Quo vadis, Trump?

Diogenes has decided to expand blog input by inserting, including and quoting material from other writers, both to give himself a slight rest, and also to point out that while he may be crying in the wilderness, he sure as hell isn't the only one with the message that Donald Trump is toxic, delusional and generally bad for the nation.

The first piece, by Robert Costa of The Washington Post, was published on March 23. Like most conversations with Trump, it requires multiple readings: The first time through generally leaves readers wondering if they've actually read anything, because nothing is actually said. The second time is to parse the conversation, trying to tie together related parts to make a meaningful whole. The third time is up to the reader. Some folks try reading Trump's utterings backward, just to see if they make any sense that way. When one figures out that the Great Pretender makes as much sense going either way, it's time to give up the effort.

Diogenes has italicized some passages to highlight Trump's disregard of facts, truth, and his own advisers' statements. Note also his triple mention of Paul Ryan's inculpability for the health care mess (protesting too much?) and pointing the finger of blame at ACA subscribers for increases in their own premiums. And you grammarians and speechwriters--take note of the repeated phrases throughout. The man has a bad case of Twitterbrain.

Trump on health care bill: 'We couldn't quite get there' Robert Costa, The Washington Post

President Trump called me on my cellphone Friday [March 24] afternoon at 3:31. At first I thought it was a reader with a complaint since it was a blocked number. Instead, it was the president calling from the Oval Office. His voice was even, his tone muted. He did not bury the lead.

“Hello, Bob,” Trump began. “So, we just pulled it.”

Trump was speaking, of course, of the Republican plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, a plan that had been languishing for days amid unrest throughout the party as the president and his allies courted members and pushed for a vote. Before I could ask a question, Trump plunged into his explanation of the politics of deciding to call off a vote on a bill he had been touting.

The Democrats, he said, were to blame. “We couldn’t get one Democratic vote, and we were a little bit shy, very little, but it was still a little bit shy, so we pulled it,” Trump said.         Trump said he would not put the bill on the floor in the coming weeks. He is willing to wait and watch the current law continue and, in his view, encounter problems. And he believes that Democrats will eventually want to work with him on some kind of legislative fix to Obamacare, although he did not say when that would be. 

“As you know, I’ve been saying for years that the best thing is to let Obamacare explode and then go make a deal with the Democrats and have one unified deal. And they will come to us; we won’t have to come to them,” he said. “After Obamacare explodes.”

“The beauty,” Trump continued, “is that they own Obamacare. So when it explodes, they come to us, and we make one beautiful deal for the people.”

My question for the president: Are you really willing to wait to re-engage on health care until the Democrats come and ask for your help?

 “Sure,” Trump said. “I never said I was going to repeal and replace in the first 61 days” — contradicting his own statements and that of his own adviser, Kellyanne Conway, who told CNN in November that the then-president-elect was contemplating convening a special session on Inauguration Day to begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Turning to an aide, Trump asked, “How many days is it now? Whatever.” He laughed.

Trump returned to the theme of blaming the Democrats.

“Hey, we could have done this,” he said. “But we couldn’t get one Democrat vote, not one. So that means they own Obamacare and when that explodes, they will come to us wanting to save whatever is left, and we’ll make a real deal.”

There was little evidence that either Trump or House Republicans made a serious effort to reach out to Democrats. Still, I wondered, why not whip some more votes this weekend and come back next week to the House with a revised piece of legislation?

“Well,” Trump said, “we could do that, too. But we didn’t do that. It’s always possible, but we pulled it. . . . We were close.”

How close?

“I would say within anywhere from five to 12 votes,” Trump said — although widespread reports indicated that at least three dozen Republicans opposed the measure. That must have hurt after all of his attempts to rally Republicans, I said. He made calls, had people over to the White House, invited House members on Air Force One. He may not have loved the bill, but he embraced the negotiations.

“You’re right,” Trump said. “I’m a team player, but I’ve also said the best thing politically is to let Obamacare explode.”

Trump said he made the decision to pull the bill after meeting Friday at the White House with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). Was that a tense, tough conversation with Ryan, I asked? “No, not tough,” Trump said. “It’s just life. We had great support among most Republicans but no Democratic votes. Zero. Not one.”

I mentioned to Trump that some of his allies were frustrated with Ryan. Did he share those frustrations, and would he be able to work with Ryan moving forward on plans to cut taxes and build an infrastructure package? “I don’t blame Paul,” Trump said. He then repeated the phrase: “I don’t blame Paul. He worked very hard on this.”

And again. “I don’t blame Paul at all.”

As he waits for Democrats, I asked, what’s next on health care, if anything, policy-wise?

“Time will tell. Obamacare is in for some rough days. You understand that. It’s in for some rough, rough days,” Trump said. “I’ll fix it as it explodes,” he said. “They’re going to come to ask for help. They’re going to have to. Here’s the good news: Health care is now totally the property of the Democrats.”

Speaking of premium increases, Trump said: “When people get a 200 percent increase next year or a 100 percent or 70 percent, that’s their fault.”

He returned again to a partisan line on the turn of events. “To be honest, the biggest losers today are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” Trump said of the House minority leader and the Senate minority leader. “Because now they own the disaster known as Obamacare.”

Okay, I asked, they may own it, in his view, but he will at some point be tasked with shaping whatever comes forward as a partial replacement. What will that be? What kind of policy could he support?

“Oh, lots of things can happen,” Trump said. “But the best would be if we could all get together and do a real health-care bill that would be good for the people, and that could very well happen.”

Does Trump regret starting his agenda this year with health care? “No, I don’t,” he said. “But in a way I’m glad I got it out of the way.”

“Look, I’m a team player,” Trump said of the Republican Party. “I’ve played this team. I’ve played with the team. And they just fell a little bit short, and it’s very hard when you need almost 100 percent of the votes and we have no votes, zero, from the Democrats. It’s unheard of.”

What happened with the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-line conservatives he had wooed over and over again? “Ah, that’s the big question,” Trump said with a slight chuckle. “Don’t know. I have a good relationship with them, but I couldn’t get them. They just wouldn’t do it.”

Trump alluded to long-running, simmering dramas on Capitol Hill, which he said had little to do with him, as a reason the Freedom Caucus could not back the bill. “Years of hatred and distrust,” he said. “Long before me.”

Was Trump saying, perhaps, that the inability of Ryan and his team to work well with that caucus was part of why talks stalled? “Well, look, you can say what you want,” Trump said. “But there are years of problems, great hatred and distrust, and, you know, I came into the middle of it. I think they made a mistake, but that’s okay,” Trump said of the Freedom Caucus.

As we wrapped up, I tried to get some clarity. The president was blaming the Democrats and was willing to let the law “explode.” Yet he also seemed to be teasing the possibility of doing something bipartisan down the road, a fresh start at some point.

I asked: Would working on a bipartisan health-care deal a year from now be something he would find more agreeable than whipping the hard right? “A lot of people might say that,” Trump said, laughing. “We’ll end up with a better health-care plan. A great plan. And you wouldn’t need the Freedom Caucus.”

What about the moderates, the Tuesday Group? “They were great,” Trump said. “They were really great.”

He turned once more to the Democrats: “They own it,” he said.

“You’ve said that,” I told him.

“This is a process,” Trump concluded, “and it’s going to work out very well. I was a team player, and I had an obligation to go along with this.”

As Trump tried to hang up the phone and get back to work, I asked him to reflect, if at all possible, on lessons learned. He’s a few months into his presidency, and he had to pull a bill that he had invested time and energy into passing. What was on his mind?

“Just another day,” Trump said, flatly. “Just another day in paradise, okay?”

He paused.

“Take care.”

The foregoing was reprinted from The Washington Post online edition of March 23, 2017. The only changes were the conflation of some paragraphs for the sake of length.

--Richard Brown

Seeking input

While perusing the Declaration of Independence recently, Diogenes realized that the charges leveled against King George III of England were very much like a writ of impeachment.

Starting from that thought, Diogenes is making his own list of the Great Pretender's insults to Americans, which he will publish shortly. Meanwhile, he would like to have your input on the matter, and invites you to leave comments.

Trumpfoolery

It's April Fool's Day, and from the wonderful world of English comes a word about fooling: Trumpery, which Merriam-Webster defines as "worthless nonsense; a trivial or useless article," and the Oxford English Dictionary further expands as "Superficially or visually appealing but [having] little real value or worth."

It's a perfect word to describe the current administration, isn't it? All smiles, beauty, charm and not a hint of substance.

Then of course there's "trumped-up," which the OED defines as "Invented as an excuse or a false accusation," and unquestionably describes how the Great Pretender finds his way through tight spots.

Diogenes proposes renaming April 1 Trumpfoolery Day for as long as the Fool-in-chief is in office.

--Richard Brown

Privacy, schmivacy!

Diogenes is a very private person. He doesn't advertise his whereabouts, what he's been up to besides writing this blog, and he certainly would never think of publicizing the nature of his meals. So imagine his outrage at seeing this headline from yesterday's online Washington Post: "The House just voted to wipe away the FCC’s landmark Internet privacy protections." You really should read this. Here's the link: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/28/the-house-just-voted-to-wipe-out-the-fccs-landmark-internet-privacy-protections/?utm_term=.283df2f8db45&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-econ%252Bpolitics%252Bnation&wpmk=1

Yeah, it's insanely long, so cut and paste. The story includes a short video on ways to protect you and your devices.

And just in case you're sure you have some unalienable right to privacy, you don't. Dio doesn't often turn to Wikipedia for information, but here's the link to an excellent article on the legal status of privacy:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy

The House has voted, and the Great Pretender will no doubt rubber stamp it, a measure that will, according to the Post, [free]  "Internet service providers such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast of protections approved just last year that had sought to limit what companies could do with information such as customer browsing habits, app usage history, location data and Social Security numbers. The rules also had required providers to strengthen safeguards for customer data against hackers and thieves."

This means that your Internet service provider will be able to collect and sell, if they desire, your browsing habits and whatever other personal information may be embedded, which could include your Social Security number, bank card number and other sensitive information..

Diogenes says again: "Contact your senators and representatives to let them know you find actions such as these unacceptable, and insist that they take some action to rein in this irresponsible president and his minions." Do it now, do it tomorrow and the next day, flood mailboxes and email in their offices until they hear you. Do it if you value your privacy. Do it!

--Richard Brown

Business as Usual?

We've all probably heard someone say that government should be run more like a business. Be careful what you wish for, because we could be right on the cusp.

When Diogenes heard that the Great Pretender had appointed his billionaire son-in-law Jared Kushner to head his new White House Office of American Innovation, his only comment was, "What took him so long?" The OAI, as it will no doubt be called, will be generally charged with fixing "government stagnation," and will be staffed mostly with fat-cat corporate types.

Anyone who was pleased with the Supreme Court's risible Citizens United decision will be turning cartwheels of joy over this breach in the dike of federal regulation. It remains to be seen how this new office, which may be given virtually unlimited power over the structure of government, will function, but you can be sure a lot of agencies will get pink-slipped and that the DC unemployment lines will grow longer.

The federal government has always viewed American big business with an uneasy eye. True, Calvin Coolidge famously said, "The business of America is business," but he tempered that by pointing out that he was referring to the general industriousness of the American people.

Other presidents have been less charitable, from Thomas Jefferson, who said, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country," to Dwight Eisenhower, who warned, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Because of these concerns the federal government has developed agencies whose business is to regulate business. Not because government automatically distrusts all business, but because, as Barack Obama pointed out, "In the absence of sound oversight, responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system."

And Don John and his pal Jared are about to let the foxes run the henhouse.

--Richard Brown

Where's the rottenness?

Yesterday Diogenes was contemplating the nature of government, and wondering exactly what one might do to overthrow one. Governments, we learned, exist in the realms of ideas, organizations and actors. So where does one start?

Let's consider the top level, the idea on which a government is founded. How does one overthrow an idea? The short answer is, it can't be done. Of the major revolutions in history, only one put a slight dent in the former philosophy: The French Revolution proved the Divine Right of Kings to be so much hooey, although it took a while to die a long-overdue death in the rest of Europe.

Philosophies of governing, once put into practice, have a way of hanging around as ideas, legends and folk tales, and can re-emerge at any time, if conditions are right for a change. But whether a change is made from a monarchy to a republic, from a republic to an autocracy, or from autocracy to democracy, the underlying ideas never fade away. They may be temporarily silenced, but they are essentially eternal as long as there are minds to consider them.*

So might it be easier to dump the organization of government? Well, maybe, but again, where to start? The American Revolution did overthrow the mechanism of the British colonial government, replacing it with the mechanism spelled out in the Constitution, but when you get right down to it, all government systems that aren't pure autocracies look pretty much the same: A head of state at the top, who delegates authority to a group of secretaries or ministers, and in most contemporary governments does so in concert with a parliamentary body, most of whom are elected by the governed populace.

Trying to dislodge a government at its ideational or bureaucratic level seems fruitless, then. And why strike at those levels anyway? Even if a philosophy of government seems inherently evil, the idea itself is immutable; it's the physical manifestation of it that must change, and that is not to say the bureaucratic structure occupied by the minions of the head of state, but the very head itself. Only by decapitating the beast of bad government, or in modern parlance administration, can real change be effected.

In "Hamlet," Shakespeare has Marcellus say "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." The use of the phrase "the state of Denmark," rather than just naming the country, indicates that the rottenness lies in the state, that is in the head of state, Claudius the king. And in 1859 Abraham Lincoln pointed out that while the American people have the right to overturn the government, they should aim "not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it —"

Diogenes confesses that he knew all along this would be the answer, but, not wanting to leap to a conclusion, he felt the intellectual exercise was necessary to clarify and direct his thoughts on the matter--and he is now certain where the rottenness, the heart of darkness lies: at the head of the federal administration, in the person the Huffington Post called the "Most Corrupt POTUS. Ever."

"Now we are certain of the core of the problem," said Diogenes. "Now we know where to strike."

--Richard Brown

*For an entertaining read about the permanence of ideas, check out "The Stars, Like Dust," by Isaac Asimov.

Government is . . . what?

I wouldn't want to say he's obsessed by the notion of government overthrow, but Diogenes has definitely been thinking about it a lot lately. All theoretical, he claims, and with no action contemplated, but still . . .

No--there's no way the old fellow would dive into such a daunting--not to say dangerous--project. What has been puzzling Diogenes regarding the overthrow of government is the question of just what government is. But you know that, don't you? So did we, until we really started thinking about it.

Diving into our store of dictionaries, we quickly discovered that the word "government" has a lot of interpretations. The definitions were pretty similar across several publications, and we settled on the Merriam-Webster version because it's the clearest.

Generally speaking, a government can be a theory of control or authority, a construct created for the purpose of implementing such a theory, or a group of people who exercise the control.

From Webster, we have "The organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions;" and, "The complex of political institutions, laws, and customs through which the function of governing is carried out;" and, "The body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization: such as the officials comprising the governing body of a political unit and constituting the organization as an active agency."

Now if the "what" of government is complex, the "why" of tossing one over isn't. Why do we seek to rid ourselves of anything? Because we don't like it.

Historically, government overthrow or major reform has usually been a matter of seeking more liberty or justice: The Magna Carta, the American and French revolutions. Russia's Bolshevik Revolution was headed in the same general direction, but was overtaken by despots. And there are examples of an overthrow going the opposite way: The Nazi takeover of Germany, for example, which replaced a constitutional republican form of government with a tyrannic autocracy.

So if one seeks to overthrow a government, preferably in the laudable direction of increased rights, justice and freedom, what level would one aim to bring down--the conceptual, the bureaucratic or the manifest? That's the question for next time.

 

 

Yawp!

Diogenes understands Walt Whitman and his need to send his "barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

Voices that believe in a cause can't be silenced, even by their owners. When there is rottenness in the world it must be called out. There is nothing more rotten in the world at this time than the Trump presidency, and Diogenes' voice has to speak. And if no one hears or listens? The words are out there, forever zipping through cyberspace, and perhaps they'll have an effect. If not, at least they've been spoken. Dio realizes this is odd reasoning, but is also aware that if he doesn't utter those words he will lose his self-respect. Someone will hear. Someone always does.

Diogenes has been contemplating government. Writers through the ages have considered the question of how government, i.e. those with power, should best treat the governed, i.e. those without power.

History indicates that those governments that do not treat their citizens fairly and humanely frequently come under attack. The length of time a government may be in power is not a measure of its stability. Ruthless governments unafraid of using their strength can last a long time--witness Rome. But ultimately they fall, either due to attack from outside forces or internal rebellion or from their own rotten core.

Diogenes cannot believe the American people will allow the Trump administration to continue even one term. Why? Consider this note jotted down by Abraham Lincoln in preparation for some speeches he was making in 1859: "The people — are the rightful masters of both Congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it."  

And this, from Lincoln's first inauguration address, March 4, 1861: "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."

Food for thought.

--Richard Brown 

Hiatus

Diogenes has determined that this blog is not generating enough interest to warrant his continued work, so he will continue the struggle in another way.

Feel free to browse the archive to see what these posts are about, and if you would like to see this blog return, please leave a comment.

Keep up the fight.

Maskirovka

During our power surge-enforced absence, Diogenes pondered the nature of today's news, particularly that dealing with the Great Pretender, and general events in Washington, particularly having to do with Congress.

Americans tend to ascribe more authority to the president than he actually has. The systems of checks and balances that keeps any branch of government from becoming too powerful works well. The president can offer bills for consideration by Congress, can nominate people for federal office including the Supreme Court, and can declare war. But all these actions must be approved by Congress. In the final analysis, there are only two unilateral actions a president may take: Issue executive orders (which are nonetheless subject to judicial review), and launch a nuclear strike. The latter theoretically requires consultation with military authorities, but none of them have veto power.

But the president can and does attract attention, and Donald Trump is far and away the most attention-grabbing chief executive this nation has seen for a very long time. His antics draw ire or applause; his parade of beautiful family members attracts the fashion and social press while he keeps the newsies busy with his endless tweets, gaffes, missteps and outrageous statements.

But what of Congress--the news from there has not been silent, but with the president hogging all the spotlights, the boys and girls of Congress have been free to pursue their nefarious agenda. Congress is the real power in this administration, because the Republican majority finally has a president who will rubber-stamp the laws they want to make.

Diogenes suspects a maskirovka.

And what is that? you may well ask. "Maskirovka" means "disguise," and it was and is still at the heart of Soviet and Russian military policy. Like a magician's tricks, a maskirovka depends on confusion and misdirection. Camouflage, false intelligence, denial, disinformation, media manipulation and many other tools are used to completely surprise and overwhelm an opponent before that opponent has any idea what's going on.

So Diogenes suspects that the Trump family circus has been thrown at the media to shift attention away from Congress, which, if true, suggests that there are operatives in the Trump administration who are a lot smarter than we've been giving them credit for; or that Trump himself has learned more from Vlad Putin than anyone thought.

--Richard Brown

P.S.: For an informative and even entertaining look at how a maskirovka might work in the real world, check out Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising." It's dated, but still good.