2024 election

The NYT Provides A Preview Of Its 2024 Campaign Toadying Strategy, Part 2: The Return Of Levitsky and Ziblatt

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

One of the most referenced tropes among the Big Lies used by the “resistance”/Democratic Party/mainstream media alliance to de-legitimize Donald Trump’s Presidency was that he was uniquely willing to discard tradition, established practice, and “democratic norms.” The alleged authorities appealed to by such Trump-bashers as the Times and the Atlantic were Harvard political science professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who wrote a pure partisan screed masquerading as scholarship called “How Democracies Die.”Ethics Alarms discussed it and them here, here, here and here (Big Lie #6). In the last I wrote,

The exact conduct being engaged in by the “resistance” and the Democrats is projected on their adversaries, accompanied by the false claim that they are endangering American democracy. In truth, the calculated efforts to de-legitimatize the President, his election, and the Supreme Court by “the resistance”(and in this group we must include unethical academics like Levitsky and Ziblatt) has already harmed our institutions and the viability of democracy, perhaps beyond repair. For these two propagandists to make the absurd argument that it is [Trump] who undermines institutions and his party that “plays dirty” when it is so obvious to any honest and objective observer that it is their party and their political allies who are doing so is as insulting as it is infuriating.

And, of course, the New York Times gives the two a platform for their distortions. Of course.

Well, Biden’s in trouble, so the Times has summoned Levitsky and Ziblatt again to make the same untenable and intellectually dishonest argument. This time it is, if anything, more spectacularly hypocritical and insulting than their earlier efforts. Their latest is headlined, “Democracy’s Assassins Always Have Accomplices”—you know, like Levitsky and Ziblatt?—and illustrated by the drawing of the boot-licking dog above, as the two Harvard professors dutifully try to paint Joe Biden as democracy’s champion…this uniting figure!…

and Donald Trump as an existential threat to liberty who is being blandly supported by those dangerous fascist MAGA Republicans. In advocacy, one should always lead with one’s strongest argument, and the two partisan boot-lickers think this is their most persuasive:

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The NYT Provides A Preview Of Its 2024 Campaign Toadying Strategy, Part I: Gaslight! [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This is nice of them.

Today’s Sunday Times “Review” section, the punditry and analysis collection that once provided diverse political views and included unexpected perspective on modern life (but who cares about diversity and inclusion these days, right?) has two head-explodingly dishonest and diabolically-biased pieces that demonstrate how the paper will do its utmost to boost the Democrats back into the White House for another four years despite their epic incompetence and defiance of Constitutional government during the first three.

The first is epic gaslighting by Times editors and alleged conservative (diversity!) Ross Douthat. Like all conservative columnists that the Times subjects to its Stockholm Syndrome process, Douthat isn’t one anymore, just as the magazine he once edited, The Atlantic, has become a reliable Democratic propaganda mouthpiece (like the Times). He’s religious, believes in the importance of organized religion and opposes abortion, so he makes an effective double agent for the Gray Lady. He has contributed a subversive pro-Biden column with the hilarious headline, “Why is Joe Biden So Unpopular?” It’s a mystery! What could it be?

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“Curmie’s Conjectures”: Donald Trump Has No Convictions, But He Has No Convictions

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

by Curmie

[Notes from your host: 1) Curmie and I did not coordinate our posts, and 2) as usual, his erudition puts me to shame.]

***

I’m currently in the process of moving into a new office which is far too small to accommodate my collection of books, even after I gave away over 1000 of them.  One of the volumes I still haven’t figured out what to do with is my Penguin paperback copy of Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War,” purchased over 40 years ago for a course I took in grad school.

Coming across that volume triggered a memory of struggling with one of that book’s most famous sections, the Stasis in Corcyra.  It wasn’t that the passages in question were too confusing.  Rather, it was that word “stasis”; no one would describe the civil war on the island of Corcyra in 427 BCE as static. 

A little digging (well, actually more than a little, as these were the days before the internet) revealed that virtually all English translations of those passages of Thucydides had simply adopted a cognate of the Greek word στάσις (stásis), meaning roughly “that which is stood up.”  So something firmly placed and unchanging would be static, or in a state of stasis.  But the word also carried the meaning of “standing up against,” in the sense of resisting authority.  So the insurrection on Corcyra was, in fact, an act of stasis.

These linguistic constructions, known as contranyms, auto-antonyms, or “Janus words” (among other locutions) are not uncommon.  We all understand that a peer might be a member of the English nobility or an equal, or that “it’s all downhill from there” might mean that the system is in decline or that the hard part is over and we can coast to the finish line.

I’m not sure if there’s a word for the variation on the theme that forms the title of this essay: the two meanings of the term are not in direct contradiction, but they lead to pretty close to opposite conclusions.  What I find interesting is that both definitions can apply simultaneously. 

That is, “having no convictions” can mean lacking a system of guiding principles, especially one involving a moral compass or an ethical center. It can also mean that the subject has never been convicted of a crime.  I’d argue that Donald Trump fits both descriptions rather well. 

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Snap Out Of It! Trump’s Latest Disqualifying Statement Is Signature Significance—Stop Pretending He Is A Rational Option To Elect President

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Asked by Glenn Beck in an interview “[I]f you’re president again, will you lock people up?”, Donald Trump, the supposed champion of democracy and heroic foe of the Democratic totalitarians, answered, “The answer is you have no choice because they’re doing it to us.” 

Dingdingdingdingding! This is signature significance, just like his earlier musings about suspending the Constitution. As I wrote earlier this year, “As divided as Americans are, it doesn’t appear that enough of them care about preserving democracy to do anything to preserve it. They only differ on the means by which they are willing to let it collapse.” Electing Donald Trump as President, with his sick “tit for tat,” “Do unto others as they do to you,” “vengeance is mine” approach to ethics magnified by his “the ends justify the means” orientation can’t possible “save” democracy. The most it can do is maximize the chances that the totalitarians we end up with aren’t socialists, anti-white bigots and addicted to toxic woke fantasies. That shouldn’t be good enough. It isn’t good enough, not for this nation. That so many still think it is depresses and frightens me greatly.

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Look What Trump Derangement Super-Spreader Rachel Maddow Told Her Credulous Audience…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Remember, as you read this offal, that Maddow is arguably the least villainous of the assorted Marxists, racists and liars employed by MSNBC, and is certainly the smartest.

A New York Times story by reporter Alan Feuer claimed “Trump has made no secret in private conversations with his aides of his desire to solve his jumble of legal problems by winning the election. If either of the two federal trials he is confronting is delayed until after the race and Mr. Trump prevails, he could seek to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general simply dismiss the matters altogether.” Maddow, being a corrupt journalist herself, naturally assumes anonymous sources’ hearsay statements as interpreted by a New York Times propagandist is Gospel truth, even though its impossible to tell if the last part of the section (which Maddow read) is what Trump said, what the sources claims he said, or what Feuer thinks he meant (that would be double hearsay). Never mind: it was good enough for Maddow’s fearmongering purposes, so this was her follow-up analysis…

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It’s An Asshole-O-Rama, Starring Donald And Tucker!

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

“Yecch” doesn’t begin to express my disgust and revulsion regarding this development, but right now I can’t think of anything stronger, and I don’t know how to spell the sound of projectile vomiting, so…Yecch!

After informing the Republican Party that he will not pledge to support its candidate if the GOP’s choice isn’t him, Donald Trump not only plans to skip the first GOP candidate’s debate in Milwaukee this Wednesday, he is going to actively compete with it, teaming up with fellow toxic narcissist Tucker Carlson for an online interview on the same night.

It’s perfect, if you think like Donald Trump, which is to say, obnoxiously, unethically, and undemocratically. No degree of perfection in my sock drawer would prompt me to forsake it to watch the Tucker and Donald Show. “Mr. Trump’s apparent decision to skip the first debate of the presidential nominating contest is a major affront to both the R.N.C. and Fox News, which is hosting the event,” writes the New York Times, for once not being unfair to Trump. Sure, why not stick his thumb in the eyes of two organizations substantially responsible for Trump’s rise in the first place? This full-time troll who claims to value loyalty and gratitude has none himself. Naturally Tucker Carlson wants in: after all, he wants his revenge on Fox too. Nowhere in the consideration of either man, assholes that they are, are the best interests of the nation and the democratic process.

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The Ethics Zugzwang Of Trump vs. The Democrats, Part I: Comment Of The Day On “Today’s Res Ipsa Loquitur Donald Trump Moment”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

In his Comment of the Day, Chris Marschner, among Ethics Alarms’ most articulate and astute commenters, writes, “Please excuse my rambling rant.” No excusing is necessary: Chris was using a stream of consciousness technique to express that frustration many—I’m tempted to say anyone paying attention—feel as they face the prospect of having to choose between the reckless and untrustworthy creep who is the likely Republican nominee, and an insatiable, power-lusting Democratic Party that in its has made it crystal clear that it no longer respects the American mission, the Constitution, or much else.

His post was well-timed: I’ve been planning an examination of the ethics zugzwang Donald Trump’s legal problems (and the Democratic Party’s criminalizing of politics) citizens like Chris now find themselves in. That’s Scylla and Charybdis above: Odysseus had an easier choice deciding which would be more disastrous than what we might face in November of 2024.

Chris Marschner’s Comment of the Day will be Part I of a three part series, and here it is, triggered by the post, “Today’s Res Ipsa Loquitur Donald Trump Moment.”

***

You have changed my mind: I will not vote. Screw it.

There are no suitable candidates. You have lying Biden, who tells a gold star mother he brought his own son back in a flag draped coffin during the dignified transition of remains, and the other candidates are just asking for money and not giving me a different alternative. We have D.C. judges sitting in on Trumps arraignment. Why did Judge Amy Berman Jackson and other federal judges feel it necessary to be present in the courtroom for this arraignment other than to send a message? But all we seem to focus on is the stupid shit Trump says.

How ethical was it for Trump’s legal team to be given 1 day to respond to a late Friday motion to prevent Trump from getting discovery by Jack Smith’s team when the typical time frame is apparently 14 days and Trumps team pleaded for 3 days? Why are we not discussing the ethical dimensions of such judicial conduct? I don’t care if Trump is a mass murderer; when our judicial system is abused against the rights of an accused we have bigger problems than Chris Christie’s feelings. If it is unethical to behave as Trump does when his adversary makes a point to harm him, then we should also be discussing the ethics of Christie, who starts the fights.

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If Donald Trump Were An Ethical, Responsible Public Servant And Wanted To Do What Was In The Best Interests Of His Nation…

/ Jack Marshall / 116 Comments

…he would announce that he was withdrawing from the Presidential race immediately, because the prosecutions he faces, just or unjust, will be a destructive distraction from the election as well as an impediment to him serving as President if he were nominated and elected.

And if I were an aardvark, I could save money on groceries by eating ants and termites.

Trump won’t do this, of course (that is, drop out, not eat ants and termites), but it is the only ethical alternative. A lawyer facing a single serious indictment would step away from his or her law firm. An ethical judge would resign. A doctor facing indictments would take a leave of absence. A general facing such legal jeopardy would retire. The United States cannot have a Presidential candidate laboring under the shadow of multiple criminal prosecutions any more than it can afford to have a mentally declining President who serves as a puppet for aspiring totalitarians. Trump continuing his candidacy increases the likelihood of both.

If Richard Nixon had been like Trump—a toxic narcissist—he wouldn’t have resigned, and the nation would have been roiled and scarred by a genuine impeachment process. Clinton is like Trump—maybe a teeny-weeny bit less of a narcissist, but not much—and he should have resigned as the truth of the Monica Lewinsky allegations emerged. The nation and the Presidency—and his party—would have been far better off today if he had, and Clinton’s scandal was not even in the same metaphorical ballpark as Trump’s, which also includes a sexual assault civil ruling.

At this point, Trump continuing to seek the Presidency can only do damage, and the question is just “How much?” I don’t want to think about how much. His entire career has been built on a foundation of stubbornness, resilience and a refusal to admit defeat: quitting his quest for redemption goes against his core. Real patriots and great leaders, however, can muster the character and courage to do what needs to be done even when it violates all of their baser instincts. Unfortunately, I am not an aardvark, and Donald Trump is neither a real patriot or a great leader.

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The Problem: Trump Doesn’t Believe In Democracy That Much More Than Democrats Do

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Some prominent progressives are noticing that Democrats are increasingly hostile to the core principles of democracy. Yesterday, for example, actor/activist Tim Robbins issued a tweet condemning the House Democrats who threatened reporter Matt Taibbi with prison following his congressional testimony on the so-called Twitter Files:

A serious, individual liberties-respecting, democratic values-honoring GOP candidate who hadn’t already burned every bridge he came across might have some success turning such previously knee-jerk Democratic voters around. Such a candidate is emphatically not Donald Trump.

In both his social media posts and his recent rally in New Hampshire, Trump implied that he wouldn’t participate in any pre-primary debates among other contenders for the Republican nomination. Describing the debates as giving rivals like Florida governor Ron DeSantis a chance to challenge him, he asked the crowd n Manchester,“Why would you do that?”

Gee, give me a minute; let me think. Oh! You do that because democracy requires an informed public. You do it because voters deserve an opportunity to compare their options. You do it to show respect for the process of American elections and the office Trump is seeking.

Then he said, “I do look forward to the debate with Joe.”

Idiot. Why would Biden agree to debate Trump if he didn’t have to? Trump ducking the primary debates would eliminate any traction he could gain by claiming that Joe was “ducking him.” Trump skipping the GOP candidates debates all but guarantees that Biden will refuse to subject himself to the risks of a debate format.

All of which degrades and undermines the functioning of our system. These guys don’t care, and Trump is seemingly setting himself up to run a Bull Moose-style kamikaze third party assault if the Republican Party doesn’t do his bidding and make him its candidate. Recall that the RNC announced that promising to support the GOP nominee was a prerequisite for participating in the debates. Now Trump is saying, “Debates? I don’t need no stinking debates!” It’s obvious what he’s threatening, isn’t it?

Trump is declaring himself the nominee—Napoleon crowned himself as Emperor, remember—-leaving the rest of the possible contenders with a no-win dilemma: all they can do is knock each other off while Trump coasts to the nomination, only appearing before fawning audiences of deplorables and never having to engage with his critics.

Democrats want to silence and criminalize dissent; Trump wants to block any route to challenging his power.

As divided as Americans are, it doesn’t appear that enough of them care about preserving democracy to do anything to preserve it. They only differ on the means by which they are willing to let it collapse.

What A Surprise: Trump’s Scorched Earth Premptive Attack On Ron DiSantis Is Hypocritical, Dishonest And Divisive

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Ronald Reagan’s “First Commandment” was “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan, and he’s only a Republican of convenience; nevertheless, his strategy of using negative campaigning to kneecap his presumed competition for the Republican Presidential nomination before Florida’s Governor Ron DiSantis has even announced his candidacy is particularly odious. Launching these attacks would be revolting if they were fair and accurate, but they are not.

That is who and what Donald Trump is, however. He’s not going to broaden his base this way, or make it more likely that the GOP can defeat the Democrats in 2024. Right now, he doesn’t care about that: all that matters is winning the nomination, and, like Scarlett O’Hara, he’ll think about the consequences tomorrow after playing as dirty as he has to.

I know I’m repeating myself, but what an asshole this guy is. It is a searing testament to just how unfit to govern the Democrats and Joe Biden are that I had to vote for him in 2020, and it really wasn’t that difficult a decision.

This week Trump and his campaign vomitted up a document claiming that “the real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair,” and arguing that Florida was a terrible place to live. This assertion has an immediate ring of hypocrisy surrounding it, since Donald Trump chooses to live there.

The Wall Street Journal was moved to fact-check Trump’s ruthless indictment, and it’s a legitimate fact-check, not the kind one gets from, say, the Washington Post. WSJ points out…

1. The Trump release relies on links to progressive-biased studies and anti-DiSantis news reports claiming that Florida is unaffordable and unsafe, and includes, “ESPN wrote that Florida is the Worst State in The Nation To Die.”

ESPN?

2. Many of the statistics cited in the Trump hit piece come from groups with progressive agendas, those that Trump would typically dismiss as “fake.” It cites a 2022 Oxfam report that says Florida is the 29th best state for workers, but down-rates states that have “so-called ‘right-to-work’ laws” and those that, like Florida, don’t allow “localities to implement their own minimum wage laws.” Trump has never been a fan of unions or the minimum wage. It also cites the Florida Policy Institute, which wants illegal immigrants to be able to obtain obtain driver’s licenses. “Wasn’t immigration Mr. Trump’s signature issue in 2016?” asks WSJ. “They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but Mr. Trump’s one-night stand with this outfit is bizarre.”

Indeed.

3. Trump’s vicious hit job relies heavily on the website WalletHub, which ranks Florida 26th on its “best states for working moms” ranking using a witches brew of “17 relevant metrics” that were given different weights, a classic device in pseudo-science. Many WalletHub rankings not mentioned by Trump’s campaign rank Florida highly: the site says Florida is the second best state in which to retire, second best for starting a business, second best for for fewest Wuhan virus restrictions, the second “most fun” state, fourth best for teachers, sixth for low taxes, and the seventh best state to live in. This is the epitome of cherry-picking, a dishonest and unethical advocacy trick.

4. WSJ also points out that hundreds of thousands of Americans are moving to Florida, which strongly suggests that the public doesn’t agree that the state teems with “misery and despair.” The Census Bureau says Florida gained a net 318,855 under DiSantis from July 2021 to July 2022, and leads all states, by far, in attracting new residents.

One conservative blogger writes in reaction to the attack,

[W]hat makes Trump any different than Biden, who constantly lies about the GOP with absurd claims such as the ones being made by Trump? What makes Trump any different than those Democrats and media outfits who smeared him for years during his presidency? What makes him any different than those trying to smear him now?

Are there really still people who expect consistency, integrity, fairness or The Golden Rule from Donald Trump? He believes that the ends justify the means. He fights to win. Collateral damage doesn’t trouble him one bit, and ethics are for suckers. By attacking DiSantis and in his manner of doing so, he is showing once again that whatever his faults, pretending to be someone he’s not isn’t among them.