Posts by Jon Talton

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. — H.L. Mencken

Nobody can claim that Donald Trump isn't keeping his campaign promises. After his fashion, of course. He has added so many financiers, billionaire moguls and generals to his swamp that even the most recalcitrant Bernie Bro or Jill Steiner might wish for Hillary. But on the thing that matters most to his voters, white majoritarianism in the form of Muslim bans and the wall, he's delivering. Erasing Obama's legacy — check. Making war on cities with devastating cuts to public investments — check. Rolling back environmental regulations at a time when climate change is growing much worse, cleansing government agencies of competent "elites," and a budget that goes after every GOP bugaboo — check, check, and check.

When 24 million or more Americans — including the vaunted white working class — are deprived of health care, don't count on a midterm backlash. After all, dozens of Republican governors and legislatures refused to set up state ACA exchanges or expand Medicaid and no price was paid. The states got even redder. Trump's continuing discarding of norms, disgracing his office, and the timebomb of his connections with the Kremlin? I doubt any of this will affect his support. And remember, his supporters lie to pollsters, so don't believe his approval ratings. Nothing is too outrageous for them. They don't believe the news. Of course the Kenyan socialist tapped Trump Tower, no matter what the Republican intelligence committee chairmen say.

Trump stands very little chance of returning manufacturing jobs to America. His Commerce Secretary made his fortune in the "rip, strip, and flip" game, destroying companies and jobs. His Labor Secretary has praised robots. The billionaire and financial class he is empowering by cutting taxes and rolling back "burdensome" regulations grows ever richer by screwing working people.

A slew of Republican bills to repeal the New Deal, Great Society, Nixon administration, and the Enlightenment will be signed. Trump's Education Secretary is a charter-school racketeer who is actively hostile to public education. A trade war will result in higher prices at Wal-Mart and lost American jobs. Our standing in the world is already that of a sick joke. No price will be paid. Arizona has proved that, where decades of single-party control has led to disaster. Yet Arizona is redder as a result.

Carl Muecke's take:

Budweiser's "Born the Hard Way" advertisement during the Super Bowl won plaudits for putting today's anti-immigrant sentiment under a harsh light. But it was a stretch. In reality, the white Anglo-Saxon America of the 19th century was generally welcoming of Germans. They were Christian, often Protestant, hard working. Which is not to say the migration was without troubles.

For example, especially after the failed revolutions of 1848, German immigrants transformed Cincinnati. They congregated in the dense neighborhood north of the Miami-Erie Canal. The city's English and Scots-Irish majority sniffed, "There are a lot of Germans over the Rhine," meaning the canal. And the district, still one of America's architectural treasures, gained its name. The Germans brought great beer and helped make Cincinnati a magnificent music city. Before World War I, Cincinnati had many German-language newspapers — these, and much of the German culture, were victims of wartime xenophobia. Later, the German families moved to the west side. Even today, Interstate 75 is called the Sauerkraut Curtain, dividing old German from old English Cincinnati. The Germans assimilated and became some of the city's leading citizens. Samuel Adams beer is based on a recipe from co-founder Jim Koch's great-grandfather.

The Irish were reviled in many cities in the same century. They went on to become among the most American of Americans, producing two presidents. The largest mass lynching in American history was carried out in 1891 against 11 Italian immigrants in New Orleans. Italians, too, assimilated, and became a distinguished (and sometimes, with the Mafia, notorious) part of America. In the early 21st century, the governor of Arizona, most prominent businessman in Phoenix and, ironically, anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County were all Italian-Americans (many of Phoenix's most important earlier leaders were of Jewish extraction). So it went for scores of different ethnic and religious groups who came here. Native fear, discrimination and even atrocities, assimilation and acceptance. America is a credal nation, not an ethnic one. And we have been stronger for it.

Here's a question for readers and friends who served in the military, particularly those who worked with nukes (I know you're there). Can a president order a nuclear strike with no intermediating checks in the National Command Authority?

Everywhere else in the military where nuclear weapons are involved, the "two man rule" applies, from authenticating an Emergency War Order and turning launch keys to even being in the vicinity of warheads and delivery systems. I always thought this applied at the top, where the ironically nicknamed "Mad Dog" Mattis would have to authenticate the so-called Gold Codes along with the president. Mattis is the most rational person in the administration. And yet, people have told me this is wrong: Donald Trump can give the launch order on his own. How about it? With the Martin Bormann/Joseph Goebbels clone Steve Bannon now a member of the National Security Council and an unhinged president, this inquiry takes on a certain…urgency.

The progressives have their marches — many thousands in city centers and airports over the weekend — and they believe they are mighty. Farhad Manjoo, the savvy technology columnist for the New York Times, appears to agree:

We’re witnessing the stirrings of a national popular movement aimed at defeating the policies of Mr. Trump. It is a movement without official leaders. In fact, to a noteworthy degree, the formal apparatus of the Democratic Party has been nearly absent from the uprisings. Unlike the Tea Party and the white-supremacist “alt-right,” the new movement has no name. Call it the alt-left, or, if you want to really drive Mr. Trump up the wall, the alt-majority.

Or call it nothing. Though nameless and decentralized, the movement isn’t chaotic. Because it was hatched on social networks and is dispatched by mobile phones, it appears to be organizationally sophisticated and ferociously savvy about conquering the media.

I'm not so sure. Crowd psychology is a funny thing and it can lead to magical thinking. Some have been mentioning 1968, as if that year of famous civil unrest ushered in a new progressive era. Quite the contrary happened, as the American liberal consensus was shattered and conservatives ("law and order") triumphed. Now I am suspicious of the progressive echo chamber on social media and in "the streets."

There's good reason to be. Donald Trump was elected by nearly 63 million votes. Although this was less by a record margin than the tally Hillary Clinton received, it's difficult to believe many of these Trump voters have buyer's remorse. He is doing exactly what he promised, and fast. I suspect they dig it, to use 1968 slang. It's what they voted for. But they are easy to ignore because they don't hold massive street demonstrations and they don't dominate social media. They just vote. And this has left us with the Republicans in charge of both the White House and Congress, 25 statehouses in entirety (including Arizona), and soon the federal courts. The ramifications of this fact are beyond enumeration.

Only a week into this disaster and years to go, here's the great Carl Muecke's take. Have a laugh…or a chill.

(Illustration by Carl Muecke, click for a larger image)

The framers of the Constitution put three roadblocks in place to prevent a demagogue from assuming or discharging the office of President. One, the Electoral College, has already fallen. The courts, packed with Republican-appointed judges and Supreme Court mini-me Scalias, will also fail to stop the descent into an authoritarian kleptocracy.

That leaves the Congress. Unfortunately for the future of the republic, this Congress is, if anything, a greater threat than the showman-stooge-traitor Donald J. Trump.

Under Republican control, it waged a scorched-earth campaign to undercut President Obama at every juncture. His well-qualified, centrist nominee to the high court was blocked for nearly a year, an unprecedented act. Efforts to build infrastructure and create jobs, to fill the hole in demand caused by the Great Recession, were victims of needless "austerity." Republicans threatened to default on U.S. debt, one of their many hostage-takings to ensure that they "broke him," in the pungent words of former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (now head of the premier right-wing "think tank," the Heritage Foundation).

Now, even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and more people voted for Democrats than Republicans, this minority has total control of the national government. They represent the New Confederacy in our Cold Civil War. The beneficiaries of the vicious backlash to a black president. And they intend to use this power to the fullest.

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

In the near future, I will examine the Obama presidency. But one thing is certain: For the past eight years, I have slept well knowing this fine, scandal-free man was in the White House. No Drama Obama. History will be very kind to him. He may well be remembered as the last president of the United States.

Now we're headed into an ominous "experiment."

Donald Trump enters the White House with less legitimacy than any president in history. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote by the largest margin ever (tying Obama in 2012). Trump's approval rating is the lowest for an incoming chief executive in history. His Electoral College victory will forever be tainted by the tilting of the election in his favor by Russian intelligence, FBI Director James Comey, and media malpractice — manically overplaying fake Clinton scandals while downplaying or ignoring Trump's massive real scandals and conflicts of interest. And never forget voter suppression. This was the first presidential election after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Nevertheless, Trump and the Republicans are claiming a mandate to undertake a massive shift in our nation's life and trajectory. Taking health care away from 30 million Americans — at least half of whom are in the vaunted white working class — is Job No. 1. But the damage won't stop there.

The Republicans are hot to cut taxes on the rich and eviscerate "entitlements" (read the earned benefits of Social Security and Medicare). To roll back regulations protecting the environment and holding back the looting from anti-competitive mergers, too big to fail banks, and the oligarchs. The latter, along with a proto-junta of generals, stuff his cabinet nominees. If we only see America turned into a banana republic kleptocracy, we'll be lucky.