Willy Kessler, Author at Occasional Planet

Bannon’s “Great Leader” doesn’t have what it takes

Willy Kessler — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 15:44:27 +0000

Like many of you, I watched Charlie Rose’s Steve Bannon interview on 60 minutes. Lots there to make one sad, lots more to make one shudder. I was struck, though, by certain themes that periodically surfaced during the course of Bannon’s comments.The ideas of loyalty to a capital “L” leader and the identification of personality with policy colored almost everything Bannon said. I was also struck by his essential pathos; I saw a deeply sad little man, fearful of failure and desperate to be significant.

The German sociologist and philosopher, Max Weber, broke the types of socio-political authority down into three categories: legal-rational, traditional and charismatic. Bannon’s loyalty to Trump resembles the bond that exists between the charismatic leader and his devoted acolyte(s). Examples of such relationships, both positive and negative, abound. On the one hand there’s Jesus and his disciples (or, if you prefer, Robin Hood and his Merry Band), and on the other, probably more pertinent in the current situation, Hitler and his Brownshirts (although, given Bannon’s attire, a double layer of black shirts, perhaps Mussolini and his Blackshirts would be more apropos.) According to most accounts, the relationship of their followers to charismatic leaders are usually emotional in nature and involve deeply-felt, personal, often self-transcendent devotion. It’s constructive to consider Bannon’s numerous protestations of unconditional loyalty to Donald Trump during the interview from the point of view of an aspirational follower of a man he wants to see as an apocalyptic, charismatic leader.

Bannon’s loyalty to Trump is both absolute and extra-rational. He spoke of his litmus tests for others’ loyalty to Trump — not their ideology or acumen — and quoted a line from The Wild Bunch, that ”when you side with a man, you side with him,” adding that one accepts both “the good and the bad. You can criticize him behind, but when you side with him, you have to side with him.” In other words, for Bannon, policy, polity, and personal ethics are subordinate to personality and the interpersonal relationships it engenders.

Bannon’s loyalty is also militant. Although he praised the“Darwinian” management style that Trump cultivates, the clash of competing egos fighting it out for their master’s attention, once the great man speaks, the matter is settled, and his acolytes are expected to leap to his defense no matter where they stand intellectually or morally. Bannon, tellingly, speaks of himself as a ”streetfighter” who, now that he is exiled from the White House, promises to fight for Trump, whom he envisions as a type of head gangbanger, and act as his “wingman outside for the entire time.”

The glue that binds Trump and Bannon, he seems to believe, is a shared mission, which he, Bannon, articulates and which can be embodied in the person of Trump who serves as a type of totem. This implicit pairing of a “Big Man” and a personality driven political cult aligns with the consensual aspect of the shared, almost ecstatic, fervor often experienced by the followers of a charismatic leader. Bannon doesn’t just speak for himself, he tells us, but represents, in his mind, all American citizens:

… Economic nationalism is what this country was built on. The American system. Right? We go back to that. We look after our own. We look after our citizen, we look after our manufacturing base, and guess what? This country’s gonna be greater, more united, more powerful than it’s ever been. And it’s not– this is not astrophysics. OK? And by the way, that’s every nationality, every race, every religion, every sexual preference. As long as you’re a citizen of our country. As long as you’re an American citizen, you’re part of this populist, economic nationalist movement.

The big, happy American family led by Big Daddy Trump. Or not.

Except for Bannon, there’s no room for “not.” To deny Daddy is betrayal and traitors will be punished.

Public disagreement or even a hint of criticism will result in retribution. Hence, after the Access Hollywood tapes surfaced, Bannon happily agreed with Charlie Rose that he “took names” of those who failed to stand up sufficiently tall for The Donald. We are led to suppose Chris Christie, for instance, suffered the fallout of having been written up in Bannon’s “black book” at that time.

It is here that the sadness begins to manifest itself. When Rose asked him about his exile from the Trump administration, the red-eyed, hung-over looking Bannon almost literally winced, his eyes widened and he seemed to swallow slightly before quickly denying the notion that he had been cast out by the leader of his great “economic nationalist movement.” His assertion that he left voluntarily in order to reenter Trump political streetfight via Breibart.com, his weapon of choice, reeked of defensiveness.

The title of a Guardian column by Richard Wolffe proclaimed that, “if Trump read books, he’d sound just like Steve Bannon.” And while there’s an element of truth in that statement — and more than an element of truth in the Wolffe column which is mostly spot-on — it’s just a shade shy of the real deal. And that whisper of separation is the source of Bannon’s tragedy.

Bannon espouses, no matter how much he denied it to Rose, a racist, authoritarian nationalism with some populist overtones — a vision with serious similarities to that sold by Hitler to war-and-deprivation-weary Germans after World War I. This set of beliefs seem to represent sincere, if unfortunate, conviction on Bannon’s part.

Unfortunately for his “cause,” he persists in casting Trump as the instrument who can realize the dream. But while parts of Bannon’s formula for “making America great again,” seems to be attractive to Trump, he clearly prefers a formula, any formula, for making Trump, not America, great. The guy has problems with both abstraction and with empathy; Bannon’s grand vision has been subordinated to Trump’s intrinsic stupidity and his narcissism. Instead of the powerful instrument that could, under the tutelage of Bannon, create the chaos incipient to a new world order, Trump is a loosely-strung wind harp, subject to any stray breeze that stirs his vanity and triggers his impulses. Bannon is one and only one of those multi-directional breezes.

Make no mistake, Trump is virulent and corrupt enough to do serious damage. But, while he would obviously enjoy the perks of life as a Supreme Leader, he doesn’t have the chops to deliver the type of leadership for which Bannon seems to yearn. Consider that Hitler, absurd as he was, managed to write Mein Kampf all by himself. Although it’s a horrifying, clumsily executed compendium of centuries of continental anti-semitism and other ugliness, it reflects the actual thinking of its author. Trump, on the other hand, had to hire somebody to write The Art of the Deal, a collection of stale business aphorisms and self-glorification passed off as his own work. A man who is regularly and openly satirized via epithets like “the lemon chiffon comb-over,” or “Apricot Idi Amin,” will never cut a heroic figure.

And there it is, Bannon’s tragedy in a nutshell: no matter how much he loves daddy, daddy doesn’t have what it takes to deliver.

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After Equifax data breach, MO’s Ann Wagner votes against CFPB

Willy Kessler — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 19:39:14 +0000

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is, as it states on its Website, “a U.S. government agency that makes sure banks, lenders, and other financial companies treat you fairly. ” It was an important component of the the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), a law designed to protect Americans from the excesses that led to the financial crisis of 2008. To date the Agency has been very effective. In the few years since it was established, it has settled over a million complaints and has saved consumers more than 11 billion dollars.

So what’s not to like? An awful lot if you are part of a financial industry that got used to running wild during the Bush years. As The New York Times asserts, the CFPB may have been too effective. It has far too much independence for Big Banking’s tastes; it can operate outside the realm of strategically distributed campaign funding and lobbyist blandishment.

Needless to say, when it comes to the CFPB, Republicans have been more than willing to take up the cudgels on behalf of their patrons in the financial sector. And nobody’s been more assiduous in going after the CFPB than Missouri’s own Ann Wagner, who, not incidentally, rakes in a big part of her considerable campaign war chest from grateful banking types.

The reason I’m returning to what is now an old and, at this point, oft-told story is simple: Equifax. The Equifax data breach that has exposed at least 148 million consumers to potential ID theft, to be precise. Also the fact that Equifax botched its response to its big fail by revealing the breach belatedly, and then offering inadequate follow-up, even, according to some sources, attempting to make money off of the disaster.

But don’t worry. The CFPB is on the case:

In a statement provided to HousingWire, CFPB Senior Spokesperson Sam Gilford said the bureau is already looking into the situation.

“The CFPB has authority over the consumer reporting industry, including supervisory and enforcement authority,” Gilford said in the statement.

“The CFPB is authorized to take enforcement action against institutions engaged in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices, or that otherwise violate federal consumer financial laws,” Gilford added. “We are looking into the data breach and Equifax’s response, but cannot comment further at this time.”

Additionally, Gilford said the CFPB is looking into the arbitration clause inserted into Equifax’s credit monitoring.

As CNN points out, consumers who want to take Equifax up on its offer of free credit monitoring for a year have to waive their right to sue, something that the CFPB is currently battling over on Capitol Hill.

“Equifax’s credit monitoring product contains a mandatory arbitration clause that denies people their right to join together to sue the company for wrongdoing,” Gilford said.

True, the New York Attorney General is also launching an investigation, and Congress is promising hearings. I don’t know about you, though, but when it comes to who is more likely to be thorough and transparent, I prefer that the task be at least shared with an agency like the CFPB, whose independence is assured. Unlike some congresspersons I could name, it doesn’t have any favors to repay that might soften the zeal with which it goes after a bad actor.

The CFPB went after Equifax and TransUnion earlier this year for deceiving consumers about the usefulness and cost of credit scores they sell. Given their record to date, I don’t need to add that the CFPB got results; it cost the credit agencies $5.5 million in fines and $17.6 million in restitution paid to consumers. The CFPB’s got a track record when it comes to Equifax and its ilk.

Of course, it’s the very independence of the CFPB that sticks in Wagner’s craw. It’s what lies behind the usual Republican charges of government overreach or, in a more grandiose vein, charges that it is not constitutional to have a government agency with so much power that is funded independently of congress and is led by an executive appointee who cannot be dismissed on the whims of various and sundry elected officials without substantial cause. So far, the courts, our constitutional arbiters, don’t agree with Wagner et al. when it comes to questions of constitutional overreach. (Do you, too, find “unconstitutional” kind of funny coming from GOP politicians who seem to be purposely blind to the constitutional issues that bedevil their current President?)

Wagner’s onus against the agency extends to its director. She has been in the forefront of trying to drum up an appearance of malfeasance on the part of CFPB director Richard Cordray, even going so far as to level poorly substantiated charges of workplace discrimination. Most recently, she and her anti-CFPB cadres have tried to besmirch the record of the CFPB investigation into Wells-Fargo’s financial malfeasance.

But right now, when a truly huge number of Americans are facing the potential of identify theft or worse, and the company responsible for losing their data is acting poorly, do you think Wagner could be prevailed upon to leave the CFPB alone and let it serve the people who need it? I’m not optimistic – it’s clear that Wagner sees the Trump presidency as a lifeline when it comes to her heretofore ineffectual crusade to re-empower our financial overlords, but maybe, nevertheless, we should ask her to “can” it? Or else.*

*Note to Ann Wagner: No, Ann, “or else” is not a threat of anything worse than an election. I know that many of your grey-haried constituents scare you silly, but you don’t need to be worried about anything worse than losing their votes.

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McCaskill stands up to Sessions; GOP attempts smack-down

Willy Kessler — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 23:44:20 +0000

Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskilll didn’t waste any time. As soon as we learned that current Attorney General and former Trump campaign advisor, Jeff Sessions, not only met privately with the Russian ambassador at the height of the Russian hacking exercise – a little gift, our intelligence agencies tell us, from Putin to Trump – but lied about it while under oath during his confirmation hearings, she did the right thing and called for his resignation. Get this straight: she didn’t just demand that he recuse himself from investigating his White House patron, but that he resign. Nor are McCaskill’s demands part of a fatuous partisan exercise. The Russian mess is serious and the implications for the Trump administration are potentially huge.

And even if it weren’t about possible collusion with a foreign power, there’s ample precedent to call for Session’s resignation. Perjury is a big deal. Republicans justified impeachment proceedings against President Clinton based on the claim that he lied to Congress while under oath. In 2013, the House Judiciary investigated AG Eric Holder based on claims that he lied under oath and, although they could not substantiate the claim, vociferously called for his resignation. Acting AG under Richard Nixon, Richard G. Kleindienst, was not only forced to resign, but was prosecuted for lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing.

So McCaskill’s not just whistling some partisan dixie. And, of course, she’s taking hate for standing up. Here’s what the spinning-like-a-top Missouri Republican Party has to say about the woman they hope to brand “Lyin’ Claire”:

Today Senator Claire McCaskill used her platform on Twitter in an attempt to discredit U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. The problem? Her tweet was a blatant lie that was exposed by her very own earlier tweets.

McCaskill claims she has been on the Armed Services Committee for 10 years and has never had a call or meeting with the Russian ambassador. Unfortunately, McCaskill’s earlier tweets say just the opposite: “Off to a meeting with Russian Ambassador…” and “Today calls with British, Russian, and German ambassadors re: Iran Deal.”

And indeed McCaskill did tweet that she met with the Russian Ambassador in 2013 – but not in her role on the Armed Services Committee – the rest of the tweet cited above that begins “Off to a meeting with Russian Ambassador” continues ” upset about the arbitrary/cruel decision to end all US adoptions, even those in process.” McCaskill clarified the situation via twitter later. Her spokesperson elaborated:

McCaskill spokeswoman Sarah Feldman said McCaskill’s interactions with Kislyak were materially different than Sessions’. Sessions met with Kislyak one-on-one around the same time Russian actors are believed to have been meddling in the election. McCaskill, on the other hand, met him in a group setting to discuss adoption policy and in a brief phone call about the Iran nuclear deal, Feldman said.

Hardly in the same league as Jeff Sessions. Actually, given the full context, she wasn’t lying at all – despite an absurdly literal response on the part of Politifact. A group meeting with the Russian Ambassador on business other than that of the Armed Forces Committee does not undercut her implicit assertion that members of that committee – apart from Trump campaign surrogate Jeff Sessions – had little or no reason to have contact with the Russian ambassador. In fact, The Washington Post has confirmed that no other member of the committee met with the ambassador last year. Just Jeff Sessions. Who, under oath, denied that the meetings had taken place. Wonder why?

But hey, with Trump and his Russian buddies, his financial conflicts of interest, his strategically unavailable tax returns and, most recently, his bungled Yemen raid, Republicans have got a tough road to hoe when it comes to accountability – especially if they hope to make full use their idiot bill-signing machine to realize the Republican dream of killing New Deal America.

As Michael Tomasky observed about Sessions’ appointment to the AGs office, it was “corrupt for Trump to name him in the first place. It’s becoming clearer and clearer why Trump wanted an attorney general he could trust not to investigate him.” And if they’re not careful, the Republicans springing to Trump’s defense right now are going to be tarred with the same brush – so we can’t blame them for trying to do unto others first, can we? After all, as we have learned over the past eight years, it’s the Republican way.

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MO Senator Roy Blunt plays the odds on Muslim ban

Willy Kessler — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 22:01:43 +0000

So we’re two days into the fallout from The Donald’s Muslim ban (and, dear folks, all his denials aside, it is a Muslim ban). We’ve always known that he would feel compelled to pander to anti-Muslim bigotry and that his efforts would be in character, that is, cruel, unnecessary and stupid, but did this particular effort need to be so inept? Harold Pollack sums up the shear incompetence embodied in the President’s Executive Order (EO):

The President’s team had months to prepare this signature immigration initiative. And they produced…an amateurish, politically self-immolating effort that humiliated the country, provoked international retaliation, and failed to withstand the obvious federal court challenge on its very first day.

Given the despicable nature of this effort, I’m happy it has become a political fiasco. It also makes me wonder how the Trump administration will execute the basic functions of government. This astonishing failure reflects our new President’s contempt for the basic craft of government.

Given the scope of the mess our amateur hour president and his flunkies – racist Bannon’s dirty fingerprints are all over the EO – have made, don’t you think that those Republicans who moaned and whined about Obama’s relatively modest executive orders might have something just a little harsh to say about what Mr. Trump has produced? And some do. Some can only manage to whimper a little about how it’s “too broad” or offer some other anodyne criticism. Some, however, like Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent, have enough intestinal fortitude to make a reasonably strong statement condemning the nasty little exercise.

Of course, a few GOPers think this EO is just what the doctor ordered. Missouri’s own Republican Senator Blunt, for instance. He thinks the EO is just hunky-dory:

He is doing what he told the American people he would do. I would not support a travel ban on Muslims; I do support increased vetting on people applying to travel from countries with extensive terrorist ties or activity. These seven countries meet that standard. Our top priority should be to keep Americans safe.

Blunt just holds his nose and pretends that Muslim-baiting isn’t the real goal and he’s good to go. You gotta admit, this old boy knows who butters his bread.

But is that greasy bread worth demonizing a few million Muslim Americans. Or turning one’s back on desperate people fleeing death and chaos? Especially when it was another bad American president, George W. Bush, who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the Middle Eastern wall. Don’t we owe these people something besides lies about the need for “very, very strict vetting” that are used to cover up the fact that President Orange Buffoon needs to fire up the bigots who voted for him?

Kevin Drum suggests that the turmoil over the EO is just what Steve Bannon wanted:

… Bannon wanted turmoil and condemnation. He wanted this executive order to get as much publicity as possible. He wanted the ACLU involved. He thinks this will be a PR win. [… ] Liberals think middle America will be appalled at Trump’s callousness. Bannon thinks middle America will be appalled that lefties and the elite media are taking the side of terrorists. After a week of skirmishes, this is finally a hill that both sides are willing to die for. Who’s going to win?

It’s pretty clear where Roy Blunt is putting his money.

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Where does Claire McCaskill stand on Paul Ryan’s plan for Medicare?

Willy Kessler — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 22:47:50 +0000

TPM’s checklist of those who support or oppose House Speaker Paul Ryan’s phaseout of Medicare has been updated to show that Claire McCaskill is positioning herself as part of the opposition “according to a TPM reader who called her office.” She was quoted on an NPR local news spot today saying that she opposed the Ryan plan. We need to give her kudos and lots of support for taking this position. I’ll be calling and writing her to thank for her for making this unequivocal statement, and I hope lots of others do so too.

But, as well, I’ll be asking some questions about her level of commitment to Medicare.

Keep in mind that McCaskill is speaking to the Ryan privatization plan exclusively. In the past, in her deficit alarmist persona, she has signed on to benefit cuts and other mechanisms for restructuring the program. In 2013 she and GOP Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma introduced legislation that would institute Medicare means-testing to raise co-payments and co-insurance. We need her to elaborate on just what type of future she is supporting for Medicare.

Keep in mind, too, how she takes progressives for granted and tries to impress conservative Missourians with her “independence,” leaving her open to poorly considered, one-sided “bipartisan” initiatives. She confirmed today that she’s definitely running in 2016, probably against Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2), who will, given the lay of the ground in this northernmost outpost of the Trump confederate empire, be a tough challenge. And how has McCaskill responded to such challenges in the past. With more of the “independence” GOP-lite chatter.

A New York Magazine article by Ed Kilgore entitled “Why there Probably won’t be a ‘Tea Party of the Left’” offers a disturbing take on the forces that are in play around McCaskill:

The obvious targets for either a bipartisan Trump outreach or for disciplinary efforts by progressives are the Democratic senators up for reelection in 2018 who represent states carried by Trump. There are ten of them: Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Bill Nelson (Florida), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Debbie Stabenow (Michigan), Joe Donnelly (Indiana), Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Claire McCaskill (Missouri), Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota), and Jon Tester (Montana). You might imagine some of these states are not reliably Republican in the future, but the flip back to the Democrats won’t be automatic, either, in a midterm election when the turnout dynamics have recently favored Republicans.

Now, Sherrod Brown and Tammy Baldwin and probably Debbie Stabenow are not the sort of Democrats who will be hankering for a way to show Trump voters they’re not all bad, and Bob Casey has his own appeal to white working-class voters that doesn’t necessarily depend on bipartisanship. But the rest of these vulnerable Democratic senators could waver.

And if they do, what exactly is “the tea party of the left” going to do about it? Joe Manchin, for one, would probably pay for left-bent protests against his “centrist” heresies in West Virginia, and would definitely welcome a progressive primary opponent to triangulate against. Heitkamp’s state went for Trump by 36 points; Tester’s, McCaskill’s, and Donnelly’s by 20 points or slightly less. Does anyone think a candidate more progressive or partisan than any of these worthies has a prayer of carrying their states in the immediate future?

At some point, would-be members of a “tea party of the left” need to come to grips with the fact that the “tea party of the right” had more geographical material to work with. …

This narrative is the sort of thing that has resonance with politicians – and for good reason. Prospects for the type of opposition party solidarity that we need if we are to hold off and undo the damage done by the Trump election may very likely be undermined by politicians like McCaskill who are not only skilled at playing the odds, but believe it is their only option apart from self-sacrifice.

But then again, nothing’s ever a done deal until its done. McCaskill might surprise us all and go down trying to hold the bridge. She might not even go down if she gets some help and does a good job on that bridge.

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Trump’s cadres don’t care about civility

Willy Kessler — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 16:39:51 +0000

I have read several letters urging those who voted for Hillary Clinton — winner of the popular vote — to be gracious in defeat and unify behind President-elect Donald Trump. As well-meant as such exhortations are, they ignore the fact that, based on Trump’s rhetoric and the team of advisers he has assembled, many Americans are frightened for our future and the future of our country. There is too much at stake to sit back and pretend it’s business as usual.

Trump actively encouraged a nativist coalition that includes overt racists. He acquiesced in Russian meddling in an American election. He has promised to curtail press freedom and impose the socio-religious preferences of a right-wing Christian minority on the country.

Trump has given the thumbs up to Paul Ryan’s plans to gut Medicare under the guise of replacing Obamacare — the loss of which will cost millions of us our health care. Efforts to decimate Social Security are on the horizon. Environmental protection is now a dead letter.

Trump has pledged to nominate Supreme Court justices who will enable all these depredations while supporting business-friendly laws that sustain the creation of a corporate oligarchy.

If you think that Trump’s cadres care about civility, you are fooling yourself. This is not the time for exchanging polite nothings; it’s time to get ready for the fight of our lives.

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Does Steve Bannon’s appointment mean it’s finally time to hit the road?

Willy Kessler — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 14:02:40 +0000

Even folks who have tried to restrain themselves from the use of fascist and Nazi labels have begun to run scared after the announcement today that racist, Jew-baiting Steve Bannon has just become one of the most powerful men in America. At The Political Animal Martin Longman writes:

One of the shocking things I’ve felt compelled to do since Donald Trump’s unexpected election to be the next president of the United States is to bone up on my history by reading Joseph Goebbels Wikipedia page. I did that last night, and I noted many disturbing parallels between Goebbels early career and the career of Trump’s new chief White House strategist Steve Bannon. Still, I was feeling vaguely guilty about even doing this research, as if I’m bordering on the paranoid and letting my fears get the better of me.

The problem is, I am hardly alone in thinking along these lines ….

After George Bush was elected, my family toyed with the possibility of leaving the country – a move that would have been facilitated by the nature of my husband’s work at that time. Now we are both retired and the truth is that few desirable countries welcome older folks who don’t have money to invest in job creating ventures, and who, in countries with progressive social programs, may put a strain on their resources. We also have companion animals that we are obligated to keep and protect and might not be able to bring them with us to places that would otherwise welcome us.

But we’re still worried that getting out of Dodge might really be the right thing to do. So the second thought to cross our minds is that if we don’t leave the country, we ought to leave Missouri.

Missouri’s a poor state, and its almost uniformly corrupt lawmakers don’t seem to care if it gets poorer as long as they can get rich doing what’s best for their even richer friends, and, in the process, free up businesses to discriminate along with putting uppity, promiscuous sluts in their places (nearly barefoot, pregnant and working for minimum wage in McDonalds’ kitchens).* In the Missouri boondocks they call it religious freedom.

Missouri’s also awash with guns and militias. Beginning this year there’s almost no regulation of firearms. Any type of firearm. You can shoot folks because they scare you. Stop and think about how many uptight, paranoid people there are, and then consider that in Missouri lots of the scariest of them have guns. And speaking of scary people, the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies 22 hate groups located in Missouri – more than in just a handful of other states.

The state’s a veritable petri dish for growing Trumpian authoritarianism. It’s got more than its share of those white people who are angry because the world rejects their version of reality, their anger both exploited and enabled by Trump’s election. When the fecal matter finally hits the fan, Missouri may be an especially bad place for an couple of older progressives. In the past, we braced up, got on with our lives because, as with most things, we knew that this too would pass. But it threatens to be much worse this time.

At our ages it’s not easy to upend our lives by moving. There are lots of things to consider and I don’t know what we’ll do in the end. However, given the appointment of Bannon along with the police-state and torture rhetoric that is emanating from Trump’s circle of domestic policy advisors, we are beginning to think that, at the very least, maybe we should get out of the heart of Trump’s own country.

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The end of the game: Trump wins

Willy Kessler — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:55:28 +0000

A vulgar, colossally ignorant, TV reality show host will be the next president of the United States. The Republican mafia rode his coattails to retain control of the Congress, insuring that he will face little or no opposition in the exercise of his whims as long as their donors get what they want – low taxes and compliant government regulatory agencies. The obscenely rich folks who have for many years been planting the seeds that grew into the coming Trump administration may find the blooms they have fostered garish, but they will get a Supreme Court that will insure that the incipient American oligarchy will keep on keeping on. And the evangelicals will probably get to restore back-alley abortion.

Years ago I grieved when Nixon was elected President. And he did set back the progressive program that the two Roosevelt’s had put into motion. But we survived.

Later, I was dumbfounded when Americans elected Bush Junior. Twice. And he was worse than we had envisioned. He lied to us and embroiled us in an expensive and unnecessary war that we are still fighting in one way or another today. He crashed our economy, leaving millions of Americans worse off than they were before. But we survived.

This evening I learned that Donald Trump would be our next president and I am still trembling.

Americans elected the candidate of the Ku Klux Klan and gave him the power to mete out justice.

Americans elected Putin’s useful fool – or his active accomplice – and gave him the power to direct our foreign policy.

Americans elected an unstable, vindictive authoritarian and gave him the power to declare war and martial law.

Americans elected a failed businessman and shameless grifter and gave him power over our economy.

Americans elected a man facing indictment for fraud and possibly for sexual assault and installed him as a role model for our children.

Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos says we have to regroup, keep on fighting and he’s right. But I’ve been fighting in one way or another since I was seventeen and it’s been many, many years of struggle. It hurts to see so much that we and our parents gained lost little by little until tonight when the country fell victim to the Father Coughlin of our time. It’s hard not to mourn for the American Experiment which may, finally, be irredeemably debased.

But it may not make that much difference in the long run. After all, Americans elected a scientific illiterate who is too ignorant to understand what he doesn’t know, and gave him the power to determine energy policy during a crucial period of climate change that, if mishandled, could threaten global survival

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Bosnians in Missouri could be a counterweight to Trump

Willy Kessler — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 17:04:00 +0000

Back in August I noted that GOP gubernatorial candidate Eric Greitens seemed to be trying to retroactively relocate his student vounteer work in Croatia to Bosnia. It seemed likely that he thought this little fib might influence the large Bosnian community in and around St. Louis -one of the largest in the country – to view his candidacy more favorably.

Greitens might have been on to something when it comes to courting the Bosnian bloc. The question is whether a fictitious volunteer stint in Bosnia will counter the negative appeal of Donald Trump at a time when presidential coattails can lead to victory or defeat. Apropos of which, the U.S. edition of The Guardian is carrying a story today about how the Bosnian community might bring about Trump’s downfall in Missouri.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand why Trump might roil emotions among Bosnians. Most of the local Bosnians are relatively recent immigrants and they are predominantly Muslims. Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim shtick is likely not only unappealing, but probably downright scary:

While never a monolith, Bosnian Americans in St Louis – which is home to an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Bosnian Muslims – have near-universally been put off by Trump’s anti-Muslim, anti-refugee rhetoric and are wary of the Republican candidate’s popularity among Serbian nationalists. If they are mobilized as a bloc to vote against Trump for these reasons, 2016 could mark the national debut of Missouri’s “Bosnian vote”, costing Trump the state’s 10 electoral votes.

[… .] Anecdotally, community leaders estimate that voter registration in St Louis’s Bosnian community has surged by the thousands over the past two years.

The Guardian goes further and speculates that this election might help to solidify the longer-term political importance of an emerging Bosnian voting bloc:

Historically, Missouri has been a swing state, though is often assumed by pundits to be a Republican giveaway. In 2008, Republican John McCain won the state’s electoral votes by a margin of less than 1% – mere thousands of votes. In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney won the state by 10%, but liberal Democrat Claire McCaskill also kept her seat in the US Senate by more than 15%. The state also has a Democrat governor.

In recent years, Bosnian voters in St Louis have asserted themselves as a potent force in local politics, and politicians – mainly Democrats – have taken notice.

One can only hope that The Guardian’s speculations bear Democratic fruit in Missouri this year, and that, as an added bonus, Greitens goes down too, tangled in Trump’s flimsy coattails if not because he’s an opportunistic poseur.

This article first appeared on ShowMe Progress.

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Ann Wagner says “No Trump:” A day late and a dollar short

Willy Kessler — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 16:33:10 +0000

Breaking news from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: country-club Republican, Ann Wagner, who represents Missouri’s 2nd Congressional district, has had a change of heart and will no longer support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The occasion for her newfound disdain was the exposure of Trump’s decade-old more explicitly sleazy than usual comments about women:

I have committed my short time in Congress to fighting for the most vulnerable in our society. As a strong and vocal advocate for victims of sex trafficking and assault, I must be true to those survivors and myself and condemn the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump, […] I withdraw my endorsement and call for Governor Pence to take the lead so we can defeat Hillary Clinton.

Laudable, but, one can only ask, why now? Why didn’t the stream of bigotry, racism and misogyny that have emanated from Trump over the past few months lead Wagner to disavow him as the leader of her party long ago? This is a woman who, up to now has been willing to support a candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan , giving him her vote with only a few, pro forma quivers of trepidation.

Do you think that maybe that the last sentence in the quote above might have something to do with Wagner’s sudden willingness to make a hard turn on a candidate whose essential unfitness for office has been obvious from day one?

The faint whiff of Republican defeat in November has now become an overwhelming stench and, like rats too timid to leap pell-mell from their sinking boat, many GOPers hope that Pence might just be just the life-preserver the party and their own, individual political fortunes need if they are to emerge unscathed from association with Trump. And this latest piece of Trumpian nastiness, along with Pence’s self-aggrandizing performance at last Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, offers just the opportunity they have needed.

Pence emerged as the hero of the Republican day when he coolly abandoned Trump during his debate with the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, last Tuesday. With almost breathtaking audacity, he substituted his own policy prescriptions for the incoherent ramblings of Donald Trump and earned widespread huzzahs for the cold-blooded smoothness with which he left his running mate twisting in the wind.

Many commentators have suggested that Pence did what he did in an effort to raise his profile for 2020. He was, in effect, preparing to make future lemonade out of an admittedly over-sized lemon. However, pols like Wagner want their lemonade right now and they think they can get away with flipping the ticket – even at this late date, an action that, as Akhil Reed Amar suggests in Vox, might be plausible if they act fast.

What this suggests to me is that now that the power struggles that animate the opportunistic GOP hacks have been bared for all to see it is, as they say, time to pass the popcorn.

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