From 2016 to 2020, there was a sense that there was a fundamental liberal, or at least center left majority in America that had been unfairly denied its rightful position of power and influence. And so it just made sense to say, we just need to mobilize.... [I]n the early days of 2017, and indeed throughout his presidency, [the White House] was filled with people who were not at all loyal to Donald Trump. Some of whom were just total opportunists, some of whom were sort of, you know, respectable Republican figures who felt like they were there to manage the weird, bizarre phenomenon of the Trump presidency. But those people played a very important role, a kind of feedback loop in driving the energy of the resistance by basically leaking constantly about how crazy things were inside the Trump White House.... [T]he teams that exist in the Trump White House this time have esprit de corps. They have internal loyalty and cohesion. And so whatever is going on... in the kind of Trumpian attempt to remake the executive branch, you know, people aren't interested in just telling Politico and The New York Times all about how horrifying it is on the regular.
By the way, I had a long conversation with Grok about the idiom "on the regular." I won't link to it. Have your own conversation with your own robot.
I also wanted to quote this from Michelle Cottle: "There was a big piece in Politico saying, oh, you know, the Democrats are, are taking the bait by defending USAID, Americans hate USAID. They think that, you know, we give way too much money to people abroad and things like that. And... I, personally... I am much more familiar with the left critiques of USAID and the work that it's done around the world."
The left critiques of USAID. Where's the NYT article about that? When are we going to hear that side of the story? When — if — Elon Musk releases it into the public domain? Who wants to see that and who is desperately afraid?
पोस्ट्स
६६ टिप्पण्या:
"From 2016 to 2020, there was a sense that there was a fundamental liberal, or at least center left majority in America..."
As our Leftists friends like to say, asserted without evidence.
That sense of a liberal majority was entirely bought and paid for by USAID.
I have been using Brave for years. Because of whatever recent changes Althouse made, I was not able to comment anymore; I had to download and install Chrome (and now it works).
Just FYI.
Well, one media hag is afraid...and if she isn't, she should be...Starbucks is hiring. This is the woman who called Kamala's last-minute tv appearances "solid first efforts."
The libs have been hoisted on their own petard called "the popular vote". They made such a huge deal about it over the electoral vote since Gore won it in 2000, that Trump getting it has knocked them impotent.
It is no surprise that USAID is a CIA piggybank, to those on the left and the right who have paid attention. But USAID is presented to and has been accepted by the general public as an "aid" agency, which does all sorts of good stuff like feeding the poor in those backward nations full of waifs who don't know how to feed themselves.
The recent revelations that USAID is a piggybank for Dems to pay off the press and fund their propaganda ops have exposed the fraud and undermined public trust in USAID.
Remember The United Way scandal?
Nothing pisses people off more than finding out that their charitable donations are being diverted to the benefit of grifters. The USAID thing is similar, only with taxpayer dollars.
What a crazy upside down world these liberal propagandists create. Americans are disturbed they are funding you and the other propaganda outfits with their tax money. That’s the horror.
Take note of the fact that despite having lost their audience (Ann excepted) not any of the major propaganda outfits in print or cable are starved of cash. In an efficient market many of them should fold and/or consolidate but it never actually happens. Now we know why…
…I also noticed while we’ve been spiking the football…has USAid actually been stopped? I only recall a temporary this and that but no firings or arrests. I still expect the signage to be placed back on the building at some point, per order of a Hawaiian judge…
Trumpian attempt to remake the executive branch
Geez, I get tired of these little gems' being dropped into the conversation. Fine. Fine, we'll all take it as read that everything Trump does is "unprecedented" (though it isn't) and "crazy" (though it isn't).
@boatbuilder
I have been using Brave for years. Because of whatever recent changes Althouse made, I was not able to comment anymore; I had to download and install Chrome (and now it works).
I use Brave as well. I also saw the same problem. Cleared up when I dropped shields for the Althouse site. Give it a try.
I'd say we've heard enough from the left.
What I remember most about 2017 is Trump showing up with the Republicans that had promised to remove and replace Obamacare with the plan my dipshit congressman (I was in Sand Springs). He was appointed specifically because of his “plan” he’d been pimping for years. All of a sudden…he had no “plan”. Fucking losers.
I’m reading this post after reading this [https://instapundit.com/701428/] post in which I disagree. Democrats were not forced to defend the waste and abuse of USAID. Rather, they ran out members of their party willing to criticize it. Republicans tried to as well.
It shouldn’t be hard to criticize this abuse of power. And it shouldn’t be surprising the abusers would fight to retain the power. I think the message needs to be, if you don’t stop this and continue to defend it, then a punishment will come to make you stop.
"I am much more familiar with the left critiques of USAID and the work that it's done around the world."
The old Left would have been against the CIA using USAID for regime change around the world. The Democrats have to get back to that if they are to have any hope.
Defining a party as anti-Trump, means the Democrats have to defend waste, corruption and bloated bureaucracy. That's a tough sell.
"When — if — Elon Musk releases it..." Some of us hope this happens sooner rather than later.
Ugh, "how horrifying it is on the regular." After the election, two family members, declaring that "it's not political, it's a moral thing," cut off all family that they suspected might have voted for Trump. Progressive friends peppered their small talk with tidbits about how in just a couple of months, they'd be needing to go underground to escape Trump's stormtroopers. My husband said, not entirely in jest, that if he'd known how they'd react - after all, they, and we, had already "survived" four years of Trump, hadn't we all? - he would have just voted for Harris.
And then things steadied down a bit, family was reconciled, friends went back to talking normally, the news was more about Biden's legacy and final actions in office and how no one could have seen (or did in fact see) his "age-related decline" instead of a constant flood of Trump terror, and I thought they'd all realized that, just as it was in 2016, the world wasn't ending, they still had their rights, there were no camps...
And now? Good Lord, everyone is right back in their delusional fantasy. What do they get out of it?
I know the answer to that, or at least I think I do. Nothing so heady as moral certitude in the face of peril. We all want to be the hero of our own story. But to borrow a phrase from our leftist friends, it's exhausting.
Here is the left's critique of USAID, which I fully endorse:
It is used to fund "color revolutions" around the world. These "color revolutions" don't install governments who have the people's interests at heart, that's just what the USAID bought and paid for propaganda tells you, but in fact they co-opt democracies around the world in a decades long project to ensure indefinite Western control of the world.
I will give an example that just came out, and that I have referenced a couple of times before the data was released —Bangladesh.
In the Bay of Bengal there is an island that the US Navy coveted in order to put a check on the Chinese navy. The president of that country didn't want to get his country involved in the US - China strategic competition. No problem! The Biden Administration just ordered up a military coup and they funded it with USAID. Now there is a new government in Bangladesh and we are likely to get our naval base on that island, and once it is there, it will never leave.
USAID funds these street mobs, like the one in Georgia that tried to overturn their recent election. They certainly funded the Maidan Square street mob, that with the help of neo-nazi snipers led to the violent overthrow of the elected regime there and installed a US friendly, anti-Russian regime which caused the civil war in Ukraine which is ongoing. USAID subsidies to the press ensure that this civil war is reported as an "unprovoked" Russian invasion, when in fact we completely subverted their democracy and caused the civil war.
There are dozens of examples like this and they have led to our period of endless wars since the fall of the USSR. So if you see a bumper sticker that says "stop endless war," that's a criticism form the left of USAID.
Resisting an election is treasonous.
Trump's phone call to Zelinski was not impeachable. Trump realized Biden family corruption was right there in front of us. The mob-left freaked out.
The corrupt left assume they own power. Part 827465201
It's not a coincidence that this funding to press outlets like Politico, Bloomberg, The New York Times, they even had enough money to waste on The Bulwark, no coincidence that this followed on Nancy Pelosi's repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act which passed in 1948 and forbade the US government from propagandizing the American people.
rejahm--I have wondered for a long time why the big MSM corporations haven't put together their own "right of center" "off-brand" networks to grab some of that yuge Fox News audience. In every other area of corporate endeavor, they diversify. And nobody would accuse any of them of being strict about "principles," whether political or otherwise.
It's very odd. I'm thinking that the payola thing goes a lot deeper than USAID.
Jaq--So if you see a bumper sticker that says "stop endless war," that's a criticism form the left of USAID.
Well, now that is a Trump campaign slogan. No wonder their heads are spinning.
What about "there was a sense that..."? Pure journaled. Back when I read too many magazines I used it in a philosophy essay and boy the professor did not like that. Like what is that supposed to mean? A sense how, where, whose - ?
I have found myself drifting left on a lot of issues, and I read some lefties, like Russell Brand, for instance, and Alex Mercouris, and it's two things are apparent. They support a lot of what Trump is doing, and they reject the kind of forced social engineering that the Democrats have been trying to force on the American people through the use of government coercion. You could even read between the lines in a couple of Michael Moore columns that he is giving props to Trump on some issues that Moore claims are near and dear to his heart.
Here is the money part of the quote from the article: "...center left majority in America that had been unfairly denied its rightful position of power and influence."
They not only assume, they fervently believe, that power and influence is their rightful position. Thus, ANY interruption, even if through a legitimate but misguided vote of the people, must be resisted.
The left critiques of USAID. Where's the NYT article about that? When are we going to hear that side of the story?
Well certainly not now considering that the most common lefty critique of USAID is most likely that it doesn't spend enough money.
href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-156596699">What if you knew that there was an organization called the The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which claims to be one of the largest news organizations in the world, with 200 staff members that is partnered with more than 50 independent media outlets worldwide, but whose fundamental mission is to instigate regime change in countries or entities deemed hostile to the United States?
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a worldwide collective of investigative journalists established in 2006, primarily funded by USAID and the Soros Foundation.
So those starving children get fed on the 10% of the funds that arrive? Whoda thunk it.
The articles about the left-wing critique of USAID came out 50 years ago, mostly relating to Vietnam and Latin America. I haven't seen any since. Even in the '80s attacks on Reagan's Central American policies didn't have much to say about USAID, but now that Obama and Biden made USAID about spreading LGBTQ+DEI+progressive color revolutions around the world, the left has been even quieter about USAID.
There was indeed "a sense that there was a fundamental liberal, or at least center left majority in America" 8 years ago. It wasn't reflective of reality, but that's what liberals felt. It didn't reflect reality because everyone who voted Democrat and everyone who didn't like Trump weren't in agreement about a progressive agenda, but add the progressives and liberals and leftists and yellow dog Democrats and RINOs and Never Trumpers and the people who don't vote together and they outnumbered Trump supporters.
Here's Mike Benz on USAID
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtXQNDJJm4&t=4s
It's worse than you think.
We recall he leftist antifa marches and riots in Denver. Antifa were allowed to destroy anything they wanted... because Trump-hate. Piles of bricks were purposefully left on pallets, in down town Denver. It was a sight to see.
The left are the real Nazi.
" unfairly denied its rightful position of power and influence."
unfairly denied.. by that DAMN Electoral College!
If ONLY the left was PERMANENTLY in power!
We NEED to Stop letting the "people" have a say!
ALL decisions MUST BE made by California (and, MAYBE NYC)!
On the left, US AID used to be synonymous with "imperialism" due its participation in "pacification" counterinsurgency efforts like Operation Phoenix in Vietnam.
From the tactics of Operation Phoenix to COINTELPRO and beyond, however, it seems like these historic "reactionary" abuses of power by the establishment (of both parties) -- then most often focused against the left -- were not reformed, but were simply refocused domestically into weaponized tactics against the right, particularly under Obama and Holder.
I tend to think Obama and Holder viewed it as some form of righteous payback that also paid substantial partisan dividends.
“Remake the executive branch”
Which is to say do exactly what the Mainstream media cheers the Democratic party for doing every day when a Democrat is the executive.
Dear sad NYT - Hillary Clinton will never be president.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ha ha .
To play devil's advocate again: Rush Limbaugh suggested that America could stay on top by exporting its decadence around the world, sapping the energies and hobbling the efforts of our competitors and adversaries by putting them through the same nonsense that we've been living with ourselves. USAID does make a contribution to that.
I hate to break it to you guys, but the "resistance" got Trump elected. Remember the TEA Party? Yeah. We're the resistance.
Stop whining, allow the investigations to go on. And then:
Arrest
Prosecute
Convict
Punish
"The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a worldwide collective of investigative journalists established in 2006, primarily funded by USAID and the Soros Foundation."
Not to mention that for four years, Samantha Power had veto on personnel decisions in that agency, and for eight years during the Obama Administration. God only knows what they were doing behind Trump's back.
"the left has been even quieter about USAID."
Well, there is the genuine left, people who think that the Canadian trucker protest was a genuine workers' movement, and there is the DNC co-opted left, which called those protests "fascism." The latter has access to the MSM, the former does not, you have to go looking for them.
Boat builder, I only use chrome on my pc and my phone. No problems at all for me. The recent changes made reading and responding on my phone easier
"I am much more familiar with the left critiques of USAID and the work that it's done around the world.""
There's the unadulterated bullsh*t part of the monologue, right there. He's familiar with silence, is what he's saying, and he's trying to divert attention. Whatever philosophical or moral differences progressives might have with US A.I.D.'s mission are not for public consumption. If there's one thing that Progressives know how to do, it's keeping quiet in the face of any threat to party solidarity, and voting properly.
So, this is Samantha Power's realm that's being fumigated. What about Susan Rice? What about Valerie Jarrett?
"I also noticed while we’ve been spiking the football…has USAid actually been stopped? I only recall a temporary this and that but no firings or arrests."
The structure of the appropriations of USAID seems to be some general directive to dole out money- no specifics in any legislation. Thus whoever Trump puts in charge of it can simply discontinue grants going forward and award new ones to new groups. I mean, it is hard watching the children of Politico and other media outlets go hungry and cold, but it is a necessary evil.
Boatbuilder, ref the MSM not starting up Fox-lite (faux Fox?):
There is NewsNation, if you consider WGN to be an MSM big boy. And there is the hint of reasonability creeping into CNN.
I don’t think the reluctance to go righty is a money thing; it probably is fear of a newsroom revolt. Which would eventually be a money thing if you had to hire replacements and defend a bunch of IIED and constructive dismissal lawsuits, I suppose.
WGN created NewsNation basically from scratch, so could avoid these transaction costs.
Another factor is something other commenters have brought up: does the MSM really exist as a profit making enterprise any more, or as a shadow government and character-assassination shop? They may really not be concerned with the size of their audience.
JSM
The Democratic Party moved away from its center left voters. It moved away from its liberals. A lot of this movement took place in the Obama years and accelerated under Trump.
Trump himself was probably in the category of liberals and center left Americans that the Dems moved away from.
The media were like someone on a boat who is momentarily fooled into a sense the dock is moving away and the boat is remaining still.
They were too busy pushing the narrative that the Republicans were becoming extreme to notice Obama was leading them far from solid ground.
Michelle knows--you unwashed plebes don't need to hear the critique. Members only doncha know?
"They not only assume, they fervently believe, that power and influence is their rightful position. Thus, ANY interruption, even if through a legitimate but misguided vote of the people, must be resisted."
Posted by "Max" on The Manhattan Contrarian blog...
"The critics of the civil service system call these people [bureaucrats] goo-goos: "good government." The goo-goos have always defined good government as rule by their class: formally educated, certified, professional, and above the political fray. They want rents. This is the classic case in American history of rent-seeking. These people want jobs for life. They want a guaranteed income. They want promotions based on seniority. They want the taxpayers to fund their lifestyles and their activities, but they do not want taxpayers to have any say with respect to how the government is run."
He's not wrong. And I'm pretty sure I c&p'd this quote a couple of days ago- if it was here, apologies for the repeat.
Resistance is alive and well, ensconced in the judiciary. For instance:
Judge Paul Engelmayer has unilaterally forbidden all of Trump's political appointees—including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—from accessing Treasury Department data. [Emphasis mine]
Apparently the judge’s theory is that the Secretary of the Treasury is merely a figurehead and doesn’t actually do any real work in his Department. I suppose I should be fair and admit that it does describe Janet Yellen.
The left critique of USAID is that it is attacking the left (abroad) and the right critique is that USAID is attacking the right (at home). A center position might be that the press must be free.
But as I see it those on the right have been excluded from the press - that is mainstream media in general - deliberately by a policy of not hiring the on the right. Consequently those people who work in mainstream media have become less and less able to hear anyone on the right or even any opposition of any kind. This in turn has more and more often meant that the media cannot report on citizens' grievances. The murder rate in Chicago is appalling, the schools are dreadful but Chicago is run by the left so criticism of Chicago is criticism of the left. And that the left can't handle anymore.
And the cause of the inability of the left to hear citizens' grievances is the point. It is where the center is.
The left can't hear citizens' grievances because it absolutely can't handle criticism anymore. And that won't change because the left fostered hiring policies in every major institution which excluded the right. The left no longer encounters the right in its adult working life but only in a sort of dreamy, loosened state of consciousness where fantasy and fears reign supreme. It's reached the point where the people of the left aren;t much better than three-year-olds crying about a bad dream: "And then the mean Orange man shouted and the mean orange people shouted , too, and I scwared and I cwied, they was meanies and took away my wowwypop." That's how the left responds to revelations about waste, fraud and abuse. Yet it obvious to any adult that money which is distributed without oversight will be stolen or wasted - and the left has abandoned oversight.
PS "The left" does not include a large segment of the left any more - not RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Fetterman, Bill Maher, Joe Rogan and such. But it does include Harvard, Hollywood, USAID, the ACLU, and WaPo.
There was a big piece in Politico - not as big as USAID's subsidy payments to Politico
"The left critiques of USAID. Where's the NYT article about that? When are we going to hear that side of the story?" LOL. Anything Trump is for, the left must be against. It's the TDS action-reaction reflex. CIA, good! And in fact, it is good, since the IC and the whole federal government became a left tool, and lefties were bought off. So old left critiques no longer applied. But smart lefties could selectively join Trump. An NYT anti-USAID article would be a sign.
The reconciliation meetings are gonna be a bit different this time around. No more "gimme $50 billion for my ridiculous grift and you get $50 billion for yours" in each and every government agency, with this much light shining on the process.
Partly endorsing Lazarus' contrarian take at 9:01. Yes, exporting progressive follies is a good way to destabilize other countries and solidify relative American advantage. But destabilization also produces blowback and we might prefer allies to have their acts together.
Those Times things sure do know a lot about how the Deep State works, don't they.
"So if you see a bumper sticker that says "stop endless war," that's a criticism form [sic] the left of USAID."
Bullshit. That is the Old Left criticizing the New Left. The New Left still has that stupid blue and yellow CIA flag hanging over its porch.
Oh, and Jaq, you're a stinking Commie.
The "Leftist critique" of USAID, as folks here in the comments pointed out, was that it was used to promote US imperialism and served as a tool of the CIA. When the leftists who strongly believed that got into power their solution was not to disband USAID, something that the more traditional centrist Democrats like Warren Christopher had tried to do. Instead they used the strategy of the Long March through the institutions and took it over from the inside. Why dismantle and disband a power structure that clearly worked (look at what the CIA was able to accomplish with it accord to the Leftist narrative) when you could seize the organization and then use those powers to promote your goals and objectives?
This also neatly allows the Left to defend their power base by invoking the traditional supposed purpose of the USAID. Anyone that wants to even cut spending can be portrayed as a heartless evildoer who seeks to starve poor children in Africa.
Note also the immediate attack that Elon and Trump must be doing this in order to funnel the money to their billionaire pals. Projection because this is exactly what the Leftists have been doing with the agency. To them the correct power politics move is not to disband USAID but to redirect the spending to support the MAGA power structure.
"Oh, and Jaq, you're a stinking Commie."
Sick burn.
I am not a pinko, I am an American, and I want our country and foreign policy based on what is best for Americans, and sticking our nose into how people run their countries on the other side of the planet, provoking endless wars, well, that doesn't seem to be good for regular Americans.
You may think that getting into a war with Russia or China over how they live is good use of America's resources, I don't.
“From 2016 to 2020, there was a sense that there was a fundamental liberal, or at least center left majority in America that had been unfairly denied its rightful position of power and influence.”
So the left thinks it’s Michael Edward Abney-Hastings. And unlike the Australian dude, it actually thinks it’s the rightful heir to the throne.
Haven't noticed trouble in Brave re commenting here. And my shields are up.
Without USAID the rent-a-mob business is hurting. Wealthy activists want something done but don't want to use their money. I found it interesting that they laid off almost all of the employees of USAID except for the couple of hundred or so that actually deal with food and drug aid.
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