Great. We all know this by now, Charles. You are repeating yourself weekly. The Dems, and everyone else who wants this cat out of office, now need to stop with the moaning and whining and have a strategic plan and focus on what matters.
The recent news story that some prominent Dems are putting their energy into a law abolishing lynching-LYNCHING!-just shows how short sighted, ineffectual and behind the curve they are.
Enough with the empty idealism. Take a cue from the Republicans and focus on the long game.
45
Sad state in part because the Republican Congress and the Speaker turned the dogs loose. Forgot to fulfill their role as a check on a reckless profane President. Trump got the wrong cues from those with the power and authority to force him to act responsibly on trade, honor agreements, engage the world rather than retreat and to unite rather divide.
Time is the only prescription and elections the only cure.
21
I'm through with commentaries like this. You list what I know already. You tell me to be exhausted. I'm not exhausted. I'm fighting any way I can and looking for better leadership than this from this paper.
21
Trey Gowdy blaming Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein for tearing the country apart is NOT like a patient blaming a doctor for the illness. It is like Typhoid Mary blaming the doctor for the illness. Gowdy’s tantrum was one of the most jaw dropping things I’ve seen in the jaw dropping world we now live in.
45
Some of the Suffolk University/USA Today top poll responses:
"• Liar/Dishonest/Corrupt: 12 percent.
• Doing a poor job: 9 percent.
• The way he treats people/Bully/Ass/Jerk/Disrespectful: 8 percent.
• Disagree with his views/stand on issues: 8 percent.
• Lack of morals/Not a good person/Poor character: 7 percent
• Racist/Hate: 6 percent."
I'm curious regarding the remaining 50% of the responses. Especially, the percentage corresponding to "An insufferable know-nothing, possessing no coherent policy agenda and a despicable pro-Kremlin actor."
What's the sentence awarded to those who've committed high treason? I forget...
19
President Trump is a WINNER! Everyone loves being on the WINNING team. Donald Trump will be a 16 year president. Blacks, Latinos and Gays are "waking away" from the Dems and joining the Trump Train. #WalkAway #Qanon #GreatAwakening #FreeThinker
13
The most "Trump-addicted acolyte" is the author of this screed. I look forward to the day when the smart guy whose opinion pieces I used to love writes about more than indictments of Trump and the police. You have already covered these rich topics satisfactorily.
18
I don't believe that Donald Trump has changed anyone's mind or feelings about racism, misogyny, homophobia, hate of darker-skinned immigrants who can't speak English, Islamophobia, or for that matter, hate of anyone who isn't of his tribe. He has just given people permission to express these feelings in the most vicious manner. I suppose one might say that he has given us all a chance to see where we stand as a nation after many decades of social change. Trump's popularity is at about 40% — as a reading on the amount of viciousness and hate in America that's probably an improvement over the 1920s or 1950s.
And 40% isn't enough to win a two-way election, not if we all get out there and vote. November of this year and 2020, that's when we can set things straight, and the good people of America can retake control.
31
Charles Blow has hit the nail on the head. Recently I talked with a man, always a good union man, about a case I was handling for him. We were talking about how anti-labor Trump was, he agreed. Then spontaneously he said he liked that he "stood up" for us white males! I couldn't believe he felt that he was being oppressed as a white male. Trump support is based on not only rage but a fear of loss of white male privilege, or white privilege in the case of many Trump supporting white females. I think the fear triggers the rage which enables a blind tribal emotional team spirit that ignores truth. Truly we are in desperate times, if the Dems don't win either the House or the Senate my wife and I will leave. We decided to stay and fight for two years, but if he gets supported in November with all the evidence there is that he is evil incarnate we will leave this soon to be fascist state.
24
Goodness, talking about rage junkies, what exactly is Charles M. Blow’s weekly column but one seeming continuous rant at President Trump and his followers. I definitely think some of Trump’s policies are wrong-headed. That doesn’t mean they should be dismissed without examination and discussion. As an example, what is Mr. Blow’s solution for illegal immigration? What does he propose as the best Long-term remedy for it? That answer some readers would like to hear one day. For now, Charles 45 record has a bedeviling scratch. Over and over it’s Trump the racist. Play it again,
22
Wow. The instant I read the headline in my daily NYTimes' email, I thought it referred to the cadre of Trump haters, exemplified by those who post to this site.
I'm not joking. I really did.
I'm an old-time lefty, raised by family in Canada that were out-and-out Communists (called the LPP, "Communists" were outlawed in Canada) and barred from the US in the McCarthy era. I don't recall the Left as being rabid haters back then.
My, how the Left has changed.
Wow.
17
Trey Gowdy. Oh my God, what a joke. That guy was high on Benghazi and Clinton Congressional committees but now he is tired when our election was infested with foreign interference.
But moralizing is never going to touch these zealots. You may as well do what that young woman who won in NY- do your job and build something positive.
23
40% of the american population "cheer" Trump?
I find that quite impossible to believe.
Who comes up with these numbers?
5
Today I had a visit from my Hospice doctor. I started talking politics and when he recognized my dislike of trump he said " I will come and pick you up and take you to vote." Turn out the vote and defeat this monster. My early vote will be in the mail.
34
Keep at it Charles. It is important to keep pointing out the sickness of the Trump era. This will all end in a year or two when we are hit big the big recession.
10
The Founders feared the Republic they created would not stand the test of time, just as the Greek republics of old failed that test. Trump is realizing the Founders fear, and destroying the Republic along with the post WWII liberal democratic order that has made the world richer and freer. The destruction of the Republic the post WWII order is the basis upon which the Democrats and the Resistance should oppose Trump.
7
A substantial group of evangelical Christians believes that Trump was sent by God. How can you reason with people who actually believe that? That is why they ignore all the traits about him they would normally criticize. I don't know how to fight against that kind of irrationality.
23
Very simple: Thank you for column. I think more people agree with you but will not give their opinion because Trump has created the "great divide" among Americans.
We have lost the ability to listen and compromise.
I would love to hear your opinion on the "why" we have Senators "afraid" to go against him because they do not want to lose in their next election.They are afraid of a bully, liar, bigot, etc. This has gotten very scary in our country.
This says to me, we are no longer electing people to represent their state & people, they just want to keep their job. Is this because they are not qualified to do anything else? Why can't we fire them when their perfomance is way below of what is expected of them?
12
Though it may feel like we're being torn apart, we will knit ourselves back together even stronger! This belief is informed by a recent visit to the Czech Republic which gave me a new perspective on hardship, determination, and striving for a democracy. The Czechs I met absolutely LOVE Americans and American democracy. That love comes in part from the fact that their first president married an American woman, who introduced him to Woodrow Wilson, and from Wilson who helped found Czechoslovakia. The Czechs and Slovaks survived 300 years of oppression under Austro-Hungarian rule, enjoyed a brief few decades as a nation before the Nazis rolled in, and after that the Russians. Through it all, there were freedom fighters who never gave up on the notion of Czech sovereignty and their determination was rewarded in 1989 when the Russians packed up and left without a shot. During the two weeks that I spent Eastern Europe, I found myself repeatedly thinking "if they survived all of this, our nation will survive Donald Trump." Some of "we, the people" simply became complacent, but I think we are all "woke" now! While it's true that far too many white folks are still ignorant about the daily impact of racism on our brothers and sisters, there are legions more who are willing to fight against it. I hate to say it, but there are far more than there were before Trump was elected.
6
Many Trump supporters behave like he is a close relative -a little brother or cousin who is just trying, not there yet. When someone doesn't like what he did, they say moan "Oh, give him a chance".
What IS wrong with them?
12
One has to wonder how a country can become so strong economically while being so stupid politically, I think Anerica's time might be up soon, loose the doolar as the international trading currency and you are going down like a rock in water. Good luck folks!
6
All the whinging…
Of course Trump is greedy and racist and cruel and in the pocket of the industrial and financial sadists of our County. And so are his idjit followers.
But what is almost as depressing as Trump are some Dem's idiot talk of eliminating ICE. They are giving Trump the biggest talking point EVER.
Facts don't matter. Impressions are what count if the Dems are to save this Country. But the way some Dems are acting, they may as well be operatives for Trump and his fascists.
Unbelievably stupid. We may have already lost these midterms.
13
As disgusting as Trump is, the real shock was how willing and easily all the self-proclaimed "patriots" who claimed they stood for balanced budgets, law and order, etc. were to throw democracy under the bus and line up behind their fuhrer.
14
I hope God comes back from vacation soon. America needs help.
18
I learned absolutely nothing new from reading this column. Charles Blow ain't wrong, but he's like a broken record.
Why not a paragraph or three on the fact that Anthony Kennedy's son is the Deutsch Bank employee who loaned Trump 10 figures when no other banks wanted anything to do with him? Haven't seen anything about that in the NYT.
Careful folks, the NYT is subtly slanting their coverage, same as always. Don't want to piss off the advertisers, and there are shareholders to please, along with the Wall Street analysts who place quarterly profit reports above everything else.
19
Most of us have a range of perceptions and beliefs that we live within. Any of us can be pushed to anger or empathy within our personal borders.
Most of the Trumpers were not in the rage sector of their range at least not in the extreme of it. until Trump came along. We need to keep our own outrage down because as Blow said so well, it only fuels theirs.
We have to walk the country back from the rage that is always there to the empathy that is also always there and available.
6
This country & its people have reached the crossroads created by the person now occupying the White House & his enablers. Their constant efforts to undermine decency, respect, the rule of law & progress towards the U.S. living up to its stated ideals is reaching critical mass. The goal is to lead all of us into a grotesque labyrinth of no escape; where our moral indignation is as trapped as we are. Where we will have no outlet or ability to repair the constant damage being done. Where there's suspicion & fear of all around us, eventually leading to resignation & acceptance of this living hell!
I suspect some will push on to oppose the push to trample us for as long as it takes. Others will tire of the effort to resist & simply accept these horrors as the new reality.
The other day there was a "news item" about a bride & groom having their wedding reception crashed by the Crasher in Chief, & being delighted by this intrusion.
To me, that this fact made its way into broadcast news as a "happy story" was sickening because:
1) It wasn't news!
2) It shows the "normalization" of this horrible new normal!
I also suspect, if we have a chance to engage "supporters" in a neutral setting, where reality reigns & the abstract of the attacks on our country & its people by the Source is in the background, there can be some wavering of his support, if the message of the damage to one is damage to all is expressed so clearly, they will also see themselves as victims.
3
Right on, Mr. Blow.
6
Rage and anger motivate people as nothing else does. And Trump is good at it, better than most. Haters generally are. If the hater happens to be incompetent, and a moron at that, well then hatemongering is going to be his weapon of choice for all time. He riles his followers with rage almost on a daily basis.
The Democrats are making a huge mistake by trying to douse the anger of their supporters. Look at the Schumer's shameful reaction to Maxine Waters much needed yet mildly fighting words. (For God's sake, it was time that someone stood up to the bully who is raging and ranting on a daily basis). As if not to be left behind, comes a breathless Nancy Pelosi who wasted no time in belittling Alexandria Ocasio-Cordes' energetic campaign and her stupendous victory over a 10-term veteran Congressman in the New York Democratic primary.
Wind and waves may be in Democrats' favor. Atmospherics may make them appear attractive. But the Dems' present leadership set-up neither looks ready nor fit for the coming electoral contests. Essentially Schumer and Pelosi are stuck on a playbook that's several revisions behind its times. In recent memory, the country never has had an election campaign where the leader of the two major political parties was openly spewing hatred against opponents and where his political party had willingly converted itself into a cult rather than maintaining its old facade of a large tent party.
10
Mr. Blow, I agree with most of your article except the conclusion. The logical conclusion of your article is that Mueller investigation does not matter, not politically. Whatever the outcome, the Trump base will not believe it. With Democrats out of power in Congress, no action will be taken. Clearly, one can no longer count on the courts. The only path remaining, before it closes forever, is to take back Congress. Trump will be with us for four years and if we are not careful, he will be here for eight years. Even more sadly, the polarization fueled by Trump will burn for at least a couple generations without him. There is no cure except time and demographic change. I am an optimist by the way and this is my optimistic estimate. You do not want to know what is my pessimistic estimate for this global authoritarianism turn.
8
I despise Trump. But Democrats and the mainstream media bear much of the blame for his election and popularity.
Why? Because they are so biased by the one-sideness of political correctness and so invested in advancing certain ethnic groups interests at the expense of the rest of Americans.
Take race for example. The Dems and media focus almost exclusively on black complaints against whites, and treat almost all white complaint against blacks as racist -- even though blacks murder twice as many whites as whites murder blacks, and even though in neighborhood after neighborhood when blacks have moved in crime rates and fear have gone up. But whites are labeled as racist if they publically mention such crime and its negative effects on their lives. This is why many whites have justified reasons for resenting the Democrats and the mainstream media.
However, crudely and dishonestly Trump discusses racial injustice against whites -- he is the only major politician who has the courage to stand up to the totally one sided discussion of race coming from the Democrats and the mainstream media.
14
LBH:
So glad you brought up slavery, jim crow, etc. in pointing out the historic excesses of maltreatment of whites by blacks.
Of course we are, and have been, a "post racial" society since the Emancipation Proclamation leveled the playing field, no?
6
I'm still trying to understand how in the world a Trump was elected president of the U.S. I know how he won the Republican nomination. He threw the racist, xenophobic dog whistle away and spoke plain English to Republican who loved it. First the first time one of their own ditch the 'political correct' hidden code speech and spoke openly about what they all always felt. It was music to their hears. Heck, it was a symphony to their ears. So how did he win the general? Oh yeah, he ran against Hillary Clinton who couldn't inspire anyone and was seen just as corrupts and as much as a liar as Trump. We have Trump because the Democrats are inept, corrupt, and frankly don't seem to care.
6
We all went threw tumultuous times with Obama, and probably would have done so with Hillary. But what if the NYT had backed Sanders? I guess many of us will always wonder.
8
"investigators aren’t tearing the country apart. They are trying to protect and save it"
Yea sure. Protect and save their personal agenda maybe.
Read up on Strzok.
4
Mr. Blow:
I share your frustration. May I suggest, though, that obsessing with Mr. Trump is not a solution. Combat Mr. Trump's litany of racism, gloom and doom with accounts of sacrifice and service of real life American heroes. Talk less about what Trump says -- we all know he lies -- and focus on his actions. For example, it is reported that the Government now apparently is attempting to charge relatives of separated children enormous amounts for travel fees before releasing the kids. Is that true? The separated kids cannot be forgotten. It is a Trump gift that will keep on giving. Talk about it. Expose his cruelty. You have a forum none of us have. Use it wisely.
12
Bless you Mr. Blow. You put my rage into words. And you articulated the vague fear I have had that Trump supporters get delight from my rage. Thank you.
5
As demonstrated day after day in these race-baiting polemics against Trump supporters, Mr. Blow is the most obvious "rage junkie" in these parts, and he appears not to even realize it.
8
To his base, Donald Trump represents that the lion share of the nation's wealth and opportunity should continue to roll to white males, regardless of competence, merit or character. It is one reason they don't care that he is obviously incompetent. Mr. Blow's article should include the right-wing cable/media empire that has stoked white America's fear and rage since 911. His supporters didn't get to their hate/fear LaLa land without plenty of help from Fox News, Rush, Coulter, Jones, etc. If we want to change the current dynamic, we not only must vote, the mainstream media, and all Americans that haven't lost their marbles, should speak out, repeatedly, against the right-wing media and their misinformation campaigns. I know too many people who believe that Sean Hannity is speaking "God's own truth".
5
Understand "cognitive dissonance". In the old days the classic example was the excuses and lame defenses of folks who were duped into buying Edsels, one of Ford's very worst made cars with so many issues it immediately became infamous.
By the time November this year rolls around, these very same Trump supporters will enter those booths and secretly vote to put the man against the wall and they will come out to the exit polls saying they voted straight Republican. More than 10% will defect on the sly.
The rest will be the most enormous shift in political activism that the world has ever seen. Democrats, independents, and socialists will unite to break the Republican party asunder. The old Wigs will experience a a deja vu so neasiating that their burial sites will upheave and they will walk about like zombies only recognizable to the diehard Trump zealots many of whom will join them to reintern their remains accompanied with fresh meat vampire-style. A more morbose scenario could only occur at the polls where Trump fans rabid with the threat to the great leader will assault whites and browns for showing up to vote.
God save the American people from the worst of the lot. We must prepare for the great freeze out; the chill of fear to avoid violence at the polls.
ORGANIZE TO DEFEND OUR RIGHT TO VOTE!!!
1
While Trump is guilty of all of the faults ascribed to him in the USA today poll - he is dishonest, incompetent, mean, blames others for his own failures, and is an immoral, racist demagogue, what disturbs me the most is his outright rejection of Humanism, one of the most fundamental tenets of our society and our founding fathers - the notion that their are empiric truths that can be arrived at through critical thinking and rational review of objective evidence. Humanists are generally nontheistic looking to science for truth rather than religion. Humanism encompasses benevolence toward fellow humans and the values of human learning. Not only has Trump personally demeaned these values, but he has managed to convince the entire Republican party and 40% of the electorate to reject the very principals our country was founded on.
3
He has convinced the entire Republican party to reject our founding principals because, to Republicans, those principals are meant for white people, not brown and black people. To these people, black and brown people should remain on the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder, not in the White House, or in the house, or office, next door.
2
Republicans and conservatives have now ceded moral authority to Democrats and liberals. Think about that! The people who considered themselves the moral majority. It would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic.
As a side note, I am a white person and very much support integration and acceptance of all types of minorities- racial, religious, gender, etc.
2
You've nailed it Charles!
I am also not resigned! I've got a hunk of cardboard and some magic markers and I'm rearin' to go!
3
I recently went to a seminar on implicit bias and inclusion. The instructor said that inclusion does not mean simply having people of different colors, races, religions and backgrounds in the room; inclusion means actually listening to what those diverse peoples have to say. If that is the definition of inclusion, Blow and most Times readers are NOT inclusive, neither is Trump and most Trump supporters. But the Trump supporters don't claim inclusion as a goal. And two wrongs still don't make a right.
If you really want to be inclusive, start listening to people with other points of view. You might find out that they are not all deplorable.
9
Sorry, but inclusiveness does not and cannot mean accepting the views of those who reject inclusion. We may listen, but it must not be for any longer than necessary to know we are correct when we explain that such views are simply unacceptable.
4
Said like someone who has not really listened to, and thought about, a different point of view. I imagine a white person who listens to an African-American long enough to know you are correct and that the views of African-Americans are simply unacceptable.
1
Okay, so much of our (white) electorate is afraid, and fear drives hate. So how do we counteract hate? More hate doesn't usually solve it. Usually mutual hate leads to worse things.
If the root of hate is fear, how do we make so many people feel less afraid? What policies might achieve that? What might make people feel secure enough not to see others as enemies? What would reassure them that others are not getting more than they are, or getting it at their expense? Would national, universal health care do it? Would a WPA-style government jobs program in declining communities do it? Why do these people feel so insecure? Is it purely racial? Is it economic? Is it both? We need to figure that out and address it, if our Union is to hold together, because in the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, "a house divided against itself cannot stand."
6
"Would national, universal health care do it?"
Democrats passed ACA aka Obamacare, first step towards universal healthcare where Southerners benefit much more than blue states. How did that turn out? Democrats should not touch that topic until they gain solid majority in Federal and State elections, which will be a while.
2
Then what should the Democrats' issue be? What should they champion in order to gain that solid majority in state and federal elections? Just saying "vote for us because we're not Trump" won't do it. What will inspire hope and security strongly enough to overpower fear and hate? I really want to know what the answer to that question is.
It breaks my heart to see what Trump is doing to my country. He is destroying what made America great over many years and by the time his supporters get it, if they ever do, America will be no more.....I only pray those not fooled by this individual vote vote and vote and maybe, just maybe, there's hope.....
6
In his criticism of Donald Trump in "Trump's Rage Junkies", Charles M. Blow makes some valid and invalid arguments.
In the article, Blow complains of the many faults of Trump. Some being Trump's war on the FBI, behavior, stance on immigrants/minorities, border crisis, etc. Blow also emphasizes Trump's tactic of fueling hatred and fear among his supporters "like a drug dealer". He also compares Trump's presidency to the beginning of the fall of an empire. He also asserts that most Americans, even those who oppose Trump, have accepted the reality of the Trump era. He also claims that not even the most negative qualities of Trump in office can weaken support from his "hate junkies."
Although some of these are valid complaints, Blow makes some illogical claims. One president cannot possibly do enough damage during his time in office can cause the US to "fall" as he puts it. His claim of Trump's opposition doing nothing is also false because there have been many street protests against Trump's policies. His statement on Trump's following not shrinking is also false. His approval rating has dropped since the election and many Republicans have started to actively oppose him.
This issue is relevant because this isn't the first time there's been a controversial administration. The past ones have not caused the US to "fall" and it continues to be a global leader. This won't be the last one either, so we must use the present to prepare for the future.
1
Rather than "moralizing" the Trump supporters, we need to ask them simple questions: How has Trump and his policies improved your life? How are you better off since his election? Are your medical benefits better? What infrastructure improvements are going up in your community? Are gas prices lower? Has your salary increased? Is Medicare more secure?
Charles Blow and others keep lecturing the Trump supporters. Stop! Ask them nicely to give concrete evidence that Trump's policies have improved their lives. It is amazing that the Democrats running for office think they can tell the electorate what is wrong. It's arrogant and counter-productive. Instead, ask the electorate to detail the ways Trump has improved their lives. I think the facts will speak for themselves because many things have not improved and are actually worse. Stop lecturing and start asking!
12
better questions Teresa -- how have the lives of progs been made worse?
1
"Nothing quickens the pulse and induces the delight of conservatives more than the consternation of liberals. They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite."
Ah, that's the rub. They think they, personally, are going to be just fine.
For the .1% they are right; if things really go south they have the money to move somewhere else.
But its the rest of the Trump base, the ones that think once we get those minority freeloaders off the gov't dole and keep out them foreigners with the wall and immigrant ban, that are in for a surprise. Although as long as they're told the liberals are hurting they'll probably be ok with it anyway...
7
Trump's base existed on a steady diet of Faux, Rush, Beck and Hannity for eight solid years. They were coached to believe that "liberals" wanted to subject them to minority rule while giving their hard earned jobs to brown people and foreigners. I imagine the Trump base felt just as threatened by Obama for eight years as actual minorities do now with a racist corrupt demagogue in office. There is no equivalence here.
8
The Liar-in-Chief was right about all the winning. The only problem: he and his rich buddies are the only winners. I'm tired of all the winning, just as he said. I'm also very, very tired of him. Very, very, very tired.
9
I guess having a Black president and facing a minority-majority in a couple of decades is too much for some Americans to handle, and they'd rather destroy our Democracy than face the future.
15
You hit the nail on the head - thank you.
3
"Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate... leads to suffering." ~ Master Yoda, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
3
How is what Trump does any different than decades of media, academic neo Marxists, democrats and in it for the money criminal-run "civil rights" groups' hysterical screaming about everything bad that happens to a minority person, or any effort at all to control the flood of wage-killing immigrants into this country are due to racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and of course the old standby that's supposed to shut everyone up … if you dare disagree with me you're "anti Semitic"? What this nation's don't really care about the poor or common people fake liberal elitists have sown they are now reaping.
6
"And this is where we are now: at a standoff. " My deepest fear is we're not a standoff, but on the brink of a civil war.
4
Mr. Blow, what's the point? The divisions are so hardened that you are only talking to people who agree with you, or confirming to the Trumpistas that the 'fake news' media will say anything to damage him, even when we're just refuting his lies with facts. They believe we will never accept their reasons for trusting that he will deliver for them. The lines are drawn in concrete, not sand, and only by turning out in record numbers to vote will we prove that 26% is nowhere near a majority.
6
There's this:
Trump supporters have a dogged, determined and seemingly willful resistance to facts.
Things I know:
It's perverse how headstrong they are even when confronted with evidence, data and tangibly proven facts.
Many aren't even registered to vote, fearful of gun licenses being revoked.
4
Republicans have made a career of tearing the country apart. As a liberal Democrat, I have had my patriotism, my religious faith, my devotion to family and my morals all questioned. I have lost friends and had my business boycotted all because I am not a Republican. While Congressional Republicans hypocritically wring their hands about the loss of "civility." Their allies on TV and radio filled the airwaves with the hateful poison from professional haters like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck to name just a few. And they have been doing so for more than 30 years! There is no equivalent on the left. The GOP has created a monstrous movement of hate-filled, red-faced, racist and screaming "true-believers."
History shows that hatred of such intensity can only end in the destruction of those who created it. It can't come an hour too soon.
8
Trump is the kingpin of the rage cartel, but don't forget there is more to the cartel than just the boss. Before Trump, there used to be people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh (to name only two) who were much like smaller time rage bosses, but Trump came along and out-hustled the small-time bosses so that they all now work for him. Now we have vast Networks of Rage--Fox News is the most notable, where pushers like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham are actively selling the rage on a 24/7 for-profit business model. Don't forget, Fox News is indeed the most-watched television news source, and it's not an accident. Turns out that selling rage is highly profitable because you can train your audience to come back for more time and again.
So how do you help a junky break his self-destructive habit? Unfortunately, you mostly can't. It's up to the junky to realize they need to change and be open to that change. Right now, some 40% of Americans are fully addicted to the cocktail of fear/anger/grievance/blame, and all the rest of us can do is try to isolate these addicts enough so that they don't burn down the neighborhood.
6
The paradox is that the rage junkies spite themselves. The longer Trump is in office and enabled by the other two branches of government, the under-educated, uninformed whites who take pride that they are not "elite", will suffer the most. They can take solace that yes, they did get their man elected in a Faustian bargain with the devil, who will take his due from them and their offspring.
2
Perhaps what stings the Trump followers most is pointing out their hypocrisy because otherwise they might have to admit her truth.
1
"Trump is like a drug dealer who has addicted his followers to fear and rage . . . ."
There is a certain amount of truth to this in the literal sense. Certain feelings cause our bodies to manufacture substances called endorphins, and a person can literally come to crave those feelings because of how they make the person feel.
I have a feeling that to a member of Trump's cult (And I believe I use the term advisedly.), rage feels good, and is something to be both craved and enjoyed. The fact that the only tangible result of much of what Trump does is to anger the left is sufficient. Sticking it to "the lib'ruls" is a big part of the reward. Never mind that most of Trump's campaign promises have vanished like the snows of yesteryear.
The midterms will tell us a lot about where our country is headed. As a liberal who is sick and tired of Trump, and even more sick and tired of GOP majorities in both Houses of Congress, I can't wait.
6
As ye sow shall ye reap.
Americans are daily confronted with the long term results of very separate and unequal or limited educational opportunities. In younger years we would have surely seen multitudes of activists in the streets, in a strong rebuttal to the DC nonsense we have now. We are scattered by technology, disunited in ourvoice.
For such longer views read Robert Reich's 2017 HuffPost article, "The 15 Warning Signs of Tyranny", and Madeleine Albright's new book "Fascism" for such compelling facts and living experiences. And as we remember on so many 50s coffee tables, the William Shirer classic "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" to remind us that the course of German history made blind obedience to temporal rulers the highest virtue of Germanic man, and put a premium on servility." Thuism Charlottesville lives on.
We have citizens with an acquired perspective for evaluating Trump with other tragic historic roles of demagogues, and we have those who do not have such insight and are increasingly made susceptible to an emotional, misplaced anger directed at others unlike them or those in search of improved lives.
The easy targets are immigrants, ironically from whom we all are descended, the next will certainly be progressives, liberals, the poor, the different. We will hear proclamations of policy that have sprung with full tooth and claw from a sadly but clearly disabled fantasist. I don't think he has thought this through.
On September 21st, 2016, about a month and a half before the election, I posted the following on my Facebook account: Donald Trump is not so much a candidate of the Republican Party for the Office of President of the United States. Rather under the guise of being such he is orchestrating a "coup d'erat" - a blow against the state. That is, he seeks to effect injuries aplenty to the existing structure of "checks and balances" provided through the Constitution by the three branches of government and, if possible, exclusively craft our future as "The Great American Putin".
To him shall be subject a wounded and confused Congress for whom he has contempt and a Supreme Court whose members he will pick and whose judgements he will accept and administer, if he likes them and sees first to do so.
He is seeking the mandate from the American People to accomplish this from within as "Their President." He will "disestablish the established", putting Democrats and Republicans in their place - as those who will watch the implementation of his infallible declarations. HE will tell us all "When America Is Great Again." Trump's election will mean "the end of the beginning phase" of the breakdown of the American republic as we know it.
Mr. Blow's analysis is "spot on". The Fall elections will be disrupted and called bogus by "The Tyrant". He must be removed forthwith or the US will perish.
2
Supreme Court (check - Republicans got that for the next 30 years)
Lower Courts (check - largest number ever of judgeships to fill)
Ensure gerrymandered districts (check)
Secure unlimited funding via Citizens "United" (check)
Allow voter suppression to continue via the Courts (check)
THIS is what trump and republicans bought and WE are painfully paying for.
IF Democrats and others who care at all about democracy don't wake up and become an OVERWHELMING Voter Force FOR DEMOCRATS in November it's "game over" Tilt.
Without Democrat CONTROL of the HOUSE AND SENATE there is NOTHING stopping trump and the right wing republican agenda. Period.
Big Picture people. Forget radical agendas.
WINNING control of the House AND Senate is the ONLY thing that Matters.
Protests are great, but POWER is what gets things done.
Democrats have blown it too many times by not being united and voting enmasse. Time to wake up and WIN. Then and ONLY then can change happen. Just sayin...
8
You can blame Democrats as much as you like, but in the end it all comes down to those folks who for one reason or the other, DON'T vote.
4
Conservatives felt betrayed because Liberals seemed intent on giving away their wealth, or what little they had, to the poor. Yet as they trotted off to Church as Christian Soldiers they neglected the preachings of the most pious of them all. That is why I despise Conservatives. Not all mind you. Just Trump religious voters. Many did not vote for Trump. But many so called liberals did. The "Godless" ones that Conservatives refer to them as. In fact they actually hate liberals despite being told to love your enemy. Thank God I'm Atheist and sat that election out.
1
"... hook'em with fear, fear of losing something they have or not getting something they want, and they're yours forever."--Christine McM
Throw in the fear of somebody they look down on succeeding. In their zero-sum mentality, somebody else succeeding means them losing. Can't have that.
4
I’m not sure anyone has more or less right to feel strongly about something than anyone else does.
1
I was thrilled to see the term "rage junkies" used as I've called people like Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, etc. "rage merchants" for years. Realizing way back then that this is what they sold, and business is always good. Trump is our nation's first rage merchant president and it's no coincidence that one of his closest confidantes is Hannity.
12
Trump's an exhausting narcissist always peering at his reflection in the pond. So self-centeredly unwise he let Russia steal the election for him.
Famous legal expert Seth Abramson said “No man suspected of conspiring with America's enemies should be given a second stolen SCOTUS seat until he's been exonerated.”
Trump's committed the most awful case of treachery in our history. On July 27, 2016, he publicly told Russia to hack further and find the Clinton “emails that are missing."
Our investigative agencies are certain Russia hacked
computers and data systems to sway the election to Trump.
His own staffer Katy McFarland emailed that Russia threw the election to him. She then resigned.
Prosecutor Mueller has Trump's people in jail, indicted, pleading guilty, turning on Trump & turning in evidence. Remember this in your moments of despair.
9
Your article is a self-delusion. I consider myself an independent, and all I see is rage from the left, often beyond reason.
15
Watch Fox News for fairy tales and rage.
3
I always laugh when I hear pundits say Trump's base is all about appointing judges. Really? I bet only 1 in 10 Trumpsters know how many justices sit on the Supreme Court.
9
I live in a city with close rural areas near a major metropolis. Trump supporters I know can barely articulate a policy or defend it. Hillary was their enemy.
It's so easy to combat their views. You almost feel like a political science professor when a conversation comes up.
7
I think you’re half right. Based on my interactions, what’s very important to them is a broad interpretation of second amendment rights. Which they view as something that depends on appropriate Supreme Court appointments.
Abortion seems irrelevant, except among the hard core religious.
Most of the guys would want their girlfriends to be able to get an abortion. I don't believe they'd want it to be outlawed. It's more libertarian, whether they realize it or not.
Hardly any I know are religious. In fact, this area has its churches, but few attendees. Probably 75% educated and minimally religious at best. Many said they object to Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions primarily. And don't like the tax bill or paying for Trump golf trips.
When people are angry and believe they no longer have any control over their own destiny, they become dangerous. The current administration is well aware of that fact, and feeds that anger and fear. Remember, it is the individual who is afraid that you have to fear the most - they have nothing to lose.....
4
Another spot-on analysis by Blow. Anger and hatred feed his supporters - he is not worthy of them. Too bad there is no one who will take their feelings and turn them around by dealing with their grievances and fears
2
How do you deal with grievances and fears that are unwarranted, baseless, or invented? Certainly some of their fears are legitimate, but most have been invented to secure Republican Party votes for years to come.
3
Charles Blow is pinning his hopes on the 2018 and 2020 elections. But, if previous elections are a guide, future elections are not going to result in the correct penalties for Trump and other government employees. Much has been written about the separation and caging of children. If Charles Blow, or any other private citizen, had been the perpetrator, what penalties would he get? Shouldn't we insist on applying the same standard to Trump and his accomplices? When it comes to justice, why should we accept or tolerate that some are more equal than others?
Such an inequity is morally illegitimate, especially knowing that Trump's malevolent behavior is based on his disgusting racism, powerism and classism.
The slave-owning white supremacists avoided justice, and so did the perpetrators of the Vietnam Holocaust. Such inequity must end.
3
"The Trump apparatus is entrenched, and each day burrows ever deeper into the core of what made America greater, better, different:"
And as long as liberals refuse to fight back it will get entrenched even more deeply.
Today on MSMBC a host was speaking on the phone to Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avennati about recent comments made on air by Michael Cohen.
While the phone interview was in progress Trump operatives were tweeting the host with rebuttals and talking points.
THAT is rapid response that would have made Bill Clinton, James Carville and Paul Begalia proud.
The Dems don't do that. Trump controls the media and the Dems don't push back. In the pre internet era Bill Clinton had a rapid response team so effective it won him the White House.
Why don't Dems gang tweet back when Trump lies and bullies? Why do Chuck and Nancy tell their side to stand down?
Where is the Democratic version of Michael Avenatti who can take and throw a punch to set the record straight and keep Trump off balance?
What are Democrats so afraid of?
3
Right on.
1
Let's not forget that while Trump is ginning up outrage about immigrants, and blaming them for all our social and economic problems, Republicans and their corporate clients are getting all the tax breaks, bankrupting our school districts, and hogging all the wealth while paying workers poverty-level wages are laughing all the way to the banks. Any working class American who votes Republican has been conned. Suckers!
14
Right on Charles! This is everything. Thank you.
The New York Times has an article about Trumps family in Europe. The article interviewed family members who don't appear to want to tell the world that they are related to him or mention his name.
This man has reeked nothing but heartbreak, rage,anger on the entire world. However our feelings are validated knowing that his own blood have difficulties with who he is and what he pretends to stand for outside of hate. Everything comes to an end we must remain strong, vote and work with our communities to ensure that insanity comes to a end sooner than later
6
It seems to me that Blow has it backwards, its the liberals who are foaming at the mouth, while Trump supporters are very content right now.
12
Trump supporters are living in the alt universe perpetuated by Faux News and cynically manufactured by Trump, directed of course by Putins agenda.
2
The only reason Trump supporters are "very content right now" is because the effects of his tax plan which benefits the wealthy, the tariffs levyed on the U.S. by the E.U., Canada and China, and the lack of affordable health care and other social services hasn't kicked in yet -- And besides all that, 'Ignorance is Bliss'.
Gradually the idea of secession is becoming attractive in my circle. Probably that should have happened instead of the civil war. If that would have happened, we would probably be considering border wall to keep the southerners from coming to north. Also, trillions of dollars have gone from north to the confederacy of takers and that rate will go up with the new tax laws. I think we should seriously consider secession of the northern blue states from south.
4
"I guess this is how empires begin to fall. It isn’t necessarily one dramatic moment, but the incessant monotony of assaults on normalcy that slowly shift the ground beneath you, reorienting what is proper and preferable, what is outrageous and what is acceptable."
One "dramatic moment" looming on the horizon is November 6, 2018. If Trump and his lap-dog congressional supporters control both houses of Congress that day, it may be the "bang" preceding T. S. Eliot's predicted whimper.
The deck is stacked against the small-d democrats as well as the Democratic Party. Blatant gerrymandering has just been upheld in Texas where all but one congressional district was approved by the Supreme Court, One more Trump SCOTUS appointment approved, and the Court's course will be set for a long term of moments drained of their drama by their utter predictability.
Apparently the Russians are active again in the US election campaigns. Maybe Putin will tell us what happens in his upcoming meeting with Trump. We certainly can't count on whatever version we get from Trump.
There's certainly some inherent drama upcoming if the findings of the Mueller investigation are ever publicly revealed, which is not a certainty especially if November 6th arrives before the report and the Rs retain control of the House as well as the Senate.
3
Wherever Trump's 'base' -- or al-Qaeda in translation -- reside, it is the land of 'other.' A place that can not be reached by those hoping to present a reasoned argument to what they have learned by rote. How easy it is for them! They have one news channel (why bother when Fox is all they need) and a couple of radio stations (give up Rush? Michael Savidge?) and so all their thoughts are pre-digested for them. Why struggle with a thought of one's own when the best 'thinkers' and talkers have thought and said it already? And as always, they are the loudest, the ones with the most strident rectitude (although they know neither word) and the ones who are just plain silly. We should not ever be bedeviled by them. Especially when Mueller's report comes out and they find a way to turn treachery into white noise. Because, that's all they have ever known -- white noise -- the sound of nothing being said by those they turn to. Nothing except the false currency of lies.
2
I'm now in my 70's and, sadly, am among those who have simply given up. Corporate power and corrupt politicians have swept the board. One more conservative justice and any sliver of hope will be gone. I believe things are going to get very ugly. Thank God, I won't live to see it.
1
Americans must acknowledge and accept that many of their fellow citizens are just as racist and misogynistic as the man they put in the White House. They are fundamentally bullies and they are bringing up their children to be like them. This is not new but now with instant communication and new levels of uninhibited rage we are faced with the stark reality that the nation will fail if it continues to elect despots like Trump. It may already be too late.
4
Trey Gowdy who held hearings for years on Benghazi has no moral authority to demand an investigation of this President be wrapped up bc it's tearing the country apart. Gowdy spent years throwing red meat to that same base to increase his standing and exposure. He is as complicit as they come.
15
Please, can I get some help from some fellow New Yorker's. Until Trump is hauled out of the White House and off to the Gray Bar Hotel can we hang a drape over the Statue of Liberty. The United States is now the World's laughingstock. A nation we once have some things to take pride in ended January 20th, 2017, a day which will live in Infamy alongside Pearl Harbor and 9/11/01. What makes this the worst out of the three is that the terror, the horror, the dishonor was self-inflicted. Yes, we have the Electoral College to absorb some of the blame, but it is US, we the people, who find ourselves living among such angry and fearful people, who must acknowledge that millions of our neighbors, some claiming good moral Christian values as the cornerstone of their lives, went willing to the polls and cast their precious vote for someone with no moral compass, no scruples, no sense ethics; just a self-centered blowhard who craves wealth and anyone who accumulates it. The horror, mista Kurtz, the horror.
DD
Manhattan
7
Fellow New Yorker here, and you've got my help in terms of support because you're speaking for a lot of us.
For my part I tried my very best, and on these exact same pages to warn Americans during the 2016 campaign of what they'd get in return after voting for Trump -- namely, a lifetime of Supreme Court appointments dedicated to this country back into the Dark Ages.
That's why the only thing we can do now is keep up the good fight... and RESIST!
3
Get out the vote in 2018! Everyone responding here to this column ------help register new voters and get current voters to the poles.
The majority of people in the US agree with Charles and so we must fight on for the votes.
4
Words fail.
1
2/5 ths, if that truly is the number, of Americans want a benevolent dictator... Trump plays the part very well but he is a sadist..... not unlike the creep offering candy to children to benefit from unspeakable acts against them
3
As far as Comey, Strzok, etc. are concerned the following statement:
"The investigators aren’t tearing the country apart. They are trying to protect and save it"
is the most naive thing that Charles Blow has ever written.
Ask the last Democratic candidate for President whether Comey's ego-driven and self indulgent bad decisions were motivated by the desire to "protect".
I think she would disagree. Strongly.
2
So what lie, on the level say of "I never had sex with that woman, not a single time"?
(And it's closer to three fifths, BTW, and growing.)
5
Do Republicans expect a permanent get-out-of jail-free card on issues of truthfulness because Clinton told an understandable lie twenty years ago?
The election of trump had nothing to do with “economic anxiety.” It’s a convenient media excuse to deflect from the racism that fueled his ascent. Many white liberals also use it to defend relatives and friends who voted for him (“my sweet mom/sister/aunt Becky voted for him but she’s not a bigot”).
Besides, why didn’t “economically anxious” minorities vote for him too?
His voters just wanted to “take their country back” from the uppity black man who had the nerve of getting elected president... and build wall to stop the browning of America.
“Trump won whites making less than $50,000 by 20 points, whites making $50,000 to $99,999 by 28 points, and whites making $100,000 or more by 14 points. This shows that Trump assembled a broad white coalition that ran the gamut from Joe the Dishwasher to Joe the Plumber to Joe the Banker.”
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
4
If Hillary won all of Obama's voters, she would be President. Trump is President only because he won the votes of those who voted for "the uppity black man who had the nerve of getting elected president."
Maybe someone can explain the fact that some people who voted for Obama also voted for Trump.
3
Trump's rage junkies, as you call them, are Americans who like to fume and vent and carry on because they like to fume and vent and carry on. Lots of folks get up every day and say "anger's my meat" and then feed on that emotion because that is how they wish to live. Humans all over the world are just these folks and have been for millennia.
Trump wakes up every day and says "anger's my meat" if his tweets are any indication of his reason to live.
The problem with daily doses of anger is that people "sup upon [themselves], / And so shall starve with feeding" (Coriolanus). Look at Trump--what is he but a man starved of a life?
Truly, I don't care that Trump starves. A man who doesn't "get it" by his age is a fool. He had choices.
Our fellow Americans to whom he appeals, however, are possibly unaware howTrump's fanning the flames of their anger distracts them from the savagery of the developing policies in the current administration, policies that attack human and environmental welfare. The most economically vulnerable among Trump's "base" will be the first to suffer as is always the case when morally deficient folks lead people into folly.
Whereas I would like not to care that people wish themselves to starve on their anger diet, the human in me says that we all ought to care.
Vote. Democrats sat home on their rumps in 2016.
6
Time for leftist rage.
As evidenced by the election of left candidates.
And ANTIFA.
1
This attack on Trump is a desperate attempt by the NYT editorial board and mgmt. to allow simple-minded leftists to support leftist issues and leftist attacks. At one time, I disagreed with the Times, but thought it reported straight news. The pathetic political failures of the left have driven supposedly hard news columns to become cheer leaders for the radical left-wing causes. These are not even in "news analysis" pieces but in straight reporting. The Ocasio-Cortese win in NY has her hailed as the urban Joan of Arc, from the Bronx. However, the girl never went to school in the Bronx, except maybe KG. She attended Westchester schools and lived in Westchester throughout elementary and high school until she attended Boston College. She must have lived in Westchester because it is illegal to attend school there without family residency. Fraud? Maybe we should send Mueller, Strozk and Strozk's paramour to investigate. Let's get the NYT on it too. Maybe, we should investigate the father who ran a small business. Trump's family business was thoroughly scrutinized by the NYT.
The piece by former border guard, Franciso Conto pointed out another type of big fraud that the NYT is able to countenance. Francisco asserts that the border crossings have subsided so there is really no reason for concern or concerted action. And the NYT and the left wing agitators keep laughing at the honorable immigrants who do the right thing, wait in line and follow the law.
9
To clarify, NYT is NOT left-wing. They defend the Establishment these days more than Bill Buckley ever did. Ms. Ocasio-Cortese does seem to have a progressive agenda. She was NOT covered at all by NYT until only AFTER she was elected, i.e. they were brought to it kicking and screaming. Whether she is legit or not is another question. If she is, GREAT - if not, there are plenty of progressives who are....
2
I'm hoping for a new President so Charles has something new to write about. Sadly, his columns are just variations of the same thing.
Is there any joy anywhere for Charles to see? Nothing in Black America to use his platform to highlight? Nothing to help us remember our shared values as a counter to Trump?
Nope. Just more of the same. Trump has done it: He turned Charles Blow into a bore.
5
Wrong!
Charles Blow is a beloved writer. He never gives up.
On television news shows he is always the brilliant voice of reason among difficult, loud Trump advocates, and he shames them every time. He's a national treasure.
Trump's the bore.
2
Haiku
If Jesus is "wrong,"
That means trump is our savior...
Suicides rising.
When Trump took office, we were told to "reach out" to his supporters. We were told to "heal the divisions". What were Trump voters told? That they could be racists, xenophobes, sexists, and homophobes with total impunity. They need not reach out to anyone other than white Christians, because they were the "true" Americans.
Now we have the internment and caging of infants, because we were supposed to be "polite" to these despicable people. This is what Trump voters have done to this country. They're thrilled to see this vicious, racist conduct. You know, the same group who believes that the KKK and neo-Nazis are some very fine people?
We cannot continue as one nation after Trump. I do not want, in any conceivable universe, to have to "reach out" to people who share his hateful, disgusting views. If Trump supporters want to live in a white Gilead, replete with concentration camps for brown people, then it is time for the rest of us to disassociate ourselves. They will never, never change their views.
The fifty five per cent of us who want to live under a system with our Constitutional rights and protections ought to be able to do so. We should have every right to live in a nation where the rule of law is respected. And there will be no return to the nation we once knew before Trump. It is gone. It's time for us to divide this country into two nations. As a native born American and ethnic minority, this will be the only way I may safely remain in "my own" country.
6
Dividing into two nations is not an idea to be bandied about. First, it is an acquiescence to failure. Second, it is a horrific path to a certain dark future. We need to fix the problem at hand by voting for Democrats on 6 November.
Someone else bandied about the word "succession", so where is this coming from? The idea is so bad that I can't believe 2 real commenters stated it on the same day.
1
I recall seeing an interview with an ageing member of a Nazi resistance movement many years ago. The resistance started long before the fascists' worst atrocities had been committed or had yet come to light. Yet a handful of Germans recognised the danger and tried to act, often risking or giving their own lives in the process.
The interviewee's words stuck with me. He said that they were essentially powerless in the face of the "torrent" of support that the 3rd Reich succeeded in mustering.
Lest we forget, Germany's 1933 federal election delivered 44% of the votes to the Nazis - just 2% less than Trump in 2016.
For me the hope for America lies with the people's willingness to transform outrage (like Mr. Blow's) into hard action. Every man (and woman) Jack with a moral compass needs to mobilise before the torrent drowns everyone.
This is the "can do" nation, isn't it? Now is time to show it.
6
More and more in this column, I see a sad character from a Melville novel, ineluctably drawn into the pursuit of a white whale (thar she Blows).
The morning after the 2020 election, I expect this column to read:
"To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."
3
Charles Blow, Thank you for your good (and true) article.
Malicious disingenuous lying jerks like Trump and Gowdy have always been around. The difference now is that the American people were very careless in allowing them thee top tier platform to deliberately build and grow a campaign of aggressive fear and divisive hatred. We decent people made a huge mistake by accepting that complacency at the voting booth was good enough. That atrocities like Trump and the current right wing of congress were simply not possible here in America. We must retain faith that good people will not sit idle in November and allow this travesty to grow. We are better than that.
4
Hey, credit where it's due... The Trashmaster has proved that it's possible to sell 40% of Americans fertilizer in a 260 pound bag.
3
I'd say Trump weighs more than that.
1
Great article Mr. Blow. Writing columns month after month on the outrages of Trump must be challenging too.
I particularly liked your observation on what someone called “vice-signaling” of the excitable far right: “Nothing quickens the pulse and induces the delight of conservatives more than the consternation of liberals. They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite.”
I feel like we’ve been taken over by the bad boys in Lord of the Flies. And it will be this way until the rest of convert and worship the pig’s head. Perhaps your next column could venture into some of the psychological neuroses of the far right that makes them so hateful and angry all the time.
3
Charles, same old, same old. You'd be more convincing if you had any facts that were worthy of the name, and if your columns weren't primarily ad hominem attacks.
8
“Trump is exhausting our mental capacity for indignation.” Not mine, Charles. Not mine. It’s bottomless.
2
Charles doesn't like Trump , so, to him everything Trump says is an open lie, fabrication or exaggeration. But if we go through his article we can see that each paragraph has a lie, fabrication or exaggeration. For people who like Charles and his views, it doesn't matter, everything he says is bible, but if Trump people like him, they are brainless idiots and raging junkies. Although it is part of the normal political discourse, attack on Trump is not normal. Normally politicians would look for a cover when pundits call them a racists and Nazi, etc. But unique thing about Trump is that he won't hesitate to fight back by calling them whatever names he wants and pundits are the one looking for a cover. So, Charles don't provoke him too much, he may replace you with Maxine Waters as a punching bag. Sometimes it is good, it may increase your rating and make you more famous. So it is your choice!
5
Trump is rebelling against a very biased and powerful news media. Portraying him or his supporters as "angry" is a typical method used by those who shape public opinion to discredit adversaries by playing to peoples' fears. They did this against another anti-establishment (at the time) politician, Howard Dean (on the left, in this case), using the infamous "Dean Scream". I'm more liberal than nearly everyone on this forum - and live squarely in Trump country. Trump supporters here are NOT as they are portrayed by mainstream media. The rabid-appearing individuals carefully selected among, probably, hundreds of photos selectively captured at suburban, Trump rallies are not at all representative of the, by and large, good people living in rural America (who I generally not agree with, politically).
I have to wonder if the skewed depictions of Trump supporters are not only due to propaganda from corporate America. Many so-called liberals seem to enjoy looking down on Trump supporters. It's not pretty. But this, too, may depend on fear - the fear of socioeconomic-falling. Many white liberals are just a few paychecks away from some of these folks. They have little fear of becoming poor blacks, who can also be sometimes crass (though under the surface, like most poor people, they are usually sympathetic and good.)
5
"Portraying" him as angry? Haven't you read any of his tweets?
2
Haven't you seen him sneering and fuming at his rallies and in his tweets and photographs??
Sorry. There's no "portraying" here... what you see is what you get, and his base eats it up.
1
I have, JB. But I'm not sure WHAT Trump actually feels. Much of his bombast seems like play, to me. There's an OBVIOUS difference between what he says and what he means. Only his adversaries take his words literally - in order to use them against him, i.e. 'weaponizing' them... and this is very apparent to his supporters. I think it's pretty common for non-college educated people, who may not have a mastery of the English language, to rely on (and prefer) context, implication, innuendo, slang, and other indirect means to communicate. Language and class - it's an interesting and pretty important topic.
You know sadly and truthfully looking back in history a lot of these characteristics could be used to describe past presidents. We'd maybe been moving away from that to a better person as president, but Donald is a definite throwback to those in that past and was pretty much the campaign he ran.
Narcissists crave attention. So, major papers of the United States--NYT, LAT, WP, CT et al--henceforth banish the name that rhymes with 'chump' 'dump' 'lump' from all reporting, and refer only to the 'current administration'...and see what happens.
2
I observe Republican partisans in liberal N. Virginia every week at a Farmer’s Mkt., have done so for the past 3 years. We use to speak, our democratic table was about 8 ft away from their table. After one of their handmade ‘Breitbart type’ content signs blew over and banged into me (minor), instead of apologizing, one regular there said, maybe that will knock some sense into you. We no longer speak. The next season, we moved our table further up the sidewalk and this group started coming with a huge Vietnam era Army truck in place of the Hummer. Market managers allowed the truck to stay, as parking was not a problem. The new location is much better, as more marketgoers speak with us now, many have complained to the Fairfax Co. market manager about the truck, which has had no effect. Not hearing them bash the media, tsk, tsk over taxes and how many students get food assistance at the public schools is good for my blood pressure. This year, I have noticed that fewer Hispanics are coming to the Farmer’s Mkt. which is quite understandable given the climate in the country. Quite frankly, I can barely stand the sight of them. We Democrats hope to pick up one to three seats in the House of Representatives in November, which is not unrealistic. There appears to be no limit to their Trump affection, the Supreme Court and all court appointments are their number one issue.
4
Instead of writing the same column every time, Mr. Blow should look at his own rage, and the rage he foments in his fans. I would think that his primary goal in life is defeat Trump and his party. But by continually attacking not only Trump but also his supporters, he is making the Republicans' success a foregone conclusion. In order to defeat Trump, we're going to have to convince some of the millions of voters who voted twice for Obama, but rejected the Democrats in 2016 to come back to our side of the fence. We're not going to do that by insulting them, which is the only thing Mr. Blow apparently knows how to do.
10
Right now, there is a lot of anger in America. And Trump is stirring up this anger. Anger which could lead to armed conflict and even civil war. These are perilous times.
3
I voted in the 2016 and not for Trump. I would never vote for Trump. He is a mean, vicious, racist, misogynist, crude, and divisive man and president. That said, is he tearing apart the country? How is that?
He surely enrages people on both sides of the political spectrum. He benefits from an economy with the lowest unemployment rate since 2000, a stock market that has gone up since he's taken office, he's pleased or pacified a substantial number of Americans with a tax cut. While his methods are coarse—see immigrant families forced separations—and his character even more coarse, he has satisfied and pacified a large swath, if opinion polls are accurate, of American voters.
If Americans, especially those who dislike Trump as a person, but satisfied with his actions, are to be convinced of his divisiveness and harm he is doing to America, they need proof that he is tearing us apart. Based on the economy—"Americans vote based on the state of their pocketbook"—Trump, for now, is doing just fine, though many of us know he isn't and need to clearly show other Americans that he isn't.
2
Well said! Thanks. A personal note in response. I find my equilibrium restored by returning to foundations, in an effort to cast some light into the currently descending darkness. Humanity is a global species. We inhabit a beautiful planet. Our biological roots strike deeply into the past. We share DNA characteristics with organisms as basic and ancient as yeast cells. We have minds that supervene upon the neural activity of our brains. Our minds exhibit great range: social and linguistic behavior, causal comprehension, forethought and planning, memory and art, abstraction and logic, laughter and love, and empathy for other human beings and our fellow creatures. The reality is that not all minds exhibit all these characteristics. There is great plasticity in the forms that minds can take, including warped forms that, like a tree tortured by some great rock, grows and twist around it in a distortion of natural form. Such is Trump. Such are his supporters. They constitute a natural phenomenon, but one which is the result of excessive stress and deprivation of their mind-state. The path forward is to give the rage junkies something better than Fox News to entertain them. To get them to relax and laugh for a moment. To get them to reclaim and restore their empathy.
2
Another fine piece, Charles, but I disagree we are at a standoff. Trump is winning. His divisiveness and corrupt behavior have not alienated enough Americans, and he's about to appoint a second SCOTUS justice. He benefits from primetime support every night courtesy of Faux News. And nothing has been done to stop further Russian meddling in our elections. We're deluded if we think we can reverse this without a massive Democratic turnout in the mid-terms. The Republicans control all the levers. These are dark times, not a standoff at all.
5
traveling abroad with my grandchildren, we heard (in Barcelona) a server asking a paying customer, "American?" the customer literally shouted, "Noooooooo". There it is.
3
My granddaughter has lived in S Korea for 5 years. I asked her how people react if they know she's American. She said the question rarely comes up, but if asked, she says she's Canadian.
1
A complete encapsulation of our "white power president". And like clockwork, Mr Blow's critics WILL CRY "identity politics!"
Besides the pundits and trolls who have actual "big boy pants" jobs TO REDUCE Mr Blow's opinion into fear of black people, WHY ARE THERE MILLIONS of "But, I think I'm a patriot" rage-aholics?
Clearly, Trump sells IF IT FEELS GOOD, SAY IT and IF IT DIVIDES, SAY IT AGAIN. He is the pusher of euphoric white privilege; and Mr Blow is exactly right:
"Trump .. has addicted his followers to fear and rage and keeps supplying it in constant doses."
America is three-fifths OPPOSED to the bitter pill with street-name "Trump". And small-time dealers, like Trey Gowdy, are seen .. for exactly what they are .. bad for the neighborhood. Get out of Congress already, Gowdy. Americans have had enough of these Republican impediments to Mueller's investigation.
2
"Trump is exhausting our mental capacity for indignation. "
Well said.
But reactionary, liberal, over-the-top hyperbole found in columns such as your's, Mr. Blow, are having the same effect.
I did not vote for Mr. Trump; but 18 months into his presidency, I do not see the same things that you see.
My view is more nuanced... enough that I might well support him in 2020, IF the democrats make the mistake of electing a reactionary left wing standard bearer to contest those elections.
5
I live in a small community, where you run into everyone. I know many Trump supporters - good folks with good hearts. I can't talk politics to them, I don't understand why they think this guy is a good (even great) president. It's so confusing to me. Looking at statistics in the area I've found that very few (18%) have even graduated from high school. I don't know if that's a correlation but it's obvious Trump is illiterate.
5
"I live in a small community, where you run into everyone. I know many Trump supporters - good folks with good hearts."
Why do I get the feeling that your small town is lily white?
1
KNVB: not exactly lily white but a good read on the situation. :( I migrated down from the north - wow, culture shock. I will vote in the midterms as I always have. BTW I consider myself an educated liberal generation boomer that is in fetal position at this point.
1
“They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite.”
I’m reminded of that old hymn “they will know we are Christians by our love.” That might even be in the Bible, (maybe even Two Corinthians!!), but obviously not in any bible trump followers read, for we have come to know them by their hate.
3
People, including Mr. Blow, don't seem to understand that the anger of Trump's followers discussed here didn't appear overnight. To say that Trump created that anger is to put the cart before the horse. The anger was there and has been brewing for decades. I'm not condoning Trump's follower's beliefs or actions at all, they are as repugnant to me at least as much as to anyone else in the world. But to believe this occurred in a vacuum is simply off the mark. Trump is now the vehicle for expressing the anger of his supporters. Trump may be a racist, but Trump's relevance comes from his followers. It may be uncomfortable for people to believe this, but the problem of racism in this country comes from the tens, even hundreds of millions of racists in the country, not merely from Trump's being a racist. The anger is even less specific. It is anger with a variety of issues and conditions, and Democrats had much responsibility in creating that anger. The economic plight caused by Democrats' shift to the right, Democrats' weak support of the minimum wage, unions, and many other progressive policies which helped people before the shift has resulted in hard economic times for many of his supporters. In fact, many who vote Democratic are angry about many of the same conditions. I'm not sure Democrats can do much about folks being racist. But correcting that shift to the right would go a long way toward cooling the anger of many people.
3
So if I "disparage" Maxine Waters, I am a racist? I don't think so. The left is losing all semblance of sanity in branding and stereotyping people who support Trump as dumb jerks.
We are not.
The radical left is showing us every day who they really are. And it is their enemy, Donald Trump, who has exposed them.
Tough stuff on both sides but liberals take the prize for trying to heap collective guilt on millions of voters.
The easy, condemnatory adjectives overused by the left ("racist" etc.) have become empty weapons in the fight.
13
Good God man, give it a rest, for the sake of your own mental well-being if not for that of your readers. Point made already. Perhaps it's time to move on to a question of greater import: since Trump is such a disaster how did the Democrats manage to lose to him? And what is it planning to avoid a repeat in November? The Democrats are being out-flanked on several key issues. Identify the position - Trump or Bernie Sanders:
“After four decades of the cold war and trillions of United States taxpayer dollars allocated to compete in the arms race, many of our constituents understand that it is not the time to continue wasting tens of billions of dollars helping to defend Europe, let alone assuming more than our share of any costs associated with expanding NATO eastward.”
"_____ sees the eastward expansion of NATO as an unnecessary provocation of Russia ".
"______ 's strong opposition to destructive “free trade” deals began with NAFTA in 1993."
"The TPP follows in the footsteps of the previous pro-corporate trade deals. It lacks safeguards to protect American jobs and the environment while giving massive benefits to large multinational corporations."
Trick question. All Bernie. Most recently Trump's on-then-off "family separation" has goaded Democrats into making statements with regard to border security that are simply contrary to the opinions of most Americans, and they'll be used against them in the upcoming mid-terms.
6
Charles, using your own words, "Trump has positioned himself as a white power President'? I ask as you did in this column, "has addicted his followers to fear and rage and keep supplying it in constant doses." Pot calling kettle black Charles?
5
Spot on, Mr. Blow. Please never let up on producing columns like these, as long as this degenerate is in the White House. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one explanation for how he won, which is that, after 25 years or so of having a bunch do-gooder libruls preaching about being nice to women and minorities, Trump gave the disgruntled bigots of the nation permission to hate again. Openly, loudly, and without repercussion. Any other attempts to parse his victory are pointless, as that is the nut of it. His supporters are indeed rage addicts, and loving every minute of it.
2
Vote!!!
and call your congressional delegation.
VOTE
2
I've realized and said for years that the mystery of FOX News' success with the masses whose interests they attack, lay in addiction to a drug: adrenaline. Folks leading our lives or repetition and normalcy looking for some kind of spike of energy... Nascar road rage, NFL hits that knock people out, cage fighting, gun loving... these are all entertainment cum adrenaline rush, and have grown large at various times to serve that need. A little outrage, a smatter of violence, competition formats where there is always a conqueror and a loser, with bullying and trash talk an option for those on top.
There was a time not so long ago when we were all on the same team, and the enemies were hunger, illiteracy, poverty: We actually declared War on these problems and were one team celebrating:
Voting Rights for all HOORAY !!
Men on the Moon: HOORAY !!
Food for Kids in School !!!
And there was ample excitement and people in the streets cheering and we knew what made America Great.
Now this process has been reversed to where it is selfish grabbing of all the loot by the wealthy, cheered on by adrenalized masses fueled by daily overdoses of race-baiting and fear, and permissions and encouragement to be violent in language and behavior.
You nailed it Charles.... the addiction... the adrenaline ...
The challenge to the rest of us is to create an excitement about a positive, concrete, constructive vision that is not just a vacuous slogan... or a wall.
4
It's pointless looking for reasons why 30+% of Americans would remain supporting Trump no matter what he does. They would still support him if he got us into another shooting war.
After all, they support him even while he tries hard to take away their healthcare and pre-existing conditions clause; basically they are supporting a man who would allow them to endure a life of pain, or even an early death. So it's pointless trying to figure out such abject lunacy that is bent on self-destruction.
A good third of Russians still strongly support Stalin and he murdered millions of his own people. Don't think for a moment Americans are much different because Trump has proved that similarity quite well, as sad as that notion might be. But that's how he survives: Dictators throughout history have survived on 33%. Why? Because collectively the other 67% are patsies; they don't do enough to change anything -- fearing that incivility and political unrest is unpatriotic. Good grief! That's how change is made!
The time for politeness is long over. The time for respect of the Office is long over. When the holder of the Office has no civility whatsoever, and insults everyone who disagrees with him, he does not get to lecture others on civility. When the holder of the Office has no respect for the Office, the Office has lost all purpose and therefore all respect.
Gowdy was right, the country is being torn apart. But he's just one of the 33% who is enabling it. Pitiful.
7
I am sick and tired of hearing about this man, everyone in the press has gotten famous mentioning his name. For him no notoriety is bad, all press reports are good. Why, because the more famous and talked about he is the more myths are generated. More Tweets, more lies just more notoriety. Just say no. Stop saying his name. Call me Bill. Call him Biff.
4
Another on target op-ed. Thank you for the concise and accurate insights, Mr. Blow. In response to:
"But no amount of moralizing from Trump’s opposition will affect the fervor of his supporters. Quite the opposite: Nothing quickens the pulse and induces the delight of conservatives more than the consternation of liberals. They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite."
I would suggest that the way this will all end is not with damaging revelations from the Mueller investigation or at the ballot box (at least not immediately). My sense is that it will take an economic recession that will put millions of Trump's supporters out of work (and, unfortunately, his non-supporters as well).
Once in that position, with reductions in healthcare, safety net services like food stamps, job opportunities, decent housing and college educations, the scales will drop from the eyes of some of these worshipers. More will see that something's wrong as the talking heads of Fox News continue to brew their toxic narratives of personal responsibility and how Americans have been too coddled, and it's all the fault of coastal elites besides.
Then Trump will fall. But for some, Trump in person could be stealing their children's lunch money and grandma's Social Security check and it wouldn't make a difference.
4
It isn't just Trump supporters who are angry. I am a democratic socialist and I have been angry for years. I'm angry about our lack of affordable, universal healthcare, the debt that college graduates are burdened with and many other problems. The answer doesn't lie with voting for Republicans or center right Democrats. We need positive change in this country and it certainly won't come from the Republicans and it takes a long time to drag it out of Democrats. I have never voted Republican in my life, and all too often I'm disappointed in the Democrats. I vote for Democrats, but it's getting harder and harder to justify it. I'm glad to see the recent wins by truly progressive people. It's time to stop being behind the times are become the great country we claim we are.
6
For years now I've been saying that righteous indignation is a drug, and the nation is becoming more and more addicted. Though this addiction crisis was conceived by Rush Limbaugh and his "stupid libs" mantra in the '80's, and spread by the Fox "News" street corner pushers throughout the '90's and '00's, it is by no means confined to the right at this time. Looks like the whole country has become addicted.
This editorial is perhaps proof. Demonizing Trump supporters will probably not result in a meeting of the minds.
4
Mr. Blow: I agree with the sentiment expressed by some below that you do a lot to further motivate the President's supporters. As hard as it might be for some on the Left to believe, there were many of us that were filled with disgust when Mr. Obama went on his apology tours, felt an obligation to remind people that Christians had also done bad things ("remember the Crusades"), and jumped to condemn the police and extoll the evils of "racism" when an incident occurred, before the facts were fully known. Yet we bore it all, because he was President at the time, and voted when the chance came. "Leading from behind" was not everyones cup of tea. Yes there are many people who are thrilled that President Trump is now leading the nation. To lump them all in one "basket of deplorables" who come from a place of hate and prejudice and racism is as foolish as saying all the liberals who condemn Trump have only one singular motivation. I thank heaven every day for the elites who by their words and writing prove Mr. Trump's accusations of bias AGAINST him, further firing up his supporters. Yet I know they do not just come from the same psychological place: Mr. Blow--much anger; Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer--consolidating their power; and Ms. Maxine Waters--well, much has been said about her and it all speaks for itself...
8
toddchow writes, "Yes there are many people who are thrilled that President Trump is now leading the nation."
How much kook-aid does one have to drink to believe that Trump is "leading the nation". Trump is dividing the nation more than any president in history...and not by a small amount. Someone doing or saying whatever they want is not leadership.
I dare toddchow or any Trump supporter to name one thing that Trump has done to bring the nation together.
Name on thing.
VOTE OUT ALL REPUBLICANS
3
We in Canada cannot understand why Trump chooses to alienate America’s close friends and allies while cozying up to its enemies. Maybe because he’s a born bully and flexing his muscles at close allies boosts his enormous ego. It’s clear he has no interest in helping American consumers.
13
“They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite.”
Sir, you have identified this new class of deluded people - They are TRAITORS to American and need to be called out and shamed at every instance.
8
Thank you, Mr. Blow. This is one of your best, if not the best, column I have read.
It's the "ordinariness" of evil that finally wears good people down. You capture that sense here.
Hannah Arendt coined the expression "banality of evil" to capture the “coexistence of normality and bottomless cruelty” that she found in Adolph Eichmann. He didn't come across as a monster.
That's the danger that you so eloquently alert us to here.
7
The worst part about all of this is that we're not talking about it working on real systemic problems - fixing immigration, wage disparity, campaign finance and corruption, reliable elections, the ridiculous tax cuts, climate.
Instead everyone is yelling, at least inside.
5
Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? "Passionate conviction" seems to be bi-partisan.
7
Thank you Charles, once again, for your incisive commentary. Please please please keep doing it!
5
"Trump is like a drug dealer who has addicted his followers to fear and rage and keeps supplying it in constant doses. His supporters have become rage-junkies for whom he can do no wrong."
I have often heard that being a drug addict is a miserable way to live and you cannot help yourself until you are so low that you cannot go any lower. I hope we hit that spot soon. I cannot take it anymore. I am spending way to much on gin! The one person I know who voted for Trump is not a drug addict per say, yes, cheap beer and cigarettes ad nauseum, but I attribute most of his "hate" to Viet Nam era PTSD. He is a sad and pathetic man and I know that I should give him the benefit of the doubt, but I can't. People cared for him, my wife for instance, but the ability to reason with him was gone. He can wallow in his illness, both the PTSDs and MAGA fixation, because that is what it is, mental illness and the world is moving on without us, whether we like it or not.
6
Trump’s primary support group is composed of southern evangelicals, the ones who believe the universe is about 7000 years old and that dinosaurs were on Noah’s ark. Dinosaurs have been extinct for about 65 million years. They want a theocraacy and Armageddon. You can lead them to knowledge but you can’t make them think.
10
So that explains the Trump votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.
Come to think of it, in the primaries, Hillary crushed Bernie among the evangelicals of the south, while Bernie beat Hillary in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
2
Charles, maybe we need a column explaining why all of those Obama voters voted for Trump instead of Hillary. After all, if Hillary got the votes of everybody who voted for Obama she would have won. Why did all of those angry whites who voted for the first African-American President turn around and reject Hillary?
14
These past 17 months have been the most distressing, depressing and exhausting time in my lifetime. Donald J. Trump is beyond shameful and disgusting. I fear he has changed our country for the worse forever.
6
Spot on, thanks
2
Scape-goatism + Electorate Dumb Down = Trumpism
That's what happens when you vote with your prejudices or your faith instead of your brains. You make yourself an easy mark, one that Trump could easily take advantage of with plain speech disguised as candor. How easily these people were bought! That's what happens when you let fear of a multi-racial godless America override anything resembling reason.
8
I don't know what gointo the American people's psychi. There was a time when Americans wanter their President to be Presidential and to have a certain decorem. I guess Many Americans like the Cartoon Charactor. They like the guy at the end of the bar that says whatever he likes. Once Trump is gone My question is Where does America go from There?
5
White people are at a crossroads between demographics and white privilege...with our democracy held in the balance.
Shifting demographics create playing fields where decks are no longer stacked against minorities...and white privilege can no longer be denied or ignored.
Intimidated by black and brown bodies sharing their spaces, white men and women call the cops because they can... entitled to a personal-private-security-force waiting in the wings to assuage the fear and rage of diminishing domination.
White minority rule requires intimidation and violence; complicity and corruption. The stage is being set.
White people have to decide whether they are willing to look the other way as our government systematically oppresses people of color on the road to apartheid. Or whether they are willing to stand up TOGETHER and FIGHT to preserve our democratic values and institutions, under assault by REPUBLICANS on a rampage.
The days of reckoning are upon us. You can no longer be a decent American and vote Republican.
Our country's future is at stake.
We can no longer just let it go.
#DemocracyMatters!
#ResistTrump!
#Vote4Democrats2018!
12
Trump is everything anti American; a man that could have been conceivably been elected in a corrupt country like Venezuela, but not here. Trump is pure evil. This July 4th, I will not attend any parades, I will put my flag away, and I will weep for my country.
8
When I was a little girl I used to stare in wonder at the adoring faces of the German crowds listening to Adolf Hitler in newsreels. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I knew he was supposed to be a bad man. I couldn't understand why people were cheering him on. What was he saying that seemed to get the crowds so excited? I later learned that it was a sort of collective rage at the people that Hitler accused of causing all of Germany's problems -- especially the Jews. The Germans had gotten a "raw deal" from the peace treaty of WWI, the Germans were better than all those non-Germans, etc.
Anyone who spews hatred always seems to have a ready audience. Trump has harnessed that hatred. I'm hoping the younger generation recognizes the dangers and gets out the vote in November.
14
Charles, you know you are the ultimate Trump addict. Even though you hate Trump, you can't help but write the same columns every week, all blasting Trump. In 2016, every week you wrote about Hillary, about how great she was, with the occasional swipe at Bernie. Your 2016 columns were designed for Amen Corner, and they failed to get Hillary elected. Your anti-Trump columns will be just as effective in harming Trump. Amen Corner already hates Trump, and you add nothing to the public discourse.
Maybe you can do some soul searching and start writing an honest column about how Hillary could lose to such a barbarian as Trump, and why Bernie didn't deserve the time of day in your columns.
12
Tony writes, "...start writing an honest column about how Hillary could lose to such a barbarian as Trump..."
Okay...here's why Hillary "lost":
1st, Hillary won the national popular vote.
2nd, Hillary likely won the popular vote in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. However, as Stalin said, "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes." It's very likely that right wing corporation's electronic vote counting machines deliberately adjust the count to give republicans victories they didn't earn.
3rd, to vote for a barbarian, Trump, one must be a barbarian or a fool. Trump's campaign team, in collusion with the Russians, put out fake news on Facebook that was specifically targeted to fool individuals foolish enough to get their news from unattributed sources. Those fools and those deplorables were never, ever going to vote for Hillary.
4th, all the Bernie supporters, all the Stein supporters who were also foolish enough to believe Russian and Fox fake news propaganda weren't going to vote for Hillary. All the people who thought Hillary would be just as bad as Trump were/are fools, or deplorables.
5th, all the citizens who decided not to vote because Hillary wasn't perfect...as if there is ever a perfect candidate. Look at the mess we have now.
6th, all the citizens who are too busy with themselves to bother voting in any event.
So, there you go...6 reasons why Hillary lost to a barbarian. Hope that helps.
VOTE OUT ALL REPUBLICANS
6
Wow, just out of ideas aren't we?
10
Not really. The one out of ideas is this president.
4
When are liberals going to learn that Trump and his cult followers are just like children? All they want is attention. So when they get obstreperous, you don't get all hot and bothered. You just wait for them to run out of steam.
4
Forget Trump. Beneath the sound and fury, he’s predictable as the Tasmanian Devil. His angry, confrontational slogans and tweets against the press, minorities, and liberal elite are rhetoric porn, riling up his base. The trade war, Muslim ban, and separation of immigrant families are love letters to his fans. They forgive his lies, tax policy betrayal, and failure to get results. Let’s build a program for a new national majority that includes minorities, women, LGBT, coastal progressives, and a sector of rural whites like teachers and union members.
5
RAGE JUNKIES React along the same lines as terrorists, since they both share a polarization of ideas and attitudes. Thing are either all good or all bad with nothing in between. The good and the bad cannot exist side by side. So the bad must be eliminated so that the good can survive and prevail. That is the basis of all trerminal eliminationist ideologies such as Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism. And Trumpism.
6
Trump may have 42% but there are 58% of us. We must keep up the fight. I refused to have my country destroyed by an idiot, greedy, corrupt president.
I marched yesterday and I will continue. I have friends and relatives who cannot not see the damage our telfon President is doing to our country. We are not the greatest and we have lost respect around the world.
I hope people come out and vote in November. It's the only way we can get rid of the awful man.
14
Talk about “incessant monotony.”
8
And the one other thing he is destroying which is easily overlooked is "our sense of humor." We used to be a country that loved a good sense of humor. Not anymore! Not only are his objectors losing their sense of humor but even his supporters who yell and scream at his rallies are losing there sense of humor or maybe have already lost it.
It takes a person with a little amount or reason to appreciate a wonderful sense of humor. We don't really laugh much anymore and we used to be a country that laughed a lot before we got the DT's and here I am not talking about the delirium tremors but "you know who."
The other day I was in a superb bakery and a young man was trying to decide on a cake. When he did decide, the person behind the counter asked him if he would like some writing on the cake. He replied somewhat puzzled that it's for me! She immediately responded how about " it's all about me." I couldn't help but laugh out loud at her quick sense of humor. Laugh America (and that includes the DT supporters). You may not realize it now but you will in the future when you realize you are not laughing as much as you should be. Imagine a nation where everybody is walking around moody and upset. That's awful!
4
"Nothing quickens the pulse and induces the delight of conservatives more than the consternation of liberals. They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite."
This may be the root of Trumpism even more than racism. The question is what caused this animus? To be sure, PC culture -- or at least the orthodox expression of it -- has contributed to the resentment, which started long before Trump arrived. But I'd wager that 20 years of demonization by right-wing media -- Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Ingraham, etc. -- has played a bigger role. As we've learned in Germany, Rwanda and Bosnia, scapegoating can be a powerful tool to anger people, then rally them in opposition.
8
When Trumps rabid supporters suffer direct consequences of his policies, either by job loss or personal disaster, will they reach a tipping point. In this regard, it is like the Vietnam war when its supporters no longer could deny the truth at the sight of their sons' bodies arriving home in a box. No rhetoric could assuage their loss. Until such a time of awakening, Trumps base is content to feast on lies and posturing.
8
It is not only the supporters of Trump whom he has got addicted to fear and rage. Even his fervent opponents have become addicted to it. I find myself frequently forwarding links to news of his outrageous actions, to a WhatsApp group of my friends. Accompanying I are my comments full of rage and fear about where the country is going. My friends, all of them anti-Trump, tolerate my incessant preaching to the choir and, to their credit, have not abandoned me yet.
5
I don't know if I'm more scared of Trump, or all the comments I read along the lines of:
1) Before I vote, I want to KNOW my vote will count
2) Republicans aren't going to give up easily, so why bother
3) Democrats are bad, too
4) My perfect progressive, or nothing... and
5) We haven't had WW3 yet, call me when that happens.
OK, I lied. I'm still more afraid of Trump.
9
Had the DNC been able to get someone other than the usual ultra-leftist Democratic candidates to run, Trump would have easily been beat. But the DNC majorly failed in this respect: a wife of a former President who is far more radical and despite a lifetime in "public service" has no material accomplishments of her own that benefitted others, but amassed a fortune in the family foundation by selling influence. She was a terrible choice. Bernie Sanders was similarly weak for other reasons. Shame on the DNC. Trump's presidency is a result of the DNC's failure. People were stuck voting for the lesser of two evils. I'm not a fan of Trump from a personal characteristics standpoint. However, I'm ecstatic that Hillary is not POTUS.
AND those who are only seeing negatives with the Trump administration should open their eyes - you are blind to the views of the rest of the country. The economy is booming. Unemployment is very low, including for minorities, and labor participation is up. Wages are up. Most people are keeping more of their paychecks as the result of the tax law. GDP growth is high. Corporate re-investment in the USA is increasing. Regulations that don't make sense are being rolled back. The disastrous ACA is being hobbled. Gorsuch is perhaps the strongest, most objective and balanced justice on the Supreme Court. I know this is heresy for NYT readers but despite my distaste for Trump and his personal style - many of his accomplishments are pretty darn good.
8
To provide some balance to the rabid negative views on the current administration, here are a few things that I think they've actually done well:
• 3 million jobs have been created since Trump took office.
• Manufacturing employment at its highest level since December 2008 – which is even more remarkable given the degree of automation in recent years.
• Construction employment at its highest level since June 2008.
• The unemployment rate has dropped to 3.8%, the lowest rate since April 2000, and job openings have reached 6.6 million, the highest level recorded.
• Signed an Executive Order to expand apprenticeships.
• Consumer confidence is at a 17-year high
• Optimism among manufacturers has hit record highs, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.
• The top corporate tax rate was lowered from 35 percent to 21 percent.
• In 2017, Trump far exceeded his promise to eliminate regulations at a two-to-one ratio, issuing 22 deregulatory actions for every new regulatory action.
• Small banks and credit unions got relief after Trump signed bi-partisan legislation reducing harmful requirements imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act.
• He move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
• Ended US participation in the horrible Iran deal and immediately began re-imposing sanctions that had been lifted or waived.
• ISIS is being decimated
• Eliminated the penalty for Obamacare’s burdensome individual mandate.
3
It's amazing to see the contradictions inherent to those opposed to Trump.
His supporters don't seem to rage as much as the author of this article, as well as the anti Trump gang.
There is a saying in French: the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on it's way.
You can cry, scream, rage, the truth is that victory tastes good, and more is to come. Witness the Democrats demanding open borders, and/or abolishing ICE (even them are not sure what is it they want).
4
Name three material accomplishments of Hillary Clinton during her decades of public service that were not primarily for her own benefit (i.e. being elected to a position or appointed to a position might be a personal accomplishment but that doesn't mean it was an accomplishment for the benefit of others). What exactly did she do besides gain personal enrichment? And don't give me soft accomplishments like "helped women feel empowered". Had the DNC recruited and promoted someone like Jamie Dimon, Trump would not be in the White House right now. Hillary and Bernie were extremely flawed candidates. That Trump was able to win, says a tremendous amount about just how bad many Americans thought Hillary was. Also, you claim that what I've said is a lie. Tell me one thing that I've said that isn't true and provide your source of information.
1
Elements of change are often not what we expect them to be. They're never quiet, come at the most inopportune time and disturb the domestic tranquility. Change forces us to pay attention, think and take action whether we want to or not. It brings out the worst in people, makes the tolerant, intolerant; the intellect roils with emotion and decorum dissolves into apoplectic behavior. This is the crucible through which change must pass as ugly and uncomfortable it may be. At some point the slag falls away and we are left with the new reality.
2
I see it with my immediate family in NC. My sister in law who has always been supportive of me when I came out to my family is also afraid of driving at night because of the "illegals" and carries a gun with her wherever she goes. And Fox News is on in her house 24/7.
6
Americans are tired, worn out by the constant barrage of information about Trump. The Industry does us no favors by quoting every inane "tweet" the man makes, just aiding and abetting his desperate need for attention. Most newspapers are biased, (including this one) either leaning far left or far right in editorials and opinion columns, thereby stoking fear among the readers. Psychology tells us that anger is a reaction to fear. So what do we fear? Loss of our culture. Loss of livelihood. Loss of savings. Loss of our language. etc. America is under threat by seemingly endless immigration. The only way to change the fear is to develop a program to allow some, but not all people to come here. Congress, get busy, and Americans, get busy writing letters and voting. Fix immigration.
4
The insights offered by Mr. Blow demonstrate there power and validity by eliciting bitter repudiation of the Trump acolytes on display throughout this comments section. Most readers loyal to the concept of America find the truth in Mr. Blog's words to be dismaying and a further call to defend our democracy. By contrast, the vitriol offered by the dopamine addicted supporters of the Trump regime, is transparent in its destain for the fundamental ideals of democracy.
Where are we headed as a society and as a nation? The political circumstances bring to mind the conceptual diagramms used in basic chemistry to illustrate exothermic chemical reactions, i.e. the combustion triangle.
One side of the triangle is labeled fuel:
A second side is the oxygen source:
The third leg of the triangle describes a source of ignition, a spark or flame.
Depending on your perspective, you can substitute alternative descriptions for the fuel & oxygen source legs of the triangle. For example, aggrieved, exploited citizens my be the fuel. Continued declines in economic opportunity may fill the role of oxygen.
Trump acolytes can just as easily substitute their own set of grievances and identities into an identical diagram.
Exactly which event will constitute the spark or source of ignition remains to be seen.
The implications are be the same regardless. As fuel & oxygen accumulate in our politics, all we need is a spark, careless or deliberate, to ignite the conflagration.
5
Um, most of the "bitter" "vitriol" is coming from the left these days...Trump supporters are pretty happy...
7
As always, spot on.
My wife and I are frankly exhausted. How much more of this can we take? Until recently, we thought that we might yet have crossed the Rubicon. We don't think that anymore. Even if there's a Blue Wave in November and a Democrat elected in November 2020, I don't see a way back. The fascist right doubles, triples, and quadruples down on every pronouncement. They are well-funded and increasingly well-organized. All I see down the road are battles - for everything. Plus, we now have unqualified, white supremacist judges scattered throughout the federal system. Key programs are being dismantled. We are polarized beyond imagination. Families - American families - are being eroded due to political differences. Regional disparities and antagonisms are being exacerbated daily.
There may be a way back from this, but I no longer see how.
6
Trey Gowdy wanted Rosenstein to wrap up the Mueller investigation, which has been going on for about a year. Gowdy, of course, kept the Benghazi investigation going for over two years, and it ended in no indictments. So far, the Mueller investigation has resulted in 76 indictments, 5 guilty pleas, and 2 people in prison. If this is a witch hunt, it sure is turning up a lot of witches.
14
Not to worry. The companion op-ed by Senator Schumer has the solution to our threatened rights, the erosion of societal norms. Call your representatives. To have such leadership is....so reassuring.
This piece tells the real story. But it forgot to mention that Trump is the end product of decades of GOP wedge issue manipulation—a strategy of Fear—all for the craven lust for power.
6
The rage didn't start with Trump. It was Rush Limbaugh and then Fox News that started the vicious narrative that Democrats were anti-American and unpatriotic. Their disdain for Barack Obama was utterly venomous. It culminated at the GOP convention in 2016 with the chants of "Lock her up." Contrast that with the Democratic convention where joy and optimism were in such abundance it brought me, a Never Trump Republican, to tears. No, the rage didn't start with Trump, but ever the opportunist, he found a way to tap into it to further his Me First agenda.
14
PTSD: President Trump Silence Day
Thank you, Charles Blow. You've succinctly stated what many of us are experiencing at the moment - a tearing apart of the decency of America. We keep talking about this, hoping that our upcoming elections will alter the dangerous path we're on. And we do all need to vote, to make our voices heard, to protest every single stupid or dangerous idea this presidency presents to us under the guise of making America great. I would also like to suggest that we create a President Trump Silence Day (PTSD). One day without a single report on any Trump tweet. A day where every column in The New York Times and every other intelligent media source reports on all the usual stories but does not mention Mr. Trump in any of those stories. And that the media ask everyone else to observe that silence as well. Just so we can breathe for one day. Just so that we can regain our balance. And our strength, because we're going to need it. This is going to be a long hard battle to truly save our country from falling into an ever growing despotic hole.
8
I have to admit it. Despite this excellent article, and an abiding respect for Charles Blow, I have succumbed to Indignation Fatigue. There I’ve said it.
What America needs is less outrage and more concrete progressive policy alternatives to the Trump agenda. The Democratic Party seems to be adrift, disorganized and incoherent. Where is Democratic leadership? Schumer, Pelosi and Waters can rant until the cows come home, but these actions do not give the party focus nor help rebuild it. Without a change in direction, the mid-term election prospects look frightening.
8
Concrete policy alternatives? Sure thing. Universal healthcare, making education affordable, investing in our infrastructure, comprehensive immigration reform, clean air/water (not clean coal) ... plenty of concrete progressive policy alternatives, it only seems like ranting because implementing these policies requires first undoing all the damage Donald Trump has done.
1
The GOP dominated Congress is supporting Trump. If they got together and spoke out as one against what he's doing his supporters would have a harder time pushing their common venomous views. The GOP doesn't because it suits their purposes to have Trump in the White House, tweeting, speaking, and otherwise conveying his extremist views. It allows them to carry out their agenda which is to bleed us dry in order to feed the rich.
14
This article is one of the most concise and insightful articles about how the current administration is attacking what really makes "America great again". I am not suggesting our country is perfect, however, our moral code and rule of law puts us in the top echelon of the world's societies. The fear of inclusion will only be delayed by the current administration's policies. Our country and the world is becoming more diverse with its population. Change has always taken place in a series of "starts and stops". This period for our country is clearly a stopping point with a start coming as the next step.
5
Well said. It’s always been two steps forward and one back—though this particular backward step is a huge one.
2
Where is the outrage from businesses and investors? Last I checked, they still make decisions based on facts. Do they really beleive Trump and the Republicans are creating an environment that will be good for business in the long term? I fear the answer is that business cycles have become so focused on near-term gains that no one thinks about long term risk anymore.
14
Trump supporters remind me of (1) people who will hire the most aggressive-sounding lawyer to ruthlessly fight the other parent of their own children in a divorce proceeding, wasting $000s on prolonged combative procedures in which, in most cases, everyone loses except the attorneys; and (2) the good people of River City, IA in The Music Man who fell for the fakery of the music professor Harold Hill who couldn't distinguish one note from another, but used charm to convince people that his "think system" would obviate the need for knowledge and practice. I remain sadly astonished anybody would vote for him or support him. But we must remember that the GOP holds Congress, and that's a bigger problem in some ways - Trump is just doing what the GOP folks want, and given their extremely poor record of governance e.g. Iraq, unnecessary tax cuts that result in deficits; support for financial deregulations that resulted in the 2008 recession, etc - that is also sadly astonishing....any corporate managers performing that badly would have been fired early on.
20
Conservatives absolutely would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite. For decades now, the Rush Limbaughs of the world, along with Fox "News", Breitbart, etc. have been brainwashing listeners with the relentless message that liberals are evil and hate them. That they believe it is why this whole sorry situation has become a game to them; all that matters is scoring points against the other side. They delight in the sneers and insults, egged on by Trump. Mob mentality as its finest.
7
Anger & fear are best expressed with loud almost yelling voices & extreme hand gestures. It is not really the context of the speech but the loudness of certain words, facial expressions and hand movements. Films from the 1930s in Europe show different leaders using these techniques. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin are all shown shouting out the words of fear & using hand gestures to include the crowds. These techniques used with mass hysteria triggered by fear always build & grow rage & anger. trump knows how to play this. Without films, TV, & social media trump would get nowhere.
3
Trey Gowdy lashing out at Rosenstein is laughable. Gowdy has been one of the worst trolls in this Russian Investigation. All of a sudden he is calling for it to hurry up so it will not be successfully completed. Rosenstein appears to lack courage and probably will try to do Gowdy's bidding.
The only hope we have right now is for the Mueller investigation to be completed without interference from the Republicans and anyone else, including Trump.
We are on such a perilous journey thanks to Gowdy, Nunes and the rest of them. Every step of the way these men could have done their job but instead they continue to distract and obfuscate any and all efforts by the Democrats to make sure there is a fair and impartial investigation into Obstruction of Justice by Trump and whether or not there was collusion with Russia regarding the election.
There does not appear to be any decency left in the Republican Congress.
7
Charles, I would like you to ask for, and try to answer
specific complaints from trump voters......sanely,
rationally as is your want, and supported by figures which
have verified sources.
Those of us who are outraged need to go to fact, not opinion.
I say..... invite a challenge......
and I say, start with bread and butter issues.
3
I’ve had plenty of obstacles and difficulties in my life but was taught that having no job or economic difficulties is not an excuse to embrace a malignant racist or to turn on people of another race, religion or sexual orientation. In fact, there were people in my life that didn’t look like me and were quite helpful on my journey.
Maybe we should address the real qualities of the people that think Trump’s outward hatred and rhetoric is Ok because it’s not.
It’s childish.
4
There is little accountability in news reporting which is now dismissed as partisan news "shows", therefore there is lack of informed electorate and we still have a winner-take-all voting system. The news "shows" love to inflame the viewers so that they watch more and start talking about what they saw on TV which creates more viewers. The cable news "shows" then make more money and are laughing all the way to the bank.
Maybe we should have a new news network that is publically funded and reports only fact checked evidence based news. And maybe we should have representational proportionate government like many European countries have. Then maybe thing will make sense.
Maybe........nah, forget it. Nobody interested.
3
Trump apologists don't want us to talk about his racism, because in doing so, we are not being "effective", or we're being somehow unfair. It seems they don't care to acknowledge the truth.
But for those of us who have known about Trump for years, who saw his full page ads in NY newspapers in 1989 calling for the death penalty for the "Central Park Five", youths who were falsely accused of attacking a white female jogger - we know him for what he is. Trump paid $85,000 for those ads - an exorbitant amount that would be worth nearly $174,000 today.
When the young men were exonerated after spending 13 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, Trump refused to apologize (we know now that he NEVER apologizes), instead claiming that they were criminals anyway who deserved to be in prison and complaining that they should not be compensated for their wrongful imprisonment. Had they been executed as he wanted them to be, I doubt he would have felt an ounce of guilt.
We know that he and his father didn't want rent to "blacks" - that's why the US Department of Justice went to court with a discrimination complaint against the Trump Organization in 1973. And rather than work to comply with equal housing regulations, the Trumps fought tooth and nail with the Justice Department, employing the same tactics with it as he has used against the FBI as it investigates him today - smearing and discrediting them.
A tiger cannot change his stripes. Trump remains a racist.
23
Trump is a half-president, he is certainly a president, but not the president. He does not want to be a real full-president.
3 years now, and no gesture of reconciliation from him! if anything, he hates us even more.
He has won, as he likes to remind us on every occasion, and revels in bullying us, the losers. I wonder who is the winner.
3
Mr. Blow is to be congratulated for consistently speaking to the core of the problems created by the administration.
The Times has been consistent in opposing it's negative policies.
Unfortunately the Times consistently has the face of this hateful man lead off every article about him, his administration, or his opposition. Personally it sickens me to see it, and I'd like to see management made other choices.
Editorially is would make for a more diverse viewing experience.
Politically it would deprive this vain person if the satisfaction of the personal aggrandizement he seeks.
5
Rabbi Abraham J. HESCHEL observed: “Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” Trump’s racism seems to know no bounds. Yes, it is all the Hispanics from Mexico and Latin America. They are entering in his words by the millions ... they are rapists and violent and criminals and not least, taking from America. No woman crossing with her children to protect them from violence gains any respect or compassion. Even whites to our North (Canadians) and European countries are belittled for their supposed high tariffs. Every Muslim apparently hates Christians and every ball player who contributes money to charity (likely more thanTrump ever has) are maligned as unpatriotic for their protest of injustice against minorities. Yes, the Rabbi has it right ... maximum of hatred for a minimum of coherent, logical, factual reasons.
6
It's the constant Iron-Maiden on Decency. The Projectile Lying. The flashfloods of Amygdala Ooze. All we'd hoped we'd learned about engineering Human Id Sewage over the last century is brutally wrecked.
When people with a dark unflinching clue like Tony Schwartz ('Art of the Deal' writer) says of June 27 2018 : "Today marks a lifetime low point for me in my hope for the future of America," I shudder.
It is more grim, more dire than you (or I) can stand to believe. Cults are sustained on self-generated hallucinogens from the amygdala often then serially stoked by some Leader. (Tho if you remember the first time *you* "fell in love," you'll grok the self-generated hallucinogen phenomenon.)
Stay appalled & register two people.
5
Mr. Blow, Your overall evaluation of the scene in America today is right on the money ! I wish I could say "left" instead of using that word "right".
I make comments to articles and opinions in my local newspaper
(The Poughkeepsie Journal). The anti-liberal trolls that read the newspaper have told me I have a serious problem that needs psychiatric attention.
I hope they don't read your opinions.....it may send them over the edge !
This trump thing, this cult, is a White Power and Racist game. We have the upper middle class elite White Power group sitting in their country club type gatherings nodding in approval and the out-right teeth bared spittle flying Racists attending his hate rallies, wearing their Chinese red hats and pumping their salutes. So basically trump and the Russpublicans have set up a Carny side show with the Pubs running the gate and trump ginning the crowd as the Barker. This involves a giant game of whack a mole where thousands get to wack at their hated symbols of black and brown and other in a frenzy while the clubbers watch in amusement. All the while the Pub operatives and trump clan filter thru the crowd selling toxic koolaid and picking pockets. How do we stop this criminal enterprise? We`ve called the Cops but they just watch, waiting for an action they can go after. We`ve went to the courts but found them in the clubber crowd, no hope there. Are we going to be forced to wait until spontaneous combustion occurs and burns the tent down and hope it doesn`t take the town with it? We may have to wait but lets set a date, November 7th 2018 and make a decision to effect change and close this Carney Show down. VOTE VOTE VOTE like our Country depends on it. Because it does!
5
I have no rage or surprise left when it comes to my response to Trump and his supporters. I cannot and will not socialize and/or form personal relationships with people who continue to support and defend him and themselves. Those who say he is not a racist, bigot, and a liar are only fooling themselves and that is their problem. Those who don't acknowledge his possible corruption, conspiracy with the Russians, and thuggish behavior are also fooling themselves and that is their problem. I am associating and enjoying the company of others like myself. I intend to vote in my own best interests as I have always done and encourage, facilitate, and support others to do the same. My rage is spent along with my faith that this can be fixed.
9
I keep hearing the argument that the Trump voters they know are 'good people', good members of the community. The Trump voters they know are not racists. I can believe that it seems like that to them. Racists seem never to be racists if you share the same race and are talking about the latest sports results, their families, and the weather. Nazis in the past were 'good people' if you watched them with their family and friends. This description of Trump supporters fits much better. They rather see the world go down in flames than see anybody else 'win'.
11
"Nothing quickens the pulse and induces the delight of conservatives more than the consternation of liberals."
So why are you writing a column designed to stir up the consternation of liberals then? Oh, right. Outrage sells newspapers.
6
Dear Mr. Blow,
Once again, thank you. Your op-eds do such good for those of us out here who are in complete agreement but feel so isolated watching the horror around us (and I live in NY!). Each time I walk down Dyckman street and see bars and restaurants overflowing with revelers, it's all I can do not to shout: "don't you see what's happening?!?!?" It's soul-crushing. My entire conception of human nature has changed because of this, and not in a good way. On a gay social chat app the other day, I had in my profile 'no Republicans,' and my breath was taken away by the racist, idiotic, vitriol it provoked. But, at least, when I see a Charles Blow op-ed, I read it and realize I'm not crazy: this is what is happening and it's so horrible to watch and live through. I can only hope Dr. King was right about the arc of history, but it's feeling more and more like it's just a dream of being over the rainbow.
5
Donald Trump would never call himself a fascist because he doesn’t study history. Maybe never heard of Mussolini.
He’s too busy making deals with fellow money launderers. Sending underground rivers of money to illicit lovers. Rewarding sycophants. Playing golf.
And he doesn’t read. For him, right now, his meals, his desires, his own oral and anal
explosions, his rallies, are everything. He lives day by day looking for satisfaction.
Only when he’s insulted or criticized does he felel history. Insults he remembers for a long long time.
But he has accomplished something.
He had proven to all of us, and to America’s allies, that this nation is not a model of democracy. Or generosity. Or common sense. Or courage.
We are a motley mess. So many American citizens have been inspired, even thrilled, by Trump’s trumpet calls inviting them to celebrate nationalism, their own native white resentments, racism, the (US) VolK, the (US) Fatherland.
We now understand that our country could easily turn into a monstrous fascist threat.
Thank you, Mr. Blow, for this terrifying article.
14
We shall OVERCOME!
3
Charles, don't despair! You were the first to declare yourself for the Resistance. You are the standard bearer. We need you now more than ever.
11
In her study of the Challenger disaster, Diane Vaughan coined an expression for what is happening: she called it the normalisation of deviance.
2
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it defining deviancy down. And it has become endemic in America.
3
Mr. Blow the last I checked Pearl Harbor has not been bombed and Ft. Sumpter has not been attacked.
These were real life and death crisis.
The crisis today is similar to the Chinese exclusion act, discrimination against many groups, detention of Japanese nationals in WW2, the rise of the know-nothings, Dixiecrats, Wallace etc.
The nation survived them all and will survive the ego maniac demagogue Trump.
The way you defeat Trump is to call him out on things that moderates that voted for him can be won over.
Progressive issues like national health plan, saving medicare, fair selective non onerous tariffs on slave labor countries.
Also treating people in a civil manner, the real danger of leaving us open to Russian spying etc. etc.
Even something like keeping first term abortions legal can be uses here. Most of the country is for that.
Calling for 50% of all CEOs to be women, compensation for victims of slavery, honoring gays like Abraham Lincoln, opening the floodgates to every immigrant in the world is not gonna work.
Calling all Trump voters Nazis, racists, evil is not gonna cut it either.
7
It's no secret that dictatorships come about two ways, first by a coup, but second by infection. Most of the dictators in the world today infected their people with fear, anger, and the belief that the dictator was the only one who could solve the problem and save them. Putin, Duterte, Erdogan, and Orban ALL came to power in democratic nation and undermined the democracy. Earlier dictators did the same thing, starting with Mussolini. Germany was a troubled democracy, but a democracy that Hitler undermined in bits and pieces.
Trump is following the same path. Don't be afraid to say it: Trump and his enablers are seeking to make him an absolute monarch, a dictator, with total power. We are like the frog in the pot of water, not noticing that degree by degree the water's getting hotter until we're cooked.
This is now truly the most terrifying time for our nation since the Civil War, and, unless enough people rise up together to reshape Congress in November, it may already be too late. Bill Maher is already convinced that Trump will NEVER give up the White House while he's still breathing unless he's carried out, and I'm no convinced he's wrong. Because Trump obeys no law unless he's absolutely forced to because, like all of his kind, that's all he respects. His election wasn't merely a disaster for the USA, it was and is a catastrophe from which we may well not recover.
6
"He is a racist who disparages black and brown people, whether they be immigrants, Muslims, people from Haiti and Africa, Barack Obama, the mayor of San Juan or Maxine Waters."
Trump's criticism of Maxine Waters and the San Juan Mayor had nothing to do with their race, it had to do with their behavior. If the President were truly a racist there would have been a personal account from a minority saying so. He's hired thousands of minorities of all stripes, yet not a single charge of racism by them. 40 years in the public eye and the President didn't become a racist until he won the primary. Blow's fixation on smearing the President as a racist is handsomely paying his rent.
4
I'm sure it has been said on this thread already but for Trey Gowdy to have the unmitigated gall to demand an expedited finish to an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential and congressional election, truly national security concerns, after he held god knows how many trumped up investigations into the tragic events in Benghazi is an astounding example of lack of self awareness. He seemed to be coming to his senses but now seems to be jockeying for the dotards favors as much as any other GOPer in the congress. Perhaps he has visions of a federal judgeship when he leaves congress. Heaven help us.
3
Somehow Mr. Blow is blind to the irony of he and his devoted followers/echo chamber branding those who disagree with him as "rage junkies"....
9
"Trump and his defense machine — including members of Congress — are tearing it apart.
Trump-addicted acolytes are tearing it apart."
Look how easily they are doing it! The American fabric has always --- even before it was "American" (patriots vs loyalists)---been a frayed and fragile one. All Trump did was find the longest loose thread --- racism --- and pull.
2
Thank you for your concise piece regarding Trump's base. They're a low information bunch, that's for sure, but worse is that they don't care whether Trump tells the truth or not. They just love a bully who uses his high office to insult minorities, women, the handicapped, religions, and more. I was at a Safeway today and a white man shoplifting a 6-pack was yelling at an Asian employee, "Go back to China." Trump has made racism respectable and to be tolerated. Shame America.
1
"Trump is exhausting our mental capacity for indignation."
No, but Blow is exhausting his readers with the non-stop invectives and insults.
"Trump-addicted acolytes are tearing it apart."
No, but excellent alliteration.
9
Yes, thank you. Trump's supporters are driving by hate, racism and spite. They are horrible people with evil values. They support Trump because then they they don't have to say racist, hateful spiteful things aloud - they let Trump do it for them.
What is worst of all though is they don't even care that Trump is a TRAITOR. That's what really surprised me - I always fell for all that rah-rah talk about the flag and country from conservatives.
But at the end of they day, they don't even care that this monster is selling us out to Putin and Kim Jong Un. Unbelievable.
7
Trump is coming to Scotland in two weeks to play golf. He is not welcome and there will be protests. The cost to me and my fellow tax payers for the police operation to protect this despicable man in Scotland alone is £5M. The protests when he visits London will be even bigger, and the costs to English taxpayers many multiples of the above. The British people might have their differences with each other but we will never accept a conceited, racist, hate-filled liar as American President.
13
Watching Rod Rosenstein’s testimony last week gave me chills. The despicable behavior of Gowdy and Jordan made me think of the films of Roland Freisler, the nazi judge/prosecutor in their show trials against internal political enemies.
The screaming accusations, lies, insults and general nastiness was worse than anything, except possibly, the support they have from the president’s supporters.
Face it. He’s a dictator in every way except acknowledgement by the majority, which is in some way hopeful that it isn’t true. It is. Let’s see what the next edict is. Everything gets closer to the edge of what’s legal and at some point the line will be crossed. It’s almost too late already.
You mention the midterms and the mueller investigation as things that can stop him. Let’s hope so. But hope and reality are getting farther apart every day.
14
When the D's compared Trump's cruel border policy to Hitler, they either wanted to manipulate in bad faith or they wanted to deny the Holocaust was as horrific as we all know it was.
Either way, it was disgusting.
The left has lost me for good. I'm happy in the libertarian center.
3
Charles' assignment today is shoving all the faults of progressive Democrats onto President Trunmp, but who will buy this fantasy?
It's the NY Times' party that is calling out loud for chasing recognizable White House employees out of restaurants, and Maxine Waters leads the Democrats into arguments and toward violence as its young socialists lead the way to living out the way Russia spent the last century moving backwards.
Perhaps Charles sees himself as training the next propagandists, but his crisis is that fantasy is hard to sell to people whose only emotions are hatred, fear, and jealousy.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is winning every battle with the people who made workers so miserable for the eight Obama years,the international situation is improving, and the Supreme Court is moving steadily into the pro-freedom and democracy column.
No wonder he looks so unhappy in his CNN talkalongs.
5
Many of us remember when children were separated from their parents after they were brought in on trains to be murdered
6
Rage and destruction are far easier than building a sustainable equitable future.
Building requires reason, understanding, consensus, and planning, and delayed gratification. Smashing up everything is instant gratification! Executed at the whim of and ignorant tyrant spurred on by a crowd of those who benefit directly and those foolish enough to follow.
Senators Cory Booker, Tim Scott and Kamala Harris introduced a bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime.
To feed the rage machine trump will oppose it.
2
Yeah, and?
I'm exhausted by what's going on in this country and by articles like this.
Now what?
5
One thing that is really scary is that the only Constitutional safeguard that the racist, low IQ Trump supporters actually care about is the 2nd Amendment. So, at a time when politics are fraught with two groups that really hate each other, it is the Trump supporters who are armed to the teeth.
As they will tell you (and it is one of the few truths they have to tell), the 2nd Amendment is not about your right to hunt, or even to protect your family, but about protecting the American people from a tyrannical government. After all, we might not have a United States if the Minutemen did not have guns.
What is dangerous, and what the Founding Fathers might not have anticipated, is that the tyrannical government may have the gun-toters on its side. After every race related shooting, egged on by the words and deeds of a KKK endorsed president, the Democrats meekly try to get some sort of sensible gun legislation (e.g., closing the gun show loophole) passed, spurring the Trump supporters to buy even more guns.
In other words, those “patriots”, whose NRA constantly warns them about jack-booted government thugs taking their guns, are abetting the fascist takeover, while reason and sanity are portrayed as the enemy. Scary, indeed!
3
This is precisely why the white majority in this country must become a minority....and as soon as possible.
4
Trump may have 42% but there are 58% of us. We must keep up the fight. I refused to have my country destroyed by an idiot, greedy, corrupt president and 42% who do not do any critical thinking.
I marched yesterday and I will continue. I have friends and relatives who cannot not see the damage our telfon President is doing to our country. We are not the greatest and we have lost respect around the world.
I hope people come out and vote in November. It's the only way we can get rid of the awful man.
7
The rage of Trump's supporters in turn generates rage on the part of his opponents The tone of your column Charles suggests that you yourself are ready to Blow.
3
Trump may have acolytes that are fueled by grievance and rage; frankly, so am I; I hate Trump and everything he is and stands for. Try as I might, I find my gorge rises when I read the idiocy of his supporters who, like lemmings, would follow that orange troll anywhere. He debases everything he touches. Everyone I know who studies authoritarianism has their hair on fire about him and what he is doing, albeit incrementally, to this country.
A pox on him. We must have him removed! Not my president.
12
Trey Goudy looked hung-over when he ranted at Rod Rosenstein. Goudy advised Trump to act like he was innocent if he had nothing to hide in Russian investigation.
7
Trump is an aberration and only here for a moment. America, has Never been only white. Founded by slaves, indentured people from many countries, all of whom were escaping tyranny and looking for their own freedom and a life to be free. American's should think beyond this petty, self aggrandizing fake "flimflam man". History is full of his ilk.
1
I refuse to grow tired of resisting. I refuse to normalize this pathological liar named Donald J. Trump. I refuse to let his brand of racism and hatred of black and brown people be "okay" just because the economy might be doing better.
Have we learned nothing from the past? He is doing the exact same thing Nixon did and yet people's support of Mueller's investigation continues to decrease. Trump is clearly making villains out of honorable men because he knows he had help from Russia and took it gladly. The man is so entrenched in his dishonesty that he regularly refers to Mueller et al. as "13 Angry Democrats" when everyone knows these men are lifelong Republicans with no partisan bias against this Republican president.
Trump's narcissism and fragile egok know no bounds. He will destroy our country to save himself. He is how most racist people assumed a black president would be... but unfortunately for us all...he's much worse.
2
CHARLIE, you have to relax. Between you and Anderson Cooper, the hysteria is "deplorable " as Hilary would say. Be cool.
6
Trey Gowdy is tired of this country being torn apart after years of his personal witch hunts. Don't make me laugh....
11
When will Americans wake up and register that their nation is being headed by a crazy old man.
Is political interest running so low? Does nobody notice that he is ruining the country economically due to the nonsense he is uttering. Be aware: down the hill is much easier than getting up again! You are paying the bill for his misgoverning.
7
So Mr. Blow writes an article based upon a poll of people who dislike Trump? Brilliant!
Many on the left truly believe Trump is all of those things, it’s an echo chamber. But one thing he is not is an empty politician who never fulfills campaign promises, that would describe every President that came before him.
And that Mr. Blow is what the hysterical Leftist do not understand.
6
you keep making the same mistake by calling Trumpeviks conservatives. The republican party is no longer a party that can be called a conservative, american political party. It is a christian fascist movement. Dangerous right wing radicalism. Words are important. In many ways, words define reality.
1
One final thought - inspired by some of the pro-Trump comments below and elsewhere.
There's a new Right Wing Whopper going around, claiming that President Obama separated tens of thousands of families.
This is a straight up lie. It's easy to double check this. Snopes for one has information about it.
I don't know why Trump and his supporters think they can just run this stuff up the flagpole, day in and day out. We are not all idiots.
I pray that some of these supporters begin to see the light, soon.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-trump-child-separation-meme/
7
My dear Charles, I cannot begin to thank you no end. Your rage against the Goebbels-inspired Trump propaganda machine has been forthright and consistent. You have not wavered in your critique of the most irredeemable person on Earth. Keep up the fight, keep the faith, and remember Churchill: We will never, never, surrender. Never.
DD
Manhattan
14
In NY along the Canadian border, we are running a Democrat Tedra Cobb against Elise Stefanik. The day Cobb won, the name calling attack ads started. How do you run a campaign on the issues against a Washington insider Republican? Do Democratic campaigns link Republican candidates to their vile cult leader's racism, deficit spending, trade war, authoritarian rule....? Our GOP Congresswoman only has yearly Town Hall meetings, and now has occasional "Telephone Town Halls" screening callers known to be assertive and hard questioners. Stefanik does not post events to her website "schedule" until after the events and on top of that, does not really live in our district. Her parents have some seasonal home and NCPR investigations indicate no one in her alleged home town ever sees her. This was before the restaurant shaming events.
Mr. Blow how do we link GOP congress members to the trump cult and still run a positive campaign on the issues? GOP will not play by any rules or standards, but by scorched earth and by all illegal mean necessary!
1
Too many white people in the US have shown their true colors by supporting Trumps' racist, bigoted and misogynistic comments and behavior. They have clearly shown why race relations in this country have moved ever so slowly since the days of the civil rights movement back in the 60's. Why sexual harassment in the workplace was covered up and condoned at the highest levels of business. Why real immigration reform has become so difficult. The lack of knowledge and awareness by so many of the white population has now come to what we are experiencing today. As Trump and his minions try to move the country towards fascism and anarchy too many whites are embracing and cheering on the destruction of our democratic institutions. If the current trends continue this will end badly. If the wealthy class continues to fund fascist ideologies and enough stupid and ignorant Americans embrace their propaganda we are done as a democratic nation.
2
Just give us the cure.
2
Rave on, Charles. I'm with you. 100%
1
As a former moderate Republican, now independent, I think Democrats are spending way too much energy attacking Trump and way too little showing the working and middle classes how it will benefit them to have Democrats take control of at least one chamber, if not both, in Congress. Trump has his base convinced that he is working for them, whether or not he is succeeding. That's really all they ask; they are willing to give him more rope, assuming that change takes time. Democrats, not so much. Democrats seem to be more intent on working to help illegal immigrants. They have allowed themselves to be cast as the open borders party, and in truth I think there is some validity to that characterization since no Democrat seems willing to come out and openly declare that illegal immigration is wrong, period. If things do not change pronto, now, immediately, expect the midterms to be a disaster. Indeed it may well be that it is already too late.
9
How long must the 60 percent put up with the decisions of a backward, gullible, misled minority percent of our voting population? Our founding fathers miscalculated the benefits to the Republic of the electoral college to a country and society not dependent on slave-owning. Now, that "college" functions as a political root of all evil that keeps the majority of Americans enslaved to the mistaken decisions of an Agrarian Sucker Class. We can no longer expect to excise this cancer upon our body politic by going through channels. We must raise our voices and take to the streets to get this monkey off our backs once and for all. And we must vote Democratic in November up and down all ballots as if our lives depend on it. Because it does.
8
Truth.
Dear readers, ponder this fact:
For the last SEVEN Presidential elections - spanning 26 YEARS - the republican candidate has received more popular votes than the democratic candidate exactly:
Once.
5
Everywhere you look all you see is Trump's name, Trump's face, what Trump says, the norms he destroys, the long standing world relationships he is destroying in order to join with dictatorships and countries who have been our enemy, and he has possibly committed acts against the United States. It is saturating and permeating everything. As it continues, we continue to lose our standing in the world.
The only option we have, those who see Trump for what he really is, a fraud and criminal is to vote every chance we get. And then one day we can hope and pray will no longer have to see everything Trump.
3
Democrats missed a slogan in the 2016 presidential campaign especially after the Republican convention. Reminding people of the 2008 campaign, they should have campaigned on the following slogan: We are the party of Hope and Change. The Republicans are the party of Fear and Loathing.
The Hunter Thompson reference would have been obvious too many who heard it, and it is in fact the basis of our politics presently. Fear and Loathing in Washington DC and across red states dominates the messaging from the White House and throughout the news cycle.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
And I will turn them over to ICE,
Separate children from parents,
Lock them up,
Deport them with or without due process,
Knowing they are drug dealers, rapists,
Gang-members, killers, and animals.
We are becoming The Land of the Free and The Home of the Cruel.
The Land of Fear and Loathing.
6
I - and my avatar - couldn't agree more.
Looking hard at current events especially of the past days it appears that we are passing the point of no return. Perhaps descending totally into the abyss might be our redemption. If we come down hard enough we will be looking at the ruins and debris field of a democracy and hopefully we can copy what the Germans did in what they called "Stunde Null" hour zero at the end of World War II. We can like them pick up the bricks one by one and rebuild our country and democracy again?
2
In many ways, we are where we have always been as a country. Wealth, whiteness, and masculinity are the measures of value and humanity. Distance from any or all of these attributes results in diminished status and existential danger. It is out in the open again, and we have the ancestral knowledge and strength to keep fighting. Keep your eyes on the prize! HOLD ON!
2
There is a Talmudic dictum that says "all those who find fault in others are actually faulting themselves". One would be hart put to even begin itemizing the blows that Mr. Blow throws toward the President without recognizing that these are precisely what is wrong with the behavior, attitude and intention of the progressive left and the MSM, chief among them dishonesty and inexcusable behavior.
3
JJ Gross writes, "There is a Talmudic dictum that says "all those who find fault in others are actually faulting themselves". "
Stated another way, the basis for "When you see ill in your friend, it is your own ill that you are observing." is a message from sky father to you. And there you have it. The sky father puts the "appearance" of a fault in others so we can realize our own fault. What a lot of garbage. GARBAGE.
Sorry to all my jewish friends, but this is garbage. Garbage that begs the question...do any of us have observable faults? If so, is every observable fault a message from sky father? If I observe someone cheating on their wife...and I'm not doing that...what is sky father telling me? If I observe someone stiffing his employees and defrauding his investors, and I'm not doing that, what is sky father telling me? If I observe someone race baiting on a daily basis, , and I'm not doing that, what is sky father telling me? If I observe someone lying as often as he breathes, and I'm not doing that, what is sky father telling me?
NO. Trump is not my friend and I don't have to look hard to see all of his egregious faults. Faults that I don't have. Not to say that I'm perfect, but I am nowhere near the phychopath that Trump is. As for Trump supporters...maybe there I can agree with Mr Gross. They do see themselves in Mr Trump and that's why they support him. They agree with every word he says, every lie he tells.
4
Projection is indeed an interesting phenomenon; however, I would begin with the faults -- real, imaginary, delusional -- that Trump finds with others.
Mr. Blow has some influence, as a Times columnist, but neither he nor the so-called "progressive left [an interesting vestige of the past, IMO] and the MSM" started this spiral of projection; and, as far as I know, he's not a Russian tool, a criminal, or a traitor.
If only the same could be said for Trump.
2
That's all very well for you to say sitting over there in Jerusalem, where Trump's decision to move the American Embassy is fully embraced by the conservative likes Bibi Netanyahu and his band of right-wing Likkud followers.
Too bad you don't see this president for this president for the racist-in-Chief he really is.
2
Trump has been this way forever; no surprise to me. I recall his hate ads towards five innocent Black kids accused of raping a white woman in what became known as the Central Park five in the 1980’s.
What has taken my exhausted breath away, is how fast the Republican Party was willing to be complicit with it all, turning away from every manner of cruelty, staying silent regardless of the lie or the lives shattered by it.
This is the first time a sitting president under criminal investigation, will get to appoint a Supreme Court Justice which will directly affect us for generations.
And still, majority leader McConnell wants to hurry it all through with great haste, ignoring his own policy in the process.
Trump is a serial killer of all things decent, and sales of blindfolds are up in Washington.
7
I, too, am a rage junkie, but my rage is directed at Trump and his enablers.
3
In 1913, one-third of Americans were born some where else. Today, the grandchildren of those people are beating their chests and bellowing that they are the "real Americans."
5
Yes, Trey Gowdy lashed out at Rod Rosenstein and revealed how scared he is of the Mueller investigation. The best defense of fear is anger and Gowdy tipped his hand. How scared he must be that he has hitched his wagon to a president who will eventually go down as the amoral and vacuous human that he is.
1
“Trump is like a drug dealer who has addicted his followers to fear and rage and keeps supplying it in constant doses. His supporters have become rage-junkies for whom he can do no wrong.”
Trump rallies remind me of the “Two-Minutes Hate” sessions from 1984.
4
Come on, let's face it: with the majority of its citizens without access to affordable healthcare, let alone education (throttling mobility and economic growth), America has been in decline for a long time. The new axis of evil western democracies may have to confront could be, what, America-Saudi Arabia-Iraq. . .pick your dictator.
1
Great pic by Saul Loeb (AFP) showing Trump in his "liar-in-full" pose against White House Press in Air Force One. And brilliant, as always Charles Blow, your words about the president's rage-junkies. Attacking the press as "fake news", tackling American democracy to the ground as his demented video of himself "tackling" CNN as a WWF fan. Red meat for his loyalists. Our empire has fallen under Trump's assault against all of our values and culture. We are news addicts -- every day several poorly-written Trump tweets, with Capital Letters and exclamation points energizing his racist and ignorant base. President Trump's xenophobia, misogyny, bigotry -- the world's laughingstock. His enemies are now our friends, and vice-versa. Maybe, the landslide victory of AMLO, the new Mexican President last night, will force our leader to see what we the people have always known. Walls make bad neighbors. Separating immigrant families is the thin edge of the anti-Trump protest wedge, given our anger about his cruel immigration policies. 1968 Redux to so may of us today. Thank you, Charles Blow. Your explanations about our Trump world today are so well written. You express our anger at our president better than we ever could, and there's a tiny bit comfort in that for us.
7
The GOP has been a grievance rage machine for 25 years. Trump is the pure distillation of what drives Republicans. He had a cake walk to the nomination for a reason. The greater the rage the more they love it. And I agree, they would condemn the country to ruin for the sport of it. And I totally agree the mueller investigation is not tearing us apart. The GOP is tearing the country apart. There were a lot of Republicans up to their eyeballs with Russia. It was not just Trump. Many knew and went along with it. To believe otherwise is to call them completely stupid and they are not stupid. I have little doubt they will put survival of the Party before survival of the country. I suppose they don’t make the distinction. Putin would not either.
3
Trump is normalized. At first, we cried "this isn't normal!" (I'm sure I remember Mr. Blow saying this.) We objected to "gas lighting!"
Now we are so gas lit the lights are perpetually flickering and it's not worth remarking upon. The lies are so pervasive that NPR broadcasts Trump telling a completely fabricated, false, made up lie, and then goes on with the news report without giving any context. I wrote them a letter about this, but what's the use. The lies surround us like water and our civilization is sinking.
The dearest fantasy of a malignant narcissist is to have everyone in the world thinking of nothing but him, day and night. We have delivered to Trump his wildest wish. He is the tyrant of the world and the "leaders" of the GOP turn out to be empty suits with no moral core.
2
Donald Trump tapped into the animus of a segment of white Americans who were livid that Barack Hussein Obama had been president, for two terms no less. These people had assumptions about their birthright place in the social order; when that came undone, so did they. Such individuals don't want to lose the sense of superiority they trusted came from their skin.
Trump has very cynically exploited racism and identity politics. He gave them confidence in their worst assumptions about people who don't look like them, be they black, Hispanic, Muslim, you name it. So they let Trump get away with murder. After all, why would they take to task the man who gives them license to despise the groups for whom they feel visceral hatred?
2
Very good column. Rage junkies is very accurate.
When people are angry and fearful they cannot think at a higher level. They are more vulnerable to brainwashing and implanted ideas about who is their enemy.
1
Thank you, Charles Blow, for your starkly clear framing of what is happening.
I remember that at the beginning of this nightmare (Nov 2016) you said we must never normalize this "Presidency". And you never have. Thank you for keeping us on track.
A few weeks ago, I was listening to some earnest reporting on NPR of a right-wing college conference in my home California. The spokespersons did not articulate any program other than hatred of and/or disdain for "liberals." Most of the views they attributed to said "liberals" were unrecognisable to me as a 70year old staunch progressive. Liberals want to suppress free speech on campuses. We want "open borders" (a phrase i never heard in my own circles until the right started harping on it, but hey, why not have a chat about it). We dont care about families. All news to me.
Let us above all not permit the right to continue to set the parameters of the discourse, to tell US what WE stand for.
I'll articulate that for myself, thank you very much
3
Self-righteousness and belligerent resentment is a bad way to run your life or a political party. It leads to a dead end.
1
Yeah, I have no idea why Trump thinks it's a good strategy to act this way.
The media needs to stop propagating his tweets.
3
Good idea -- Except that's the only way he communicates
2
Too many of my fellow whites evidently cannot abide the reality that we are on the decline as a percentage of the U.S. population.
Considering how Trump and his white supporters are acting, we can't become the minority soon enough, in my opinion.
12
Or maybe extinct? Is that enough self-loathing?
1
Trump makes a new enemy every day. Yesterday, mothers. Today, GM and Harley Davidson.
Let's hope he keeps up the good work!
3
Had Hillary Clinton won, Trump would now be stirring the rage among his tribal groupies to exercise their second amendment rights. And should Trump meet his rightful fate from welcoming Putin to sabotage our electoral system, Trump will likely counter with an attempted coup and exercise of martial law lead by his base, "like no others". The illiberal Far Side of Trump knows no civil bounds. MAGA is no cartoon. They got the guns. And the long festering hate.
2
Charles, this will end as all dictatorships or would-be dictatorships (to take an optimistic view) end: after a power struggle, defeat of the megalomaniac.
Whatever your historical prism: Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, the Confederacy - the result has been consistent through time. The big question for us today is what will the terms of engagement be. A nuclear confrontation with an outside power is out of the question, hence no Waterloo, no D-Day. An internal civil war fought with guns? Very unlikely, given the lethality of the weapons now available to the US military. A backroom internal coup, similar to Khrushchev or Gorbachev - again, given the utter complicity of the Republican Party, no way.
So, I think this will be the first civil war fought out at the ballot box. Once Trump's power is gutted through elections, he will pop like a balloon. We all know, given the cheating rampant in our political space, that this is an unfair fight. But we must win it, otherwise the reckoning will be much more traumatic as the world and other realities force a correction.
7
Trump supporters agree with his policies, not necessarily his personality. They are not out marching in the streets in his support, they are quietly out living their lives and happy with the consequences of his decisions. When Republians disagree with his actions, they say so, and if they are never-Trumpers, they pile on, as do Democrats with negative comments about his motivations.
It is the never Trumpers and Democrats who are consumed with rage. Who assert that anything opposing open borders is derived by hatred rather than the interests of the American people. Who assert that every policy is derived from anger and hatred.
Communists, who have named themselves anti fascists, are attacking prayer meetings. There is an irony in the very fact that there is no discernable difference between fascists and communists in practice, but that the NYT is comfortable in accepting the fact that communists are calling themselves anti fascists.
4
"Trump and his defense machine — including members of Congress — are tearing it apart."
Nailed it.
I'm convinced that Trump's main attraction to his supporters is his blatant racism and hate and fear mongering. Racism is the forever stain on the American fabric and Trump's spewing of it has given his fellow racists "permission" to embrace and spread it.
2
A comment whose origin I don't know: America is like an old sofa, and Trump is the black-light that shows up all the stains and splotches. They were always there, but he has legitimized them and made it OK to voice and act on them in a way that terrifies and ultimately exhausts me. Anything that happens to him - defeat, impeachment, death - will be seized upon as Us getting Them. And They are armed.
1
Unlike opioids or alcohol, rage is free. And I'll give it to Trump, nobody does it better. He is personally responsible for instigating the new Civil War,
His Neo-Fascists versus the reality based community. It will NOT end well, unless he and his Collaborators are contained. Seriously.
2
“Every day in [this president’s] era one could start a sentence with “never before …” and end it in astonishment and exclamation”.
Mr. Blow, that astonishment and exclamation can begin on November 8 if independent and stay-at-home voters bother to go to the polls and do their civic duty. If 89 million apathetic Americans got off their behinds and voted in 2016 our country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in today. The president has happened to America, something worse than Katrina or Maria. He sold fear and resentment to the white majority and they bought it.
Republicans are turning on each other like cannibals. The president has savaged his own hand-picked AG for his recusal from the Russia mess he made all by himself and Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy are attacking the deputy AG who was appointed by none other than the president.
All Republicans have given America is chaos and dysfunction. If all they can do is fight each other, how is America ever going to be great again?
Trump is America's drunk uncle, spouting his ill-informed opinions and racist biases at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
But someday soon Thanksgiving will be over, the table will be cleared, and we will have learned that hate does not prevail.
Trump's followers may not learn that lesson, but a majority of Americans will.
1
the "addiction" mr blow, also fits the other foot, trump trashing (see today's fulminations) fueled by the guilt that has plagued a self-satisfied elite caught cozy in their complacency, since the election.
mr blow and ilk were warned, many progressive voices were raised in caution, both against media branding of "the clown," chuckling clever all the way to the chardonnay, and against the candidate pouring the wine, who, it says here, led the hijack of the party and its ill-starred journey into a muddled campaign, ever to be remembered for its dismissive basketry, not too much different from mr blow's own blow-off of americans who he wraps in racist cant, dismissing their concerns (which have to be addressed before they can be converted) and keeping the party, that was once the voice of the people, it a fearful mode capable only of rage, when what we need is a force that, while addressing our discontents, illuminates a proper course toward remedy.
difficult health care, foreign policy, (north korea and the mid-east, for starters) education, immigration and domestic blight (in cities under democratic mayors since trump was a pup) conditions, fostered by inattentive and ineffective prior administrations,
continue.
how about a column on national service, one of several ways in which the electorate can truly resist decay
by contributing something, by demonstrating some of the responsibility we owe as ciitizens.
so, mr b., what'll it be, more maxine or some true grit?
1
A proper course toward remedy is universal healthcare, increasing education opportunities, investing in our infrastructure, and providing a baseline standard of living. It is not trickle-down economics as the game of Monopoly, American Exceptionalism, theocracy aka "religious freedom", science denial, gun worship, or preservation of the white Christian power structure.
1
God told a typical Trump voter: "I will grant you anything you want."
"Oh thank you Lord, thank you," said the grateful Trump voter.
"But one thing," said God.
"What's that Lord?"
"Whatever I grant for you I will double for your neighbor."
This gave the Trump voter some pause. But after a bit of thought the Trump voter finally said: "Oh mighty God, please blind me in one eye."
13
I think the term "rage junkies" more accurately refers to the Progressive Leftist Resistance wing of the Democratic Party. The recent ramp- up of rage is all from the Left. Its leaders have called for confrontation in the streets, in restaurants and at gas stations. They don't really have political arguments any more, just rage against Trump and everyone who did not vote for Hillary. When you see the excessive behavior, it becomes clear many of them are already clinically Insane.
8
Political arguments have no effect. Trump, McConnell et al. have made that clear. A legitimate President with an Electoral College victory would try to govern from the center. That is not what is happening here. If there is political violence in the end, it will be because the far right tried to have its way in the fashion that we know so well from other countries.
5
True, Democrats are taking to the streets more. But that's because we have no other avenues to power, although we're working on that in spite of the hard hand gerrymandering gives us. But the GOP, in contrast, works best in secret--if at all, in the legislative branch's case. The GOP Congress is paralyzed in its obeisance to Trump, and Dems cannot yet control the agenda there. The SC, too, also now no longer protects the rights of the people. The 5 Republicans on the Roberts High Court appear also to be caught in Trump's grip, using pretzel-like, precedent-missing justifications at the center of their recent "sc..w you, Americans" decisions. So the pattern for the GOP, compared to the Dems you find so contemptible, is to effect GOP-ers' diabolical agendas behind closed doors, removed from sunlight. That's how the Dracula-reminiscent McConnell operates, certainly. And Paul Ryan, he works hardly at all. Gotta protect his cushy lobbying gigs-to-come.
3
There's a internet meme that shows western allies storming the beaches of Normandy with the caption: "Look at all this senseless violence ... on both sides." We should never equate those who resist acts of tyranny with those who commit them. Reaction to Trump's assault on our democracy, institutional norms and basic decency should be equal or greater than the assaults themselves.
4
Growing up in the civil rights era I thought the US made progress in putting the demons of racism to bed, but I was wrong. Trump has given permission to every aggrieved, white supremacist, to openly air their hatred. Sadly, there are many more racists than I ever imagined.
2
One can be sure, it is rankest idleness to look for a leader to rescue this country. The New Government's abhorrence, and solicitation of anti-Western values every single day, from every single organ of its bureaucracy and conspracies, is giving birth to an international concert of repudiation which, alone, can sustain the urgent task of crushing it. One must join this Free World, to reconstitute it here in time.
1
Elegantly stated. Thank you.
This made for TV presidency is exciting in ways that never were for those who dont read anything except Facebook. It is Americans who are at fault. People do not care about Americas history and the progress that had been made over 200 years. They would rather be titlated without having to honestly meet difficult challenges. Who in the world realistically thinks that getting rid of illegal imigration will solve our problems with security? How many people have actually been terrorized by their house cleaner or the people that pick their fruit? What is a wall going to do in real terms? People who are for this don’t even know why they are for it or what these terrible policies will do in reality. They don’t care because Trump has made it ok for his supporters to be who they always were inside their own homes. Now they feel emboldened to take it to the streets. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!
7
Time to stop telling us what we already know. Every opinion piece from here on out must energize, not depress, those of us who can vote the destroyers out!
Thank you for continuing to stand up, eloquently, passionately, and convincingly, to the disaster that is the Trump administration and its bully leader. This column and your last one are the best pieces I have read on Trump. I too am exhausted by his lies and hatred but I am buoyed by the strength of your words.
1
Charles...likewise, Mr. Trump at one of his rallies is like watching an addict get a fix. Attention is his oxygen.
After watching the House hearing this week, I donated money to the candidate running against Mr. Jordan. When the history books are written, these members of Congress will be remembered as the cowards that they are. It is just amazing to see them line up like lemmings on the edge of the cliff with Mr. Trump.
Vote!
2
Naively, I guess, I am still in shock that so many Americans are so hateful, uninformed and gullible. That they are so intellectually and politically lazy. that they are so willing to tear up the Constitution - our most precious document, and the blueprint for our Republic.
No due process? Fine, until I get arrested. Restrictive trade policies and trade wars with enemies and friends alike? Great, unless I grow pork or peanuts or want to buy a big ticket item made from steel or aluminum. The Wall? You betcha until we learn it doesn't work and all those tax dollars were wasted. Attack our intelligence agencies and the people that work there? Fine, until things heat up with North Korea or another bad operator and we need their information. Attack a free press - great, until you have only one news channel to watch Fox- and no NYT or WaPo for news you can rely on.
And checks and balances? Why? The GOP has total control and 3 out of 3 ain't bad. Bad for the country, but great for Republicans.
It is imperative that there is not just a Blue Wave in 2018, but a Blue Tidal Wave, washing Washington clean of the Republican majority 90% of whom think Trump is doing "a heck of a job".
We must take back the Senate AND the House, to counterbalance and "check" the Executive and Judiciary which are in cahoots and out of control.
Call. Write. March. Protest. Be uncivil if you must. Vote
4
@Nancy Parker: Forget the 'Blue Wave', for Dems November is looking like Gotterdammerung.
Vile, disgusting behavior operates on the ratchet principle, you can't go back, only forward toward atrocity. Supporters of Trump are well on their way down this track.
You can thank the Evangelical 'Church', the NRA, the Kochs, Murdoch, Fox News, the Russians and the Saudi's for America's terrible slide.
It took years of deliberate effort by these vested interests to create the Trump know-nothing who is easily led by the nose, and incapable of distinguishing lies from truth. Blinded by their own prejudice, they can be depended on to act against their own self-interest again and again. Throw into the mix misogyny, suspicion of learning, and the help of a hostile foreign power and you have the environment in which these people choose Donald Trump and the GOP.
It is interesting and morbidly ironic that the worst thing these people can imagine is somebody, particularly a brown person, getting something for nothing and yet they consistently vote for people who have successfully dedicated their lives to doing just that. Politics for these people is primarily a way to exercise their cruelty. Read J.G. Ballard for the details.
And get the vote out!
7
And you chose Hillary to address the slide? Is there any other candidate who could have lost to Trump?
1
I did not choose Hillary, but I can't blame her either. That would be pretty cheesy. People who should have known better lacked the conviction to vote and the rest, as they say, is history. They handed America's future over to people described above, who have plenty of conviction. It's called hatred.
The obvious irony is that the simple habituation and exhaustion strategy you see clearly enough to describe even in this piece uses you, the “resist” press and media, and uses your energy, to work at all. It is essentially free access and energy for your ideological opponent because you allow it and participate in it in the endlessly micro-reactionary way you do. You seemingly have no methodology to turn those dynamical phenomena around to your purposes. So for example you say you preach facts. Well, I won’t bore you with even a few details, but that isn’t working for real reasons that you might want to have a fact-based look at. Sure facts matter, as does the fact that your view of that isn’t working; indeed the opposite. Please adapt. At least please don’t be the energy source for your opponent any more. That will require some innovation, yet to be seen.
2
http://valleytalking.blogs.sonomanews.com/2018/06/25/immigration-new-nor...
-Walt Williams
1
"I guess this is how empires begin to fall. It isn’t necessarily one dramatic moment, but the incessant monotony of assaults on normalcy that slowly shift the ground beneath you..." Mr. Blow, you got that right. Following the Great Recession the country turned and elected a black man with a Muslim name to lead it back from disaster. Americans watched in confusion as they were given beautiful and soothing speeches about 'change' only to see the banks get larger, the recovery wealth go to the top one percent, their jobs shipped overseas, and two wars expanded to seven by a Noble Laureate of Peace. Bad things do happen following wars and economic collapse as the early twentieth century demonstrated.We are leading into a world-wide path of fascist policies and feelings. Much of this could have been avoided had the eight years of Obama's "Hope and Change" rhetoric had been just that.
A friend of mine put it really well when he said that the only way to feel ok in this era is to turn off and continue with your life, but for people who actually care about this country and its people, that's impossible.
I knew from decades of observation the man who repulsed me at hello, and the most preposterous and ugliest campaign I've seen in my lifetime that Trump would be a terrible president, but I didn't anticipate the level of his animus and the extent of his psychosis.
What adds to the horror of this kleptocrat in training are the quislings and crazies in congress and the unearthing of a layer of the population that has heretofore kept to its caves, the leftover racists, misogynists, homophobes, authoritarian religious fanatics, conspiracy nuts, crooks and cons artists. That is not to say that every Trump enthusiast fits one of those models, but they are the loudest voices while those approaching sane stay silent.
This is not going to end well for any of us, but those who stood by, gave up or simply fled will pay the highest price, because they had the option of standing up.
11
What do you suggest we do, Mr. Blow? We are protesting and organizing and trying to figure out ways to fight back. the object of trump's chaos is to wear people out but many of us refuse, no matter how exhausted we are emotionally. The NYT promoted trump throughout the election. Day after day, I found nothing to read about Mrs. Clinton. His followers have been brainwashed. They brag of the great economy of which they have more than likely received no reward. They stock up on guns. They fully embrace the hate. You choose here to blame the folks who are trying to get us out of this mess.
Mr. Blow, I remain grateful for your steady, uncompromising criticism of this man. I continue to shake my head at the idea of people who say that they didn't vote for Trump for "racist" reasons, but "other" reasons. When you don't care someone is a racist, and you still support them, that does make you racist. If you don't care that a man denigrates entire groups of people based on how they look because you don't look that way yourself, you are supporting racism and being racist yourself (i.e., those groups don't matter, only my group matters). Don't people understand that?
1
Let’s face it, the racist, jingoistic South has risen again. Or is it that the American Civil War never ended?
Aided and abetted by anti-American purveyors of social chaos like Rupert Murdoch, the Mercer family, Russia and other Bannonites, the blatantly jingoistic MAGA crowd finally has a President to rally behind, a man just like themselves — ignorant, mean and hateful — a heroic, larger than life reflection of themselves.
With such a leader to “work toward”, the modern day confederates (or traitors as some people call them) have been given a green light to unleash their long pent up rage against the elite, educated and entitled and to destroy the institutions that hold our society together.
New generations of Americans are probably going to be in for a violent shock to their sensibilities when they experience what it’s like to live in anti-democratic country and it may take years for them to muster the courage to demonstrate and resist as generations did 150 years ago and again 70 years ago.
2
You are so right, Charles, you and Paul Krugman. Trump's carefully plotted and fully realized war on our Constitutional rights and our sacred American values was a death of a thousand cuts. But it wasn't original to him. It begins with the continuing war waged by the substantial minority of citizens who refuse to admit that the Civil War ended and they lost. Cue the Billionaire Boys' Club. Cue the NRA. But the attacks are panoramic in their scope, unceasing and carefully designed to offer no way out. Worst of all, the end of the Supreme Court as a democratic institution. Game over, America. Don't expect Trump to slow down his attacks. Why should he? He's having the time of his life. Angering liberals and destroying people when he wants is proof to his ego-maniacal, Machiavellian self that he has won. But it isn't enough. Nothing's enough. So Nancy and Chuck are all the opposition leadership left. They don't lead much. And when they do, it never works. What was that catch-phrase they came up with sometime back for the Dem platform? How about the 8 hour filibuster, Nancy? That no one heard? Talk worked a little once. Now you need to be planning to step aside. Planning, organizing to pass on authority. Don't quit politics yet. Of course, if you do, maybe Barack will give you a movie development job. Do some "This is Us" style tear jerkers. It doesn't take much anymore to get tears from me! The morning paper works.
Every column of Blows that I've had the misfortune of stumbling across via links at other sites have been filled with nothing but hyperbolic rage.
So seeing the title of this column was amusing to say the least.
5
Re the Suffolk University / USA Today poll:
Can one check "all of the above"?
There are many, many ingredients here. But the critical, necessary-and-sufficient ingredient is a sufficiently effective propaganda arm: Fox News. Many, many years ago, during Nasser's time, the newspaper Al-ahram in Cairo was referred to in American news reports as "the semi-official newspaper Al-ahram". I never knew what that meant, exactly. Now I do. It is a state propaganda outlet that is not formally owned by the state but exists in intimate political and personal connection with the regime. That is what we have. White racism is the foundation of Trumpism but we have had that forever. What is new in America is Fox News, and that is what makes all this possible.
11
Can it be we are a racist nation? Can it truly be? Our Constitution and system of laws are irrelevant? Our heritage of welcoming the poor immigrant, our very own forefathers, means nothing? Are we to go down, all of us, without a fight? With only a whimper that even Putin could not have imagined in his wildest dreams. The American Dream, deflated by the words and actions of a double-talking madman.
4
What did the cartoon say (Pogo, I believe), "We have met the enemy and he is us"?
2
Mr. Blow, I have NOT resigned myself to this new reality, nor will I ever. You have not given Trump an inch since he was running for election. Thank goodness, nor should you have. People are foolish to let democracy slip through their fingers. This is not a game. This is not my kind of entertainment. This is not my kind of President. Journalists in this country are in peril. And that peril has been brought on by Trump and his fervent supporters.
1
The blame for these decades of divisiveness rests squarely on the shrugged shoulders of the Republican Party. The GOP has honed the dark arts of misrepresenting, lying, ripping off, distracting from, and subverting our most cherished freedoms to an all-too precise science, always in the pursuit of grasping power for power's sake and scoring more and more money for its richest patrons. With Trump the GOP has now even expanded its nefarious bag of tricks to include treason. I honestly don't know if the USA can survive with this cancerous albatross hanging around our collective necks. November is our only hope.
7
...two-fifths (of the population) cheer, not cheers...
Upcoming is our 4th of July national holiday, when we commemorate the founding of our country, along with all the citizens who fought and gave their lives for liberty and for our constitution, our democratic way of life. I think of my brothers black, white, Hispanic. Korean, Vietnamese, Aussie I served with in a much less than just war in Vietnam. I hang my head in shame that we have the most traitorous, criminal, despicable person in my lifetime as well as in American history now in the office of President of the United States.
1
Trump's tactics are well thought out. They guarantee division among various groups with differing social norms leading to greater civic unrest that will be used to further feed the fear of his particular frustrated and hateful subgroup. At the same time, he is confusing those further down the queue, who look to him for information on what should be reacted to or not. The tactics used are not those of a simple idiot, they take advantage of basic human nature and are based on advanced social psychological principles (cognitive dissonance theory), as such, his tactics are dangerous and Charles Blow is right. Assuming that Trump is not a stable genius (has my vote), the question is, where is he getting his guidance?
At the same time, by liberals leaning further left, they are playing right into his agenda leading to tribal warfare - either physical (as cheered on by Newt Gingrich) or political. We must maintain social norms of decency, but to do so requires verbalization and protest of unacceptable behavior - just as members near the intrusion point of a queue react when an intruder cuts in front of them (violation of a western social norm).
1
If Ivana Trump was truthful in stating to her lawyer in 1990 that her husband kept a copy of Hitler's speeches by his bedside in order to study the power of their propaganda, then it's not much of a leap to conceive that Trump's next move is, for him, both one more distraction from the boring business of governing the country (which he seems profoundly disinterested in, except as it feeds his celebrity and his wealth) and an effective means of fending off the investigators at his door.
Mr. Blow, I think it's a mistake to believe the country is, as you say, at a standoff. No, Trump and the forces supporting him are winning, and winning in a very big way. Yet this doesn't frighten me so much as what comes next, according to what historically seems to be the authoritarian playbook: war.
2
Divide and Conquer Worked for Cesear Napoleon, Phillip II of Macadon. Somehow we must find leaders that will bring us to the middle and compromise or this evil man will doom us.
This is a sickness reminiscent of the McCarthy era. Donald Trump is not the sickness but the symptom. It could have been held in check had Democrats presented a candidate who would deign to show up for the campaign. Like any sickness it will run its course and damage will be done.
That said:
Michael Cohen's attorneys reportedly will shortly stop cooperating with Donald Trump's attorneys, which is precisely what happened with Michael Flynn's attorneys before Flynn flipped.
This newspaper is not doing itself any favors running front page articles on how the right wing is weaponizing free speech, suggesting that liberals are now having second thoughts on free speech as a fundamental right. This would be foolish if presented as an opinion piece, to present it as front page news is beyond ludicrous. And predictably is being derided all over right wing media as yet another example of loony liberal hypocrisy (alongside the obligatory daily manifestos preaching civil war which they will win because they have all the weapons). If we want to go down this road Donald Trump will be more than happy to accommodate, starting with the "enemy of the people" aka liberal media.
Call to incivility;
America! Whenever possible, spoil Trump's photo-ops.
He's using normal, everyday people to promote his cretinous, retrograde regime, so how about some photo-bombing?
For a start, wouldn't it be great if someone could infiltrate the gallery behind him at one of his 'safe space' hate sessions, and shout something at him directly and up close??
4
The problem with Democrats is that they're still playing old style politics, while Trump's party is down and dirty in the wrestling ring. Trump's taken all his cues from WME wrestling. Aren't his audiences at rallies like those at wrestling matches? Hasn't he set up his politics like a wrestling match? There's the reigning heavyweight champion--The Liberal Terminator!--in one corner, and Chuck Schumer (Cryin' Chuck) in the other. With the Enemy of the People covering the match as if it were a play-by-the-rules croquet match. Give it up! It's the politics of wrestling that we're witnessing! If we view the Trump presidency as a WME wrestling match it all makes sense. Sure, WE KNOW it's FAKE and for SHOW, but his WME base believes it's real and cheer their champion on like Goliath beating David. Trump is beating Rocket Man! China! Iran! MS-13! Meanwhile, the investors in the match (Koch, Adelson, et al) are chuckling behind the scenes, all the way to the bank because they've duped this audience with The Greatest Wrestling Show on Earth and raked in the profits. Putin is Don King, producing this vile show. He knew Trump was the perfect vessel for the audience's hatred for elitists, globalists, Democrats, liberals, blacks, gays, immigrants, Hillary. When Democrats realize they've gotta put on a Wrestling Match instead of a reasonable debate and find a worthy Hulk Hogan to get into the ring with Trump, we might save our country.
4
As a Navy Vietnam veteran and retired federal prosecuting attorney, I recommend that readers take a look at John Brennan's interview in yesterday's Magazine section.
Note particularly his choice of words when he addresses the question as to whether Putin "has something on Trump." Brennan's comments suggests that he knows what Putin has on Trump. Thus, I would argue that Trump's determination to end the Mueller investigation reveals that he knows that Brennan knows.
Finally, I am of the view that the end of Trump and Trumpism is rapidly approaching just keep the faith.
6
Just an excellent column. Hits the nail right on the head. Vote, vote, vote in November. I wish it were November tomorrow.
5
I remember being a tenager during the race riots in Detroit in 1967. We lived in a white working class ghetto. I can recall the dialogue at the time amongst my white neighbors, it wasn't pretty. I realize that some fifty years later we still have barriers to racial equality but I was firmly convinced we were moving along the right path towards inclusion of all people in our great country. I no longer hold onto that illusion. Hate, fear and jealousy seems to have bubbled back to the surface and taken over and no one sells it as well as trump.
5
Charles Blow's editorial is honest , direct and unflinching about this president, who is not a Republican at all, but a fascist. I, like millions of others in this country am not someone who has become immune to this attack on our democracy; many of us are educated enough to know the implications of what a man like Donald Trump can do in the Oval Office.
What will eventually turn the tide of Donald Trump's support is not Robert Mueller's findings, which I'm sure will be damning and damaging . What will really hurt Donald Trump is when his support of something as irrational as a trade war begins to hurt Americans economically. When the stock market starts to tank, and when Americans who support Trump feel that their incomes have been directly affected by his actions, they will finally wake up, and see what this man has done.
Name-calling will not solve the problem that we have now, but calling the wrongdoing by its name, even if it needs to be done on a daily basis, is essential.
9
Thank you Charles Blow for staying on message even as people start to roll their eyes at your consistent and needed resistance. One tactic Trump tries to employ is making his detractors seem unhinged or unreasonable. Some commentators are trying to use that tactic against you on this page too. They are wrong; you are right. Your focus is so needed. Their efforts to shame you are inevitable, part of the siege, part of the way to deflate and exhaust truth-seekers. It won't work. Keep it up. Thank you.
12
Trump likes to cite the fact that people who still call themselves Republicans have a very high approval rating of Trump relative to other Republican presidents.
There is a very clear reason for that - the dwindling number of people who still call themselves Republicans.
Most people who used to call themselves Republicans believe in free trade, fiscal responsibility and free western democracies.
They cannot abide baby internment camps, alliances with dictatorships over our free democratic allies, tariffs, religious discrimination, massive fiscal irresponsibility, corruption and Russian interference in US elections.
So they are leaving the Republican Party to be independent, Libertarian, or Democrats.
Trump uses Twitter and Fox State television to amplify his supporters. His actual rallies are smaller, less enthusiastic and staged to create the impression of support.
Accounts on Twitter are not verified, and the trolls and bots that descend on his detractors are a Potemkin army of bots, not people.
The Wizard of Oz yells loudly behind the Twitter/Fox curtain, but a high percentage of support from a small number of people should be seen for what it is - fringe.
13
"But no amount of moralizing from Trump’s opposition will affect the fervor of his supporters. Quite the opposite..."
But Charles, the Trump base values the 1st amendment. They want to openly espouse their racism. Trump allows them to do so by providing the example. He appeals to the worst in them and makes them comfortable with their demons.
Without a doubt, Trump is the most divisive president in the history of this country...and not by a small amount. He does go out of his way to stir it up. What does that say about his loyal supporters? If he's a rabble rousers...what are they? They act like a mob...out of control and wanting to break things and hurt anyone in their way.
If there is one good thing that can come from the Trump presidency, I hope the voters come to realize that asking for perfection...asking for candidates to win their vote...asking for inspiration before bothering to go to the polls is the antithesis of good citizenship.
All citizens should take a good, hard look at the candidates they have...and not fret about the choices. All citizens need to research the candidates sufficiently to make an informed choice. All citizens need to realize that false information and propaganda runs rampant during election season. All citizens need to vote. If you can't bring yourself to vote, maybe you don't deserve to be a citizen.
VOTE OUT ALL REPUBLICANS
8
After reading Charles Blow's op-ed, I thought it must be psychologically hard for those Democrats and Independents who didn't vote two years ago. Why? They are, I submit, co-responsible for Trump and therefore co-responsible for his policies as Charles Blow describes.
It also must be difficult to those "conspicuous virtue" folks who wasted their precious votes on third party candidates.
Let's try to do better in November.
6
This is so true. It is also so scary. I am amazed at what we are becoming. All the thin I always thought America stood for seem to be eroding. Stay after him, Charles.
7
I have watched as seemingly rational people here and in other comments columns, make inroads on their recently-held values in support of Donald Trump.
They adopt his childish name-calling. They repeat his big lies. They insult people with abandon and they don't adhere to facts.
But the most disturbing truth is, the people who support Trump are either bigots themselves, or they don't mind that he is. What's the difference?
The sad reality is, two-fifths of us -- people who grew up in the same country I did -- do not believe in our constitutionally guaranteed civil rights. And they think that's okay.
4
There is a better cure for the anger and the sense of malaise, and one practitioner of it was Ronald Reagan.
A sunny disposition, a clear statement that this IS a great country, that we are doing well, and that there is room for everyone here - that will clobber all the small-minded grimy messiness of the Trump era.
Immigrants who start companies and create jobs. Who provide essential services like nursing and medical care. Who stay out of trouble, and build families just like the Irish, Polish, Italian, German, and other immigrants from decades ago.
With all this anger and complaining, I'm reminded of Jimmy Carter at his least inspiring. We can do better.
2
Calls for civility now abound, ironically mostly from the Right who have perfected such behavior, but also from various news sources.
Examples cited as a of lack of civility on both sides:
A restaurant politely refuses to serve Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Maxine Waters receives death threats.
Samantha Bee crudely describes Melania Trump. A white supremacist drives his car into a crowd, killing a young woman. Hilary Clinton implies during the 2016 campaign that Trump is a Russian puppet. Trump alludes to "2nd Amendment remedies" as a means to defeat Clinton. This is what many in the press and elsewhere now consider to be equivalent. Alas.
3
It would seem to me that Trump is simply an extension of the policies and practices of the Republican party since 1980 or so:
the withdrawal of government from the lives of ordinary people and instead treating citizens as consumers ; the concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people; the ability for a small class of donors to control elections; the increasing frequency of inexperienced wealthy businessmen running for high office; the obsession with packing the supreme court all are examples of a trend that has been going on for some time.
Trump is a logical extension of this gameplan. Republicans were worried that Trump's antics would be too extreme. But the population has by and large been silent and ineffective and the Republican elite is getting what it wants: tax cuts, conservative supreme court, and the elimination of the last vestiges of the redistributive state.
I suspect they are a little concerned with Trump's foreign policy. But as long as they are getting what they want they are high-fiving each other in the halls of power.
1
Exactly, Mr. Blow.
Trump takes cues from the 'authoritarian handbook' of despots, past and present, eroding decency, dignity, constitutional rights (with emphasis on the First Amendment) and the rule of law — with every rally, twitter outburst, SCOTUS nomination and billboard-sized signature. He's a walking human rights violation in search of unending applause and personal enrichment. The effects of his toxic presidency will be felt for years, but it's imperative we continue to resist his daily degradation — democracy and the well-being of future generations (and the planet) depends upon it. Shake people out of their civic inaction.
Vote. In every election, at every level.
Vote.
5
Clearly, a large part of America openly supports racism, misogyny, and white power. Trump simply told them it was okay to say it out loud and act on it. What disappoints me is the refusal of his supporters to understand the effects of the changes Congress is making. What disgusts me are the so-called religious who preach their way or the highway and support the con man in the White House no matter how egregious his actions and statements. What shocks me is the depth of hate that is a constant undercurrent in our society. Either America evolves beyond all of this or the great experiment in democracy will fail -- and soon. China, North Korea and Russia are circling while trump alienates allies.
There’s plenty of rage to go around. Resistance almost by definition exists only because of rage. But rage did not create the Trump movement. Anger is often depression turned outward. Trump is in the White House because too many Americans were unhappy and despondent about their future. Democrats ignore that at their own peril.
4
I’m coming to the realization that Trump’s tactics and objectives are decoupled. That is, his race-baiting, lying, constant affront to morality, etc, are all tactics. His objectives, on the other hand, if they can be discerned amidst the muck and mire of his Presidency, are to undermine traditional allegiances, promote traditional adversaries, undermine democracy and devalue respect for authorities other than himself.
To be blunt, everything he is doing is with the intent of realigning the US with Russia’s interests, the interests of the plutocrats, against the American people and against democracy.
2
The opposition to Trump and the GOP has one thing the Democrats and the left doesn't. The have a unified message. It doesn't matter to them that their message is one of hatred, racism, exclusion, etc. There is no debate among them; though Trump is all the negative things said about him, we agree with his singular message of hate, and we support it wholeheartedly. The Democrats have no one voice around whom to rally. I believe that unless and until the voice of the left behind to speak as one, we are stuck with the destruction of America wrought by this new age demigog.
1
When it all ends (the era of Trump) we will be much worse off as an organization (a country) than we are now. I think what bothers me the most is the realization that even the intelligent individuals in the media and politics don't realize this type of situation is not new. The charlatan has been with us forever. He especially shows himself when information/media/technology are transforming rapidly. Too many citizens exist in a state of dissonance because they are confused by the circus act called the internet. They don't read books, papers or mags. The books that sell are puff pieces like "Let Trump Be Trump". Bottom line, we're finished. Kaput.
Anyone who can embrace a president who launched his political career with a knowingly, mendaciously racist trope about his own sitting president is part of the problem besmirching the nation's foundational principles.
As the country's worst living human being (sorry Jeff Sessions and Mitch McConnell, but keep working on it), President Trump has nurtured and nourished the most negative elements of the American body politic. Only time will tell if this ethic has become the dominant face of a once-proud nation.
Any doubt about how mindlessly noxious these elements are, read the public comments section of any major American news outlet that accepts comments without moderation. Start with any article about politics in the Boston Globe.
If you want to keep your lunch down, it's probably best not to dally and to stop there.
1
Trump watched 12 years of Reagan/Bush. Then 8 years of Clinton.
In August 2001, after the Clinton presidency, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic.
(2001-2009).
So...tell me. Does a principled adult go from Rep to Dem to Rep?
OR is it an opportunist, who makes political changes for financial gain ?
1
A few days ago when the Harley Davidson announced that they would be moving a part of their operations outside of America, my immediate thought was of joy because that would somehow show Trump supporters how wrong they were to vote for such a person.
My next immediate thought was of horror at feeling such joy because in my heart I want all who live in this country to prosper. It was then that I fully realized how our national dialogue seems to be hatred run amuck. People who support Trump hate those that don't and those who do not support Trump hate those that do. People yell at each other all in the name of free speech and all we have is yelling and no rational discourse on important issues.
Our reality is essentially chaos and it is so unhealthy. Maybe someone (Democrat or Republican or Independent) can run a theme of love and reuniting this country. We need more messages of love and unity. I think on some level we all want more of that.
Hate and fear are so exhausting and only leads to more hate. We need this hatred to stop...on all sides.
1
Instead of constant Trump bashing, we need to remind ourselves that what we value requires active, constant effort. Good is not just lack of evil, just like wellness is not lack of illness and love is not lack of hate. Those who don’t actively denounce this government are passively complicit.
The press, it's owners and staff have profited enormously because of the First Amendment rights conferred on them by "We, The People" Now I'm sure that the vast majority of Americans expect NYTimes and every other media outlet to do your jobs and report the news. Don't be afraid because Trump plays dirty.
Remember the lives lost in war to protect your freedom.
Do your jobs.
4
If we are at a “standoff” then we need a logic that appeals to both sides.
Stop shouting about how offensive is the Trump phenomenon. Stop it!
Trump’s economic policies are wrecking the US economy! His policies! Attack his policies.
6
As much as I detest Trump and play into his gamesmanship with my own rage and discontent it still remains very clear that what is happening is exactly what has happened time and again all around the world. The rich and powerful keep those in the middle and below at each others throats while they find new ways to make billions more with their trickery, delusion, and outright thievery. Simply think...tax cuts, tariffs and the supreme court. Until the people stand up and vote in much larger numbers than they do now we will continue to squander away any chance of real meaningful steps towards a more fair society that looks out for the majority instead of the minority.
2
This is about identity politics, making whites feel good about excluding others. Trump can do whatever he wants as long as he is "Making America White Again." It doesn't matter that the economy is worse than the Obama baseline in terms of job creation, debt trajectory, and number of uninsured.
Exhibit A: Nothing gets Republicans going like illegal immigration, even though there are only about 11 million of them in a country of 327 million, most of whom work hard and lower prices for the rest of us. Since this was a minor issue before Trump brought it up, Republicans prioritizing it as a key issue is just another racist dog whistle.
Exhibit B: Trump's economic record is actually bad. He's made things worse than the Obama baseline. The ten year debt increase trajectory is up nearly 50%, from the $9.4 trillion he inherited from Obama to $13.7 trillion today. All while Europe lowers it's debt ratio. Inequality is worse due to tax cuts for the rich. Job creation is slower in Trump's first 16 months than Obama's last 16 months. About 4 million more uninsured than Obama, heading towards 7 million higher vs. the Obama baseline by 2026. Let's not get started even on phony trade wars. Trump is an economic debacle.
If rationality prevailed, the government would be shut down pending Trump's impeachment as incompetent and an embarrassment to the office.
8
President Pence might be worse..
2
Dear Charles,
Things need to change for the U.S
It is happening in an unorthodox way, with not the most eloquent of speakers. I think what people like about Trump, is that there are no sacred cows for him. So.e agreements or ways of doing things in the past are things he doesn't want to be beholden too.
Is the economy clicking- yes!
Is he looking to boast American production and build middle class- yes!
The rest of the stuff, most people don't care about. The guys who get paid to spes off pontifications constantly, are guys like you, and cnn, and others to fill this soap opera of palace intrigue to fill airways and sell ads. Unless, you are looking to fun for office, or do anything more than wain moral outrage- brother you just a talking another talking head and no sacrifice or action.
2
Bernie Sanders gathered his troops using the same strategy as trump - outrage against "others", whoever they may be, whether blacks, browns, elites, liberals....identity politics based on manipulated outrage is the new norm, and social media perpetuates the anger endorphin addiction. No well-through policies, proposals, or plans...just hyperbolic claims to inflame.
2
How is low IQ not on that list? The most alarming thing about Trump is how a guy who is so obviously "low functioning" was voted to the highest job in the land. He talks in circles, constantly contradicts himself, has no policy positions above a 3rd grade level, doesn't read, gets his information from cable news, and famously has briefings explained to him using "large pictures". But because he his wealthy, Americans assumed he must be smart. And I guess from the results of that poll, still do? Yipes!
4
“Trump is exhausting our mental capacity for indignation.”
“Trump is like a drug dealer who has addicted his followers to fear and rage and keeps supplying it in constant doses. His supporters have become rage-junkies for whom he can do no wrong.”
Trump’s words and tone at his North Dakota rally is the most shameful thing I’ve seen in politics in a long time. Trump, who sees himself as strictly the President of his base, was throwing juvenile sarcastic red meat in every direction and the crowd was eating it up. Then I saw the shameful performance by Jim Jordan and Trey Gowdy questioning Rod Rosenstein. It’s hard to believe that more Republicans don’t repudiate Trump’s conduct, but, as Mr. Blow said in an earlier column, they see him as their “orange life raft in a blue ocean”. They traded their souls for a Supreme Court Justice and, if Justice Kennedy’s replacement forms a solid “hard right 5”, you will see the entrenchment of corporate power and a full frontal assault on abortion, gay marriage, environmental protections, voting rights, etc etc etc. If Justice Ginsburg leaves, for personal or health reasons, and it becomes 6-3, it’s game over. Trump is already packing the lower courts so we’re in for a long treacherous haul. Vlad Putin’s plan and goal of national disunity is moving along nicely.
2
Excellent op-ed, Mr. Blow!
I heard a commentator say something last week that hit home with me and I so wish I could quote him verbatim! His rhetoric was along the lines of how angry and negative our POTUS always seems to be, especially when he is off the prompter. He always portrays the U.S. as a victim. My generation called people such as Trump a person "with a huge chip on their shoulder".
We as Americans, I have always believed, want to be inspired....not torn down. Trump gives us no true inspiration and I fear all his supporters have chips on their shoulders.
Gowdy's gaslight tactic of blaming Mueller is common among Trump supporters. This groups grows into a rage about the unpatriotic, treasonous "deep state" FBI. We can thank Trump foot soldier Sean Hannity for stirring that pot.
Trump's gaslight machine is sophisticated and relentless, always aggressively turning the tables. Whether it be the FBI, fake news, the Democrats, the Canadians, the Mexicans, the Muslims, the pro football players -- there is always a foil, a "villain" he is tweeting and seeding for his propaganda machine to water and tend.
He creates a simple narrative for his simple voters to get comfortable with and repeat and repeat. They grab onto the surface argument and go into a rage when the real facts are presented. The truth is set aside in favor of the hyper-repeated narrative. Witch hunt has been drumbeated into the minds of "his" people.
The trouble is that there is no clear, repeated, simple music to combat Trump's onslaught. There is no equally reported tweeter, no resistance bully pulpit, no real leader on the left to go toe-to-toe against his lies. A mish-mash of celebrity tweets are cobbled, an op-ed in the Times from Schumer today, a speech at a march from any senator, but nothing resonates as efficiently as Trumps all-reported shame tweet. And Mueller must stay quiet. Until his report, Democratic leadership has no lasting focus.
To those 63 million voters who pulled the level for Trump, you had better start thinking along the lines of "enlightened" self-interest i.e. giving up some of that power and privilege you have taken such pains to retain for yourselves before it is forcibly taken away from you . You are sowing the seeds of you own destruction. Wise up.
This is an Orwellian presidency. I am reminded of the Two Munuits od Hate from Orwell;s novel “1084" were there is a daily period in which Party Members of the society of Oceania must must watch a film depicting the Party’s enemies , notably Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers for exactly two minutes while party members shout, scream, curse and kind of looks like a Trump rally where a protester is being attacked.
3
Mr. Blow, I fear, is part of the breathless outrage and overstatement that helped elect President Trump in the first place. If Mr. Blow and his Ivory Tower-ilk had put their considerable energy and talent behind Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden we would not be in this position now. Now Mr. Blow and his irate scribes come across as sore losers who are trying to boot the current occupant of the White House out of a position he won due to their blind allegiance to Hillary Clinton and her compromised cronies in the Democratic Party hierarchy.
3
Let’s be clear: Trump, his administration and Republicans such as McConnell are the threats to our democracy. They are using our hate and fear on both sides to pursue their own selfish interests at any cost.
We ordinary people must stop attacking each other! Shouting, screaming and profanity only intensify the hate Trump et al need to remain in power, to convince their supporters that a vote for them is to defend themselves.
Rather than drawing lines between us, we need to identify ways we can work together to lessen the pain and suffering that will come through the deregulation and elimination of key protections and programs throughout our system.
It’s time for those of us who treasure and value inclusivity and diversity to honor it by acknowledging people are complex, even Trump supporters. Many may think I’m defending the indefensible-racists, homophobes, etc. I’m not. I’m pointing to a different truth:
Violence begets violence, always, in every form. It’s time to stop. Love can trump hate only if we actually practice it. Otherwise we’re doomed as the history of violence repeats itself once again.
I agree with every word of your column. The question I ponder ad nauseum is how do we stop him. I am not convinced the Democrats have a strategy. It would be useful if you and others at the Times would start writing about what we can do to stop Tyrant Trump (he would approve of the alliterative nickname, don't you think?), from destroying our way of life. Thank you.
1
The President has been carrying chips on his shoulder for many years. He counts his chips like a king in the counting house. All those who berated him, didn't bow down to him, those who dared to call him, any and all other people that make his lists will be made to pay.
He seeks only the adoration and accolades he believes he is due. I suppose you can equate many of his supporters as "Rage Junkies". The real junkie is The Donald. He tried to get his fix in riches, with women and social fame. That wash't enough. Like many addicts, the more you use, the more it takes to get your high.
Now he is mainlining what's left of the Republican Party and the spirit that made America. The destruction he leaves in his path to this country and the world is inconsequential to him. All that matters to the President is his next buzz. RAW .
5
Mr. Blow,
Before calling it an evening and having watched an American classic, I wanted to wish you a happy summer and thank you for not giving up.
A tabloid photo of Mr. Trump seen earlier in a seething state, shouting apparently at the Media with 'just calm down' was the cause of an uneasy laugh, and if somebody could discretely tell him to simmer down before his meeting with the Russian leader, it might be all to the good.
Some of us are holding on to our country as best we can, and watching The Delaneys, portrayed by Shirley Boothe and Burt Lancaster in 'Come Home, Little Sheba' made this viewer think 'Come Home, America'.
These last two years have been filled with rage and hatred, frightening at times and sad for many Americans with a love for country. It is not too late to unite again because out of the darkness, there is light.
Americans have more courage than they realize, and let us not have Trump and the Republican Party trample and destroy all that makes our country outstanding and enduring.
We will prevail.
2
It astonishes me that more than ten people , all members of Trump’s family and Stephen Miller, would look favorably at Hair Orange Furor or the Republican Party which has enabled him. He is the most divisive and corrupt person to serve as President in my lifetime ( I am 75 years old ) . His racist and xenophobic policies and pronouncements are destructive to our democracy and to our world order.
I can only assume that the tax giveaway and decimation of environmental, health and banking regulations endear him to people who value profit over inclusion and equality. And his race baiting and xenophobia appeals to people who feel they are being disenfranchised by black and brown people and immigrants.
Hopefully , before it is too late, people will recognize him for what he truly is - a venal, mendacious would- be dictator.
3
"Every day in the Trump era one could start a sentence with “never before …” and end it in astonishment and exclamation. But that has a cumulative effect of erosion. The constancy of the individual outrages reduces the psychic significance of the collective."
There is very little I can add to that, Mr Blow. Those poor individuals who hang on to Trump have nothing else. As one of the previously posted comments insinuated, the Democrats are in hiding. I say, fighting among themselves.
Even the Internet site Dictionary.com is getting into the popularity of the lack of civility happening in America, printing civility and other trending words. And many are not nice.
I sometimes get sick of the stomach if I happen upon Trump on Fox and Friends playing to the camera (and his base) with that all too familiar wave of his hands and grin on his tilted head. He is in Fox's element! -- if you get my point.
2
Mr. Blow writes increasingly as a major mouthpiece for what is left of the conscience of America.
He should be an inspiration for us all, because as Trump waxes ever more divisive, Charles is becoming ever more incisive in reading what the president is doing and why he's doing it.
I might add a few words to what Charles has set down here. The president's gut tells him, unless I'm badly mistaken, that his own selfish interests will best be served if, morally speaking, he manages to reduce this entire republic to rubble.
Trump once famously remarked that he loves seeing the stock market crash because he can then go bargain hunting in the ruins.
I think that we will not be straying into false analysis if we assume that he would like to see America itself torn apart from coast to coast. He's certainly been working overtime to wreck us all.
The national state of emergency that Trump is pursuing could be his royal road to dictatorship. At all events, the pursuit of tyranny best explains what his sorry excuse for 'governing' is all about, with the destruction of Constitutional protections as his ultimate goal.
We should never underestimate the enormities of which this bad man is capable. As long as we evaluate him with a vision like that of Charles, we can anticipate his worst moves and unite to prevent their fulfillment. By transforming our anger into precise strategic planning, we the people will surely prevail against this upstart berserker.
3
It is Mr Blow and columnists like him who labor daily to incite rage and keep it alive. Perhaps your cause would be better served with thoughtful, positive content about potential candidates - for congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidency - who might be elected to actually address the issues you rail against?
4
What you say is true. Now, when are the Democrats going to get their stuff together to defeat this reality?
2
America is a deeply racist nation. Always has been and, I’m afraid, looks like it might always be. So much of that racism simmers beneath the surface and waits for any excuse to erupt. I’ll never forget my family members who used to talk about Obama (Constitutional lawyer, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, gentleman and devoted family man) as the “Community Organizer” while hailing Trump (a twice-divorced, draft-dodging conman who openly lies, mocks the disabled, and boasts of sexual assault) as “what this country really needs.”
This has nothing to do with a “conservative” vs. “liberal” worldview or policy preferences. Trump’s authoritarian instincts, unilateral/arbitrary tariffs, adding $1T to the deficit, overtures to global tyrants, and alienation of long-standing allies do not reflect conservative principles. It is tragicomic to see the Fox devotees try to retrofit a “conservative” label on authoritarian and unprecedented actions.
Charles Blow is right. Trump’s campaign and administration are about fear and rage. These have always been easy tools for unscrupulous and shameless people. Time and again, we’ve seen them used to horrific effect. It is painfully clear that 30-40% of Americans are willing to follow this man down *whatever* path he chooses to lead them down. That means 60-70% of Americans better wake up and do everything they can to get him—and this Congress—out of office.
Before it’s too late.
1
Charles, he is all those things but more so. However, you omitted the word 'evil'. It takes a certain type of evil to commit those deeds of his, and to continue with impunity. That his mind is constructed of every malignant and malicious word and thought should repel the entire human race.
That he's creating and fuelling rage junkies and giving licence to abhorrent behaviour should not make us numb, nor anaesthetize our responses. Allowing oneself to be driven by spite is no excuse, no matter how hard life has treated you. Spite, the outward manifestation of hate is a downward spiral which causes more harm to the perpetrator by destroying any decency and humanity left in someone. Who wants to hang around that kind of poison?
2
Watching Trey Gowdy, the Benghazi inquisition leader himself, lash out at Mr. Rosenstein was to witness hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty at maximum force.
That is what the Republican party has devolved into. Mr. Trump is the most outrageous and unrelenting example, but they have all fallen in line. It's not so much Democratic vs. Republican anymore. It's Honesty vs. Dishonesty. That is fundamentally where America stands now.
2
Hard to believe that the generation that protested an unjust war and created the technology revolution also created Trump. As a tail end baby boomer myself this is disgusting to me and I encourage all of my generation to clean house and vote every Republican out of office come November, they need to pay a heavy price for their silence. We owe it to the generations behind us to clean up this stain on our generation. Vote!
1
It seems that the rage and spite is clear in the more liberal viewpoints expressed in this OpEd and comments. What's wrong with enforcing our immigration laws regardless of whether someone is white, black, hispanic, Muslim, whatever? It seems as if people who don't support open borders and are outraged by lax enforcement are called "racists" to shut them up. Lets see how America votes -- most likely, Democrats need a new plan and new, younger leadership that can focus on the right policies vs. TDS.
4
Tim I am a dem in CA. Far more affected by excessive immigration than you in MD ever will be. All my friends are dems. I do not know a single person that supports illegal or unlimited immigration. That said, an administration which is preparing detainment facilities all over the USA is capable of far more serious restrictions on liberty than locking up illegals. An administration which is separating children from parents with no plan to reunite them is one lumbering along without a moral compass. And GOP members who support these two actions are either naive, inhumane themselves, or traitorous enablers. Some things in life are just wrong. These recent immigration actions of this administration is wrong, that EVERY patriot should oppose.
1
Charles, I agree with you. But what to do? I’m not being rhetorical here, what can we do besides vote and get the vote out in November?
The marches are primal screams into closed ears (so, by the way, are your columns).
Shaming administrators just has them gleefully cry “victim”.
Clashes prove (to them) their belief of the radical leftists are out to get them and provides them the ability to escalate their far right rhetoric (i.e. NRA) then Trump supports and eggs them on with a wink and a nudge, conflating the violence.
Meanwhile the government structure is being ripped apart from within and our resources of people and environment are being given away to corporations.
Trump has always taken pleasure in shocking and riling people up.. your column is crack to him and his base.
I never see practical steps we can take to stop the skulduggery and thievery going on in the background. Your columns always stop just short of offering suggestions! What do you suggest? Specific steps please!
Specific actions, such as how we rein in ICE and racist police shooting unarmed blacks would be a start. Talking about abolishing ICE feeds the fire of their addiction. How do we do effectively rein them in, specifically?
Trump's incessant vicious attacks on the media
gave the Gazette shooter a permission slip
to commit murder
Words have consequences. Trump owns this.
Period
5
Congress' complacency in light of blatant trump fascism is now a horrifying reality. Our democracy is lost certainly after trump controls the Supreme Court.
3
Charles, you have such an accurate handle on this president. Thank you for all of your columns. You and the other writers at the NYT is the reason I subscribe. You're my hero.
9
You speak the truth like no other, you never vacillate, you put out the reality of what's going on perfectly. Never stop. You are a hero.
Mr. Blow, your article is brilliant and I agree with everything you say. But I've said it and I'll say it again. There is no way America would have elected back to back a white female for president after having elected a black male president.
Carton of unfiltered Camels and a case of Everclear - let nature take its course!
Be Careful What You...Vote For ?? Trump has done nothing to the country that we..as a nation.. didn't.."Wish For"! It's not like he was Presidential and after the election became a monster ! Nearly half the voting population overlooked the negative campaigning and really believed he could make America Great !! We got what we wished for, Like spoiled children who didn't listen when their parents told them to avoid sugar and brush their teeth ..we now we have bleeding gums and cavities! The so called..Main Stream media...certain former Governmental officials..the FBI etc are all acting as parents setting boundaries and limits and trying to explain the consequences of this administration"s policy decisions ! Trumps base...which are still in pretty good numbers are like children who want no boundaries! Do they really believe North Korea's threat is over? I wonder how the South Koreans feel? Does his base think meeting with Putin is a great move? Going alone into the future without allies is smart? In the next election...if the majority of voters cannot rally around a single candidate to oppose the Trump campaign...it's possible that the voting could be divided enough that the Trump base Fox News believers could bring about a reelection. Who listened when Rosenstein said he should be believed because he was under oath...not the Fox news folks! It really is as if there is now state tv like in North Korea and Russia...and .. there are quite a number of voting believers out there.
1
It is very fearful time to be an American citizen. I am looking daily at the seeds of fascism, authoritarianism, racism, totalitarianism, anti-pluralism as they germinate right in front of my nose. I feel afraid and powerless. There’s information overload. I am unsure what I can do to block Trump and his base’s anti-Democratic actions.
I’ve used Masha Gessen’s New York Review of Books essay, “Autocracy:Rules for Survival,” as my manifesto for dealing with Trump, a demagogue, and his authoritarian loving, racist, ilk.
One of Gessen’s rules says, believe what Trump, as an autocrat and demagogue, says, for he means and intends exactly what he says. Don’t toss his crazy random, out-of-the blue statements off as hyperbole, as unthinkable exaggerations. Trump is an autocrat. He means what he says even If what he says are lies.
Also, I must never normalize him. Just because the stock market is up, to take only one example of many, doesn’t mean Trump knows what he is doing, and, most importantly, as Charles Blows’s columns, and Gessen’s rules for survival backup, I must be be outraged at what Trump is doing to our once free-spirited Democracy, not alarmed, but outraged.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-f...
6
Where did this language and coarseness in public discourse come from? Where is the speaker to enforce decorum?
Trump's supporters are in line for a reaming of their own. I can't wait for his tariffs to up the price of their beer at Walmart and Sam's Clubs.
November's coming...
3
Trump is the symptom. We’ll have these problems until America gets a better electorate. How does that happen? You apparently can’t shame Faux News, Rush, or Evangelicals. We need more active moderates, especially in primaries.
3
I attended a rally in Columbia, SC Saturday to protest Trump's inane and inhumane immigration policies.
A young white male Trumpian with his two friends circled the block of the State House in their pick-up truck with a TRUMP 2020 flag flying from the bed.
Each time they passed the peace-filled crowd, they honked their horn and flipped us off.
It pains me to say that we have lost our American way.
3
You are correct that Mr.Trump's behavior is disgusting but as a country we have been through this before.Long ago during the period of Reconstruction the country was torn apart by bigots-more recently during the McCarthy era there was a communist behind every bush.Fear and loathing were rampant and people spoke in whispers about anyone with liberal tendencies.Neither era ended well for its supporters- they became dark and disgusting chapters in our country's history.
We all need to do a collective primal scream like the rock band Rage Against the Machine. I was listening to Alexandria Octavio Cortez being interviewed. She was asked about Trump's tweets. She said "I ignore them and keep organizing and pushing my agenda in my community." Yes it's almost impossible to not react to the racist, sick, and illiterate tweets. Like she said when we call Trump out for what he is, that's what he wants. He then uses the attacks to give red meat to his rabid supporters. Trump is the confrontational, chaos president. He relishes the opportunity to degrade anyone who disagrees with him. In short, we cannot ignore his barbarism. But like Ms. Octavio-Cortez said if we stay focused, join together, and get out in the communities we just might be able as democrats and social democrats defeat Republicans in November. Make voters aware how much Trump is hurting the economy and their cost of living as well as health care.
This presidency seems to be becoming our Nero moment. God help us.
1
I applaud the NYTimes for its’ diligent and pragmatic reporting on the Trump “Era” that is eroding the foundation, and core, of what our country was built on. There IS for the most important part, the populace that sees him as a blowhard bully baffoon. Articles like this are the promise of the free press and the hope of our country. We do not accept this embarrassment to our nation as our President. He is “their” President. I tick off the days on my calendar until the next election.
If all you care about is destroying this country of ours regardless of disasters along the way, as a Trump supporter you are winning. But for this to be happening, the level of hate and dissatisfaction with our government must be out of sight. Trump is a con man, but not a very good one. But even a poor con man can cause serious damage if he cheated his way into the WH. We need to prevent such things in the future. His incompetence, thin skin and anger provides alerts to those of us willing to see it. If we all vote in November we can overcome Trump's supporters. That will be the first step in a long way to repair.
Don't forget.Dishonest Donald got less votes than Hillary. So, theoretically he doe NOT represent the majority of Americans. He\we need to be reminded of this more often
2
There are some really good comments here which give me some hope for national resurrection.
Keep up the challenging and insightful analysis Mr Blow.
Well done.
'It's worth it all just to see Nancy Pelosi cry.' Trump found that switch in his supporters that turns on the more primitive part of our brains, and the more evolved parts, off.
It is the stuff of lynch mobs. It is too late to win them back with logic, emotion, sympathy. We simply have to defeat them.
2
I find it interesting that far right Republicans say if the Democrats play the race card, Republicans always win, but the far-right Republicans are playing the race card to disaffected whites who think non-whites are the cause of their problems: poor education, lack of job opportunities, and low wages.
It was, and is, the wealthy of both parties that are fashioning policies to keep low income people in their place, whites included. Unions, long time proponents of good wages and jobs, have somehow become the enemy of Republicans b/c of the unions traditional support of Democrats, which were to help the low and working class of all races.
Why has racial animus superseded white working class's own common good?
It's dopioid addiction in many: the dopier, nastier and blatantly false a claim by the Liar-in-Chief, the more the addicts long to take it in. Observing others speaking truth to power, they long to spite those serious caretakers of decency, dignity, democracy. They gleefully ignore the huge difference between democracy and demagoguery, and may not recognize the difference even when as a result of Trump's policies they lose much of what they banked on him to preserve or create. Ignorance and spite: what more could one want to be encouraged and rewarded in oneself?
1
But there is now a part of ME that I don't like. I had an opportunity to donate some nice stuff to people in need. But the lake house is in Trump country so I loaded it up and took it to Columbus. Why make THEIR lives better, isn't that horrible? I have to fight thinking that Trump supporters are all racists. I don't say anything but I sure am thinking it. I am horrified by the across the board support that our unprepared, lying, golfing, tweeting, media bashing, insulting, president has with people that remain in the Republican party. You can support policy without accepting outrageous behavior. But that point seems to be lost as people cower under Trump rule. Trump's loyalty is not towards country or even family. He will never Make America Great Again, his goal is HIS wallet not making all of our lives a little easier. I don't like him but I notice my behavior changing too, changing in ways that never happened under other administrations. Sad.
3
Once again, Charles is 100% correct in analyzing the myriad curses that Trumpism has brought upon our nation and the world. I have long believed that for every day he remains in office, it will take our country a month to recover. BUT: we know how to identify the problems. What are the solutions? What are the directions to go in to restore our deeper values like honesty and integrity? I am not enough of a gifted political theorist to chart the course, but I think it looks like passionate activism from the center and the left to re-educate enough people whose minds are open enough to hear genuine facts, which should give us the critical mass to prevail. It also looks like not giving up until our last breaths are drawn. Trumpists delight in calling their non-believers "defeatocrats." The very last thing we should do is let them be proven right. We know the problems: Trump's ravings taken as "truth," his acolytes' fawning and conspiratorial support, and the resulting crushing of the America we love. Now, please, onward to the solutions - and quickly; our last hope for a valid election is just four months away. Get active now!
I was born in 1962, making (and my sister born in 64') the youngest cohort of baby-boomers. By the time I'm ready to retire at 65 (2027), the oldest boomers will be in their 80s. By that time most boomers will either have, or quickly will, age out of political relevance. We can't get there soon enough.
I didn't much like Hillary - and I think her administration would have been just as paralyzed as the last one, but at least she'd keep all the bitter, aging reactionaries at bay for eight years. That'd be long enough for a new generation to have the chance to re-invent what it means to be American, and re-constitute our tattered institutions in novel ways before it was too late.
Sadly that's not what happened. The damage Trump is doing to our institutions and our nation's credibility around the world is irreversible. But worse than that: the poison he's injected into the body politic may hatch-out in appalling and unpredictable ways. So much for the "end of history."
4
Pity parents trying to raise children to become moral, decent, honest, civil human beings in face of the opposite kinds of people holding the highest offices of the nation! Trump's business and personal dealings legitimize lying, cheating, double-dealing, stiffing creditors, and--not to forget--paying off women for sex. How does one counter the defiance of a mouthy child to parental discipline when challenged by "Who are you to say? The president does it." As for trying to inculcate humane values and commitment to the common good, forget it! It's a world of dog eat dog our kids are learning.
1
Trump is poison to our democracy. He is not a patriot.
2
One of the things I dislike most about Trump is that he has turned me into a hater. I hate him, Pence, all Republicans, Trump's court picks, his cozying up to dictators and alienating our allies, his ignorance, his flouting of norms, and I could keep going all night. Please keep writing your wonderful columns - they provide a dose of sanity and comfort.
1
Trump isn't the problem. He simply tapped into and openly aligned himself with a pervasive racism that exists throughout the nation. His supporters tolerate his lies, his infidelities, his economic policies that harm them, his science denial and his stupidity because of his open hatred of Blacks, Muslims and the LGBTQ community. We can only stop Trump and the more than likely future Trumps by chipping away at this deep racial hatred, and we can only achieve that goal by way of integration. Numerous studies support my personal experiences. When Whites are compelled to live, work, worship and attend school with minorities their attitudes change. We need more affordable housing, more integrated schools and a clergy more focused on the racial divide.
1
I am so disgusted and scared with our authoritarian Fake President and the cowards in the GOP that I will not be celebrating the Fourth of July this year. I will not be reciting the Pledge either. This is not my America anymore.
3
reader123, I agree. But I will get out and vote and encourage others to do so. I hope you will too. I will tell chuck and nancy to grow some spine and fight till the perhaps brutal end. I hope you will too.
The nasty, mean spiritedness that trump engenders is showing the World who Americans really are...I still believe there is only about one quarter of people who support him and his chaos...But he really is tarnishing what the United States stands for. Nothing good can come from trump's evil.
3
I confess to being a ‘rage junkie’ when it comes to your president but I’ve found a solution to my addiction: I’ve stopped reading or listening to ‘anything Trump’ including the body of this column.
2
we (progressive thinkers, liberals, democrats) have not retreated one bit. we show up when it matters (note the turnout for the maarches this weekend) but realize there is nothing we CAN change until the voting in November. We are biding our time - that is NOT the same as giving up.
2
No biding of time! Work to make sure that all of our fellow worried and frustrated citizens get off their couches and vote in November like our country depends on it.
Racist/Hate: 6 percent.
So, the author is in the 6 percent. I'm in the 94% who dislike Trump for all those other reasons. Fact is, the opposition shares the blame for exhausting our mental capacity for "indignation".
1
Well that about sums up where we are. We have a society where two fifths of the population live lives so devoid of meaning they rely on hate and rage to get out of bed. They are fed daily by an alternative media that straps their arms and injects total nonsense directly into their veins. The shocking thing is many of these miscreants consider themselves ruled by a god. Obviously religion is no longer the recommended drug of choice, it must be combined with hate and fear of their fellow humans.
Donald Trump is a classic abuser in every way. If Americans were taught, starting in grade school, the tactics of domestic abusers (verbal, emotional, and physical) I honestly don't think we'd be in this mess. Simply read the book "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft, and anyone will quickly realize Trump isn't unique at all — millions of people trapped in abusive relationships deal with narcissistic, callous liars that gaslight them while diabolically creating a circle of allies that believe ONLY them. Trump supporters, including Congress, staffers, and Fox News, are perfect examples people that can't leave their abuser and carefully defend the abuse for fear of 1.) accepting the person they love is actually a monster, and 2.) massive revenge from not just the abuser, but their abuser's allies. It's safer to stay.
6
Trump has been driven by his self-interests and opportunism all his life. Worse, he's mentally pathetic, and our psychiatrists as well as our presidential historians may provide more revelations in the future.
Generally speaking, Trump has much more been a product of his time rather than a man who can initiate changes. A political entertainer near the end of the American century. What could we expect?
The majority of concerned Americans should continue their resistance to Trump's assaults on our constitution as well as our core values, based on humanity.
1
A little off topic, but had to share. Saturday afternoon in my gym, TV'S are set to ESPN, MSNBC CNN and Fox. I spent 1/2 hour on the treadmill and Fox did not have 1 minute of coverage of the protests taking place. This is where 2/5th of the country get their 'news'.
"They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite."
And not just our country but our planet. Their schadenfreude knows no bounds.
Thanks, Charles, you said it so well. It would be helpful if the media didn't breathlessly repeat every lying, hateful tweet. Journalists are being used in his war on truth and they don't even know it.
3
Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. We look at Trump's base as being angry white people, and maybe that's not correct. Trumps base is actually just angry dumb people, most of which just happen to be white. There is no way someone can listen to Trump and not conclude that he's mentally deficient, unless the person listening is more mentally deficient than he is. And by denying education to a majority of the population, the Republicans have been successful in nurturing an electorate that is so dimwitted they can't see this man for what he is because, hard as it is to believe, he actually is smarter than them. His largest demographic is white people without a college degree. This says a lot.
4
Great column, Charles. His base isn't happy unless they're in a rage about something, even if it's simply ticking off the liberals. They would see this country destroyed simply to keep feeding their hate.
1
The core supporters of Trump are the religious fundamentalists who believe what those TV preachers say. Trump has turned the oval office into one gigantic pulpit for the congregation of the duped.
The rest of Trump's followers are cynics who believe the world is a dog eat dog one. Trump is proof to them that the meanest, most unethical guy wins. They like it.
The rest of us are struggling to demonstrate that a rational, well ordered. law abiding, all in this together approach results in the best outcome. It is hard work to arrive there. It turns out that a lot of Americans are fools for the easy road.
4
This is a leader and role model who mocks those with disabilities which I find personally disgusting. He has also weakened the American Disabilities Act in the name of greed. So Sad!
1
Trump is a con man. The best thing a con man can do to a mark is get them distrusting, or disliking someone else... Trump's constant flow of (I'll be kind) unsubstantiated maybe-factual statements and accusations deflects Trumpista's attention from what Trump is doing to them -- his cheating, his self-dealing, his lying, his piling up debt their children will pay, his cutting taxes for his rich cronies -- and focuses the marks (Trump supporters, the conned 40%) on the rage Trump provokes in "liberals and the MSM". Trump gets them looking, and laughing in derision, at the upset "elites" - and they never notice his fleecing hands dipping into their own pockets. Trump's "Tax Reform" gives them $10 a paycheck more - then the Trump Tariffs raise the prices of items they buy by hundreds or thousands of dollars. Trump's self-dealing (how did Jared and Ivanka make $82 million while they both have full-time jobs working in Trump's White House?!) goes by unnoticed while the Trump base laughs at "liberals" outraged by family separations, or Trumps kiss-ups to Kim Jong Un and Putin. The Trumpistas never notice how they're being taken to the cleaners because they're distracted by Trump's over-the-top rhetoric and incendiary rallies, as amplified on the Fox "News" Trump Propaganda Network... Trump is pulling off the perfect con job on these sad 40% - he's got them so distracted they're proud of how he's cheating them.
1
If you remove the hate, ignorance, greed, anger, violent rhetoric, racism and misogyny from a Trump supporter, is there anything left?
1
Since the coronation of Trump I have been attempting to understand the mentality of the Trump supporter. Perhaps they have a lust for blood sport and may enjoy the gladiator games in centuries past. Perhaps they are former school yard bullies who never outgrew the bully and enjoy Trump and his imbecilic bully tactics.
Those supporters are likely to be racists, as we have seen in video from Trump pep rallies, something they will not admit in public and enjoy the pain that Trump inflicts on minorities as he accomplishes, without fear of retribution, as they would.
We are all responsible for Trump. We allowed our society to become racially polarized (all Muslims bad, all brown people bad, Obama not born here) by Trump.
Trump has the ability to garner loud cheers from his rabble, and it feeds his ego. And it feeds more hate from that rabble. We have seen where that hate from his rabble is directed. And the masses cheer.
I fear for this country more than I have in the past. And I am not a member of the masses that are cheering.
The Fake President's ignorant and potentially catastrophic trade tariff tantrums could be his fatal Achilles heal, Charles, as his conned acolytes see their jobs disappearing, their wages falling, and the prices of their everyday consumer goods rising. Harsh pocketbook realities confronting his revered "base" will deliver it from the grip of the manipulative narrative that Trump and his propagandists have continuously been feeding them, a diabolical stew of bigotry, victimhood, lies, and theatrical bombast.
Hopefully, the anger, rage and divisiveness that this amoral authoritarian has created and nurtured will be turned right back onto him and his Republican enablers in a well-deserved, ironic denouement. As has been said, "What goes around, comes around".
I don't think Charles Blow realizes how many ordinary Americans support Trump.
2
This unhinged rant is what got Trump elected. The presidency,Senate,House most Governors ,State Legislatures and soon the out if control courts are all conservative and Republican. It is called Democracy and the will of the people... get used to it!
BTW there was already a wave election... in 2016.
4
Sorry obummmer, Trump did not win the popular vote, nor does he express the will of the people. He is a criminal, fearful of Mueller, and he will be ousted. Get used to it.
It's hilarious to read about "rage junkies" written by someone who is ALWAYS outraged about everything Trump does from the time he gets up in the morning to the time he finally goes to sleep. I'm sure Blow sets his alarm so that he can get up every couple of hours throughout the night to see if there is something new he can express his outrage about.
6
Charles, all I can say is: enjoy the fruits of the endorsement your paper provided to a visionless, charismaless, idealess, but very smart and way better than this doofus, presidential nominee.
You can call us Bernie people all kinds of names but we voted and we voted for her. But she was an atrocious candidate.
2
Thank you Mr. Blow...spot on.
Trump's addiction is to power over the many. Instilling Fear and Hatred are his drugs of choice, both are cheap and readily available.
The only weapon we the majority have to end the absolute devastation of our democracy is gaining a majority of our House and/or Senate. If the universe were to smile upon us, both.
Vote, November 6, 2018.
2
Pot meet kettle. We're all rage junkies now. Is the media happy yet? Do you have your "sustainable business model?"
5
Mr. Blow, you've perfectly described Trump's most ardent supporters in just this one sentence:
"They would let the whole country collapse for the pleasure of spite."
That's why they stick with him even when they're personally being hurt. They take pleasure in seeing him insult and hurt people who they view as 'other'!
3
"Trump and his defense machine — including members of Congress — are tearing it apart.Trump-addicted acolytes are tearing it apart."
Along with stump's repeated attacks on minorities, our constitution and his rhetoric toward long time allies, he has managed to literally brainwash a segment of the population who primarily get their info from fox. His rallies keep them fired up like a drill sergeant in basic training. These people are listening to stump. He is speaking their language. He is giving credence to their beliefs. He is strengthening their hatred and making it acceptable. I have personal knowledge from a fox viewer. She has no idea that most of their info is not factual and that stump has lied beyond comprehension about almost everything. She laments that he just can't do anything right. She really doesn't realize that he is a racist pig that is enriching himself and his family while he cozies up to Kim and Putin. She's a nice person and my friend. But I only recently realized how ignorant and out of touch she is at what's happening to our country. I feel myself beginning to dislike her and the people she calls friends and that bothers me. This is the desired result that stump has inflicted on us, that brother could be against brother, that women would be put in their place, that our country would no longer be a place of sanctuary. This is not the country I grew up in.
One of the best columns I have read this year Keep it up Mr. blow!
3
Trump is not a conservative and he should not be described as such. He is not the only contributor to the sad decline of our nation. The entertainment and much of the professional sports industries over many years have seriously degraded our culture with the result being that profanity, crudeness, pornography, misogyny aka rap, extreme violence, sexual immorality,and winning without regards to ethics have all become mainstream. Trump has added to this toxic brew white supremacy but much of what he says and does would not have been possible before our popular culture became such a sewer.
2
I can vaguely understand the poor and uneducated whites supporting this pig, but it defies all logic why well-educated, affluent people lend Trump their support over tax cuts, and tax cuts alone. Simply empty souls I imagine, but oh my.
Trump 2020. America and Americans First.
3
The divide widens everyday that Trump continues in office. I saw the results of Martha Radner’s trip across the south last week, and that scared me more than anything I’ve seen and read in the press. When Martha asked what appeared to be a rational white man who claims he was a Democrat before voting for Trump this time “What if the Mueller investigation is able to prove that Trump was guilty”, the man said he wouldn’t believe it. Why? Because he really likes Trump. Kind of hard to be rational with anyone when that’s their MO. Our new slogan should be “The MO’s have to Go.
2
I encourage NYT readers to go to Fox News right now, click on the headline story, and then open the comments. Even discounting for trolls and Russians posing as Americans, you will be shocked to see the views of people you share a country with. To say they are deplorable would be an insult to deplorable people.
The rot is deep, and it appears - at least for for 35 million people - Fox News and its decades-long campaign of hate, division, and alternate truths has worked. You will never get these nut cases back. They are gone for good.
2
Trump reminds me of a 2 year old. Every parent has had episodes of the child screaming and crying because he doesn't get his way. You can only stand so much, the kid can outlast you every time so you give in. That's what Trump is like. A 2 year old. He attacks over and over and over and you can tell him til the cows come home that what he is saying isn't right but it doesn't matter because he wants what he wants and he's a 72 year old toddler who doesn't understand the meaning of the word no. That's why the people in his administration leave. They can't stand the tantrums and lying and attaching our country to get his way. Maybe someone should stick a pacifier in his mouth.
1
If you read Mr Blows columns with an open mind you might see that he is doing what he accuses President Trump and the "other side" of doing.
3
Charles Blow's summation of the dilemma we are in because of the utterly corrupt and divisive DT lacks only one important element. DT has shrewdly heaped praise on many police, military, and security entities, most recently defending ICE against imaginary foes. He has viciously attacked the hierarchy of the FBI while claiming that the mainline agents love him and how wonderful they are. He has often spoken to crowds of military personnel. He is highly praiseful of them. Across the board, he has made it clear how much the press/media are bad people, enemies of the people. Observing this, I have concluded that the knowledge of his guilt and his fear of Mueller's investigation have prompted his effort to curry favor with police and military in case things go very badly for him and he should feel the need for protection against removal from office. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson was inconclusive recently when asked if he thought the military would beat back any resistance from DT's weapons bearing followers bent on keeping their president in office. It has been Trump's ploy all along to get the military on his side in the event. He may not read much or know much, but he is street smart.
"I guess this is how empires begin to fall."
Mr. Blow, I agree. I do not think this is a defeatist attitude. This is an analysis of the symptoms staring us in the face. The bedrock of our nation is under assault.
To remove a component of a society and replace it with something better is social evolution.
To attack the foundations of a society without supporting the subsequent erosion has no benefit, only chronic destabilization.
Mr. Trump's policies have done nothing but erode, with only the tax cut and his position on North Korea being arguably beneficial to our nation.
If Mr. Trump is elected for another 4 years, it will be time for the three-fifths to start planning on how reshape and rebuild our culture and our country. It will not be the same in 2020, and it will be unrecognizable in 2024.
3
I am offended by the single labels we give each other to deepen the divide. Trump uses the terms "liberals, democrats, and elites" to make us scapegoats and undermine our shared American values. United we stand. We are all Americans and Trump, if he wants to be an All-American President, needs to reach out to all of us. Most liberals do not rant about red-state Americans (we are confused by why they support Trump) but we do complain about Trump's wrong actions, wrong speech,divisive policies, and wrong livelihood which do not represent the values we share with the majority of Americans.
2
Dear Charles,
You have very nicely described Trump's modus operandi.
The spewing daily of racism, encouraging the hate muscles and rage, lying all the time. Tweeting to his base, not to me, not to you, we are apparently surplus to being American. Oh, we are just part of the Fake News which like Stalin he repeatedly smears and denigrates as the "enemy". He does this to feed the fires of rage in his supporters.
Lying to his base he is constructing not a tissue of lies but a robust forest of lies. An alternate universe of paranoia and victimology. All this magnified for his base by his propaganda machine Fox News and Enquirer. The actors at Fox compound and magnify his lies, Hannity, Pirro, create the anger and agitation, reflected by the likes of Trey Gowdy, Devon Nunes, and the Republican herd.
He then throws in the Salvos of hate and distraction. Zero tolerance at the border, cruelty, lies and punishing the "other". Muslims, women, babies Hispanics, Gays, non-members of his elite club, or rather his " super elite" club.
More salvos: turned into fact with lies
Putin is our friend, despite evidence to the contrary
Our Allies are on welfare supplied by the US.
Our neighbors are on the make at our expense.
Any international body, WHO UN, WTO, TPP, are not in our interests.
Science itself is suspect, because it requires thought, deliberation, thorough examination, intellect.
He is becoming a well rounded and confident dictator himself
And I see nothing stopping him!
5
WOW! Bravo! You said it all!
America tears itself apart and destroys it's reputation and status in the world via a sociopathic narcissist as its president. At the current rate the process appears unstoppable. It is hard to see a global community ever again trusting a United States whose democratic processes can be so easily hijacked.
4
One thing is now crystal clear: the hypocrisy and self-serving dishonor of the republicans in congress. They have proven their stance for party over country. Hopefully the party of trump will wither away as they deserve.
7
"Trump is exhausting our mental capacity for indignation."
Further, he is degrading to all of us.
As much as we oppose him, he is humiliating, degrading, and defiling America and all of us in the eyes of the world, just as a bully or torturer would defile and degrade his victims.
What can we do?
For one, the press gaggle that follows him around can stop shouting predictable and easily deflected questions. Further, when he tells a lie and then ends it with, "And everyone here knows it's true!" they can start shouting, 'No! It isn't!!'.
Every time he gets away with a lie he takes it as affirmation.
He defiles everyone and everything, and he will defile all of us.
The time for normal civility is over. Non-violent expressions of incivility are needed on every level; To him, his cabinet, his Cong/GOP acolytes, his money men, all need to be publicly shamed. They have earned no get out of ignominy cards, they in fact deserve it.
Further, anyone who is summoned to the White House for a photo op , you know, medal ceremonies, awards, little feel good moments like 'turkey pardons' and egg hunts, need to start speaking out at the moment in question. If he's trying to use someone or group to lie and to promote his politics and ego, it's certainly alright to rain all over his moment civility be hanged.
3
Remember to pause, take a breath and smile.
Hating Trump will raise your blood pressure and shorten your life.
We need you to stay alive until we vote in November!
So smile. Breathe. Chill a bit.
It's the patriotic thing to do!
5
GOOD ADVICE!
Unfortunately, I feel that I am in a foreign hostile country! Such absence of self responsibility, disregard for humanity if not white, and democratic values!
1
Charles, I admire your passion and courage. But, I believe there is too much focus on DT, and not enough on the conservative coalition that is "winning": the Christian conservatives--anti-tax---NRA--ALEC--Federalist Society--Heritage Foundation---FOx News--anti-regulation--Koch brothers megalith.
Trump is the battering ram; the rest are the warriors with the swords, arrows, etc. Conservatives are getting the country they want. One might say they voted in a New York version of Reagan, but got Mussolini. Will they be happy with what they chose? I doubt it.
3
We must bring every registered Democrat and anti-Trumpism citizen to the polls. I am still very very angry at those who did not vote out of Bernie spite or who cast a protest vote for Stein. Sorry, but I am. When Sarandon was arrested the other day for protesting against separating children at the border, I almost wished they would have kept her. What did these anti-Clinton liberals think would happen? I know we have to stick together now, but they did help Trump win. I saw Bernie supporters posting "Clinton murders" memes. Get a grip. They fell for propaganda like fools.
4
Yes. And I remember all too well how many Bernie supporters stated right here on these very NYT pages, that they would rather vote for Trump than Clinton -- And with the vehemence they went after her, they started to sound just like Republicans.
Now look where we're at.
Thanks for nothing.
2
Hey Mark Thomason, of which peace deal do you speak? Trump had one meeting with Kim Jong U, and nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed.
Let's be clear, Trump is a circus hawker. You have to be blindsided not to see his intentional, or possibly inadvertent actions to tear apart our institutions. I'm listening to the pain you and others might have felt to vote anybody but Hillary. But if you can't see the the direction this absolute buffoon is steering, you have as little care for our now very fragile democracy as all the psychopaths kneeling at Trump's throne.
I welcome a calm and thoughtful conversation with the other side. But so many of the other side take their talking points from sources prompting non thinking. You won't be saved by this make believe savior. But sadly all the rest of us will pay the same price.
3
Trump blundered into the White House as the Democrats failed to muster any passion supporting their presidential candidate. Enough voters either stayed home on Election Day or closed their eyes and nostrils and took a chance on the GOP to put Trump and the Republicans in charge—with a lot of help from Citizens’ United (thanks, Justice Kennedy!), Gerry Mander, and a vestigial compromise between slave and free states.
For years voters have thrilled to the fictions of reality TV and now they can vote for one of its stars. They were able to overlook the weirdness of the man because he was now familiar. They embraced him because he was “authentic” for speaking plainly. The GOP leaders saw the opportunity and took it.
Now Trump is the Establishment. He and his team can complete the transformation begun by Nixon and Reagan of polite racism becoming overt and ugly. He has returned the white man to the head of the table even while he ignores the plight of actual white men (and many others) grappling with unemployment and addiction to opioids. Women for Trump exist as sex objects or temporarily distasteful vessels for progeny production. If they fail to meet his requirements for eye candy, they better be nasty to his opponents—best if both.
The horror is how easy it was to topple constitutional check and balances. Trump lacks the temper to become a dictator, unwilling to get his hands bloody, but his followers clearly want to head toward the exits of democracy.
2
Trump is nothing short of an appaling leader. The fact he has supporters says more about the human condition than him. I estimate about 5% of people trully have a mind of thier own. To have a mind of your own you need to not care what others think about you. Essentially your prepared to be isolated and have no fear, unlike Trump who is a baby really, and that is where tne difference lies with an actual leader.
Much of the motivation for support for Trump is indeed racist and hatred based. For most of those Trump supporters the rationalization is jobs. With no validity to their claims, they believe that immigrants and minorities are taking their jobs. (They actually just hate minorities.)
Trump is worshiped for is financial and immigration policies that will protect those jobs.
There is a flaw in the logic. 2019 has a high probability to host the next recession. Six months ago there was not a word in the press predicting a recession. Two columns in the present edition of NYT refer to it. Just as Trump has taken credit for the current expansion of the economy, he will be hard pressed to blame a downturn on someone else. He would also have to explain how his remarkable successes in suppressing immigration wasn't successful at keeping jobs from disappearing. No one will have taken the jobs, they'll just disappear.
So add "its the economy, stupid" to the list of possible ways to eliminate Trump.
6
I admire your lucidity and that of thousands of brilliant and decent Americans working for what Trump calls "Fake News" and "Witch Hunt" organizations. Yet, there is something surreal about such a bonfire of intelligence and, yes, art expended in discussing the behavior of this caricature of a human being sitting in the Oval Office. Trump is America's selfie tweaked by Russian hackers, His Hollowness broadcast in terrifying memes (his so-called policies), like some new-old oracles emerging from the Golden Toilet.
1
Your title is spot on. Watching any of his rallies, one sees the rage fix, both for the participants and for the President himself. I would also add another drug - revenge. His followers know they have lost the world they either grew up in or the world they assumed they would inherit. They are not stupid and realize much of that world is lost forever. Feeling robbed, they wanted someone to pay .Trump gave them a culprit - elitists, liberals, intellectuals, journalists etc. - and promised he would make them pay. Traditional Republicans, evangelicals, and the big money jumped on board. Rage and revenge - historically a powerful drug combination.
2
Shortly after 9/11 I taught a college class of largely white middle and upper middle class kids. I was surprised at their anger absolutely unmitigated by my insistence that Muslims were not monolithically terroristic.
All these years later, that fury has apparently not really abated as Trump appeals to these now 30 and 40 somethings. That simmering anger is now seething and boiling over at Trump rallies, online, and in at least one newsroom mourning their dead.
Trump has tapped into something we should have known was there. Remember when he fabricated the TV image of Muslims dancing in Queens? We should have known.
1
We are in a national crisis with Trump. So much worse then Nixon, Trump makes Watergate look, well, not too bad.Just piddling.
Something seems to be happening: good people are becoming better people and Trumps base of self serving white supremacist is adhering more and more to caricatures of mean and stupid in MAGA hats. Many, undoubtedly, armed in open carry states. And even the most elegant Trump supporters can't claim to be anything greater then shallow and greedy and deeply unethical.That's at the very best.
Ethics are not at a premium in Trumpstate, as we have seen in the three amigos:Sessions, Ryan and McConnell. And they are supposed to be the best the party has to offer. Trumps henchmen. And even Melania really doesn't care..do you?
Why, as a matter of fact, I do.Now more then ever.
Thank You, Charles M Blow and the NYTimes, for reminding us every day what great integrity looks like.
2
OMG. Now I almost agree with Trey Gowdy. The evidence of the crimes are all out there. But we need Mueller and the FBI to solidify things NOW. The investigation won't stop all of the crimes and cruelty, but could slow it down.
Get it out there. A nation and its people are drowning.
He may be doing all these things but he's also wildly successful in communicating them and it has the left on pins and needles.
Kennedy, the latest union decision etc etc.
You may hate him, but the democrats have yet to put a point in the board.
Trump is moving forward on legislation and the democrats retort?
Eliminate ICE, open the borders! Lol
They don't get it........they just don't.
6
Trump is an utterly vile human being and his disrespect for Democracy is unforgivably being aided and abetted by the Republican Party. He voices values that are antithetical to America's core.
But. He tapped into one big thing that a majority of Americans feel, albeit in more polite language. That is this: American citizens of all ethnicities and religious faiths want secure borders where would be would-be immigrants have to wait in line.
The vast majority of Americans want compassionately controlled borders where rules are followed. It is an impossible task we don't want to look at, even if families are not separated.
Jack Nicholson's Colonel Jessup spoke directly to the unspoken fears of the vast majority of Americans in A Few Good Men: "You cant handle the truth! ...we live in a world that has walls, and those have to be guarded by men with guns."
Trump's proposed Mexican wall is supreme idiocy. But his advocacy of border security resonates far more than Democrats want to acknowledge. And that is why all of the other ugliness about him is tolerated and shrugged off by so many.
When Democrats stand up for border security, support for Trump will diminish, but not before then.
"Abolish ICE" is a campaign platform that will see Republicans to keeping control of Congress and Trump re-elected. That's a truth I really can't handle.
2
Obama’s administration deported far more people than Bush II’s, yet few mention it. The difference between Obama and Trump is that Obama had his people focus on criminals. Trump’s administration is breaking up families for no reason other than spite.
To say that Democrats want an open border is to repeat Trump’s lie. Stop repeating Trump’s nonsense and spread truth instead.
Mr. Blow...I'm an 83 yo Brooklyn boy who made the mistake,
along with my Lady from Manhattan, of retiring in TN (see
Trump Country). What you say today about the Country's
State of Affairs is "spot on" in this area. Obama "was not their President", etc. Trump is "at least getting something done".
Ye Gads! Enough to drive me nuts... In all my years I have
never seen the country in such dire straights. I proudly
served in the US Marine Corps following college because I believed in what the country stood for and the opportunity
it offered all people. Sadly, it is no longer that Country.
Don O'Connor
14
As a Canadian, I view it differently.
We seem to be in the middle of an ugly "divorce" between our two countries. Your narcissistic President continues to pile insult upon insult in our direction that threatens a partnership that was so strong during my entire 76 year lifetime as to have made what is happening once unthinkable.
He seems to have awakened latent racism in Canada that I believed did not exist. It exists now.
This has gone far beyond a "trade war" into a "clash of national cultures".
The bullying that might work for a real estate developer in NYC will not, I think, work at our international level.
So long! Been nice to know you!
1
Don't forget that Rosenstein is a Republican, and may just "finish it up."We are counting on Republicans to fix their own hideous problems.
1
Good assessment, Mr. Blow! Watching the performance of Trey Gowdy exemplifies the rabid Republican.
Thinking and reasonable Americans have one very important step ahead of them: VOTE!
4
Charles, thank you SO much for this.
I had a hissy fit last week when you used your talents writing about Melania's jacket. Thank you for focusing on the truly important.
The entire country has to pay the price for the paranoia and insecurity, the reactionary backwardness that pervades Trump's base. And he is pleased to play his self-pitying and embittered fans like a fiddle, as he has since the primaries. Loud simple answers for loud simple folks -- he is well aware of their limited intellectual capacities, having proclaimed his fondness for "low-information" supporters, the sort whose loyalty means "I could shoot somebody and not lose voters."
On election night, Van Jones on CNN called it a "white-lash" and he was right then as now. And how absurd that the rise of so-called white supremacy is such a story, thanks to this cynical President, his office toadies and his braying fans -- collectively the worst argument for racial supremacy there is.
2
Trump has shown himself to be a deplorable person in all aspects of his adult life. Bad father. He used Don, Jr. as a bargaining chip in a divorce settlement. When his scheme backfired and the possibility of being a custodial parent reared its ugly head, he quickly returned his progeny to the mother. Bad husband. Infidelity and all that...Bad businessman. Deadbeat debtor. Multiple bankruptcies. Federal investigations. Sunken credit score. Lawsuits up the...Bad person. Racist. Misogynist. Xenophobe. Intolerant. Anti-Semitic. Generally, a "...-hole" of a person. At least, he owns it...not really. But what of the following: Ryan, Mc Connell, Pence, Cruz, Guliani, Sessions, Kelly, Pompeo, Lee, Meadows, Graham, Abbott. The list is exhausting, but I hope the point is made. Men in respected positions of power who, at the very least, hid their skeletons. At the most, men of conscience and discipline. Men who are patriots, regardless of ideology or pragmatism. How are they so easily corrupted ? Why do they allow the country that profess to love fall prey to a disgusting human being ? However rhetorical the questions, real answers do exist. Each, assuredly justifies their actions. I would just like to eavesdrop on their discussions with self, when the democracy they served lays burning at their feet. "Rage, rage ,rage against the dying of the light..." Rage, rage rage for the death of democracy.
1
I always appreciate your columns and keen perspective Mr. Blow, but resignation is not where I am at all.
Short of exhorting my fellow citizens to partake in a plot to overthrow the government what would you suggest?
March? Check!
Vote? Check!
Prayer? Well sort of, different beliefs than most.
The truth of fact is most of us continue to go to work each day and believe that good will ultimately prevail.
As i read your words on this tablet, ladled into paragraphs that are fillers in the sandwiches of ads for The NYT Wine Club, vacations in Nova Scotia or even something as banal as Harry’s razor triumphing over Gillette’s, i have to wonder if the money boys even really care.
Stocks are up, the economy is booming and the Game Show Host in Chief is keeping the news cycle on high alert, something that keeps subscriptions up, eyeballs engaged and after all isn’t that what feeds this need for news. The new reality show is simply this and the poor and the discarded are only so much animal chattel.
Eyes wide open sir and still hopeful with a healthy dose of skepticism.
1
THANK YOU!
The trouble is that many of Trump's supporters, I am convinced, are happy because they think they are watching a reality show and can participate in it vicariously through tweets and rallies.
When you feel small and some celebrity is hitting the guys you blame like Democrats, congress, FBI, etc. and acting like a big bully, that's the guy you root for.
When they realize that this is all going to affect them, they may not be so cheery but for now it's fun to see people being bashed and humiliated.
They can convince themselves that Hillary is evil and blacks and browns are hurting them and this country and that gangs are coming to pillage and rape. Maybe it's the opioids or maybe these fantasies keep them from the opioids.
Despite how it appears I still have faith in this country. We feel privileged to live here. Unfortunately Trump's supporters think they are special and privileged because they're white and therefore superior, some exceptions of course.
It is easy to transfer your rage and frustration to a TV star because you can fantasize that your mortgage is going up because of somebody else, not him.
When the reckoning and awareness comes, it will probably turn their world upside down. In the end they elected him and will either find yet another excuse or maybe finally get what's going on, that they've been conned.
2
Its laughable that Mr. Blow defines Trump supporters as addicts of hate. Have you seen how progressive Liberals act recently? Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders? May I dare include the writings of Charles Blow? Mr. Blow you do realize for example this child seperation immigration law was created during the Clinton administration, defended in the 9nth circuit appeals court and president Obama seperated far more families then president Trump? I don't support either or any administration seperating familes. i only mention this because in my opinion these demonstrations this weekend ( totally support people's right to peacefully demonstrate) were primarily Trump hate fests. And oh yeah, we did it for the kids to. Were was the anger when Obama. was seperating families? Listen, I would love to see our national discourse more cordial but the hatred is evenly displaced on both sides. Please don't pretend otherwise. The real difference, hate on the republican side seems to make them more focused. The hate on the progressive side just more bitter, more cynical, more angry and more ineffective. If President Trump and McConnell get this new Supreme court appointment (say what you want about McConnell but chamber procedure is in his favor) through Trump becomes one of themost influential Republican president in history. Liberals think well no Mueller is going to save the day. if Trump is guilty impeach him and then Pence makes the decision. he is more conservative then Trump.
8
Mr. Blow,
What if you and all of your colleagues took a few weeks off from mentioning Trump unless you absolutely had to? Don’t you see you have just made his day by devoting yet another column to him. Trump thrives on the attention and in many ways you give credence to his gargantuan ego.
There’s not a word in your article that most of us don’t already know, and agree with, but we are tired of hearing about (him) and you giving him his daily dose of credence.
3
I wonder what the people at Fox News thinks will happen to them as Trump continues his divisive actions?
Do they want race riots? Will they claim their second amendment rights and start to open carry? Do they realize that if America falls, they're going with it?
It is up to the FCC to demand what Fox calls themselves, which is "entertainment".
I thought it went without saying, that fascism is un-American.
3
Trump scraped the guts out of the Republican Party and then
injected it with his extra dose of hate and lies. They had been
waiting along time for him; getting small doses of it during the Nixon, Reagan, and 2 Bushes Presidencies.
It's a "Full Tilt Boogie" now; not sure how we'll survive. Maybe
we should arrange for an experienced "EXORCIST" to stand by
when he's either Impeached or resigns. The White House is too
dirty now for any decent person to live there after his families defilement of the place.
2
It’s most telling that the administration and its media supporters are now accusing the “Resistance”of being a violent hate group itself, targeting Maxine Waters and the Red Hen Restaurant in full-on Gaslight overdrive.
What is most mind-numbing of all, though, is the constant assertions that are at first denied having been said at all, and then contradicted by either the man himself or re-interpreted by his surrogates as something else entirely —and then followed by his final clarification which is the opposite of of the initial assertion.
And all the while, quietly, actual policy is being executed which is Republican boiler-plate de-regulation, dismantlement of hated agencies such as the Dept. of Ed., the EPA, or the Consumer Protection Bureau and even worse crackpot/outlier actions like the Muslim Ban or the disgraceful crimes committed against a bunch of innocent children.
Government by Enervation brought to you by the Gaslighting gang( that is by the way, utterly incompetent at executing its own disastrous policies efficiently ) is reason enough to run to the polls and erase every candidate with an “R” next to his or her name. We are numb—but not comfortably so.
4
The bacterial infection that Trump has introduced into the American mind. It is cumulative and it's intent is to kill off good brain cells and replacing them with infected cells.
We the opposition must vocally and substantially refute each and every Trump attempt to push his fascist agenda past his unsuspecting marks.
We also must draw the line and call out those who always place party above country.
We have a good example in my small one party town(regressive party). We have a local woman who is running for mayor. She has been endorsed by the outgoing incumbent and by the entire republican town council. The rub? Her husband is the executive director for the re-election of Donald Trump. If this person can put their morals on hold and work toward re-electing The Donald, they need to pay the price with public shaming.
1
Meanwhile, our pockets are being picked and the US
Treasury is running on empty.
My reading of this article was interrupted by a giant banner ad right in the middle of the screen for a Trump Hotel.
1
And they are tearing it apart by instilling a belief among their fans that they (the fans) got a raw deal while someone else got something better at their expense. Of course someone else is never the billionaires and millionaires. It is the poor or those barely scraping by that are somehow getting a free ride off of free healthcare, free food and free rent (none of which exist).
Trump and his cheer leading squad would have their fans believe nothing in this country will ever improve until we have taken away abortion rights, gay rights, forcibly evicted all Muslims, stopped all imports, made it harder for black Americans to vote and require Bible study in public schools. That's their roadmap for Making America Great Again. In other words, just erase the last 50 years.
1
If you want to start to redress your democracy don't fight blues-on-blues,go to vote for a straight Democrat ticket no matter what!Do it and start the eradication of the GOP.Good luck and Goodspeed!
5
Bernie Sanders stirred up hatred, too - just hatred of a different brand. “Hate the world that does not give you everything for free.”
Extremism and fanaticism are dangerous in any form.
7
Yes. More annoying than Trump himself are the people cheering him, a GOP enabling him and the celebration of the death of "politically correct". This is the era of Trump, bullying and eating cake.
5
If you look at pictures from the Confederacy from the Civil Rights Era, you realize that the children and grandchildren of the people screaming at blacks trying to integrate lunch counters and schools form the backbone of the Trump movement.
The problem isn’t Trump. It’s that we in North never forced the South to atone for their monstrous crimes against blacks. We never shunned racists like Strom Thurmond. We let them stay in power. Blue states have allowed for a massive transfer of their wealth to the South without ever demanding that the South reform its ways. The GOP has facilitated the spread of Southern racism to other states so now states in the Midwest like Wisconsin and Iowa are as racist as Alabama and Mississippi.
Until we apply maximum pressure to the South to get them to change their racist ways, we will never have peace in this country.
The problem isn’t Trump. The problem Southern and Midwestern Evangelical racists who support them. The problem is an all white Southern fried GOP that looks back on fondness on the days of Jim Crow.
5
The wide approval of Trump's behavior is revealing who we as Americans really are. And it ain't pretty. Don't forget that he got almost half the vote. While Hillary was not a good candidate, this certainly did not justify voting for Trump. He had already revealed his true colors during the campaign.
I think you have it somewhat backwards. The Left is coming unhinged over Trump - and he does very little to earn the level of hatred directed at him.
The border crisis: the more we learn, we learn it is a crisis created by people bypassing the port of entry, coming in with children that are not theirs, sending for their kids who are ten and traveling two or three countries on top of trains. The children's centers are not awful, they are good. The adults are the ones dragging kids through deserts and danger.
The economy: Trump is pushing back on unfair trade practices.
The racism: Trump sees things he doesn't like and speaks out about them. That about sums up his problem in the eyes of Liberals.
The media: The media is simply not fair. Criticism of Trump is fine, but the media veers from self-congratulatory to self-pity. The media has very little sense of how distorted their own reporting and observing is - even to Liberals.
8
How is an $8 billion surplus in goods and services with Canada an unfair trade practice, especially after Trump gloated in his ability to lie to Trudeau about a deficit?
1
The time has come to simply ignore trump supporters - they cannot be reached.
8
that is what his supporters say about his detractors. so where are we?
1
Our country has its own Duterte. The GOP fails to call out their head of government on his threats, lies and attacks on his opponents as "dangerous."
I've asked the GOP senator and representative (installed by the NRA) why they fail to criticize the leader of their party. But until I can funnel tens of millions of dollars to them, I can't get them to accept my calls.
I still think it is worth a phone call, an e-mail, a letter. Try visiting your GOP legislator's office, if you can get past the armed guards.
7
Trump is awful. We know. This is not new information. Ragging on Trump is easy. Talking about how we got here not so much.
I'm having conversations and gaining insight into issues that I may have never paid attention to if it weren't for Trump. I'm having honest and enlightening conversations about racism, sexism, minority rights, religious beliefs, and economic inequality and how those play off of each other and divide us. Trump has revealed our divisions and now it's time to heal them.
We didn't get here overnight and we're not going to fix it by ranting about it. Yes ranting feels good but it fixes nothing.
Maybe if after WWII when we had defeated facism and seen the horrors of the Holocaust we hadn't chosen to continue to perpetrate racism we wouldn't be vulnerable to Trump's pitch. Yes Truman desegregated the military but the GI Bill was denied to black soldiers. So it took the civil rights movement, womens rights movement, and LGBT rights movement to force our country to stop treating large sections of our citizens as unequal.
A country divided cannot stand. When you deny opportunity for groups of people for centuries based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation and reward those who are white and male with crumbs of power you're setting your country up for the inevitable crash when those groups are suddenly equal causing competition for those not used to having any. Empires have fallen over less, will we.
3
How accurate are polls? Many people never answer their phones if the caller is not known.
“Dewey won” because many who voted for Truman didn’t have phones.
We have two ways to “improve” elections. Never answer polls but always vote.
3
I am a historian. I have studied the fall of empires, but never once did I wonder, or ask, "What is it like to see your country go down the tubes?" Maybe now that is all that is left. Maybe now Mr. Blow's comments will stand as testimonial. We tried. We spoke out. And our democracy died in vain.
4
During the campaign a young woman I know bleated, "Hillary Clinton called me a deplorable."
Of course, she did nothing of a kind unless that young women was a racist, xenophobe, etc, etc.
Now, people like her are still wallowing in self-pity over the disdain the "others" have for them. The giant PR machine that supports the right grinds out messages that reinforce their sense of misuse. It's both crude and sophisticated. It's effective.
The fiction that outrage at Trump's outrageous behavior is only a reaction to the fact that he "won" gets trotted out to "explain" why those liberals just won't give him a chance. Fear and prejudice are masked by assertions that what is happening are just "disagreements" over ideas.
If this were a reality show, it wouldn't be very believable. That it's not ought to scare us right down to our cores.
12
Unlike his detractors who are always calm and rational. Abolish ICE! Emoluments clause! Collusion! Suppression! Speech is Violence!
1
Part of the problem is the fact that there is no formal mechanism to keep politicians accountable for their statements. And unfortunately Trump exploits this like nobody else before.
Someone may object that there is a formal mechanism, and it's called voting. However, how has this worked for us? Very poorly, if we judge from the results.
It all boils down to politicians being held to a different standard than everybody else. It reminds me of insider-trading laws: until a couple of years ago politicians could freely trade on insider trading information they possessed from laws that were or weren't going to pass, and they could get rich very quickly. For the same crime, civilians would receive years if not decades in prison. It was also difficult to try to pass an anti insider-trading bill, until CBS's 60 minutes ran a story on it, that raised the profile of the case.
So we need a law for truth in campaigning, and truth on statements by politicians. Who is the law maker willing to sponsor a bill?
3
I'm guardedly optimistic because I can't imagine that our country can continue along the current stream of invective, cruelty, ignorance, dishonesty, and incompetence. There are no redeeming qualities in Trump. It can't last - can it?
My feelings run between rage and grief!
7
The tax cut was not a tax cut, rather a slick way to pump another half trillion dollars into our national debt, stuffing the pockets of the rich with buckets of dollars.
Trump loves debt. He would love to bankrupt US, stiffing us.
Why? We don't know.
Interest rates on consumer debt are on the rise, eating everyone's once-a-week pizza, delivered from their tax cut bone.
Add the prices rising as we speak on all sorts of Canadian and Chinese goods because of Trump's stupid Tarriff war.
Lets get it straight. Trump did not win the election. She did. Because of a fluke in our Constitution, Trump squeaked by in three key states by a mere 70 thousand votes the Russians gave him.
After Bush v. Gore Congress could have amended our Constitution to read that upon one candidate winning the popular vote and the other winning the Electoral College, the issue of who should be president would be decided in the House of Representatives.
Congress could not be bothered. The Russians are in charge.
Under Posse Comitatus Act, Congress "limited the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States."
ICE is Trump's personal army, not under Posse Comatatus. Technically ICE is civilian, not military.
ICE personel all have military resumes. Trump will use them to suppress dissent. Ice will show in your editorial offices. American blood may be spilled in America.
Trump will do that.
http://thegovernmentinexile.live
12
Amen Charles!!
Our only tool for getting rid of this man is the power of the vote. Even that doesn't seem so "powerful" anymore unless we can get out in November and vote in a manner that undermines his power, his base and the Republican party. That simple. Demonstrations don't work.
We are all being killed off mentally, emotionally and spiritually every day by this man's idiocy. He is so stupid, all his bluster and drive to get the tax codes changed, supposedly to help the country, is now going down the toilet because of his tariff war. He must be stopped!
3
Thank you for continuing the outrage (such an overused tiresome word but it's all we've got). The nation is perilously close to fascism. It's definition is radical authoritarianism (check), dictatorial power (check), forcible suppression of opposition (check - "Lock her up" fake news; enemy of the people) and control of industry and commerce (check - excessive tariffs, threats of punishing taxes). And all the while the mindless base is cheering ... how can it not be compared to the rise of Hitler. Resist! And VOTE!!
7
Lyndon Johnson predicted that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would cost the Democrats the south for a generation. He turned out to have been an optimist. At the end of the day, this is principally about the fact that half of white America just cannot accept equality for blacks. Yes, there are fair grounds for debate about immigration, affirmative action, etc. But this is not debate, this is just white rage. As a white person in America (although being white is a descriptive fact, not an identity, for me), the Trump phenomenon has taken the scales off my eyes. I begin to see the black experience in America for what it really has been. It's less of a nightmare than it was in 1859, but it's still a nightmare.
11
"white power president"? Blow really bangs on that one drum all day. "Vented an American racial anxiety"? by building a wall, banning visitors from dangerous countries like Venezuela and North Korea, "even legal immigration", denigrating football players even white and Samoan, and disparaging Mexicans, even like the next Mexican president who looks more like a New York Times reporter than those who slip across our borders like its a backyard fence.
This beater of the racial drum leads an army of the easily deceived. You, sir, are the source of much fear and hate. Take your foot off the Resistance pedal for a month or two and watch the President work.
6
None are so blind as those who don't want to see. Usually because they are part of it.
1
Rage Junkies. What a great term, I have to praise the writer for thinking it up. If I had, I would have used it to describe the Democrats who have been war-dancing without letup since the last election. I wonder if the reason they're so mad is because the empire they see falling is not America but the Democrat Party with its whole corrupt and unsustainable structure of entitlements, unions, and welfare, built up since WWII.
3
Interesting comment, if somewhat misdirected. I'd suggest a distinction between outrage at the never ending stream of lies, distortion, and financial crimes emanating from the White House -- and just plain rage, as in the mob-like behavior of those whom Trump, Hannity, Limbaugh and others who continually whip up to a fever pitch: the point of this article.
As for "war-dancing", never mind the implicit allusion to Elizabeth Warren: the Democrats won the popular vote (again) and lost the presidency in the Electoral College -- certainly a cause for casternation. Imagine the reaction if the roles had been reversed!
Both major parties, IMO, are in profound disarray: For the Democrats, as usual, it's like herding cats. For the Republicans, those who ever had any soul have lost it or left the party, and those who remain are shopping for brown shirts.
The "structure of entitlements" -- otherwise known as the New Deal (which preceded WWII and is usually credited by historians for having saved America from a communist-led revolution in the 30s) plus the civil rights legislation of Kennedy, Johnson and even Nixon (for whom think: ERA, EPA) -- is largely responsible for the prosperity we saw in America in the mid-century, when Trumpettes thought America was "great".
Sorry, Mr. Duke, the empire we see falling is indeed America. Mao Tse-tung said that imperialism won't fall by itself; you have to push it. Trump -- the liar, the con man, the criminal, the traitor -- is providing that push.
1
@GPS: Thank you for bringing Elizabeth Warren into the picture. I hadn't been thinking of her when I wrote that, at least not consciously, but if the moccasin fits I'm willing to wear it.
1
The many on the left are also "rage-junkies." They are spurred to continual anger by columns like this one. In fact, your column bemoans the difficulty of staying angry. I think the solution is to start having reasonable conversations with Trump supporters. If you call that "normalizing," then so be it. Better that than continually to exacerbate this partisan disaster that due to childish political emotion on both sides.
3
John, please explain clearly what is "reasonable" about supporting Trump?
Please explain the policy goals you have, that he is in fact doing anything to achieve.
Please also explain why Mr. Trump is your standard bearer -- you could't find someone who is a better person? Really?
I think it's possible to have reasonable conversations with people you disagree with. Trump supporters are unhappy about being left behind in globalization's forward march, about having terrible communities riddled with crime, about being disenfranchised. These are things one can talk about.
I think that the President has the goal giving the US a productive economy. That's a worthwhile goal, even if you don't agree with the way he's going about it.
Finally, Trump isn't my standard bearer. I didn't vote for him. You may be confusing my opposition to naive liberal anger for support for naive conservative anger. In general, I'm opposed to political anger altogether.
Funny, Trump policies have hurt his own rural base more than they’e hurt urban liberals. What exactly are corn and soy growers to do now that they can’t sell overseas? He’s hurt small family farms AND big agricultural at the same time- not an easy feat. And work requirement for SNAP are easier for urban than rural folks to meet. I can’t imagine what Trump’s base thinks they’re getting. They should be tired of all this “winning” by now.
2
We saw a performance of Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here” last night (an especially moving one by community players, performed half a mile away from where the play was written here in VT). The parallels to our time were uncanny and frightening. Trump’s “playbook” of stoking racism and fear, making wild promises he has no intention of keeping, and militarizing our borders, is nothing new. It’s been tried before, and unless we wake up, it will work. The protagonist of “It Can’t Happen Here”, a journalist, winds up in a concentration camp, with family members shot and his assets seized. It Could Happen Here. We need to do more than resist.
Every time he opens his mouth he sinks us further into the swamp he created from day one. Remember just about 500 days ago we said, "it can't get any worse".
It's beyond comprehension how he can be permitted to meet with Putin alone ( with interpreters ) after what happened when he met with Kim alone. Mr. Bolton should be in attendance. On one hand he puts the fear of God into us with some of his tweets and on the other hand another tweet tells us what a great guy Kim is.
What next?
2
I don’t know why Trump supporters always downplay the racial component of their support. Granted, some of Trump’s supporters are out of work and suffering financially, but most are not. Poll after poll has shown that their average income is relatively high. And Trump has done absolutely nothing to help his supporters who do need a leg up. In fact he has worsened their condition with the huge tax cut for the rich. So then, if he has done nothing for the working class, yet its members continue their virulent support, it must be racial animus that motivates them. It’s not like Trump is trying to hide his racism. Trump is constantly throwing out the red meat and his mostly white supporters can’t get enough of it.
3
The statistics are in our favor. About 35-40% of the people favor Trump and the rest think he is a despicable human being. Let's not argue about how to convince the 35-40% they are mislead, (since that is futile) but focus on the rest to vote in November. That is the ultimate check and balance.
3
Trump's biggest target should be the man in the mirror. He has undermined himself over and over again. When Trump has troubles, it always turns out that he caused the troubles all by himself (well, with some occasional help from his GOP coven). He couldn't just shut up and let the investigators do their job, as the actual winner of the popular vote did. But then, she was innocent of all the crimes Trump blamed on her, and Trump, judging from his howls of protest, is doubtless guilty of most, if not all, of the charges that will ultimately be made against him, whether by Mueller or by the various states in which Trump does his business.
Mueller's target in the investigation is Russian interference in our 2016 election. It's not "collusion" or anything else personally connected to Trump. But you can't open up a swamp creature and expect anything more than swamp to pour out.
3
I am beyond rage for Trump, his Cabinet, his Congress, and his supporters...all of them are gluttons, eagerly awaiting their next meal of hate, hate, and more hate. But as Mr. Blow mentions, they are all addicts and can not survive without their next fix.
Day after day, week after week we are bombarded with more lies, more reasons to destroy all that is good and decent and moral. And nothing, nothing is being done. We as a nation have to, must, do more than wring our hands in constant fear and angst. I am a person of the 60's, and I witnessed the power of numbers in resisting and fighting injustice. It worked then. It'll work now. We must get involved and put our words into proaction for the sake of human rights for all.
5
It is hard to understand how many people in this country can be so tolerant of someone on the threshold of causing economic collapse, threatens national security and the world order of democracies that have kept this country and the nations of Europe safe over the last 70 years. His vitriol, lies and incoherent policies are actually applauded by his base. The Republican party is complicit in all of this and they actually took an oath to preserve and protect the constitution from all threats, foreign and domestic. Now, they are the threat, along with underinformed and an angry portion of the population who the Republicans have convinced are the victims here. They're doing this at the cost of democracy and even in the face of facts are willing to ignore reality. Much like other authoritarian states civil liberties are being eroded incrementally and the GOP is making excuses for them and are willing participants. The Republican Party is now the party of Trump. None of the GOP is alarmed that this is exactly what took place in Germany in the 1920's and 1930's. They have to know this won't end well. One way or another things are going to get real bad in the country and perhaps the world as a result of the Donald Trump presidency and his supporters reluctance to recognize what's really taking place here. I just never thought this could happen here. Every day is surreal as we become more desensitized to lies and hypocrisy. It really is a dirty shame.
9
The Trump presidency is like bad reality tv, Trump is the director and the name of the show is Anger Management.
4
Charles, when it is said and done, it will be patently obvious to all but the most diehard Democrats that officials of the FBI, CIA, and DOJ conspired with the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign to accuse Trump falsely of “Russian collusion” and begin this witch hunt of an investigation.
All because Trump had the audacity to dash their hopes of control.
I would say a slight bit of anger might be appropriate by any American that cares about our country.
7
This crowd doesn't much care. We all have to stay strong and keep the story alive. It would be buried in the section on wedding announcements if the MSM could get away with it.
1
Watch FOX news much. The continually expanding list of Trump campaign officials who have to be reminded of their contacts with Russians after swearing there were none is a hugew bright red flag with an arrow pointing to collusion. Asking the Russians to dump Clinton's email on TV no less. Agreeing to meetings to get get dirt. The list of already indicted Russians and campaign officials is al a sign of what? Innocence. I guess in the faux news world of FOX where the true fake news resides one would of course believe everyone conspired against Trump except for that news dump by Comey about the emails without revealing the investigation going on against Trump.
@tbs
If you think "This crowd doesn't much care" -- you obviously haven't been reading the comments.
The anger of Trump supporters has been fueled for 20 years by the likes of FOX News and people like Rush Limbaugh. They get angry people all riled up and say just what the viewers want to hear, and it's intended to make the viewers upset and angry at Liberals and Democrats and to forgive and love Republicans. This brainwashing has been going on full speed ahead for 20 years or more, so what can we expect when we allow lies and brainwashing on tv and radio? They have fooled "some of the people all of the time." Republicans cannot win, usually, without the help of the Electoral College. They cannot win most of the people's votes hardly ever. We must demand that the electoral college be done away with as soon as we can get some good, moral people in office. Most Americans agree with Democratic positions and do not want Republicans in charge! Gerrrymandering has ruined our political system in favor of Republicans and must be stopped!
23
Trump already won the 2020 re-election. If he wins, all good - he thinks he's the greatest. If he loses...
- he already called the 2016 election a fraud because of millions of fraudulent votes.
- he will refuse to leave for he will make his followers believe his loss is illegitimate.
Then what? He calls the election a fraud, the Judiciary corrupt. Who will remove him from the White House? The FBI? The military?
Whether we like it or not, there are two Americas. They don't talk to each other, they refuse to listen to each other, and refuse to acknowledge the right of the other to even exist. As far as I can see, this is a recipe for civil strife to say it mildly.
7
Sorry. But unless your name is Cassandra, there's no reason to believe that "Trump already won the 2020 re-election."
VOTE!!!
Rage is irrational. Outrage can be equally irrational. My fear is that the left, consumed by outrage, is making irrational decisions during this important election year. The swing to the left, with demands such as the elimination of ICE, will likely play poorly at the pools.
Rage must be combated rationally. We need to be the grown ups in the room, providing an alternative to the craziness. Offering an irrational, outraged swing to the left is doomed to failure, as it leaves the rational voter with nowhere to go.
4
Yesterday the extraordinary Frenchwoman Simone Veil (1927-2017) was interred in the mausoleum of the Panthéon in Paris, which is reserved for this nation’s greatest heroes in all fields of endeavor. President Emmanuel Macron spoke long and eloquently about her life and frequently blinked back tears (as Obama often did ) as he spoke of her time as a Jewish teenager deported to Auschwitz. He found the words to unite all of France in mourning this great humanist and was every inch the statesman.
I was very moved while watching the ceremony, but was unable to prevent myself from thinking about our own president being called upon to deliver a similar tribute, no matter how solemn, without using the occasion to vaunt his own “accomplishments” and denigrate his opponents. Donald Trump’s every public appearance is calculated, as Charles says, to divide, denigrate and enrage rather than unite Americans.
Donald Trump is a bully, a narcissist a conman and many other things, but he will never be a statesman in any way, shape or form!
2
One day Trump will end.
The more strident, unhinged he is, the closer to the end of his journey to oblivion he is.
5
I think before the Fall elections, however it is presented - through letters to the editors, or opinion columnists in cities'/town's newspaper should ask questions of its readership. (if only to make people think):
Other than policies s/he wants to support or create, what do you want from the congress(wo)man who would represent you?
-Do you want him/her to be concerned about the welfare all the people s/he will be elected to represent?
-To like people in general?
-To want to help their constituents, especially children, and disadvantaged adults?
-To be more concerned about people or money?
-To talk about people disparagingly and childishly call them names behind their backs?
-To think it's more important to boost self importance rather than the people s/he might be elected to help?
-To lie?
-To think it's time to erode U.S. partnerships with established European allies, or other allies?
-To not take safeguards protecting American values in trade offs to garner connection with on-going governments that threaten our democracy and security?
-To create divisiveness within our population as tools to make changes?
-To create chaos, as s/he rethinks what was said in a tweet - or in a statement or act - never to be followed through upon, but just left out in never-never land. (ex. dreamers, immigrant children separated from their parents.)
The list could go on. Add to it, edit to it and submit to your local newspapers when it comes close to mid-term elections.
2
Marvelous!!! Couldn't be said better.
I can't help but agree with you Mr. Blow. But I am not as convinced as you that the resistance will pay off at the polls. You see it was the difference between the Democrats that put Trump in the WH. Too many found HC unpalatable which gave Trump the WH and I see the same dynamics playing out again. For many new to the democratic party, there should be no compromise, which is just shooting yourself in the foot.
1
Anyone who can embrace a president who launched his political career with a knowingly, mendaciously racist trope about his own sitting president is part of the problem besmirching the nation's foundational principles.
As the country's worst living human being (sorry Jeff Sessions and Mitch McConnell, but keep working on it), President Trump has nurtured and nourished the most negative elements of the American body politic. Only time will tell if this ethic has become the dominant face of a once-proud nation.
Any doubt about how mindlessly noxious these elements are, read the public comments section of any major American news outlet that accepts comments without moderation. Start with any article about politics in the Boston Globe.
If you want to keep your lunch down, it's probably best not to dally and to stop there.
9
I would like to know the basis of the anger, outbursts, and frustration exhibited from Gowdy and others. Where is their pressure coming from that they want to derail this investigation? More to this than we know? Elections?
Like Trump's swamp, the Republicans are devoid of tactfulness, professionalism and solutions. Their speech exhibits a crudeness that makes it all unbelievable, less appealing. Cannot control themselves.
Appears all of America is filled with frustration from this White House. And meanwhile nothing is accomplished.
5
Trey Gowdy, that feckless congressman with his bogus investigation into Benghazi, has been one of those leading the rending of the union. Trump is but the final nail in a coffin built by Republicans to house the remains of our bold experiment in democracy. While Trump riles up the base, Republicans everywhere continue their unceasing fight to restrict voting rights, curb protections for women and minorities, destroy whatever safety net is left, and enrich themselves and their wealthy donors. Trump's own personal enrichment in this debacle is HIS payoff.
1
I’m beginning to consider that I should never vote for any republican again. No matter what. This grand old party has sunk to the lowest possible denominator.
I’ve been astounded by friends, (who have seen been downgraded to acquaintances), that have knowingly dismissed trumps lies, with a blithe “all politicians lie”, mantra. They can’t seem to get it. And I can’t understand how they are not outraged by trumps constant lies and misinformation. It has torn this country and families apart. There are no amount of logical arguments that work to point out how this president is destroying everything this country stands for, just because he can.
If validation is what trump needs, he will never obtain it from someone like me.
11
He is the worst kind of leader but even he won’t be able to tear this great country apart. The United States of Americas’s foundation is stronger than any one single person and the principles that support this great republic will prevail.
4
I wish that I could share in your optimism. That 40% of us think that The Donald is just peachy tells me that our Democratic Republic is on life support. The values that once set us apart from the rest of the World have been replaced by lazy greed, and willful ignorance.
I read enough of the comments to see there are enough Trump supporters out there to drill us into the ground straight to that hot place. That is if we don't - the 58% of us that can think more broadly and patriotically than our narrow personal ideology - VOTE like our lives depend on it.
The only sane and moral choice is to clear the deck of the decadent Trump and GOP and properly down the road branch out into two useful loyal rational opposing Parties both committed to the same higher ideals of truth and justice, etc.
Now to a thing I want to make perfectly clear ... Trump and the GOP are a blight NOT because they may not see every issue like I see it.
They are the cancer we must extract because
(1) they are not really committed to American values but obliviously to more Plutocratic/Authoritarian ones.
(2) their are exceptionally poor at accomplishing good things for us in the long run - mostly because of (1) but also because their unscientific intellectual dishonesty precludes their putting together any working model that really works.
I challenge in a honest and fair fight a comparison between "liberal" models and those "pseudo-conservative" models the GOP today touts.
The GOP models are obviously wrong and will be on the wrong side of history. No model is perfect but not all models are so obviously corrupt.
As to Trump successes - things that make America truly greater - you have to be DELUSIONAL to think there are any significant. He's riding Obama's wave!
3
Just looking at North Korean Trumpian success is the role model of failure, incompetence, overblown rhetoric, photo-opt, hoopola for a policy built on less than air as North Korea expands missile building and enriched uranium plant seen in today's news. At least Mister Peace in Our Time Chamberlain had a piece of paper to wave. Trump got what?
More. 2000 kids swirling in bureaucratic limbo in another fiasco of inhumanity, indecency and failed policy. A policy that mocks our own court decisions and signed international agreements. Trumpsters yell and scream about border being overrun by rapists, gangsters, people taking good American jobs while border crossing trend down and millions of American jobs go unfilled in an aging population. And still waiting for the easy fix to health insurance to replace Obama Care while a flawed system dies on the vine from a thousand cuts from Trump allies.
More. Puerto Rico malpractice. Tax cuts for super wealthy with retribution for Blue state populace. Bringing back King Coal. Dismantling of EPA. Spitting on our Canadian friends while embracing despots. Trade WAR easy to win.White nationalists are good people.
Three hundred plus years America has made incremental progress for decency for all.Yes, missteps along the way but always remedied. Now we seem to be like Rome headed for the abyss of corruption, incompetence, lack of purpose and vision for our future as the world's leader. Trumpsters a blip or the future? Tick tock.
10
He wants a parade in Washington in November?
Maybe a million citizens will choose to lie down in the street, and deprive him of his glory.
But vote before getting arrested!
2