Some kind and "presidential" words from the "Great Pretender" . . .
Three hate-driven terror attacks in the last week has shown that all of the hate in this country is beginning to boil over into actual hate crimes.
Trump "Pretended" to be Presidential with his recent public comments in response to the most recent slaughter from the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
We know that Trump did not write one word of these comments as he probably reluctantly read from the teleprompter.
It is easy to tell when Trump is propped up to read these messages as he has none of the beaming glow he shows when his followers roar with excitement after he bashes someone or the media at one of his pep-rallies.
We also know that the president has the attention span of a gnat and when turned loose at his next rally, he quickly charge towards "what works for him" - bashing, bashing, bashing !
I find it impossible now, and in anticipation of future historians to not draw and direct like from the Trump's mouth to the now erupting violence of hatred.
Trump has brought a culture of ignorance and hate to the White House, and he takes every opportunity at his rallies to pander to his like-minded followers and brings gasoline to the fire of divisiveness and hate.
108
There are many comments here criticizing Ms. Dowd for statements she made and positions she took before the 2016 election.
A point worth considering is that despite Mr. Trump’s behavior during the primaries and general election campaign, many of us assumed that in the unlikely chance that he might win, he would completely change his behavior and begin to conduct himself in a “presidential” manner. The idea that he would not was UNTHINKABLE.
“He cannot possibly continue on with the rudeness, name calling and lies. Not as the POTUS. That’s just not possible.”
Well, two years into Trump’s term of office many of us have been forced to deal with how completely wrong that assumption was.
Ideas so bizarre as to be unthinkable are, by definition, nearly impossible to believe. Don’t blame someone for thinking Trump MUST come to his senses when he entered the Oval Office.
To this day, it is difficult to accept the fact that he did not.
70
"As long as I’ve covered politics, Republicans have been trying to scare me.
Sometimes, it has been about gays and transgender people and uppity women looming, but usually it has been about people with darker skin looming.
They’re coming, always coming, to take things and change things and hurt people."
And it's worked for them.
The greatest threat to Freedom and Democracy in our country is the current republican party and its president. THEY are the real and present danger. They are the ones stoking fear, hate and anger in this country. They are subverting our Democracy.
120
Has not the left,"progressives" itself stirred up plenty of vitriolic language against free market liberal Wall Street, capitalists bankers, Koch conspirators and even the government itself; which talk has also led to extreme violence ? One would think a country like a person would need two feet to walk straight, a left and a right. There is a cliff on both edges !! Trump is not the only one who can be called out . Plenty of my Yippie and Vegan friends have said worse.
16
One terrific thing about Maureen Dowd is that, even when she's seething with anger, she's always cogent, brilliant, spot on, and funny. I love Maureen's writing.
I'll wager that one lesson we'll soon see, but don't talk about [yet] in Roger Ailes' "teachings," is the tactic to get the 'crazies' to resist accepting ANY UN-favorable election results . All would-be dictators know it, and Ailes' Wonder Baby Trump, without a doubt, is already planning to implement it after November 6: He'll tell his voters not to accept the results (of course, I'm assuming, that the Democrats will win mightily). He'll call it 'Election Rigging'. It's an old tactic, "Either WE win or we WIN!" Just wait & see. Scary, isn't it?
44
Why was Trump "relieved" when the FBI figured out who the bomber was (paragraph 5)? Other than that, I love this column. Thanks, Maureen - you have confirmed my existing determination to vote straight-ticket DEMOCRAT in this election.
21
I graduated from high school with a guy that worked at the White House, Bush, the father.
After a high school reunion he bragged that it was his idea to call the guy « Willy Horton ». In his own words, he said, « ‘Willy’ sounded more black and menacing ».
He was going to get married, but then the young woman changed her mind.
And a few years later he drowned. Swam too far out from the shore or something.
32
You cannot honestly love Israel and the jewish people while at the same time making repeated, hateful comments about immigrants, muslims, Democrats, the press, George Soros, etc. It does not work that way. Hate one group publically, and it makes it "more OK" for someone else to hate another group. When the President attacks any group, he makes it more tolerable for people to attack the most commonly scapegoated group in history: the Jews. Jewish leaders, and anyone who loves the America, need to speak up and call him out. Even if the President only bears 1% of the responsibility for recent hate crimes, he still bears some responsibility. To pretend otherwise empowers him, and invites more hate crimes.
44
DJT is and has always been a con artist without a conscience. Why the press and opinion makers treat him as anything more than that astounds me. Why is belief and baseless opinion treated as more important than hard facts? Stop giving DJT and his surrogates any more attention that is absolutely necessay. Stop asking him questions when all you get is lies and worse...fake sincere words written by someone else to try to make him appear more civilized than he is. He has broken all the norms. It's time for the media and everyone to do what needs to be done before it's too late. We ARE NOT better that this or this would not be what we are dealing with. We have to be better than we have been lately. There are too, too many among us who are not better that what DJT is appealing to. Sad, but recognize they are a part of he 'we' and rev up the passion and activism needed to keep our dark side in check.
49
How is a synagogue in PA different from a Baptist church in the South? Schools in New England, Florida, Virginia? A cinema, outdoor concert, shopping mall?
How is this latest shoot-em-up different from all those we have endured at the hands of the GOP/NRA/gun fanatics who subject us all to fear and outrage on a serial basis?
The GOP has subjected us all to its insanity: - thousands of gun deaths every year; - big pharma buying "lawmakers" and launching an opioid crisis, perpetuating a crisis in affordability of drugs; - for-profit healthcare system driving up costs and making billions off the misery of the people, but we can't have single-payer healthcare, oh, no, that's socialism; - unequal pay for women, and below survival pay for the already poor; and on and on ad nauseum.
The media, the culture permitted Trump and the GOP to take over what their own stealing, gerrymandering, and lies couldn't do alone. The media for giving Trump his bully pulpit whenever he spews his latest lies, infantile raspberry or hate-filled inanity.
But his vile base, our fellow Americans, remain the mystery. We are in a civil war, and they have gained such ground because the rest of us didn't take Trumpites seriously enough and effectively counter the GOP's lies and crimes.
68
It's funny that you never cared when a Bernie supporter shot up a Republican softball game and actually severely hurt someone. I don't remember anyone on the left calling him the "Bernie Shooter". The NYT's and it's readers are partisan hacks and the "normal" people in the US know it. It's the media, and it's hysteria, that are giving these nut jobs their motivation. It always has been.
15
I know Jews who have switched from the Democratic Party to Trump because of Israel that has also become far right.
I always wonder how they reconcile themselves keeping company with the Alt-Right and Neo-Nazis.
58
To our modern-day Ailes created Frankenstein/Hitler, I will quote the honorable British statesman Winston Churchill:
We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender …
Please, everyone, vote Democratic on 11/6/18. Our country depends on it.
54
We are opposed to violence or mindless hatred toward any group. But Dowd is an apologist for the enemies of liberty and justice. The left arrogantly poses as the morally superior among us but are actually practicing a nazi-like master race philosophy. Physicality does not define their race. Religion does not define it. Thus they pretend that they are diverse. In fact the leftists are members of an ideological race. Anyone not of their race is the problem. If you were not a racist, sexist, homophobe, monster -- you'd be with the master race. You'd be a member. This is what Maureen Dowd so aptly manifests. They cry out for peace, meaning surrender of those who oppose their socialist totalitarianism. Please understand. This is our nation. The people's. We have borders. We have or should have authority over our children. We have a religious nature, a theological view of life that underlies our claims to liberty. We believe in true diversity, i.e. whatever results from freedom and a lack of restrictions. We do not believe in the fake diversity that arises from tampering with racial and other quotas so long as those represented are all satisfactory to the left. You leftists with your morally arrogant pose are the problem, from start to finish. The number of ignorant, violent extremists is minuscule compared to the damaging horde of media communists. So Maureen, we're not rebuked. We're not castigated. We're not impressed. And we say no to you and your pleas for capitulation.
14
She Is Riled Up, So She Is Right The Crazies Are Riled Up !!
7
Too bad the U.S. ever granted citizenship to Rupert Murdoch. Fox "News" is hugely responsible for Trump and what we've sunk to.
54
The perp is of Filipino ancestry. So he's got a darker skin than most of his intended victims. It's about craziness, but not about race.
12
Say it loud, Mo, say it loud.
May God forgive us, history never will.
11
That Democrat president you quote re: "fear itself" created concentration camps and authorized the indefinite detention without charges of Japanese Americans in them.
That you would use him as a contrast to Trumo when talking about fear speaks volumes.
You bubble world people are absolutely delusional.
11
@Chuck
We like to think the country has IMPROVED since then, why do you conservatives always bring up the past as justification for wrong behavior in the present?
We are supposed to learn, not regress, although that is what 'conservatism' is all about: regression.
63
What a leftist sees as hate many of us see as plain, straight talk. Something politicians never do. Most conservatives understand immigration is out of control as do those who came here, worked, learned English, spent the time learning about America and were naturalized. Obama and Hillary were for border control before they were against it.
Reporting on Trump’s administration is documented as 92% negative. Recently leftist leaders have called for violence against Trump supporters. Antifa, BLM, and other leftist groups and anarchists beat up old people, burn buildings, smash windows and incite riots. And Ms. Dowd accuses Trump of spreading hate? How narrow minded and partisan of her. This has her typical leftist hypocrisy and dishonesty.
13
Turns out Bowers is from my old Pgh. neighborhood and went to the same high school that I did. And here was me, thinking these people were all in. Texas. They were "the other"
The people who vote for Trump and the Republicans because they believe the hate and lies they preach against minorities and immigrants will continue to live in that Faux bubble. Me, I will not be looking at some caravan coming across Mexico for the next atrocity. I will be more watchful of the guy who looks like he could be attending his son's Little League game or would have been sitting across the aisle from me in high school English.
39
who is accountable for the current president’s riot-inciting rants and rallies?
28
While the Alt-right in the United States, incited and encouraged by Donald Trump’s hateful and inflammatory rhetoric, fans the flames of anti-Semitism and white supremacy and Donald Trump defend Nazi marchers as the moral equivalent of anti-Nazi protesters: “there are good people on both sides”, the Israeli government and its religious right are complicit as they remain silent.
Israel has made a Faustian bargain with the devil, which is short-sighted and, as we saw yesterday with the tragic and senseless slaughter of a Jewish community assembled in prayer, ignores the lessons of history.
24
Wow, Maureen! You nailed it and more. These people are soulless and all rational voters must vote ALL Republicans out of office. Say NO to this hate mongering!
21
Trump has mastered the not so fine art of rabble rousing through years of practice in his role of ultimate judge on the "reality" TV show he's so very proud of, "The Apprentice". He fine turned his despotic intuition through mimicry of Fox personalities. The appeal, for those of you who are not trained neuroscientists (!), is to our largely unconscious "survival brain", the amygdala. Thus the accurate term "fear mongering" used often to describe Trump's evil genius for insighting the overly emotional "base" ( as in "base" emotions: fear, rage, lust, hunger, etc.). Trump's followers have become addicted to rage and are driven by a need for protection from an all-powerful and protective "King Kong" (Don McGhan's (SP?) term for his boss). When we experience what Daniel Goleman calls "amygdala hijack", due to our fight-fight response in the amygdala being triggered, our higher intellectual faculties are by-passed for immediate survival needs: "lock her up", "enemy of the people", "invading caravan", "body slam", "jobs not mobs", etc., we can be seduced into the raging mob. I personally experienced this in the SDS movement of the late 1960's. None of us are safe when a wannabe dictator reigns in the WH. Get out and VOTE! Or take cover and expect the worst. Stress R Us
16
Donald Trump may have put the word "bomb" in quotes because the devices sent were not really bombs. They had no power to kill or injure anyone and were not set to go off. Nothing particularly serious about them. They got way more attention than they deserved.
The synagogue shooter was, of course, something else entirely. My sympathies to the victims, the survivors, and the Jewish community. That was a tragedy.
5
Ms. Dowd hits the nail on the head with a clear profile of the heartless, take-no-prisoners-lunacy of the Republicans. Why haven't Democrats been able to develop an effective response to their destructive chicanery?
13
Maureen, even before Roger Ailes Trump was a student of Roy Cohen who taught him the double down method of attack and counter attack.
However this week Trump brought his inflammatory rhetoric to a new level. He has weaponized it so that unstable people now feel emboldened to send bombs in the mail and kill innocent people in a house of worship.
He then has the gaul to blame the media and make himself the victim.
21
One of the best things about this crazy, mixed-up life in America is that we, or one, or any or many given citizens can have it both ways. We crazies can support President Trump, and we can also be disciples of Ms. Dowd.
President Trump gives us reason for our existence, and Ms. Dowd gives us definition for our existence. Together both President Trump and Ms. Dowd are an excellent team and pair "in the booth." President Trump is calling the daily play by play, and Ms. Dowd is providing excellent analysis and colour.
Many of the Comments submitted in regard to this particular Column of Ms. Dowd's are bemoaning the current state of American affairs. American affairs are always to be bemoaned. America has been on the wrong track from its founding, from the get-go. We are just going through another particular historical period that is inevitable.
As Doctor Hunter S. Thompson would have said, we have bought the ticket and now we must take the ride. Fortunately we will get a good and full dose of the Trump era since he will be re-elected in 2020. We will go through the full cycle of what we are doing, seeing, hearing, reading, watching and experiencing. This is one ride that America wants to take twice & will indeed experience totally.
All of this daily violence, hatred, wailing & gnashing of teeth must be bourne by all of us as a crucible for our lives & times. The current behaviours were just being temporarily kept in check while they came to full boil.
3
Wow. No mention of grandma over the cliff or the daisy flower of 1964. No one can demonize like Democrats. Before Trump there was Romney, the greedy, McCain, the womanizer, Palin, and Bush. They even successfully chased out a President a long, long, time ago. As with zealots their actions are always justifiable.
As an example, did you know that no politician ever lied before Trump and what kind of fool President does that which was promised?
Keep up the cacophony, noise, and preaching to the true believers. Or you could learn about the many colors of this world.
7
Generally, I love your stuff, but one possibility you seem to overlooks is neither the D or the R serve this nation...They both serve themselves and the best paying special interests. To defend one over the other is wrong.
12
The Onion kind of nails it as far as one source of the problem:
https://www.theonion.com/fox-news-now-just-airing-continuous-blood-red-s...
4
you left out The Great Perpetrator: Reagan and his "Welfare Queens". Thanks for the super essay! you captured the GOP political strategy. As our nation becomes more educated and diverse, we can only hope that the GOP will either revert back to being moderate or become a truly minority party of crazies.
9
" ... during those moments when the nation does turn to the President for moral guidance and support, it is triply stunning to observe a leader who cares so little about filling this role ... From Charlottesville, Virginia, to the pipe bombs, [Trump] never lets anything stand in the way of his raw political instincts. He can only contain his feelings for a few minutes, at best, before devolving into the kind of barnstorming partisan rhetoric that makes him feel so comfortable ... " (Julian Zelizer, Princeton University) Truly, Mr. Trump is a "sad, embarrassing wreck of a man" (George Will)
13
It is so disturbing to me that the country as a whole doesn’t just rise up as 1 voice and say “enough!” to all the hateful rhetoric, victim blaming, and self serving denials. How is it not obvious that the perpetrators are pretending to be the victims (with fake fears) and the actual victims constantly get blamed for bad deeds big and small? We won’t let children get away with this level of lies, why are we letting people who claim to represent/ lead us??
20
It is amazing how the two political sides can look at the same phenomenon and filter it so differently. For hte Democrat, everything is first passed through a race filter, and if anything
involves a person of color, then color must be the one and only reason it is happening. Hence we have this statement: "They're coming, always coming, to take things. . .and hurt people."
As if there does not exist any reason under the sun other than color that unvetted unlimited immigration might not be a good thing--immigration from anywhere, consisting of any races. One wonders how the Democrat mind would process this issue if all the unvetted people forcing or sneaking or lying their way in were whites. I suspect it would be the 'privileged' whites trying to keep out the underprivileged whites. The Democrats are never wanting in reason for whatever happens that are irrevant but support their narrative, which they accept as Gospel uncritically.
7
Right, Maureen. Your fuel was added to the Republican tactic of finding nothing then setting fire to it to get everyone riled up. As I remember you were like a rat terrier on Hillary Clinton, snarling and snapping about non-criminal issues like Bengazi and those emails.
23
Maureen Dowd, via her absurd jealousy/obsession/allergy to Hillary Clinton, aided and abetted our current political catastrophe. Her analysis is exceeded only by her disingenuousness. Thanks for nothing.
26
Trump is like lighter fluid.
13
You supported him for President, remember, Ms. Dowd?
15
What a completely dishonest and true to form, partisan hit piece.... From the first sentence, Republicans have always been trying to scare me? Really Maureen? REALLY?
You know, all I hear are the Democrats day after day demonizing everything and everyone that disagrees with them. Even you Ms. Dowd, you can even be honest.....
9
Suppose what you say is true (I’m not saying that’s the case). Does it make what Maureen said any less true?
9
Maureen Dowd is part of the intelligentsia, whom I do not always agree with. However, her oped today is completely on point. You should ponder this. Hitler was able to fool enough of the German population to obtain ultimate power until it was both, too late to do anything about it as well as no longer having a functional democracy to repair his damage.
13
I am again reminded of Newt Gingrich, complaining bitterly that reporters were speading lies about him by quoting him correctly.
27
I cannot say that with certainty that every Trump supporter is a sexist, racist anti-Semite (some, after all, are women, people of color and Jews who apparently don't mind rubbing elbows with crotch-grabbers, racists and neo-Nazis), but I can say with 100% certainty that every single sexist, racist and anti-Semite who voted in 2016 came "home" and voted for Trump. I'm not okay rubbing elbows with those folks. Heck, because I am a good person I might even be "uncivilized" in their presence.
17
Trump is a shameless pathological liar or epic proportion. The GOP mimics his every lie. Democrats want to take away your Medicare, Republicans will protect it. Democrats want to remove the pre-existing condition clause, Republicans will protect it. Republicans are the financial stewards of our time, Democrats just borrows and spend. Three bald faced lies, easily proven by anyone with 60 seconds to spare, that every Republican repeats at every opportunity. Now the god fearing Pence too, lying thru his teeth everyday, and of course then by default he’s lying about his belief in god too.
18
@Andrew when Democratic leadership wants your opinion, they will give it to you. Don't miss SNL and CNN, they have some really really important breaking news that will change your life and "inform" your opinions....
4
Me must vote and change this nation before it spirals into total and compete fascism
14
It is obvious that in a true democracy the president should be elected by a majority of the national popular vote. Voter suppression began shortly after reconstruction and election by the House of President Hayes.
When LBJ decided that people’s right to vote in the South was important enough to destroy the Democratic party in the old Confederacy he pushed through the Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws. And then the war for the rule of law and individual citizen’s rights began. The weapon was voter suppression and the bribery of members of Congress. And a great right wing conspiracy to create one party rule.
In 2016 our country came to a fork in the road and one said “Democracy this way” and the other “Fascism this way.” What we learned, too late, was that someone switched the signs and we took the wrong road.
At the end of the road we did not find Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, and American norms, values, patriotism, competence and leadership. To our shock we found fascism and Donald Trump, a con-artist, whose fortune was left to him and who never did an honest day’s work in his life and Putin, Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, Mussolini, and the rest of history’s greatest pathological liars.
While Hitler’s power base was racist thugs and the Nazi party, which made his reign of terror legal, Trump has the Trumpist Party., formerly the GOP, and Mich McConnell to do his dirty work to finish off the Constitution. I am for TBOC, Take Back Our Country. VOTE
24
@Sheldon Bunin
The USA is not a "true democracy" by design. The founders recognized the faults in ancient Greece and why it failed and designed the system we have as remedy for those failures. We have a "Representative Democracy".
What the problem is is that one party in a system that was never meant to have "parties" has been entirely corrupted by money and is doing the bidding of a small group of wealthy people, a large percentage of whom aren't even US citizens.
9
Maureen...the NYT and this "balanced" piece really helps. Talk about pouring fuel on the fire. Two wrongs do not make a right.
6
Maybe, just maybe, the constant distortion and slander against the president by the NYT is complicit in the decent of the national discourse. The reaction to the election by the left rioting in the streets, tearing down monuments and screaming invective on the leftist TV stations might be the real problem.
9
Didn't the NYT just publish a 'fictional' account of the President's assassination?
11
And now that we are knee deep in this mess, attempted assassination of two presidents, vice president, members of congress and others, and murder in a Jewish Community, you were oh so worried about Hillary's emails. Really.
27
Yeah, at least half the country is a scurvy, blood-sucking mess. To hear the enlightened media speak the people are no longer the genius of America but rather the saps to be blamed for the national dysfunction of America. Maybe journalism should exercise its 1st Amendment right to free press by shining a light on government and government officials to explain what is amiss in America.
3
Don't forget about the Democrats who riled up the crazy guy who shot up the Republican Congressmen at their baseball practice and almost killed Steve Scalise.
At least Republican crazies are less competent than their Democratic counterparts. None of the bombs ended up turning anyone.
6
Maureen...Trump owns the MAGA Bomber. Do you have the courage to do a deep dive into why he does vs bringing up Roger Ailes?
1
Hmmm, regarding that "caravan"...by "unknown Middle Easterners" does Trump mean a bunch of Saudi Arabia henchmen of the crown prince? Oh no, excuse me, those get flown in as a warning to the "enemies-of-the-people" press.
11
@nicole H LOL, nah, I'm pretty sure he's referring to the known ISIS members already apprehended by Honduras (I do wonder about the ones NOT apprehended by Honduras) or perhaps the Hezbollah members percolating up from Venezuela, or even the Bangladeshis, which we've been catching a dozen or so every month for the last couple of years. Known intel has shown that to circumvent our protections, extremists have taken to going to central or south America, and sneaking in through the southern border. You can sneer at potus all you want, but the intel supports what he's been saying.
2
Maureen, make my day. Apologize now and forever for your role in creating this nightmare.
14
We only had two choices in the last presidential election. Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Are you feeling bad about your role in the outcome yet Maureen?
15
@Jan Houbolt the American public dodged a bullet.... but Vince Foster was not so lucky
3
Do not believe that Andrew Gillum or Abigail Spanberger are "blown back," Ms. Dowd. 2018 might not be just replaying familiar themes of elections past.
Trump’s Mccarthyite lawyer Roy Cohn was his mentor. And Trump has returned America to his psychological roots, full circle.
. “Winning” by cheating and lying is now so embedded in Trump’s actions and thinking that his religious folk-followers like Pence are experiencing him as some perverse Liberator - he relieves them from the onerous requirements of actually living within their own value system - one that used to shun lying. Trump has replaced their Good News with his Fake News. Franklin Graham - a true Trump enabler- has issued a bizarre rant that the future of Christianity itself requires a GOP vote at the mid-term election. Trump of all people calls any political opposition “evil” but is a moral blank in the face of what his own words are stirring up at rallies.
Maureen- What is your brother telling himself about Trump these days?
12
The Don and crew are amoral.
When you believe in nothing, you will believe anything.
9
Before Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch there were Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn, and Donald Trump went to school with both of them. Then he made a study of Adolph Hitler.
Trump's great insight, as Ms. Dowd points out here, was he didn't need front men for the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, hatred and fear. He could rip off the mask of "compassionate conservatism" without alienating any Republicans but a few patrician Bushies and the odd Romneyite.
Those who value Trump for his candor are right insofar he glories in revealing the ugly truth about the Republican Party, including its long pattern of lies. The only difference now is Trump throws in small lies with the big lies, knowing the key to retaining power is in cultivating believers who need constant attention via fear mongering, scapegoating, and sensationalizing the old reliable topics of sex, money, and power.
Donald Trump is a man on mission to destroy the last tattered remnants of the American dream of truth and justice for all. So far, he's right on track to do it.
18
I have absolutely no idea what Maureen Dowd is talking about in this column and I don't think she knows either. But as a normal person - far removed from the world of journalism or politics - I'd like to say: I am sick and tired of sleazy, nasty partisan politics. I'm sick and tired of the media and their NON STOP hysteria about what a monster Trump is, and I'm sick and tired of Trump's NON STOP screaming back about how evil and horrible the press and all Democrats are. This has all just become worthless garbage FROM BOTH SIDES and I'm DONE listening to it!
4
The 'crazies' are a side show, in spite of their large number. The real show should be on WHY there are so many of them, And of course on how their ample description and discussion take the view away from the many and much more important ills of American social and economic life, ills that are almost not adressed. Could not people like Miss Dowd dump the side show, for a long while at least?
4
Yet we're not supposed to think of Trump supporters as
'deplorables.' Give me a break.
18
“Those who can make you believe in absurdities, can also make you commit atrocities.” ~ Voltaire
How fitting in the age of Trump and Fox Noise.
22
How hard is it to say, "I was wrong. I should not have attacked Hillary relentlessly using my NY Times column simply because I'm a Republican." ?
15
The reason Trump won was due to the terrible previous 8 years and the poor Liberals just can't handle the fact that in-spite of
all the fake news and hate filled rhetoric of the Left has not deterred the President and his supporters from winning. Maureen got at least one thought right. Why hasn't the left learned to be more compassionate? Simple answer? The Left is not capable of compassion. Being Pro-choice (infanticide) and anti-God only leads to death and destruction.
5
@Richard Blah, blah blah! It’s people like you who won’t face facts that is leading our country down a dark path. The blood is on your hands! You OWN IT!
9
I vaguely recall a John Birch treatise titled None Dare Call It Treason. We are greatly in need of a new one regarding our current imposter President, None Dare Call It Evil. And put it out there with a vengeance.
4
Has Maureen Dowd, her fellow columnists and the loyal Times bloggers considered what might happen on what might prove to be the most terrifying day of all--November 7th 2018? Better start thinking ahead people--that day is going to be here sooner than we think.
Make America sane again. Vote Democrat.
9
@Richard all democratic government will not change the sad course of your life
2
Trump incites his supporters to violence at his rallies.
Trump leads chants of up "lock her (Hillary) up" at his rallies.
Trump encouraged supporters to beat up people of color at his rallies and he would pay their legal bills.
Trump told his supporters to exercise their 2nd amendment rights against Hillary.
In a tweet he hit Hillary in the back with a golf ball.
Reporters need security at his rallies because they are afraid of Trump`s supporters.
Trump is single handedly is responsible for the pipe bombs and the 11 killings at the synagogue.
When is Congress going to impeach and remove this dangerous monster from the presidency before he does any more damage to this country.
13
"President Trump was relieved when the F.B.I. arrested a bomb suspect."
Wrong! No one was more relieved, than postal workers, followed by the rest of America.
Is there a price for a dishonest press? Sure is. NYT and the MSM talk about it everyday. Capitol T, r-u-m-p. And, it all could have been avoided if Hillary didn't have that server. She set it up, to avoid scrutiny. Really dumb, when you think how little scrutiny she got.
As for Trump, the MSM was on him, like white on rice. From the day he announced, until now and forever forward. Didn't anyone in NY media know this guy. Anybody? Well, MoDo did. She said he was bad, but, she didn't have the Kryptonite. If you don't have the Kryptonite, don't go after Superman.
Before the Kavanaugh thing, it was a hit a week. Somebody had a story, a book, a secret. And nothing worked. In fact, almost on cue, a bad story was knocked off the screen as fast as it appeared. Omarosa's book, lasted one day. Clapper losing his clearance killed it.
Mueller? If he had the goods, we would know it now. If he doesn't, he has to wait until after the election. What good is all of the Russian collusion, if the Rs hold both houses? What good is no collusion, if the Democrats win?
2
@Mike
Please. Trump blabs on his iPhone with everyone listening in - the Clinton email thing was clearly baloney - Trump wont listen at all to intelligence saying Russia is listening to his phone calls and he doesnt give a rat's behind.
Trump is a bad leader who is no "Superman" but he does have a superpower of stirring the muck on the bottom and then saying it doesnt stink.
10
The guy who shot eleven Jews yesterday says he was not a Trump supporter, but he sure was a Fox viewer; he had posted one of Fox's fear campaign segments of the immigrants coming north within the last few days, and his motives for the shooting, aside from his obvious anti-semitism, was the hatred of the brown "others". Murdoch has been getting off too easy in all of these articles.
18
Donald Trump's spectrum of emotions exists in a dried up desert of dust having been replaced by a thirsty malignant narcissistic ego and greed. He is incapable of humanly responding to an action without asking himself 'what's in it for me'.
His leadership in response to the hate murders of innocent people
is to call for the death penalty. As if to let us know how 'tough' he is unlike those baby lib-er-als. And AG Sessions hastily stands up to say please let me keep my job - sure I can make sure the perpetrator dies.
Watching the 20 or suits descend the plane steps ahead of our POTUS before he rally, we see how the Oval Office team is deployed to contain, excuse and promote this wasteland of an American leader. The deleted tweets of GOP members hides nothing but their desire to make sure Americans realize that today is just Sunday, football and NASCAR, nothing more to see here.
10 sentences of 'appropriate' words will pave the way for Trump's hate and fear ego satisfying rallies to come in the next ten days.
Trump and the GOP want to make sure THEIR God, guns and country are not questioned or changed. As the members of the base get ready to receive their Dear Leader, they too care not at all for the threats and deaths that have happened. They need the defective Trump man to save them from the Other and he needs them to feed his ego.
Trump and the GOP and the base do not care about the families who have been assaulted and shattered and torn from their loved ones.
3
The only thing you left out is the many terrorist attacks this incited here at home and the many hundreds of Americans that have died in them. From clinic bombing through assassinations of medical personnel to the OKC federal Building and beyond. The swath of white evangelical christian terrorism has been wide and largely uncovered and unremarked on by the press. You all made more of the losers in San Bernardino and the closet case in Orlando desperately trying to connect them with overseas terrorists. Yet the obvious direct and irrefutable connection between the GOP and the white evangelical terrorism they have been inciting for decades gets nothing, not even a whisper.
What are you all afraid of? Well that is another of the things Ailes and his ilk know they can count on and have been using to go on getting away with it.
5
@magicisnotreal
"Once is a tragedy, twice is a terrible coincidence, three times is enemy action."
Stochastic terrorism has been defined as the use of language "to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.".
Stochastic- 1 : random specifically : involving a random variable a stochastic process
2 : involving chance or probability : probabilistic //a stochastic model of radiation-induced mutation
I did not know how to name it at the time, I only just learned this term today, but I recognized this intent immediately when reagan and the GOP began demonizing abortion and in all the other lies told about bad actors they would never name but happily encouraged adherents to infer the identity of for them. For 40 years the GOP has been attacking us via stochastic terrorism.
When will the Press finally start reporting it?
2
Trump spent two years planting the seeds of Hate. He now reaps the inevitable harvest of Death. His pathetic words of "condolence" ring as hollow as the other 5,000 lies he has told.
13
Trump's response to Sayoc was so generic, it was obvious there was no conviction behind it.
We all know how Trump sounds when he's angry. And if Trump had really wanted to denounce Sayoc, he would have basically called the guy, well, a loser.
A sincere Trump rejection of Sayoc would have gone something like this: "Can you believe this guy? He was arrested in an Auto Zone. What, was he buying new furniture? That guy lived in his van, as everyone knows. Did you see that van? Total dump. I would never even ride in that disaster and that was his house. He once called himself a "manager." You know what he managed? Men strippers! I mean, come on. That makes him a "pimple," without the le." And you know how they knew he was the guy? He didn't know how to spell "Crooked Hillary!" Total loser. I don't want anything to do with that bum."
Now that would have been an authentic Trump takedown. And it would have been a warning to any other supporter who didn't want to be skewered by their guy. Trump never has a problem coming up with stuff like that when he really means it.
2
In the 1950's and 60's, the parents of a lot of these crazies had fallout shelters in their backyards, although they lived in such sparsely populated states that the Russians would never waste a warhead on them. Now, their children fear all sorts of bogeymen: blacks, Hispanics, gays, that they, in their white wilderness will rarely encounter. Is it impossible this is a genetic defect?
9
@stan continople
Nice! :-)
5
Vote in November for a straight Democrat ticket and...make sure the voting machine is doing its job accurately !!!
6
Trump is the GOP's Frankenstein Monster. It is the GOP that has blood on its hands - and so much more evil perpetrated on this nation- and must pay for it in November.
10
Every time that Donald Trump speaks he is whipping the worst instincts of his animal base into a frenzy. Vicious and demented they burst beyond Trump's venue; a mob...filled with hate, filled with venom and filled with blind rage, now feeding off itself...and looking for anyone or anything that they can terrorize and destroy.
This is our President...giving his mob his permission and encouragement to go on the hunt for "the others" - no matter who they may be this time - and when they find them to attack them with any weapon they choose in their righteous hysteria.
Trump's mobs...the base that he plays to daily...are like parents who put on their red MAGA caps and take their children to a lynching...and then go home and pray over supper.
And they are proud of it.
13
until we get a handle on FOX this country will continue to suffer..... what they are doing is NOT free speech it is state propaganda. i know so many otherwise gentle and good people that are completely in sway to this media assault. it will take decades to undo the damage.
on another note, i had to laugh a cynical laugh at trump's admission that there was no proof of middle eastern terrorists in the caravan...... W admitted on camera that there was no proof that iraq had anything to do with 911 at the same time he was pushing for an invasion. nobody cared then nobody cares now. even the media let that one slide..... imagine? a simple truthful admission got less attention than the smoking gun mushroom cloud lies. an the NYT was a cheer leader for the war..... disgraceful.
12
While I disagree and cringe at so much of what Trump says and tweets, in my opinion, the NYT, their commentators, their Editorial staff and their Opinion writers do as much to "rile up the crazies" as Trump.
Just look at your headlines, every hour, every day....nothing but Trump bashing and unsubstantiated accusations of conspiracy. Your "paper of record" is as much to blame as the President.
8
Sure. But, your frame is way off. To limit the demonization of people of color to the Republican party is short sighted at best. Who do you think Bill Clinton was talking about when he introduced his omnibus bill in 1994 with his wife riding shot gun about the "super predator" in our midst? Was he not, albeit with a bit more dog whistle and little less bull horn then our current "chief", garnering the white swing vote? It's always been rich white folk convincing poor white folk that brown folk are the problem. Pretty sure that tactic has been around in various mutations for the last few hundred years. It's called America.
5
Well, so much for those who ever thought Maureen Dowd was a fair, or honest commentator. Her snarky, vitriolic take on anything to do with President Trump says more about her twisted bias than about The Donald.
4
This column went to press before the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. But I trace this incident back to Charlottesville when Trump called the Neo Nazis " nice people" despite their rants of "the Jews will not replace us." The Pittsburgh shooter obviously felt emboldened by the Neo Nazis and Trumps sentiments and acted accordingly.
9
"Jews will not replace us" - White Nationalists marching in Charlottesville, no doubt Trump supporters, like David Duke. The Pittsburgh shooting is so horrific that there are no sufficient words. Trump's America is not a place I want to live in any more.
14
Sorry Maureen, we still haven't forgiven you for being Trump's biggest so -called liberal supporter.
11
Dear President Trump, careless, thoughtless, and reckless words have consequencies that can dangerously effect other peoples lives.
My guess is that you don't believe this, or chose not to believe this but the person mailing bombs to Democrats and the person who murdered 11 people in a Synagogue in Pittsburg this week both seem to hear a call of hatred coming from your office.
The responsibility rests at your door.
8
One Fox producer under Ailes said they called it “riling up the crazies.” That is a misnomer. From its very inception America has been a white supremacist, Indian-hating, slave-owning, religiously-fundamentalist, violent place. Most peoples' high school and even college American history courses could best be described as propagandistic garbage. The world already knew about us and our propensity to kill them, but now we are finally seeing who and what we really are - and it is not very pretty, is it?
5
@Jason Shapiro Are you talking about the America that fought long and hard to free the slaves? The America that removed all Christian teaching and symbols from it's schools? The America that opened it's immigration to non-white countries?
I do agree that our government has adopted a definite interference policy as regards other countries--in the last 70 years. Before that she tried to stay out of conflicts in other countries. My biggest issue of late is the constant honing-in on of negative aspects without balancing it with positive, such as fighting for free speech. America does indeed have it's warts, but it's also the country that millions would like to come to.
2
Maureen-
Your best column in awhile. Kudos.
-Norb
1
Yes, trump does the dirty work himself and cuts off the middle men. He says horrible racial things and denies them completely to say he never said it.
Kellyanne Convey said to Chuck Todd that is called alternative facts.
In spite of all these his followers cheers trump up every chance they get.
What is surprising this Country is not for whiles only, that is Putin`s Russia.
Here we have blacks, browns, yellows, albinos and what not.
How is this happening ?
Why is this happening ?
This President as Omarosa said, first thing in the morning trump steps into tanning booth to start his day.
He is overweight, junk food eater, does not believe in exercise, never ever speaks the truth.
History will not be kind to him, but he is going to take this Country toward destruction.
10
I am a Jew. Jared doesn’t reposed for any Jewish organization and for any Jew. He’s a disgrace to his people.
12
Trump riles up bomb makers, then complains, not that the bombs might kill people, but that they distract attention from him. What a guy!
13
The crazies were always there with us. Sure, they didn't seem crazy when a constitution was drawn up, stating a Black human was 3/5 of a person. This crazy clause made rationalization of a perfectly irrational idea legitimate. It ensued from there, the treatment of a human in bondage by other humans, free to exercise their will and their sadistic tendencies, fueled by their superior sense of entitlement, using the Bible as their blessing.
Maybe these actions prove the dark side of our souls. Evil has flourished for centuries, it's not new. It starts the Bible off, that Bronze-Age book that relates man's desires, both good and evil. From the Bible emanates Crusades, Inquisitions, Nazis, southern slave owners, and haters of the other. I'm betting Sayoc was a "saved" Christian, with all that implies.
Evangelicals should take note at what they are supporting.
It's hate given license. It's fear stoked hardily, morphing into violence, and it's adoration for the symbol of our decline.
4
Vote.
Well crafted words.
Vote.
Words like raindrops falling through a sewer grate.
VOTE.
1
So Trump is responsible for the pro-Trump crazies who sends some sort of bomb that doesn't work, and then also responsible for the anti-Trump crazy who kills people Jews, who Trump certainly supports more than Obama ever did? Maybe the media running 24/7 96% anti-Trump coverage supporting claims that Russia stole the election, that the Supreme Court pick was illegitimate, and replaying the DNC chorus that "our Democracy is broken" has a lot more to with riling up the crazies.
5
@Constance Underfoot
Mr Trump is the gift that keeps on giving for any media. Mr Trump doesn't care if the media is negative so long as he's in it. Plus if the reports are what he said and it's negative he can continue to be a victim.
And just to clear
All of the investigations stated the bombs were viable.
The fact none went off was luck.
4
In the last week we've seen two acts of domestic terrorism committed by two deranged men. One was a lone wolf whose troubled life was given meaning and purpose through Trump's NONSTOP hateful, incendiary rhetoric as well as his long list of targets to hate. This man mailed 14 real bombs to 14 well-known people whom Trump could not stop insulting and denouncing. Two of the bombs were mailed c/o CNN - one of Trump's favorite targets - his so-called "enemy of the people."
The other man was Robert Bowers, another deranged lone wolf who fed off of online, far-right, nationalist hate. His favorite target was Jews - like George Soros. Trump can't stop talking about Soros. He says Soros paid anti-Kavanaugh protesters, and Soros is aiding the caravan. Bowers blamed the Jews for Trump's immigrant "caravan, which he was clearly triggered by. And what made Bowers angry about Trump is that Trump wasn't nationalistic ENOUGH for him.
Don't hold your breath waiting for Trump to take ANY responsibility for his over-heated, body-slamming promoting rhetoric. He'll say that he has family members who are Jewish. The man has never taken responsibility for anything. The GOP will give him cover - Pence and Rubio have already done so.
The only hope is that every member of The Tree of Life synagogue comes out and denounces Trump, his hate-filled rhetoric, and his defense of lax, ineffectual gun laws.
We can't expect a single brave word from the GOP.
8
Wow, so you just put it all together now. Well, better late than never.
3
Democrats scare me too, especially mob Democrats, and hypocritical politicians. So add them to your list on Halloween.
5
Gene,
So each side is scared of the other. Could you consider the possibility that each of us is viewing the other narrowly and are perhaps uninformed.
If you are like me, you find many of the things levied at your “side” overblown or outright untrue in your experience.
We are all suffering. How can we bridge this divide?
The only thing that we can hope for in a few days is that the crazies are outnumbered at the polls.
9
Hate speech is the manure in the soil in which hate actors grow. What do we do about a President who spends his time vilifying individuals and groups and a Congress that says nothing to oppose him or criticize his hate speech? What does it say about those who attend his rallies and who also vote for those in the Party who stand by in silence?
6
And now tragically another one of the crazies has killed innocent people in a house of worship.
I know who and what I fear.
And this president blames the victims.
8
Yes, the appalling Donald Trump is completely appalling and indecent but he and the venal and corrupt Hillary Clinton perfectly represented this amoral, culture of death nation perfectly in the 2016 election.
Dems have been calling Republicans Nazis and talking about pushing grandmas off cliffs for decades; Republicans have been challenging the patriotism of Dems and accusing them of supporting the enemy for decades.
With apologies to Commodore Perry, ‘We have met the enemy and they are (us).’
And we have to do better in 2020 and beyond.
2
The irony is not lost on me at all knowing Trump really has no true spiritual guide to inform him on how to act when our nation is in such dire need of a calming, if not neutralizing leader.
He seems not to attend nor identify with any particular church, synagogue or house of worship, either regularly or occasionally.
And this, to me anyway, is where his narcissism begins and ends- he seems not to be able to carry any spiritually based relationships with any one who is in a position to speak above him, as a professional spiritual 'counselor'. His ego is "above" that. Trump is perhaps one of the most spiritually flawed, emotionally vacant men I think I have ever observed. Ever. But, it also explains to me why it comes so easy to him to spew his laughably ridiculous taunts at anyone he deems a threat to his bold Trump brand. Trump informs Trump, all else be damned. Dangerous? You betcha.
But it also makes me feel damn sorry for his rabid GOP followers who are really just as emotionally lost and vacant as their 'leader' is. Thankfully, The good ones of us most certainly outnumber the ones who want us to fear. We just need to be given the microphones more often.
6
We can look back in history and wonder why regular, decent people turned into frothing masses or dutiful appeasers to unspeakable horror, and so too we need to look at our present moment.
We're told seeing ourselves in the present is hard to do because we lack the distance needed to get an accurate perspective. Well, let's just copy and paste some history to assist our effort to comprehend what's going on right now.
Surely the details of each era will always be unique, but the general facts and effects are always the same: resources become scarce, fear grows about security, loathing sets in and then a crisis precipitates to release the tension. We are in the fear and loathing stage.
To think the inexorable advancement of technology and democracy make it impossible to repeat the very worst events of the past is surely the most certain way to ensure such events occur. Indeed, the advancement of technology has made the horror all the more productive, and the faith in democracy has simply enshrined the mythical idea there is wisdom in crowds, setting us up to miss the signals all around us that our aggregate choices are leading us toward danger.
To be clear, our adhearance to and reliance on technology and democracy enables a form of mass hubris we don't see: we are no different from those in the past. Maybe that's the myopia that prevents us from getting a decent perspective on our present moment.
2
@Chris
You might want to look at Germany in the 1930's.
2
As is often the case, Dowd makes many valid observations regarding the rise of Trump. As is ALWAYS the case, she never acknowledges her own culpability, as she gave The Donald a platform for years upon years.
7
This election our Republicans do have an anxiety disorder:
America is sickened by President Trumps Demagoguery of violence and hate.
Republicans are entitled to be scared.
3
People don't understand that having a loaded gun at hand is an act of fearful cowardice. No introspection allowed. They will never question or know their real motivations. They and we will all get to live with the consequences.
Mixed feelings here. Dowd is right, of course. But knowing this, why did she bash Obama and trash Hillary to allow the Republicans to come to power again.
2
You know that photo of the Frenchman crying as he watches the parade go by on the Champs-Elysees in 1940? That's how I feel today.
7
Ms. Dowd, this is what you wrote on Nov. 5, 2016, 3 days before the election of Donald Trump. Your final statement regarding the two candidates before the voting started: "The problem with Donald Trump is: We don’t know which of the characters he has created he would bring to the Oval Office. The trouble with Hillary Clinton is: We do know. Nobody gets less paranoid in the White House." For months (years really) you painted Hillary Clinton as a monster, a Nixon, a [w]itch, and a money-grubbing liar. In contrast, you gave Donald Trump an enormous, morally inexplicable pass. Occasionally you might chirp negative things about him, but not in the lacerating, eviscerating, relentlessly dismissive tone you used on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Please don't pretend that you are one of the millions of Americans--in both parties--who anticipated the horror of a Donald Trump presidency. Politically, you share a lot more with your brother Kevin than you have the conscience to recognize. Why do you keep pretending you have nothing to do with this?
23
Trump and Fox News are like two oarsmen rowing in perfect sync, animated by a supremely condescending concept:
Plain men in plain towns are not precise about the appeasement they require, so throw them loud, angry junk.
3
Problem is we have a lot more crazies in the US then we thought. These politicians are products of the crazy folks who want to hear their hate . It s the "base' that supports them. It is the Base that creates their speeches and actions. They are the actual ones in control. Trump recognized this (and of course is part of their beliefs) from the , moment he announced his candidacy with "rapists and criminals". The more we others get upset and angry the more these base folks feel they are winning. Only one answer, get out and Vote.
3
Great column, as usual.
"Boof" Kavanaugh getting appointed to the Supreme Court despite a history of sexual assault, is a major reason that I (a white male) am voting against the "grand old white party." The gop has a very condescending attitude toward women and takes the white women's vote for granted. Not this time fellas!
8
To me, Trump voters are irredeemable.
Those who stayed home saying there was no difference between Trump and Clinton are second only to the Trump enablers/ Hillary bashers that prompted this chaotic madman.
9
And Rupert Murdoch made billons of dollars by enabling Ailes’s peddling of fear and hate. And still does.
5
Heinous people back during the 80's presidential campaign were few and far between unlike today's world.
We need to vote them out. At least most of WH administration, @67 people, left because they are felons facing jail time, sexual predators facing scandals, fired by the Hater-in-Chief and the rest resigned. At least they are gone is my point.
Now we get to remove the rest by voting them out or given the momentum Trump may be impeached and removed before 2020 hoist by his own petard as the saying goes.
2
I don't think Trump learned anything from Ailes, nor does he currently learn anything from anyone else.
He has spent his entire life developing his own strategies to promote himself, they include:
1. Citing non-existent praise from non-existent people.
2. Lying.
3. Preemptively diminishing potential rivals with adolescent attacks.
4. Amorality.
5. Blaming others for his mistakes (e.g., the press for factually reporting his venality and incompetence)
6. Using speech so vague and unintelligible that he can praise himself effusively without any actual content
7. Using rage from narcissistic injury to intimidate others.
8. Ignoring future consequences to sacrifice everything for present aggrandizement (e.g., Spending into bankruptcy, using up natural resources, irresponsible tax cuts, killing diplomatic credibility, etc)
Roger did build that house, but Trump has always been his own horrible man.
12
Scorpions sting. That’s what they do. It’s unrealistic to expect otherwise.
Some malignant people, such as Trump, are scorpions. At some point, when they’re invading your living space, they need to be removed.
It’s beyond time to remove the scorpion from the White House. By whatever lawful means possible.
12
Yes, politics is a dirty game.
By why only mention GOP tactics?
This publication chose to falsely accuse McCain of an extra marital affair.
Harry Reid falsely stated that Romney hadn’t paid income tax for ten years.
Hillary Clinton asserted that a President Trump would get us into a nuclear war.. etc.
2
In the present atmosphere where reaction to all events are based on party affiliation the air has become toxic with "my side" politics.
The "crazies" float to the top of this greasy soup and feel empowered and sanctioned to commit heinous crimes. Whereupon the politicians and the media and the public immediately line up in party order to polish up their halos and assign sackcloth and ashes to the "other side."
Ms. Dowd's column is dripping with this blame game partisanship.
Every bit as guilty of contributing to this pernicious climate as the individuals she condemns in this piece.
1
I can't wait for Thanksgiving, Maureen. What does your brother think about DT? How has he reacted to the lies & bombast?
7
Recall that Trump, early in his career, was a student of Hitler’s speeches (Tony Schwartz, New Yorker, Nov. 2016).
The rank-and-file Republican voter in 2016 surely didn’t anticipate what s/he was supporting when s/he voted for Trump BECAUSE he was the Republican candidate (whereas Trumpists were a Tea Party minority of Republican voters).
We see that there’s no wisdom of the crowd in elections. Elections happen, and we live with the results, which can be a harsh education that “We” didn’t ask for.
What campaign strategists get by enlisting the extremist consumer citizen is votes by chronically non-voting marginals who shift the always-nearly 50%-to-50% Democratic / Republican spread just enough to push the result toward the extremist way, which Trump turned into his base, i.e., a population of Republicans who are a marginally-larger minority of the Republicans than would be available without the extremism.
What this means, I think, is NOT that we’re suffering a new rightism, but that we’re facing the reality of the silent minority that has unwittingly suffered the effects of inadequate education and low economic opportunity.
What progressive need in leadership is not mainly benevolent paternalism, but inspiring, stellar educational leadership. This was a great virtue of Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Obama: They embodied leadership as educators of the public.
1
My wife said tonight..."What drives people to want so much money and so much power while spewing out garbage and lies in place of the truth?" Good question. Unfortunately, I mentioned that I no longer understand Trump, the Republican Party, and their followers. Why would they risk changing the USA from a Democracy to a Fascist state?
It's more important than ever to vote these Republican scoundrels out of office next week. May the Force be with you.
13
and you helped elect him don't ever forget that!! I know I won't!!
11
Bowers has made clear he’s not a Trump supporter, and as evidenced by his heinous act, doesn’t adhere to Trump’s views on the Jewish poeople. Bower, like Cesar Sayoc, is simply an evil, twisted individual who made an individual choice to do harm to others, and who is solely responsible for their actions. They’re not mainstream supporters of either party. They’re not mainstream anything. People like Bower and Sayoc who commit, or attempt to commit, violent acts against innocent people are irrational, mentally ill individuals.
So, STOP trying to “rationalize” irrational behavior by blaming Trump’s rhetoric, or any one else’s rhetoric.
Did you mention all the prominent Democratic leaders who shared the stage and hugs with Louis Farrakhan a couple of weeks ago? Or is your rub simply with Republicans simply because they’re Republicans?
1
Crazies don’t need help to get riled up. Thank God President Trump is in charge. I prefer the lunacy of the right. The lunacy of the left is intolerable.
2
I really would like to know what the (late) Ailes got out of this horrible circus for "governance" sham?
If the Republicans maintain control of Congress and thus all three branches of our government after all that has happened just in the last few days and weeks, then Roger Ailes and Donald Trump are not to blame.
Howard Dean's campaign was derailed by an odd sounding cheer at the end of the speech. Why Trump's campaign did not end after he made fun of a disabled reporter I will never understand. Why what he does continues to resonate is fairly damning.
9
Lies, Lies Lies. And I thought it was a crime to yell "Fire" in a theater. Inciting riot, or something like that.
Also, whatever happened to " "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Does Trump even know this famous line - from New York, no less?
5
Ailes may have been the evil genius at Fox but Rupert Murdoch owns it. Why does he want to destroy our country?
2
Yes, the crazies are being riled up.
Maxine Waters is calling for people to harass Republicans wherever they are found, not letting them live in peace.
Hillary Clinton is calling for arms, "You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for"
It shouldn't be surprising that some people take the advice of these crazies.
4
OMG! Protesting someone or telling at them is NOT violence! You have nut jobs sending pipe bombs in the mail and fanatics gunning people down in a synagogue and your feelings are hurt because somebody yelled at you. Unbelievable.
13
@Son of the American Revolution Please do explain how Hillary's comment is a call for arms? The horrendous violence that has been unleashed on American citizens in the past week can be traced directly to the Whitehouse so please consider the source before you lay blame.
10
Perhaps you could explain which Democrats have been goosestepping down the street, mailing bombs, and shooting up synagogues.
Or murdering over 70 people to keep the dark tide out of Europe. Or murdering nine people at prayer. Or running people over because they protested nazis, or were all feminazis. Or shot up a pizza oarlor or bombed health clinics. There’s quite a list.
By the way, what is it with you guys and the self-inflating language. “Son of the American Revolution,” “Thor,” “Screw the optics, i’m going in,” as though you were Tom Paine or a Norse god or a SEAL jumping out of a plane or something.
Wazzup with that?
11
All true as I too covered the 1988 campaign and the ugliness of Willie Horton. Lee Atwater repented, Roger Ailes did not.
But if Ailes was the father of Trump, Roy Cohn was the Godfather.
Trump abandoned his Godfather when he was dying of AIDS. Cohn was so correct when he said Trump pees ice water (but more colorfully).
5
Wait, which party was it that said XXX would throw Granny off the cliff? Which party was it that said the Republicans want to privatize Medicare and Social Security. Which party was it that said "they gonna put you back in chains."
It's not the Republican Party that instills fear.....
3
@L.Reaves
The Republic Leader of the Senate just stated that they would again, for the umpteenth time, repeal ObamaCare if they retained control in this midterm. There goes granny over the cliff.
The Speaker of the Republic Speaker of the House just states that they would cut MediCare and Social Security it they retained control in this midterm. Maybe granny can afford to pay for her nursing homes with that inheritance she leaves that no one pays any Estate Tax on ?
The Republic Party’s ongoing and relentless efforts to disenfranchise poor mostly Minority people across the country are well documented. See North Dakota and Georgia this cycle.
It IS the Republic Party that instills fear .....
8
@L.Reaves
Actually, both Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have been saying for years they want to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
And it was the Tea Party, and also Chuck Grassley, who said they are going to pull the plug on granny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUsnPjgGANw
And then there was PizzaGate.
6
@L.Reaves
Actually, both Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have been saying for years they want to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
And it was the Tea Party, and also Chuck Grassley, who said they are going to pull the plug on granny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUsnPjgGANw
8
'Of the dangers facing the human race, a bad leader is the worst for all other ills follow in his footsteps.' Castiglione, The Courtier, 1528
3
If it is as transparent as you suggest it is, why has the republican strategy of making fear the primary reason to win absolutely everything in America worked in their favor?
Are we collectively stupid? Are slightly more than half the voters in places that matter, completely stupid?
You don't go far enough when you speak of 'fear.' It is 'hate.' Why won't you call it?
I have very little faith in attempts that can change the hearts and minds of people who harbor race and religion based hatred; their attitudes are firmly embedded in subjective reasoning that cannot change. Not after they have heard the hate at their kitchen tables, in their churches, on radio and TV, and in the enclaves in which they live.
It is not a solvable problem. But, I wonder why democrats have failed utterly in terms of creating loyal constituencies that can be counted on to come out and vote. Never ever ever have I seen evidence of a party with this weakly motivated constituencies - for whom the default option is to either not vote, or vote for someone in a third party - to make a point.
If a generalization was possible, it would be this: democrats are weak and stupid who fear winning; republicans are smart and evil and fear losing.
I know I am listening to someone very unhinged at democratic salons when I hear the boutique radicals claim that they want to win, but not at any cost; that they are above using Willy Horton tactics; that they are the good guys. Good guys lose.
1
A sociopath, when given power, is a quite dangerous person.
12
The van of the vicious, pathetic bomber has an eerie resemblance in some respects to the ludicrous "Access Hollywood" bus on which Trump bragged about his alleged prowess as a groper: "look at me, look at what I can get away with!"
Trump's most fervent followers continue to reveal the disastrous implications of his being a "role model." (Already proud of your legacy, you stable genius you?)
9
There are many rational-thinking Americans who see Donald Trump as their useful idiot -- the evangelical crowd, which has sold its soul to the Devil in order to get a pro-life & anti-gay Supreme Court; the NRA types; and the usual suspects among the ultra-wealthy & pro-business crowd for whom tax cuts and deregulation are their religion. But there is a fourth group that is below the radar of conventional politicians and commentators, but whom Trump uniquely has mobilized: The large number of Americans (including Trump himself) who have some degree of mental illness. When Trump holds a rally, it's entertainment for these people. They get to cheer someone who is as unbalanced as they are. Pundits have wondered how it can be that a billionaire (although we all know he really isn't) from NYC can relate to folks who don't have two nickels to rub together. The answer is as simple as this: They can relate to his mental imbalance -- they finally have a candidate who is just like them. Think back to your grammar schools days -- at least 10% of your classmates clearly had some sort of deficiency. And when you add in all of our fellow Americans who develop mental illness post-adolescence (depression, etc.), the number becomes even larger. So the bottom line is that a large percentage of Trump's 35% is never going to budge from supporting him. Yes, these folks may be "deplorables," but they also are mentally-imbalanced -- Trump himself being Exhibit A.
4
Trump says of Sayoc, “He was no supporter of mine.” It’s not true.
Cesar Sayoc Jr. is not a representative Republican Trump supporter. He’s a sick man who loves Trump.
Inspired, egged on and bamboozled by none less than the president, whose lies, anger and snide remarks condone aggression, Sayoc crossed a tipping point and lost all reason.
Could others? Of course they could.
Trump’s simplistic spiel also has the potential to turn a crowd into a cowardly mob. Listen to the hostility when Trump’s people eerily chant, “Trump, Trump, Trump….” at his rallies. More than good fun, there’s simmering, hypnotic rage.
Trump and many of his Republican supporters will take solace in labelling Sayoc a one-off, deviant nut case. He is, but that doesn’t let them off the hook.
Sayoc isn’t all of them, but he is one of them.
Sayoc demonstrates what’s scariest about Trump rallies. It’s not the dark impulses his rabid supporters inhale and vent there.
It’s the darker ones they take home.
2
Plutocrats who invest in nihilists and nihilism are the leading edge of complete social collapses. I wouldn't pay two cents for the character of anyone in the Koch kabal.
1
Henry David Thoreau first said "we have nothing to fear but fear itself" FDR copied Thoreau.
Dowd worries me. Her obsessive hatred of Trump is inordinate. She's starting to sound a little wacky.
Must run in the family, remember she said last year her father took her ten year old brother to an anticipated gun fight. Wacky.
1
It's no coincidence that Trump, according to his first wife, kept a book of Hitler's speeches on his bedside table, He is emulating that playbook. The Roger Ailes documentary clearly shows the parallels to Trump in fear mongering, white supremacist behavior.
7
Should the president be charged with inciting violence by his rhetoric? Criminal charges? I think so, both in relation to bomber and the synagogue shooter yesterday. In both cases, our feckless leader has made hundreds if not thousands of statements in his flurry of twitter lies since his election, that fit right into the crazy philosophies of those two as well as other angry disenfranchised persons with poor impulse control -- if not clear mental illness. When are the cuffs going to be slapped on trump?
4
Maureen, this column is beneath even you. If Fox News is in fact a “sexually transgressive cult” because powerful white males at the organization abused their female subordinates, then I assume so is NBC (Matt Lauer) CBS (Charlie Rose), PBS (Garrison Keillor), and other news organizations. There is sexual transgression on both sides of our political partisanship, from conservatives like Roger Ailes, to progressives like Harvey Weinstein. If you want to argue ideas and attitudes, that’s fine. Just don’t make these false, moral claims that it is only the Republicans who write poems to “white male hegemony.” The truth is that many of those poet authors are Democrats.
2
"... Ailes, who--bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch--was the mastermind ..."
Might not Rupert Murdoch be the mastermind?
2
We now, in the space of one week, have moved from violent, hateful speech to "carnage" and "crazies" already in Trump-induced murderous frenzy. We've moved from "Lock her up!" to "Blow her up" by a rabid Florida Trumpite and from shouting them down to shooting them down by another immigrant loathing Trumpite in Pittsburgh. And all we have is Trump himself vowing to do "everything in my power to stop the hate" while rushing to another rally to spew more hate speech and "riling up the crazies" to commit more violence
16
It's good that for this election, Mo has turned to turn her fire on the Mobsters.
Last election, she did her best to help them seize our country and planet.
7
As long as the crazies are able to shout good old-fashioned hate at Hillary and CNN during Trumps ego-fests, that will make them feel much better from the aches and pains of their pre-existing conditions that are no longer covered by their skinny insurance. If they are Jewish, they will be happy to pitch in to hire armed security guards at all their shuls because that's what Trump said would be the best prevention from getting 11 worshipers shot to death. And they won't have to worry about the other crazies shouting "Jews will not replace us" because there are good people
among them. If their hero said it, it must be true.
9
And so, Ms. Dowd, what do we do now?
"Divide and Rule" is the oldest political maxim in the book, with its modern corollary: "Misdirect blame for capitalist fiascos onto the Other." To keep your elite spot at the top of the hierarchy, keep those below you bickering and fighting. Select a few downtrodden minorities for scapegoating and blame them for all social dysfunctions. By any means necessary, deflect attention and responsibility from yourself and your billionaire cronies. With the help of sophisticated media, simple monkey-brain politics works every time.
11
Maureen do you have regret that you didn't vilify trump before the 2016 election when it was obvious to many that he was a dangerous craven narcissist?
3
You have spent the past decade slamming Obama and Hillary, and now you offer this fairly meek analysis that Republicans are the party of fear? Well, duh. They are and have always been defined by what they oppose. You have done their dirty work with your nicknames, your pretense of objectivity and your toadying up to them. And now you want to say Democrats have never known how to deal with Republican manipulation. Huh.
9
This Halloween, the ghouls and goblins of extremist propaganda are thriving. Stoked with fear, the weak and ignorant are energized, load their guns, and make their bombs. We are country have tolerated propaganda posing as 'free press' and politicians lying and putting their interests above the common good for far...far too long. When are we going to stop and look in the mirror? We are destroying ourselves.
2
Still so sad, Maureen, that you joined the circular firing squad of the Democratic party which helped get trump "elected."
4
Well said, well said. What a hoot!
Frankenstein Trump indeed. I thought I was the only one who noticed the similarity of their blockhead profiles.
I don't know if the J is for Jerk or Joke.
4
Let's get this straight. Trump is a master tactician. He knows, as you say 'how to rile the crazies'. He has cut his teeth in the dirty politics of NYC real estate. He had the Machiavelli as his mentor. He is heartless having stiffed thousands of innocents whom he guiled with his fake Trump University . He manipulated the system with his multiple bankruptcies. A man of no character he cheated on his multiple wives. So how did we elect him, a vile hideous hateful man who has conned his flock selling snake oil?
5
"....Donald Trump cuts out the middleman. He handles the dirty work himself — and revels in it" Exactly. He revels in it. Spend some time on Youtube watching Mussolini puff up his chest, his swagger and how he sets his chin after delivering one of his venomous speeches. I see shades of Trump. Trump revels in the reaction of the crowd to his blatant lies or his anti immigration fearmongering rants. We have a monster in the White House...He cuts out the middle man for sure, speaks, riles his base and gets them to do the dirty for him. Trump emboldens the worst tendencies in some members of his base. He triggers them to act out. And that gets innocent people in Squirrel Hill murdered in cold blood...and pipe bombs sent through the mail...Trump is no different than the person who yells fire in a crowded theater....
9
I find it amazing how many of the trumpsters are willing to wear the red " MAGA" hats and wonder if they would still do so if they understood that he pronounces "gr" as "h". sadly many would, and do.
red hat. black heart.
2
Please stop calling the poor people trying to escape terrible conditions a caravan.
6
This administration is not about government. It's about sales. We have a Ronco White House and until the "buying" public realizes this Pocket Fisherman isn't worth the plastic it's made from, it will be sold on the AS ADVERTISED ON TV endcap at Walgreens instead of the even sadder markdown bin in the thrift store where it belongs.
7
My empathy for the Tree of Life victims families is equal to my empathy for Khashoggi families loss despite their opposing religious beliefs.
Both murder incidents were carried out by human animals.
3
The shorter version of this op-ed is simply this: Trump is a terrorist, the one we should fear most.
3
Sorry Dowd, everything you said about the conservatives is actually what the Dems are. Get your story straight!
3
A man with no filter, discretion, or insight will be known into infamy not for character, integrity, good and right policy or governance, but as the biggest undisciplined infantile bully in history. He has abused the office of the POTUS to deliberately, relentlessly, and ruthlessly sow discord, hate and chaos in America and around the world.
All that he is and the resulting fruit of his labors reveals a unique window into the twisted madness of a mind riddled with fears.
I Voted today, 9 days to go...
8
There are lots of crazies who nicely froth at the mouth without encouragement. And there's a majority of Americans who do not fall for the knee-jerk baiting.
The question I have is why ~30% of our friends and relatives gobble up the frenzy inducing trigger words and then go howling through the streets, on cue?
But my question is rhetorical because I think the answer has to do with evolution; their brains are different. I have no other explanation for a mass (mob) who see the same lying psychopath that I do but insist that he's sane and is leading us into the promised land. (Messiah-hood will be coming along shortly.)
Poor things can't even think for themselves.
6
I too, find it a bit sad that in light of Maureen Dowd's op ed pieces prior to the election, her recent condemnations of our President come a bit late.
But this has been said. Can we move on and take her current op-ed pieces at face value with the continued reminders that Maureen's early fluff pieces on Trump and her attacks on Hillary were a mistake. This has been said, and if Dowd and the NY Times, and us readers don't get it by now, we never will.
4
The chants at the Trump rallies are like nothing so much as the chants of the boys in Lord of the Flies. "Build that wall" and "Lock her up", share the rhythm with "Kill the pig! Drink her blood!,'" which carry the boys in a frenzy to their first murder. Sarah Sanders can say all she likes that Trump does not condone violence, but he is entirely responsible for stoking this bomb-mailing craziness.
4
The enemy is us.
1
One of the early and sure indications of a dictatorship is the suppression of the free press. Donald Trump is on record as saying, very directly, that his unrelenting attacks on the media are designed to discredit them so that when they criticize him he can call it "fake news." He has come a long way toward achieving that goal. I recall a panel discussion, moderated by David Remnick, soon after Trump took office, and the question was, "Where do you see this ending?" I believe it was Salmon Rushdie who said that he didn't know exactly where it would end, but he did know that something had to give because nothing could continue at the speed with which the administration was acting--hiring, firing, signing, etc.
He was wrong. The pace has only picked up. Of all the dreadfulness of the past two years, the one thing that frightens me the most is the fact that everything is moving and happening with increasing speed, so fast in fact that no one can even begin to keep up with it all. The press can't cover it with any kind of calm because they don't have time to digest one horror before the next one hits, and those of us who are merely bystanders, are rendered increasingly numb by the constant bombardment.
Can even substantial progress in the mid-terms save us, or is it already too late?
5
Trump prides himself on being the chaos president
this is what he has fostered
and he has no regrets
what was we worried about last night?
the world series
and his hair
no problem ever reaches this narcissist
MAGA?- only his power and his pocket
3
My God! This is an excellent piece, but so frightful. VOTE on November 6. VOTE
3
Traits that identify goodness in the human species: empathy, sacrifice, sympathy, open mind, ability to walk in the other persons shoes, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, help those in need, recognition of suffering, the list is endless. Traits that identify Donald Trump: none of the above, not to mention racism, immorality, narcissism, egotism, self aggrandizement, childishness, ignorance, stupidity, making fun of people, perpetual lies, a man’s word has more credibility than a woman’s word, the free press is fake news and the enemy of the people, no collusion, despots are the good guys, encourage the darker nature of humanity to advance the quest for power and most importantly money and power are the meaning of life. Not to mention the constitution is an antiquated unrecognizable document, the NRA defines the second amendment regardless of the loss of 30,000 lives every year, and anything longer than a 50 word paragraph is incomprehensible . As bad as this looks, it gets worse. The earth is heating up and Trump’s distorted view of himself would sacrifice the well being of future generations (think about your grandchildren) to simply satisfy his ego. The man is evil.
If these despicable traits aren’t motivation to vote and start to get rid of this nightmare nothing is.
◦
6
Dowd, you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem when all your finger pointing is at Trump and the R's when in fact, the D's do more than their fair share of agitating and inciting. Take Mad Maxine Waters and Eric Holder for example. How about you call them out too?
3
Just hours before the massacre at the Synagogue a man with a gun tried to enter a black church in Kentucky. He was unable, and went on to murder two black people at a local market. To target a place of worship, where men, women and children are gathered together in peace, is the vilest thing I can imagine. Something is deeply wrong with America.
4
Trump blames the Victims, for NOT " having some kind of protection ".
Well, Sir, I blame your Parents. For the same omission.
Seriously.
8
And what did they do it for? Power.
Not the power to do "good" for America and Americans, but for the rich and powerful who ALWAYS want to control the world without answering to anyone or anything. Rupert Murdoch NEVER believed in Democracy, which is why he is hated by a majority in Australia, the UK, and the USA and why he set up his propaganda machine tabloids and "news" network.
Donald Trump is the perfect paradigm of what Murdoch wanted--a man with no morals, no guilt, doing EXACTLY what he wants for his own pleasure, irrespective of whom he hurts, and able to CRUSH anyone who opposes him, but takes Rupert's phone calls.
Think of how feudal Europe was run. The "people" were nothing but sheep to be sheared, laborers whose "purpose in life" was to provide the stuff of ease, comfort and wealth for the lords--OR ELSE! They were absolute monarchs in their domains, with the power to put someone to death or torture at the snap of their fingers.
As the system in Europe was dying, in the South it was being rebuilt as the slave-based plantation system. And, again, the master had the power of life, torture, death, and rape, without consequence or recourse. They pretty much re-created it in Jim Crow, and it lasted even past 1965 (Read on the stunts of William Devereux Zantzinger as late as 1991--the subject of Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll).
They want their feudalism back and will do & say ANYTHING to get it!
4
The problem is the massive number of crazies in America. My last count was over sixty million wound up so tightly that anyone of them might trigger kinetic crazies energy at the mere whisper of the President. Obviously, Fox New is the Trump megaphone as they subscribe to the idea that the world turns on anxiety, fear and doubt.
3
...and Network is coming to Broadway. Coincidence? Howard Beale's madness drove up ratings. Trump's madness drives up votes. Can't we learn anything................................
Lee Atwater is not dead. Here in MN every white democrat, according to GOP ads, is running with Keith Ellison as their best buddy. And we all know what Ellison stands for.
1
"For Ailes and now for his Frankenstein Trump ..."
Frankenstein was not the monster; Frankenstein built the monster. So, Ailes is the Frankenstein, Trump the monster.
Whichever way you have it, I hope it ends soon.
4
Bowers, responsible for the killing in Philadelphia stated, "I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. "
The projection is as fascinating as it is horrible.
This is not on Trump as he is an insane child who cannot help himself. Its on the GOP who allow him to rant like a craxy man with no consequence. Unforgivable.
My deep condolences to those who lost loved ones.
5
Had mostly quit reading Dowd but in my opinion this is the best piece she has written. Powerful. Welcome back.
2
It is time for millions of Hercules to battle Donald Hydra and sever its nine heads. Vote on November 6th, fellow American neighbors, the whole world is counting on it.
6
Trump knows his white supremacist, extremist, and right wing supporters. As all demagogues do, he tries to understand what triggers their hate and paranoia and tries to incite those reactions. He knows some of them are not very smart. He has a whole team, the GOP chairman and his committee, developing his incendiary speech and tweet material. It is all choreographed carefully. He, and the gop will do anything to win an election. Collude, hack, suppress votes, use lies, hate and propaganda directed at immigrants legal and undocumented, jews who he paints as globalist, attacks the media and reporters, and of course democrats. After trying to wreck affordable care, he is trying to be the wolf in sheeps clothing. He says he will protect preexisting conditions. It is meant to confuse the few undecided voters and obfuscate issues. Trump has abused and broken all kinds of laws, with utter disdain committing outright fraud to cheat the taxpayer out of a billion dollars by now. He incites his supporters to do the same and if they get away with it together trump and his supporters will bankrupt america
3
There is such hypocrisy with all the media outlets who are whipping up the crazies on the left every hour of every day. The shooting of the Republicans at the softball field is just the beginning. No one on the left or in the media thinks for one minute they have any responsibility for that shooting. Is the NYT, NBC, CNN and MSNBC ready for the enormous backlash when the next left wing crazy shoots another conservative?
The sad truth is that all of these media outlets make more money than ever with there obsessive negative coverage of Trump. Trump and the media are addicted to each other and can’t seem to break the habit.
There are so many more important issues to cover. This is another Chandra Levy moment where the country obsessed over one scandal and missed the looming threat that hit us on 9/11. Focus on bigger issues like the threats from the looming debt crisis, the federal deficit, AI and China.
2
For God's sake, please vote! And vote out every Republican on the ballot. Every Republican in office is complicit in Trump's misdeeds. It doesn't matter if you agree with everything the Democrats stand for. Only by breaking the wall of political protection that surrounds Trump will there be any hope of relief from this hatefui, anti-American horror. This vile, obscene president and his party must be stopped.
4
Democrats won't acknowledge racism because they are afraid of offending white voters. I recall when Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former minister's comments about America's racist criminal justice system were taken out of context to undermine Obama's election. It was very disappointing to see Obama distance himself from the truth and reluctantly give a speech on race because it was very obvious that he, a bi-racial man, wasn't comfortable talking about racism, and he has never mentioned race again.
I'm having a lot of trouble framing this weeks events up into something "understandable" that would lead me to the conclusion that there is no need to break the glass just yet.
And either I can't do it, or I'm simply in denial about what I think I'm seeing.
And if that's the case, I supposes one rational reaction would be to be "scared".
Which I'm not.
I'm just stunned and bitterly disappointed that we still live in a country that actively encourages this type of stupidity.
We're not "Making America Great Again", we're making it "Stupider Than Ever Again".
We are not on the right track, here, folks.
8
History from Europe in the 20's and 30's instructs us that it takes many different players to enable a fascist movement. God fearing Catholics in Germany and Italy, wealthy industrialists in Germany, middle class citizens with old resentments, and many others. Trump's violent Brown Shirts are merely the point on the spear aimed at democracy's heart. Visualize all those non-violent attendees at Trump's rallies, cheering wildly as he spews his venom.
4
"tweet-whined" - We need a new word here, just for Trump; how about "Twhined"? It has the added benefit of starting with a capital "T" to remind us of its origin.
2
The real tragedy in our nation is that we have generations of Americans who can easily be duped. Ailes, Trump, Cheney, to name but a few, know this. The GOP has learned well how to spin and promote a man who no more has the right to be a Supreme Court Justice than a man in the moon, but he is their ace in the hole to keep Trump in office to hand over the rich donors. Gingrich admitted it. He not only admitted it....he bragged. And while all this is going on, Trump chants fearful tales of caravans, women who file charges against white men, and Democrats who will not let his "followers" pay for their wall. Selling a bill of goods is what Donald Trump does regardless of the cost in lives for all the hatred he spews.
3
I am just curious if the highlighted quotation "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" refers to the same President who signed Executive Order 9066 that interned tens of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry?
3
Can't agree entirely with Ms. Dowd's statement: "Donald Trump cuts out the middleman. He handles the dirty work himself ... ." I understand her meaning—Trump is the prime-mover in fear-mongering. But in subtle, unspoken, insidious ways, he gets others to act-out his own intentions. He sounds the alarm; they pull the triggers or send the bombs. Then he denies his part in all of it.
Suppose a parent shouts racist invectives every day; then his adolescent son perpetrates a hate crime. Has this father not created an environment that induces identification with his own racism & hate? Isn't a comparable invitation to identify-with-him—indeed, to worship him—at the core of Trump's rallying cries?
Is he responsible for the actual deed? Legally? No. But there is far more in Trump’s words than meets the eye. Unconscious messages from Trump to his listeners also meets their “I”—as father-of-the-country, he gives tacit permission to those with fragile identities to do his bidding.
3
Perhaps you don't know Maureen that a Karavan of known (& unknown) Middle Eastern (& Mid-Atlantic) Kavanaughs is approaching the border & planning on mail-bombing our pre-existing conditions.
2
Ms. Dowd points out that Republicans are trying to scare us, and implies that the reason is to improve voter turnout. That is no doubt true, but it misses a deeper trend. The Right–and now, more and more, the Left–are engaged in whipping us into a frenzy using fear and hatred. Culture is largely based on shared emotional responses, and we have created separate cultures dominated by fear and hatred. It’s not surprising that we can no longer have reasonable, rational discussions, now that we have put our viscera in charge.
Funny about the media, how often we say that if we can spread truth wide enough, fast enough, that democracy will be enhanced. And then it isn't.
Here's a quote:
"The growing inter-communication of distant nations, the rapid transmission of intelligence over the globe—the worldwide ramifications of commerce—bringing together the knowledge, the skill, and the mental power of the world, cannot but dispel prejudice, dissolve the granite barriers of arbitrary power, bring the world into peace and unity, and at last crown the world with just[ice,] liberty, and brotherly kindness."
That erroneous supposition is from Frederick Douglass' essays on photography. It appears assessments are not much more accurate today: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/american-exposure (column by Jill Lepore in 2016--she uses it again in her recent book, "These Truths").
The media appears to do a better job of riling up the crazies than in bringing tolerance and wisdom, at least for now.
I have been reading Ms. Dowd for the better part of three decades. This piece may or may not be "one of her best", as Arthur would have it, but then the intent of her essay is not to provide a history of the United States and how we got here, but an accounting of recent events and how we will deal with them going forward.
That said, I would have cast Rupert Murdoch in the role of Dr. Frankenstein, with Ailes as a smarmy Igor, attending to a harem of Olga-ettes (with apologies to Ms. Garr), all of whose work culminates in the creation of the hulking monster we saw stalking Hillary Clinton on stage at a debate to determine who would be the best candidate to lead the free world.
Their creation was never intended to leave the laboratory. But it did, and has continued apace. As I type this, it is somewhere on a stage, "energizing it's base", a rhetorical rage machine, demonizing "the Democrat Party" and George Soros with every other breath.
This week the result of their little experiment bore fruit.
3
So many pundits have opined that "the Democrats" don't seem to have a response for Trump's lies, that one commentator here felt compelled point out that the Media doesn't either. I think that this is true, and it's probably why the Democrats are sticking to the message on healthcare this time, rather than, as David Brooks has suggested, attack him on moral grounds.
Trump has tapped into the branding power of the Media, he markets himself, rather than the truth, especially political truth. He blithely lied about the near-unanimous opioid bill, and about GOP healthcare-preconditions support, fully aware that he could easily be contradicted, because, in the marketplace, the lies would successfully compete with the truth.
So that leaves the rest of us, the Dems and the Independent voters, to see through the smokescreen, withstand voter suppression, gerrymandering, apathy, fear, and disinformation, and save the country in spite of itself.
Just like always.
Winston Churchill once said, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else.”
1
well said!
1
I'm not sure that the Republicans have had a monopoly on slimy politics. I recall many times when the Democrats did it too. Memory a little partisan, Maureen?
How about most recently when the Democrats hounded Republican lawmakers in their homes and on the streets? What about the women protesters at the Kavanaugh hearings. Talk about riling up the crazies.
Donald Trump is turning out to be a typical president. Promises a lot. Delivers a little. Not really conservative. More moderate than most. All this talk about how evil and hateful he is seems to come from riled-up crazies who have lost touch with the world the rest of us live in. The one with peace (a quiet North Korea) and prosperity (on target for 3% growth in 2018). The real world.
3
@John Smithson
If you consider Trump as "more moderate than most" and find some rude person hounding lawmakers on the street as your example of a "crazy" then you are examining with a total bias. Americans can protest whether it is the Tea Party or the ladies.
Your "real world" is every bit as ridiculous if you find the situation in NK at "peace" and the hate talk from Trump at his elder rallies unremarkable for their ugly talk.
2
Last week was such a flowering of the seeds sown by the undead Roger Ailes and his political zombies (Trump foremost) that the killing of two African Americans by a white supremacist is all but lost in the shock over the pipe bombs and the justifiable grief over the killings in the synagogue. And yet on the Sunday shows, Trump was defended by GOP guests as a nice guy with Jewish grandkids who might sometimes misspeak. As long as that sort of defense of the indefensible continues--and as long as people like Maxine Waters & Eric Holder provide fodder for the GOP to say "both sides do it"--nothing will change.
2
I'm an amateur observer but from many years of surviving by the accuracy of my perceptions I've learned to keep my profile low, my radar high and my distance at the far verge of visibility.
That perspective has often led me to question popular estimates of "what's wrong here" such as "POTUS is full of hate". I really doubt that.
Actual hatred is invariably driven by underlying fear. But cocooned in a life of wealth, privilege and power, If Trump fears anything I suspect it is an infantile residue of feminine condemnation of bad behavior (a feeble approximation of conscience.) In response, he simply maintains a thinly disguised veneer of contempt rather than hatred for women and treats them as non entities or subordinates.
But, skilled in demagoguery, he has a firm grasp of the fears and hatreds of his target constituency and wins their slavish gratitude and support by legitimizing and blessing their character defects with the magnificence of his august self. This has the essence of a papal indulgence which, for centuries, proved to be a very persuasive and (marketable!) pitch.
Trump didn't invent those people - he simply harvests them.
1
"Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" is famously attributed to King Henry II who spoke privately to a couple of his soldiers. They interpreted the words as an order/license to kill Thomas Becket, Henry's Archbishop of Canterbury who committed the "grievous sin" of disagreeing with the King. Today, Trump's deranged disciples are all-too-willing to follow in the footsteps of Henry's murderous henchmen. They too find in Trump's hate speeches a clarion call to do away with Trump's enemies, be they political rivals or people who are kind and humane towards their fellow man. Henry reputedly recanted his directive, explicitly or implicitly spoken. Trump, in contrast, shows no real emotion or empathy for what he says and how his unstable followers carry out his messages of hate.
3
Ms. Dowd certainly has the facts of the Republican strategy correct: they’ve been disciplined masters of the divisive message over many years. It is fair to call that out. I would like to propose just one change in perspective, however.
Is it not possible that the Republicans are in over their heads with no apparent way out? Back when Newt fashioned wedge issues, Norquist wrote The Pledge and Luntz was in short pants, none of us could have imagined today’s media landscape. There *may* be an evil cabal trying to bring down the country behind all of it, but then again, that’s what Republicans say about us Dems.
Marshall McLuhan wrote “The Medium is the Massage,” pointing to how the media landscape profoundly shapes (massages) society in unseen ways. The Republican party apparatus has most certainly employed win-at-all-cost strategies that include gerrymandering, inflammatory rhetoric and lies, but perhaps — just perhaps — we do ourselves a disservice by painting all Republicans as members of an evil clan. Maybe what really happened is that ther strategy collided with, and was amplified by, a shift in the media environment that few of us saw coming.
I am not arguing here for weakness or letting go of our principles. All I am suggesting is that we do not have to accept the Republican frame. My bet is that there are many of our Republican friends and neighbors who just are as exhausted as we Democrats are. Perhaps in that space there is a way out for all of us . . . .
Ms. Dowd. How is that the best candidate the party out forward was HRC? The only candidate who could not beat DJT. Why did the party allow that? Why did Mr. Obama allow that?
Amazing and more. Too bad the party does not pay attention to you.
1
2 Questions:
How many mass shootings in Trump Administration VS any other?
What happened with the Gina Haspel findings?
3
The implacable bottom line is that those who choose to be ignorant, bigoted, fearful, manipulated or incurious have every bit as much of a right to vote as those who don't so choose. Until the latter consistently outnumber the former things will continue to get worse rather than better.
1
Trump and most Republicans will never be able to see the stark irony. Republicans base so many divisive policies on their fear of terrorism, while creating the perfect environment for domestic terrorism. Trump's many televised taunts that encourage violence on those who disagree with him are central to the escalation that we all saw this week.
4
Trump is not creating fear. He is only stating facts and they can be proven. Have you noticed that he has been right and vindicated every time. Liberals make false claims but Trump states facts. Facts are a pesky thing.
3
Why don’t you enlighten us with the facts?
2
@J L W
Try looking at the Washington Post's list of the more than 5,000 lies Trump has told since becoming president. There is documentation for every single one of them. Facts cannot be made up. They can be checked.
It is lies that are pesky.
5
Thank you, for doing more than others to highlight the role that Fox "News" propaganda has had in creating the toxic brew of fear of the "Other, "bigotry, lies, willful ignorance, and even hate, that has overrun much of American conservatism and reached all the way into the White House.
But Roger Ailes and the denizens of Rupert Murdoch's empire are only part of the propaganda machine that has turned its ugly spigot onto this country for 30 years. There are the radical right secular and Evangelical talk radio and cable TV outlets with the Rush Limbaughs and the Pat Robertsons, and the internet arm of the machine -the Alex Joneses and the Breitbarts (Steve Bannon), etc.
They have been poisoning the minds and hearts of Americans nonstop for decades.
The right wing movement that generated them had its conduit to political power - the Republican Party. All they needed was a national figure to win the White House and their remaking of American government and politics could reach the final stage.
Sarah Palin looked like the one, but she didn't quite have the chops for it.
Then came Trump.
Sure Sayoc believes that Trump speaks to him - Trump is fluent in the language of fear, bigotry, and lies that Sayoc has been swimming in for decades now- the language of Fox, and "friends" all over the right wing propaganda and indoctrination network.
But Trump is just the tip of the iceberg; if we continue to ignore what lies beneath, if we refuse to repudiate it, we are lost.
3
The neighbor in my duplex art studio works all day long for many years now on his classic cars that are parked right outside my usually open windows. He loudly plays Rush Limbaugh et al the entire time, and I need to close my windows on beautiful days in order to not hear a nonstop barrage of:
"Democrats want to ruin this country and turn us all into Commies/Arabs/Takers/Losers" and "Democrats are evil people and are the enemy, and must be destroyed", etc. I've asked him to turn it down a bit and he laughs and says "Free speech. Get over it, Liberal." He watches Fox when not outside, and of course loves cranking it up and opening windows wide, which we can do here because of our weather. Except for me. I get sick of hearing the lies and rants, and am almost happy my aging hearing is getting weaker.
Thomas Jefferson wisely said that a democracy was dependent on "a WELL INFORMED electorate".
4
@EnteraAre there no noise ordinances in Santa Barbara?
Everyday I see hate and name calling and division on every news outlet story in the comments and on twitter To blame one party alone is ridiculous for it comes from both sides. Why is it if you agree with one side you get attacked by another Why is it we as Americans are allowing the news media to rile us up to the point we hate each other so much that we have let our passions and our beliefs and our wants to over rule and disallow those same passions and beliefs and wants by others that are different than ours.These type of actions will never produce anything but these type of actions. We are all to blame and should be ashamed of ourselves for letting it go this far We are better than this.
39
@grace blessing Pointing out obvious lies is not the same as making them. Your false equivalency here is not applicable.
83
@grace blessing. False equivalency. There is no comparison between what the right wing is doing and anyone else.
63
@Entera
Except there are obvious lies on both sides, but the press only points them out on one side.
Maureen, I recall that both the former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and the former conservative firebrand Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming had, in their biographies, expressed regret for the hugely inflammatory rhetoric they used against the Clinton Presidency, while they were gaining ascendancy for the Republican Party during the 1995 Congress.
I note that Alan Simpson, just before he died, especially was forthcoming in his regrets for the possibility that all the loose talk from the Tea Party (which Gingrich and Simpson played such a huge role in) had helped set the stage for the horrific bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building in 1995 , by a deranged Right Wing Timothy McVeigh.
I'am extremely fearful Ms. Dowd that with the killing of Adan Khashoggi , the mail bombs sent to so many Democratic and liberal leaders and this recent mass killing of Jewish worshipers by a White Supremist that unless the hate filled rhetoric emanating out of the White House is not soon halted that another catastrophe like Oklahoma is soon to be unleashed by another 'Patriot' who thinks the country is somehow, under attack.
314
@Birddog The current issue of The Atlantic has a piece that says Lee Atwater, diagnosed with brain cancer, confided to some that he regretted setting up Gary Hart on he "Monkey Business" boat with Donna Rice. Why do these guys have to be at death's door to see that what they are doing is not right?
46
@Birddog
While I catch your sentiment - which is a correct one - Newt Gingrich is part of the Trump gang.
With regard to Alan Simpson, I think he is still alive.Additionally, I don't know about his connection to the Tea Party, which has gained its notoriety in the Obama years and very much attributed to CNBC contributor's rank. Incidentally, he was attacked by the Tea Party grande because of his view of the twin entitlements which, incidentally, are the target of the Republicans as we speak
13
@Frank
They see it sooner, but realize that to admit it will affect their lives in ways they do not wish to experience. Of course, he is telling us what he learned only in hind-sight-- that it was a huge mistake to unleash the press into the private lives of elected officials and make it open season on everything about their private lives they would prefer to keep private. This has undoubtedly discouraged many a good man and woman from seeking office, and that is to the detriment of the entire nation. Who in their right minds would subject their family, their friends and their supporters to the unending barrage of investigations currently and recently underway against everything and anything Trump?
1
Spent a week with a trio very strong and knee jerk Trump supporters who desperately tried to limit their propaganda to maintain peace over the dinner table. The one thing clear from those days together is that 'fear' is less a tactic than a trait. Each seeks to protect themselves from things different (people places religions etc) by living in gated communities with guns at the ready and only venturing out on guard. Sad state but very natural for them. It does not make the rest of us less cautious. We simply see difference as an opportunity not a threat.
18
Excellent. Put the blame where it deserves.
The Stupified Plutocracy.
5
Of all the wild rhetoric swirling about, the most effective, imo, comes from Maxine Waters. Chasing people out of restaurants has become contagious, and is free of incrimination. It's working just as she planned it.
4
Trump supporters are as complicit as anything. Faux news is recruiting the cult followers, and I don't understand businesses that advertise on Faux. We should be boycotting.
10
Trump is riling up the crazies. But we Americans of every hue, red, blue or purple are responsible for electing a Crazy to the most powerful Office in our country and the world. And the 'real news' guys are equally culpable in the rise of the Crazy and the crazies. Instead of totally ignoring Trump and the Trumpets, they gave them a platform. They kept the focus on the scary, negative consequences of electing this vile man. The intentions were noble but defeating. Left, right or center Trump was in our face, the only one in our face. Once again, history is repeating itself. Only the Trumpets are getting heard. The negative message is the only one amplified. And if the mid-term elections are lost only the Democrats and media are to blame. Ten days to go. Too much to do and too little time!
6
The most powerful "bully pulpit" in the world is occupied by Donald Trump who history is surely going to tell us happens to be the most pernicious liar in the nation's political history. When not lying outright he is intentionally misleading anyone within earshot. His rhetoric is angry, violent, divisive, exhibits a victimhood that could only come to those who claim that conspiracies abound and cultural identity is threatened from all quarters and is so careless with facts of all kinds claiming knowledge but failing to demonstrate having it. We are long past identifying the aberrant nature of Trump's presidency. Republicans were first to see the threat he represented and most of his critics from the right have gone silent or worse. We are still a functioning democracy and the rule of law still prevails. Reasonable people will eventually end the Trump era with their votes.
6
Spectacularly written column. For now, seems that places of worship have taken over from schools as loci of hatreds: the mosque in Canada, the synagogue in Pittsburgh, the earlier church slaughter in Charleston followed up by the recent attempted Black church attempt in Louisville where the murderer, when refused entry, had to settle for murders of two Black shoppers at a nearby Kroger. Trump has a voice now and deploys it to encourage not disruption, but mass thuggery. God help the refugee caravan that set off during Holy Week from Honduras seeking surcease from their blood soaked existence only to come to a new blood soaked land.
4
Surely Donald Trump has energized and riled up his base to get all the crazies to vote.
As an extra bit of enticement for the Trump cult worshipers, he tells them that this mid-term election is really all about him, so they must vote because if they fail to follow his orders, the "crazy" Democrats will take over.
So here's hoping that this past week's horrendous violent events, and Mr. Trump's knee-jerk, ugly, partisan responses will motivate all the sane, responsible, caring people in this country, regardless of political party affiliation, to vote for the Democrats in the mid-term elections.
A loud message needs to be sent that the Trump hijacking of the Republican party is unacceptable while there is still time to change course away from authoritarian rule and back to democracy.
3
I wonder if the assertion that there are good people on both sides still holds true?
8
Another excellent column Ms. Dowd, but the problem continues to be that a significant number of voters believe the lies and respond to the hatred and fears. And I have spent years trying to figure this out. Poor public education? It seems to me the USA is getting less educated, less informed and less sophisticated. Everything is dumbed down or superficial. More visceral. Trump’s campaigns and rallies are entirely visceral. How do we reconcile this with teaching our kids to study and do well in school? Maybe high school curriculums should include less memorization and more critical thinking.
So yes, Trump, Fox and other RW media outlets are a problem (as were the 911 left wing conspiracy theories), but without a gullible audience, Fox would have no affect.
5
A lot of time has been wasted calling Trump mentally ill to explain his lying. That has obscured the raw awfulness of what he has been doing. Can we now drop that explanation for the correct one which is that his lies are deliberate and coldly calculated for the best effect? There is no truth this man will not twist to scare and inflame his base. With Trump and the Congressional Republicans who have his back lies are merely a political strategy. Once you accept that thinking anything goes.
13
I don't often give Ms. Dowd such praise, but this column says it all. I only hope that it will convince some of the "less crazy" Republicans to votein Democrats across the country. That is the only lesson that will lower the temperature of this sad country and this mad man. Thank you for this column.
6
I don't think we've seen the apex of craziness. Possible inducements include the loss of the Republican House in close races, Mueller indictments against Trump family members, and a report clearly implicating Trump in obstruction of justice, campaign finance violations, and possible conspiracy with foreigners to win the election.
Trump won't take these threats lying down. How might he fight back? First, he'll probably fire Sessions and Rosenstein right after the election and replace them with loyal hacks. Mueller is probably gone, too. If Mueller is biased and rotten, why shouldn't he pardon all those indicted by Mueller? Trump will tweet and go to rallies where he'll demean those forced out, the rotten press, and the deep state.
Trump's 'nuclear' options include claims the election was rigged against him with massive voter fraud, and therefore invalid. In the face of mass protests over any of the above actions, Trump could then declare martial law and call for his armed supporters to take over the streets. Violence could quickly get out of hand.
Six months ago I wouldn't have thought any of these were possible. Now some are probable and the worst are imaginable. Trump is crazy and probably the biggest stress test for our Democracy since the civil war.
21
@Michael Tyndall Robert Mueller likely has nothing more to do. Certainly there is no evidence that Donald Trump committed a crime. Likely his investigation will wind up soon.
So don't expect anything after the election but more of the same. Sure, Jeff Sessions will be gone. But that makes sense -- he and Donald Trump don't see eye to eye. Better someone else come in who will do what Donald Trump wants.
1
@John Smithson
'Robert Mueller likely has nothing more to do.'
This assertion flies in the face of Paul Manafort flipping and testifying for days to Mueller's team and probably the grand jury. He has to have valid and valuable information to share before he'd get such a deal. There's lots more to come if Mueller can finish his mandate.
And Trump obstructed justice in plain sight. That's not even a close call.
3
@Michael Tyndall I'll guess we'll soon see which one of us is correct.
Jewish leaders across America could issue the most powerful response to Trump's role in this week's killings and terror.
Denounce his hateful rhetoric as food for the deranged.
Moral leadership requires a moral, constructive, unifying tone.
Meanwhile, Trump, his White House,and his base are busy shoveling away any connections of this violence and terror to the Demagogue-in-Chief.
Trump will never take responsibility for his hateful, accusatory rhetoric and his repeated denigration of certain public figures - repeated often enough to turn them into targets and rallying cries in Trump world. When his financial deals go south, Trump declares bankruptcy and leaves his investors holding the bag. And when deranged people - lone wolves that exist in almost every community in America - take Trump's words both literally and seriously, he denounces them and gets away scot-free. It's just another bankruptcy, folks. A moral bankruptcy. And Trump and the GOP declare moral bankruptcy every single day.
16
@SCZ you mean like the morality of abortion or elected democrats in Washington who did a 180 flip (on record) about stopping illegal immigrants? You know, democrats who support killing unborn children and now turn their back on our laws for political expediency? You mean that kind of morality?
Let's vote on this: Would 14 bombs be mailed to prominent Democrats if the president never had his rallies? Would innocent people be gunned down in their house of worship, if the president had strongly denounced Charlottsville? Would bump stocks still be available for purchase if he had vowed and made them illegal? Would AR15's still be available if he listened to the students from Parkland?
10
@Yolanda. Would a crazed Democrat Bernie supporter have shot Republican congressmen on a softball field?
I guess this is what Hillary meant by "deplorables." Her declaration that half of Trump's supporters fall in this category is looking more and more like less and less of an overestimate.
34
@Eric Bittman:
Well, no Eric.......Cesar Sayok was a Trump-lover but at least he was a fake bomber. Meanwhile, yesterday, a very real Trump-HATER used very real weapon to kill 11 Jewish people !
Listen,
We cannot try to simultaneously solve the hundreds of issues. Focus on the largest one and solve it first, as the team, all of us together.
When we solve the largest trouble, let’s focus on the next one.
Let’s cope with one issue at the time to get them resolved.
Complaining about hundreds of the problems will not get anything fixed by make us resentful, disappointed, disheartened, divided, polarized and antagonized.
3
Trump is tearing apart the social fabric of this country but the willingness of his followers to applaud him is more disturbing. The algorithms used by Facebook and Twitter,focused on fear and anger,are more responsible for this than Fox News.Fox has under 3 million viewers.....less than 1% of the population.Rational thought is being eclipsed by fear-based emotion in Trump's supporters. Some of the commentators on this reply thread are more afraid of 7,000 mothers and children seeking asylum in this country than the violence that is becoming commonplace.The next thing to go is the rule of law.It is becoming clearer every day how in the 1930s,much of the German population turned into amoral monsters.It not only can happen here...it already has.
38
@Iamcynic1
You know why many of us r afraid of this caravan of mothers and children?? In case anybody is interested in looking up vaccination records of these hoards of people invading our country please check out The World Health Organization's website. There is not complete data whether all these people coming in have received their POLIO, DPT, measles mumps shots. Many of these people live in places where they have never had access to medical care. Please check out WHO and the CDC. I have 11 grandchildren that will be in schools that are forced by law to accept these migrants. Its a serious health issue. Not sure we want another polio epidemic in this country.
Ms Dowd, be careful what you wish for. You spent a lot of time and energy to keep Hillary out of the White House. You can't put the Genie back in the bottle by jumping on the Anti-Trump bandwagon.
11
Republicans of the last 20 years, maybe longer, have proved adept at starting wars, breaking things, provoking people's worst instincts, lining their pockets, catering to the richest donors and winning at all costs ( Merrick Garland ). Not a word of how to build a healthy society. No original ideas except to crush the poor, benefit the rich. Collectively they have unleashed the worst. Now what?
9
@kat perkins
Provoking people’s worst instincts? Have you heard the influential Democrats? Maxine Waters, Joe Biden, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, among others, have all advocated for incivility. Did Republicans, or Fox News, rush to blame Bernie for the shooting of Republican Scalise?
Merrick Garland is a red herring. Are you suggesting that the Senate should have spent months investigating him, going through his high school yearbook, dredging up uncooroberated claims, just to vote against him? Wasn’t the Biden Rule kinder and less expensive?
Catering to richest donors? I’m glad Democrats don’t do that.
Benefit the rich? Ask rich New Yorkers and Californians how that tax bill is working for them. Liberals ignore the truth: you can’t give a tax cut to people who don’t pay taxes. 50% of the households in the US either pay no federal income taxes or receive more in credits than they pay. The most we can do for them is create an economy where more jobs are available than there are unemployed. Hopefully, they will take advantage of those jobs to move into the ranks of taxpayers so that they too can enjoy the lower tax rates.
3
@Allyn
Talk about a hippy dreamer- you must be quite young -your post is something out of a brainwashing pamphlet - Kushner and Trump pay no taxes. And yes, they were part of the small percentage cleaning up with their tax bill.
And Garland was a moderate judge who deserved to have a hearing. The rest is just partisan excuses.
Trump isn't just "riling up the crazies", he is a crazy, albeit of a different variety than the violent people he inspires. Lest one think that spares us the worst, in fact, his version of crazy is in the long run more universally consequential (as opposed to the heartbreak of personal loss), because of the ongoing, expanding effects of someone who bears many of the markers we use to describe the word, sociopath.
While the anti-Semitism on the right is more covert in the mainstream where there are certainly Jewish party members and donors, as well as support for Israel, it exists in the rhetoric familiar to those of that faith willing to see the signs.
Unfortunately, Trump's embrace of the terminology of the alt right, echoed by members and candidates for congress -- "globalism", the demonization of George Soros, the refusal to condemn all forms of violence against anyone and not just particular groups -- fan the flames of tribalism and bigotry.
As for the mass murder plot against Democrats enacted by a "huge" Trump fan, well, we don't want to talk about that except to suggest, preposterously, that it might have been .. insert conspiracy theory of the sort our crazy president actually believes in.
Here's the bottom line. Republican policies and this president are not supported by the majority of Americans. That explains increasing and overt attempts to suppress the vote and to kowtow to the crazies who support them. Time to vote them out.
18
@pixilated Amen!
1
Trump makes himself an easy target for blame in any area. But, did you blame Bernie Sanders for the gunman who shot Congressman Scalise or Al Gore for the Unibomber? Crazies are exactly that, crazy, and they occur in both ends of the political spectrum. Perhaps, Kathy Griffin, Robert DeNiro and Maxine Waters all of whom advocate violence against political figures share some of the blame.
4
@W. Ogilvie Nonsense! False equivalence! The people you mention have advocated for vigorous criticism ,not violence
2
Posted prior to the tragic Pittsburgh synagogue shootings. Now violent Trump tells us if the synagogue was armed, maybe the killings would not have happened, who knows, we'll see, bad, bad. Blame the worshipers for not being armed marksmen. US 2018.
6
We're governed by a system based on injustice from the start, a system based on the plantation economic model and gunslinger justice, what could go wrong with a system like this? Exceptionally unfair it is.
Tens of millions of Americans of all stripes are slave wagers who have no savings, are in debt, and live paycheck to paycheck. Is this not a tyranny of the haves? Authorities with guns have become goon squads for the rich who still, 50 years s after MLK, call the cops on people who are black in public or Hispanic at the border, or here decades without documents. It goes further than that, poor whites too are routinely criminalized for having less miney.
Let's do the Time Warp again! How is it 50+ years after JFK, MLK and RFK we have a MAGA bomber and possibly the worst atrocity against Jewish Americans ever? We've progressed little if at all as a society since the 1960s.
The end game looks clear, martial law imposed on the American people. Republicans want armed authority to permeate American society from our schools to our churches to militarized police everywhere, on street corners. That we are a culture awash in guns is not the problem, we need more guns in the hands of cartoonish good guys like him! He said today that had armed guards been in that synagogue, only the shooter would have died. How looney has America become when our leaders talk like this? Ask the Parkland teens or Newtown families or any other groups the victim of violent American gun atrocities.
25
From the moment he popped his second grade music teacher in the eye, despite money and privilege, Donald Trump has always suffered from the “I don’t get no respect” syndrome- and justifiably so. Now, bolstered by presidential power, privilege, taxpayer funds, and a craven GOP, our insecure narcissist-in-chief is on a mission to get payback on a national and international scale. His gratuitous cruelty and vindictiveness, ignorance and vulgarity were there for all to see during his campaign and at the GOP convention, and yet Maureen Dowd continuously exercised the journalistic equivalent of “ruffling” Donald Trump’s hair and preferred to fixate on Hilary Clinton’s emails.
Too bad the “2016” Maureen couldn’t/wouldn’t see that “looming” forest, for the trees.
11
@Susan
Craven: contemptibly lacking in courage; cowardly.
Basically deplorables?
You blame Maureen for focusing on Hillary’s unindicted, covered up crimes. Yet you think the GOP is craven.
I will agree that many of Trump’s personal traits are tacky and distracting. Much like Bill Clinton. But Trump’s policies have been extremely successful. Renegotiated NAFTA, brought NK to the table and stopped their misleading testing, reduced unemployment to historic lows and grown the economy at rates Obama said were impossible. (Usually, the deeper the recession, the bigger the bounce, and Obama increased the debt by $11 billion and didn’t get anywhere near the rates of growth Trump has.) He is placing judges on courts who believe that the Constitution should determine the rule of law.
@Allyn
"You blame Maureen for focusing on Hillary’s unindicted, covered up crimes."
Breaking news! 70 year old woman struggles with email, criminal charges possible? More at 11!
"I will agree that many of Trump’s personal traits are tacky and distracting."
That's a gentle interpretation.
"He is placing judges on courts who believe that the Constitution should determine the rule of law."
Ahh, okay. We have a simpleton here. One of his potential appointees didn't even know what a Daubert hearing was. Another is 36 years old. Republicans are so delusional.
FOX is the engine that’s dividing this country. Don’t we all have a grandma or uncle who used to be ok and is now crazed from watching that propaganda six to eight hours a day?
And hey, it’s gotta be legit, right? No one in thus country would ever allow a network to spew disinformation all day.
23
"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...."
I am at the point of sputtering I am so upset by Trump and the once staid Republican Party of traditional conservatives that has transformed itself into the party of manipulative lies, voter suppression, intolerance, and hatred.
It is difficult to put feelings into words, as we bear witness to what has happened to "America the Beautiful," which is now all about mass shootings, "the bombs bursting in air" at home and abroad, and taking away public lands for fossil fuel extraction and small children from their parents at the border.
There is a Republican politician campaigning here in Utah, who proclaims in his debates that the Second Amendment is far more important than the First Amendment--to cheers and applause from his supporters.
There seems to be nothing we can agree on as a people any more, and the difference from what it used to be is that the right wing has demonized Democrats and liberals, who are now hated and despised by the Fox News & a virulent right-wing media crowd, and certainly by the white supremacists whom Trump has embraced.
The negative now trumps the positive in our national psyche. Why are the Democrats are so helpless against the smears and incessant maligning by the right? Why have the evangelicals and loyal Catholics, who claim to so love and worship Jesus, embraced fascism and evil? Why is "America" now only for white people and angry men?
Take back our country on 11/6
17
Not every Catholic supports President Trump. It is likely that very few Catholics and other people identify with his statements of hate. I, for one, do not. His ideas and rhetoric of violence and discrimination are antithetical to the Catholic Faith as I learned it in Catholic school.
President Trump is responsible for his highly toxic rhetoric and the resulting current dangerous, hate filled political atmosphere in our country.
1
The Best Summation Ever.
4
Dowd is right about Roger Ailes being a guiding source for Trump’s chaos politics.
At rallies in the last few weeks, Trump is personalizing midterm elections in a manner that no predecessor has ever done, even going to the point of saying to his followers, “You’re voting for me”, while giving just a few seconds to the mostly forgotten candidate sharing the stage with him.
Is it possible that Mr. Trump’s first wife was on to something when she said that Trump kept speeches of Hitler in a cabinet by his bedside? I know, Donald Trump doesn’t read anything but the content of Hitler’s speeches spoke of how to sway mass audiences.
Is it possible that Trump’s guide was Roger Ailes but an earlier guide was how to make otherwise rational followers into crazies?
I’m not equating Trump with the virulent kind of Nazi ideology that we saw in Germany but in a country of strong democratic institutions with checks on executive power that the Weimar Republic could have never dreamed of, the United States need to take heed of the extremism that we’ve seen that Trump encourages through his rhetoric.
4
We are reaping the whirlwind that happens when there is no accountability. As bad as this abysmal so-called president is, as dismal as this fallen Supreme Court is, as reprehensible as the Congress is -- and they all are-- it's time we accepted the full responsibility that falls on the nation that continues to accept this level of depraved ineptitude.
This is not normal. None of it. The effort to accommodate and enable and excuse is destroying the very fabric of this nation.
The ends are the means. And ours stink to high heaven.
10
Couldn’t agree more with this column. And literally tens of millions are conned by this fear mongering technique. Like avoiding taxes and filing for bankruptcy, it’s something Drump
has perfected.
4
The problem with riling up the crazies is that some of the crazies shoot people or mail bombs to politicians.
Trump as usual refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
17
@mbh
We had the same crazies under Obama but that doesn't fit the NYT readers' narrative. All negative about Trump ALL the time. NYT never covers the booming economy and employment numbers of every minority.
1
Maureen from the "Times" was, of course, rational, correct, and truthful yesterday (even in an opinion piece) in writing:
"The real fear that Cesar Sayoc Jr. is accused of spreading was distracting from the fake fear Trump was spreading to spur Republicans to the polls. And the president didn’t like it. Before Sayoc was caught, Trump implied that the terrorism was a Democratic setup to deflect from his midterms roadshow. Pipe bombs getting in the way of pipe dreams."
However, the "Times" media report "Trump’s Attacks on the News Media Are Working" by Jim Rutenberg today is also, of course, rational, correct, and truthful when it reports that:
"In practical terms, then, journalists should ignore Mr. Trump’s tactic of using false narratives to divert their attention away from real crises, he said. But how long will it take the news media come up with a more effective way to counter the litany of baseless claims washing through the news cycle?"
So, the big question, IMHO, is not only "how long will it take the news media come up with a more effective way to counter the litany of baseless claims washing through the news cycle? ---- but, also, what can 'we the American people' do to help the media bring-out the real truth by the people?
My simple, sane, and effective solution, that we can do, but the media can't --- is to overtly, honestly, and loudly 'call-out' "Emperor Trump" for what he is, America's first obvious Emperor --- and demand that:
"We can't be an Empire"!
3
I could point out how this column is late to the dance, or just another poke at the ruling party, which Maureen is so apt to provide, no matter what policies or acts are proscribed. Republicans have a true advantage in that they talk about how government doesn’t work. Complaints about the ruling party don’t do anything but build that up.
To be more constructive I would like to focus on what I am saying is the true genius of the Republicans. They believe in not educating people. They believe that the masses should only be educated to work jobs, and not to think for themselves. How many times have you heard a republican talk about what a waste liberal arts studies are? Ironically favoring the destructive lessons provided in business school. All of our problems are very easily summed up by recognizing that intelligence matters. This has been no more evident than in the last few years, where mis-statements have been transformed into lies, BECAUSE THEY WORK. I’m business school this is all that matters.
Only intelligence and knowledge defeat fears. We need to educate people to think for themselves.
5
@K. Corbin Among other things, It is time to reintroduce into our schools the subject of Civics which teaches how government works. Too much ignorance out there.
My only disagreement with the piece is when Dowd lets Ailes and Co. off the hook saying that for them "politics was a war to preserve a gauzy John Wayne throwback world, patriotic and traditional, to save it from a sneering, contemptuous elite." In truth, theirs is a war to preserve white male supremacism, and the social, political and economic benefits derived therefrom. This is traditional only in the sense that it is ancient and as patriotic as a Confederate flag waving in the wind.
4
Maureen, you left out Roy Cohen, of McCarthyism fame, Trump was his acolyte. And yes, fatherly old HW Bush, got Atwater going on the Willie Horton. And no apologies from any of them when their evil tactics came to light. It’s time to start placing blame on the whole lot of them.
7
I had to take a reprieve from the news lately and the ongoing horror of the Trump presidency. But the events of the last four days have brought me back. Each day, it’s hard to fathom how this country could sink any lower under Trump’s aegis, but he never ceases to amaze us. Trump hasn’t just inspired homicidal maniacs. Expressway drivers seem more aggressive—refusing to let you in a new lane of traffic, refusing to use turn signals, daring fellow drivers to look out for THEM. As a teacher, I can also report a coarsening of both student and parent attitudes. Parroting our Victim-in-Chief, too many assume no responsibility for anything such as poor school performance—everything is the teacher’s fault. So it is certainly not a stretch to see how demented men could be inspired by a despotic president to act out their fascist fantasies on any one and every one they see as somehow being in their way. Trump has set the dangerous and now lethal tone for this country. Until he’s out of office, we can only expect more to come. Vote.
10
After disarming a grifter, Bogart looks at the now trembling man and says something like, "Everybody thinks a gap in the hand means you got the world by the tail." In properly riled up Trumpland, the only solution to gun violence is more guns. After today's at least 11 dead, President Rile-'em-up said having an armed guard in the synagog would have made for a better outcome. He further suggested that this sort of killing will continue and there is not much we can do about it.
The self-proclaimed genius, Trump, says he has solutions for everything, unless the solutions cause him to go up against his base and the NRA. He says his campaign is now about common sense but he seems to be missing that lobe of his brain.
Crazy tells the crazies how it is. He seems to be setting up some awkward moments in houses of worship. A young child looks up at their parent and asks quietly, "Mom is the Rabbi packing?"
12
@richard wiesner. I wish Trump would have come up with a solution right after that riled up Democrat shot the Republican congressmen at the softball field!
1
All this was obvious in 2016. So why wasn’t MoDo siging this song then? HRC wasn’t perfect, but we had a binary choice. her and her baggage or the nightmare scenario in which we now live.
36
Trump by calling himself a 'Nationalist' he is doing just that and is 'riling up the crazies (deplorable)'.
Working with NRA and the Republicans his first response was to recommend arming the Synagogue membership. I do not believe it was said in jest or that he is dumb. This is what he truly believes in that in order to have the White race vote for him he needs to make them scared like chicken. Why would they want to be so scared of the reality is beyond my comprehension.
Even with total control of Presidency, Senate and the House of Representatives he is able to deflect his nonperformance in Healthcare, Trade, and Immigration to the Democrats. The Democrats are too timid to fight back. They have excellent opportunity to dwell on Healthcare as an issue along with immigration. They have left the Immigration (DACA) issue completely for the fear of being labeled weak by Trump for being compassionate and fair as Trump is neither. His whole family have avoided paying Taxes what they owe to the United States of America which they claim to love; they can't even give the taxes they owe. Is that any way of showing their love?
The crazies he is riling up are from his crowd and not from the Caravan that he is sending the US Military to do Border policing. The so called Caravan has not declared war on United States, but are peacefully marching to explore a better future for their children. Remember not very long ago our forefathers did the same.
6
Trumps rise has been aided all along by corporate media. They fear the true left so much that they would rather have Trump than Bernie Sanders. The media as well as Trump had hoped that they could goad the left into violence, but what we see is that it is the right, trained by Trump and media outlets (all of them with their false equivalence) that are the only violent ones. The violence will grow and economic failure will come. Thank you all for your greed.
17
The saddest part of the whole Trump saga is that some people can be so easily manipulated by a glib and cynical egomaniac. They can be whipped into a frenzy at the drop of a catch phrase. And if the truth be known, Trump doesn't even respect the people who worship at his altar. It seems that even he is amazed at how easy it is to manipulate those who buy his lies and crude brand of politics. He slipped up when he referred to Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a "dumb Southerner," a Freudian slip that revealed what he really thinks about his followers.
17
Recent horrific events have conspired to relegate Trump to side show status which for him is the worst of all possible worlds. Thrown off the headlines, he bobs and weaves, tries desperately to grab the spotlight by sounding sour notes that at most become sub headings to the far bigger story that's being driven by the extreme nutjobs he called to action with such selfish and irresponsible abandon. Trump, and what has lately come to be called Trumpism (formerly and more descriptively known as rampant kleptocracy) may conceivably be on its last legs for at least another generation if Americans take the future of their country seriously enough to vote. Fingers crossed.
3
What is depressing about this article is that the only way Trump and his predecessors were able to succeed is for a significant amount of the population to believe these lies and scare tactics rather than do fact checking on their own. Which is either intellectual laziness or they wanted to believe the lies. Makes me want to head to Canada and give up on this democracy.
8
Donald Trump supporters doing just what he has been pushing them to do, get violent and take matters into their own hands.....nothing Presidential in any on his tweets, just trying to shift blame.
Every President I know would have called all of the recipients of the bombs in the mail and ask how they are doing, let them know personally that the government is doing everything to keep them safe, or in the case of the mass killings at the synagogue would have cancelled all rally's and flown to Pennsylvania....but, not Donald Trump, shifts blame and whines about it hurting the GOP campaign for the mid-term elections or having an obligation to attend the rally.
Donald Trump is a despicable excuse for a human being.
8
The lesson of the week for the president must have been to be careful what you wish for. In the successful course of stoking every white middle-aged male crazy into a murderous frenzy, the spotlight he so loves was momentarily taken off him. That only makes it necessary for him to top their horrific feats with louder and more furious ranting.
The lesson for the rest of us is that any vote to support the shameless republicans in the impending election is a vote not only to encourage the president’s reprehensible and unforgiveable behavior, but to condone the terror that his behavior has wrought. We don’t need to worry about who is crossing our borders nearly as much as we do about who is already spreading lies, poison, and murder within them.
13
Thank you Ms Dowd. There is not enough in the mainstream news about the role Ailes and Murdoch have played in using lies and propaganda to shape our culture into the disaster it has become. Your topic today should be on a front page every day. I wish NYT would adopt Media Matters and report on the lies as a topic-of-the-day. Every day. Americans are being propagandized and lied to. This is important. It should be news.
17
Don't forget the Koch brothers. Their income, scaled to a forty-hour work week, is some three million dollars per hour each! I think they could be quite comfortable with that. So why are they denying comfort for those not at their lofty economic level? I guess one has to be very greedy and selfish (and/or have had wealthy parents); which makes them able to climb to the top of the economic ladder, but unable to feel compassion and empathy for others.
4
This is the best, most insightful column that Ms. Dowd has ever written. It is a column for the ages. It belongs in an anthology. It states the sorry truth of our sorry country.
4
Two core objectives shared by Americans: 1- be a productive person. 2- advocate for individual freedom.
This is an imperfect country, but it is the best. Thanks to our magnificent Constitution, we have an ideal environment for positive social evolution. This will continue only if we can narrow government with a focus on the above two objectives; while maintaining a 'safety net' for the few truly needy.
The request is that we all embrace these simple objectives; appreciate our country and society; and first consider our own motivations before (revealing ourselves) in attributing motivates to others.
2
@DonnyNos
"This is an imperfect country, but it is the best." Uh no, sorry. We are no longer the "best". Look to other more civilized countries with their better healthcare, education, environmental respect, and respect for life itself in that their citizens are not armed to the teeth. As for our "magnificent Constitution"....wait until the Supreme Court is totally compromised, then get back to me.
2
You seem to be looking back at a mythical past. What evidence do you have to suggest that the United States is the best country considering how low we rate on so many markers, childbirth safety, press freedom, income inequality, voter participation, incarceration rates, per capita military expenditures just to name a few? Calling any country the best is meaningless anyway, but pretending it about the contemporary US is, is delusional jingoism.
@DonnyNos ..."narrow government' and "focus on ...maintaining a safety net for the few truly needy".They sound like Ebeneezer Scrooge or the Republicans of the 1920's which were prescriptions for misery. Meanwhile we have an outbreak of violence spurred by an indifferent administration that does nothing but throw fuel on the fire. Firsd things first.
1
I could not agree with the sentiments expressed here more. The Republicans have been sowing as much fear as they possibly can in pursuit of votes and power blatantly since at least Reagan and with a bit more subtilty since Nixon. It has become more and more apparent as time has gone on and now it’s a full on, in your face campaign strategy without any attempt to hide it. They have spent decades grooming their flock to fear people with different physical attributes and to ignore the fact that we are far more alike than we are different. And as sad as I am to say it, many christian religious organizations in this country have been happy to help them do it in pursuit of their own noxious agendas. The success they have had in dividing us at this point probably exceeds their wildest dreams and expectations. What we must remember, however, is that we have given them this victory by falling for it. The best thing we can do is stop. And VOTE. In this election, and in every election whether it’s for president, or for local dog catcher. We have a brief window left to stop this madness, but time is running out.
11
Finally middle class and working class people have a voice with President Trump that had been missing for years. They had been marginalized and ignored by previous administrations and were felt to be unappreciated. They were fed up and then Mr. Trump came along and felt their frustration and pain. He has been taking them seriously ever since and they love it. They now have a voice in America.
Both political parties are to be blame for this behavior and if they want to win back voters, they had been start listening and paying attention. The voters will not tolerate this past behavior and the politicians will pay dearly at the polls. They will vote them out of office. They need to wake up and listen. It is never too late.
4
Correction: they had BETTER start listening and paying attention.
@WPLMMT I cannot tell if this is sarcasm or not - but if "listening to the middle and working class people" means proposing racist and hate crimes against everyone who doesn't think like you appeals to that group, I suggest that listening to and helping them achieve their cruel goals is in no ones best interest. I do not know anyone of the working or middle class among my friends who would agree with the violence and hatred Trump is selling, but clearly there are a lot of people who do like it - we should be educating, not aiding,, them
4
@WPLMMT
The marginalized decimated middle class is a very real thing, but make no mistake, Donald Trump is a con man. He gives voice to the darkest components of human nature. He is cynical, divisive, and his rhetoric is unmistakably violent. Humans cannot find solace without the discipline and sincerity that binds us together in our shared humanity. If Donald Trump possesses these traits he does not express them publicly.
4
As a neutral political junkie, this article is one sided. The evolution of Trump promising change is due to the devolution of our political system. The anger is real, not from what Dowd cites. Americans, were frustrated with a lack of responsiveness. Many say, "Well why did they vote for them?" Basically they had no choice, "Sophie's Choice." The amnesty debate was the prototypical example of what the government had become. Both parties were debating which amnesty program was best, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was in the debate up to their eyeballs hoping to guarantee a source of cheap labor. Meanwhile the polls indicated that 70% of the people didn't want any amnesty. The same for ACA; though Americans were looking for some change in health care, over 60% opposed the ACA, they got it anyhow. Both Bush (43) and Obama were disappointments to many, they never moved the needle on the status quo. All the Republican nominees didn't lose, Clinton didn't lose, the status quo lost: given Trump. Everyone of his near term predecessors promised change, it was unrecognizable.
For most of my life fear has been the catalyst for government to sell to the people. Social Security being taken away from Seniors has been on the agenda for most elections. But it goes way back. Under Kennedy we were duped into the Vietnamese war because Vietnam was the "rice bowl" of Asia; Bush, Iraq had biological weapons ready to unleash on the world.
I read Dowd often, this is not one of her best.
9
@Arthur: Excellent summary of past and current events except that you have it wrong on our war in southeast Asis. It was Kennedy who decided that enough was enough, that it was time to pull out and also end our war against the Castro regime,but was opposed by JCS, his v.p.,LBJ, Texas oil billionaires and intel. agencies, including FBI under Hoover. LBJ went along because regicide of the president was the only way that he himself would become president. Author of "Macbird,"wrote that if LBJ were complicit, it was just something else she could never forgive him for. Worked for D.C. lawyer Fensterwald, def. atty.for James Earl Ray who was also convinced of LBJ's involvement.Fensterwald always signed his checks,"CIA," Committee to Investigate Assassination." Read also works of Marr, Fletcher Proudy, Garrison, Sommers among others. Met Clay Shaw, "tout a fait comme par hasard"after he had been acquitted who gave me his version of events.JFK was killed because he preached peace re VN and Cuba,thus he was at odds with the military industrial complex which sought a continuation of our war in VN: All that money to be made!
@Arthur, this is an “opinion” piece not an “article”, as such the author is expected to pick a side and argue for it convincingly. She did.
I think that the current state of affairs must not be so great for the children of the rich. They are often afraid to go places without staff, afraid to experience general life, and must worry about people trying to marry or befriend them with alternative motives. Probably every aspect of their life involves networking. I think that a lot of the children would be happier and less stressed out in a more middle class less differentiated society.
4
As the NYTs reported today. Trump thrives on waves of outrage against him.
13
This opinion piece states what I have been seeing for the past 10 years. I am 68 years old white man I was fortunate to be raised by parents who had respect for all people.
My Dad was a Fire Chief in NYC I clearly remember him coming home smelling of smoke and burning his head hanging telling us of folk so burned so bad you could not tell their gender of race.
That's always stuck with me my Mom went to Nursing School and told us that blood was from all folk and the only difference was the type and RH factor that surgeries were the same for all races as were medications (of course adjusted for individuals) just as the act of giving birth was universal no difference between races.
I find this reactivation of hatred for others who are unlike ourselves disgusting and regressive I feel shame over what some have done. It was not better in the past but I believed we as a species had advanced.
I fear not and that terrifies me and that's sad.
390
@Alecfinn
Since you so sincerely believe in the equality and fraternity of the races then perhaps your political party should stop making that their chief talking point. Without the appeals to racism, real and/or imagined, the democrats have no power base. And why would they? They want open borders. They want higher taxes (the process of taking people's money and using it as they see fit, often against the interests of the taxed), they want control of the education establishment (and they have it), they want racial quotas in all areas, they want to redefine sexual identities and they're doing it, they want us all subject to the tyranny of the committee, the collective --- as these commissariats meet out justice for the violation of unwritten laws. I respect your father's hard work and heroic efforts. I truly do. I also respect his universal appreciation of human beings. We are all ashes and dust, as the Bible tells us, the Bible is that book the left wants to be rid of despite it being correct on these issues thousands of years ago. The left needs to stop. It wants to control us, our minds, our money, our futures, our nation. Like the Hitler Youth of the 1930s they sing "The Future Belongs To US," which is what they truly believe. Why else would they call themselves "progressives?" Progressing toward what? According to whose standards. By the way, I'm not a Republican.
2
What does it matter, he would say--and has said: We won. And he has also said, I could tone it up. Me. Me. Me.
I get him: I cannot get how people who say they value their freedom and independence (not to mention their masculinity) can support this self-serving whining mass of need and bullying.
6
Fox is the problem. People used to have to watch JOURNALISTS if they wanted news; now they get to watch the RNC on its public airwaves outlet, while The Donald calls their anchors on his private iPhones for advice and feedback.
20
@dave . Sure. But, your frame is way off. To limit the demonization of people of color to the Republican party is short sighted at best. Who do you think Bill Clinton was talking about when he introduced his omnibus bill in 1994 with his wife riding shot gun about the "super predator" in our midst? Was he not, albeit with a bit more dog whistle and little less bull horn then our current "chief", garnering the white swing vote? It's always been rich white folk convincing poor white folk that brown folk are the problem. Pretty sure that tactic has been around in various mutations for the last few hundred years. It's called America.
Riling up the Crazies is a said story.
We read that of the two recent "crazies," many authorities are stating "they will be punished to the fullest extent of the law."
Too late. The problems with these individuals in that their problems were not solved early enough. Sayoc came out of a broken marriage and never had the normal, needed human attention and guidance. Certainly we shall find out something similar with Mr. Bower. Our society allows those with bad luck, poor opportunity, lack of attention and love, to fall between the cracks. It is the major problem with American society. Many smart people have analyzed the concept of "free will." They give the example of the famous texas "tower killer" a perfectly normal person like you or me who years ago developed a brain tumor and went up into a campus tower and shot and killed many students from there. Do you blame him directly for his murders? No you give him a moral "pass." The argument is very rational that we have to give all these folks "a pass" because there is always some event or events that turn a "normal" person into a hate filled "monster." We like revenge; but it is always too late and meaningless. Think about that and watch some videos of Sam Harris on "Free Will." No such thing. Most of you will be horrified by this idea but give it a chance; hold back your revenge emotions and give the idea a chance. We need a more caring society. I thought we had a dominance of Christians in this country?
2
@Frank
" I thought we had a dominance of Christians in this country?"
Well... not really. We have a large majority of christians that follow the Hebrew old testament with all its gore, killing, raping and enslaving the 'others'. Not many christians follow the new testament with its loving kindness.
1
If the two monstrous attackers of the last few days do not make us all wake up, then nothing will. I was already sick at heart, but now I am heartbroken. I cannot turn on the TV news anymore. I mute Trump's voice whenever he comes on, but it seems like all I do is hit the mute button now, and I mainly watch MSNBC. There is no need to replay his lies. Let him speak to his delusional minions, but do not spread the lies further. As of today, I am confining myself to the print medium.
6
@Julie
I'm considering opting for the print-media-only alternative as well--and maybe even then, just the sports, arts, food and travel sections. I can't give up Gail Collins, though.
4
@Julie. I did that a while ago and I admit it has improved my mental state greatly (although there is still a lot out there to get POed about, even in print). I don’t feel one bit less well informed because I never turn on cable news, but I do feel somewhat less anxiety-ridden.
2
@Julie I also use the mute effectively. It's the only defense from a media that gives the last word in segments where two opposing views are present. It also serves to negate the "all trump all the time" without an opposing opinion that the media has chosen to abide by.
2
Between the recent pipe-bombs and the Synagogue attack, one must surely come to the conclusion that if Trump's supporters aren't "deplorable" -- their acts certainly are.
5
"Riling up the crazies" presumes crazies exist in sufficient numbers that manipulating them would create an advantage.
So riling them up is only part of the problem. Atwater, Ailes, Limbaugh, Sinclair Media et al actively create and expand these markets. Their profit depends on it.
We let any organization use the word "news." Maybe we need to regulate that.
@Alix Hoquet...Keen idea! We'll just rephrase the First Amendment to read "Congress shall make only laws...abridging the freedom...of the press that assure that only those elements of the press that proselytize progressive positions are allowed". The result would naturally lead to only those crazies on the left being riled up by the NYT, W*P*, CNN, MSNBC, SNL, etc whose profits depend upon the degree to which crazies tilt the click bait dial.
You cite Naomi Wolf’s advice to Bill Clinton and Al Gore to be Good Father figures and add:
"You’d think by now that Democrats would have learned to do that in a compassionate way, and that they would be ready to counteract Republican horror movies." I take that to mean Democrats should offer the American people a positive, reassuring vision of calm strength. Amen.
It’s a sign of the times that the metaphor for such an offering now can be the Good Mother. There are many women in Democratic politics, both as candidates and as the intelligent energy carrying candidates forward, who are capable of turning the vision into reality.
But at the same time, many liberal women are demonstrating intelligence-free energy. Though we need an end to "Republican horror movies", these Madame Defarges think only of changing the story lines. To judge from their polemics, one would think they aimed to counter patriarchy with a pogrom against all things male. Their watchword is the consumptive “rage”. Their wholesale vilification of men sells the opposition’s image of liberals as a frenzied mob. None of this is lost on the rage-weary electorate, though the consequences are apparently lost on the women in question and their obsequious fellow travelers.
Thank goodness for the grown-up women in the room. Their wisdom and steady striving are the wave that can save, if it’s not swamped by a competing wave of bile. Democracy can be secured by wise women, or it can be cast away by clueless ones.
3
@Longestaffe Sorry I haven't seen the "wholesale villification of men" that you claim, unless you mean simply the acknowledgment that our society has traditionally empowered men at the expense of women.
In 1877, W. K. Clifford published "The Ethics of Belief." In it, he states, "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence." In reading hundreds of NYT opinions and comments, it is crystal clear that most are forming their beliefs through "wishful thinking." Conveniently, this circumvents any need for intelligent debate based on reason, and permits emotional desire to shape a completely false and misleading perception of reality. The lack of self-awareness in all this is spectacular.
2
I see a ray of hope in dark times. The reason Republicans must rile the crazies is because the majority of the people reject their core ideas and policies. Health care, equality, equity, the value of immigrants, respect and collaboration with allies, a strong social safety net, gun safety, etc etc; all are strongly supported by the majority and particularly by younger generations.
Republicans are raging against the dying of their light.
6
Better late than never.
For those who have been paying attention, think seriously about these lines below.
Trump said on Twitter that “events in Pittsburgh are far more devastating than originally thought.”
Trump later addressed reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done,” he said. “The results are very devastating, you’re seeing the numbers come in.”
Did you absorb the hypocrisy and failed deception yet?
He added that if the temple “had some kind of protection” that “it could have been a much different situation.”
For a con-man who openly courted the votes of white-supremacists, we need to help take our country back on Nov 6th
While gerrymandering and voter suppression are in full-swing at this moment, we will need great courage to continue fighting the new civil-war.
8
Hard to face the hard facts. America unluckily voted a Marketer as President. Of Course, he's going to cut out the Middle Man. He's "Art of the Deal" Guy. He's not going to soothe the nation with reassuring rhetoric. What marketer does that? No, that "Bomb Stuff" is Marketer Talk--Face it America--it's not going to change while he is in office.................
1
Although understated, Dowd presents the best argument comparing Republican political strategy to Nazism I've seen yet. Leni Riefenstahl is exactly the appropriate source they use for inspiration. However, there's an underlying truth about propaganda. Effective propaganda requires the audience want to be convinced.
Think of it like a fantasy or sci-fi novel. You enter the book willing to have the author strip reality away from you. You settle into a comfortable state of make-believe. That's why the books are enjoyable. You are allowed to believe the unbelievable.
Republicans, and Fox News specifically, are attempting to make this state of unbelief permanent. There's no other way they to accomplish policy initiatives that are otherwise impossible to win on the merits. See the recent tax cuts or ACA repeal for examples. Propaganda is really just cover for their unpopularity.
10
It is time to redefine Trump’s meaningless slogan MAGA. American was great long before Trump. Greatness is not the issue. The slogan must stand for MAKE AMERICA GOOD AGAIN!!
2
It's difficult to imagine things getting even worse, but I think we all know deep down that it could, and will, if Republicans are not defeated in 10 days. Imagine the looming disaster if we see an emboldened and smirking Trump, McConnell & co. Please vote as if the future of the nation depends on it.....because it does.
13
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke, 1770
"The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movements leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world" Eric Hoffer, 1951
25
It's not for nothing that the word "base" is all one needs to understand today's political system.
Our electoral college, the actual determinant for electing a president, allows a minority voting base to win an election.
The winning party's members refuse to do their jobs properly because they fear that voters who make up this minority base will disapprove and vote them out.
And then the basest of presidents uses base rhetoric fueled by base intelligence to appeal to this base -- thus giving new meaning to "running the bases."
As a result, the rest of us get to witness America's new favorite pastime at its absolute worst.
6
@Lois...If the Democratic Party candidate had won the Electoral College vote - which is the Constitutionally mandated method of electing an American President - the US would still be governed by a President who did not receive the majority of votes cast in 2016. The concept of plurality escapes some bases.
There's another factor not often credited - Broadcast media's role in creating the climate that made Fox News possible. It started with a technology change, the switch to portable video equipment from film cameras. When stations discovered that live news reports, particularly ones covering crimes or other tragedies, increased viewership, the local news business model changed from cost center to profit center. News changed from boring "education" to "entertainment".
Over twenty years interest in "beat" reporting was replaced with a focus on stories with emotional appeal. "What's happening in the state capital" disappeared, replaced by, "Nobody expected he would go crazy and kill his entire family". The broadcast new model was not the only thing replaced at the local level - Local news was supplemented by national prime access programs featuring entertainment news.
But, local stations are the farm system for networks. The result? When Roger Ailes went to staff Fox News, he could call on a reservoir of talent already focused on delivering emotional appeals. He just had to pump up the volume on history's three basic propaganda objectives; stoking fear, generating hate, and assigning blame.
Frontal lobe news is so mid-20th century... Welcome to the rebirth of 19th century yellow journalism, now "yellow tape" journalism, recognizing the crime scene tape that is the background for today's news.
9
@John Archer
My brother works in the Industry. He said of the local Fox affiliate "if it bleeds; it leads"..
Yes, Right on, there needs to be more reporting and education on these carefully cultivated scare tactics. Stochastic terrorism is a real tactic and is used knowingly by terrorist groups. Trump, Stone, Bannon, Bill Shine and the cooks and liars are knowingly talk about violence KNOWING that a lone wolf will eventually act on the violence. Look up definitions of stochastic terrorism and lone wolf, it's not what you think it is. Ask the FBI and the CIA they know what is going on.
11
@Kathy Morelli yet its the left that uses violence.
It is no coincidence that Donald Trump, who alone wields the assume power of the Presidential podium claims, "I am a Nationalist" with a wink and a nod to his MAGA cult and within less than a weeks time we have the MAGA bomber, a random race killing and the horrific antisemitic slaughterhouse in a sacred house of worship. Donald Trump doesn't care, but some body in the Republican Party had better start paying attention, stop making excuses and repeating "both sides" over and over again or this form of entitled hatred and persecution will continue to be committed, over and over again.
5
Time to clean house. Vote to get rid of the Republican Congress It will be the first step towards sanity.
4
I want a news blackout on Trump's endless rallies. Stop covering him and fewer crazies will be riled up. And I want the media to tell us how much taxpayers' money he is wasting flying around the country on Air Force One and campaigning instead of governing. Aren't there any laws against this?
46
@Christy
That too would give him succor.
The thing that is lacking is spinal fortitude in the press. The don't confront the lies as they are spoken. They don;t shut down the staccato of them meant to do what it is doing, keep them silent they do not do their ob falsely claiming that it is not their responsibility to counter directly the lies they hear in the moment.
etcetera...........ad infinitum
2
Maureen from the "Times" was, of course, rational, correct, and truthful yesterday (even in an opinion piece) in writing:
"The real fear that Cesar Sayoc Jr. is accused of spreading was distracting from the fake fear Trump was spreading to spur Republicans to the polls. And the president didn’t like it. Before Sayoc was caught, Trump implied that the terrorism was a Democratic setup to deflect from his midterms roadshow. Pipe bombs getting in the way of pipe dreams."
However, the "Times" media report "Trump’s Attacks on the News Media Are Working" by Jim Rutenberg today is also, of course, rational, correct, and truthful when it reports that:
"In practical terms, then, journalists should ignore Mr. Trump’s tactic of using false narratives to divert their attention away from real crises, he said. But how long will it take the news media come up with a more effective way to counter the litany of baseless claims washing through the news cycle?"
So, the big question, IMHO, is not only "how long will it take the news media come up with a more effective way to counter the litany of baseless claims washing through the news cycle? ---- but, also, what can 'we the American people' do to help the media bring-out the real truth by the people?
My simple, sane, and effective solution, that we can do, but the media can't --- is to overtly, honestly, and loudly 'call-out' "Emperor Trump" for what he is, America's first obvious Emperor --- and demand that:
"We can't be an Empire"!
13
@Alan MacDonald
Maureen, you wisely referenced (and provided a live link to) the fabulously insightful documentary film "Divide and Conquer".
How many American people don't know that "DIVIDE AND CONQUER" is the key factor of EMPIRE? --- always has been, and still is under Emperor Trump.
Can modern Americans be so un-"Woke" that they can't see their country turning in to an Empire?
As I've commented here on the "Times" many times:
My advice to all Americans about voting in 2018 if they are smart, but more about 2020 if they're not, is to ask themselves this simple but seminal question:
Do you want to vote in favor of a country that "acts like an Empire?" --- or a country that "acts like a democracy?"
If the American people can't be "Woke" to the deadly fact that our democratic Republic is turning into an Empire under so obvious an Emperor as Caesar Trumpius, and are no more 'Woke' than Roman citizen/'subjects' or German citizen/'subjects' were --- then as Redford's film was titled --- "All Is Lost".
3
"... to bring down Michael Dukakis by making 'Willie Horton his running mate ...'”
That was 30 years ago. Why can't Democrats tie Trump, in the same way, to brutal figures like M.B.S., Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Recep Erdogan, or Rodrigo Duterte? Haven't they had enough time to study the GOP playbook? Or even using Mitch McConnell as an albatross with his open statements about wanting to shred Social Security and Medicare?
I bet they won't be able to figure it out. They just don't seem to have what to takes to beat down Trump.
Two years out from the last election and we're just now discussing how Hillary and Bill should take to the sidelines and why HRC should not run again in 2020. Two years out.
After Democrats marginally flip the House, but not the Senate, on November 6, we can begin another two-year period discussing how they need to work on significantly improving the potency of their messaging.
Maybe they'll get that message by 2020. But who knows?
3
The modern day Republican party is filled with old white men, desperately clinging to their privilege and power. And this is why they back Trump. They know he's crass. They know he's a pathological liar. They know he's corrupt. But even they have given in to Trump's fear-mongering...and they desire to go back to the days before "that first black president had to go and create opportunities for women, people of color, the LGBT community, etc." Brett Kavanaugh's ascension to the supreme court and the GOP's fierce defense of him was also based on fear--fear that a woman's accusation could steal a man's rightful place on the Supreme Court.
The sad thing is that the GOP doesn't realize that it's not a zero sum game. White men don't lose their privilege or power as women and people of color make strides in our society. But Trump has scared them into believing that lie. When Lindsey Graham yelled like a maniac at the Kavanaug hearing, we certainly witnessed how Trump was riling up the crazies.
7
Perhaps on November 6th we should vote as if it is our last chance?
We've normalized prejudice and vitriol and fomenting fear.
We’ve normalized poverty.
We’ve normalized enormous income disparity.
We’ve normalized epidemic level use of anti-depressants, opioids, and anti-anxiety medications.
We’ve normalized marijuana use.
We’ve normalized the sexual harassment and abuse of women.
We’ve normalized the sexual abuse of coaches, teachers, employers, and priests.
We’ve normalized spending and credit, absent any savings.
We’ve normalized health care as a privilege, not a right.
We’ve normalized assault weapon ownership.
We've normalized the shooting of our children in their own schools.
We’ve normalized full-time child care to raise our children.
We’ve normalized technological contact as a replacement for genuine connection, friendship and intimacy
“Liberals” and “Conservatives” share in the responsibility for the list above. However, what we have allowed is not about a tribe, a party, a label, or an ideology…it’s about our shared humanity.
So, on November 6th vote for the human beings who will stop normalizing; vote for the candidates who recognize the real work that needs to be done.
Vote as if it is your last chance.
3
The news media is the one who stokes the fire,they do not play neutral they support either the democrats or republicans not trying to be equal. It come to the point you do not want to watch or read them because of there views slanted to there own thinking
1
The fact that this routine and cynical tactic has been rightly shown so often to be effective on the right and bemoaned on the left says much about our culture. Perhaps some future American anthropologist will be fascinated by what she learns about her benighted ancestors, looking at us in the same bemused way we look back at the likes of Cotton Mather, relentlessly warning everyone of the dangers of non-existent witches until the violent mob--with no sense of irony--demands to be made safe by the trial and execution of anyone who arouses its hysterical hatred.
2
@Steve Weaver. My eightth great grandfather, Samuel Wardwell, was hung in Salem in 1692 in the midst of that insanity and you are spot on with your comparison. I have made it often myself.
"people with darker skin looming.They’re coming, always coming, to take things and change things and hurt people."
Maureen,
I am a dark skin man.
I have 2 Masters from Ivy League schools
I did scientific projects @ IBM, Silicon Valley, and Federal Government.
I paid on average-6 figures/year in taxes for past 25 years.
I mentored to hundredths of students-mostly Whites.
Who gave Trump and his ilk the right to classify me a threat?
59
@MorGan, its all relative. There was a time when the Italian immigrants were not considered pale enough.
2
Dear Ms. Dowd,
Thank you. An angry, eloquent column. But not angry enough. Where are we going? How have we come to this? I grieve for the Pittsburgh worshippers mowed down by a creature of hate. I fear for our country, run by a creature of hate and his toadies. Supported by so many...
Where are we going?How have we come to this?
10
When Bob Dylan sang "Hard Rain" we all knew he was right, we just didn't know what it would look like.
4
@DooDah Also brings to mind "Bad Moon Rising" one line sticks out "I hear the voice of rage and ruin" What else could we reasonably expect when it's realized by the working class that they were fired and the jobs won't be coming back. Truly one of the most astonishing tricks ever played on a population. Turns out Ross Perot was right about that sucking sound.
hey, you just stole my idea by mentioning "Frankenstein Trump"'''I was watching a special on TCM last week about Frankenstein (the book and the movies), and as the program went I had the idea of Trump as Frankenstein' Creature (or Monster)...created by Dr Frankenstein from parts of Trump's past: the gift of millions from his father, the self aggrandizing Trump properties, the bankrupt casinos, the fraudulent Trump University, and so on...reanimated by the electrical spark of a dismal reality show...eventually spreading fear amongst the populous...of course the graphic of Trump as Dr Frankenstein would be perfect as well...
1
This column contains several important factual errors, but it is sufficient to note that "Willie Horton" began its life as Albert
Gore's campaign issue in the primaries.
Better late than never.
For those who have paying attention, think about these lines below.
Trump said on Twitter that “events in Pittsburgh are far more devastating than originally thought.”
Trump later addressed reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done,” he said. “The results are very devastating, you’re seeing the numbers come in.”
Did you absorb the blatant hypocrisy and failed deception yet?
He added that if the temple “had some kind of protection” that “it could have been a much different situation.”
For a con-man who openly courted the votes of white-supremacists, we need to begin to take our country back on Nov 6th.
While gerrymandering and voter suppression are in full-swing at this moment, we will need great courage to continue the new civil-war.
25
The elite, globalist cabal is being torn done by our MAGA POTUS and they are fighting back using any means necessary. It will all get more intense until it is brought to a full stop by President Trump. Hopefully, that will begin next week after election day.
1
In the current political and cultural climate we need to be afraid.
We should be afraid of the cynical and sinister politicians that are corrupting our democracy.
The Trumps, the McConnells, the Ryans, and all the old, rich, white men of the Republican party.
We have an opportunity in November to fire a warning shot across the bow of the corrupted ship of state.
Let's hope we seize the moment.
17
@Jack Carbone...When you seize the moment, are you going to replace the old, rich white men of the Republican party with old, rich white women and men of the Democratic Party? Warner, Blumenthal, Pelosi and Feinstein would appreciate more limo liberals in Congress. Is being old, rich and white the problem, or is the problem the Party?
Your essay, Ms. Dowd raises some interesting questions of ethical and legal responsibility. This does go back to Nixon and it came to full fruition under Ailes and Atwater. But what of those, not in office, but in the voting booth?
Here I do not mean the poorly educated, or those diseased in mind or body or raised to hate others. I speak of the educated, the middle and upper-middle class, the small business owners, the middle managers, the professionals and yes, even some educators.
These folks willingly turn a blind eye and vote GOP consistently. For their own narrow interests, usually financial or commercial but often to keep their neighborhood "free of crime", often a euphemism for keeping it lily white. Have they no fault here? Have they no blood on their hands here?
Some brave Republicans have broken with Trump and denounced the far right and have even said vote Democrat in this election. Far too few. Republicans are now acting like those they once denounced---the 1940's and 1950's left who saw no problem with "Uncle Joe" in Moscow despite gulags, purges and mass murder. Shame on those Republicans.
2
Maureen, you say that as long as you have been covering politics"the Republicans have been trying to scare me."I am from a generation older than you and I can still say that.My college years were filled with the bitter accusations of Joseph McCarthy.He filled the country with hate and completely divided the population.The "Communists" were the ones to be feared and persecuted.People who did not live through that do not realize how similar that was to the division we feel today.Trump is a divider, an accuser, a purveyor of insult and a mean spirited voice that seeks to favor some and throw all others into a category of despicables.People either lie, have a low IQ or are crooked or are enemies of the people according to Trump.Joseph McCarthy was a hater and divider and so is Trump.We must speak out, take cases to court, and most of all VOTE!
5
Maureen you are so on the money with this OpEd. However, is the fault with Atwater, Ailes and company, or is it with an electorate woefully ignorant, racist and greedy? The fact that these awful people produce such malignant dross is certainly terrible. But this does not excuse the complicity of voters who digest these lies and paranoid machinations.
John Kerry in his recent memoir, does an excellent job of reliving the Bush campaign, where his credibility as a war hero in Vietnam Nam was called into question and probably cost him the election. The fact that Bush, Cheney, and their minions, were successful in casting Kerry as the Chicken-Hawk, when in actuality they never were anywhere near a battle field, while Kerry was in harms way and a recipient of the Navy's Distinguished Service Award, makes for disgusting reading.
You are so correct in pointing out that Republicans have been adept at exposing all our fault lines and capitalizing on them. If people choose ignorance over knowledge, greed over a healthy society, racism over acceptance, then they deserve the type of governance we currently are experiencing. Unfortunately we all have to suffer.
11
@Peter...Speaking of ignorance over knowledge, you might want to review Kerry's war record. A Distinguished Service Award [sic] was not awarded to him during or because of his four month tour in Nam.
Although I have never been a patriotic sort of person — who could attach themselves to a mere country? — I have genuine contempt for USA after Trump. When 40% of the population support such a deeply immoral man, how could I ever respect such a nation?
“So when Republican lawmakers complain about Trump’s white nationalist rhetoric ...”
You lost me here, as that’s happened so infrequently, and so meekly, as to be negligible.
Don’t be naive. If the Republicans can squeeze one more vote out of white nationalist rhetoric than they lose, they are all for it.
3
Murdoch needs to be held to account also for continuing to push Hannity, Pirro et al in face of Trump's incitement to violence.
Just as he did in UK with News of the World hacking a dead child's phone for a story, he knows no boundaries of decorum, appealing to the worst of humanity for clicks.
They (& Aus) kicked him out best they could.
Roy Cohn, Murdoch, Ailes dystopian vision now realized in Trump and our country remains stunned, 2 yrs later. Best responses have been from former GOPers like Steve Schmidt or Max Boot--they are calling DT out much more forcefully than Dems. We should hire them for PR. They know how to fight.
11
Great column Mo! Too bad you waited till election eve to rejoin the fight. Today's column needs to be published every day to combat their hate. Forget Australia for now.
5
It pains me to write this about fellow citizens, but those who cheer and laugh and, of course, spew hate at Drumpf rallies are ill-educated Americans. And yes, I blame our frequently dreadful educators that they exist.
8
@Ron
Then pay your educators a good wage and then you'll get good educators.
1
Yes, Maureen, I think you have correctly identified some of the motives that drive people in the propaganda business.
But your core assumption is absurd: that all receivers of media propaganda just stupidly march obediently to whatever tune is played to them. Leni Riefenstahl was really good at propaganda symbolism. Any student of "message film" well might benefit from studying her techniques, which do not work because of her political biases. That's like saying Max Schmeling had a good right hook, so real American boxers should never throw a right hook.
You simply throw around words like "racism" while not considering the pros and cons of the subject under discussion. If you value free speech, then you can't only value the words and phrases that you prefer.
That's why the sly game of finding an atrocity in your opponent's biases, while cleverly ignoring or avoiding mention of your own biases, or while pretending your atrocities are less damaging than your opponent's, seems so unpersuasive.
Name-calling simply is not a substitute for real intellectual work.
1
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine and we will return to a correctly informed nation again.
2
What we have here is a morally broken political party, that encompasses about 40%, give or take a few points, of our country. Most media people used to have a sense of responsibility, to uphold the better parts of our nature, and to use their position it inform the public with the facts and truth of the matter at hand. Too bad they found out how easy it is to incite racism, xenophobia, and greed, and how well it paid. FOX News is nothing but a propaganda outlet with what is now obviously a dangerous message. That we have a POTUS that gleefully revels in bullying, lying, and belittling women is a sincere reflection of our country. I hang my head in shame to call it 'My Country'.
18
Yes, the GOP is morally broke. But it doesn't rep 40% of country. At most only 20%. Only 55-60% of eligible voters vote. And that is in a Presidential year. The U.S. is largely a country of Don't Cares. While there is voter suppression in some places, it is infinitesimal compared to those that are just plain apathetic. These lazies are enablers as much as the crazies.
2
On the other side are the globalists of Davos, smooth as butter, totally PC. They & the establishment they support decided long ago that globalism would be the policy for the West, now they just have to bring those pesky voters into line. I just saw Tim Cook say how concerned he is with income & wealth inequality. Davos is all deeply concerned with that, their own fortunes upwards of $100 billion are the inevitable result of their virtue & talent, & they can't wait to give them away to the needy. The media they own & control say they are wonderful wealth creators, conjuring money out of thin air. Murdoch btw is pro-immigration & makes his news outlet as pro-immigration as he can get away with.
Globalists have made China rich & powerful, but unfortunately China wants to destroy us. Latin American cities are growing rapidly & crime & drugs are growing fast too. Africa is expected to grow to 10 times the 1980 population by 2100. Globalists want many of the growing populations to move to the West, to keep them growing.
Globalists want growth above all, it makes the rich richer.
Well, Ms. Dowd, you've said it all. Right on the money, targeted the apple, and every other cliche that applies. But, the question always remains: What can we do about it? FDR is long gone and recent Democrats have never been as adept in countering these Hitlerish tactics.
On a happier note, I live in the Hudson Valley and have been walking my dogs at the FDR estate grounds for decades. I've never seen it so crowded as in these past few years-barely a parking space to be found. A good omen? November is coming.
1
Trump has been steering us towards a conflagration from the beginning of the escalator ride announcing his campaign. Scapegoating immigrants with a bullhorn left no doubt about his character or his methods.
Trump has since piled up more enemies including a large majority of women, all our allies and neighbors, one entire religion, most of the media, the dear departed John McCain, and anyone to the left of Attila the Hun.
(It says as much about Trump that his only friends are the Russians, the Saudis, Bibi's Israel, and a rogues gallery of vicious autocrats.)
Trump broadcasts his enemies list at every opportunity, and he essentially invites retribution by violent elements on the right. The Southern Poverty Law Center had already documented a substantial rise in hate crimes since Trump's election. And probably to no one's surprise, we now have bomb threats and a synagogue shooting going into the election.
In the face of this, Trump reads a few lines decrying violence but then doubles down on hate. He demonizes a few thousand unarmed peasants, most of whom will voluntarily surrender themselves at the border. And blames Democrats and the media for a the loss of civility.
It's all nuts, and it's frankly a miracle that more people haven't been hurt. Trump has to be reined in, and then ejected from office at soon as possible. VOTE!
Even in times like this, you and your fellow opinion writers on both sides, continue to try and tear this country apart. How about, for a change, you and your fellow opinion writers write some "heart felt" pieces promoting harmony and bringing the country together. After all, Trump might not be whom we need, but he is whom we have. Do you not have some civic responsibility to try and stop this vitriolic rhetoric? Or, No, the responsibility lies only with him? This is just your opinion, so it is all "fair game".?
Whatever happened to the journalistic integrity of the "fourth estate"?
1
"people with darker skin looming.They’re coming, always coming, to take things and change things and hurt people."
Maureen,
I am a dark skin man.
I have 2 Masters from Ivy League schools
I did scientific projects @ IBM, Silicon Valley, and Federal Government.
I paid on average-6 figures in taxes for the past 25 years.
I mentored to hundredths of students-mostly Whites.
Who gave Trump and his elk the right to classify me a threat?
6
Trump, McConnell, and their ilk are the architects of the demise of our country. They are cannibalizing us with their fear, hate and loathing that's ultimately tied to their personal lust for more and more status, money, and power.
I cannot believe this is our leadership. I cannot believe the GOP allows this. I cannot believe there are even tight races with some Republicans who are happily throwing the vast majority of Americans under the bus to please the wealthy white of the country. It is all so disappointing.
4
We also must look to see who is behind the Ailses, Atwaters, Bushes, Nixons, Murdochs et. al. The real power. For those are only the frontmen.
5
Trump has been covered fairly by the mainstream.They report is dishonesty, his vulgar taunting behavior and his contempt for a free press. And where has it gotten us? He can do no wrong in the eyes of his supporters. They love him no matter what he does or says.In the great divide many like me believe Trump is the worst POTUS ever and by far. Hopefully Nov 6 will reaffirm his voters as a minority. That is the only reason for cautious optimism for the future of America.
21
@Milton Lewis
" Hopefully Nov 6 will reaffirm his voters as a minority. "
If not we're doomed.
1
We should all remember...and agree...what Trump told us over two years ago. He said he could go out in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would still be loyal to him. That was true then and it is today. His supporters couldn't care less if he lied to them all day long. As long as he stokes hate....they love him.
Perhaps, with the experience of two years of watching him and his mob, I think he should revise his 5th Avenue statement now. The only way his supporters will defect from him is, if in fact, he did go out in the middle of 5th Avenue and shot someone. Himself.
7
"So when Republican lawmakers complain about Trump’s white nationalist rhetoric, what they are really saying is that they prefer a more subtle racism"..That is a crude and irresponsible generalization to say that Republican's are for racism!
There are people who that illegal immigration is hurting America and are not racists! There are objective, rational people who think that the Democrats and women's groups went too far in their attack against Kavanaugh! They are not racists.
3
Let's not forget that Nixon was dealing with the North Vietnamese and undermining the peace talks prior to his election (dubbed treason by LBJ). Reagan was similiarly dealing with Iran over the hostages, undermining president Carter, again prior to his election. It's now been learned that Lee Atwater set up Gary Hart on "Monkey Business", destroying his presidential campaign so George HW Bush didn't have to run against him. And of course SCOTUS picked "W", even though Gore actually won the election. And we call ourselves a democracy??
1
Everyday Muslims were shocked and terrified by what people did in the name of their religion. People asked why didn't the "good Muslims stand up to the bad". We learned that people had been "radicalized" to kill in the name of a perversion of their religion and Republicans objected to those who wouldn't utter Radical Islamic Terrorist.
Today everyday Americans are shocked and terrified by what people are doing in the name of ideology. People ask why don't the good guys stand up to the bad guys. What we are seeing is the radicalization of people in a perversion of conservative political beliefs where Republicans object to those who utter Radical Right-wing Terrorism.
What we are seeing first hand is how radicalization happens in what can seem normal and defensible. There is no doubt in my mid that we aren't looking at a dismissible mental illness but a systematic radicalization of extremists.
8
I haven't read the book, but one of the saddest and most evil consequences of Ailes and his ilk has been the demonization of Hillary Clinton, which began with some 2 million dollars made available to outright racists in Arkansas as early as 1992. And, when it comes to race and bigotry, there are millions of people who are ready to--and will--believe any lie, no matter how preposterous. Republicans and their Evangelical "Christians" seem to believe and proudly promote them all.
5
The Republicans have become the party of aggrieved white Christians, and the Democrats the party of little groups defined by every infinitesimal slice of DNA. Yes, in all the universe you’re unique, just like everyone else.
As a former Republican never-Trumper who just voted straight Democratic in Tennessee, I see no one yet on the horizon that I can support for President in 2020.
11
@Last Moderate Standing. I’m holding out hope for Adam Schiff myself.
6
Ask your local representative about HR 676, Medicare for All.
The right delights in characterizing Democrats as slaves to identity politics. But Democrats uniquely are addressing real issues: healthcare, the environment, wage inequality, opioids, and vote suppression. Republican topics — immigration, crime, over regulation, socialism, and corporate taxes — are all bogus.
It’s not just Trump. It’s the whole party.
This congress came within one vote of repealing Obamacare, with absolutely nothing in exchange. It voted Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court after a blatant display of intemperate partisanship. It enacted an irresponsible tax cut, 80% of which went to the top 1%, deepening wealth inequality, raising the deficit, and providing a pretext for cuts to our social welfare programs.
At least Democrats aren’t pretending to solve nonproblems or to defend things the are actually sabotaging. Like, say, preexisting conditions or social security. They’re not claiming to raise wages by cutting corporate taxes. They’re not promising a return to a coal-based economy, pretending there’s a war on coal, when natural gas is the real culprit.
You may not like every Democratic policy proposal. But at least they’re based in the real world, and are honest about what they’re up to. Until there is another party doing that, there’s only one that deserves your vote.
6
As if one security guard in a synagogue would have been a match for a man armed with an assault weapon and pistols who succeeded in wounding four police officers, two of whom were swat officers. And murdering eleven others.
6
I live in the land of the crazies, and I am around them all the time. I am close to a number of them. They are regular people insofar as they drive vehicles, go shopping, eat out at restaurants, they attend various churches, they work, rake leaves, they vote and the go to the doctor. But you k ow that's not why they are crazies.
They are crazy because they have an inside voice that they used to keep to themselves that they now speak out loud. They don't filter what is in their thoughts before sounds come out of their mouths. This has become quite disconcerting because reasonable persons might wonder if they have the courage of their convictions.
This week in our local paper that's circulated on Wednesdays, the Illinois Valley News, and it published the full 1,000 word ranting letter from a person in our community railing against journalists. The writer said they believe people who get murdered more than likely deserved it, and extended this theory to Khashoggi. He said if the Medford Mail Tribune staff were killed he'd not shed a tear. This guy is representative of many other older white males in my village, and I can say this because I am on the front line.
I do not think we can fully appreciate how scared these people are, but they are scared crazy.
4
The crazies got the green light in 2016 when the candidate proudly proclaimed he says what he means. What do hateful words mean when spoken by a sitting president? Who sets the tone of Washington rhetoric with authority?
2
I remember back in the mid-nineties my little sister asking what is “poetic justice”. In about a picosecond my aunt responded “It’s the brilliant Lee Atwater dying of brain cancer”.
2
Mo, your best column in a long, long while! Thanks!!
1
When Dowd isn’t trying to be a clever snark, she’s a much better read. Her point that Trump eliminates the usual political middlemen and revels in doing the dirty work of fear mongering himself is quite insightful.
19
Thank you, Maureen, for laying this out so clearly. Conservatives are at a loss as to how to get their party back (fiscally conservative, strong alliances, free trade), and I confess I'm at a loss as to how to get America back. We are reaping the legacy of allowing the South to repudiate the agreement ending the Civil War, and then repeating that with the Civil Rights Act.
This has allowed the Republican Party to become extremist, driven by the profits of its donors rather than by the traditional ideological Republican agenda. They have become the party of ultimate corruption, looting the public treasury, mortgaging the future for current profits, and betraying both the citizens and the Constitution.
I think that the real problem is the core voter who doesn't understand what they're doing, and just checks off the candidates with "R" next to their name. The September 5th article about the teachers in Arizona - "Arizona Lawmakers Cut Education Budgets. Then Teachers Got Angry." - is a clear example of how the average voters had no realization of the level of corruption in their Republican Legislature, and how they were not only funded by Koch's and De Vos's to channel resources to charter schools, but were personally using that structure to bleed off millions for themselves. The Republicans voted against public school funding, one and all, while the teachers sat in the gallery and watched.
How do we get other Republican to understand this?
2
Donald Trump has turned this country into a seething mass of anger. People stand aghast as each day brings insults against at anyone who speaks out whether it is the newspapers or television reporters. Trump's supporters revel and support his actions. The mail bomber and the assassin who attacked the synagogue killing 11 people in Pittsburg have been encouraged and empowered by the president's rhetoric.
Yes, riling up the crazies is happening daily. Do we need another Oklahoma City bombing by right wing home grown killers. Conspiracy theories spread more hatred and Fox News is just a mouth piece to enforce and spread the Trump agenda.
The Christian church has supported a man who hates blacks, women, immigrants, and hispanics. Where is the message of love thy neighbor? Where is the condemnation for Donald Trump's daily spewing of hate?
419
@judy75007
No he just took advantage of what the GOP has been building with the care and finesse of a fine architect for the last 40 years.
38
What does the Christian “church” (there is no “Christian church) have to do with Trump?
7
@judy75007 Excuse me JUDY, where has he ever said he HATES any or even ONE of the groups you mentioned? He hasn’t and in point of fact has said many times how much he cares for them, unlike democrats who simply USE people. We are Americans first, not silo’d fodder to be used politically. You are the problem here, not Trump. How do you expect he built his business over the years being this monster those on your side try to portray him as? If you say it enough it’s true? No, its not. We don’t buy into your lies.
5
Trump and the GOP are not the cause of the current problems in America, they are simply a symptom. The causes of the problem are that far too many Americans believe in toxic Liberty University-style religion, believe that more and more guns are the only answer to violence, believe that accumulation of wealth is a be-all and end-all, believe that healthcare should be a personal responsibility and a personal responsibility only, believe that if everyone else in the world would simply let America lead the way then the world would become a utopia, etc etc.
These are myths that many Americans have believed in since of the founding of our country, so they actually have little to do with Trump and the current GOP.
The problem we have is not a problem caused by Trump and the GOP. It is a problem caused by far too many of our citizens. So until these citizens give up the myths they so fiercely cling to the problems in America will remain.
2
You misread Christianity and forget that Jesus cleared the temple in a direct challenge to the elites of the day, and consistently identified with the marginalized. As a black Evangelical my faith empowers me to avoid Trump’s demonic spell fueled by deception and racism, even if some of my white Evangelical brothers and sisters have not mustered the courage to stand up to Trump and demand better of him.
1
Rather than focus on gender, race, ethnicity of the perpetuators of violence, I would be more interested in the political preference of the perpetuator. Is there any correlation with the violent behavior and the current state of the political parties? How can we tone down the call to hatred and violence when it hits those who are vulnerable to such behaviors?
I've lived long enough to remember Eric Sevareid, a CBS editorialist on their evening news. He was wise and articulate in his statements on key issues of the day. He called out the bad eggs and summarized the realities in a tone and language everyone at every level could understand. We long for the major networks to help us struggle through the complexities of these troubled days. For all their wealth and power the major networks must take up the full range of journalism, editorials and all. Let the advertisers take care of themselves, and start serving the public good again.
13
Are you wondering how to talk to people about the upcoming election?
Talk about the recent shootings and the pipe bombs. The violence, incited by our president and both his reticent and his conspiracy-mongering enablers. Use fear, the same way Trump does.
Don't forget to mention the current stock market correction that will lead to an economic slowdown, maybe a recession, along with job losses and a decline in housing prices.
Underscore McConnell's comments about needing to eviscerate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA to pay for the GOP tax cuts for the wealthy and massive spending on defense.
Remember Trump's ties to Putin and dictators worldwide, the Mueller investigation and the recent indictments of Manafort and Cohen. We have unparalleled division in the country, and racism, and misogyny, and disdain for immigrants who we need in order to build a stronger nation.
Also put in a word for Trump's crony Cabinet, including no plans for any major infrastructure projects and the dismantling of public education, along with paralyzing student debt with for-profit colleges.
Remind voters of our lack of action with climate change, ripping up the Paris Accord as well as the Iran deal and the INF Treaty.
The world is now a much more dangerous place with Trump and the GOP in control of Congress. Emphasize that. People want to be safe, first and foremost. We are far from safe right now, and we need to change that, before it's too late.
55
@Blue Moon
All good points and true...except you're not talking to you, you're talking to them. You'll need some other line. Talking to them does not run in a straight line.
The great conundrum with Trumpists is that they know he's a shameless liar, that he takes bribes from foreign leaders, and probably conspired with Putin, but they don't care. They know he's lying to them about climate change but they prefer that to the awful truth.
Science, logic and reality have thus far not worked.
2
We, the American electorate, are to blame for the decline of our political system.
Politicians are like sales people. They peddle ideas, promises, visions of the future.
Once in office, we have a duty to hold the politicians accountable.
Plainly, we made a catastrophic choice in electing Trump.
In a matter of days, we will again make a choice.
Do we opt for swing away from Trumpism and toward enlightenment, or do we stay the disastrous course?
It's up to all of us.
31
It seems that the flag has spent most of the past 2 years at half-mast more than it has at the top. Every time it marks something awful that has happened under the trump watch.
Perhaps we ought to keep the flag at half-mast and raise it only when something good happens.
I just acquired a new dictionary. I checked. There aren't enough words to describe what is happening to the nation and those who call it home. The book lacks words to fully describe trump and the damage he continues to do.
58
@wihiker
Mentioned this yesterday. Didn't he promise on Inauguration Day the carnage in our streets was going to stop? Seems it has increased by leaps and bounds. Pipe bombs and synagogue shooting all in one week.
More empty rhetoric from Trump. When will they ever learn?
2
Creating controversy has been a roadmap to success for multiple news organizations ala Crossfire and Meet the Press. Fox News took it to a level beyond anyone's imagination. Fox ceased to represent both sides of issues and turned into a propaganda organization highlighting multitudinous conspiracy theories and outright lies. Fox was and is the real purveyor of "fake news".
69
@dbl06
Years ago, as I waited in line at the grocery checkout, I'd find myself facing a display of cheesy tabloid publications such as the National Inquirer. "Space Alien weds (insert name of curvy starlet)!"; "Lovechild of Abraham Lincoln revealed!"; "Loni Anderson weds AGAIN!"; and so on...
What we've got now is 3D National Inquirer AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. And sales boom, just like at the grocery store checkout...
We can't only blame those in office for stirring up fear and hate without getting permission from the citizenry. Being poorly informed, accepting as truth that which confirms our bias and not doing our homework by fact checking, is the perfect environment for a Trump presidency.
82
Lots of people like me are with you. But, what is that we are going to do? One element is to recognize the beast. But, we haven't found the path to a solution. Of course, voting is a starting point. However, our electronic distraction babble keeps people from devising a plan and implement it. So long as we allow ourselves to willingly accept the hijacking of our rational minds with the constant electronic chaff we are the enemy and it is us.
28
@Brent Jeffcoat And the Media, pretty much all of it, except, perhaps MSNBC, always makes things seem to be equal. Trump tells another lie, well, there is always another one which some Democrat told back in 1930, so, of course, they all do it. It's a serious curse.
1
I agree that the Republican "methodology" is based on a special version of "Shock and Awe", which perhaps goes back to the newspaper headline in the "Daily Mirror" on the day of the first post-war election in Great Britain: the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, it was suggested, would, if re-elected, take Britain back to war. After the election, Churchill won huge damages, but he and his party were defeated.
Variations on this theme have now become ten-a-penny, especially since people can so easily spread hate messages over the Internet, apparently with impunity. And our belief in democracy is so ingrained that we would not even consider a test of a voter's suitability to take part in elections (and if we did so, the anti-democratic forces would have won.)
5
@Bill George
It’s not clear to me that Churchill wouldn’t have gone to war to preserve British dominion over India, Pakistan, South Africa, etc.
Most Presidents, once elected, make a genuine attempt to excel in the position, unify the country and represent all its citizens. Not so Donald Trump. I'm not sure yet what his art of this deal is ... As for now the best I can hope for is a safe, fair election process followed by a change in the toxic atmosphere in Washington.
63
@Sunny Trump's art of the deal is making more and more money while in office.
2
“As for now, the best I can hope for is a safe, fair election process...”
A fair election process is foundational to creating a new cast of characters and laws, but that has become the huge stumbling block. With the onslaught of voter suppression tactics persistently and successfully enacted by the Repubs (yet another statistic I read recently was close to 670,000 voters -targeted becsuse they vote for Dems- purged in Wisconsin, a top swing state), a “democratic voting process” has become an oxymoron. Kris Kobach’s Interstate Crosscheck has been enacted in 26 states, I believe, and more acts of suppression too numerous to list. THIS, with all of the horrible stuff spewing from the Trump presidency, is what upsets me most, because if elections are so rigged, we really are screwed. Greg Palast is an investigative reporter focused for years on voter suppression. You might want to check him out.
2
@Sunny
Yes! I remember clearly when Obama said, "Get in their faces!" and "If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies,
and we're gonna reward our friends....'". Did you forget those or do they not count on your scale of what is unifying and disunifying?
Who could forget when Hillary Clinton was asked “Which enemy are you most proud of?” and she replied, “Well, in addition to the NRA, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the Iranians? Probably the Republicans.”
Apparently you. You forgot.
So deplorable.
The international news is filled with sectarian, tribal strife, violence and killing. Instead of cooling tempers and leading _all_ Americans, Trump brings that violence home.
Shame, especially on Republicans who stand by and say nothing.
118
@pjd
Who are the Democrats that have condemned Antifa?
James Hodgkinson? Was he just a frustrated Bernie volunteer - literally triggered by Trump? We've seen a lot of violence directed at the right by deranged individuals.
I'd like to hear prominent leaders of the Democratic Party make a stand against the depraved antics of Kathy Griffin, condemn Johnny Depps' assassination fantasies and the violent and vulgar threats of Robert De Niro. Then there's Eric Holder, who should know better, exhorting Americans to kick his political opponents. Sick people like Hodgkinson hear these people and act.
Shame, especially on Democrats who stand by and say nothing while party leaders and celebrity favorites incite violence.
What have you said?
I am holding my breath waiting for the next two years pass with our democratic system intact. I still have hope because I know that by a small majority, we are decent, kind, loving people who feel that to hurt, to shame to murder one of us, you attempt to chip away at our decency. But, that is just not going to happen. My heart breaks for those affected by the horrors of this violence, but rest assured, the hope will prevail.
22
And now an anti- Semitic shooting in house of worship, a synagogue! What is next with this so-called president? A man who fakes outrage and then goes and riles up the crowd at his rallies. How has he manipulated and changed the restraints on this country?
Seriously he must be stopped. He's ruining all our lives. He's a hater who enjoys a perverse existence brain washing others with lies and fabrications. Where are the congress besides being home and counting their ill gotten gains
Vote them out, out ,out, they are trashing this society.
949
@ACB Odd that you would blame Donald Trump for the killing of Jews in Pittsburgh. He had nothing to do with it. Both his daughters are Jewish. He is a strong supporter of Israel. By all indications, he abhors the attack as much as anyone.
11
@ACB ahha ahha! Ruining our lives!? What in the world are you talking about?? I’ve never had it so good. I suggest you let go of your irrational hatred of all things Trump and maybe try rowing in the same direction for a little bit, you’ll probably like it.
4
@ACBYou are kidding, correct. Are you really blaming Trump for that?
5
Give the Republicans a break!
Pointing out that they are more likely to resort to questionable tactics, like fear mongering, is understandable. I was born during the Truman administration. The Republicans have been inclined to do whatever is necessary to win elections since the gentlemanly behavior of General Eisenhower faded away.
Consider their position. In truth, the Republicans serve the interests of a very small percentage of American voters. They are always stepping to the plate with two strikes against them. The Republicans are the party of the wealthy, of corporations, of the greedy.
They choose profits over the environment, over unions, over the impoverished, disadvantaged and disabled. Over fairness.
They clung to the lie that “cigarette smoking is not harmful” long after that was proven false. Their loyalty to the tobacco lobby trumped science.
Now they deny climate change is related to the burning of fossil fuels. Loyalty to business interests above all!
So how does a party that serves the interests of FAR less than half the voters win elections?
Put together a coalition. Tell them whatever they want to hear.
Curry the favor of religious fundamentalists, fans of the second amendment, angry people, the disenfranchised, folks who are still fighting the Civil War.
Make promises that appeal to these groups. Promises the party has no intention of keeping.
And, if the election is close, do whatever... Lies. Character assasination. Fear mongering. More crazy promises.
397
@Tom W "So how does a party that serves the interests of FAR less than half the voters win elections?"
If Trump voters are far less than half of all voters, what difference does it make what they are promised? Unless, more than half of Trump non-voters are concentrated in a few states.
6
@Mike He didn’t say Trump voters. He said the people whose interests are served by the Republicans. You missed his entire point.
1
@Tom W
Don't forget pervasive and systematic voter suppression! If you can't win on policy, record, or character, lie, fear monger and stop people who won't be persuaded from voting.
7
Nothing will change. We discuss, describe and accept the republican playbook as politics and not the subversive effort to divide a country that it is. Regardless, underlying racism and white supremacy are the drivers of this fear, and the current congress and administration fuels the fear.
20
The time for indignation is over. What is needed now is a tactic that will prove effective against a well-entrenched, well-financed sociopath and his blindly obedient party. Just a thought, but perhaps we can learn something from successful campaigns against organized crime. How do you make the boss less credible? How do you turn his organization against him, and hopefully itself? Needless to say, this cannot be accomplished by a divided, wishy-washy Democratic Party. The Democrats need to focus, choose a credible leader and generate a concise, easily understood message. And then anyone left in America with a brain and/or soul must get behind them in every way they can.
32
Oh for the love of God, just stop. Words that the President says...these words do not make people do crazy things. The rhetoric of fear by Republicans doesn’t cause people to act irrationally. I’m not a fan of Trump, but to suggest that just his words that we don’t agree makes nutty people do crazy things is simply irresponsible journalism. There are plenty of citizens who watch Fox News, go to rallies and support the current administration and would never think of sending bombs in the mail. If just words and messages influence behavior, don’t you think we would all be Coca Cola zombies by now?
13
@Chris...please don’t use common sense here...it just confuses people. Don’t our know that the deplorables sit a round waiting for Donald Trump to give them orders to follow. Ms. Dowd and her readers need to find something, anything to point the finger and blame Trump. As the mid terms are coming up, the democrats have nothing to offer other than hate for Trump. The Democratic Party now stands for resistance, antifa, blm and illegal immigration...which is exactly why Trump won.
1
@Chris
Would the bombs have been sent if Trump’s consistent debasement of opponents never been uttered?
Trump bears some responsibility. Words do matter.
3
@Chris
Perhaps for some of the uber-enthusiastic Trump supporters ("I'd rather be a Communist than a Democrat"), the transition from "lock her up" and bragging about body-slamming opponents as well as continuing to display Confederate Flags in inappropriate places, etc. is a slippery slope, especially if the objective is to scare and emphasize your point, with perhaps changing opinion as a bonus.
If you don't think words and message influence behavior, I guess Madison Avenue is greatly overrated and all the ad dollars that support most of our home entertainment outlets are foolishly spent. (BTW, there has been & continues to be an obesity problem in the US to which the large-scale consumption of soft drinks are a major contributor. Maybe not Coca Cola zombies, but I'll bet Coca Cola fatties are out there....).
3
I just finished reading about the massacre at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh. I think I speak for most readers here when I write that we are still attempting to comprehend those too many bomb-threats during this past week. And now we learn, with horror, of these senseless killings of our Jewish friends as they attend their weekly worship. They were going to pray as a community, as families, and friends, and they instead became victims of an anti-semitic monster with an assault weapon. What is wrong with us? What is wrong with our Congress?
So, yes, this nation has elected a most vile, amoral, and cruel individual to infect the presidency and his countrymen. But Trump and his rabid base are parasitic, feeding off of each other's racism, bigotry, thuggery, and lust for vitriol with its subsequent violence. They are reflections of each other in a cracked and broken mirror. But there is a whole segment of society that is still decent and ethical and moral. In the past, good has conquered evil. I hope that remains the case, but it is still up to us.
22
So, yes, politics is a dirty business, often shamelessly pitting one identity group, to use the current jargon, against another. This is very old news indeed. Perhaps slightly more novel is that apparently we have a slightly higher percentage of really crazy people living among us with access to guns and internet tutorials on bomb making. It would be so perfectly tidy and even satisfying if we could just blame it all on one person and not have to bother to think about these matters ever again, much less seek to solve them. It's the boogey man theory of history. You can queue up the same column come the next outrage.
7
Vice president Trump (that should be a small v) thinks he has it all over President Truman's "the buck stops here." Vice president Trump says " millions of bucks stop here."
12
I can't for the life of me understand why the core message of the Democratic campaign is not the utter dishonesty of the Republican Party, accompanied by historical references to its practices and tactics. The Republican party is killing this nation.
47
You will never hear me defend the right or Trump. I think Fox News and right wing radio have done yeoman's work in destroying the fabric of the nation. However, the older I get, the more I see how much plain old ignorance is to blame. Far too many people in this country don't have the educational basis to understand reality from fiction. Until critical thinking and logic become part of everyone's elementary education, I fear it only gets worse.
137
Barely 24 hours after federal authorities took “a racist, homophobic, roid-raging, strip-club-loving, MAGA-worshiping Florida man” into custody as the primary suspect behind the dozen or more pipe bombs that were mailed to prominent Democratic critics of President Trump, we had another white nationalist, with a history of virulent anti-Semitism, gunning down at least 10 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday.
Trump is always the first to grab credit for successes (real and imagined), but quick to distribute the blame for failures. This heightened state of anxiety in our country is a direct result of his constant lying and vitriolic campaigning style. At a campaign event in Houston on Monday, Trump proudly proclaimed himself to be a “nationalist” and as subsequent events have shown that certainly seemed to have “riled up the crazies.”
There is much fear and hatred in America right now – and, despite President Trump’s protestations to the contrary, the buck stops at his desk. It’s time for him to rise to the occasion by accepting at least some responsibility for the tense state of the union and bring us together with healing words and commensurate action.
37
@Jack Nargundkar
I agree with all you wrote, especially your last sentence. Will look forward to that time, but will take bets that live unicorns will march across my front yard (or maybe materialize in my living room) at about the same time. For now, I'll settle for control of the House in January (can hardly wait to see what will transpire between Nov. & January if that happens -- I'll bet on a flurry of Republican talking point legislation in the interest of trying to protect our country from those diabolical Democrats).
I'll also take bets that I'll never understand why it appears so many voters have utterly abandoned common sense and self interest and embraced tribalism and raw animosity toward the "other" (race, political & religious affiliation, education level, etc.), such embrace astoundingly including worship of wealth that is totally out of their reach (due in no small part to Republican policies re education, health care, minimum wage & attacks on labor unions, taxes, etc.) and, perhaps the most puzzling of all, the enthusiasic rejection of incontestable facts in favor of obvious self-serving fabrications (most likely due to belief in "fake news", Fox, el-Rushbo, etc.). As part of my wonder is the amazing reality that by doing so, these people don't appear to realize how gullible and short-sighted they are. Unfortunately, learning the hard way will likely affect us all.
5
The Russians are amateurs compared to Rupert Murdoch.
Why do we Americans allow an extreme rightist foreigner like Murdoch to have a broadcast license? Did we not make it illegal for foreigners to contribute to US political campaigns? To conspire to harm the US?
Do we want foreigners to come here and make billions tearing our country apart?
Enough is enough. It is time to hold hearings to determine if Murdoch’s broadcast license should be lifted, just as Russians have been indicted by Mueller.
This has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. This is worse than yelling fire in a crowded theater. Fox ‘News’ is a transparent fig leaf for for an immense foreign agitprop effort that is going to cause a civil war here if laws such as equal time are not enforced.
122
@Terro O’Brien Murdoch is detestable on every level to be sure, even if he is (you can't make this up) a Papal Knight. His right hand man is now in charge of agitprop at the White House. However your premise is false. Murdoch was naturalized as an American citizen years ago.
Broadcast networks and newspapers must state they were in error or print a retraction. How does Murdoch get away with doing neither?
2
@Terro O’Brien Terro, hadn't you heard? Many years ago Murdoch became a US citizen, apparently, for the very reason you mention of getting around broadcast license number restrictions . . . and as he automatically forfeited his Australia citizenship under Australian law at the time, in that single action he raised the average IQ of both Australia and the US.
1
Ailes and Trump would never be able to sell their particular brand of political sewage without a willing audience. It’s The Base who swallow the lies whole and channel their rage over not being able to live in a modern society into the hellish situation in which we now find ourselves. I used to blame Trump, Ailes, Limbaugh and others in the right wing leadership for our current political nightmare. Now, I only blame their supporters.
182
@The Dude
Amen. Their supporters are the ones who are willingly participating in the destruction of this country.
1
When you have innovative policy ideas, new ideas or a new presentation of old ideas, 'tried and true' ideas, the you run on your ideas. When you have nothing for policy, or you're trying to once more sell the failed policies that have done nothing for your constituency in the past, then you have to run on something else. Republicans tried to sell the old "pays for themselves tax cuts" idea, and it flopped. So Republicans now have to, one more time, sell fear.
A "caravan of illegals is invading our country" (actually, they're not "illegal" until they try to get in here without applying for aslyum. "Democrats want open borders" (actually, not one Democrat has said that). "I will fight to bring jobs back" (actually, the trade war is costing jobs). "we will protect those with 'pre-existing conditions'" (actually, gutting, or repealing the ACA will end protection for those with 'pre-existing conditions'; and not one Republican "replacement" proposal has protected those with 'pre-existing conditions'.
Republicans CAN'T run on their policy ideas, because they know those ideas are the same unpopular, ineffectual, failed ideas of the past. Republicans CAN'T run on honesty saying what they will do, because what they will do is damaging to 99%+ of the population. So Republicans must run on lies, and scare people into voting for them... once more.
27
@Jim Brokaw then how do you explain this. "a Harvard Harris poll last month states that a striking 36 percent of Democrats support “basically open borders.”
and this ", Democratic National Committee deputy chairman and congressman Keith Ellison has passionately and persistently advocated his position that national borders, specifically the southern border, create “an injustice.”
and this "San Francisco started registering illegal immigrants this week, so they can vote in the November city school board election.
American citizens are targeting for assassination and what President Trump said: "this bomb stuff" hurts his campaign and that the journalists are focusing on the bombing instead of his campaign. Once again President Trump is showing that he is a cry baby and not a leader able to heal and unify the nation.
34
A president guided by morals and values would have suspended his campaigning in this tragic landscape. But until his magazine of lies is spent Mr. Trump will not lay down his WMD of divisive rhetoric. Number one is perennially loaded to exploit the bully pulpit of fear.
145
America, and American politics, and American history--past, present and future--is all about race.
Under FDR, black people were invisible. Roosevelt was able to govern with the blessings of a Southern Democratic Congressional bloc that he was only too eager to please. After all, what's a little racism when one's office is in the balance.
It wasn't any different under Harry S. Truman. He integrated the armed services, yes, but he blew the top off the sewer of Democratic Party hypocrisy. Truman begat the Dixiecrats in 1948, helmed by Strom Thurmond.
Lyndon Baines Johnson played the race card with more subtlety than John F. Kennedy did. Anyone paying attention to the handsome, smiling Irish scion of bootleg fortunes saw that FDR was his Democratic forbear. And these are just the Democrats.
In this space, often, I have red-lined Richard Nixon as the father of the modern Republican Party. It's all there: Reagan, both Bushes, Donald Trump. But both parties have always made "the other" a plank in their platforms: a hollowed-out one, to be sure, but it was always there, a prop to be sprung on fearful whites as topical events dictated.
So this Cesar Says Jr. is merely the latest in the long trail of Republican racial breadcrumbs: the demonization of President Barack Obama, for example. How dare a black man run for (and win) the presidency? Perhaps Mitch McConnell has the answer. Or Paul Ryan. Or John Boehner.
Or any number of "respectable" Republicans who remained silent.
12
Madam: Whom it is that has ever known Trump to be "cheerful" is a real mystery. Those people on Fox News who interview him enter the scene as though they are paid lackeys who go along with the con game. It is as though every bit of it is a recollection of the type of intense authoritarian prattle devised by Guy Vanderjagt of Michigan to virtually ignore the Democratic side of things. That might elicit some sort of shrill, abject humorous response in someone like Trump, but to characterize it as cheerful belies the lie which is always lurking sub rosa. He mouths that "the momentum greatly slows" when what he means is that it distracts him somewhat, only greatly because it is him who is in charge of the momentum, and he is great... or so he says, and doubtless believes. On 9/11 he was heard on radio extolling the virtues of steel beams and at the same time being incredulous as to how airplanes could have penetrated them. His conclusion was that there was a bomb. This allowed him to project the image of the architectural genius, when he seemed to be oblivious to the question of how the core columns of the World Trade Center towers were felled. It does make one wonder how he got where he is, instead of attributing the "success" to the likes of Ailes. Just like the conspirators of 9/11, perhaps, these Republicans are "thick as thieves", for that is what they are about, as you intimate.
5
Yep!
I read about a riled up "crazy" the other day.
I don't want to scare anyone, but no evil pipe bomber could match the potential pain ole Mitch McConnell could cause by eliminating, Social Security and Medicare!
A local Florida resident who would walk by Sayoc's van from time to time, remarked about it's pervasive stench. Amazing how McConnell and his ilk mask theirs.
311
Trump's fundamental lack of decency has unleashed demons in the American body politic that will be very difficult to round up and lock away again. He continually goads these demons, poking them to cause trouble, encouraging them to go farther and farther. People keep pointing this out and Republicans keep ignoring it, demurring and dissembling when Trump "does it again." By the time Republicans wake up and realize how seriously they have damaged this country - how out of control these demons have become - it will probably be too late. So, if you know a Republican, please thank him or her for destroying our country.
40
Thank you for reminding the public what an immoral person Lee Atwater was. He was a founding father of the negative lies so common from the White House these days.
I hope Atwater’s friends and family will realize we have not forgotten the damage he has done to America.
82
Nice article but VERY late to the dance, Mo. Far too many niceties and too much false equivalence in your work over the past several years. Too easy on W and too critical of Obama. Trump? Easy target, therefore not too many style points for this piece.
450
@OmahaProfessor
Wow, you folks still haven't recovered from the loss in 2016 and the reality that Democratic policies, strategy and even comportment since Bill have led directly to Trump.
@OmahaProfessor You hit that on the nose, Professor.
4
@KT
Wrong. The policies of the Republican Party and Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and the play for pay Evangelicals such as Robertson, Falwell and Graham led to Trump. And Trump gets a major part of the credit starting with his birther movement. Place primary blame where the primary blame is due.
1
For anyone with a brain and a conscience, the depth of Ailes and Trump's depravity and cynicism has never been in question.
Where there had been, at least, a glimmer of hope was that the republican establishment, while cooperating over the last decade with this depravity and cynicism, would never fully succumb to its evil. It thought it could exploit it without becoming it. The election of Donald Trump extinguished that hope - not because he was elected, but because virtually every elected republican has sold his/her soul to it irrevocably in the wake of his election. They have left themselves no way out of the depravity and cynicism that now defines them; the republican establishment has become the evil it exploited.
20
As long as the Trumpsters are allowed to live in a fact free world, and our politicians happily promote that ignorance, we will never live in a sane world. I used to think Trump would do something so outrageous, than even his die hard fans would have to come around. I no longer think that. The only way out of this morass, I think it, is to let the 35% who vote for Trump have their own country. I am thinking Idaho, Utah, Kansas and maybe Arkansas. Then, the rest of us can live in relative peace.
21
@Susan
Please don't send them to Idaho! There are still many sane, thoughtful and politically aware citizens here, me being one. Give them their own island somewhere far away and let them live together in their own hateful stew. As Clint Eastwood famously once said in a movie, "Get off my lawn."
It must be hard to make a living writing columns for a rational news outlet. Just after the ink is dry, quite literally another outrage follows on the heels to make the original writing obsolete.
In this case it is another hate-driven mass shooting trailing only by hours the pipe bomb terror aimed at President Trump's vocal opponents. Yet the president blathers on in his endlessly dyspeptic blame-shifting.
The country is off the rails and, no, it is not the fault of the media or the Democrats or a sad caravan of people cast to the margins just trying to survive.
Every day, the country subjects itself to another unspeakable outrage ginned-up by dark figures at home and abroad dedicated to bringing a once-great nation into the fetid pool inhabited by its own commander-in-chief.
We have put the nastiest possible group of juvenile middle schoolers in charge of our governance. Not satisfied with that, we have equipped them with nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party thrashes around aimlessly treading water as though this circus of moral mutation doesn't even exist.
15
I think we've been here before, but only in the movies. I call it Rambo logic: get mad, get a gun, get even. The key to this "logic" is that anger and rage, somehow justify whatever the individual wants to do. The anger absolves him of any moral compass.
If you were Freudian, you would say it's the pure id acting out, free of any control. Whatever it is, Trump enables this, because that is how he acts. Unfortunately as President of the United States.
63
A very short description of Trump:
He is the single worst President since Nixon and will likely surpass him shortly.
18
For years I ran an Anger Management group in a residential drug treatment program. Quite a few of my group members remarked that anger was just as addictive as their respective drugs of choice. The adrenaline rush, the “high” of feeling righteously indignant, the physical effects—all of these made feeling and discharging anger highly desirable, at the cost of relationships, jobs, and even freedom itself. The synagogue shooter, the pipe bomber, the President himself, are nothing more than addicts, drunk on their own fury. Their “pushers,” so to speak, are the well-paid talking heads at Fox and on right wing radio. The best thing about anger addiction is that it’s legal and socially acceptable—at least until the top blows off.
24
In New York , voters in the rest of the unimportant parts of the country are considered by Ms. Dowd to be the "crazies" because they elected Trump. I suppose Antifa and Black Lives Matter are considered sane by those in her circle. Those who live in insulated cultures far removed from the realities faced by ordinary working Americans of every color are a study in ignorance. Long stagnant and falling wages, the destruction of opportunity, the throngs of illegal aliens and the black market culture that comes with them, those things will never affect or afflict Ms. Dowd. That is why she cannot understand Trump's election, which had little to do with the Republican party.
16
@Jack Webb
I believe you are incorrect on two fronts: (1) Trump's nomination and election was due to Republican support, but perhaps can be partially forgiven because at that point many thought Trump, if elected (a long shot, so no apparent downside to supporting him in the interest of party unity even if you thought he would be a disaster) would appreciate his responsibilities and quickly grow into the job. (2) What transpired after that is totally due to the Republican Party, controlling both houses of congress and intentionally abandoning any effort to entertain any ideas presented by Democrats, legislating instead (among other things) debt-busting legislation based on long-discredited "trickle down" economic theory that mainly benefitted the stock market folks (now that corporate pension plans are becoming scarce, would like to know how many of Trump's base are significantly invested in 401Ks, etc. -- I'll bet not a majority). Added to that are support for other things that are not supported by most Americans (concerning pre-existing conditions for health care coverage, defense department funds for projects they don't want (apparently to include in Trump's proposed military parade -- take that, Rocket Man!), rejection of science re global warming & more localized effects of pollution, largely ignoring the embarrassing state of our infrastructure etc.
1
@Jack Webb You are correct in your analysis....of course Ms. Dowd and her readers could and would never want to understand your point. I’m sure they’re chuckling over our agreements at they sit at breakfast. I don’t remember Ms. Dowd writing an article about the destruction caused by the antifa, blm, and the “resistance “ as the politicians like to call it. I don’t see Ms. Dowd criticisms of Maxine Waters, Hillary Clinton, or any other democrat calling for “uncivil” or “getting in the face” of people who disagree politically. Where is Ms. Dowd’s article condemning Rep. Scalise’s shooter....an avid Bernie supporter. Ms. Dowd and these commentators don’t like POTUS because he fights for what he believes in. Up until this election, most politicians on the right would only stand up for 5heir beliefs around election time. We finally have a politician who is doing what he promised to do in the campaign....everyone on both sides laughed and scoffed at him. Well, he won...stock market is up, unemployment is down, job creation is up, North Korea is no longer a threat, and SCOTUS is no longer a way for the liberals to circumvent the constitution. If Trump was democrat, Ms. Dowd would be buying a hammer and chisel to help carving his face on Mt. Rushmore. Donald Trump is no more responsible for these shootings than any other politician. It is puré hypocrisy by Ms. Dowd and her readers to point the finger at POTUS Trump while saying a word about anyone else.
1
We should demand that TV coverage of Trump's rallies be ignored. Thinking people will read his ramblings in the newspapers. The constant televised coverage of his jaunts around America, spewing the latest FOX mantra and denigrating everything and everyone who does not agree with him, benefits only Trump. I wonder how many of his followers will attend these rallies, if they are not on TV. Time and energy is taken up by this self-serving liar to the detriment of facts and reality. America has to come to its senses. Nothing good comes from these rallies. How many times must we hear 'fake news' 'lying media' 'enemy of the people' etc.? Seriously, it has to stop.
59
The media and political class will continue to normalize Trump, even though the whole world knows that he puts all of us in danger and is profoundly unfit for office. And better late than never, but few Times columnists have helped to normalize Trump more than Ms Dowd.
12
@Markus A
Bravo Markus!!
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing, what’s going on with hate in our country, frankly, and all over the world,” the president said. “And something has to be done.”
Trump made the above remarks, with a straight face, after Saturday's fatal shooting at a PA synagogue. There's actually a lot of truth to that. And, no, hatred in this country or the world didn't begin with Trump.
But Trump has exploited hate at every turn. Trump feeds on bigotry against immigrants, refugees, people of color, Muslims. He even lies about nonexistent threats, like those unspecified Middle Easterners he claimed were in the caravan through Mexico. Trump even dignified white supremacists as "very fine people." And he says that Democrats are too "dangerous" to be in power. Trump has supported far right candidates the world over and mocked those who don't play with peoples' basest impulses. Then there is his scapegoating of the media...
With power comes responsibility. Trump rode into power with irresponsible manipulation of fear and bigotry, and he's not just about to drop his formula of igniting hate.
19
As a foreign observer, there are a number of things that I, and almost everyone I speak to, have difficulty comprehending. These can be summed up in one question “Why do so many Americans apparently tolerate the relentless and escalating insults to their intelligence that Trump subjects them to?” Do they not understand what impression this gives to the rest of the world?
I grew up in the UK during the so-called “Ugly American" era. Wiki describes this as “a pejorative term used to refer to perceptions of loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant and ethnocentric behaviour of American citizens mainly abroad but also at home.”
In the post-Kennedy years this image slowly became less apt.Trump since 2014 appears to be making herculean efforts to turn back the clock. One is bombarded with videos and reports of his countless rallies which are nothing more than opportunities to have his narcissistic urges massaged,and at the American taxpayers expense. What one does not see,however, are American citizens themselves rising up in numbers and protesting. This is left largely to bickering talking heads on partisan tv channels.To people who went through Brexit for example, this is bewildering. Are they to assume that most Americans don’t care? Or worse, simply have not taken on board that fundamentally they are day by day being made fools of?
The 18th C French philosopher, Joseph de Maistre, said “Every nation gets the government it deserves.” Perhaps no more be said.
15
Sometimes the message is so clear and urgent that the analyst sets aside cleverness and art and pushes straight to the point. No classical references, no arched eyebrows, only the steely delivery of the journalist, trained by Saphire, to take the long view of the day of record.
Doud could not have known at the moment of her filing of the events on Squirrel Hill that would overtake the news of her reporting. Still, her observations resonate. Trump, student of Ailes, pivots from defending gun laws to demanding death penalties at yet another deplorable rally.
Cicero could not imagine such debased rhetoric. Doud points us to the mid-twentieth century to find its roots.
27
I maintain that the major difference between an American and a Canadian is that Americans live in fear and we don't.
No fear of mass shootings, no fear of bad health care, no fear of immigrants, no fear of racial violence etc.
Canadians look south and shake their heads in disbelief. And America is supposed to be the greatest nation?
91
All this was known prior to the 2016 elections. It's more intense now, but not that much different.
Still against Hillary Clinton??
I don't remember reading any regrets regarding your treatment of her. Now would be a good time.
26
@Michael
"Still against Hillary Clinton??" I don't know about Ms. Dowd but for me, the answer is yes without equivocation.
Perhaps a better question is how, in a nation of well over 300 million people, we are left with this choice for our highest office. It seems that the problem systemic rather than one of the electorate.
1
@Michael
Don't hold your breath michael she will never ever admit she was wrong!!
1
It's easier for dull, hostile people to hate something they can actually see — say some woman wearing a veil over her hair, or TV coverage of a bunch of bedraggled young Hondurans hundreds of miles away from a border they'll probably never cross — than what should really be giving them the heebie jeebies.
Polluted air and water. Mutating viruses. Creeping rot in our infrastructure. Tampering by hostile foreign powers. Theft of our resources by corrupt politicians. Failing schools. The increasing misery of climate change. Political plots against health and retirement benefits. Diminishing pollinating insects and wildlife. The list goes on, and gets longer and longer as time passes.
But none of this is of concern to Donald Trump. There's money to be made, an ego to feed, and cheering dullards to whip into a frenzy. The failed business man has found his groove. Destruction. And he loves it.
69
From Father Fred to Roy Cohn to Roger Ailes to a host of other societal contemptibles present in his very own Rogues' Gallery, Trump certainly was provided with a deep and broad education in the dark arts. And now America is paying a terrible price for that malevolent tutelage. Like his "teachers" however, his time of harsh reckoning will inevitably come.
15
Ypu filed this story one day too soon. How prescient. How terribly sad.
6
Well said, but not quite fair.
What about Hillary Clinton's 3AM phone call?
What about LBJ being "tough" by deciding to throw hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Vietnam while running the ad with a nuclear detonation, saying in essence vote for me or else you get this?
Or JFK's "missile gap"?
Even FDR: What was interning US citizens of Japanese descent, by the tens of thousands, all about, if not "fear"?
Fearmongering has long been bipartisan. Trump is just the worst ever example so far, in this as in many other ways.
6
If the Democrats are going to succeed in 2020, they are going to have to do so by getting several million people who voted for Trump to switch their vote. Trump is helping out by going off the deep end. The Dems should not follow him there. They must show that they would bring sanity and accomplishment back to government, they would in short 'get things done.'
They would get things done that helped all Americans not just Trump's 1% buddies. They would return sanity to the relationships with our allies. Given what Trump's tax cuts are doing to our deficit, don't count on having an unlimited credit card, you will have to go slow. Lastly, stop insulting Trump voters. You can't call them "crazies" then ask them to vote for you. Well, you can but you will get the same results Hillary did with her deplorables quip.
5
This morning I awakened to the horrendous news of this unspeakable hate crime. Will trump put little quotation marks around "shooting"? Serving in this administration is to be complicit in supporting predjudice and indecency. Now it is time to wake up, step aside and acknowledge what the Republican party has become. We all know what hate speech can do and has done. Let us see that principles of decency are more important to you than powerful position. Speak up! Tell us that you won´t be a part any longer to an organization that stirs up hatred, regardless of where it is directed. Enough is enough!
44
et's stop pretending that Trump cares what he says. He showed his true intent when at his campaign rally in Texas for Cruz. He chucked at those good old days when he went after Ted personally like it was just all in good fun and sport.
Trump is a big game hunter on a safari enjoying bagging a few politicians before eating his dinner. The presidency is just a bigger field of play for a guy who needs attention to feel alive.
The American media and Trump supporter continue to give substance to this dilettante who is having fun at our expense.
Trump is like Tinker Bell, believe in him and he gains power and form. Demand accountability from the Republicans for their leader and ignore Trump. Watch his light fade away.
88
Both the Florida mail-bomber and the nut who shot the baseball playing Republican Congressmen were reclusive residents of white vans. They shared mental instability and represented two different extremes. It's time for both sides to lower the temperature. Stop calling blue collar workers "deplorable" and try to understand why some people want government supported universal health care. Move back to the middle. Please.
12
Despite a win-at-all-costs strategy designed by campaigners who’d slithered out from a rock, H. and W. Bush emerged as forthright, principled Republicans, didn’t they? They sowed the wind without reaping their due. The rest of us suffered it.
Still waiting to learn of comparable campaign tactics used by national Democratic candidates since the 80’s. Anybody?
9
I often wonder where the bottom is for the Trump agenda and just when I think he couldn't go lower, he surprises me. I know a few Trump voters that really surprise me that they could support someone so low in moral values. What cracks me up is the fact he has the holier than thou Evangelicals supporting him - aren't they supposed to be Christians? Is blocking a woman's choice so important to them, that they can ignore the devil himself in the white House? I guess we have our answer. I just wonder if our country will recover from these hateful times in my lifetime. Maybe if I live to be a 100. We need to stop his agenda, beginning with this midterm and continuing until the 2020 election. We will have no allies left then, but they will certainly come back to the fold once he is replaced by a human being who cares about the world and environment.
80
America has become a violent country. Words of abuse and hatred across the country. Killing has become routine. NO. Donald Trump did not pull the trigger. He did not make the pipe bombs. But, he words fuel rage. His relentless attack on Liberals, on the Media, on all who dissent give license to highly disturbed people - who no longer feel the restraint or control needed to maintain their need to lash out - to punch, to rant, to rave, to stand with one against their perceived hatred of the "enemy."
Donald Trump is responsible for this. to vote for this man. To vote for any member of the Republican party is to vote for a president who leads this country to its end as a democratic society of united Americans. We are in the grips of totalitarian government. For God's sake, how does the Democratic party wake people up.
15
The reason Democrats lose, repeatedly and consistently, is that they don't fight. Republicans WANT to be afraid, and they want to be angry. Here are a few of the ways Democrats blew in 2018:
1. They didn't show the electorate why they should be mad at the spineless GOP congress for allowing unparalleled corruption and lies in the executive branch.
2. They didn't show the electorate why they should be incensed that infrastructure, education, social security. and healthcare will all be gutted to pay for the $1.6 trillion dollar transfer of wealth to the 1%.
3. They didn't make the electorate fear leadership that purposely, insidiously lies to them.
4. They didn't make the electorate fear trump supporters who are intentionally and dangerously ignorant.
5. They didn't make the electorate fear getting gunned down in a church, at a concert, in a school, or at home.
Give the people what they want. The GOP wants something to scared of? We should show the nightmare that is the current reality.
110
@Josh Wilson The Republicans scare their voters to the polls? And, the Democrats can't be scary enough?
Maybe give the voters something to vote for. Trump will defend the 2A. Re-write trade deals. Get the NORKS to give up their nukes.
Vote for Dems because we hate Trump. And we'll waste the next 2 years.
Rich that an apologist for identity and victim group driven politics poisoning our civic life should accuse Trump of being divisive when he speaks up for anyone else.
9
@Ron
Trump IS an apologist for "identity and victim groups":
He is the darling of white nationalists and he calls himself a nationalist while operating personally as a globalist with his businesses.
The job of POTUS however is not that of a partisan of the minority- it is bigger than the small role he keeps choosing.
1
Over the past few years, it has become apparent to me that the greatest difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans live their lives filled with fear and Democrats are generally unafraid. This was not always the case. The fear Republicans feel now is not tied to real conservatism. It has been created by elements who want to manipulate the powerless in order to get them to vote for people who will support the privileges of the elite. Thus, Fox News, Trump, and the NRA have given us a world of fearful acolytes who aren’t secure enough to go to the Dairy Queen without a gun in their pockets. Is it any wonder that the unstable ones erupt in violence against the people they have been taught to fear? Meanwhile, the Trumps, the right-wing media, and the gunmakers are laughing all the way to the bank.
7
I think trump has to tell his fans, in his next tweet or campaign rally, that he does not want them to take action against those he's named as enemies. Because otherwise he's going to continue inciting more crazies - we've had two tragedies now in a few days, tragedies connected to trump's vitriol.
4
The day of reckoning will come for all of us. Justice will be served, here or in the hereafter. I wouldn't want to be any of these champions of fear and hate, when the fire they've 'poured gas on' turns on them.
3
Same old, same old. We mostly know where all the evil was incubated, why it works, and who were the practitioners. What we need right now, this week, is anti-venom. We need whatever neutralizes the poison coursing through the veins of our country. Unfortunately, one prior cure is civil war, another, insurrection, and a third, the one that excised the human boil of McCarthy, most likely the rise of antagonistic competition.
Talking about truth, or policy, or personality isn’t cogent; voting Democratic is. Even if there’s a blue tide, getting healthy is going to be a long process, one that will be painful for decades. A handful of foul, immoral men have hurt us more deeply than ever before, and it will be a while before we can talk about truth, justice and any sort of decent American Way.
9
It’s obvious that the President of our country is sick and/or depraved and/or evil. Sadly, likely with the help of Russia and other dark money, he hoodwinked enough citizens to vote for him so that he could “win” the electoral college. Yes, much to our disbelief, this happened even in the great United States of America. Our system of government may not protect us from such a thing happening but there is a mechanism, if all members of Congress were doing their jobs and upholding their oaths to the Constitution, to check him to mitigate damage or to impeach him.
Not one Republican in Congress, the majority party, has stepped up to the plate. It may yet take us awhile to figure out why they are so complicit, but in the meantime we have one remedy - VOTE, and when you do, vote a straight Democratic ticket. Unless and until those members of Congress find it a liability to have an “R” associated with their name, they apparently will not do what our Constitution expects of them. It is not hyperbole to say that this is an existential election. A two-party system is healthy, and given time we can get back to arguing our ideological differences, but for now hold your nose if you must and vote, and only for those in the Democratic Party.
10
I imagine one of the reasons working class white people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with the reality of their own lives.
It has been shown that the Republican base voter actually votes against their own interests, spiting themselves as a sacrifice, in order to express racial and cultural hate. Republicans have known this since Nixon and play that group like a fiddle, laughing all the way.
Well, this last week may prove to be the event horizon, the point of no return, for a Republican Party that flew too close to White Nationalism with its embrace of Donald Trump.
9
Without Fox "News" there is no president Trump.
Now, it appears that the sycophants at Trump TV realize that it's a two-way street, and their fortunes could sink along with Trump's inevitable collapse.
If there is an element of justice in the universe poised to assert itself, that is exactly what will happen.
4
No. We need to fear the neoliberal and corporate elite who made it possible for a Trump to appear.
6
While reading Dowd's insightful piece, I thought of a quote from Al Gore's 2007 book, The Assault On Reason. The first sentence of Chapter One reads, "Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason."
The GOP and its autocratic leader project their fears onto the psyche of America. Their fears stem from their preoccupation with losing a few million from their millions, paying the taxes they avoid, returning to the ways of a bygone era, and their blatant racism.
The GOP has been consistently unimaginative because they are only interested in themselves and their portfolios.
Their tax cuts for the rich added $1.5 trillion to the deficit and McConnell et al. want to pay for it by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
In a few weeks, I hope that Americans boot out those who instill fear and vote in those who instill hope.
11
Actually Dukakis lost the election when he fumbled the Willie Horton question in the election.
2
I believe the Trump playbook is less complex than Ailes' would have used. Trump, throughout his business and political life has reveled in chaos and confusion. It is a very dark strategy to sow constant pandemonium and reap tumult. He is mentally unstable and clearly not fit to be a company president let alone a country's leader. We must continue to resist him. We must make the Republican's pay for their service to this man who has cast our country in a very dark shadow and hurt the whole world with his avarice and narcissism. Now he wants to engage in a new arms race
only to enrich himself and corporations more. We must fight this for the sake of all the children in the world.
10
Where did America go wrong, and how do we save our country from the darkness and poison brought to us by the evil energy of a man elected by a minority of voters to lead the nation and the Free World?
Will the violence unleashed by intemperate rhetoric of this president and his political clones be the pretext for the creation of a Police State in America?
Can we vote ourselves out of this mess in the face of widespread voter suppression, and the nefarious influence of "Dark Money", both of which were condoned by the highest court in the land?
Will America, as Putin and his allies fervently hope, finally fracture into separate Red and Blue regional entities more than a century after a bitter war to keep America whole?
Our leader and his clones say that the answer to violence is more guns. The answer to the darkness -- the death of truth and justice is, in the words of the late Justice Scalia, "Get over it".
1
This is going on, from both major parties. If you want to know how and why religious warfare occurs in a population, it is done by the same means and for the same political profit.
Take heart. If we can survive this President, we can survive anything. We can and we will never let this happen again.
3
At this moment it's not at clear that we will survive this president.
1
What makes this accurate column so sad is that the formula for inciting hate is old, transparent, and foolproof, as long as there are millions of people ready to believe it. Arguably, if those in our government (Both parties.) had done what they were put in office to do, so much of our society would not be insecure enough to buy what Ailes & Co. were selling.
5
I’d say Trump’s pep rallies are getting old, and the Republican mob’s celebration of hate and exclusion play a key role in the violence we continue to witness. So let’s vote them out in November and begin a healing process.
8
Will the Democrats ever learn how to effectively counter the Republican lies? Every time it's as if it was the first time they were confronted with the same old lies - first they go into denial that it's happening, then they sputter helplessly at the unfairness of it all, or deign to even address the fearmongering. Meanwhile their hopes to retake the congress slowly sink. I believe what's needed is a charismatic new Democratic leader, someone with something fresh to say, who can also explain the lies point by point. Not the same old bedraggled cast of usual Democratic suspects who have been around forever, failing to connect with the electorate year after year. Come on Democrats, you can do better!
7
So the politicians of greed, power and perceived prestige say and do what they will to remain the real status quo of our culture. The words of this opinion can be seen as written against both major parties in america.
2
Dowd is spot on. From time to time hate in America dies down to mere embers, but Ailes and Trump have been operating a bellows to force the embers to flare up. It works because humans have adapted to group on group conflict by evolving to learn whom to hate from the hatreds of others in their group. It is an easy sport for Trump. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/8/1512882/-The-Individual-Psycho...
3
The President never hits the right notes after tragedy strikes simply because the only tune he knows is his own horn, which he plays so loudly he cannot hear the pain of others. What a sad time our nation now faces.
But we must try to find courage, America. We are not yet fallen. Our history shows much more raucous periods of hatred and even violence, yet somehow we found strength to pull together and beat back those forces trying to destroy.
We are the keepers of that light, Lady Liberty. Though the light is dim, it still shines all the way to other shores.
We must keep it bright.
We must let our notes be strong, loud, and sweet enough to make Trump's horn sound like the plastic toy it is.
Our nation is the last best hope for mankind. We must not let this dream fail.
Write op-eds, letters to editors, call in to radio talk shows, organize, protest, VOTE!
14
We've had a number of mass shootings, including the Las Vegas and Orlando massacres, since Trump was elected and the GOP controlled the federal government. Can you name one tangible thing Trump and his party have done to address the issue?
I can name several things they have not done.
They have advanced no legislation whatsoever relating to gun control, automatic weapons, ammunition control, training or safety devices for guns.
They have done nothing to tamp down their encouragement of the hated-filled white nationalist wing of their party, and in fact have amped it up as elections draw near.
They sometimes claim that these shootings are mostly done by mentally ill people, but have advanced no legislation or additional funding to address mental illness.
Trump has done nothing to slow his slanders of the media that criticizes him, even after bombs were sent to CNN recently and even after a newsroom in Maryland was shot up and five killed. In fact, he has amped up his criticism of the media at his rallies.
Even after a Republican congressmen (and the police officer guarding him) were shot at a softball practice in 2017, nothing could move Trump or the GOP to act in any way. The GOP also failed to act (and blocked action) after Congressman Gabby Giffords was shot in 2011.
Trump said yesterday that this wouldn't have happened if the temple had hired an armed guard. Really? I guess he could have stood next to the rabbi while he was reading from the Torah.
11
It will all come out in the wash. Or the vote. Unless of course we impose a literacy test on deplorable voters so that the elite can determine their political leanings.
The country may have just reached a tippng point in terms of riling up the crazies and the blame lies solely with Trump, the GOP and Fox News. After nearly two years, we know he is not going to stop stoking the fires of fear, hatred and divisiveness, because that is what his base feeds on. The logical conclusion is that things will only get worse.
16
Normalizing conspiracy theories has consequences.
Popularizing voter suppression extinguishes democracy.
Shadow pools (PACS) of billions buying voting blocks in Congress eliminates your vote and shatters the foundation of trust the system requires to function.
The genie is out of the bottle: conspiracy rules-a very very very few are playing Monopoly with your future and turn it into a blood sport.
The ‘fix’ wouldn’t come from the top: the politicians, or the system. It has to come from you/us...so now what.
How do we shift the inevitable train wreck that’s coming without a literal civil war, insurgence or any other version of a anarchy that’s coming?
When the police in you local community respond in complete army combat gear: that’s normal...when the president believes that schools and places of worship should have armed militia on viligent guard and that’s not ludicrous...be aware. Freedom in the land of the free has been sold!
4
Mass shootings are appalling, but mass shootings in places of worship—in spaces dedicated to peace—are especially appalling.
In view of the events of the past several days—and in view of President Trumps responses to those events—will good churchgoing Christians who voted for Mr. Trump start asking:
Have we “sown the wind” and are we now reaping “the whirlwind"? (See Hosea 8:7)
Or will they do as the president apparently desires and start “packing heat” when they attend church services? Or have they already been doing so for some time now? Will arming pastors become as popular as arming teachers?
Guns don’t kill people, but people with guns too often do kill people. According to the Gun Violence Archive, thus far in 2018 in America there have been 47,225 incidents of gun violence, resulting in 11,984 deaths and 23,350 injuries.
Among all nations, in 2016 the U.S., with 37,200, ranked second in gun-violence-related deaths. Brazil, with 43,200 deaths ranked first.
In the face of an obvious public danger, the policy of having no policy (or a minimal policy) is itself a policy—and frequently the worst of all.
6
He lies, and then admits that he lied, and smirks, and tells a different lie to distract from the first one. He does this over and over. His whole aim is to MAKE TROUBLE, every day. Some people just can't get that. Why not?
5
The single defining quality of Donald Trump is that there is no "there" there. Unlike the rest of us, he lacks all feeling for other people and has no concept of what other people feel. It's not even a mystery to him—he's completely unaware that he has this defect in his personality and character.
He skims along on the surface of life, unable to connect to anyone, but sees the people in his life, friends and enemies alike, as pawns. He's upset and angry when people don't do what he wants them to do, but he never looks for a reason for why they aren't cooperating. Reasons are irrelevant.
His greatest source of happiness is a campaign audience, and he pulls out all the stops: smirking, threatening, praising in the same tired words (fantastic, terrific, incredible), insulting, and basking in the cheers of his followers.
What do they think about after they come home from one of his rallies? Are they embarrassed by his self-aggrandisement? put off by his boasts? Do they ever question his about-faces and lies?
He's a simple man who has been elevated to a position of enormous power, one for which he is totally unsuited, and it could wind up being the ruination of our country.
16
Immigration wouldn't be so ripe for partisan scaremongering if Democrats didn't always seem to come down on the side of any and all immigrants and make no distinction between legal and illegal. Also, if some would answer the question, "How much immigration is good for our country?" I have yet to hear any Democratic elected official or opinion writer say anything that even suggests an upper limit, as if to say, "It's all good. Open the gates! The more the better!" Mostly, they try to belittle and shame citizens who have legitimate concerns about the impact on employment and wages, social service and education costs, public health, security, and, yes, cultural differences. My main concern is population growth and its impact on our quality of life. Nobody even mentions that. So Republicans can step into the void and fill it with scary stories about rapists and murderers and gangs and terrorists, claim "Democrats want open borders!" and win elections.
6
It takes two to tango, and I don't see anything in this article about the "crazies," other than a brief mentioning. To really understand what is going on around us we must employ a much broader definition of the word "crazy" to reflect the times. Mr. Sayoc goes unnoticed because there is a back drop to which he fits in rather nicely, just as is the case with Mr. Bowers. There are a lot of people that think like these men, and they are all Republicans, representatives and supporters alike, the products of agitprop, the launching pad for all the destruction that we are now witnessing, almost daily.
As the election draws near, the melting pot seems to be boiling over. Whether or not a silence, a calm, a sense of composure will come over the country in the aftermath, once the results are known, only time will tell. What we are witnessing in this final daze is a growing fear and agitation among Republicans that they will lose the power that they have so unwisely wielded to advance their own personal gain, whether that be riches or the ratification of their distorted beliefs.
9
All that being said, and hard not to agree with, Maureen found Hillary more scary than Trump
She blasted Hillary at every opportunity and then some
Trump she almost explicitly endorsed and arguably tacitly endorsed.
Maureen is playing both sides of the street.
34
OK. I get the main theme of the opinion piece. Yes, fear of the other appeals to enough of the electorate to constitute a base, assuming they will vote together cohesively. I get that the non-white other have been tried and true objects of hate and fear for the GOP for decades. I get that Trump has amplified the intensity of that hate and fear and broadened it to include all who oppose him. And I get that he needs to take away any objective check on his claims and lies by attacking the press. But how does this explain the willingness of some people to accept what they know to be lies? The GOP will assure insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions while the Democrats will eliminate it? Huh? Does it take the press to point out that the GOP voted to repeal the ACA something like 70 times? Or that Trump made the repeal a key objective of his administration?
No. That doesn’t take press. It takes voters with anything like a memory. It takes voters with anything like integrity. It takes voters who are at least honest with themselves. So how has this fear and hate campaign translated to dishonesty by the voters themselves? I get that Trump is completely indifferent to the truth. I get that he corrupts everything he touches. But I don’t get that he has actually managed to corrupt 40% of the voters in the USA.
9
As Maureen points out in the past political operatives planted the seeds of fear. Now we are faced with a President willing to make things up from nothing (and show no shame or reversal when the lie is exposed) to gin up fear of not going along with him.
It’s appalling.
9
This all seems dissected too finely, and through this disaggregation attributing blame to anti-semites, political operatives and so on, we lose sight of the fact that the nation is under assault by domestic terrorists. Although there are statistics bearing out this threat relative to other forms of terrorism, the media continues to be distracted by things like the immigrant caravan, which appears to be fizzling after giving Trump the bump he so desired.
5
America; it isn't hate Trump and his minions peddle, it is Fear. Fear is usually irrational. Those we have freely elected to their leadership roles in our country are adept at promulgating fear. It works to their advantage to keep us spun up in this way. Unthinking and reactionary. We are easily controlled by stoking fear. This is why they do it. It's the only way they know to hold on to their privileged positions.
But it grows thin and shrill, because it is an unsustainable ploy. Step back from it; step back from them. Stop listening and turn away from the constant fear-mongering cacophony that they represent. Understand that they have no concern for your, our, best interests. They do it for their own self-interest, and to maintain their grip on the only thing they care about; Power.
So shun them. Think about, dwell on, their actions and all that they do. You elected them. So you can change the dynamic.
Turn your backs and elect new leaders; ones more aligned to your sensibilities. In so doing you will right the course of a country who has been enthralled to these sycophants; liars and the purveyors of fear for far too long. Reestablish your right; your governing role in this Democracy. It starts mid-November, Vote and stop the Fear.
John~
American Net'Zen
3
Good column. The most diabolical part of the Republicans' success with Trump is that the Democrats and the media dutifully pretend that Trump is an affront to mainstream Republican values--values the GOP abandoned decades ago. Which helps Trump, the epitome of of corrupt establishment political / economic power, sell himself as a disrupter. Until the Dems & the media look in the mirror & examine their role in normalizing the GOP''s embrace of demagogy & conspiracy & hatred, they will continue to be part of the problem.
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@Martin. Having assessed the problem, could you also tell us what steps you would like the press to take that they are not taking now in order to alter our reality?
We have an opportunity to that ourselves in little more than a week: VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS. There is nothing else that will change what we have.
29
Maureen - you helped get Trump into the White House with your hatred and contempt filled articles in 2016 against the Clintons.
I do hope you have regrets for your penmanship - I am scared for this disintegrating country I love.
39
@Martin I come from a long line of Democrats and I do not know a single one who ever had any illusions about Republican "values". We have always known they were Nazi sympathisers that would have preferred to do business with Hitler and Mussolini. We have always known the Red Scare was a fake boogie to scare people into voting for "law and order". We have always known it is the party of management rather than labor, the rich more than the workers, the white male rather than everyone else. We have always known the Republican party is the party of mendacity and greed. Only some places in the media perpetuate the myth of the time when Republicans had values other than greed, but we Democrats know better. We're just terrible at getting out the vote.
55
You can't set the desert on fire any more than you can win an election or find an audience if what you offer is not to the liking of the majority. From the deplorables onwards, 'my side' of American politics has had plenty of reasons and people to deplore. But if both parties have more or less alternated in government, and American politics is now a bubbling cauldron of poison and hatred, surely there is some shared responsibility. To take a small example of what had led to the current problem, Fox News was made possible by changes introduced by Reagan . Did any Democrat in office try to reinstate the legislation that protected even-handed broadcasting? No, as far as I know. There are plenty of others.
5
In northern Minnesota, a retired 75 year old woman, a Trump supporter, warned that the caravan members are going to walk 2,000 miles and take over their summer homes this winter. People from Central America, walking across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, to northern Minnesota--arriving in winter time and taking over summer homes with no heat, no insulation, no water, no electricity, no money. She further said that when the owners go in the spring to open up their homes the migrants will not leave due to squatter rights. I'm serious, she said this.
7
I'm sad and discouraged and fear for my country. Is there anyone out there, Republican, Democrat or Independent, who can lift us up, inspire us, unite us, engender hope for our children's future? Someone who understands our history and who knows how to govern? Who can reach across the aisle to get things done? Who can mend relations with our allies and reclaim our position in the world?
No one I can see. It's selfish, I know, but I'm glad I'm not young.
22
@JKF in NYC
To paraphrase President Obama, don't wait for a perfect candidate but you have to act. Even after the 2016 defeat, there were still non Republicans who thought they did the right thing with all the intra-party scrabbles. Either their candidate or no one at all.
But as the saying goes, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice..." Counterfactuals are difficult but could America have avoided the Great Recession without Ralph Nader's splitting Al Gore's votes? Regardless, don't blame some of us who have warned the Bernie's and Jill Stein's folks about Trump.
Ms Dowd has pointed out how a succession of puppet masters like Ailes and Republicans have used divisiveness like Willie Horton to split the voters. The only remedy against "divide and conquer" is "united we stand," but yet, you conclude "no one I can see." Perhaps the lesson has not sunk in yet!
5
@JKF in NYC I think Beto has run a campaign on unity. I hope he wins in Texas but with reports of votes being switched I fear he will struggle unless huge numbers vote.
6
Defining this violence in political terms is a useful exercise, especially preceding the very important election looming, but Trump is as much a symptom as a cause. Let's not exaggerate his importance.
Health care is extremely and uniquely expensive in the U.S. No wonder in this situation we are unable to provide the mental health services that other modern nations provide universally for their citizens.
The citizens of countries with a more comprehensive safety net seem to be living in environments of less stress and economic resentment and desperation.
Trump did not create the society we live in- he may be hitting the accelerator, but this country has been heading in its current direction for the last 50 years.
Without the long view that accounts for all the moving parts, there is little help of repairing our broken nation.
25
@alan haigh: Have you ever considered how LUCKY, fortunate you are to live in this great country of ours, and if it were not great why does everyone else in the world want to come here?Juliana from Iburri, as she descended from that Delta flight from Accra a decade ago at JFK exclaimed "Vive les Etats Unis,"(We had been together in Boke, GUINEA, francophone where she learned to speak the idiom of Rabelais)and her enthusiasm has not waned. "Reflechissez:"If you are from a third world nation where hopelessness, doing without are the major themes of daily life, and you come here where "tout est possible,"would you not be happy?To call the country broken is a superficial, sweeping generalization. We served in Boke where ,when Juliana, not having taken her lariam dosage, came down with malaria, paludism, and had to go to the local hospital for an i.v.quinine injection, m.d. advised us, "Apportez les bougies"which left me temporarily flummoxed until she explained that the hospital had no electricity that day. And you're complaining about our being a broken nation?Doctor was from Cuba!
@alan haigh: The US is a mental health basket case because it projects human nature onto all of nature and claims divine origin. It is only getting dumber and fouler every day it is governed by a man selected by an evil vestige of the slavery it was born with.
1
What I am seeing is the total absence of the conservative point of view. The current GOP blow up the deficit every time they are elected. It used to be the opposite. The hate that gets in their messaging sure gets press, but the thoughtful conservative voice has been lost. I am a centrist, and the saddest part of being here, is that balanced views on how to govern are missing on both sides.
Stop getting caught in the hate narrative, or the latest tweet news ripple. What is a viable conservative stance on where we are as a country? Come on, conservatives, what is it?
17
Until a patriot goes to Trump and tells him for the good of the country that he needs to step down, I have no hope any amount of columnist incisive wit or dispassionate insight or speaking out against the trauma of Trump's dark vision is going to matter. I'm also worried if there isn't a signal for change in the election next week, especially in my state, we are really done for in terms of looking to a future that matters for our grandchildren. Every one in the media sphere of influence treated Fox News as if it was a credible competitor to normal news channels; it's not. It's a propaganda channel. News organizations believe they are leaning towards some semblance of fairness by presenting Trump as normal business; he isn't. I'm not numb to the horrors of this culture driven by Trump, but I fear I'm growing numb to thinking outrage matters. There's no one in a position of influence (elected or otherwise) who will put his or her country ahead of self interest, and stand up to the pathology of this moment. Waiting 2 years for a next election means we go through another election cycle of lies and disorder peppered with appalling instances of mass shootings targeting religious and racial targets and bomb plots to blow up former federal officials and news media outlets because Trump, the Republicans, Fox News, and their collaborators and followers have no way to hear nor understand an Abraham Lincoln appeal to our better angels.
51
@Rosemary Galette Comedy?
@Rosemary Galette, Trump has been great for the country. You Marxists just have to realize you’re utopian fantasy is never going to come to fruition. We like America. We don’t want to be like Europe or other socialist cesspools. The more you push for it, the more you will see us fight to keep our nation. It’s not us. It’s you!
Have you ever read Krugman about the deplorables? Straight anti working class hate. Have you read the NYC cardinal denouncing Hillary for her anti-Catholicism, demanding an apology and never getting it? Have you read the anti-German hate in the denunciatio of Drump? Small wonder that Hillary lost the election in the Midwestern states with large numbers of German Americans. There is as much hate on the left in its identity politics as there is on the right
14
@Jerry Hough
So be it. There is bias on both sides. It's called being human. Why must there be animus and not balance?
@Jerry Hough
Sorry Jerry. Only one side in all this is separating children from their parents, trying to take away voting rights, and calling for violence. There is no equivalency here. When it comes to hate, Republicans are indeed winning.
18
@Jerry Hough
False equivalency.
When a lefty gets mad, they make signs, they start petitions, and they grab bullhorns...
When a righty gets mad, they send bombs, post hate speech, and load up the guns before going off on society...
It's so common it's cliche...
"There's blame on both sides" doesn't cut it... reality has spoken on that one.
4
There is a point where outrage no longer feels like it matters. It has all been said many times over. Why say it again? Why look for a new and different angle? The novelty of outrage and indignation has worn thin and no longer inspires.
The time for action has arrived. One hopes that November 6th reflects that. If it does not, then action will seek out less conventional forms, ones less dependent on the questionable integrity of traditional institutional mechanisms. That challenge need not imply despair or violence.
But change is indeed coming; it will inevitably take those shapes conducive to its manifestation. If elections fail to work, other paths will be pursued. The failure of conventional social tools to respond to the needs of the times can only imply radicalization. If it comes to that, decent folk will need to commit themselves to pursuit of a peaceful radicalization that builds community rather than destroys it. One does not overcome evil by emulating its behaviors and strategies.
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@woofer-if Nov 6th cements the Republican lead it will because the voting system in state-after-state has been gamed; millions of voters disenfranchised, or limited by the GOP in their lawful right to vote and have their votes counted as cast. We still have states where voting systems themselves can be manipulated and votes flipped as were seeing in Texas. We have to demand fair and transparent elections, and keep the media spotlight on pols responsible for election security and integrity. Everyone needs to validate they are registered and vote as if it matters.
32
@woofer So well and eloquently said. Thank you.
2
Today, after the sad deaths of eleven people in a mass shooting in a house of worship, Trump spoke before the FFA and said he almost cancelled the trip because he was having a bad hair day. That's what Trump said, not that he almost cancelled due to yet another mass murder, but because he didn't like the way his hair looked.
Rile up the crazies? The chief crazy is Donald Trump.
408
I'd like to ask Ms. Dowd whether she has yet recognized the Republicans' long Hillary-hate campaign that sucked her in during (and before) 2016? And her consequent (admittedly negligible) assist to Mr. Trump's election?
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@Thomas Zaslavsky
It's true. She has on many occasions shown her hatred for both Bill and Hillary. e.g. "the Clintons are coming to town. they're like a disease."
6
For crying out loud, let it go already.
@Thomas Zaslavsky Oh you give such power to Maureen; shame on her for providing us with facts not fantasy.
There is a simple message, but I see few ever mention it. (let alone supposed ''leaders'') That message is that if we stick together, then we can achieve anything.
Throughout history ( and in particular American ), the societies that do just that usually last the longest, and are the most successful.
The President that coined the fear phrase, also led the majority of the world in combating evil. - from a wheelchair.
The President that was willing to sacrifice a country to free slaves, created a stronger one for it in the end.
The President that decided space was going to be conquered within a decade, united the country (and the imagination) to succeed.
We pulled together. Now we have leaders that want to tear us apart or on the other side, timidly propose that we should have subsidized (and privatized health care)
Our country - our world demands greater vision than just that, because soon our planet will fail us as we have failed ourselves.
I reach for our better angels, but they drift further away...
173
You had me up until the bit about one side timidly proposing subsidized healthcare. How does this issue possibly compare to side with a president deliberately tearing this country apart and inciting fear?
6
@FunkyIrishman
Why is it that there is this appeal for rational, peace-loving, voters to seek the better angels of our nature, while innocents are threatened and massacred?
Why isn't there a call to arms against White Nationalism, against Trump, against the Republicans who encourage the slaughter?
I say enough with the appeals for understanding. Recall the words of Malcolm X:
“Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”
7
In Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln concluded with the following words:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
I read Lincoln's words and I'm struck by his capacity for rising to the demands of the hour, something that the current president falls short of again, and again, and again.
The humility of Lincoln's words is striking.
I feel great despair when I listen to our current Republican president.
It is beyond disheartening to listen to the hate and bile that spews forth from Trump's mouth.
We are better than the president we have. The majority of American do not support him, do not support his hateful rhetoric.
Let us also remember Lincoln's First Inaugural Address:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
The majority of Americans must vote against this hateful rhetoric on November 6th and show "the better angels of our nature."
America and Americans are better than this president.
548
Lincoln was an amazing man for his time but he left out of his 2nd Inaugural speech a welcome to the newly emancipated citizens of the United States. Those wounds are still unhealed and infect the body politic.
19
@V-Thank you. Weeping reading your hopeful message.
18
@V
I, too, weep like Ann when I read the 2nd inaugural knowing the result of history and a leaderless nation following a great civil war that caused such divide. Lincoln was a man of his time, but would his opinions have changed and would he have healed the nation during Reconstruction. We will never know but the results have been painful and a long period of healing that goes on today. Persons without vision and only interested in themselves hurt our desperate nation.
Today, over 150 years since Appomattox we are undergoing deja-vu all over again. Our need for unity has been assassinated by a bigot and loudmouth who speaks to many's twisted beliefs. Will we find a path that joins our diversity into a more perfect union?
20
There should be a bipartisan consensus on the migrant horde heading for our southern border. Those people should on no account be allowed to cross. I don't believe that President Hillary Clinton or President Obama would have let them cross. When a horde is trying to cross illegally that is not immigration. That is invasion. By failing to speak up in favor of defending America's borders the Democrats have allowed Trump to make an issue of this.
If Democrats were smart they might want to remind everybody that Republicans always talk tough on immigration around election time, and then do nothing about it when voters aren't watching. The reason the border wall hasn't been built is because of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, not because of Democrats. Corporate America wants cheap labor, and Republicans and the media always support what corporate America wants.
42
@Schrodinger, you're a prime victim. "Horde"! Look it up in the dictionary; it doesn't describe this nonviolent group of refugees from violence and poverty (similar to my ancestors).
123
@Thomas Zaslavsky Illegally crossing a national border is an act of violence.
You won't read this in the Times, but the violence in Honduras is no worse than the violence in Baltimore and St Louis.
Murders/100000 pop:
Honduras: 56
Baltimore: 59
St Louis: 60
San Francisco: 6
United Kingdom: 1.2
3
@Schrodinger they are travelling as a group for safe passage in a long, perilous journey. They aren't in a group to crash the border. Actually 1,500 have already requested asylum in Mexico. As Americans we believe in due process. It is not illegal to seek asylum at a port of entry. Some will be granted, some turned away. Same as ever. We need immigration reform and we should consider helping those countries stabilize. As an individual you can donate to Oxfam and other organizations that feed children.
65
Is it fear that Republicans are spreading? Or does that fear originate from genuine problems that liberals have ignored for too long?
No matter which, America is not alone. Europe is seeing a lurch to the right because of fear of immigration, a country by country description being found in this article from the BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36130006
Democrats seem to lecture us about the fear of "the other." But what if some of those fears are justified? What if population growth driven by immigration has put the US and Europe on a trajectory towards shortages of resources in the long run? Is it not justified to seek a remedy?
Yes, such remedies should be compassionate. But consider the impact of demographics. Africa has a population of 1.2 billion. Its population is projected to double by 2050. Where do all of the people go?
Viktor Orban of Hungary represents many politicians in Europe who are winning because they opposed continued immigration.
There is a real danger that Democrats like Maureen Dowd will not see the impact of immigration as an issue in the US. In fact, Democrats were already mistaken when they assumed they would win the last presidential election.
The problem is that Democrats tend to believe what is demonstrably false, that the US has infinite resources, or at least that those resources are so vast that illegal immigrants have no impact on them.
Like ostriches, liberals have their heads in the sand.
19
@Jake Wagner Sure. And even paranoids have enemies. But Maureen's point is that we can do better. We can approach the issue from the perspective of what this country can handle, and what at least some of these asylum seekers might bring to the country. Instead we get hate filled rants on a daily basis, which is hardly the basis for just and compassionate decision making, whatever the final decision might be
54
@Jake Wagner-If population growth is a problem, and I would agree that it is, why do Republican presidents cut foreign aid to organizations that cover family planning--the minute they get into office. Why? This is beyond tragic in terms of consequences. And they are doing the same thing here in America.
32
@Jake Wagner
The fear you experience is unfounded. As crazy and obsolete our immigration policy is, there is no overwhelming immigration problem.
For the most part, most of the immigrant population, works hard and have a positive influence on our country.
Of course there are a minority, as with any group, that game the system. When that group is used as a measure of the rest, people's fears can be raised. That is what has happened. Trump and right wing media blow smoke in an attempt to gain political advantage. They play to peoples fears. Unfortunately, we as humans often can't fight off the temptation to go to our lowest common denominator.
There is plenty to go around in this country. If wages had kept up with the productive gains over the last 40 years, the wages even of illegal immigrants would be such that government programs would not have to support them. If the percentage of income taxed had stayed at 19-20%, instead of being artificially lowered to 16.5%, we would not be producing such a dangerous deficit.
It's not immigration that is the basis of our debt problem, it's income disparity.
2
While in Austin, TX today and had the opportunity to visit the LBJ Presidential Library. The difference between Johnson and Trump couldn't be farther apart. Medicare, Civil Right Act...the list was exhaustive. Johnson had the political skills to move this country toward equality for all and better healthcare. As they listed his accomplishments they used Johnson's own words to inspire the nation and its leaders to do the right thing, not withstanding Vietnam. So, naturally, I compared and contrasted Trump against Johnson. It is a sorry day in this nation that we had such a leader today. Trump divides. He cares only about himself. He has no understanding of how government works. He is the antithesis of Johnson. We have lost our way. And it is frightening.
231
@Dianna Johnson famously said when he signed the Civil Rights Act that he was afraid he had just turned the south over to the Republican Party. He was quite right.
9
Morally Johnston was quite shallow. Knowing how to work the system is not leading. He treaded the same water as Fulbright, Nixon, Goldwater and the Kennedy’s by using waders not strength. Remember dog ears?, bombing? Denouncing MLK pacifism?......
1
@Dianna you seem to have some romantic deluded vision of LBJ based on the positive and biased presentation that every presidential library presents of thier subject. I have never heard any serious presidential scolar even mention LBJ as an example of a great leader, or being a unifying figure. The undisputed consensus by experts who study presidential history show Johnson was a mean spirted and self serving man who was a bitter partisan. For you to give LBJ sole credit for civil rights is absurd. His fueds with the Kennedy family and his ill treatment of Jackie and Robert post JFK are legendary. It’s indisputable that LBJ did little to foster civil rights up till the day he signed the civil rights act of 1963. His signing of that bill is literally the only thing he did and it’s arguable he only did it for political purposes. Are you aware that LBJ needed Republicans to pass the civil rights act of 1963 because the Democrats voted against it unanimously? Were you aware LBJ was against civil rights when Republican president Eisenhower pushed for civil rights in 1957? LBJ believed it would destroy the Democrat party and he would not fully support it, so he watered the bill down when it hit the senate and Republicans were the party who provided the votes to gain it’s passage passage? Yes if it wasn’t fir LBJ’s glorious leadership and bitter partisan loyalty African Americans would have had civil rights in 1957.
2
After five decades of trying to scare US voters, GOP pols have finally come up with something that should invoke real fear--of Mr. Trump and the party that enabled him.
183
When you think Trump the Horrible cannot get any more horrible he manages to find even more muck at the bottom of the barrel. Sayoc may wear a MAGA hat and plaster his van with Trump posters but he has nothing to do with Trump, it is the media hyping him up that should be blamed. 11 people were killed at a Synagogue, it would not have happened if the rabbi had a gun handy. And we should no get distracted from the real peril, the hordes from Honduras filled with Middle Eastern terrorists ready to invade and bring havoc to our country. And his fans lap all this drivel without wincing. If Democrats do not take over the House after all this we can count on another disgraceful two years of degradation and shame.
150
@serban, life is not a gun fantasy film. A rabbi with a gun in his belt while conducting a service (!) could have shot into the crowd but wouldn't have been likely to hit the gunman before many were killed. That is reality. I am sorry to see so many people recommend this post.
72
Excuse me! I put this reply on the wrong post. Very sorry, serban!
2
@Thomas Zaslavsky
I believe that @serban is only reciting in his examples the Trump state-of-mind. In some circles, this is called sarcasm. If you read the last two lines, you will see that he is only explaining what Democrats have the responsibility to stop.
1
Today I watched a show that I had taped about Wm. Shakespeare's "Richard III." Amazing how much "Richard III" and Donald J. Trump were/are alike.
38
@Jackie Skespeare's Richard III is malevolent and sharp. Donald is malevolent and stupid, there is a difference. If he was anywhere like Richard III we would be in serious trouble.
58
That was one episode of "Shakespeare Uncovered" and I was struck by too how Richard III and DJT are almost brothers from different mothers.
Then today I came across Eliot Cohen in the Atlantic comparing DJT to the Scottish King, both of them murderous usurpers.
A trajedy in the making.
3
@Jackie
The big difference: even Shakespeare's Richard III has tremendous personal courage up to the end. No bone spurs for him!
5
Trump declares he is a Nationalist. That is not a pure statement. How many organizations, very, very past and present have an adjective in front of Nationalist or a clarification of just what type of Nationalism they grasp.
How many may have been encouraged by his statement. Does Trump understand that the implication of his verbiage may pass on as support to others due to their perception of what "Nationalist" means to them?
It may sound patriotic and pure; it may or may not be which depends much upon the who is the recipient.
37
@Tanis Marsh-So tragic. We've seen what nationalism has wrought for other countries; Germany for instance in the 1930s.
9
@Tanis Marsh
Nationalist? Seen that before. The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party), comes to mind. Both Republican and Nazi Party leaders share a common ancestry. They also engaged in nefarious nativist policies that stoked fear against ethnic minorities who were corralled in holding facilities. The most important difference is that the Nazi's engaged in genocide of the Jewish people within Germany's expanding borders. President Trump has not engaged this option but has access to unspeakable global nuclear arms that could end civilization,
Ms. Dowd assumes the president is in control of his anger and would not engage in nuclear war - MAD - to end civilized society. The only thing we fear the most, is the mental breakdown of president Trump while he has access to the "football".
2
@Tanis Marsh The same double interpretation for 'Globalist'.
1
The GOP excels at skullduggery, thuggery, and all manner of disgraceful behavior(s) when it comes to campaigning and governing and hatred. I have no memory of the GOP being a party of decent human beings. I do remember the way they smeared Dukakis, how they undermined Obama, how Reagan played to white American prejudice about welfare recipients, and how so many of our Republican legislators have refused to listen to what their constituents want because what their dark money donors wanted was more important.
It's not the stuff of comedy when our president cheers violent acts against the press or people he disagrees with. So he condemned today's attack on a synagogue in strong terms. He'll find a way to take it back or to blame the Democrats or to say that it doesn't matter.
The truth is that enough Americans believe what Trump says that they love having a bully occupying the White House. They love having the GOP wrecking the social safety net, rolling back regulations meant to protect them as well as the liberals they despise and their children.
Obama was right. No one makes it in life entirely on their own any longer. We need to be paid a decent salary so we can support ourselves. That means we need a job and an employer. Or, if we are self employed, we need customers. We need others. The myth of rugged individuality is a myth. We would do better to learn to live with each other. Trump and the GOP don't want that.
556
@hen3ry
Well said, Sir. Kudos.
Donald Trump has no regard for Truth. None.
In his scheming little world, there are only collections of words that he hopes will put him in a position of greater ADVANTAGE. And statements he fears will put him at a disadvantage.
There is no Truth. There is only advantage and disadvantage.
168
@henr3y
Wrong. BO was wrong on every level. He articulated a great game but he did nothing. What did BO do for the economic state of the nation, what did BO do on protecting our borders, what did BO do about elevating America on the world stage?
Answer: a big fat nothing, less than zero!
Votes have consequences and the 2016 Presidential votes were driven by problems BO caused and Hilliary exacerbated!
Watch for a 2018 midterm surprise! Everything else is commentary!
@Pogo
You are wrong. Obama deported many people, more than any other president at that time. He loaned money to the Auto Companies, that they put many people back to work, and paid the country back. He gave raises to Social Security, the first in many years. He gave raises to the Veterans pensions. He got us out of Iraq like Bush promised. You, I guess, only listened to FAUX News. Look everything up. He gave us the ACA (Obama Care) to even out the field where the most sick had either their health care cancelled due to their Pre-Existing conditions. The only thing that stopped this great president was Mitch McConnell who would not even put legislation up for a vote. He even raised the taxes of anyone making over $250,000. By doing that, he was able to lower the deficit.
Think you need to check your facts.
2
Notice the similarities.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-happens-when-a-bad-t...?
18
David Underwood refers to the infamous Kaiser Wilhelm II.
5
Good one, Maureen, but maybe it's time others in our media who are paying attention should attack their sleaziest competitors. Fox and many other outlets are guilty of constant lying, and well researched appeals to our basest instincts. If people don't get quality information from newspapers or TV they get demagoguery and lies every time, because someone is making money from it.
Trump has perfected the kindergarten retort, accusing his enemies of doing what he does every single day: "I know you are, but what am I?"
Counterarguments fail. I don't see America reversing its drift toward fascism and dismantling of our democracy until there is a major economic crash. When that happens, the wealthy corporation executives and evil station managers behind Fox will start looking at yacht and remote island catalogs.
Good riddance. We might end up having to start over, with a more robust democracy this time, already achieved in places like Iceland, New Zealand, and yes, Germany.
158
While this is true, the NYT and its columnist no longer have any right to publish it. Why?
This month, they published a short story in which the person praised is a Secret Service agent, who helps a Russian to assassinate Trump.
This is expressly done by the Russian in order to hide Putin's role selecting Trump to be President.
That is spreading hate and advocating violence, all in service of the current tropes against Trump.
Reportedly, the Secret Service is steamed about this.
Riling up the crazies? You can't do that, and then complain that the other guy is riling up the crazies, even if he is too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/books/review/trumps-next-chapter.html
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@Mark Thomason
Come on. The story you refer to is a work of fiction, and is clearly identified as such. It was published in the Book Review section, not in News or Opinion. There’s a wide chasm between a real president riling up supporters at rallies, week in and week out, and a crime writer taking a fictional stab at exploring the relationship between Trump and Putin.
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The gap is not as wide as you would think it is among the crazies out there.
We have seen the dangers when the moderates get silenced. We do not need to see the extreme supporters antagonized into action from either side.
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@Mark Thomason the level of hyperbole and exaggeration from the press in their effort to trash Trump for every one of his utterances is guaranteeing that we'll have him in office for eight years. The mainstream media is really that dense. Just wait and see, we're going to get some corporate tool like Biden up against Trump in 2020 and to their total shock, Trump will win again. I can already picture their shocked expressions.
8
I was a kid when Wayne made his later movies but I'm a big fan of old movies and have seen his films from the 30s and 40s. The characters he played would never brag about grabbing women by the genitals. Remember when Wayne's character was very nice to the prostitute in Stagecoach? He didn't have to pay her off to hide an affair. I think he married her at the end of the movie.
Maybe Trump thinks the "good old days" involved adultery and sexual assault and dirty talk, but I remember when men, no matter what class they came from, avoided swearing around women and kids and apologized when they accidently did. Vulgar Trump won't go back to those days. He'd have to clean up his act and he can't do that.
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@Linda: Great post. Yes, this is what is so curious about evangelicals. I suppose that, theologically, we could say that the Antichrist has infiltrated the Christian evangelical movement, and it's brilliant.
I'm for respect and civility. My upbringing stressed that. It's not all that easy, but I admire those intelligent people who lead responsibly. I've had some good examples.
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@Linda...
It's easy to forget that the real John Wayne loved Modern Art.
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@Charles
Are we still calling evangelicalism a religion? At some point of moral bancrptcy and corruption, they should lose that status.
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Another fine essay, Maureen. Your observation:
"The only difference — and it is a shocking one — is that Donald Trump cuts out the middleman. He handles the dirty work himself — and revels in it."
is key. For those little trumpkins out there in our trumpland, it means that their lord trump is going to be difficult to replace. The trump party (formerly the Republican Party) needs to find someone who lies as much as trump does, and probably more. My bet is on Devin Nunes, but there are others.
I'm glad you brought up Fox Noise, because it is the propaganda arm of the trump party. They propagate the lies in return for a lucrative market share. Rupert Mudrock (I assure you the twist on his name is meant only in the most affectionate way) is looking at revenue. To paraphrase a famous line from Peter Bogdanovich's "Paper Moon", Mudrock would drop his pants in the street for market share. He'd be a Democrat, but trump is such an easy mark. Trump comes with a pre-assembled mob of lunatics.
Yes, Ailes. + trump = American fascism. I am readying myself for a fascist phase in U.S. government. Trump has a large following of uneducated people (some with college degrees, even) who violate what I learned from Republican parents and teachers when I was in elementary school: be skeptical.
Trump followers, the "trumpkins", get upset when we call them dumb because they unquestioningly believe everything that trump tells them. Fox Noise has hitched onto that crazy horse.
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@Charles, I disagree that Mudrock would be a Democrat under any circumstances. He chose the Republican path long before Trump mattered.
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@Thomas Zaslavsky: Agree, it's a stretch. Still, if Mudrock could get an even *bigger* market share... :-)
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@Charles you don't get it. Fox groomed America to prepare their embrace of Trump.
2
The Democratic politicians and pundits are really decent people. They are so eager to help the others they have been ready to destroy a bunch of countries so the locals can move to America.
As you know, Libya and Syria used to be very stable countries accepting a lot of refugees and economic migrants from Iraq and Africa. Very stable until the Obama Administration decided to destabilize them with the regime overthrows, thus dooming several million people to the desperate attempts of crossing the Mediterinaen Sea and settling in Europe, thus triggering the radical social upheaval, the Brexit, and the rise of extreme right across the Old Continent.
Several hundred thousand civilians died due to the bloody ethnic conflicts. Intentionally inflaming the ethnic animosity is a war crime, isn’t it?
The Obama Administration destabilized the stable countries in the Middle East instead of helping improve the bad governments in Central America.
Those actions had lead to loss of trust among the US voters for the establishment and election of Donald Trump.
The Democrats never blamed the Obama Administration for not improving the Latin America and ignoring it for eight years.
Is their willingness to now accept the hundreds thousands refugees the public expression of “mea culpa” for the protracted existence of worst dictatorial regimes in the South America?
It’s far easier and cheaper to replace the bad governments than to relocate the dozens millions people.
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@Kenan Porobic, you're mistaken that Democrats don't blame Obama. Some do, some don't. Also, you're mistaken about Syria. It was in a civil uprising turning into war before Obama had anything to do with it. Also, you're mistaken about Libya; there was a rebellion under way which France intervened to support before we did.
I could present myself as a Democratic critic of Obama's foreign behavior, except that I'm not a Democrat.
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@Kenan Porobic Obama was vetted by the elite before he gained the chance to lead. His policies did not change US attitudes towards business as usual.They used us again but said it would be different.
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@Kenan Porobic: The destabilization of the Middle East began long before Obama although I was horrified when he went into Libya...The current state of the Middle East is the result of decades of US interference in their politics. The same goes for Central America. The US has systematically destroyed economies of any country who defies our wishes. Read up on the "Banana Wars" where we plundered and jerked governments around in Central America because they wanted to sell their fruit at lower prices than the US companies. For 30 years this went on. Then, as in the Middle East, more radicalized locals decided that they had enough of outside interference and the result is what we now have in The Middle East and Central America. We destabilize and then are surprised at the results. Hatred for our country and refugees from the devastation we create. I am neither a democrat or a republican. I vote against America's Corporate Military actions that place business ahead of humanity on whatever side I can find it. If you think that any president can control THAT machine, you are mistaken. look what happened to Kennedy...Trump is just the controlling machine giving us the finger as they continue to dismantle our constitution and economy.
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When the founders created the Constitution they knew of the risk of demagogues and their power to influence many people. One of the means they created to deal with this risk is impeachment. Another was to divide the government into three branches. What they never expected was for a demagogue to be elected president and that his demagoguery would hold sway over a majority of the people in each of the other two branches, as well. Trump will not end well for the United States unless the Democratic party can take back at least one house of Congress.
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@James Ricciardi
@James Ricciardi
Yes, in truth, the real problem is not Trump (the founders anticipated him). The real problem is the House and Senate GOP majority who have traded their integrity and obligation to safeguard our national security for political gain.
The GOP base, who don't seem to understand the danger in the executive branch, need the legislative branch to stand up and actually lead. Instead of leading, the legislative branch follows, and like lemmings, possibly off a cliff.
Because the base is not large enough to win in a general election, we shall see if the independents and others who elected Trump will acknowledge their mistake and put an end to this insanity.
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@James Ricciardi
You are wrong - Hamilton knew the risk of a demagogue being elected president, which is why the Electoral College was created. Look up Federalist No. 68. The Electoral College was supposed to prevent a person with "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" becoming president.
It is not Hamilton's fault that in modern times the function of the Electoral College has been hollowed to the point that it has the opposite effect.
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@James Ricciardi The hoi poli were never meant to have significant power in our system. The Electoral College not only protected states rights, but also prevented the direct vote by citizens for the President. The original system of state legislatures choosing Senators also insulated power from the people. Then, of course, our "Founding Fathers" included no women. Maybe, to atone for the 150 years during which women had no vote and no electoral voice, we could declare a decade in which MEN were excluded from voting and public office.
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Ms. Dowd, it's been quite a while since I've been tempted to throw some of your pre-election columns back in your face, but now I just have to. trump did not undergo a personality change after November 8, 2016. He was the same ugly character during the election campaign that he is now, and it was plain for all to see, including NYT columnists. Yet you falsely equated the Hillary's flaws with trump's, and it still annoys me - a Bernie voter - whenever I recall it.
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@mancuroc Thank you, Mancuroc, for the accurate history lesson. Can we please witness a kumbaya moment and with our own eyes and see an admission of poor judgment by the very smart people who have very important podiums and forums as the NYT's columnists and editorial authors? They have spent countless hours and arm chair analyzing of past presidential candidates and why these people were not suited for the Oval Office. A hindsight apology is due to all us little folk who are trying to figure it out with the information that is presented to us in the reliable NYT's. Are you there Maureen & Mr. Brooks?
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@DH8L...Excellent points that need to be reiterated infinitum, as a means to kept us focus.
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@mancuroc
Bravo. No further words need be said.
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First Maureen derides as a fear of fear itself that about 63% of Americans (non-Hispanic whites) are losing “white male hegemony”; then, without even separating the sentiment with a paragraph she puts a point on a “caravan”, largely of Guatemalans, headed here through Mexico to do … what? To shower us with kisses? No. To GIVE us something for a change? No. To reinforce our culture? HELL no. They come to escape a failed society that wants to murder them, headed by a president who is himself under investigation for corruption, and build a better GUATEMALAN life … in the United States. To the loss of American sheetrock hangers everywhere – whites, blacks, Latino citizens of every cradle society, and the five Asians who are interested in such work because they can no longer get into Harvard.
If you ask a lot of Americans (and by no means just whites), they’re a little concerned about giving a cultural toehold to values and folkways that CREATED today’s Guatemalan (and Salvadoran, Honduran and increasingly Venezuelan) FAILURES.
Seems to me that those white déplorables could have a case. And while I have no problem competing with anyone on an individual basis, anywhere, a lot of Americans whose backs liberals purport to have nevertheless could feel less confident about their OWN guatemaliness – especially when they’re competing on wages for sheetrock-hanging jobs. I’m sure that dawning perception by liberals keeps them up nights as we get down to the last days before …
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… the 2018 midterms, and Trump continues to hammer illegal immigration, an issue on which he commands solidly positive polls.
ALL the Americas have a serious problem with Central and South America’s failed societies, which are immensely destabilizing to healthy societies as this tsunami of refugees erupts from borders surrounding nations that simply are no longer viable. Costa Rica, Mexico, the nations south of these failures, such as Brazil, and certainly not we, are going to forever watch whole populations become refugees and demand a place in someone ELSE’s sun. And steal our precious sheetrock-hanging jobs.
All the rest of Maureen’s rant today? I note that as we approach the election, Democrats, now truly fearful of not EVEN flipping the House, are doubling down on this curious tactic of complaining that their adversaries are stronger and more successful than they are. Aisles was simply a somewhat MORE nuanced version of Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. What you folks should be doing is developing compelling messages that can SELL to most Americans, instead of merely reacting to the excess of more successful conservative pundits and messages.
ClueLESS.
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@Richard Luettgen
I hesitate to reply to you these days because it feels redundant when your excessive verbosity demands that you reply to yourself. I'll content myself with observing a certain smugness in your insistent condemnation of "failures", especially those from a different culture. There but for the grace of God go you. And should you retort "I did everything for myself" - no, you didn't. You had the whole infrastructure of American society behind you - either that or quite an inheritance.
And how do you know in advance that the migrants you choose to despise won't reinforce the culture. Ah, I see! They won't be of the correct culture. Let me mention just a few of the cultures that have already reinforced the American culture.....African, Latino, Creole, Chinese, East Indian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Slavic, Central Asian.....and plenty more. The only one I've intentionally omitted is Native American, which was North America's original culture and survives, despite efforts to obliterate it.
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@mancuroc
You very offensively conclude a lot about me -- and you employ premises I'd find entertaining if I weren't so contemptuous of them.
I don't "hate" anyone who is not "evil" -- and your implied basis of race or ethnicity is laughable to anybody who has read me over 11+ years in this forum. How's your Spanish, and how many of these countries and cultures do you KNOW? My Spanish is fluent and idiomatic, I've visited and worked in MANY of these countries, and I know them well.
The provision of a basic educational system is something that ALL developed societies provide their citizens. Some exploit those frameworks in their lives … and some don't. And the taxes I've paid over a long work-life have FAR more than paid my share of supporting them, as well as requirements for infrastructure maintenance and ALL other social benefits I've EVER depended on. All that doesn't legitimately enslave me to YOUR convictions of what is "right" and what is "wrong".
I've come to conclusions about some cultures that have brought on uncontestable social failures on massive scales, and I'm very hesitant to allow them footholds here to dilute a culture that has brought on uncontestable success.
I have NO issue with legitimate reinforcements to America culture. I have a problem with attenuating our own culture to splice it with such obviously failed ones.
What was it Marx said. First history repeats itself as a tragedy then as a farce. Don’t know where we are but it certainly is not a good place to be.
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Trump's training "pedigree" in the exploitation of fear extends well before Ailes, to Sen. Joe McCarthy, whose legal aide Roy Kohn was Trump's mentor from his early days. There was a day when all it took was a diplomat to publicly ask McCarthy: "Sir, at long last, have you no decency?" to quell his rancid exploitation of fear. That no longer works today. After Trump was asked whether, now that Lyin' Ted has become Beautiful Ted, he regretted his slanders of Cruz in the 2016 primaries. he dismissed it by saying "it worked out very nicely." That is, he won with the tactic. And that's all that matters to our Immoralist in Chief.
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Trump has no alternative campaign strategy to using fear and loathing to unify and to motivate his base. That is why he will denounce the hate crimes committed by right wing nuts this week but then reverts to the same campaign messages which promote fear and loathing towards people who disagree with his supporters.
It’s time for more thoughtful people to reject this kind of political campaigning regardless of their political views. Take a lesson from communications psychology studies. Don’t personalize disagreements, focus on the problems, don’t try to assign blame, instead address the problems as the challenges not other people.
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I think the point that Trump received his schooling from Ailes does have merit. How ever, Trump’s resonance with his base comes from the fact that the man makes decisions like a businessman in politics - he is firm, plays the game, appears decisive, and is willing to stand up to whoever.
His treatment of China and North Korea is unusual and not devoid of merit. His argument that NATO allies pay up their share makes a ton of sense. He does not act PC for the sake of it; and the economy continues to be humming - greater than 3% growth rate is unusual.
Even Trump’s argument against the caravan makes sense to me; there is no reason for poor people from other countries enter US through illegal means. We are not a charity etc.
All in all - Trump has shaken the political way of doing things in the country. And last time I checked that was part of his campaign platform.
He HAS delivered on quite a few fronts.
8
@Vsh Saxena He has also caused extraordinary destruction which we will only begin to truly experience in the years to come. The economy, on a tax cut sugar high, is about to implode. Have you taken a look at the stock market lately? His tariff wars have destroyed relationships with longtime, good allies, and we will all see the increased costs in our daily purchases soon. And what about the damage to our environment, our adherence to the rule of law, the extraordinary increase in fear and hate crimes across the nation? I could go on and on and on. Those of you on the right tend to cherry pick anything that positively impacts your pocketbook in the short term, but what about the longer term. That is what I fear most from the Trump-effect.
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Actually he has violated almost all of his campaign promises. Mexico is not paying for a wall and one is not being built. Nor do we need it. We have the safest southern border than we ever had since 2007-8. The Central Americans are migrants who are costing us more because we have incarcerated so many rather than them taking jobs. They constitute a small number.
As for North Korea they continue their nuclear and missile program unabated. With China the verdict is still out as the trade war lingers and hurts some groups of American workers and businesses. He did not provide a better and cheaper replacement to Obama care, and as for NAFTA (which he called the worst deal ever) , he essentially reaffirmed it with some slight changes on a few issues and some new provisions to update it to 21st century business climate.
41
@Karen - your comment that whatever good Trump has done is only short-lived, and that much worse is about to come, is a projection at best, and a fear in of itself at worst.
At times, we get so taken in by our own preferences that we forget that all politicians come with a baggage, and some times disruption is ugly. Trump may be 80% bad, but 20% of him that is good needs to be recognized by the fair minded. The Trump effect was always meant to be disruptive, wasn't it? Finally, the country elected him for crying out loud. Can we accept that.
Why not cut to the chase — his name is Rupert Murdoch, he is an australian born immigrant to this country and nothing gets said or done at Fox News without his approval. Media companies don't simply get infested by bad apples. Murdoch is untouchable because he is a billionaire and close friend of the Trump family and the Republican Party (he's employed many of them through the years, Palin, Huckabee, etc.).
Yes all you say is true about Republicans in the past and present but it is Fox that is openly amplifying the hate and promoting anti-semitic and racist conspiracy theories without anything to back them up but lies.This is a corporate environment where everything you do is watched all day long and reported to the boss. Fox wasn't like this before, but it is now because Murdoch isn't long for this world, perhaps this is his last hurrah, burn baby burn billionaire style.
Congress should pass legislation setting up ethical standards which prevent media companies from openly trafficking in lies. Heavy, Heavy Fines should be levied against open lies. Heavier fines still against incitement to hate.
Murdoch is responsible for Fox and everything it does, no matter what the motives of the other players – Congress must pass new regulations to clean up the airwaves. No it is not censorship to make lying illegal.
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@Arthur
I wholeheartedly agree. I can never understand why the Fairness Doctrine was done away with, but it should be reinstated to flush away the insanity of the right-wing "media."
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@Elena Toro I believe the Fairness Doctrine was trashed specifically to allow something like Trump to happen. It was eliminated under the Reagan administration to allow the "free market" make such decisions. It has resulted in Fox News, the new Pravda of the Republican party. We now have the "state controlled media" like the Russian system we had so much contempt for in the 50s and 60s.
3
Why do so few want to acknowledge that it is Murdoch, his father, and the children who have created this media world in which we live? No poke-the-tiger Simpsons episode making fun of Rupert or the current President are recompense enough for the nightmare this Australian, naturalized to this country, will offset the lasting horrors of Fox.
25
I’m a Republican who desperately wants to vote for Democrats who will neuter Trump and his gang for the next two years. With less than two weeks until the midterms it’s disappointing to hear Democrats wasting their capital on talk about impeachment of Trump and Kavanaugh or abolishing ICE. We need stable government, not banana republic retribution for wrongs, real and imagined. Otherwise, we’re no better than the people we are trying to replace.
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@Dave DiRoma
Agreed. I’m a Democrat and I think we need to keep impeachment on the back burner until we have Mueller ‘s complete report. Kavanaugh is better left alone. Dems should set certain boundaries for ICE, but it would be counter-productive to abolish ICE.
Proceed soberly but firmly.
33
@Dave DiRoma
Here's what bothers me about supposedly anti-Trump Republicans, who complain about radical Democrats. Where were they when Mitch McConnell refused to have hearings for Merrick Garland? Where were they when Republicans lied about the ACA? Where were they when they invited Netanyahu to trash talk Obama in front of Congress? Where were they when Republicans were going crazy over Ben Ghazi? Where were they when Trump was peddling lies about the uranium deal? When he was hyperventilating about the email server, no matter what the FBI said? Where were they when Trump refused to show his tax returns?
How many Republicans were willing to make it clear from the outset that Trump was unacceptable by endorsing Clinton?
So called reasonable Republicans, in their silence, helped to legitimize Trump. If they truly hate Trump, they need to atone for THEIR actions and stop telling Democrats what to do.
97
@Dave DiRoma Any talk about impeachment and/or abolishing ICE was from a small, fringe fraction of the Democratic party, and I haven't heard mention of any of that for weeks. Why do you cling to these small items when our democracy is at stake?
13
Trump didn't even skip a beat getting back to business as usual once Sayoc was arrested. After there was a smattering of pseudo applause when Trump mentioned the arrest of Sayoc, the crowd got back to business as usual with chants of "lock her up" when Hillary Clinton's name was mentioned as one of the Democrats targeted by Sayoc, and Trump did not even hold up his hand to stop them. Trump delivered his feint praise for the FBI in a monotone dripping with sarcasm. His crassness on Friday took my breath away.
As usual, Trump has shrugged off any responsibility for fomenting an atmosphere of anger against Democrats that led to Sayoc becoming a terrorist. Trump, from the moment he was sworn in as president, has presented a clear and present and ongoing danger to this country, that will not end until he is voted out of office. No deed done in his name will be horrific enough for him to stop inciting violence and hatred.
A caravan of migrants heading north is nothing new, but has not been widely reported about in the past. This caravan is now being politicized by Trump and Republicans as fodder to spread fear, (as you mentioned Maureen), and energize their base to vote for authoritarian control to save them from the bogeyman the Republicans have come up with in this election cycle.
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The truth as offered here is very often depressing. Perhaps the intent of Trump and Ailes. I watched the Kavanaugh rant before the Senate Judiciary Committee again and encountered more depression. We elevated a outright partisan conspiracy theorist to the Supreme Court.
Within a week we experienced pipe bombs dispatched to Trump critics as one of the good guys on both sides became enraged. His animosity and anger peaked so he unleashed gun furor on the Congregation of the Tree of Life Synagogue. Bernie Sanders cannot be responsible for both but Fox might work that angle soon. The problem with equivalency is it should square with reality.
I am saddened a link between Trump's overheated, deliberate rhetoric and these events is likely, even as triggering mechanism. More than likely causal as well. Unintended for sure but a careless, reckless disregard for the safety of others by the President. It is time for a long awaited apology, an admission he was wrong to inspire hate.
90
Let's not kid ourselves, Make America Great Again is nothing more than code for Make America Hate Again, and Donald Trump is its consummate salesman.
The scariest fact of all is that tens of millions of our fellow citizens have bought into it (a total of 62,984,828 of them in the 2016 presidential election, to be exact).
And, week in and week out, as Trumpism now controls all three branches of our government, we witness the divisiveness, suppression, threats, incitement, intimidation and even bloodshed to prove it.
When are we, as a country, going to collectively come back to our senses? It's not going to happen overnight, that's for sure, but as good a time as any to start would be Nov. 6.
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Ms. Dowd,
You assert here that Trump, unlike his Republican predecessors, is cutting out the middleman and getting his hands dirty with the work of race baiting. Trump, however, is the middleman. Everyone, even his supporters, knows that he isn't really running anything, and therefore isn't responsible in the same way for his remarks. He "gets things done," but these "things" are vague. The real business of governance is done elsewhere.
This frees him to say whatever is politically expedient, because his statements have no political meaning in a traditional sense. He is a product of Grover Norquist, as well as Roger Ailes, an anti-politician. This is another way of saying that he has built a cult of personality. We have seen the results that other such cults of personality have produced.
82
We'll know in two weeks if the forces of good sense can prevail.
Swirling out there to entangle Mr. Trump and family is potential tax fraud, possible money laundering, more indictments and the curtain pulling back. He can't last forever. Once he's out of office will the Saudi's and Russians still throw money his way?
He may be unsettling, spewing vitriol and undoing a lot - and we don't yet know all the intended and unintended consequences - but so far at least, he's a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, yet still not as bad as the Civil War or Joseph McCarthy or Viet Nam eras.
A lot of people who didn't see how politics affected them are now engaged in the process. That has to be a good thing.
39
@Kathy
You left out Iraq, Syria and Libya with all of the dying and migration associated with them. These disasters belong to W (with Obama getting a dishonorable mention). Trump has a long way to go to top those human catastrophes.
1
Just one problem, Maureen, most Trump supporters would never read this article. Those few who might read it would either deny the facts in it or believe those facts and not care. We've lost about 30 million Americans forever. There's no use trying to turn them around. The only hope is getting the people who do care to vote.
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Thank you for this article. It provides additional insights into how we arrived at this point of hate and violence in history. More reasons on why this election is essential to our future safety, health, and happiness. See
https://www.legalreader.com/elections-why-you-should-care/
39
Wouldn’t it be easier to defeat the Republicans if the opposition actually offered an alternative? As near as I can see, the Democrats are going to protect people with pre-existing health conditions, and that’s about the only thing makes it through the noise.
Everything else is lost in the struggle between the Democratic Socialists and the moderates. I’m not Trump isn’t selling.
10
@Traymn
You are not paying attention!
Democrats are united in affordable health care, reduce economic inequality, keep social security and Medicare strong, immigration should be legal but those seeking asylum need a chance, we are greater together, build an economy that lifts all...not just the wealthy, equal pay, strong on education, and for me personally....clean energy and environmental issues.
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@Traymn: then you should vote trump party (republican) and for trump. It's all you can understand. Right, we're headed toward fascism, of which you are totally unaware. We can't educate you at this late date.
52
I’m a life long Democrat, and understand the issues already, the Democrats will need to win over those who don’t understand or they will remain the minority party. Telling voters they’re not worth the trouble won’t help you.
22
For the past several years I have been telling family and friends that they should not worry about the constant inhumanity of the present Administration. What goes around comes around. I've told them that justice sometimes catches up to people slower than we'd like it to.
I have to admit that after this week, GOOD has to overcome the EVIL that has been in the spotlight since prior to the election of 2016.
I implore all good and decent people to get out and vote on November 6th. If all voters dig down deep into their humanity, I have to believe that GOOD will overcome the evil pervasive in our government. Vote Democratic!
247
There is no doubt in my mind that in all of Trump's TV watching, if he is not THE story, in THAT moment, he tweets something to get himself back in the news coverage. And the Republicans enable it all. If the Dems don't win at least one of the houses next Tuesday, I truly believe it's over.
233
@aroundaside Me too.
3
So, the question is whether Trump is actually intentional in all of this or whether he is truly the useful idiot. His comments today after the synagogue shooting were clueless. He spoke of the "hate" in the country & the world as if it was a vague force, source unknown, floating in the ethers. Yet, he himself refused to condemn the white nationalists when they walked in Charlottesville with a clearly anti-Semitic chant. He seems to have no clue that his bullying, name-calling, sneering, and encouraging of same is part of the fertile ground in which such hate grows.
765
I always shake my head when I hear anything about Trump’s plan or strategy . He has no clue , which to me was obvious a long time ago . The people who still think anything different are the real problem .
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@Anne-Marie Hislop I think he's a useful idiot. He's a useful vehicle for spreading the hate. He gives people who believe these hateful things a reason to act on them with violence. It can't be wrong if the president praises it. Body slamming a reporter: hey it's great because Trump loves it. Running over a protester: no problem because they shouldn't have been standing there protesting. Gunned down in church or the synagogue: where were the armed guards rather than asking what's wrong with our country.
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@hen3ry. he's incredibly useful. Look at all the anti-American crooks, hyperpartisans, and grifters he's appointed to key positions in and under the Cabinet, independent agencies, and Supreme Court.
4
Normally, I would love to comment about how how hate and fear based Republican politics are tearing this nation apart. After the murder of eleven Jews at Shabbat services this morning, the tearing is now complete. This is no longer about words. This is no longer about elections. This is about murder. This is about blood. This isn't about hating. This is about killing.
Last year, my rabbi said during a sermon that there is such a thing as an unforgivable sin. He said that when someone commits wrongdoing and a person who has the power to intervene and stop the wrongdoing, and does nothing to stop it, that they are committing an unforgivable sin. In other words, as far as his interpretation of scripture is concerned, those who stand by and do nothing when they can act, are committing the worst sins of all.
This teaches us that we all carry a tremendous responsibility for what happens around us. In the Christian tradition, I believe this is similar to we all are our brother's keeper.
Well, we just had one of the most heinous murders of all time and those that produce the words and thoughts that fueled that murder did nothing to stop it. Quite the contrary, they created an environment for the crime to arise.
So those of you who claim to be Christians and wear those MAGA hats, what do you do to stop hate speech? How do you teach others to treat Jews and black and gays with respect? How can you support man who openly vilifies every principle your faith mandates?
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@Bruce Rozenblit in my village the people on social media encourage the violence. They encourage the hate they see. Some of them think it's funny. It is because it's not affecting them directly. Not yet. That's why people like Trump can get away with it. No one has marched into the churches or synagogues in our village and opened fire on people worshipping in peace. It's all an abstraction to them.
It's not if you've ever been bullied or abused. It's not if a family member is handicapped in ways that affect his ability with respect to social skills. It's not if you yourself are part of a despised group: the LGBTQ community, Jewish, Muslim, or just plain weird.
I've always been considered an outsider. I know very well the fear and need to hide who I am from others. I'm not a fugitive but I might as well be. I'm not the only one who feels this way. Plenty of other people out there do the same thing. Why? Because we've learned that tolerance doesn't extend to us no matter how human we are.
It's easy to dehumanize people. It's easy to accuse them of bringing it on themselves. Speaking from my experience, I didn't ask to be different. What I do ask/demand is to be treated like a human being, not trash. And so do the rest of us who are different.
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@bruce rozenblit As always, wonderful comment. All people of every faith must denounce the shooter, his motives, his beliefs, his actions or give up any claim to really believing in God. Silence is assent--- violence against anyone based on their religious creed is violence against all of us who practice any form of faith. God is watching us.
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@Bruce Rozenblit
Mr. Rozenblit, I always enjoy reading your comments here in the Times. I agree with your rabbi about an unforgivable sin. Too many in this country have sat on their hands while segments of the country are vilified, persecuted, and abused. First, hate groups are taking heart from this president's words, Proud Boys, Nazis, etc. Then, this week bombs were sent around the country to those objects of Trump's anger. Then, today, an even greater tragedy in Pittsburgh.
Regardless of our religion, none of us can just shrug and say, 'not my problem' when people are threatened, assaulted, and killed. It IS about murder and blood. Our humanity itself is on the line; if we fail to staunch this tearing of our society we fall into anarchy.
Our prayers and thoughts go to the families of victims in today's shooting. As John Donne said, "Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind". We all must embrace their pain and change what we are seeing.
May our votes in 10 days stem the tide of this violence.
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"The only difference — and it is a shocking one — is that Donald Trump cuts out the middleman. He handles the dirty work himself — and revels in it. In the old days, presidents let their hatchet men stir up the racist skulduggery behind the scenes."
That trump revels in doing the dirty work himself disconcerts me the most. I remember the filthy dirty tricks used against Dukakis, McCain & Kerry--the "Lee Atwater School" of underhanded campaigning--found it all disgraceful behavior.
But now, we have trump defiling the dignity of the Presidency on a daily basis and doing it with glee. He befouls an office he doesn't deserve to hold. I am beginning to worry that the Presidency will be permanently stained and that we might not recover a sense of honor.
410
@Mary Ann Donahue
We will! When an honorable person sits in the Oval Office, we will recover a sense of honor.
9
We can all cite the acts, rhetoric, pathological lying and invention of tales, Dishonest Donald uses to excite his minions, but without the quintessence of the GOP they would not have the effect they are having.
The GOP has quietly erased the memory of our struggles in the 1930s, WWI, WWII, even Vietnam. It has silenced the reactions tn that, they have allowed their liar in chief to propagate a daily cascade of hateful messages, they are as responsible for the rise of these mentally destructive psychotics to permeate our society.
The GOP has given the NRA the green light to promote the ownership of military weapons in private hands, giving escapees from the asylums access to them. Republicans allow tRumps lies, insults, calls for jailing political opponents to go unchallenged by them. When they are challenged the complain the he is being treated unfairly. They have given approval to the demeaning of immigrants, of those seeking refuge from terror, of religions other than fundamentalist Christianity. That is just a bit of the litany of rude uncivilized, rhetoric and behavior that has encouraged these loonies to act, they are the face of the new GOP.
The road to totalitarianism, to the takeover of the country by Fascists, it has become the GOP ideal. Their rule, your gold, they see you as their subjects, not responsible to we voters.
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@David Underwood
They have traded away decency for votes. Instead of leading people to better lives, better education, better humanity, they cultivate hate, fear, and terror to gain votes.
As we know, they commit crimes against humanity every day that they continue to support Trump.
22
One day they'll do something so bad that you may forget to chant their slogan. "GOP" = "Grand Old Party," and don't let anyone tell you different.
3
I am so nauseated of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh today the "riling up the crazies" doesn't begin to describe it, especially after reading Trump's and other Republicans' responses.
Just yesterday, The House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who could become the Speaker if the GOP could somehow retain the majority after 2018 election, sent out a tweet telling people that the Jews like Soros and Steyer are doing to buy the election. He has since deleted it but not before it was being captured by other twitter folks.
The fact that Citizens United - what a misnomer! - was the Republicans doing really adds insult to injury. When President Obama confronted the then SCOTUS, he was right then and he is right now.
Trump is now another NRA spokesman. How many years after Sandy Hook? And they are still offering "thoughts and prayers," as if they could raise the innocents from the death. Jared himself is Jewish. What a sellout of his own heritage! And Adelson too! A lot of blood on these people's hands.
The crazies are crazy but what about the puppet masters?
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@Bos-Who gives Trump millions, a public platform, and political cover? Let's look at other sell-outs:
* Fox media empire baron Rupert Murdoch controls the Trump fantasy narrative on Fox and has limited negative coverage in the WSJ. Murdoch's paternal grandmother was an Orthodox Jew.
* National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, killed Trump scandals, gave him premium positive/coverage repeatedly, and slandered Hilary Clinton. He is a Jew.
* Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson underwrites Trump's Israel policy at the expense of Palestinians--fometing violence in the M.E., and fuels the GOP with tens of millions in donations.
* Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer supports Jewish causes but is a known racist and has bankrolled Cambridge Analytica, Breitbart, Steven Bannon's hate rhetoric, and ideologically narrow appointments to the WH. Mercer believes:
-The U.S. began to go in the wrong direction after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s;
- The only racist people remaining in the U.S. are black;
- White people have no racial animus toward African-Americans anymore, and if there is any, it’s not something the government should be concerned with.
Through support of Trump, these men are enabling the very behavior putting Jews and others at risk for violence. If they didn't see it before, I hope they clearly see now--their own complicity.
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@Bos
And of course, the GOP has it own donors trying to "buy" the election: Murdoch, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson.
46
I don't fear a few thousand people looking to improve their families' lives in the United States. I fear people like Cesar Sayoc Jr., a man who has long lived on the margins of society, isn't all that intelligent, and who apparently believed that Donald Trump would give him a big thumbs-up if he intimidated or took out Trump's harshest critics. Because, after all, that's the signal Trump sends at every campaign rally, isn't it?
Here's another scary thought: How many more Cesars are out there?
1182
@NA: Before Sayoc's social media accounts were taken down, I was able to view what he and his "friends" were sharing. There are hundreds/thousands of groups that do nothing but share memes and comments designed to stoke hate and provide misinformation. Some are followed by millions. Sayoc is very much the tip of this iceberg. Robert Bowers is part of a group of dedicated anti-semites. His actions seem to have been motivated by Tree of Life's involvement in HIAS and their support for refugees on the southern border. That is currently their signature issue. The same refugees are Donald Trump's signature issue for the mid-terms. The recent description of refugees as "invaders" clearly resonated with Bowers (he posted as much) and that appears to have been one of the final steps in his path to murder. The people that propagated the "invaders" narrative have a lot to answer for.
67
Maybe 30M?
6
Countless thousands.
4
Ronald Lowy, a lawyer for the family of Cesar Sayoc, the Make America Great Again pipe-bomber who sent pipe bombs to all of Donald Trump's and FOX News' favorite Democratic 'demons', said Cesar “had tremendous anger slowly boiling up, and resentment, and felt ‘less than. He lacked an identity."
Trump's Make America Hate Again campaign was happy to give Cesar Sayoc - millions of American misfits - an 'identity'.
When the family lawyer first met Cesar Sayoc, Donald Trump's MAGA #1 fan brought in a scrapbook filled with notes and photographs he had collected from wrestlers, bodybuilders and strippers from a fake, phony, perverted world that he idolized.
“He comes across like a 15-year-old,” Ronald Lowy said of Trump's #1 fan. “He has a total lack of maturity.”
Remind you of anyone in the Oval Office ?
Mr. Lowy said that Mr. Sayoc’s family members were Democrats and that Mr. Sayoc had no outspoken partisan views during their 2002 introduction. But he said Trump’s angry rhetoric and his appeals to the “forgotten man and woman” during the 2016 campaign seemed to strike a deep chord with Mr. Sayoc, whose father had abandoned the family when he was a child.
“He (Cesar Sayoc) was looking for some type of parental figure and being a loner, being an outcast, being the kind of person Trump speaks to, I think he was attracted to Trump as a father figure” the family lawyer said.
Two years in the Trump Terrorist Toilet is enough for America.
Vote for adult supervision on Nov 6 2018.
1671
Ironic that Ms. Dowd references John Wayne as a symbol of the America that our Great White Dope wants to recreate. The Duke (a far better actor than The Donald) made lots of war movies in his day, always portraying the larger-than-life hero who took out the Nazis and the Japanese without breaking a sweat (he did, however, consent to meeting his maker at the Alamo, but there, too, he died a hero). The fact that Mr. Wayne (actually Mr. Morrison) avoided active service when his country came calling presaged Mr. Trump's own experience with the draft board: our two great warriors forever united in their successful quests for deferments. At least Mr.Wayne remained in Hollywood, foregoing a political career that would have granted him an authentic measure of authority. Too bad Trump didn't do the same- as opposed to his sounding off about those "bad hombres" storming the border and admonishing the rest of us to arm our rabbis in order to curtail violence in the synagogues. Funny (?) how Middle America cozies up to bigmouthed tough guys emerging from the mean streets of New York. Those of us who've been living here all our lives can easily tell the difference between a gangsta and a pretenda, and would no more accept a draft-dodger passing himself off as a man of action than we would a movie star posing as Davy Crockett.
610
@stu freeman as one that grew up in rural illinois? i can express my own dismay with the people i grew up with that support this complete fake. back in the day a guy like trump would have been ostracized in our small town, not embraced. put simply "nobody likes a loudmouth"...... or a "know it all". it was even worse to "toot your own horn". i think we can safely blame a right wing media for taking advantage of a lack of worldliness and critical thought. BTW, john wayne was from rural illinois.
20
@stu freeman
I made many comments prior to Trump running for office, is that most of the country wanted John Wayne to right the wrongs they thought were happening to them. Guess I was right. The only thing wrong with this was they picked the wrong hero. John Wayne didn't lie.
10
@stu freeman trump will never get an airport named after him either.
2
You have to credit Trump for evolving the fear monster into the more powerful two headed beast of fear and resentment.
Trump stirs the resentment pot every day. He whines daily about the "fake news" media for calling him out on his 5,000 plus lies and misrepresentations.
He even managed to turn the bombing story into a crying fit about killing his momentum on non-existent middle class tax cuts and mind bending claim about pre-existing condition protections.
He sobs that America, with the largest economy in the world, is being taken advantage of by unfair trade policies, without stopping the tears and red faced rage long enough to question how we got there in the first place.
Of course, its all an act by one of the great globalists in American business.
What he really resents is the autocratic powers enjoyed by Putin, Xi Jinping, MBS, Erdogan, Orban and others that he has, for the time being, been denied.
We can take Trump's lead and blame everyone but ourselves for our difficulties. But that way lies darkness, as the Germans discovered too late back in the 1930s.
356
@Look Ahead Vote Trumpista: a resentment in every pot!
1
"Ailes was a student of Hitler propagandist Leni Riefenstahl."
According to Trump's first wife (as reported by Business Insider), the Donald kept a book of Hitler's speeches in a cabinet by his bed--hard to believe he read them, but maybe they worked through osmosis.
It's been quite the week for hate. Actually, it's been quite last 3 years for hate. For me, it takes tremendous gall (or unawareness) for anyone, let alone Donald Trump, to condemn hate when he spews it so often.
Ever notice how Trump almost never has anything good to say about anyone, unless he stands to benefit?
Of course, his greatest ire is reserved for the most important institutions of this country, which he swore on a Bible to defend: the free press, our two party system (I think he'd like nothing better than to eliminate every Democrat on the planet), and the American system of justice.
By now, we've all had an earful of this man, who praises dictators and political candidates arrested for roughing up a reporter.
But more important than his rhetoric are the people he's reached and motivated to do great harm.
As the ancient proverb goes, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Unfortunately for the nation these days, it seems our angry president is uncovering a whole lot of new friends.
705
"Democrats seem blown back by the ferocious — and often fictional — effort...You’d think by now that Democrats …. would be ready to counteract Republican horror movies."
The same could be said for legitimate media outlets where Trump has been effectively selecting much of what gets covered since he stepped off that escalator in June of 2015.
One example: In what world is the latest "caravan crisis" a more important story to the lives of Americans than say, the Senate Majority Leader, discussing the G.O.P. plans to cut Social Security and Medicare?
The only world where that is true, is the fictional world created by Trump and dutifully reported by the media. What the President says is news, but that doesn't mean he should get to define what is important.
1755
You are so right! I only saw news about Mitch McConnell and the GOP’s plans to cut Social Security and medicare once. Then Friday night PBS showed a number of Republican leaders saying they would never touch either one. Democrats could’ve put on television ads showing McConnell saying that was exactly what he planned to do!
101
The media has been allowing Trump to set both the national agenda and the narrative. The silence of the Democrats makes it seem as if they've capitulated. It's discouraging, depressing and frightening.
It's our right, privilege and duty to VOTE! Vote early if you possibly can.
33
@LT nail on head. CNN especially is 95% circus to the exclusion of even democratic candidates. we get left leaning commentators but almost no exposure for the candidates themselves..... with a mid term a little over a week away.
17
Bomb stuff is a Donald distraction
Interferes with his campaign’s attraction
Probably a Dem hoax
Champing under their yokes
A not unexpected reaction.
Divide and Divide and Divide
Abrade every Democrat’s hide
Body slam the fake press
Break some bones, more or less,
And you can bet Trump will abide.
162
I know Maureen turned in her op-ed well before today's sad events took place. It makes this essay all the more fitting.
"Trump’s main training for politics was being a sparring star in the House That Roger Built. And Ailes taught Trump well."
Ironically, on the day in which a white supremacist ran into a synagogue full of Jews in prayer, shouting "All Jews Must Die, one must remind readers that what Ailes taught Trump so well was how to implement what Roy Cohn taught Trump first. Ailes only taught him how to put Cohn's teachings into practice using modern-day media.
We, Americans, refuse to give to ourselves: the self-respect and respect for knowledge that is at the foundation of a functioning society. Nowhere in the developed and most of the under-developed world is there such a proportion of disinformed and undereducated citizens within a nation - to the point where 50% of the nation believes that down is up 40% of which carries an election. A federally funded education system, from cradle to grave, would render Roger Ailes' machine inoperative.
Ironically, Roy Cohn got his start prosecuting the Rosenbergs. We've come full circle with Trump. Do we have the leadership to break it? We do. Will the left establishment allow that leadership to ascend to power? It doesn't look like it.
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking
https://www.rimaregas.com/2018/08/07/greed-malfeasance-never-sleep-blog4...
167
Trump decided to go on with a planned rally in Indiana. Hearing him condemn antisemitism now not only sounds hollow, but leaves one cold in the knowledge that were it not for Trump's agitprop and his refusal to disassociate with the white supremacist elements who elected him, 11 people might still be alive today.
There are many ironies to the #MAGABomber and Robert Bowers. The MAGA bomber lost his home to the housing bubble at the start of the Great Recession. It was Steve Mnuchin's bank that repossessed it. George Soros' financial investments include that bank.
Robert Bowers resents Trump's association with prominent Jews.
After Charlottesville, Mnuchin refused to condemn the president's behavior. Gary Cohn let it be known that he was very angry. Neither they, nor others who serve Trump leave the administration.
Lots of bitter irony to work out here...
153
@Rima Regas I remember a few people getting all bent out of shape over Obama's knowing about Saul Alinsky. But I don't remember Obama ever pushing violence as an answer to our problems. And Obama didn't make friends with dictators or fascists. He might not have been charismatic but he did have integrity and he did serve the country.
46
@Rima Regas, I agree with your comment, except there is a country with a high degree of disinformed and undereducated citizens, that would be the UK and Brexit. Not tremendously unlike what is happening in America, fear of immigrants stoked by a few right wing politicians. We could be heading for a disaster.
6
The truth is that without a gullible and spiteful populace, none of these Republican dirty tricks would work. We’d all condemn such tactics, which would guarantee the loss of any candidate who used them.
But here we are, trying to defend our country against the indefensible. We’ve committed suicide by “fair and balanced” political reporting that validates the most absurd and hateful views, and makes them seem equally worthy of debate.
If we’re depending on politicians to police themselves, we’ll never survive this latest foray into presidential la-la land. A crazy man won the election after he demonstrated complete incompetence, meanness, ineloquence, ignorance and spite. He’s got the measure of the electorate, and he’s milking it for all it’s worth.
The Electoral College needs some schooling in how to protect people from themselves. It was supposed to prevent incompetent idiots from winning elections, but it delivered one on a fake silver platter.
Pointing out the president’s flaws is a pleasant preoccupation for Democrats, but it’s not working on the people who think he’s just what this country needs.
Democratic candidates must find a way to reach the people who actually inhabit the foothills of the normal curve, and who can’t tell when they’re being played for saps. But Democrats are a scattered bunch who would rather bicker among themselves than find a winning strategy.
We're sinking fast. If we can’t rely on our own citizens to save us, all hope is lost.
987
@gemli
You are so right. The president is a symptom of something broken about this nation’s citizenry. Even if dems win this problem isn’t going away. We must do the very hard work of bringing those voters into a rational conversation about what policies actually will improve their sorry lot in life. Dems need to be open to conceding something in that conversation. The problem is, how do you argue with crazy conspiratorial thinking?
60
@gemli
"......But here we are, trying to defend our country against the indefensible. We’ve committed suicide by “fair and balanced” political reporting that validates the most absurd and hateful views, and makes them seem equally worthy of debate............."
It's true. The Fourth Estate has some soul searching to do. In elevating the absurd and hateful to worthy debate, the press has given voice, validity, and expensive air time to the very thing we are fighting against now.
67
@gemli
Democrats need to giving voice to the needs of the nation and how these needs can be addressed.
Education, healthcare, banking fraud, legal justice in the courts, consumer protection...
34
Mo, with mentors like Roger Ailes and Roy Cohn, however could Pres. Weasel 45* fail ?
And no matter how Dems compassionately package their agenda, Ailes, Atwater, and His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness all very well know that Fear trumps all - which is one reason the careening, Rolling Trumpster Fire stood in the White House in August telling supporters that brigades of leftists would assault them if GOP'ers lose in November; don't take our word for it, here's the CNN video:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/08/28/donald-trump-warns-of-vio...
Too, from here it seems a reason His Weaselness has dispensed with ' lieutenants ' and will be doing personal full-court press of rallies this week, is to protect his own hide - from impeachment. And he for sure wants to keep every single GOP'er Senator; sending active duty troops to the border in the week of the election serves a dual purpose of intimidating possible voters, with the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas being a stronghold for Beto O'Rourke, the neck-and-neck challenger to Lyin' Ted.
88
It took some doing to amass all those bumper stickers.
I assume he purchased them at Trump rallies.
A few years from now collections as complete as his will be selling for substantial prices on Ebay.
Eventually the entire van complete with stickers will be up there too.
It is important to understand Trump’s penchant for free enterprise.
74
@A. Stanton
:)
7
@A. Stanton
The winning bidder should crowd fund it's (the van's) burning.
1