reflectivepundit

President Trump’s Rhetorical Support of Violence and the Mail-Bombs: Violent Words Result in Violent Deeds

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When President Donald Trump in the fashion of a populist demagogue celebrates a congressman who assaulted a reporter for asking a perfectly legitimate question;

When candidate Trump promised to pay legal fees for his fan boys who beat up protesters at his rallies;

When the President and his disciples call for jailing political opponents;  

When the Presidents calls opponents “evil,”

Nobody should be surprised that Trump and his GOP enablers in the Congress and other high offices incite and condone violence.

Yesterday, a pipe bomb was sent to financier George Soros who supports liberal causes. Today, there are reports of possible improvised explosive devices addressed to two other persons that Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked since he declared his candidacy for the highest office in the land: Ex-Secretary of State und former U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton and  Ex-President Barack Obama.

Given the President’s daily dose of lies, alternative facts, and post-truth statements combined with his attacks on Democrats/Liberals as an existential threat to the America he and his equally reactionary supporters want to recapture, nobody should be surprised when more consequential violence will follow.

Under President Trump the United States has become more and more like a banana republic.

The old children’s rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is simply wrong.

Rhetorical attacks on individuals or groups can and do result in great harm. Hate speech can and does encourage individuals and groups to resort to violent actions against the targets of violent rhetoric.

Take the example of Dylann Roof who in 2015 shot to death nine African-Americans at the end of a bible study meeting in a Charleston, S.C., church. In his online “manifesto” he described how posted words on White Supremacy web sites had awoken his racial awareness and convinced him to move from mere words of violence to actual deeds. Since others did not act, he wrote, he had to...

By declaring himself a “nationalist” the President spilled the beans. His ideology is the same as that of those alt-right ideologues, nativists, and racists that marched in Charlottesville. The President’s divisive propaganda at each of his campaign rallies emboldens the violent characters on the extreme right further.

Just think of the members of far right hate-group Proud Boys that brutally attack the political opposition and seem reminiscent of Hitler’s Brown Shirts and Mussolini’s Black Shirts.

What will happen on Election Day and thereafter?

Warning to Progressive Democrats: The Devil is in the Name

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When activists of the Netroots Nation met the other day in New Orleans  to discuss their strategies for the 2018 mid-term and the 2020 presidential elections, they heard from several potential presidential contenders of the Democratic Party—among them Senators Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren. But it was Cynthia Nixon, a challenger of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reelection bid from the left, who addressed the controversial “s” word for socialist.

Nixon appealed to the progressive crowd not to shy away from the “democratic socialist” label or their agenda. “Republicans call us socialists no matter what,” she said.

The problem is, however, that the devil is in the name. And the “s” word for socialist does not sit well with Democrats and Independents either. While most Americans would be hard pressed to define the term, there is no love lost when it comes to socialism that tends to be equated with communism.

So, progressive leaders from Bernie Sanders to Cynthia Nixon and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and progressive activists everywhere drop the label “socialism” and replace it with a more benign and actually more fitting “s” word --social.  

Call yourself Social Democrats, call your agenda social, call your distinct partisan wing “Social Democrats of America” (different from your current name Democratic Socialists of America).

Your agenda is social—health care and education for all, living wages, environmental protection, human rights for asylum seekers and immigrants, and so much more of what you find in Western Europe’s comparable democracies. Most, if not all of what Progressives here fight for has long been adopted in EU countries—most of all a social safety net for everyone.

So, again, the devil is in the name. Keep the letter “s” but change the word to social!

The Damning Facts that Drive Trump’s Lies and the Hope for Truthtellers

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The facts are clear: Russian operatives controlled by Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential elections with the intent to help Donald Trump to become president. The highest U.S. intelligence officials, all appointees of this president, and the U.S. Senate’s intelligence committee controlled by a GOP chair and majority, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller agree on this.

Today, Putin admitted that he wanted Trump to win while, not surprisingly, denying any wrongdoing.

Even as he stood next to Russia’s authoritarian leader President Trump attacked the facts, repeated the lies he tweets day-in and day-out, and attacked alleged foes at home, while his actual words and body language showered admiration on the autocrat he obviously fears.

In her essay “Truth and Politics” Hannah Arendt wrote that “truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other.” Still, in spite of her claim that lies are in the tool box of most, if not all politicians, she was aware of the danger of lies trumping facts. Thus, she wrote, “The chances of factual truth surviving the onslaught of power are very slim indeed…”

That’s what Americans are faced with today: Will the truth or will lies prevail?

As the Mueller investigation moves ever closer to Trump’s campaign crew and perhaps his family, as the indictments multiply and the trial of Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort nears, the president fights the truth with lies. In her philosophical essay Arendt wrote, “Unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornness that nothing can move except plain lies.”

Will President Trump manage to replace the unwelcome truth with lies?

What happened today in Helsinki was even in Trump’s dreadful playbook a new low for any president and worse yet than his bullying of NATO, the EU, and the British Prime Minister last week. The horror show was not an assurance of the Trumpian “America First” promise but rather a declaration of love to Putin and “Russia First.”  

Yet, just like Trump declared the meetings in Brussels and the United Kingdom as historical success stories, he already praised himself for his success he achieved in Helsinki “for the American people.”

Will his advisers, will Republicans in Congress, will his appointees in the intelligence community continue to support this president as they did after each of his many outrageous missteps in the past?

Or will one truthteller or a group of truthtellers finally step forth and confront the liar-in-chief and the community of his enablers and supporters in the White House, in the administration, in the Congress, in states, cities, and counties with the facts, the truth?

Hannah Arendt wrote, “Where everybody lies about everything of importance, the truthteller…in the unlikely event that he survives, he has made a start toward changing the world.”

We can only hope and pray for such truthtellers and their survival. Otherwise, God help America as we love it.

The News about Sexual Assault and the Elephant in the Room: President Trump

By Brigitte L. Nacos

For weeks now the shocking news of sexual assault and misconduct by prominent males has been the leading story in news and social media. Women, so the narrative has it, finally dare to speak out publicly and going in droves on record with sickening revelations of unwanted sexual encounters of varying degrees.

As the defiant wife of Roy Moore, Alabama’s GOP candidate for a U.S. Senate seat, noted the other day, nobody talks about Russia anymore, thanks to the fake news of her husband’s alleged sexual misbehavior with very young girls—one merely 14-year old.

She was right. And for that nobody can be more thankful than Donald Trump.

To begin with, Special Prosecutor Mueller’s investigation is closing in on the Trump campaign’s and White House’s inner circles, including family members. It must be a relief to see “the Russia thing” on the backburner of media, elite, and public agenda.

The daily reports about women’s accusations against more prominent men also overshadow by far news about the full content and most unjust consequences of the planned congressional tax reform. It is therefore not surprising that public opinion changed of late from overwhelming rejection to a plurality in favor of tax legislation that is designed to benefit the most wealthy individuals and corporation at the expense of middle and lower classes.

And just in time for Thanksgiving, President Trump returned Mr. Moore’s favor by endorsing him and not precluding his campaigning for the accused. Asked about Moore, Trump told reporters,

“He says it didn’t happen. You have to listen to him, also.”

“I do have to say, 40 years is a long time. He’s run eight races, and this has never come up. So, 40 years is a long time.”

I wonder why anyone can be surprised that Trump defends Moore. After all, Moore is now in the same boat as Trump was during last year’s campaign, when more than a dozen women accused him of the sexual misbehavior. Today, a report in the Washington Post describes the shocking revelations of 13 of these women. Trump threatened to sue them but never did.   

Like Trump then, Moore now denies any wrong-doing and attacks the victims accusing them of lying, of being tools of political opponents.  

In spite of all the talk about female victims of sexual harassment and attack finally being heard and finally being believed, the elephant in the room is the occupant of the Oval Office. He certainly does not believe women accusing him and Moore or probably any other Republican.

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!”

Crooked Hillary or Crooked Donald?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Imagine for a moment that Hillary Clinton had agreed to an interview on Russia’s state-owned RT television during last year’s presidential campaign and praised Vladimir Putin frequently as exemplary leader.

Imagine furthermore that as president-elect she had chosen as Secretary of State a man who received the Russian “Order of Friendship” award from Putin and that she appointed as National Security Advisor a conspiracy theorist who dined with the Russian president and appeared frequently on his RT propaganda arm.  

Surely, Donald Trump and his supporters would have condemned Mrs. Clinton beyond their constant attacks on “crooked Hillary” as a clear and present danger in the highest office in the land and world.

But although Mr. Trump did all of the above—from his high praise for Putin to his appearance on RT and his selection of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor--, Republican leaders,his rank-and-file supporters, and his FOX News propagandists seem to find nothing wrong with his affinity for Mr. Putin and a host of other authoritarian rulers.

During the campaign Trump warned again and again of a “rigged election” and left no doubt that the Democrats were out to cheat.

Ironically, there is ample evidence of efforts to rig the election in favor of Trump by Russian hackers on behalf of Vladimir Putin and with the assistance of Julian Assange, the shady WikiLeaks operator, who released hacked material drip-by-drip during the general campaign.

While the Kremlin celebrated, the next president of the United States condemned our country’s intelligence community for its audacity to trace the hacking to the Russian adversary praising Assange and Putin instead.

And The Donald gets away with it!

As a Trump voter in Louisiana told a reporter in response to a question about Russian involvement in the election, “If that’s what it took, I’m glad they did it.”

Yes, John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, presided last week over a revealing hearing on the hacking incidents (note that neither the mainstream media nor Democrats call it what it is—a scandal!).

But even Republican hawks walk on egg shells in order not to link Russian espionage to the outcome of the election in fear of Trump’s wrath.

His lashing out at the intelligence community was in defense of the legitimacy of his victory on November 8^th and thus the legitimacy of his presidency.

In this new age of “post-truth” Mr. Trump has convinced his followers that he won the election in a landslide (he did not), that he actually won the popular vote (although Mrs. Clinton got nation-wide close to three million votes more than he), and that his presidency is legitimate--never mind Russian hacking.

History, however, will record the troublesome outside meddling just as it documented the dubious Supreme Court decision that handed George W. Bush the presidency 16 years ago.  

Trump Won: What Now?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Unlike some of my colleagues at Columbia University and other places of higher education I did not cancel my seminar on media in American politics yesterday, the day after Election Day. Instead, although tired from a long night without or with little sleep, my students and I discussed the outcome of the presidential race which for many was not merely a shocking surprise and nightmare but greatly upsetting as well.

We talked about the fears in immigrant communities, the anxieties among women, the apprehension s in LGBT circles, the distress of veterans still in reserve units and suddenly perceiving a growing threat to be once again activated, and the tears of millions faced with the loss of health insurance.  

Some students felt that they, their families, or communities were directly threatened and disadvantaged in the coming Trump presidency based on the president-elect’s dark and divisive and vengeful demagoguery during debates and stump speeches. It was of little comfort that Republicans will have the majority on both congressional chambers and might not merely fill Anthony Scalia’s empty seat in the next four years.    

But we also talked about the values and rules of the game in democracies, especially the American model, that stipulate a peaceful transfer of power however deplorable and dangerous the incoming leader and his circle might be considered by those on the losing and soon out of power side. We agreed on this.

We talked about the ability and responsibility of citizens and voters in democracies to participate in the political process—not merely in terms of voting—and that this is particularly important for young people. Such an engagement is the only chance to have an impact on the selection of future candidates, politics and policies.  

We discussed the need for citizens to be informed about the whole spectrum of political views—not merely those one agrees with—and how difficult this is based on the proliferation of traditional and new online media. Given the uncivil debates of this year’s presidential race, we recognized the need for civility and mutual respect in discussions that include opinions of “the other side.”

To be sure, there were concerns about an incoming president with a core of supporters of the Ku Klux Klan, White Supremacy organizations and nativist online sites, and Neo-Nazis—all the more because Trump’s campaign included top people sharing these views. What if they move with the new president to Washington, into the White House?

But we also recognized that Mr. Trump won rust belt states not because he received the votes of bigoted people. Instead, in states like Ohio or Pennsylvania he got the votes of many rural or small town voters who were—and are fed up with Republican and Democratic Party politics and decision making. Many voted for Barack Obama in the two previous elections. They live in areas devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs that once allowed them a comfortable middle class life but were never replaced by other good job opportunities.

Trump did not win as a Republican candidate; he won because he attacked both party elites and sold himself as an agent of change. He won because he acknowledged the predicament of the predominantly white rust belters and similarly situated people elsewhere, and he promised them a better future.

Preview of Coming Clinton-Trump Debates: The Perennial Gender Bias against Female Candidates in the Media

By Brigitte L. Nacos

I have no idea how NBC news honchos selected those audience members who questioned Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their separate appearances before veterans on Wednesday night. But at the end of the town hall-style event it was clear that the chosen ones had hurled far tougher questions and accusatory statements at Mrs. Clinton than at Mr. Trump.

Moderator Matt Lauer, too, pressed Hillary Clinton hard--especially on the so-called email-issues and what they might tell us about her judgement and competence; he interrupted her repeatedly instead of allowing her to address important policy issues.

Lauer was not at all as tough in questioning Donald Trump who was not once interrupted by the moderator. Even when the GOP candidate repeated his bold-faced lies about his alleged opposition to the Iraq invasion and the military action again Libya’s ruler Muammar Gaddafi, Lauer did not interrupt and contradict Trump.

Thus, neither certain audience members nor Lauer had problems talking tough to Mrs. Clinton and being softer on Mr. Trump.

It seems that they might have feared Trump’s wrath while expecting no such reaction from Clinton.

After all, male politicians can act tough and bully challengers and get away with it without consequences, whereas the same actions by female politicians will result in accusations that they are shrill and emotional and unfit for public office.

Mrs. Clinton and other women in politics know the rules of this game.

What unfolded at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum showed once again that in the 21^st century many Americans continue to have gender biases that are deeply seated in our culture and their reflection in news and entertainment media.

It was particularly telling that on the problem of sexual assaults on female members of the military Trump stood by his 2013 tweet that made the integration of women into the military responsible for these assaults. Ah, blame the victims. Yet, Lauer who had no calms to go after Clinton let this go unchallenged as well-- in spite of Trump’s pitiful record of degrading women.

This man who wants to be president and commander-in-chief once told a reporter of New York magazine that as far as women are concerned, “You have to treat’em like shit.” The chairman of his campaign, Stephen Bannon, was accused by his now ex-wife of beating her, and his close advisor Roger Aisles was fired as Fox News boss because he was accused of sexual harassment by a number of female anchors and reporters.

When it comes to questioning male and female candidates for the highest office in the land, there should not be a double standard in questioning qualifications, character, and values. But this double standard was obvious the other night on board the Intrepid.

Brexit Vote and Populist Failings There and Here

By Brigitte L. Nacos

This weekend, as I was leaving Dublin, the Irish Times’s only front page story was an excellent commentary by Fintan O’Toole  titled “Brexit fantasy is about to come crashing down.” Here are the opening paragraphs of O’Toole’s dissection of the equally surprising as shocking referendum result and its likely consequences:

“Did you ever see a slightly drunk man trying that trick with the tablecloth? He thinks he can whip the cloth off the table with a fast, clean snap, but leave all the crockery perfectly intact. He gives a sharp tug and stands back with a triumphant flourish as the plates and glasses come flying to the ground and shatter all around him.

That’s what Brexit is like. Those who have driven it have successfully pulled the cloth off the table – the underlying fabric of modern Britain has been whipped away with a shocking suddenness.

They stand in triumph, sure that they have pulled off the trick of removing a whole layer of political reality without disturbing all the family tableware. They have yet to notice that so much that was on the table is now at their feet, broken, perhaps irreparably.”

In the Brexit case the imaginary trick that O’Toole describes was not performed by drunkards but by opportunistic populists whose major appeals were not based on fact and truth. The public perceptions they strove for were that an EU exit would mean quick fixes for all the ills in the U.K.--most importantly, a stop of the transfer of huge sums of U.K. taxpayers’ money to Brussels and of the flow of foreigners onto the British isle.

One English woman interviewed by a TV reporter lauded the vote as a return to “normalcy” and to “things like they used to be.”

Ah, well. It took merely hours or days for some leaders of the Exit movement to admit explicitly or implicitly that nothing would change in the near future or perhaps not at all.

As Steven Castle reports in today’s New York Times, the most prominent Brexit populists Boris Johnson, the former London mayor, and Nigel Farage, leader of the far right Independence Party, along with others began to backpedal on their campaign promises that were all along based on misinformation.

The Brexit advocates expected to lose the referendum and win political capital among the divided conservative camp. As their underhanded tricks become increasingly exposed, they are in a pickle. As Castle put it, “Having now ousted Prime Minister David Cameron, they [the Exit leaders] face a political vacuum, with their base demanding that promises be kept. Mr. Johnson, the front-runner to replace Mr. Cameron, has not made any further pronouncements since a subdued statement on Friday that was restricted to generalities. If he does become prime minister, Mr. Johnson will face the task of carrying out a British withdrawal without provoking a backlash from those who believed campaign slogans or sentiments that he certainly appeared to endorse.”

In praising the Brexit decision and comparing its core demands to the fuzzy agenda behind his “Taking Back America” slogan Donald Trump will continue to copy the metaphorical table cloth trick of his British soulmates—regardless of the consequences.

Trump and Perennial Propaganda Schemes

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Don’t underestimate Donald Trump. He is a natural when it comes to reading his audiences—whether in the world of business or politics. But I would be surprised if he hadn’t read some of the literature on manipulating others and the shaping of public opinion.

Day-in and day-out Trump manages his propaganda scheme as skillfully as the “father of public relations” Edward Bernays prescribed in his writings and acted upon in his public relations projects beginning in the 1920s.

Whether dealing with the promotion of consumer goods, policies, or leaders, for Bernays the “engineer of consent [or call it populist or propagandist] must create news. News is not an inanimate thing. It is the overt act that makes news, and news in turn shapes the attitudes and actions of people.”

Writing about the rise of Public Relations in the 1920s and 1930s  Stuart Ewen noted, “If news had once been understood as something out there, waiting to be covered, now it was seen as product to be manufactured, something designed and transmitted to bring about a visceral public response.”

In this presidential campaign nobody else comes even close to manufacturing visceral news as successfully as Trump. After all, today social media allow everybody to self-mass communicate.

A huge part of Trump’s propaganda success is simply the mainstream media’s eagerness to report whatever he tweets out to friend and foe. If it were not for the mainstream media that he attacks constantly to the delight of his supporters, most people wouldn’t know what The Donald spreads via his twitter account.

The other day, Jim Rutenberg wrote in the New York Times,

It’s time to stop calling Donald J. Trump’s presidential operation “the Trump campaign.” It would be far more accurate to call it “Trump Productions Inc.” But as Rutenberg correctly noted, Trump is “star, show runner and chief content officer” of an operation providing “multiple running plotlines (War With Megyn Kelly; Peace With Megyn Kelly!), shocking comments (A federal judge can’t be fair to me because he’s of Mexican heritage!) and personal insults (Hillary belongs in jail; that reporter is a sleaze!) that keep Americans glued to their screens.”

It does not matter to Trump that the Democratic and Republican establishment as well as pundits condemn his outrageous statements as long as his targeted audience understands and appreciates his words and what they signal.