thenation--2020-04-21--Congress Urgently Needs to Check and Balance the Wannabe King

Donald Trump ’ s disregard for the Constitution has been evident from the day he took office .
Yet the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis that extends from it have seen Trump go to new and exponentially more troubling extremes .
The president is twisting the founding document and the laws of the land to fit with a warped world view in which he imagines himself as precisely the sort of monarchical leader that the initiators of the American experiment sought to avoid .
It has come to the point where Congress must renounce and rebuke the president for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tom Malinowski recognized the necessity last week when he introduced a bill resolving that “ the House of Representatives affirms that when someone is the president of the United States , their authority is not total.
” It is a measure of how far Trump has strayed from the norms of governance in a civil and democratic society that members of Congress are now called upon to affirm “ the sense of the House of Representatives that the powers of the president remain limited by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And this is why citizens must organize to demand not merely that Malinowski ’ s resolution be approved but also that Congress push back , far more aggressively than it has to this point , against an increasingly imperial presidency .
Trump ’ s approach is as dangerous as it is wrongheaded .
To a greater extent than ever before , his over-the-top rhetoric about presidential authority is intersecting with his reckless exercise of that authority .
He is not merely abusing his position ; he is signaling to his supporters that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defended with a politics that disregards the respect for the rule of law and the basic premises of constitutional order .
Congress Must Seize the Spotlight Back From Trump Trump brought the issue to a head Monday evening when , in a desperate attempt to change the narrative regarding his fundamentally flawed response to the pandemic , he tweeted : “ In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy , as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens , I will be signing an Executive Order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States !
” The president ’ s aides were befuddled by the unplanned announcement and scrambled early Tuesday to put it in perspective .
But Ali Noorani , the executive director of the National Immigration Forum , saw things clearly : “ This is not about the policy .
It is about the message the president wants to send .
He wants people to turn against ‘ the other.
’ And , regardless of the valuable contributions immigrants are making to the response and recovery , he sees immigrants as the easiest to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to dramatically advance his racist , anti-immigrant policy agenda , ” said Kristin Kumpf of the American Friends Service Committee .
“ Suspending all immigration will not keep us safe from the pandemic .
What it will do is separate families and communities and distract from what we actually need—a public health response that helps keep everyone healthy and safe.
” The president of the United States has a great deal of power , and that includes a measure of flexibility when making decisions regarding immigration .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the moment is not a legitimate exercise of that authority .
Trump believes that the results of the 2016 election—which he lost by 2.9 million votes in the popular balloting—afforded him unchecked power .
And he is flexing that power because he believes that monarchical words and deeds might somehow reverse a decline in trust that imperils his 2020 reelection bid .
The president has gone to such extremes in recent weeks that the Associated Press on April 18 headlined a “ Fact Check ” report : “ Trump isn ’ t a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ review began by observing , “ Over the past week , President Donald Trump was pretender to a throne that doesn ’ t exist as he claimed king-like powers over the coronavirus pandemic response and Congress.
” But it ’ s not just the past week .
Trump ’ s megalomania has been on display throughout his troubled tenure .
Last July , the president radically misstated the section of the Constitution that outlines presidential powers ( and the limits upon them ) when he announced , “ Then I have an Article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do whatever I want as president.
” That wasn ’ t the first time the president asserted that he had unlimited authority .
In an interview about the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller , Trump claimed , “ Article 2 allows me to do whatever I want .
Article 2 would have allowed me to fire [ Mueller ] .
” Far from granting the president the expansive powers that he imagines , Article 2 details the most vital check and balance upon kingly abuses : the proviso that the chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for , and conviction of , treason , bribery , or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
” But Trump , a fully impeached president who avoided removal only because of hyper-partisan dereliction of duty by Republican senators , has in recent weeks indulged his kingly impulses with unsettling frequency .
Last week , on April 13 , as he wrangled with Democratic and Republican governors over how to reopen states that have been locked down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus , he tweeted , “ For the purpose of creating conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states , not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government .
Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect .
It is the decision of the President , and for many good reasons.
” “ The president of the United States calls the shots , ” Trump announced the same day , in a press briefing on when states might reopen .
“ It ’ s a decision for the president of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would like to work with the states , Trump concluded , “ They can ’ t do anything without the approval of the president.
” Again that same day , Trump proclaimed : “ When somebody is the president of the United States , the authority is total and that ’ s the way it ’ s got to be .
It ’ s total.
” Amid an outcry from Republican allies , he walked back some of his most extreme language on April 14 .
But on April 15 , he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House briefing that he might adjourn Congress and unilaterally appoint his nominees to judicial and administrative positions .
Trump justified his proposal to override the confirmation process by declaring , “ I have a very strong power.
” The president was engaging in an abusive reading of a narrowly defined constitutional provision that allows for adjournments when there are disagreements between the leaders of the House and Senate .
Even the law professor who defended Trump during the impeachment inquiry , Jonathan Turley , argued , “ This is a dormant provision that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indeed , the recess appointments that Trump seeks to use have themselves been denounced as archaic and unnecessary.
” Furious over the revelation of his total incompetence , and panicked about what that will mean for his reelection prospects , he claims “ total power.
” He reimagines the Constitution as a royal decree rather than a decree against royalism .
This is not going to stop until the president is checked and balanced with an overwhelming assertion of the truth .
Congress and the American people must tell Donald Trump that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Representative Justin Amash , a cosponsor of Malinowski ’ s resolution who was elected as a libertarian-leaning Republican but who now sits in the House as an independent , says , it is necessary to tell Donald Trump to “ put down the authoritarianism and read the Constitution .
”

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Donald Trump’s disregard for the Constitution has been evident from the day he took office. Yet the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis that extends from it have seen Trump go to new and exponentially more troubling extremes. The president is twisting the founding document and the laws of the land to fit with a warped world view in which he imagines himself as precisely the sort of monarchical leader that the initiators of the American experiment sought to avoid.
It has come to the point where Congress must renounce and rebuke the president for his lawless words and deeds. Representative Tom Malinowski recognized the necessity last week when he introduced a bill resolving that “the House of Representatives affirms that when someone is the president of the United States, their authority is not total.”
It is a measure of how far Trump has strayed from the norms of governance in a civil and democratic society that members of Congress are now called upon to affirm “the sense of the House of Representatives that the powers of the president remain limited by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” But this is where we are. And this is why citizens must organize to demand not merely that Malinowski’s resolution be approved but also that Congress push back, far more aggressively than it has to this point, against an increasingly imperial presidency.
Trump’s approach is as dangerous as it is wrongheaded. To a greater extent than ever before, his over-the-top rhetoric about presidential authority is intersecting with his reckless exercise of that authority. He is not merely abusing his position; he is signaling to his supporters that these abuses are appropriate and should be defended with a politics that disregards the respect for the rule of law and the basic premises of constitutional order. More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
Trump brought the issue to a head Monday evening when, in a desperate attempt to change the narrative regarding his fundamentally flawed response to the pandemic, he tweeted: “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”
The president’s aides were befuddled by the unplanned announcement and scrambled early Tuesday to put it in perspective. But Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, saw things clearly: “This is not about the policy. It is about the message the president wants to send. He wants people to turn against ‘the other.’ And, regardless of the valuable contributions immigrants are making to the response and recovery, he sees immigrants as the easiest to blame.” 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
“The president is using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to dramatically advance his racist, anti-immigrant policy agenda,” said Kristin Kumpf of the American Friends Service Committee. “Suspending all immigration will not keep us safe from the pandemic. What it will do is separate families and communities and distract from what we actually need—a public health response that helps keep everyone healthy and safe.” Current Issue View our current issue
The president of the United States has a great deal of power, and that includes a measure of flexibility when making decisions regarding immigration. But Trump’s panic move of the moment is not a legitimate exercise of that authority. Trump believes that the results of the 2016 election—which he lost by 2.9 million votes in the popular balloting—afforded him unchecked power. And he is flexing that power because he believes that monarchical words and deeds might somehow reverse a decline in trust that imperils his 2020 reelection bid.
The president has gone to such extremes in recent weeks that the Associated Press on April 18 headlined a “Fact Check” report: “Trump isn’t a king but claims expansive power.” The review began by observing, “Over the past week, President Donald Trump was pretender to a throne that doesn’t exist as he claimed king-like powers over the coronavirus pandemic response and Congress.”
But it’s not just the past week. Trump’s megalomania has been on display throughout his troubled tenure.
Last July, the president radically misstated the section of the Constitution that outlines presidential powers (and the limits upon them) when he announced, “Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”
That wasn’t the first time the president asserted that he had unlimited authority. In an interview about the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump claimed, “Article 2 allows me to do whatever I want. Article 2 would have allowed me to fire [Mueller].”
Far from granting the president the expansive powers that he imagines, Article 2 details the most vital check and balance upon kingly abuses: the proviso that the chief executive may be removed “via impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
But Trump, a fully impeached president who avoided removal only because of hyper-partisan dereliction of duty by Republican senators, has in recent weeks indulged his kingly impulses with unsettling frequency. Last week, on April 13, as he wrangled with Democratic and Republican governors over how to reopen states that have been locked down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, he tweeted, “For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect. It is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons.”
“The president of the United States calls the shots,” Trump announced the same day, in a press briefing on when states might reopen. “It’s a decision for the president of the United States.” While he said he would like to work with the states, Trump concluded, “They can’t do anything without the approval of the president.”
Again that same day, Trump proclaimed: “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total.”
Amid an outcry from Republican allies, he walked back some of his most extreme language on April 14.
But on April 15, he was back at it, telling a White House briefing that he might adjourn Congress and unilaterally appoint his nominees to judicial and administrative positions. Trump justified his proposal to override the confirmation process by declaring, “I have a very strong power.” The president was engaging in an abusive reading of a narrowly defined constitutional provision that allows for adjournments when there are disagreements between the leaders of the House and Senate. Even the law professor who defended Trump during the impeachment inquiry, Jonathan Turley, argued, “This is a dormant provision that should be left in well-earned slumber. Indeed, the recess appointments that Trump seeks to use have themselves been denounced as archaic and unnecessary.”
But Trump keeps “going there.”
Furious over the revelation of his total incompetence, and panicked about what that will mean for his reelection prospects, he claims “total power.” He reimagines the Constitution as a royal decree rather than a decree against royalism. This is not going to stop until the president is checked and balanced with an overwhelming assertion of the truth. Congress and the American people must tell Donald Trump that he is absolutely and unequivocally wrong. As Representative Justin Amash, a cosponsor of Malinowski’s resolution who was elected as a libertarian-leaning Republican but who now sits in the House as an independent, says, it is necessary to tell Donald Trump to “put down the authoritarianism and read the Constitution.”


thenation--2020-04-21--What Progressives Could Teach Joe Biden About Foreign Policy

After receiving Senator Bernie Sanders ’ s endorsement , presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden invited the Vermont progressive into a policy dialogue , setting up six joint task forces—all on domestic issues—to find common ground .
Nothing similar has been announced on foreign policy , but Matt Duss , Sanders ’ s foreign policy adviser , reported that Biden ’ s advisers “ want to be engaged in the conversation to make the platform stronger.
” If so , there are several critical initiatives that Biden should embrace .
The differences between Biden and Sanders ( I-VT ) are apparent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dozen years either the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , traffics in conventional US foreign policy thinking from the pre-Trump era .
This has put Biden on the wrong side of issue after issue : championing corporate-led globalization ; supporting the war in Iraq ; embracing President Barack Obama ’ s drone assassination program ; and voting for the North American Free Trade Agreement and for allowing China into the World Trade Organization .
Sanders , in contrast , has been a skeptic of US interventions over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of corporate-led globalization .
During his presidential run , he said he would cut the military budget , end the long wars in the Middle East and review America ’ s empire of bases overseas .
Addressing catastrophic climate change and building an economy that works for working people would rank as top national security priorities .
Sanders is not alone in these views .
Senator Elizabeth Warren ( MA ) echoed many of them during her Democratic campaign .
Representatives Ro Khanna ( CA ) and Ilhan Omar ( MN ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jeff Merkley ( OR ) and a range of organizations such as the new Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft have also driven elements of a new , progressive foreign policy discussion .
Read the full text of Katrina ’ s column here .

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
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After receiving Senator Bernie Sanders’s endorsement, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden invited the Vermont progressive into a policy dialogue, setting up six joint task forces—all on domestic issues—to find common ground. Nothing similar has been announced on foreign policy, but Matt Duss, Sanders’s foreign policy adviser, reported that Biden’s advisers “want to be engaged in the conversation to make the platform stronger.” If so, there are several critical initiatives that Biden should embrace.
The differences between Biden and Sanders (I-VT) are apparent. The former vice president, for a dozen years either the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, traffics in conventional US foreign policy thinking from the pre-Trump era. This has put Biden on the wrong side of issue after issue: championing corporate-led globalization; supporting the war in Iraq; embracing President Barack Obama’s drone assassination program; and voting for the North American Free Trade Agreement and for allowing China into the World Trade Organization.
Sanders, in contrast, has been a skeptic of US interventions over the years, and a consistent critic of corporate-led globalization. During his presidential run, he said he would cut the military budget, end the long wars in the Middle East and review America’s empire of bases overseas. Addressing catastrophic climate change and building an economy that works for working people would rank as top national security priorities. Sanders is not alone in these views. Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA) echoed many of them during her Democratic campaign. Representatives Ro Khanna (CA) and Ilhan Omar (MN), Senators Chris Murphy (CN) and Jeff Merkley (OR) and a range of organizations such as the new Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft have also driven elements of a new, progressive foreign policy discussion.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.


thenation--2020-04-21--Take Action Now: Fight for Justice During the Pandemic

Protesters across the country demanded an end to shelter-in-place orders over the weekend , egged on by President Trump ’ s calls to “ liberate ” states .
As our president ’ s priorities drive our country ’ s response to the pandemic backward , it ’ s more crucial than ever that we stand up for a just recovery and meaningful relief for those most impacted by the crisis .
This week ’ s Take Action Now gives you ways to fight for affordable and safe housing , support the Latinx community , and help at-risk people in your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three meaningful actions you can take each week whatever your schedule .
You can sign up here to get these actions and more in your inbox every Tuesday .
Millions of people are unsure how they ’ re going to keep up with rent and mortgage payments in the coming months .
Join Jobs with Justice to call on the biggest landlords in the country to forgive unpaid rents , waive mortgage interest , and defer mortgage payments for April , May , and June .
Then check out Right to the City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go beyond recovery and secure a future with housing security and without insurmountable debt .
Sign onto their demands here .
Before the pandemic , Latinx people in the United States represented an overwhelming majority of workers in low-wage jobs , were subject to the highest number of workplace fatalities , and had among the lowest rates of health coverage .
Check out and share Mijente and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement ’ s new report “ The Impact of COVID-19 on Latinos in the U.S. ” to learn more about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how you can take action to mobilize for a people-first response to the crisis .
Consider donating to undocumented families who aren ’ t eligible for stimulus checks and face severe financial hardship during the crisis .
As federal stimulus money comes in slowly , local organizations are still bearing the brunt of helping those most in need .
Find a food bank near you and inquire about volunteer opportunities to help process an unprecedented influx of people seeking food .
Then , check out the National Coalition for the Homeless ’ directory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ connect with one in your area .
If you ’ re healthy , sign up to volunteer with Umbrella , an organization aiding elderly people get essential household supplies or food .

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Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every Tuesday.
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Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Protesters across the country demanded an end to shelter-in-place orders over the weekend, egged on by President Trump’s calls to “liberate” states. As our president’s priorities drive our country’s response to the pandemic backward, it’s more crucial than ever that we stand up for a just recovery and meaningful relief for those most impacted by the crisis.
This week’s Take Action Now gives you ways to fight for affordable and safe housing, support the Latinx community, and help at-risk people in your area.
Take Action Now gives you three meaningful actions you can take each week whatever your schedule. You can sign up here to get these actions and more in your inbox every Tuesday.
NO TIME TO SPARE?
Millions of people are unsure how they’re going to keep up with rent and mortgage payments in the coming months. Join Jobs with Justice to call on the biggest landlords in the country to forgive unpaid rents, waive mortgage interest, and defer mortgage payments for April, May, and June. Then check out Right to the City Alliance’s list of demands to go beyond recovery and secure a future with housing security and without insurmountable debt. Sign onto their demands here.
GOT SOME TIME?
Before the pandemic, Latinx people in the United States represented an overwhelming majority of workers in low-wage jobs, were subject to the highest number of workplace fatalities, and had among the lowest rates of health coverage. Check out and share Mijente and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement’s new report “The Impact of COVID-19 on Latinos in the U.S.” to learn more about the threats to the Latinx community and how you can take action to mobilize for a people-first response to the crisis. Consider donating to undocumented families who aren’t eligible for stimulus checks and face severe financial hardship during the crisis.
READY TO DIG IN?
As federal stimulus money comes in slowly, local organizations are still bearing the brunt of helping those most in need. Find a food bank near you and inquire about volunteer opportunities to help process an unprecedented influx of people seeking food. Then, check out the National Coalition for the Homeless’ directory of homeless shelters and service providers to connect with one in your area. If you’re healthy, sign up to volunteer with Umbrella, an organization aiding elderly people get essential household supplies or food.


thenation--2020-04-21--Why Can’t I Stop Watching Trump’s Chaotic Briefings?

My partner and I have been fighting about politics since we met in 1965 .
I was 13 .
She was 18 and my summer camp counselor .
( It was another 14 years before we became a couple . )
We spent that first summer arguing about the Vietnam War .
I was convinced that the United States never should have gotten involved there .
Though she agreed , she was more concerned that the growth of an anti-war movement would distract people from what she considered far more crucial to this country : the civil rights movement .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ right .
She took off that fall for college at the University of California , Berkeley , where , as she says , she majored in history with a minor in rioting .
I went back to junior high school .
And we ’ ve been arguing about politics ever since .
So maybe it ’ s no surprise that , since the coronavirus pandemic exploded , we ’ ve been fighting about the president .
Not about his character ( vile and infantile , we both agree ) or his job performance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether anyone with a conscience should watch his never-ending television performances .
Since 2016 , she ’ s done her best not to expose herself to either his voice or his image , and she ’ s complained regularly about the mainstream media ’ s willingness to broadcast his self-evident lies , to cover any misconceived or idiotic thing he might decide to say at rally after rally as if it were actual news .
More recently , she ’ s said the media should send their interns to cover his Covid-19 “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , MSNBC and CNN now no longer always broadcast those events , whose ratings the president so treasures , in full .
In fact , by April 13 , CNN appeared to have let their chyron writer off the leash to run legends below that day ’ s news conference like “ Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session ” and “ Breaking news : Trump refuses to acknowledge any mistakes.
” ) For a couple of weeks now , I ’ ve been watching each live broadcast of the Trump Follies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus task force briefings .
Readers who , like me , remember the Vietnam War may also recall the infamous “ Five O ’ Clock Follies , ” the US military ’ s mendacious daily briefings from the South Vietnamese capital , Saigon , during that endless conflict .
There , its spokesmen regularly offered evidence , including grimly inflated “ body counts ” of enemy dead , that allowed them to claim they were winning a losing war .
The question today , of course , is whether the present pandemic version @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small glimmer of hope that the president may now be mired in his own Covid-19 version of Vietnam .
After I ’ ve spent a couple of irretrievable hours of my life gaping at the muddled mind of Donald Trump , I always feel a sickening sensation , as if I ’ d kept eating Oreo cookies long after they stopped tasting good .
But it doesn ’ t matter .
The next day , I just turn it on again .
I wonder if it ’ s people like me who are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his ?
It took my partner a while to catch on to what I ’ ve been doing .
The reason : Like an alcoholic whose bottles are stuffed away in secret corners , I ’ ve been hiding this perverse habit by sneaking down to the basement and watching while working on my loom .
Or I would catch my Trump fix while she was out on the streets of San Francisco taking photographs for her 10-year project to both walk and record every voting precinct in the city .
But one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she walked in on me before I had time to slam the laptop cover down .
“ Nobody should be watching those press conferences !
” she said emphatically , when she twigged to what I ’ d been up to .
“ How can you sit there and listen to lies ?
Why are you exposing yourself to that crap ?
Anything you actually need to know you can read in newspaper summaries the next day.
” And I have to admit that those were fair questions .
Why am I exposing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stream of falsehoods , ignorance , and preening self-congratulation day after day ?
Why , though I loathe his lies as much as she does , do I keep listening to them in real time ?
As he typically said at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 6 , “ Anybody that wants a [ coronavirus ] test can get a test ” ; “ The tests are all perfect .
Like the letter was perfect .
The transcription was perfect , right ?
… This was not as perfect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( No one knows what “ letter ” he was referring to , though he probably meant the summary transcript of his phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky . )
Why don ’ t I switch the press conferences off when he begins to praise and congratulate himself as he always does ?
( “ I ’ ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic ” ; “ Every one of these [ CDC ] doctors said , ‘ How do you know so much about this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ability .
Maybe I should ’ ve done that instead of running for president.
” ) Why am I fascinated by the way just about everyone on the podium fawns all over him , starting with Vice President Mike Pence , the titular head of “ the president ’ s ” Coronavirus Task Force ( unless , this week , it ’ s Jared Kushner ) ?
Why do I keep listening to Pence intoning , “ The president has directed that… ” or referring to “ President Trump ’ s 15-day coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had written them and designed the oversize postcard outlining them , which arrived in people ’ s mail at the end of March ?
Why am I mesmerized as assorted business “ leaders ” like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell trip over themselves outdoing each another in praising the president ?
Lindell , in fact , used his minute and a half of fame to tell the world that God had essentially elected Donald Trump in 2016 .
( I guess that explains it !
I knew I hadn ’ t voted for him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( and so many others ) with that nightly hit of dopamine is the sheer brazenness of the president ’ s lies on show for all to see .
Not for him the mealy-mouthed half-truth , the small evasion .
No , his are , like the rest of his persona , grandiose in a way that should be beyond belief , but remains stubbornly real .
Here he is , for instance , in mid-March , speaking of Americans flying back from Europe : “ If an American is coming back or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re testing .
We have a tremendous testing setup where people coming in have to be tested.… We ’ re not putting them on planes if it shows positive , but if they do come here , we ’ re quarantining.
” Anyone who saw the photos of weary travelers crammed together in US airports then knows that none of this was faintly accurate .
But no matter .
Then there ’ s Trump ’ s use of those television performances and the audiences they garner as the ultimate measure of presidential achievement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t familiar with his delight in the ratings the coronavirus press briefings have attracted ?
As he tweeted on March 29 : So it ’ s no surprise that he also uses media ratings as the metric by which he judges the performance of everyone working to slow down the spread of the coronavirus .
For him , governing is nothing but a performance .
At his March 29 briefing , for example , he gave himself credit for the media attention being paid to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and someone he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name he seemed to have forgotten ) .
After observing that The Washington Post , like my partner , thinks Americans should shun his pressers , he pointed out that he ’ d inaugurated other people ’ s TV careers : Then there ’ s the astonishing ignorance he ’ s so happy to put on display regularly , as at the April 10 task force briefing .
Asked whether “ reopening ” the country would depend on having enough Covid-19 tests available to make it possible to do surveillance and contact tracing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be unnecessary in “ vast areas of the country ” because they don ’ t ( yet ) have outbreaks .
Given that no state by then lacked coronavirus cases , it was yet one more display of his inability to grasp the basics of the potential for exponential growth in a highly contagious disease .
Finally , there ’ s the eternal assumption in just about everything he says that no one could possibly know more about any subject than he instantly grasps .
In a terrifying exchange on April 10 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use in deciding when and how to reopen the country , a decision he had just falsely claimed he has “ absolute authority ” to enforce .
“ The metrics right here , ” he replied , pointing to his temple and , presumably , the brain behind it .
“ That ’ s my metrics .
That ’ s all I can do .
I can listen to 35 people .
At the end , I got to make a decision.
” He went on to explain that he had just figured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ And I didn ’ t think of it until yesterday .
I said , ‘ You know , this is a big decision.
’ ” Who could possibly have known how big a decision it was until that very moment when the president claimed to have grasped that reality ?
In the end , maybe what truly draws me to those news conferences and keeps me hooked is the cognitive dissonance of it all .
I ’ ve never been a fan of reality TV , partly because I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one another , but mainly because what happens on such shows is anything but “ real.
” Mean ( or “ nasty ” ) as he may be , Trump ’ s press conferences are real .
And isn ’ t that the contradiction , the eerie fascination , of it all—that the unbelievable is actually true ?
Donald Trump is , in fact , the president of the United States , even if watching each of those televised events is like encountering a creature from another dimension , a being who simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And that , in a terrifying way , is fascinating .
I can ’ t look away .
The field of mathematics called chaos theory , which deals with extremely complex , dynamic systems like the movements of liquids or gasses , has a concept called “ strange attractors.
” An attractor is a point that a graph of the system keeps cycling around and returning to over time .
( Not being a mathematician , that ’ s the best I can do . )
Strange attractors are fractal , meaning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will display the same pattern no matter how much you magnify it , no matter how deep you go—in other words , very much like the mind of Trump .
Some strange attractors are part of chaotic systems that don ’ t repeat at any regular interval and will vary greatly over time .
The weather is like that ; a small difference in temperature or pressure at a given moment can affect whether a local change becomes a hurricane .
But if a chaotic system has strange attractors , then , over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will most often settle into one of two results : the equivalents of a clear day or a bad storm .
You can ’ t say what will happen in any given year , but you can say what is most likely to happen over 100 years .
As Wikipedia puts it , “ Thus a dynamic system with a chaotic [ strange ] attractor is locally unstable yet globally stable.
” Should—the gods and statistics forbid—Trump win reelection this November , we ’ ll have a real-life example of a system that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stable for the next four years .
In his case , of course , we ’ re talking about how a “ very stable genius ” will be able to spin the chaos he creates into an ever more authoritarian regime .
Oh , and as that Wikipedia article adds , “ Strange attractors may also be found in the presence of noise… ” Let me apologize instantly for perverting some poor mathematician ’ s meaning , but how can I not point out that our presidential strange attractor is indeed surrounded by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fake and otherwise , cycling around and feeding off the one constant point that is Trump in the chaos of his universe ?
So who ’ s right , my girlfriend or me ?
Just as was true years ago , I suspect we ’ re both right .
No one should engage with that chaotic noise and the strange attractor at its center .
All of us should deprive Donald Trump of attention of every sort , which is the oxygen that sustains him .
And yet , someone has to watch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our lives depend on it .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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My partner and I have been fighting about politics since we met in 1965. I was 13. She was 18 and my summer camp counselor. (It was another 14 years before we became a couple.) We spent that first summer arguing about the Vietnam War. I was convinced that the United States never should have gotten involved there. Though she agreed, she was more concerned that the growth of an anti-war movement would distract people from what she considered far more crucial to this country: the civil rights movement. As it happened, we were both right.
She took off that fall for college at the University of California, Berkeley, where, as she says, she majored in history with a minor in rioting. I went back to junior high school. And we’ve been arguing about politics ever since.
So maybe it’s no surprise that, since the coronavirus pandemic exploded, we’ve been fighting about the president. Not about his character (vile and infantile, we both agree) or his job performance (beyond dismal), but about whether anyone with a conscience should watch his never-ending television performances. Since 2016, she’s done her best not to expose herself to either his voice or his image, and she’s complained regularly about the mainstream media’s willingness to broadcast his self-evident lies, to cover any misconceived or idiotic thing he might decide to say at rally after rally as if it were actual news. More recently, she’s said the media should send their interns to cover his Covid-19 “news” conferences. (Of course, MSNBC and CNN now no longer always broadcast those events, whose ratings the president so treasures, in full. In fact, by April 13, CNN appeared to have let their chyron writer off the leash to run legends below that day’s news conference like “Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session” and “Breaking news: Trump refuses to acknowledge any mistakes.”)
For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been watching each live broadcast of the Trump Follies, otherwise known as the White House daily coronavirus task force briefings. Readers who, like me, remember the Vietnam War may also recall the infamous “Five O’Clock Follies,” the US military’s mendacious daily briefings from the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, during that endless conflict. There, its spokesmen regularly offered evidence, including grimly inflated “body counts” of enemy dead, that allowed them to claim they were winning a losing war. The question today, of course, is whether the present pandemic version of those follies offers at least a small glimmer of hope that the president may now be mired in his own Covid-19 version of Vietnam. 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
After I’ve spent a couple of irretrievable hours of my life gaping at the muddled mind of Donald Trump, I always feel a sickening sensation, as if I’d kept eating Oreo cookies long after they stopped tasting good. But it doesn’t matter. The next day, I just turn it on again. I wonder if it’s people like me who are responsible for that TV ratings bump of his?
It took my partner a while to catch on to what I’ve been doing. The reason: Like an alcoholic whose bottles are stuffed away in secret corners, I’ve been hiding this perverse habit by sneaking down to the basement and watching while working on my loom. Or I would catch my Trump fix while she was out on the streets of San Francisco taking photographs for her 10-year project to both walk and record every voting precinct in the city.
But one evening, returning a little early, she walked in on me before I had time to slam the laptop cover down. “Nobody should be watching those press conferences!” she said emphatically, when she twigged to what I’d been up to. “How can you sit there and listen to lies? Why are you exposing yourself to that crap? Anything you actually need to know you can read in newspaper summaries the next day.” Current Issue View our current issue
What’s the Appeal?
And I have to admit that those were fair questions. Why am I exposing myself to such a pure, unmediated stream of falsehoods, ignorance, and preening self-congratulation day after day? Why, though I loathe his lies as much as she does, do I keep listening to them in real time? As he typically said at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 6, “Anybody that wants a [coronavirus] test can get a test”; “The tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect, right?… This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good.” (No one knows what “letter” he was referring to, though he probably meant the summary transcript of his phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.)
Why don’t I switch the press conferences off when he begins to praise and congratulate himself as he always does? (“I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic”; “Every one of these [CDC] doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should’ve done that instead of running for president.”)
Why am I fascinated by the way just about everyone on the podium fawns all over him, starting with Vice President Mike Pence, the titular head of “the president’s” Coronavirus Task Force (unless, this week, it’s Jared Kushner)? Why do I keep listening to Pence intoning, “The president has directed that…” or referring to “President Trump’s 15-day coronavirus guidelines,” as if Trump himself had written them and designed the oversize postcard outlining them, which arrived in people’s mail at the end of March? Why am I mesmerized as assorted business “leaders” like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell trip over themselves outdoing each another in praising the president? Lindell, in fact, used his minute and a half of fame to tell the world that God had essentially elected Donald Trump in 2016. (I guess that explains it! I knew I hadn’t voted for him.)
I think what provides me (and so many others) with that nightly hit of dopamine is the sheer brazenness of the president’s lies on show for all to see. Not for him the mealy-mouthed half-truth, the small evasion. No, his are, like the rest of his persona, grandiose in a way that should be beyond belief, but remains stubbornly real.
Here he is, for instance, in mid-March, speaking of Americans flying back from Europe: “If an American is coming back or anybody is coming back, we’re testing. We have a tremendous testing setup where people coming in have to be tested.… We’re not putting them on planes if it shows positive, but if they do come here, we’re quarantining.” Anyone who saw the photos of weary travelers crammed together in US airports then knows that none of this was faintly accurate. But no matter.
Then there’s Trump’s use of those television performances and the audiences they garner as the ultimate measure of presidential achievement. By now, who isn’t familiar with his delight in the ratings the coronavirus press briefings have attracted? As he tweeted on March 29:
Because the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc. are so high, “Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers” according to the@nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. ‘Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him,” said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!
So it’s no surprise that he also uses media ratings as the metric by which he judges the performance of everyone working to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. For him, governing is nothing but a performance. At his March 29 briefing, for example, he gave himself credit for the media attention being paid to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and someone he called “the General” (whose name he seemed to have forgotten). After observing that The Washington Post, like my partner, thinks Americans should shun his pressers, he pointed out that he’d inaugurated other people’s TV careers:
We’re getting the word out. We’re getting the accurate word out. And a lot of people are happy about it, and a lot of people aren’t. But they should be happy. When I have the General, when I have Seema [Verma, head of Medicare and Medicaid Services], and when I have Tony [Fauci], and when I have our—our incred—these are, like, people that have become big stars, okay?
Then there’s the astonishing ignorance he’s so happy to put on display regularly, as at the April 10 task force briefing. Asked whether “reopening” the country would depend on having enough Covid-19 tests available to make it possible to do surveillance and contact tracing, he replied that such tests would be unnecessary in “vast areas of the country” because they don’t (yet) have outbreaks. Given that no state by then lacked coronavirus cases, it was yet one more display of his inability to grasp the basics of the potential for exponential growth in a highly contagious disease.
Finally, there’s the eternal assumption in just about everything he says that no one could possibly know more about any subject than he instantly grasps. In a terrifying exchange on April 10, a reporter asked what metrics he would use in deciding when and how to reopen the country, a decision he had just falsely claimed he has “absolute authority” to enforce.
“The metrics right here,” he replied, pointing to his temple and, presumably, the brain behind it. “That’s my metrics. That’s all I can do. I can listen to 35 people. At the end, I got to make a decision.” He went on to explain that he had just figured out how big a decision it was. “And I didn’t think of it until yesterday. I said, ‘You know, this is a big decision.’” Who could possibly have known how big a decision it was until that very moment when the president claimed to have grasped that reality?
Strange Attractors
In the end, maybe what truly draws me to those news conferences and keeps me hooked is the cognitive dissonance of it all. I’ve never been a fan of reality TV, partly because I don’t like watching people be mean to one another, but mainly because what happens on such shows is anything but “real.” Mean (or “nasty”) as he may be, Trump’s press conferences are real. And isn’t that the contradiction, the eerie fascination, of it all—that the unbelievable is actually true? Donald Trump is, in fact, the president of the United States, even if watching each of those televised events is like encountering a creature from another dimension, a being who simply doesn’t conform to earthly reality. And that, in a terrifying way, is fascinating. I can’t look away.
The field of mathematics called chaos theory, which deals with extremely complex, dynamic systems like the movements of liquids or gasses, has a concept called “strange attractors.” An attractor is a point that a graph of the system keeps cycling around and returning to over time. (Not being a mathematician, that’s the best I can do.) Strange attractors are fractal, meaning that each part of one of them will display the same pattern no matter how much you magnify it, no matter how deep you go—in other words, very much like the mind of Trump.
Some strange attractors are part of chaotic systems that don’t repeat at any regular interval and will vary greatly over time. The weather is like that; a small difference in temperature or pressure at a given moment can affect whether a local change becomes a hurricane. But if a chaotic system has strange attractors, then, over many years, the same initial conditions will most often settle into one of two results: the equivalents of a clear day or a bad storm. You can’t say what will happen in any given year, but you can say what is most likely to happen over 100 years. As Wikipedia puts it, “Thus a dynamic system with a chaotic [strange] attractor is locally unstable yet globally stable.”
Should—the gods and statistics forbid—Trump win reelection this November, we’ll have a real-life example of a system that is locally unstable, but globally horribly stable for the next four years. In his case, of course, we’re talking about how a “very stable genius” will be able to spin the chaos he creates into an ever more authoritarian regime.
Oh, and as that Wikipedia article adds, “Strange attractors may also be found in the presence of noise…” Let me apologize instantly for perverting some poor mathematician’s meaning, but how can I not point out that our presidential strange attractor is indeed surrounded by the constant noise of the media, fake and otherwise, cycling around and feeding off the one constant point that is Trump in the chaos of his universe?
So who’s right, my girlfriend or me? Just as was true years ago, I suspect we’re both right. No one should engage with that chaotic noise and the strange attractor at its center. All of us should deprive Donald Trump of attention of every sort, which is the oxygen that sustains him. And yet, someone has to watch, because strange as it is, our lives depend on it.