Most Trump voter's pretty much knew the guy was an idiot, but they voted for him anyway. And idiot or not (or genius), he has already made some significant policy alterations.. and with three more years left to his Presidency, there is bound to be much more to come.
-Some gossipy book isn't gonna change that one bit. So what's all the excitement about?
2
The V.S.G. ... somewhere Roald Dahl is having a good laugh.
19
As usual, Krugman hits the nail on the head.
18
I think we can be certain that no one the VSG has appointed will is nearly as intelligent (or rapacious) as our VSG. But we cant all.....
'A government of the worst and the dumbest'
That is the saddest thing about this administration so far, one year on. It's bad enough that Trump is President but did he have to surround himself with the worst dregs of public life too? I would sleep easier at night if I knew that Trump had some good, solid policy experts advising him or at least the main apparatus of the Republican Party keeping him under control. But no. It seems the 'very stable genius' has free rein and that is truly alarming.
21
The truth reveals, and the truth hurts, but the truth only bothers those who deal in fiction. Con men with malevolent intent, and dummies who are sure they are wiser than all others detest truth for different reasons.
Politically, insulting people drums up resentment in the insulted, total resistance to the logic of the criticism.
The word "deplorable" was political suicide for Hilary. But it was the truth. Deplorably ignorant and resentment filled voters put Deporability in power, and many years before Trump. Now may be only the tip of the worst and dumbest iceberg of rule by the worst people in the US. Their policies can yield more deaths of innocent people than amy single serial killer.
Time for the worst adjectives I say.
17
Shouldn't we all feel good now that Trump has declared that he is a Very Stable Genius? Especially since his Republican cronies have gone to the media to validate his claims. Indeed he has surrounded himself with cabinet members that are also misinformed, ignorant, etc. with perhaps a few exceptions.
9
We can only hope that the information coming from the Russia investigation is clear enough to make it politically dangerous for those who would continue to support our Dolt in Chief to do so. I am so sickened by the Republicans actions and willingness to lie so feverishly to the American people. I can only hope that we relieve them of their office at the voting booth and find a way to really stop this enabling madness. Nunez will not be able to keep the truth from being told and I truly cannot wait to see his fall from grace and office. He is sickening. These people are supposed to be leaders. I wish that their parents would take them out back and show them some discipline for trashing our Republic. "I taught you better than this!" It really has come down to this level of craziness. We need out country back.
11
The entirety of modern American conservatism is built on lies. From trickle-down economics, welfare queens, Iraq collusion with Al Qaeda, birtherism, death panels, the so-called uranium scandal, all of it. Why should we now be surprised by having a serial liar as President and him being surrounded and enabled by other, conservative, serial liars.
15
Is Trump a VSG? Probably not, as we all know. So, ha, ha. It's all most entertaining.
But if Democrats keep trying to gin up outrage over the fact that the Attorney General of the U.S. is enforcing the law - horrors! - enforcing the law with respect to immigration and marijuana, then we, Democrats that is, do not have a bright political future. We need to think a little more clearly.
If you were a comic book fan, we are in Bizzro world. If you enjoy fairy tales, we have gone down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's Looking Glass. No is yes, up is down, black is white, and Trump is a 'stable genius' who tells the truth. It would be entertaining if it weren't undermining the Constitution and democracy as we know it.Members of congress who do not take this seriously and attempt to cover up that our POTUS is a childish, mentally ill, old man, are treasonous and need to be held accountable in the courts.
I'm concerned we have lost our democracy. Do we need to rise up, over throw this government to restore our place??? Think about it and act.
5
I'm holding my breath. Is our Very Stable Genius waiting for the right moment to ciam credit for the North Korean Olympics participation breakthrough? Claiming that the increased level of sanctions rather than the South Korean liberal wimp policies of "Weak Leader" policies of the current South Korean administration? Or is he biding his time waiting for a greater victory?
5
rightist ideology holds that government is useless and incompetent. They run into a problem when it doesn't behave that way, so their answer is to make it useless and incompetent, so they can say they have been right all along.
4
The VSG is flushing us all down the toilet to achieve his ends, and his ends are to undo anything President Obama accomplished. If only Obama had not so perfectly ridiculed VSG at the correspondents dinner.
But my fellow readers of the NYT it is not only the VSG, his flunkies and Ryan - it is EVERY AMERICAN that continues to support this mistake. Americans as a society are supporting the VSG. Americans are actually the laughing stock Canada and Europe have always suspected.
The VSG is simply the grease for a set of wheels already moving.
6
As White House Counsel John Dean said during the Watergate crisis, "There is a cancer surrounding The White House", and we've got another one, right here right now! Hopefully Robert Mueller's team of legal experts will come up with a strong case to remove Trump from office so that the nation and the world can get back together again!
3
The word you're looking for, Paul Krugman, is "kakistocracy".
6
The "Market" may be going up, but the tide is not lifting my little rubber dingy.
The banks don't even want to open a brokerage account for your trust fund unless there is $500,000 involved. (That's a mere half million, trump voters)
The economic problem remains that all this "Growth" is being pumped uphill into the pockets of the .01%, with a few crumbs for the top fifth or so of the rest of the income distribution profile.
Trump Voters? Their derisory income growth will disappear into higher fees for well, everything. Health Care co-pays, Phones, Cable, Internet; All will rise in price faster than inflation, and Post Secondary Education ("College" to the Trump voter) will remain unaffordable or fraudulent.
10
Coincidentally, the enemies of Lincoln, Churchill, Truman, and Reagan made the same complaints.
1
Truly only a pessimist would consider it may take a couple more years to complete the ruin.
More than a few State Houses have been buying bricks to complete this road to destruction for more than a decade while their Congressional Representatives vote in lockstep to provide the needed material.
Yes the economy is growing and stocks are up, but who owns the shares?
2
I disagree with you that "So far, the implosion of our political norms has had remarkably little effect on daily life". Food prices are soaring, so is gasoline, health care premiums, drug prices, etc. Don't you talk to normal people trying to make ends meet?
And more and more people are feeling insecure due to our VSG toying with "the bigger button".
And the Republicans serving in the Cabinet, Senate and House are doing nothing about the real problems that face this country as they are too busy coddling their donors instead of representing the voters.
Here is hoping that in 2018 the rascals will be voted out.
5
Will no one say it? The 2020 elections will be postponed b/o of some "attack" of some sort. You may have heard it here first, but don't tell me that you find the notion shocking.
4
It amazes me how people can come crawling back on their hands and knees after Trump spews nasty insults at them and their families (think Ryan, Romney, Banner). Back in the old days this would have initiated a duel. I guess the lust for power is so all-consuming that deep-sixing any remaining shred of self-respect they had and transitioning into a gutless, spineless wonder is a no-brainer (pun intended) for them.
1
The sarcasm simply drips off the page in this column, but it's impossible for a sane person to think lightly of what's going on. With an Attorney General who was confirmed by the GOP in the Senate despite having lied numerous times during his confirmation hearing, who would be available to file charges against this miscreant claque of incompetents. We are in real trouble, here.
3
Thinking through this essay, I realize that the hope I have is that we do not enter any new war and possibly even limit the wars we are directly or indirectly engaged in. I will settle for peace through this presidency.
6
They love the uneducated. They told us so during the campaign. A race to the bottom to get votes from believers who don't trust or understand facts.
25
About the only thing that gives me comfort with is VSG comment is that when he is charged with obstruction or what have you - by his own testimony - and the others defending him - he can't make an insanity plea.
16
Every time I read one of PK's Trump opinion pieces (which BTW I totally agree with) and then read the comments I feel like we non-Trump individuals are in a self help group.
And on the other side you have the pro Trump individuals who believe Trump is doing a great job regardless of what he says, tweets or does. And then as PK mentions we have the Congress and the Senate who are willing to sell their souls as they have done.
Until we as a nation can communicate with our political opponents and those on "the other side" we as a nation will continue down the road of divisiveness and individuals like Trump will have an opportunity to divide us thru hate, bigotry and lies.
I do not have the answers but when I speak with my friends in upstate NY who are pro Trump I do not judge Trump or express my disgust for him. If/when politics enter the discussion I limit my comments to Trumps executive actions and pronouncements and my disagreement with them without drama and what I believe will be the negative effects they will probably have.
I usually receive a comment such as "you have a point but lets wait and see what the actual result is". All I can do is plant seeds with these individuals since if I were to express what I really want to say (are you blind, crazy, in denial or all of these?) the conversation with be over and we would no longer be friends.
30
Thanks.
I’m going to try your technique.
And when do THEY have that same responsibility?
3
To paraphrase: So, if the question is, when will the country recover from Trump, the answer is never.
Trump is using the same business model for the country that he used for his businesses - drive it into bankruptcy, line your pockets, and treat the workers with disdain.
44
A tornado destroyed his credentials? That is as delicious as my homework, which the dog ate.
13
The best vaccine for the malaise of incompetence of the present administration and its cadre of henchmen populating the executive branch agencies is the Congressional and Judicial oversight envisioned by the framers of our Constitution. As the present Republican Congressional majority appears unwilling to accept that role we will need to inoculate it come November 2018 with legislators willing to take on that responsibility. Pay attention to the issues and candidates. Think about who can and should lead. Get involved with and support the campaigns of those who can make a difference. Most importantly register yourself, your family members and neighbors. Talk to them about what you feel is important and care about. Then come November 2018 VOTE to Make America Sane Again.
19
May we be saved from another full year of Mr. Trump and company's ineptitude. But if that is not possible, let us vote the Republican Congressional enablers out of office.
I am ashamed that my senator, Lindsey Graham, is one of the two who suggested a criminal investigation be initiated against Mrs. Clinton, that he tried to kill the ACA and that he and his supporters think he only represents people who agree with him.
There are many more members of Congress who hold the same views.
Therefore, we must work as never before to elect people who truly represent their constituencies, who believe their job to be to preserve the nation and to resist harmful executive orders and laws. We can do it if we want to. But we have to get out and talk to voters, not sit at our computers.
22
The VSP's got their VSG.
1
No one who paid attention to Trump's behavior before he ran for president should be the least surprised at his having perhaps the most corrupt, incompetent administration in the history of the U.S. If we want a chance at surviving it and electing officials who will work to enact policies that benefit all of us, not just the rich, we need to take stock of the multiple factors that resulted in Trump's becoming president, including the neoliberalism embraced by both major political parties since shortly before the Reagan administration. I read a lot about the alleged stupidity of Trump supporters but relatively little about why a significant number of people who voted twice for Barack Obama then cast their ballots for Trump, or why so many dispirited eligible voters stayed home rather than vote for Trump or Clinton. It isn't all the fault of present-day Republicans, and we need a lot more nuanced discussion of how we've arrived at this pass and what we can do to change things for the better than I'm seeing so far in the press.
12
Perhaps I'm being naive, but I thought rats left a sinking ship. This White House appears to be sinking. So why aren't more rats leaving, and by rats I mean White House staff but also Republicans in Congress who have decided that they were going to obstruct justice and protect Trump. Do they really think they can stop this ship from sinking? That they seem to believe they can is very scary, very scary indeed.
4
Rats don't jump off this ship. They swim towards it and climb on board. True, a few got thrown overboard. But that's because they ratted too much, or got exposed as tiny mices or otherwise shown hopeless incompetence as true rats.
2
It could be worse. Those few of the Americans who know something about history will recollect Joseph Dzugashvili (otherwise known as Stalin) who prized in his minions primarily blind loyalty and adoration of him, not competence. Others sooner or later disappeared. A good example was the purge and murder of military cadres as the result of which small Finland could decimate the Red Army in 1939. Fortunately, in our current political climate too much competence and independence of a government official is rewarded only by firing.
3
Growing up in a dysfunctional family, my dad could be Trump's twin--racist, sexist, tax-avoiding, having utter disregard for the less fortunate, possessing a violent temper and exploding into frequent crazed, cruel outbursts, without warning.
But he did do one good thing -- he taught me that I never wanted to be a person like him.
You've got to wonder why his children have kept so close to him -- he couldn't have been pleasant to live with. Guesses are, they're waiting for the inheritance, and, psychological conditioning.
But why would Cabinet members and Congress choose to become part of Trump's lunatic administration?
Easy. All Cabinet member's canines were sharpened in the successful pursuit of wealth. The public sector impeded their plans with lawsuits. Government regulations stymied their greedy ambitions. They hated government and any who stood in their way. Like Trump.
Congress, knowing it's their job to check the Executive, chose instead to use the President's disregard of U.S. law and lack of knowledge to their benefit.
They eagerly enacted a tax plan to benefit the rich with tax cuts, themselves and Trump included, while burdening the poor and middle class with higher taxes and cuts in public services.
The vote was a conflict-of-interest for Congress, as they're all wealthy, and the law unconstitutional, as it does not support the common welfare. Doing their worst, acting dumb to the law, paid off in personal gain.
No one could stop them. Vote!
18
How can any of us possibly fight back against this insanity when truth itself no longer seems to matter?
12
"Yet stocks are up, the economy is growing and we haven’t gotten into any new wars." That's not such a bad record. We will all be better off if it continues.
5
And really, really worse off if it doesn’t.
The economic problem remains that all this "Growth" is being pumped uphill into the pockets of the .01%, with a few crumbs for the top fifth or so of the rest of the income distribution profile.
Trump Voters? Their derisory income growth will disappear into higher fees for well, everything. Health Care co-pays, Phones, Cable, Internet; All will rise in price faster than inflation, and Post Secondary Education ("College" to the Trump voter) will remain unaffordable or fraudulent.
3
No we all aren’t better of. The sick, children, the poor, the working class, immigrants have all suffered under Trump. He is despicable.
3
The loyalty enjoyed by Trump consists of those who feel that he is like them and will act as would they and those who have strong desires for policies and practices in government which they think serves their interests because he will sign anything that the Republican leadership puts in front of him. The former think that liking him is enough to make them feel safe to place their lives in his hands. The latter expect him to be their cat's paw in all manner of things, that they can manipulate him until his term is over.
2
I'm redlining my stock portfolio for sales. One or two more bad jobs reports, and the only question is whether the bubble will burst, or merely deflate quickly. The Dow will crater, followed by the housing market (again). Russian resource prices will be crushed. Capital will rush for the exits -- most likely China. Then watch for the circular firing squad in the White House, with Trump in the middle firing out at everyone.
8
I keep on hearing in the news that the GOP is afraid of Trumps base, the roughly 1/3 of Americans that make up his fans. why, I wonder, is there such fear, especially when it is based on lies and conspiracy theories?
Fox News, which ceased to be an actual news reporting station some time ago, is one of the main sources of information for many people in this rather paranoid world view. After all, it was Fox News that started the whole rumor that there was a secular war against Christianity. Many Evangelicals took this to heart and still do often not realizing where all this got started.
While it is absolutely true that repeated lies and manipulation of the facts can cause immense confusion, our best defense is a commitment to honesty. All the more reason why the NYT and other trustworthy media outlets be especially vigilant.
10
Visited Brazil several times last year, and couldn't help but notice that despite the political scandals in that country, life goes on. People just shrug as they become inured to corruption and hypocrisy as being a simple fact of how politics function. I dread that we US citizens are equally complacent to the ample evidence of systemic injustice and corruption in our political system, which to be fair, did not begin with Trump. The Citizen's United decision, the corrupting influence of money in politics (i.e. lobbyists), and our ridiculously expensive political campaigns are not new. Can we fix things so we don't end up as another Brazil?
6
You forgot--for the moment--about his supporters. He has emboldened them along with several --State Run?-- media outlets.
2
Great column by David Brooks, yesterday. He really nailed it! http://tinyurl.com/y9j9um2c
Anti-Trump "lowbrowism gets viewers addicted to daily doses of righteous contempt and delicious vindication." How true!
Nowhere is that lowbrowism more assiduously practiced, on the left, than in the columns of Paul Krugman here in The Times—or more faithfully echoed than in the comments of his slavish readers.
How do liberals contribute to the culture clash dividing our country? How can they help heal the breach, and promote Democratic victories in November?
Inconvenient questions, these, if not downright damning—difficult and discomfiting for ideologically addled brains. Never should they be allowed to disrupt the "daily dose of righteous contempt and delicious vindication."
2
The Republican Party. What are they?
They surely do not serve the interests of America.
That one percent is who they serve.
How did we get here?
Was it Ronald Reagan? Was it Richard Nixon? Was it McCarthy? Was it the Jim Crow laws? Aren't the Republicans the party of Andrew Jackson; Democrat in name but familiar in their racist background.
They are the Know Nothing Party. Nativists to the core, serving their corporate masters. Today, they decided to kick out 200,000 El Salvadorans.
Great front page coverage for their racist contingency. Who next?
Why not blacks? Why not Hispanics, Catholics, Jews and Muslims?
It is an angry bunch who know little of being kind or humane. They know one thing. Money. And their greed is insatiable. Paul Ryan prostitutes himself before anything that successfully guarantees himself and his cohorts more money. Plain and simple. An Ayn Rand devotee cognitively dissenting from his Catholic faith, unless, of course, he is a Borgia in disguise.
Mitch McConnell, who is he?
Is he not a racist? Why can we not admit that Obama was his bete noire simply because he was black?
We are a country that has so much further to go. Whether or not we maintain our status on the world stage we do need to work on rooting out this greatest of evils: a class system based on wealth and race of which the Republicans so deeply personify. Once we do that we can make America great.
18
No new wars and stocks are high. But France is cozying up to China in a way it would not have done (would not have needed to do) under a different administration. When will America learn to look past just tomorrow?
15
yes, it's true past presidents have "often surrounded themselves with first-rate public servants". But if that's the case how do we explain the deteriorating conditions in the US and our diminishing influence and status in the world. How do we explain the doubling of the national debt, the ever increasing trade deficit, the loss of crimea to russia after we guaranteed their independence and protection, the development of islamic radical extremists in the middle east, the ever increasing threat by a nuclear N. Korea, and so on and so on. Please help me understand how these wonderful public servants allowed these things to happen.
2
Republican obstructionism and low tax ideology explain many of the problems that have emerged in the last generation.
Oh sure, there are "Shinny Object" problems; Instead of properly funding and capitalizing Amtrak and Urban transport Infrastructure, the consultants keep touting high speed rail. And the R's aren't paying for any of it, unless their sports franchise needs a new stadium.
Don't complain about the "Burden" of public worker pensions, ask why the rest of American workers are no longer qualifying for Defined Benefit Pensions.
3
Trump is not a genius, but neither is Paul Krugman. Here is what he wrote in a NYT column 11/10/08: "What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/opinion/10krugman.html
Consider: a Nobel laureate economist referring to WW II, with all of its death and economic destruction, as a "public works project" and a "fiscal stimulus." Even Trump is smarter than that.
6
Ned, with respect, after reading Paul's column for a number of years, I think I can safely say that he was simply describing what has occurred. Paul would not favor war as a 'public works project' and deem it to be a positive development because if provided 'fiscal stimulus'. I can tell that from across the Pacific.
17
What he said about WW2 is true, even if it sounds crass and cold hearted. It's been accepted economic theory ever since that WW2 is what pulled the US out of the Depression. Lots of unemployed people drafted into the Armed Services, lots of manufacturing to produce weapons and ships, women entering the work force in droves to replace the men. Citizens willing and wanting to pay taxes to fund the war effort (or more precisely, buying war bonds). WW2 was a massive monumental movement of men, money, machinery and manufacturing. Such an economic boost would not have otherwise been possible but for the war. Read the history books.
My 88 yr old mother, who lived through it while her father was at sea chasing and being chased by German submarines has been telling me this for years. Her mother ran a soup kitchen for the homeless and the jobless during the depression. There was no need for it after the US entered the war.
9
Krugman was being a bit tongue-in-cheek in the way he wrote that opinion piece, and to the survivors of WWII atrocities it may indeed have been a joke in poor taste, but from a purely dispassionate point of view he's correct that WWII was a massive stimulus to the US economy and ensured full employment in a way the New Deal could not. Krugman wasn't saying anything untrue. Any economist will tell you that war can be good for business. Besides, Trump has said many things offensively in poor taste, that were stupid, and even wildly dishonest, over the past couple of years.
2
To "S B Lewis": you don't impress me by claiming to be unimpressed by Paul Krugman. You must not think much of the Nobel prize. It takes all kinds... That said, at least you demonstrate the common sense to be as appalled by trump as a big majority of Americans are, including the brilliant Prof. Krugman.
13
In light of current book releases it is suprising Dr Krugman's review of DJT's team did not include his decision to appoint S. Bannon to the Security Council
2
The fact is that for millions of immigrants things certainly have grown worse with lives and families threatened every day, and Trump well set on the path to destroying Latino and Muslim communities. Page one out of the fascist playbook.
8
Do you think yourself Christian if you oppress the humble and burden the needy? If you covet what is not your own? If you make yourself rich by making others poor? If you gloat over unjust wealth? If you wring food from others’ tears? If you are enriched by the death of the humble? If constant lies befoul your mouth and the only words on your lips are degrading, filthy, vile and despicable? If, when bidden to distribute your own property, you seize other people’s?
Fastidius, On the Christian Life
18
Things could get a lot worse under super-christian zealot V.P. Pence.
15
When compared to Rick Perry and Betsy DeVos, Steve Mnuchin is highly qualified
8
Don’t be mistaken—my grandmother would say that the V.S.G. might only appear “dumb like a fox”. Somebody—albeit, the Russians, the Republicans, the Trump Organization— has a “method to the madness”.
But you are correct—as you and Michael Wolff predict, we’re riding a train wreck and heading toward a brick wall.
11
Paul Ryan. Mitch McConnell. Devin Nunes. Lindsay Graham. Kevin McCarthy. Steve Stivers. Tom Cotton. John Cornyn. Susan Collins. Pat Toomey. Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz. The Vichy Republicans. History will remember.
23
Had the candidate with the most votes won the presidential election in 2016 these people would merely be irrelevant onlookers, spewing angers on Fox and Breibart (non ) news outfits.
1
You missed Chuck Grassley.
3
Does any policy-maker or lawmaker remember what country this is?
Just in case: you represent the United States of America. You work for "we the people."
Congressman! Find your guts. Senior staff and Cabinet members! Find your guts. You are simpleton, unpatriotic grovelers - what a hideous spectacle.
Someone make the first move, for God and Country's sake. You have a president who does not know the national anthem.It all follows from there.
I'll say it every day: shame on you in power because you have yielded your power to a hideous fake leader.
12
Republicans got their useful idiot and that's all they care about. Ryan and McConnell can't wait to start cutting social security and medicare even though their VSG president told his supporters that was off the table.
14
The worst part is the American taxpayer is paying the freight for all these fools and traitors.
5
Dumbest? Just wait 'till Betsy DeVos gets through dismantling public education. The dumbing down of the population has just begun.
9
It began a long time ago. Otherwise, Trump would never have been elected.
14
I think reflecting upon history might provide some insight into our problems. I know that none of us have any problems in our day to day interactions pertaining to our jobs nor our home life with respect to the severe divides that we are experiencing in the political area. This is very important because it means that we still trust one another amply with respect to what really is needed for any community to survive and prosper. What is in need of resolution are our political differences and our concerns about whether and how our government is addressing our mutual needs. We can work this out but we need to seriously work at it.
If one reads about the most liberal city of early modern Europe in the Netherlands, one learns that speaking up about one's opinions concerning religion could result in a mob killing you in response. There have been many times in history when differences of opinion were potentially lethal. We are far from that kind of a situation.
How can people protect and respect that which they do not understand? When was Civics last taught in high schools with any regularity?
7
Yes, Paul, stocks are up [WAY UP], the economy is growing [thanks, obama] and we haven't gotten into any new wars [misuse of taxpayers hard earned dollars].
Things just can't get any worse.
We can all look forward to a collapse of the stock market, another deep recession and a good old pointless war somewhere in the world that we haven't attacked already when we take back Washington and Impeach AND convict Trump in 2019.
Hang in there, liberals. The good old bad days are just around the election cycle.
1
I agree the most important recent news is the willingness of formerly respectable Republicans - e.g., Sens. Grassley and Graham - to participate in attacks on Mueller and those (such as Steele) providing evidence for Mueller to evaluate. To understand, read article by Ruth May in Dallas paper this week about large 2016 campaign donations to Grassley, Graham, and others from PEOPLE WITH CLOSE CONNECTIONS TO RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS. Corruption spreads beyond Trump to the rest of the Republican party. Our country is in deep trouble.
10
Of course, Tsar Donald the Deplorable and his court are threatening the nation. Even if he's not actually crazy, this gang's distorted belief systems don't square with either reality or democracy.
Now what America spent 3 centuries building up is being badly weakened? We are a warning to the world of a failed democracy that was once a role model.
But what laid the ground for this? What has the US been doing that's beem antithetical to democracy, as our middle class is weakened, and our inequality is worse than other modern nations? Enter Trump and his gang.
Trump and the rw radical GOP didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere. What cultivated the soil for them to grow?
Could it have to do with turning over our elections to big money corporate donors, who drown out the input of American citizens on our lawmaking? And our showbiz, personality oriented big money media? The same media that makes a fortune from the privately paid campaign ads that swamp our elections? Ads that other democracies ban, in favor of free media time for all candidates?
I'm waiting to hear Krugman's opinion on this if he cares to vary his topics a little from the usual.
3
respect is earned, only in authoritative, despotic regimes is respect autonomically bestowed upon the leader. Unfortunately, Trumpistas are willing to forfeit their individual right to a transparent, truly representative government for perceived economic progress, however, illusory. "United States" has always been a misnomer. Now one witnesses the length and depth of that divide.
2
This is getting very depressing. It feels like a nightmare. How did the US get into such a mess? And more importantly, how will you, dear American friends, ever get out of this?! My thoughts and prayers are with you.
9
I totally agree . We need to impeach Trump and the Republicans or... vote them out November 2018
6
Mike Pence and and Betsy DeVos think God's will is working through their hands. Everyone else in the White House and Trump's Cabinet thinks they are there by the grace of God. There is some humility there especially in comparison to Trump who thinks he's our God -- or our King -- not our President. Sadly, Trump's adult children view themselves as God's anointed, especially Ivanka.
6
On the V.S.G, it reminds me of a Chinese story that essentially says even as you wish to cover it up it has the net effect of exposing it.
This guys who buried 1000 ounces of gold in the ground was so concerned that others may accidentally found it so he stuck a sign there saying the "there is no thousand ounces of gold buried here". His neighbor, Mr. Zhang the third realized the game and dug it up. Then he too was concerned that the owner may know so he too stuck a sign at the same spot that says "the neighbor Zhang the third did not steal it".
Now Einstein is a world recognized genius though I don't think he ever proclaimed that about himself. Sad!
2
The Russian lap dog tweets while the country burns . . .
5
"While we’ve probably had chief executives who longed to jail their critics or enrich themselves while in office, none of them dared act on those desires"
-- srsly?
-- John Adams (Sedition Act, jailed an incumbent congressman)
-- Abraham Lincoln (closed hundreds of newspapers and jailed their publishers)
-- Woodrow Wilson (Espionage Act, jailed Eugene Debs and others)
Lincoln and Wilson acted during wartime, so there's that poor excuse; Adams when the nation was at peace. And during a new cold war that may get hot -- who will stop this president, if he gets it into his VSG head?
1
Sadly, Paul has written a thoroughly delightful, accurate and disgusting article.
4
Reverse Engineer this;.........It's a Military Coup in the tradition of the C.I.A. Bush Republican "New World Order".
3
Donald Trump, Very Stable Genius...Silly Dilly Dilly.
3
face it ..........the republican congress cares nothing about clean air............. or all the plastic in the ocean or the future childrens health .......debts for future generations or the future at all.........i call it mental illness to the max,,,,,how can it not be.......
3
Psychopaths are not mentally ill in the clinical sense. They are missing a large chunk of humanity called the conscience.
EXCELLENT ,TRUTHFUL OPINION, THIS REPUBLICAN CONGRESS CORRUPT, REPUGNANT, OBNOXIOUS, MUST BE VOTED OUT, AMERICA MUST STAND UP FOR THE GOOD OF OUR
COUNTRY, IT IS HEARTBREAKING TO HAVE TO TOLERATE THIS
DESPICABLE ADMIN. AND CONGRESS.
6
Everyone is directing their scorn at Trump but who voted him into office? Probably the dumbest Television addicted Americans in many generations. Trump didn't just strut into the White House. He displayed the ingrained ignorance of many Americans.
8
Trump's misfeasance and malfeasance will trickle down at first, then come flooding down -- there's no stopping it as long as there's no stopping him. And it appears, with his enablers in the Cabinet and Congress, that we might ALL be at his not-so-tender mercies.
The Republicans are stupid to think they can play with fire and only Democrats will get burned.
3
Don't you need some horse sense in order to be a stable genius?
101
Didn't think I'd find a smile, much less a chuckle, after reading this column. But you provided it. I am in your debt. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
5
Calling Trump Stupid and his supporters Dumb isn't going to work. They take great pride in being the dumb, deplorable outsiders. Until they see what the rest of us see, that Trump isn't dumb, he is a CON MAN, they will continue to be on his side. Once the Con is known then and only then will they switch the blame to the man who lied to them and conned them out of their political revolution. That is why it is so important for Mueller to bring forth the evidence he has been collecting so we can all judge for ourselves, CON MAN OR POLITICAL SAVIOR?
6
Trump and the Republicans played into their base’s basest instincts: misogyny, racism, self-interest, paranoia, homophobia and xenophobia. I fear that no matter how clear it is made that Trump conned his base, there are too many other worldview layers to make any marked difference in their perspective.
Additionally, Faux News, Breitbart, and other alt-right Trump mouthpieces will continue to twist and distort that truth, further affirming and solidifying their decision to support him....and the Republican Party.
1
Is Venezuela a fitting comparison?
He is way in over his head with the Presidency. He is overwhelmed, under great pressure and has little or no interest, patience or attention with anything that goes on in the White House. He a rotten fish out of water.
Add that to his obvious narcissism and other character faults, and you can't blame people for thinking or saying he is a moron. But I think that's just what people say when they are totally and rightfully frustrated with this guy. I don't think he is stupid. I think he is a lot worse than stupid. That's why he is dangerous.
4
Trump reasons that winning the presidency, on his first attempt, proves he's a genius. What it really proved was that the 62.9 million Americans who voted for him are as stupid as he is.
3
So what is the Democratic gerontocracy in congress doing about this? Not much.
4
Anyone running for federal office should have to pass a civil service test on the basics of our government. Then there is the physical and psychological examination. And a thorough review of the candidate's finances and tax returns. Having passed all that, they can compete in our government funded elections.
8
I agree Phyllis,
Why on earth do we scrutinize candidates for all types of jobs, looking for transcripts, CV's or resumes, background checks, security clearances, drug tests, entrance exams, appropriate academic degrees, and the list goes on and on? Yet when it comes to one of the most important jobs on earth we make it a popularity contest. This is pathetic. We should only vote on candidates that pass a complete vetting process before they can even become a candidate.
6
All of this is true, but let's remember two things going into the midterms. The Republicans control all the levers of power and that means all the money. They've just shown they're not afraid to use public debt to fund their efforts, so they can buy votes. Two, as bad as the tax plan is overall, it may put more money in a lot of people's pockets in the coming year in the form of lower withholding. For a lot of voters, they don't care about the ideology or the investigations. They care about whether they saw a measurable benefit, and it's very likely they will. The Democrats will always be the underdogs for 2018 elections and if they forget that for even a moment, then there will be larger Republican majorities in Congress next year.
4
"We spent more than two centuries building a great nation, and even a very stable genius probably needs a couple of years to complete its ruin."
From the damage already done it appears that he needs at most another couple of days.
4
The qualified people that are fleeing deserve both some understanding but also some scorn. When they are really needed, they cut and run?
2
It seems that St. Ronnie and W will no longer be considered the worst presidents as the GOP continues its race to the bottom. It's becoming increasingly clear that the GOP operates based on certain articles of faith more in line with Gordon Gecko ("greed is good") than with responsible governance especially since it sold its soul to the evangelical community to win elections, good of the country be damned.
7
"Yet stocks are up, the economy is growing ..."
Thanks to Bernanke and Yellin and rising profits the Obama bull continues charging ahead. Some of the '17 crescendo can be attributed to Replutocrat tax cut fever but most of the rising bull market and falling unemployment belongs to the previous eight years. Amazing considering Replutocrat obstructionism.
If and when the VSG has completed a term we can talk about his accomplishments, i.e. boosting his and his family members personal wealth. Oh, wait, those policies are already in place.
"... and we haven’t gotten into any new wars."
Crossing fingers.
7
This really makes me flash back to the campaign when Ryan had seemed to have a conscience and oppose Trump... until he met with him. He came out of that meeting and said something to he effect that he believed Trump would "support the GOP agenda" which basically meant he would sign whatever Congress sent him. He knew then that Trump had little interest in the actual details but only wanted to sign stuff to get "wins".
That was the deal with the devil that is still playing out with many GOP congressmen and senators, the country be damned. Prop Trump up at all costs and keep the scam going to produce destructive legislation and a loose corporate friendly regulatory environment.
"But Paul Ryan, the House speaker, has now fully taken Nunes’s side, in effect going all in on obstruction."
4
The VSG is in la la land and the GOP which has been the American fascist party for some time is looking more and more like the American Nazi party. The Trump-Conservative Republican coup d’etat is nearing its completion.
Congress is controlled by traitors who want one party rule forever and these greedy traitors insist that Trump, a wholly unbalenced paranoid, who thinks he is a genius but who knows nothing except his need for riches and constant adulation, wants to be a dictator in the mold of his benefactor and role model Putin, is a gift from god. The greatest president ever with a new vision for America they tell us with a straight face. That vision is on display in Putin’s Russia whose agent Trump is. To prevent the people from learning that of course requires the destruction of the truth and the free press and a plan of misdirection.
Their problem is that more than 50% of the people already know the truth while Trump insists that it cannot be proven. Other countries have had this problem and fixed them with firing squads and hangings; and it may come to that but this is an election year and the public are loyal to the Constitution and there is going to be a Democratic Congress and we will end this fascist nightmare. We can then prosecute the former president for his many crimes.
4
The V.S.G.is smart enough to surround himself with money loving mental munchkins who have every reason to serve and look up to him.
3
I don't know who is spinning in his grave the fastest: Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, George Orwell, or Lewis Carroll.
Watching the so called serious party obsequiously kissing the ring (or whatever they are kissing) of the genius is a scene I'm not sure even Lewis Carroll could have drempt up. Maybe Dante in the lowest realms of hell.
All this for someone who lost the popular vote by millions, has declining poll numbers, is being investigated by a Special Council who is so republican he should be the recruiting poster, and has called each and every one of them insulting names. Or he has just insulted them for no reason.
Either the entire republican world has flipped on its axis and they have all gone insane; or they think their gerrymandering and voter suppression and fox not news will insure their continued hold on power.
If this Nation is to survive as a democracy We the People had better get off our butts and get to the polls and vote straight D down the ticket. Hold your nose if you have to, go to confession, get drunk.... whatever you have to do. Just get out and VOTE! Only for Democrats. Or Bernie. (is he running?)
3
1984 may have come a little late but it sure feels like it's just about arrived. Between technology that seems to be sucking everything out of our lives and a president sucking everything out of our soul, the image of a dystopian world we once viewed with dread now seems being welcomed by many with mindless indifference if not open arms.
I feel like I am watching a terrible accident happening in slow motion but helpless to do anything about it despite knowing from history's lessons exactly how it will end. Even so I am thankful for everyone still trying. We cannot give up the fight.
3
The TWIT is "like really smart" and "very stable."
It's "like" he's Mr. Ed, the taking horse on TV, and lives in a "stable."
So far the only surprising thing he hasn't done is round up all the reporters, columnists and commentators her ate the NYT and sent us all to gas chambers...
Well, as the Nazi youth sang in Caberat, 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me...'
2
A President gets the help he deserves.
Clinton Rossiter
Trump is surrounded by a menagerie of mediocrity who have embraced
the Trump Doctrine of constant lying.
Worse, the Republicans know better but have decided they
can play him like a violin, the country be damned
People who are really smart do not have to tell you how
smart they are.
Worry
Alfred E. Neuman
5
Even if Trump starts running through the White House naked, smearing his feces on the walls, the GOP will continue to support him because he’s allowing them to advance their vicious cruel and destructive agenda. This president and his administration are the most evil people ever to hold power in the entire history of the United States and they are systematically destroying the country.
9
You should have added : that's what our opponents want, esp Putin
1
Excellent conclusions, all ringing true, unfortunately for us. But the problem, as I see it here in Texas (where there are more than a few vocal Trumpeteers), is that his supporters really believe the constant series of lies emanating from all orifices of the White House and Alt-facts News. Supporters believe that VSG is accomplishing great things while being unfairly attacked by a fake media working for a Deep State. Until we figure out how to make truth important again (and I have no good ideas), we'll be stuck with the "like, really smart" VSG for a whole term, or possibly two, assuming he doesn't overdose his obviously undersized, rotten heart on KFC and McDonalds first.
4
This all ties into the minimalist attitude that seeped into America over the past couple of decades. All the dummy-ing down we so lazily slumped to is what has bred this Jerry Springer-ish fate. We finally got what we signed up for. Long live self-anointed, self-appointed VSGs...!
1
Republicans don’t believe in democratic values and norms. They hate government because it hands out our hard earned tax dollars to the poor - the leeches of society. They are a dispicable lot not unlike a crime family trying to suck want they can from the system to pad their portfolios.
2
I actually believe that in times past, most of the Republican party would be either jailed or shot as traitors. They have no allegiance to anything but money, no matter where it comes from including Russia. And now of course they must go all in, lest they have to admit one day they never gave a damn about America or Democracy or anything except themselves. They're not Nazi collaborators exactly, but they'll do for our time.
4
Yes, this president and those who keep him in place are the biggest threat to our democracy that I can recall. Why do I keep remembering Hitler?
1
Why does Dr. Krugman - as well as so many of the commenters - continue to be shocked, shocked, shocked by the Congressional Republicans' rallying around Trump? He's given them what they want most: a huge tax cut for corporations and the already wealthy. He's got a large, fanatical base of supporters who hate Democrats and liberals and remain, in their heart of hearts, appalled that a black man became president - that his accomplishments are being systematically undone notwithstanding. He's derailing financial and environmental regulations. He's eradicating the Brown Peril of undocumented immigrants. He's cemented a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court. Whether or not these Republican worthies approve of him personally matters not at all.
10
The only disagreement I feel with both this piece and most of the comments I read is that the time frame is too short. The Republican Party has been involved in nefarious dealings, not in the interest of the nation, for a long time. The first I comprehended was the 1960-'64 conversion of the South with racism. I saw some of the earlier anti-communism craziness, but was too young to understand. Since then, we have seen one scam after another that have been picked up and discarded as needed. Gay bashing has about run out--trans still works--and abortion and immigrant bashing are working well. Trump is different in several ways from earlier Republicans. Beside being clearly unfit, he is the first to take his bigoted base seriously--at least at the lip service level--and has pursued policies that are just nuts. Is it $18 billion he's demanding for his wall? Earlier Republicans were happy to cut taxes for rich people and not do much about the nasty stuff that got them elected. I share the fear that Trump, and the willingness of Republicans to defend him, will so change the political culture of our country that we will never recover.
8
I agree completely, rawebb1. The timespan is too short! Every now and then someone speaks as though this Republican perfidy is all recent history, but it is not. Republican tax bills like their new one helped give us the Great Depression. Republicans fought FDR's attempts to help the starving, unemployed poor tooth-and-nail. Yes, Joe McCarthy was a Republican. Naturally. However, in fairness, back then many prominent Republicans did not approve of him. But did they stop him? No. Nixon pursued the racist "Southern Strategy" you mention, he secretly prolonged the Vietnam war to beat Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and he started the "War on Drugs" not to help America, but to use it as a weapon against blacks and liberals. The GOP is a pack of treasonous lackeys of the rich and they have been for a long time.
"So far, the implosion of our political norms has had remarkably little effect on daily life..." Really, daily life for whom? Ask the Dreamers. Ask the Salvadorians. Ask those that were at Charlottesville. Ask the Palestinian families of those killed during protests over the Jerusalem move. Ask the children whose health benefits are going away. These and many others are the first waves of effects with more yet to be fully realized yet. The stage is being set, it's still early days.
8
Elected officials only win elections if they use the mass media to sell themselves to the voters. While they will state their positions about issues important to the constituents they do not discuss these issues. In fact, these candidates never discuss what they think at all. They deliberately avoid such discourse because it rarely helps and can often hurt because audiences prefer simple declarative sentences, not comprehensive examinations of issues. This kind of political communication tends to lead to ignorance about important issues and obscures candidates’ fitness for office. This is why Trump was elected, he sold a sizzle which he assured was steak but which was not even muscle meat, so to speak.
We need to get back to a situation where candidates sell their ideas and fitness in a rational manner. Trump
2
He's done a few good things by NOT doing something. We can be glad that he continued President Obama's strategy for ISIS. This was something difficult, well thought out and long term. Trump found himself on third base thanks to Obama and fortunately he didn't try to steal second.
3
DJT is the GOP's corporate masters' carbon-based rubber-stamp. They will use him until he runs out of ink.
4
All so true, but also inevitable given the trajectory of the Republican party for the last 3 decades.
Anyone with any level of competence, intellect, or honesty is drummed out as a "RINO"
Add to that the fact that nobody saving a kleptocrats or a fool (often both) would ruin their reputation forever by working for the V.S.G.
When V.S.G. leaves office sometime this year it gives us EvilPence. Perhaps dumber than V.S.G. and actually more malevolent. If EvilPence is also indicted, then LyinRyan, if he gets indicted....
Basically we are screwed until Democrats take congress and staunch the bleeding, and then we elect President Kennedy in 2020.
2
Professor Krugman,
Possibly the very worst aspect of the Trump presidency is the fact that Oprah is considered a serious candidate for president. Trump has so degenerated this august branch of government that ignorant charisma has become the main qualification for office. Trump's poisoning of the presidency is enabled by voters who cannot distinguish between entertainment and civic responsibility, or between reality and reality television.
Let us hope that history will show Trump to be a mistake of Democracy, rather than the corrosive cause of its doom.
Enabled by voters who were never taught civic responsibility, and who can't tell the difference between reality and reality television,
4
Congress - So what are they hiding? What is the end game? power. money, an early grave?
Maybe I'm just hopelessly optimistic or still in denial about the Republicans in Congress, but I keep thinking they are playing along with our "so-called" president, because they have a secret ploy to oust him and that time hasn't come. Yet, it is becoming increasingly more clear, that the only secret ploy is to get as much as they can for their donors and themselves while they can manage to, in the form of tax cuts or deregulating industries that they actively are invested in. I guess the question we should be asking of Trump, his advisors/cabinet and the Republicans in Congress, is what have you done for the very folks you are supposed to be representing versus yourselves and your donors? What has Trump done that doesn't benefit his businesses or him personally? What have the Republicans in Congress sacrificed for the good of us all? Where is the public servants of old? Why aren't we caring for the children (health insurance), the infirmed (cutting Medicaid) and the aliens (immigrants, DACA)? Why should Puerto Rico have to beg for help? The day of reckoning is coming and you shall be held accountable for your reckless, self serving administration and lack of concern for the "least of these your brothers".
1
Coudn't agree more. I for one, am surprised by anyone cheering on the economy when companies keep reducing benefits which have real life implications on our day to day life. If the economy is improving, I personally have not yet felt it yet.
1
We have 35% of the American voters who are in support of the current Administration. The test will be the midterm elections. If the Democrats gain seats in Congress then Trump's chances of being re-elected are diminished. This was the topic of discussion at the recent Camp David meeting with Trump and it is all that matters to the Republican leadership. So the change agent is the voter in the contested districts. I hope the Democrats do not drop the ball on this because if they do we will have Trump re-elected. (That is unless he is impeached or is found impaired or another Republican runs against him.)
1
So what are the options? What's the way forward? How to we get there?
Let's not forget that a lot of people voted for Trump specifically because they desired a "bomb-thrower", a disrupter; someone who would "shock the system," as a home-made Trump sign along the Interstate near my house put it. All this chaos and confusion in our government is just what they wanted (or at least, what they thought they wanted).
2
Reliably Mediocre would have been immeasurably better for the nation that's hurting.
In a real stable Democracy in which the Electorate is well informed and every vote carries the same weight, no Republican would have been elected given the way the Congressional Republicans are obstructing justice and protecting a President who is by all accounts totally unfit to govern. But the, we are neither a Democracy nor do we have an informed Electorate, so, anything goes!!
1
Perhaps we have missed the genius of the Republican strategy. Perhaps these gentlemen and women from great states realized early on how quickly their president would incite a blue wave call of protest and political action. Perhaps they realized he was unlikely to question their motives and actions as long as he received the appropriate measure of genuflecting and praise at regular intervals. Perhaps they predicted the inevitable blue wave of 2018 and 2020, and simply determined their only recourse was to stack the deck. Lifetime appointments of extremely conservative, and worse unqualified, judges surely guarantees that any ground gain by the blue wave will stagnate until the next red wave. Perhaps we should have been watching the flying monkeys instead of the man behind the curtain.
The only remedy to this current swamp of misery is the ballot box. It is secret - even Ryan can vote for Democrats and nobody will know. Please, please, help us all to get as many as possible to the voting booths. This is our only recourse.
Problem is, the "best and the brightest" have often gotten us into the worst
trouble. Like in Vietnam. Like those that designed ... and allowed ...
Ponzi scheme-like mortgage based securities. Like those who who negotiated trade deals that always gave us the worst end of the deal.
So when Trump is elected to MAGA, the perps are fleeing in droves.
"Best and brightest" does not help if they are aiming for bad goals.
Remember the Democrats really hate the "best and brightest" if their
goals are not suitably left wing. The name Bork comes to mind.
Trump's policy makers stand to ruin many lives that Obama administration policies helped. Sessions' reversal on legal marijuana puts a huge growth industry for several states in jeopardy. With that, Sessions put jobs and businesses in jeopardy--and compromises the boon to tax amd licencing revenues that are going toward opioid rehab programs and and other state programs left in a lurch by Trump's alt-right reactionism. We need to pay more attention these changes than the strum und drang of the daily tweetstorm.
1
The Bush,Cheney and Rumsfeld disastrous legacy is well within the grasp of the Trump gang; unless Mueller gets in their way.
2
Sure Trump and his miscreants are anarchists who hope to destroy the very notion of government as we know it. But Paul, wouldn't it be more helpful if you used your great skills to help clarify what is going on in the economy. The fact that the stock market is rising is due to the fact that the excess profits that are the fruit of deregulation (read environmental and social catastrophe) are going to go right into the pockets of the owners and stockholders and not the general population or wage earners. If they were used to raise wages then there would be no greater profits, ergo no rise in wall street stock prices. Simple as that. the fact that this market is rising is counterintuitive proof that most citizens will not be better off.
1
The saddest and most dangerous aspect of all this is - while the press and many of us are easily distracted by the clown act over here - the rest of the circus troupe is busy over there chopping down the poles and setting the tent on fire.
At some point we may all be trampled in the panicked stampede.
1
Going out on a limb here, but predict that the fall from power for the United States will be quickest in modern history. The British Empire lasted 350 years, while the U.S to date has lasted since the end of World War II. Most politicians, and not just Trump apologists, are waiting for the forgotten Americans to just die off so they don't have to worry about them. Notice how fast the Government is reacting to reverse the opiate crisis. And how neither party really attempted to figure out what to do with people who lost jobs to outsourcing, be it manufacturing to China or Software Engineering to India. The V.S.G is just another chapter in the book of a dying America. Anyone who thinks it is bad now, wait until the rest of the world has had enough of Washington's dysfunction and we are no longer have the world's reserve currency.
The US economy is like a giant ship. The engines of progress are being shut down but due to it's massive size it will coast for a while. But with time it will flounder & drift aimlessly until it completely deteriorates unless it's captain & crew repair the damage or the crew mutinies.
2
Historically, the Roman Empire had a big consumer economy with goods being produced in mass and consumed all across the empire. The legal system and the infrastructure supported this even when there were two or more emperors fighting each other for supremacy and basically not administering the whole, and it went on this way intermittently from the beginning of the fourth century A.D. onwards. Eventually the whole system collapsed but it took a long time.
We seem to be witnessing the decline of party loyalists who place love of political party above all else. Character has little to do with a candidate's fitness for office. And of course, Mr. Krugman's employer and most everyone in the media today focus on red v. blue as some twisted vindication of right v. wrong.
Most voters today have grown weary of party politics and choose to register as independents. Yet the primary ingredient for improvement is thwarted by the closed primaries of both parties. So the downward race to the bottom continues for both parties who choose party loyalists over character and fitness.
Indeed, the republican field last election was so poor that the VSG managed to buy himself the presidency. And the truly rotten shenanigans within the democratic party yielded the worst candidate they have ever nominated. And now they want to shove Opray Winfrey down our throats?
I'm afraid the race to the bottom will continue until both major parties do away with their closed primary system(s). But it'll be a long time coming just as eliminating the archaic electoral college that has no place in the world today.
When the British were defeated at Yorktown their band played "the World Turned Upside Down". While we are being governed by fabulists, liars and toadies, I think we can accept this tune as our alternative National Anthem.
3
Dr. Krugman points to the most disturbing trend: the sale of Congress to the highest bidder, as in the Koch Brothers, the Mercers, and, more recently, foreign money. When we follow the money, we understand that the real problem lies with the way the Republican Party has literally sold itself. Tax "reform" for robber barons in 2017, trashing healthcare for kids, the disabled, the elderly in 2018. It's not about Trump but about an entire political party that is wandering in the land of greed
2
Thank you for writing this. I listened just recently to NPR interview Sonny Perdue, Agriculture Secretary,who explained (I am paraphrasing) that Trump was a man of the people and a good businessmen and that is why the farmers support him. The evidence that he is not a good businessman is so available to anyone who reads or watches television, and has been for years. It is not fake news. There are rotting empty casinos with his name on them. There are thousands of contractors who have not been paid for years. Maybe with the better internet connection Trump claims he is offering farmers they will be able to access this information. He is not a man of the people unless he is referring to the Mar a Lago golf club membership.
1
While I agree, the President to quote a book title is "A Clear and Present Danger" we need to not lose sight of his enablers Republican Congressman Gone Wild. Do we really want or need "professional" congressman? If not, then lets vote this November for a change. Perhaps someone who represents their constituents instead of someone who just votes party line.
1
I totally agree with Mr. Krugman that the Wolff book does not really hold surprises. Some of Wolff's commentary may be based on gossipy tidbits but the really scary parts in the book are based on Trump's verbatim comments, speeches and tweets. I am appalled and disgusted by the Republican power structure's support of this mad man and wonder what it will take to bring them back to a sense of responsibility for the future of the country. Back in the early debates about the Affordable Care Act right wing opponents were claiming the country would be faced with death panels - well, now we may have them for real as medical personnel, FEMA staff and others charged with caring for the disadvantaged in America must decide how limited resources will be allotted. Thanks to the billionaire Trump supporters and the conscienceless Republican Congress and their tax reallocation program people in America will die - but hey, they will be really old, really poor, really sick or too young to vote!
1
What to do when a minority supported political party essentially possesses all the reigns of federal power? What to do if they manufacture a mandate to destroy the New Deal? What to do if they join the oligarchs and oligarch wannabes to obstruct justice? What to do if they increase their gaming of the electoral system to insure their control is perpetuated? "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them"?
1
Compared to countries like China, India and Egypt, our glorious two centuries are barely a coffee break. Once the lust for power takes hold, as it has with the entirety of the Republican Party, longstanding national horror at such things as treason becomes a punch line to a corny old joke. (It was the Bush/Cheney regime that decided the Geneva Conventions against war crimes were "quaint.") After decades of Republicans questioning everyone else's patriotism, now we see how cynical and threadbare their own so-called patriotism really is. The Republican Party has become the "enemy domestic" the Founding Fathers foresaw and warned us against. The Republicans are circling the wagons around Vladimir Putin to protect their power. So what's the penalty for that? Anything? I don't think the gallows is asking too much.
3
They hijacked the plane in mid-flight with the entire country onboard,
explained that they were the smartest, most stable people in the room, now,
and that the former flight crew had been flying us straight into a mountain.
They assembled their own flight crew from first class passengers and instructed them to save weight and increase efficiency by removing the wings, dumping fuel and tossing overboard all of the parachutes in economy class.
A voice came over the speakers, "I'm the like, captain now. Can you believe it? I know more about planes than the flying instructors. Believe me, you're in for the greatest ride of your lives."
Someone in the back remembered a courageous call and yelled, "Let's roll!"
But the wings were already gone and the golden parachutes all deployed.
1
Things like nuclear war and global warming make everybody think of the ones who walk around saying 'the End is at hand.' We just don't want to think that the End is actually at hand, so we keep doing things that will actually lead to the End of the World as we know it. I mean, we already dropped the bomb on Japan twice and the warnings effects of climate change are happening right now. The people who are walking around saying The End of the World Is At Hand are starting to not look so crazy.
1
Mr. Krugman, you speak the truth. But, VSG and his GOP enablers have managed to do an unbelievable amount of damage and destruction to our country in just one year. My hopes for a return to normalcy stand firm in the belief that Mr Mueller will continue to "follow the money" and the American people will dismantle the WH/GOP unconscionable behavior by voting in 2018 to throw the bums out.
1
Given how Trump has shown how fragile our traditions can be, traditions like democracy and having a sane man for president who won't monetize the position like so many petty dictators have in other countries, it's hard to believe the union can survive this incompetent, greed-driven, buffoon without serious and long-lasting damage. Oprah for president?--it's one thing when the know-nothing party gets a game show host elected; it's another when a talk-show host is considered by the party that still believes in things like science. Surely we have already entered a new period where celebrity and branding have completely trumped competence, knowledge, and experience.
1
Neither was I shocked at Wolf's book expose. Nothing revealed in those pages was new or surprising. I believe it was just the concentrated input gathered together in one place that made the light really shine on V. S. G.
So, why did so many not see this coming? Narcissistic Megalomaniacs are not common. Most of the general population has not met one. They blew off the warning signs because they attributed them to a wealthy New Yorker's different behavior. They voted for different, innocently.
This points to the need for more education in government and history, because history repeats itself. Instagram and social media did not provide enough insight to prevent the repetition of history here.
Nothing will change until the bubble bursts, which it must sooner or later. Low birth rate, immigrants demonized, aging population, profligate debt creation, all make for a contracting economy over time.
The Chinese finance our debtor lifestyle and the massive wealth transfer to the oligarchs via tax cuts. Some day they will pull the rug out from under us.
1
I just got back from a year on the invisible space station. Who's this "stable genius" everyone's talking about? I thought Mr. Ed was deceased.
My dad could be Trump's twin--racist, sexist, tax-avoiding, having utter disregard for the less fortunate, possessing a violent temper and exploding into frequent crazed, cruel outbursts, without warning.
But he did do one good thing -- he taught me that I never wanted to be a person like him.
The Trump kids are still in his inner circle after years of living with this abusive person. Conditioning, not love, keeps them there.
Now there are Cabinet members and a Congress who have become members of this dysfunctional family. Why?
Look at their backgrounds. The Cabinet's canines were sharpened in the successful pursuit of wealth. The public sector impeded their plans with lawsuits. Government regulations stymied their greedy ambitions. They hated government and any who stood in their way.
Congress, in theory, knows the law and their role of checking the Executive. But a predatory President arrived who disregarded U.S. law, and lacked knowledge or concern for consequence.
Congress took advantage of his weakness, enacting its long-sought plan to benefit the rich, themselves included, with tax cuts, while burdening the poor and middle class with higher taxes and cuts in public services. No one could stop them.
Trump, a bully with no desire to govern well and fairly, has a Cabinet and Congress that carries the same values. Capitol Hill has willingly joined Trump's dysfunctional family.
Like my dad, I hope these "leaders" show others who they never want to be like.
Keep it simple. Keep your eyes on the prize.
On November 6, 2018, we need to vote out of office every Republican that we possibly can.
EVERY. LAST. ONE.
We need to flip BOTH the House of Representatives and the Senate. Then we can start to get on with the job of repairing the damage that this "Very Stable Genius" (actually a megalomaniac) and his cronies will have inflicted on our country, and undoing some of the foolish actions that he has instituted.
The Cincinnati Enquirer nailed it when they wrote that "Trump is a clear and present danger to our country" as part of the editorial in which they endorsed a Democrat for the first time in over 70 years for POTUS.
2
Trump has been in office for almost a year and we are still alive, so I expect we will sail through the rest of his presidency without any problems. The last time a minority of voters handed the presidency to a simple, inarticulate, inexperienced Republican who disdained expert advice and acted instead on gut instinct, Democrats screamed gloom and doom, and what happened? Other than the deadliest terrorist attack in world history, a pointless and treasury-draining war of choice in Iraq which the administration sold to the public via outright deception, and the second worst recession in US history, nothing bad happened.
3
Alternative facts, alternative brains (thanks, EFBarasch). The GOP has been a serious threat to this country for decades now. A group that could not recognize Alzheimer's in the sainted Ronald Reagan (which wasn't hard) is unlikely to have the background to recognize an authoritarian threat. And a cabal that does not care what damage is done to others, or to the country, as long as their own income reaches absurdly greedy levels should not be in charge of anything.
2
It a shame that it has come to this, but; The Blue States need to communicate clearly to the Supreme Court and Congress that “gerrymandering “ needs to stop NOW. If it does not; we need to expeditiously split the country into States who believe in reprentatve democracy and those who do not.
Thank you, Mr. Krugman. Once again, you are spot on.
Everyone seems to think those who voted Trump into office will wake up one morning and realize how badly they've been duped and how the policies enacted will be realized as false in their claims. Sadly, those who voted Trump into office ultimately don't care to and will never hold Trump responsible for what he does; his supporters are only concerned at getting back at the "others" who forced them to endure a black president, almost forced them to endure a female president, and forced them to put up with all the other "crazy" liberal-minded viewpoints, such as equality, social dignity, universal health.
This is how the horrendous actions and words of dictators have always seemingly been set aside while the dictator ascends: Their support is never due to the love of the individual but due to how much the "others" hate him.
2
It is not by chance that the incompetent Trump is surrounded by a Republican Congress that has no morals or scruples. They are in fact the reason he was put in office. These Republicans who obstructed, illegally in some cases, every move Obama tried to make, have played the race card, gerrymandered, suppressed voters and displayed traitorous indifference to the role of the Russians in Trump's stolen victory. Don't look for decent people in the Trump/Republican world, they don't exist. Even Diogenes wouldn't waste his time.
3
" Under the Very Stable Genius in Chief, the old rules no longer apply."- this is false. There are the same old checks and balances that have kept despots in place since we started.
The behaviors W.H. insiders have been leaking since day one of this presidency have now been verified by this new book. If this 71 year old "business man" was a CEO in corporate America, the Board of Directors would act quickly to remove him from his duties. Unfortunately, the 'party of business' (aka the GOP) has failed their test that any corporate board would pass. The W.H. enablers around Trump is to be expected. What is truly disgusting and dangerous for our nation is the irresponsible inaction of the Republican-led congress in its failure to act on its constitutionally-directed duties to protect our nation from such harm.
1
There are many different forms of intelligence. Calling another person dumb only shows that the name caller feels intellectually superior and is addicted to stereotyping. And calling another person crazy is just a way of saying another person doesn't abide by the name caller's behavioral norms. Uniqueness has a certain beauty and provides spice to an otherwise assortment of bland and predictable scribes.
What does it tell us about Trump when aides say they have to work around him (no small feat) and sugar coat information when they misplace the pacifier? The opposition is dwindling? Not where I live, buster!
There a lot of reasons why the dumbing-down of America has been so successful and you can start with the right-wing media gas bags, from Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, and Jones, and with rare exception, to the entire Fox Noise team. Founded as a public relations unit for the extremists of the GOP, and thinly disguised as a "news" organization, Fox has been a cudgel of the fear-mongering Republican party.
How did the Party of Lincoln devolve into swamp monsters of today? Start with Ronald Reagan and his pitch to destroy the notion of a federal government run "... by the People and for the People ..." in favor of the rules of Ayn Rand. The Republican Party has become the Repugnant Mob with added momentum created by Newt Gingrich, the master of marital infidelity, and a disgraceful voice for the Ayn Rand "freedom" fighters who are, in reality, simply punch-drunk, self-absorbed "masters of their domain" (with apologies to Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David).
Our country's reputation as a bright light of democratic and progressive values has been fading since the 1990s as the Greenspan era of deregulation mocked the values of the hard-working Middle Class by liberating the banking industry from the restraints of reason and decency in favor of greed running amok for the sake of shareholder value — the rich and super-rich.
There are 10 months left to get our Ship of State sailing in the right direction again before it sails into a Bermuda Triangle of democracy's grim end.
3
What has been taken for granted is being taken away.
The good news is that since "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone," we are beginning to realize what we must have.
Compassion, competence, clarity and calm.
82
Well, Paul has summarized the situation. What do we do about it??
71
What do we do? Testing the limits of the 25th Amendment might be a good start. But only after the 2018 elections when the Republican majority becomes the much-depleted Republican minority. It's the republican congress that is refusing to do their constitutional duty to protect America from the enemies currently occupying the Oval office.
3
WE THE PEOPLE speak up, speak out, never give up!! Fight the good fight.
2
Give President Trump a break, to me he is more functional than Congress.
10
That is very low bar
2
It probably won't happen, but the solution lies in the hands of the Republican Congress. Any educated person possessing reasonable judgment knows that there is something seriously amiss in the White House. Any loyal American, without regard to politics, should be deeply concerned. Yet Republicans seem to be content to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong. The absence of patriotism, failure to put the good of the country first, is stunning. Perhaps they know that they will never be held to account, but when the safety of our country is on the line, what good is that? They and they alone are responsible for any and all damage that occurs.
6
Republican policies are worse than most people know. See
https://www.legalreader.com/republican-racketeers-violent-policies/
5
Yeah, but, besides all that.
With the Republicans, the ends always justify the means,
And so; are they winning bigly?
You betcha!
4
Hmmm...first there was our beloved "Notorious RBG." Now we have the "Notorious VSG?" How far we've fallen.
1
According the Krugman, President Trump is the "worst and the dumbest." Well, he and others like him, so called "experts", can believe that if they want, but others don't. Just because President Donald J. Trump is not part of the political establishment does not make him the worst and the dumbest. It seems to me that if politicians, especially those from the left, do not address the needs of all Americans, they are the dumbest. Hillary Clinton, for example, ignored the needs of working class Americans, and went as far as to call them deplorable in their support of Trump. That to me that is s pretty stupid - alienating an entire group of Americans who have worked hard all their lives and played by the rules. Until the Democrats can craft a message that resonates with all Americans, they will remain the worst and the dumbest as far I and millions of other Americans are concerned. Thank you.
6
"Just because President Donald J. Trump is not part of the political establishment does not make him the worst and the dumbest.".....No it doesn't. What makes him the worst is the fact that he is a vulgar bigoted narcissist. Being vulgar and bigoted makes him an ugly person, but narcissism is a mental disorder. No normal person would declare that they are a very stable genius, and that is only a single example out of many hundreds. His narcissism is wildly out of control, and it is dangerous, and the people surrounding him are clearly unable to keep it contained. Those who bury their head in the sand and pretend that his narcissism is not a serious problem...well, showing poor judgment is not a very positive indicator.
9
I don't hold this President in contempt because he's not part of "the political establishment," which is a ridiculous claim anyway.
Wow. I never thought I would say this, but I agree with Southern Boy that Democrats have failed to craft a message and policy platform beyond “vote for us because we’re not Republicans.”
Yeah, but I still refuse to vote for a party that takes my hard-earned money to give the 1% a tax break.
1
Ms. Huckabee Sanders decried Michael Wolff for not knowing how to "curry favour". CNN's Jake Tapper summed up Stephen Millar as the presisent's "obsequious" "factotum". DT knows the word "flunky" but not what it means. Surprising since the White House is full of them, as, it seems is the Republican Senate. Bad enough to be a trumpyflunkie, you might think. But these people are also behaving like treasonous quislings, devoid of any shred of patriotism or concern for fellow Americans
10
Yes, I know this is foolish, but it's my fantasy.
Trump puts on a bathing suit....the skimpier the better.
He dives into one end of a pool.
He exits the other end.
His hair is wet...no gel or Crazy Glue.
The world sees the man as he is.
He sits down at a desk where an IQ test is administered.
The results are immediately revealed.
8
GOP believes in smaller and limited government, which has become to mean having inept public servants doing nothing or stupid things.
11
The Republicans are enablers to the high crimes and misdemeanors of Trump and his cronies. McConnell, Ryan, Nunes, Graham, Paul et. al. are using this idiotic Orange Man to further their radical right wing agendas. They are adding fuel to the train wreck. I am disgusted with the Republicans more each day and 2018 elections cannot come soon enough. Trump supporters are as moronic as Trump. Maybe its due to their scathing racism against our first Black President which has rendered them too stupid to see trump for the con man, ignorant, incompetent that he is. I see no way out other than Mr. Mueller's good work and booting out the Republicans come November 2018. God help our Democracy! And thank you Michael Wolff for bringing the ethos of this White House to light.
12
Remember that this is the man who called Mitt Romney -- you know, that quiet, decent guy who ran for President -- a “charlatan,” pathologically dishonest, and untrustworthy, who doesn’t even pretend to care about poor people and wants people to die so that the rich could get richer, who is “completely amoral,” “a dangerous fool,” and “ignorant as well as uncaring”?
Remember that Krugman was so busy prosecuting his feud with the Republican establishment that he almost completely missed Trump. The result was that he gave Trump virtually a free pass.
Is he trying to make up for lost time? Not likely. This isn't a bug; it's a feature. Everything Krugman says is like supply side economics. As Charles Schultze put it, there is nothing wrong with it that cannot be cured by division by ten. Or in Krugman's case it's more like division by a thousand.
1
Telling the guy saying “I’m the smartest” that “you’re the dumbest” isn’t usually a sign of vast acuity on the part of the person doing the telling. That’s even if the guy yelling “I’m the smartest” ain’t close.
Oh, and Paul Krugman seems to have “forgotten” Reagan’s first Secretary of State: Al Haig. Then there was James Watt as Interior Secretary. Neither was close to what most people would call competent. (I’m sure others can add to Krugman’s Reagan administration omissions.)
1
Even with his dementia, Reagan never left a bill signing ceremony without first signing the bill. Trump clearly never expected to win - remember he bellowed about the election being fixed against him for the last two weeks of the campaign. He obviously had no idea what to do if he won, and he still has no idea what a President does beyond "look Presidential" (i.e. puff his chest out and lower his voice to sound authoritative - and be a man). Reagan knew when he was doing things that were immoral and/or illegal and he tried to hide them. Trump not only doesn't know what "moral" means (something to do with Aesop's fables?) but he clearly thinks if he does it as President, it IS legal. And he's got, like, a really big brain.
1
"The President spends his morning watching TV and rage tweeting," Who has the time to do that? I mean, he's gotta have briefing materials and reports hitting his desk continuously. When does he read them? And, he's gotta go for the ones he's most interested in first, right? Is it Health and Human Services, national security, economy, foreign relations, energy, domestic policy, his legacy, congress, justice, the environment, what?
Let's see, the opposite of "very stable genius" is an "unstable imbecile." Whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, OMG, OMG.
5
To paraphrase (JFK) one of DT predecessors, "the bar has been LOWERED to a new generation of Americans..."
I will be relieved/content if DT's demise mimics that of Bill Clinton, rather than JFK......
1
Hamilton is a Broadway star now, so maybe he wouldn't mind having eventually been succeeded by Wonder Woman producer Mnuchin. Hey, maybe Mnuchin will buy the movie rights for Hamilton and include a stirring duel scene.
VSG!! I love it!! It’s the new LOL
2
Yep, looks like a perfect storm we got here. Yep.
2
CAESAR - W. Shakespeare
"Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. "
Trump has plenty of fat, sleek-headed, complacent men around him, who will do nothing to counter or remove him. But: there is also Mueller, the one with the lean and hungry look. And yes, Mr. Prez Worthless and Corrupt, he is quite dangerous to you.
6
TOTAL CHAOS
4
If you really detest Amerika, then this creature is the very best thing to happen since Joe McCarthy. I hope that his policies succeed, his wall goes up, the ACA is overturned, and that a vast wall goes up around the country as a whole, to protect the rest of the world from toxic USA. Then, businesses will fail, people will get sick and die, and China and Russia will be the ones to determine the future of world history. Word to Cuba- don't let the Amerikans in. They can't buy everything. The only way for dumb Amerikans to understand the depravity of the stable genius is to be humbled. That process has started. I hope he's reelected. There's so much left for him to do.
4
Remember Roald Dahl's B.F.G., now we have the V.S.G. -- except this character creates only nightmares in his dream factory. Nightmares with healthcare, DACA, education, EPA, taxes, foreign policy, immigration. The kids don't stand a chance.
3
Those of us from the Northeast have known this about Trump since his days at Studio54 with his mentor Roy Chon, and his building of the Trump Tower, and his defrauding of the State governments of New York and New Jersey. You are now witnessing the proof of why the NYC intelligentsia have always despised the man, and why they never accepted him as one of their own.
Let’s all hope that the 200 years we spent building this country are not flushed down the drain by VSG.
11
Up to this point I have believed the "worst and the dumbest" describes the American method of selecting a leader.
3
But Paul, David Brooks says that everything is fine at the White House. David Brooks says that Trump isn't really so bad. Brooks is upset that "Fire and Fury" doesn't meet "his" standards of journalistic excellence...and therefore, anti-Trumpism is in decline.
Notice that Trump and his supporters need not meet any standards whatsoever. They are the anti-elitists. Standards do not apply. But Brooks wants the anti-Trumpers to meet the highest standards or keep quiet. So, Paul...are you meeting the highest standards with your comments and articles? Was Brooks and other right winger columnists concerned about high standards when criticizing Hillary?
Yes, the republican congress is all in with Trump once he signed their welfare for the wealthy tax bill. Yes, they will engage in obstruction and obfuscation to protect Trump. Yes, the republican congress will soil the constitution and reject the rule of law to maintain their power. They don't need Trump to remind them why they are in Washington. The oligarchy is alive and well...the fascist state is just around the corner.
7
Krugman, you might be the worst and the dumbest. It's difficult to choose as you liberal elitists are all petulant and boring.
Obama had 8 years to inflict damage on our democracy and we finally have a competent, tough as nails commander in chief in charge.
Keep up the good work. I enjoy being amused by your ace journalism.
Maybe some day you'll have an original, intriguing piece but I won't hold my breath.
3
VSG infects all he comes into contact with . .
He has infected the entire R side of Congress.
However, Democrats need a leader, a strategy, a backbone, to tackle VSG.
2
Worst President in American history, not even close for second place! Hurry, Mr. Mueller indict this man and his corrupt accomplices for crimes against the USA!
6
Don't confuse Trump's Apprentice personna and his CEO style bullying with total incompetence. Both strategies served Trump well in the past and it is totally unlikely that he will abandon them.
Somehow unstable and idiotic Trump ingratiates himself with his base of white working class men by targeting immigrants while satisfying Republican donors with tax cuts and removal of pesky regulations.
Trump is not W, which makes him all the more dangerous.
1
He also keeps the populace distracted so that the Greedy Old Party can steal the rest of this country without notice.
Trump's cabinet is, obviously, a crew of unqualified dogma-blinded knuckleheads, but I choose to look on the bright side. He got Rick Perry out of Texas. Ex-guv Goodhair has proven that he can, in fact, learn things - like what exactly his Department of Energy does. On the other hand, we've learned that, when Candidate Perry called for it to be shut down, he had no idea.
Worst and dumbest, indeed.
Putin got exactly what he wanted, an ignoramus in charge,who creates chaos all around him, with no checks and balances to rein him in.
5
From the farmers' event earlier today; “Oh, you are so happy you voted for me. You are so lucky I gave you that privilege.”
Certifiably nuts.
That "You are so lucky I gave you that privilege" — to vote for him— is monstrously narcissistic, quite unbelievable in fact. Did he really say that? Really? He is clearly mad, deranged.
That 40 % of Americans today support him is tragic and dangerous, as well as a deeply sad comment on the American electorate.
"Where have you gone, Joe Dimmagio" has never sounded so "à-propos" as now.
5
“In other words, just one year of Trump has moved us a long way toward a government of the worst and dumbest.”
God save the United States of America from Donald Trump — Kakistocrat in Chief
2
Song and lyrics by John Kaye and Steppenwolf.
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seemed generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't, pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
Now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
The cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner, we can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there, watching
[America]
America where are you now
Don't you care about your sons and daughters
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
America where are you now
Don't you care about your sons and daughters
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
America where are you now
Don't you care about your sons and daughters
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
America where are you now
Don't you care about your sons and daughters
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
4
Perhaps they all have Russian dirt on their clothes, and obstruction is more about themselves than the president?
1
The Republican Party is guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the American public by entering a lame horse into the race in 2016. Now these lying farriers are going along with the lie that not only is the horse not lame, but, in fact, he is a stable genius, the likes the world has not seen. In order to cover up the lameness of their thoroughunderbred, they will deceive, and undermine the American government. They originally had been tipped off by a Russian plutocrat who knows his fillies, that this was a horse of another color: red and would bring them across the finish line. Now is the time for the lame stable genius to be brought to the glue factory in Siberia where he can find a stable home with his kind.
2
Yes, Paul, as to Treasury Secretaries, let's look at Andrew Mellon, Douglas Dillon, Don Regan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner... all just sterling for the country, no pun intended. Just sterling, Paul. You know, actually that lineup provides a context that reduces Steve Mnuchin (and Gary Cohn) to merely the worst of a mediocre and and corrupt lot. Ah, I know, don't take it so seriously: it's just Wall Street boys being Wall Street boys...
1
well put mr krugman.
1
If your critique of Trump relies on putting on rose-coloured glasses to look at the sordid history of the US, you're doing it wrong.
1
Trump is an apt reflection of his 'base' ( a more perfect word for them could not be imagined.)
Responsible voters did not elect this scourge. Trump was elected by our friends in the fly-over states who imagine that a TV huckster who pretends to be a businessman must be what he says he is. Trump is a scam, the beneficiary of gerrymandering, pandering and slandering.
That there is a group of elites (I am looking at you Adelson and Koch) willing to turn this sorry excuse for a president to their own benefit (at the expense of the nation) completes the pathology.
Disasters do not happen because of a single failure, disasters occur when there are cascading and multiple failures. Trump's term in office (however long it lasts) shines a forensic light on the critical weaknesses in our political system. It demonstrates that bad faith on the part of our Republican representatives combined with a moron who should never have been president may be all that is needed to erase the greatest democracy on earth.
Will we learn the lesson?
6
Paul, poignancy - at least for today - "trumps" sarcasm, as I read your column
You see - and know, obviously - that we actually did have a genuine Very Stable Genius in the WH, precisely a century ago
At least until his stroke in 1919 - which your colleague exploited in such a denigrating way three days ago, he got me closer to cancelling than you ever did
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/trumps-petticoat-gover...
I'm not a general student of history - but have been reading up on the fourteen points, for the last fifteen minutes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points#The_Fourteen_Points
...Including which "Very Stable Genius" in Europe trashed them
"...Clemenceau had a habit of shouting at the other heads of state and storming out of the room rather than participating in further discussion...
Then the light bulb went on
How, when - and why - do people like Clemenceau, Mussolini, Hitler, Churchill rise to power
The common thread isn't their philosophy - either personal or political
It's a collective sense by their [tax-paying] citizens that political gridlock has become an excuse and cover for corruption, and consequent economic and operational [both peace and war] decline
(In NYC, think subways and schools...)
So - they elect/select an "antifa of one" - to metaphorically take a police barricade, and put it through plate-glass windows of the legislature and bureaucracy
Said another way
It's the economy, Stupid
Always has been
1
It's way past time to find a way for DJT to exit stage right. The problem is that the R's are happy having a dumb person to carry their water and the D's have no clue how to get out of this mess.
2
On the 'up' side, Trump's election has been bad for gun sellers. And rather than cite Fortune or the NYT, this citation is from the Washington (Moonie KKKristian) Times, so it's approved for ingestion by Republicants everywhere.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/8/under-donald-trump-gun-s...
(btw, the story's date was Aug 8th, on the 43rd 'Nixon Resignation Day.' Will we be celebrating 'Trump Exit Day' in years to come, or will America even be here?
It is all fairly predictable, many consistencies with the GWB era, idiot president adored by the ignorant and gullible, does stupid things that temporarily goose the economy, wins a second term then predictably all falls down, economy tanks into a crisis. Along the way are outlandish, give-to the- rich and trash-our-nation's-integrity-for-spite silly gimmicks, which appeal to the hordes of disaffected, vindictive, uninformed people. The people brought on by the president are those whose expertise is in hobbling and blocking the good work of government, the nation's blessing, because an "excess of government is bad". Republicanism at its worst, but it has always shown that it can get even worse.
4
c'mon dr k...if your fitness, abilities and stabilites were attacked, how long before you trotted out your nobel and other resume points in (think native noo yawker here) a "hey pal, not so bad for a crazy, yo!
the failure of the smarties to see even a hint of irony in trump's remarks, flatfooted though they may be, is comic in its cluelessness..
try the op-ed page if you want "uniformed" (brooks addicted to google) "vindictive" (blow in perpetual red rage) or "lazy" (collins' pecking, never piercing, tries at humor).
"Let's be honest:" notice that the list of checks on "mediocre men" in the oval office does not include a free press, and that, to "be honest" is because the press has too often been a tool (viet nam, shock and awe), or lost in smug, (trump's clown car candidacy, h(r)c's oval office entitlement) and too rarely a beacon (watergate, pentagon papers).
It appears that The Times treats the subject of its columnists' credibility with extreme delicacy, and screens the indelicate feedback out. Fair enough. Let's say, delicately, that David Brooks' record as an apologist for the Bush Administration, and his more general record as a thought-leader of dubious value for the American Right in the last generation could, for some Times readers, call into question his grasp of the current situation. He hasn't been wrong just occasionally. He's been wrong in a longstanding pattern.
2
"[O}ne didn't have to worry about whether qualified people were making the big decisions."
Ummm, Dr, K., have you forgotten about Nancy's astrologer from Boston? Okay, this person wasn't an actual cabinet member.... but still. Terrifying.
1
Yes, the worst and the dumbest -- but not in any way a surprise. He is what 16 other GOP candidates knew he was and said so when standing on the debate stage with him in 2016 -- and what anyone else with a brain could have seen.
Trump is Trump and he isn't the disappointment here. We are.
1
Regarding the obstructors:
Q: What does today’s Republican Party have in common with 20th century German National Socialists and Russian Communists?
A: Party over country.
6
Trump told the NYT that he envied the loyalty Eric Holder showed President Obama. But what Trump envies, deep down, was how tight a ship President Obama helmed. That is something Trump could never replicate, no matter who was Attorney General.
2
ok, how about some experts' opinions about things that no one disputes: get an expert beautician to figure how much each day it takes to bleach/perm trumps hair...how much time to kee[p a fake tan...how much time to send a tweet...how much time it takes to watch SNL...play golf...etc etc...stuff that is undisputed...then calculate how much time trump works each day. Things have gotten so bad that it is considered 'normal' for the leader of the free world to say 'i'm like really smart, i'm a genius'...trump is making america look foolish
2
The worst and dumbest is not Trump but Republicans obstructing justice.
Grassley is now in the ludicrous position of having issued a criminal complaint against British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, while simultaneously repressing the information that supports Steele’s work. Not one Republican cares to protect the US from a foreign power that hacked our elections, shameful.
6
It only takes a mediocre man to defeat a crooked Democrat.
Better not a crooked Democrat. Believe in the wisdom of the American people.
Seeing the title, I thought you were plugging your autobiography.
Right on point.
For a nuanced approach to Trump instead of Krugman's usual screed I refer all to David Brooks column today.
Seems to me that Trump is the very model of stability compared to Paul "the market will never recover" Krugman or Charles Blow's unhealthy obsession with Trump to the point that he has re-written the same column every week since Trump was elected.
Trump, a stable genius? Sure; stable in his ongoing destruction of 'law and order', at home and abroad; and a genius at lying, which is spewed from his vulgar big mouth flawlessly. And he is never shy in pointing out the supreme idiocy of his genius. A stable fraudster indeed.
1
Corrupt politicians in other times and places have wound up with their heads on pikes. Ours just go on to careers on K Street or Wall Street.
But this current crop of Republicans disgraces not only the Grand Ol' Party and the entire country, but the very idea of public service. They make me pray that Karma is real.
3
THE VERY STABLE GENIUS Blabs loudly and brandishes a Big Button. I agree with Paul Krugman that Trump has done far more to destroy the foundations of the US democracy in less than a year than has ever been done before. Even during the Civil War. In fact, Trump has fanned the fires by supporting members of the KKK and other White Supremacist groups in Charlottesburg BA this past summer. The Neo Nazis were carrying candles while shouting anti Jewish slogans. Then they actually got a boost from Trump, who said there were very fine people on both sides in VA. I'd wondered whether Charlottesburg was not Trump's version of Hitler's Kristallnacht when Jewish businesses were smashed up and banned books burned. For Trump, however, an electronic media blitz replaced the fire. Besides, the Jews in VA were not so readily identiied as in 1938 in Nazi Germany. Trump is very much the Worst and the Dumbest--he and his cronies. The British survived the German Blitzkrieg. But I wonder whether the US will survive Trump's Blitzkrieg on the government, wrecking one department of the government after the next. Zinke is determined to contaminate the US and the rest of the world. DeVos will no doubt do more to advance the Dumbing Down of the American mind. She will lead by example. The tax overhaul is a budget buster, increasing the national debt by between $1.5 and $2.6 trillion over the next decade. And Trump wants Mueller to submit his questions for review before they meet. NEXT!
2
The extreme right and unfeathered wealth have a winning card in this V.S.G. He proves that real democracy doesn't work, that government is stupid (and a stupid idea), and that facts and principles don't really matter. Unless the country addresses and eviscerates using thought and reason the underlying current that makes this monstrosity possible, we have a rough ride into the future.
Trump may be the dumbest, but Stephen Miller is the worst since Bannon left. His performance on CNN was twice as scandalous as the usual Trumpian diatribe: just as incoherent and dishonest as anything his mentor could produce. Please, General Kelly, get rid of this guy. Then hold on to Trump a little longer until Pence flies the coop (or crawls off the boat, whatever.)
1
Wolf's book is on about the same level as the National Enquirer. The only people who are questioning Trump's sanity are those who voted for Clinton. Maybe Krugman can get a job with the Clinton Foundation once he retires from the Times--if they all haven't gone to jail by then.
All of the reaction to the self-aggrandising, tweeting, and questioning the President's state of mind serves to distract from the decimation of our natural resources, the EPA, the CDC and the FDA, not to mention the State Department and the FCC. Trumpeteers have no idea. Talk to your Trumpeteer friend at a barbecue and he will tell you all is well because there are jobs and the stock market is up. If you mention the decimation of Escalante he will stare blankly and return to his corn on the cob.
2
Not the most upsetting article I've read about Herr Trump lately, but... That's another $10 to the Democratic Party.
What's that word again? . . . . Kakistocracy?
I think VSG doth protest too much.
I believe it was Forrest Gump quoting his mother saying "Stupid is as stupid does." I feel Trump meets this criteria for judging his mental capacity. The Daily Show is making a living exposing his conflicting statements as caught on video. It reminds me of the parent, when I was teaching, who denied it was her child when shown the very clear video of her child's misbehavior. He won't be around when future generations have to clean up his messes, unfortunately I will.
1
Dark days are ahead of us and this will make Putin and Xi happy to see American's decline under this clown and his cohorts.
Whatever Trump says, you can trust to be completely wrong. So considering that Trump says his Cabinet has the highest IQ of any, ever, and that he has not only "a very good brain," but is "a stable genius," it confirms that Trump is a certifiable dolt in the company of dopes.
1
Operation Restore America 2018 – It's time for the majority of us who do not support the idiot President nor his idiotic administration of, by, and for the 1% to get involved. In 2018, we will need to vote for representatives who will restore our self-esteem, our place in the world, and who can tell the difference between fact and lies. They will need to fix the parts of the Affordable Care Act that are not working, reverse the unnecessary tax cuts for the already rich, reverse our horrible immigration policy, and work to repair our broken infrastructure. They must prepare us for the inevitable climate changes that will affect a huge segment of our neighbors. I will vote for the best candidate who will agree to get us back on track. Enough of this idiocy!
And I am an old white male. Just turned 70.
1
Trump's running an Ad Agency and the product promoted: Trump. The "very stable genius" hogwash is slogan. It's product maneuver or should I say manure. Using "Very" adds emphasis. "Stable" covers the safety angle. "Genius" adding extraordinary to mix. This man addicted to the sell. An innocuous premise as long as you keep walking past the tent. A long, remorseful, painful lesson if you don't...........
The Opinions of Krugman and Blow are predictably hostile towards Trump and Republicans.
Their recurring diatribes are mind numbing rather than thought provoking.
The "Publisher's" note praised the free exchange of different shades of Opinion which is conspicuously absent.
1
I don't know Paul , the stock market up to recored heights , employment down to record levels , ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq and north korea is talking to south korea again plus regulations are cut big time, maybe the USA needed a V.S.G. after all
19
If you believe Mr. Trump played any significant role in any of these, then you are part of the problem--except perhaps for the North Korea thing. They may just have calculated it's not worth dealing with the Mad King.
11
If you are serious, then what you are missing is the grand reaping (an ultimate raping) of the benefits created by the federal government. It really amounts to myopic greed, which can be stated, "As long as I have more money in the market, and a job, I could care less about what Washington does." I do not believe that most Trump supporters consist of those left behind. Rather, most of them are spoiled, selfish and either don't realize or refuse to realize all that government does to make their almighty dollar so valuable, make their lives generally safe and secure (usually with more security and freedom than in nearly every other country). I submit that, for those folks, they won't be convinced until the see the crumbling of their first-world status. The extreme wealth of the United States' society will compensate for incompetence in government only for so long. I submit that, for most Republicans in government, their plan is to be long gone before the consequences land on their desks. When those do, the G.O.P. will blame others.
13
And the difference between long term and short interest rates has narrowed by a full point from Jan to Dec of 17.
Trump knows who his voters are, and he's focused on keeping them happy. As long as the economy keeps booming, the Republicans should do fine in 2018 and 2020.
The continual outrage on the left is soothing background music to Republicans. It shows that he is getting the job done.
As far as 'the worst and the dumbest' goes, Republicans don't see that. Trump's appointees are their people, doing their jobs. And for liberals who remember the Kennedy years, the 'best and the brightest' were the liars and idiots who brought us Vietnam - not much better than the people Trump surrounds himself with.
26
Well, thanks for self-identifying as among the "dumbest" and also letting us know that you "don't see" what is right in front of you.
Sigh - it will be up to the rest of us to rescue "the dumbest" from themselves and get this country back on track after the damage done by the worst administration ever with ongoing help from deplorable Republicans.
And by the way, it wasn't the "Kennedy years" that brought us Vietnam. But you would actually need to do some reading to know that.
6
Your statement, "And for liberals who remember the Kennedy years, the 'best and the brightest' were the liars and idiots who brought us Vietnam" is wrong on the face of it. John Kennedy inherited an Eisenhower-launched intervention of stepping in when the French left Viet Nam. It was Johnson who fully scaled up the US disaster. Had Kennedy not been assassinated, his record of learning from the legacy of mistakes he inherited suggests a high probability that he would have seen strategic folly that was Viet Nam and had the courage to end it. A particular example, Kennedy inherited the Bay of Pigs planned invasion from Eisenhower. Kennedy stopped its full execution when the wrongness became evident and then took responsibility for the debacle, That's when we had a real leader as president.
As important, Kennedy's widespread and deep popularity with the American people and his depth of understanding of American history offered him the political strength that Johnson lacked. Johnson knew the wrongness of the war, but lacked the Kennedy competencies needed to end it. And, then, of course, Nixon did his best to sabotage the war-ending efforts that Johnson launched so that Nixon could destroy Humphrey's candidacy and then claim credit for ending the disaster that he helped extend.
6
>Yet stocks are up, the economy is growing and we haven’t gotten into any new wars.
A quibble: The first word in that sentence should be the last.
"Stocks are up, the economy is growing and we haven’t gotten into any new wars yet."
1
You're sick with hatred, Paul and it's affecting your judgment. You don't recognize a Master Persuader in Trump. Better get and read "Win Bigly" by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and self-styled "Ultra Liberal" who correctly predicted Trump would win both the nomination and the Presidency at a 98% probability level. Not an accident. He understands Master Persuaders---he's independently wealthy because he recognized it in Steve Jobs and invested heavily in Apple, early. We know how that has turned out. Scott deeply understands persuasion. I didn't vote for Trump but he has done more in one year than the last three did in four years. Stocks are up over 5,000 points. Growth is pushing 3%. Trillions will come back as a result of the tax plan AND tens of thousands are being paid bonuses by their corporations. Wake up and smell the coffee.
http://blog.dilbert.com/2018/01/02/president-trump-changed-imagination/
http://blog.dilbert.com/2018/01/03/president-trumps-nuclear-button-tweet...
Paul, I hope that you enjoy your rising stock values while nuclear warheads multiply, oil spills onto all U.S. shores, loyal and productive workers are sent back to countries where they no longer belong, healthcare becomes less available, petulance is considered presidential, and cynicism rules over most of the federal government. Mr. Krugman's judgement is not impaired; yours is. He has documented everything that he says.
Add to Trump’s crimes the depraved deportation of 200,000 innocent El Salvadoran refugees who have been here since 2001.
Shut down the government of a corrupt President and those who tolerate his crimes to rob the treasury and cripple the weakest. End the cruelty. No government, until government for the people is restored.
2
As Margret Thatcher said, "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t. –" Substitute, VSG aka "very stable genius " for "being powerful." There you have it, in all of its pathetic best. Unfortunately, pathetic best has the power of the presidency.
1
Kakistocracy, y'all. Look it up.
Of course Dr. Krugman is right -- Trump is a mentally unstable, ignorant man who is as able to lead this great country as Donald Duck is to win the Triple Crown. He is surrounded by sycophants who are on video kowtowing to him, in a frankly sickening display. He has no intelligent, capable men or women on his cabinet, because no one of any caliber with the most minimal degree of human decency will have anything to do with him.
But Trump's base remains loyal for one reason -- they see themselves in him. He mirrors their hatred of others they see as less entitled to call themselves Americans. He represents them quite well, because he is who they are.
The qualities that draw them to him are exactly those qualities they have themselves -- hypocrisy, dishonesty, bigotry, anti-Semitism, xenophobia. And of course these same qualities are reflected in his Cabinet and his other "advisors".
Dr. Krugman and many other fine journalists here have described Trump's failings in exquisite detail. We know the man is a dangerous tyrant, surrounded by people whose daily mission is to prevent him from starting a nuclear war.
But what is needed along with these assessments of Trump is an honest assessment of Trump voters. And to do so, we need look no farther than Trump himself.
5
... he has wreaked havoc with the government’s competence and his party doesn’t want you to know if he’s a foreign agent."
Putin (with Xi Jinping clapping in the background) is the true genius here. With one election, he has achieved the goal of America's enemies everywhere; an isolationist United States, facing domestic upheaval, with the crumbling of its democratic institutions.
Bannon was right. This is treason at the highest levels of government.
1
Krugman and his ilk despise real measurable economic growth, especially when it is masterminded by one of the great business minds of this era, one Donald J.Trump. The Trump economy is about to burst like a river over flowing and the prophet of doom Krugman could not be more angry. The fact is Trump is well on his way to doubling Obama's anemic GDP numbers as he deregulates businesses, slashes tax rates for people (including corporations) and opens up America's energy reserves which have been laying dormant under the failed socialist Obama regime. Elections have consequences. America voted. Get over it.
And can we say again, Thanks Comey.
Oh gosh, just look forward to the future when this pimple of a 'president' has long popped (hasn't he already, for most of us?).
And let the next 3 years just stream by; you know, as we do every night via the internet, mindlessly (mostly), as we do, appropriately enough.
Sort of the way we ignore the ranting guy or gal at the Greenville, NC, bus station waiting to board the bus to NYC; or the high dude in line at the Safeway in every state of the nation.
We can get over this 'president' just the same.
See you in the Brave New World of 2020. Looking forward to it.
Happy New Year.
"a tornado destroyed his employment records" is sheer brilliance. Gone forever are "my dog ate my homework" and "I was absent because I had to go to my grandmother's funeral." Instead, let us all be thankful to climate change which is at the very heart of employment-record destruction. No doubter will tangle with that excuse. I can hear the Very Stable Genius commiserating with the poor wretch. Unless, of course, Sloppy Steve Bannon was that very same tornadic tormenter of federal employment records. Sad!
1
Not affected regular people in this country? Medical bills go up and immigrrants are deported and little effect on daily life? Maybe not yours and not mine, but many many of "us" are seriously affected
The title says it all...I don't think you have to read this wonderful piece by Paul Krugman to know who this is about.
2
Let's just say if I were younger I would leave this wretched country for one with a better way of life.
When he referred to himself as a "stable genius" I thought he was just trying to tell us that he's the smartest horse in the barn.
When it comes to the currently reigning ruling world supreme "self-made" "stable genius" it is clear that 65 year old Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is by the smartest, wisest, toughest and enduring of them all. While the worst and dumbest leaders are the heads of the Democratic Party who masterfully delivered the Oval Office of the White House to Donald John Trump.
1
Actually, the electoral system delivered the Oval Office to Trump. Hillary won the popular vote, as did Gore a few elections ago. Seems as if the majority does not rule.
@nativetex
Actually the only popular vote that matters in our divided limited power Constitutional republic of 50 sovereign united states plus the District of Columbia is the vote in each state. We have 50 separate state elections. We do not have a national election. We have a republic not a democracy. Thus the 2.5 million vote majority that Hillary won in California did not count in any other state.
Seems that you and many others don't understand our Constitutional framework for Presidential elections.
1
Trump... plastics... inequality... prejudice... greed... war... fear... indifference... ignorance... These and other toxins threaten our very existence. Yet Republicans, who wield unchecked power, have abdicated their responsibility to eliminate or at least ameliorate those harbingers of doom. The world -- the planet and its people -- can't take much more. I'm not sure Mr. Krugman's assessment is entirely correct: two centuries of greatness won't necessarily inoculate America against what appears to be a pandemic. The dominance of Imperial Rome lasted 1500 years (only 500 under the Republican era) before it disintegrated. The Greek empire endured for about 350 years. The British empire extended arguably from the 1490s through the end of World War II. The Egyptians, Ottomans and Macedonians suffered similar fates after extended periods of greatness. In comparison, America is still in its infancy and, like infants, is still learning to navigate the world. By historical standards, we're not doing very good job. Time is short. Government officials (especially Republicans) need to fulfill their responsibilities, not their personal aspirations. They're not stupid. They're weak. Democrats need to exert themselves, stop equivocating, show strength, take control rather than aspiring to it. Or America just might join other great nations on the scrap hear pf history.
"Yet stocks are up, the economy is growing and ...."
Before your current run as a bloviation unit for the nytimes, I recall that you used to be an economist . So if Trump is such a mad dunce how do you explain the amazing Trump economy. (A wonkish reply is acceptable, even preferred.)
I was taught that "A" people hire "A" people but "B" people hire "C" (or lower) people and so on down the line so they will not be challenged or have their flaws exposed. The current President surely proves this to be a truism.
Characteristically great stuff -- but it would be even stronger if you could resist the lure of demonizing Putin. A "hostile power?" Yes, how dare those Russians put their country right up against all our military bases encircling it!
1
Fascinating, the people you denigrated and pigeon holed as fools and novices are now the competent. Obama is being exposed for what he was and is a venal, bigoted, self serving social climber who used the US system and victim-hood to advance a flawed agenda and undermine minority rights and opportunities.
President Trump may be, if you are correct, all you say. He does, however, point up the disgrace and anti US Obama administration and the decline of human freedom and values under his presidency.
Perhaps "The Worst and the Dumbest" describes Trump's base, or the GOP sycophants, and for the past year I would have included Trump in that same category, but he is running the WH the very same way he ran his campaign, and he is further from being removed from office than at anytime during the previous year. He has gone from a GOP pariah to the recognized head of the party of treason and sedition; Lindsey Graham is only the latest one time principled GOP Party member to suddenly realize he must now bow before Zod, I mean Trump, and the Trump acolytes only grow by the day.
Therefore, we may be governed by the "Worst and the Dumbest," I respectfully now exclude Trump from that group.
I was going to Flag my own comment, but boring and uninteresting wasn't a choice.
Glad to see the professor has a sense of humor. If only the joke wasn't so dark.
VSG indeed.
2
Again media are behind the curve; they continue looking back to Nixon and or McCarthy for answers to Trump's actions. WRONG! Go further back in time to recall Benito Mussolini, IL Duce. He was also considered a clown, braggadocio who even went so far as taking shirt off to show his physique. But clown he was not rather a brutal, egotistical, intelligent, conniving and intimidating sort, that knew exactly what he was doing to his party as does Trump and to his and this nation.
In each instance dangers abound with both cult like figures by minions going too great lengths of ignominy to please. And now modern day media's amnesiac for history of the world's bad leaders (acting badly) have given GOP leaders opportunity to treat uninformed electorate as sheep. Don't blame the Wolf for being itself when given opportunities to do so.
The conclusion of this essay presumes too casually the horrific pile-up in the collision below. of column after column, pediment after pediment of the nation's greatness shattered by a vindictively ignorant brat upstairs in the Executive Mansion. But at least it names the Party whose corruption is now so absolute, it cannot resist his charm.
Chuck Grassley and Lindsay Graham are who worry me far more than Trump these days. Graham's wild-eyed, dry-mouth ranting on Meet the Press Sunday scared the heck out of me. I once thought he was somewhat reasonable, but maybe he needs McCain by his side to appear that way.
“...Obama, frustrated at lacking the political skills to garner enough Republican support to get legislation passed”
Only those in a coma forget Mitch McConnell’s “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one term president.”
If those who forgot weren’t in a coma...
Could it be .... mere ideological self interest? Naaaaa
1
Bingo, Dr. Krugman!
When the GOP hijacked legitimate nominee Merrick Garland's Supreme Court seat for the pretender Neil Gorsuch their true nature was revealed. Such sleazy tactics are now their standard operating procedure.
"Yet stocks are up, the economy is growing...". Yes indeed. And at one time the Hindenburg was up as well. The environment and all our precious resources are basically our seed corn and we're eating it fast as we can...
Donald Trump is the greatest bonanza ever for the Republican party, the party which continually demonstrates its obeisance to capitalists and its contempt for the working class. To cite just a couple of examples, just compare the Republicans' behavior in passing a tax bill that enriches (essentially) only the extremely wealthy, to their antagonism to the CHIP bill which used to benefit the health of the nation's children who were not born rich. Consider the Republican position on the national debt which, they have no compunction about raising through the ceiling in order to benefit the wealthy, but which they use as an excuse for not funding much needed maintenance and improvements to our infrastructure. In fact, the most significant condemnation of the Republican-led House and Senate, is that they have passed so few bills, as if the only problem the country has is how to further foster plutocracy. Yes, this president whom we fear might start a nuclear holocaust who, on a daily basis, deflects the news away from the horrible actions and inactions of the Republican party is their impermeable raincoat, protecting it from the scorn of public opinion that it deserves.
...but, mainly the Worst. What? Wait. Is there a word that is worse than worst? "Yeah", replied the rhetorical answer, "execrable, and every other synonym of it including, worst. Look 'em up.
This and Brook's latest effort at making some kind of sense out of Washington are giving this reader (and light drinker) a thumping hangover. At this rate we'll soon we'll be reading all the nonsense coming out of the White House really was fake news all along and all is copacetic. Either that or the powers that be really can put lipstick on a pig and call it sweetheart.
Whew!! Up until the tweet about his IQ I was one very worried person. Now I feel so much better knowing we have an intelligent and rock solid leader in the White House. I will sleep better, dance like Fred Astaire, sing like Tony Bennett and live each like it was my last...
Great article. I feel sorry for your country.
It's always refreshing to turn from David Brooks to Paul Krugman. I feel as if I've just taken a long shower after the oleaginous prose that seems like Brooks is rejecting Trumpism but is really just covering it over.
Thanks, Dr. Krugman.
What I don't get is why giving the 1% another small x% of money is worth trashing the norms of civilized society that built the magnificent framework which the 1% flourished in. Is that all the Republican party is now? Apres moi, le deluge indeed.
As the economy improves under a Republican president, things couldn't be worse for Paul Krugman.
Growth over 3%
The stock market at all-time highs
Unemployment near historic lows
Consumer confidence at all-time highs
Business sentiment, near record highs
Housing markets rebounding strongly
Tax rates going down
Regulations, slashed
These are all things that could not have happened when his hero, Barack Obama was in office.
The problem for Krugman is easy to see--he is about to watch--as all of his Progressive economic theories ares exposed for what they are--utter hogwash. We are about to witness the greatest renaissance in American history under the guidance of conservatives--and Krugman knows the ideas he has been preaching for 20 years--that governo-centric ideas work best for everyone, is about to be smashed to smithereens.
We now have a pro-business, free-enterprise loving president--and the positive results are becoming more apparent every day. What is a guy like Krugman to do? Simple--engage in distraction, name-calling and obfuscation.
What is Krugman really saying in this piece--and every column he as written for the past year? "Pay no attention to the growing, vibrant economy behind the curtain--pay no attention to how much your 401k has grown--or how much more you have in your paycheck".
With every angry, vitriolic drop of ink...Krugman roots against the success of his own country. Its economic treason at its worst.
1
This last great "exhale" by old white men living in the past will see that breath blown far, far away in the midterms, and even more so in 2020. Women, minorities, the young, and anyone with a conscience will wipe this off our history books. Then the rebuilding can begin.
I wonder what Trump/Russians have over republicans. The RNC was hacked to you know.
All great countries and empires come to an end (usually from the inside). It is now America's turn, thanks to IQ45. We had a good run for over 200 years, but look to China to become the new "power" in the world.
I had to stop reading at “Third, the White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn’t tweet.” C’mon David...let’s get real. There’s no evidence of a more professional WH and the reality is Trump tweets day and night. As a columnist you should know better than most that words have power whether they appear in a tweet or the NYT. If the WH was more professional they’d take away his phone and then we wouldn’t have to imagine a non-tweeting Trump.
"Mediocre" would be a complement, an elevation, for tRump. He is the bottom of the barrel, completely irredeemable, as are those who still support him. You can always judge a person by the company he/she keeps.
It's hard to blame the Mad Hatter for his madness. It's his handlers, of course, who carry the blame of leading our country down this slimy rabbit hole edged with razor blades, they who stand by gleefully rubbing their hands together at the happy prospect of ramming through one awful (but beneficial to them) policy after another. I imagine even they are in awe of how easily so many Americans have been duped. America used to known as a country full of plain-spoken regular folks with common sense and uncanny ability to spot a fraud. Where is Will Rogers when you need him?
The best part of all the winning is all the whining from the echo chambers, the salons of the superior and the churches of latter day liberals. And guess what? Unless all hands row in unison, the next occupant will be a similar personage - wealthy, televised, full of slonganeering, short on substance and long on ego - be that person orange, black, male, female or confused. So die-hards, forget about lefty policy wonks, crypto-socialists, nice-guy septuagenarians, flame-throwing proto-fascists or Algonquin fakirs. Nope. Better to remove oneself from the circuses. All of you are tools and vote your passions, left and right. Instead we take advantage of your loopholes, we include or exclude as we see fit, we hire family. We give credit and don't seek payment from our neighbors; we charge the citidiots treble. Every time the carpetbaggers give up, the family real estate lowballs their property, finds a straw buyer and puts it in the family land trust. Government and it's enforcers? Annoyances. And generally useless. So much so that when the bridge went down across the stream - a town responsibility - government couldn't hire contractors due to "budget constraints" -- read that as too many salaries for too few employees. Our family enterprises offered to rebuild it on one condition; and now, we own that bridge, the access road to it, and 500 feet stream frontage on each side. Now that's what we call "MAGA"!
The transformation of the Republican Party into a looting machine for billionaires and a stalking horse for a warped, demented, semi-literate, corrupt, would-be strongman is America's tragedy. The media's focus is rarely prolonged on the substantive issues or intense, as headlines pay attention to the Oscars, the Me Too movement, the threat from North Korea, and the smoke-screen of self-serving lies, false accusations, and bogus claims from Trump and his allies. Meanwhile, the black propaganda of Fox News - Hannity and company - rolls on, with a captive audience of 40% of America's voters. Tragedies such as the denial of entry to refugees on the Trump Administration's blacklist of countries (when lives could be saved through medical treatment in the US) are dwarfed by the looming forcible expulsion of 200,000 Salvadoreans in America under the TPS. Neither they, nor the 40,000 Haitians, nor the Nicaraguans, whose lives have been over-turned, have advocates. And in Puerto Rico, American citizens endure shortage of safe drinking water and electricity months after the hurricane. The environment is being fouled and despoiled, voting rights are being restricted, and state assemblies are controlled through gerrymandering (Virginia) no matter how large a swing against the Republicans. This is an American nightmare!
The fact that Paul Ryan has disgraced the office of speaker yet again by being a spineless empty suit is of no surprise. He and his political twin, McConnell , are both a disgrace to this country.
1
45 said when bannon lost his job, he 'lost his mind'. bannon replied that he was still in full support of 45.
for once, 45 is correct.
You forgot his predilection to a dozen of Diet Coke during his early morning tweets. It seems that these chemicals in the Diet Coke empowers the V.S.G. in him.
I've been thinking for a while that "The Worst and the Dumbest" would make a great title for a book about the Trump administration. Looks like great minds think alike.
1
Only a Democratic landslide in November can stop this madman.
Nope, he is an uninformed tyrant - read his twitter feed.
Civil discourse is sadly lacking on both sides of just about every issue facing our country. Ad hominem attacks such as this, from a Nobel Prize winner no lass, are increasingy tiresome and in no way helpful.
You don’t have to be a mental health professional to have realized that Trump is an extremely dangerous character, a psychological distorted personality, a cognitively impaired man, in full denial, and with the unilateral power to start a nuclear holocaust that could destroy civilization. The news in Wolff’s book is that Trump’s own inner circle and his Republican enablers in Congress, who vouch for him every day, essentially share that opinion, albeit, on the down-low. So why do they posture and pretend otherwise? Because the Trump presidency presents the likes of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan with a historic opportunity, the chance to make the counterrevolution Republicans have been carrying out for decades irreversible through laws, executive orders, and judicial decisions irreversible. The right-wing is seeking is to erase a historical transformation begun by FDR, a revolution of rights for those who had been second-class citizens and social programs ensuring the vulnerable a minimal level of well-being:
To obliterate all that and make America great again for bigots and plutocrats Republicans are willing to deal with the devil or a mad president.
It’s not just Trump but Nunez, Ryan, Fox News and a Republican Party, tied to the values and mentality of the Confederate party.
Agree with everything except your final paragraph's conclusion:
" We spent more than two centuries building a great nation, and even a very stable genius probably needs a couple of years to complete its ruin."
The ruin didn't start with Trump. It's not just a matter of two years. It's 37 years and counting. The real rot set in exactly 37 years ago with Supply-Side-Economics, S&L crashes, Mike Milken's LBOs (forerunner of derivatives), the Iran-Contra scandal, mass surveillance (predecessor of the Patriot Act), invasion of defenceless Grenada, the shooting down of an Iran airliner with 290 civilians on board, massive increase in the U.S. prison population and clear discrimination against minorities, ignoring the AIDS epidemic till it was too late, the globally unpopular bombing of Libya designed to 'show muscle', ........
While it may make intellectuals like Professor Krugman 'feel good' to see Trump as a wild 'aberration', I see him as a natural continuation of 37 years of rot.
The Sixties and Seventies suddenly seem so far away ........
1
All sadly true. How do you get through to people who think praising the VSG (Very Stupid Guy) in office is normal? What kind of people are they, these Republicans like Ryan, McConnell, Pence, et al? The kind that the "base" wanted. I shudder to contemplate them all.
There really is no cure for stupid and we have a nation of very stupid people who think being brainwashed is the same as being informed. Question anything? No, that makes you part of the "liberal elite!" So incredibly dumb to think that way, but there we are.
Unless the Democrats can EDUCATE the people who voted for the VSG by connecting the dots about who he really is and what they are all really doing (and so far that seems to have failed) it won't matter what Mueller finds. Trump will pardon himself and everyone else and go along with the Tea Party and oligarchs as long as he has his cheeseburgers and Twitter account. The rest of us need Paul K and the NYT, but we could use 100 more like them.
Get behind Steyer, folks. He is being a brave man. Resist. Speak up, speak out. Oprah (who is wonderful) isn't the answer. They would just shoot her "accidentally" in short order. The answer is in the hands of those who comment here in support of Krugman (and others.) If that's you, don't just sit there and read, do something now!
I only hope that voters remember how horrible this bunch of thieves is. V.S.G. in chief is the worst person we could have at this moment in time. We need someone who knows stuff and is, like, really smart. Someone who doesn't antagonize tyrant with nuclear weapons would be a good thing. Devin Nunes. Can we please get rid of him and get this whole show on the road. Robert Mueller, bless his heart, enough already with the deliberateness and the poker face. Can you please bury this guy so we can go on with our normal live again. BTW, how does a guy like Mnuchin sleep at night? A pox on all of them. V.S.G. was a funny clown when he was running around NYC with all the hook ups. Now, not so funny.
Sociopathic billionaires have hired the talent necessary, over the last few decades, to install a Congressional Republican majority that consists almost entirely of sociopathic servants who consistently do the bidding of their wealthy masters. They have systematically disinformed the deplorables who elected them. Nothing is beneath them. Expect nothing moral or virtuous from them. They cannot be persuaded or negotiated with or expected to do the right thing, ever. If we don't defeat them soundly, our republic and likely the world, are lost.
1
The VSG is the canary in the GOP coal mine, whose collapse is the best we can hope for ---
Can someone without horse sense be a stable genius?
1
Tyrants come and tyrants go, replaced by successor tyrants. In the past, alas, democracies rarely come and never last.
Something there is that doesn’t like democracy, that scatters freedom hither and thither, leaving gaps where even tyrants can enter two abreast. Something there is – our selfish, our lazy, our ignorant and xenophobic, our citizens.
1
Dr. Krugman if ever Trump and his protectors in the Republican Party like that despicable Paul Ryan finally destroy whatever democracy we have left and turn America into a one party ruled nation, it will be with the full approval and idiocy of the many Americans who participated in our downfall. This is where the real problem lies.
And now through an utter lack of anything resembling imagination, there is a call for another billionaire to keep the seat warm at 1600 Penn. Trumpism is a cancer that keeps metastasizing.
Trump made an improbable--and greatly overstated--amount of money in the private sector over years of dirty tricks and chicanery. He thinks that makes him smart.
1
So I was kind of hoping Trump would sue Wolfe for libel or whatever (perhaps insulting his majesty, who knows these days?), and really carry through with it...his vanity would demand satisfaction. So he would have to pass a mental competency test to prove that claim false, no? That might be amusing.
PS: someday they will make a movie of all this, and now, Professor, they are going to have to call it "The Worst and the Dumbest". No other title will do.
V.S.G.
I think we've found our handle for the dope.
Use often till it catches on.
And drives him nuts.
THank you for spelling it out so well.
THe vindictiveness of this administration,
the maliciousness.....all this untoward activity
towards malicious ends. It is appalling.
Many may disagree with me.
JFK was in command. But he handled the Cuban missile crisis extremely well, even so far as to say he prevented a nuclear holocaust.
If LBJ weren't "in command" the Vietnam war wouldn't have gone the way it did. McNamara would have handled a lot better, perhaps very well.
GHW Bush was in command. He had good assistants. He handled about everything well; he even raised marginal tax by 3%; sent forces to Somalia to save hundreds of thousand lives, after he was defeated!
Then Bill Clinton handled everything well. He solved the Balkan crisis superbly without a single US combat death, and ended the Serbian carnage of the Muslims.
Bush II was mere bluster, lazy & disengaged. His VP & others only added to the problem. It was a disastrous administration.
Prez Obama was too controlling. True he got us ACA, which is great. But he wrecked Syria, about completely, with his inaction, & mishandling. If he had given Kerry & the generals more leeway, as Prez Trump is doing, both Syria & Iraq would have been far, far better - just because Bush II created ISIS, Obama had the responsibility to put out the fire.
If the tax-cut law weren't passed, Trump could get a pass, even a b+. After the Syria bombing, no horrific footage of carnage from Syria! Even Trump had little to do with it, I would give him credit.
1
In order to feel bad about the demise of your government, you have to learn a little something about what it does for you. And you have to tune out the programmed propaganda from the Republicans and their in-the-chickencoop
Fox network. But Is it too much for this country to listen to truth when it is called “fake news” by the VSG in the White House? Sadly, billions have been bet that it is. The uninformed electorate simply offers much more profit.
I would presume that V.S.G.'s presidential library will still be housed in a telephone booth, I mean how much does a genius need to read?
My guess is that Mueller is doing a good job, which means he's finding other Republicans knew about Russia's interference and for the sake of election victory, they turned a blind eye - including Kevin McCarthy, and mafioso Paul Ryan ("keep in in the family") - as NYTimes reported: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/kevin-mccarthy-donald-tru...
If Mueller is seeing complicit members of the GOP, then wouldn't they be in trouble? - Jeff Sessions, Nunes, Ryan and McCarthy? So now, the GOP is on the attack. Maybe there's a reason why Boehner left, and many other Republicans are retiring next year... They know something is rotten in the party; and now only a self-selected vile group is left as half-decent (or one-quarter-decent) GOP members leave.
Every remedy necessary is available and at hand -- but the Right people would rather pretend all is yooge and bootiful never ever better ever. O! What it must be to be in Mr. Trump's stifling presence!
I want my tombstone to say "He was a very stable genius. Just like the Kardashians".
And yet perhaps 35 or 40 percent of the electorate think that President Trump is doing a good job, or say (and vote) that way to thumb their noses at the rest of us. Still they think this. They will continue to think this. It is just as likely that Mr. Trump wins a second term as it is that he doesn't complete his first.
Who is dumber, the Dumbster-in-Chief or the nation that puts him in office? This is our fault. We must make sure we learn from it.
Rufus T Firefly said :
Clear? Huh! Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it.
Somehow we are all in the (duck) soup now.
With the Kremlin looking out for our best interests, what could possibly go wrong?
And we (the people) have until November 2018 to encourage and exercise our right & responsibility to be the final checks & balances.
Finally. Finally. Finally.
In carpenters' language: V.S.G.' s bubble is not centered.
And yet with all of this there is still a question about who will hold Congress in 12/18.
The "people" are so dumb it's breath-taking.
The words 'you get the government you deserve' ring loudly in my ears.
1
Idiots everywhere love Trump and his band of meritless hanger-ON's. Can the republic survive insipidness, untruthfulness and outright subversion? The GOP are corrupt beyond explanation and carelessly go along with Trump without pause. Citizenship is out-the-door as civic responsibility disappeared entirely without a whimper or alternative. It is now every person for themselves mostly because the power of the GOP and White House is so dangerously totalitarian. Time to slip-out the back Jack, and find a sandy beach in a warm setting. The New York Times said yesterday that Anguilla, British Caribbean was nice and sedate.
The fact that Trump would use human beings as a bargaining tool to build a wall that excites only him makes me realize we are now in the gutter.
Paul Krugman has never impressed me. His theory of monetary and fiscal probity is a joke.
This time is different. We agree here.
I'd go further. I cannot imagine worse. We had a perfect storm in November. I held my nose and voted for Bill Safire's Congenital Liar. Her husband is a sick man, and we have spoken. The Clintons are friends with friends of ours. And I have dealt with President Clinton, who did a pretty good job. He failed at moral leadership.
And this is what we ask for a president. We are short changed more often than not. We have not been doing all that well lately.
But this time it's different, categorically.
President Trump is simply unsuited for public service... by his matter and his temperament. We can disagree on policy, but we should not disagree on simple face.
When faced with a pathological liar and a social misfit, what is the voter to do.
We have had our share. Donald Trump makes the worst of them look good.
What is the affect on our grandchildren when a president lies all the time?
What do we tell children when the man brags about groping and then lies about bragging... with his pasty faced liar in tow, her husband a a firm we know well in Wall Street. Tons of talent there. I cannot speak to ethic. Or I can, but I shall not.
I ask that our leadership represent us in a manner that makes us proud, not ashamed.
I cannot think of a single word from President Trump's mouth that makes me proud.
Not one.
2
Melania seems nice. So we have that.
72
Melania, an immigrant, could have a voice for the thousands of immigrants being extirpated by her husband's policies, and even those who helped build their empire. The latest affected would be those from El Salvador.
Nice, I don't think so.
4
Stockholm syndrome.
Either that or she's not nice.
2
Matt S.,
It's wearying to even ponder whether the spouse of an irrational, dangerous man "seems nice." One must ask how any person, nice or nasty, can live under the same roof with him. It's difficult being in the same country. It's exhausting being on the same planet. But we may not have to worry about the country or the planet much longer; the devolution wheels are rolling and the crass GOP is raking in the dollars/rubles; the rest of us will be sending our kids to the Middle East or N. Korea or wherever these fools decide to invade.
Krugman is writing too frequently. Little that he says is new or surprising, but he continues the same old, same old. The idea that celebrity Oprah will save us from celebrity Trump makes me want to cry. Our political institutions have evolved in a bad way over the past 50 years, giving ever more power to corporations and the most wealthy. We have the never ending wars that Orwell wrote about, the insistence that whatever our controllers say must be true (Orwell again) and the idea that fomenting racial and class hatred will help the country (help it split apart?) are serious problems.
We need far more than a different president and marked restriction of his/her powers.
Can marching women, ordinary women, get us out of this mess which has been building since the 60s? Krugman, the Clintons, Biden and constant polling definitely cannot help us.
Couldn't agree more. There are NO surprises in Wolff's book, although it's an entertaining read. But the Republican party needs a wake-up call in 2018, I hope America is up for it.
3
S. Stone: it is about power and money for the Republicans. First, they love the power even if they don't know how to use it for "good." And, they love the accumulation of money for when they leave office; each of them will have the benefit of the tax bill and won't care about the deficit. After all, they will be rich and let those who are not fend for themselves. Those who fail to learn from history or doomed to repeat it. All of them should review the history or uncaring rich folk who are brought down by the masses for that very uncaring. Rome died. Russian czardom died. British Empire became greatly diminished and lost its power, etc. The people will rise. Always.
You and I are in agreement, Dr. Krugman; V.S.G. is rapidly tearing our nation and its ideals apart, and the congressional Republicans are doing their best to hurry it along. I don't understand how these (perhaps) once-principled white men can stand to look at themselves each day while they endeavor to undermine Mueller's investigation, and muffle evidence of Russian collusion.
It is stunning to me that men (and a few women) in our government appear to detest the very ideas put forth in our constitution, and the modelling of better behaviors demonstrated by earlier Administrations. They are in our government; but they hate our government, or perhaps they are too greedy and self-serving to envision the outcomes of their actions. Mind-boggling.
5
Hurry up Mr. Mueller if you can.
He is ruining this nation and the world now. His denial of climate change and
the director of the EPA and the Interior Secretary are taking actions to increase
global warming. The "tax cut" bill is far more helpful to the wealthy and
corporations than it is to middle and lower income people. It is time for all
people, Republican and Democrats alike realize that this man is not fit or
capable of being a decent president.
4
And, when it's proven that Trump and his people have been treasonous, have been obstructing justice , and an assortment of other crimes....will these "enabling" politicians like Ryan, McConnel, etc...be charged too, for obstruction of justice ?
Can the whole Republican party be charged ? It's blatantly obvious what some of these people are trying to do, and it sure looks like obstruction to me....
7
Thank you, Paul. Reading your column, gives me a sense of "not alone." Your national view and assessment of VSG is spot on. Hope for minimal damage must be our 2018 mantra.
4
For the love of all that is good and holy, please let us cease immediately the use of the term "very stable genius" and its acronym relative to the 45th President. Even though done in a clearly mocking and belittling way, he will almost certainly point out with pride the number of people who have applied this label to him. Moreover, we risk forever associating with him and subsequently degrading the wonderful and inspiring word “genius” as a result.
4
"Under the Very Stable Genius in Chief, the old rules no longer apply." We are witnessing the very destruction of the infrastructure of civil government and the establishment of an inverted totalitarian state, a plutocratic/theoretic regime. It is embarrassing to be an American and it is questionable whether the U.S. will survive Trumpism!
3
And with all of Trump's pressure to influence Sessions to not recuse himself, he can't influence the IRS to finish the audit of his tax returns so he can share it with the public and prove he has no ties with Russia. In his words "Sad".
3
the economy is not growing until the steel forges/mills are rebuilt and the rest of the infrastructure and manufacturing base is rebuilt.
Otherwise like the stock market its just papers being shuffled by con men looting the money made by people who actually do the work that produces the wealth.
1
The implosion of political norms is affecting not only residents of Puerto Rico, but also everyone who has something less than full citizenship, or is related to, works with, or cares for someone with undocumented status, many of whom are being ripped from their homes or being threatened with this outcome, no matter how "stable" they have been as US residents and no matter how dire the situation to which they may be or have been returned. It is also badly affecting people in need of health insurance.
1
To be realistic about thus: IQ is only one measure of a person. If anyone focuses exclusively on IQ, they are most likely lacking in one or more of the areas that make us complete (e.g. physical, spiritual, emotional quotients). Trump may have a high IQ, but he does not present like a complete person and this debate demonstrates his lack of emotional intelligence.
And, in my observations, the best & brightest don't go to Washington.
But "VSG" seems apt, if cringe worthy and self aggrandizing.
But the self aggrandizing twits create self-aggrandizing fatigue--undermining opposition to self aggrandizing public policy.
He is systematically undermining the checks and balances keeping the country afloat for two centuries--a foolproof form of government--for very good reason--so we thought.
That form is really bureaucracy (MW: "government characterized by specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority") not democracy--certainly not majority rule--which is at least mediocracy if not kakistocracy.
Thus the VSG is pulling off what Bush only hoped for claiming "The Constitution is just a piece of paper."
One by one VSG is pulling its teeth, creating a toothless tiger--all on the way to his bank.
1
As David Brooks wrote today, the problem is not simply the VSG but the "low brow" response to his Presidency. In our adversarial political system we can always expect to be confronted with a new strategy or new tactics from the Right but, as Grant once remarked, "Stop thinking about what Lee is going to do to you and start thinking about what you are going to do to Lee." The anti Trumps have simply had no coherent response to the inchoate challenge which is Trump.
I humbly submit, from the clean air of New Hampshire, what this country needs now is a coherent leader from the Left. Sad to say, I don't think Oprah will rescue us and Bernie, God love him, is simply sputtering, Senator Warren is a voice too breathy, Joe Biden too spent and Obama, apparently unavailable.
Somehow, as Brooks noted, the opposition transmogrifies into its enemy, so David Simon, who created the masterpiece, "The Wire" and must be a true VSG, is reduced to four letter word responses on Twitter and sinks beneath the waves.
Somewhere, in a nation of 320 million, one would think there is somebody willing and able.
Problem is, in the cacophony of the 21st century babble age, we need a pre marketed, famous, household name to be able to contend.
There is no war on to showcase a Grant.
Who among the famous and familiar is out there to save us?
Hopefully, we'll see whoever it is in the snows of New Hampshire in 2020.
2
If we survive this presidency, it will be the GS 1s through GS 17s who will be responsible and they are abandoning ship in frustration. Taking their cue from "he-will-sign-anything-we-put-before-him" McConnell, the Trump Toadies in Congress have abandoned their responsibilities. I had some hope that Corker, Flake, McCain, Graham, Gardner and a few others might keep things on track, but morality and love of country seems to be gone with the wind. The Dems waiting in the wings praying for a November miracle don't give me any hope either. While they are anti-Trump, they don't seem to have a vision of path into the 21st Century. We are plagued on both sides of the aisle with a lack of vision, a lack of problem definition and a lack of willingness to solve problems that have been defined. The only competence being evidenced right now is in obstructionism. Perhaps Mitt Romney, the second coming of George H W Bush, could buy us some time to rebuild while a new generation of public servants, with an emphasis on serving the public, matures.
1
In economics, a bubble is created when there is a market distortion. In a macro sense, a distortion to a normally operating supply and demand relationship that's usually brought on by poorly regulated practices of market operators driven more by greed than honesty and fairness. Like our housing market that was being artificially inflated. Investment bankers didn't have enough supply of mortgage debt to meet the demand they were creating in repackaging that debt into CMOs to sell to under-informed investors looking for a 'safe' way to make better returns than they could get from, for example, government Treasuries. When there's not enough mortgages to run through the 'sausage maker' to turn into CMOs, what do you do? Make it known to mortgage originators with a 'wink and a nod' that you'll buy any mortgage they originate, no matter how dubious the quality. Open the spigot.
Our electoral system also has many 'distortions' currently built into it, driven mostly by the demographics of where different voting blocks live. By design, unequal representation in the Senate, gerrymandering, and especially the electoral college, are all representational distortions. By shear national vote tally, not only should Clinton now be president, but the Congress should also be in democratic hands. If 'one person, one vote' equates to near perfect market transparency, we are sitting on an electoral 'bubble'. And as our demographics change, that bubble grows every year.
2
The unpleasant truth is that today's white non-college educated working class person is not your grandfather's white non-college educated working class person.
Eighty years ago, there were many very intelligent people who did not attend college because of financial circumstances or because of discrimination against their race, religion or gender. Henry George, arguably the most brilliant American economist of the 19th century, left school at age 14. President Harry Truman was not a college graduate.
Today, with many exceptions, someone under the age of forty who was never interested in college probably is not very smart. That could reduce their wages. That also makes them vulnerable to the lies that got Trump elected. Even some with college educations are not able to understand that NAFTA and trade agreements in general increase employment and standards of living and that immigrants are not responsible for slow economic growth.
If any Republican had been elected president, the shift in the tax burden from the rich to the middle class that Warren Buffett describes as having been "a rout" would have likely become the outright massacre that the new tax bill represents. This will not be great for the Congressional Republicans politically. Their prospects would have been much better if no tax bill had been passed, and then they could have run on the issue of "elect us and we will enact a middle class tax cut".."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4134453
2
Dr. Krugman, keep listing the collaborators. This will be important for administering electoral justice in the future.
Ryan and Nunes are near the top of Trump's VSG (Vichy) Government. Hopefully, the voters in their districts will recognize that they are represented by lackeys serving the VSG.
Anyone want to bet on how many books published before 2020 will be subtitled: "I Did it To Protect America"? The over and under on this wager keeps moving up.
Kelley, McMaster, Mattis and Flynn have probably already gotten biographer recommendations from Petraeus. My guess is that they will want a military decoration to pin on their chest for their act of selfless bravery. These collaborators will portray themselves as the "real resistance."
1
If it weren't for the tweets, the Republican majorities in Congress couldn't ask for a better president. Trump has three indispensable traits:
1) He has no interest in policy,
2) He is addicted to flattery and ceremony, and
3) As long as he gets all the credit, he will sign anything that reaches his desk
3
There is little doubt that Trump did not expect to win, but to use the election for free media attention. Having placed himself in a position for which he is not even close to qualified (with the help of 60 million Hillary haters), it is obvious to anyone with even the smallest amount of intelligence that he is applying the "Trump" rules of business (bankruptcy, dishonesty, cheating vendors, pillaging resources) to government while forgetting about the population at hand. The country must appear as one giant Taj Mahal casino to him, with the American public as the suckers whose pockets are to be picked. This is the GOP mantra, so why would the GOP Congress stop him. They created the monster in their own image.
'little effect on daily life'...are you serious? 200K legally admitted Salvadorians; 800K DACA; reductions in visa limits; elimination of visa spouse's level of participation in country; fear and uncertainty to ALL of the above.
Degradation of environmental protections - affects everyone. oh, and access to healthcare etc. yeah after one year, are we true of winning yet?
1
Yes with the spread of the Fox propaganda network we have been split into two waring tribes that have their own separate reality and norms. John Steward had a great stick with pointing out the things Fox news and its partisan hacks attacked a democratic president for but had supported when a GOP president did the same thing. It has all been converted to motivated reasoning rather than critical analysis and reporting. As expected our legislators have been dragged into this because their voters and financiers have.
1
For me, the most appalling takeaway from this past year has been the levels of pure treason the GOP is willing to tolerate to get an oligarchic agenda passed. There are no upright spines here, no scruples, no shame at what is systemically being done to our democracy and its institutions. It is breathtaking! And the Democrats do not seem up to the task of exposing it. KA
1
We should never lose sight of the fact that the V.S.G. was elected by 26.4% of eligible voters--a minority President if there ever was one. He has no mandate--which is just as well since he has no master plan either, just one-off, off-the-top-of-my-head pony tricks.
In 2020 we need to help the 42% of voters who did not vote qualify to vote, despite Republican effort to block them, and drive them to the polls if necessary.
We are suffering the results of political indifference. Turn off your iPhone and tune in!
3
In my opinion the nation is in greater danger of becoming a third-world republic than what most people realize. It is not so much the fact that congress republicans are willing to shield the president regardless what he does, but rather the political-partisan-tribal mentality that is now in place in congress. This is like a contagious disease that can spread to government agencies around the country. Most Americans have not experienced this yet, and therefore will not be able to recognize it until it is too late. What this tribal mentality does is that it increases unnecessary bureaucracy that undermines proses to destabilize the opposite party. These practices are difficult to pinpoint and are very detrimental to the functioning and growth of any modern society. And once they take root on a system, they are very difficult to eradicate. I hope I was able to explain this.
1
So much damage has ben done to the American people the world in 12 months. Civility is held together by a thin golden thread that is so easily torn apart. Politico had an article today about all of the billionaire's who are inching to run for president. Experience, intelligence not needed. Dedication to all of the American people not needed, just money. Trump has shown the way for hatred to thrive, laws that keep our water clean, anything that helps the American people have an outstanding life can be destroyed in a matter of a year. We have seen the enemy it is spineless politicians who care not for the people of this country but for their own pocketbooks.
This is what happens when you cant be so bothered to vote, you find out that all of these elites who went to the best colleges and are so connected via their county club that they are perfect examples of the Peter Principal understanding of the world is not in their collective thought process.
Thank you Paul Krugman for weaving this sad story together for us
Professor Krugman, you have spelled out yet again the DT is the QUINTESSENTIAL Republican president.
There are no surprises in Michael Wolff's book.
You forgot (or had no space) to mention Zinke who is killing National Parks and that guy from Oklahoma, whose name I am repressing, who is destroying our air, food, and water as he destroys the EPA.
Thank you for your shard of hope. Many of us continue to resist.
Republicans and their plutocrat supporters haven't really changed since the 1970's. They got rid of Nixon not because of Watergate, but because he was too liberal. Chomsky called Nixon the last liberal President. Nixon inflation indexed Social Security after giving an across the board 10% increase in it, formed the EPA, OSHA, Clean Water Act, introduced minority quotas for federal contractors, signed the Constitutional Amendment to give 18 year olds the vote, successful mended relations with China, exited Vietnam.
see The Right Wing vs. Nixon, from Time, pre-Watergate.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877188,00.html
1
Isn't it time to admit the Republican Party is officially morally bankrupt? That the sum total of their policies adds up to the transference of capital from the poor to the rich? Under Bush the GOP nearly wrecked the world's economy. It took eight years of the Dems to begin to restore it. I am going to put forth a hypothesis that the people who voted for Donald Trump and the Republican Party are not very smart. (And Betsy DeVos will make sure the dumbing down of America continues). My experience asking people why they voted for Trump is that they think their financial situation somehow resembles his. What they don't understand, but the Dems do, is that the rising tide floats all boats.
This is not the party of Reagan. This is the party of Marie Antoinette.
3
As I read somewhere, Krugman is less accurate than a weatherman. Do the opposite of what he says and you will prosper.
The dumbing down of the Justice Department has been going on for several years now. George W. Bush liked to fire U.S. Attorneys and replace them with young graduates from The Pat Robertson/Jerry Fallwell Schools of Law: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/04/wh... . Many of those young zealots have burrowed in and it is unlikely that the passing years have tempered their contempt for the First Amendment.
1
At some future time, we will look back at the Paul Ryans, Lindsay Grahams, Charles Grassley, and many others, and wonder what might have been different if there had been a few profiles in courage among them. It is truly a shame to see Trump destroy not only the credibility and norms of the presidency, but the careers and good reputations of many others. Yes, they are responsible in large measure for their cowardice and lack of principles, but absent Trump, they might have gone into history as well meaning patriotic Americans and public servants.
Some mediocre presidents had "pleasant" personalities, like Trump's predecessor, but proved to be ineffectual beyond offering aspirational speeches.
Any current Cabinet secretaries using personal servers? Carter had several PH.D. secretaries, but his administration was a shambles from Day 1. As for Clinton's first year ... even the nonsensical Contract with America had resonance.
Yes, Trump is a very limited individual except when it comes to his personal aggrandizement, whether financial or psychological, but why would you suppose that Hillary would have made a better POTUS when she couldn't beat a neophyte senator in 2008 for the party's nomination and would have lost a fair contest against one who isn't even a Democrat in 2016. Then she managed to lose to the current incumbent. Oh yes, you would have played Hamilton to her GW. Really? You haven't had anything useful to say about economic management for years.
ATF- so, you're against politicians trading on their office? What do you think Trump is doing? Membership fees at Mar-a-Lago DOUBLED the moment Trump won the election, and he owns a very profitable hotel not far from the White House.
Stop watching Fox, and return to reality.
1
Thanks, Paul. Now please tell us something we don't already know.
As long as our genius gets 40 percentile plus, he is POTUS, and the GOPs really won't complain loudly enough (at least).
The real folks whom don't care enough what liberals think is reality seem to luv our wise leader.
The nation deteriorates, and unless voters next November decide otherwise, he manages to ... endure his comical-tragedy for a second term.
Democrats choosing Oprah has to be part of our absurd opera, and its not impossible for Oprah v Trump in our last act if that's when the nutty opera ... really gets bizarre.
Trump has succeeded. The tax cut has enriched him and given him an avenue for more tax chicanery with the new pass through flim flammery. He and Kushner are lining their pockets with Israeli/Netanyahu connivance. Make Jerusalem the capitol of Israel and get banks and huge insurance companies to find ways to siphon big money into their pockets. Trump was never been about policy. And while he was at he could reduce regulation on green house gases and drilling for oil off shore with pre BP spill bravado.
1
USVI response too is not as robust as it could have been, should have been. Every (most) stories about Puerto Rico's struggles with rebuilding could add the USVI and its power and infrastructure challenges to the text and help spread the word, keep the USVI and its struggles visible.
3
Sadly, your observations and the conclusions you have reached agree with my own. Thus far, the costs of the policy actions have not done long-term or irreversible economic damage to the common welfare. The cost of opportunity missed by this administration are high and GOP tax cut for the rich was a serious mistake and I believe will prompt voters to send a message in November 2018.
There is also the possibility that the Special Counsel's investigation could also cause the majority GOP party to change behavior.
It is kind of dark, cold and gloomy in Washington but today I read a report that FERC, an independent energy agency, declined to accept the Secretary of Energy's recommendation to subsidize coal and nuclear electric power generation. This decision demonstrated to me that our government is not just thrown together but is composed of professionals who take the mission of their agencies seriously and these missions were formulated to address real problems that our representative government thought was important.
Agencies adapt as the new problems emerge but fundamentally under our system there is a balance achieved by the separation of powers built into the design. There are still some huge problems in the design such as how campaigns are financed that gives an advantage to Big Money and there are problems in our form of capitalism that allow a drift toward monopoly, lack of competition and oligarchy, which must be corrected if the economy is to flourish.
1
Thank you Paul Krugman. I find it comforting when I read exactly how bad things are in our government, and not because of who and what Trump is, but of who and what all the Republican Congress have shown themselves to be. We can put an end to many of them in 2018, and we must.
3
The question is why does a sizable portion of the electorate STILL fall for this. And I think we saw this week, with the Oprah speech, why that is. Reagan was of course our first celebrity president, and the answer starts there. Enough of the populace has a television delusion: they think they can put on a pot of coffee, turn on the TV and engage that way; then just turn it off and it goes away, like it was only entertainment. Entertainment value, garish or uplifting or any otherwise, is no substitute for the real world. The real world is far more complex and non-linear...and real.
6
Teddy Roosevelt was a celebrity president, and so was Geo. Washington--great general of victorious troops etc etc. Americans seem to confuse popularity with leadership. The idea of Oprah as prez falls neatly into this slot.
Re Trump as a "stable genius" I must agree that he is that, and does what most stable boys do--shovel the stuff out to make room for more.
1
Some of these comments touch on the central question: Will the Supreme Court uphold the Constitution, or will they cave to nativist pressure? It is not inconceivable that they will falter, nor is it certain. We have long believed that the U.S. is a nation of laws, not men. Will that hold true in the age of Trump? Republican lawmakers are the key, will they turn on us?
5
Dr. Krugman: Thanks for mentioning items of which I was not familiar, e.g. expertise exodus from NAS and Paul Ryan's support of Nune's recent actions. Of the numerous Trump's Adminstration actions with which I don't agree, I am most concerned about the dismantling of the State Dept. Restoring the lost expertise will take years and years and involves issues not easily found at the library or in the classroom.
6
Trump is not going to be re-elected, his unfitness is as well known as is he. People who tend to sit out elections are going to show up, so the polls of the general population are going to be significant in the 2020 elections. They might show up next fall if the Democrats start focusing upon the needs of the country instead of their favorite constituencies, but there are no indications that they are eager to do so — they are more interested in tilting at windmills. But that means that this country is going to continue stuck with leaders who serve those who can help them buy elections.
1
Thank you Dr. Krugman for shining a light on how the Republicans are participating in obstruction of justice right along with Trump. Mueller is watching, let's hope they too can be charged with obstruction.
4
Fortunately the Times article of the other day about California versus Trump was way too narrow. It is not just California but the entire West Coast, New York and a host of other states. States that have people who make more money and are more educated and healthier than those in Trump land. While Republicans engage in subversion they will be opposed.
3
I suppose they need to keep him in office until they can get our government completely drowned in Grover's bathtub, or at least until they can gut Social Security and Medicare. Pence would do that as well, but I doubt the media could make as much money off Pence. So this way we enrich media moguls while also gutting the safety net.
On the other hand, I'm not sure anyone at Treasury can do more damage to average working people than did Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin and their Wall-Street-bankster-fawning ilk (Clintons included) who are still trying to keep the Democratic Party exploiting its base for their own obscene profits. They did more than anyone except Fox News to pave the way for the V.S.G. administration.
2
Paul Ryan and others are exposed as the small people they always were. Reduced to patching holes in the Titanic as it sinks. My only question is whether the Titanic is them or all of us.
5
Trump has done long lasting damage to the United States internally by clearly false and self serving attacks on the institutions supporting democracy, e.g. the reliability of elections, the judiciary, the FBI, and the independent press.
However, his greatest 'accomplishment' is perhaps the damage to America's international reputation.
AMERICA FIRST = AMERICA ALONE.
The remaining diplomatic influence of America has been devastated by this administration. Written agreements with the United States are not worth the paper on which they are written, e.g. Nafta, Iran deal, Paris agreement, NATO, etc.
The United States' failure to abide by international agreements and norms, literally threatens the survival of the human race when it comes to the environment.
The world is afraid of what America has become and what it no longer stands for. Who will be next to be invaded, tortured, murdered by drone missile, incarcerated without trial? We distrusted George Bush II, we were disappointed by Obama, we are positively terrified by this incompetent and morally vacuous man.
5
Frightening piece , it is definitely true that this country will never be the same , Trump has expose elements of the political American life that we didn't know, we have lived under an idea that is a hot air balloon, we believed that this country was run by law and that corruption was from countries with a little more sun, the Mueller investigation is telling us exactly where we are , politicians are refusing to release transcript of proof that Trump and team were meddling with our election , to me this investigation will tell me at the end " Who is America " and by the way , where are the Democrats or Republicans that promised to defend the constitution at swearing, where are those supposed John Mc Cain the patriot and others , i am starting to believe in heroes that were not captured i am also asking myself what can make a Linsey Graham make a 360 overnight , a Bob Corker that was the voice of reasons only few weeks ago, a Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski ,Susan Collins , what will be the incentive for those big patriots to reverse so quickly at the risk of putting this whole country in peril.
opinion anyone ?
2
Get off your liberal soap box. Trump has done some odd things, but he has done many typically Republican actions that have supported business development and reduced regulations. Any Republican president would have done those things. The market is soaring and jobless rates are at very low levels. Some of the immigration policies and foreign relations issues are troubling, but is Trump really destroying the country? I don't think so, and a lot of other people are in agreement with that thought.
1
"a lot of other people" disagree with your assessment. In fact, many of them are previous Republicans who "served" in past administrations. Do you watch anything other than Fox? Whether it is about economic policy or complete deregulation of hard fought policies that prevent corporations from destroying our precious environment simply for profit.....these Republicans have spoken out against Trump and his incompetent band of dangerous and morally bankrupt yes men.
1
The market has been soaring since 2009 and jobless rate saw steady decline under Obama. Please don't attribute those facts to anything Trump has done. Let's see where things are in two years, once any policy he's been able to put in place shows its effects.
2
Trump claiming he's a “Very Stable Genius” reminds me of Nixon claiming "I am not a crook."
11
If Dems had focused their efforts on decrying Trump's policies and appointments and offered appealing and sensible alternative leadership, rather than trying 24/7 to show Trump's a Russian agent and waiting for Godot or Mueller, we would all be much closer to the end of the Trump episode.
2
Donald Trump is who he has always been but I am really disappointed with the republicans in the senate and congress. Checks and balances don't work unless they are used and the republicans are not doing their job.
4
As cynical as I think myself to be, I'm shocked at the lack of decency by so many Republicans who so clearly love power more than their country.
9
"We spent more than two centuries building a great nation, and even a very stable genius probably needs a couple of years to complete its ruin."
As this same op-ed explains: it's not just a problem of having a VSG at the helmet, the problem, unfortunately, is MUCH worse, as you need an entire political structure to get a VSG into the WH, and to keep him there. And you need a major political party that all of a sudden decides that it's willing to play along too.
The root cause, imho, is the invention of neoconservatism as a new kind of conservative philosophy, in the 1970s. It's those "intellectuals'" conception of truth and its role in a democracy, that has been at the heart of the idea behind Fox News. And after 2 decades of FN propaganda, so many lies have been spread and are in the meanwhile taken for the truth by ordinary citizens, that the GOP, who has actively contributed to spreading those lies for years, couldn't step back from them in 2016 anymore.
The main difference between Trump and the other GOP candidates was that Trump seemed to be the only one to adore lying, whereas the others were less convincing. You needed a VSG to be delusional enough to say delusional things in a serious way.
So this has actually been built up since the 1970s and neocons' post-truth war against its own voter base. It has already eroded the possibility of any serious political debate, and completely hollowed out the GOP. More "visible" destruction is only a matter of time.
4
I'm curious to know how much public sector turnover is directly attributable to Trump. I've noticed quite a bit of turnover recently but I can't point the finger directly at Trump. You kind of have to look sideways at the problem before you recognize his influence.
At least in the public offices I'm familiar with, Trump seems to have provided a catalyst for what was already coming. We were over due for a turnover. People hunkered down during the Great Recession. The private sector job market has improved. Trump's dysfunction is now encouraging employees to take a leap they otherwise would have taken earlier. Vested employees are an exception but generally speaking government turn rates are surprisingly high.
You combine this with a wave of boomer retirements and there's utter uncertainty permeating throughout many levels of government. You witness aggressive Gen-Xers jockeying for long held management positions that are now available. The sight is almost embarrassing. Millennials roll their eyes and head for the exit. The odds of getting a raise or promotion are better if you change jobs. The risk of job hopping is lower because every millennial is facing the same hostile employment environment.
Trump had something to do with the immediacy of the change. Again though, I wonder how much exactly.
1
Frightening and depressing summary. As someone who has been a public spokesperson and knows many others, I am appalled by how Sarah Sanders continues to demean her position. It's easy to denigrate public relations and political communications, but the vast majority of public sector spokespersons are ethical and honest, even when dealing with a negative situation. I don't know how Sanders can "explain" VSG's statements with a straight face. I assume that her reward will be life-long financial security.
4
It took W 7 years to tank the economy (and less to eliminate the Treasury surplus) that Clinton left behind, so it make take a couple of years to see the effects of the V.S.G. workmanship. After all, everything is bigger and better an unprecedented with him!
2
Krugman phones it in.
Really, this column exemplifies why writers should fear robots. Computers may never write very well, but then highly skilled writers often don't write all that well either. And computers are cheaper than highly skilled anything.
What's new here? Trump is gonzo. His cabinet is one fox per henhouse, with lieutenant foxes chasing out proper guards. State is half empty, EPA is now Environmental Degradation Department. If you don't know that, you're not paying attention!
How about some economic analysis, professor? Several plans, for example, have been floated to avoid SALT taxes. None of them is a perfect substitute for 100% deductibility. Which is a good match? Is any more economically or socially desirable?
Please, don't waste thus space venting. Use the gifts of this platform and your education and authority to help us form a more perfect union.
2
Thank you Dr. Krugman. Let's hope that David Brooks will read this and realize the consequences of amelioration.
3
I was with Mr Krugman all the way until his comments on Puerto Rico and an inadequate federal response.
The federal government has done more for Puerto Rico than it has for any other state in terms of lending assistance. The DOE and the Army Corps do not come in and run other states' hurricane responses. Why did they come in for Puerto Rico? Because Puerto Rico's electric company was too inept (with virtually no hurricane preparation) and too corrupt (see calling on Whitefish for $300/hr for linesmen instead of activating mutual aid agreements for linesmen at $60/hr). If you go around Puerto Rico even today, you can see very little evidence of crews working, versus swarming the island the way they did along Island after Hurricane Sandy. Puerto Rico needs more FEMA funds, but in terms of the basics of getting power back up and running? This is not a federal problem - it is a Puerto Rico problem.
Stick to what you know, Mr Krugman, instead of throwing off asides using the party line.
The resilient economy is more a testimony to what Prez Obama left behind, as most recent Democratic presidents, a good and stable economy the successor could find difficult to derail easily.
4
I think what we're learning is that our constitution is flawed.
2
Our forefathers wisely provided the tools in our Constitution to excise the type of cancer we currently have in the Executive Branch. Sadly the cancer has spread to the GOP leadership of the Legislative Branch and the Supreme Court has been staffed with a majority of right wing Ideologues. Robert Mueller may be the equivalent of a skilled Oncologist who has the capability to provide the detailed evidence to diagnose the cancer readily apparent to so many of us. Sadly the tools to excise this cancer will not get put to use unless there is a radical change in November. The American people need to regain control of the Legislative Branch of the Federal Government if our Democracy is to survive. That is a tall order.
2
Perhaps our bureaucracy had become too bloated? Sluggish and redundant? Corrupt too. Here in America corruption is veiled under business as usual. That has certainly risen to great heights under Trump’s friends and family program.
Democracy works at speed of molasses. It’s a miracle we get things done without being whipped. Seriously it doesn’t matter who is at the top, life goes on. Here in Ma, we are recovering from a mega storm last week followed by brutal arctic winds and finger numbing cold. While the roofer is helping clear ice dams, our town is helping us replacing our damaged mailboxes from street snow plowing. Headaches abound but the warm spirit and efficiency with which everyone is doing their jobs is testimony that we will deliver, no matter WHO is at the top.
1
Trump has no agenda or core beliefs. He talks and campaigns as a populist and does thing's that are corporate elitist and tries to sell what he is doing as populist. When will it catch up? Let's talk about what he is doing and less talk about what he is tweeting.
1
I, and others, have said it before (often in more colorful language): Donald Trump is an insult to the Presidency, a disgrace to our once admired and respected nation, a deplorable defect in "human" development. But the Republicans in Congress are the cancerous growth upon our country and an existential threat to our future (on many levels).
All members of Congress swear to defend our Republic against all enemies domestic and foreign. Republicans in Congress have made a sad, twisted joke of their sacred oath of office. To borrow and twist a Christian phrase: They know what they do. Harm with intent is malice; it is unforgivable, even to a forgiving god.
While Donald Trump is an ugly raw sore on the body politic, the Republicans in Congress are the debilitating disease, the source of America's suffering, disfigurement and growing despair.
We The People do not have to suffer the Republican cancer and its orange eruption. We do not have to despair. Join any resistance group. Join the Women's March. Take to the streets on January 20 and 21. Ring the bell of truth. Let it announce the first round of our fight to knockout Republicans, cauterize the orange eruption, and cleanse and heal our nation.
2
The foundation of the American Democracy is crumbling. It is only WE THE PEOPLE who can fortify and restore it's foundation. Our government is in utter chaos and lacking solidarity of any kind. Mr. Trump's odd behaviors that may indicate narcissism and/or dementia are only one of the serious concerns. He has surrounded himself with young, incompetent "strategists" (cough, cough) who understand very little about HOW our government works and care even less. They are not motivated or inspired by the experience of "public service". they are motivated by greed. This Presidency is just a game to them. And then we have the the spineless and ego driven Leaders of the Senate and the House. All of them scrambling to not to "protect" the civil rights of the American Citizens who elected them but more interested in squirreling away their personal caches of power and money to feed their own ego's. Currently, within our government there is no "National Vision". Ah... that we were only dealing with a swamp. American Citizens of all political parties on the whole are not narcissistic and greedy. All of us must engage, speak out and vote the entire quagmire of government representatives out of office in 2018.
1
I don't buy all this thinking. I content #45 IS a stable genius. First, he is stable. He has been acting this same way his whole adult life and probably since he was a kid, when he apparently lacked the training to develop empathy, honesty, and a large host of other social skills. Everything we have heard has consistently painted him as a selfish, narcissistic, vindictive, mean-spirited person who demands endless adulation and goes berserk at anything large or small that doesn't go his way. He has been stable in these behaviors for decades. Second, he is a genius at collecting lackeys around him who go along with what he wants. As a private citizen terrorizing anyone who dared do business with him, his lackeys went along. When he got into government, he did the same. Just witness the cabinet meetings.
On the other front, the highest people in his administration ARE the best and brightest— of their ilk. Every cabinet person is someone who hated their department based on an ultra-right philosophy, who is intent on destroying government, cares only about money and their politics and their rich friends, and cares little or nothing about facts, science, or objective reality. #45 has assembled the best that this contingent has to offer. Imagine locating and hiring the best and brightest of the Flat Earth Society. That's this bunch.
Is obstruction of justice by a member of congress legal? Is there any way to stop it?
A VSG may need a couple of years to completely destroy it, but we've only arrived at this point because one too many turned their heads on a plethora of injustices - paying a man $7.25 an hour, patting oneself on the back for doing such, while gas prices went over $4 a gallon? Corporations paying ungodly amounts at the top, while getting away with paying less than adequate wages on bottom? If there isn't enough to go around, it might help if they could distribute it a little more evenly - God only knows the guy at the top doesn't really need another slice of the pie!
2
The jury is still out as to whether the "Best and the Brightest" or the "Worst and the Dumbest" can wreak the most havoc or kill the most people. The former killed 1.3 million human beings in Vietnam. I'd settle for sanity, a knowledge of history and some common sense. How about the "The Sanest and Most Commonsensible"? We're a far cry from that. We'd have to shuffle most the cabinet out and especially the creature at the top to get anywhere near that. Too bad David Halberstam isn't around to write the definitive tome about this "so called" president's cabinet. Wolff's book is highly entertaining (and disturbing) but it can't possibly be the posterity version, the one future leaders go to find out who NOT to appoint to their cabinets.
The proper metaphor is "iceberg"--Trump is like an iceberg. All of the garbage we see--that is leaked from the White House or cant be covered up because it is part of the public record--is just the tip of the iceberg. As bad as it seems the truth is much worse for sure. Let's just hope that by the time we have calibrated the danger and attempted to steer clear that the ship of state has not been terminally damaged.
1
What's disturbing is that while the likes of Bannon, Flynn, etc are out and falling, one time GOP opponents have begun to line up behind the chief. Besides Ryan, Senators Corker and Graham have been making supportive noises completely at odds with their one time criticisms. What's going on?Genius has an evil side too.
Sad to say Trump and Trumpism show the American need and dream of having a monarchy has come to fruition.
What's pathetic is our diet of reality TV and decades of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous provided us with the idea ostentatious displays of the Noveau Riche constitutes Class.
Our last election was a faux pas that will besmirch us for ages.
Why has the ruling class not gotten rid of him yet? Why wasn't the story of Trump University enough to disqualify him as a candidate? And all the horrendous stories of his business conduct? Would he have made it as "Godfather" of the mafia? How long would he have stayed?
1
Dynamite is the combination of greed and incompetence. Trump and his cohorts will bring the house down while trying to fleece it. Perhaps it's our time, like the Roman empire that crumbled within its own weight of hedonism.
I keep coming back to the 2010 midterm when the democrats stayed home and lost big. That loss allowed the Republicans to capture, most consequentially, the state houses and allowed them the power of illegitimate gerrymandering that secured their power base.
It's the nature of scorpion to bite. So it's the nature of Republican to loot. Why can't the democrats/progressives win the arguments even when they are on the right side? Especially when they had eight years of President Obama?
Nikki Haley.
Also: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/opinion/anti-trump-opposition.html
2
Just a comment on Mr. Krugman's description of the Trump administration as "a government of the worst and dumbest". The word is "kakistocracy", defined as "Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens". The word has never yet found more apt usage.
2
The Republicans are circling the wagons in do or die effort to survive. They are also wearing casual pants with suit coats trying to look like they're poor and have to save money. More likely they are just trying to look like the people they fooled the last time!
1
What if VP Pence and the rest of Trump’s cabinet are genuine in their effusive and nauseating praise of their boss? What if they’re not acting as sycophants in Trump world in an attempt to gain his trust? Shouldn’t we be questioning their mental fitness for holding office, and not just Trump’s?
2
I am so tired of Trump bashing even though I can't stand the sycophant. Yes, we need to know how the whole republican party are behind Trump to have their way and give away are country to the robber barons. More specifics.
Are you talking with the Feds Paul? Do they want your input on how to stimulate the economy?
I want to hear about what the dems are doing? Are they doing anything?
What should they be doing? Why aren't they on Sunday morning news shows. Oh yes, we get Pelosi and Shummer but we the people need to hear from more of them not the elite party members who got us in this mess.
The only thing that will be left is the swamp.
The prescient Doug Adams clearly foresaw this president, describing him accurately, save for his extra head and his name, Zaphod Beeblebrox.
"[When he] first decided to run for the Presidency, a decision which had sent waves of astonishment throughout the Imperial Galaxy – Zaphod Beeblebrox? President? Not the Zaphod Beeblebrox? Not the President? Many had seen it as a clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas.
Zaphod Beeblebrox, ...good timer, (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch. President?
The President in particular is very much a figurehead – he wields no real power whatsoever…the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage.. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.
& cetera & cetera.
1
“Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.”
2
The human mind is a marvelous thing. It can split an atom and combine strands of DNA. What it often does in the political arena is make a lot of things more complicated and much worse. Yes Trump. No Trump. Good Trump. Bad Trump. All this rhetoric and analysis is still on the wrong side of the potential future of our species.
If we want to survive, and provide our children and grandchildren with a planet worth living on, we shall need RADICAL new thinking. Totally inclusive, excluding no one, fully responsible, and vectored toward building a global community with a culture that works for the benefit of all life.
I don't read ANY of this in your article, Paul. Nothing about worldview, or replacing nationhood with global patriotism. Not a word about the lunacy of colonizing Mars as a solution to humanity's problems here on earth. No mention of the upcoming CDC conference on managing post H-bomb consequences (duck and cover). No discussion of the inertia created by system complexity. And nothing about the fact that war - all war, is obsolete. These are the big issues. Trump is just a little reminder that we are all very stupid and pathologically immature. Our society needs a remake from the ground up. And until we change our thinking, to honor the reality that collective consciousness is now the independent variable, and that the Universe is a planet nursery which is vetting us to see if we are worthy of continuation, WE'RE DEAD!
Republicans are indeed choosing party over country, or rather, power over patriotism. But if last November 8 is a harbinger, the people get it. The people will vote with a grim determination, and they know where to aim their vote at. It doesn't need to be for an Ophra or a Biden; the target in the people's sights will be Republicans.
Every. Last. One of them.
2
I am with you Mr. Krugman, but not the Russia collusion thing. Now former liberals use this McCarthy type "investigation" to smear Jill Stein and Sanders and try punishing them for having the stomach to run against Hillary Clinton. HRC is now in the conspiracy theory camp who peddles nonsense to hurt all the people who aren't with her. Sounds a bit like Sith logic to me. And please spare us from Ophra becoming president. Everything is better than Trump, but that's not an endorsement.
1
Good points all, Saxi. We wouldn't have Trump if the Democrats had run Bernie -- who beat Trump in all the polls. But no, forget the American people: the Dems had to run their girl 'cuz it was "her turn."
Republicans are apparently okay with an unbalanced president who lied and continues to lie to the American people and may be guilty of other criminal activity including treason. That they are complicit in obstructing the Russia investigation and continue to support a president with a clearly progressive mental condition also borders on treason as they look the other way while Trump continues his destructive policies.
I'll never be able to wrap my mind around Republicans overlooking an intrusion by a hostile power into our election when not just the American Intelligence community, but those of our allies have drawn a consensus on the matter.
Republicans have sold their own nation down the river to get their sick agenda passed since our very stable genius will sign anything that makes him look like he knows what he's doing. In the meantime they are silent while democratic institutions are attacked and the free press disparaged for reporting the truth.
Pretty sickening in my humble opinion.
1
Every day, we get more op Ed’s about the President’s fitness. Mr. Wolff writes a book with hundreds of examples of his unfitness, Faux News and Republicans find a few that are untrue, causing by extension the hundred or so examples that are true to be called into question, and that’s the news cycle.
What I think would help the public, is not feeding our hunger for another tree in the forest of examples of unfitness, but choose a few gold plated ones, and push them as undeniable examples proving his incompetence.
Two examples, 1. I think Corker, “Adult Day Care Center”. 2. His ramble at the CIA Wall Of Heroes. There are many more that could be the benchmark examples. using just a few well known, but frequently buried in the non stop addition of new examples of his incompetence.
Let the daily comment on new “ trees” continue, but backstop it with access to 5 or 6 gold plated examples of his being, as someone said, “a few chips short of a happy meal.”
1
Good column.
Trump is nuts. We know that and the Wolff book is little more than confirmation bias. My concerns are centered the Trump enablers. His enablers are in the House, the Senate and his base supporters. There is a very large portion of our population that are completely disconnected from reality. To me, this is frightening.
2
It's like some evil kids took over the most popular restaurant in the neighborhood and are now doing their best at running it into the ground.
But, the neighborhood isn't going to let it go on.
On November 6 of this year, the entire disgusted neighborhood - the vast majority - is going to vote out the evil, radical kids and, once again, enjoy that great restaurant they all love.
These rotten kids are soon gone.
2
Dr. Krugman, maybe it’s time to stay “wonkish.” Your col-league David Brooks writes that the ridicule and joking are leading the anti-Trumpers back to the pro-Trump fold—inspired by the anti-trump book “Fire and Fury.”
Brooks himself has found the urge to “return home” in the fact that the Trump administration is showing “movement” (not that Trump is moving away from good policy initiatives but just the fact that they are “moving”).
For example, it requires a “wonkish” analysis (it hasn’t been done before), is the stock market a reflection of the economy or just the activities of high-frequency trading algorithms?
As the returning conservatives are finding salvageable things in Trumpism, it may be time for the public intellectuals (including the “wonks”) to determine the real value of what Trump is putting on the table for the hungry.
Are we currently at Peak America? Seems countries and companies make their worst moves when they are at their fattest and most complacent.
1
The moment Trump was elected there was a sudden convergence of opinion between the saner citizens of the U.S. and the president-elect: he was appalled at the prospect of being president, and so were we. He didn't want the job and we completely agreed.
In hindsight, how great would it have been if he had thrown up his hands in disgust and said, "this is ridiculous. What kind of country would elect me, anyway? I don't have a clue about governing, so I'm going to advertise for some competent people with government experience, and turn the whole mess over to them. Then I'm hitting the links for the next four years."
If the VSG had had even a smidgen of self-awareness, or a shred of decency that's exactly what he would have done.
1
You know what puts a slight smile on my lips, the kind of smile and nod you do when your taking your first sip of a nice bourbon on ice that your host has offered you as you sit in a comfy chair and admire the view from his/her veranda
It's the knowledge that so many Americans think and act as I've always hoped they would do when confronted with someone like the V.S.G.
I'm a betting man and I'll put money on this embarrassment in the White House being a a one term incumbent.
I've gotta a lot of faith in you folks and really hope I win my bet and a return to some kind of sanity prevails.
The world is running alongside you and support is everywhere you'd never thought to look!
Let the mid terms be a whitewash and get some sanity back into America and remember it's not just for yourselves your voting...it's for the millions like me who can't vote but who are always closely affected by American policy. America sneezes, we catch the cold.
1
There is great damage being done, as you mention the hollowing out of our institutions. But no one is aware of the magnitude because our media is obsessed with Russia...it is cheap and easy to cover.
I'm looking at you Rachel.
2
Anything, no matter how long it has taken to build, can be wiped out in an instant. Think Osama Bin Laden, think WWIII. I think you should reconsider your last paragraph.
Dear Paul,
you wrote: "So far, the implosion of our political norms has had remarkably little effect on daily life (unless you’re living in hurricane-battered Puerto Rico and still waiting for electricity thanks to an inadequate federal response)."Unless also you are one of the many Salvadorian families about to be destroyed by Trump's criminal and inhumane policy. America, you should listen back to "The Furure" by Leonad Cohen. Rebel or repent!!!
1
Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Bob Corker, Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley, Devin Nunes, Lindsey Graham--all of them traitors. I've never been a fan of Republicans, but now there isn't one single decent Republican left. They lie and they cheat. That's the entire platform. And don't tell me it isn't treason because we aren't at war. We've got wars of one kind or another going on all over the world.
2
The Wolff book should be only the first of many to document this historical mess. LET'S HEAR IT FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
Professor Krugman, thank you, once again.
One of these days, Paul. you should try a real job.
Real jobs are fun and good, actually.
If you're lucky, you can lead people while they make things that help society.
You and that thing they call a university that pays you are what led us where we are.
You gave us Trump.
You are useless, but no longer dangerous.
We've figured that out - you're irrelevant.
Wonderful: "the V.S.G." Of course, closer to the truth is "V.E.D." or Very Erratic Dotard." Can members of Congress be indicted for obstruction of justice? Since they do not appear to have their own moral compass or to value the public good, perhaps Mr. Mueller would not mind recommending indictment for a few them, until they get the message.
1
Sure enough, there's a singularly apt word for all of this. Kakistocracy. It's in the dictionary.
Well, at least "a tornado destroyed my employment records" is more imaginative than "the dog ate my homework".
the only stable genius is Mr Ed
Trump's cabinet does not have a single PhD. Think about that.
2
WILE E. COYOTE, super genius...I like the way that rolls out...
please excuse the verbiage, it is still the economy, stupid -
what we have failed to realize is the insidious nature of an economy focused on supply
no longer do we have a demand economy focused on the consumers and citizens
the consumers and citizens demand clean air and water, a functioning educational systems, and a tax code requiring good corporate citrnzenship
the demand economy, the market economy, has been replaced with supply side economics, no longer will demand dictate supply, no now we will accepted what we are supplied,
corporations need to be given citizenship, without the cost of possible loss of life with military service, the corporate suppliers need to have regulations removed at the cost of unacceptable pollution in order to supply us with their products, science needs to be eliminated so that no one can not question the actions of the the suppliers,
we must thank President Trump for he has clearly shown us those whom dwell within the swamp, for only those whom benefit from this mess, now stand and defend the destruction of the Nation
There is nothing like a stable genius letting you in on his candid musings. Who'd thunk it? Unlike other geniuses, stable or not, they see no need to tell you how smart they are. It might be too intimidating. More likely, it would sound so completely ridiculous we would find ourselves laughing ourselves silly. Trump, however, is a different sort of genius. He has some urgent need for a self-initiated ego boost. He couldn't hold back. He had to announce his brilliance to the world. Otherwise, we all would have been left in the dark. Trump's genius would have stayed the best kept secret in the world. Now it's been confirmed, from the horse's mouth. Trump is certifiable, for sure.
DD
Manhattan
You nailed it Paul. it doesn't get much worse than when the party in power doesn't want to know, and doesn't want you to know, if their leader is a foreign agent. Especially if this leader, the VSG, is an agent of a mob run, traditionally hostile, autocratically governed nation, which we have spent trillions $ on and tens of thousands of lives in countering, for over close to a century.
Craven is the law and order, flag waving, security obsessed GOP now attacking the traditionally and overwhelmingly GOP based/supported/managed and developed national security agencies concerned with and looking into what appears to be treason on the part of the president.
Elect a clown, expect a circus. Vladimir got this before it became a bumper sticker here.
Elect a traitor, don't expect loyalty, honesty or patriotism...but for this to be true of all or most of the GOP is a new kind of "conservative" nihilism.
This is funny! We understand all of this, but you can't fix it by destroying democracy. Do you think Pence would appoint better judges? It doesn't seem likely. Would he have a better treasury? That doesn't seem likely either. Was it better to prevent the prosecution of bankers based upon financial concerns than the prosecution of a president based upon innuendo?
Trump is a creation of the establishment. If you want to fight him you're going to have to pick and choose establishment ideas. You can keep some, but you can't keep them all.
I would suggest your party dump fantasies of 'free trade' and a world without borders. These idea are based in metaphors and fantasy. I suggest your party try to reestablish this nation as an example for the world rather than trying to force its system on the world through imperialistic, non-democratic trade ideas.
There was recently a good analysis on this from a reporter in China. I can't remember the name. I think your party should realize that China would love to adopt the US' trade ideas. They're absolutely aligned with authoritarian government.
Obama signed a huge number of treaties, yes TREATIES without anyone even knowing about it!!!! Outrageous!
I suggest you help fix your party so that it represents its name. Hamilton understood monetary systems and the trade of his times, but he doesn't understand modern trade nor was he an advocate of democracy.
...a tornado destroyed employment records? Better than a dog ate my homework. I want to know everything the Russians did to muck up the election. I want to know every deal made. trump has allowed a full-frontal by republicans on any aspect of this government. This is the only instance where I would say that I could run the country better, if only because I listen and ask questions and read. Oh, and I really know what I do not know. Those who still consider this style of leadership is just what we have needed have not understood and so do not fathom the thin line that thrums between a democracy and every other form of government. And that they do not fills me with sadness and impotent rage. Apologies, Ben, maybe we can't keep the republic.
A Nobel Laureate in economics thinks that a 25% gain in the stock market, low interest rates, 2 million less food stamp receipients and the lowest ever black unemployment rate is destroying the country. Did I mention Nobel Laureate in economics?
This is why rejoice when I hear that Trump is back on the golf course or that he's working part-time hours. That much less damage he'll do.
Trump is nothing but a puppet for sinister forces, all he does is sign their agenda into law. After watching CNN do its latest interview of Wolff, my opinion is that Wolff is 100% credible. You couldn't possibly make up the details he related. Also, an Alzheimer-onset doesn't spend 24 hrs a day in a coma-- he is lucid in familiar chatter, lost in any other sort. So disregard what Donald's shills are saying. He's coasting. Put him in front of 3 tough documents and he asks what his stock is worth.
The worst and dumbest can bring out the compassionate and respectful in all of us.
I regularly speak to people I meet in the grocerys, shops, and at work.
I ask if they are registered to vote and if friends and family outside the state are as well.
Congratulate them on their civic minded extend circle and urge that we go forward.
I never mention policy or party.
I stress being respectful of others beliefs.
It is one option we groundlings have, to engage others.
1
We have spent nearly 40 years refraining from stating the obvious: Since Reagan, the GOP considers 'Dumb', semi-literate, racist, valued qualities in their elected officials.
There has been a straight descending line from Reagan, Quayle, Bush II, Palin, and, now, this.
1
Let's compare Trump to our greatest president, Lincoln, who verifiably WAS a genius (despite less than a year of schooling, he could recite pages of Shakespeare from memory,and he's the only president who holds a patent for an invention: inflatable devices to get boats over shoals). Trump is egocentric, dishonest, and always ready to insult real or perceived enemies. Lincoln is the opposite on all counts. He loved telling self-effacing jokes about himself--especially about his gangly looks. He was the soul of honesty. He was compassionate toward his enemies (Southern slaveholders), even though he fought hard for human justice. He surrounded himself with brilliant men: Chase, Seward, Stanton, and the like. How different from Trump can you be?
1
It is obvious how deeply divided our country has become, and how inept this President is. Foreign policy and government issues have been reduced to tweets; clearly showing his "very stable genius". Fake news is any news not praising Trump. Republican's applaud his terrible behavior and laugh when he ridicules others; real sign of integrity, don't you think? Clearly Trump has no moral character. As the British say, "God save the Queen," I say, "God save the United States" from this madman.
" (A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services says a tornado destroyed his employment records.)"
And then, and then...my dog ate the tornado!
1
Steve Bannon may be gone for now, but the "deconstruction of the administrative state" (that is, our democracy) is well underway. Of course, we have Scott Pruitt heading E.P.A. in rolling back every possible action to prevent global warming. Then, we have President Trump constantly enforcing his neo-fascist, white nationalist agenda that includes attacking the "freedom of the press" aka "the dishonest media" and their "fake news," deporting every non-white immigrant while banning Muslims from entering the country, attacking the pillars of our Constitutional democracy in his firing of the FBI Director and his own "witch hunt" against that "tattered" agency along with his own "disgraceful" Justice Department headed by his own appointee who refused to "protect" him, and then his "willing accomplices" in Congress who seek to undermine, obstruct, and discredit the Special Counsel's investigation into the President's potential collusion with Russian operatives to win the election and his efforts to "obstruct justice" by firing Jim Comey who was not loyal and wouldn't give Mike Flynn a "Get Out of Jail" free card, scripting a false alibi for his son's meeting in Trump Tower with Russians offering "dirt" on Sec. Clinton, and trying to indict the messenger, former high-ranking British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, who had the audacity to alert the FBI that he'd uncovered alarming evidence of Russia's efforts to interfere in our election on behalf of Donald Trump.
I guess some will hang in there, pitching
for Donald as long as they can,
for “genius” sounds quite bewitching,
but that’s not the mark of a man
whose talent for lying is making
him famous in lands far and wide
where people, each morning, on waking,
just shake their heads, quite mystified
that someone so clearly pathetic
is still there on Capitol Hill
pretending he’s somehow prophetic
and not just a champion dill.
Donald Trump is like the guy who jumps off a 100 story building, when asked how he was doing at floor 50, he replies "So good so far!"
Good thing the genius doesn't read or he might chance up the "Foreign Policy" advice to bomb NK. Miller might bring his attention to it though.
The GOP and their wars. God help us.
Fear not, Dr. Krugman. Our national nemesis will be gone, forever, in six months courtesy of the Mueller probe or, at worst, politically paralyzed by the mid-term Democratic tsunami. A "great nation" shall not be rendered by an ignorant, barbaric, narcissist.
Lacking any landmarks in this ocean of sewage, I can only speculate why Republicans back up Trump. Would Pence as president rubber-stamp all the most rapacious and regressive policies dear to congressional Republicans? Of course he would.
I believe the Republican establishment is terrified of Trump's hoards of low-information supporters, those 'good folks' who swallow whole his racist tweet rants as Gospel. Establishment Republicans are too pompous to imitate Trump's reckless freedom at trashing all traces of propriety that exhilarates his base.
If Trump were removed by Republicans tomorrow then the rage from the rural hinterlands would turn violent, and I believe that some Republican legislators would be in fear of their very lives. That is what this has come down to.
1
"a government of the worst and dumbest.". it could be even worse. the people surrounding Trump could all be economists - members of the most unsuccessful of the so-called social 'sciences' (really, pseudo-sciences), i have more confidence in the ability of Nancy Reagan's astrologer than in professional economists like Krugman, to predict (or steer) any aspect of the economy.
Paul -- I love your column -- read every one -- and admire you greatly. But, please, can we have a short vacation from Trump and his administration? You don't have to convince [most of] your readers what a terrible president he is. We know it already. And those who don't know it already will not be convinced by your passionate screeds. Could we have two weeks of columns, say, talking about this or that part of the economy or the world of finance or whatever. . . Two weeks without using the T word. . . . ? You might enjoy the vacation, too.
A good way to get to the bottom of this mess would be to see financial documents from all the entities associated with Trump and his family. Tax returns are a good place to start.
Trump has been stalling, then stonewalling, on providing access to this information - perhaps there is information there he does not want to come to light. Now the Republican majorities in Congress have grown accustomed to his face, and Trump is not so bad after all - hey, free golf!!
Polls indicate that about 40% of voters think this is just fine and they are happy, for now, with the way things are going. There is no cure for stupid and no reasoning with a politician when it comes to 'campaign contributions'.
We need to see the tax returns as a starting point - maybe Wikileaks has them!
Julian, are you listening? What's your price for the tax returns….?
West Wing aides and John Kelly: the poor overworked V.S.G. needs more time to think big. Please schedule ADDITIONAL "executive time". (His executive function needs to be strengthened.)
He's not even a stable genius. No animal in a stable in their right mind would follow him. He's impulsive, reckless, irresponsible, and doesn't care about the welfare of anyone but himself and maybe his family. The interesting thing about his supporters is that they don't seem to understand the value of cooperation, having a decent social safety net, allowing immigrants into the country, and the uses of a functioning government. A great many of his supporters seem to favor policies that are shortsighted and that won't do anything for America in the long run but concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who have it now.
Americans mistakenly equate riches with virtue. We are a very anti-academic society and it shows in our lack of interest in understanding how science works, what different policies can mean for us and the world, and how we view people who propose new ideas. It's not just that Trump supporters (and others too) refuse to understand or have compassion for those whose lives aren't working out: it's the selfishness that has become so prevalent that today we can't count on our neighbors to help out. Trump is the neighbor you never wanted because everything is all about him and that, even if he is a stable genius, is dumb.
1
Yeah. But remember the phrase "The best and the brightest" was an ironic description of those highly-educated and experienced folks who through the entire post-war period lied to us over Vietnam and WMD and much else, and who also deregulated and free-traded us to ruin in the heartland. And who are directly responsible for what we have today. They had their shot and they've been completely rejected. That world is not coming back. It's not technical ability, but moral compass that has a chance here against the forces of darkness. Until the elite class owns up to that, and takes responsibility, they are simply out of the picture.
11
That anybody would use the phrase, "moral compass," in this context is either hysterically funny or pathetic beyond belief, and I am not sure which.
" Until the elite class owns up to that, and takes responsibility, they are simply out of the picture."
The problem is that they are in the picture. The major issues is how to get rid of them before it is too late.
1
And in what sense do you believe that people such as Barack and Michelle Obama and the Democratic Congress under his leadership, somehow lacked a moral compass?
And how could you believe that it would be someone like McConnell or Trump that are the ones who have it ... ?
2
Dr. Krugman,
Please have a sit-down with David Brooks, who has begun a pilgrimage back to the Don. They are baby steps, but tangible. Today his column, in contrast to yours, intimates that Trump is somewhat normal, and his policies indicate a reasonably savvy guy.
Give a guy a tax break, some off shore drilling, and a militaristic foreign policy and you win the lady's arm.
43
For the Republicans, Trump has already delivered on his main obligations to the Koch brothers:
cut the corporate tax rate (permanently) by almost half
brought in the Koch selected Cabinet members
changed the judiciary for the next generation in favor of the Koch brothers
Ensured supreme court control by Republicans for a generation
I mean, Trump has done a good job, good boy that he is to his bill payers and debt holders.
31
Most disturbing is Republican leaders' willingness to stand publicly by Trump and pronounce their appreciation of his leadership and virtues. They know that he requires this fawning behavior for two reasons. One is because his frail ego needs to believe that he is admired, respected, and loved. The second is worse, which is that he really hates all of them because he hates everyone and that he can demand this fawning makes him feel both powerful and superior. That these Republican leaders are willing to be so used is genuinely frightening. One begins to wonder if Robert Mueller were to produce eye witnesses, a video, and a smoking gun that proved beyond even an unreasonable doubt that Trump actually did shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue, whether Republicans would still not impeach.
25
You don't have to wonder, the republicans will never impeach him.
He will sign whatever bill they give him. If you look into their eyes you will see tiny golden dollar signs floating their pupils.
The congressional republicans are starting to look like the children of the damned all grown up and avaricious.
1
Trump has spent a year gorging on the fruits of Obama's hard work and trying to take the credit for the harvest. Personally I am not amused or distracted from the horror of the abyss that is growing larger each day that he is in office. I am so sick and tired of the Trump Show, it can't end soon enough.
53
It'll all end soon enough. Per history, repubs deregulate and, hence, allow ruin to reign. Then a Democrat is elected to clean it up. Just like Obama did after GWB. Just like Clinton did after GHWB. This cycle goes on ad nauseum.
We may have ourselves to blame for the execrable GOP Congress of Trump enablers, but it is unelected Trump advisors like Stephen Miller and formerly Steve Bannon and their ilk who have brought in “the worst and the dumbest” to be approved for judgeships, posts in energy and environment, education and human services, state department, immigration, infrastructure and in so many other spheres, which profoundly affect the lives of ordinary Americans.
Trump has neither the energy, brains or inclination to carry out the mundane and tedious due diligence needed to fill the many vacant posts in his administration, but others are happy to step in for him. Maybe we should be grateful that so many posts are still vacant if slimy courtiers like Stephen Miller are bringing in people like themselves to fill them.
19
Rail, predictably against Trump, who admittedly is ghastly. But. Getting rid of him would hand the reins to Pence. Or if Mueller nails him, then Paul Ryan takes over. Trump isn’t abetted by his party. He promotes the Republican Party platform. However egregious he is personally the Trump administration is pure by his party’s standards.
6
So, Krugman essentially endorses the Michael Wolff book. This, despite the fact that most of the "revelations" in that book have been disavowed by the people supposedly making the statements in the first place. As for cabinet comparisons, I'll take Rex Tillerson over Hillary Clinton every time. Tillerson, a former CEO of Exxon is taking a huge pay cut to serve the country, while Hillary, Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation traded on Hillary's office.
2
@ATF:
You are extraordinarily naive if you think that Trump cabinet members will not personally benefit from their policies. It's graft, corruption, and betrayal, from top to bottom.
1
Does Exxon Valdez ring a bell to you? It should, as the beaches of Florida are next, if this regime has its way. This week they nixed the tax on oil production established to clean up environmental messes like the Deep Water Horizon. They also rolled back the safeguards set up to preclude another such disaster from happening.
Tillerson,like all the other GOP lackies are rolling over for Trump like a good lap dog. Tillerson showed moments of competence, but it's buried in his general lack of interest in doing the job of the Dept of State.
Standing up to Trump is just one job he has to do.
" While we’ve probably had chief executives who longed to jail their critics or enrich themselves while in office, none of them dared act on those desires."
Where were you between 200 and 2008? G. W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied the American People into the Iraq War, with full support of the New York Times and then Cheney steered Billions of dollars into the coffers of Halliburton which made him rich.
Nixon went after his enemies with the war on drugs and a lot of people have spent time in jail for pot because of his hatred of "Hippies".
It is very true Trump is the worst but there is a straight downward line from Nixon to Reagan to G W to Trump.
14
Preventing America from being ruled by the Worst and the Dumbest requires that a radical idea be considered: amending the constitution, even if that threatens intense opposition from rural America. As things stand, the third of the electorate that represents the GOP base terrifies GOP politicians into sycophantic support for Trump - because none, zero, have the ability to put their country's interests over their own political ambitions.
Yes, Democrats can win the presidency and congress, but need to win approximately 55% of the vote to break-even in the gerrymandered house. In the senate, the 16% of the population who live in the 25 least populous (mostly) red states control 50 of the 100 seats. The electoral college has allowed the popular vote loser to win the presidency twice in the past 16 years. This trend could easily continue because of the way Republican voters are distributed. Amending the constitution to provide representation based on one-person-one-vote would prevent this tyranny of the minority.
If amending the constitution seems radical, what are the options? Do nothing and permanently cede to the GOP base governing power disproportionate to their numbers?
It's time for the blue states to flex their muscle.
22
While Krugman swoons about the nation's past Treasury secretaries, he should pause to think about the country's Attorneys General who, in the 20th and 21st centuries at least, have mostly been a bunch of second-rate hacks--including the current one.
1
It is said that democracies respond best in a crisis. So, will it take a crisis for our democracy to respond to a crisis in the making, or will we wait until another 9/11, Great Recession, or interference in our electoral process befalls us? Yes, the stock market is at an all time high, the economy is doing well (both as a result of solid thinking and leadership of the Obama administration), and there are no new wars. But what happens when the stock market bubble bursts, which it assuredly will, the economy tanks as a result, war explodes in the Middle East or Korea, or the Russians hack our voting booths. What then? The fact is that I am not convinced that Trump, his administration, and the GOP lead Congress have the wherewithal or willingness to lead us out of the next crisis. And I am not alone. We can only hope that none of this occurs on Trump's watch. If it does, our democracy will not respond well and might not survive the next crisis.
5
This is the crisis. It arose of a permanent political class beholden to money in politics. It was completely corrupt before Trump, as when the Senate just flatly would not consider a Supreme Court appointment, or when neocons launched wars across the world for no better reason than private profit. Trump is culmination, not a change in kind. Obama tried to change in kind, and essentially lost that fight.
15
Consistent with his Alliterative Memory Disorder, Trump obviously meant he was a very Table genius, i.e. one who launches missile attacks at dinner during the beautiful chocolate cake course (and not during the fish course, of course).
5
"...they generally haven’t done too much damage..." From some points of view, that's true. But how did America get to the point where it prefers to import (H1B) highly qualified people rather than educate all its own young people? There's be a long and effective coalition of the mediocre imposing mediocrity on America. With the most expensive intelligence services in the world, who foresaw the fall of the USSR? The attacks of 9/11? Who, in power, foresaw the consequences of invading Iraq? Who in power foresaw the devastation that the housing bubble would cause? Why are our prisons bursting at the seams? Why are so many citizens of the greatest country in the world poor or homeless? What kind of checks and balances are we talking about when our system limps along doing real harm to people at home and abroad? It's time for Krugman to realize that economics is about all of the people and not just the 0.1%.
3
"With the most expensive intelligence services in the world, who foresaw...The attacks of 9/11?"
Richard Clarke, and the republican administration ignored him.
1
His constant bragging is nauseating. Yes, he won the election thanks to the very much outdated electoral college. However, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a huge margin and he knows that or he wouldn't keep harping on the same thing over and over again.
This self-proclaimed "stable genius " has to be contained like a child......limited time in front of the TV and limited time with his iphone. A real genius doesn't belittle and call people names and a real genius doesn't need to announce it. Haven't we had enough?
8
And like millions of people around the world, I'm still having trouble finding any proof that Donald Trump is a "Very Stable Genius", just because by his very existence, he epitomizes the complete opposite.
Personally, I'm past the point of looking at the mediocrity of past presidents in order to feel more reassured about this one, and the fact that he has a hand-picked cadre of mindless neophytes in his administration doesn't help matters along.
I also don't need to read the recent Michael Wolff book with all its salacious details about this morally corrupt and bankrupting president, since there's very little Schadenfreude in seeing the destruction and deterioration of one's own country.
It might have only been a year since Donald Trump officially began this process, but that doesn't mean we're anywhere near the end of it yet...or if we will survive it.
12
You forget the President can launch a preemptive first nuclear strike anywhere. In this regard the US system has no more checks and balances than Saudi Arabia. This is outrageous but gets no attention
7
No, he really can't. The defense establishment took that away from prior Presidents sometimes too, most famously Nixon's drinking problems inspired DoD Schlesinger to ensure he could not do exactly this, which Nixon had ranted about doing.
2
I know about this. It happened and is extra-legal, i.e. there is no legal mechanism to countermand a President. If Trump goes entirely looney and decides to launch a preemptive strike against France then the same is likely to happen again. North Korea is another story if the attack has remote justification a la justifications Hitler found to start WWII. Let's hope you are right and DoD will just refuse this. For all we know it has had already. If so the disaster that is Trump is reversible by an angry electorate. Lets hope this happens soon.
I've started a practice of going to Fox News' online page each time an article comes out in NY Times about Trump, his administration, his tweets, or his policies.
It's a completely different world of information. A decent chunk of America is getting their news from Fox entertainment.
Fox "News" is registered as an entertainment entity, not a newspaper. What they publish is not exactly wrong, but cherry-picked to ignore critical issues that could affect their viewers negatively.
7
Yes, there has come to be two completely separate worlds of information. Yes, it is important to be aware of what is in both.
However, one must see as a warning sign when the assumption is that one side is entirely and always right, the other entirely and always wrong. I don't believe very much of that stuff, but it makes me wary that the split is so complete.
The world in other matters just does not run as one side all right, the other all wrong. This is weird and dangerous territory.
Fox is the fifth column, as are a majority of republicans.
1
Don’t know if Trump got the edge to get elected because he was a billionaire, and that should become a trend for future presidents with little or no political experience? Are hack presidents the new trend here? It is interesting that the U.S. has enticed illegals from various Hispanic countries to come into the U.S., but little or no incentive to bring rich business people from those same countries into the U.S. that could influence and get elected to high office. Maybe the population does not take Hispanics seriously? On the other hand, Asian billionaires are interested in ties to the U.S. which might open the door for electing an Asian president in the not so distant future. If this is a trend, the country will find out soon enough if there really is no such thing as quality control on billionaires. Be optimistic that very few of them have Trumps rough edges. For now, the country needs to take this one billionaire at a time.
Billionaires as President is not just a US phenomenon. It has happened in Italy and Chile too before it happened here. There may be more I have not thought of, but those two were really raw and open.
Its alleged that Trump saw the Presidential elections, not as a chance to be President, but as a means of raising his profile and enhancing the profitability of his business empire.
True or false, he is setting the tone for future Presidential conduct, and while the Republicans protectively "circle the wagons", that only makes the dangers for the US (and the western world, this affects us all) all the greater.
Another of America's great strengths is the faith it has in journalism and the ethics that are an integral part of journalism ( I know, not all are Bernstein and Woodward), and if Trump is to be brought to heel, before the US is entirely looted by corporate banditry, it will be the honest media which will bear the biggest load.
9
All I can personally hope for, in terms of stemming the collapse of American domestic and foreign policy is a massive shift in the returns from the 2018—and later the 2020—elections. Between now and this coming November Americans who are hoping for, indeed yearn for, anything resembling balance in Washington DC must do everything they can to elect Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans of goodwill, to office. The duplicity of this Republican caucus must be stopped. "Ayn" Ryan, McConnell, McCarthy, and Cornyn's bootlicking must stop.
5
Yes, but Brooks is correct that the opposition is not doing the things needed to win, it is instead doing things to undermine itself in the form of convincing itself of its own virtue instead of convincing a majority to vote for it.
Mr. Trump is ruining our image as a serious nation, he is enabling the worst of the Republican agenda, and polarizing the nation with his tweets and independent radical faux conservative executive orders, like the travel ban and rescinding DACA and the Salvadorian special immigration policy. He is a horror for most of us, a caricature of conservatism. On the other side of this equation is the Republican party, willing to have this travesty happen to get tax breaks. Since the Democrats have no say, the Conservative agenda is running wild. My question is: is that what the Republican party wants? Will this bring about better decisions about our national direction or just cause more polarization. None of this seems healthy, we need a strong respectable center. I don't think radical progressive arguments will counter radical conservative arguments. We need strong Democratic and Republican parties that can compromise to go forward. We need to support centrist Republican ideas and candidates in red states. We need to abandon a radical progressive argument. We need to find the center again.
2
It's interesting that Krugman calls Nunes request for documents "harassing the Justice Department". I always thought Congress had the oversight function. And it's great that the Obama holdovers are fleeing the State Department - their incompetence at solving ANY world problem is obvious .
2
Really?
Gimme your tax returns. i want your e-mails, your bank records, a list of every financial holding you have. I want your library records, your utility bills.
And I want your birth certificate. And if you don't give them to me--now--I'm going on Hannity and taking about where your kids go to school.
Still think it's not harassment?
1
If there was collusion, or not, any Patriot would want to get to the bottom of it. Let the investigation proceed and let the chips fall where they may. Not attack the messenger. Nunes is a party hack; he is apparently no patriot. Party before country, all the way.
Exxon's Tillerson was put in place to get Russian sanctions put aside and allow $500 billion in development money to flow to Russia. He failed and ended up in the dog house. His department is a mess. Many department professionals leaving in exodus were there before Obama. No point underlying your partisan prejudice, doesn't work with regard to apolitical, multi-administration career professionals. And yes, expertise through experience can be a good thing, not to be summarily discarded.
1
@john:
Nunes is attempting to obstruct an investigation into an attack on our country, and claiming that Trump and accomplices should be above the law. Nunes himself is undoubtedly complict with Russian interests.
2
We can agonize , laugh , criticize , express disgust and be appalled but we're stuck with him and that is the sad and awfulness of the whole thing. The worst part of it is that between the go along Republicans and Trump , they are doing real damage to this country that may take years to right , with their 101 on how to dismantle a democracy . I feel for the young of this country , who will join all the other economic immigrants looking for a better life . What is difficult to understand is why ?
6
"What is difficult to understand is why ?"
Avarice and greed.
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Wanderer, Redundant statement both mean the same thing. Agreed that the lust of greed and power are the main drivers , but to destroy our country is almost like something out of a conspiracy theory or a biblical prophecy.
I too found that Michael Wolff's book confirmed what I already knew about the Trump administration, although the details of the power plays of Jarvanka, Bannon, and Priebus were more than interesting.
The real question I have is why the republicans now so thoroughly back Trump, when they have Pence in the wings?
So...what's really wrong with Pence?
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Da Vinci, Einstein, Newton, Pascal, et. al. Did any true genius ever describe himself as a genius? I think not.
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The V.S.G. is doing more harm than is apparent. Yes, the rage-Tweeting gets the headlines but his cabinet members dismember the State.
Our rage is directed at the wrong target.
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"At the same time, two Republican senators made the first known congressional referral for criminal charges related to Russian intervention — not against those who may have worked with a hostile foreign power, but against the former British spy who prepared a dossier [paid for by the Clinton campaign] about possible Trump-Russia collusion."
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To say it very simply there is not one good Republican in Washington. They have sold their souls for wealth.
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"They have sold their souls for wealth."
Yes, and so have far too many Democrats. We have a bigger problem than just one party, it is money in politics. It predates Trump, although he rubs noses in the problem.
What I find most disturbing is not the ignorant dysfunction in this branch of government, but the informed enabling of it by a second, Congress. For reasons of expediency, profit, or patrons, the majority has subordinated their oaths to defend our nation and turned a blind eye to this amoral, incompetent operation. Worse, some Members seem to want to disable cleaning house. (How do I really feel?).
If criminality is proven, I want all of 45’s Executive Orders reversed, and appointees and jurists removed as prizes of crime. Regaining anything that restores our Founder’s best intentions, national honor, and a long-habitable planet, will take a concerted joint effort. @thefairelection
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Perhaps, Dr. K, you should also acknowledge, even apologize for your own role in putting Trump in office. By that I mean your opinions during the Democratic primaries; those columns that got more and more vicious and, dare I say it, deranged as you castigated Bernie Sanders.
You helped get us here - now at least own up to it!
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Krugman thought he was siding with the inevitable, and ended up siding with what so offended so many that we got Trump instead.
Democrats too must own this failure, their failure, their awful candidate played a big role in this.
Old Bernie deserved to be castigated. (And HE "helped get us here.")
One of the hardest things to fix, and terribly damaging to our country, will be the dumbing down and politicization of the judiciary. When a Republican senator tells a nominee for a federal judgeship: "Watching My Cousin Vinny does not qualify you to be a federal judge." we are in trouble. This goes hand in hand with the complete disregard for law and weaponization of frivolous lawsuits. Without the rule of law we are headed for a dictatorship. Although the VSG doesn't have the brains to accomplish this, the Koch brothers do. March on the 20th, register voters and get them out to vote and never, never vote Republican.
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A termite riddled home can look great until it starts collapsing...Tyrants are most dangerous when cornered...an indictment for Trump or a military strike on North Korea or Iran could be catastrophic for us.
With collapsing infrastructure, ever rising inequality, and incompetent leadership, it's hard to see that we aren't well down the same path as the collapse of the Roman Empire.
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I hate to disagree with Dr. Krugman, but a lot of people who live in areas that continued to lose jobs and security during the recovery are still hurting. DJT has distracted them with scapegoating and bombast, but they are still in economic trouble. It may not be as noticeable as Puerto Rico, but Republican "reforms" aren't going to change the trajectory for the "losers" in the economic realm.
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Many of these folks presumably voted for Trump, and to be fair, we should assume that they knew what (the person and the policies) they were voting for. Except for the very rich and the evangelicals awaiting the Rapture, the country is going downhill in intellectual and moral standing.
If the Trump supporters knew what they were doing in the last presidential election, exactly why do they now have any standing to complain? They got what they wanted then and does it seem all that farfetched to observe that they now are getting what they deserve?
There's something to be learned from this; the next time someone gets pulled over by a policeman, I think the suspect should accuse the policeman of being on the take, or of a different political persuasion, or along those lines (would not recommend this if the person who is accused happens to be a person of color; that could become deadly).
What in the world has gotten into this looking-glass nation? The most obvious crook (and not even a bright one, by any means) is robbing us all blind, redefining how government is run, destroying all institutions, erasing the separations of power in a naked effort to establish a dictatorship, and endanger our country by incredibly reckless maneuvering internationally....and one-third of this country can't get enough of it. If this isn't proof positive of the dumbing-down of this country, nothing is.
We have a minority in the U.S. in certain geographic areas that are holding the rest of us hostage, and somehow they think they're "winning". Sad!
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Perhaps I am being a Pollyanna but I see a country that is being shaken out of it's long standing lethargy. Where the great, slumbering, rational majority is finally waking up to the fact that elections matter and that the future of the country cannot be left to the rabid fringes of our society. The Predator-in-Chief has even reignited the women's movement. Maybe Evangelical christians are right after all and the election of Trump was an act of God.
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In my experience, anyone calling himself a "stable genius" is most probably neither.
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So very true.
Just look at Trump's Cabinet.
The 3 traits every member has in common are:
a) Arrogance
b) Ignorance
c) Groveling, on camera, during Cabinet meetings.
Remember when our leaders were the best our country had to offer?
Not anymore, folks. Not anymore.
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President Trump has achieved more than the socialist, Paul Krugman, could hope to achieve. As for Krugman's prediction that the stock market would crash and we would all suffer has not happened. This is one envious, jealous guy. The election was over in November 2016; get used to President Trump; he is just warming up, and no, he is very competent as proven by all of his accomplishments in just one year and it will continue. He will not be impeached.
@Jan:
You have sold your soul, and you have sold it cheap. Somebody always comes to collect on that kind of sale...
The Mercers have confirmed their responsibility for this destruction of our nation by identifying various activities which they are modifying to omit Bannon, or are claiming did not depend on Bannon.
The Wolff book precipitated an awareness of the Mercers' direction of the White House, and the desire of plutocrats to sustain low people as political agents whose only mission is to protect the absolute wealth of the plutocrats.
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The ruin is going forward in loss of talent and norms (noted by Dr, Krugman), but also in the normalization of alternative facts and the destruction of regulations that have been protecting us (tips in the restaurant industry, blowout prevention in offshore drilling, failures to hold for-profit colleges accountable). Whoever follows Donald Trump will have a repair job to do that will defy belief: it will not just be changing the politics ("elections have consequences"), but attracting true talent to a government where people know that even being a diplomat at the Department of State could be a temporary job. It will be repairing the regulatory environment (and there are stupid regulations, make no mistake, so I would put a sunset rule on every regulation), and most importantly, the reaffirmation that truth matters.
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I wonder why we can't see the obvious influence of Russia in all this. They do what they do -- a good intellience officer was expected to find assets. Certainly Trump was the obvious easy target -- he fit the profile of the potential asset to a T. He may not even realize he is an asset, though his actions and words proclaim the fact. We all need a lesson in Russian history.
The only requirement for Trump appointees appears to be blind obedience to Trump.
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Krugman writes thoughtful, clear, to the point op-eds. Koch brothers write big checks. And they're winning big.
This column fills me with nostalgia for mediocre public servants. Where are the grey plodding bureaucrats who had kept the country on a more or less even keel over the centuries?
Not all cabinet officials in history were possessed of outsized intellects, but for the most part they did what was required of them and furthered the public good. They may not have been brilliant innovators, but they respected the norms and traditions of their offices.
Trump and his appointees, on the other hand, represent two extremes of bad governance: lameness and recklessness; while being unqualified, incompetent and hapless, they are also indefatigable in carrying out radical programs to wreak havoc on grand scale.
Any hope that Trump's inherent laziness, lack of interest in policy and abject ignorance would cause him to be a passive, do-nothing president has long been shattered. Driven by a pathological vindictiveness he has wielded the powers of his office to smash everything worthwhile, as it all reminds him of his own utter worthlessness.
Plato believed that Democracy inevitably led to Tyranny.
But that is because he believed (arguably) that the masses could never be enlightened/educated.
The success of a democracy depends on the people being able to distinguish truth from falsehood. And until now the public education system and news media have done a (far from perfect but) pretty good job curating this ability.
New developments, however, have undermined this safeguard.
1. First, an alternate reality sprang up in the form of Fox News.
2. Then there were the silo-ing effects of social media - where you only see increasingly extreme reinforcements of your views.
3. And finally the ability of anyone - no matter how stupid and unqualified - to communicate directly and effortlessly with millions of people - epitomized by Twitter.
If we are going to save our democracy, we need to find some way of dealing with these problems.
I hear some Scandinavian countries - having dealt with similar Russian information attacks - have developed ways to address these issues.
"We spent more than two centuries building a great nation"
When we arrived we (almost) exterminated –not for the lack of trying –the native population and their main protein supply (Bison). We rebelled against the law full authority of the Crown and committed as many atrocities against the loyalist as they did against us.
But the only thing that matters is that WE ARE THE GREATEST.
American history in a nut's shell.
I wonder what will happen if there at least a partial shutdown on the 19th. If so, what does the GOP do then?
Before Trump there was an intellectually bankrupt Republican Party . Before Trump there was Sarah Palin . Before Trump populism there was Nixon`s southern strategy . Before there were dog whistles , now we have open racism . The GOP is not longer a serious Conservative party . It is an anti intellectual know nothing party .
Some of the people around Trump may be there to serve the Country and to contain Trump`s worse impulses . But many are there to obtain some personal gain or to advance some agenda agreeable to them . And many are the so called " deplorables " . It is a sad circus . I hope it ends well but I doubt it . Among the casualties count the GOP and our two parties system .
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You notice how Professor Krugman praises Republicans James Baker and George Shultz as being very qualified, even if he differed from them politically.
This administration habitually calls the other side, "crooked."
And that lack of civility has filtered down to the bottom runs of society. For that violation of norms there will be a comeuppance.
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I think we have TALKED this entire subject into the ground. It is now time to begin pressuring our representatives for an independent psychological panel to give us an official prognosis on the virtues or pitfalls of allowing this goon run our nation.
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