The GOP’s Anti-American Animus

Trump is the culmination of 40 years of sabotage.

I suppose we should give the president a round of applause. Donald Trump has done something no Democrat (and no liberal) could have done -- demonstrate to a voting majority the anti-American animus of the “conservative” project of the last 40 years. “Anti-American” might sound strange. This is, after all, the same president who vowed in 2016 to ...
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The GOP’s Anti-American Animus

The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longer View

Decades of bad policies brought us to this point: we need to reckon with that as a nation

The highest priority is to get through the current crisis. But then we must think about what went wrong and how to forestall future crises like this. The ideas include reversing President Trump‘s decision to dismantle the federal pandemic response team, supersizing our public health corps, improving our capacity to ...
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The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longer View

Meatpacking Plants and the Defense Production Act

Past Present, Episode 227

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: President Trump has used the Defense Production Act to order meatpacking plants to stay open, even as these factories have become hotspots for coronavirus infection. Niki commented on how Upton Sinclair’s classic novel, The Jungle, exposed the horrible ...
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Mitch McConnell’s Betrayal of Democracy

McConnell is happy to let a pandemic weaken and impoverish his political rivals

Nearly 50,000 Americans have died in the last five weeks from COVID-19, the disease caused by a new strain of the coronavirus. The death toll would almost certainly be higher had not good-faith governors (both Democrats and Republicans) taken aggressive measures to force people to isolate or distance themselves from ...
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Mitch McConnell’s Betrayal of Democracy

Don’t Personalize Donald Trump’s Response to Covid-19

It’s classic neoliberalism — with a Schmittian face

“When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s gotta be. It’s total.” President Donald Trump, April 13, 2020 Carl Schmitt, Germany’s most influential authoritarian jurist, has long played a major role in political and legal debates around the world. Because of ...
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Don’t Personalize Donald Trump’s Response to Covid-19

“There Go the People….”

By endorsing protesters who demand that states reopen, Donald Trump reveals himself as a leader of a movement, not a party or a nation

There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader. No one could be further from Donald Trump in either ideology or personal biography than Ledru-Rollin, who was the grandson of Nicolas Philippe Ledru, a well-known quack doctor under the Old Regime.  But the celebrated quote attributed to the radical French ...
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“There Go the People….”

Donald Trump’s Former Book Agent Comes Clean

UTA’s Byrd Leavell calls Caroline Calloway “unwell” and regrets his association with the President

Leavell is a literary agent, currently at United Talent Agency (UTA), one of Hollywood’s most powerful agencies, representing artists and other professionals in the entertainment industry. Based in Beverly Hills, it has divisions focused on film, television, digital, video games, and music, in addition to books. As the agency’s mission statement puts it, “We help ...
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Donald Trump’s Former Book Agent Comes Clean

Donald Trump Advocates the Overthrow of (State) Governments

Is Republican populism approaching its Thermidor moment?

“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” The media has been on fire ever since. A president advocating a violent overthrow of three states with Democratic governors is unprecedented and quite possibly illegal—Mary McCord, acting US assistant attorney general for national security from 2016-2017 ...
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Donald Trump Advocates the Overthrow of (State) Governments

Donald Trump Has Been in Politics for Decades

As a new book by Andrea Bernstein details, creating a 20th-century real estate empire demanded it

As early as 1987, rumor had it that Donald Trump was considering a presidential bid. In October 1987, as both parties began to assemble the 1988 field, Trump took a trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where a crowd bearing “Trump for President” signs greeted him. He decided not to run ...
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Donald Trump Has Been in Politics for Decades

Borders in the Time of COVID-19

What the pandemic reveals about the regulation of mobility

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of the significance of borders. While much attention has been paid to debates surrounding Donald Trump’s campaign promise to build an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall,” the current crisis reveals that governments seeking to restrict mobility rely only partly (and increasingly rarely) ...
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Borders in the Time of COVID-19

Steve Bannon and the Struggle for America’s Post-Pandemic Soul

Why populist-nationalist movements detest international cooperation

But however grave Bannon’s crimes, to write him off back then—to assume he would never again be a significant force within Trumpism—would have been to underestimate his resourcefulness and determination. A pandemic is a time of opportunity as well as tragedy, and Bannon is seizing the moment. And the way ...
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Steve Bannon and the Struggle for America’s Post-Pandemic Soul

Can Donald Trump Adjourn Congress?

The Constitution says no, but judges appointed in the last three years might say yes

There is no such disagreement between the House of Representatives and the Senate; they have agreed to end the session on January 3, 2021. Trump is unhappy because members of Congress have left Washington due to the pandemic, and the Houses are staying open through “pro forma” sessions. These sessions consist ...
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Can Donald Trump Adjourn Congress?