Thursday, October 12, 2017
GENUINELY SCARY
It is manifestly clear, I think, that the House
will never impeach Trump and, were they to do so, the Senate as it is now
constituted could never find the 67 senators required to remove from office. The 25th Amendment [of which Trump
was apparently unaware] will not be invoked save in extremis. But the latest
reports from the White House [which leaks not like a sieve but like a water
main] suggest that Trump is becoming so seriously unstable that he may actually
have a certifiable breakdown requiring hospitalization. The up side of this is that we would be relieved
of a man capable of launching nuclear weapons on a whim. The down side is that this is a man who, on the
way to a breakdown, might launch nuclear weapons on a whim. We are in very, very dangerous territory
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In 1974, when Nixon was at his most paranoid and was drinking heavily, it is reported that Secretary of Defense Richard Schlesinger quietly--and wholly illegally--arranged that any emergency orders from the POTUS should be routed through his (Schlesinger's) office. He thought in this way he might head off WWIII.
I don't doubt that Secretary of Defense Mattis knows this. I have no idea whether Trump does. That's slim comfort, but it's what we have until/unless Mike Pence initiates a 25th Amendment maneuver and Tillerson/Mattis shepherd it through the Cabinet. The Congress will eventually realize that Pence--who is an actual Republican--will advance their agenda better than Trump who is not. He defeated the RNC and its candidates as surely as he defeated the DNC and Hillary in 2016.
Completely off topic:
What do you think of Marx's "On the Jewish Question"?
I was in the metro today and I noticed a young woman reading On the Jewish Question, it being very unusual for someone to read philosophy in a crowded metro train. I stared at her so hard that out of nowhere she commented: it's very interesting. All I could reply is: you should read Sartre's Reflection on the Jewish Question.
When I got home, I began to read Marx's work and I was appalled. I've been called a "self-hating Jew", but for the first time in my life I felt like applying that category to another Jew, Marx. Even if his description of the Jews as being totally mercenary was true in his day, wasn't he capable of seeing how being ghettoized and being forbidden to own land and to develop productive activities might lead Jews to value money over other values? Wasn't he capable of realizing that perhaps the only means that the Jews had to give the finger to their gentile oppressors was to flaunt their wealth?
The book does not speak well of Marx.
Professor Wolff,
I ask this in all sincerity and as someone who tends to agree with your politics: Why are you confident in the truth of the various reports coming out about Trump? Not just the truth of the specific claims, but also the truth of the contexts in which certain quotes are presented.
Thanks.
Vince
To Vince: For several reasons. First, they come from all over the political spectrum, from people with quite varied and even opposed political axes to grind [to butcher a metaphor]. Second, because by now I have watched Trump in various public contexts for what is surely hundreds if not thousands of hours, and the leaked reports and insider accounts are quite consistent with what I have seen myself. Third, because the accounts come from not just the last ten months but from the last ten or twenty years, and they all reveal the same man. Finally, because many of the insider accounts, although vehemently denied by Trump and his associates, predict future event s [firings, resignations, etc] that then actually come to pass. What is not to believe?
To S Wallerstein
I you think Marx is bad in this respect, try Wittgenstein (Culture and Value)!
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