"If anything seemed to unite the sartorial choices the first lady made, at least during the day, it was a certain rigidity of line, monochrome palette and militaristic mien."

"She favored sharp power shoulders, single-breasted jackets with wide cinched belts and big square buckles, straight skirts and a lot of buttons. Mostly buttoned up.... For what battle, exactly, is she preparing? Theories have been floated: her husband’s critics; the prying eyes of the outside world; even her own marriage. Maybe it’s the much vaunted revolution the president was fond of saying he led; maybe she, too, is fighting for his agenda. Or maybe it’s just a signal that she is prepared to take her place on the home front."

That's from "Melania Trump on Display, Dressed in Ambivalence and Armor," by Vanessa Friedman in the NYT, trying to understand why Melania Trump wore what she wore on the big foreign trip. (Nice 14-photo slide show at the link.)

By the way, was Trump fond of saying he led a "revolution"? I blogged the whole campaign, meticulously inspecting the rhetoric, and when I search my archive for Trump and revolution, all the references I see to revolution are connected to Bernie Sanders, except where I myself am saying but isn't what Trump is doing a revolution? And I see that when Trump won the New Hampshire primary, he walked out on stage to the tune of "Revolution."

Googling, I see that Trump used the word "revolution" right after the 2012 election. He tweeted: "He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!" But I don't think "revolution" was his word in 2016.

Please correct me if I'm missing references to "revolution" by Trump in 2016, but I think "the much vaunted revolution the president was fond of saying he led" is off.

As for Friedman's opinion of Melania, it reminded me of Robin Givhan's piece the other day, saying that Melania was dressed for "control and containment." Givhan didn't say "armor," but I used the word in my reaction to Givhan:

I'm not sure where the "control and containment" is supposed to be — maybe in the constricting leather skirt or maybe it's something she's extracting from the President who scampers at her heel — but from the waist up, I'm seeing a more freewheeling style, an eschewing of a fully controlled structure. I'm not criticizing this choice, I'm just saying this isn't the Jackie Kennedy choice of clothing as armor, but a stretchy sweater over something less than the most rigid undergarments. I see an amusing combo of loose and tight.

I was talking about one particular outfit, which you can see at that last link. Friedman, as noted above, has 14 photos of things Melania wore. Some of them indeed have a squared-off look with tight cinching that could be called rigid and militaristic, but other things were loose and flowing, including and especially #5, which was worn during the day. I guess whatever isn't "armor" gets tossed into the "ambivalence" pile, especially that $51,000 flower-encrusted coat she's wearing over her shoulders in photo 14.

"Why Can Cruz Speak Without Endorsing Trump, But Bernie Had to Endorse Clinton?"

"Why did Bernie have to endorse Clinton if Cruz didn’t have to endorse Trump?"

With so much acrimony between Cruz and Trump, why did Cruz get a primetime spot at the RNC at all?... [S]ome wonder if maybe Trump gave Cruz the primetime spot just to try to embarrass him....

It was never known exactly why Bernie Sanders chose to endorse Hillary Clinton before the Democratic National Convention....  One of the big rumors that was circulating was that Sanders had to endorse Clinton so he could get a speaking spot and so his progressive ideals could be included in the Democratic platform. Articles like this one led Bernie supporters to erroneously believe it was a requirement for him to get into the Convention....

If Cruz is any indication, it’s possible that Sanders might have still gotten a speaking slot even if he didn’t endorse Clinton... What we do know is that we’re seeing two very different outcomes from similar starting points. Cruz chose to not endorse Trump, risking a platform slot and possibly risking taking votes away from Trump. And now he’s dealing with the fallout of speaking at the RNC without an endorsement and getting booed during his speech. Meanwhile, Sanders chose to make the endorsement so he could further his progressive platform, but it’s not known what will happen during his speech next week....

Theories:

1. The question isn't so much about how similar Sanders and Cruz but how similar Clinton and Trump are. Clinton was always the candidate of her party's establishment, and Sanders challenged from the outside. But Trump blew away the establishment. Sanders only had to accept the predictable mainstream candidate of his party while maintaining some pride that he'd fought the good fight, his failed revolution. Cruz would need to accept a revolution. Cruz would be in the same position as Sanders if Jeb had won the nomination. It's quite another matter to accept your party's nominee when that guy just crushed the party.

2. Sanders was always a much more agreeable guy. He started off not even wanting to attack Clinton, throwing away the email question as if it wasn't worth anything. It's almost as if he were helping her all along, providing some theater to keep folks interested. Cruz was trying to carry out his own transformation of the party. He wanted to be what Trump ultimately was. He was leading his own revolution and the other guy's revolution succeeded. What happens next? From Trump's point of view, it was perhaps very important to fasten down the loose cannon.

"The threat to democracy — indeed, the existential threat to democracy — is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime, tenured civil servants..."

"... who believe they answer to no one, who believe they can do whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for. So, Americans vote for radical FBI reform, and FBI agents say they don’t want to change. Or Americans vote for radical reform in our energy policies, but EPA bureaucrats say they don’t want to change. Or Americans vote to end DEI — racist DEI policies, and lawyers in the Department of Justice say they don’t want to change. What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people."

Said Stephen Miller, at yesterday's press briefing.

Want to see a murder?

Libs in the White House press corps screamed at Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that Elon Musk is “unelected!”

What happens next is a fatality.

I promise you - this is the single best video on the internet today:pic.twitter.com/Nxcw0qTtj1

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 20, 2025

ADDED: In the same vein, here's Victor Davis Hanson:

 

Having carefully read Trump's Mount Rushmore speech and analyzed it line by line, I will now look at the mainstream media headlines.

Go to the previous post for my untainted assessment of the speech. I will now see what's being said:

The front page of the Washington Post has "Ahead of July 4, Trump exploits racial, social divisions/In a dark speech at the foot of Mount Rushmore's monument, President Trump focused on what he described as a 'left-wing cultural revolution' that aims to rewrite U.S. history and erase its heritage" — reworded at the article page as "At Mount Rushmore, Trump exploits social divisions, warns of ‘left-wing cultural revolution’ in dark speech ahead of Independence Day."

Oh, it's a "dark speech." It was full of optimism and painted the beautiful version of American history, but what the Washington Post saw is darkness. But it certainly did attack the left — for its dark vision. The article brings that out, giving the most highlighted position to this quote from Trump:

"The radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice. But in truth, it would demolish both justice and society. It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance and turn our free society into a place of repression, domination and exclusion. They want to silence us, but we will not be silenced."

The New York Times has "Trump Uses Mount Rushmore Speech to Deliver Divisive Culture War Message/Down in the polls and failing to control a raging pandemic, the president cast himself as waging battle against a 'new far-left fascism' that imperils American values and seeks to erase history." The speech is full of material that can be used to make the argument that Trump was pulling Americans together, but he was calling on us to reject the destructive message that he ascribed to the far left. The left is very conspicuously "waging battle" against American values, so it's not as though Trump is starting it. He's fighting back. Whether he's fighting for America — as he says — or because he's "down in the polls and failing to control a raging pandemic" is a matter of opinion.

The quote the NYT puts in the most highlighted position is:

"Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.”

The CNN headline is "Trump tries to drag America backward on a very different July 4th." He's "stirring fear of cultural change." The highlighted quote is "merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children."

NPR has "Trump Flouts Virus Rules, Warns Of 'New Far-Left Fascism' In Speech Ahead Of July 4th." One way to spin the speech is to downplay the text and stress the disease risk in holding an event at all. Like CNN, NPR highlights "merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children."

Politico has "Trump seeks to claim the mantle of history in fiery Mount Rushmore address/The president’s speech, part of a July 4 weekend celebration, comes after weeks of protests against racism and police brutality that have forced broader discussions over America's monuments." What's most interesting about that is that it's not a big headline on the front page. In fact, it's squirreled away under the much larger headline, "Yes, Biden is thrashing Trump. But he could still blow it/Biden’s polling lead over Trump is significant, though not unprecedented." I'm going to interpret this to mean that Political saw an effective speech and is afraid and seeing an immediate need to boost Biden. The Biden article is long, and it's not about any news, just speculation about what could go wrong:

Biden might say the wrong thing at a debate, or have an awkward moment in an interview or at a press conference.... Biden’s campaign might make poor decisions about spending allocations in the battleground states.... It is possible that Trump before November will announce a coronavirus vaccine.... And it is possible that the economy will improve....

Oh, heavens, no! Not a coronavirus vaccine and an improved economy! The double whammy!!

Asked to explain why he "end[ed] racial sensitivity training" in federal agencies, Trump should have been able to state clearly what Critical Race Theory is.

At the debate last night — transcript — Chris Wallace led by equating "racial sensitivity training" and "critical race theory" and tossed in "systemic racism":

This month, your administration directed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity training that addresses white privilege or critical race theory. Why did you decide to do that, to end racial sensitivity training? And do you believe that there is systemic racism in this country, sir?

Trump began well:

I ended it because it’s racist. 

But he should have said clearly why he regards it as racist! Why would "racial sensitivity training" be racist? I know the argument, but not everyone does, and whether we know it or not, Trump should have capsulized the reason for regarding the kind of training that's been going on as racist. What he said next was:

I ended it because a lot of people were complaining that they were asked to do things that were absolutely insane. 

What things?! It's just a weird assertion, "things that were absolutely insane."

"Is the Democrat message pure Jacobin hatred for anything pro-American and anything that could be considered pro-President Donald Trump?"

"They’re feral creatures now, lonely, isolated, frightened without leadership, desperate for relevance, without any cogent message, terrified at what’s to become of them."

Writes John Kass, at his own website, in "Democrats Locked in Their Own Hell."

I'm also seeing "Why Democrats Are Losing My Generation/Hint: It’s not because they didn’t go on Joe Rogan" by Joshua A. Cohen (at The Nation): "[P]ut yourself in the perspective of a voter my age; e.g., someone born in the early 2000s. When we grew up, the Democratic Party was defined by a charismatic leader who oversaw a growing economy and ended his term with strong approval ratings. When we came of age, we came to know a Republican Party defined by an unpopular, flailing Trump whose weak leadership defined the most traumatic period of our lives (the pandemic). We had never known a popular Republican president or an unpopular Democratic one. But when Biden’s administration burst into flames...."

And here's Victor Davis Hanson, in "Trump’s Democratic 'Allies'/Democrats’ obsessive Trump hatred blinds them to their own unpopularity, making his counter-revolution seem inevitable—and even normal" (American Greatness):

Elizabeth Warren tweets Donald Trump "makes death threats because he's a pathetic coward who can't handle the fact that he's losing to a girl."

.@realDonaldTrump makes death threats because he's a pathetic coward who can’t handle the fact that he’s losing to a girl.

— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) August 9, 2016

I hate what Trump said. It was bad. He shouldn't have said it, and he should find some way to undo the damage and to stop blurting out things that occur to him on the fly, things that might be interpreted as a call to any sort of violence. If he can't control that tendency, how could he possibly serve as President?

But I want to talk about Elizabeth Warren's tweet. It has 4 aspects worth talking about: 1. The characterization of Trump's statement as a "death threat," 2. The assertion that Trump is "a pathetic coward," 3. Warren's use of the word "girl" to refer to Hillary, and 4. The assertion that Trump is motivated by a threat to his masculinity.

1. What Trump said was: "Hillary wants to abolish — essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know." That's not literally a threat. I know Warren was tweeting and that pushes people to compress language, but if you're going to criticize other people's blunt speech and crude language, you shouldn't do the same thing yourself. Trump said that the Supreme Court can change the interpretation of the Second Amendment (which it could easily do, switching to what had been the dissenting Justices' position, finding no individual right to bear arms) and then there would be "nothing" you could do. That was a reason to vote for him. Let him appoint the Justices. If Hillary gets the appointment power, it will be too late. At that point, Trump seems to have observed — as one might do in casual conversation — that "nothing" is not strictly true. There is something. It wouldn't be to assassinate Hillary Clinton. The way I heard it, before reading anyone else's opinion, was as a reference to the right of revolution, which is why some "Second Amendment people" think the government should not be able to disarm them. I don't think it's even talking about killing Hillary Clinton. But it is bad, nonetheless, because it floats an idea of violence that some deranged person might process into a call for assassination. If Elizabeth Warren wants to call that a "death threat," then she's using cruder language than Trump used, and she's adding energy to assassination ideation. The problem is delusional people who hear things and get ideas. Don't touch them off. If you believe that, act like you believe it!

2. What is the basis for calling Trump "a pathetic coward"? He's got a lot of nerve. That's why there's so much problem with him. Why did Warren use these words? The only idea I can come up with — connecting it to the next phrase — is that she wants to take a nasty swipe at his masculinity and "pathetic" and "coward" seem well-suited to that purpose.

3. Meade called this tweet to my attention, asking how Warren could get away with using the word "girl." Is this some female privilege — she can say "girl" but a man can't? I think that what's going on is that Warren is purporting to read Trump's mind, so it's not her saying "girl." That's what's in there in his mind. He's the one denigrating Hillary, thinking of her as a girl. Or: He's reliving a childhood psychodrama, in which boys feel humiliated if they can't even beat a girl. Warren uses vivid speech that's fascinatingly similar to Trump's. She blurts out the language of a childhood taunt: Hah! You're losing to a girl! And she seems to think she can talk like the playground bully because it's not really her speaking, it's just her doing the voice of somebody else, somebody who hurt little Donald many years ago and who still lives inside his head, taunting him after all these decades.

4. I think Trump believes he's doing damned well. He had to fight through 16 Republicans to get the nomination. He had to defeat his party's establishment, just like Bernie Sanders tried to fight his party's establishment. Does Bernie feel humiliated for "losing to a girl"? That "girl" had her party's whole establishment pushing her along. She's promoted and held aloft by a former President of the United States. I think Trump feels he's in a valiant battle and it's still going on, not that he's losing. He hates losing, he loves to tell us, but his style is to keep trying to win, not to succumb to low self esteem and view himself as a loser. But even if he were upset about losing, I doubt if it would be about the fact that Hillary is female, that any decent man should be able to beat any female. Why does Warren think she can ascribe such thoughts to him? I don't think she's correctly reading Trump's mind, but I also don't think she believes she is. I think she's trying to stir up excitement for Hillary, and the most exciting thing about this candidate few voters actually like as an individual, is that she's a woman. Warren encourages us to focus on the excitement of the first woman President. Don't pay attention to the individual, Hillary. Think of voting for a woman. And think of voting against that terrible man, Donald Trump, who is fighting a woman — not because she's his political opponent in the election — but because he's a man, with screwed up man-thoughts, and she's a woman, so he needs to destroy her. Plunge into the psychodrama, people!

"Please, Democrats, don’t tell me you need Sanders’s big, ill-thought-through, revolutionary grand schemes to get inspired and mobilized for this election."

"You want a revolution? I’ll give you a revolution: four more years of Donald Trump, unencumbered by the need to get re-elected. That will be a revolution!...  [You can win] by not only talking about how to redivide the pie — which we need to do — but by also talking about how to grow the pie, how to create more taxpayers and how to inspire more innovators. Ours is a capitalist country.... I was glad to see candidates with this kind of message, like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, trending better in Iowa and New Hampshire.... But there is one candidate on the Democratic side who not only has a track record of supporting all those issues but also has the resources to build a machine big enough to take on the Trump machine...  This candidate is not cuddly.... He’s made mistakes, especially around stop-and-frisk policing in New York City.... His mistakes, though, have to be weighed against a record of courageously speaking out and devoting enormous personal resources to virtually every progressive cause — gun control, abortion rights, climate change, Planned Parenthood, education reform for predominantly minority schools, affordable housing, income inequality and tax reform.... In an age when political extremists go all the way, and moderates tend to just go away, Bloomberg has the right stuff — a moderate progressive with a heart of gold but the toughness of a rattlesnake...."

From "Paging Michael Bloomberg/Democrats need to nominate the right person to prevent Trump from winning a second term" by Thomas L. Friedman (NYT).

I wonder how Democratic and independent moderates who have watched Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg fight their way to the front, with endless travel and events and debate, will feel about shunting them aside and embracing the latecomer who's using his vast wealth to barge to the front without all that trouble. I myself am a moderate independent, but I'm not as upset with Trump as the Democrats continually tell me I should be.

There was a big attack on Bloomberg yesterday, with the release of audio recordings of his harsh talk about the need to stop and frisk young black men. I keep hearing questioning whether black people will vote for Pete Buttigieg, but what's the word on whether black people will vote for Bloomberg? The Daily Beast has "Black Voters Turn to Mike Bloomberg/His belated and convenient stop-and-frisk mea culpa might be good enough for voters concerned with beating Trump, and protecting the fraught gains of the past half-century" by Christina Greer (a polisci professor who specializes in "black ethnic politics").

I have spoken to three black NYC political operatives who are quietly thinking about joining the campaign, which is gaining momentum, hiring nationwide, and paying top dollar. These aren’t mercenaries but self-defined pragmatic progressives who believe Bloomberg has the best chance at an electoral victory against Trump in November. I have spoken to a friend who says his black fraternity’s message boards—full of college-educated black men of diverse financial backgrounds, in various professional sectors, living in towns and cities across the country—are full of favorable talk about Bloomberg....

Black voters are strategic voters.... Candidates like Bernie Sanders propose blowing up the ship, but it is black voters who built the ship, as wayward as it may be. Joe Biden presented a more moderate vision... but his promise that he can beat Trump has been sorely tested by the struggles of his campaign so far. Other moderates, like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, are viewed as out of touch by many black voters...

I'm struck to see the phrase "like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg" in this column because it was also in the Friedman column, and I almost took the trouble to make fun of it when I saw it the first time. Obviously, the column writers don't mean candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. They mean Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. It's sloppy writing, but when I see it twice, in such similar columns, I feel as though the writers are working off the same talking points memo.

"Lindsey Graham, who says that Trump is a 'handful,' a word usually leveled at spirited women, is going to Mar-a-Lago this weekend to golf with his sovereign lord..."

"... and try to explain the importance of the 2022 midterms to Trump’s legacy. But Trump doesn’t give a damn, except how he can use the midterms for revenge or self-promotion.... By coddling Trump on his election fakery, the Republicans gave it so much oxygen, it led to tragedy. Trump, the supreme ingrate, wasn’t grateful for McConnell’s nay vote. He promptly composed a masterpiece of spleen, a statement threatening to primary Mitch’s candidates and calling him 'a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack' who lacks political wisdom, skill and personality.... Ted Cruz’s truckling may be the most jarring, given Trump’s attacks on Cruz’s wife and father in the 2016 campaign. But I’ve always said the story of Washington should be titled 'Smart People Doing Dumb Things.' Cruz wouldn’t even study with people from what he called 'minor Ivies' while at Harvard Law School but didn’t think twice before leaving Texans starving, freezing and dying to go catch some rays in Cancun and then blaming his daughters. We’ll see if Trump can sustain this king-in-exile routine without the infrastructure he once had. Consider his asinine election challenge with all those crazy lawyers. Ever the shrew, all he has left now is his forked tongue."

From "The Tale of the Untamable Shrew/Republicans are still trying to muzzle a smack-talking Trump" by Maureen Dowd (NYT). 

1. Dowd is comparing Trump to Kate, the shrew in Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." As I've said more than once, there is something womanly about Trump. And there are times when the way people react to Trump is like the way they react to an untamed woman. Dowd talks a lot about "Shrew" but also wanders all over the place and never really explores the hypothesis that Trump's wildness is something like a nasty woman. Why do we feel this deep need to control him? What does it say about those who think that he did not belong in our serious, well-established institutions and that he spoke with shocking directness and exhibited self-dramatizing emotion?

2. Here's a whole Wikipedia article on the "nasty woman" meme that originated in the 2016 campaign.

3. Is it true that the word "handful" is usually leveled at spirited women? I'd guess it's mostly used about children — a nice way to say the kid is hard to manage. If you say it about an adult, you are loading in the concept that you are into manipulation. Both "manage" and "manipulate" are built from the Lain word for "hand" ("manus"). If you think an adult is a "handful," maybe you ought to consider why you're putting your hands on her/him.

4. Let's take a closer look at the last sentence of the column: "Ever the shrew, all he has left now is his forked tongue." I see 2 ways to go with this:

a. Metaphor screw up. A forked tongue is characteristic of some reptiles, notably snakes. A shrew is a small mole-like mammal.  If you don't mean to refer to the animal, but only to the extremely irritating person, then don't bring up an animal characteristic like "forked tongue." Sharp tongue would be fine.

b. Microaggression alert. Are we still using "forked tongue" to refer to lying?! I would have thought it was relegated long ago to the dustbin of potential microaggressions. Background from Wikipedia: "This phrase was... adopted by Americans around the time of the Revolution, and may be found in abundant references from the early 19th century — often reporting on American officers who sought to convince the tribal leaders with whom they negotiated that they 'spoke with a straight and not with a forked tongue' (as for example, President Andrew Jackson told the Creek Nation in 1829). According to one 1859 account, the native proverb that the 'white man spoke with a forked tongue' originated as a result of the French tactic of the 1690s, in their war with the Iroquois, of inviting their enemies to attend a Peace Conference, only to be slaughtered or captured."

We can infer that Kanye West, Russell Simmons, and Sean Combs declined to talk to the NYT about Donald Trump.

I'm reading "Circling the Square of President Trump’s Relationship With Race" in today's NYT.

First, let me get this out of the way. What's with "Circling the Square"? The standard expression, referring to an ancient geometry problem, is "squaring the circle." That's a used as a metaphor for something you just can't do. I'm seeing "Circling the Square" as a book title, referring to the Egyptian Revolution, where there were demonstrations in a square — Tahrir Square. The title seems to be a play on the the old expression "squaring the circle." In this NYT article, however, there's no square to form the basis of a play on the old expression. I think it's just a weird mistake.

Now, let's get to the meat of this article. It seems apparent that the NYT set out to find out if there's any evidence that Trump is a racist. Read the article. They found strong evidence that he is absolutely not any sort of a racist. The headline ought to come out and celebrate his excellent record.

The article begins with Kara Young, a "biracial" model who went out with Trump for 2 years and says “I never heard him say a disparaging comment towards any race of people." (Young, like Barack Obama, had one black parent and one white parent.) The only seemingly negative thing the NYT got out of her was that he noticed the high number of black people in the crowd at the U.S. Open when Venus and Serena Williams were playing.

But this is what really struck me:

Beyond dating a biracial woman, [Trump] made outsize efforts to hang out publicly with African-American celebrities: the boxing promoter Don King, the hip-hop impresarios Kanye West, Russell Simmons and Sean Combs, and celebrities as big as Muhammad Ali, James Brown and Michael Jackson.

Kanye West, Russell Simmons, and Sean Combs are all still alive. Do they not take phone calls from the New York Times? I've got to assume they were called and they all refused to talk. I'm going to guess that they all would give a good report but won't speak because they'd be savaged economically if they spoke well of Trump. But they don't have to speak. The inference is so strong that the silence is enough.

But let's see what these men may have said about Trump elsewhere. Here's something from 2 days ago: "Kanye West deletes all tweets defending Trump meeting." The tweets were from last December, and the deletions happened this past Sunday or Monday.

Russell Simmons has an open letter to Trump, published just this afternoon in The Daily News (perhaps in response to his name coming up in the NYT article). He talks about "the Donald I called friend... the Donald I know," who had great relationships with black and Jewish people, and asks "Where is he now? I have to believe he is still in there, somewhere." He implores Trump to change and "begin to feed the light":

The racist, bigoted movements you are feeding now are gaining power by your words, actions and refusal to hold people accountable for the destruction they are causing in your name....

Scripture tells us the Donald I knew — or an even greater Donald — is still there inside you, sleeping. It is time to wake him the f--- up.

As for Sean Combs, it seems that the last relevant thing we've heard from him was back in June, when he said that black people "don’t really give a fuck about Trump, because we're in the same fucked-up position... The tomfoolery that’s going on in D.C., that’s just regular everyday business to black folks."

“We’re turning CNN and all that shit off because we’re trying to get ourselves together,” he said. “That’s what I’m about. I’m like, ‘Turn that shit off, let them deal with all that shit. We gotta start dealing with us.’ So my thing is, I gotta keep showing the dream. I gotta keep magnifying that and keep it focused on that self-love that we need to give our race.”

I guess we’re watching the Democratic Party candidates’ debate.

Not promising I’ll have anything to say, but here’s a place to talk about it.

And my son John is live-blogging it here.

7:07 — Oh, no! A gun! Tim Ryan doesn't have his hand over his heart for the National Anthem. Great rendition of the song.

7:11 — Amy and Liz are wearing red jackets (Liz's is brighter and longer), and Marianne is in an all-black suit. The men are, of course, all in dark suits, but Buttigieg is distinguished with a somewhat lighter blue-colored suit.

7:14 — Opening statements, what a bore! Bullock — he gets stuff done. He says people "can't wait for revolution" — that's ambiguous! Marianne Williamson rails against an "amoral economic system" which has become "a false god." John Delaney is against "impossible promises" that "will get Trump reelected." Tim Ryan has a top-of-the-head/bottom-of-the-head-disproportion... and not in the right direction. Hickenlooper shares progressive values but is "a little more pragmatic." Who's clearing their throat into the mike while Hickenlooper is talking?! Amy Klobuchar has "had it with the racist attacks" (not sure if she means the attacks from Trump or on Trump). Beto O'Rourke wants to stand up against "a lawless President." Buttigieg says "our country is running out of time." What's that thing on his face? Elizabeth Warren says Trump is a "disgrace" but he's just part of a "rigged system" that "kicks dirt" at... oh, is that what happened to Buttigieg's face? Bernie Sanders is pissed at Amazon. His upper lip is Nixonizing.

7:26 — The first question goes to Bernie Sanders and lets him plug in his health-care proposal. Dull! He's pitted against Delaney, who's criticized Sanders's plan. "Why do we gotta be the party that's taking something away from people?" Warren breaks in. Her theme tonight seems to be about how the Democrats really all want the same thing. She insists on telling an anecdote about a "cute little boy." It's all out of control! Jake Tapper breaks in to tame her: Are you for Medicare for all? She brushes it off to get back to her anecdote — "I want to get back to Addie" — and the crowd laughs. She chides, "It's not funny." We are scolded, scolded for expecting her to answer the question asked.

7:34 — The health-care issue is too complicated to discuss in this agitated, rushed way. It's making me ill. So much yelling and stress. I'm tuning out on this issue. I don't think it works well in a debate, not with all these contestants and tight time limits and permitting candidates to break in and go overtime. It's incredibly irritating.

7:45 — A lot of concern about union members losing the private health insurance benefits in the move to Medicare for all. Delaney explains how health care will decline under that plan — it's a matter of simple arithmetic — and Sanders accuses him of profiteering off private insurance. It seems like a wild slur. Sanders gets so mad and turns bright red. It's so off-putting!

7:51 — They're talking about immigration. Sanders just assured us we would have "strong border protections," but most of the talk is about "de-criminalizing" crossing the border. Bullock was sounding a bit like Trump and then he said the whole problem was Trump. I'm hearing a lot of emotion and railing against Trump, but the substance is a jumble. No one is standing out. Maybe Buttigieg, just for staying calm.

7:58 — Guns. I don't think any of this is new. How much longer is this debate? Another hour.

8:06 — Bullock brags about "gettin' the Koch brothers out of Montana." That doesn't sound right to me! Singling out particular private citizens and driving them out of your state?

8:11 — Is Bernie Sanders too far left to beat Trump? Tapper asks Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper doesn't give a clear "yes" and there's such a barrage of words that I have no idea what he said. He's not defining himself, so he is losing. There is some cute byplay when Hickenlooper says Sanders just throws his hands up and Sanders does the throwing-the-hands-up gesture and Hickenlooper does it back at him.

8:17 — Elizabeth Warren is "not afraid" and she thinks Democrats win when they figure out what they believe in and fight for it. Delaney says something pragmatic and she smashes him with: "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for President of the United States just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for." That’s the quote of the night.

8:24 — Amy Klobuchar is invited to say who is making promises just to get elected. She declines to attack anyone individually... other than, of course, Trump. But now that I think about it, no one is landing any serious attack on Trump. It's a given, often repeated, that Trump must be defeated, but I'm not hearing anything memorable undermining Trump.

8:33 — Climate change. I got distracted looking into what that necklace is that Williamson's wearing....

https://t.co/boLEfmyQQB pic.twitter.com/FCQsYlNVAj

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) July 31, 2019

8:37 — I'm checking out Twitter. Interesting that some of the candidates are tweeting during the debate. In other words, the illusion that they tweet their own tweets is ruined.

8:40 — I don't know what Marianne Williamson was just saying, but it was very exciting and I kinda got chills.

8:47 — Drudge has a "who's winning?" poll. I thought a second, then voted for Williamson. Turns out she has 43% of the vote. That's way out in front. Delaney is next, with only 10%. Not scientific, but weird.

8:58 — May the yelling end soon. I am weary....

9:28 — I thought this would end at 9, and I’ve basically treated it as over since then. I am kind of listening, but... whoa! Marianne!!! Okay, I checked back in for that radical psychic energy, and now I’m back out again.

9:39 — That thing is now gone from Pete Buttigieg’s face. I wonder what it was?

The "perfectly symbiotic relationship between the Trumpian right and the illiberal left."

"The energy they draw by organizing against the radical target on the opposite end allows them to rally people who would ordinarily be hesitant to endorse them," explains Jonathan Chait.

Chait points to this report by Benjy Sarlin: "How an army of pro-Donald Trump trolls are taking over Reddit." Excerpt:

Longtime users said Trump taps into an anti-PC counterculture within Reddit that feasts on spreading offensive material... and then reveling in the response. Certain corners of Reddit have long served as an assembly line for posts mocking “SJWs,” slang for “social justice warriors,” whom they view as a humorless cabal of left-wing oppressors. It just took the right users to recognize the crossover appeal with Trump.

In interviews with MSNBC, r/The_Donald’s moderators declined to provide their real names, but credited the subreddit’s rapid growth to CisWhiteMaelstrom, who took the lead promoting it earlier this year after messaging its creators with a master plan....

I can't summarize Sarlin's explanation of what CisWhiteMaelstrom did and the interplay with the mechanisms and mentalities of Reddit. As Chait puts it:

... CisWhiteMaelstrom identified opposition to political correctness as an issue he could use to broaden Trump’s appeal. By provoking opponents to protest against his right to express himself, he attracted to his side people who were not originally inclined to support the substance of his opinion. The point is not that pro-Trump Redditors were actual victims of repression (there’s no reason to believe they were) or that there is anything attractive about their beliefs or their methods....

[Some] people like the idea of rebelliousness and standing up against censorship, and the more convincingly any movement can depict itself as the victim of censorship, the more successfully it will recruit those attracted to this form of rebellion. In the 1950s, McCarthyist repression lent American communists the allure of the forbidden. Rather than being seen as pawns of a murderous dictatorship, communist sympathizers acquired the glamour of rebellious independent thought, and pride of place on the front lines of a cultural struggle on behalf of Americans aghast at McCarthy.

So I guess the lesson is: If you don't like Trump, stop repressing his supporters.

That calls to mind this passage from Justice Douglas's opinion in Dennis v. United States, which we happened to be reading in my conlaw2 class yesterday:

Communists in this country have never made a respectable or serious showing in any election. I would doubt that there is a village, let alone a city or county or state, which the Communists could carry. Communism in the world scene is no bogeyman; but Communism as a political faction or party in this country plainly is. Communism has been so thoroughly exposed in this country that it has been crippled as a political force. Free speech has destroyed it as an effective political party. It is inconceivable that those who went up and down this country preaching the doctrine of revolution which petitioners espouse would have any success. In days of trouble and confusion, when bread lines were long, when the unemployed walked the streets, when people were starving, the advocates of a short-cut by revolution might have a chance to gain adherents. But today there are no such conditions. The country is not in despair; the people know Soviet Communism; the doctrine of Soviet revolution is exposed in all of its ugliness, and the American people want none of it.

Douglas was dissenting, the year was 1951, and the repression Chait calls glamorizing was just gearing up.

"You think you’re woke but you’re sleepwalking through a nightmare" — slogan for the Time to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution National Tour.

"I’m with the Time to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution National Tour. We’re touring all across the country to organize thousands into the ranks of the revolution," said "a teenage-looking boy" in the "Free Speech Zone" near a Trump fundraiser in Beverly Hills.

Quoted in "'No Celebrities': Embarrassing Turnout at Trump’s Beverly Hills Fundraiser" in The Daily Beast.

I wonder, who was embarrassed? Was it the people at The Daily Beast imagining that Trump ought to be embarrassed? He doesn't seem like a guy who gets embarrassed. Especially about the lack of "celebrities." Isn't it embarrassing that Democratic Party candidates get all the celebrities?

Here's an article from late November 2016 in Vanity Fair, "Did Celebrity Endorsements Contribute to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Upset?/The divide in celebrity endorsements between candidates was as large as ever in the 2016 presidential election—and the candidate with the most lost":

The gulf between celebrity endorsements on the Democratic versus Republican side is stark during every election, but this year, the rift seemed infinite. Hillary Clinton had Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and even Lebron James. #ImWithHer hashtags decorated social output from Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez, the Kardashians, and Rihanna, as well as YouTube stars like Tyler Oakley. Clinton carried far and away the majority of celebrity seals of approval....

Many of the celebrity P.S.A.s this year leaned into the idea that no one wants to hear about politics from a Grammy/Oscar/Emmy winner. Lena Dunham’s parody of the earnest P.S.A., “Sensual Pantsuit Anthem,” tried to promote Hillary Clinton and voting through an attempted self-aware rap....

[Trump] removes middleman when it comes to endorsements. Instead of the transitive property of Katy Perry (“I’m a Katy Perry fan; Katy Perry is a Hillary Clinton fan; I’m a Hillary Clinton fan"), there’s the much simpler “I’m a Trump fan” equation, for better or worse.

Trump is his own celebrity. Is that better or worse than having other people to be your celebrities? Please, before answering, watch this video, which came out a few days before the 2016 election.



And come on, let's talk about what's embarrassing!

You think you’re woke but you’re sleepwalking through a nightmare...

ADDED: When the system tries to bring you down, listen to this, which was the actual soundtrack to this post, here at Meadhouse:

I scan the French election headlines.

1. Simon Heffer in the U.K. Telegraph writes under a headline that seems internally contradictory: "France is resigned — Marine Le Pen may win." So there's this collective entity, "France," and it's having an election, which is a means of choosing what it wants. What's to be "resigned" about, if it's getting what it wants? I can't read the whole column because I don't have "premium" access, so I'm forced to guess. It could mean that the "France" that matters — the elite, the good people — don't want Le Pen, but this other France that doesn't deserve to be called "France" is choosing her. But it might mean that the run-off style of choosing ensures that Le Pen will get through to Round 2 and her opponent will not present an adequate not-Pen choice, so she might win even though she's opposed by a solid majority. It could be kind of like the way Trump won, jazzing up about a third of the electorate, then only having to beat an opponent who was, at best, uninspiring.

2. Kenneth Rapoza in Forbes, "In France, If Le Pen Cracks 30% 'She Could Win It All.'"

"I'm not ready to make a call yet on a Le Pen victory," says Vladimir Signorelli, founder of Brettonwoods Research in Long Valley, NJ. Brettonwoods correctly called the Trump win. "I've been telling my clients that if she gets over 30% of the vote on Sunday, she has a good chance to win it all. She will make it to the second round and when she does, all she needs is roughly a third of the remaining votes from the other candidates who didn't make it," says Signorelli.

Scandal-plagued Republican candidate, Francois Fillon, is rising in the ranks at the last minute with around 19% today. Melenchon has about the same percentage. There are more similarities with Fillon and Melenchon to Le Pen than there [are] to Macron. This does not bode well for Macron....

Brettonwoods Research also suspects a 3% to 4% under-representation of support for Le Pen in the polls, based on past polls that just missed Brexit and Trump....

3. Andrew O'Hehir at Salon, "Democracy’s dyin’, who’s got the will? What France’s election tells us about the state of modern discontent/With the left facing disarray and defeat amid a new age of revolution, it's time to ask: Is democracy over?" This is a phenomenon I've been following since the Wisconsin protests. (The side that had just lost the election laid siege to the state capitol building and chanted "This is what democracy looks like.") What makes left-wingers think that when they lose, there's no democracy? There seems to be a delusion that they embody the people, so the actual voting by people is a failure of democracy if the stupid people bumble into voting for the right. I'm just riffing on the headline. Is that what O'Hehir says? He writes: "I see a bunch of people on both sides of the Atlantic desperately trying to pretend that democracy isn’t broken and may yet yield an acceptable and/or 'progressive' outcome." Ha! I think I'm right!

4. Unnamed writer at Fox News, "France election: Marine Le Pen sees Trump-like boost in support, but victory far from assured." What's the "boost" and why is it like Trump? Trump didn't get a terrorist attack on the eve of the election. What's Fox News blabbering about? This is the kind of incoherence you get when you want to use multiple ideas and don't have a way or don't take the trouble to weave it together. I suspect Fox News of being committed to throwing Trump into the story because they think it's too hard for American readers to care about France unless it's about us, and they say one thing and then another and don't think the readers will notice if the statements don't make sense together. Maybe they think it will be good because it's "Trump-like." Isn't that the way Trump does those speeches some people like so much?

5. Nikita Vladimirov at The Hill, "Ex-Obama aide [Ben] Rhodes: Le Pen victory in France would be 'devastating.'" Oh, this is one of those articles that just takes somebody's tweet pumps it into an article. The tweet is embedded and then the text quotes the tweet and there's a bit of filler to make it look as though it's something more than just the tweet. My take for that species of fake news is: MSM reports what's in social media.

6. JTA in Forward, "Should France’s Jews Leave If Le Pen Wins Elections?" The question is apropos of Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar's statement: "If Marine Le Pen is elected president of France, the Jews must leave." Lazar also said: "Putin was the first president to publicly speak out against anti-Semitism and did the most for the Jews in Russia. There is no institutional anti-Semitism in Russia."

Newt Gingrich, predicting a post-election uprising: "If Trump is elected, it will just be like Madison, Wisconsin with Scott Walker."

On "Meet the Press" this morning:

I think tragically, we have drifted into an environment where if Hillary is elected, the criminal investigations will be endless, and if Trump is elected, it will just be like Madison, Wisconsin with Scott Walker. The opposition of the government employee unions will be so hostile and so direct and so immediate, there will be a continuing fight over who controls the country. I think that we are in for a long, difficult couple of years, maybe a decade or more, because the gap between those of us who are deeply offended by the dishonesty and the corruption and the total lack of honesty in the Clinton Team. And on their side, their defense of unions, which they have to defend, I understand that. But that will lead to a Madison, Wisconsin kind of struggle if Trump wins.

I always love hearing the name of my city called out as the symbol of resisting the outcome of the election.

And maybe Newt Gingrich read my blog post from a couple weeks ago:

This is what Democrats actually did in Wisconsin when Scott Walker took office as governor in 2011.

I'm reading a NYT article that's teased on the front page with the headline "Some Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Clinton Wins" and the quote "People are going to march on the capitols. They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office, because she does not belong there." From the text of the article:

We're told law professors are saying we're in a "constitutional crisis," but at what point would they switch to the term "constitutional moment."

One could avoid either term. Even though both terms include the word "constitutional," neither term appears in the Constitution, and I cannot imagine how a real case could hinge on the perception that we are in a "constitutional crisis" or a "constitutional moment." 

But I'm thinking about these 2 terms together because I just listened to today's NYT "Daily" podcast: "A Constitutional Crisis." The phrase was used 23 times, as if we could be convinced by repetition. But convinced of what? 

Michael Barbaro: The phrase du jour, Adam, right now, in Washington, is "Constitutional Crisis." And we come to you as our resident scholar of the law and the courts to understand what A Constitutional Crisis actually is and how you know when you are in the middle of one....

Adam Liptak: I've been talking to a lot of law professors and what emerges from those conversations is that there's no fixed, agreed-upon definition of A Constitutional Crisis. It has characteristics, notably, when one of the three branches tries to get out of its lane, asserts too much power. It often involves a president flouting statutes, flouting the constitution, flouting judicial orders. And it can be a single instance, but it's more typically cumulative. But it's not a binary thing, it's not a switch.

Liptak's been "talking to a lot of law professors," but apparently not to Alan Dershowitz. I highly recommend his "Trump versus the courts: who will win? My legal analysis" (from February 10th):

Alan Dershowitz: I want to be very clear the New York Times had a front page story major story.... All the law professors in the world the entire academy,  all the law professors think there's a horrible constitutional crisis going on. Of course, they interviewed 3 or 4 left-wing anti-Trump law professors. They didn't introduce anybody who would have a neutral view of the Constitution, and they didn't give their readers an honest assessment of the issue. There is no constitutional crisis! Take it from me! I've been study studying the Constitution for close to 70 years now. I know a thing about the Constitution. The United States has a system of checks and balances. That system is designed to prevent constitutional crisis. The Democrats are crying wolf. Schumer screaming out there like a like a mad person about about the Constitutional crisis. People talking about going to the streets and war. No no no no.....

The NYT article he was talking about, published February 10th, was written by Adam Liptak — "Trump’s Actions Have Created a Constitutional Crisis, Scholars Say."

"It used to be... that the lower and middle classes were stuffy and constrained by social convention while the freethinkers at universities and in the ruling class..."

"... got to experiment with unconventional ideas. If their experimenting got enough success, then it might eventually filter down to ordinary people. (The sexual revolution worked this way, more or less). But now it’s our ruling class that is hidebound by political correctness, and it takes movement by the masses to give it permission to express a controversial view. That’s a major change, and it’s one that the ruling class isn’t likely to appreciate much. But having subjected itself to the chains of 'acceptable' opinion, what can it do?"

So ends Glenn Reynolds's new USA Today column "Glenn Reynolds: A Trump wave is on the way/As plebes make the Donald increasingly acceptable, expect elite Trump supporters to come out of the closet."

There's a lot in there about Brexit as well as the American presidential election and some detail about "preference falsification" — when people "hide unpopular views to avoid ostracism or punishment" — and "preference cascades" — when people suddenly stop hiding. I'm credited as an early predictor of a preference cascade for Trump — with a link to my January 21st post "The coming cascade of smart, educated people embracing Trump."

The wonderful thing about voting is that we do it in secret. You don't have to come out of the closet to express the opinion that has the most clout. And others see that the votes are there, creating the sense of safety. The viewpoint is indeed widespread. We've been stuck at a point where people have felt that only low-educated people liked Trump, but the news from the primaries and caucuses is cutting against that idea (an idea much-promoted in elite media). In Nevada, exit polls showed Trump leading in all groups. It's getting safer to say you support Trump. Well, it's safe enough that people in all groups are telling exit pollsters that they voted for Trump. So it's not just the secret voting. It's disclosure to at least one other person, the pollsters.

"Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Plans to Resign in January."

The NYT reports: "Her announcement came days after President Trump branded her a 'traitor' for breaking with him and helping compel the Justice Department to release its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. Ms. Greene, who was elected in 2020 and positioned herself as a die-hard Trump supporter until a series of recent ruptures with the president on a variety of issues, made the abrupt announcement in a video and statement she posted online, filmed from her home in Georgia, her Christmas tree on display behind her."

This is another one of the "certain topics" I was talking about yesterday in "I feel as though unseen readers are leaning on me to write about certain topics that I see out there." Today's news is easy to absorb, and now I don't have to react to what the NYT has been pushing at me for the last few days in things like "The Three G.O.P. Women Who Broke Trump’s Grip on Congress" and "Marjorie Taylor Greene Was Not on Our Bingo Card." 

In the "Bingo Card" conversation, Frank Bruni said to Bret Stephens:

Oh! It's "risible Robin DiAngelo" now!

I'm reading Michelle Goldberg's new NYT column about the Nellie Bowles book, which I'm almost done reading. 

The book is "Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches From the Wrong Side of History" (commission earned).

The column is "Wokeness Is Dying. We Might Miss It." Excerpt:

There is much about that febrile moment worth satirizing, including the white-lady struggle sessions inspired by the risible Robin DiAngelo and the inevitable implosion of Seattle’s anarchist Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Bowles dissects both in the book's best sections.... But “Morning After the Revolution” is undermined by Bowles’s lazy mockery and insupportable generalizations.... 

I note that Goldberg doesn't provide any support for calling Robin DiAngelo "risible." Is that not also lazy mockery? What did Robin DiAngelo — once vaunted in the New York Times — do to deserve this casual brush-off? She was everywhere and now she's... what? Worthless?

There's also this from Goldberg:

"'History,' E. M. Cioran once wrote, 'is irony on the move.' Bearing out this maxim, cultural revolutions have now erupted right in the heart of Western democracies...."

"The appeal of Maoism for many Western activists in the nineteen-sixties and seventies came from its promise of spontaneous direct democracy—political engagement outside the conventional framework of elections and parties. This seemed a way out of a crisis caused by calcified party bureaucracies, self-serving élites.... Tony Judt warned, not long before his death, that the traditional way of doing politics in the West—through 'mass movements, communities organized around an ideology, even religious or political ideas, trade unions and political parties'—had become dangerously extinct. There were, Judt wrote, 'no external inputs, no new kinds of people, only the political class breeding itself.' Trump emerged six years later, channelling an iconoclastic fury at this inbred ruling class and its cherished monuments. Trump failed to purge all the old élites, largely because he was forced to depend on them, and the Proud Boys never came close to matching the ferocity and reach of the Red Guards. Nevertheless, Trump’s most devoted followers, whether assaulting his opponents or bombarding the headquarters in Washington, D.C., took their society to the brink of civil war while their chairman openly delighted in chaos under heaven. Order appears to have been temporarily restored (in part by Big Tech, one of Trump’s enablers). But the problem of political representation in a polarized, unequal, and now economically debilitated society remains treacherously unresolved. Four traumatic years of Trump are passing into history, but the United States seems to have completed only the first phase of its own cultural revolution."

From "What Are the Cultural Revolution’s Lessons for Our Current Moment?/The great question of China’s Maoist experiment now looms over the United States: Why did a powerful society suddenly start destroying itself?" by Pankaj Mishra (The New Yorker).