thenation--2020-11-11--Good Riddance to Trump: A Political Obituary I Have Waited 5 Years to Write

Nearly five years ago , my editors at The Nation put me on the Trump beat .
My first assignment was to analyze the real estate mogul cum reality-TV star cum politician ’ s language—his use of tweets to score political points , his coarse threats and insults , his unparalleled narcissism , and his MAGA racism .
There was something horribly fascinating about watching a skilled demagogue pick up steam .
Trump test-drove any and every bigotry to see what would most move , and expand , his base .
He dreamed up a Muslim travel ban , talked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , fetishized the practice of torture , mocked women for their appearance , ridiculed a disabled journalist , trash-talked Gold Star parents , boasted about sexually assaulting women , bragged about his ability to evade paying taxes .
He didn ’ t just talk out of both sides of his mouth ; he also ranted from pretty much every other orifice as well .
The result was a peculiarly potent stew of gibberish laden with sadism .
He was like the character Lonesome Rhodes , at the height of his power , played @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s 1957 film masterpiece A Face in the Crowd : a charismatic demagogue capable of using mass media to almost hypnotize a crowd into doing his bidding .
Donald J. Trump knew how to manipulate language—even punctuation and font size—to get everyone to talk about Donald J. Trump pretty much all the goddamn time .
I kept waiting , back in 2016 , for the other shoe to fall , for people to see through his shtick , to realize the hollowness of his promises , to acknowledge the fundamental contempt he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Brooklyn Bridges he was selling them .
I kept waiting for that moment , so wonderfully portrayed by Kazan , when the demagogue finally self-destructs .
Donald Trump , the Most Dangerous Face in the Republican Crowd But that moment never came .
Trump grew stronger and stronger throughout that year .
His Election Day victory horrified me like nothing else in my life—not personal losses , not even 9/11—had done .
I felt like a mirror had been placed up to America , and instead of an optimistic , hopeful , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , cankered monstrosity .
I felt like a knife had sliced and diced the core of my being—but Trump ’ s victory also didn ’ t entirely surprise me .
The reporting I had done over the previous couple decades had made me all too aware of how America ’ s social and economic fractures left it horrifically vulnerable to the wiles of a demagogue , of a man promising gold but delivering only base metal .
Trump struck me from the get-go as exactly that demagogue , a once-in-a-century incarnation of malevolence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his primary season opponents , spewing so many rapid-fire lies and distortions that they had no time to regroup and rethink their approach to him ; the way he had used Hitlerian Big Lie propaganda to delegitimize and discredit Hillary Clinton during the general election campaign ; and , above all , the way he had pandered to the worst fears of his audiences during his Nuremberg-style political rallies—all made me realize he had found a way to exploit America ’ s divides in his successful run for the White House .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the last Great White Hope in a country on the cusp of becoming majority-minority , and he knew how to harness—and inflate—every fear and stereotype about nonwhite people that percolated through conservative white America ; every fear of the loss of cultural , political , economic , and racial power .
He appealed brilliantly to the reptilian parts of the human brain , the most primitive fight-or-flight responses that have been hard-wired into the animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years .
When not just one or two but many Trump-supporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me in February 2016 that they were in favor of deporting , or even executing , Muslim Americans , it hit home just how debased and violent the country could become should a demagogue of Trump ’ s ilk somehow gain supreme power .
When a New Republic journalist wrote of attending a Trump rally and hearing a man tell his wife , “ Honey , immigrants aren ’ t people , ” it hit home again : all the damage that could be inflicted , all the lives that could be ruined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laws and regulations of American governance and immigration policy .
When Trump ’ s frenzied crowds booed and threatened journalists , cheering Trump ’ s denunciations of these “ enemies of the people , ” it became all too obvious what a reality-show , talk-radio presidency would look and sound like .
With his chin defiantly thrust out like a cartoon Mussolini , Trump fashioned himself in power as a strongman .
He strutted and preened like Charlie Chaplin ’ s Great Dictator , tweeting out increasingly megalomaniacal fantasies .
He decreed rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That he didn ’ t end up using the royal “ we ” was less a sign of humbleness than of his egotistical refusal to share the stage with anyone else—even a royal plural version of himself .
The oxygen that sustained him was the adoration of his crowds , and the thing that seemed to get him off most was the power he exerted—through these crowds , through his tweets , and eventually through his use of the levers of government—to inflict suffering and humiliation on others .
He ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inmates to run the gantlet and suffer savage beatings , in Dostoyevsky ’ s Notes from a Dead House : “ There are people , like tigers , who have a thirst for licking blood , ” Dostoyevsky wrote .
“ A man who has once experienced this power , this unlimited lordship over the body , blood , and spirit of a man just like himself…a man who has experienced the power and the full possibility of inflicting the ultimate humiliation upon another being bearing the image of God , somehow involuntarily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a habit ; it is endowed with development , and develops finally into an illness.
” America ’ s 45th president is a one-person wrecking ball aimed at the institutions and norms underpinning the American Republic and its democratic political culture .
None of Donald Trump ’ s time spent in office was about cultivating good governance .
Quite the reverse : He staffed the EPA , the Labor Department , OSHA , Housing and Urban Development , the Education Department , and other agencies with men and women who didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raison d ’ être .
As had other Republican presidents in recent decades , he put foxes into the henhouse , and political commissars in oversight roles at supposedly nonpolitical scientific agencies .
But in Trump ’ s case it seemed particularly gratuitous : There was no coherent ideological vision , apart from a vaguely conceived “ nationalism , ” a knee-jerk hatred of racial justice and environmental protections , and a grim conviction that virtually all non-security-related functions of government ought to be stamped out .
There was certainly no programmatic effort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traditional conservatives what they demanded—massive tax cuts for the wealthiest , judicial nominees who fit their ideological mold on issues ranging from abortion to voting rights , and rampant deregulation of the environment and workplace .
But he did so less out of conviction ( who really believes Trump gives two hoots about the ethical issues surrounding , say , abortion ? )
than expediency .
When it came to his campaign promises , such as major infrastructure investment , he had neither the stamina nor the skill to craft congressional coalitions capable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point of view , why should he ?
Trump never has cared for anything or anyone beyond himself and—perhaps—his family .
His presidency has been no different .
It was , from the get-go , a giant racket , a swizz , a con , a cheat , a grift .
It was , from day one , a continuous game of Three-Card Monte .
He posited himself as a tribune of the people while raking in millions by sending government business to his hotels , golf courses , and other real estate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way to hurt immigrant families and demonize those without papers , while hiring undocumented workers in his own businesses .
He talked tough on China while seeking financial opportunities there .
He denounced Muslim immigrants and refugees while cozying up to the brutal Saudi dictatorship .
He flirted with neo-fascists , domestic and foreign , white nationalist street-fighters , and a who ’ s who of conspiracists and crooks .
He talked about his fealty to “ law and order ” while one adviser after the next pleaded guilty to , or was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and state crimes .
He was impeached for his own strong-arming of an overseas government to secure dirt on his domestic political opponent , Joe Biden , and then responded to public outrage by getting his attorneys to build a legal theory that , as president , he was beyond the rule of law .
For the past five years , virtually every working hour of my journalistic life has been consumed with chronicling the cruelties and irrationalities of Trump—and , just as much , the cruelties and irrationalities of Trumpism , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bannon , of the contemptible opportunists who joined his administration to take advantage of the gravy train , of his mobbish rallies and the gun-toting extremists who felt validated by his presence in the White House .
Writing about political figures whose views I personally disagree with was hardly new for me ; I have written about politics for more than a quarter-century , and I have gotten used to covering both politicians and policies that strike me as deeply distasteful .
But I found it impossible to get used to Trumpland .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and his impulsive , irrational , deliberately cruel approach to politics was too shocking .
I ’ d sleep for a few hours and wake up the next morning only to discover yet another insane tweet he ’ d posted on , say , playing nuclear chicken with North Korea , or mocking the democratically elected leaders of countries like Canada , France , the UK , or Germany .
I ’ d go for a coffee and return to my computer to find that a senior cabinet member had been fired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rituals of humiliation from The Boss .
I ’ d go for a drive and come home to find that the United States had withdrawn from yet another international treaty or organization painstakingly put together over years of careful diplomacy .
Living through these 48 months has been a constant stress-test .
Trump ’ s presidency was intended to make people of good conscience feel permanently ill , forever on edge .
To write about this , to bear witness , has involved a certain corrosion of one ’ s soul .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spirit of American liberalism , to stick it to the “ libtards , ” to mortify the “ snowflakes.
” It was , from the start , a cultist , hero-worshiping shitshow that degraded institutions and soiled the entire GOP hierarchy .
There was , as I wrote in a column for The Sacramento Bee , something punklike about Trump ’ s antics , a safety-pin-through-the-nose , vomit-on-the-stage contempt for decency ; a belief that equated kindness to weakness , and humility to national decay .
What does one do when one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his homeland security team why agents can ’ t simply shoot undocumented immigrants in the legs if they try to cross the southern border , and asks his engineers to come up with plans to build an alligator-filled moat along that same border ; who refers to poor nonwhite countries as “ shitholes ” ; who insists that tiki-torch carrying neo-Nazis chanting “ Jews will not replace us ” are “ very fine people ” ; who suggests one can tackle a once-in-a-century pandemic by having people inject disinfectant or direct ultraviolet light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man in Brooklyn who was separated from his wife and US-citizen baby son in Yemen because , after they had finally managed to secure the visa for his wife to join him—which would have also meant she could bring their breast-feeding baby with her—Trump suddenly decided that no Yemenis would be admitted to America .
I interviewed a young Somali man who had waited years to bring his mother to this country , had finally secured a visa for her , but was then told that the president had decreed that all migrants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I interviewed destitute Haitian women in San Diego who had trekked north on foot all the way from Brazil—where they and their husbands had been working as casual laborers before being expelled in 2016—hoping to get what was known as “ conditional parole ” entry into the United States .
But they arrived at the border , just after Trump ’ s inauguration , to find a new policy in place mandating that the men be immediately imprisoned .
The women , many of them illiterate , and their young children were left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could .
I interviewed asylum seekers from Honduras and Guatemala who had presented themselves for asylum at the border—as they are legally entitled to do—only to be arrested and cast into frigid concrete holding cells , or made to sleep in the open air on the grounds of detention camps , with their babies , during a high-desert winter .
Many of them were seriously ill by the time they were finally released into the hands of humanitarian agencies in Tucson .
A doctor I met there , who had worked in war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she was seeing vis-à-vis these asylum seekers reminded her of some of the worst civil war conditions and refugee camps she had encountered in her decades-long career .
I interviewed dozens of men and women with Temporary Protected Status—people from Central America , Sudan , and elsewhere—who had lived and worked in the United States for decades with government-issued work papers and residency permits , and who had started businesses and families in the United States , but were now suddenly told the government would deport them .
There were nearly half a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came into office , with roughly a quarter-million US-citizen children .
Trump ’ s policy was—like his vile child separation policy on the border—designed to rip families apart .
I had DACA students in the classes I teach who now lived in terror that they would lose their status , or that their parents or older siblings would be arrested by ICE agents and deported .
I talked with International Rescue Committee staff who could no longer resettle refugees , because instead of the roughly 100,000 being admitted yearly at the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number shrank each year , until now it is capped at 15,000 .
And I watched in horror as Trump visited refugee-friendly cities such as Minneapolis to mock those fleeing war and famine and the predations of drug cartels , and to gin up racial and religious animosities against them .
I spoke to desperate , hungry people around the country who faced loss of access to food stamps because of Trump ’ s determination to cut SNAP benefits .
I talked to people who had finally , after decades without health insurance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act , and now watched in fear as Trump threw his administration into a campaign to kill it .
Every day Trump broke norms , be it through rewriting more than half a century of immigration policy via regulatory changes or politicizing the Justice Department by urging—and in many instances getting—the pardon of his political and personal cronies and the investigation of his enemies .
He demanded loyalty to him , not the Constitution , from appointees ; made them sign nondisclosure agreements so they couldn ’ t talk about his shady activities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ servants , military figures , and diplomats who did testify about his actions before Congress .
He deployed heavily armed federal security forces against racial justice protesters and wanted to unleash the full might of the US military against them , boasting that he would “ dominate ” the streets .
He labeled some of America ’ s greatest cities “ anarchist jurisdictions ” and then withheld federal funds from them .
He got into pissing matches with California over environmental policy and wanted to retaliate by not releasing FEMA disaster-relief dollars after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of properties .
He ridiculed the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of one of the most devastating hurricanes in recorded history .
He sided with armed militia members who were threatening Democratic governors because of Covid-19 strictures .
He urged his supporters to “ vote twice ” in the presidential election , and then , when he lost , he railed against alleged fraud by his opponents .
At every step of the way since Trump ’ s foul “ American carnage ” inauguration speech in January 2017 , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cancer on the American body politic .
By this year , with the epidemic raging out of control and with Trump ’ s actions becoming both crueler and more clearly dictatorial by the day , it wasn ’ t a stretch to conclude that this malignant gargoyle was well on the way to shattering the American experiment , that he was pushing , perhaps beyond the breaking point , the elasticity of the country ’ s democratic safeguards .
Which brings us to the election this past week .
As I write this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Joe Biden has crossed the 270-vote threshold needed to secure a majority in the Electoral College—he crossed it days ago—and is likely on his way to a total of more than 300 electoral votes .
At least as significant , he has won the popular vote by more than 5 million , and , once all of California ’ s votes have been counted in the coming days , could easily win by 6 or even 7 million .
By any measure , Biden won the election fair and square , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been declared the victor by every major media organization .
He has been congratulated by world leaders .
He has given a victory speech , along with Vice President–elect Kamala Harris , in Delaware and has begun assembling teams of experts to tackle the coronavirus crisis that the Trump administration has failed so dismally to contain .
Through it all , Trump has refused to acknowledge his loss .
He spent the days after the election ranting about its being stolen from him , has tweeted out one insulting , bilious lie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reach out to the Biden team or to explain to his own supporters that part of democracy is that if you ’ re a politician , you ’ re going to win some and you ’ re going to lose some at the hands of a free electorate .
Constitutionally incapable of ever conceding gracefully to an opponent , Trump is instead turning to one of his old tactics : threatening to sue left , right , and center , and hoping that he can wear out his opponents , as well as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s winning vote margins—which run from more than 14,000 in Georgia to tens of thousands in Pennsylvania—overturned .
He is , in doing this , quite clearly poisoning the well of American democracy and sowing the seeds for years of political acrimony .
Is any of this for a grand political vision ?
Of course not .
I doubt a single one of his advisers or cabinet members could honestly tell you what Trump envisions a second presidential term would look like in terms of policy .
His current flailing is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a masturbatory exercise played out pornographically for the whole world to see .
It is an attempt to pervert the votes cast by close to 150 million Americans and turn them into the building blocks for an epic vanity production .
Trump will not concede defeat , because he is pathologically afraid of being a “ loser.
” He will not facilitate a smooth transfer of power , because he has already determined that he deserves perpetual loyalty and control .
In Trump ’ s understanding of the world , in 2016 he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same way that this coarse and bauble-obsessed billionaire acquires gold toilets or new casinos—just as he sought to buy Greenland , and presumably its inhabitants , from Denmark .
In his mind , Trump had in November 2016 sealed the deal with the American electorate and bought the rights to pillage and plunder this fair land in perpetuity .
The idea that the American public might turn against him four years later and turf him out of office was and will always be unfathomable to him .
For Trump has come to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , l ’ État , c ’ est moi .
If he is the state , and he adores himself , then surely it must follow that the people adore him too .
And so , now we shall bear witness to the most inelegant last hurrah and final curtain in American political history .
It is already a mixture of tragic and farcical , dangerous and acutely embarrassing .
There is no dignity involved in Trump ’ s mewling self-pity .
He sits in his office , brooding over imaginary plots to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to remain in the spotlight for just a little bit longer .
He tweets out lies , but Twitter has finally begun blocking his falsehoods and slowing down retweets of his posts .
He calls the press in to rant and rave about grand conspiracies , but the networks have had enough and are taking him off the air .
He pretends that he is still a king-like figure , but outside his window thousands are gathered to tell him , in no uncertain terms , that he has been fired .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fences , so fearful is he , apparently , that he will meet a tyrant ’ s end .
But those fences have now become a visual truth commission , decorated with images of the atrocities of Trump ’ s era and with messages about the people and groups and environments that he has damaged during his tenure in high office .
If , God forbid , Trump continues to refuse to concede and somehow manages to maintain his hold on power past January 20 , it will not be as president but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kept aloft by a ruthless Republican Senate and by civilian officials in the Pentagon , who in the past few days have been brought in to serve as Trump loyalists , and possibly to serve as crucial lieutenants in an upcoming power struggle .
More likely , though , is that President Trump has finally suffered the fate of Lonesome Rhodes from A Face in the Crowd .
Nearly five years ago , I wrote in The Nation : That encroaching madness , that echoing sound of his own voice , seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is something almost Shakespearean about it all , except there is nothing even remotely poetic or introspective about Trump ’ s mien .
In the end , Donald J. Trump has become his own worst nightmare : a loser and a failure .
His brain is addled .
Only his maliciousness and his dictatorial instincts are left intact .

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Nearly five years ago, my editors at The Nation put me on the Trump beat. My first assignment was to analyze the real estate mogul cum reality-TV star cum politician’s language—his use of tweets to score political points, his coarse threats and insults, his unparalleled narcissism, and his MAGA racism.
There was something horribly fascinating about watching a skilled demagogue pick up steam. Trump test-drove any and every bigotry to see what would most move, and expand, his base. He dreamed up a Muslim travel ban, talked about Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, fetishized the practice of torture, mocked women for their appearance, ridiculed a disabled journalist, trash-talked Gold Star parents, boasted about sexually assaulting women, bragged about his ability to evade paying taxes. He didn’t just talk out of both sides of his mouth; he also ranted from pretty much every other orifice as well.
The result was a peculiarly potent stew of gibberish laden with sadism. He was like the character Lonesome Rhodes, at the height of his power, played brilliantly by Andy Griffith in Elia Kazan’s 1957 film masterpiece A Face in the Crowd: a charismatic demagogue capable of using mass media to almost hypnotize a crowd into doing his bidding. Donald J. Trump knew how to manipulate language—even punctuation and font size—to get everyone to talk about Donald J. Trump pretty much all the goddamn time.
I kept waiting, back in 2016, for the other shoe to fall, for people to see through his shtick, to realize the hollowness of his promises, to acknowledge the fundamental contempt he had for those gullible enough to buy the Brooklyn Bridges he was selling them. I kept waiting for that moment, so wonderfully portrayed by Kazan, when the demagogue finally self-destructs. Related Articles Is Trump Planning a Coup d’État? Sasha Abramsky Donald Trump, the Most Dangerous Face in the Republican Crowd Sasha Abramsky
But that moment never came. Trump grew stronger and stronger throughout that year. His Election Day victory horrified me like nothing else in my life—not personal losses, not even 9/11—had done. I felt like a mirror had been placed up to America, and instead of an optimistic, hopeful, smiling face, there was a wizened, cankered monstrosity. I felt like a knife had sliced and diced the core of my being—but Trump’s victory also didn’t entirely surprise me. The reporting I had done over the previous couple decades had made me all too aware of how America’s social and economic fractures left it horrifically vulnerable to the wiles of a demagogue, of a man promising gold but delivering only base metal. Trump struck me from the get-go as exactly that demagogue, a once-in-a-century incarnation of malevolence. The way Trump had torn through his primary season opponents, spewing so many rapid-fire lies and distortions that they had no time to regroup and rethink their approach to him; the way he had used Hitlerian Big Lie propaganda to delegitimize and discredit Hillary Clinton during the general election campaign; and, above all, the way he had pandered to the worst fears of his audiences during his Nuremberg-style political rallies—all made me realize he had found a way to exploit America’s divides in his successful run for the White House. He was, in the worst way imaginable, the last Great White Hope in a country on the cusp of becoming majority-minority, and he knew how to harness—and inflate—every fear and stereotype about nonwhite people that percolated through conservative white America; every fear of the loss of cultural, political, economic, and racial power. He appealed brilliantly to the reptilian parts of the human brain, the most primitive fight-or-flight responses that have been hard-wired into the animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
When not just one or two but many Trump-supporting caucus-goers in Sparks, Nev., told me in February 2016 that they were in favor of deporting, or even executing, Muslim Americans, it hit home just how debased and violent the country could become should a demagogue of Trump’s ilk somehow gain supreme power. When a New Republic journalist wrote of attending a Trump rally and hearing a man tell his wife, “Honey, immigrants aren’t people,” it hit home again: all the damage that could be inflicted, all the lives that could be ruined, should a white nationalist reshape the laws and regulations of American governance and immigration policy. When Trump’s frenzied crowds booed and threatened journalists, cheering Trump’s denunciations of these “enemies of the people,” it became all too obvious what a reality-show, talk-radio presidency would look and sound like.
With his chin defiantly thrust out like a cartoon Mussolini, Trump fashioned himself in power as a strongman. He strutted and preened like Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator, tweeting out increasingly megalomaniacal fantasies. He decreed rather than governed, proclaimed rather than suggested. That he didn’t end up using the royal “we” was less a sign of humbleness than of his egotistical refusal to share the stage with anyone else—even a royal plural version of himself. The oxygen that sustained him was the adoration of his crowds, and the thing that seemed to get him off most was the power he exerted—through these crowds, through his tweets, and eventually through his use of the levers of government—to inflict suffering and humiliation on others. He’s like the sadistic prison officer who orders inmates to run the gantlet and suffer savage beatings, in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from a Dead House: “There are people, like tigers, who have a thirst for licking blood,” Dostoyevsky wrote. “A man who has once experienced this power, this unlimited lordship over the body, blood, and spirit of a man just like himself…a man who has experienced the power and the full possibility of inflicting the ultimate humiliation upon another being bearing the image of God, somehow involuntarily loses control of his sensations. Tyranny is a habit; it is endowed with development, and develops finally into an illness.” America’s 45th president is a one-person wrecking ball aimed at the institutions and norms underpinning the American Republic and its democratic political culture. Current Issue View our current issue
None of Donald Trump’s time spent in office was about cultivating good governance. Quite the reverse: He staffed the EPA, the Labor Department, OSHA, Housing and Urban Development, the Education Department, and other agencies with men and women who didn’t believe in core parts of their raison d’être. As had other Republican presidents in recent decades, he put foxes into the henhouse, and political commissars in oversight roles at supposedly nonpolitical scientific agencies. But in Trump’s case it seemed particularly gratuitous: There was no coherent ideological vision, apart from a vaguely conceived “nationalism,” a knee-jerk hatred of racial justice and environmental protections, and a grim conviction that virtually all non-security-related functions of government ought to be stamped out. There was certainly no programmatic effort to pass durable legislation. He gave traditional conservatives what they demanded—massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, judicial nominees who fit their ideological mold on issues ranging from abortion to voting rights, and rampant deregulation of the environment and workplace. But he did so less out of conviction (who really believes Trump gives two hoots about the ethical issues surrounding, say, abortion?) than expediency. When it came to his campaign promises, such as major infrastructure investment, he had neither the stamina nor the skill to craft congressional coalitions capable of delivering. And, from his point of view, why should he?
Trump never has cared for anything or anyone beyond himself and—perhaps—his family. His presidency has been no different. It was, from the get-go, a giant racket, a swizz, a con, a cheat, a grift. It was, from day one, a continuous game of Three-Card Monte. He posited himself as a tribune of the people while raking in millions by sending government business to his hotels, golf courses, and other real estate ventures. He went out of his way to hurt immigrant families and demonize those without papers, while hiring undocumented workers in his own businesses. He talked tough on China while seeking financial opportunities there. He denounced Muslim immigrants and refugees while cozying up to the brutal Saudi dictatorship. He flirted with neo-fascists, domestic and foreign, white nationalist street-fighters, and a who’s who of conspiracists and crooks. He talked about his fealty to “law and order” while one adviser after the next pleaded guilty to, or was charged with, an array of federal and state crimes. He was impeached for his own strong-arming of an overseas government to secure dirt on his domestic political opponent, Joe Biden, and then responded to public outrage by getting his attorneys to build a legal theory that, as president, he was beyond the rule of law.
For the past five years, virtually every working hour of my journalistic life has been consumed with chronicling the cruelties and irrationalities of Trump—and, just as much, the cruelties and irrationalities of Trumpism, of ideologues such as Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, of the contemptible opportunists who joined his administration to take advantage of the gravy train, of his mobbish rallies and the gun-toting extremists who felt validated by his presence in the White House.
Writing about political figures whose views I personally disagree with was hardly new for me; I have written about politics for more than a quarter-century, and I have gotten used to covering both politicians and policies that strike me as deeply distasteful. But I found it impossible to get used to Trumpland. The stirring of chaos was too intense, and his impulsive, irrational, deliberately cruel approach to politics was too shocking.
I’d sleep for a few hours and wake up the next morning only to discover yet another insane tweet he’d posted on, say, playing nuclear chicken with North Korea, or mocking the democratically elected leaders of countries like Canada, France, the UK, or Germany. I’d go for a coffee and return to my computer to find that a senior cabinet member had been fired via Twitter after months of enduring escalating rituals of humiliation from The Boss. I’d go for a drive and come home to find that the United States had withdrawn from yet another international treaty or organization painstakingly put together over years of careful diplomacy.
Living through these 48 months has been a constant stress-test. Trump’s presidency was intended to make people of good conscience feel permanently ill, forever on edge. To write about this, to bear witness, has involved a certain corrosion of one’s soul. For Trumpism is a malignancy designed to break the spirit of American liberalism, to stick it to the “libtards,” to mortify the “snowflakes.” It was, from the start, a cultist, hero-worshiping shitshow that degraded institutions and soiled the entire GOP hierarchy. There was, as I wrote in a column for The Sacramento Bee, something punklike about Trump’s antics, a safety-pin-through-the-nose, vomit-on-the-stage contempt for decency; a belief that equated kindness to weakness, and humility to national decay.
What does one do when one lives in a country whose president asks his homeland security team why agents can’t simply shoot undocumented immigrants in the legs if they try to cross the southern border, and asks his engineers to come up with plans to build an alligator-filled moat along that same border; who refers to poor nonwhite countries as “shitholes”; who insists that tiki-torch carrying neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us” are “very fine people”; who suggests one can tackle a once-in-a-century pandemic by having people inject disinfectant or direct ultraviolet light into their bodies?
I interviewed a man in Brooklyn who was separated from his wife and US-citizen baby son in Yemen because, after they had finally managed to secure the visa for his wife to join him—which would have also meant she could bring their breast-feeding baby with her—Trump suddenly decided that no Yemenis would be admitted to America. I interviewed a young Somali man who had waited years to bring his mother to this country, had finally secured a visa for her, but was then told that the president had decreed that all migrants from Somalia would be barred entry.
I interviewed destitute Haitian women in San Diego who had trekked north on foot all the way from Brazil—where they and their husbands had been working as casual laborers before being expelled in 2016—hoping to get what was known as “conditional parole” entry into the United States. But they arrived at the border, just after Trump’s inauguration, to find a new policy in place mandating that the men be immediately imprisoned. The women, many of them illiterate, and their young children were left to fend for themselves as best they could.
I interviewed asylum seekers from Honduras and Guatemala who had presented themselves for asylum at the border—as they are legally entitled to do—only to be arrested and cast into frigid concrete holding cells, or made to sleep in the open air on the grounds of detention camps, with their babies, during a high-desert winter. Many of them were seriously ill by the time they were finally released into the hands of humanitarian agencies in Tucson. A doctor I met there, who had worked in war zones around the world, said what she was seeing vis-à-vis these asylum seekers reminded her of some of the worst civil war conditions and refugee camps she had encountered in her decades-long career.
I interviewed dozens of men and women with Temporary Protected Status—people from Central America, Sudan, and elsewhere—who had lived and worked in the United States for decades with government-issued work papers and residency permits, and who had started businesses and families in the United States, but were now suddenly told the government would deport them. There were nearly half a million people with such status when Trump came into office, with roughly a quarter-million US-citizen children. Trump’s policy was—like his vile child separation policy on the border—designed to rip families apart.
I had DACA students in the classes I teach who now lived in terror that they would lose their status, or that their parents or older siblings would be arrested by ICE agents and deported.
I talked with International Rescue Committee staff who could no longer resettle refugees, because instead of the roughly 100,000 being admitted yearly at the end of the Obama presidency, under Trump that number shrank each year, until now it is capped at 15,000. And I watched in horror as Trump visited refugee-friendly cities such as Minneapolis to mock those fleeing war and famine and the predations of drug cartels, and to gin up racial and religious animosities against them.
I spoke to desperate, hungry people around the country who faced loss of access to food stamps because of Trump’s determination to cut SNAP benefits. I talked to people who had finally, after decades without health insurance, received it under the Affordable Care Act, and now watched in fear as Trump threw his administration into a campaign to kill it.
Every day Trump broke norms, be it through rewriting more than half a century of immigration policy via regulatory changes or politicizing the Justice Department by urging—and in many instances getting—the pardon of his political and personal cronies and the investigation of his enemies. He demanded loyalty to him, not the Constitution, from appointees; made them sign nondisclosure agreements so they couldn’t talk about his shady activities; and branded as treasonous those civil servants, military figures, and diplomats who did testify about his actions before Congress. He deployed heavily armed federal security forces against racial justice protesters and wanted to unleash the full might of the US military against them, boasting that he would “dominate” the streets. He labeled some of America’s greatest cities “anarchist jurisdictions” and then withheld federal funds from them. He got into pissing matches with California over environmental policy and wanted to retaliate by not releasing FEMA disaster-relief dollars after wildfires killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of properties. He ridiculed the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of one of the most devastating hurricanes in recorded history. He sided with armed militia members who were threatening Democratic governors because of Covid-19 strictures. He urged his supporters to “vote twice” in the presidential election, and then, when he lost, he railed against alleged fraud by his opponents.
At every step of the way since Trump’s foul “American carnage” inauguration speech in January 2017, this president and his presidency have been a cancer on the American body politic. By this year, with the epidemic raging out of control and with Trump’s actions becoming both crueler and more clearly dictatorial by the day, it wasn’t a stretch to conclude that this malignant gargoyle was well on the way to shattering the American experiment, that he was pushing, perhaps beyond the breaking point, the elasticity of the country’s democratic safeguards.
Which brings us to the election this past week. As I write this, one week on from the election, Joe Biden has crossed the 270-vote threshold needed to secure a majority in the Electoral College—he crossed it days ago—and is likely on his way to a total of more than 300 electoral votes. At least as significant, he has won the popular vote by more than 5 million, and, once all of California’s votes have been counted in the coming days, could easily win by 6 or even 7 million. By any measure, Biden won the election fair and square, and thus is the incoming president. He has been declared the victor by every major media organization. He has been congratulated by world leaders. He has given a victory speech, along with Vice President–elect Kamala Harris, in Delaware and has begun assembling teams of experts to tackle the coronavirus crisis that the Trump administration has failed so dismally to contain.
Through it all, Trump has refused to acknowledge his loss. He spent the days after the election ranting about its being stolen from him, has tweeted out one insulting, bilious lie after another, and has refused to reach out to the Biden team or to explain to his own supporters that part of democracy is that if you’re a politician, you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some at the hands of a free electorate. Constitutionally incapable of ever conceding gracefully to an opponent, Trump is instead turning to one of his old tactics: threatening to sue left, right, and center, and hoping that he can wear out his opponents, as well as state electoral officials, and somehow get Biden’s winning vote margins—which run from more than 14,000 in Georgia to tens of thousands in Pennsylvania—overturned. He is, in doing this, quite clearly poisoning the well of American democracy and sowing the seeds for years of political acrimony.
Is any of this for a grand political vision? Of course not. I doubt a single one of his advisers or cabinet members could honestly tell you what Trump envisions a second presidential term would look like in terms of policy. His current flailing is all about stroking his bloated ego, a masturbatory exercise played out pornographically for the whole world to see. It is an attempt to pervert the votes cast by close to 150 million Americans and turn them into the building blocks for an epic vanity production.
Trump will not concede defeat, because he is pathologically afraid of being a “loser.” He will not facilitate a smooth transfer of power, because he has already determined that he deserves perpetual loyalty and control. In Trump’s understanding of the world, in 2016 he somehow managed to acquire America, in the same way that this coarse and bauble-obsessed billionaire acquires gold toilets or new casinos—just as he sought to buy Greenland, and presumably its inhabitants, from Denmark. In his mind, Trump had in November 2016 sealed the deal with the American electorate and bought the rights to pillage and plunder this fair land in perpetuity. The idea that the American public might turn against him four years later and turf him out of office was and will always be unfathomable to him. For Trump has come to believe in Louis XIV’s adage, l’État, c’est moi. If he is the state, and he adores himself, then surely it must follow that the people adore him too.
And so, now we shall bear witness to the most inelegant last hurrah and final curtain in American political history. It is already a mixture of tragic and farcical, dangerous and acutely embarrassing. There is no dignity involved in Trump’s mewling self-pity. He sits in his office, brooding over imaginary plots to bring him down, desperately seeking ways to remain in the spotlight for just a little bit longer. He tweets out lies, but Twitter has finally begun blocking his falsehoods and slowing down retweets of his posts. He calls the press in to rant and rave about grand conspiracies, but the networks have had enough and are taking him off the air. He pretends that he is still a king-like figure, but outside his window thousands are gathered to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he has been fired. He has surrounded the White House with high fences, so fearful is he, apparently, that he will meet a tyrant’s end. But those fences have now become a visual truth commission, decorated with images of the atrocities of Trump’s era and with messages about the people and groups and environments that he has damaged during his tenure in high office.
If, God forbid, Trump continues to refuse to concede and somehow manages to maintain his hold on power past January 20, it will not be as president but as America’s first dictator, kept aloft by a ruthless Republican Senate and by civilian officials in the Pentagon, who in the past few days have been brought in to serve as Trump loyalists, and possibly to serve as crucial lieutenants in an upcoming power struggle.
More likely, though, is that President Trump has finally suffered the fate of Lonesome Rhodes from A Face in the Crowd. Nearly five years ago, I wrote in The Nation:
Lonesome Rhodes discovers that cult followings built around a voice on the radio and a face on the TV can disintegrate as quickly as they develop. He is abandoned, shunned, left absolutely alone. In the final scene, one of the most psychologically brutal in all of cinema, he stands, solitary, in his gaudy penthouse, US flags standing cocked—at an angle clearly intended to conjure up images of Nuremberg rallies—along his cavernous living room, screaming into the night. “Who else can rally the people like Lonesome Rhodes? The people listen to Lonesome Rhodes because the people love Lonesome Rhodes! Lonesome Rhodes is the people! The people is Lonesome Rhodes!” As he bellows, a machine he has invented, which plays back the sound of a crowd applauding wildly, accompanies him. The canned cheers and the demagogue’s rants ricochet off of the walls. But outside, no one is listening anymore.
That encroaching madness, that echoing sound of his own voice, seems to be Trump’s fate too. There is something almost Shakespearean about it all, except there is nothing even remotely poetic or introspective about Trump’s mien. In the end, Donald J. Trump has become his own worst nightmare: a loser and a failure. His brain is addled. Only his maliciousness and his dictatorial instincts are left intact.


thenation--2020-11-11--The Fall of Trump Propels the Climate Story Into a Decisive New Era

Donald Trump ’ s defeat in the US presidential election is the biggest development in the climate story in years , if only because it means that the story might not have a hellish ending after all .
News columns and Zoom meetings are already abuzz with to-do lists and speculation about what the administration of President-elect Joe Biden will or will not be able to accomplish on climate change .
But that is another story for another day .
Like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Apollo 11 moon landing , Trump ’ s impending departure from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an event of epochal importance whose ramifications can not be fully fathomed at this point , much less confidently forecast .
Instead of trying to predict what will come next , this is a time to pause and reflect .
Let ’ s recognize the magnitude of what America ’ s voters just did and ponder what lessons it holds for the challenges ahead .
Penn State University scientist Michael Mann spoke for many climate experts when he warned before the election that “ a second term for Trump would be ‘ game @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not partisan hyperbole but unsentimental physics and math .
To avoid an apocalyptic future—one shaped by intensifying heat waves , droughts , wildfires , and storms—humanity must slash greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 , scientists with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared in a landmark 2018 report .
That remains an immensely difficult challenge , requiring shifts in economic behavior at a scale and speed the scientists called “ unprecedented ” in human history .
But the task would have become outright impossible , Mann explained , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a second four years galloping in the wrong direction under a reelected president Trump , with his pro–fossil fuel policies and rejection of the Paris Agreement .
The World Is Burning , but the Political Press Insists It ’ s a Horse Race What Amy Coney Barrett Means For the Climate Journalists Must Demystify the Green New Deal More in this series That is the suicidal scenario humanity just avoided .
But make no mistake : Many more mountains remain to be climbed in order to preserve a livable climate .
For example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ four biggest economies—the European Union , Japan , and China—have recently pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or , in China ’ s case , 2060 ; citizens , public officials , and business leaders will have to push those countries ’ governments to make that scientifically correct target a political reality .
The United States must match these net-zero efforts , starting during the Biden administration and despite all-but-certain opposition from Republicans and other fossil fuel loyalists in Congress , and sustain that progress for decades .
Meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must shift investment and loans away from the climate-destabilizing status quo and toward clean energy , regenerative agriculture , and other foundations of a post-carbon economy .
And all this and more must be accomplished even as the diminished yet still-formidable wealth and power of the fossil fuel industry continues obstructing progress .
Removing Trump , then , is a necessary first step—but it is only a first step , a prerequisite to the difficult journey ahead .
Where to turn next ?
Good journalism is vital to answering that question , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ congressional races , yield decidedly mixed signals about how committed America ’ s voters are to climate action .
Young activists—with their moral fervor ; massive street protests ; insistence on the intersectionality of racial , class , gender , and environmental justice ; and pathbreaking policy reforms such as the Green New Deal—have upended climate politics in recent years .
In the United States , the Sunrise Movement and other groups mounted extensive campaigns to register and mobilize voters , especially other young people , to oppose Trump and vote champions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activists have claimed considerable credit for the outcome .
Observing that the candidate “ with the strongest climate plan in history just won the White House with the most votes ever , ” Varshini Prakash , the executive director of Sunrise , said that “ a big part of the story is an unprecedented level of youth voter turnout , especially among young people of color.
” On the other hand , more than 71 million Americans , very nearly half of the electorate , voted to reelect a president whose climate policies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know and love .
They did so even though preelection polling consistently found that sizable , bipartisan majorities of the American public supported clean energy and other forms of climate action .
And while Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is correct that Representative Michael Levin , a fellow cosponsor of the Green New Deal , kept his seat , quite a few other Green New Deal backers—including Sunrise-backed candidates Mike Siegel in Texas , Beth Doglio in Washington , and Marquita Bradshaw in Tennessee—were handily defeated .
How Biden Could Use the Presidential Bully Pulpit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in which the climate crisis shaped political engagement this election cycle should be a top priority for newsrooms in the weeks ahead .
There is no substitute for shoe-leather reporting and talking in-depth with as many voters as possible to understand how and why they voted as they did .
Probing , open-minded interviews can drill down into individual races , comparing what political parties , candidates , activist groups , and others claim they accomplished with what voters say as well as the final election tallies .
Don ’ t put much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly been recognized as methodologically suspect .
Better insights come from Pew Research Center analyses that match post-election voter surveys with official voting records .
It takes months to produce such analyses , however ; in the meantime , newsrooms should be cautious about drawing conclusions about what role climate change did or did not play in the 2020 US elections .
What ’ s clear is that the fall of Trump propels the climate story into a decisive new era .
The world is about to see whether the US government will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn down the heat .
For journalists on the climate beat , it ’ s an exciting , important time .
There are indeed mountains still to climb in humanity ’ s quest for a livable climate future .
Strong and steadfast journalism is essential to lighting the way .

This article is adapted from “The Climate Beat,” the weekly newsletter of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism initiative strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Donald Trump’s defeat in the US presidential election is the biggest development in the climate story in years, if only because it means that the story might not have a hellish ending after all. News columns and Zoom meetings are already abuzz with to-do lists and speculation about what the administration of President-elect Joe Biden will or will not be able to accomplish on climate change. But that is another story for another day.
Like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Apollo 11 moon landing, Trump’s impending departure from the most powerful office on earth is an event of epochal importance whose ramifications cannot be fully fathomed at this point, much less confidently forecast. Instead of trying to predict what will come next, this is a time to pause and reflect. Let’s recognize the magnitude of what America’s voters just did and ponder what lessons it holds for the challenges ahead. Covering Climate Now How to Stop the Spread of Climate Disinformation Erika Seiber and Michael Khoo A Soundtrack for the Climate Emergency Mark Hertsgaard Can Gen Z Save the Midterms for Democrats? Mark Hertsgaard
Penn State University scientist Michael Mann spoke for many climate experts when he warned before the election that “a second term for Trump would be ‘game over’ for climate.” That was not partisan hyperbole but unsentimental physics and math. To avoid an apocalyptic future—one shaped by intensifying heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and storms—humanity must slash greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, scientists with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared in a landmark 2018 report. That remains an immensely difficult challenge, requiring shifts in economic behavior at a scale and speed the scientists called “unprecedented” in human history. But the task would have become outright impossible, Mann explained, if the world’s biggest economy spent a second four years galloping in the wrong direction under a reelected president Trump, with his pro–fossil fuel policies and rejection of the Paris Agreement.
That is the suicidal scenario humanity just avoided.
But make no mistake: Many more mountains remain to be climbed in order to preserve a livable climate. For example, three of the world’s four biggest economies—the European Union, Japan, and China—have recently pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or, in China’s case, 2060; citizens, public officials, and business leaders will have to push those countries’ governments to make that scientifically correct target a political reality. The United States must match these net-zero efforts, starting during the Biden administration and despite all-but-certain opposition from Republicans and other fossil fuel loyalists in Congress, and sustain that progress for decades. Meanwhile, business and financial interests the world over must shift investment and loans away from the climate-destabilizing status quo and toward clean energy, regenerative agriculture, and other foundations of a post-carbon economy. And all this and more must be accomplished even as the diminished yet still-formidable wealth and power of the fossil fuel industry continues obstructing progress. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Removing Trump, then, is a necessary first step—but it is only a first step, a prerequisite to the difficult journey ahead. Where to turn next? Current Issue View our current issue
Good journalism is vital to answering that question, because the overall US election results, including congressional races, yield decidedly mixed signals about how committed America’s voters are to climate action.
Young activists—with their moral fervor; massive street protests; insistence on the intersectionality of racial, class, gender, and environmental justice; and pathbreaking policy reforms such as the Green New Deal—have upended climate politics in recent years. In the United States, the Sunrise Movement and other groups mounted extensive campaigns to register and mobilize voters, especially other young people, to oppose Trump and vote champions of climate action into office. Post-election, activists have claimed considerable credit for the outcome. Observing that the candidate “with the strongest climate plan in history just won the White House with the most votes ever,” Varshini Prakash, the executive director of Sunrise, said that “a big part of the story is an unprecedented level of youth voter turnout, especially among young people of color.” Biden on Climate How Biden Could Use the Presidential Bully Pulpit to Drive Climate Action Jamie Henn
On the other hand, more than 71 million Americans, very nearly half of the electorate, voted to reelect a president whose climate policies promised certain death for the world they know and love. They did so even though preelection polling consistently found that sizable, bipartisan majorities of the American public supported clean energy and other forms of climate action. And while Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is correct that Representative Michael Levin, a fellow cosponsor of the Green New Deal, kept his seat, quite a few other Green New Deal backers—including Sunrise-backed candidates Mike Siegel in Texas, Beth Doglio in Washington, and Marquita Bradshaw in Tennessee—were handily defeated.
Identifying the ways in which the climate crisis shaped political engagement this election cycle should be a top priority for newsrooms in the weeks ahead. There is no substitute for shoe-leather reporting and talking in-depth with as many voters as possible to understand how and why they voted as they did. Probing, open-minded interviews can drill down into individual races, comparing what political parties, candidates, activist groups, and others claim they accomplished with what voters say as well as the final election tallies. Don’t put much stock in exit polls, which have increasingly been recognized as methodologically suspect. Better insights come from Pew Research Center analyses that match post-election voter surveys with official voting records. It takes months to produce such analyses, however; in the meantime, newsrooms should be cautious about drawing conclusions about what role climate change did or did not play in the 2020 US elections.
What’s clear is that the fall of Trump propels the climate story into a decisive new era. The world is about to see whether the US government will help humanity grasp a final opportunity to turn down the heat. For journalists on the climate beat, it’s an exciting, important time. There are indeed mountains still to climb in humanity’s quest for a livable climate future. Strong and steadfast journalism is essential to lighting the way.


thenation--2020-11-11--Is It Mere Spite—or Something More Sinister?

Mark T. Esper ’ s tenure as secretary of defense was officially “ terminated ” by Donald Trump on November 9 , but his ouster had been expected for months—ever since he defied the president by refusing to support the use of active-duty troops in crushing public protests following George Floyd ’ s murder on May 25 .
As is well known , Trump demands total loyalty and submission from his top appointees , and is quick to punish anyone who disobeys his mandate .
Hence , when Esper publicly rejected the president ’ s stance on the use of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days in office were numbered ; it was only through heavy pressure from Trump ’ s top aides and allies in Congress—worried about the campaign implications of turmoil at the Pentagon—that Esper was not fired on the spot .
But now , with the election over , Trump felt no hesitation in ousting an unfaithful servant .
It would appear , then , that the most logical explanation for Esper ’ s abrupt dismissal is probably just that : Trump ’ s monumental ego and his intolerance of dissent within his leadership cadre @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that President Trump cares about loyalty above all else , often at the expense of competence , ” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith ( D-Wash. ) of Esper ’ s removal .
But when speaking of this president , it is always necessary to consider other , more sinister motives .
Does Esper ’ s ouster suggest apocalyptic last-ditch moves by the president as his own departure moves closer ?
While there are no obvious indications of such plans , two aspects of Esper ’ s removal demand our attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump turned against Esper precisely because the secretary refuted the president ’ s claim that it was necessary to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and allow the use of active-duty troops in suppressing domestic unrest .
( The Insurrection Act empowers the president to deploy US military and federalized National Guard troops on domestic soil to overcome civil disorder and rebellion ; in modern times , it has been used to suppress labor agitation , urban riots , and the Chicago protests of 1968 . )
On June 1 , when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump warned that if the governors of protest-inflamed states like Illinois , Minnesota , and Oregon did not call out National Guard troops to quell the mass upheavals , he would invoke the 1807 law and order Army troops into the streets .
“ I will deploy the US military and quickly solve the problem for them , ” he said at the time .
Later that day , after DC police and National Guard troops used pepper spray and excessive force to clear protesters from Lafayette Park , across from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ park with Esper and others for a photo opportunity ( waving a Bible he had hastily procured ) in front of St. John ’ s Episcopal Church .
Esper , who was widely criticized by his peers for joining the president in what turned out to be a political stunt , later claimed that he was hoodwinked into joining Trump , believing he was only there to “ talk with the troops.
” Two days later , with anger over the Lafayette Park incident mounting , Esper issued a blanket rejection of Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act in response to the growing protests .
That law should only be invoked “ as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire situations , ” Esper told reporters at the Pentagon .
“ We are not in one of those situations now .
I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.
” By all accounts , Trump was furious upon hearing of Esper ’ s statement , and was ready to fire him on the spot .
When asked later that day by reporters if Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany could say was , “ As of right now , Secretary Esper is still Secretary Esper .
And should the president lose faith , we will all learn about that in the future.
” In the ensuing weeks , as the election campaign gained momentum , Trump ’ s closest allies in the Senate persuaded him to retain Esper for the time being , lest his abrupt removal undercut the president ’ s claims of being tough on national security .
But no one had any doubt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first chance he got , and Esper himself is said to have had his resignation letter ready ever since June 3 .
This brings us to the present , and raises questions about the importance of the Insurrection Act in the president ’ s thinking .
He has clearly signaled his intent to employ every means at his disposal to undermine the election results and remain in power , presumably in the belief that the courts—and especially the Supreme Court , now packed with conservative justices—will validate his claim to victory .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ trigger mass protests all across the United States .
Is he already thinking ahead to this moment , and eliminating an obstacle to the use of military force in crushing such protests ?
It is impossible for anyone outside of Trump ’ s inner circle to know the answer to this , but it is certainly reasonable to assume that the notion has crossed the president ’ s mind more than once .
And this brings us to the second matter of concern : Trump ’ s choice as Esper ’ s replacement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Miller will serve as acting secretary of defense ; he is ineligible to be confirmed as secretary as he served as a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces until 2014 , and US law requires a seven-year hiatus between active-duty status and appointment to the top civilian post at the Pentagon . )
Until now , Miller ’ s highest position has been as director of the National Counterterrorism Center—an office he assumed only in August .
Before that , the highest position he held—and that only briefly—was as deputy assistant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acting assistant secretary .
Many in Washington are wondering why Miller—a relatively junior official—was chosen for the top Pentagon position and other highly qualified officials , such as Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist—were passed over .
Miller has some Pentagon experience , noted Senator Angus King ( I-Me . )
, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee , “ but certainly not at the secretary level.
” What does stand out in Miller ’ s long and impressive résumé is his service with the US Special Forces , including several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Most of these activities , in which Miller is said to have served with skill and bravery , involved covert operations against Al Qaeda and ISIS in the Baghdad area , presumably in concert with the CIA .
Is there something else to this that we do not know ?
Or did Trump choose him because of his experience in irregular operations in an urban setting ?
We simply do not know .
In the most optimistic reading of the president ’ s motives in removing Esper , Trump is simply using @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he has long viewed with contempt and to replace him with a favored acolyte .
This is troubling enough for many in the national security establishment who fear a leadership vacuum at the Department of Defense at a particularly sensitive moment , possibly inviting America ’ s adversaries to gain geopolitical advantage at Washington ’ s expense .
Not a Coup but a Cover-Up and a Con Game “ Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ President Trump ’ s decision to fire Esper out of spite is not just childish , it ’ s also reckless.
” Other lawmakers also worry that Miller ’ s appointment will dilute the progress Esper had made in modernizing the Pentagon arms-procurement process and shifting the military ’ s strategic emphasis from fighting terrorists and insurgents to preparing for all-out war with Russia and China—a shift that itself deserves careful scrutiny .
In the days ahead , however , we must be on guard for any evidence that Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him with a Special Operations veteran signals a covert White House plan to use the US military in support of an illegal drive to subvert democracy and install Trump as dictator .

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Mark T. Esper’s tenure as secretary of defense was officially “terminated” by Donald Trump on November 9, but his ouster had been expected for months—ever since he defied the president by refusing to support the use of active-duty troops in crushing public protests following George Floyd’s murder on May 25. As is well known, Trump demands total loyalty and submission from his top appointees, and is quick to punish anyone who disobeys his mandate. Hence, when Esper publicly rejected the president’s stance on the use of American troops in curbing dissent, his days in office were numbered; it was only through heavy pressure from Trump’s top aides and allies in Congress—worried about the campaign implications of turmoil at the Pentagon—that Esper was not fired on the spot. But now, with the election over, Trump felt no hesitation in ousting an unfaithful servant.
It would appear, then, that the most logical explanation for Esper’s abrupt dismissal is probably just that: Trump’s monumental ego and his intolerance of dissent within his leadership cadre. “It has long been clear that President Trump cares about loyalty above all else, often at the expense of competence,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) of Esper’s removal.
But when speaking of this president, it is always necessary to consider other, more sinister motives. Does Esper’s ouster suggest apocalyptic last-ditch moves by the president as his own departure moves closer? While there are no obvious indications of such plans, two aspects of Esper’s removal demand our attention.
First, bear in mind that Trump turned against Esper precisely because the secretary refuted the president’s claim that it was necessary to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and allow the use of active-duty troops in suppressing domestic unrest. (The Insurrection Act empowers the president to deploy US military and federalized National Guard troops on domestic soil to overcome civil disorder and rebellion; in modern times, it has been used to suppress labor agitation, urban riots, and the Chicago protests of 1968.) On June 1, when the George Floyd demonstrations were reaching a crescendo, Trump warned that if the governors of protest-inflamed states like Illinois, Minnesota, and Oregon did not call out National Guard troops to quell the mass upheavals, he would invoke the 1807 law and order Army troops into the streets. “I will deploy the US military and quickly solve the problem for them,” he said at the time. More From Michael T. Klare When AI and Robotics Combine August 9, 2023 The Future of AI Is War July 17, 2023 The US Versus China June 14, 2023
Later that day, after DC police and National Guard troops used pepper spray and excessive force to clear protesters from Lafayette Park, across from the White House, Trump walked across the park with Esper and others for a photo opportunity (waving a Bible he had hastily procured) in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. Esper, who was widely criticized by his peers for joining the president in what turned out to be a political stunt, later claimed that he was hoodwinked into joining Trump, believing he was only there to “talk with the troops.” Two days later, with anger over the Lafayette Park incident mounting, Esper issued a blanket rejection of Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the growing protests. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
That law should only be invoked “as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire situations,” Esper told reporters at the Pentagon. “We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”
By all accounts, Trump was furious upon hearing of Esper’s statement, and was ready to fire him on the spot. When asked later that day by reporters if Trump still had confidence in Esper, all White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany could say was, “As of right now, Secretary Esper is still Secretary Esper. And should the president lose faith, we will all learn about that in the future.” Current Issue View our current issue
In the ensuing weeks, as the election campaign gained momentum, Trump’s closest allies in the Senate persuaded him to retain Esper for the time being, lest his abrupt removal undercut the president’s claims of being tough on national security. But no one had any doubt that Trump intended to fire him at the first chance he got, and Esper himself is said to have had his resignation letter ready ever since June 3.
This brings us to the present, and raises questions about the importance of the Insurrection Act in the president’s thinking. He has clearly signaled his intent to employ every means at his disposal to undermine the election results and remain in power, presumably in the belief that the courts—and especially the Supreme Court, now packed with conservative justices—will validate his claim to victory. This, he undoubtedly knows, would trigger mass protests all across the United States. Is he already thinking ahead to this moment, and eliminating an obstacle to the use of military force in crushing such protests? It is impossible for anyone outside of Trump’s inner circle to know the answer to this, but it is certainly reasonable to assume that the notion has crossed the president’s mind more than once. US Military The Military’s Role in a Contested Election Andrew J. Bacevich
And this brings us to the second matter of concern: Trump’s choice as Esper’s replacement at the Pentagon, Christopher C. Miller. (Miller will serve as acting secretary of defense; he is ineligible to be confirmed as secretary as he served as a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces until 2014, and US law requires a seven-year hiatus between active-duty status and appointment to the top civilian post at the Pentagon.)
Until now, Miller’s highest position has been as director of the National Counterterrorism Center—an office he assumed only in August. Before that, the highest position he held—and that only briefly—was as deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and acting assistant secretary. Many in Washington are wondering why Miller—a relatively junior official—was chosen for the top Pentagon position and other highly qualified officials, such as Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist—were passed over. Miller has some Pentagon experience, noted Senator Angus King (I-Me.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, “but certainly not at the secretary level.”
What does stand out in Miller’s long and impressive résumé is his service with the US Special Forces, including several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of these activities, in which Miller is said to have served with skill and bravery, involved covert operations against Al Qaeda and ISIS in the Baghdad area, presumably in concert with the CIA. Is there something else to this that we do not know? Or did Trump choose him because of his experience in irregular operations in an urban setting? We simply do not know.
In the most optimistic reading of the president’s motives in removing Esper, Trump is simply using this moment to punish a senior official he has long viewed with contempt and to replace him with a favored acolyte. This is troubling enough for many in the national security establishment who fear a leadership vacuum at the Department of Defense at a particularly sensitive moment, possibly inviting America’s adversaries to gain geopolitical advantage at Washington’s expense. The Con Man Not a Coup but a Cover-Up and a Con Game Jeet Heer
“Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at greater risk,” said Representative Smith. “President Trump’s decision to fire Esper out of spite is not just childish, it’s also reckless.”
Other lawmakers also worry that Miller’s appointment will dilute the progress Esper had made in modernizing the Pentagon arms-procurement process and shifting the military’s strategic emphasis from fighting terrorists and insurgents to preparing for all-out war with Russia and China—a shift that itself deserves careful scrutiny.
In the days ahead, however, we must be on guard for any evidence that Trump’s decision to fire Esper and replace him with a Special Operations veteran signals a covert White House plan to use the US military in support of an illegal drive to subvert democracy and install Trump as dictator.


thenation--2020-11-11--Not a Coup but a Cover-Up and a Con Game

Donald Trump was destined to become even more authoritarian after being soundly defeated for a second time at the ballot box .
It ’ s not his temperament to be a Cincinnatus or a George Washington , a leader happy to be relieved of the burden of power so he can return to domestic tranquility .
Trump ’ s narcissism is ill-equipped to brook rejection .
He also has very good legal reasons to fear that once shorn of the special legal impunity granted sitting presidents , he ’ ll be a ripe target for criminal investigation and prosecution .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ refuse to accept the results of last week ’ s election .
He keeps insisting he ’ s the victim of a rigged game and has launched multiple lawsuits to overturn the results in swing states .
Even worse , congressional Republicans have overwhelmingly either supported Trump or kept quiet .
In the Senate , only a handful of senators have even acknowledged Joe Biden ’ s victory , and these are all figures who are on the fringes of the party ’ s politics : Mitt Romney , Susan Collins , Lisa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worrisome is the fact that Trump has launched a purge of high-ranking law enforcement , intelligence , and military officials .
There are reports that he wants to fire FBI Director Chris Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel .
CNN reporter Ryan Browne tweets , “ Pentagon finally confirms near total decapitation of civilian leadership in the last 24 hours .
Secretary of Defense Esper fired Monday , the top Pentagon Policy official , top Defense Department intelligence official , and chief of staff to the Defense Secretary all out today.
” All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loyalists .
Given both the election antics and the military purge , there are fears , sounded not just by the left but also by centrists , that Trump is trying to pull off a coup .
David Sirota of The Daily Poster warns that “ Donald Trump and his cronies are quite clearly waging a public-facing campaign designed to create the conditions for the Electoral College process to pull off a coup.
” CNN ’ s Jake Tapper made note of the fact that the White House “ is firing top leaders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the election results.
” Ronald Brownstein , an eminently centrist liberal and senior editor at The Atlantic , asked , “ Is it alarmist to note Trump is installing loyalists at the Pentagon precisely as he muscles virtually the entire GOP into either embracing his unfounded claims of fraud or at least refusing to acknowledge Biden victory ?
Biden is casually dismissing it all as irrelevant ?
Is it ?
” Brownstein ’ s questions aren ’ t alarmist at all .
Trump has the clear inclination and motives to push for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election , if Trump does try to destroy American democracy , the left should organize and take to the streets .
As a precautionary measure , unions and activist groups should have contingency plans for moment ’ s-notice mass mobilization .
Yet , while the threat is real , it is by no means certain .
My colleague Elie Mystal has done an excellent job explaining why there is little ground to worry about Trump ’ s lawsuits , which are too absurd to be even dignified as frivolous .
To overturn election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need proof of widespread voter fraud .
To date , there is no evidence of that , as even Trump ’ s lawyers admitted in a Pennsylvania courthouse .
In a comprehensive investigation into voter fraud , The New York Times reported , “ Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race , amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump ’ s portrait of a fraudulent election.
” One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as proof of voter fraud has completely fallen apart .
As The Washington Post reports , “ A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S .
Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations , according to three officials briefed on the investigation and a statement from a House congressional committee.
” If Trump is having no luck in courtroom challenges , there is still the worry he can order the military to thwart the peaceful transfer of power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in evidence that the military would obey .
In fact , senior officers resisted Trump ’ s demand to intervene against Black Lives Matter protesters in the summer .
Shortly before the election , Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and other top generals held an off-the-record meeting with television news anchors .
According to Axios , “ Milley told the anchors that the U.S. military would have no role whatsoever in a peaceful transfer of power.
” There ’ s every reason to think the officer class would resist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And not necessarily out of a sense of honor or a commitment to the Constitution .
The top brass know they preside over a military that is 45 percent nonwhite , so aligning themselves with a figure as racially polarizing as Trump could split the ranks .
A more competent and palatable demagogue might actually get military support in a coup situation .
Trump ’ s purge of the military ’ s civilian leadership seems to be motivated by a desire to selectively declassify information in order to refute the Russiagate investigation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ power and could also , as some journalists claim , endanger national security .
But it is very different than a coup .
It is more accurately viewed as a cover-up .
With Trump , it is always important to keep an eye out not just for his outward bluster but also his interior motives .
Aside from the cover-up , he ’ s also interested in keeping his con game afloat .
He ’ s now raising hefty sums from his followers for a supposed election defense fund .
But as Talking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there is no election defense fund ; the donations are siphoned into a mix of various committees .
Up until Tuesday , some of the money was being used to pay down the Trump campaign ’ s debt .
As of Tuesday morning though , the formula was changed to funnel most of the money into Trump ’ s new leadership PAC called Save America.
” None of this is reason for complacency .
Trump ’ s worrisome actions demand vigilance , rebuke , and congressional sanction .
They do not , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Now is the time to keep the powder dry .
The triggering event that requires mass mobilization might come soon and progressives need to prepare .
But there is nothing to gain—and a potential cost in exhaustion and wasted resources—in sounding the alarm too early .

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Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Donald Trump was destined to become even more authoritarian after being soundly defeated for a second time at the ballot box. It’s not his temperament to be a Cincinnatus or a George Washington, a leader happy to be relieved of the burden of power so he can return to domestic tranquility. Trump’s narcissism is ill-equipped to brook rejection. He also has very good legal reasons to fear that once shorn of the special legal impunity granted sitting presidents, he’ll be a ripe target for criminal investigation and prosecution.
There is no surprise in seeing Trump refuse to accept the results of last week’s election. He keeps insisting he’s the victim of a rigged game and has launched multiple lawsuits to overturn the results in swing states. Even worse, congressional Republicans have overwhelmingly either supported Trump or kept quiet. In the Senate, only a handful of senators have even acknowledged Joe Biden’s victory, and these are all figures who are on the fringes of the party’s politics: Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Ben Sasse.
Equally worrisome is the fact that Trump has launched a purge of high-ranking law enforcement, intelligence, and military officials. There are reports that he wants to fire FBI Director Chris Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel. CNN reporter Ryan Browne tweets, “Pentagon finally confirms near total decapitation of civilian leadership in the last 24 hours. Secretary of Defense Esper fired Monday, the top Pentagon Policy official, top Defense Department intelligence official, and chief of staff to the Defense Secretary all out today.” All these officials have been replaced by Trump loyalists.
Given both the election antics and the military purge, there are fears, sounded not just by the left but also by centrists, that Trump is trying to pull off a coup. David Sirota of The Daily Poster warns that “Donald Trump and his cronies are quite clearly waging a public-facing campaign designed to create the conditions for the Electoral College process to pull off a coup.” More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
CNN’s Jake Tapper made note of the fact that the White House “is firing top leaders at the Pentagon while the president denies the election results.” Ronald Brownstein, an eminently centrist liberal and senior editor at The Atlantic, asked, “Is it alarmist to note Trump is installing loyalists at the Pentagon precisely as he muscles virtually the entire GOP into either embracing his unfounded claims of fraud or at least refusing to acknowledge Biden victory? Biden is casually dismissing it all as irrelevant? Is it?”
Brownstein’s questions aren’t alarmist at all. Trump has the clear inclination and motives to push for a coup. As I argued before the election, if Trump does try to destroy American democracy, the left should organize and take to the streets. As a precautionary measure, unions and activist groups should have contingency plans for moment’s-notice mass mobilization. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Yet, while the threat is real, it is by no means certain. My colleague Elie Mystal has done an excellent job explaining why there is little ground to worry about Trump’s lawsuits, which are too absurd to be even dignified as frivolous. To overturn election results in several states, you would need proof of widespread voter fraud. To date, there is no evidence of that, as even Trump’s lawyers admitted in a Pennsylvania courthouse. Current Issue View our current issue
In a comprehensive investigation into voter fraud, The New York Times reported, “Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.”
One of the major cases cited by Republicans as proof of voter fraud has completely fallen apart. As The Washington Post reports, “A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S. Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations, according to three officials briefed on the investigation and a statement from a House congressional committee.”
If Trump is having no luck in courtroom challenges, there is still the worry he can order the military to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. But this worry is notably ungrounded in evidence that the military would obey. In fact, senior officers resisted Trump’s demand to intervene against Black Lives Matter protesters in the summer.
Shortly before the election, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and other top generals held an off-the-record meeting with television news anchors. According to Axios, “Milley told the anchors that the U.S. military would have no role whatsoever in a peaceful transfer of power.” There’s every reason to think the officer class would resist intervening on Trump’s behalf. And not necessarily out of a sense of honor or a commitment to the Constitution. The top brass know they preside over a military that is 45 percent nonwhite, so aligning themselves with a figure as racially polarizing as Trump could split the ranks. A more competent and palatable demagogue might actually get military support in a coup situation.
Trump’s purge of the military’s civilian leadership seems to be motivated by a desire to selectively declassify information in order to refute the Russiagate investigation. This might well be an abuse of power and could also, as some journalists claim, endanger national security. But it is very different than a coup. It is more accurately viewed as a cover-up.
With Trump, it is always important to keep an eye out not just for his outward bluster but also his interior motives. Aside from the cover-up, he’s also interested in keeping his con game afloat. He’s now raising hefty sums from his followers for a supposed election defense fund. But as Talking Points Memo reports, “In reality, there is no election defense fund; the donations are siphoned into a mix of various committees. Up until Tuesday, some of the money was being used to pay down the Trump campaign’s debt. As of Tuesday morning though, the formula was changed to funnel most of the money into Trump’s new leadership PAC called Save America.”
None of this is reason for complacency. Trump’s worrisome actions demand vigilance, rebuke, and congressional sanction. They do not, as yet, require that we panic. Now is the time to keep the powder dry. The triggering event that requires mass mobilization might come soon and progressives need to prepare. But there is nothing to gain—and a potential cost in exhaustion and wasted resources—in sounding the alarm too early.