Once again I will observc that I have never seen politics shift this fast. Asked yesterday whether Giuliani would be indicted, Trump said "I hope not" which is one small step from "He was with me for only a short time." It is now a certainty that Trump will be impeached, and although McConnell has all but promised a fifteen minute Senate trial [hardly enough time for Chief Justice Roberts to hustle over from the Supreme Court to preside], I wonder how much more the winds will shift before the House actually takes its vote.
Rudy says the two shifty characters nabbed at the airport with one-way tickets are his clients. I hope he kept receipts of their payments for legal counsel. By the way, you may have missed the fact, dropped in the midst of yesterday's confusion, that there was a third passenger ticketed for that flight to Vienna: Giuliani!
As you can tell, I am a trifle giddy.
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The ground is shifting and maybe the dump truck just unloaded a ton of evidence, the kind people can understand quite easily. The indictment of the two arrested yesterday tells a story of Russian National #1 wiring at least $1,000,000 to the account of a front corporation for distribution to U.S politician' campaign committees or PACs, including $325,000 to Trump's Make America Great Again PAC (Committee -1), $15,000 to Committee-2, $20,000 to a sitting congressman (Congressman-1)who had received $3 million from Committee-1. The goal was to get Congressman-1 to help cause the removal of the Ukrainian Ambassador, a request make by certain Ukraine government officials. Congressman -1 wrote a letter requesting the Ambassador's removal.
As we know the Ambassador was removed (and is testifying today against the wishes of the administration), and the ludicrous scheme was in play. Trump implicated himself with the evidence he provided - the phone transcript. Today we learn that Trump administration officials removed civil service staff in the White House who objected to withholding the authorized and approved funds for the Ukraine. Besides Giuliani, the State Department is up to their necks in this, and not just Pompeo, but also Sondland (an Ambassador), and several other high ranking officials. Not to mention White House lawyers who had the phone transcripts moved to the secure server, and, more to come.
I'll bet you another dump truck load of incriminating evidence is on the way!
And speaking of shifting ground, there are at least 35 Republican congresspersons whose district recorded significant gains in the democratic share of the vote in 2018, gains of a magnitude that they have to be worried they could loose in 2020 if the blue wave continues. They have to evaluate their options with an eye on how their district will perform in 2020. The news for them is all bad. They will have to think long and hard on this.
I am reminded of a some lines in a Van Morrison song called "Days Like This. "When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch, well my mama told me there'll be days like this....when all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit, then I must remember there'll be days like this..."
This is obviously an earthquake for all of us who follow your blog and for the media all of us read (my main news source for U.S. news is The Guardian) or watch, but is it an earthquake for hardcore Trump supporters or for Republican senators? I don't know, but I sense that we don't all inhabit the same planet any more, and hardcore Trump supporters and Republican senators may not be at all shaken in their faith in or their support for the hideous gangster in the White House whom we detest.
wrt s. wallerstein's "I sense that we don't all inhabit the same planet," there's a longish, sometimes acrimonious discussion of this very topic at
http://crookedtimber.org/2019/10/04/why-partisans-look-at-the-same-planet-and-see-wildly-different-curvature/#comment-765273
With regards to what I say above about not inhabiting the same planet with Trump supporters, I recall Nixon and Watergate. That was very different. I believe that Nixon and I had basically the same set of moral and social rules in our heads: he was willing to break or violate some that I would not have broken or violated and to be frank, I've broken a few which he never broke or would have broken. In fact, I sense that Nixon and I could have sat down and argued over whether my life or his life was more ethical: he was a lawyer and I bet that he could have come up with some good, although specious, justifications of his life. So how Nixon behaved during the Watergate scandal was fairly predictable for me.
Now I have absolutely no idea what rules Trump has in his head, but I'm fairly sure they are not those which I have. I can't imagine arguing with Trump about whether his life is more or less ethical than mine and I doubt that he would have the least interest in justifying his life to me. Therefore, how he will behave in the current scandal is very difficult for me to predict. He has his fans and how they will be behave is also very difficult for me to predict.
S Wallerstein
Trump is an emotionally disturbed and charismatic (to some) adventurer and grifter celebrity who by historical accident became President.
We have to remind ourselves that he is behaving as he always has if not according to his nature. It might be disconcerting but he is incapable of even pretending to act 'presidential' in any conventional and reasonable sense of the word
This is where "lesser of two evils" gets us. Nixon is somehow redeemable, because (in fact) he was smart. Trump, on the other hand, is a loser. I can't fathom how anybody reaches this point.
I wager the "rules" in Trump's feeble brain are precisely the same as those we all abide by (or not). He is not some sort of special monster. He is our American monster.
One of Trump's rare virtues is, precisely, that he doesn't act "presidential." Obama acted "presidential." That is, he acted.
BTW, I had been wondering why Pelosi didn't call for a House Resolution on the impeachment inquiry as was the case with Nixon's impeachment inquiry. Here's the answer:
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/08/politics/nancy-pelosi-letter-impeachment/index.html
Attorney client relation is not predicated on payment, but whether the client reasonably believes the attorney is his/her/its attorney, at the relevant time, assuming no disavowals of representation by the putative client. Client could still be wrong, based on the circumstances. In any event, it is the client who matters, not the attorney.
Dean,
The U.S. has become a much much more diverse society since Nixon's day, which has its obvious positive side, but I don't believe that there is an Amerikan set of rules of in everyone's head now as there was in Nixon's time. What's more, much of what was repressed or hidden in Nixon's day has come out of the closet, which also has its positive side, but there are some very ugly aspects of the human psyche which Trump and his supporters feel free (the key word is "free") to evince which Nixon would have repressed even in his dreams.
By the way, Trump isn't stupid. There are lots of kinds of intelligence, as we've learned since Nixon's day, and the kind of intelligence which Trump has, that of a conman, has served him well. Don't underestimate him.
Dear Dean and S wallerstein
You are fishing in the wrong waters to figure out Trump. He is causus sui. You'd probably have to go back to Caligula. Nixon never acted like "The State it is me," in quite the same way as Trump, Do you think Nixon would tweet insults at his rivals at 5 in the morning? Would he pull out of Syria just like that? The list can go on and on
True, the Republican masses eat him up; but the question of why it is advantageous for Trump to act in so uncivilized a manner and placing Trump in history, both American and recent, are two separate questions.
Trump is severely mentally disturbed and when someone is that disturbed it becomes the overriding factor and is the chief variable
What I'm saying, Dean and S Wallerstein, is that while Nixon was a little paranoid and a little immoral and a little grandiose, he was functional; Trump is not reality testing well and is not functional.
There is a name for that: insane.
If you prefer the word 'mad' I'd go with that.
When someone is insane it overrides all other considerations.
He needs help and we all need help
MAGA:
Make
Attorneys
Get
Attorneys
Howard,
Figuring out Trump is easy. Erich Fromm developed the concept of malignant narcissism in the early 1960's. Trump is pathologically or malignantly narcissistic - it's all about maintaining his ego, which is very fragile as he has few effective defense mechanisms. One aspect of his narcissism is he grandiosity. He wants us to know that he is the only person who can solve our problems, as he said in his nomination acceptance speech. He wants us to know he has the biggest brain, is a stable genius and knows the biggest and best words. When he announced he was running, he famously descended the elevator alone. Melania was several steps ahead of him. Were Barack and Michelle to be filmed riding an escalator they would have been together, holding hands, and demonstrating mutual affection.
What he says is completely controlled by what he thinks he needs to say at that moment in order to come across in the best light. He has no concept of the truth, just what works best for him at the moment. Since it is all about him, he has no empathy and can be categorized as a sociopath. He has no concern about what harm may come to others by his actions. He also has a sadistic dimension in that he enjoys causing pain to others. When he insults Black women by calling them low I.Q. he isn't just being a racist. He wants his insults to hurt.
Trump is sui generis in the sense that there has never been, I don't think, a malignant narcissist elected president until now. The thing to watch for now is just how crazy he gets as his presidency is threatened. His defense mechanisms are weak and under the pressure of likely impeachment, investigations of his business, exposing his actual wealth, he will decompensate, as it is called. It just means he will get crazier and crazier as the pressure gets worse and his defense mechanisms fail him
It's true that our society is more diverse; my "we all" was mistakenly presumptuous, even bigoted. But clearly, no POTUS other than Obama has emerged out of that diversity, yet look what that got us. Sure, Obama would be our beer drinking companion of choice among recent POTUSs, but I doubt that's because he so instructively embodies diversity or shows us an alternative set of rules by which presidents should behave from here on in.
I continue to believe that Trump's major sin, the primary factor that sets our teeth on edge, is the embarrassment he causes us by being such a hair-trigger goofball (narcissist sociopath). If George W. Bush were effecting the same policies or exhibiting the same political behavior -- gutting of the EPA, splintering families of immigrants, alternately wooing and dismissing loony-tune dictators -- we'd grumble about his ability to lead without our feeling so threatened by his knucklehead social graces.
Wasn't it Nixon who said, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal"? That's not full Louis XIV (assuming he said it), but it comes mighty close.
Dean:
My point is that diversity is a two edged sword. Yes, we get Obama, who by 1950's standards is diversity personified, but we also get Trump, who is a narcissist sociopath as you say, that is, weird in a way that does not fit with 1950's standards of a leader either. Trump is as far from Eisenhower as Obama is, maybe further actually, but in a completely different direction.
Christopher M.,
Excellent outline of Trump's personality.
Christopher:
That sounds reasonable. I'd add that except for exerting his power and protecting himself and his ego, he is very out of touch.
He's probably more functional than I gave credit, but it is spotty and limited.
He is poor at reality testing, perhaps because he sees reflections of himself everywhere on display
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