He Can Help Himself

He just can't help himself- or can he?

If someone's life depended on proving to another person that he himself is not a believing Christian, he could do little better than state, as Donald Trump did at the Iowa Family Leadership Summit in the summer of 2015

I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t....

When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed. I think in terms of ‘Let’s go on and let’s make it right.'”

Similarly, the following January he told Jake Tapper

I have a great relationship with God. I have a great relationship with the evangelicals

I like to be good. I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don’t do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad.

In an interview the following June, Trump improved slightly when he told Cal Thomas

Jesus to me is somebody I can think about for security and confidence. Somebody I can revere in terms of bravery and in terms of courage and, because I consider the Christian religion so important, somebody I can totally rely on in my own mind.

Still, no believing Christian ever has said that he "can think about" Jesus for confidence, nor that he can "revere (Jesus) in terms of bravery," or that he "consider(s) the Christian religion so important."  No individual who even claims to consider Jesus Christ his or her Lord and Savior ever has said any of those things. Any of them. Ever.

Other than pledging allegiance to Satan, no politician who depends on the votes of white evangelicals could mess up Good Friday, inasmuch as it is perfectly acceptable to wait two days later till Easter to make any reference to the holiday.

But Donald Trump will never stop trying. He will never stop making a comment designed- not seemingly designed, but designed- to offend Christians:

HAPPY GOOD FRIDAY TO ALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 10, 2020

One Trump critic has good advice but is wrong about the President:

Just another evidence you know absolutely NOTHING about Christianity. There's nothing happy about Good Friday. Wait for Easter Sunday. 🤦🏾

— Chidi®️ (@ChidiNwatu) April 10, 2020

He does know about Good Friday. He has Mike Pence, who evidently begins some meetings with prayer, as his vice- president. He has his health and wealth spiritual advisor, Paula White. He has an Evangelical Advisory Board.

Donald Trump knows a lot. But like a child, he must push the envelope.  Perhaps it gives him a rush, similar to that of some chronic gamblers, or perhaps not. It may be simply a game in which he continually pokes and prods until the subject of his insults- in this case, Christian believers- call him on it.

He is, after all, that guy who claimed that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters.  Thus far, with white evangelicals, he appears prescient.

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This Is About China. Period.

Among the many virulent Twitter critics of Friday's commentary on Real Time, one of America's premier anti-Semites wants you to know

Bill Maher has been a racist misogynist Islamophobe for YEARS. All of a sudden, everyone is like 😱😱😱😱. https://t.co/CdzuFExm89

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) April 11, 2020

A Yahoo reporter explains

During the “New Rules” segment of Friday’s episode of “Real Time,” Bill Maher waded into some contentious waters when he argued that it should be perfectly OK to refer to coronavirus as the “Chinese virus.”

Of course, the Trump administration has been trying since March to popularize the term “Chinese virus,” which critics say is racist and may have inspired racist attacks on Asian-Americans. But in Maher’s view, the term is useful for understanding where the infection originated and not only that, he argued that China bears some responsibility for its spread.

“Scientists, who are generally pretty liberal, have been naming diseases after the places they came from for a very long time,” Maher said in the segment, delivered like the rest of the episode from his house. “Zika is from the Zika Forest. Ebola from the Ebola River. Hantavirus, the Hantan River.There’s the West Nile Virus and Guinea worm and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and of course the Spanish flu.”

(Sidenote: The 1918-1920 influenza pandemic didn’t actually originate in Spain. But Britain, Germany, France, the U.S. and other nations had imposed severe media censorship during World War I and suppressed information about the illness. Meanwhile in Spain, which didn’t participate in the war, media was free to report on the devastating plague, hence the association. Researchers believe the most likely points of origin are either battlefields in Europe during the war, or Kansas in the United States. Researchers have also suggested possible origins in China.)

“MERS stands for Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome,” Maher continued. “It’s plastered all over airports and no one blogs about it. So, why should China get a pass? Congressman Ted Lieu tweeted, ‘The virus is not constrained by country or race. Be just as stupid to call it the Milan Virus.'”

“No, that would be way stupider because it didn’t come from Milan,” said Maher. “And if it did, I guarantee we’d be calling it the Milan Virus."

He's right on target. We would be calling it the Milan Virus. And if it originated in France, it would be the Paris Virus or if in Sweden, the Stockholm Virus.  If it started in Belgium, it would be the Brussels Virus.and if in Germany, the Berlin Virus. But you get the point.

No one would have good reason to complain about that because, as Maher points out, because

...we can't stop telling the truth because racists get the wrong idea.  There are always going to be racists out there who want to indulge their prejudices..

Sorry,Americans, we're going to have to ask you to keep two ideas in your head at the same time. This has nothing to do with Asian-Americans and has everything to do with China. We can't afford the luxury anymore of nonjudginess (sic) toward a country with habits that kill millions of people everywhere because this isn't the first time. SARS came from China and the bird flu and the Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu.

As Sarsour's ignorant comment indicates and Maher recognizes, the far left has a blind spot toward the evil that is mainland China. Unfortunately, much of the center-left also has, presumably because of its preference for commerce over freedom. If Democrats don't come to terms with this and continue to slam realists such as Bill Maher, a malicious Donald Trump will turn the public's skepticism toward China into a stream of prejudice against Asian-Americans.

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Just Say It

Anyone can be ignorant. That's a relatively small part of the problem, notwithstanding

Life’s hard. It’s harder when the President is a clueless, malicious moron in the middle of a pandemic. https://t.co/PVeBpOurFy

— Bradley Whitford (@BradleyWhitford) April 11, 2020

But although ignorant, Donald Trump currently is lying, cheating, and stealing toward what is now roughly a 50-50 chance of being re-elected President of the United States of America, and is not a clueless moron. No, Jennifer Rubin is closer to the truth:

Trump demands everyone be tested before visiting him but will not demand the same for Americans before "reopening" the country. Conclusion: He doesn't give a darn about your life.

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) April 10, 2020

Donald Trump is far more malicious than stupid. A Republican US Senator from Arizona and that state's GOP governor inadvertently have confirmed that political patronage trumps human lives in Trump's calculations.

Huge news for Arizona! I spoke with @realDonaldTrump on Wednesday afternoon to request additional ventilators from the Strategic National Stockpile. Today, POTUS delivers with 100 ventilators headed to AZ. Thank you to President Trump and @VP for hearing our call. https://t.co/A7gA8yiGvZ

— Martha McSally (@SenMcSallyAZ) April 10, 2020

In a just world, the worst person in the world and the President of the United States of America would be two different people. Therefore, it is very difficult to admit, even to oneself, that the American people have elected someone who is the genuine face of evil. (He failed to win a plurality of the vote, but still.)  Also, we are Americans, and we would not do such a thing. But we have.

That's where we are. As Albert Camus once wrote, crushing truths perish from being acknowledged.  Once we do that, it will be easier to crush the darkness among us.



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Race. It Shouldn't Be Difficult To Say.

Liberal and progressive commenters, officials and rank-and-file Democrats alike, are not reticent about attributing serious significance to "white privilege."

Their sincerity is in doubt.  This from the founder of 538.com:

I'd really love to see some fly-on-the-wall reporting about the Sanders campaign's strategy at this point in time (one day before the Nevada caucus). This tweet wasn't a fluke; it was very much also reflected in Sanders's messaging at rallies, etc. pic.twitter.com/nlTmPUVU2J

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 9, 2020

I gave up after 44 tweets but at that point, there were 42 which ignored the elephant in the room. The other two were my own and one from Joy Brianha-Gray, who only hinting at the elephant, slammed famed civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis.

In his tweet, Bernie Sanders did not vow that he was bringing down the establishment, which we all knew was his aim. (His goal has been a more economically equitable society.) He did not state even that he was bringing down the Democratic establishment, which he legitimately believed was blocking his path to the nomination.

Sanders took it a step further. He explicitly stated that he was targeting the Republican establishment and the Democratic establishment.  In a bold- if risky, and ultimately self-damaging- move, he named the two establishments. He suggested a sort of equivalence between the two.

There are many reasons for white people such as myself to vote Democratic rather than Republican. However, my rights have not been secured, fortified, and strengthened by the Democratic Party- and the Democratic establishment- for over a half century. When Bernie Sanders pledged to fight the Democratic Party, he took on an institution which many Democratic primary voters, especially African-American- recognize as having been fundamental to gaining rights, however inadequate, which would otherwise be lacking.

Not surprisingly,  91% of black voters in 2016 opted for the Democratic, and only 6% for the Republican, presidential candidate. That extended to fifteen (15) the winningstreak of Democratic, over Republican, presidential candidates. In the determining primary of the 2020 nominating cycle, middle-aged and elderly blacks overwhelmingly opted for Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders. (Young blacks, like young whites, were more receptive to the Vermonter than were their elders.)

As the popular base of the Democratic Party, African-Americans have a particular stake in its success, and therefore often are motivated to vote for the candidate who is perceived as the stronger general election candidate. That impulse is weaker among non-black voters. Accurately or otherwise (and probably the latter), Joe Biden has been seen as the candidate most likely to defeat the GOP incumbent, who is especially hostile toward minorities. And then Bernard Sanders, running in a Democratic primary, boasted that the Democratic-explicitly (though not solely) Democratic- establishment "can't stop us."

Yet, in explaining the victory of Joe Biden, whose cognitive skills appear to be slipping but served loyally as vice-president to the nation's first black President, few people appear willing to invoke the word "black" or phrase "African-American." It's as if both the winning (Biden) and losing (Sanders) sides are embarrassed at acknowledging the impact of race. They do so even as the now-presumptive Democratic nominee pledges to put onto the US Supreme Court not someone liberal or progressive, not someone young or whose experience and writings are highly regarded in the legal community, but a black woman.  

It is a down-payment on the debt he owes to Jim Clyburn and black voters.  After Sanders' victories in Iowa (sort of), New Hampshire, and Nevada, the (accurate) cry came "black voters haven't had their say yet" was heard. On primary day in February, Goose Creek, South Carolina church deacon David Cakley said of black voters "Biden needs a boost and we're going to give it to him." That was honest, direct, and as explicit as Sanders' remark about the Democratic establishment.

It also was effective, the deciding factor in this year's primary process. That's not judgmental, only observational, and there is no decent reason not to acknowledge it.

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Give Him No Platform

And that's when I knew I was wrong.

On March 23 I wrote

Broadcast live, these task force briefings are more partisan political affair than informative news event. They should be televised only on delay, shown only after Daniel Dale and other fact-checkers have had an opportunity to vet remarks by such political actors as the President, the Vice-President, and the Surgeon General. As remarks are heard, a script at the bottom of the screen would indicate results of the fact check.

Since then, it has become clear to me, as it had to a few others by then, that these are campaign events, a mix of the President's personal resentments, strategic invective, and lies.  Responding to Tuesday's briefing:

Daniel Dale is amazing at this: but isn’t this kinda fact checking the barn once the horse has run out? The President said all these things—on live tv. Platforming lies is a mistake. But media does it daily. I don’t get it. https://t.co/k5m51brTVg

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) April 8, 2020

Donald Trump's periodic lies about "voter fraud" are the most insidious because the truth is not simple and the specter of voter impersonation fraud are at the core of GOP electoral strategy.

The "autopsy" the Republican Party performed on itself in 20013, in the wake of yet another defeat in a presidential election, prescribed support for "comprehensive immigration reform" and outreach to African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, and gay voters.

Then Donald Trump came along and won the presidency with a vigorous anti-immigrant message and  emphasis on ethnic bias, and the earlier prescription was shelved.  Following the direction of Senate Majority Leader McConnell, whose wife was selected for the President's cabinet, the party would be all in for Donald Trump.  The President would lead the party and brook no dissent.

The effort to squash voting in heavily Democratic Milwaukee is only the latest manifestation of the GOP's electoral strategy. Republicans know that if a lot of people vote, it is blacks, Latinos, and young people, who traditionally have a low turnout, who will turn out in higher numbers than normal. 

I waited 2.5 hours today in rain and hail (and a mask and gloves) to vote in Milwaukee because @wisgop and @scotus would rather risk lives than have a fair election. Instead of 182 polling sites, we had 5. #VoterSuppression #WisconsinPrimary pic.twitter.com/9F8xKwciOX

— Trudy Harwood (@TrudyandPierre) April 8, 2020

On March 30, the Present had called in to Trump TV's Fox and Friends and "dismissed a Democrat-led push for (voting) reforms" by stating "The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again."

That should have been obvious. However, the President thought it necessary to tweet on Wednesday morning

Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason,  doesn’t work out well for Republicans.

Still, aside from fact-checker Dale, Soledad O'Brien, and a few others, there was still little little of Trump's intent, and even less indication that people appreciated the implication. The President of the United States has made it very clear- he does not want people to vote and he's going to do whatever it takes to make sure they don't.

Fact-checking as Donald Trump spews a string of fabrications is more difficult than I understood, even recently. Moreover, it takes context for independent-minded voters to understand the damage and danger in the  distortion and lies characterizing virtually every appearance the President makes.

Refusing to show these dog-and-pony shows will enrage the President; good. They will undermine his obsession with being the center of attention at any and all times. They deprive him of at least one platform to disseminate propaganda.

It is irresponsible to give Donald Trump the forum to promote his campaign and various prejudices with reckless disregard for truth. Though there is no perfect remedy to the evil embodied in one man, media organizations must recognize- as they do- that the briefings are only campaign events, and dishonest ones.  Deciding not to tilt the election toward the incumbent by broadcasting them is the least which should be expected of them.

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Come And Get Me

President Trump wasn't kidding. He wasn't trolling, and it wasn't a slip of the tongue. It was a warning.

With all GOP Justices in the majority, the US Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court order blocking an effort by GOP state legislators in Wisconsin to prevent extension of absentee voting to April 13.  Supreme Court Republicans believe it is better for Americans to stand next to each other in long lines and risk the lives of themselves and others to vote amidst a pandemic. Wisconsin Republicans agree, though they'd prefer Democrats not to vote at all because a key state Supreme Court race is on the ballot.

WOW: By a 5–4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses a lower court order extending the deadline for mail-in ballots in Wisconsin. All four liberals dissent.

The conservative majority just effectively threw out thousands of ballots. Incredible.

Link coming soon.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 6, 2020

In dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote "The Court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement. A voter cannot deliver for postmarking a ballot she has not received. Yet tens of thousands of voters who timely requested ballots are unlikely to receive them by April 7, the Court’s postmark deadline." 

(Nonetheless, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh yet again thank all those progressives" who couldn't bring themselves to vote for "corporatist" Hillary Clinton.)

  

As in 2016, voter suppression is key to GOP strategy for 2020, especially in the crucial state of Wisconsin, as it was in 2016.

Republican judges are building "precedent" to make sure 2020 general election has low voter turnout. https://t.co/e8IHzNnpfU

— Pé (@4everNeverTrump) April 7, 2020

However, it's always critical to have a backup plan, and Donald Trump made his fallback position quite clear in the task force briefing on Monday:

Trump says the Democrats "shouldn't be allowed to win" the election because of how good a job he's done. He says they were "artificially stopped" by the virus.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 6, 2020

In 2018, Bill Maher told Larry King

That's what worries me most about Trump. He's not going if he lose, even if he loses, in 2020.... We don't trust the election process anymore. He's going to say "it's rigged, it's unfair. I'm still really the President. I still won." 

Testifying before the House Oversight Committee fourteen months ago, Michael Cohen explained (beginning at 1:18 of the video below)

Indeed, given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power and this is why I agreed to appear before you today.

Some people say ("people are saying," Donald Trump sometimes states) that Donald Trump is not only ignorant, but also stupid. However, he's already planning to manipulate the November election (assuming there is one) and planning his strategy in the event he loses. And it's not to depart because, as he now has warned us, "they shouldn't be allowed to win."

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Diversion For Trump, Courtesy Of The New York Times

On October 31, 2016 two New York Times reporters wrote “even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump." Less important than the misleading statement eight days before the presidential election was the headline "Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link To Russia."

Reuters found

U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House, and not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that as the 2016 presidential campaign progressed, Russian government officials devoted increasing attention to assisting Trump’s effort to win the election, the U.S. official familiar with the finding told Reuters on Friday night, speaking on condition of anonymity....

U.S. intelligence analysts have assessed “with high confidence” that at some point in the extended presidential campaign Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government had decided to try to bolster Trump’s chances of winning.

The Russians appear to have concluded that Trump had a shot at winning and that he would be much friendlier to Russia than Clinton would be, especially on issues such as maintaining economic sanctions and imposing additional ones, the official said.

The headline on that story was "Russia intervened to help Trump win election: intelligence officials."

Unfortunately, that that came a month after the election- too late for Hillary Clinton; too late for the nation; too late for the world.

Four years later, The New York Times, grotesquely misunderstood as the ringleader of the (imagined) "liberal media," regales with a headline "Trump's Aggressive Advocacy of Malaria Drug for Treating Coronavirus Divides Medical Community."

It seems like "he said, she said."  However, fast-tracking a drug found dangerous yet touted by President Trump is more than a little suspicious. Oh, and this nugget, curiously missing from the headline:

If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment, several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.

Not only does the President have a financial interest in hydroxychloroquine, so, too, do movers and shakers who helped make him president and will try to do it again. And the headline is "Trump's Aggressive Advocacy of Malaria Drug for Treating Coronavirus Divides Medical Community."

In 2016, Hillary Clinton had to fight Donald Trump, the mainstream media, and others. In 2020, Joe Biden (or whomever is the nominee) will, hopefully, face the opposition of only the media and Donald Trump. And the false image of that same media as "liberal" only makes it worse.

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