Cake frosting on meat and potatoes would be ridiculed so why is this gratuitous financial/political/social reward acceptable?
With sychophants appointing friends and financial backers to positions for which they have no knowledge it is no wonder our nation is treading the path to a dictatorship.
1
At this point in time, I am speechless and without ideas.
In the 60s, we knew what to do, now, not so much.
?????
6
Paul package and disguise this astute warning in the form of a salacious tabloid and have it syndicated in some grocery store tabloids and you might get some his gullible cultish base to take heed. I'm afraid the Times and Post excellent journalism is preaching to a choir that already sings in key about Trump's corruption and mendacity.
1
As per Attorney General Barr, the law is whatever Donald Trump says it is, and Barr will follow that law. Scary.
4
"To rouse the watchman of the public weal."
I am a semi-retired person, Mr. Krugman. I am not a "news junkie." I read the New York Times online---or course! How else would I be sending off this comment.
So much of this stuff goes "under the radar." We've all heard about Sharpie-gate--sorry! A barbaric neologism! The opera bouffe element in that whole sorry saga was so prominent. You had to laugh. And of course the late night comedy hosts had a field day with Sharpie-gate. I sat where I'm sitting right now--and my chair was rocking as I did too. Rocking with laughter.
The stuff about the auto companies. Oh gosh, Mr. Krugman--I was DIMLY aware of that stuff. The stuff about Amazon--even MORE dimly.
And (I gather) it's happening. Right now. It's going on. Right now.
And it's scary.
And you are so right. But I wonder how many millions of Americans are like me. DIMLY aware of this stuff--amid the day-to-day concerns that occupy 99% of our attention.
This man, Mr. Krugman. Remember those fond hopes three years ago. "He'll grow into the job. He'll rise to the responsibilities. The White House sobers a man."
He started off a buffoon.
He's turning into a tyrant. Before our eyes.
Keep the columns coming, Mr. Krugman. For God's sake, keep them coming.
We have to be told.
So we can raise the alarm. 'Cause who IS (after all) "the watchman of the public weal"?
We are.
All of us.
3
@Susan Fitzwater
So rightly and eloquently put.
Thank you.
1
If what Trump and his administration with the Republican Party is doing to our democracy isn't treason what is. Are we citizens to stand helpless against this demagoguery as are sheep, helpless led to slaughter? If we the citizens of the US are to save the democracy of our republic it appears it will be when we take to the streets to demand Trump be removed and he is removed now as POTUS.
4
Yeah, but who elected this turkey? The people of the United States. "We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo
4
The United States is as close to being an autocracy as it has ever been in its’ history. I have read William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich two times. Both times I thought, “thankfully that can’t happen here”. But it is. Americans are willing to sacrifice their liberties for economic gain. The most materialistic people on Earth seem to care for nothing else.
5
It is the other way around. Democracies don't die with rolling tanks (in such countries democracies usually never existed in the first place). In democracies, dictators get elected, from Roman Republic to Nazi Germany. Democracy gets instated by action of the people, Americans should know that better than anyone. The extent of corruption in american politics was evident Trump's first week in the office when he appointed his daughter and son-in-low as his advisers. The reaction of american public to this move typical for a banana republic dictator was largely to go about their own daily business and let liberal media analyze and criticize. Britain just demonstrated how "checks and balances" work in a functioning democracy. One major difference in Britain is that unlike the Republican Party in the US, British Conservatives still have some people with integrity left in their ranks. Another major difference is that the British people took to the streets almost instantly as Boris Johnson tried to stifle parliament's' powers. Trump's opposition reminds me of that political party in Monty Python's Life of Brian whose answer to each new Roman atrocity is more analysis and debate.
1
Just when you thought that you were fully embarrassed on behalf of America, Donald Trump brings things to an indelible new level.
4
If you are not outraged you are not paying attention. Period. Full stop.
3
Once again an astute observation by Krugman. Thank you. What keeps me awake at night is not that Dear Leader is so grossly incompetent, but that for the sake of abortion (and attendant servitude by "Christians") the vast majority of Republicans in power bow to his idiocy, and that behind all of this is the money. None of this bizarro world roll back policy would occur if it did not benefit the Kochs and similar corporate entities with sick axes to grind. And yet, his supporters will wear with pride a t-shirt that states their allegiance to the Kremlin vs. vote Democrat. Weird. America. 2019. This democracy is dead, not dying. Admit this then take the hard decisions to fix it fellow Americans.
2
This only happens if we let it. We are not Russia or Hungary. We are America.
Vote! Vote! Vote!
4
While the administration runs full tilt toward dictatorship, the House timidly, slowly, takes baby steps toward considering the possibility of maybe thinking about considering impeachment. The Dems have had the House for eight months.
The frogs are sedated, enjoying a warm bath until the heat gradually rises and boils them to death.
1
Prof. Krugman is putting voice to what so many of us see, hear, feel, and know in our bones.
The Mistake, who is sworn to protect and defend this old democracy from all foes foreign and domestic, is the greatest foe it's ever faced. We've survived a civil war and two world wars yet we watch in stunned disbelief, as a lying two bit orange faced con from Queens takes a sledge hammer to it.
We will get no help from the Mistake's party (aka republicans), or the Mistake's Justice Dept., or Cabinet, or Supreme Court, or Pentagon, or Office of Propaganda (aka Fox).
Looks like for now, it's just the majority of us regular folks and some brave souls at NOAA who are going to say no - we will not stand for this. Yet every day we're dealt another blow to our psyches and the Constitution.
And there's fourteen long, long months to go.
I was raised better than this but I keep hoping maybe all those hamberders, KFC, steaks, chocolate cake and ice cream will come to our rescue. We need all the help we can get from wherever it may come. Divine or otherwise - praise the lord and pass the covfefe. Sorry Mom.
3
I am worried to the point of despair.
3
How do people who still support Trump and appear otherwise intelligent ignore facts (not opinions)? Is this just intellectual laziness.
1
Dr. K is right on the money. The egoist corruption is the Trumpian thread that ties it all together....
The crazy trade wars (on multiple fronts), the shambolic yet dire disregard of science in favor of (any) business regarding the environment, the corruption of the Justice Department to pursue "dear Leader's" perceived enemies, the Defense Department turned into just another revenue stream for the rotten fish head at the top. I believe one could find examples in every corner of our government.
And the GOP is *fully* on-board with all of this. Despicable.
To paraphrase another fine commenter (thanks Socrates!):
(D) to move forward, (R) for (R)egression and co(R)ruption.
**At every level, in every election. VOTE (D)!**
1
While it's great that the NYT and Washington Post present pieces like this from writers like Mr. Krugman it's a shame the evening news is not as forthcoming. Most people don't read. Only people who truly want to know what is going on read. The cable opinion shows, MSNBC and FOX, are built for hardcore members of the two tribes. The evening news shows are where the middle gets their info and they are prone to staying out of waters this deep. It took me less than five minutes to read this piece. Too bad NBC, ABC and CBS can't find the time for the real deal news. This article is not an opinion. It's the truth.
2
Our democracy started to die on January 20, 1981. Or perhaps a decade earlier, on the day Lewis Powell wrote his infamous memo.
4
@pedigrees - excellent
It is becoming clearer that about 35 percent of voters and 80 percent of Republican voters don't want a democratic republic, they want a white nationalist oligarchy where they are physically, legally, and economically walled from anyone who is poor or non-white.
5
@Didier
Yup. And what you're describing is basically the Confederacy, or at least the century of Jim Crow that followed it.
1
It's been said at least once before, elsewhere and anecdotally; Jeff Bezos needs to buy Twitter...the ultimate way of telling Trump, "aw, put a sock in it, already!"
3
Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization.
—Masha Gessen, November 2016
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival/
1
It’s so amusing (in a dark and cynical way) to hear people claim that all this begins with the Supreme Leader, when after all The Gipper told us to just look out for ourselves, and our first shadow president told us if we weren’t doing anything wrong we had nothing to be afraid of. And that’s just a brief recap, I could go on for paragraphs! Our government has been moving towards independence for some time now, our Supreme Leader is simply the first to tell us like it really is. Laws are only as good as the Republicans who enforce them. Ethics are for losers. Morals are for children. All hail our Supreme Leader, because you really have no choice anyway... or are you still buying that “its a liberal conspiracy” shtick?
What is most concerning is he continues to have unflagging support from a substantial minority of voters even though everything this administration does is againtst their best interests. It is stunning how these rubes buy in to his politics of fear and imagined grievance. Fear that someone is coming to take their guns and thier god - probaly hoards of black and brown people. Never mind that if all of those people were gone meat & poultry processing, labor intensive agriculture , lawn/garden services and most resturants would collapse. Any that remained would need huge price increases. No cure for stupid.
1
The hope of this country's civilized people is that Mr. Krugman is wrong.
Like actual cancers, malignant politicians kill the host, often before anybody notices what’s happened.
Oh, I’m referring to the host country, you thought? Uh, no. That would be the planet. Our host planet.
1
Criminal Trump has polluted the DOJ, Department of State, NOAA, and apparently, the US Air Force. AG William Barr has suspended the rule of law for anyone willing to lie, cheat, or steal for the republican party and its Dear Leader. The crisis in our democracy has now reached DEFCON 11. What's Nancy Pelosi going to do about it?
2
I'm blaming Donald Trump because I was unable to get a fresh supply of Sharpies in assorted colors from Amazon.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
1
Stick to economics Paul, your are outside your wheelhouse here. Representative democracy in this country is alive and well and will continue to be so. TDS is an ugly malady and calls for an intervention.
2
Everyone should read ‘The road to unfreedom’ by Prof. Timothy Snyder from Yale
1
This story was probably written before tonight's "rally" by Dear Leader. Tonight in NC Trump assailed (are you ready?) energy efficient light bulbs! He said the new ones cost too much, and that he wants us to go back to incandesant bulbs (sp?).
Before long, we'll be back to horses and buggies, and light our homes with kerosene.
1
Vote republicans out ... they continue to support and enable the death of our democracy ! Why is Trump not impeached yet ?
3
Agree 100%.
Madeleine Albright talks about this in her book "Fascism: a Warning".
2
Has anyone noticed that the Southern District of Nedw York wgich had a slew of cases against the usurper has not been heard from since Barr became AG.That;s wher the danger point for democracies is: the JUDICIARY. when it loses its independance, you turn out the lights.Barr should be impeached.
1
Biggest news today for Americans : the new Chalupa from Del Taco.
I am glad I don't even know the old one...
2
And I know some people planning to vote for Trump again.
I read the book "How Democracies Die" soon after it was released last year. I learned so much of the history of how authoritarian governments develop and I immediately knew that this was the path of the president and his advisers and cabinet. I emailed the authors and asked them to consider writing another chapter -an update-as so much abnormal and dangerous activities were being committed by the president when I was reading this book. It immediately felt unfinished.
Why did the Republican party allow the guardrails to come off the party in2016 so that an incompetent, dishonest, inhumane person passed the first debate and eliminated 16 other more competent politicians? Why- because they had been planing for many years to find a puppet so the republicans could turn the Supreme Court ultra right, give a huge tax break to the rich, and overturn Roe v Wade.
McConnell has been engineering this for long time (he has been Senator since 1984). Think of his complete opposition to President Obama for 8 years and refusal to hold hearings on Merrick Garland for Supreme Court. McConnell is to blame as well as the entire republican congress.
Read "On Tyranny" by historian Timothy Snyder. We must learn from history.
Read "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larsen. This history lesson begins in 1933 Nazi Germany. The same words spoken then and actions taken are happening now.
We are beginning to have a dictator -in plain sight.
Scream NEVER AGAIN with your vote for Democrats in 2020!
3
Unmentioned is the threat to fire government employees who refuse to lie to protect trump's ego regarding his statements on the hurricane.
2
I wholly share these concerns but fear that when a Democrat returns to the White House, no new measures will be instituted to insulate the civil service from the whim of the chief executive. The accrual of powers to the president has surged since the aftermath of Watergate but no president wants to wield fewer powers than their predecessor.
1
".... And the events of the past week have demonstrated how this can happen right here in America ...."
More to the point, events during the entire period of Trump's reign.
1
45 may redraw the lines on reality, but we cannot allow him to obliterate the boundaries on our freedoms and our tenuous grasp on the foundations of America.
Despite our slide toward a near-fascist state, we still possess a press dedicated to calling out his lying madness, a set of laws largely intact despite right-wing attack, and a sizable population angry enough to resist despite its lack of coordination and focus.
As a lifelong Democrat, I fear we are (understandably!) so tuned into 45's reality TV channel that we cannot figure out how to fight back with vision and strategy. The 2020 election is about far more than defeating the man -- it's about recapturing our own power, and seeing if there is much left of our representative democracy than greed capitalism, the 2nd Amendment, and abortion arguments. We have to find much more to fight for, as well as against.
5
Excellent summary of how insidious the Trump administration’s attack on private businesses has become.
What next, shutter all the R & D departments to appease the king?
I thought we were to make America great again, yet the current administration is bound and determined to cut any incentive to make US businesses hone their technological edge.
Sad, counterproductive days indeed for the USA.
2
Dr. Krugman argues how democracy in America dies, but I don’t think America ever had a true democracy in the first place. When the man who comes in second wins the election because some states voters have much more than others to choose the President, you have a credibility problem.
8
@FilmMD: Then I guess you don't acknowledge the legitimacy of any President we've ever had because the very same set of rules that Trump won under are the same set of rules that gave us Washington, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, FDR, JFK, etc... .
1
that system was created when the USA was founded Obama won the electoral college and you never complained back then
2
@jose President Obama won the popular vote decisively both times as well as the electoral college. Big difference.
1
" If you aren’t worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention." Many of us have been...and are paying attention. Unfortunately, due to gerrymandering, Citizen's United and ignorance on the part of a large segment of the population, to name just a few reasons, we are hamstrung in our efforts to stem the slide into authoritarianism. Voting for change is our last hope, but even that is subject to the arcane rules of the Electoral College. We are truly facing a transformational moment in our country's history.
9
@Etienne The electoral college and gerrymandering have bee around since the 1790s. Now it's a problems because Republicans are winning?
It was happening here before Trump became president. Republican attacks in voting rights. Big money deciding who is elected and what legislation is passed. A subset of Christians demanding that all agree that their world view is actually constitutional.
Trump, while a major threat, is one of the threats to democracy.
12
Russia, Turkey, and Hungary never had real, deeply rooted democracies. Overturning a dictatorship and declaring a democracy is a long way from actually building one.
I can't think of a single well-established democracy that ever gave up rule by the consent of the governed. (Ancient Rome and Athens were both militarized slave states.)
We'll get over Trump. He's far less a danger to us than the financial/medicopharmalogical/high tech business elites.
3
@Green Tea, there can be more than one danger at a time. There often is. Germany AND Japan in WWII, just one example. You don't have to compare trump to Putin, nor BinSalman to Koch. Each brings their own corruption.
To say we'll 'get over' trump is true, I guess, but 'getting over' WWII wasn't pretty in the aftermath. IMPEACH!
2
What is so disturbing is how blatant Trump's attacks on democracy, and yet, I feel our citizenry is asleep at the democratic switch--"Oh, it's Trump just being Trump," with no concept that there is something larger going on. So far, at least, we are fortunate that Trump's administration is filled with incompetents---real dictators put people in place who can get the trains to run on time.
8
While everything mentioned about Trump is true, this did not begin with Trump.
There was also the Senate's refusal to consider Obama's SCOTUS nominee or much else actually, the witch hunt against Clinton for having consensual sex with a legal adult (certainly distasteful but not "high crimes and misdemeanor"), Bush's electoral win (theft by chad with a little help from a politicized SCOTUS), legally unlimited PAC donations, the Koch brothers, trickle down "voodoo" economics, both parties unwillingness to deal with illegal immigration for decades for their own reasons, privatization of public services, union busting on one hand and unions who seem to be in direct competition with the worst of dog-eat-dog capitalists, Wall Street run rampant, Enron & Friends, laughing all the way to the bank. Etc.
We have been eroding US democracy for decades. Trump and the GOP have certainly done much more than their fair share. But for sure -- they did not invent it.
13
This is an excellent commentary of the impact of Trump presidency on American democracy. Democracy is people’s contract with the political leaders and crooks to govern their country - expectation is the political leaders will check the crooks to protect the common citizens. During the post WW II American politics the political leaders and crooks became one team to harm the common citizens and gamed the democratic process by fixing the game. Now if Republicans win, crooks of oil, coal, real state, hotels, defense get their chance to loot and if Democrats win Wall Street, drug companies, tech companies get their chance to loot - there is no difference in the practice of looting. To save American democracy, this looting practice of crooks need to be stoped and currently there are very little chance for that. Few democratic candidates showed signs of new way of governing, but to stop that crooks brought their Joe, and we all subscribed to that story. Do not blame Trump - Trump is stupid - he is playing the game of crooks without hiding behind committees and advisors like Obama, Clinton and Bush.
1
@Kalyan Basu, you basically had me until your last sentence. That's foolish, trying to equate trump's 'burn it all down and blame blame blame' stupidity with normal government functioning, committees, advisers, Congress?
You're giving trump the same advantage you decry; that we should all just not blame donnie cuz he just can't help himself. Instead, allow his crookedness, right out in the open, instead of 'hiding behind' committees and expert advisers our government is designed to use. Do I have that right?
Obama was just as cruel and evil as trump, he just hid it behind committees?? This is getting weirder every day.
1
The current administration has been an object lesson for those who put it in office. #MAGA has devolved into trade wars, walls and acceptance of continued abandonment and of gunfire in the streets.
Our social media, dumbing down of education and self-absorption may have brought us here but we have not been rendered incapable of appreciation of both our personal states and the state of the nation.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I fully expect a newly-experienced electorate will make better choices in our next election in 2020. Or at least I hope so.
4
It has been a long held goal of the Right to convince ill-informed Americans that government officials are corrupt, self-serving and incompetent. Their candidates, once elected, set out to prove this idea to be correct. It is by design an effort to weaken every governing body and institution in order to allow corporate interests to rule.
5
The most damaging thing Trump has done to the nation is set precedents that are all too likely to be followed by future presidents. We've certainly had scoundrels in the White House before. But all the previous ones have at least been constrained by a capacity to feel shame if they got caught, and by a belief that there would be a price to pay for breaking certain political taboos.
It's similar to how circuses tie baby elephants to a stake with a thin rope. They get used to it, so never realize when they're full grown that they could easily pull the stake out of the ground and wander freely. Well, Trump has shown just how flimsy a rope our Constitution really is in restraining would-be tyrants.
5
Excellent points all except T’s purposeful misinformation on Dorian was never funny. It recklessly, for no apparent reason, endangered the lives of millions of Americans on the East coast. That action alone should be grounds for impeachment.
2
I remember thinking to myself after the 2000 election that something horribly wrong had just happened. But I also asked myself ‘how much damage can be done in four years?’. Oddly, after 9/11, I had hope because I saw Americans united and strong. Then, 18 months later, we invaded Iraq, and everything went downhill quickly. I learned a great deal of damage can be done in four years.
Four years turned into eight years and we were fighting two wars and in a massive recession. But I still had hope. The US elected a black man as President. I felt that despite all the bad policies and economic errors, the arc of the citizenry of nation was still moving towards unity. And while I never thought Obama was quite ready to be president when he was elected, I also, naively, still asked ‘how much more damage can be done?’ Eight years of complete stonewalling between the presidency and Congress resulted in executive overreach and congressional irrelevancy.
But the most shocking thing for me as a naive, hopeful white woman in America was how much racism was exposed. When Trump was elected, with his overt racist and sexist posturing, I lost hope for this nation. The politicians keep inflicting their damage, but they are a reflection of the populace. And, ultimately, It isn’t the politicians killing the nation. It is the people.
We have the government we have earned. Ignorance, greed and hatred are not foundations on which democracy can be sustained.
6
The rot started long ago, probably around late 1970s and early 1980s (start of Reagan era) when American universities started deteriorating and promoting all sorts of corruption that basically mass manufactured not-so-educated professionals and more of a subservient and opportunist lot. Reagan made the situation worse by infusing religion in public policy and also in education.
Gradually not only Republican party but a large section of Democrats also adopted that appeasement of Christian fundamentalism and white supremacy, which was a byproduct of Christianity as interpreted by White European origin people where Arab-African looking Jesus (as ascertained by researchers) nicely converted into blue eyed, blond hair guy! The situation got worse as Reagan basically initiated crony capitalism that both GOP and Dems adopted. Both domestic and foreign policies were used to help American corporations to enable them to make more & more profit while no one seem to care how growing GDP and growing power of such "American" companies helping the country and its people. Globalization was shaped on that basis too.
But it's the moral & ethical degradation of American "elites" Educated class who became very corrupt & self-serving as described in the book, "Tailspin". Trump exploited it the best than any politician, mainly GOP.
4
What has happened is a known phenomena.
Put a sick person in a room with healthy people. The healthy people won't make the the sick person well, but the the sick person will more than likely make the healthy people sick.
The only way out is to remove the sick person from the room, and the press needs to help expose, more effectively, the sick people in the room by calling a spade a spade.
If not, Mr. Krugman's worst case scenario WILL come to pass.
6
I have to admit I'm so very surprised, disappointed, to realize there are so many amongst us who are boot-stepping right along behind this president as if they're taking a walk in the park on a sunny afternoon.
But what frightens me is how this realization has filled in so many of the blanks I've had, the wonderment since the earliest days of my learning about what happened in 1930's Europe, how there are peoples capable of turning a blind eye to harshness, stupidity, and ignoring atrocities with some even taking part in such despicable behavior.
4
Democracies die when no one is willing to defend them. Britain has provided us with an object-lesson on how democracies survive a would be autocrat as they've rebuked every action by its new wannabe autocrat Boris Johnson even by members of his own party who risked their careers to do it. Meanwhile, here across the pond we must ask "Where's Nancy?" As the Democratic Speaker of the House it is her job to do what Parliament just did and to defend the Constitution and its "rule of law" at all costs against the autocratic "rule of Trump" that you just described? Instead, Ms. Pelosi frets about losing her House majority based on members from Trump-leaning districts while everyday, by her inaction, she is losing the very democracy she swore an oath to defend. As my Rep. David Cicilline, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said at a town hall here last week, "The House should have begun impeachment the day the Mueller report was release." Instead, they let Trump toady William Barr spin the false narrative of "Total Exoneration." This is how democracies really die; when no one has the political courage to risk everything to defend it. The British are showing us how to save it, and Speaker Pelosi, by putting party over country which the British did not, is showing us how we'll lose it.
2
@Paul Wortman
Don’t blame Pelosi. The “Impeachment Show” to go along with the “President Show” is exactly the new reality show Trump wants!
2
Democracy died when presidents began invading countries, intervening, ordering foreign elections overturned.
That authority then expanded into domestic areas, and here we are.
4
They get away with it because we live in bubbles of ignorance, thanks to social media and the lack of learning civics in school. Far too few people even bother to vote.
And the "elites" no longer invest much in our domestic institutions because they make their money in the global economy now--leaving bad-faith actors to manipulate our governments to advantage themselves.
Americans are thus ripe for an authoritarian take-over.
2
Trump and his Republican enablers need to lose in a landslide in 2020. Anyone who cares about a free Democratic society in the US should be contributing money to the Democrats and definitely getting out to vote.
3
Government by sharpie cannot prevail. Trump and the GOP will end up in the dustbin of history, an aberration best forgotten, though we'll have to live with the shame and the ridicule of the rest of the world for a goodly amount of time.
We need to be careful that our attention on Demented Donald doesn't blind us to the thoroughly rotten Republican machine that set the stage for and continues to provide cover and support the Oval Occupant. Decades in the making, and with absolute disregard for the welfare of their own constituents let alone our nation and its Constitutional norms, Republican princelings and pretenders forged lasting self-serving alliances with monied interests to create a capitalist cabal, now more clearly obvious than ever, that exclusively, expansively and clearly promote their power and wealth. Demented Don is both a figurehead and a real threat. Yes, he must be defeated in 2020, but so must be the un-American and anti-Constitutional machine and its leaders that undergird his maladministration.
2
Suddenly the job of NOAA is to police its own statements to avoid embarrassing a lying president? The job of auto executives (and presumably oil and coal execs) is to pollute even if in their business sense it is better not to? The job of DOJ is to thuggishly bend the laws to commit injustice?
Embarrassing a president is now a crime? Why, because he is doing such a good job of it himself? Comedians better find new jobs quick. Being over 70, I still remember when America was a real democracy, inspiring the world despite our faults and failures. I wish those of you under 40 shared the best of those memories.
4
Our incapacity to view each other as fellow citizens, supported by views such as these, which denigrate with withering hubris the views of others who also love our country but see from other backstories and programming, will do us in in the long run. Differences in political opinion are not differences in character or human value. And the failure of the press to inform us in favor of presenting opinions as fact, is a basic problem. What happened to civics in high school? Must every liberal word now be in partisan agreement with coastal elites and their publications? My fear is this: Left fascism is no better than right fascism. Myopia is rampant, on both sides.
1
The lurch to autocracy in democracies is tied to a slide toward conservatism in its various corrosive forms amid a breakdown of intelligence. We saw this in America, when even normal men and women turned sour on progress when it hit their fear button—fear of women, people of color, and immigrants outstripping them. The intelligence of students slid and the cons embraced violence. They felt momentary superiority by acting as spoilers for good government policies, pretending they were cheated when they were mostly just dumb, and they turned their backs on their fellow citizens in favor of lethal weapons and incarceration, which they called law and order. The rise in progressive activism that must inevitably lead to better policies on climate change and will end the pollution favored by the filthiest con souls among us, is, fortunately, only going to grow as the stupid policies of the Cons claim more victims. In both economic and social terms, any lurch in the CON direction is a death blow to democracy.
The NOAA scandal is horrifying. NOAA is part of the Commerce Department, and now that we know that even the weather report is a pack of lies, why should we not assume that all the other reports, including the Census and on the economic condition of the country aren't lies too.
Remember, the Trump government is founded on propaganda, including the echo chamber at Fox News. The Commerce Secretary was adjudicated to have lied about why he wanted the Census to contain a citizenship question. And now we have Trump himself lying about whether the sky is blue.
The whole point of the Republican Party is that normal folks can't trust the government. Now they have sabotaged it and say See!!! We were right all along!!!
Some way of doing business.
1
I wonder if there will be people fired, demoted or offices moved to inconvenience those who dare present facts/truth.
2
"And it’s happening here as we speak. If you aren’t worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention."
It has been happening for a while sir. Gerrymandering, control of our candidate for national choices by the wealthy and party machines, ignoring the peoples will on gun control, SCOTUS appointments denied sitting POTUS, ignoring the absolute need for and willingness to do the job of Congress with impeachment proceedings against a blatantly corrupt POTUS, etc etc etc.... Both parties are corrupt. Power and greed drive decisions that should be made as a result of actionable behavior that has been defined as the reason in our Constitution and the oath to protect it. The will of the people has been ignored to the point that we have DT as POTUS. He is a true reflection of our current state. At what point do "We the People" demand accountability, not only from our reps, but from each other? How long before we will be unable to? Protest peacefully while we still can. VOTE ....while we still can.
1
Yes Paul, a truly American collapse in process. An All-star SCOTUS lineup of "originalists" when it's convenient with two one dimensional players snuck onto the team recently, along with a group of backups who see what they want to and are blind to what is present as they pursue their suspect lifestyles away from the game led by Moscow Mitch, a constant attack on the rules and processes and towards the games announcers and reporters, aided by the "faith" leaders who sift and disregard biblical text to justify their anti-Jesus goals as "moral" umpires of American society, and all of this lead by an angry, selfish, and base "man" who has gathered a group of incompetent failures in REAL life to carry out his whims, urges, and manipulations in his quest for Kingship and an end to America.
Paul, since you are on top of the food pyramid among economists, please write the seminal article on why it is a VERY BAD idea to elect the leader of a private company to run a democracy.
Explain why Trump can’t just sell off states that are constantly in the Red.
He can’t deport (“fire”) citizens (“employees”) who are not productive, can’t find a job, and receive funds from various social programs.
He can’t decree new corporate policies (“laws”) despite opposition from his inner circle (“Congress”).
He can’t just dip into the coffers (“Treasury”) and take a pay raise or construct a new wing to his executive suite (“Wall”) without being held accountable (“Power of the Purse”).
You get the idea.
Basically, when you run a private business, by definition you are the leader in an authoritarian structure. You simply may NOT extrapolate that to a democracy. The skill set of the executive running a private corporation as VERY little overlap with the skill set required to run a democratic nation.
And so here we are, simply watching Trump attempting to turn the USA into the authoritarian structure where he and his father have spent their entire life. It’s the only structure he knows, he refuses to learn otherwise, and Mitch, et al. realize that their ideology is becoming more irrelevant each day as American continues its unstoppable diversity.
This is the GOP’s Waterloo, and they won’t go down without a fight.
2
British politicians from the conservative party seems to be little more civil and sensible than American "conservative" party or GOP. Not sure how long those few remaining sensible and patriotic GOP leaders (surely not Mitch McConnel or Ron Johnson) would keep on behaving as a stooge of Trump and stand up to do the right thing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/04/british-conservatives-put-country-over-party-why-cant-republicans-do-same/
1
The swamp has been used as a moat to enshrine a walled bastion of lies. The parallels to the ministry of truth in 1984 are plain. We the people are left aching for proper understanding of what we see. I have for one never yearned for an election to be upon us. Time flies fast enough. Now I want to dispense with the next 14 months. No epiphany or second coming required for me to see the light.
I have made mistakes in life -- stopped practicing the piano, failed to keep up with yoga, skipped church too often, lied to females about their choice of attire. At that, my self doubts and sense of conscience are way active. I can't imagine how tortured my soul and love of country if I pulled off one of Trump's king toad lies.
This implies a huge gulf exists between me and the characters who voted for, work for, and will vote for the frog prince. I shall volunteer at some food shelf somewhere to suffer witness to truth and offer my penance for the unrepentant Pences of America.
Once again, we find the most important line of corporate propaganda in the title here:
"How Democracy Dies, American-Style"
That is, we're to know that we're witnessing "Democracy" itself in its death throes. And by this, we're to also know that our "free press" will die along with it.
Yes, indeed— A corporate-run government and a corporate-owned plutocracy is our "Democracy" just as surely as our corporate-owned and corporate-run mainstream news media (e.g., The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, etc.) are our "free press."
So this is Krugman doing what he does best: flack for a corporate-owned "free press" and create the propaganda for the educated classes that instills in them the doctrine that this corporate plutocracy is in fact our very own "Democracy."
And so this is indoctrination going full-tilt here.
3
An inefficient congress, actually worse than inefficient, has created a void... in step the clowns. The 2020 election is the most important election you will vote in, period!
1
To his defense, if the storm had slammed into Florida, Alabama would have experienced some mighty rain and wind. Maybe Trump doesn’t understand why it didn’t?
1
Not to worry Your Supreme Leader knows;
A tax cut for the masters
and permission to openly hate an “other”
will give Him just enough of the peasants that don’t care for another four years. (and another four after that!)
And then of course, there is the bigger picture, of which Trump is just a symptom.
1
Luckily for America, Trump is an incompetent clown. He will most likely not succeed, and will be gone soon. The real concern should be the way that this administration has demonstrated that a non-clown Trump could succeed.
1
Krugman is fretting over sharpiegate and its meaning as a sign of sliding to autocracy. Meanwhile, Trump just liberated the incandescent light bulb from its Obama-mandated purgatory. I cannot think of a simpler but more powerful example of democracy. Democrats love to talk about freedom & choice except when discussing light bulbs, toilets, soft drinks, salt, education, energy, unborn babies...
@Once From Rome Thank God we Americans have the right to drink poison if we want to. FREEDOM!
Are these coveted jobs in government so prestigious that nobody can stand up to this lunacy? Where is the moral fiber?
At virtually every major turning point in history there were those prescient enough to see the direction early on and warn the people. Professor Krugman is such a person. Thank you.
All that remains to happen is America's version of the Reichstag Fire. And that is surely coming. Those who ignore history are doomed to relive it.
1
Yes, of course, but what can one DO? (And please don't resort to sentimental twaddle like "vote" or "protest" - we're already so close to autocracy, those things are mere illusion, nothing but air-filled cake to lull the masses into thinking they have power.)
4
Our national epitaph will read; "They Were Entertained"
1
This is fascism, in its pretty primitive, basic form. Look up the 14 characteristics of fascism. Mr. Indecency even "jokes" about seeking a third term, but you have to understand that he has no concept of humor.
If, as other commenters point out, we don't vote him and his enablers out of office next year, it really is over. And even if we do vote them out, there's a risk that SCOTUS is already compromised. (I worry more about them than the military.)
3
Impeach first. If that fails use the election. If that still fails take up arms. This dictator is going down one way or another.
2
The dictatorship is in place when trivia becomes the subject of intense investigation and a parade of lackeys is summoned to lie in support of the big man. The Alabama hurricane blew the cover off for all to see. The response confirms that worse days are predictably ahead.
We CAN point to the day when our Democracy died. It was the day that Clarence Thomas, the mute Manchurian candidate, cast the single vote that selected George W Bush over the will of the American voter. It was his second vote for Bush in the 2000 election, and it was the only one that mattered. One man selected our President that day, the day Democracy died. We have been a vampire democracy ever since, with the brain-devouring GOP completing its endgame of destruction by giving us Trump the Traitor.
5
The reign of Trump will remind one and all of the
sheer cowardice of the GOP
2
The cancer on the American democracy is Donald Trump and his enablers.
But let's look over the political horizon, and I think the
horrors of this guy will , indeed, be vanquished with even
new Repulican leadership, hold-your-nose prospect that
it might be.
Beyond that...could the Trump Clan abscond in the night
sometime soon, to avoid prosecutions???
2
We need a leader that will actually address the problems in America. Automation and capital consolidation are hollowing out the middle class and running amok with our political system. This economic and social precarity are pushing Americans into our primitive xenophobic and racist tribal tendencies. We need someone like Andrew Yang who is non-ideological, just looking to solve the most pressing problems of our time, and who we can all rally around to achieve real progress. Not right. Not left. Forward.
Humanity First.
“Democracies used to collapse suddenly, with tanks rolling noisily toward the presidential palace. In the 21st century, however, the process is usually subtler.”
True, Paul. Not only is Trump doing damage to our country in many ways, but the sad truth is that most people don’t realize that our elections are undemocratic because the vote-counting process is not transparent nor secure. If our votes were counted by hand with observers present (as other major countries do), some election results would have turned out differently. The U.S. State Department uses exit polls to verify elections in other countries. As a result, elections have been overturned in Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia.
There have been red flags since we moved to computerized voting. Exit polls tell us that official vote counts have shifted to the right in those suspect races. A smoking gun: the exit pollster is competent when polling noncompetitive elections (where one candidate is ahead by a large margin). It is only “incompetent” when polling competitive races. This is where the discrepancies between the exit polls and the recorded vote appear.
Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand https://tinyurl.com/gmyfnaw
Herbert Bos, a computer scientist and election integrity expert: “Election results are the heart of our democracy. You cannot risk an of this. Even if the vulnerabilities were small you do not want to take any chances."
Europe Rejects Digital Voting Machines https://tinyurl.com/yczjwo64
Where are the leaders at NOAA in all this? Why did they not refuse to do this, forcing Wilber Ross and his toady-minions to fire them publicly? Where are the people who will say "I won't lie for you," and mean it? Where are the Republicans who should stand up to this would be Putin Puttanesca? It doesn't take just a despot to corrupt democracy, it also takes enablers.
Late-breaking news: 1) NOAA announces the extent of hurricane damage in Alabama; 2) FEMA announces emergency relief supplies, generators, etc. being rushed to Alabama; 3) T announces he will fly to Alabama to console the suffering populace [and play golf -- there are many fine golf courses in Alabama]. Then what happens in the real world? Exactly nothing.
The problem, Mr. Krugman, throwing words at this not so slowly ascending fascism (yours, mine, anyone else's) will do nothing to stop it. Fascists play by their own set of rules. Words were powerless during the 1930's. They are much more powerless in 2019. So what do we do? We spectate the demise of the greatest democracy in the history of mankind. But we are too cowardly to take action against it. Because, as Shakespeare wrote, "conscience makes cowards of us all.''
Trump and everyone who supports him are abusive. They are bullies. Straight from a text book on domestic abuse.
At least the people in Hong Kong are actually doing something about their autocrats.
2
Don't complain. Fix. That is done in 2020.
1
The Democrats won't impeach this corrupt and dangerous Looney Toon fearing that it might help him win a second term. It's come to this. What a sorry state America is in.
This is not America.
Poland, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, maybe.
But this is not America.
2
First, say the word, Fascism. That’s the term for when the government tries to coerce private businesses to do its bidding. In socialism, the government owns the means of production. So this is fascist and so is Trump. Second, American institutions and the constitution are having a tough workout but they are resilient. Trump will be impeached before the year’s end. Third, The Amazon-Pentagon $10 billion contract is being vigorously objected to by Oracle, in court. It’s hard to point a finger at the administration alone over this. Co-CEO of Oracle Safra Katz has carried some water for Trump sitting on a committee and dining at the WH but it’s hard to make a case of collusion. Also, Oracle has a better product than Amazon for this purpose hence a legitimate objection.
Yes, Paul, as the brave Washington Post say everyday on its front-page mast-head banner, "Democracy Dies In Darkness" -- to which I would only add, "Under Empire".
This first and only 'effectively-Disguised', 'truly-Global', 'Crony-corrupted', 'Capitalist-fueled' EMPIRE, which is only nominally HQed in, and merely 'posing' as, our former 'promising' and sometimes progressive country (PKA) America desperately needs 'we the American people' --- in percentages only 1/10 the 25% of Hong Kongers who are 'in the streets' for months against Empire --- to fire a; loud, public, sustained, 'in the streets', but totally non-violent "SHOUT (not shot) heard round the world" to ignite an essential 2nd American people's peaceful "Political/economic& social Revolution Against Empire" --- just as our founders, farmers, sailors, tradesmen, patriots 1776, but WITHOUT the muskets (or AR-15s).
We only need to, as my only demonstration, march, and protest signs since 2017 simply say on one side:
DUMP
EMPEROR
TRUMP
and more importantly on the other side, under an image of 'our' American flag:
"We can't be an EMPIRE"
Put enough people 'in the streets' peacefully confronting this faux-Emperor, and he will collapse like a cheap suit-case, coward, and bone-spur bully that he is, in a "New York Minute".
Yo really can't cite Russia in this category. It was, and will never be, a Democracy.
@Meungkahn
I picked up on that also. They got close in the Gorbachev/Yeltsin years, then that dream died.
Just wait until Trump loses (or wins) the next election. You ain't seen nuthin', yet.
1
Institutions of democracy are being gutted; education, environment, justice, energy. We have a monarch; his hand picked family members are in key positions dealing with weighty global issues. All are engaged in enriching themselves.
Trump is now Czar. Democrats are the serfs. Republicans are his giddy headed supporters; 90% of them support him.
All this because republicans want, and have got, a monarch. They want a monarch because what they want cannot be achieved in a democratic society (walls, barbed wire, entitlements reserved for them, undesirables gone, laws that work only for them but imprison others, unfettered rights to bully and dominate, and kill others, coddling of the super rich). Their media machines are full blast devotional, engaged in hero worship. An army of self appointed sycophants on the street deny what he does wrong, and lies about. Trump enjoys the power and indulgences that only a European monarch enjoyed prior to republics.
It has been thus. Reagan was king. Bush II was a dauphin. Trump is full blown emperor. He is fully entitled to rule, votes or no votes. If he says it, it is true. If he does it, it is good. If he doesn't like it, it is bad, illegal, and fake.
Democrats are acting like there is a voter block out there in key states that thinks all this is bad and wrong for the country. There isn't. Every time they say 'free,' Trump is guaranteed a second term and likely the status of emperor for life.
What is going on in the mind of T? Kindness might say chaos, rather than serious mental illness, but who knows? His blinders only allow him to see his struggle to win at any cost, and thus his biases must be upheld, so we get stupid trade wars, and Sharpiegate out of the same brain. (so please don't try to get inside his mind for your own sanity). But almost certainly he is being used by the likes of McConnell, or Barr, or Pompeo or Bolton, or so they think. But what is the real goal? He seems beholden to Putin for some reason, a common desire for greater power? Debts he owes Putin?
Does he not understand that when you hug the US flag, you are hugging a theory, a concept of free people with power from themselves not an Aristocracy or Oligarchy? Which begs the question, if he were to come to believe that he is actually damaging our democracy, drilling a whole in the bottom of the boat, so to speak, would he resign? or change course?
It is actually difficult to maintain a sense of calm, at least for me and for those I know, after Sharpie-Gate and the following "confirmation" by NOAA.
I was camping and doing Yoga with perhaps 20 others friends in Tuolomne Meadows, California this last weekend, a majestic home for pristine nature in this country, and our sociopath President kept entering the conversation,sadly, for fear of what he might do to even our beloved Yosemite.
Americans are shocked by what is happening in the highest office. And we are more shocked that Impeachment isn't happening in full force, or that the Republicans have completely folded into the Dear Leaders Sycophant Party.
Authoritarianism was always at the door, from the time of our founders. It took 250 years for the lethal mix of late capitalism, a charismatic bull of a game-show host, and 60 million or so folks who either hate taxes like most of us, yet who also are inherently racist, and contain some character flaw within themselves desiring a so-called "strong" leader, no matter if that "leader" is a proven conman, and have no hope in government of any kind.
Here we are then, in the United States of White Supremacy. Lead by a cognitively impaired, morally empty, Manhattan real estate developer, wanting only to consume the world, and to leave no one untouched by his greed and avarice. We have given the country over to darkness.
Why isn't he being impeached? Posterity will ask.
Vote out of office all those who support authoritarianism;
and let's name those who are running for re election who
are the traitors to our democracy...in the Federal and State
Governments...just name them and vote them out of office.
Mitch McConnell heads the list...so I think it appropriate to just
name all those who like McConnell are destroying our country.
Just a list...next time Professor Krugman...and let's just
make a stand against these traitors.
As American democracy circles the drain, the formerly outrageous becomes accepted as normal. The president of the United States looks into the camera and spews blatant, easily verifiable lies on an almost daily basis,,, and it's just another day in Trumpland.
1
"Many Americans are justifiably frightened by what is happening to our country. But protecting our democracy requires more than just fright or outrage. We must be humble and bold. We must learn from other countries to see the warning signs – and recognize the false alarms. We must be aware of the fateful missteps that have wrecked other democracies. And we must see how citizens have risen to meet the great democratic crises of the past, overcoming their own deep-seated divisions to avert breakdown.
History doesn’t repeat itself. But it rhymes. The promise of history is that we can find the rhymes before it is too late." - How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
1
Paul. I’ve worried myself SICK in my life with attendant high blood pressure, etc....and still the world unfolds and I am one little person without much influence. I would think action is necessary instead of worry. Your points are completely rational and yet where are the checks and balances on this presidency? Where are they!!!!????? Worry and action need a system that actually works to disallow despotism or neither are going to do us any good.
And why is it that Nancy isn’t ready to impeach Trump?
The clueless frogs splashed in the pot of water, making small talk and oblivious to the slight warmth they felt under them. After all, it had been sunny all summer so, of course, the water had gained some heat. Suddenly, . .
Later that night they were served at a large dinner hosted by a very large man at a big White House. The End
1
I am concerned about our charlatan president remaining in office simply because of the existential threat to our way of life and democracy. I guess you could identify Trump as an autocratic nihilist for his disrespect for our system. Circumstances of our democracy will continue to be assaulted by our president. We will all suffer from his ministrations unless we remove by impeachment or vote.
1
But, but judges! And tax cuts! And taking back control of women's bodies! democracy, schmocracy.
It is necessary to take down the collaborators as well as those who would impose the first reich. Vote. For all offices. Do not be deterred. I have been voting for a very long time. Each time I have been told that it was the most important vote of my lifetime. I always knew that it was not so. I have been waiting for this one for all of my life. This is our time. We must not fail.
2020 is our last chance, my friends. Volunteer and donate, if you possibly can, but most importantly — please vote!!
It is the general Republican complicity with all of this that is most alarming, and the endorsement of their actions by the fake news "Propaganda Organs".
Trump is the symptom, Republican-Reptilians and their Donor Class are the real problem.
1
I only read the sub-title and am so depressed.
1
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Democracy dies when the press/media abuses its duty.
The first problem is getting trump out of office. Even if he loses, he won't voluntarily leave. He will claim it was illegitimate and won't leave unless he's escorted.
His other option is to call off or postpone the election for phony reasons.
2
Trump has established an authoritarian regime at least as to the Executive Branch. He has the complicity of the Senate. He has a solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court with only Roberts occasionally tilting toward moderation. Only Democratic control of the House stands in the way of full authoritarian, if not dictatorial, government. We can not let this continue.
3
I wish I could figure out if there is some villain here (beyond greed) but I've come to the conclusion that our reliance on image, TV, and media may be partly to blame. It began with the actor, the photogenic president: Ronald Reagan. The great pretender who said "government is the problem" wrote the playbook for modern Republicans, and ushered in the era of our current fake human/pro wrestling wannabe . Both sold or sell a con job, although Reagan bought into his personal narrative so sincerely and deeply that his saccharine tale of personal accomplishment and individual greatness sowed a great mistiness in the eyes of his followers. A lot of Americans want to believe we don't need government, cooperation, sacrifice for the group (unless they are soldiers), education, or progressive ideals. They buy into the image of the lone (white) man who triumphs, saves the girl and gets rich. At least Reagan had to work his way out of a modest childhood (in which he was helped mightily by his race, gender, timing, luck and good looks). How anyone admires Trump is profoundly baffling. Must just be a knee-jerk, mass delusion that if a white guy in a suit is rich and tells you what you want to hear, along with a story of how he's overcome SO MUCH, he's A-OK.
5
The next step to our plunge into authoritarianism will be a book burning on the White House lawn with all copies of Orwell's 1984 required to be on the pyre. After all who needs those books as Trump the master does not read. And then all weather reports will only be allowed on FOX news and required to say that only fair weather is sanctioned . Never mind the deluge or hurricane roaring past.
The Trump regime inspires satire, but Trump and authoritarians hate satire as it points out their failings. But when satire becomes reality you know we are in deep do do.
3
@David
Not when he's gone. We need to consider the possibility that he will become president for life.
So,it's if he's gone. There's no guarantee that his term will be only 8 years. Or if he's voted out, that he will leave.
And then there's the "Trump Dynasty" that Brad Parscale has been talking about.
Vote.
Write letters.
Register young people to vote.
Push for election security measures. Fight purging of voter roles. Ensure a clean and comprehensive census.
Get rid of the electoral college.
Do everything you can to get a blue wave in 2020.
4
For years, I've been paying attention to the threat to democracy exposed in Mancur Olsen's, "The Rise and Decline of Nations," that is, the rot from within, as rent-seeking special interests eat away at the republic until economic growth slows to a crawl. But now, I can only think back to the Twin Towers, and how they were a means with which terrorists could crack the foundations and someday topple two other towers: the legislative and judicial pillars of our democracy.
2
Wilbur Ross threatened to fire appointees of NOOA if they did not undermine the NWS. Rather than stating that gross interference occurred they chose to acquiesce and throw truth under the bus. Trump's use of the possessive pronoun, "my", referring to generals is frightening, what is going on behind the scenes that isn't revealed? Should he fail to be removed from office or win the election democracy is at risk. Will the military, those armed with automatic weapons or the Republicans intoxicated by their power seize total control? Trump has mentioned extending his presidency beyond 8 years, we should all take that seriously.
5
@rhdelp
Trump is a lunatic, plain and simple.
I take nothing he says seriously; the problem is that we the people are allowing this lunatic to run our country, into the ground.
Some of us have been worrying about American Democracy long before Mr. Trump took the oath of office. The decline began in the 1960s when political hubris hurled the Nation into a war in Vietnam. Like the great dark shadow it is, The subsequent story of The War in Vietnam reveals how the public was mislead about the necessity of a war by the military industrial complex and willingness of politicians to go along, to get along. No, Trump is not the first President to set the stage for the decline of American Democracy. He is merely the consequence of erosion that began when he was just a playboy on the scene in NYC. To maintain order in a country the size of the United States of America may force a decision about the vitality of Democracy sooner rather than later.
4
In her book The Origins of Authoritarianism Hannah Arendt shows how it was anti-semitism that was responsible over and over again, going back centuries. And we should note that the current raise in anti-semitism, whether in Orban's Hungary or Trump's America is troubling, best exemplified by the attacks against Soros and the Open Society.
These are indeed troubling times for democracy, lest we forget that democracy does not die in darkness, but in indifference.
So let's go and vote, Vote Democratic!
3
Millions of American voters look at this situation and continue to strongly support him, which cements his hold on Republican Congresspeople and therefore power. I don’t believe these voters are unwillingly confused or misled.
Is there a longer term fix? Our youth?
“Democracies used to collapse suddenly, with tanks rolling noisily toward the presidential palace. In the 21st century, however, the process is usually subtler.”
Underestimating the demise of democracy in the US is a global imperative, not only an American concern. The US is an unprecedented military power with minimal Congressional oversight or safeguards to prevent Presidential deployment of those resources. Trump’s ability to unilaterally cancel the Iran agreement despite Iran’s compliance, impose stringent sanctions and threaten military action shows a despot in action. Absences of effective political controls on an unpredictable and unhinged President seeking to emulate the behaviours of his dictator pals or move the focus from his latest blunder has serious implications to global peace, order and to the American Treasury.
Trump, his complicit Republican backers and extreme right wing SCOTUS have diminished American democracy and made the world far less safe with only one goal in mind – the unchecked power of despotism.
3
It's extraordinary, and almost unbelievable, how Trump and the Republican Party have been able to get away with their efforts to undo our democracy, and equally unbelievable is the fact that the Pelosi Schumer democrats, the force that is the heart and soul of our Democratic Party, are unwilling to do anything, other than pontificate endlessly, creating the impression that there is nothing they can do.
Of course I expect nothing more from this Republican-Lite Democratic Party, as they benefit financially from everything their Republican partners do, in their relentless drive to beggar the poor and the middle-class.
This is why there is such fear of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and the groundswell they are creating; Biden, their annointed candidate, their appointed protector of the status quo, and incrementalism talker, is proving to be a liability and regardless the efforts to impart some semblance of decency onto him, it just isn't happening.
My expectation is that while our democracy is under mortal threat, the American people see it and do not like it, and come November 2020 they will show both parties that the game is over by electing Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, as our 46th President.
Both parties have become so blinded by their own hubris they will keep on keeping on, weaving their own hanging rope, and placing it around their own necks.
It's wonderful watching them destroy themselves.
3
The USPS should be downsized in any way that is Constitutionally possible, but I digress.
The misuses of power are concerning, but what is likely worse is that they will foster a distrust of government that will outlast the reign of the reality show emperor.
To reverse this decay. the next president's job will be to restore and build faith in our current institutions, not to push them to their limits in the opposite partisan direction.
3
"What? Me worry"? Too busy watching TV, texting, Twittering,
and a general ignorance of history.
I miss my parents every day, but I'm so glad they don't have to see what has happened to the USA.
My father was a public servant all his life, had values that were not based on material goods, and served in WWII.
My husband and I traveled to Normandy, France and cried as we looked at the number of graves of young men who gave their lives for us, the now living.
Of course "IT" can happen here, it's a work in progress going on now, just as Mr. Friedman says.
How do we restore truth and decency? I don't really know but the first step is to Wake up, America. Your house is on fire.
8
I have a theory about what Trump will do in the future. You have to allow some light-hearted considerations here and there.
Theory 1 - Trump will see he is going to lose the 2020 and he will declare he has already won and so he can allow himself to relax and just proffer "I will not seek reelection nor will I accept my party's nomination", ala LBJ in 1968. Trump will just think he's done a great job, doesn't care what the papers say, and now he has to get back to his real work as a real estate magnate because he's lost so much money over the past four years.
It's just a theory.
Paul, it is imperative to dispel the mantra that any member of the GOP, such as Susan Collins, has not signed on to the agenda that has produced the Dread Justice Roberts, Mitch McConnell, and Trump. Long before Trump, McConnell was busy blocking legislation. Before that, Roberts was fussing with the Constitution so that it somehow declared that corporations were people while failing to notice the necessity of the Voting Rights Act. Roberts's news feed apparently reported that Bull Connor's descendants magically became inclusive and supportive.
When Halliburton was the sole winner in Iraq few eyes were batted. It appears that many of us needed to have someone so inept in the White House that the sale of an elected government to the NRA and Koch Industries could not be denied.
I am appalled to be amidst so many fellow citizens who are still holding out for more evidence. I submit that they will always hold out for more evidence because somehow they equate their non-partisanship with Solomon's wisdom rather than craven equivocation. Clearly, I disagree.
How surprising is it when the NOAA approves Trump's jaunt into Wonderland when the same agency that should be warning us about the increasing dangers of man-made climate change has become a mouthpiece for the coal and oil lobbyists who will need to find other work if the public becomes concerned that the dangers of fossil fuels now outweigh any future benefits?
If all this is just now becoming clear, see your optometrist.
7
Most people are concerned more with their own material well-being or with tribal matters such as racism, xenophobia and nationalism than with the preservation of democracy. A large fraction of people in this country do not vote and those who consider themselves Independents outnumber those who adhere to either of the parties. To a large extent, Americans have already lost faith in democracy, or at least its ability to give them what they want. It has been evident to such people for a long time that the interests of big money, rather than those of wage- and salary-earners, are what mainly determines government policies.
Republicans chose many decades ago to rely on racism and nationalism and more recently xenophobia and they have thereby been winning elections. Is it wise to fight battles on the ground chosen by the enemy? Just pointing at a threat to democracy may tip the balance in a close election - or it may not - but will not form the basis of a lasting majority that could put the country on a new direction. To do this it will probably be necessary for a party to really commit to the economic interests of the large majority, not those of banking, finance and big corporations.
2
The failure of democracy in the U.S. began with our electoral college system, that allows a con man to be elected president when the majority of voters have stated a preference for his opponent. That failure is compounded by a Senate that can block any proposed legislation, in a situation where each state has only two votes regardless of population. What democracy?
Having a Supreme (so-called) Court that votes its cases along party lines does not help.
9
Paul Krugman weighs in on Sharpie-Gate, and weaves it into his narrative of Donald Trump the autocrat and destroyer of American democracy.
Building from that to the continued standoff between California and the federal government on automobile emissions standards, Krugman again sees sinister forces.
I see instead a Federal government looking to differentiate between federal and state authorities.
Paul Krugman sees the death of democracy nearly as often as climate change advocates foresee the end of the world. The U.S will indeed survive Donald Trump's second term, as well as Paul Krugman's next thousand handwringing columns.
1
Deny the reality right in front of your face - but reality will out, in the end.
1
@rcrigazio
The president deliberating altering an official weather map to satisfy his ego: states rights.
The federal government suing private businesses for voluntarily holding themselves to higher standards: states rights.
The enslavement of human beings: states rights.
I am starting to think this "states rights" thing is a ruse.
When he repeatedly states that he wants a third term, it is not longer a joke, it’s an aspiration. Might be difficult to accomplish but exposes the mind set of the “chosen one”. The situation we are in now in the US remind me with dictatorships in the gulf region and the Middle East, those of us who left their homes seeking freedom in this country are scared by the current administration and its cronies.
2
@MR Wasn't it Michael Bloomberg who arranged to serve a third term as NYC's mayor? And now, he may ride in to save the day as a new Democratic candidate for President.
I read that it takes two soldiers with modern armaments to control 100 unarmed civilians.
Bulgakov wrote that all human authority is based on the fear of violence.
It appears the vote is our sole practical political power in defense of democracy in our republic.
2
Worried, yes. Hopeless, no. I find the resistance from (of all things symbolizing America) automakers, a breath of cool fresh September air blown in the face after a long, hot, dull summer. It puts the administration in a stark light of revealing clarity. Lower emissions and better mileage signals a more responsible use of fossil fuels and a deep commitment to progress and leadership in the world. How many other areas can we claim that kind of forward thinking in American policy? And the unthinkable notion that an industry would put environmental responsibility ahead of greed and profit (whatever underlying principles may be at play) is remarkable and worthy of pride. We need more examples of pride, yes even nationalistic pride, in a time when many Americans wake up in a daily hangover of shame. It seems so naive to think that citizens of this country have any power whatsoever, any semblance of being anything but pawns, but we must remember (even without a gun) we do have power and, though we have successfully been divided and distracted, we will once again wake up to the simple fact that we are being played, distorted and distracted while those who are more cunning pick our pockets of cash, dignity, power and rights. First automakers, then tech, then health industries all the way down to the wage worker. Democracy may storm back by educating and having examples of higher roads taken and pride in companies and individuals who finally put the “us” back in the USA.
6
January 21, 2021, is now only 497 days away. It will be the day democracy first appears in the US Senate. The filibuster will be eliminated so that vital reforms are passed on emoluments, financial disclosure, justice, prevention of misappropriation of funds, voting rights, dark money in politics, and likely gerrymandering.
With the foundation against Presidential tyranny reinforced, I expect the return of the filibuster before a new Supreme Court Justice is nominated.
If we fail to enact democratic protections, I agree with Krugman, our democracy may well die.
7
It takes some guts and the patience of Job to read every day excellent columns explaining and denouncing Trump’s irrational, illegal and destructive behavior- knowing that you just have to wait for election day. Congress has engaged in political malpractice for not speeding the impeachment process. Efficient inaction is incredible and the Democratic leadership gives impression that they don’t REALLY care - except winning the primaries.
I can’t vote - that’s a double.
2
Let's not forget the gutting of the Voting Rights act that basically makes racist based gerrymandering legal, the Citizen's United decision that makes unlimited corporate money in our elections doable, and foreign interference in our elections. Mitch McConnell took money from a voting machine company and then turned down an opportunity at reform in the Senate. There is the North Carolina 9th District debacle and the Georgia election in which the Secretary of State, charged with overseeing elections, "won" over Stacey Abrams. We are closer to an autocracy than most people think.
20
Democracy is over in most western countries, the people are no longer in charge.
2
as other countries maintain their standards for cars and we weaken ours, perhaps we will finally attain the status of a car industry with no export market.
9
Perhaps after Trump is gone, Congress will have learned lessons and pass laws to ensure the independence of the DOJ and other government institutions. For example, once appointed, the AG and other government officials should be shielded from being fired from the President, unless consent is again provided by Congress; that is, consent for both hiring and firing. This would allow administrators of government institutions to act free of direct political pressure from the White House, and against their own professional integrity and judgment.
If Trump has done anything positive for American democracy, it's that he's exposed the weaknesses and imperfections in our laws and institutions that threaten America with the one-party rule, corruption, and even despotism seen in many failed democracies.
We cannot simply rely on notions of "decorum", "civility", "fair play", or "good will", to ensure our democratic processes are not corrupted. We need stronger and enforceable laws to govern the actions of the executive and legislative branches, and perhaps even the judicial branch, too.
782
@David
Well, it's not just Trump, it's the entire GOP. They'll happily support the move to authoritarianism, and they'll stand in the way of any changes you or anyone else suggests.
83
@David your comment that Congress needs to do its job and pass restrictions on an out of control executive is telling. But note that this will only happen when a democrat becomes president as the GOP really is in favor of an authoritarian regime as long as it is a GOP one. That our judiciary has shown that it will do nothing to curb executive power and will kow tow to the executive is also true. Note that it will do nothing to curb gerrymandering or control the power of money in our politics things that favor the party in power.
66
@David
I have suggested a constitutional amendment requiring all who old office to conduct themselves with honesty and integrity in all matters. Because as you point out, we can't just expect it as a matter of course. We need a tool to remove liars who fail to uphold the constitution. The lies are themselves grievance enough. Instead, lies are used as freedom of speech hammers to whack political enemies.
26
"Democracies used to collapse suddenly, with tanks rolling noisily toward the presidential palace." "Used to"? I can't help but wondering what might happen if the occupant of our presidential palace keeps going down the road of derangement. The 25th Amendment details a very laborious and complex process for removal. Impeachment is out of the question. So what if that 1964 film "Seven Days in May" becomes a reality--although this time it's not a liberal president endangering national security, and this time the coup succeeds?
3
The point here is that democracies die a slow death. The United States was never much of a democracy to start with. The Constitution does not grant individual citizens the right to vote. Further, the idea of one person, one vote is some sort of foreign idea since votes in small states are more heavily weighted than those in the larger states. Beyond that, the Republicans have learned how to win elections with a minority of the vote. Actually, America does not have very far to go to lose what democracy we might have.
15
The problem begins with America’s slide into a consumer society where wealth is an end in itself. All else in life from family to politics must take a back seat. Individuals are lionized for their wealth not for any real accomplishments or benefit to mankind. The market is the new God. Thus we end up with people willfully voting for a man whose only known attribute is that he is a consummate con man.
701
@Jack Robinson Spot on! I talk to Trump defenders just about everyday, and their comment is look at how good our economy is doing . I can bring up the environment, his self promotion, well all of it . It means nothing to many of these people, whom I once had respect for.
40
@Jack Robinson
The Apprentice theme song was The O'Jays' For the Love of Money. Money money mon--ey MONEY.
Yep.
Noteworthy that Trump focuses his con on the elderly.
29
It's absolutely bewildering and disgusting to see previous Citizens turned into passive consumers, with no resistance. The sins of Avarice and Gluttony have turned us into slaves.
26
I fear that a large swath of Americans are more interested in being entertained than democracy. Or worse yet, that entertainment is at the heart of the democratic process. Our primaries are like sporting events, as are our elections, and Trump's twitter battles are like the staged rants you see on the WWE. It is stunning how many people enjoy him, He's all circuses, without the bread. I don't know what I'll do if he wins again. I don't think we can come back from another four years.
20
Perpetual political gridlock is my definition of the American political system. It’s almost impossible to reform the electoral process or the constitution. The Equal Right Amendment is a perfect example. The resulting status quo serves the ruling class.
When the Republicans controlled all the branches of the government, they gave a tax break to the wealthy few and din’t find new sources of income. Result: the US government borrows money to give it to the rich.
That’s not democracy.
In our next provincial election, our government is going to hold at the same time a referendum on electoral reform. Americans could do the same thing at the federal level.
6
Sometimes when I'm watching liberal TV personalities like Stephen Colbert or Rachel Maddow, I take some comfort from their intelligence and humor--surely we who appreciate freedom of speech, diversity, science, and other benefits of a democratic society, are in the majority and will do what it takes to keep it on a steady route. And then I read something on the Internet or in a right-wing publication--or hear the president declaring that Democrats will ruin the country because they would take away your guns and open the borders to murderous drug dealers and abolish health insurance--and it seems impossible that anyone could actually believe such foolishness, but obviously, many do. And those people think it's okay to abuse and traumatize children because otherwise an "invasion" of immigrants will destroy us, or we all must have access to assault weapons that can murder dozens of people in seconds, or that creating a healthcare system that covers everyone is a socialist plot, in spite of the fact that every other nation has worked it out. Reason and logic never seem to matter, nor do facts (which all seem to be generated by "Fake News," according to Trump). I find it incredible that so many voters can be so credulous.
986
The problem with America is the priorities of a vast number of Americans. Truth and morality don't even make their Top 10.
30
@carolrobinson
Dear Carole,
Logic? Reason? See the CNBC you tube video "Analyzing Trump: 15 Logical Fallacies."
Let's face it, the guy is a media genius. Scary.
10
@Carol Robinson Do you still believe the Steele dossier? If so, then who is being credulous?
2
Don't forget about judges and courts. Filling court vacancies with reliable, extremist ideologues who are dedicated to a partisan agenda is another key component of giving authoritarian regimes the veneer of democracy.
856
@jrw This is an easy cynicism that the facts do not support, at least not yet. The courts, including many Republican-appointed judges, have in fact been just about the only effective barrier to Trumpworld's depredations. The whole ethos of law, and the rule of law, is that judges must disregard their personal preferences in favor of ruling fairly and in accordance with the law, so that as an institution we all rely on, it remains as legitimate and effective as possible.
6
@Keithofrpi Yes there courts who will still rule against trump but then they move it to another friendlier court.
Plus McConnell will pack the courts as much as he can. Show me some trump appointees who have ruled against him.. I don't know of any. They are there for ideology, not justice.
26
@jrw. This works both ways.
3
Yes, it is gradual and incremental. And oozes slowly, with complicit allies: The Club for Growth, the Moral Majority, ALEC,the Contract with America, the Tea Party, right to work laws, and on and on. From drilling in ANFAR, to light bulbs; tax cuts to charter schools. To exalting ,constantly, first responders and veterans for cover. Distracting with "wars on Christmas" and thinly veiled bigotry, they move the shells around. To tacitly supporting enemies lists on reporters, and now,government scientists. They've no shame or decency.
658
Well said. So let us get on with the opposition to this not-so-creeping authoritarian wave washing over the United States before it engulfs us. In this opposition must be individuals who's politics include anyone opposed to the cancer growing so swiftly in our midst. Restore Democracy, Save Democracy, no matter the banner, progressives, liberals, thoughtful Democrats and Republicans, Independents, believers, non-believers, all must come together in negotiated agreement as to how we fight the greed, power and destruction of what now masquerades as our current ruling government Beating Donald Trump in 2020 will be a good beginning. Reaching out with humanity to those in the world around us will be the next step.
78
@R. Weiss
Pretty good; But I'll believe in "Thoughtful Republicans" (at least at the State or Federal Level) when I see or hear of one.
It's elect a coalition labeled "Democrats" or well, take your worst bad science fiction dystopian prepper fantasy,,,,
They (R-R's) have already created appalling camps for (mostly brown) "illegal" immigrants and asylum seekers; When they start to fulfill the bases' fantasy of rounding up those awful liberul intellectuals, it will be too late to formulate a reasoned response.
I'm tired of being reproved for "not understanding" by too many of my neighbors, who are perfectly all right with most of this.
40
@Tim Lynch: Don't forget militarizing the police. I remember a time not so far back when the police carried pistols and shotguns, and showed up in uniforms that didn't look like they belonged in Afghanistan or Iraq. Now they're as likely to show up with armored vehicles and automatic weapons.
49
The Trump regime will pass on eventually but will a public exhausted by malignant, divisive words and actions recover?
It was astonishing to see Trump elected but given the extensive flaws of his opponent it was at least somewhat understandable. But to see that 40% of the population still approves of him is simply terrifying.
Are we just giving up on truth and civility as too much work?
11
America’s transformation into a plutocracy/oligarchy long precedes Trump, for those of us who have been paying attention. Case in point; NASA scientist James Hansen warned the US of coming planetary destruction as the result of anthropogenic climate change in 1988, but our fossil-fuel rulers continue to refuse to let us respond in a sane manner. So we head ever closer towards catastrophic collapse, and even the journalists at the Times are not allowed to reveal it. Trump is a symptom and distraction, as the 1619 series also makes clear.
162
@Literary Critic: Good comment; the death of democracy has indeed been evolving for decades and has little to do with Trump. Few of our major government policies are the product of democracy. At all levels of government, most critical decisions are made in semi-secrecy under the control of monetary interests.
16
@Literary Critic: Very true, but Trump has hastened it/sped up the death of our republic.
16
@Literary Critic
That's why Al Gore was so uninterested in climate policy, right? And why Hillary Clinton never mentioned policy based on science in her campaign. You don't have to feel bad about not working for Democrats if you can claim that Republicans are symptoms and not causes.
7
The situation of the contract between Google and ICE to deliver data and information about private citizens to the immigration administration is similar to what happened in 2018 when Google employees demonstrated and made the 10 billion dollar contract of Google with the Pentagon collapse .
The big US tech corporations infringe on the principles of democracy by contracting with the administration and delivering private data without the knowledge of its clientele.
And at its disadvantage .
That is a profound perversion of the principles of democracy.
3
Mr. Krugman is absolutely correct here, as he usually is. I can't help but think that he is stating the obvious. We have had plenty of warning. The state of affairs in democratic republics worldwide has pointed toward, and demonstrated, systemic failure repeatedly in the last century.
The fact is "democracy" (which has not yet been tried--the closest approximation has been a democratic republic like our own) is, for all its appeal, not very robust. It is easily manipulated by populism, as in present-day Hungary, Brazil, America, England, etc.; and it is easily co-opted by capital. A democratic republic requires an educated, informed electorate and wise, uncorrupted leadership--elements that are weak or absent in modern consumer culture.
A free press (that is, free of pressure from government, political parties and capital) would do much to improve that situation, but a press free from those pressures has yet to be tried even as an experiment.
Education theoretically improves civic engagement and responsibility. We have unwisely chosen to put the government in charge of primary education, (and capital in charge of higher education) and now suffer from the predictable results.
For these reasons and more, I and many other students of history are not surprised at recent developments threatening democratic institutions. The elements of destruction were allowed to grow alongside idealistic notions of self-rule and independent nation-states.
3
I'm a native-born American citizen in my 60's. As a long-time student of history, I often wondered how people in other nations seemed to succumb so easily to totalitarian regimes. And once firmly under the thumb of a dictator, why they took decades to throw off the yoke of tyranny. I also wondered if we here in America would ever face such a threat.
News flash: Here we are. We aren't "close to" a totalitarian state. We aren't "nearing" a dictatorship. We are here. Now. Many of our Constitutional rights are threatened, thanks to this "president" and his sycophants. And we may be well past the time that mass protest may have at least limited the damage Trump has done - at least given him a bit of pause for thought, before he threw Hispanic infants into internment camps, on our soil.
I recall the Civil Rights movement, the anti- Vietnam War movement, and the womens' movement quite well. And I recall our activism - the willingness of us, the young generation then - to speak out, to take risks on behalf of our rights, and with so many of our young men suffering, to stop a vicious, pointless war.
Fast forward to today. I am incredibly saddened by the pacifism I see. My generation is told to "get out of the way". Fine. I'm glad to. I'm tired. I've already fought these battles. But for the life of me I cannot fathom why tens of thousands of younger Americans aren't in the streets in every city in this country, weekly.
Yes, it can happen here. It has happened here.
1499
@Donegal
My sentiments exactly and so well put. I fear many, young and older citizens are loath to put down their devices long enough to "do" much! We are a much more shallow nation now than when you and I were active. Frankly, I am glad I grew up and lived the major part of my life when I did; when honor, civility intelligence, facts and respect for others had more purchase than these attributes have now.
158
@Donegal
Similar to you, am lay-student of why people did not stop democratically elected officials from becoming authoritarian dictators and subsequent genocide.
As a GenX old enough to remember Vietnam War and protests; School Integration Bussing and Desegregation protests; Women's ERA and Pro-Choice movements; and heinous acts of Idi Amin in Uganda; Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; and Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia-Herzegovina. July 1995 footage of families fleeing on foot and Srebrenica mass graves aired nightly on cable news channels in Europe, however U.S. channels did not show it.
I am horrified that few people I know under the age of 70 are woke to the slippery slope we are on ... and even fewer understand how far down it we have already slid. Civil liberties were diminished during the Geo W Bush administration, wealth concentration was amplified and deterrents from entrepreneurship were initiated during the Obama administration, and now the current administration is coercing "persons" into compliance by further diminishing individual agency and democratic decision-making.
I grew up with 1960s' message "If your not part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem." My peers and younger seem to have never heard it. Considering schools eliminated civics in 1970s and world history in early 1980s, until which the timeline ended at beginning of Vietnam, most under 55s are not politically engaged nor know how to conduct peaceful civil protest
110
A late neighbor, a survivor of the Battle of the Bulge in WWII, often lamented that “we have lived in the best of times.” He was not referring to Dickensian “best of times,” but truly the best of “all times.”
The period of prosperity in America after the Great War, and the relative peace in the world, even in the face of the Cold War, and enjoyed by all generations living though portions of it, has been described by Dr. Krugman as an economic anomaly. What we have experienced, and grown to consider normality, is an aberration in economic history. And it appears to be drawing to a close.
In 1980, with the election of Saint Ronnie, and the destruction of the Traffic Controller’s Union soon thereafter, the “Age of the Great American Middle Class,” the “good times,” began to decline. At that moment, in my mind, democracy began a slow, methodical erosion, aided by the greed and avarice of right-wing players and their supply-side, “voodoo,” “zombie” economics. The nightmare we are living today is the product of the purposeful dismantling and corruption of American institutions and values. I am not saying that all is lost, but what we salvage, if our democracy does survive, will be very different from that we have loved.
231
I’m paying attention - really.
But what the heck am I supposed do differently about saving the country I love? I vote in every election. I donate to civil liberties organizations. I maintain active conversations with my kids about civics. My elected representatives are all excellent Democrats who believe in the rule of law.
Any suggestions?
931
@Cousy the wallet is where it is at these days. Make sure they companies supporting the GOP, NRA, and Fox through advertisement, sponsorship, or campaign contributions that they will not only not get your money, but that you will convince your friends also not to buy until they stop backing these organisations. If the bottom line is at risk, the Corporations have plenty of sway since there is no Separation of Corporation and State.
165
@Cousy
Check out Swing Left (swing left.org). They specialize in providing things you can--even if you live in a blue area--DO to change the situation. I, for example, spend my spare time writing letters to encourage people to register to vote in key states. I do this from navy blue California. Voter registration by mail is (the data is still coming in) probably more effective even than in person canvassing. So try it out!
151
@Cousy
You are doing important work as a citizen. Volunteering with a campaign might be something else to consider. Criminal justice and social justice organizations, environmental groups and immigrant rights groups might also benefit from your participation. Thank you for staying active.
63
This is what happens when for decades the government ignores the needs of the people to concentrate on the whims of the Donor Class.
This is what happens when politics becomes a career and a politician is required to spend several hours a day dialing for dollars.
The people ignore the machinations of government that is totally disconnected from their own lives and over which they are powerless.
Voting is a joke in the age of unchecked gerrymandering, Citizens United and the Electoral College.
828
@JMC Oh, come on. We've had gerrymandering since 1812 when the word gerrymander was coined by the governor of Massachusetts. We've had the Electoral College since the Constitution was created, even earlier. Citizens United is an awful decision of the Supreme Court, but hardly the first one. The Republic will survive. But it will take people like you getting up off their duffs and voting authoritarian types out of office. I'm not giving up on democracy yet!
75
@Neale Adams
The word gerrymander was not coined by Gerry. And gerrymandering was not new then.
JMC's main point is very important. Our governments have served the 0.1% too much and the 95% too little. The result is, as in Britain, that the 95% are angry and are ready victims for -- strangely enough -- the intense, expensive propaganda of the 0.1%. Hence Brexit, Trump, and our current Koch-derived (via their "Tea Party") Republican party.
100
@JMC....you outline the cause and effect that is missing in our media. Why is it missing?
Does big money in our politics bring big profits to the media, with high cost campaign ads, thus we never hear about reversing Citizens United?
Krugman will write continual columns without ever mentioning, much less analyzing, much less pushing for reform of what you list---Citizens United, gerrymandering, electoral college. And mainly big money that legally dominates our politics.
Why does Krugman and much of the media keep ignoring this, while they fervently bash Trump/GOP?
Maybe they're afraid they'd be criticized as 'too left wing'? Too 'pro big govt'? So what wil protect We the Poeple, but the govt we elect?
Most voters favor such reforms. If they don't happen, then after Trump, future swamp creatures will rise up from the depths to slither into our politics. Plenty of material there for endless columns, ignoring cause & effect.
20
The possibility that a regime would use its "control over the machinery of government to make life difficult for anyone considered disloyal" is the reason why those of use who are libertarians at heart want to keep that machinery limited to its most essential purposes.
When liberals like Krugman keep pushing for the expansion of the scope of government into areas in which a decentralized, private approach would work, this is what they invite.
And if you think that this is something that we are witnessing only because Trump was elected in 2016, think again. We would be seeing some version of it under Clinton as well.
I think American democracy was fatally flawed from its inception. We were just fortunate never to have a critical mass of people of malign intent occupying positions of power. We clearly do now and it’s been accomplished by a minority, a substantial minority, but a minority nonetheless. Voter complacency and ignorance has allowed this to happen. Because the anti democratic minority is exploiting the flaws in our system to to make their power permanent, the windows is rapidly closing on efforts to reverse what is essentially a slow motion coup. I see 2020 as possibly the last opportunity to do it peacefully.
7
Democracy died when the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Founding Fathers who owned property including their black African enslaved property and their colonized and conquered brown aboriginal First Nations subordinates created a divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states.
The Founding Fathers so feared democracy that the only representative they could originally directly elect and vote for was their representative in the House.
While a 1913 constitutional amendment granted the right to directly elect Senators every state has two regardless of population. Senators were originally elected by state legislatures.
The Electoral College majority selects Presidents because votes cast in one state don't count nor matter in allocating meaningful Electoral College majorities in any other state.
And President's nominate federal judges for life without the advice and consent of the House of Representatives.
America is a very peculiar kind of republic where the people are the nominal ultimate sovereign over their elected and selected hired help.
4
Short version:
No Rule of Law system can withstand bad faith interpretation and enforcement by those charged with upholding it.
14
"And it’s happening here as we speak. If you aren’t worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention."
If Americans had been worried Trump would not have been elected president. Enough Americans voted for him to win the required Electoral College votes. Trump did not win the popular vote but that's not how our system works. It was evident throughout his entire campaign just how corrupt he was and could be. But the GOP nominated him and has been relatively silent since he took office. McConnell may not like his nickname but it's quite apt.
I'm not sure that anyone realizes how desperate things are when an agency that is based in science and evidence changes its tune to pacify a president. It's unprecedented. It's unprecedented to see so many departments run so poorly by such incompetent appointees. (And yes, Barr can be considered incompetent and without integrity at this point given how much he's done for Trump.)
If we haven't experienced it yet we will see a brain drain from America to other countries. Scientists will leave for places that do not politicize results. No one will want to emigrate here. Our culture will become much less vibrant. There won't be discussions: we'll have orders from on high and there will be nothing to debate.
Our forefathers gave us a republic if we could keep it. It looks as if we've failed, bigly as Trump would say. Sadly as well.
9/9/2019 6:49pm first submit
1662
@hen3ry
I always appreciate your posts. We have a lot in common, and I look for your comments. It would be helpful to some of us if you posted your time zone in addition to the time you posted.
23
@hen3ry
We need to stop using the word "unprecedented". The terrible things we are witnessing are only unprecedented in the United States because our country is so young. Also, "unprecedented" carries no moral weight: going to the moon was unprecedented, but wonderful. The word we should all be using for these transgressions is "wrong".
79
@theCarp I disagree. Our country's being so young means that it had a chance to learn from other countries and avoid some of these idiocies. Therefore, some of this is unprecedented. As for wrong, the entire GOP seems to think it's all perfectly fine. I think the word you are looking for doesn't yet exist to describe what is going on.
64
Mr. Krugman describes the Trump Administration's efforts to use antitrust laws against a set of auto companies as more serious than his encounter with NOAA.
Actually, the reverse is true. Efforts to corrupt government information as non-partisan as weather forecasts allow politicians to redefine reality on an unprecedented level. We are way beyond marking ketchup as a vegetable.
Michael Lewis noted this trend early in the Trump presidency in his book "The Fifth Risk", describing the debasing of government information for political benefit.
Redefining the path of a large and powerful storm is not trivial, nor funny. Thousands of people felt unnecessary fear and trepidation because of the vanity of the president.
Redefining reality is the ultimate abuse of power.
17
The rapid regressive slide in our democracy toward the least common denominator of totalitarian authoritarianism is our humble square on the quilt of our republic. We, as a people, have been so smug about how much better we are than all those socialistic countries in Europe. We can well recognize that our form of capitalism is really not strong on equality and is becoming less strong on freedom unless one is in the right group.
This is our watch and with the malevolence of the White House and the dominant party in the Senate we are watching the values of honor, integrity, moral courage among other values being jettisoned daily in favor of racial supremacy and a president who is losing ground mentally.
9
Spot-on Dr. Krugman, Trump continues to destroy the institutions that separate our nation from the banana republics of the world. It appears no institution can withstand Trump's corrupt touch, including the military.
Last week the nation got a glimpse of how generals and admirals will bend and twist their actions to protect their careers from the wrath of Trump. For example, spending taxpayer money to shore up a private airport in Scotland that is vital to a Trump resort, or remaining silent while Trump diverts funds intended to support the troops and their families to build a border wall rejected by Congress.
It's no secret that many generals and admirals act like politicians to advance their careers. However, unlike Moscow Mitch, Lindsey Graham and countless others in Congress who put party before country the nation requires military leaders to put country before self and their branch of service (party).
I love my country and the dedicated and brave service members that sacrifice so much to protect our nation and it sickens me how easily the basic needs of the troops and their families can be set aside to support a president who's behaviors are often corrupt, un-American and perhaps treasonous.
As a young officer it was drilled into me that the troops always come first. The current silence of retired and active flag offices about how Trump is corrupting the military does not bode well for the future of our military or our democracy.
29
I began to worry about a threat to Democracy watching the Democratic primaries in 2016. What looked like a rigged election contributed to Trump's election. Apparatchiks like Krugman defending that election and the system as it is don't help either.
unfortunately, I fear, we are going to be forced to find out what we are made of as a country. Are we going to be an engaged citizenry or complacent until it could be too late?
6
I think the Alabama story is about Trump signaling that an entity (a state or a governor) could bargain with him for federal funds like FEMA money. For a price Trump can declare that your a disaster.
5
Do you really believe that our democracy is dying? Or it is dead already.
Just think about it, using gun control as an example. With so many thrilling cases of mass killing recently in America, is the ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazine so difficult? Our elected representatives on average supposedly show more courage and intelligence than ordinary citizen. But nothing has happened. What is going on in congress?
If democracy does not function properly or non exist in congress, I don't know where else can it be more obvious.
6
I don't know if the coexist project is working. I don't see much evidence based research supporting tactics utilized for those of us asked to support the "minorities" in my area. It has been torturous. I don't think I can support for-profit-prisons in Texas and PA, that continuously crush a person's spirit and physical body, in the name of supporting OPEC countries.
Although I appreciate the ministry of Chuck Swindoll, this is incomprehensible. Therefore, what are we doing about economic inequality and a lack of resources to be employed?
It's easy to blame Trump and the GOP but the demise of representative democracy in our country -- the failure of the American Experiment cannot be separated from the rise of corporate dominance and that includes both parties. Our government and our representation have been purchased and our future sold. Follow the money to offshore havens and you'll find that no leader, industry or member of the 1% can be separated from the rest. If we want to take back a representative democracy which includes us, we will have to demand it, electing crowd-funded candidates (if that is possible) and taking it to the streets.
18
@Al M Corporate dominance has been promoted far more by Republicans than by Democrats. Both Parties may have some measure of responsibility, but one Party (Republican) has the much larger share.
6
@cjg
What you assert was true prior to Bill Clinton and the rise o the DNC. If you want to return the Democrats to being the party of the people and of the New Deal, vote for Sanders.
@Al M
Agreed.
Marching boots and banners? Bernie saying we're having a revolution? Trump is barricaded in the White House? I don't think so. Our democracy will end because a professional elite not in touch with the people who elect or appoint them think they know best because they are degreed intellectuals trained in governance.
FDR tried but couldn't get us to go to war. He was right, the people and the elite were wrong. FDR probably abused his powers worse than any other president but still believed in the peoples will. We survived FDR but how you survive an elite that demands you think exactly them. One that could never think it's wrong.
3
@JoeG
"... think they know best because they are degreed intellectuals trained in governance..." But looking around you won't find many examples of such authoritarian regimes being led by such intellectuals. What Prof. Krugman is saying here is already happening: a mentally limited President is packing Washington with those who he thinks will do his bidding, and he will take any chance he gets to take control of govenment on a permanent basis. The next step is Putin's variation, where elections are held but those opposed to the ruling regime are kept on a leash. The Hungary model is more difficult in such a large country as the US.
7
@JoeG I don't know too many Americans who will say that our government is never wrong. The elite with degrees earned by study and hard research have a better chance at finding the best path than do the uneducated.
Trump's administration, such as it is, is run by champions of deregulation and low taxes. Too often they have an unusual level of vested interest in what they regulate. Corruption ensues.
4
@JoeG It is not the "elites" as you call them that are ruining Democracy. Instead, it is a group of wealthy Republican sociopaths whose greed and disrespect for the Middle Class and poor are driving their policy. They are after money and power and have given little thought to how policy affects their constituents.
When I woke up on the morning after the 2016 election, I thought, "Well, the American Experiment has had a good run. But it's over now." Very little since that day has made me think otherwise.
32
@Franly
You must have not been paying attention to the 2018 election.
Google is again the object of a large investigation and billions of Euros in fines in Europe for cheating the laws about privacy, not respecting the protection of data concerning children , infringing the laws of concurrence and monopoly, cheating on its shopping search engines, dishonesty on Google new employment market app, etc..
Not without forgetting the massive fiscal fraud from Google and the other US tech corporations resulting in 20 % theft on the annual EU budget .
That is democracy disappearing when the general philosophy of US business is dishonesty, cheating, stealing , abusing power . Not respecting the laws .
13
To make matters even worse, throw a completely broken, useless Congress, the definition of a self serving, accomplishing very little, if anything other than incumbency, in to the crucible of ingredients that most despot third world countries display. Their, Congress's latest grab at a bight, shiny, populist, low controversy object to beat up on is the institution of innovation, hard work by large numbers of persons with similar goals, and achievements of man to truly provide the tools to make possible the "information age" we so willingly wanted to become- Google, Amazon, Apple. The new Congressional model is to attack these institutions, which are surely cornerstones of whatever economic greatness we still have, and shake them down for billions of dollars in "fines" for their success. Hey, it works in Europe!
4
I commend Krugman for using the word "fulsome" correctly and fittingly. Rare to see or hear.
11
Authoritarianism politics,
Henoko US base issue,
Public document disrespected,
neglected deliberations,
Falsification of basis or data to pass problematic bill,and so
Japan's democracy also is about to die.
6
Commerce secretary threatened to fire top NOAA employees if they didn't disavow Alabama tweet. This is a "The Emperor's New Clothes" story.
29
The biggest problem is that nobody is doing anything about Trump's abuses. NOBODY!
29
Funny. Coming from the party that wants to put the State in control of all aspects of life. Trump may be a blowhard but you can not argue that he is not the most transparent president ever. He has also stuck remarkably close to what he promised to do in his campaign. No false advertising.
3
@Daphne
Trump promised to make no cuts to Medicare, but his 2020 budget includes a reduction in Medicare spending.
He promised to make Mexico pay for the wall; but they will not be paying for the wall, the military - and, by extension, the American taxpayer - will.
He said he would cut funding from sanctuary cities, but he has not.
He promised a commission on radical Islam and mandatory minimum sentences on people caught entering the country illegally - neither of which have happened.
He's promised to end birthright citizenship, but he has not.
He promised to push for a Constitutional amendment enacting term limits for members of Congress. He hasn't done that.
He hasn't jailed Hilary or enacted the death penalty for cop killers - though he promised to do both.
He promised a $550 billion dollar fund for infrastructure. We have yet to see this fund.
He said he'd eliminate Common Core. The Common Core standards still exist in most states.
He promised a freeze on federal hiring. Nope.
He promised to enact a lifetime ban on foreign lobbyists caught raising money for American elections. He hasn't put any such ban in place and seems to have changed his mind on whether foreign meddling is even really such a bad thing.
He said he'd renegotiate with Iran and create a safe space for Syrian refugees: but we haven't seen it.
He said he'd bring back waterboarding - which hasn't happened.
He said he'd repeal Obamacare. Guess what.
Should we go on?
2
You mean like when he said he would build a border wall and Mexico would pay for it? Or when he said health insurance would be better and cheaper? The list of intentional lies goes on and on and on.....
@Daphne Still waiting fo the check from Mexico, the greatest health care plan, lower drug prices and the swamp to drain....need I go on.
Either historians will write about the death of democracy due to Trump or they will summarize his presidency as follows: everything he did was undone after he left office because the vast majority of Americans realized that he was off his rocker.
22
Consider what happened to Kathy Griffin in 2017: freedom of speech? She was investigated by DoJ and put on the no fly list.
13
Pence and the rest of the administration will not be treated kindly by history if they continue to ignore their responsibility and invoke the 25th amendment. Their Nuremberg trails will be interesting.
9
The frogs don't recognize that the water temperature in the pot is increasing until it's too late.
11
@TR
This is a vicious slander on frogs. Frogs are exotherms: they require external heat sources to maintain their body temperature and their survival depends on their acute sensitivity to temperature changes around them. Humans might be woefully dense when it comes to recognizing and reacting appropriately to danger, but leave the poor frogs out of this.
1
Donald Trump asked nearly 3 years ago "What do you have to loose?" Answer is our decency, our democracy, our liberty, our clear air, our clean water, well now that I think of it, pretty much everything.
36
I'm surprised nobody has parsed Trump's assertion that Alabama was in Dorian's path. It may be that the explanation for his mistake, though simple, is too frightening. We have the perfect storm, as it were, of a president who doesn't know the difference between a state and a city, doesn't know US geography and doesn't know how to read particularly well. So he looked at weather maps that, from bottom to top, showed Florida, Atlanta, South Carolina and North Carolina in the path of the hurricane and misread the second name. Look for yourselves. The word Georgia, for some reason, didn't appear on the maps. The word Atlanta did. Trump, not knowing Alabama's not on the east coast, read Atlanta as Alabama. Yes, he's that stupid.
36
@moviebuff
The map shown with the black “sharpie” marking does not have any state or city names, just state abbreviations. Also, he did list Georgia in his tweet.
Dr. Krugman is absolutely right about the fragile state of our democracy. And worse - Trump's consolidation of absolute power is nearly complete. What is far worse than Trump's lies themselves is that NOAA, a governmental agency, backed down from telling the truth, after receiving threats from Trump's Commerce Chief. Thus, NOAA caved in and perpetrated Trump's lies.
Trump may have been elected as "president" but three years on, there is no doubt that he is now a dictator. Both Hitler and Mussolini rose to power through entirely legal, parliamentary means, and after elections. This did not stop them from becoming fascist tyrants. And the same is true with Trump.
The point is, as Trump continues to instill fear, many more people will not dare to cross him by doing something as benign as telling the truth. People's livelihoods are at stake. The safety of people's families is at stake. We have been very naive as a people for some time, to think that our leaders would not stoop to threaten people's well-being, or the safety of their families. Those days are long over.
The fact is, anyone who speaks out against Trump may be his next victim. We now have a "leader" who knows he may rule through fear. He knows, three years on, that we won't challenge him. He proudly tells us he won't leave office, either after 4 or 8 years. He's counting on our silence - our appeasement - our fear of him. And if the past three years are any measure, he is right to do so.
15
The decline of the USA has accelerated. It was always hard to justify the constant war machine even when the motives were cleverly disguised. The Iraq war blew the cover off the chicken hawks.
Both parties have allowed the middle class to whither. Now with a stupid/evil clown in charge fulfilling the worst of the GOP money transfer and environmental degradation, our fate may be sealed. They are marching in the streets of Hong Kong for freedom. We are sitting around doing nothing.
8
Perspective is what enables a sense of humor. Krugman has lost his sense of humor which can be traced directly back to a loss of perspective. This just isn't as earthshaking as he makes out. Trump might nibble around the edges but he doesn't get in the game unless we 1) lose our sense of humor/propensity for laughing at him, and 2) we assume that he can do what he claims he can do. This whole thing, courtesy of this NYT tree full of owls, is a self inflicted tragedy.
Learn to laugh at him, ridicule him, point to him as an object of humor. Stop taking yourselves and this episode so seriously. This will only damage the Republic if you cooperate with him. And you are, Krugman.
2
@Charles Becker
But Dr. Krugman says this episode "was kind of funny" until NOAA knuckled under. Seems that some are forced to "cooperate with him."
2
@Charles Becker
This is no longer a laughing matter. It is as serious as a heart attack!
Time to wake up and smell autocracy in the making.
@Bash,
It didn't start out to be a laughing matter, but what you and Krugman seem to have missed is that it has become one. Laugh at him, it's what he most hated.
1
Professor Krugman's lament would be more convincing if he had not previously announced that all Republicans were liars.
1
You mean, they aren't?
What do Americans think Reagan was saying when he joked about being from the government and was there to help? What do Americans think Bannon was talking about when he talked about dismantling the deep state? What do you think Goldwater was saying when he said; Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice?
6
I believe the Trump administration (Wilbur Foss) threatened the careers of those in the NOAA if they didn't support his highness. I very much dislike Trump but I really hate his supporters.
10
This is nauseating, has in makes physically ill. I'm no fan of Trump or the Republicans and I didn't vote for them. But the pretending the Democrats had nothing with our democracy dying? Some examples just because I'm irritated by the whole the Democrats had nothing to do with things:
1) What party was in power and signed off on China's admission to the WTO? Thus increasing the wholesale shipping of American jobs to the 3rd world ? A great deal for donors much less so for the people the Democrats purport to represent don'[t you think?
2) What party signed off on bailing out the banks & Wallstreet while telling Main street tough luck? Come to think of it who was the president who told Main street tough luck & Shut up I don't care? I'll give you a hint Bush was already out of office.
3) Look at who the biggest contributors to Pelosi & Schumer are, then look at the policies they push? Now tell me again whose side the Democrats are on!
4) Was the former President's wife honestly the best candidate the Dems could come up with? Or was the fix in?
I don't much care for the Republicans, But pretending the Democrats are innocent little lambs who have nothing to do with mess is an insult to my intelligence, I'm not that dumb!
By the way blaming Trump is ridiculous he's a symptom not a cause Democracy was dead to dying long before he came along. I don't like him but your fooling yourself if you believe he's the sole cause of the problems!
8
@Stephan Thank you for an honest and straightforward view. There are a lot of policies the Dems are pushing that a lot of Americans do not agree with or are against. The media would serve the people and the country best by writing more balanced articles. Democracy begins to die when freedom of speech becomes aligned with an opposing political party. Granted the media has the right to do this and in some cases they may be right. Bring true journalism back and let the people decide. Show us the people how powerful democracy can be.
The steps to an authoritarian country are outlined in the short (193 pages) book published by Naomi Wolf in 2007, titled "The End of America." We are changing rapidly, as she warns.
7
Democracy doesn't die because of a single bad apple happens to get elected. It dies from a thousand cuts. It dies because the people who are elected to provide checks and balances bend their knees to kiss the king.
It isn't a surprise that President Donald Trump and most of his cabinet is incompetent at governing. It is pathetic that the so called party of personal responsibility has become their chief enabler.
If American democracy is crippled the GOP is the virus that is crippling it.
21
I have been saying since before Trump became President that he is a fascist, intent on becoming a member of the world's oligarch club. It has been mind-boggling to me how long it has taken people to see the obvious. While he has been happily distracting the puerile media with his smoke and mirrors twitter nonsense, his administration has been rapidly and systematically purging Federal agencies and dismantling our system of government. It's about time Krugman woke up! Raise the alarm!
6
At tonight's rally, Trump looked like he was on medication. He must have been, because he " joked " about staying on as President until 2026 when the US hosts the world cup. The scary thing here is that he wasn't joking.
8
Why do you think Donald like to be friends with Putin and Xi? He loves the way these two run their countries, and how they suppress the media and press.
The world has always been full of people like Donald, but the biggest problem is not him, it is the Republican Party who would rather sell their souls to him and rack in the donations from billionaires and corporate special interest group.
And don't forget the voters who put Donald in the White House in 2016, except I am not sure why these voters would rather suffer and yet vote for him..
That is the biggest mystery to me.
12
Not just America. Right-wing populists like Trump, Johnson, Morrison, Netanyahu, Erdogan, Orban are all busy using government agencies to harass their opponents and silence dissent.
9
I propose a new scale, for Trump almost disasters and whoppers. Just like the Fujita F1 thru F5 for tornadoes. Call it the Trump Incompetence Scale T1 thru T5. I’ll give sharpiegate a T2, because no real damage occurred, BUT it showed His craven sociopathy for all to see. And, complete silence from the GOP/NRA Party. VOTE them ALL out.
Seriously.
8
That Mitch McConnell and other Congressional Republicans are not raising the alarm and acting to stop the madness ( ps slinking away into retirement doesn’t count), is truly alarming.
The best hope we have is to defeat every conservative and Republican at every upcoming election.
Without the White House, Senate and House of Representatives nothing will stop.
Then, as a nation, we must retain full memory of the Trump and McConnell destruction. As the disasters of their policies and actions/ inactions take fold we must be careful not to blame the new administration when the problems bubble up and there are no quick solutions. This will be a long arduous digging out.
When I worked in lending it was said it takes one fool with the approval pen to cause years of cleanup for an army of debt collectors.
We have a few fools with the pen. Time to take it and the sharpie away.
8
Two points:
Trump's willingness to deceive/scare innocent people must be rejected. You could be Trump's next victim.
The auto makers are not benevolent reformers. They have been pulled kicking and screaming into making safer and more fuel efficient cars.
We'll see if they resist Trump's threats, and we'll see how much money they give for Trump's reelection.
5
Paul Krugman's column is a prescient warning. The problem is he is preaching to the choir, only reaching people who already care about America.
The people responsible for putting Trump in the White House are the same people who put Republicans in Congress, governorships and state houses. Professor Krugman could not change their minds even if his columns reached this 40 percent of the country (which they don't because these people can't take time away from viewing Fox and drooling over Trump's tweets).
These people welcome the end of democracy in America. They have been busy working towards that end for decades by supporting gerrymandering, voter registry purges, voter restrictions and representatives pledged to a theocracy, not a democracy.
14
Trump is acting in a political vacuum due to the complete absence of any pushback by an amazingly supine Republican Party. Even Joseph McCarthy was eventually done in part by his own Party, who finally saw the damage he was doing to the country.
When I think of Republican members of Congress, like Rob Portman, sitting silently on their haunches as Trump behaves like a runaway wrecking ball, I am appalled by their cowardice and, worse, their failure to act as a legitimate check on Presidential aggrandizement.
They have become, in one of Churchill's better descriptions, sheep in sheep's clothing. And the rest of us are paying a steep price for their timidity.
17
Horrible and horrible. Blessing in disguise? Yes, Trump's actions are scary. However, putting a brake on Amazon's constant delivery to each person, pushing cheap products with extra packaging that we don't need is most likely better for the environment.
1
Although there were so many lines in this op-ed noting what infuriates this taxpayer with the Trump administration, this one is at the top of my list: "In less than three years it (the Justice Department) has been transformed from an agency that tries to enforce the law to an organization dedicated to punishing Trump’s opponents."
Under the so-called leadership of Trump, the primary concern of those leading the government institutions created to protect and defend the constitution are, instead, protecting and defending Trump's war against those he considers to be his enemies. AG Barr is the poster boy for this corruption of the democratic ethos--his guiding light is clearly politics and not the law.
The democratic ethos that made America great long before Trump arrived on the scene is dying on his watch, and we taxpayers are the suckers that are paying for the demise of our democracy. Why are we paying taxpayers continuing to subsidize such a perversion of the nation's guiding beliefs enshrined in our founding documents?
7
What is the matter with these government agencies that contradict their own pronouncements to satisfy Trumps ego? In this Through the Looking Glass world all is upside down. Trump is a little man full of hot air. They all act like he is some kind of lion, which he is not. He is a only a paper lion. This overwhelming fear of Trump is way out of line, they need to stand up to a bully. They all need to stand up to him. Their world would right itself quite promptly once again. Trump is truly the definition of "All hat and no cattle".
3
@joyce Tell that to James Comey and Andy McCabe.
The final sentence, "If you aren't worried about the future of American democracy, you aren't paying attention", is only a little more than half true. Most Republicans see Trump's actions against democracy as features to cheer, not defects. Enthusiastically so. Why would they want democracy when their buns are buttered by Trump?
2
I believe it is the failure of our educational system to properly prepare kids to participate in a free democracy. Trump’s followers appear to be a bunch of people needing and willing to accept simple answers even if provided by a con man and even if his answers are outright nonsense. Selling snake oil or real estate is no preparation to lead a nation, amongst nations. The art of the deal has no relevance to the art of diplomacy. A president who boasts of never paying taxes to cheering crowds has got to be the most outrageous demonstration of a lack of support for the nation he leads, as is the failing of those who cheer him on basking in the benefits of a country which protects them while they sleep and local first responders who would show up in time of their need regardless of someone’s politics. It is said often and again that the first casualty of war is the truth. As long as the first amendment allows for open dialogue we are safe until it endorses outright lies and propaganda designed to bring down the republic. That is the activity of a traitor, I won’t mention any names, you all know who they are.
5
What's fascinating to me is how easily the Justice Department has been corrupted. I would have thought lawyers who are dedicated to upholding the law and punishing criminals would have pushed back against Barr's clear abuse of his power and office. Instead, they seem to have rolled over. Where is the rush of resignations, the condemnation of the clear politicization of the Dept's powers? If it is this easy to destroy the institution to uphold American justice, then the US has been a failed state in waiting for a long time. The rot comes from above, but it seems to have had fertile ground in which to grow.
6
@Shaun Narine In most cases, the people making these decisions are political appointees or their immediate subordinates. Apparently, they're willing to do the President's bidding to keep their jobs and stay in the good graces of the Republican party.
2
American democracy is 230 years old. There have been 116 sessions of Congress. We’re on our 45th President. We have grown from a small piece of coastland to a massive territory reaching from sea to shining sea. And we have been utterly transformed, first by the industrial revolution and then by the tech revolution. Talk of the demise of democracy after less than three years of Trump is either wildly premature or patently absurd. Buck up Mr. Krugman.
@michjas Just as with markets, past performance is not indicative of future results. Krugman mentions many of the signs of creeping autocracy and notes places now where that shift is taking place. As he says, "If you aren’t worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention." You might want to pay more attention.
1
Anyone who is paying attention would know we don't have a democracy. We have a pale imitation of a republic which serves the oligarchs, not the people. It has gradually worsened since the 1980's, and only a romantic fool would expect anything different.
I spent a long weekend in Montreal recently. Looks better all the time.
6
@Victor
I agree, we already do not have a democracy!
It really doesn't take a rocket scientists to figure out how fundamentally ignorant, narcissistic and dangerous Trump and his corrupt cronies have been and will be until they're out. But apparently, it takes a vast majority to actually care enough to do something about it. We're not anywhere near that vast majority. We need much more than intelligent thoughts and fervent prayers right now. We need a miracle or recognition.
2
I realize that it's difficult to even summarize the abuses of power of the Trump regime in one column, but Trump pressuring AG Sessions to weaponize the Justice Department and pursue a partisan witch hunt against Trump's political opponents and then forcing him out when he refused is a massive abuse of power. The only appropriate response to such an abuse of power is impeachment and removal. If Obama had done something like that Republicans would have certainly impeached him, but this is Trump so conservative hypocrites defend him instead.
2
I can see the political ads now: 'Trump and his congressional supporters want you get less mileage, pay more for gas, and have your kids breath more pollution". Democracy at it's best. "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time" Abraham Lincoln.
Have faith, we are far from being licked just yet.
1
There’s an aspect to this that needs to be addressed; the failure of the press to recognize what has been happening for years and call it out.
While Trump has really been pushing the limits, the slide down the slippery slope began long ago.
Alternative facts? Reagan had them with his welfare queens and killer trees. VooDoo economics. And lets not forget arms for hostages and Iran-Contra.
Fiscal imprudence? George H.W. Bush with his “No new taxes” actually raised them - and was never forgiven by the GOP for that. (But then there were those pardons, and a lot swept under the rug.)
Has everyone forgotten how bad the George W Bush regime was? The lies, the corruption, the incompetence? Leave it to Trump to make them look good now.
Frauds like Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell pay no price for their crimes - they flourish.
The GOP should have no credibility on anything at this point. And yet the media still tries to peddle false equivalence and look the other way. Why?
The right wing has been beating up on the press for years - and it’s worked. Beating up on Democrats to ‘prove’ no bias on the part of the press is practically a reflex now.
The sewer of Fox ‘News’ and talk radio is an abomination. They and Trump are joined at the hip.
Professor Krugman, you have been an outstanding voice of reason. Please come flat out and say what has become obvious: Trump must be removed from office and the GOP driven from power.
The press is failing us.
6
Why is the Democratic Party leadership allowing the ignorant egomaniac Trump run this country into the ground and overturn our democracy? Where are the demonstrations of young people protesting in the street like there were against the Vietnam War or now in Hong Kong? The Brits are putting limits on Boris Johnson's Dictatorship. Why is Trump being allowed to do what ever he pleases with no meaningful opposition?
1
The most serious threat we have to face is from our fellow Americans and our electoral system. 40% or so LIKE the way Trump is "governing." The electoral college and electoral districts and voting rights have been quietly rigged, and one heck of a lot of people LIKE it because they think they've been rigged in their favor. The hard truth is that if this is so, if this is who we are, we don't deserve democracy.
4
This last part of the article caught my eye:
"The point is that this is how the slide to autocracy happens. ... What they do, instead, is use their control over the machinery of government to make life difficult for anyone considered disloyal, until effective opposition withers away.
And it’s happening here as we speak. If you aren’t worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention."
That may be true of an autocracy, no doubt. But we live in a plutocracy, not so much a democracy, where instead of opponents getting punished for criticizing the government, the donors are rewarded for supporting those in power. The oligarchs and corporations have hedged their bets and basically bought both political parties and their candidates outright. Forget funding grassroots efforts that may fail, and the outcomes unpredictable, go directly to the politician in charge and drop a large wad of cash in their lap and threaten to do the same to their opponent if they don't vote your way. For the heads of agencies that are suppose to be the watchdogs of an industry, give notice that there is a six to seven-figure salary awaiting them when they leave their government service. Wink, wink. This is the state of American "democracy." We all know how it works. Trump is just the manifestation incarnate of our corrupt system that usually operates in the shadows; where we get a brief glimpse of it on a 60 Minutes news show but yet nothing of real significance changes.
4
Trump is a committed authoritarian who obtained power through the support of Putin and who feels that like Putin he is entitled to use government power to reward his supporters and punish his enemies. He has always been shady and corrupt in his business practices and is just continuing that conduct as President. He would be happy to remain in power as long as his friends Kim and Vladimir.
He believes it is acceptable to smear his opponents and just allowing the chant lock her up during his campaign reveals what an amoral demagogue and enemy to democratic principles he is!
3
I don't know what I find more insulting, the fact that this person temporarily holding this nation's highest office would commit all these offenses in the first place, or that he would do so out in the open for all to see. If this nation's is truly so cynical as to look pass all of these offenses, any one of which is grounds for impeachment, we deserve what the Republican Party are cultivating - the end.
1
Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal had it spot on when they called trump a chaos candidate that would be a chaos president and an unstable narcissist.
Whatever happened to those guys?
They need to speak up!
3
Right on Mr. Krugman. But tell me how can this not be apparent to the American voters? If this incompetent President is elected again I fear for our future.
1
I still can't figure out why the GOP supports Trump so solidly.
Is it political self-interest, representing their constituents, attempting to prevent the advance of "socialism", "protecting"
white society?
3
@Paul
I think it's a sort of complex, toxic brew. Nihilism based on a sense of utter economic defeat and no prospects of the future in a scary, techno-world, combined with basic racism/xenophobia that has lingered, sometimes without a voice, for over 150 years, plus a dose of second-amendment libertarian tendencies and emotional fundamentalist issues like abortion. All of these internal emotions and feelings nurtured and fed daily by a right-wing radio and television stream. Mix it all up together and you have your 40%. Or 45%. Or maybe 48%. I don't even know anymore. I used to think it was impossible that over 40% of our populace fit into that brew - but I have my doubts now.
The only answer I have is to counter. Get the 52% , or the 55%, or the 60%, or whatever it is, out there and voting this time around.
If the white house is won, then try to roll back the damage as quickly as possible. If the Senate is somehow won (ya never know!), then start to enact laws that actually help people, instead of the .05%.
1
I am " worried about the future of American democracy" so come 2020 election campaign season I'll be out canvassing to get the Democratic voters to the polls. There's nothing like a face to face to motivate people. Also, on the Republican attacks against the liberal media, I have to remark that Freedom of the Press is perhaps our most important freedom and, yes, it does allow house organs like Fox News to say just about anything. If we (the people) are uninformed and stupid, we will be susceptible to misinformation.
2
Mr. T is a racist. Since taking over, he has swept aside policy after policy that his immediate predecessor, a man of color, had enacted. The Trump rollback in fuel-mileage standards is only the latest of these doings. Mr. T, among other things, is a firm believer in the "right to pollute."
2
This is the natural outcome of the Radical Right's 50+ year effort to take over the country. What's fascinating is unilke Dubya, the horrific spawn of a dynastic family, we have Trump, basically a rich kid who got famous by spending money and shooting his mouth off. As Hunter S. Thompson famously said, "Things will get worse before they get worse."
1
@dajoebabe
It's true. It started with the Chamber of Commerce memo in the 70's. Reagan was a huge turning point.
But I don't think it would have gotten this bad without the abdication of responsibility of the informed citizen voter.
As a nation, I think we just sort of forgot that we lived in a democracy. Stopped paying serious attention. And now, with the screen addiction we all have, and the fact that no thought is worth more than 280 characters, our capacity to become informed is seriously damaged.
Maybe, just maybe, 2020 will surprise us with an electorate who is paying attention. If what is happening now is not enough to wake up the voters, I'm afraid nothing would be.
1
@O
All great points! Let's hope for something better!
What is truly scary to me is not Trump as an authoritarian ruler, but Trump as a completely useful fool for the GOP.
The GOP has been trying to remove the guard-rails of democracy for decades. Voter suppression, Billionaire tax breast hat do not trickle down, the hysteric fights over women rights, abortion and guns. The stacking of courts with partisan hacks without actual judicial experience. The refusal of Mitch Graveyard McConnell to pick up bills on the floor if they come from Democrats.
And perhaps one of their biggest and most subtle successes, Fox State Television. The propaganda channel for the GOP that demonises half of the country as socialists and all migrants as rapists.
And then they got Trump. Maybe not exactly what they bargained for. But he has accelerated the process that was already taking place for decades. For too long the Democrats have played the short game, while the GOP has played a much longer game.
This will not stop. Not unless the Democrats win the presidency, the senate and the house. And the GOP must be voted into oblivion. Only then some of the damage can be undone.
3
@Dutchie
Yes. We have to fight and take back those branches.
There is also demographics. In the long-term, no amount of xenophobic deportations and draconian immigration laws will reverse the demographic shift in America. It's only a matter of time before the GOP as it is now known fades away. However, I'm not sure we have the time to wait, because if we leave it up to demographic shifts, the world will be in ruins.
This is what they want, of course. Their nihilism is worn quite publicly on their sleeves.
So yes, get the electorate out in 2020 and make every effort to sidestep or steamroller Republican efforts to suppress the vote.
That about 40% of Americans (which poles show includes a large percentage of Evangelicals) cannot yet grasp what in plain sight has, step-by-step, been going on for more than two years to destroy our democracy is truly unbelievable!
3
Never in human history has a privileged class given up those privileges willingly. This quote from Martin Luther King comes to when thinking of power drunk Trump and his republican enablers handing over power after a Trump defeat.
1
For a guy that uses "fake" more than any leader in modern history who is more responsible for fake news than Donald J. Trump. In the chapter on Alabama and Hurricane Dorian career civil servants were fearful of losing their jobs if they did not lie for Mr. Trump. Every adult that I have ever worked with had to walk something back or say that they were wrong. Trump is a man/child that cannot admit that he is wrong on anything so we live in his alternative reality. How soon can this bad movie be over?
2
In the end, what will they have gained from destroying this once great Republic? Money? Power? I can not get into their minds because I can not think so deviously.
If the America Republic survives, their names will go down in history as arch enemies (more accurately, traitors) of our grand experiment. How much in current dollars is that worth?
Life is short so enjoy it while you can Trump, McConnell, Bar, Ross et al.
1
For centuries, power was used to protect the Plutocracy and their ability to exploit the masses. Prosperity only resulted when our ancestors broke the backs of these thieves and redefined the role of government.
Republicans would love to being back the good old days.
1
Our system offers opulence to those who are brilliant and inventive but also to those who are advantaged, ruthless and exploitative. Our elected government has served to curb the excesses only now a demagogue is dismantling it.
After Trump rolls back gains under Obama, FDR and TR, his throng will find themselves belatedly disenthralled.
Paul, you forgot to mention another big culprit: The Democratic leadership in Congress. Pelosi et al are presumably sentient beings, and yet they've deliberately chosen to do nothing to curb the White House's breathtaking corruption? Has there been an administration in the modern era as corrupt, mendacious and authoritarian as the Trump White House? Has there been a president that so brazenly enriches himself with taxpayer money? Has there been a president whose lies and denial of reality show that he is clearly unfit to hold office?
And yet Pelosi and Congressional Dem leadership would rather gouge their own eyes out than to use their power to hold this administration accountable.
When this sordid era goes into the history books, Trump and his cronies and the entire GOP apparatus will be enshrined in infamy. But so too will the utterly spineless Congressional Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi.
3
"...it’s hard to point to a single moment and say, this is the day democracy ended. You just wake up one morning and realize that it’s gone."
One reason the past few years have been so frustrating for those of us who didn't, and never would have, voted for Trump is that the consequences of his tenure in the White House were foreseeable during the campaign, and are visible now. Except a certain percentage of America DOESN'T see them, and believes he's doing just fine.
How can anyone not take issue with a rude, overbearing, psychologically damaged philistine who, at will, molests norms, decency and the law?
As I said in an earlier post, the Dorian fiasco "...is no longer about a forecast, a hurricane, or a doctored map. This is about a malcontent POTUS who will not be questioned."
Now, with Trump's aggregation of wrongs having grown excessively numerous and dangerous, I have no idea what Nancy Pelosi is waiting for. Come on, Madam Speaker. Jerry Nadler can't do this alone.
4
I really can't figure out how 90% of Republicans support a guy who uses a Sharpie to mark up a forecast map, who thinks buying Greenland is a realistic idea, and who spends most of his time watching TV and tweeting about people like Chrissie Tiegen. Oh yeah, and he's a liar and an adulterer. I think it's just entertainment to Trump supporters, like a TV show or their social media feeds.
1
Yes , I agree we are sliding toward autocracy in this Country . There is one ray of hope though . That ray of hope is the degree of craziness in the Maximum Leader . When you compare Putin , Erdogan or Hungary`s Orban to Trump you find that none is as unhinged as Trump . To be successful and prevail the autocrat needs a certain amount of finesse and cunning . Trump has none of that . I lived in Castro`s Cuba and Franco`s Spain . Both were evil people but neither was as crazy as Trump . We may be lucky in the fact that when it happened here the aspiring autocrat is a pathetic clown . Sorry MR President , but you are no Putin .
1
There used to be a popular expression to describe a liar: "I wouldn't take his word for a rainy day." Nuff said.
1
Please be assured, that I AM worried about the future. As I heard just this evening on the news, there are so many violations of Trump's oath of office as "president," that the Judiciary Committee hardly knows where to start in triaging toward an impeachment inquiry. But as one committee member said, to paraphrase, We have to check all boxes at once and simultaneously, from Mueller's report to Trump using his business for profit both within our borders and abroad, e.g., the Air Force/Scotland debacle and the G-Seven plot. Perhaps the downright scariest of events within the past week is the administration's manipulation of NOAA, the latest being the threat of firings if it argued with Trump's Sharpie delusion, and this directive possibly straight from the mouth and pen of Comrade Wilbur. We depend on NOAA. Heaven's, people's lives depend on its programs! Yet here we are. Daily Trump becomes more dictatorial and unhinged, and daily his Cabinet, the whole unethical group, abet him. Let us not leave out, however, our GOP Senate with Moscow Mitch as its head, self-serving cowards, the whole dang bunch. One thought, though. The possible death of our democracy is not bit by bit or insidious. Rather it is blatant, rapid, and egregious.
4
Please ONLY vote for the democratic that will WIN.
There are too many EGOS in the way right now.
We MUST beat TRUMP! Vote for who will win!
@debra And how do we figure out who that is? If enough of us vote any one of them should be able to beat Trump.
1
I heard the phrase “Internet Warfare” and firmly believe that we are under attack via the internet. Our elections were hacked, a Russian operative was elected and he has systematically dismantled our republic for decades to come. The internet was used to divide our nation - polarize our citizens, create chaos. Divide and conquer. Yes we are under attack and it is a new type of war. Similar strategies are used in UK and EU. This is a global war without guns
3
“All hysteria, all the time,” The Resistance radio
The fact is nobody cares about or believes this nonsense. The people know that both parties are authoritarian and untrustworthy which is why they poll at the same favorability. Having spun a fantastical conspiracy theory of Trump being a Putin asset, we’re now on to abuse of weather.
1
@PeterC
Sorry. Both parties? No comparison. Not even close.
Take the first two and half years of the Obama presidency and compare them with the last two and half years.
Really? Both parties?
You have to exercise your best ability to willingly suspend disbelief to get even close. There is nothing like what is happening now in this white house. There never has been.
The right only moves in one direction: worse.
Every day, worse.
3
What's really scary as Krugman suggests is how the NOAA, the official US weather service, under threat of firing by Commerce Secretary Ross, ordered the field office Alabama not to correct or contradict misinformation about weather forecasts issued by America's Weatherman-in-Chief.
[Ross is known as "Sleepy" among Trump's cabinet dwarfs and reportedly pads around his office in a silk bathrobe and slippers.]
This signals how deeply Trump's minions have penetrated federal agencies as part of their plan to convert the Federal Government into a Trump-branded property.
I get why they've taken over the EPA, USDA, SEC, etc -- all regulatory agencies that Trump's bosses want gutted so they can poison, rip-off, overcharge, pollute, foreclose, abuse, whatever, to their profit's content.
But weather? What's next? The Office of Weights and Standards at the National Institute of Standards and Technology? The US Geological Survey?
Two weeks ago Pentagon brass diverted $3.6 billion earmarked for housing and schools for military families to pay for the Great Wall of Trump. Last week the Air Force tried to justify its use of Trump resorts for military stay-overs. Holy covefe but the Trumpification of the Federal Government is near complete.
Trump demands tribute from everyone. The people who pay taxes -- that's to say not Trump, his family or his billionaire boys club -- get to pick up the bill.
I say we stiff him.
9
Longer view. Democracy has been at risk since day 1 of this country. It even did start all that well. We even have a civil war, you know. This is the continuation of the same story. And the confederates do not need to win.
First, we can vote them out. Second, what would California, NY and Massachusetts do, surrender? This is not even close to be done, but not question that we are losing multiple battles. But the big battle comes in November of next year.
Hopefully the democrats are not distracted playing Wokemon.
If trimp is not impeached, it will be for the same reason he is not being twenty-fifth-ed. There aren’t enough leaders of integrity in the upper echelons of our government and economy. Of course, this is a reflection on all of the rest of us as investors, consumers, workers, and citizens.
3
If we do this right, Donald Trump will historically serve as the political equivalent of a vaccine against dictatorship. We are blessed that his rank stupidity prevents him from being truly effective, and his presence may cause our system to develop better defenses against more dangerous versions of his kind. Unfortunately we are at perpetual risk of reinfection from the cesspool of his followers, and the next one will be more slick and more dangerous.
3
We can all debate around the details, but I'm afraid the U.S. arrived at this point because most Americans mistake the government as a "democracy" instead of what it actually is: a constitutional republic. When I think of the last election results, based on the electoral map, it's a sea of red. This sea of red is composed of a "democratic" minority. It is the tyranny of the minority which has led us down this path and it's simply not right. The U.S. today is more of an "oligarcic geogracy" where an Iowan's vote counts far more than a Californian's simply based on zip code. This is ridiculous and until there are reforms to the electoral system, Americans need to brace themselves for less equality and more of this current nonsense. And, please, ask yourselves this key question: do you honestly feel like you're living in a democracy?
1
After years of paying lawyers to fight lawsuits from those he has scammed, culminating in the $25 million settlement for the fraudulent dealings of Trump University just before being elected, Trump is now in hog heaven at being able to use the DOJ under William Barr as his personal law office, and having the American taxpayer pick up the tab.
My fondest dream after he is removed in 2020, at least after that of seeing him in a prison jumpsuit, is to see him and his grasping progeny bankrupted by a blizzard of lawsuits that will keep them in court for the rest of their days. Karma.
3
“Think about it: If even weather forecasters are expected to be apologists for Dear Leader, the corruption of our institutions is truly complete.”
I’m as repelled as PK by Sharpiegate specifically and Dear Leader generally, but what this proves is that one hack at NOAA is completely corrupted. Let’s take a deep breath and get back to turning him/them out of office.
I can't believe that the mainstream media is trying to elevate "Sharpie-gate" to the level of an impeachable offense.
Does that mean that the Democratic candidates have to promise that they will never ever use Sharpies during the next debate?
Point the finger squarely at the racism and sense of entitlement of the people that makes up Trump’s base.
They are the ones turning a blind eye to every form of decency and Democratic norm.
Why is race such a powerful issue?
I haven’t read all the comments so maybe someone else has already said this. The one thing that will stop the charade, which may not happen while Trump is an office or indeed in my lifetime, is when the climate crisis becomes fully apparent. While not solely victims of the current climate, the citizens of the Bahamas would not care one whit what Mr. Trump does with a sharpie
1
When Comey said that the FBI was going to further investigate Clinton I was reading William Shirer's Berlin Diaries, and I got an instant bad feeling. I told my WWII blitzed mother that Comey's statement was one of those seemingly inconsequential events that will have enormous consequences. She agreed. She's seen it all before. I knew because anyone who devours history gets an instinctual feeling for such things. That's the day that set the country on its path to authoritarianism. One initially hoped, forlornly as it now appears, that the famous, oft-spouted checks and balances of our government would save the day. But those have been proven a fallacy by one obdurate, sycophant party willing to see the U.S.A. "flound'ring like a man in fire or lime".
3
The democracy that Krugman and the other leftist commenters perceive as at risk of loss, never existed.
What they are really seeing is the deconstruction of decades of creeping, incremental implementation by the progressive left, of statist socialism.
Fish, don't recognize that they live in a fishbowl. This is also true of smug, condescending elitist progressive leftists - the ones who cheered when Hillary described half the population of the United States as "deplorable" just because they oppose the progressive worldview.
When such people are bemoaning the loss of their fantasy world, it's a good day for those of us outside the fishbowl.
The Founders explicitly stated that they didn't want the concentrated populations of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc. to dominate the politics of the entire nation.
They despised the political depravity of such people, and put the electoral college in place to defend the republic against them.
Trump will be re-elected in 2020, exactly, because everyone who elected him remembers that Warren, Sanders, Harris, O'Rourke, and all the rest agreed completely with Hillary's revealing insult.
They are all cut from the same cloth - one which is being thrown into the wastebin by the sensible people in the rest of the nation.
1
@Objectivist
Not all persons who are anti-Trump are socialists. Go read the Bulwark.
And accusing progressivists of living in a fantasy world is ironic considering how many lies MAGAs are swallowing daily.
What is happening today is what conservative political philosophy has warned would happen, ever since it was invented.
Absolute monarchies and other aristocratic regimes were supposed to be better, including for "we the people", because, the conservative argument went, aristocrats are literally (in ancient Greek) "the best" that society has produced. They not only have benefited from the best education, and as a consequence are the "wisest" among us, with the best and deepest knowledge about things that truly matter, they are also the wealthiest, so they're already used to managing big chunks of land and budgets.
The vast majority of ordinary citizens has neither that knowledge nor "management" experience, so it would be foolish to let them have an influence on important political decisions!
And then Western countries turned into democracies, and conservative philosophy became a mere political doctrine of one specific political party.
From then on, self-declared "aristoi" had to find a way to take back power, ALL while being elected by a ("stupid") majority. So they use what all dictatorships need to use: massive, fake news, and actively keeping people poor, sick and ignorant (= easier victims of fake news).
The main flaw in this kind of philosophy: the "self-declared" part of considering yourself to be an "aristos", one of the country's "best".
With fake news, people will NOT elect "the best", and THEN the conservative nightmare (mob rule) actually becomes true.
2
You cant have an honest talk about the collapse of Democracy and the rise of authoritarianism with out mentioning the disastrous mandatory vaccine laws that are being put in place across this country (NY and California being the worst offenders). Indeed, as Mr. Krugman states, “it’s happening here as we speak. If you aren’t worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention.
Thank you for this warning, very necessary truth.
If this unrestrained authoritarian is elected to another 4 year term, start turning the lights “off” America. Trump will undoubtedly attempt to subvert every single instrument of state power to serve his own narrow, corrupt, and criminal personal ends. The F.B.I. will start functioning like Putin’s F.S.B. And to think that we once thought Nixon, with his secret “enemies list”, represented a threat to the republic. How quaint, next to this Fake President’s dictatorial ambitions.
1
What trivial examples. All Presidents do things like this.
The monumental threat to democracy is the likely Democratic nominee saying she will outlaw all fracking by executive order on her first day in office. Or it is Buttigieg saying he will pack the Supreme Court so it will legislate the Democratic social program without any possibility of a check.
Sharpiegate is the canary in the coal mine for how Democracy died? Every news outlet blasted Trump for his Sharpie marks on the map, and no one was rounded up and put in jail for it. How is Democracy dead? If Democracy is dying, it is from biased media on both the left and right labeling themselves as 'news' but really just propaganda. The news propaganda has become so obvious to the general public that they seek other news from unorthodox outfits like YouTube and Facebook, where enemies of the state operate to misinform the public.
Even yesterday I read interviews with pro-Brexit voters in the UK, where one of them said that he wished they could have Trump in the UK, because "he is good for the economy, he's decisive and he goes straight to the point".
This is a common sentiment among unsophisticated, low-information people all over the world: as long as they feel their wallets are protected and that their leader is strong and decisive, they are happy to elect an authoritarian or even an outright fascist. These are desperate times. Democracy is failing because too many people are too ignorant or too intellectually lazy to understand the immense complexity of the world we live in.
And thus they open the door to authoritarian charlatans and con men, whose only interest is to enrich themselves, their families and their circle of well-connected cronies and special interests, while spreading the crumbs out to the populace and make them seem like golden nuggets.
1
In a global market, it does a manufacturer with a world wide footprint no good if standards are too asymmetrical across markets. It's far more efficient to produce one model that can be sold anywhere.
If a gap opens up between European, Asian and American standards in fuel efficiency, U.S. based plants that conform only to lower American standards won't be able to export. This is the great irony in Trump's "approach". When he'll scream about trade deficits in cars, he won't understand that it's partly of his own making.
The second negative consequence is how regulations become features (e.g. airbags). Once European and Asian plants have incorporated fuel efficiency improvements, they're just another sunk cost. At that point, all the consumer sees is the "feature" of greater gas mileage, which can easily be marketed to positively impact purchase decision. So once again, U.S. based plants are hurt in the Marketplace by Trump.
Finally, there was a time when most countries in the developing world adopted American standards as a matter of course. For example, OSHA become the norm most everywhere. That it came from America was reason enough. Today, many countries are looking to other models. For example, I've looked at SASO (Saudi Arabia) standards for tires. Much of the text was lifted from ETRTO (Europe) and JATMA (Japan) instead of from the NHTSA. Just another example of the erosion of American leadership.
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Once again, Trump supporters either forgot their Western European and US Government history classes or they believe that destruction of democratic principles will make there lives better. It make make them feel better, but it will surely not to help their financial or healthcare security.
Its scary. I try to focus on my belief that the American people expect so much more that they will come around. I think they will...
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The authoritarian nature of the progressive agenda is frightening. A small group of ideologues dictating what each person can eat, drive, own, and earn.
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@JoeGiul //What are you even talking about? Conservative talk radio?...not the real world. Name one piece of legislation that has ever been passed that has kept you from driving the car you want, eating the food you want, buying what you want, kept you from a job you want...Did you even read and understand the article?
I don't accept that American Democracy is dying. Painting one's opponent as an avatar of the Fall of Valhalla has always been a two-edged sword.
It is true that American political discourse has declined badly under the influence of Twitter and the consequent withering of serious Journalism, but labelling every opposing political move as a "coup" is losing its persuasiveness.
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There are studies that show deregulation may be no more of a miracle cure for the economy than trickle down economics.
In addition, one party deregulation, means the regs are likely to return. So this adds an additional measure of uncertainty to planning. So you may gain a point or two in regs you want and lose as many points in uncertainty.
Reagan went to Philidelphia MS to kick off his campaign with a states rights speech at a place only known for killing freedom riders. So for decades con mantra is states should be supreme. Now states rights is being sued by Barr's DOJ.
The grifter-in-chief AG is suing CA for their pollution regs. What Trump and/or Barr don't get is auto makers have been acquiescent to California regs on pollution for decades. Supply chains have mostly moved to adopting their regs for pollution abatement rather than carry two models of cars (one for CA and another for 49ish other states).
Once again we see another conservative theme (states rights) melt away to the idea of deregulation makes money for the 1%.
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@DP: Yes, and in this case, it's not even that "deregulation makes money for the 1%" exactly. There are sectors of the 1% that benefit from stability and normalization represented by regulations. (And in fact there are sectors of the 1% that recognize the benefits of a clean and livable environment.) But the Trump administration represents the anarchistic ultra-right of the 1% (in particular the oil billionaires I guess), who have certain specific regulations they want erased for business purposes, and also an ideological libertarianism that apparently just enjoys chaos for it's own sake
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There is one guardrail that Levitsky and Ziblat neglected to mention which is profoundly important ina democracy and that’s the people. This country has produced an educational system that consistently neglects democracy and creates the inequality and limited understanding of democracy supporting participation and involvement. The democracy will not survive if we are a people who consistently select leaders like Trump who are inadequate and completely in love with themselves. We need a people much better educated in appreciating and utilizing democracy than the current system can produce.
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Dire predictions about our doomed democracy could have been made at other points in our checkered political history: J. Edgar Hoover's scandalous use of the FBI; President Nixon's enemies list; the tactics used by congressional Republicans during the Obama years to obstruct all Democratic initiatives and use their investigative powers as a political weapon. Our democracy will survive the current abuses just as it has survived all the others.
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@William: That's a perspective, true; but remember the story of the guy falling off a skyscraper, who yelled "OK so far!" at every floor he went by...
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It's time for a new Constitution or some major amendments to the current one.
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I am not being facetious nor cynical but I fear that our president is having a nervous breakdown. From the start of his tenure he has displayed an extremely thin skin and paranoia about the "fake news" media, constantly playing the victim. But with each passing day Trump is moving further and further away from functioning as our president. His erratic behavior is troubling and if the Democrats proceed with impeachment he will completely go off the rails and there's no telling what harm he can do. In a recent Times editorial Trump was depicted as a nihilist and I believe if he fears he's going down he will try to bring the country with him.
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@nzierler: On the other hand, when a person in charge is going through a nervous breakdown, it is only rarely that the wise response is to rally behind them: usually the choice is to edge them out of their position. Our problem isn't that Trump personally would resist, or "go off the rails", it's that there are cynical Republicans like McConnell who are doing fine in the current chaos, and moving their own agenda forward in Washington by manipulating Trump, more or less skillfully. And he has some dangerously crazy followers out there. But they aren't going to get less crazy by being placated and appeased. Seriously, the way to look at it is, Trump is already off the rails and bringing the country down; the question is what to do about ti.
Democracy is not dying. You just don't have your person in the presidency and your party does not control the Senate. The solution is not to whine but to nominate someone not under FBI investigation who cheated in debates and, in a very tradition American way, get out the vote for an electable candidate for your positions. . It would help if that candidate learns a basic lesson in our Republic: It's a good idea to campaign in states with electoral votes when those votes are essential to win.
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@ as Krugman says, your not paying attention, or don't want to. alan brown
@alan brown
The pendulum has swung back and forth for decades, between this party and that. But no party, ever, has been as utterly destructive to our democracy as the Republican party along with Trump.
A rational person could not look at what has happened in the Senate (or I should NOT happened) and in this executive branch over the last two and a half years and walk away thinking that anything good for the country could come of their actions.
It's just a toxic wasteland of actions, from packing the courts with unqualified right-wing radical judges, imprisoning families on the southern border, obstinately refusing to implement even the most basic common sense gun laws that the majority wants, cynically rolling back environment protections, and drawing cartoons on weather maps to save face.
It's like something from a dark political comedy that combines elements of Animal Farm and Springtime for Hitler.
This goes way, way beyond left/right, Democrat/Republican, Liberal/Conservative.
This is CrazyTown. Surely you must realize that.
@O He's unique, impulsive, not always as well informed as he should be but that doesn't equate to your blanket condemnation of all his policies and judicial appointments. Your views and mine will be tested in the American way:at the polls in 2020. She won't get my vote but if, for example, Senator Warren is elected she will be my President. I won't be wearing a Resist button.
Valuable reminder of what the country is facing. As to the potential antitrust exposure of the auto companies. As I understand it they entered into a joint settlement agreement with CA. I suspect it’s going to be difficult to turn that into an antitrust violation unless there has been a complete erosion of the rule of law.
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This is what "government run as a business" looks like. A poorly run, private business, but this behavior is common among poorly run, private businesses. Run by the owner for the owner.
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