reflectivepundit

When Democracy Dies in Bright Daylight

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After Donald Trump won the presidency, the Washington Post began to print the warning “Democracy Dies in Darkness” underneath its masthead to highlight the need for journalism that speaks truth to power. After contributing to Mr. Trump’s stunning presidential nomination and election victory the Post and a number of other news organizations reclaimed belatedly their role as watchdog of government. Now, however, the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is no longer the right one to describe what we are witnessing on a daily basis.

Last century, the most authoritarian, dictatorial, and fascist leaders utilized the legitimate political process to win the most powerful office in the state. Once in the saddle they carried out immediately what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung—putting every public and private sector under the complete control of the leader, his hand-picked clique, his party. Think of Mussolini and Hitler.

Today’s autocrats, today’s fascist leaders consolidate state power not immediately like their predecessors but step by step over time. A good example is Hungary’s President Victor Orban who has openly proclaimed the end of liberal democracy and the advent of the “illiberal state” or illiberal democracy in his country modeled after Putin’s Russia and Erdogan’s Turkey. So far, there has been a purge of the civil service, curbs on the judiciary’s independence, intimidation of the press, establishment of election rules tilted in favor of parties that support him, and the vilification of foreigners.

Sounds familiar? Indeed! The U.S. president, too, has attacked Washington’s civil servants, declared war against the law enforcement apparatus and its leaders, fired highly placed officials in the Department of Justice and FBI,  called for their removal of more people across departments, presides over an administration with dangerous gaps in knowledgeable personnel. Just think of the dismantling of the Department of States’ Foreign Service professionals. And last but not least, think of President Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy and credibility of the news media.

Just like the current autocrats in Hungary and Poland and elsewhere, the narcissist in the White House speaks openly and frequently about his disregard for democratic rules of the game.

Of the people in all branches of government and all its institutions, Mr. Trump expects and demands loyalty to him alone—not to the constitution, not the law.  

Those are traits of dictatorial, fascist rulers.

The Most Dangerous Man in the World Sits in the White House and Spineless Republicans in the Congress Do Nothing to Prevent the Catastrophe that the President Himself Threatens

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Nine month-worth of 24/7 nightmares unleashed by Donald Trump’s daily menu of outrageous tweets and ludicrous deeds are enough to realize that Trump is an emperor without clothes.  

If you hoped this spoiled, narcissistic child-man would grow in the august Oval Office, you know now that there are no such miracles.

Every hour it becomes clearer that the President of the United States and supposed world leader is precisely what his own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has called him—a moron who does not and does not want to understand our governmental system, its  institutions, and domestic and foreign policy-making, and most of all the U.S. Constitution.   

Today, October 12, 2017 is another “normal” day in the disturbing saga of Donald Trump’s presidency:

• He threatens to challenge NBC’s broadcast license because of the News Division’s credible reports that Trump demanded from the U.S. military a significant build-up in the nuclear arsenal.
• He announces the signing of yet another Executive Order to weaken Obamacare further by allowing insurances to sell cheap plans to the young and healthy.
• He threatens to end relief efforts in Puerto Rico where the majority of U.S. citizens still do not have electric power, lack drinking water and health services.
• The State Department announces that the United States withdraws from UNESCO, the United Nation’s agency for the sciences, culture, and communication, because of UNESCO's "anti-Israel bias."
• Congress wrestles with President Trump’s announcement that he will not certify the Nuclear Deal with Iran.

All those irrational threats and actions came before 12 noon today. Plenty of time to add to the insanity that has the last word in Washington with ripple effects around the country and the world.

And what does the Republican majority in both houses of the Congress do?

Besides Bob Corker, the courageous U.S. Senator of Tennessee, nobody puts the interests of the whole country first.

There is silence--even though the President has threatened repeatedly war against North Korea-- in the words of Corker --WWIII.

The White Nationalist Terrorism in Charlottesville and Trump’s Moral Impotency

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Trump who doesn’t miss any opportunity to condemn “radical Muslim terrorism” could not bring himself to condemn yesterday’s white nationalist terrorism in Charlottesville, Virginia. Instead, he condemned hatred and bigotry “on many sides.”  

The white supremacists with confederate flags and the neo-Nazis with the Third Reich’s swastika flags came to Charlottesville equipped with guns, rifles, baseball bats, and an assortment of other weaponry—not to peacefully “Unite the Right” but to meet counter-demonstrators with violence.

When a 20-year old man from Ohio drove deliberately into a crowd of people, it was an act of vehicular terrorism—similar to jihadist attacks in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. Terrorists learn from each other; they copy what they perceive as successful act of terrorism regardless of their ideology, their grievances, and their causes.

Interestingly, the perpetrator’s mother told reporters that she thought the event her son attended had “something to do with Trump.”

It did. The alt-right movement that has finally consolidated the various strains of white supremacy, white nationalism, and Neo-Nazi groupings was during the campaign and remains squarely on the side of fierce Trump supporters. On the eve of the violent demonstration, White supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said,

“This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump. Because he said he’s going to take our country back. That’s what we gotta do.”

Some of the white nationalists wore Trump’s red caps with the slogan “Make America Great Again.”

Even though, Trump did not call the vehicular attack “terrorism” nor did he distance himself from the Alt-Right.

For a good reason: He is morally impotent with respect to the dangerous Alt-Right ideology with its ugly takes on domestic politics and foreign policy as long as he has prominent Alt-Righters among his advisers in the White House starting but not ending with the ex-Breitbart boss Stephen Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.  

Even if his chief-of-staff or someone else convinces Trump to condemn alt-right terrorism, the president cannot be believed as long as the Bannon contingent remains in the White House.

“The Russian Thing” and the Threat of War

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Beleaguered President Donald Trump wants nothing more than make “the Russian thing” go way.

He spent political capital by firing Acting Attorney General Sally Yates und FBI Director James Comey for not buckling under his pressure tactics; he lost moral authority by bullying Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others for the same reasons.

Trump and his supporting cast do not merely spin reality, they outright lie.

And yet “the Russian thing” becomes more threatening by the day--for President Trump and for members of his family and his supporting cast.

Even Mr. Trump must now fear the truth in the German proverb: Lies have short legs…

Judging from some Republicans’ warnings, Trump would be ill advised to follow his urge to fire AG Sessions to clear the way for removing Special Prosecutor and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

That’s why there is reason to worry about Trump’s next possible steps to remove “the Russian thing” from media and public attention.

One sure way to put “the Russian thing” on the back burner would be a major foreign policy crisis—especially one involving military conflict. As we know all too well, in such crises both newsrooms and the public tend to rally around the flag and around the president.

That’s why Senator Lindsey Graham’s revelation that Mr. Trump contemplates military actions against North Korea is so worrisome. According to Newsweek, Graham said, "There will be a war with North Korea over their missile program if they continue to try to hit America with an ICBM. [Trump] has told me that. I believe him, and if I were China, I would believe him too."

Of course, North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities are major threats to many countries’ national security—including ours. Trump told Graham, “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here.”

First, then, this president makes clear that he does not care about foreign victims of war and second, he seems unaware that tens of thousands of U.S. troops are deployed near the border between the two Koreas.

With the diplomatic capabilities of the Department of State dangerously curtailed, key positions in the department and in missions overseas not filled, the prospects for skillful diplomacy are slim. Add to that an inexperienced Secretary of State who seems to be dodged by Trump’s son-in-law and others in the White House.

In Trump’s Reality Show Even the Generals Surrender

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Not enough that GOP leaders and foot soldiers in Congress, elected offices around the country, and so-called experts in think tanks continue to defend the indefensible in the Trump campaign, transition operation, and White House. What many observers described as the adults around Trump, cool-headed generals, have surrendered as well.

John Kelly, the Secretary of Homeland Security and H.R. McMaster, the National Security Adviser, went public this weekend with nonsensical excuses, even endorsements of Jared Kushner’s reported efforts during the transition period to use secret Russian communication means to communicate with Moscow’s decision makers. Since nothing happens in the Kremlin without Vladimir Putin, one has to assume that the communication the political novice Kushner had in mind was with his father-in-law’s most admired dictator Putin.

Come to think of, Kelly’s statement shouldn’t have surprised. Since taking over at the DHS the retired marine general has echoed or trumped Trump’s crazy ideas beginning with the need for The Wall to separating children from their parents in the most cruel enforcement policy against undocumented immigrants.

As for General McMaster, his impeccable credentials in the military took a hit earlier this month, when he refuted a Washington Post story that President Trump had revealed highly classified intelligence during his meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russia’s  Ambassador Kislyak by countering points that the Post had not made. Now add to this the General’s defense of a backchannel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin that Kushner tried to establish.

And then there is James Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, who spoke out in support of his boss’s shocking behavior at NATO headquarters in Brussels that threatens the seven decades old transatlantic defense arrangement between the U.S. and European allies. As Mattis explained, previous presidents, too, complained about European countries’ insufficient financial contributions to NATO. What the General conveniently omitted is the real reason for the rift in the alliance, namely, Trump’s refusal to endorse NATO’s mutual defense agreement as stated in Article 5. Coming on the heels of Trump’s campaign statement that NATO is obsolete, Secretary Mattis, who once commanded NATO’s Supreme Allied Command for Transformation, should know better than depicting Trump’s dangerous  reality show in Europe as merely business as usual.

Putin and his team are rejoicing. They wanted nothing more than a split in the transatlantic defense alliance. And now they got it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is right. Europe can no longer count on the America of Donald Trump as a dependable NATO ally.

As it turns out, the generals are not the voices of reason, not the adults in White House and administration.

Dictators Have a Fan in the White House

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is a despicable human rights violator whose anti-drug campaign has resulted in the death of thousands of alleged drug dealers and addicts who are killed without being arrested and tried. While human rights organizations have condemned Duterte, the Philippine’s ruler has a fan in the White House. As the New York Times reports today, in late April President Trump called his counterpart in Manila to congratulate him for the excellent job he does in solving his country’s drug problem.

According to the transcript of the exchange Trump told his idol, “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

I wished I could say that I was shocked when reading this latest revelation.  I was not. After all, Trump has made no secret of his admiration for the most autocratic rulers of our time—most of all, of course, Vladimir Putin. During last year’s campaign, Trump expressed his admiration for the Russian strongman repeatedly.

On one occasion, Trump stated, “I've already said he is very much of a leader. The man has very strong control over his country. You can say, 'Oh, isn’t that a terrible thing,' I mean, the man has very strong control over his country. Now it's a very different system, and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader."

Once in the White House, Trump did not shake German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s hand after their meeting. But he surely showed his high regard when welcoming Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Sisi. As Joshua Hammer wrote in the New York Review of Books, “Human rights groups in Egypt estimate that between 40,000 and 60,000 political prisoners, including both Muslim Brotherhood members and secular pro-democracy activists, now languish in the country’s jails. Twenty prisons have been built since Sisi took power.”

But human rights violations do not bother Mr. Trump. “We agree on so many things,” the President told Sisi when they met in the White House. Sisi, Trump told him, has done “a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt…You have a great friend and ally in the United States and in me!”

The First 10 Days: Who Pulls Strings in the Trump White House?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The first ten days of the Trump presidency gave enough reasons for alarm. Not merely because of President DJT’s continued bias in favor of alternative facts.

Clueless in matters of democratic governance and the truism that details matter in the implementation of executive orders and laws the president and his motley crew acted according to a reckless blueprint in unprecedented haste and thoughtlessness.

The ideological scheme guiding the new administration is the work of Steve Bannon, the former boss of Breitbart, one of the more influential among the far-right nationalist, nativist, and conspiracy theory promoting online organs.

During last year’s campaign, when Trump emerged as a serious presidential contender, some neo-Nazi voices expressed support for the reality show star with the caveat that as president Trump would only be a temporary front-man for the real national-socialist revolution under a bona fide leader of the cause.

For now, Trump’s chief strategist Bannon is foremost among those pulling the strings in the White House as he was in the decisive stretch of the presidential campaign.

He was the one who wrote the inauguration speech along with fellow hardliner and White House advisor Stephen Miller.

Bannon was—and is--the strongest advocate of Trump’s controversial executive order against Muslims that was enacted Friday night before relevant government agencies were informed of its full content and meaning. Not surprisingly, Bannon and Miller overruled Department of Homeland Security officials who did not want to include green card holders in the travel ban.

That the ban excludes Muslim majority countries whose citizens actually committed terrorism within America’s borders and/or have acute problems with terrorism today seems to suggest that the grey eminence in the White House does take his boss’s business interests into consideration, namely, in Turkey, the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Those countries, along with others, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, are not part of the ban. That much for principles in fighting terrorism at home…

I actually agree with President Trump that terrorists are evil. I disagree that we must be equally as evil—or more so—in order to defeat terrorism.  

Most troublesome among the dubious decisions in the opening days of Trump’s governance were changes in the operations of the National Security Council which is led by the conspiracy theorist and Islamophobia-in-chief Michael Flynn. While Steve Bannon will be a regular at Council meetings, the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will no longer attend all meetings but merely those falling into their responsibilities and expertise. What a scary state of affairs: Leading intelligence and military officials are no longer regulars leaving lots of room to maneuver for Flynn, formerly a paid contributor to Vladimir Putin’s RT propaganda network, and Bannon, like his boss an admirer of Putin and authoritarian rulers in general.

What's next?

P.S. According to Politico, Senator John McCain said today, “I am worried about the National Security Council. Who are the members of it and who are the permanent members? The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any National Security Council in history." 

Unfortunately, McCain praised Security Advisor Flynn although he is very critical of his pro-Russian stance.

Dick Cheney did Not Learn from Iraq Debacle, Wants Repeat

By Brigitte L. Nacos

It is difficult enough to listen to John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and others in the camp of perennial foreign policy hawks who have not seen a violent conflict or a perceived major threat abroad without demanding American military aid or military deployment. This was the case in the Libyan uprising against Gaddafi, the Syrian civil war, the conflict in the Ukraine, Iraq, again. And, of course, Iran!

It is more difficult to watch former Vice President Dick Cheney making the same case. He wants more of our military in Iraq, left more forces in Afghanistan, and, strangely, told ABC’s John Karl he “would definitely be helping the resistance up in Syria, in ISIS' backyard, with training and weapons and so forth, in order to be able to do a more effective job on that end of the party.”  Karl did not call him on that. ISIS is by far strongest force of the Syrian resistance against the Assad regime. How, then, would Cheney support the Syrian National Coalition and prevail?  

While out of the country I missed some of Cheney’s frequent media appearances. He has his lines remembered, repeats them at every stop. Especially when ask about the Iraq invasion. “I believed in it then. I look back on it now - it was absolutely the right thing to do.” That’s what he said the other day during a friendly “Playbook Lunch” hosted by Politico’s Mike Allen. That’s what he said when interviewed on ABC’s “This Week.” That’s what he had repeated elsewhere according to transcripts and reports I read today.

 “At this stage, you know I’m not spending a lot of time looking back 12 or 14 years at what was or wasn’t done then,” Cheney told the Daily Caller, “I’m concerned about the future. And about the threats were going to face and do face as a nation at this very moment.”

Sure, instead of pondering his starring role in past blunders, he rather criticizes President Obama for his measured foreign policy decisions, especially, as they relate to the Middle East and South Asia.

In the interview with Karl he said, “I don't intend any disrespect for the president, but I fundamentally disagree with him. I think he's dead wrong in terms of the course he's taken this nation and I think we're in for big trouble in the years ahead because of his refusal to recognize reality and because of his continual emphasis upon getting the U.S. basically to withdraw from that part of the world.”

Interestingly, just as Cheney has fundamental disagreements with the president, he has the same problem with fellow-Republican Rand Paul who actually agrees with Barack Obama on these foreign and security issues.

Bill O’Reilly: “There's got to be some downside to having a woman president.”

Transcript Excerpts with Comments by Brigitte L. Nacos

With Hillary Clinton the only woman in the discussed line-up for the 2016 presidential race, Bill O’Reilly put forth the argument that there must be a downside to having a woman president. In the following excerpts from the January 26^th “The O’Reilly Factor” program, I added my comments in brackets.  

 

O'REILLY: Last night on THE FACTOR Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said that she believes some Americans do not feel the USA is ready for a woman President -- very provocative. [And that from a woman who ran for president last time around! Ah, well, she did not lose because she is wacky but because Americans were not ready for a woman in the White House] Joining us from Washington is Kate Obenshain a Republican and Kirsten Powers is a Democrat and Fox News analyst.

O'REILLY: There's got to be some downside to having a woman president, right? Something -- something that may not fit with that office, correct? [It takes a male with a superiority complex to make such a statement. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a downside as head of Germany’s government?]

POWERS: I'm going to say no, Bill.

O'REILLY: So there is no downside to having a woman.

POWERS: Well just because you're female that would something -- let me ask you this. What's the downside of a man being president?

O'REILLY: Oh you've got three -- you've got three years? I mean look at the guys we've had in there since.

POWERS: That's because they are a man or it's because of the people that are in office.

O'REILLY: Look, men are men and women are women. There is a difference, Kate. There is a difference between the genders. [What a smart observation] Now men, they are tied up and a lot of them macho image and that kind of thing and they act like you are not going to push me around. That could be a deficit you know they are not as kind of open to sensitive discussion maybe as women. [Why would that be a deficit since you and your conservative brethren love sable rattling macho guys in Washington? Your guys are not sensitive and discuss, they act] There's got to be a downside for a woman. Do you know one?

KATE OBENSHAIN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, I'm having a tough time with this one, too Bill. I think it depends on the individual. Of course there is a downside to certain individual women, you know --

O'REILLY: But in general you both don't see any gender deficiency to lead the free world?

OBENSHAIN: I don't generalize all women or all men.

POWERS: Well I actually can think of something.

OBENSHAIN: Oh good.

POWERS: I mean if you can take -- if you can take your example of men being macho a woman might feel like she needs to act macho, for example, maybe feel like she had to take -- vote for say the Iraq war, I'm just going to say theoretically to make it look like she would be a tough leader when she was in office and that she is not afraid to use military force. [Are the female guests falling in line now?]

O'REILLY: That's what Hillary Clinton did. [Yeah—she is the real target of discussion]

O'REILLY: There haven't been that many strong women leaders throughout history. I mean we have Golda Meir.

O'REILLY: We have Margaret Thatcher.

POWERS: Both of them were very tough.

O'REILLY: We have a bunch, you know a bunch of people in American on the senate level and the Congress level. But you know, when you are President of the United States you've got it deal with people like Putin, Kate, you've got to deal with real ornery. There are the mullahs in Iran. [So, we forget about Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher since they did not have to deal with Putin and the mullahs in Iran—the toughest guys of all]

Take a Deep Breath and Think Before Making Missteps in the Ukrainian Crisis

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry told  Bob Schieffer of CBS News that Russia’s move into Crimea is “an incredible act of aggression. It is really a stunning, willful choice by President Putin to invade another country.” According to Kerry, Russia has violated Ukraine's sovereignty and several of its obligations under international agreements. "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext," he said.

I wondered: Did Kerry indeed say that in the 21^st century you are not invading another country on completely trumped up pretext? Yes, he did. Obviously Washington’s diplomat-in-chief chose not to remember the invasion of Iraq some 11 years ago that fell squarely into the 21^st century and was trumped up with bogus justifications.

I certainly do not applaud or justify Russia’s military move into the Crimean peninsula. But one cannot ignore that the European Union and NATO contributed a great deal to Vladimir Putin’s reaction, overreaction, to the violence accompanying the political crisis in the Ukraine.

By relentlessly pursuing their goal to bring the former Soviet republics into the fold of the European Union and NATO, the leading European players and Washington expanded their western alliance ever closer to the Russian Federation’s borders with the Ukraine as the latest domino at the verge of falling from the Russian-dominated to the western sphere.

Long part of Russia, in 1954 Moscow transferred Crimea to the Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. That symbolic administrative change came to haunt Russia after the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of former Soviet Republics. Russia has multiple interests in the Ukraine, most of all in transporting natural gas through Ukrainian pipelines, and in the Crimean peninsula, most of all as access to the Black Sea and site of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

When the clashes in Kiev and elsewhere unfolded, the U.S. and European governments were eagerly supporting the pro-EU side. I was stunned when a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State visited and encouraged pro-western protesters in Kiev and provided them with cookies. Just imagine the reaction here, if a Russian assistant foreign minister whipped up anti-war protesters before the Iraq invasion before TV cameras and microphones.