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Monthly Archives: December 2023

U.S. aid to Central America: What it does, why Trump cut it and why that may not end the migration crisis


Alan Gomez

{Polls Show Increasing Discontent with Biden’s Immigration Policies and Border Situation A series of recent polls sheds light on American sentiments regarding illegal immigration and their dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s handling of the border crisis. These polls indicate a growing concern among Americans and a preference for stronger measures against illegal border crossers. See cause of exacerbated immigration issue below}:

USA TODAY 2019

President Donald Trump’s decision to cut $450 million in foreign aid to three Central American countries – collectively known as the Northern Triangle – will end dozens of projects designed to bolster security, the economy, education and judicial systems.

The goal of the programs is to improve conditions in the countries so citizens don’t flee to the U.S. While Trump wants to cut the assistance, former officials say the programs are seeing results. For example:

In Honduras, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officials have been working in local communities to reduce violence, contributing to a drop in the homicide rate every year between 2011 and 2018.

In El Salvador, where a struggling economy has pushed people to make the trek north, USAID helped small- and medium-sized businesses create more than 22,000 jobs between 2011 and 2016.

And in Guatemala, where the judicial system has been wrought with corruption and inefficiency, U.S. money has helped the government hire more judges and provided security for justice officials to protect them from cartels they are trying to prosecute. 

Trump said the aid cuts, and his threat to close the southern border entirely, will punish governments of those countries for failing to prevent people from fleeing.

Where does the money go?

James Nealon, a former U.S. ambassador to Honduras, said Trump’s explanation of foreign aid sounds as though “somebody tried to explain to him where the money goes and he just didn’t get it.”

Some U.S. money does go directly to government agencies, including grants to support police, border security agents and judicial employees in those countries. But Nealon, who resigned from the administration last year over policy disagreements, said most of the money goes to U.S. contractors, non-profit organizations, and other private groups under close supervision from USAID and the State Department.

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Some supporters of Trump’s immigration policies are also questioning the decision to cut off foreign aid to Central America.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said he doesn’t understand why the president would punish the governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala when they cannot legally stop citizens from leaving.

Krikorian said he is skeptical that foreign aid cuts will change anything, and urged Trump to focus instead on pushing Congress to overhaul immigration laws to limit the ability of asylum-seekers to enter the United States.

“By focusing attention on Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador, we’re distracting attention from the real culprits: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” Krikorian said, referring to the Democratic House speaker and Senate minority leader.

Violence, poverty, hunger

El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala have struggled for years with violence, poverty and insecurity.

El Salvador was recently dubbed the murder capital of the world. In Honduras, citizens are still protesting the contested 2017 election. Guatemala’s president has taken heat for trying to end a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission that has successfully prosecuted corrupt officials.

All the while, the three countries are struggling with a historic drought that has put more than two million people at risk of food insecurity, according to the United Nations.

But a study published by Vanderbilt University said U.S. aid has helped improve conditions little by little.

The aid has paid for computer labs and job training for at-risk youths, grants for women entrepreneurs and programs to bring underground businesses into the legal economy. It has also funded community policing programs, the purchase of law enforcement equipment and training for police, judges and prosecutors.

Mexico border closing: Trump and US face logistical nightmare if he follows through with threats

Researchers at Vanderbilt’s Latin American Public Opinion Project surveyed 29,000 people living in five Central American countries, and found that those living in neighborhoods with U.S.-funded projects saw less violence. In those communities, 51% reported fewer murders and extortion attempts, 35% said they no longer avoided walking through dangerous areas and 25% said they saw a drop in drug sales. 

“It’s an extraordinarily rigorous study, and it’s very persuasive,” said Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, who was not part of the report but has studied the reasons young people flee Central America for the United States. 

Rising migration

Trump sees things differently.

The combination of violence, poverty and food insecurity in Central America has driven record numbers of families to head north to seek U.S. asylum.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said rising migration showed that U.S. aid was not working.

Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 36,000 members of family units in February – a record – and border communities are being overwhelmed trying to care for them. That figure has steadily increased in recent months, with Border Patrol officials predicting a further rise for March.

“The president has determined that these programs have not effectively prevented illegal immigration from coming to the United States, and they’ve not achieved the desired results,” Palladino said. “It’s not succeeded in stemming this flow.”

Still, Clemens said cutting off funding was misguided. He said the evidence, including the Vanderbilt study, shows that U.S. aid has led to gradual progress in living conditions in Central America.

“There is literally zero evidence that bludgeoning the (Central American) governments and long-time partners of those governments is somehow going to produce security in the region,” he said.

Crybaby conqueror’: Columnist nails Trump’s appeal to MAGA fanatics


Opinion by Travis Gettys • 21h

Donald Trump has recently revived long-standing comparisons to Adolf Hitler, but a columnist hit him Friday for being more like a “crybaby conqueror” — though his fanatical supporters seem happy to embrace either.

Trumpists tend to call themselves conservative, which has traditionally signaled a belief in limited government and low taxes, but Chicago Sun-Times columnist Gene Lyons noted with horror that MAGA followers had essentially become fundamentalist fanatics.

“This explains what some see as the central paradox of the MAGA movement: that a congenital braggart who embodies what Christianity has traditionally called the seven deadly sins — greed, lust, envy, sloth, gluttony, pride and wrath — has come to seem the totem of faith for millions of Republican evangelicals,” Lyons wrote.

Lyons turned to noted anti-fascist George Orwell, whom he said “captured the essence of the whiny strongman” in his 1940 review of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” — a manifesto Trump insists he has never read.

“Orwell understood fascism’s appeal to an aggrieved population,” Lyons wrote. “While European and North American democracies, he wrote, told people in effect that, ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them, ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.

“Orwell also understood the personal psychology of the crybaby conqueror: ‘The initial, personal cause of [Hitler’s] grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon,'” Lyons added.

Lyons said he’s inclined to believe Trump never read “Mein Kampf,” but instead had affected an over-the-top persona based on low-brow entertainers from his own youth.

“Trump never learned anything from a book,” Lyons wrote. “He stole his whole act from 1950s professional wrestlers at Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, specifically from Dr. Jerry Graham, who swaggered around boasting that ‘I have the body men fear and women adore.'”

“The hairstyle, too — a bleached blond pompadour that taught a generation of wrestling fans how a ‘heel’ behaved — that is, basically like a cartoon Nazi,” he added. “Graham was a masterful showman who aroused thousands to frenzy with balsa wood chairs and fake blood capsules. He was as fat as Trump, too, although there was muscle under the lard.”

Recommended Links:

・Trump ‘tripling down on fascist rhetoric’ while denying he’s a Hitler fan: Morning Joe

・‘This is fascism!’ Morning Joe checks off all the ways Trump meets chilling definition

・Trump is following ‘the fascist playbook to the letter’: historian

Trump claims divine authority and threatens dictatorship in escalating rhetoric.


Donald Trump’s recent public proclamations, in which he presents himself as a godly figure and explicitly threatens to behave like a dictator if re-elected, have raised concerns among experts and observers.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=k5xoRDxKcpI%3Fautoplay%3D0%26mute%3D1%26enablejsapi%3D1

Trump’s behavior is indicative of what experts call a “God complex”, a deep-seated belief in one’s own infallibility and superiority. This is a classic element of a cult and a key ingredient of why and how Trumpism works among his followers. In this context, the profane and the sacred are conflated in the same way as the Nazis did.

This isn’t the initial instance of Donald Trump asserting divine authority. Over the past seven years, Trump has consistently professed to possess clandestine and omnipotent wisdom, urging his supporters to have faith in him over facts, reality, or anyone else. He purports to hold knowledge beyond anyone else’s grasp, makes daring future forecasts akin to a mystic or psychic, and overall maintains a belief in his omnipotence, considering himself beyond the law and any form of accountability.

During a speech in Iowa last weekend, Trump told his MAGA cultists that, “But I think if you had a real election and Jesus came down and God came down and said, ‘I’m going to be the scorekeeper here,’ I think we’d win there [in California], I think we’d win in Illinois, and I think we’d win in New York.”

Trump’s “narcissistic injury” following his loss in the 2020 election to President Joe Biden has escalated into a more severe threat to American democracy, as per psychology experts. His recent remarks about targeting judges, pardoning the traitorous individuals from Jan. 6, and removing his ‘enemies’ are not novel concepts, but rather indicate that his veneer of decency and normality is eroding under the pressure of being answerable for his actions for the first time in his life.

“Mr. Trump is an obvious and severe sociopath, an antisocial person lacking the capacity for honesty, empathy or respect for the rule of law,” said an anonymous psychology expert, who added that Trump’s mental illness made him dangerous, especially as his legal problems grow worse.

As Trump faces mounting pressure from his criminal and civil trials, he is now publicly declaring himself as the Chosen One, chosen by “god” and “Jesus Christ” to be the next President of the United States. This marks a notable departure from his previous rhetoric and raises concerns about his mental state and the potential influence on his followers and the wider political landscape.

The implications of Trump’s behavior are far-reaching. His claims to be god-like are terrifying on their own but made much worse by the rapidly deteriorating democracy crisis. His endless self-centered drive for power at any cost makes him an extreme risk of discarding democracy in favor of his personal rule.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Trump’s followers appear to be buying into his narrative. For them, Trump does not come from the normal political system, he comes from the world they come from, he’s been hugely successful, he’s enormously flawed, but who gives a damn, he’s chosen to turn the political system upside down and make it work for them.

As the country grapples with these developments, it is clear that the situation is fluid and evolving. The full impact of Trump’s rhetoric and behavior remains to be seen.

How The Court Was Bought


Heather Cox Richardson

12/18/2023

Reporters at ProPublica have uncovered yet more news about the right-wing network of wealthy donors who have supported Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. According to Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, and Brett Murphy, in January 2000, on a plane flight home from a conservative conference, Thomas complained to Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) about his salary. He warned that if lawmakers didn’t give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, “one or more justices will leave soon.”

After the trip, Stearns wrote to Thomas that he agreed “it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted.” Stearns immediately set out to pass legislation separating the salaries of Supreme Court justices from the rest of the judiciary, and then raising pay for the Supreme Court justices alone. But the top administrative official of the judiciary, L. Ralph Mecham, in June 2000 wrote to then–chief justice William Rehnquist to suggest that this was the wrong approach for this “delicate matter.”

“From a tactical point of view,” Mecham wrote, “it will not take the Democrats and liberals in Congress very long to figure out that the prime beneficiaries who might otherwise leave the court presumably are Justices Thomas and Scalia. The Democrats might be perfectly happy to have them leave and would see little incentive to act on separate legislation devoted solely to Supreme Court justices if the apparent purpose is to keep Justices Scalia and Thomas on the Court. Moreover, the fact that Representative Stearns is a conservative Republican may not help dissuade the Democrats and liberals from this view.”

Mecham distinguished between Republicans he thought of as “liberals,” and those, presumably like himself, Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia, who were pushing “to have the constitution properly interpreted.” By this, he meant those who wanted the concept of “originalism” to undermine the federal government’s regulation of business, provision of a basic social safety net, promotion of infrastructure, and protection of civil rights, principles on which “liberal” Republicans and Democrats agreed.

Although the extremist faction has now captured the Republican Party, as late as 2000 there were enough “liberals” in the Republican Party that members of the extremist faction worried they could not enact their chosen program. So they must have the Supreme Court. Stearns told the ProPublica reporters that Thomas’s “importance as a conservative [as they called themselves] was paramount…. We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and was being paid properly.” 

About this time, wealthy Republican donors began to provide Thomas and his wife Ginni with expensive vacations and gifts. Ginni went to work for the Heritage Foundation, making a salary in the low six figures. Yale law school professor George Priest, who has joined Thomas and billionaire donor Harlan Crow on vacation, says that Crow “views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary. So he provides benefits for him.”

That is, a Republican billionaire donor “provides benefits” for a Supreme Court justice who voted in favor of—among other things—the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that reversed campaign finance restrictions in place for over 100 years, permitting corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections, and the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act protecting minority voting rights in the United States. 

The determination of wealthy Republicans to control our political system for their own economic benefit is now matched on the other side of the political equation by religious voters hellbent on overthrowing democracy to impose their religious will on the American majority.  

After voters in Republican-dominated states have tried to protect the right to abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion, antiabortion forces are trying to stop voters from having the right to decide the matter. They are trying to prevent voters from signing petitions to put such measures on ballots. 

Steven Aden, the chief legal officer of the antiabortion group Americans United for Life, told Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly of Politico: “Because we believe that abortion is truly about the right to life of human individuals in the womb, we don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

Breaking faith in democracy has led us to a place where the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is openly praising dictators, trying to join the United States into a rising global authoritarian movement based in the idea that democracy, with its focus on equal rights, is destroying traditional society by getting rid of patriarchy, racial hierarchies, and heteronormative society.  A Fox News poll released over the weekend showed that 3 in 10 Republicans agreed that “things in the U.S. are so far off track that we need a president willing to break some rules and laws to set things right.”

Today, Pope Francis undermined that argument when he said in a landmark ruling that Roman Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples. While this is not the same as the sacrament of heterosexual marriage, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said this is a sign that God welcomes everyone. 

Pope Francis has tended to ignore the rise of right-wing extremism in the U.S. church but now appears to be defending his message that the church should be tolerant and welcoming in the face of the growing intersection of religion and authoritarianism. Last month, he relieved from duty Bishop Joseph H. Strickland of Tyler, Texas, who has vocally supported right-wing politics and openly revolted against the Pope’s positions. 

There is a strong economic reason to reinforce the idea of democracy, as well. After forty years in which a minority worked to push tax cuts and deregulation with the argument that they would promote investment in the economy, the Biden administration quite deliberately has used the government not to prop up the “supply side,” but rather to bolster the “demand side.” Despite the history that showed such a system worked, economists and pundits warned that Biden’s policies would dump the U.S. into a terrible recession. 

The 2023 numbers are in, and they show exactly what the U.S. Treasury under Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted: inflation has dropped significantly, unemployment is at a low 3.7%, the economy grew at an astonishing 4.9% in the last quarter, and the stock and financial markets are at or near all-time highs. 

The economic news is tangible proof that a government that serves the majority, rather than a wealthy few, works.

—

Notes:

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24190168-stearns-note-to-thomas-2000

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24214202-2000-memo-to-rehnquist

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/voting-rights-america-six-years-after-shelby-v-holder

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/pope-francis-critics-catholic-church-strickland-burke.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/18/3-10-trump-voters-want-president-willing-break-rules-laws/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/26/gdp-third-quarter-economy-growth/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/18/recession-economy-inflation/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/18/first-rule-of-the-anti-abortion-playbook-dont-let-the-public-vote-on-abortion-00132049

Think Biden’s doing badly? Check out the polling for these other Western leaders


David Lauter

Sun, December 17, 2023 at 4:33 PM CST·6 min read    

President Biden’s standing in polls is bad — generating panic among many Democrats and a raft of theories about what’s wrong.

He’s too conservative, say progressives; too liberal, according to centrists.

And, of course, nearly everyone mentions his age.

But what if all of that misses the real story? What if the main problem Biden faces isn’t Biden at all?

Biden is 81. No question that’s a problem politically. But if age were the sole driver of poll standing, what would explain the position of 51-year-old Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau? His current approval rating — 31%, according to Canada’s Angus Reid Institute — makes Biden’s 38% in the FiveThirtyEight.com average of polls look almost balmy.

One could argue that Trudeau is a special case: He recently began his ninth year in office and may have worn out his welcome.

But if so, what is there to say about British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak? He’s been in office barely a year, and just 21% of Britons are satisfied with the job he’s doing, according to the latest Ipsos poll. The opposition Labor Party leads Sunak’s Conservatives 41%-24% in a hypothetical look at the next British election, which Sunak must call by January 2025.

Maybe Sunak’s problem is that his party has run out of steam after 13 years in power under five prime ministers. But that wouldn’t explain the travails of Germany’s Olaf Scholz. The governing coalition of his Social Democratic party, the Green party and the Free Democrats took power just two years ago. Only 17% of Germans approve of how they are doing, according to a new poll by Germany’s public broadcasting network.

Scholz, of course, suffers from the fallout of the war in Ukraine, which has strained his coalition and driven up prices in Germany. But that doesn’t explain the poor position of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose approval rating dropped this week to a new low of 17%.

I could go on, but by now, the point should be clear: Around the world, leaders of wealthy, developed nations are struggling with poor approval ratings. For each one, there are individual factors often cited to explain their problems — age, lengthy tenure, domestic policy disagreements, a financial scandal in Japan. Those factors are all real and have an impact.

But stand back and look at the overall pattern, and it’s hard not to conclude that something larger is at work.

A similar pattern emerges if we look at the approval ratings of presidents over the last 70 years.

Starting with President Eisenhower and running through President George H.W. Bush, American leaders for 40 years spent most of their tenure with approval ratings above 50%. The periods when presidents dropped below 50% corresponded to major national traumas — escalation of the Vietnam War in the last few years of President Johnson’s tenure, the Watergate scandal for President Nixon and the Iran hostage crisis for President Carter.

The last 20 years — since President George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004 — shows the mirror image: Except for brief periods, including honeymoons at the beginning of their tenures, none of the presidents since then have popped above 50% for a sustained time. President Trump never got majority approval in his entire four years in office; Biden was above 50% for his initial months but soon dropped below.

As with the international comparison, one can pick out individual reasons why each president has failed to gain majority support, but the persistent pattern suggests a larger explanation.

The potential explanation isn’t a secret: Presidents like Eisenhower enjoyed majority approval during a period of sustained and widely shared economic growth that raised living standards for most Americans. Not long after that persistent growth gave way to income stagnation and rising inequality, the comfortable approval ratings for presidents became a thing of the past.

Globally, middle-income countries have seen big increases in living standards in the last couple of decades, and abject poverty around the world has declined a lot, but average living standards in many wealthy countries have plateaued.

Income stagnation isn’t the only problem wealthy countries have faced. High levels of immigration have brought enormous benefits and dynamism but have also increased social tension. Countries such as Japan, which resisted immigration, have suffered from rapid aging of their populations as birthrates declined. Changing gender roles and cultural diversity have brought more equality — and backlashes.

Those factors contributed to a sharp decline in the belief that political leaders are looking out for the interests of average citizens.

Trust in government has fallen in the U.S. as the share of Americans who think the country is on the wrong track rose, and partisan lines have hardened. All that leads to lower job approval for presidents.

Layer on top of that the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I wrote recently, a lot of Americans have tried to put the pandemic behind them and have stopped talking about it. But the trauma it caused worldwide won’t go away so easily: We remain a society in recovery.

The fact that Biden shares his unpopularity with other leaders doesn’t make his difficulties any less real. The comparison with others should, however, make people a bit more skeptical of the belief that some other Democrat would do significantly better. If the underlying reality in all these countries is that unhappy voters punish whichever party is in power, then replacing Biden with someone else won’t necessarily solve anything.

Nonetheless, Biden does face serious difficulties, as the numbers from a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center show.

In GOP Contest, Trump Supporters Stand Out for Dislike of CompromisePew Research CenterDonald Trump has a wide lead for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. His supporters stand out from R…

In Pew’s survey, just one-third of Americans approved of Biden’s job performance, and 64% disapproved. His standing has dropped significantly since the beginning of the year, especially among his fellow Democrats: Biden’s approval within his party has dropped from 73% late last year to just 61% now, Pew found.

Restiveness on the left — over the Israel-Hamas war, in particular — has gotten a lot of attention, but the Pew numbers suggest that’s not the main source of Biden’s troubles. Among Democrats who describe themselves as liberal, 66% approve of his performance; among those who identify as moderate or conservative 57% do.

Former President Obama went through a similar, although less deep, decline in support among fellow Democrats at this point in his presidency. He succeeded in rallying Democrats, in part by depicting his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, as a plutocrat unsympathetic to the problems of ordinary Americans.

White House aides have made no secret of their plan to try to do likewise by focusing voters on Trump’s faults, and the former president has a knack for reminding voters of what they dislike about him. Once he’s more consistently in the spotlight, that’s likely to make a difference.

But Biden and his allies shouldn’t count on incumbency, itself, to deliver a victory: These days, it’s no longer clear that it’s even an advantage.

  Dictatorship The threat is real.


DAN RATHER AND ELLIOT KIRSCHNER
DEC 4    

Something important is happening in the conversation and coverage around the 2024 presidential campaign — and not a moment too soon. We’re hearing a lot more about the “D Word”: dictatorship.  Instead of only the usual fare one would expect six weeks before the Iowa caucuses — the latest polling, endorsement counting, comparisons of cash on hand — there is mounting attention to what a second Trump presidency would look like. He is, after all, running away with the race for the Republican presidential nomination. But that’s not all; what he is now proclaiming, proudly and publicly in speeches and online posts, would mean the end of American democracy. A system of checks and balances is built into our way of government by the Constitution. Let us see clearly that what Trump is promising is to demolish as much of that as he can — in short, a version of one-man rule. When Trump was first running for president, many journalists were loath to call his lies what they were — lies — because that word felt too loaded. But his tsunami of falsehoods changed that. Lies are, after all, lies. Similarly, there was a time when the press cast aside words like fascism, authoritarianism, and, yes, dictatorship, as hyperbole. Some are still reluctant to enumerate the danger so explicitly, but considering the violent coup attempt in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat and the vision he is promising if reelected, terrifying, formerly remote possibilities suddenly loom with greater likelihood. And it is imperative that they are articulated. Conservative scholar and Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan, who left the Republican Party in 2016 over Donald Trump, recently wrote a must-read piece with a title that dispenses with subtlety: “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.” Kagan walks through all that we have seen since Trump first ran for president: the breaking of norms, the acquiescence of the Republican Party, Trump’s promise to prosecute his enemies, and his increasingly chilling rhetoric.  Kagan focuses on a moment from last month:  We caught a glimpse of his deep thirst for vengeance in his Veterans Day promise to “root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream.” Note the equation of himself with “America and the American Dream.” It is he they are trying to destroy, he believes, and as president, he will return the favor. And goes on to say: If eight years ago it seemed literally inconceivable that a man like Trump could be elected, that obstacle was cleared in 2016. If it then seemed unimaginable that an American president would try to remain in office after losing an election, that obstacle was cleared in 2020. And if no one could believe that Trump, having tried and failed to invalidate the election and stop the counting of electoral college votes, would nevertheless reemerge as the unchallenged leader of the Republican Party and its nominee again in 2024, well, we are about to see that obstacle cleared as well. In just a few years, we have gone from being relatively secure in our democracy to being a few short steps, and a matter of months, away from the possibility of dictatorship.  Kagan isn’t alone. Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who also broke with her party over Trump and was subsequently cast out, recently told CBS News, “One of the things that we see happening today is a sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States.” There’s that “D Word” again.  Kagan’s and Cheney’s warnings were recently included as evidence of Trump’s authoritarian and fascist rhetoric in another Washington Post piece: “The fear of a looming Trump dictatorship.” Columnist Ishaan Tharoor, citing Post reporting, writes: As my colleagues have reported over the past year, Trump has made clear his stark, authoritarian vision for a potential second term. He would embark on a wholesale purge of the federal bureaucracy, weaponize the Justice Department to explicitly go after his political opponents (something he claims is being done to him), stack government agencies across the board with political appointees prescreened as ideological Trump loyalists, and dole out pardons to myriad officials and apparatchiks as incentives to do his bidding or stay loyal.  The New York Times published an article today with the understated headline, “Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First.” The article itself did not mince words: Mr. Trump’s violent and authoritarian rhetoric on the 2024 campaign trail has attracted growing alarm and comparisons to historical fascist dictators and contemporary populist strongmen. In recent weeks, he has dehumanized his adversaries as “vermin” who must be “rooted out,” declared that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” encouraged the shooting of shoplifters and suggested that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, deserved to be executed for treason. As he runs for president again facing four criminal prosecutions, Mr. Trump may seem more angry, desperate and dangerous to American-style democracy than in his first term. But the throughline that emerges is far more long-running: He has glorified political violence and spoken admiringly of autocrats for decades. The dangers are real, very real. And that’s why it is essential that they are called out, forcefully, consistently, and with a full accounting of what’s at stake. Trump cannot be treated as just another candidate for office. The challenges of the world, as complex, confounding, demoralizing, and difficult as they are, should not minimize the challenges we face to the very survival of American democratic governance.  Polls show Biden is vulnerable. Many Americans feel dissatisfaction over inflation, interest rates, and international affairs, such as the war in Gaza. There is concern over crime, immigration, and all the usual issues that dominate our elections. Those topics should be covered, and Biden and his administration should be held to account for their policies. But reporters should be fair and acknowledge how difficult these matters are.  Because Trump promises simplicity. He speaks in the equivalent of ALL CAPS. It’s boastful, empty rhetoric that rails against problems without offering any sense of how to fix them, other than his being allowed to rule the nation without constraint. We already know what that would mean. It was why he was rejected in 2020 and why the candidates he supported fared poorly in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections.  A majority of Americans don’t want what Trump is promising. They don’t want a dictatorship. The more America understands the possibility of that grim prospect, the less of a chance that we will find ourselves confronting it. We should not minimize the threat, but we should also recognize that it can be defeated — and in a convincing way that would strengthen our nation after a dangerous era. That’s why it’s so important to call it what it is. And it is heartening to see that begin to happen. The Steady newsletter is supported by the Steady community. Please consider subscribing if you aren’t already a member.

For the good of the nation


America needs a new sane Republican Party, and here’s who should lead it

ROBERT REICH

SEP 18

Friends,

Last Tuesday, former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney tweeted this in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that the criminal indictments of Trump are politically motivated:

“Putin has now officially endorsed the Putin-wing of the Republican Party. Putin Republicans & their enablers will end up on the ash heap of history. Patriotic Americans in both parties who believe in the values of liberal democracy will make sure of it.”

In reality, the Putin wing of the Republican Party has taken over the Republican Party. The GOP no longer believes in the values of liberal democracy. It has become a cesspool of authoritarian nihilism.

As Mitt Romney told the Atlantic’s McKayu Coppins, “a very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”

The GOP is now a rogue elephant — increasingly dangerous, out of control, and on a rampage.

Knowing that most of the American public rejects it, it’s busily repressing votes through extreme partisan gerrymandering and new barriers to voting.

Notwithstanding zero evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden, it’s seeking to impeach him. 

Even though there’s still no basis for Trump’s big lie that he won the 2020 election, most Republican lawmakers continue to support it.

A growing number of House and Senate Republicans are questioning America’s commitment to defending Ukraine.

House Republicans are about renege on the deal they made before the debt ceiling was lifted, and shutter the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans are threatening to impeach a State Supreme Court justice who disagrees with their agenda. Tennessee Republicans have expelled Democratic lawmakers who supported an anti-gun protest.

Alabama Republicans are denying Black voters the opportunity to elect another representative to Congress. Florida Republicans have suspended an elected official because they don’t like their policies.

The GOP engaged in authoritarian antics before Trump (see: Gingrich, Newt), but Trump has pushed the Party over the edge, morally and politically.

Trump has so profoundly poisoned the Republican Party — filling it with election deniers, bigots, paranoids, and anti-democracy zealots — that it won’t recover its capacity to govern even after Trump leaves the stage.

Frankly, I don’t give a fig about the Republican Party. But I do care deeply about this nation. And America needs two major political parties capable of governing. Right now, only the Democratic Party has that capacity.

As long as the Trump Republican Party exists, it poses a profound danger to American democracy.

What should be done, and who should do it?

America needs a third party that stands for all the things conservative Republicans stood for before Gingrich and Trump — limited government, fiscal prudence, a strong defense against dictators and autocrats, and the stability and integrity of the nation’s major institutions.

Is Mitt Romney the person to start such a Real Republican Party? He’s now basking in the adulation of the Washington establishment because he had the courage to utter some truths about Trump when the former president was in power and just announced he won’t be running again.

But Romney is too elitist and too, well, 2012.

The person to lead it is Liz Cheney. She should run for president on a third-party Real Republican ticket.

I’m sure there are plenty of anti-Trump Republicans willing to support this effort. Some of them, I expect, have enough money to get the Real Republican Party on the ballot in most states. There’s still time.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not endorsing Liz Cheney for president. I’ve disagreed with too many of her policy ideas and votes over the years.

I’m merely suggesting that it would be good for all of us if she took the reins of a new Republican Party — good for Republicans, good for Democrats, good for democracy, good for America.

When it comes to the survival of American democracy, Liz Cheney has displayed more courage and integrity than any other member of her party.

Six days after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — when no other Republican in the House or Senate was willing to rebuke Trump — Cheney charged on the House floor that “the president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.”

The next day, Cheney joined just nine other House Republicans and 222 Democrats in voting to impeach Trump. (Few, if any, of these principled Republicans remain in the House today. Most have resigned or been purged.)

Then, as vice chair of the House of Representatives’ January 6 committee investigating the causes of the January 6 attack, Cheney ceaselessly and tirelessly helped lay out the case against Trump.

To get revenge, Trump did everything possible to end Cheney’s career. He selected Cheney’s opponent in the 2022 Wyoming Republican primary, Harriet Hageman — who rallied behind Trump and amplified his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — and made sure Hageman won.

I think it would be a fitting rebuke to Trump — as fitting politically as his criminal convictions will be legally — to have Liz Cheney create a new Real Republican Party that replaces the squalor of Trump’s (and Putin’s) GOP.

What do you think?