“ and He patted Williams on the arm “. Just like a pet.
Grotesque.
14
Trump is acting as an ethnotribal leader, leading his own ethnotribe (white Americans) but saying he's doing it for everybody, (the Candice Owens's of the country). That's what other ethnotribal leaders have done in the past but trump subverts it because he's a charlatan. He merely picked up the white ethnotribal banner, because he knew no one else was and that was the most visceral way to get the white ethnotribe to follow him. Unfortunately, they're all getting used. All ethnicities in the world, white, black, yellow, red, etc. (we're all the same race after all) are represented in the US. The best way to lead them is not to turn one's leadership position into an ethnotribal struggle, but rather to bind the various ethnotribes into a national identity. Tell any ethnotribe they are going to be a minority in the future, and look out. Whoever was doing that, stoked all of this.
3
Wow! guess I am a "Zombie"! The Trump party is on a roll- -happy with the great Trump economy, happy with the lowest unemployment in 50 years and happy that black unemployment is the lowest ever recorded!! I'm a white woman, "Zombie" with a college degree from MSU. I'm happy with the push for a fair Trade deal with China, & I am happy with-- finally, a President that protects the border and immigration laws. The only walking dead I see are, Liberals who mistakenly believe that Eliz. Warren and Bernie can bring their semi socialist agenda to the USA and win. Those are the true "Zombies"- the walking dead walking off a 2020 election cliff!!
3
What has DT and the GOP accomplished that supports the young black conservatives and betters their lives? I don't understand how a white supremacist like him and his party appeals to ANY minority.
9
Kapos were prisoners of Nazi concentration camps who sold themselves out to their captors by selling out their fellow inmates
for preferential treatment by their captors. This Faustian deal worked out well. Until it didn't. That's what makes me truly sad about what you described in your excellent piece, Mr. Blow, since
groups such as the Young Black Leadership Summit hopefully have no idea whatsoever as to how deceitfully they are being fooled and used by this evil and hypocritical criminal. And yet, they placed their hopes and innocence above their fears, unlike those complacent and complicit Republicans who have placed themselves and their party above their country. They are the true cowards in this equation and will forever be judged as being on the wrong side of history.
11
"the Democratic-led House opened a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump". A formal impeachment is opened by a vote. This was the first time, the Democrats skipped the vote and this is informal not formal. Also, the other suffers when black people support Trump. He wants all blacks to agree with his position......Hmmm...racist?
Elijah Cummings is now dancing with Angels. Trump has been dancing with the Devil, his entire life.
Just saying.
7
Methinks that most of these cover the current situation with the current POTUS. As Hamlet posits, about what people will bear, "... Th' oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, ..."
What is more apt in the case of our would be king and dictator.
I believe that what is happening to POTUS now is reminiscent of the last chapters of a book by H. G. Wells, called 'The Island of Dr. Moreau." when the tortured animals rise up and rebel against their oppressor.
2
"brainwashed racial quisling" -- I admire the way with words along with the essential point of Mr. Blow's opinion piece. Thank you! And Owens saying protesters were doing so "for attention"? I wonder if that remark was a slip, revealing her own motivation and that of the others there, too? I can pity them because I still believe what another op-ed writer mentioned about anyone doing deals with the devil--you're eventually ruined.
5
Donald can add surgeon to his list of many "biggest" accomplishments for the successful revomal of the spines and gag reflexes from the Republican Congress and all his MAGA supporters.
10
He’s no good for anyone irregardless of race.
6
So hoping that Mitt Romney is organizing a shadow coalition in the Senate to convict and remove!
6
So Candace Owens is a "brainwashed racial quisling", according to Mr. Blow, an ironic statement considering the fact that the left has been brainwashing African-Americans for sixty years. Black conservatives are a threat to the status quo. As usual, it's all about power.
4
Because these young black people don't fall into lock step with Democratic orthodoxy?
2
Trump's complaints about"the media" (often echoed by his supporters) are both tiresome and ironic. Tiresome for the obvious reason that we've heard them for 3 years. Ironic, because the image that many people have of Trump is a product of a faux reality TV show, tabloid news stories and other fawning media coverage. This coverage was too often based largely on Trump's own unfounded claims of success.
What Trump really hates about honest journalists is that they reveal him to be a liar, a con-artist and a fraud. Trump is the "Bass-o-matic" of politicians -- a product that might have looked good in a slick TV ad, but proved useless. Many of the gullible voters who put him in office are still reluctant to admit that they were fooled.
4
Trump was the inevitable outcome of a party that took in the Southern Dixiecrats after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in the mid 1960s. Trump was even more likely after we got Ronald Reagan in 1980. And then he became a certainty when the GOP refused to work with Obama for his entire term in office, showed their racism in no uncertain terms, and never once disavowed the hateful things Trump said after he was nominated. The GOP has their man. He is the GOP. What's worse, too many are proud of him and the hatred he foments.
9
I have a black friend whom I love who is an ardent Trump supporter. I despise anything and everything Trump stands for. She and I have had many conversations about this in the past and here is her rationale:
First, because of Trump's firm stance on immigration in general and illegal immigration in particular, black Americans have better access to jobs. In fact, according to her, unemployment in the black community is at an all time low.
Second, the Trump presidency has resulted in blatant displays of racism instead of the covert, insidious racism she has faced before. She finds this overt racial prejudice almost welcoming. At least now, there is no doubt whatsoever that racism is alive and well in the US. Most people had been lulled into believing the country had moved past it's racist past, but black folks know better.
That being said, I still don't understand how she or the young conservative group of intelligent black people can support a president who is quite capable of bringing back the Jim Crow laws if he is allowed to do so. Needless to say, I no longer discuss politics with her for fear of tearing out all my hair.
Charles, as a woman of color, I totally get your frustration.
6
Candace Owens is a crass opportunist. So are many of the young Black folks .The rest of them are likely self-hating, very naive or in denial about Trump and the conservative right.
7
More of a wide-mouthed frog smile than a Cheshire cat grin, me thinks.
2
I can't stand Trump, and despise his enablers and sycophants. But referring to someone as a "brainwashed racial quisling" is a form of denigration that no justification in this or any other decent news source.
African-Americans who support Trump are just as accountable for their political choices as whites who do so, but they are not uniquely culpable simply because they are Black. There is no such thing as a as a racial quisling, or traitor; the concept has fascist connotations that should be enough to make it unacceptable.
1
"conservative comedian Terrence K. Williams"
Oxymoron if I ever heard one.
2
Was that Young Black Leadership Conference photo from a Chapelle Show skit?
5
I have one quibble with your column, Mr. Blow.
The Republican Party did not die with Mr. Trump's ascendance. The Republican Party subsumed itself to Dark Madness after Barack Obama became President of the United States.
At the time, I charitably dubbed this zombie party the Reactionary Party. In hindsight, I know it actually became a fascist party long before Donald John Trump declared his candidacy. When Trump accepted the former GOP's nomination, is when the zombie gained its . . . . uhhhmmm . . . "brain" . . . um . . . "head".
With the transformation complete, our task is more than getting rid of the despot Trump. We need to purge the fascist party that gave us this bad situation.
119
Street Talk:
Trump requested a favor from the Kurds to provide credible dirt on the Bidens. When they refused, he unleashed the Turks.
If the Kurds provided credible dirt on the Bidens, Trump would be at the border to welcome them as immigrants.
Hunter Biden was strategically placed in a Ukranian company to foil and trap Trump. He (Hunter Biden) was bait and Trump swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. It was a sting operation designed and executed by former FBI director James Comey.
Why is the full spectrum of Americans so intensely shocked at Trump turning his back on the Kurds? Since he became president, and even before, Trump has been turning his back on millions of his fellow Americans. (Or, stabbing millions of his fellow Americans in the back.)
(Reducing/eliminating health care, rolling back environmental protections, neglecting the public interest, fueling racism and bigotry, subjecting Americans to more than 13,000 documented falsehoods, egregiously misusing the military, ignoring expert guidance and advice from the intelligence community, eviscerating foreign policy, favoring anti-democratic foreign authoritarians, etc etc etc ad infinitum.)
1
Let's say Trump somehow manages to double the percentage of African-Americans who voted for him in 2016. He would have garnered 16% of the vote. Some 29% of Latinos cast their vote for Trump.
As for whites, 58% voted for Trump.
Not only is the Republican Party ideologically bankrupt, its base is a steadily shrinking white base. By 2045 whites will be a minority in the U.S.
There will always be a sliver of blacks and Latinos who will vote against their best interests.
But it's abundantly clear that the Republican Party has distanced itself from non-white America, and that's a recipe for self-destruction.
5
totally agree with most of what you say EXCEPT "white men make the rules..."
Is that black splaining? or just something necessary when one can address the whole United States at once?
Because, I'm white, and like most of my 60's peers, I've found myself in opposition to America on Vietnam, Iraq, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, W, Trump...
On capitalism and consumption, growth, our war on nature. etc.
Once in 1975, I came across, while doing historical research, a soldier ordered to attack an Indian village at sunup who said: "I won't do it. It's wrong and I won't do it."
And I realized that there have always been good people, with their head screwed on right in American history.
And when we've done the wrong thing, it was because these good people were ignored, outnumbered and overpowered.
As my views have been for most of my life.
(But eventually truth and nature catches up)
BTW, The New York Times makes as many rules as anyone and it has made some major mistakes: On Iraq. On Hillary being the best Democratic candidate...
So, Mr. Blow, just because you are orating from the highest secular pulpit, don't get so exalted that you can't take your own shortcomings into account -- and please be careful with those sweeping generalizations.
(Although those misguided fools you wrote about today deserve everything you gave them. They remind me of Sammy Davis Junior hugging Nixon.)
5
That lead photo is the best weight loss program I've seen.
2
The "WE" trump is talking about isn't doing his job. He took an oath to uphold the Constitution, but time and again he has violated that pledge. So we're only talking about a "job" with a four-year term. That is all this argument amounts to. You either do what is required or you don't- IOW you fail to serve the people you claim you're helping. You lack not only the skills, you lack the will.
So what's the big deal anyway? "WE" must continue on, carrying the load (which has just gotten much heavier). Mr.trump will end up before a judge if the system is still working at all. His "party" will be overrun with tea party fanatics with a similar lack of skills
and little desire to do much of anything for anyone but themselves. "WE" need to whittle this group down to the smallest number possible so their only hope is to join together as separatists, since they are questioning the validity of the law itself.
They're not just opposed to the Democrats- ultimately they're opposed to the Founders themselves.
2
I needed to look up the meaning of quisling. Here's what I found: "a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country." Derived from "Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling was a Norwegian military officer and politician who nominally headed the government of Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany."
Someday it will be common to use the word "Trumping" to describe the situation that occurred here in the U.S.
7
Yes, Trump is first and foremost a con man who surrounds himself with con men and women. Their goal too often is to con their followers while they actually do things that do not benefit those followers. For example, Trump wanted to clear up the swamp, but in reality profits directly in ways nobody else would dare from such direct corruption. Or Trump attacks the "elites" while appointing billionaires to his cabinet and other positions, giving himself and other rich people tax breaks, while loading the debt and consequences of his actions on his voters. Will they wake up to the con?
4
I've noticed that most of the black commentators I've seen on TV, even liberals, have framed all questions of racial prejudice solely in terms of the effects on blacks. Even questions specifically about Trump's effect on Latinos and Jews have been rerouted to the black experience. It seems to be a pervasive blind spot. Are these conservative young blacks somehow relieved that Trump's worst impulses are aimed at other minorities?
1
A substantial percentage of these attendees are undoubtedly afflicted by religion.
14
Since white supremacy has started to ooze to America’s political surface, Mr Blow has delighted in making his columns into diatribes about racism which, he believes, affects all people of colour. The existence of a young, black, conservative, group in vocal support of Trump counters that perception. The issue perhaps is not that racism threatens minorities, which it does, but that conservatism, in its current form, threatens everyone. White liberals may now justifiably oppose black conservatives as much as black citizens might justifiably oppose white supremacy, but this standoff should not be perceived as racism but as political divergence.
These conservatives of colour are defending the indefensible. By clamouring to Trump, they ignore of the obvious objectionableness of the man and the ideology of the party that enables him. Clearly, they defend an agenda that only conservatives of any colour know and understand while the rest of us are stymied by what is actually going on within their heads. It is, however, disingenuous to call Ms Owen a “racial quisling.” One might as well describe her with a toxic N word while disparaging her for her political views. In a free society, short of violent expression, we’re all entitled to them.
I had to look up the word "quisling". That's EXACTLY what Candace Owens is.
8
the greedy and terrible come in all colors.
8
The trump supporters who mindlessly, against all proof and odds, are still lying and breaking the law to defend the indefensible are doing great damage to the US. If trump gets away with his criminal behavior who will the republicans give US next? We will devolve into a dictatorship. Vote blue 2020.
5
It’s difficult to assess the involvement and commitment average Americans have in what’s going on in our government. My sense is their involvement and commitment are not enough. Most folks who work, struggle financially, have kids may watch 1/2 hour of news, watch tv, a football game, go to sleep and repeat that routine day in and day out. They know that trump has done awful things, is ignorant and a liar. Often, they’ll laugh at his stupidity, oftentimes echoed by late night comics on tv.
I believe these people are lulled into a confident belief that this will pass, we’ve always been okay even with weird and dishonest leadership and that will be true with 45.
My guess is that sense of irrevocable well-being and survivability was felt in the Roman Empire, The Soviet Union and nazi Germany as just a few examples.
It was only in retrospect, that they realized all (or at a lot in the USSR) was lost.
Should 45 escape removal after he’s impeached, should he then be re-elected, all may be lost in what was America.
Somehow our leaders must ignite the consciences of those persons who are more passionate about Sunday night football than about the dismantlement of what we’ve stood for and tried to improve upon for generations.
Otherwise...
3
Maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome.
7
Why wasn't Kanye there?
3
So heartwarming to see that White Supremacy is so inclusive.
Makes sense. I mean, how can someone claim to be superior, unless someone else agrees to be inferior?
5
@Robert Henry Eller - Brilliant.
In my mind I'm considering this coalesced group of young African American conservatives as right wing thinking political folks, but probably in a collision course with the Donald on a surfeit of issues. It's the timing of things of how Trump is inter whining with this group who unfortunately have to share the political stage with a nimrod who is clearly self seeking. During my years of acquiring much appreciative academic training I've been under the tutelage of Goldwaterish type of profs for which I grew a fondness for despite having a postion(s) that was diametrically in opposition to theirs. Hopefully we'll get to see some of those who were in attendance at the White House per this conference: see them at a different venue where their intent is clearly understood and not in a position where one individual (namely the prez) goes into a diatribe.
The 4% of black people who think Trump is good for African Americans have something in common with the 53% of white women who voted for Trump in the last election, somehow believing he was good for them, too. Perhaps it's about who in this country is particularly susceptible to a political version of the psychological con artistry known as gaslighting. The gaslighter, a master of deception and bullying, has the power to grant acceptance and safety as well as the power and threat to take all that away.
139
@freyda - I don't think they really believe he's good for them. I think they're so desperate for a place at the table they will say and do anything to get there. They know they won't have any real power or respect but at least they can pretend they're in a position of power.
13
@DR
Perhaps it's kind of a Stockholm syndrome.
6
It is hard to feel sorry for the young black people surrounding Trump.
They have plenty of opportunities to educate themselves about history, but most probably, they chose to listen and follow what they perceive as the "right" conservative agenda.
Well, they are on their own, good luck to all of them.
6
@Jay Tan
several hundred years of oppression and discrimination can inculcate a feeling of inferiority in a group of people who are then toast with jam for right wing demagogues. Sad but understandable--this kind of acceptance of The Power happened in Latin America.
Cannot agree more . . . When I read the part in the op-ed about defections it made me think Trump wants the next book about the Senate to be called, “Profiles in Cowardice.”
2
The spawn of Ronnie Ray-Gun has arrived. It can’t think for itself and so drags the unfortunates down to it’s level for succor. They nest on the thorny bed not even aware of the harm they do to themselves. How dare you make them think.They’re only responsibility is to their reflection. Falling in line just polishes that mirror to a high sheen.
1
What do Trump supporters think he stands for? He has no core beliefs (everything political point he's for today, he was against not long ago) , he has no consideration of others, he lives only to seek and gain immediate gratification. Is that what these young people see and want to be like? Totally absorbed in yourself, using and abusing people to get ahead, needing people's praise (however forced) to glorify yourself. I truly have no idea why anyone with a conscience or moral inclination in their brain sees something admirable in Trump. I suppose there's plenty of amoral people who do subscribe to this viewpoint, but that entire WH room can't. I guess that's why he plays the victim all the time, to make sure they forget that he's really always the abuser.
12
There were women who fought amending the constitution to grant them the vote. Poisoned by patriarchy.
6
Sorry Tracy
Those women (almost all white)
drank that poison willingly for what ever reason.
They had options and choose to go negative.
It’s the Grifter narrative, for whatever reason that seems to affect Republicans disproportionately.
"We never lose"? You mean not lose like the Confederacy or Fascism? The right wing always loses in the end, that is their political lot in life.
They try to take as many down with them as possible. Our task is to minimize that, and the key to that is early and decisive action. In the present case, Trump and minions are signaling to activate their MAGA base to commit illegal actions if necessary. That will include activation of their decentralized network of extreme right terrorists, already seen in action at Pittsburgh, Charlottesville, El Paso and many other places around the world.
So, dear liberals, don't be surprised if these attempt an armed assault on Congress. Get ready!
4
Several times a week I pledge allegiance to the flag... "...one nation, under god, indivisible..."
We've lost that last one part. The other two are circling the drain.
This older white guy couldn't agree more with Mr. Blow.
132
@Wilson1ny "under god" was added by republicans (violating the constitution) in order to create more divisiveness. This has been their playbook for decades.
22
@Bryce Ross: Republicansism is a vast conspiracy to ignore "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", and to legalize coercing people to practice their rituals.
20
@Bryce Ross
I didn't know that - but I'd say it further reenforces my sentiment -
10
Whether by assassination, arson, or bombing, the United States took another step closer to its own Reichstag Fire.
9
There is a reason people join cults and that is what Trump’s base is. Dig into the backgrounds and struggles of these people and you will likely find your answer in what their lives have lacked. Trump has come to save them.
1
The play of a huckster has nothing to do with the demographics of targets they intend to pull into their con. In this way hucksters are equal opportunity exploiters. Hucksters don't care about where you come from. Their only concern is, will you take the bait. Trump's bait is the lure of the tent revivalist. Come one, come all and be a part of something and feel a sense of empowerment as you give into the sway of the crowd. Then comes the hook, all you must do to maintain that feeling is to give yourself over to the man. Swear an undying fealty. Never say no to anything under any circumstances as long as it comes from Trump's mouth. Congratulations you have been had.
7
@richard wiesner the only thing I'd amend in your post is "cult leader" for huckster. A huckster wants your money, a cult leader wants you undying love and admiration. I see these folks behind him, and even worse the children, cheering their way to disappointment and further degradation when Trump fails them like he's done everyone in his life.
2
The Vietnam War draft dodger and the emasculated Republican Party characteristically play the race card only to their advantage now that both are besieged and reverted to a bunker mentality. Incredulously, holding a mini barker carnival circus event with Black Americans styled as conservative supporters to basically seek their sympathy and support, the draft dodger now attempts to identify with the very group of Americans he and the GOP persistently disparaged, maligned, demeaned, insulted, and basically trashed through racial vitriol. Now, Candace Owens, the black prophet who summarily dismissed the 1968 Southern Strategy as a hoax before the House Judiciary Committee, is the mega phone channeling the draft dodger's constant whine that he, too, like Black Americans, is being "lynched", and that "they" should protect them from the roving mobs out to string him up, metaphorically speaking. Of course, the attendees were for the most part were born decades after the civil rights movements' efforts to achieve racial equality and legal protection written into federal law. Lacking first hand experience of what it is like to suffer the racial insults and discrimination practiced in Jim Crow America, these ill informed persons voraciously drink the racially mixed intoxicating beverage of living hypocrisy served by their host. They should read Michael Cohen's statement before the House Oversight Committee of his bosses' racist comments about Black Americans and wake up. Race matters.
10
I would like to know exactly what Trump has done for black people more than any other president because I just don't see it. Is it the economy and low unemployment rates? What I see is a lot of low-wage jobs with few benefits, not a significant rise in salary or income equality and a millions of people unable to afford health insurance, poor schools, continually rising college tuition costs, housing costs and a lot of shootings by police of black people. On and on. So, please, someone tell me what he has done that is so great that people of color should praise and support him.
15
I can't say I'm not after the GOP. I'd love to see the last of Moscow Mitch, Lindsy Graham, Susan Collins, and others too numerous to mention.
10
Great column, but one thought needs to be added to Mr. Blow's excellent analysis. Trump didn't kill the old Republican Party. The Republican Party has been transitioning into what it is today - a neo-Fascist, racist, religious party - since the 1964 presidential election. Every Republican president since 1964, with the exception of Ford, has moved the party toward what it is today. I would place more blame on Reagan and George W. Bush than George H. W. Bush, but even the elder Bush allowed the infamous Willie Horton ad to run in 1988. Trump is basically what Republicans have been dreaming about for decades and they finally have their dream fulfilled. Their dream is a nightmare for decent Americans.
29
Charles why are these young people doing this? What indoctrination have they suffered that would lead to such conclusions? I just don't get it
10
Trump is just a mouthpiece for those swept up in the populism brewing in the Republican party for 3 decades. He is merely the symptom and not the disease. The party has long ago tossed aside "ideas" and has focused on fear and perceived victimhood to capture the (mostly) ill-informed. That is the nature of populism: promise and blame.
4
What is the worst part of Trump being president? He is so criminally incompetent, he should not have beaten the most qualified woman in the world. Or, was she more criminally incompetent?
Is it because he has the same approval numbers since he won the election? No scandal, no crime, no claim has laid him low. Every accusation is more dark than the last and he and his voters, just brush it away, like a gnat.
Are the Democrat voters not happy with the field of primary candidates? It is the picture of diversity. How could Trump possibly prevail? Is it because Democrats are asking "Is there any one else?" Is it because the field has not stopped growing? How ironic would it be, if Hillary forced her way onto the stage, only to lose to Trump? Again. Would you still blame Trump for her defeat? Again.
Like Al Green said, "If we can't impeach him, he will win re-election."
2
Every group need their token people of color and the repubs have theirs. Imagine any of them trying to move into a real Repub neighborhood and being welcomed? Imagine any of them trying to date a repubs daughter?They may be used but never accepted.
18
That anyone could be on Trump's side at this point is really hard to believe. If you ever thought the world was a crazy, senseless place you would be hard pressed to deny it now.
10
How much did they pay everyone? Was it money or "favors."
7
One day Trump will wake up and will find all good timers and opportunists are gone and he left with his family...Historian will write bad things about him.
7
We witnessed the Republican Zombie attack by Gaetz and crew the other day. We can expect more as the Republican Zombies get more desperate watching trump in the fast lane speeding toward impeachment.
14
I protest the use of this photo. Why choose a photo of participants from the Young Black Leadership Summit for this story? They are just young folks trying to do better and make it in this world and are being used to prop up Trump. I think a better photo could be had of his true followers without using this one.
2
@FerCry'nTears Why not use this photo? I missed that Trump had this event, and these young people -- as Blow's column makes clear -- are as much Trump's followers as any MAGA-hat wearer.
9
Mr. Blow, your article failed to address the elephant in the room. What is going through these young black minds? I find it odd that any black person could support Trump, but clearly there are several. How can this be?
8
@DGM - Blow should sit down with a group of them and ask what's on their minds.
2
First of all, I can think of only one so called conservative who I think of as funny: P. J. O'Rourke.
The brainwashing machine must be working OK for republicans to get a room full of young black folks to approve of them.
Are they not paying attention?
Not paying attention is what got the U.S. into this mess in the first place; but his crimes against our black and brown brothers and sisters is hard to miss.
2
Trump's propaganda rivals that of the Nazis, except Trump's ability to disseminate it through modern technology is far greater.
People are being fed lies; they are told to blame and hate "the other" among us; and they are being brainwashed. Fox is a big part of the problem.
There is an urgent need for a strong effective messaging and information campaign that spreads the truth, facts and points out Trump's endless lies before it's too late.
3
Jobs are the best social program. And Trump has delivered more jobs for blacks than any president in 50 years. Cling to your victim hood, Mr. Blow, but some youth are going to seize the opportunity.
@M - I'll bite. What has Trump done specifically for people of color? Please provide the economic stats, which jobs, salary information etc. and provide the specific Trump policies that created them.
2
Ah, yes the brain-washed masses!
What will be their reaction if the "president" is impeached (almost certain) and removed (chances rising by the day)??
What will the zombie army do?
I am more than a little worried...
1
Imagine living in a world where Trump isn’t a compulsive liar, a crook, a self-dealing kleptocrat, and is utterly incompetent. In this universe, the cadre of crooks running our government aren’t making our air dirtier, our water undrinkable, and accelerating global warming. This cadre aren’t destroying our alliances, cuddling up to autocrats, and ruining our global standing. This group of grotesque supervillains aren’t kidnapping the babies and children of asylum seekers in a mean spirited way to punish the innocent.
Imagine living in this fantasy world. It’s where Trump’s clueless, incurious, and ignorant cultists live.
1
Will Terrence K. Williams next be opening for David Duke?
5
chickens voting for colonel sanders.
15
Up until three weeks ago I would agree with Mr. Blow that the Republican party is really the Trump party. However, in the past few days it seems there are some cracks in that ice. People are coming forward, and these are good people with a stronger belief in America as opposed to the blind loyalty to an insular party of rich white men. There is nothing more powerful than truth backed by facts, and the facts are beginning to pour out like water from a cracking and leaking dam. I am not a Republican, however I grew up in a Republican city. My parents were Democrats, but it wasn't like being strangers in a strange land. We differed in approach, but not in goals. We all wanted a better America. At the moment, the Republican party has been hijacked by former Tea Party champions, FOX News, and extreme right wing commentators. The Republicans - the real Republicans - have, to their shame, been silent, and that is inexcusable. However, it seems that silence is now ending. I hope they stand up, speak out, and go forward with a once scared belief in America as opposed to this rhetoric of hate, racism, nationalism, and the hubris of my-way-or-the-highway. Oddly, they can save America. They can show courage and offer direction for the country, rather than servitude and silence. Some - a tiny number - are doing that. Now, with diplomats coming forward, with Trump swinging at shadows, and with members of his own administration fighting back, the moment is here. Be my neighbors again.
2
This is far more malignant than the (very malignant) zombieism that has ravaged the GOP. The idea that the leader is "the embodiment of the people" is an articulation of the idea of the organic state, and is one of the hallmarks of a fascist movement.
We need to recognize, and call, Trumpism what it is: a fascist movement.
4
It is a very interesting question in terms of human psychology--what is it that people see that makes them think that this man is beyond reproach, blameless, and is the victim of countless lies, backstabbing, and acts of treason? And not only that, but to believe that he is in fact 'Making America Great Again"? I admit to a little bit of naivete and perhaps unfounded hope about some things (at age 66), but how can people not see what this man is doing? The fear of being wrong? Of being stupid? Of having invested in a man who is a total failure and unable to admit that their powers of perception and judgement are terribly faulty? This man is a cruel lesson in the importance of thinking clearly and intelligently, with a good dose of humility and courage thrown in for good measure.
2
Trump killed the Republican Party? Don’t you remember the 2016 Republican Party primary slate? The Republican Party committed suicide.
1
Zombies eat brains because they lack them. And doing so doesn't make them any smarter. No brain, no reasoning, no morality. Trump has empty space between his ears which aligns him perfectly with a Zombie Party. Even with a brain he'd still be lonely.
2
"a brainchild of the brainwashed racial quisling Candace Owens,"
I admit to having no idea who Candace Owens is and had to Google her (I also had to Google Zombie Party).
I do however know who Vidkun Quisling was and in spite of the fact that "quisling" has been even used re Mr. Trump by NYT columnists such as Prof. Paul Krugman:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/opinion/trump-quisling-enablers.html
"A Quisling and His Enablers", I find "racial quisling" re Ms. Owens to be too offensive.
Prof. Krugman used the phrase in its common, accepted meaning today: "a politician who serves the interests of foreign masters at his own country’s expense." And Vidkun Quisling was indeed executed tor this (and other crimes).
Are you perhaps relating to World War Z by Max Brooks and its use of zombie-like quislings?
But racial quisling?
Find another phrase for your disdain of Ms. Owens, Mr. Blow. This packs too much cultural and racial (!) history.
2
First of all, I agree that Donald Trump's personal behavior has been appalling. But it would be divine justice for all the pundits and the hundreds of their columns and the hundreds of what are really editorials but labeled as "news analysis" that have made the once iconic and revered NYT now no longer a newspaper of factual reporting. . .It would be divine justice for Trump to not only survive impeachment but win re-election. . .divine justice for all of the blistered keyboard fingered columnists to lose their self-righteous quest to destroy the most media-bashed president in U. S. History. It would be nice if a president's personal behavior matched his accomplishments. . .but personal behavior does not always mean more to voters than what's best for the country and its economy. . . and on this Mr. Trump has delivered. The NYT has overplayed its hand and incredibly enough turned Trump into the underdog. In one way I'll be eager to see all these writers' postmortems the morning after election day. They may well reap what they sew.
3
@Irving Nusbaum
Amen
@Irving Nusbaum - So racism, cruelty, dishonesty etc. are perfectly fine as long as there's money to be made?
You might want to look into how much it costs a country that lacks affordable education and health care and good infrastructure. While you're at it take a look at the price tag for environmental disasters.
1
Here is what the so-called "black leaders" on that stage have in common with Trump. They may do or say anything to make a buck. Even when that means conning the very people whom are duped by your real intentions.
2
A consequence of having a charismatic, pathologically narcissistic leader (think of many in the past, Mussolini, Hitler, and others) is that they do allow their followers to identify closely with them, and feel that s/he is a part of themselves.
It does not end happily.
1
"White men have always made the rules, and the most powerful and most wealthy have lived above them."
Yeah. Barack Obama was powerless as president beacuse he wasn't white? Really Chuck?
2
It is a bit shocking that there are as many black Trump supporters in the whole world as shown in the associated picture.
2
I read Charles Blow regularly just to remind myself why I’m a life long Republican and Trump fan. You folks are hilarious.
3
@Dave Smith - Makes sense. Read something thoughtful, truthful and eloquent. Just the opposite of dishonesty, bigotry and inarticulation, all of the things Trump and company represent so well.
The thousands of black Americans who were lynched had done nothing beyond being black in a white supremacist world. The penalties for which Donald Trump will be punished are high crimes and misdemeanors, all of his own doing.
1
If I may ask - what happened to tea party Representative Steve Scalise? Remember? He’s the guy who almost tragically died when he was shot by a deranged gunman at a DC baseball game a few years ago. Scalise the tea party jerk who got a colostomy bag after nearly dying that day within a millimeter of his life and now returns as a Trump Loving sycophant- having learned nothing from his near brush with death? Wow. What a piece of work this dim witted politician will be remembered for. Guns for everyone! Anarchy! “This is a Soviet-style process,” declared Representative Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican. “It should not be allowed in the United States of America. Every member of Congress ought to be allowed in that room. The press ought to be allowed in that room.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/politics/republicans-storm-trump-impeachment-hearing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
1
Isn’t African American conservative comedian an oxymoron?
1
This grifting criminal reminds of Jim Jones and the GOP is drinking the Kool Aid and will eventually die as a viable party.
2
Don't feel too bad, Charles. There's just something wrong with these people. Cults always have their followers--and this is the cult of Trump. Why on earth they think Trump is their hero and savior is utterly beyond me, but then again, that's what cults are all about.
Frankly, I don't see one young black leader among them. Leaders don't join cults.
3
The NYT does a great job protecting Mr. Blow's flank from criticism of his often broad and overly generalized critique of white people and their so-called "obsession" with white power.
Only the most timid of comments questioning Mr. Blow's logic make it through the censors at the NYT. So while I have little faith that this comment will make it through, I feel compelled to write it nonetheless.
My issue with Mr. Blow is his incessant criticism of pretty much all white men and particularly Trump supporters as racists bent on preserving white power. He never qualifies his statements or seeks to moderate them to acknowledge that such ideas are not supported with facts and merely reflect Mr. Blow's desire to divide the world into those who are good and those who are bad when it comes to race.
What makes this column even more galling is Mr. Blow's treatment of the young black men and women who, for a reason unknown to me, support Trump. Rather than treat these people as people, he degrades them, calls them "brainwashed racial quislings" and scoffs at the idea that they could be "young black leaders" given their political leanings to do align with his own. This, to me, is a telltale sign of a writer not the least bit interested in trying to get even one layer beneath the simple a tired trope that all conservatives are ill informed racists.
2
Did I miss something? I want to know how it is these young black people worship Trump. Old white men? Got it. Is your point that even young blacks who identify as Republicans follow him because he IS the party? If that’s your point here I still cannot understand these young people. Such a waste.
Congressmen storming the most secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee - utterly lawless and reminiscent of the bus loads of thugs entering the Florida vote count in 2000.
Today President's Trump lawyer argued in court that Trump could not be prosecuted - or stopped - from shooting someone on 5th Avenue in New York.
He argued that a 45 year-old Justice Department memo that is not law but guidance provides the President with absolute immunity from any crime at all.
The police or any other first responder would be powerless to intervene in a crime involving President Trump, as long as Trump is President.
So if Trump decided to rape a 4-year old girl, or dozens of them, no one may intervene. Presumably the Secret Service would fight off and arrest the parents of the children the President was raping.
Trump could grab a bazooka and blow up Congress to stop his impeachment hearings. No person can stop him, interfere with him, or otherwise constrain him.
Enough. America did not elect a King. We fought a Revolutionary War to end fealty to royalty.
Enough. Trump and his attorneys and his sycophants and his bootlickers must be prosecuted.
I hope this happens through the Congressional Impeachment process.
If it does not, Trump will not find the same acquiescence for foreign manipulation in our sovereign elections.
He is a Russian asset. He wants to be a dictator and he advocates violence at his rallies, in Congress and even in federal court.
Stop him.
4
Charles, I agree with you, but please write in actual paragraphs.
1
The photo of exuberant YBLS attendees is fascinating. If we put them in the same room with Trump's Nazi/Confederate cohort, what would happen? Would they happily get along?
2
Up to now, I've avoided falling into the "Hitler Fallacy," the logical fallacy where arguments are erroneously likened to Hitler's and other Nazis' arguments and beliefs as a way to refute the former. Unfortunately for our country, I think that now the words and deeds of President Trump and the GOP converge with those of World War Two-era German National Socialists and so can be compared in a non-fallacious way. Consider these words of Rudolf Hess from 1934, the sense of which he repeated in different forms at different times. (See Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph of the Will."):
"Our national socialism is anchored in blind docility, in devotion to the Führer whom one does not ask why and for whom one does in silence whatever he orders." And also: "Hitler is the party, but Hitler is Germany just like Germany is Hitler."
When the leaders of one of our major political parties attempt to defend the obviously criminal and so indefensible actions of the president because they and their followers are all inextricably bound together in what can only be described as blind, cultist devotion, there is no daylight between the essence of Trumpism and Nazism.
2
Am I the only one wondering where they found these adoring young black people? also why do they all look like professional models?
3
Where do they get this much Kool-Aid to serve to the crowd?
1
Women support Trump, they, too, are zombies.
2
This is just garbage. Trump has done nothing criminal. The dems have just destroyed themselves in the general election again. They did it with HRC in 2016. They celebrated their victory until the moment Trump won. They are doing it again. They are juiced on their victory to impeach Trump and/or beat in 2020... with what? A broken-down Biden? A socialist-ranting candidate that will never play among the vast middle who are really much more conservative than these socialists. They will not vote for socialism. But no matter, the dems will celebrate their victories anyway because they are completely delusional at this point. Green New Deal will cost trillions, no problem. Medicare for all will double the budget, the deficit and taxes on everyone, but hooray we need it. Totally disconnected from reality. So, you Dems, go celebrate your impeachment victory... until you realize that the majority of the country is totally disgusted with your incessant witch-hunt looking for a crime, manufacturing crimes out of nothing. Biden - Hunter - Burisma - Shokin just smells to high heaven. It's slimey and swampy. And no one cares that Trump wants it investigated. No one cares. You are just trying to shift the narrative away from Biden's swampiness to your favorite and only focus -- impeaching Trump. Celebrate your victory until you realize that Trump won again in 2020. You just handed it to him with this new witch hunt and your socialist Bernie clones. Enjoy your hubris while it lasts.
what was he paid to bleat. sure. 45 will take black americans who gush for him. what is it 45 has done? because when it is over, not one will get an invite to Marredalego or trump tower.
1
When people place winning over everything else, they often do stupid things.
2
"racial quisling"? Good grief! And I thought I was rough on conservatives!
2
Nonsense.
Your naivete and ignorance plus your delusional ludicrous denial of reality is too despicable and disappointing to take seriously.
Leave the zombie army to Trevor Noah, Jon Oliver and Samantha Bee.
Among the 63 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump was 58% of the white European American Judeo-Christian majority including 62% of white men and 54% of white women.
Trump didn't run a covert stealthy subtle campaign. Every American knew who Donald Trump was and was not and voted accordingly.
In our divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states the people united states the people have the nominal ultimate sovereign power over their elected and selected and hired help.
Wake up!
1
The implications of the Republicans identifying totally with Trump is that after he is gone, the party will be done, period. It has no ideas of any description.
1
"Trump was making himself into the voodoo doll of conservative politics: Whatever pain he felt, his supporters would feel, and they would object to it in unison."
Fine. Let the pain flow.
2
Trump is a brilliant, successful political entrepreneur. Sadly, as Amy Klobuchar says, we can't let children listen to his language on the newscasts. The heinous public behavior, and many of the policies, of him and his GOP supporters weakens our nation on a daily basis.
Therefore, he must be removed, ASAP.
It would be nice to have a similarly successful entrepreneur on the Democrat side. Sanders, Warren, Biden, Mayor Pete, et.al. are not that person.
Same short term conclusion - remove Trump and relegate the Republicans to their true minority status. They sure deserve it.
2
Charles Blow, yes, of course, it does seem a bit strange to see a group of individuals each "seen as black" as we now say in America, holding up their phones to take a picture of the man that at least one of them, T.K. Williams, says he loves.
I question, however, your own wisdom in writing this sentence in 4th full paragraph:
"... apparently a brainchild of the brainwashed RACIAL QUISLING Candace Owens..."
Racial quisling in capital letters because I doubt that many of those in the room, including the president, know what the word quisling means or where it comes from.
The word "quisling" comes from the last name of Norwegian war-time leader Vidkun Quisling, who headed a domestic Nazi collaborationist regime during World War II.
In using that word you are doing, may I suggest, as the president did in using "lynching". I expect better of you.
You apparently are suggesting that anyone seen as black who expresses his or her approval of Donald Trump is a "traitor to his/her 'race'". Associating any of those in the room with Nazi ideology is unacceptable.
I close with a question directly to you. Your NYT colleague, Thomas Chatterton Williams' book "Self-Portrait In Black and White - Unlearning Race" was reviewed in the Sunday Book Review. I wonder if you see TCW as a "traitor to his race" since he now prefers to be seen as American.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
4
Please know this is only the beginning of an escalation of attacks on this process. As Trump and his Republican supporters become increasingly desperate they will surely issue a "call to arms" and ask their supporter to descend on Washington to confront this process. Do not want to be alarmist but they have shown time and again they will use any means to attain and maintain power. If this was only Trump he would have been gone long ago, his supporters number in the 10s of millions and cannot so easily be dismissed or thwarted. This is a terrible problem and one not easily solved, will surely get worse before it gets better, wish I had answers.
1
Thought experiment, Mr Blow: Consider continuing this bizarre mirror-image back-to-front world a la Alice's "Through the Looking Glass", as demonstrated in this astonishing WH event. Continue to where the Queen bawls "Off with (his) head!!" - but in this case "You're fired!!" before the trial is held, thus saving the world much angst and wasted time.
I feel sorry for those kids, who are apparently so desperate to be in the same room as a person of power and influence, that they're reduced to using this fraudulent president to that. This is a guy who told four women of color--all Americans--to "go back [where] they came from." It's the height of irresponsibility to give this charlatan race-hustler cover by cheering him on.
5
Yes, he patted his arm. Just like a pet.
Disgusting.
6
Can my black Republican friends explain what ANY person of color can applaud about this racist Trump narcissist?
4
a real sad column.
1
I guess people can be brainwashed. I can't believe these young Blacks like Trump. I guess they never learned any critical thinking.
I can't understand anyone who is with Trump. He doesn't hide his lying or his stupidity.
What we need to get as soon as we rid Trump and his corrupt gang is to put money into educating our kids.
2
Hey republicans! Is this the guy you want to start the civil war with as your leader? You loaded the gun and it’s your choice to fire. We have given you an exit with all the legal, ethical, moral and constitutional ways to move forward for all our sakes. This is your door for a future for all of us.
I’m sure you have your rebel flags ready to roll through places like California and show us the error of our ways. So stop lying to our faces and pretending and do what your going to do. Isn’t this what you always talk about when a democratic president ends up in office while you run to the gun store to buy more guns and send liberals a message? Isn’t this your hater that leads you to victory as the “true americans”? Got some scores to settle of fake grievances shouted at you by the racist Tucker Carlsons and Fox News rich kids poisoning yourself minds for their wealth and privilege.
I’m sure the people at Fox News have your back. You’ve already supported the murder of Americans all over our country and even outside this country with your poisoned lies.
Your exits here to end this. Come on republicans you want to hurt all us liberals don’t you? Hate us with everything you are right? Trumps your guy and he is a victim. Going to start the civil war over him? Are you sure this is the guy that will lead you to victory and is worth ending the republic?
Following on...
To all the Republican senators who are afraid of Trump...just vote to remove him! Fear gone! Then criminally indict him and convict him. Then he’s muzzled and can’t continue to hurt you. And the best part? You get president Pence who you really want instead. And, history will speak of your bravery and how you saved the republic. So, why not? Why not indeed? It doesn’t have anything to do with Russia now, does it? Hmmmmm....
Mr. Blow,
Looks like a great group of opportunists. Of course some may have emotional or other mental health problems
1
Charles Blow, I'd like to know what the social, political, educational and psychological pathways have been for these young, African-Americans to arrive, so adoring, in the White House.
1
For Mr Blow, it's always about the "white supremacist patriarchy" and the need to topple white men from power.
Never mind the black people in the photo, who are merely "quislings."
Never mind Barack Obama.
Never mind Nancy Pelosi, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elizabeth Warren, and the lists go on and on of women at the highest levels of power in our nation.
It's all about the bad white men.
5
Because...it is!
Quisling is definitely the perfect word to describe this bizarre subset of neo-Nazis. Absolutely gobsmacking.
1
How can some people be so stupid, especially young black people, to think that Trump cares about them? There is so much evidence to the contrary. I hate Fox News Opinion hosts, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the gaslight gang, but I don't know what to think about the morons that allow themselves to be gaslighted.
1
African Americans are the last people who should support trump. He just said he was being lynched. Enough said.
1
Like these young blacks know anything about history. The ignorance and stupidity gap knows no race.
Thank you, Charles Blow, for your thoughts and words.
"These Democrats — the women, the minorities, the Jewish, the gay — are torturing the white man."
-Terrence K. Williams
You might not know this but racism for most white people directed against blacks is disappearing. It might be too slow for some people but there is a big difference how people think across generations. People I know don't use that word not because they were told not too but because it's wrong.
Back to the above quote. There was a black comedian who was told by Oprah to be careful with what he was saying about Jews. He was fired because they were Jews, he said. 60 minutes just did a story on the rise of violence against Jews. If racism is slowly disappearing why is anti-Semitism growing?
Is there is a grain of truth to what Williams is saying. No sane person would blame all these Democrats, minorities, Jews, woman and gays for hating whites who we are told are responsible for all the evils in the world. If the Opinion and Comments section here is any indication it's more than a grain.
Why do I fear in the not to distant future Whites, Blacks, Browns are going to find a common ground in hating Jews? Can the divisive culture we created get any worse?
1
Yet another ridiculous column equating everything to “white supremacist patriarchal terrorism”.
Don’t like partisan politics: white supremacy. Weather bad: white supremacy. Favorite sports team lost: white supremacy. A roomful of young black leaders support Trump: white supremacy.
Who is the real zombie here? At a minimum, Charles Blow needs new glasses; his current ones distort everything he sees.
3
I feel sorry for the brainwashed zombie masses. Unable to think for themselves, they blindly follow a total loser. Conned by their own ignorance.
This was obscene, a racist president using young black people—our future—to bolster his shaky hold on the presidency. I don’t know what Candace Owens is about but she’s not about black empowerment. I can’t imagine a throng of German Jews, circa the 1930’s, cheering Der Fuhrer, even as he was plotting their extermination.
Elsewhere in this editorial section, there’s a piece about the Emmett Till memorial in Mississippi. Maybe Ms. Owens doesn’t know who “the Chicago boy” was, or even poor James Byrd, roped to a pickup truck in 1998 in East Texas early on a Sunday morning, while it was still dark, and dragged the mentally unstable black man to death. It might be a stretch to row the three Byrd killers in with the Republicans who, earlier today, destroyed House protocol and crashed a closed door hearing. And maybe not. People who take laws unto themselves have a weird way of justifying their behavior. Just like Hitler did. Just like Ms. Owens’s White House host did/does. What were they thinking?
My point here is that this deranged president has lassoed unto himself the worst of all kinds of people—their races don’t matter—as he sinks his hook and line deeper into the slime and muck of our country, interested in filth and corruption and distortion.
Anyone who cheers this president is like the gingerbread man who hopped on the fox’s back because he needed a ride across the river, knowing the water would dissolve him into nothingness.
It was the easiest meal that fox ever ate.
12
Trump has shown himself to be a misogynist, a racist, a liar, a fool, a charlatan, a petulant child, a narcissist, a blundering orator, an incompetent statesman, a crook, and an idiot.
What is it that these flag waving MAGA hat wearers admire or respect in this man?! Please someone tell me-- I just don't get it.
4
Wow.
"…Trump killed the old Republican Party…"
All due respect, Charles, but I contend it was (R)onald (R)eagan who killed it. The Fat Man just discovered how to manipulate the soulless, mindless corpse.
2
A black conservative comedian? Talk about zebras, this thing is a quagga.
1
Adolf Hitler used to tell his friends that he loved rallies because people would usually lose their ability to think logically in that atmosphere. Trump's tweets, rants, and speeches at GOP gatherings seem to be doing the same thing for his rabid base. Remember, super loyal sports fans are not always totally logical when watching their team play an opponent. How often will a loyal Michigan football fan boo a referee when that referee makes a bad call against an Ohio State player?
5
Republicans - be careful what you wish for as you may just get it......
Donald Trump will discard you, turn on you when he no longer needs you -- he does it to everyone - has his entire life........
He is already discarding our sacred Constitution......
So face it, face the truth staring you squarely in your faces.......
Only the Democrats are standing up for our values, our Constitution, what America has stood for since the days of the Founding fathers..........
The Republican Party of today is trading democracy for fascism.....
Are you sure that is what you want? - for America to become another Russia, China or North Korea?...........
3
On a day that the Republican "lawmakers" stormed the Security Room and disrupted the proceedings of the inquiry, they revealed themselves. And Trump, encouraging them and using expressions as "human scum", calling reporters enemies of people is using the playbook of the Nazis and Hitler. Beware America!
2
I dont have a clue how any black american with an ounce of common sense could possibly support something like Donald Trump.
2
So SAD! Young black Americans supporting Racist Trump who hates black people!
AND has proven that, over, and over agin throughout his life:
1) Discriminating against black people in his NYC aprtment buildings
2) Crucifying the "Central Park five".
3) "Birther' Lie against President Obama, the first black president
Wake up! You are being used and abused again by the white man!
2
I did not vote for Trump and think he is an idiot. But I think it is ironic that Mr. Blow derisively refers to a young black leader as a brainwashed quisling and undoubtedly would describe the group of black conservative republicans in the same way. Clearly, these people are successful, high achievers, but they do not subscribe to Blow’s notion of black victimhood and progressive ideology so they earn Blow’s contempt. I am a successful lawyer and frequently deal with black lawyers and other black professionals. Mr. Blow may be surprised to learn how justifiably proud they are of their achievements and how much they resent the white progressive agenda.
2
Black Republicans. Go figure!
2
Plantation politics.
In describing this zombie army, Mr. Blow, you are aptly describing the electorate that put this president into office.
Voters (and, by extension, representatives) this malleable, this gullible, this....stupid, are a direct threat to our democracy.
Trump will disappear one day. We will be cleaning up his mess for a generation.
But those zombies that put him into office, they will still be roaming the land, waiting to vote again. Getting rid of Trump will be easy compared with dealing with the ongoing menace of an ignorant, pliable and autocratic leaning cadre of morons.
2
I have seen photographs of lynchings, and they are so beyond awful I cannot describe it.
Trump is so beyond ignorant to use that word. Well, he is an idiot annyway.
mac193754
Is America full of idiots that are easily conned or do more than half of us not get it?
Spot-on analysis, Charles Blow!
These are some sadly deluded Black folks.
2
Trump has pushed forward, over these years, a series of memes, or thought viruses that have successfully penetrated the minds of his base - consider it a multi-factor ebola of the mind. Hurtful to the body politic. These xenophobic, nationalist, denigrating and hateful 'thought terminating' messages amount to a stress test of our Republic. "Deep state", "scum", "traitors" amount to malevolent vectors of infection. Take hope in the vast education that is occurring across the nation, as citizens are taking note of what indeed defines us - faithfulness to law, oaths of service, professionalism, and civility-locally and globally. Reasonable people are being inoculated, vaccinated, aware of bad practices. Those that know better, those that have flocked to Trump's message for venal, self serving ends need to be remembered and held accountable. This is the time for the PEOPLE to reassert themselves in service to our nation, the message, the aspirational genius of our country. Take heart, understand our history, it's errors and missteps, and vote as if your life and wellbeing depend upon it. We lead, we individually light a candle showing the strength of our ever evolving civic consciousness, we illuminate the path for the world to follow. We are therapeutic and our healing instrument is the vote.
Russian asset Donald J. Trump is not a zombie, Trump is 'Hell on earth', so we have to look for goodness, angels, and better , more human things, true man and woman. Trump is present to destroy all good things in America and Americans. He is evil in reality.
the republican party will follow in the footsteps of the Whig party (remember them...? not really unless you are 160 years old)
like their puppet master, they will go bankrupt.
But only once...and then disappear. I am curious though, will these apologists aka "black conservatives" then join the party's replacement? You know, the White Supremacist Party.
Just like having Jews join the Nazi Party.
Always a few in the crowd who ever had any marbles to lose
2
It is not Trump it’s us.
We have entered the era of the absurd. Discontented with our Hollywood reality and all our toys we are now in Hell without dying .What emotional support animal we are going to need now?
"Peut etre Je vais loin," but believe author insults his readers, by only presenting 1 point of view, basically telling us what to think, rather than saying on the 1 hand this on the other hand that, and giving his view as an advocate journalist, Advocacy and even handedness r not incompatible. TRUMP has been bludgeoned for use of foul, inappropriate language, but hold on. Trump talks like the workers who built his buildings, like Teamster thugs, Tony, Tony Pro PROVENZANO,Anthony Rototondo, Paul VARIO inter alios whom he had to deal with to get those buildings off the ground. Re his use of the word "human scum,"re his opponents who seek to impeach him. "scum" would have sufficed. In Peter Griffijn's "LESS THAN TREASON,"bio of EH,GARIFFIN writes Hemingway often used word to refer to literary poseurs,who pretended to be writers, in Earnest Walsh's case, "marked for death," but who were more put ons than genuine writers devoted to their craft. U don't have to be a Carlos Baker, A.E. Hotchner to know these basic facts about EH's likes and dislikes. Perhaps president has been reading up on 1 of America's writers in his spare time."Qui sait?"Mary Welch, EH's last wife, also speaks of her husband's use of words like scum to refer to those he regarded as "faux jetons"in Paris in 1920's and 1930's.Believe that if as Hakeem Jeffries predicted,only way to get Trump out of office is to impeach him, then we can look forward to 4 more years of DT in the Oval Office.
Well, that confirms it. Remember Shakespeare's line, "All the World's a Stage"? The stage of the world is now Theatre of the Absurd.
Theatre of the Absurd was a post-WWII trend in Europe exhibited in the works of Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, & Harold Pinter. They expressed the view that the world is so meaningless that even with our existential free will we can't give it any meaning or purpose. Life is a farce. You can wait for Godot or leave, but it won't make any difference. No meaning either way. "Nothing to be done."
This incident at the White House is Reality of the Absurd. (Not Reality Show of the Absurd--reality itself.) It's so indicative of the complete abandonment of reason that you have to laugh. That's what set the absurdists off: they wrote their nihilistic plays in a way that made the audience laugh (rather than cry, scream in horror, or go out & kill themselves).
Is there any hope? Will the Democrats be able to impeach Trump & enough pressure build on Republican Senators to convict him?
If not, will the Democratic candidate for president be able to defeat Trump not only in the popular vote but the electoral college? Are we still a democracy, at least in theory? Or are we the clueless characters in a Beckett play just passing the time until the real end comes: death.
Our republic is a farce, a hilarious black hole, but with its wealth & power it could suck the rest of the world down with it.
God save us from Trump & the Republican party.
1
"Brainwashed racial quisling..."
Gold!
A Masochist at heart. How else can one describe an African-American Trump supporter? It would appear that provincial white voters in the boondocks aren't the only ones eager to vote against their own best interests. If this be the "will of the people" in our democracy I say our democracy sucks when its supporters actively work to betray the "rights" democracy claims to represent.
I appreciate that Mr. Blow used the example of the Young Black Leadership Summit to make his point; it makes this piece more interesting and credible than the typical lament about the GOP becoming the zombified host of the parasitic wasp larva in the Oval Office.
Yes, there's something about Trump that appeals to black conservatives, and it appeals strongly enough to outweigh his clear unfitness and his coddling of white supremacists. That's the thing that should give us, on the left, pause. What is it about the conservative worldview that inspires such loyalty?
I wondered this watching Pete Buttigieg on Fox News Sunday, trying to explain how he's going to appeal to Black Americans. I wished he'd just voice the conservative ideal o3n this issue; something like: "I'll appeal to Black Americans while I appeal to all Americans. I recognize that the Black American experience is, in many ways, different from mine and incomprehensible to me, so I can only commit to defending the rights and acting for the common good of all Americans. I can only commit to listening to the concerns and dreams of all Americans, which means ensuring that the voices of people of all identities who are citizens of this great country are represented in my administration."
That colorblind, inclusive ideal is anathema to liberal identity politics, but I think most Americans aspire to it. The GOP at least pays it lip service.
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Whatever would we do without people from New York to tell us what to think?
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@SGT Ted
Considering that most people in the country have no idea what trump is like.
New Yorkers know because he's been a New York goon for a long time. He and his father bent and broke the law all the time and got away with it to the disgust of the New Yorkers. He got credit for repairing the Wolman's ice skating rink, but he got more money and publicity because of it, and that was the point. In other areas he broke contract agreements and refused to pay
what he owed his contractors many of whom when bankrupt. The average workers he didn't pay at all or paid less than minimum wage eventually not paying them at all. The workers in a rage took they took the head contractor to the top of the building and dangled him of the side building until he agreed to pay them. He contracted with a mob run trucking business to remove the rubble of the Bonwit - Teller department store which they did and dumped illegally on the side of New Jersey roads, He and his father defrauded tenants in their buildings. I could go on but you can look it up.
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Apparently, some of the supporters are willing to ride that bomb all the way to the ground. I leave it to Mr. Blow to comment on the spectacle of confused young Black people who adore Trump, and focus more on his core base.
Farmers are losing their farms and committing suicide at a rate unseen for 20 years. Coal miners and steel workers who hung in there because he was going to bring their jobs roaring back are... stuck. Fundamentalist Christians, in the millions, are suffering the humiliation of having sold out their professed values for a little, ephemeral, political power. The rest of us will be just fine, the wreckage that is the lives of MAGAs will fester for generations. And, finally, the disregard liberals held for them has metastasized into active animosity, and winter is coming.
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Charles has a good description of Trump as the pied piper of a zombie following. Except Trump is only able to do this because the zombies are already brainwashed by fake news, alternative facts and deep state conspiracy theories.
Demagoguery coupled with very successful and (for the zombies at least) ubiquitous propaganda spread by Fox, Spencer/Murdoch media, phoney Twitter accounts, manipulated Google searches, false Facebook postings... the list goes on and on.
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If you ignore his record, don’t read much and listen only to Fox News, it’s possible to be led astray by the slick Con Man-in-Chief. Too bad the young Black conservatives of whom you write, Mr. Blow, had not bothered to read up on the illegal and racially-biased policies of Mr. Trump and his father when it came to renting out their property. Or bothered to consider the blatantly racist “birther” propaganda Trump threw around in an attempt to discredit the first African-American President. It’s appalling how many people will go along with the antics of and continue to make excuses for this huckster.
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Trump is the GOP without clothes.
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Very puzzling. At Trump rallies there was always a somewhat confused black guy placed behind the president in the region of signs (Women for Trump, Gays for Trump). Seeing 30 confused faces makes you wonder, who are these people.
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@WHM If only Joe could get an audience of 30 people.
There's nothing new under the sun.
The style was different, much less confrontational, but Trump and company is nothing less than Reagan without the "smile."
The GOP bunker.
These people are being fooled by a seasoned con man.
Things are so out of control, there's bound to be violence if Trump is impeached.
Let's not have a civil war, let's just secede, and these people in the photos here can live in a red state.
Only then, will they finally see that they got conned, big time.
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Mobs of fictional zombies almost always lose in the end.
Mobs of political zombies . . .?
Do the young black Trump supporters believe their politics will save them when they get pulled over by a white cop or state trooper? Will a red MAGA cap be their passport to a solid, respectable middle class life, free from the struggles of their "whiney toddlers" brothers and sisters?
House slaves felt they were above field slaves, but the smart ones knew they were still slaves.
2
The GOP has gone to Republicans of Trump (ROT). Lincoln weeps & so do I.
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Embedded deep into my flashbulb memory is the night that Trump, at one of his obnoxious rallies, looked at the audience and asked "Where's my black?" as if to say Where's my token black? When Trump implored black people to vote for him with his "What have you got to lose?" at a rally of 99 percent white people, the question was rhetorical. Candace Owens must be drinking the same potion that intoxicated the mob of Republican congressmen to storm the hearings yesterday. History books will treat 2017 to 2020 as a bizarre nightmare in which a demagogue stole the minds and souls of millions of people.
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It was bad enough having Trump point out “my” African American during the 2016 campaign, but seeing that photo of our racist president smiling benevolently while being lauded by throngs of those he continues to oppress, was enough to make me retch, even before reading this depressing column.
Charles Blow’s description of Candace Owens as “a brainwashed racial quisling” could not have been more perfect.
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Its called Stockholm Syndrome. Become more like your captors than the captors themselves to get them to like you so you can survive. It's why Patty Hearst became more a SLA acolyte than her SLA captors. It's why Hannity, O'Reilly, Reagan, et al. bought into and defended the White Anglo Saxon male hegemony descended from the 800 year history of British oppression in Ireland. "If you can't fight 'em, join 'em".
When the Democrats win everything and ACTUALLY make these folks' lives better, perhaps then the veil will be lifted and they can see how they've been duped.
@As-I-Seeit I thought Obama did that.
It still manages to amaze, the extent to which Trump's base is comprised almost entirely of people he wouldn't deign to spit on if they were on fire.
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The whole Trump phenomenon is so sick, it has taken the fun out of being American. I used to be proud of our government when I explained it to foreigners. Now we have lost that pleasure. It is obvious that we have a highly dangerous and delusional man in the Oval Office.
Why don't we just come out and say it? Putin is our president.
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"[B]rainwashed racial quisling Candace Owens."
Lovin' it Charles.
But name-calling does not address the phenomenon of archconservative blacks such as Owens, Williams, and Clarence Thomas.
Cultural conservatism is common, especially among older blacks, but how are conservative personal values transformed into full-blown adoration of a racist like Trump?
Or is it merely strategic? An aspiration to Trump's patronage?
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This is not good news. Zombies are tough to stop, they just keep coming. They are unfeeling in their relentless pursuit of adding to their numbers which, in all the zombie movies, is all they exist to do. That of course explains a lot, how they can ignore facts for instance or real existential threats, since, you know, they aren't human any more so they don't see a future, just their next victim. The really scary thing here is how DJT who, unlike a White Walker, is a leader of nothing, a creator of nothing- he's really just another zombie, so knocking him off accomplishes just that, one dead zombie. After he is impeached or voted out of office, those crowds, those deluded black youth, the red-hat-wearing zombie army will still be out there polluting our politics, threatening our democracy, by doing what they do as political leaders who lack ethical and moral standards; their lawlessness is the very essence of zombiedom. The living have one task in the end, to defend the land of the living, to believe in the institutions and traditions of the living, to live by the rules and laws of the living. And most of all to be unafraid of zombies.
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You think this is going to be easy? These people, white, black, whatever, won't stop for one micro-second to ask themselves if maybe they have bought into this guy a bit too much.
Trump denies us bread, but force feeds us a clown circus.
I think, I'm 'mildly nauseous' by all the whining.
I mean...winning.
I know one thing, that crowd does not represent me nor my ancestors. We know a racist when we see one. Power has corrupted Ms. Owens long ago. If you stand next to the man who had praise for the group responsible for Ms. Heyer's murder, then that says it all. If you support a man who has not taken back the pledge to put the death penalty for the Central Park 5, then there really are no words for you. The media is not the problem. The consummate liar and corrupt evil that is POTUS, is.
Whatever he may have done as a landlord decades ago, when it comes to finding target audiences for his con these days, Trump apparently does not discriminate against black people. He targets the not-so-bright, wherever they are to be found.
Trump is a nightmare. I wish we could wake up and snap out of it, have some coffee and resume normal life...
The Zombie Party. Yes! Of course!
I have been wondering since 2016 what happened to their brains!
Here's a thought. How many in attendance at this White House Young Black Leadership Summit ncluding Candace Owens know the true and terrible meaning of the word "lynching?" How many of these African Americans who worship Trump know of what happened to Emmitt Till and Mickey Swarner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney in Mississippi? My educated guess is not many. And to be certain Donald Trump could not name you three civil rights activists, other than Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama, if his life depended on it. Nice editorial Charles Blow and these people who support Trump truly are zombies.
We will always have rank opportunists amongst us of all colors and stripes.
But in the end they do not have character. They are the losers. Their souls are bought and paid for. They cry alone.
Thought experiment, Mr Blow: Consider continuing the totally back-to-front mirror image world a la Alice Through the Looking Glass, where everything is reversed as this bizarre event revealed. Continue it through to where the Queen roars "Off with (his) head!" - or in this case, "You're fired!!!" before the trial, and save the world a great deal of angst and wasted time.
This is now officially The Jerry Springer Presidency
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Most of the president's employees, legal or not would have been his slaves in previous times.
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How quickly the GOP mighty white man has fallen. Watching that comedy show yesterday, the clown priest going on about his wall in Colorado, I was frighten to think that the world now believes that all GOP white men are not just ignorant but proud of their ignorance.
The Trump show is off the major stations, you might be able to see him on the religious stations where the average age is 80.
For all the minority conservatives who visid the White House, I am delighted that you were able to be in the house that slaves built. Trump who loves to live in the past where white superiority ruled and enjoyed keeping minorities in their place. I am sure he was delighted hosting adorning minorities in his very white White House. No mention by him of the brown children in cages.
I cannot understand groups like Blacks For Trump or Latinos For Trump (KKK For Trump, OK, that one I can get) given his treatment and disdain of both groups over the years. But "as a mere observer of this tasteless phenomenon, one has to admire the stage management."
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How in the world could anyone, especially an African-American, believe that Donald Trump is fighting for Black people? Against who? And how? He has a long record of trying to keep African-Americans from renting apartments in buildings he owns, and seems to love white supremacists.
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"To empathize with a psychopath is to annihilate one's own self," a psychological profiler observes in the Netflix series "Mind Hunters." This is one of the truest statements one can make about a psychopath like Donald Trump. The psychopath's embarrassing behavior evokes a naturally empathetic response in normal human beings who want to shield the actor from the ridicule he so richly deserves. With a psychopath, empathy is a one-way street, and he is counting on his followers to make excuses and protect him, even to the point of obliterating their own values and needs. This group of "black conservatives for Trump" makes about as much sense as "Jews for Hitler." You don't have to hate the psychopath, who is a genetic predator, an aberration who could function usefully in situations like war. But you must protect yourself and not surrender your mind if you want to survive as a viable individual.
WHAT STANDS OUT TO ME In the horror of horrors of the deplorable among the deplorables is Trump's revelation of his complete support of white supremacists, with his statement,
These Democrats — the women, the minorities, the Jewish, the gay — are torturing the white man.
For the occasion, Trump eliminated from the list of torturers, naming persons of color.
If you needed any more proof of the race wars Trump is inciting, remember the march of the torch bearing white supremacists shouting, The Jews will not replace us!
To which Trump said, There are very fine people on both sides. Then he attacked the reporters in his hotel lobby, saying something like, If you're fair you have to admit that that's accurate. Or you're publishing fake news.
Trump's process of zombification is to infect the brains of his followers so that they are the walking dead--doing his bidding--under his ultimate control.
I wish that this phantasmigorical description were about Hallowe'en costumes and fun house horrors. But it's NOT! It's about Trump's rallying hate groups! It's incitement to violence. If for no other reason, Trump must be impeached due to his abuse of office due to constant incitement to violence.
Judge David Hale found Trump guilty of incitement to violence, when he told supporters to "get rid of" protesters, offering to pay their legal fees if his supporters were arrested. The case is under appeal. But it's a fact that Trump incites violence! Over and over again!
How many black Senators are serving in that institution? How many black Congressmen/women are serving in the House? Enough said! All the rest is sheer self- delusion.
Dear Black American Trump supporters,
You seem to have forgotten that Trump was taken to court -- and lost -- because he refused to rent apartments to black folks. He doesn't like them.
A leopard never changes its spots.
You've been conned.
"This is Trump's army" is ominous of the civil unrest or, as Trump has called it, "civil war" that he threatens to provoke. Of course, Trump's hate speech has already unleashed a wave of what his own officials are calling "domestic terrorism" that has led to massacres of 11 Jews in their Pittsburgh synagogue and 22 Hispanics in an El Paso Walmart. That a man who endorsed neo-Nazi, white supremacists as "having some good people" marching in support of the Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, who led the forces of slavery and fought to overthrow our government, would have young African-Americans applauding him is as disturbing as his overt racism and hypocritical willingness to urge them to join in a new civil war that would leave them forever as second-class citizens subject to a new, perhaps more virulent Jim Crow era. They have yet to learn or perhaps forgotten the lesson I learned as a child in a Holocaust family--"Never Again!"
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@Paul Wortman . You say, "leave them forever as second class citizens, etc.
I think it's far worst than that.
If you consider how long slavery lasted as a monolith, and the racism present to this day, people could get re-enslaved all over again.
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I'd like to hear more from Charles Blow about how a group of young black conservatives have come to the conclusion that Trump is their advocate and that they are being attacked when he is being attacked. Certainly, this group is not representative of the majority but how did they get to this point? The mind boggles.
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At age 13 I found a copy of "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich" in my family's library. (Was interested because I'd watch the episodes of "The World At War" with my father.) The patterns we're seeing now in our country have horrifying similarities to German society in the 1930s, complete with a wannabe dictator and howling, saluting mobs.
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@Hypatia Yes, Hypatia, I just reread it and it sent shivers down my spine. Shirer seemed to predict what is now happening here by looking at the NSDAP of then.
African American voters are not monolithic.They have the right to support and defend their conservative principles. These young folk are however drinking the Trump cool aid. Maybe they have no sense of history. Maybe they are not aware of the giants upon whose shoulders they stand. The men and women who allowed them to gain access to the upper echelons of power .They need to understand that Trump is not conservative or liberal. He is a demagogue .They need only remember the "Central Park five" case.
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My only disagreement with Blow's argument is that I don't think that "Trump killed the old Republican Party." That party died a long time before 2016.
This is one of those times that the comments section reads like an echo chamber. There's nary an example of criticism of this article and it's mud slinging at young black conservatives, so this can hardly be seen as representative of American's feelings at-large.
The funny thing about an echo chamber is that it gives those shouting the loudest a false sense of purpose and righteousness. When we turn a deaf ear to alternative views it only serves weaken the quality of debate and ultimately the prospects for compromise, which is needed in a country where support for most issues is actually 50/50 split.
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"White men have always made the rules, and the most powerful and most wealthy have lived above them. Holding this white man to account is a threat to white power, to his power, to his supporters’ power."
Still going with that white power shtick, are we?
The last disaster of a President was black, remember?
Did you not find Obama’s imperial militarism distressing?
That militarism was on rich display from the beginning of his presidency, generating countless victims from Somalia and Yemen to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan among other locations.
War, austerity, and state repression became normalized in a morass of reactionary politics once the ruling class (read Citibank) selected Obama as Commander in Chief and "perfected" under a Black Democrat.
People were intoxicated with Obama-mania.
Criticism of Obama was marginalized and silenced at all costs by establishment forces.
Obama's miserable failure gave us the white nationalist Trump, as it was his rightward policies that pushed the Republican Party off of the political cliff.
Hillary has received the brunt of criticism. Her record surely deserves it. However, her policy of endless war and servitude to finance capital could never have taken presidential form without Barack Obama.
The revisionist black punditry class Obama helped strengthen, like Mr.Blow and Van Jones, will remain a force in the DP and thus a barrier to the political development of the oppressed, by falsely claiming that Trump came out of thin air.
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Our politics are so emotional. There is something about this arrogant man that appeals to people who are looking for someone to light the path ahead. I can't imagine what these young people think Trump has done for Black America. I can think of plenty of things he's done or wants to do to harm Black America, but for the life of me the only thing I can think of is the shameless way he takes credit for a drop in unemployment among work-age Black Americans, conveniently neglecting to mention that it is a trend that started in 2011, when that Other Guy was in office. And it's still about twice the rate of unemployment as that of White America. Other than that, Trump has ridiculed people who speak out against police violence in minority communities, breathed fresh hopes into white supremacists, failed to hire anyone other than an eccentric but skilled neurosurgeon who thinks poor people need to be taught not to expect help. He and his father before him have a history of discrimination in hiring in their business lives, discrimination in the housing they built, etc., etc.
But, alas Charles, many people approach politics with their hearts, and not their minds. And it appears hearts are easier to lead astray. That's the nicest way I can put it.
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And here we are - living in Trump World. I am afraid of the "We" Zombies as they are more than willing to find even criminal acts as acceptable in their defense. We've got just over a year to go and the cornered Rat King Trump has not used all his powers yet to call the "We" Zombies into action.
Bottom line is that Trump considers violence as a viable option.
That is scary.
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While looking at these fresh faced apparently earnest young black professionals, I am reminded that during the darkest days of Civil Rights during the 50's some of the prime sources of info to the white citizens councils in Mississippi were other blacks,
A good piece, and true.
It's intimated, but not stated, that Trump will use this to start violence.
Don't intimate. It's time to take the threat seriously. If we as a society allow Trump to get people to die for him, people will die for him, and hurt a lot of others in the process.
Having clicked on the link of what words were said in this meeting, I found the pathological adoration of Trump and Trumps pathological repetitive claims of the greatness of everything American to be nauseating to the bone. Each person on the room could have just stood there and silently patted each other on the back a thousand times or they could have started a chant, I am great, we are great, Trump is great, USA is great and the drone of their non critical thinking minds makes me shudder that this group of Trumpians are totally one hundred percent fooled.
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Enmeshment: a type of psychopathy seen in some families, groups, and organizations; requires absolute loyalty and obedience; members must think and feel the same way; the slightest deviance is taken as betrayal of the group, resulting in ostracism/shunning and possibly other punishment.
This is Trump... and his worshipers.
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It is only a TV show, an old one at that, but The Twilight Zone had one episode called The Old Man In The Cave.
I think of it when I see Trump.
Trump has apparently used his tactics all of his personal life and is now taking his act on the road, on the national and world stage.
I see China and of course Russia waiting in the wings.
Those countries will get to devour the spoils of America destroying itself.
All for the likes of Donald Trump.
It would be so bad if Trump was somewhat intelligent or elegant, but he is a really unlearned and unsophisticated person.
It just boggles the mind that he has so many followers.
It boggles the mind that he has so many sycophants.
It even more so boggles the mind that so many judges have let him get away with bloody murder for so many years.
He truly is, to me, the devil incarnate.
Trump is America’s worst ever nightmare. We desperately need a uniter, not a divider. I have never heard of any other person more lacking in integrity. We are better than that.
Trump is America’s worst ever nightmare. We desperately need a uniter, not a divider. I have never heard of any other person more lacking in integrity. We are better than that.
Trump is America’s worst ever nightmare. We desperately need a uniter, not a divider. I have never heard of any other person more lacking in integrity. We are better than that.
Minorities for Trump. Doesn't make sense unless you use a psychiatric concept. Identification with the aggressor is the concept. The same behavior of a dog, afraid of the rage of its owner, that licks his hand and rolls over on its back in a display of surrender and supplication. Don't hurt me. I am a good dog.
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Trump is America’s worst ever nightmare. We desperately need a uniter, not a divider. I have never heard of any other person more lacking in integrity. We are better than that.
Trump stands for what most Americans are sick and tired of: political correctness; tribalism; racist and racism” (The preferred words for anybody who does not agree with the Democrats); socialism; and income inequality even tho most Americans will agree they are better off than they were 4 years ago.
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"...brainwashed racial quisling"...
It is refreshing to read such boldly written truths, after reading so many writers with the moral strength and clarity of lukewarm oatmeal. I might debate the idea that Candace Owens is not at least mostly self-aware, though. Up until 2015, she was very anti-conservative and anti-Trump. She yearned for the day when Tea Party Republicans "will eventually die off," so that "we can get right on with the OBVIOUS social change that needs to happen, IMMEDIATELY." In 2016, a fairly random and serendipitous chain of events led to her getting praised by some far-right figures, and she seems to have suddenly recognized the cold, cynical earnings potential of selling black support for Trump--a rare commodity if there ever was one.
The results confirm that she is a sociopathic but smart con artist. She has succeeded in rapidly rising from obscurity to a celebrity who appears at the White House and on Capitol Hill. She doesn't care what Trump and his white supremacist base do, as long as they keep open a couple positions for any black people willing to shamelessly sabotage civil rights progress. On the Trump side, it makes political sense: every supremacist movement in history has made profitable use of such figures. She is a rhetorical Trojan horse, and many journalists lack the wisdom or courage not to let her in.
Blow's observations about "white supremacist patriarchal victimhood" were validated by yesterday's "demonstration" by republican house members. I'm sure there must have been a woman or man under 60 in the herd that stormed the congressional hearings, but the long stream of gray-haired white dudes was conspicuous in its resemblance to a parade or protest march for the preservation of white patriarchal rule.
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A sitting president operates like a cult leader.
This reads like the sad cases of individuals who get taken in by a self-declared ‘leader.’ Only the consequences here for being had are considerably more than with any fringe sect...
"That is less about informing than warning. This message is to Republican politicians, those who will hold his fate in their hands as the impeachment process unfolds, to stay in line and toe the line."
I imagine some GOP leaders are getting sick and tired of Trump's control. Toe the line has become lose one's spine, look the other way at crime, have zero shine, give up one's prime, wallow in swamp grime, wander about in slime, like a swine, such a grotesque moral decline, bowing to his orange shrine, becoming a hallow Trumpian MAGA mime, so not fine, all confined, the opposite of divine. Doing time.
Can't wait for Candace Owens' book explaining how she was fooled/tricked/brainwashed/ into being a trump supporter. I expect it will be released as soon as the Democrats are back in the White House.
Wow, Charles. This makes me dizzy.
How completely terrifying.
I am 76 years old. I remember back as far as hiding under my desk to survive a nuclear attack. I remember HUAC condemning innocent artists and intellectuals and ruining their life. I didn’t understand how people could believe this nonsense.
Then came Vietnam, and LBJ demanding our lives to defend the remains of colonialism in Indochina from popular resistance. I couldn’t understand how reasonable adults could buy this.
Nixon’s thugs broke into the Watergate, but my relatives in upstate Minnesota thought we were just picking on this poor, pious man. How dare we. I couldn’t understand their support for this creepy, slimy, lying hypocrite.
And there have been other times, miserable policies that hurt and destroy, defended by our good citizens from la la land. Times when I just can’t believe what my eyes were telling me.
And now there is this Alice in Wonderland saga, avidly supported by rallying adoring fanatics. I just don’t understand it. If I live to 176 I never will understand the depths of American ignorance, gullibility, and tribalistic malice.
Not that this could ever happen in the US,(could it?) but if you watch the speeches of Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, (inject any strong dictator) with the throngs of people listening,yelling, clapping, agreeing with every word that falls from their mouths. All the while armed soldiers look on for any one who disagrees just as protesters and reporters are yanked out of Trump rallies. As a Jew in the United States of a certain age I saw some antisemitism when I was young but very little. Now it is everywhere and it has been frothed up by our Commander in Chief. His being in bed with the NRA does not help as it assists the ownership of guns by people who should never own one.
Mr Blow’s article makes one point very clear, anyone who values their American freedoms should be watching this man very closely. He may not be as smart as these other dictators, past and present, but he is as dangerous.
Charles, you nail it. Trump destroyed the Republican Party which has to zombify to follow and there is no turning back while he is President. It's a significant disgrace.
Attendees at the Young Black Leadership Summit cheering President Trump. Its had to believe this event really happened. Talk about drinking the cool aid to the last drop, its really sad.
Mr. Blow: PLEASE help me understand how any self-respecting black (or other oppressed minority) could back Trump and the GOP. I so respect your opinion, and so want to know. Makes no sense to me how people whom Trump abhors and oppresses can back him in any way.
Thanks,
C-E
"In fact, Trump killed the old Republican Party...."
I think the GOP committed intellectual suicide, making Trump possible...maybe even inevitable.
Things really are becoming untethered when you have a conference of young black Trump supporters. Given his record and attitudes, how is it even possible you could fill a phone booth with young, black Trump supporters?
The only explanation that makes sense is something and old Southern Senator and rabid racist once told me when, as a reporter, I asked him what made him tick.
Said Jesse Helms, “well, son, everyone has to be somewhere.”
I've only one piece of advice for the President. "Sir, it's time to declare Martial Law."
With martial law you can shut down the affordable care act. Congress can be disbanded. You can put Hillary in prison. You can do everything needed to make America Truly Great Again.
Why not? Sir, it's the natural progression of the GOP. Time to put your long-term plans into action and take command . . . full command. Martial Law . . . done with a simple signature. You CAN do it.
Thanks for listening.
Trump follows he does not lead.
The democrats job is to stop the zombies. They ain’t doing it.
Trump: What yours is mine , and mine is my own.
The only reason I can think of that the world could be this upside down right now is that too many of us are ignorant. Ignorant of history, ignorant of the constitution, ignorant of world affairs, ignorant of Trump's true character, and ignorant of the consequences of his actions.
Personal ignorance doesn't have to be something to be horribly ashamed of (we are all ignorant to some extent), but neither is it something to be proud of. It can be reversed by opening one's eyes and mind to learn the facts.
I can't believe that all the House members who stormed the Capitol yesterday are that ignorant. They are scared. And they are letting themselves be led by an ignorant group of voters. They are not leaders; they are followers. Followers of ignorance. Their job should be to educate their voters - not to close their minds by encouraging them not to believe what they see and hear, but to believe what Trump says, unchallenged and uninvestigated.
Of course Trump supporters feel his pain. It is extremely painful to see the false world you have constructed come tumbling down. But is even more painful to be crushed by the rubble because you have refused to see what is happening and have refused to move.
1
"For Trump’s supporters, he has made his malpractice appear in their mirrors."
Yes. Exactly.
They see themselves in him, literally.
His cheating,ignorance,insulting,bullying are all attributes of who they are. His gross revolting foul language is consider a fresh air for them.
An army of blind, self-serving victims is all I see.
1
Come check out the hoards of voters out here.
They are like the Russians- if you have two cows and they have one, they'd rather shoot their own cow if it means you don't get three, worse still would be if they got a second cow but it meant that some poor folk would get their very first cow, that would be against some basic core theology amongst most of the people within 500 miles of here.
We've got to appeal to these people. How? What counter Fox-narritive would they buy?
What ever it is, the thing that drives them truly crazy, is for someone else to get a 'freeride' on them. Health, education, housing, food assistance - they are all anathemas to these people. Hate it, or not. They vote and they aren't going anywhere.
I don't see the turn out for democrats all that impressive, nor do I imagine that they would spend the time to grass root push for their side, which leaves the need to appeal to the others.
What is the common quality of the winners of the last elections? They are show people. The show person always beats the stiff. Trump is nonstop show. Will we bring a worthy entertainer to the stage?
If Hillary taught us anything, it's that a brilliant, policy wonk who hides their inner child isn't going to sing the poetry the audience wants to hear. Bill got it, Obama had it to start, and Trump now has the limelight shining from his cheeks. Please realize that the point of politics is to make a sale with the public- It's most of them 'stupid'.
As an onlooker from outside your country, we always knew there to be an element of jingoism in certain sectors - the ‘My country, right or wrong’ contingent. This seems to have amped up drastically since Trump ascended to the throne, but what I find mystifying is that a white supremacist who trumpets he could kill at will - yet invokes and appropriates the horror of lynching - has any black support whatsoever. Standing up for black America – don’t make me laugh! If you are a Republican, now it seems, it’s ‘My party, right or wrong’.
We keep reading about Trump’s astronomical approval rating among Republicans for whatever he does, no matter how unethical, inhumane or contrary to previous GOP positions. What we haven’t seen is how many people have left the Republican Party, either officially or unofficially. Is that number minuscule or is it significant? Inquiring minds want to know!
2
Mr. Blow may disagree or be shocked by the idea that any person of color, let alone young black men and women could somehow support Mr. Trump. I too find it odd. Nonetheless, calling this group of young people "so-called Young Black Leaders" and labeling Candace Owens, an outspoken young black conservative woman a "brainwashed racial quisling" betrays Mr. Blow's inability to not only accept any other point of view on racial matters, but also his need to belittle and demean those with different views as akin to "simple-minded fools". It's a classic mud slinging technique designed not to debate the merits of an alternative argument, but rather to discredit it as absurd and ill-informed. For this, Mr. Blow is wrong.
Also, I take issue with Mr. Blow's statement that "Holding this white man to account is a threat to white power". Perhaps that is true for the tiny sliver of white nationalists in this country, but that is realistically a fraction of 1% of our country. Yet Mr. Blow makes no qualification and instead intentionally implies that all white people feel this way. This is obviously not true and makes it hard to take Mr. Blow seriously.
50
@John
There is never all or nothing. The nuances are in the middle and everyone who reads Mr. Blow understand his implications. Unfortunately the individuals who are implicated in this massive cover up of the White House are all white men,
The GOP who carried on like white boys in a frat animal house were all middle aged white men especially when they left there pizza boxes behind. We see them on CBS TV doing those types of pranks day in and day out.
Historians write about atrocities that have happened and are still occurring. If the people who were at the seminar do not know there history it is never to late to learn. The players of the NBA learnt that lesson last week and will learn it for the entire season. When King James tells a manager last in a famous tweet he didnt know what he was talking about. Not even in a phone call . it was clear James had no basic understanding of the issues between China and Hong Kong. King James appeared to care only about the money he might have to give up if China stayed mad at the United States. King James like Trump didnt seem to care about humanity but his profit.
An understanding of World history before one criticizes someone else would be nice , these young minority conservatives holding their cell phones and delighted faces might realize reflecting on the encounter there was a reason. Why most people of color have never gone to the white house for a meet and greet with Trump. Reflection works wonders.
35
@John
I find Mr. Blow's language far more temperate and thoughtful than the President's language.
79
@John Except it's not just a matter of a difference of opinion; by aligning themselves with a racist, Ms. Owens and her ilk ARE wrong and their point of view IS absurd and ill-informed and as such is undeserving of respect. And Mr. Blow is not implying ALL white people feel the same way; he is referring to the historic fact of systemic racism and the privileges all white people continue to enjoy to a certain extent, including me. But nice try, "both sides."
81
The politics of resentment over the politics of self-interest.
We are in a time of radical change and tens of millions of Americans are frightened and unable to adapt their thinking. It's inevitable that there are politicians like Trump (or Johnson in the UK) who take advantage of them. Change will accelerate due to the climate crisis and environmental collapse. We will go Left or Right. Fascism vs Green New Deal. Incrementalism is dying. The center cannot hold.
"...the one man who is standing up for black America." Would someone please tell me where this sentence makes sense? Both Owens and Williams made this statement, but the details are missing. Yes, I would like to know specifically how trump has stood up for black America. Nothing comes to mind.
16
@S. G.
It's a lie, as is 100% of the Trump administration.
While I have seen very few Zombie movies, my impression is that in the end, within this movie genre, the good guys prevail.
America needs to consider that this is not a movie. What will happen if the good guys do not, in the reality of Trump Times, prevail?
Your good neighbors and allies to the North sit nervously by and watch for your outcomes and for your impacts on Canada.
Will Putin and Trump carve up the Northwest Passage? Will Trump look Northward for water, natural resources and farmland?
12
Trump is in big trouble. Big. His party stormed the gates without authorization, thus possibly allowing anyone to encrypt their phones. Did they not run a Benghazi investigation behind closed doors for 3 years?
22
His supporters, the "we" of his rhetoric, must understand that if they support him that completely, they also "become" him in a way, kind of like the Blob overtaking its victims in the old movie. So when all this is over one way or another, the supporters will be remembered, like Trump, for having wholeheartedly attacked the decency, culture, cohesion, institutions and international leadership of our country.
I for one will have a very, very hard time forgiving the Trump/supporter blob.
16
It seems like eons ago that trump visited the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and learned nothing from his trip. So it’s high time someone gave him a copy of Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. Because the book comprises mostly photographs, our illiterate-in-chief should be able to get through it, although it’s probably too much to hope that he has the capacity to absorb the searing truth about lynching that each picture tells.
9
Trump provides easy answers to his followers. Strip away any context or complicated details and throw in a dose of nationalism for flavoring and you have the recipe for the amount of leadership and reasoning that some portion of the population are eager to accept given their limited interest in learning more about the topic at hand.
An immigration problem that has many nuanced and complicated facets? Build a wall! Foreign policy with many actors with their own motivations? Isolationism, withdrawing troops in a matter of days, and nullifying treaties.
Trump offers easy answers to people who don’t want to grapple with the real-world complexities of governance.
10
@rob
This isn’t about Trump in particular. This is about maintaining the balance of powers and the maintenance of our constitutionally defined democratic republic. You seem to believe that there are no limits on the power of the elected president or the will of the majority but our founding fathers were opposed to absolute power in any form - the presidency, the judiciary, the legislature - and even the will of the majority. That’s why our three branches of government have equal and strictly defined areas of power that are enforced by the roles and powers of the other branches. The impeachment power of congress is written into the constitution to protect the republic from a president who abuses the power of the presidency for political or financial gain. Trump used our tax dollars in the form of with-holding military aid approved by congress to force the government of Ukraine to make statements and produce “evidence” that would impugn Biden and the Mueller investigation. The military aid wasn’t with-held for national interests. It was with-held to serve Trump’s personal ambition of being re-elected. Transcripts of phone conversations, text messages and weeks of congressional testimony by multiple witnesses have irrefutably established the facts. Do you want future presidents to fund their political campaigns using military aid and interference from foreign governments?
7
Paul Simon said it best in "The Sound of Silence":
"And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the Sound of Silence."
And there you have a Trump supporter.
157
This is about the willingness to allow a leader to drop all standards that include effective leadership and the most critical components of a Democracy.
Integrity
Truth
Abiding by the laws of the land
A commitment to the Oath sworn to the Constitution
Putting the country and the people in it first.
Accepting the consequences of their decisions
Following through on the will of the people
Representing ALL of the people
Just to name a few....
I don't care who you are.
Taking the side of anyone who is so corrupt and who is the antitheses of the list above, shows a true lack of character on that supporter/persons part. They have sold their souls to the devil.
I am betting that the comedian who provided the framework that DT is now using to manipulate the people and the Republicans who support him to frame his troubles as personal to them, is very proud that he provided it.
They should be ashamed.
At some point, maybe when they take stock of their life and are wondering how they fared, they might. I hope that their children can forgive them. The majority of the people in this country who are invested in the success of our Democracy and what it stands for, may be hard pressed to do so, especially if he gets another four years to complete the job of tearing it down and replacing it with a an autocratic system of government without voters.
246
@JDH They love six-bankruptcy Don? H..h...h hahahahaha!
8
@JDH You shouldn't talk about Hillary, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff that way.
@JDH - Graham, McConnell, Scalise, Gaetz etc., they're all the trump party now, and yes they've all made a deal with the devil - their souls for power and riches.
But you know, the devil always gets his due. Always. I hope I live to see it collected.
4
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Can’t go to rehab until you’ve hit rock bottom. Are we there yet America?
Where are the patriots? Our country is being run by the white collar mob and our elected officials are too scared to stand up and fight for what is right.
Self interest
Constituents
Party
Country
Should be the reverse
7
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum, former Dubya speechwriter
Just so.
And Charles correctly tells us "White men have always made the rules, and the most powerful and most wealthy have lived above them"; after this week, it seems the also obvious must be stated:
"White male Billionaire$ in the U.S. have never been lynched, and aren't in danger of such, now."
As Americans sit slack-jawed at each new day's (many) cycles of news, we must remember the only way 'Individual-1' ever got to office is that he was allowed on the GOP ballot by party leaders who were proudly ignoring the SCOTUS vacancy created by Scalia's death, unless/until they got a GOP'er in the White House.
These GOP'ers pretended a 2-term Dem POTUS had no SCOTUS appointment powers past the 85th month of his terms, if GOP'ers held the Senate.
Once GOP'ers in fact got the White House, they've now given away multiple lifetime judge-ships to people who have never even argued in a court-room on behalf of a client.
Charles is correct the GOP has been kidnapped, but it's not a 'conservative' party of principles any more - it's just a tribe that wants what it wants.
Clear & Present Danger 45* tries to disguise his radicalism/anarchy behind the label of the kidnapped GOP, but he kidnapped a party whose leaders were looking for just such an avatar.
16
We have the Third Reich as the model of how an elected democracy can be perverted into an out of control, unelected totalitarian state. We know how this story ended.
I wish Candace Owens or Terrence K. Williams or someone had explained just how it is that Trump is "standing up for black America." Why does Williams "love President Donald J. Trump"? One of my frustrations with Trump supporters is their vague claims of "love" for Trump. No one ever seems to say why they feel as they do. How has Trump, the president who has given the most visibility to White Supremacists of any modern-day president, also helping black Americans? Trump has called himself a "nationalist," a word that carries a lot of baggage with it, none of it good.
Critics of Trump can fill pages and pages with reasons why they oppose him. Supporters only have hazy and unformed ideas of why the support him. I'd like, one time, to hear specifics, because I don't know one person whose life has been improved, or even changed a little bit, by this president. (But, then I don't know any rich people who have benefited from his tax cuts and the stock market, so maybe that explains it. They seem to be the only ones whose lives have really improved.)
15
@Ms. Pea
Do you, like most Americans, have a 401k? If yes, then you have benefited from the performance in the stock market. If you have a pension, likewise. So let's not go getting all hyperbolic about how only the rich benefit when the market goes up.
3
@John
And how many Americans have a 401K or can afford to play in the stock market?
And is having a bit more money worth the dismantling of your constitution and the institutions that once upheld it?
6
@Ms. Pea, the only concrete reasons I have heard these last three years are from those who are anti-immigration, anti-abortion, anti-Clinton, or convinced he was going to do something to benefit them tax-wise (didn't happen). The rest seems to stem from identifying with him- if they were rich, they'd be just like him, coarse and vulgar, a braggart and loudmouth, shallow, selfish, disdainful of certain types of education, manners and culture, short-tempered, hotheaded, materialistic, gleefully cruel. These were his fans when he was hawking fake universities and subpar steaks and firing people on tv, they thought he was great then, too.
Now, he's president.
The surreal scene you describe with the Young Black Leadership Summit could be from a sequel to the movie Get Out where older white people take over the bodies of people who are black.
What you described is scary, but fortunately in the real world there is real momentum building with the impeachment investigation, and by writing more editorials to inspire citizens to organize and get out the vote, we can end this nightmare and vote him out.
11
@Bronx Jon
Jon - exactly. Love your comment. But Trump’s popularity is much more scary than any horror film.
5
Yesterday's mob scene before a hearing room reaffirms Mr. Blow's point.
I fear that the next time such an event happens, instead of waving cell phones, they will be waving guns.
7
@jhbev
Maybe if they wave guns they'll wind up in jail, where they belong (yesterday's petulant action was, in fact, illegal).
1
“Now they continue the outrageous impeachment witch hunt with nothing. With nothing. They come after me, but what they’re really doing is they’re coming after the Republican Party. And what they’re really, really doing is they’re coming after and fighting you, and we never lose.”
What Trump doesn't realize is that with this statement he is explaining why he has so many supporters--not because he is a competent president or because he is intelligent or skilled but because he has an "R" next to his name. The faction of Republican politicians who didn't like Trump before he was elected has predictably disappeared among the perennial, pervasive, and harmful left versus right dichotomy. I don't understand why so many U.S. voters see our political system as an oversimplified cultural war between two sides. It is much more complex than that.
“The media is attacking him. But when they attack him, they are attacking us.”
Just remember, an attack on Trump's insanity is an attack on the insanity of us all. We are all in this madhouse together. As the late, not so great poet Delmore Schwartz famously said, "Even paranoids have real enemies."
This is what you get when you turn a lunatic loose. The Democrats can slow Trump down but only the Republicans can stop him. And they won't do that because the cohort of fellow hard core lunatics galvanized to support Trump has attained critical mass within the GOP and will punish any politician who defects.
Trump's play field has no walls. There is nothing to keep him in bounds. It is already clear that he has no internal moral compass, no sense of when he has crossed the line. As the Democrats continue to hound him and his rage increases, Trump will become steadily bolder. And each successive act of aggressive madness will be met with no effective resistance, loyally applauded by those around him.
The best hope between now and November, 2020, may be that a point will be reached when Trump's sycophants' desperate sense of self-preservation will take over. Trump will bark out orders that no one will obey. His staff will continue to praise him endlessly and tell him whatever he wants to hear. But, out of concern for their own safety, they will do nothing. Quietly, late at night, the Secret Service will install padded walls in the Oval Office.
Maybe no one will get hurt.
2
I remember the first time I had heard Rush Limpbaugh
it would have been in 1996.I was a passenger and was riding
with a sales associate named Bob.I cannot recall what Rush
was fuming about that day, but I can be sure the word Clinton
was in front.Worse yet I had to feign "enjoyment" to his
double tracked cackle.
From that point on I have traveled solo ,never switching to AM
for any sound.
25 years of brainwashing has paid fantastic dividends.
6
“An army is blindly following”
Regrettably, unfortunately that’s 100 % accurate and the consequences are predictable. There will be actual war. There will be fights and, almost certainly, people will die. The long held tradition of a peaceful transition of power will not happen. Racism is a very strong feeling and around 35% of your country is just that: racist. Fights will occur because, IMHO, Trump will lose, if, and that’s a big if, Democrats play the impeachment process and their candidacy race in a smart way AND the Hillary/Sanders Syndrome won’t repeat itself in 2020.
I am betting on Adam Schiff who, right now is the person with enough RAM and gigahertz, to compute so many variables and trace a sensible course of action. He will have to deal with Pelosi, the “squad” and, of course, with the all the egos in Congress. He feels comfortable away from all the spotlights. But after the “It’s not okay” speech I saw a real smart leader. And your country is eager for that kind of leadership.
I can’t vote but our future (Puerto Rico) is in your hands.
1
It is very sad to see people reverently referring to this utterly undeserving president. Has the bar been lowered so that behavior and character does not matter?
3
Republicans are like a person with a rotten tooth that needs to get extracted. They are so afraid of the extraction that are willing to suffer in pain everyday and now have to deal with a dangerous infection that is spreading. As any competent dentist will tell you, infection can quickly spread from the tooth to the entire bloodstream -- potentially fatal if not treated immediately.
What Republicans don't realize is that they may lose massively whether or not Trump is reelected. So they are willing to infect the country rather than use the power they have to stop this pain any time they want.
If Republicans ever actually believed that "government is part of the problem, not the solution" as Saint Reagan said, then they should all resign and hasten the cleansing.
4
Trump is now consulting Andrew Johnson who was the first US president to be impeached. He survived in the Senate by one vote. Trump wants to know how he did it. Trump does not care that he has been dead for nearly 150 years.
2
"Holding this white man to account is a threat to white power, to his power, to his supporters’ power."
Escaping accountability somehow is held up as a virtue and not the flaw, that with universal acceptance, would be fatal to any civilized order. Yet somehow and for some reason, many seek to skate to wealth and power too, by escaping accountability. By undermining the authority of self-governance. By killing any means that the public has to legislate, regulate, monitor and enforce malfeasance. By killing any means that stands in the way of getting mine.
Taken to the end, our exceptionalism as "winners" leads to a world view that we are exempt from nature's laws and that we can escape the inescapable wrath resulting from our errant ways. Oh yeah, we are gonna get ours. With no white knights and no white gods to save us in the end.
Victimhood is a powerful trope. For some--targets of individual and social racism, sexually abused women, and children molested by clergy-- it is a call for public outrage, to enlist empathy for past, often repressed and unaddressed "slings and errors of outrageous fortune."
Unfortunately, we now witness the adoption of victimhood as a lifestyle by a victim in chief who perceives any opposition to his self-claimed authority, and by his sympathizers and sycophants who see any majority, investigation, or condemnation for their lies and rule- breaking as added examples of their personal grievances.
Forgiveness is a balm, the Truth will set you free.
those without critical thinking skills gravitate toward those that they perceive as wiser, or more powerful than they, for protection. One has to imagine there is someone / some group that pays Ms. Owens a very hefty sum for her race disavowal propaganda skills; the Murdoch's?; some other right wing super Pac? Whomever supports their oppressor doesn't warrant our sympathy. Those that do warrant sympathy / action from us are those seeking asylum from characters such as Assad, the murderous drug cartels in central America, and other global 'hot' spots where ethnic cleansing is prevalent.
Delusion is contagious. It is hard to imagine when and how this hypnotized Trumpian mass is going to wake up and if it will even recall the fervour with which it embraced such a ludicrous character - embodying multiple perfect negatives to all the desirable qualities for a competent delivery of presidential duties. The elite of the deluded being the eminent members of Cabinet: Barr, Pompeo and their smaller acolytes, while scores of crafty others pursue their personal machinations, within and without the White House, and sing so beautifully to the glory of the Great Leader.
2
Why is there this desperate need, in the non-right wing media, to insist that Trump “killed the old Republican party”? He is the explicit product of the old Republican party, of the collusion between money & politics & media, of the celebration of corruption, of the politics of demonization & identification, of the lawless “ends justify the means” strategies. What are the days to which you wish to return, the days when the GOP debated how to defend against Obama and his supposed socialist hatred of America? When they launched an illegal war that put private financial interests above national security?
Do you hope that by pretending that the GOP has a hidden integrity, that you will prod them to aspire to be better? It won’t work: as they make clear repeatedly, they do not believe in integrity. They believe in financial & political power. That is their moral standard.
6
@Martin -- In fact, the "old republican party", that party of Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Ford, Heinz, Dewey, George HW, Dole, Baker, Dirksen, and my father, was killed in the Reagan era. The current party is republican in name only. It was built on the racism of Strom Thurmond, the paranoia of McCarthy and Goldwater, and the deceit of Gingrich, Atwater and Buchanan. It long ago severed any connection to Lincoln so to call it the "party of Lincoln" is the worst possible slander on that great man.
Trumpism is a pathogen unleashed on the populace, which has spread widely. While many individuals appear to be immune, no segment of society as a whole is, and it infects blacks, whites, and many shades of brown, in astonishing numbers. Many have tried, facts, figures, and reason, but it does not succumb to these cures, but grows ever more virulent. This epidemic is now coming to a head. The question is whether it will be tamed, or trap the rest of us.
2
Trump and his supporters thrive in a perverse symbiotic relationship. If the survival of the relationship is threatened, they will fight to the bitter end even if it brings down our republic. We must be ready and fearless.
4
You have entered another dimension, a dimension not only of sound and fury, but of addled mind. A journey into a frightening land of bizarre imagination. Welcome to the Trump Zone!
Donald Trump's impeachment, that will take place at the Capitol in Washington in November, isn't a witch-hunt. His impending impeachment and removal from office is undeniably well-deserved, as was Richard Nixon's impending impeachment and resignation from the presidency in 1974.
Trump's terrifying army is his hordes of Republicans and loyalists who voted him into office in 2016, much to the horror of the people of our democracy who didn't bother to vote 3 years ago. Democracy is still reaping the shame of that moment in American history.
We the people have been reaping the destructive whirlwind Trump has sown among us. Charles Blow, how can we discount the millions of Republicans in Donald Trump's army today? People who believe Trump is "the Chosen One"? Who deify him?
We couldn't have imagined our dystopian reality today. That Republican legislators would storm the Capitol's safe room (SCIF) during a meeting held by Democratic Congressmen planning the impeachment of their president? Real life is so much worse than the nightmares and shame president Trump has sown with his failed domestic and foreign policies.
We wonder why our democracy is so accursed? Wonder what we can do (beyond the shedding of blood and treasure) to heal the divide between the American people? There is no "talking cure" for the terminal illness of our 45th presidency.
1
Trump is, indeed, the perfect demagogue for the Republican party.
3
Not only was Representative Matt Gaetz front and center when the Republicans decided to protest the impeachment hearings. But in case you missed it, he was the guest of honor on the Tucker Carlson show, again complaining that the Republicans have been “shut out” of the process. The lies and the constant spinning of the truth makes you think that there are no Republicans on any of the committees. And of course Tucker Carlson doesn’t bother to set the record straight. We surely live in crazy times.
6
Charles, I think the zombie Republican Party is the silent majority of DC Republicans cowering in their offices debating whether or not it’s time to take a job on K Street. At some level they believe silence and invisibility is their only hope. Occasionally they all emerge to eat and swallow a few disgusting votes before receding back into the darker shadows of elected officialdom. What they fail to see is that at this point they, more than anyone else in DC, embody the banality of evil.
2
Conservative or not, I simply don’t fathom how any African American young person thinks Trump is helping him or her. From white supremacy to health care to climate change Trump is working against them.
8
"Impeachment at that point was looking almost inevitable."
Was? Was, Charles? Was? Why can't you shorten "...was looking inevitable...", to "is"?
Charles, it is time to show us the evidence. If there is a "smoking gun", let's see it. Viewing the evidence won't change the facts. Moreover, it will strengthen the support.
The Mueller report was done behind closed doors. For 2 years, it was, "We have the evidence." And, when it was made public...
Now, we have a case of quid pro quo. A whistle blower told us. We have the transcripts, that when translated, suggest the president wanted to stop corruption, before he gave them the money. Then, another whistle blower.
Now, we have an ambassador. His testimony be would be the finale. Sen. Thune has said, "This is looking bad, for the president." Oh, Rejoice, my heart. Rejoice. Thune heard the story second hand. This is the new normal. Once it is codified into law, we'll be good to go.
Now, show me "some" evidence. Otherwise, before Thanksgiving, after Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Labor Day and Halloween, will be here before you know it. Yet, the evidence won't change.
Mike from “Republic of Texas”....
Texans lied to Mexico: We will be loyal.
Texans lied to the United States: We will be loyal.
And now, Texans who support Trump are once again betraying American democracy.
At 82 and on the Way “Out”, I only wish for some Return to Sanity. The Master of Chaos, “President” Trump, is freely maintaining his chosen place in Life, the Center Of Attention. One of my favorite Voices, David Brooks, said of Trump, at Close of the PBS News two weeks ago, “He is Sociopathic, you know”.
Trump is beyond Treatment: we, the People, are in Need of it!
Sometimes the sanest reaction to an insane situation is Insanity. My Gratitude to Charles Blow for a Breath of Clarity...painful as
it is.
1
I was JUST thinking the word "zombie" is exactly the right term for the 45th president's base.
5
I remember when Sammy Davis Jr. hugged President Nixon at a 1972 campaign event. That didn't last either.
1
While it does seem odd to read about young Black men and women supporting a racist President it's not fair to assume that any ethnic group votes monolithically.
But my heart sinks reading about brainwashed youth of any color because it just means they've drunk the Kool-Aid and aren't thinking rationally or for independently.
For a Black person to give Trump any shade is an insult to the majority of Black people whose lives have suffered because of racism.
Thanks for being courageous enough to write about these young conservative Black men and women, Charles. I'm sure their existence must cause you heart to sink a bit too.
1
Errol Morris, the film documentarian, once shared the following. After god had banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, he hesitated. He hesitated because life outside of paradise was anguish and toil. And then he realized that he could give Adam and Eve a gift to bear life outside of paradise. That gift was the capacity of self-delusion. Looking at the host of Black conservatives it appears that that ancient gift is still giving.
1
Voodoo is a practice akin to the dark arts of the occult.
Trump is desperate. He will do anything, use anything, say anything to be re-elected. Everything he does now is beyond the pale. Hope is that the Universal Principle of “What one sends out Returns” is the energy in play and he will be booed and voodoos off the stage, out of White House, and out of lives as soon as things catch up with him.
1
I wonder how much longer it will be before Trump rebrands the Republican party. He has to be thinking about it, dreaming about it, designing logos for it; the International Trump Party. With his ally, Putin, he will build a colossus.
Man oh man.
Trump reminds of that Tom Waits lyric, “come down off the cross- we can use the wood”.
Who knew Surrealism would leave art and hit politics.
1
Where, Mr. Blow, are the crowds of yesteryear?
Where are the crowds that drove Lyndon Johnson, a man of infinitely sterner stuff than Trump, to abandon the White House?
Where are the likes of Sam Ervin? I'm tired of folks wringing their hands over how to explain why Trump should be convicted. Senator Ervin had no such trouble:
"If the many allegations made to this date are true, then the burglars who broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate were in effect breaking into the home of every citizen of the United States. And if these allegations prove to be true, what they were seeking to steal was not the jewels, money or other precious property of American citizens, but something much more valuable — their most precious heritage: the right to vote in a free election."
2
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
-Winston Churchill
2
If only, Trump voters. If only we could come after you. But you haven't broken any laws; the only thing you've done is use your voting rights to pollute yourselves. That's not a crime, unless you want to call it a crime against God. And that would be God's business, as you may be reflecting on with increasing frequency these days.
1
Looking at the photos of the young African American's who attended the Young Black Leadership Summit I am reminded of the slaves who fought for their master's and the south against the union during the civil war.
How little some have learned from history... Just Sad so Very Sad.
1
That any person of color, LBGT+, woman, or non-racist, supports Trump is mind blowing. Frankly, that any person of even a modicum of decency, at this point, supports Trump is mind blowing.
Agree or disagree with his “agenda” (to be charitable and for lack of a better word), the destruction, chaos, harm, and absolute disrespect for our nation, its people and our constitution, and our friends throughout the world should be enough for his supporters in Congress and at large to say “it’s just not worth it”.
But to these people it apparently is.
What has happened to our country?
I never even imagined anyone like Trump could be our president.
We have a malignant narcissist, maybe a sociopath, as president.
And behind him, in this very article, are African Americans, cheering for him, though he can't stand them. He has been clear about that. He has been clear about his white supremacist views. If he lived during the time of slavery, he would have owned slaves. No question. And this group loves him.
How is this happening?
What has happened to our country?
How come I didn't know that there were tens of millions of my fellow Americans who would vote for, who will still vote for, an awful man with no morals or ethics at all?
He is letting the Kurds die as we speak.
And yet. Look. They cheer for him.
Again, what has happened to our country?
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One of those truly rare images where the man is smiling, a natural, sincerely happy expression as one might see on a normal person.
By contrast, at his Nuremberg Rallies he invariably wears a scowl.
Hey, Candace Owens! Give the man a permanent slot on your podcast, a sort of Robin Quivers to your Howard Stern. He would be far more content and the rest of the world could finally step down from the ledge.
Here t'wixt Gog and Magog we have lots of horsemen but most of our mounties don't ride horses. There is no sign of a Messiah and the talk of armageddon and rapture makes less sense by the day. There may be an Apocalypse but there will only be one horseman. Who needs fire, famine, war and pestilence when we have more than enough stupidity to do a much better job?
When the stories started to break I looked for Volodymyr Zelensky's Wikipedia entry and said Wow. Then I said to myself that Americans will see Ukraine and think Borat. Then I said this is getting far too interesting.
I have no doubt that many Trump supporters are very bright and of sound mind. I do not understand what they may see as redeeming virtues in Mr Trump. I do not know what Trump supporters want and nobody wants to tell me what they want only what they don't want.
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Hahahaaaa, you think far too deeply! Americans are swayed by one thing only: the PROPAGANDA of the moment designed by tricksters.
Talk about Stockholm Syndrome
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My takeaway: Trump's (few) black supporters have fallen into pretty much the same delusion that his white supporters have. This is enlightening ... but not, on reflection, surprising.
It makes me all the hungrier to (better) understand: what are the risk factors that make certain people -- be they black, white, or purple -- susceptible to this form of brainwashing?
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"Only in the strange, upside down days in which we now live could a young black comedian offer the ideal framing of Trump’s message of white supremacist solidarity."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Incredible, really. I don't know how these people get brainwashed into thinking that someone who would like nothing more than to disenfranchise and harm them, someone who considers them not as good as he is, someone who wants to take away health care, and anything he can take away from their less fortunate fellow Americans...loves them. Absolutely, stunningly incomprehensible.
Trump has taken over the Republican Party because he lies bigger lies better, with more lies than all of them put together. The lies are the entire foundation of the warped hypocritical right wing Republican ideology. The base would fall apart if told the truth. So while Trump, the flim flam man, entertains the crowd with disinformation and tall tales, the plutocrat pickpockets do the real damage, looting the country and it's Treasury.
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This country has gone meshuga.
I just don’t get it. Trump has done absolutely nothing for his actual base besides spew racist tropes and crazy conspiracy theories that must entertain them. Realistically, trump has not helped any middle or low income republicans whatsoever. Those folks are not smart. Goes to show why republicans have a disdain for education.
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The reality is frightening that a significant number of Americans would welcome and embrace this democracy evolving into a Fascist State. How did these people not learn history or civics when they were growing up? The irony is if they actually won they would eventually lose since they would ultimately be betrayed by their party and this president. What is even more galling is that he has DONE NOTHING FOR THEM.
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See: Donald Trump isn't prejudiced. He'll exploit anyone's lines, regardless of race, creed or color...
It's disheartening to see minorities applauding Trump, I can not understand their thought process. It is clear by the disparaging comments he makes about race or anyone who disagrees with on film not to hold him in contempt. He is evil personified.
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The "Republican Party" should change its name to the "White Supremacist Autocrat Party."
Because the world "Republican" refers to a CONSTITUTIONAL, representative democracy. Today's "Republicans" obviously do not believe in the constitution any more, since they support a leader who violates and mocks the US Constitution on a daily basis. He and his supporters site the Constitution only when they find it convenient for their anti-democratic agenda. Trump has never even read the Constitution anyway.
More importantly, Trump and his followers see him as a monarch. Nobody has made this more explicitly clear than AG Bill Barr who, before being confirmed as AG by the Senate, had written a paper basically saying that the powers of the president are virtually unlimited and should go unchecked by the Congress, by the Justice Department and by the law. Barr, and now nearly the entire "Republican Party", a party of racist, White Supremacists, now supports a king in the Oval Office. Their lawyers just yesterday were arguing that Trump should be able to shoot someone down in the street and that the police should be prohibited from investigating the incident, from stopping him from shooting others, and from arresting him.
The outrageous DOJ memo saying that a sitting president cannot be indicted should be overturned. Instead this White Supremacists Autocrat Party now wants to extend that memo to preclude even investigations of their king -- a king of corruption!
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Zombies are known for eating the brains of the living, right? Trump is the lead zombie who has eaten away at the brains of the Republicans, making them into his obsequious, lemming-like zombie army.
That doesn’t address the GOP’s lack of conscience or ethical compass, however. I don’t think the zombie/brain eating thing explains that.
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~"Owens continued: “No. It’s not happening. It’s absolutely not happening. Not under our watch. We need to make sure we fight for this man —"~
And so we have a report that a Major League baseball umpire....Rob Drake....says he is buying an AR-15 and calling for a civil insurrection because of the impeachment process.
The call to arms, and that is what it is, was also manifest in the recent threats by Republican "lawmakers" when they muscled their way into the deposition of a witness yesterday. Taking law into their own hands....more than just a temper tantrum.
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Black, white, brown, yellow or green....There are always people who can be duped. But it never ends well. And it won't for Trump.
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Mr. Blow, thanks for Zombie reference. I have been looking for a term to describe my Trumper neighbors--the difference, of course, is they all look human, but when you enter a conversation, you truly have entered Zombie land.
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No self-respecting person of color should be seen within a country mile of tRump or any of sycophants (the GOP). They do not wish any/any of you well. Run! Run! as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Until the GOP is purged and reformed, which is a doubtful outcome, it is not a fit place for any caring human or patriot, but especially one of color.
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I'm not sure of the point of this article. Holding Trump to account is a "threat to white power" and yet the article is about a bunch of (remarkably confused) young black kids who support Trump.
I think if anything this article is just more proof that the phenomenon of Trump and his zombified base has to do with race only incidentally. Try to understand it as a predominantly racial issue and you end up with a "strange, upside down" article such as this.
Trump and his base are absolutely equal opportunity when it comes to "othering," to blaming. They will turn on anyone, for any reason or no reason, if it suits the President, if it is likely to make him feel better about himself (and, by extension, make his base feel better about themselves).
I don't know that there's really a way to measure this en masse, but I imagine that if we could, we'd find that the collective self-esteem of Trump's base is, by double-digit percentage points, lower than that of those who oppose him.
This is one reason that the candidate the Dems choose needs to be adept at speaking to all and inspiring all, to seeing the good in us that we may not be able to see in ourselves. Obama was a master at this, particularly during his first Presidential campaign, and although we don't need someone, necessarily, quite as eloquent as Obama - that's a far too rare skill to hold out for - we do need someone who is grounded in this same place.
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Trump's strategic move from "I" to "we" is an ironic one for a classic narcissist -- a political autocrat aware that he needs as many followers as possible to show up for the fight as the heat builds.
The storming of the confidential interview yesterday was a prime example -- and, to me, a turning point in our country. Trump's encouragement of those white male "leaders" to resort to staging a pseudo-coup in media daylight, waving their cell phones and demanding access was both juvenile and brilliant -- it showed Trump's base that they too can begin or increase the waging of public war against all kinds of matters they find objectionable. Racial, sexual, political, economic, anti-Trumpist, anti-Democrat.
I am now more worried, even scared, than before. Trump's tactics have shifted into another high gear, and his followers have hit another low.
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@SGK Trump is using the royal "we."
We are not amused.
The Trump show is a great reality based fantasy.
Lousy to random governance, but a great story line.
No way would real network executives carry this show for
a four year contract, not even if you had real "live" zombies.
Acting without thought, that's what zombies and Trump supporters do.
I have a difficult time to understand the people who support Trump. Especially, the young group who are pictured above. I can only hope they’ve not yet read or researched the background of this man and his currently corrupt dealings since he’s been elected. However, that being said..Trump’s racism has been very clear since he took office.
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A little research into Charlie Kirk's organization Turning Point USA, suggests that Young Black Leadership Summit attendees, including the unfunny comic, were only there to make a little money, very much like the raucous crowd of otherwise unemployed actors who showed up to cheer Trump coming down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy.
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The primary support group for Trump in the GOP is white conservative evangelicalism. For a wide variety of reasons, evangelicalism was ready for Trump and Trumpism in 2016, and they have melded together as one.
There is no need to ask how such an unethical person could fit their mold of a leader. He promised them to fight for their cause by any means necessary. The dirtier his hands get the more they see his promise fulfilled. He is their great Warrior.
The point is that the relation between Trump and his primary group of followers has become religious. They worship him. That is the connection you are seeing.
To mainstream Christians of course that is more than troubling, it is cause for renewed confession: we are to worship Christ alone and to serve him only. Trumpism and the evangelicalism which follows him is an idol, a lie.
For the body politic of America it means the stark realization: Trump will not lose his core supporters no matter how outrageous his actions, because he is acting outrageously for them.
It is a sobering realization. There is hard work ahead for the future of our democracy.
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Republicans in Congress don't follow Trump because they adore him. They follow him because they believe they need to in order to hold on to their elected positions.
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@Jay Orchard Yes. "George F. Will: On Trump, the Republican Party is docile, supine and invertebrate" saying that the Republican Senators desire to be someone and that is via an elected seat, which subjugates the idea of country before party.
I actually think it's more simplistic than that - they know the numbers are not there for them and the only way they hold on to power is by controlling their seat. That power subsequently allows them to be someone.
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Like everything Trump, this is a mirage. In seconds after Trump is removed from office, a dozen Republicans will start campaigns to be the second coming of Trump.
This is why the human spirit of “never give up” is so maddening! Of course Republican supporters of Trump SHOULD punish Republican Senators for betraying him and removing him from office, but WILL THEY? NOT A CHANCE!
The Senate will be just as hard for Democrats to win if Trump is removed, and may in fact be more difficult to achieve, because ex-Trump supports will be out for revenge, and they won’t direct that revenge AGAINST Republican control of the Senate.
Trump like all politicians is ephemeral. “Out with the old, in with the new” did not become a thing for no reason. It is our nature. You can count on it.
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This was forseen by some wise political pundits years ago. They advised to simply leave your body and soul at the door.
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Show me a "conservative," and I'll show you somebody committed to undermining the first ten words of the First Amendment and the first four words of the Second Amendment, and even rule of law in general as long as it interferes with "conservative" power and control.
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It is a cult. Further, anyone with a tiny concept can argue that republicans are anti-Democracy. From my perspective, I never thought republicans were a Democratic party. They represent authoritarianism and autocracy, not Democracy
As we all know, opportunists come in all stripes. Owens and Williams are clearly of that stripe.
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@Michael And also the very white Lindsay Graham.
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Mr. Blow:
Thanks for yet another great column.
The degree to which Trump’s followers identify with him is frightening.
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Ah, if only the Republican Party could return to its traditional role - as corporate toadies and handmaidens to the richest of the rich. ... Although, come to think of it, they may have never really wavered from their mission of giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country while trying to gut government services to those (the public in general) who need those services the most. Throw in a little faux populism and voilà! The "new" Republican Party.
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The vast majority of African-Americans detest Trump and what he represents.And Charles has been one of the most effective voices in exposing Trump’s profound unfitness for office. This column however seems very unclear. What point is Charles trying to make?
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@Milton Lewis I agree...this column was meandering all over the place, I didn't get it either.
Why is it that white men have "always made the rules". They were proactive in organizing society in a fair and democratic way. They worked diligently to advance science, engineering and government. They have done more for humanity than any other group. Everyone now works off the platform they built. Be careful not to destroy the group that gave the most.
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I was unaware that Trump's love affair extended into the African American community.
I guess, upon thinking, this is not entirely surprising. Despots appeal to the downtrodden.
Who is more downtrodden in the US than African Americans?
Nobody.
That would be something would it not. Trump captures the majority of African American voters by hating on them.
Maybe it really is time to purchase that $1 million dollar Canadian citizenship.
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The framing of Trump in solely racial terms is tiring and myopic, not to mention misses the point. As the black conservatives at Young Black Leadership Summit demonstrate, the spectacle and monstrosity that is Trump's presidency is more perverse and complicated. He is the embodiment of a narcissistic victimhood that is the mother's milk of much of contemporary American identity politics. He is giving his consumers--black, white, gay, straight, male and female--what they want, and he knows how to sell it.
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@sansacro So is Trump a genius at communication and entertainment? Maybe he is, if he is able to do what you say he does. But when will his viewership wake up and smell the coffee? Even the longest-running soap has to end somewhere.
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@sansacro I gave your post a 'recommend' for the 'narcissistic victimhood' line. But I don't see Trump being framed solely in racial terms, and if he was, I don't think doing so misses the point. And "knows how to sell it"-well...I don't think he really knows much of anything. Two things have become manifestly clear to me in this new era we're in. One- that white racism is the strongest factor
underlying the successes of the Republican Party in recent years and Trump in particular. I don't think a lot of those people are opposed to raising the minimum wage, or even against strong environmental laws. Two-that intelligence of any kind is not a requirement for achieving a powerful position. A lot of dough, a huge ego, a supreme self-confidence based on a literally insane over-evaluation of one's own abilities, and a complete lack of scruples will do the trick.
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Very interesting take on the mind control Trump exerts over his most avid followers. I've always been amazed at the chutz pah of Trump to call himself a champion of African Americans--he who began persecuting them under Dad's direction with his discriminatory rental policies to the ugly birtherism movement he founded based on his hatred of Barack Obama.
This concept that when people attack him they're attacking his followers continues the "us versus them" dynamic is used by all successful dictators on their way up (of course, once in power, they forget who got them there).
Trump may lead a zombie party, but remember, he's still in power and increasingly dangerous as only a cornered animal can be.
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@ChristineMcM
And I wonder if any of the enthusiastic young black conservatives understood how very awful it was that the freighted history of lynching was being co-opted by a self-serving old white man.
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@ChristineMcM Conservatives like to evoke Venezuela. Well, as someone who has aided many Venezuelan reugees to our city (Fort Lauderdale) and who has translated their stories for immigration, I must point out that Trump is the reincarnation of Chavez who gave many disenfranchised poor the illusion that Huge was fighting to them. Hugo Chavez was like the little man behind the curtain of Oz and some of his followers still rave for his surrogate, Maduro - while the others flee their country in rags and poverty to seek a new life in Brazil, Colombia, Peru and here in the USA. Hopefully, we will not be like the Venezuelan refugees but if we are not vigilant, we will indeed need to flee the country.
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@ChristineMcM
I'm watching the services for Elijah Cummings now. No wreath from the White House I see. Trump and his toadies do not even have enough class to make a little show of it
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A zombie party indeed. The search for brains continues, so far without apparent success. Unfortunately, the undead will be with us long after Trump leaves the stage. The zombie army needs to be soundly defeated as forcefully as Trump must be.
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@Bob23 … You're right, but let's start by giving trump the boot. He needs to be either in therapy or prison, but certainly not the White House.
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Through neuroscience, we now know that people make decisions based upon their feelings and emotions and then rationalize those decisions. And, our feelings and emotions are impacted by our biases, which also form and shape our assumptions, expectations, values and beliefs.
Meanwhile, according to social science researcher Brene Brown, "When we let emotion choose us, we are more times than not moved away from our values, moved away from our authenticity, and we move into choices that we're not proud of." In other words, better decisions occur when we don’t let our emotions get the best of us.
This is where emotional intelligence, the foundation of which is emotional self-awareness, comes into play. Empathy toward others, which is really about understanding others is incompatible with shame and judgment, as Dr. Brown also explains. Higher levels of emotional self-awareness has been shown to help make us more understanding and less judgmental of others. It is the opposite of self-righteousness and the way in which we calibrate our moral compass.
Interestingly enough, it’s been found that perceptions regarding morality and fairness are influenced by emotion to a far greater degree than are other decisions.
I suspect that black voters who believe that Trump is helping the black community are rationalizing emotionally based decisions that are centered around their perception of morality and fairness with regard to human sexuality, including women's rights.
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This is an important article that should be read by everyone. It articulates this disturbing social conundrum that we find ourselves immersed in. We should weigh in and take to heart the concept of how every criticism directed at Trump is perceived by Trumpers as directed at them. This would explain their stubborn and irretrievable attitude. The Democrats need to find a strategy that might somehow message Trumpers that our criticism of Trump is not directed at them, that Trump is the problem, not them. Republican senators only care about their constituents and only their constituents can convince them.
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@Garry W Absolutely agree, but how to do this without seeming to be condescending and patronizing? For many this is now far beyond any political position or set of issues.
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@Concerned One of the biggest challenges regarding Trump supporters generally is that he ‘needs’ and uses them as an extension of himself (psychologically); and they use him as a way to participate in his ‘greatness.’ That’s how pathological narcissism works. He needs them and they need him. Desperately, at this point.
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@Garry W wrote: "that Trump is the problem, not them."
But Gary, do you really believe that it is just one man spreading this hatred? Candace Owens and Terrence K. Williams were despicable before Trump. He just energised them.
Don't be naive or suffer the consequences.
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This is a nice summary of the attitude of many Trump supporters, but I think he has been playing at being the embodiment of his followers for a long time. I remember at the beginning of the Mueller investigation he was claiming in speeches that threats to his power were threats to the power of his supporters as well. As if their personal status in life depended on his.
I don't know that this is a new phenomenon, but it is discouraging to see it announced so explicitly.
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Perhaps. Or more to the point, this is classic populism--the charismatic leader "embodies" the "people." His followers have always believed this; it shows how desperate Trump is that he needs to wheel out this trope and remind them constantly that he is they and vice versa--because that is all he has to defend himself in this scandal.
When a sufficient number of Trump's current followers abandon him as they realize the extent of his abuse of power, the Senate will remove him from office. The slow careful roll out of the charges in the House by Adam Schiff is key to making this happen. We hope.
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@Tom Williford I'm still wondering why a man who embodies personal filth and corruption and who has a lifetime of connections to mobsters is so appealing to so many. It's particularly sad that these young people would support a man who is such an obvious racist.
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Every day we hear real Americans call for the Republican Party in general and Senate Republicans, specifically, to "stop" the president. Removal and incarceration are desirable, but, a simple cease and desist would suffice.
Why does no one ask the Democrats in general and Schiff and Pelosi, specifically, show us the evidence. The facts of the case won't change, the evidence won't derail the impeachment inquiry and the American voters could gauge the status of the investigation.
If there is sufficient cause for impeachment, Democrats will want to move forward. I ask this because, the Mueller investigation went on for 2 years and it was exponentially a dud. James Comey recitation of Hillary's read like charges at Nuremberg. But, no reasonable prosecutor would...
Are primary voters supposed to go the polls, with a "warm and fuzzy", knowing Trump is going down and Bernie or Liz or Mayor Mike or the former SoS will lead us out of the wilderness?
More than likely, 13 months from now, Democrats will wake up to an impeachment induced hangover, only to see 4 more years of MAGA rallies staring back at them.
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@Mike
To paraphrase a family verse:
Patience is a virtue: possess it if you can!
Seldom found in women, never found in a white man.
The inquiry will lead to a presentation of evidence in the public, and my guess is that will happen before Thanksgiving. It will then be up to the Senate trial--they can give Trump opportunity to defend himself. That will be his reality show!
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@Mike - Unless Trump is behind bars, there will be 4 more years of MAGA rallies regardless of the outcome of the next election.
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@Rob If we can't vote him out of office, we'll impeach him out of office?
People that disagree with the 2016 election, are not setting a very good example of fair play and good sportsmanship. They are not deserving of our attention.
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Charles, why were all those young black leaders and a comedian cheering Trump on? I would like to understand that. You rightfully report that Trump appropriated the message from the comedian. But not one word questioning the ethics and judgement of those supporters who enabled him. If they were there to respect the office, I could understand. It seems they were there to cheer on Trump. Doesn’t their judgement deserve a line or two as well?
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@Daniel
I have the same queston for Mr. Blow as well. Overweight, middle age white guy, like myself, sure I get the unquestioning zombification. An African American, whose grown up in Americia, with its vailed promise of equality and institutionalized racism by whites toward African Americians, totally mistifies me. I guess its like "Stockholm Syndrom". Maybe Mr. Blow could research this and opine for us un-woke Trumpinista looking never Trumpers. Do you suppose they could have the same Trumpinsta diet of lead paint chips and plastic jug vodka as the esteemed Rick Wilson conveyed in "Everything Trump touches dies".
3
People are missing the point. This is not about Donald Trump. Assuming that the charges being investigated are basically true, Mr. Trump used his influence over relationships with foreign countries to influence their conduct. It has been widely noted that this is basically standard operating procedure for American government, except that there is always a level of dishonesty, like the tape self-destructing at the beginning of the old "Mission Impossible" TV shows. We pretend, but we all know that this what is going on.
The "Deep State" folks think that this is a cardinal sin, that Trump has 'Crossed the line' legally, but fail to realize that not only do his supporters not really care about his lack of 'Propriety' they applaud it because the people espousing it are the same people who have presided over and benefitted from the deliberate destruction of American communities, through outsourcing of industry, promotion of dangerous drugs at inflated prices, etc., for generations.
Liberals ignore their critics by refusing to listen to those suffering displacement by the actions of the 1% because they are not always polite and do not always support the Liberal's claim that only those supporting "Diversity" can be heard.
This deliberate self-blinding by leaders of the Left threatens to allow agents of the 1% to 'Divide and conquer' their potentially united opposition.
Advocates of impeachment should be duly cautious.
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@David Gaby I was never on the IMTFA wagon, but there comes a time when an act is so obviously wrong, so outrageous, so against the Constitution, that NOT to impeach would be a dereliction of duty. If impeaching is a bad move politically and Trump is returned to the WH, then this country I served is no longer my home.
Stated more succinctly, if Trump somehow has become the Center, then and only then am I radical left.
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@David Gaby, except "Mr. Trump used money, designated by our Congress for defense in Ukraine, to influence a foreign government to do opposition research on a political rival." For you to equate this with mere political diplomacy shows, not only blindness, but a willful blindness that Oedipus would envy.
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@David Gaby I think you are missing the point here. This is very much about Donald Trump. Assuming that the charges being investigated are basically true, Mr. Trump used his influence over relationships with foreign countries to influence their conduct to benefit HIM. Nothing in his foreign policy is about the U.S. It's all about him and most interestingly Putin. The U.S. doesn't gain from Ukraine publicly announcing an investigation into a debunked conspiracy theory. Trump gains and Putin gets a chance to have sanctions lifted. The U.S. doesn't benefit from betraying the Kurds. It benefits Putin (oh and Trump's hotel in Turkey is safe.). Trump is for Trump. Period. He is a laughing stock globally because he isn't even capable of masking his ignorance and venality.
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A well framed argument that all who agree with the premise will praise. The problem is that throughout the history of populist democracy, demagogues appealing to tribal and class resentments consistently attract votes and often deeper and more passionate loyalty than those appealing to our logic.
People think from the gut and then assign their brains to justify their conclusions. Trump's success represents the inherent dangers of populist democracy and even the short- sightedness or our species as a whole.
We are incapable of creating a government that adequately protects us against the flaws of our species, but somehow we have to work with what we have if we are to survive and keep our culture on a positive evolutionary path.
Species that rely on the slow response of their DNA to the changes of our planet come and go- but we have culture, a unique gift that may lead us to a better future. Or not.
We seem to have reached a critical moment and Trump is both a symbol of our peril and a genuine obstacle. Nov. 2020 will provide a clear measurement of our progress.
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@alan haigh- Well said. It is getting harder and harder to
understand this upside down world we are living in. Is this a new kind of populism. a trend, a return to the isolationism of an earlier, dangerous era, or just an abomination, a depravity chink in our democratic history.? We have put an illiterate, foul-mouthed man in our seat of power and he is wielding it like a despotic mad man. The daily lies; the distortions that spew from him do nothing but invite continued enabling from his cult of supporters. Where are we going with this? Who are we ? what happened to America?
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@pkay I'm afraid we are what we've always been as individuals besides advancements in our general culture, which is always tenuous with a return to the dark ages possible.
If you want evidence, consider the Jim Crow era lasting through the majority of the 20th century even if the lynchings subsided before segregation was ended at last.
In the 19th century we have the genocide of our indigenous people encouraged by a different version of Trump in Andrew Jackson. See history of the Cherokee nation if you feel like weeping for our struggling species.
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@alan haigh Yes, those are surely our low points, but we've never had a despot sitting in the White House, we've never had anything quite to compare
with his foulness of mind and inhumanity. At least we've had Republicans in the Nixon time who rose to the moment and behaved like patriots not like the enablers of today. This does have roots in the isolationist period of the late '30's and '40's; the hatred of immigrants has peaked and eased at certain times too. Racism is , of course , our American sin and is rampant throughout our history. The birther movement started too with Isolationism. And we have had our great moments,
- when we gave to the world our thirst for freedom - both WW1 and WW11 - we fought the good fight and we've had great statesmen in our history who steered us to be a generous nation. We've lost it now with Trump and his minions. This populism is
just nationalism with a new twist.
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The impeachment trial that will be held in the Senate won't be a trial of Trump. It will be a trial of the Republican party. The Republican senators will certainly show their guilt. The American voters will be the jury and the judge. Let's hope they will fulfill their job.
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@Christiaan Hofman
Christiaan, while your analysis is appropriate to our current times and political structure, the nature of Trump’s behavior and how to correct it is quite a different and older analog.
The Republican Party and Senators are not relevant — nor is the current and dead Democratic Party.
The problem is not in our stars nor ourselves, but in the faux Sun King.
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And the republican senators who have already stated they won’t impeach no matter what the evidence should not be allowed a vote.
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@Christiaan Hofman ... perhaps you've forgotten that we have the Electoral College to undermine the American Voters, as happened in 2016.
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This is an evident effect of charismatic populism. Made worse even more by the disinformation campaign that somehow poisons the minds of the people.
With regards to the Philippine setting, it has also the same context. The ruling President uses the same tactic as Trump. We have the same “blind followers” or fanatics. But somehow, despite our condemnation to them, they are still humans like us and have the capacity to reform at some point. We must, in my opinion, try with our best effort to debunk false allegations that threatens our democracy and educate them the best way possible like having simple discussions and conversations in order to know their stories.
Lastly, we must also recognize that those “fanatics” that we call are also victims like us.
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I want to note how frustrating it is and yes, unpleasant, to do empathic psychotherapy with a depressed client, then to find that her mind is deluded to see goodness in Donald Trump. Depression has been described as "loss of the real self in childhood," as repression of the child's organic feelings and therefore, meaning. Therapy wants to go to this critical loss and grieve it. But if the person has escaped, through adolescence and adulthood, into self-soothing emotionalized attitudes that project and justify her pain -- love for a heartless Narcissist -- then she is probably lost to grief work. She will have found her drug and will not want to come down.
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@Fred I think your last sentence explains a lot: "She will have found her drug and will not want to come down." I had not thought of unconditional Trump adoration as addiction to a drug, but I think you have finally helped me understand why people will defend him at all costs. Trump adoration stimulates the pleasure centers in their brains, for many different reasons, and his followers do not want to suffer withdrawal. True Trumpism may be as addicting -- even chemically -- as smoking, drinking, drugs, or any other irresistible activity.
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Just after the election, a suddenly (briefly), elated client wanted to talk about her love for Trump and how he was a great man " just like my daddy." She became quieter, more reflective, and eventually added, "you didn't want to be on his bad side; we were so scared of him."
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Trump is the ultimate toxic substance.
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Trump's supporters don't love him in spite of his attacks on the Constitution, democracy, and the rule of law. The love him BECAUSE of those attacks.
If the cost of winning elections in a culturally and demographically changing democracy is to stop hating the Other, the Party of Trump has decided to reject democracy in order to keep on demonizing people who don't look like them, pray like them, or live like them.
Not "zombies". Tribal authoritarians, motivated and dangerous.
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@LT Absolutely spot on.
We should have realized the dangers the post-Nixon GOP posed years ago.
History was there to instruct. Evolutionary biology offered great insights. The evidence that past nightmares were being cloned was replete.
We ignored the truth and made up our own. Sad!
Where did our commitment to liberal democracy go?
When did we become so transactional, apathetic, self-serving, narrow-minded, lazy, unsympathetic, unempathetic, and/or pathologically cynical.
When did we get hooked on the fantasy that we are victims of our fellow travelers as opposed to the powers that actually dictate our paths; paths too often unnecessarily made harsh and taxing.
The questions' validity more important than answers.
Salient: existentially right thing not done though the post-Nixon years at ballot-box. We're in a nightmare now.
I fear for my grandchildren and perhaps their children. The monster we allowed to rise will not go away peacefully or soon.
Restorations take lots of time, resources, hard work, and sacrifice of some sort. Sometimes they're dangerous especially when aggressive regressive reactionary forces oppose it.
Unfortunately most patriots my age must paradoxically wish youth take up the good fight and cry and grieve that they have to.
We are in a sort of a political/psychological WWII. The same type of enemy must be defeated.
Youth must prove themselves "the 21st's greatest generation". We elders must emphatically start the process in 2020.
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@LT - Exactly.
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum, former Dubya speechwriter
And Charles correctly tells us "White men have always made the rules, and the most powerful and most wealthy have lived above them"; after this week, it seems the also obvious must be stated:
"White male Billionaire$ in the U.S. have never been lynched, and aren't in danger of such, now."
As Americans sit slack-jawed at each new day's (many) cycles of news, we must remember the only way 'Individual-1' ever got to office is that he was allowed on the GOP ballot by party leaders who were proudly ignoring the SCOTUS vacancy created by Scalia's death, unless/until they got a GOP'er in the White House.
These GOP'ers pretended a 2-term Dem POTUS had no SCOTUS appointment powers past the 85th month of his terms, if GOP'ers held the Senate.
Once GOP'ers in fact got the White House, they've now given away multiple lifetime judge-ships to people who have never even argued in a court-room on behalf of a client.
Charles is correct the GOP has been kidnapped, but it's not a 'conservative' party of principles any more - it's just a tribe that wants what it wants.
Clear & Present Danger 45* tries to disguise his radicalism/anarchy behind the label of the kidnapped GOP, but he kidnapped a party whose leaders were looking for just such an avatar.
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@R. Law... Except white men don't always make the rules. Africa, for example, has been ruled by Africans, colonial excursions aside, for most of world history. That's a lot fo historical time. It was Africans who sold 10 million Africans to the world; only a fraction of that number went to "America." Rules? Who made those rules? African rulers. And now? According to Wikipedia, there are 9.2 million slaves in Africa today. I'm not aware that they are held by white men. I doubt that would even be possible. As for the cheering crowd of young black conservatives cheering for Trump at the White House in early October, who made the rule that said they had to, have to? Please rewrite what you've stated here as, "Those with the power and the money always make the rules. The rest of us just try to live with whatever rules come our way." Thank you.
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Right and Wrong has become a team sport.
Throw away your bibles, your philosophy books, your years of meditation and soul searching. Sign on the dotted line. you're now Manchurian Candidates, Trump style.
No cards needed. A tweet will do!
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David Brooks put it well just after the 2016 election: this is the Republicans' McCarthy moment. In the future, all Republicans will be judged solely by where they stood on Trump.
But that reckoning is only the smallest part of the post-Trump America for which we must prepare. Even if Trump leaves tomorrow, and not in 2021 or 2025, he will leave behind a mess of historic proportions. It will take generations to undo the damage. Thinkers about American life need to start working, now, on the enormous policy -- and apology -- platform that must accompany a post-Trump America.
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@R.S. It's going to be very interesting as to how the Republican narrative evolves post trump. Will it be the wounded warrior or the conservative phoenix or will it be as Charles calls it the Zombie party that just drags it's dead ideas around disavowing any knowledge of it's participation with trump.
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Correction: it was just *before* the 2016 election that Brooks made the statement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/29/opinion/if-not-trump-what.html
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@R.S.
And as much as David Brooks says unkind things about Trump, he will not say vote Democrat and there you have it. In the end, the GOP votes Trump maybe not because they like him, but because they hate the alternative.
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It would be so easy for Democrats to win the White House and both houses of congress, all they have to do is move just a bit more to the center, to attract maybe 5% more votes, and they'd win it all; somehow, they can't bring themselves to do it! Their only centrist candidate is Joe Biden, a superannuated timeserver, all the others are to his left. Is 2020 about leftist ideological purity for them, or winning? If they don't want to win then Mr. Trump deserves to win.
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Actually, there are motives behind the unquestioning devotion of Trump's supporters. Why do gays become Republicans? I say that there is a need to belong, to be viewed through that identity, to show that they are not the stereotype that they have been framed with. They want people to see that they are part of the All-American experience. Why do black people become Republicans who adore trump? Perhaps there is an analogous need to belong to a more conservative image, and that image sets them apart from other African-Americans who represent parts of the community that they don't want to be identified with; for example, black trans women or Judicial Reform.
The men emulate the Brooks Brothers image of Repubicans -- after all, it separates them from blue jeans and hoodies and dashikis. They are making a statement, but it's unfortunate, because this posture is so contemptuous of African-Americans who follow a different path of expression.
Regarding party moderates, I agree, my gut says that we can't go too far to the left. But Biden is certainly not the only centrist candidate. We also have Buttigieg, Harris, Booker, Klobuchar. We hold our breaths and hope that Biden does not decline further in clarity and presence. But so far, in the age we live in, I give him more of a pass than many folks do,
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This is a completely different set of circumstances. Democrats need to think much more broadly. As long as they write off a substantial part of the electorate as not worthy of their attention they will lose. But they would rather feel good about themselves and their high-mindedness than serve the public. ALL the public.
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@sheila , we centrists are not mythical. We are the majority.
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There can be no space between republicans who adore Trump and themselves. This is the case for all of those who adore someone else; anything less, any space and they lose their energy, they lose passion. I would challenge this group to explain how Trump and this administration is lifting the lives of any Americans below the upper crest, never mind minorities in particular. These young Americans join millions who have come to adore Trump. I will never understand, no matter how many articles I read about his adoring supporters.
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@Michael Piscopiello
It is truly bizarre. But I think that the public educational system that Republicans have starved in order to provide tax cuts for the wealthy accounts for some of the blindness of his supporters
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Good point. A person can be passionately devoted to a talentless band, director, comedian, etc. That adoration doesn't imbue credibility; it has simply found a focus.
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@Distraught How so? Education funding increases every year regardless of effectiveness and outcomes.