thebulwark--2020-07-06--Trump’s Presidency Is About to Enter Chapter 11

Donald Trump is losing—which is not news .
He ’ s been losing to Joe Biden since the first hypothetical poll was taken pitting the two men against each other .
But what has changed is that , by all accounts , Trump now knows he ’ s losing .
What he doesn ’ t know is how to fix it .
Which leaves him with two options .
Trump never planned on playing fair in the election to begin with .
From Trump undermining investigations into Russia ’ s 2016 electoral interference to Attorney General William Barr instructing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stone and Michael Flynn , the president spent his first term signaling that his administration will protect people who get into trouble while helping him .
He ’ s publicly asked China for help , and , according to former National Security Advisor John Bolton , prioritized his reelection with Chinese officials in private too .
He tried to extort Ukraine for electoral assistance , contravening U.S. law and the Constitution , which got him impeached .
And his various Russia-friendly stances — such as pushing to readmit Russia to the G7 — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s help again too .
Because states run elections , voter suppression isn ’ t something the president can do by himself , so he ’ s working to encourage it .
There are the usual techniques of purging voter rolls , shrinking voting times , and closing polling places in more urban , less white , more Democratic areas .
But Trump is fixated on vote by mail .
The pandemic created more challenges for voting .
Mail-in ballots offer a straightforward solution , but solving it is clearly not the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ denouncing vote by mail for months , falsely claiming it ’ s a common avenue for fraud .
Bill Barr claimed without evidence — or , when you think about it , logic — that foreign countries would mail in counterfeit ballots .
The reason they ’ re making these accusations isn ’ t subtle .
As President Trump said on Fox & Friends about expanding vote by mail , “ If you ’ d ever agreed to it , you ’ d never have a Republican elected in this country again.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is a large country and never is a long time .
But normal Trumpian exaggeration aside , there ’ s no evidence mail-in ballots give either party an advantage .
There ’ s the pandemic factor to consider , though .
Voting by mail is popular and Trump is on the wrong side of the issue .
Why would he do that ?
Because he is betting that limiting vote by mail will impact Democrat-leaning urbanites more than Republican-leaning senior citizens .
And this strategy dovetails nicely with his efforts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats view COVID-19 as more of a serious issue than Republicans do .
So if Biden voters think COVID is dangerous and Trump voters don ’ t , restricting vote by mail favors Trump .
But Trump ’ s problem is that these sort of electoral shenanigans only pay off at the margins .
Maybe they can swing a closely-divided state , but they can ’ t overcome the kind of 5- and 7-point deficits Trump is seeing in most battleground state polls .
Which means he ’ d need to do something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suspending the election , or refusing to leave after a certified loss .
And those would be extremely difficult .
Large-scale vote tampering would take a massive operation and be difficult to hide .
Changing Election Day requires an act of Congress .
Refusing to leave after a loss would require support from the military and the Secret Service .
Trump could certainly contest a close election .
Definitely if it ’ s within recount range .
And if Trump ’ s leading on Election Night , but mail-in ballots give Biden the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cry fraud , launch lawsuits , tell his supporters that it ’ s not over , and fight it out all the way to the Supreme Court .
( Neil Gorsuch being the deciding vote against Trump would be the greatest irony of them all . )
But contesting an unambiguous loss takes on a lot of additional risk — to himself and his family , let alone the country — for a relatively low chance of success .
The man who went to the White House bunker in response to Black Lives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stomach for the public reaction if he loses and tries to stay .
Especially when there ’ s another option .
Do you ever notice that sometimes it looks like Trump ’ s heart isn ’ t really in it ?
It ’ s been four tiring years .
Running as an outsider is more fun than running as an incumbent .
And neither he nor his supporters hate Joe Biden like they hated Hillary Clinton .
Even the rallies and Fox interviews aren ’ t as ego-boosting as they once were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cheat or hoping for a miracle , maybe Trump turns the strategic goal of his campaign from winning the election to setting up his post-presidency and protecting himself , his kids , and their money .
I don ’ t buy theories that Trump doesn ’ t want to be president and is hoping to lose .
Being president means he can tell people what to do , powerful people show him respect , he gets tons of attention , and he ’ s effectively above the law .
You think he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t have to ?
Trump reportedly expected to lose in 2016 and didn ’ t mind , because running boosted his brand and set up lucrative media opportunities .
And that scenario could still be operable if he plays his cards right .
Donald Trump talks about # winning so much that people often forget that one of the defining aspects of his life have been his bankruptcies .
Going bankrupt taught Trump a very important lesson : If you fail , make sure other people pay the price .
Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bankruptcy six times , and he sometimes managed to make money for himself even as the business went broke .
With his Atlantic City casinos , Trump had the company pay him millions in salary and bonuses before filing for Chapter 11 , stiffing contractors and creditors , and leaving his partners holding the bag .
Stock and bond holders lost over $ 1.5 billion .
And , using now-illegal accounting tricks , Trump even managed to get hundreds of millions in tax write-offs for himself .
Well , Trump ’ s presidency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he will put himself first and get out with as much as he can , screwing over whoever he has to on the way out the door .
In this scenario , after losing the election Trump would focus more on issuing pardons and setting up new business ventures than trying to remain in power .
Pardons !
Maybe Roger Stone , Michael Flynn , and 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort , all confessed or convicted lawbreakers .
Maybe Secretary of State Mike Pompeo , who allegedly misused government resources , bypassed Congressional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and then got the inspector general investigating it fired .
Maybe Jared and Ivanka , Don Jr. , and — sure why not — Eric .
The pardon power is basically unlimited .
Except for this : can a president pardon himself ?
Lawyers are on various sides of that question , and it hasn ’ t been tested .
Maybe we ’ ll find out .
Or maybe Trump will resign in January so Pence can pardon him .
What is Trump Doing ?
Interestingly , Trump ’ s public behavior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For example , his attacks on vote by mail could be an attempt to suppress Democratic voters , an effort to preemptively establish a post-election challenge to results , or the groundwork for luring aggrieved Republicans to Trump TV , or whatever operation he stands up after leaving the White House .
It could be either .
Or both .
So no , I don ’ t claim to know what he ’ s thinking .
And yes , he could come back and win outright .
He could keep it close @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or at least so that the Republican party puts its institutional support behind post-election legal challenges .
And even if he doesn ’ t pull any of this off , he might currently believe he can , and act accordingly .
But there ’ s also the possibility Trump thinks his presidency is ending and is running his old bankruptcy play , projecting confidence while anticipating a loss — a loss that he won ’ t let land on him .

Donald Trump is losing—which is not news. He’s been losing to Joe Biden since the first hypothetical poll was taken pitting the two men against each other. But what has changed is that, by all accounts, Trump now knows he’s losing.
What he doesn’t know is how to fix it.
Which leaves him with two options.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
(1) Cheat
Trump never planned on playing fair in the election to begin with.
From Trump undermining investigations into Russia’s 2016 electoral interference to Attorney General William Barr instructing the Justice Department to go easy on Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, the president spent his first term signaling that his administration will protect people who get into trouble while helping him.
He’s publicly asked China for help, and, according to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, prioritized his reelection with Chinese officials in private too. He tried to extort Ukraine for electoral assistance, contravening U.S. law and the Constitution, which got him impeached. And his various Russia-friendly stances — such as pushing to readmit Russia to the G7 — suggest he’d like Russia’s help again too.
Because states run elections, voter suppression isn’t something the president can do by himself, so he’s working to encourage it. There are the usual techniques of purging voter rolls, shrinking voting times, and closing polling places in more urban, less white, more Democratic areas.
But Trump is fixated on vote by mail.
The pandemic created more challenges for voting. Mail-in ballots offer a straightforward solution, but solving it is clearly not the president’s goal.
Trump has been denouncing vote by mail for months, falsely claiming it’s a common avenue for fraud. Bill Barr claimed without evidence — or, when you think about it, logic — that foreign countries would mail in counterfeit ballots. The reason they’re making these accusations isn’t subtle. As President Trump said on Fox & Friends about expanding vote by mail, “If you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
He’s obviously wrong about that. This is a large country and never is a long time. But normal Trumpian exaggeration aside, there’s no evidence mail-in ballots give either party an advantage.
There’s the pandemic factor to consider, though. Voting by mail is popular and Trump is on the wrong side of the issue. Why would he do that? Because he is betting that limiting vote by mail will impact Democrat-leaning urbanites more than Republican-leaning senior citizens.
And this strategy dovetails nicely with his efforts to downplay the coronavirus. Polls show that Democrats view COVID-19 as more of a serious issue than Republicans do. So if Biden voters think COVID is dangerous and Trump voters don’t, restricting vote by mail favors Trump.
But Trump’s problem is that these sort of electoral shenanigans only pay off at the margins. Maybe they can swing a closely-divided state, but they can’t overcome the kind of 5- and 7-point deficits Trump is seeing in most battleground state polls.
Which means he’d need to do something next-level, like changing vote totals, suspending the election, or refusing to leave after a certified loss. And those would be extremely difficult.
Large-scale vote tampering would take a massive operation and be difficult to hide. Changing Election Day requires an act of Congress. Refusing to leave after a loss would require support from the military and the Secret Service.
Trump could certainly contest a close election. Definitely if it’s within recount range. And if Trump’s leading on Election Night, but mail-in ballots give Biden the victory a week later, Trump could cry fraud, launch lawsuits, tell his supporters that it’s not over, and fight it out all the way to the Supreme Court. (Neil Gorsuch being the deciding vote against Trump would be the greatest irony of them all.)
But contesting an unambiguous loss takes on a lot of additional risk — to himself and his family, let alone the country — for a relatively low chance of success. The man who went to the White House bunker in response to Black Lives Matter protests probably doesn’t have the stomach for the public reaction if he loses and tries to stay.
Especially when there’s another option.
(2) Bail
Do you ever notice that sometimes it looks like Trump’s heart isn’t really in it?
It’s been four tiring years. Running as an outsider is more fun than running as an incumbent. And neither he nor his supporters hate Joe Biden like they hated Hillary Clinton. Even the rallies and Fox interviews aren’t as ego-boosting as they once were. So instead of plotting an elaborate cheat or hoping for a miracle, maybe Trump turns the strategic goal of his campaign from winning the election to setting up his post-presidency and protecting himself, his kids, and their money.
I don’t buy theories that Trump doesn’t want to be president and is hoping to lose. Being president means he can tell people what to do, powerful people show him respect, he gets tons of attention, and he’s effectively above the law. You think he’d give all that up if he didn’t have to?
Trump reportedly expected to lose in 2016 and didn’t mind, because running boosted his brand and set up lucrative media opportunities. And that scenario could still be operable if he plays his cards right.
Donald Trump talks about #winning so much that people often forget that one of the defining aspects of his life have been his bankruptcies.
Going bankrupt taught Trump a very important lesson: If you fail, make sure other people pay the price.
Trump’s companies have declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy six times, and he sometimes managed to make money for himself even as the business went broke. With his Atlantic City casinos, Trump had the company pay him millions in salary and bonuses before filing for Chapter 11, stiffing contractors and creditors, and leaving his partners holding the bag. Stock and bond holders lost over $1.5 billion. And, using now-illegal accounting tricks, Trump even managed to get hundreds of millions in tax write-offs for himself.
Well, Trump’s presidency is going bankrupt. Which means that he will put himself first and get out with as much as he can, screwing over whoever he has to on the way out the door. In this scenario, after losing the election Trump would focus more on issuing pardons and setting up new business ventures than trying to remain in power.
Pardons! Maybe Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort, all confessed or convicted lawbreakers. Maybe Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who allegedly misused government resources, bypassed Congressional regulations to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, and then got the inspector general investigating it fired. Maybe Jared and Ivanka, Don Jr., and — sure why not — Eric. The pardon power is basically unlimited.
Except for this: can a president pardon himself? Lawyers are on various sides of that question, and it hasn’t been tested. Maybe we’ll find out.
Or maybe Trump will resign in January so Pence can pardon him.
What is Trump Doing?
Interestingly, Trump’s public behavior so far fits both of these theories.
For example, his attacks on vote by mail could be an attempt to suppress Democratic voters, an effort to preemptively establish a post-election challenge to results, or the groundwork for luring aggrieved Republicans to Trump TV, or whatever operation he stands up after leaving the White House. It could be either. Or both.
So no, I don’t claim to know what he’s thinking. And yes, he could come back and win outright. He could keep it close enough that electoral shenanigans make the difference, or at least so that the Republican party puts its institutional support behind post-election legal challenges. And even if he doesn’t pull any of this off, he might currently believe he can, and act accordingly.
But there’s also the possibility Trump thinks his presidency is ending and is running his old bankruptcy play, projecting confidence while anticipating a loss — a loss that he won’t let land on him.


The Race-Hustler-in-Chief

This morning Donny from the Dixie Borough of Queens fired off a random shot at the most prominent black NASCAR driver and offered a full-throated defense of the Confederate Battle Flag ’ s presence at the racetrack : This comes just a few days after he shared a video of an old white guy with a thick Northeastern accent on a golf cart shouting “ white power.
” This would be a pretty standard series of events from the local Archie Bunker who likes to call in to sports-talk radio to complain about how all the Nets players wear baggy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundamental ball like they did back in his day .
But in this instance Donny from Queens is the president of the United States and these rants are coming during a time of heightened racial tensions around the country when any other president would be using his pulpit to heal and unite .
With that backdrop there are only three ways to interpret Trump ’ s remarks : 1 ) He is purposefully instigating racial tensions because he believes that it will help him politically if there is a race war .
2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self-control and is engaging in self-sabotage .
3 ) He is too stupid to realize what he is doing and he is just recklessly tweeting anything that he sees on Fox & Friends or that his racist buddies said to him in a recent phone call .
I ’ ll take a little from doors numbered 1 , 2 , and 3 , depending on the day .
But no matter which door you open , what greets you on the other side is a president who is inserting himself into random racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inflames tensions rather than assuages them .
And believe it or not , just 10 short years ago , conservative media were united in condemning such behavior !
In July , 2009 Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. returned home from a trip abroad to find the front door to his house jammed shut .
With the help of his driver he forced the door open , only to have a neighbor call the Cambridge police on him .
Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in his own home .
President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seventh month of his first term , weighed in on the encounter in typically analytical fashion : I don ’ t know , not having been there and not seeing all the facts , what role race played in that , but I think it ’ s fair to say , number one , any of us would be pretty angry ; number two , that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home ; and number three , what I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately .
The response to this rather anodyne observation was apoplectic .
Rush Limbaugh called Obama a “ community agitator ” and said he is “ not a force for positive race relations in this country.
” Ben Shapiro said that Obama was “ preying on unwarranted white guilt ” : “ Whites can never quite do enough to atone for the sins of their ancestors .
And blacks , short @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do anything that would justify arrest.
” Shapiro went on : “ Institutional racism .
.
.
is a bogeyman , a windmill at which whites are supposed to tilt , and for which unsuccessful African-Americans can blame their lack of advancement.
” Yikes .
National Review editor Rich Lowry , in his syndicated column , wrote that “ Obama ’ s ignorance didn ’ t keep him from commenting on a matter of local policing ordinarily beneath the notice of the leader of the free world.
” ( I was not aware @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the leader of the free world—a fascinating standard I would invite him to revisit under the current president . )
And National Review ’ s Andy McCarthy said it was “ shameful for an American president to describe the police as ‘ stupid ’ and feed into the racializing of the Gates case.
” You could find articles like these , which made the case that Obama was wrong to weigh in , that he was “ racializing ” the case , and that he was making tensions worse not better , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a rant on every single Fox News program .
But over just the past week , Trump has engaged in far , FAR more grotesque and overtly bigoted “ racializing ” of issues that are “ ordinarily beneath the notice of the leader of the free world ” than anything Obama ever did .
And it ’ s part of a tired pattern from Charlottesville to “ send them back ” to “ when the looting starts , the shooting starts.
” In fact , Trump has done this so often that sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meriting a media mention .
And yet the response from the right is explaining it away as Trump being a doofus , or laments about how the Republican party could possibly be seen as a vehicle for racism , or what someone once called strategic silence .
So once again Trump ’ s actions have been clarifying .
He ’ s revealed that criticisms of Obama for trying to mediate a parochial racial profiling case weren ’ t good-faith attempts to police how a president should use their platform to help ease racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these commentators had wasn ’ t the fact that Obama weighed in on a racially charged case .
Their objection was that he weighed in on behalf of the black person .

This morning Donny from the Dixie Borough of Queens fired off a random shot at the most prominent black NASCAR driver and offered a full-throated defense of the Confederate Battle Flag’s presence at the racetrack:
Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2020
This comes just a few days after he shared a video of an old white guy with a thick Northeastern accent on a golf cart shouting “white power.”
This would be a pretty standard series of events from the local Archie Bunker who likes to call in to sports-talk radio to complain about how all the Nets players wear baggy shorts now and don’t play fundamental ball like they did back in his day.
But in this instance Donny from Queens is the president of the United States and these rants are coming during a time of heightened racial tensions around the country when any other president would be using his pulpit to heal and unite.
With that backdrop there are only three ways to interpret Trump’s remarks:
1) He is purposefully instigating racial tensions because he believes that it will help him politically if there is a race war.
2) He is a racist with no self-control and is engaging in self-sabotage.
3) He is too stupid to realize what he is doing and he is just recklessly tweeting anything that he sees on Fox & Friends or that his racist buddies said to him in a recent phone call.
I’ll take a little from doors numbered 1, 2, and 3, depending on the day.
But no matter which door you open, what greets you on the other side is a president who is inserting himself into random racial disputes in a way that ignites and inflames tensions rather than assuages them.
And believe it or not, just 10 short years ago, conservative media were united in condemning such behavior!
In July, 2009 Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. returned home from a trip abroad to find the front door to his house jammed shut. With the help of his driver he forced the door open, only to have a neighbor call the Cambridge police on him. Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in his own home.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
President Barack Obama, then in only the seventh month of his first term, weighed in on the encounter in typically analytical fashion:
I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.
The response to this rather anodyne observation was apoplectic.
Rush Limbaugh called Obama a “community agitator” and said he is “not a force for positive race relations in this country.”
Michael Savage called him a “jive artist.” (Subtle stuff, Mike.)
Ben Shapiro said that Obama was “preying on unwarranted white guilt”: “Whites can never quite do enough to atone for the sins of their ancestors. And blacks, short of openly violent conduct, can never do anything that would justify arrest.” Shapiro went on: “Institutional racism . . . is a bogeyman, a windmill at which whites are supposed to tilt, and for which unsuccessful African-Americans can blame their lack of advancement.” Yikes.
National Review editor Rich Lowry, in his syndicated column, wrote that “Obama’s ignorance didn’t keep him from commenting on a matter of local policing ordinarily beneath the notice of the leader of the free world.” (I was not aware that Rich thought there were topics beneath the leader of the free world—a fascinating standard I would invite him to revisit under the current president.)
And National Review’s Andy McCarthy said it was “shameful for an American president to describe the police as ‘stupid’ and feed into the racializing of the Gates case.”
You could find articles like these, which made the case that Obama was wrong to weigh in, that he was “racializing” the case, and that he was making tensions worse not better, in literally every conservative publication in the country—and a rant on every single Fox News program.
But over just the past week, Trump has engaged in far, FAR more grotesque and overtly bigoted “racializing” of issues that are “ordinarily beneath the notice of the leader of the free world” than anything Obama ever did. And it’s part of a tired pattern from Charlottesville to “send them back” to “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” In fact, Trump has done this so often that sometimes his race-baiting tweets go by without even meriting a media mention.
And yet the response from the right is explaining it away as Trump being a doofus, or laments about how the Republican party could possibly be seen as a vehicle for racism, or what someone once called strategic silence.
So once again Trump’s actions have been clarifying. He’s revealed that criticisms of Obama for trying to mediate a parochial racial profiling case weren’t good-faith attempts to police how a president should use their platform to help ease racial tensions.
It turns out the objection these commentators had wasn’t the fact that Obama weighed in on a racially charged case.
Their objection was that he weighed in on behalf of the black person.


thebulwark--2020-07-06--Was Trump’s Mount Rushmore Speech Divisive?

A number of conservative commentators have rushed to defend President Trump ’ s Mount Rushmore speech .
Incensed by press depictions of the speech as “ divisive and dark , ” figures such as Mollie Hemingway and Tom Fitton rode to the president ’ s side , assailing the New York Times as a “ leftist propaganda outfit ” ( Hemingway ) and a “ leftist advocacy group ” ( Fitton ) .
“ Talking about American greatness is only divisive if you hate America , ” tweeted the Daily Caller .
Senator Marsha Blackburn waxed rhapsodic : “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the best that he has given and how appropriate that he reminded the American people and that we are unique and that you can bet on hope or you can bet on fear.
” Rich Lowry penned a column on the subject , noting that the president mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. and other African-American heroes ; that he affirmed America ’ s dedication to “ equal opportunity , equal justice , and equal treatment for citizens of every race , background , religion , and creed ” ; and that he condemned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hate ?
” Lowry demanded .
“ Where ’ s the white supremacy ?
” This is the problem : People on the right have an anti-racism accusation switch ( I could also say twitch ) that is easy to activate .
I have it myself .
There are excellent reasons to be sensitive about false accusations of racism .
It ’ s an ugly charge , and too often , critics on the left smear good-faith arguments they disagree with—such as those about preferences or family structure—as hateful and racist .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the accusation so often ( see Romney , McCain , Bush ) that it has become a matter of crying wolf .
I included a chapter about this in my second book .
So let ’ s stipulate that some press reactions to the Mount Rushmore speech were overheated .
The president , wrote Annie Karni in the New York Times , used “ an official presidential address to mount a full-on culture war against a straw-man version of the left that he portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ false , but it might be better to avoid terms such as “ straw-man ” in a news story .
Nor can it be denied that people who tear down statues of Frederick Douglass ( for Heaven ’ s sake ! )
, or suggest that it may be necessary to defenestrate George Washington , or burn the flag in front of the White House , are ignorant extremists who should be condemned and opposed .
But the conservative reflex to resist accusations of racism is worse than misguided in this instance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cause .
Why ?
Because in this case the accusation is not false .
It ’ s blatantly , obviously true .
Where is the “ white supremacy ?
” How about the fact that President Trump is threatening to veto the National Defense Authorization Act if Congress follows through on plans to rename military installations named after Confederate generals .
This is not a conservative making the case against racial preferences .
It is not a reasoned argument about school choice , or welfare reform , or disparate impact .
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not the United States of America .
It was a rebellion against it .
So , no , that ’ s not patriotism .
It ’ s kind of the opposite .
Trump ’ s defenders claim to believe that he is being accused of racism because he praised America .
Love of country is now being tarred as white supremacy , they cry .
Not quite .
There is a history here .
Trump ’ s racial appeals have a long pedigree—from his Central Park Five death penalty demand , to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refusing for days on end to condemn David Duke , to the “ Mexican ” judge , to the s-hole countries , to “ go back where you came from , ” to “ good people on both sides , ” to “ get that son-of-a-bitch off the field.
” This is to name just a few of his crude racist remarks .
Is it the case that so long as Trump does not actually shout the phrase “ white power ” in a speech , then we must forget everything else he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ observers would say that this man forfeited the benefit of the doubt long ago .
Yes , Trump ’ s Mount Rushmore speech lauded American greatness .
For some , that immunizes it against criticism .
But at a moment of heightened racial tensions , when millions of his fellow citizens feel embattled and betrayed , it ’ s morally obtuse to fail to devote any words of comfort and inclusion toward them .
It is not enough to name-check Louis Armstrong or Jesse Owens .
A president should acknowledge that we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ true meaning of [ our ] creed , ” and vow to do better .
It is especially important to do so on the Fourth of July .
Instead , Trump spoke of American protesters in language usually reserved for foreign enemies : Trump ’ s chosen message on Independence Day was the good news that “ I am deploying federal law enforcement to protect our monuments , arrest the rioters , and prosecute offenders to the fullest extent of the law .
.
.
I am pleased to report that yesterday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the attack on the statue of Andrew Jackson in Washington , D.C. and , in addition , hundreds more have been arrested.
” News of arrests are supposed to make patriotic hearts swell with pride ?
Leadership of a large , diverse nation requires certain grace notes that every president in living memory has found it in his heart to pronounce on important occasions .
This president has chosen , and continues to choose , division and vitriol .
His critics are right .

A number of conservative commentators have rushed to defend President Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech. Incensed by press depictions of the speech as “divisive and dark,” figures such as Mollie Hemingway and Tom Fitton rode to the president’s side, assailing the New York Times as a “leftist propaganda outfit” (Hemingway) and a “leftist advocacy group” (Fitton). “Talking about American greatness is only divisive if you hate America,” tweeted the Daily Caller. Senator Marsha Blackburn waxed rhapsodic: “I thought the speech was absolutely one of the best that he has given and how appropriate that he reminded the American people and that we are unique and that you can bet on hope or you can bet on fear.”
Rich Lowry penned a column on the subject, noting that the president mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. and other African-American heroes; that he affirmed America’s dedication to “equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed”; and that he condemned slavery. “So where’s the hate?” Lowry demanded. “Where’s the white supremacy?”
This is the problem: People on the right have an anti-racism accusation switch (I could also say twitch) that is easy to activate. I have it myself. There are excellent reasons to be sensitive about false accusations of racism. It’s an ugly charge, and too often, critics on the left smear good-faith arguments they disagree with—such as those about preferences or family structure—as hateful and racist. In fact, the left has overused the accusation so often (see Romney, McCain, Bush) that it has become a matter of crying wolf. I included a chapter about this in my second book.
So let’s stipulate that some press reactions to the Mount Rushmore speech were overheated. The president, wrote Annie Karni in the New York Times, used “an official presidential address to mount a full-on culture war against a straw-man version of the left that he portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism.” Not a word of that is false, but it might be better to avoid terms such as “straw-man” in a news story.
Nor can it be denied that people who tear down statues of Frederick Douglass (for Heaven’s sake!), or suggest that it may be necessary to defenestrate George Washington, or burn the flag in front of the White House, are ignorant extremists who should be condemned and opposed.
But the conservative reflex to resist accusations of racism is worse than misguided in this instance. It does real harm to the conservative cause. Why? Because in this case the accusation is not false. It’s blatantly, obviously true.
Where is the “white supremacy?” How about the fact that President Trump is threatening to veto the National Defense Authorization Act if Congress follows through on plans to rename military installations named after Confederate generals.
I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020
This is not a conservative making the case against racial preferences. It is not a reasoned argument about school choice, or welfare reform, or disparate impact. It is straight-up white supremacy. The Confederacy was not the United States of America. It was a rebellion against it.
So, no, that’s not patriotism. It’s kind of the opposite.
Trump’s defenders claim to believe that he is being accused of racism because he praised America. Love of country is now being tarred as white supremacy, they cry.
Not quite. There is a history here. Trump’s racial appeals have a long pedigree—from his Central Park Five death penalty demand, to his Obama birth certificate nonsense, to his refusing for days on end to condemn David Duke, to the “Mexican” judge, to the s-hole countries, to “go back where you came from,” to “good people on both sides,” to “get that son-of-a-bitch off the field.” This is to name just a few of his crude racist remarks.
Is it the case that so long as Trump does not actually shout the phrase “white power” in a speech, then we must forget everything else he has done and said?
Most reasonable observers would say that this man forfeited the benefit of the doubt long ago.
Yes, Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech lauded American greatness. For some, that immunizes it against criticism. But at a moment of heightened racial tensions, when millions of his fellow citizens feel embattled and betrayed, it’s morally obtuse to fail to devote any words of comfort and inclusion toward them. It is not enough to name-check Louis Armstrong or Jesse Owens. A president should acknowledge that we have not yet lived up to the “true meaning of [our] creed,” and vow to do better. It is especially important to do so on the Fourth of July.
Instead, Trump spoke of American protesters in language usually reserved for foreign enemies:
Some know exactly what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive. But no, the American people are strong and proud, and they will not allow our country, and all of its values, history, and culture, to be taken from them.
Trump’s chosen message on Independence Day was the good news that “I am deploying federal law enforcement to protect our monuments, arrest the rioters, and prosecute offenders to the fullest extent of the law. . . I am pleased to report that yesterday, federal agents arrested the suspected ringleader of the attack on the statue of Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C. and, in addition, hundreds more have been arrested.”
News of arrests are supposed to make patriotic hearts swell with pride?
Leadership of a large, diverse nation requires certain grace notes that every president in living memory has found it in his heart to pronounce on important occasions.
This president has chosen, and continues to choose, division and vitriol.
His critics are right.


thebulwark--2020-07-07--Supreme Court Rules States Can Punish ‘Faithless Electors’

The Supreme Court ’ s unanimous decision yesterday in the so-called “ faithless electors ” case , Chiafalo v. Washington , brings to mind two tenets of legal education .
The first is that there ’ s a story behind every court decision .
The second is that important stuff often appears in the footnotes .
First the story .
Once upon a time , in the state of Washington , there were three electors who , according to Justice Elena Kagan ’ s opinion for the Court , “ violated their pledges in the 2016 presidential election.
” Recall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for president—delegates to the Electoral College do .
The Electoral College reflects a compromise among the Framers of the U.S. Constitution , who were wary of enabling Congress to choose presidents but also feared the whims of a mob populace .
( This constitutional compromise was entangled with another one : the “ three-fifths compromise ” for counting enslaved human beings for the purposes of allocating representatives in Congress and electors . )
Article II , Section 1 of the Constitution gives each state as many “ electors ” as the total number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Congress .
( Since 1961 , when the Twenty-Third Amendment was ratified , the District of Columbia also has had three electors . )
On Election Day , when voters cast ballots for a Democratic or Republican ticket for president , they are actually voting for a slate of electors chosen by each party .
Nearly all the states ( and the District of Columbia ) have a winner-take-all system : electors are expected to cast electoral ballots for the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote .
In 32 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that legally require ( often by an oath or pledge ) electors to vote for the state winner .
And in 15 of those 32 states , electors who ignore that state mandate can be fined or otherwise sanctioned .
In 2016 , three renegade electors from Washington took a gamble .
Although they had pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton , who won the popular vote in that state on November 3 , they instead cast their electoral votes for Colin Powell .
The gamble was that electors from other states—states that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Donald Trump—might follow suit , ultimately depriving Trump of the 270 electoral votes needed to win and punting the election to Congress .
The gamble failed .
Only four other electors defected , and Trump became president .
Wisconsin fined the three renegades $ 1,000 apiece .
The legal issue in Chiafalo had to do with the fine—the Supreme Court had already held in 1952 that the Constitution does not give electors full discretion to vote as they please and regardless of state laws governing elections .
In Chiafalo , the Court rejected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constrained in how they can enforce laws requiring electors to vote a certain way in the Electoral College .
The Constitution leaves all of those details up to the states .
Thus , Chiafalo ’ s primary takeaway is a bedrock principle : The constitutional right to vote in the United States depends on a voter ’ s zip code .
Although Congress has the power to tweak federal elections , it rarely uses it , which means that states hold all the cards when it comes to rolling out elections .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Justice Kagan does a formidable job explaining the history of the Electoral College—a tutorial that itself is worth a read .
But most people—if they are upset at all by the Electoral College—don ’ t care about faithless electors .
They care about the five times in American history that the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the presidency ( John Quincy Adams in 1824 ; Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 ; Benjamin Harrison in 1888 ; George W. Bush in 2000 ; and Donald Trump in 2020 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , in the overwhelming majority of states , all electoral votes go to the candidate who wins a majority or plurality of votes statewide .
For example , in 2016 Donald Trump won 49.0 percent of the popular vote in Florida , giving him 100 percent of Florida ’ s 29 electoral votes .
The voters who cast votes for other candidates , including the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton , were effectively canceled out in the Electoral College .
In footnote 1 , Justice Kagan acknowledges but quickly dismisses the fact that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Constitution .
In fact , two states don ’ t use it today : “ Maine and Nebraska ( which , for simplicity ’ s sake , we will ignore after this footnote ) developed a more complicated system in which two electors go to the winner of the statewide vote and one goes to the winner of each congressional district.
” Kagan continues : “ So , for example , if the Republican candidate wins the popular vote in Nebraska as a whole but loses to the Democratic candidate in one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ districts , the Republican will get four electors and the Democrat will get one.
” Put another way , the system used in Maine and Nebraska accounts for minority candidate voters .
( Note that these states ’ systems fall short of being completely proportional , in which each candidate would , upon reaching a certain threshold , get the proportion of electors that correspond with the proportion of the popular vote that they won .
So in Florida , Trump would have gotten only 49 percent of the 29 electoral votes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ adopt systems along the lines of those in Maine and Nebraska .
On the one hand , alternatives to winner-take-all approaches would strengthen the hand of third-party candidates and prompt the major parties to campaign in more states than just the traditional battlegrounds .
They might also align the Electoral College more closely with the popular vote .
But critics argue that an influx of third parties would not make all states equally competitive and could send elections into runoffs or , worse , into the hands of Congress .
( Another option @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Initiative , under which states would agree to pledge their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most popular votes across 50 states , so long as states with a total of 270 Electoral College votes agree .
As of today , 15 states and D.C. have joined this initiative—although its constitutionality is debated . )
States can take steps to remedy problems related to the Electoral College without the need for a constitutional amendment that would toss it out altogether .
In fact , many problems with voting in America can—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state legislators and with sufficient funding by Congress .
But that requires two things : widespread civic education so voters know how they can change the system at the ballot box , and political will .
Come this November , we are in desperate need of both .

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision yesterday in the so-called “faithless electors” case, Chiafalo v. Washington, brings to mind two tenets of legal education. The first is that there’s a story behind every court decision. The second is that important stuff often appears in the footnotes.
First the story. Once upon a time, in the state of Washington, there were three electors who, according to Justice Elena Kagan’s opinion for the Court, “violated their pledges in the 2016 presidential election.” Recall that Americans do not actually cast votes for president—delegates to the Electoral College do. The Electoral College reflects a compromise among the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, who were wary of enabling Congress to choose presidents but also feared the whims of a mob populace. (This constitutional compromise was entangled with another one: the “three-fifths compromise” for counting enslaved human beings for the purposes of allocating representatives in Congress and electors.)
Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution gives each state as many “electors” as the total number of representatives and senators it has in the Congress. (Since 1961, when the Twenty-Third Amendment was ratified, the District of Columbia also has had three electors.) On Election Day, when voters cast ballots for a Democratic or Republican ticket for president, they are actually voting for a slate of electors chosen by each party. Nearly all the states (and the District of Columbia) have a winner-take-all system: electors are expected to cast electoral ballots for the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote. In 32 of the states, there are laws that legally require (often by an oath or pledge) electors to vote for the state winner. And in 15 of those 32 states, electors who ignore that state mandate can be fined or otherwise sanctioned.
In 2016, three renegade electors from Washington took a gamble. Although they had pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote in that state on November 3, they instead cast their electoral votes for Colin Powell. The gamble was that electors from other states—states that had gone for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump—might follow suit, ultimately depriving Trump of the 270 electoral votes needed to win and punting the election to Congress. The gamble failed. Only four other electors defected, and Trump became president. Wisconsin fined the three renegades $1,000 apiece.
The legal issue in Chiafalo had to do with the fine—the Supreme Court had already held in 1952 that the Constitution does not give electors full discretion to vote as they please and regardless of state laws governing elections. In Chiafalo, the Court rejected the argument that states are nonetheless constitutionally constrained in how they can enforce laws requiring electors to vote a certain way in the Electoral College. The Constitution leaves all of those details up to the states. Thus, Chiafalo’s primary takeaway is a bedrock principle: The constitutional right to vote in the United States depends on a voter’s zip code. Although Congress has the power to tweak federal elections, it rarely uses it, which means that states hold all the cards when it comes to rolling out elections.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Now for the footnote. In her decision, Justice Kagan does a formidable job explaining the history of the Electoral College—a tutorial that itself is worth a read. But most people—if they are upset at all by the Electoral College—don’t care about faithless electors. They care about the five times in American history that the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the presidency (John Quincy Adams in 1824; Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876; Benjamin Harrison in 1888; George W. Bush in 2000; and Donald Trump in 2020). The reason for this discrepancy is that, in the overwhelming majority of states, all electoral votes go to the candidate who wins a majority or plurality of votes statewide. For example, in 2016 Donald Trump won 49.0 percent of the popular vote in Florida, giving him 100 percent of Florida’s 29 electoral votes. The voters who cast votes for other candidates, including the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, were effectively canceled out in the Electoral College.
In footnote 1, Justice Kagan acknowledges but quickly dismisses the fact that the winner-take-all system is not required by the Constitution. In fact, two states don’t use it today: “Maine and Nebraska (which, for simplicity’s sake, we will ignore after this footnote) developed a more complicated system in which two electors go to the winner of the statewide vote and one goes to the winner of each congressional district.” Kagan continues: “So, for example, if the Republican candidate wins the popular vote in Nebraska as a whole but loses to the Democratic candidate in one of the State’s three congressional districts, the Republican will get four electors and the Democrat will get one.”
Put another way, the system used in Maine and Nebraska accounts for minority candidate voters. (Note that these states’ systems fall short of being completely proportional, in which each candidate would, upon reaching a certain threshold, get the proportion of electors that correspond with the proportion of the popular vote that they won. So in Florida, Trump would have gotten only 49 percent of the 29 electoral votes.)
Experts debate whether more states should adopt systems along the lines of those in Maine and Nebraska. On the one hand, alternatives to winner-take-all approaches would strengthen the hand of third-party candidates and prompt the major parties to campaign in more states than just the traditional battlegrounds. They might also align the Electoral College more closely with the popular vote. But critics argue that an influx of third parties would not make all states equally competitive and could send elections into runoffs or, worse, into the hands of Congress. (Another option being floated is the National Popular Vote Initiative, under which states would agree to pledge their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most popular votes across 50 states, so long as states with a total of 270 Electoral College votes agree. As of today, 15 states and D.C. have joined this initiative—although its constitutionality is debated.)
States can take steps to remedy problems related to the Electoral College without the need for a constitutional amendment that would toss it out altogether. In fact, many problems with voting in America can—and should—be addressed at the state level by state legislators and with sufficient funding by Congress. But that requires two things: widespread civic education so voters know how they can change the system at the ballot box, and political will. Come this November, we are in desperate need of both.


thebulwark--2020-07-07--Charlie Kirk, Trump’s Pied Piper

Charlie Kirk, Trump’s Pied Piper

If you thought President Trump ’ s Mount Rushmore and Fourth of July addresses were , as former President George W. Bush memorably described another Trump speech , “ some weird shit , ” then you missed the even weirder preview he gave to a bunch of kids last month .
The scene in Phoenix , Arizona , at the “ Students for Trump Convention ” in June was like a mashup of the beginning sequences of an outbreak movie and a sketch from Saturday Night Live .
If it were all made up , it would have been hilarious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was horrifying .
To see President Trump , an estimated 3,000 people , nearly all maskless , stood in line and then gathered together inside the Dream City Church , a place of worship that claimed to have an air-purification system capable of killing “ 99.9 percent of COVID within 10 minutes.
” They listened to hours of speechifying from Trump supporters , including GOP South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem , who addressed the crowd virtually and bragged about her state ’ s resistance to shutting down during the pandemic .
( When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Friday , it was sans social distancing , natch . )
Before President Trump spoke , the event organizers showed what can only be described as a slavish propaganda reel playing up his popularity , athleticism ( really ) , and bullying takedowns.The audience screamed and cheered when the president took the stage .
After his rambling , hour-long talk , Trump invited Turning Point USA “ ambassador ” Reagan Escudé to the podium to talk about her experience with “ cancel culture.
” She gave her testimony about how she lost her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made an Instagram video about “ how disappointed I am in the church ’ s reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement.
” Voice shaking with emotion , she said that evangelical pastors needed to learn “ that racism is a problem in the heart , it is a sin problem that can not be resolved by any law , protest , or march.
” Escudé then expressed shock that “ Aunt Jemima was canceled.
” She explained , “ And if you didn ’ t know , Nancy Green , the original @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picture of the American Dream .
She was a freed slave who went on to be the face of the pancake syrup that we love and have in our pantries today .
She fought for equality , and now , the leftist mob is trying to erase her legacy .
And might I mention how privileged we are as a nation if our biggest concern is a bottle of pancake syrup ?
” The revival-style meeting was so warped that Trump ’ s remarks were the most normal part of the event .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of idiocy ?
Charlie Kirk , the telegenic GOP wunderkind possessed of the supernatural ability to convince old Republican men to hand him fat checks and make him CPAC famous .
He ’ s a true believer in Trump ’ s current messaging .
Mainly because it ’ s the same propaganda he ’ s been using to lead the youth to Trumpism .
Think of Kirk as the president ’ s Pied Piper .
And now Trump is testing Kirk ’ s tune on the rest of the country .
When Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but were villains , ” Kirk must have been rejoicing .
What Kirk had previously described as a “ campus battlefield ” has become the culture war Trump is waging across the nation .
Kirk , who is only 26 years old , gained a foothold in conservative media as a high school student by writing for Breitbart News about the “ indoctrination children are receiving in today ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ push a liberal-leaning agenda.
” Kirk had planned on college—Baylor had accepted him ; West Point hadn ’ t—but a wealthy Chicagoan named Bill Montgomery , who was impressed by Kirk ’ s public speaking in 2012 , convinced him to instead start a nonprofit organization to reach out to other young people .
So he skipped the learning and went straight to indoctrinating students with his own agenda by way of TPUSA .
To get it going , he memorized the names and faces of prominent GOP donors and stalked them at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investor Foster Friess , who bankrolled Rick Santorum ’ s losing campaign , was his first target .
Kirk correctly surmised that Friess was willing to light more money on fire .
“ He impressed me with his capacity to lead , intelligence , and love for America , ” Friess told Bloomberg News .
“ I instantly knew I wanted to support him.
” Friess cut him a check for $ 10,000 .
“ He ’ s phenomenal .
The most incredible young man I know , ” another donor , Peter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ At his age , he is one of the most accomplished , one of the most mature , and one of the most organized and intelligent guys that I have ever met .
You just don ’ t meet guys like this.
” That all goes to say , the donor dudes really , really love him .
And Kirk knows they are primed for his pitch .
He told Politico in 2018 : This approach seems to be working out : Last year , Kirk raised $ 24 million in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trumpy Ken doll : tall , dark , and irksome .
The weird part is that when he reads this—and he will because he always reads his own press—he ’ ll take that as a compliment .
To put it another way , Kirk is what you would get if you spliced together Tucker Carlson , Jared Kushner , and Donald Trump Jr. into a young MAGAtron .
He has Tucker ’ s pretentiousness and Jared ’ s plasticity cloaked in Don Jr. ’ s faux-Bubba attitude .
Don Jr. is the one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The two met at the 2016 convention—yes conventions seem to be kismet places for Kirk—and found mutually beneficial reasons to bond .
Through his organization , Kirk had lots of contacts with students around the country and knew how to turn kids out .
And , the bumbling Trump campaign needed young voters to turn out for them .
The match was natural , as Kirk told Rush Limbaugh : To say Kirk is busy today would be an understatement .
He ’ s running Turning Point USA , which has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Turning Point Action acquired the fledgling Students for Trump in 2019 .
Kirk is chairman of that , too .
Turning Point USA has a thriving Youtube channel that produces several original forms of programming .
Additionally , Kirk has his own YouTube show and podcast .
Since Trump was elected , Kirk has written two books , Campus Battlefield : How Conservatives Can Win the Battle on Campus and Why it Matters ( amply padded with reprints of his tweets and retweets ) and , from earlier this year , The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Will Win the Future .
Yes , Kirk is living his dream of the chief operator of a “ multidimensional culture war machine.
” If you are looking for the reason why President Trump is talking as if he were a Zoomer on Parler , Kirk is it .
So , what is Kirk ’ s grand message to the young and impressionable ?
Summed up in three words : “ They hate you.
” ( What were you expecting—Socrates ? )
Kirk ’ s so-called MAGA Doctrine amounts to nothing more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump is good .
Everything is explained by that fact .
It isn ’ t hard to see how a college graduate ended up thinking Aunt Jemima was the picture of the American Dream now , is it ?
Over the years , Kirk has assembled quite a cast of characters to help him spread his message .
He has put Milo Yiannopoulos and Sebastian Gorka in front of young audiences .
Candace Owens was TPUSA ’ s communications director until she told a London audience last year that the only real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had dreams outside of Germany.
” The New Yorker reported in 2017 that the organization ’ s former national field director Crystal Clanton sent a text message to another employee that said , “ I hate black people .
Like fuck them all .
.
.
I hate blacks .
End of story.
” Benny Johnson , who has been TPUSA ’ s “ chief creative officer ” since last year , is best known as a repeat plagiarist and fabulist .
And then , Kirk has had his own problems .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when Young Turks Founder Cenk Uygur interrogated him about his salary .
The vice president and general counsel of another prominent young-conservatives organization , Young Americans for Freedom , wrote a memo noting they had heard about “ many alarming incidents ” involving TPUSA and warning YAF members about TPUSA ’ s “ lack of integrity , honesty , experience , and judgment.
” Earlier this year , the Koch Network took Kirk to task for “ inciting harassment against scholars.
” In March , Twitter temporarily locked his account after he falsely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this really matters , though , because Kirk is only accountable to his donors .
And the moneybags , from all appearances , don ’ t seem to mind Kirk ’ s methods or what effects he might be having on the youth .
Not when there are tax cuts to be had , regulations to be cut , and conservative judges to be confirmed , anyway .
Kirk ’ s most important mission now is to get the president re-elected , a daunting task given the backlash against Trump in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden in battleground states .
In various interviews of late , Kirk can be found rattling off a memorized list of Trump ’ s so-called accomplishments like a pledge brother during hell week .
You get the feeling you ’ d both like to shotgun a beer when he ’ s done .
( He would do it out of self-congratulations ; you would to forget the awkward spectacle . )
The only way for Trump to win , Kirk apparently believes , is to dig deep on the culture war , campus-battlefield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem to agree .
In Phoenix last month , President Trump told the students , “ You ’ re fighting against an oppressive left-wing ideology that is driven by hate and seeks to purge all dissent .
And you understand that .
.
.
.
The radical left demands absolute conformity from every professor , researcher , reporter , journalist , corporation , entertainer , politician , campus speaker , and private citizen .
But we have Charlie , and we have our people , and our people are stronger.
” Trump went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are stronger , and our people are smarter , and we are the elite ” —before telling them : In his online recap of the event , Kirk stopped the tape where Trump praised him .
“ It ’ s almost like he ’ s been listening to the Charlie Kirk Show , because he was saying word-for-word what we ’ ve been saying.
” Indeed : Trump was delivering exactly the message Kirk indoctrinates the youth with .
And he went on to hit many of the same beats at Mount Rushmore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Fourth of July address .
Trump seems to have decided , four months before the election , that the essence of his campaign will be culture war—and specifically , a nationalized version of campus culture clashes .
The circle is now complete : Charlie Kirk became a Trumpist .
And now Trump has become a Kirkist .
It would be silly to think that Kirk is going to spend the rest of his life talking to students .
In the video Kirk currently has featured atop his YouTube channel , “ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Re-Election , ” he declares , “ This guy [ Trump ] is a vessel for us .
A vessel for those of us that have nothing but resentment for the kingdom of Washington , D.C. ” What did he mean by that ?
Well , “ vessel ” has two meanings : an empty container or a ship .
Maybe Kirk means both .
Because other people have filled Trump ’ s empty head with their ideas and Kirk is using Trump to propel himself forward .
Where might Kirk cast his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a battle for Trump ’ s political inheritance , Kirk will reap the spoils .
It is much more likely to be the likes of Donald Trump Jr. and Kirk than Ivanka and Jared Kushner who will inherit whatever is left of Trump ’ s movement .
Thinking of a post-45 country , it ’ s easy to see how Kirk , along with Don Jr. and their speaking-tour faves—Governor Noem , Matt Gaetz , Richard Grenell , and the rest—are creating a cadre of , in their own minds at least , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students are already supporting them on some level , too , which means something .
And Kirk , with many years ahead of him , has the money , the connections , the media skills , and the data files to do pretty much anything he ’ d like to do in conservative media or politics .
Although he has said he would not like to run for office himself , Kirk sure does seem to like helping President Trump run for re-election .
Kirk is well situated , perhaps better than anyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major campaign for someone else—like oh , well , let ’ s say , his best buddy old friend DJTJ .
As Kirk said , Donald J. Trump Sr. is only a vessel .
Another will be on the way soon enough .

If you thought President Trump’s Mount Rushmore and Fourth of July addresses were, as former President George W. Bush memorably described another Trump speech, “some weird shit,” then you missed the even weirder preview he gave to a bunch of kids last month.
The scene in Phoenix, Arizona, at the “Students for Trump Convention” in June was like a mashup of the beginning sequences of an outbreak movie and a sketch from Saturday Night Live. If it were all made up, it would have been hilarious; because it was real, it was horrifying.
To see President Trump, an estimated 3,000 people, nearly all maskless, stood in line and then gathered together inside the Dream City Church, a place of worship that claimed to have an air-purification system capable of killing “99.9 percent of COVID within 10 minutes.” They listened to hours of speechifying from Trump supporters, including GOP South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who addressed the crowd virtually and bragged about her state’s resistance to shutting down during the pandemic. (When she hosted Trump at Mount Rushmore on Friday, it was sans social distancing, natch.)
Before President Trump spoke, the event organizers showed what can only be described as a slavish propaganda reel playing up his popularity, athleticism (really), and bullying takedowns.The audience screamed and cheered when the president took the stage. After his rambling, hour-long talk, Trump invited Turning Point USA “ambassador” Reagan Escudé to the podium to talk about her experience with “cancel culture.” She gave her testimony about how she lost her first job out of college because she made an Instagram video about “how disappointed I am in the church’s reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement.” Voice shaking with emotion, she said that evangelical pastors needed to learn “that racism is a problem in the heart, it is a sin problem that cannot be resolved by any law, protest, or march.”
Escudé then expressed shock that “Aunt Jemima was canceled.” She explained, “And if you didn’t know, Nancy Green, the original first Aunt Jemima, she was the picture of the American Dream. She was a freed slave who went on to be the face of the pancake syrup that we love and have in our pantries today. She fought for equality, and now, the leftist mob is trying to erase her legacy. And might I mention how privileged we are as a nation if our biggest concern is a bottle of pancake syrup?”
The revival-style meeting was so warped that Trump’s remarks were the most normal part of the event.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Who was responsible for this abundant display of idiocy? Charlie Kirk, the telegenic GOP wunderkind possessed of the supernatural ability to convince old Republican men to hand him fat checks and make him CPAC famous. He’s a true believer in Trump’s current messaging. Mainly because it’s the same propaganda he’s been using to lead the youth to Trumpism.
Think of Kirk as the president’s Pied Piper. And now Trump is testing Kirk’s tune on the rest of the country.
When Trump said in South Dakota that “our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but were villains,” Kirk must have been rejoicing. What Kirk had previously described as a “campus battlefield” has become the culture war Trump is waging across the nation.
Kirk, who is only 26 years old, gained a foothold in conservative media as a high school student by writing for Breitbart News about the “indoctrination children are receiving in today’s public schools, as unionized teachers push a liberal-leaning agenda.” Kirk had planned on college—Baylor had accepted him; West Point hadn’t—but a wealthy Chicagoan named Bill Montgomery, who was impressed by Kirk’s public speaking in 2012, convinced him to instead start a nonprofit organization to reach out to other young people. So he skipped the learning and went straight to indoctrinating students with his own agenda by way of TPUSA.
To get it going, he memorized the names and faces of prominent GOP donors and stalked them at the 2012 Republican National Convention. Multimillionaire investor Foster Friess, who bankrolled Rick Santorum’s losing campaign, was his first target. Kirk correctly surmised that Friess was willing to light more money on fire. “He impressed me with his capacity to lead, intelligence, and love for America,” Friess told Bloomberg News. “I instantly knew I wanted to support him.” Friess cut him a check for $10,000.
“He’s phenomenal. The most incredible young man I know,” another donor, Peter Huizenga, told the Atlantic in 2015. “At his age, he is one of the most accomplished, one of the most mature, and one of the most organized and intelligent guys that I have ever met. You just don’t meet guys like this.”
That all goes to say, the donor dudes really, really love him. And Kirk knows they are primed for his pitch. He told Politico in 2018:
You can’t watch Fox News without seeing five or six segments a day about the nuttiness on college campuses. . . . You pair that nuttiness up with people in their 60s and 70s who are beginning to map out where they want a significant portion of their wealth to go, and they’re saying, “I don’t want my money to go to my university. It’s not representing my values.” Then we come along.
This approach seems to be working out: Last year, Kirk raised $24 million in contributions.
Charlie Kirk is like a Trumpy Ken doll: tall, dark, and irksome. The weird part is that when he reads this—and he will because he always reads his own press—he’ll take that as a compliment.
To put it another way, Kirk is what you would get if you spliced together Tucker Carlson, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. into a young MAGAtron. He has Tucker’s pretentiousness and Jared’s plasticity cloaked in Don Jr.’s faux-Bubba attitude.
Don Jr. is the one Kirk is really tight with, though. The two met at the 2016 convention—yes conventions seem to be kismet places for Kirk—and found mutually beneficial reasons to bond. Through his organization, Kirk had lots of contacts with students around the country and knew how to turn kids out. And, the bumbling Trump campaign needed young voters to turn out for them. The match was natural, as Kirk told Rush Limbaugh:
We really hit it off, we connected and I asked Don what the Trump campaign was doing for the youth vote. And he said, “Well, not much, but would you like to help?” I said of course I would. Rush, I was just blown away by the lack of infrastructure, I guess you could say, towards youth and student outreach. So I essentially built it through the months of August, September, and October of 2016. I traveled the country for about 70 days straight carrying Donald Trump, Jr.’s bags and getting his Diet Cokes, and helping book flights, and taking pictures and coordinating media, essentially being the youth director of the campaign and also being Don, Jr.’s body man.
The servitude paid off.
To say Kirk is busy today would be an understatement. He’s running Turning Point USA, which has a political action arm called Turning Point Action. Turning Point Action acquired the fledgling Students for Trump in 2019. Kirk is chairman of that, too. Turning Point USA has a thriving Youtube channel that produces several original forms of programming. Additionally, Kirk has his own YouTube show and podcast. Since Trump was elected, Kirk has written two books, Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can Win the Battle on Campus and Why it Matters (amply padded with reprints of his tweets and retweets) and, from earlier this year, The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Win the Future.
Yes, Kirk is living his dream of the chief operator of a “multidimensional culture war machine.” If you are looking for the reason why President Trump is talking as if he were a Zoomer on Parler, Kirk is it.
So, what is Kirk’s grand message to the young and impressionable? Summed up in three words: “They hate you.” (What were you expecting—Socrates?) Kirk’s so-called MAGA Doctrine amounts to nothing more than Washington and Democrats are bad, therefore, Trump is good. Everything is explained by that fact. It isn’t hard to see how a college graduate ended up thinking Aunt Jemima was the picture of the American Dream now, is it?
Over the years, Kirk has assembled quite a cast of characters to help him spread his message. He has put Milo Yiannopoulos and Sebastian Gorka in front of young audiences. Candace Owens was TPUSA’s communications director until she told a London audience last year that the only real problem with Hitler was that “he had dreams outside of Germany.” The New Yorker reported in 2017 that the organization’s former national field director Crystal Clanton sent a text message to another employee that said, “I hate black people. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.” Benny Johnson, who has been TPUSA’s “chief creative officer” since last year, is best known as a repeat plagiarist and fabulist.
And then, Kirk has had his own problems.
He blew his lid at Politicon in 2018 when Young Turks Founder Cenk Uygur interrogated him about his salary. The vice president and general counsel of another prominent young-conservatives organization, Young Americans for Freedom, wrote a memo noting they had heard about “many alarming incidents” involving TPUSA and warning YAF members about TPUSA’s “lack of integrity, honesty, experience, and judgment.” Earlier this year, the Koch Network took Kirk to task for “inciting harassment against scholars.” In March, Twitter temporarily locked his account after he falsely tweeted a post that stated:
Hydroxychloroquine has been shown to have a 100% effective rate treating COVID-19. Yet Democrat Gretchen Whitmer is threatening doctors who prescribe it. If Trump is for something – Democrats are against it. They’re okay with people dying if it means opposing Trump.
None of this really matters, though, because Kirk is only accountable to his donors. And the moneybags, from all appearances, don’t seem to mind Kirk’s methods or what effects he might be having on the youth. Not when there are tax cuts to be had, regulations to be cut, and conservative judges to be confirmed, anyway.
Kirk’s most important mission now is to get the president re-elected, a daunting task given the backlash against Trump in the midterms and polling deficit he faces against Biden in battleground states. In various interviews of late, Kirk can be found rattling off a memorized list of Trump’s so-called accomplishments like a pledge brother during hell week. You get the feeling you’d both like to shotgun a beer when he’s done. (He would do it out of self-congratulations; you would to forget the awkward spectacle.)
The only way for Trump to win, Kirk apparently believes, is to dig deep on the culture war, campus-battlefield style. The president and his team seem to agree. In Phoenix last month, President Trump told the students, “You’re fighting against an oppressive left-wing ideology that is driven by hate and seeks to purge all dissent. And you understand that. . . . The radical left demands absolute conformity from every professor, researcher, reporter, journalist, corporation, entertainer, politician, campus speaker, and private citizen. But we have Charlie, and we have our people, and our people are stronger.”
Trump went on laud the audience—“Our people are stronger, and our people are smarter, and we are the elite”—before telling them:
The radical left, they hate our history, they hate our values, and they hate everything we prize as Americans. And we’re right, because our country didn’t grow great with them; it grew great with you and your thought process and your ideology. The left-wing mob is trying to demolish our heritage so they can replace it with a new repressive regime that they alone control. They’re tearing down statues, desecrating monuments, and purging dissenters. It’s not the behavior of a peaceful political movement; it’s the behavior of totalitarians and tyrants and people that don’t love our country. They don’t love our country. The left is not trying to promote justice or equality or lift up the downtrodden. They have one goal: The pursuit of their own political power, for whatever reason. But that’s their goal. That really seems to be their goal—their goal or their sickness. And if you give power to people that demolish monuments and attack churches and seize city streets and set fire to buildings, then nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
In his online recap of the event, Kirk stopped the tape where Trump praised him. “It’s almost like he’s been listening to the Charlie Kirk Show, because he was saying word-for-word what we’ve been saying.”
Indeed: Trump was delivering exactly the message Kirk indoctrinates the youth with. And he went on to hit many of the same beats at Mount Rushmore last Friday and again on Saturday in a Fourth of July address. Trump seems to have decided, four months before the election, that the essence of his campaign will be culture war—and specifically, a nationalized version of campus culture clashes. The circle is now complete: Charlie Kirk became a Trumpist. And now Trump has become a Kirkist.
It would be silly to think that Kirk is going to spend the rest of his life talking to students. In the video Kirk currently has featured atop his YouTube channel, “The Best Argument For President Trump’s Re-Election,” he declares, “This guy [Trump] is a vessel for us. A vessel for those of us that have nothing but resentment for the kingdom of Washington, D.C.”
What did he mean by that? Well, “vessel” has two meanings: an empty container or a ship. Maybe Kirk means both. Because other people have filled Trump’s empty head with their ideas and Kirk is using Trump to propel himself forward.
Where might Kirk cast his fortunes next? If there is ever a battle for Trump’s political inheritance, Kirk will reap the spoils. It is much more likely to be the likes of Donald Trump Jr. and Kirk than Ivanka and Jared Kushner who will inherit whatever is left of Trump’s movement.
Thinking of a post-45 country, it’s easy to see how Kirk, along with Don Jr. and their speaking-tour faves—Governor Noem, Matt Gaetz, Richard Grenell, and the rest—are creating a cadre of, in their own minds at least, youngish, coolish leaders. Thousands of students are already supporting them on some level, too, which means something. And Kirk, with many years ahead of him, has the money, the connections, the media skills, and the data files to do pretty much anything he’d like to do in conservative media or politics.
Although he has said he would not like to run for office himself, Kirk sure does seem to like helping President Trump run for re-election. Kirk is well situated, perhaps better than anyone on the planet, to spearhead a major campaign for someone else—like oh, well, let’s say, his best buddy old friend DJTJ.
As Kirk said, Donald J. Trump Sr. is only a vessel. Another will be on the way soon enough.