"And let me just put it to you with startling bluntness is President Trump Gatsby or Tom?"

"And I'll let you kind of imagine why I've even posed that question — because it's infused with new money, anti-establishmentism, and a motto — Make America Great Again — that to my mind borrows from — whether it means to or not — one of the great lines in Gatsby, which is when Gatsby says to Nick, 'You can't repeat the past? Of course you can.' I mean, what is MAGA other than a pleading to reclaim a past that's so central to this book?"/"It's a very interesting question of, I mean, with Trump, is this old money or new money? What elite does he or doesn't he belong to? And certainly his own mythology is that he's been, and I think our colleagues have written a lot about this, about his sense of outsiderness, his sense of the Manhattan elite, the Manhattan establishment, the fancy know-it-alls and eggheads who he was, you know, desperate for a long time to join, who always sort of rebuffed him, or went to his parties, but didn't necessarily accept him into their midst...."

That happens almost half an hour into "100 Years of ‘The Great Gatsby,'" today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast. That's Michael Barbaro asking the question and then A.O. Scott answering. 

It's mostly a solid discussion of the novel and not political... though there's also this near the end:

"You called on Americans to stand up to Trump right now. And you even suggest that to not stand up to Trump is to be complicit. And I wonder what situation that puts you in."

"It seems like a potentially tricky one, right? I mean, you want protestors to be peaceful. You want those who commit violence to be prosecuted. You're now simultaneously asking people to fight back against Trump, presumably in places like L.A. but perhaps not just L.A. perhaps in Chicago, San Antonio, New York, on and on. Are those messages in conflict?"

Michael Barbaro confronts Gavin Newsom, at 00:18:04, in today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast (audio and transcript, at Podscribe, here).

Newsom does not answer the question asked. He says a bunch of things, e.g., "People care about their kids and grandkids, or dare I say, people care about the constitution of the United States and the rule of law."

And good for Barbaro. He follows up:

"Progressives within the federal bureaucracy, regardless of Democrat or Republican being in the White House, have been advancing left-wing racialist ideologies and DEI programs for decades."

 "And so I don't have any doubt in my mind that what we're doing is, is, is the right course of action. It's defensible intellectually. And certainly I think it is actually a minimal and very restrained response to a long standing problem.... You know, I would certainly like to see much more dramatic action. I would like to see, you know, if, if, if they, if they are anticipating this as a, as a shock, I could easily imagine, you know, 10 times, 20 times, you know, 50 times more dramatic action that is, you know, within the realm of possibility.... We'll see... One thing I've learned is that you, you want to keep the, the, the larger ideas close to the chest and you wanna work incrementally up to them. And so we're doing some A/B testing, we're doing some prototyping. And as those things gain traction, I think it'll open up new lines of action. But what we're doing is really a counter-revolution. It's a revolution against revolution. And so I think we are the responsible party in this. But responsible doesn't mean weak. It doesn't mean self-effacing, it doesn't mean playing nice. I think that actually we are a counter radical force in American life that paradoxically has to use what many see as radical techniques."

Says Christopher Rufo at the end of today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast — "The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges."

What "50 times more dramatic action" do you think he has in mind? Criminal prosecution?

That quote is from the end of the interview. At the beginning, Rufo establishes his left-wing credibility:

"What immediately stood out... just the fact of [Elon Musk] holding court next to a sitting President Trump for 30 minutes in [the Oval Office]."

"That is the very definition of American presidential power. It was the stature that it conferred on Musk, and you all know this, but there's been this running motif that Musk is a kind of co-president and Time Magazine went so far over the past couple days as to put Musk on the cover of its latest issue, sitting behind the resolute desk with a coffee mug in his hand.... So to see this scene of the richest man in the world standing in front of cameras. And this scene didn't seem to combat that, or did it?"

Asks Michael Barbaro, quite hilariously, at the beginning of today's episode of the NYT podcast, "The Daily," "Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval..." (audio and transcript at Podscribe).

I say hilariously, because there has been all this effort to portray Trump as a huge narcissist who must be losing his mind over the ascension of Musk into a "co-President."

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."

"And what I realized was that this was a moment that could only happen on Donahue. It was a moment that I don't think ever would've happened..."

"... if it were just Donahue and Ayn Rand sitting on stage talking to one another. I don't think Rand would've been that rude to this powerful TV host. She would only act that way toward an ordinary person. So what you get because of this complicated ecosystem that Donahue has created is this totally unfiltered version of this intellectual titan. And it's pretty ugly. And while you're watching this happen, you start to wonder what truly animates Ayn Rand? Is it this ruthless, uncompromising philosophy at the center of her bestselling books? Or is it maybe that she just doesn't like other people? Whatever was really going on here, it is revealing, it is messy, it is unexpected, and it is fantastic television. And all of it was orchestrated by the guy Philip John Donahue, whose biography in no way prepares you for this kaleidoscopic boundary pushing national conversation that he invited the country to have day after day for 30 years."

Says Michael Barbaro, on today's episode of the "Daily" podcast, "What Phil Donahue Meant to Me" (link goes to the Podscribe transcript, which includes the audio).

Barbaro is 44, and he tells us he listened to "The Phil Donahue Show" when he was a kid and was very influenced by it. The episode with Ayn Rand was on in 1979, so he wasn't watching that episode (unless it was a rerun).

How rude was Ayn Rand to the woman in the audience? Rand was "rude" in that she announced that the audience member was "rude" and refused to answer a question from her because she was rude. Is it rude to call somebody else rude? The standard tactic is to maintain your demeanor and show strength by answering the question on its substance, but clearly that was not Rand's approach. Donahue and Barbaro trash her for for not being more kindly toward the female human who was a mere audience member. I'm just guessing that Ayn Rand chose to treat her exactly as she deserved based on what she said. Here's the entire 1979 show. The "rudeness" incident begins at 27:47:

"In his mind, Harris replacing Biden, which of course Democrats thought was overdue and necessary, is a kind of pre stealing of the election."

Said Michael Barbaro, in the new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Inside The Worst Three Week’s Of Trump’s Campaign."

Jonathan Swan, who's been covering the Trump campaign for the Times, says:

"Exactly. And it's bewildering for Trump because the race that he thought he had no longer exists. He's facing someone who's 20 years younger who doesn't have trouble completing sentences, who actually has energized Democrats, who's drawing big crowds, who's moving up in the polls. And all of these factors are making him extremely frustrated, less than a hundred days out from the election. And you can see this projection in his public statements and Truth Social comments. He's been like, look, like, a sort of this exercise in wishful thinking on Truth Social, where he's saying, I'm hearing Biden's really angry and wants to get, you know, regrets dropping out. And maybe he gets back in, you know, and it's sort of like... I know that's what you want, but that, that's not really what's happening. And so you're seeing this sort of Trump kind of publicly emoting for poor Joe Biden and how mistreated he was, but really it's just a projection. It's the race Trump wants again. Right. And he can't have it. And he's still sort of pining for that race that no longer exists."

"But if it turns out that her short general election campaign doesn't go well, and if she doesn't beat Trump, how much of the blame will belong directly to Joe Biden..."

"... for putting the party and Harris in this situation by discouraging anyone else from running against him by snuffing out any whiff of competition. I mean, he changed the primary calendar to favor him and him alone. He ditched Iowa and started the primaries in South Carolina, a state he knew he would win. I mean, how much of this is gonna be on him if Harris loses?"

Asks Michael Barbaro, in today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "The Coronation of Kamala Harris."

NYT reporter Reid J. Epstein answers:

"... Garland is probably screwed... because no matter what is decided, whether Trump is charged or not, a large segment of the population will think it's wrong and politically motivated."

I'm listening to today's episode of the NYT podcast, "The Daily": "Trump Faces a New Special Counsel/In a moment of political déjà vu, the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into Donald J. Trump have taken a familiar turn."

The host, Michael Barbaro, is talking to NYT Washington correspondent Michael S. Schmidt. I've transcribed their discussion that begins at 22:51:

Barbaro: So one way to look at the special counsel that Garland just appointed is that it's designed to insulate him — and, by extension, the Biden administration — from blowback if and when they do decide to prosecute Trump — Biden's former and now current rival — but another way it could insulate Garland, you're saying, is if they decide not to prosecute Trump and there's inevitably blowback from Democrats and from the left.

Schmidt: "Yes, but the more we go through this, the more that I realize that Garland is probably screwed...

Barbaro: Hmmph.

Schmidt: ... because no matter what is decided, whether Trump is charged or not, a large segment of the population will think it's wrong and politically motivated.

Barbaro: Mm-hmm.

Schmidt: And if special counsel can't solve the problem at the heart of the moment — which is that you have the Justice Department, under a sitting President, investigating his rival for the presidency — by nature, that looks and feels political.

"As restrictions ease in Louisiana, a restaurant owner in Baton Rouge talks about how the pandemic has affected her business and why the decision to reopen isn’t an easy one."

The NYT "Daily" podcast has a fantastic interview today with a restaurant owner. Her story and her way of telling it are so compelling. The detail is personal, her reasons for needing to open and to stay closed are agonizingly balanced. Please do yourself a favor and listen, even if only to the first few minutes about how she, a dental hygienist at the time, met her husband, a chef.

Biden's frustrating campaign by podcast.

I was listening to the NYT "Daily" podcast this morning. The episode is called "Biden's Campaign of Isolation." Because of the lockdown, Biden can't do any of the conventional campaign activities, and his main idea seems to be this podcast. But is anyone listening? I love podcasts, but not all podcasts. I need to hear a voice that's got something podcasty about it. The host of "The Daily," Michael Barbaro has it.  Obviously, Joe Rogan has it. You can name some others. I enjoy Scott Adams. Marc Maron. Etc.

That special quality could be a lot of different things, but it's not going to be a politician carefully shaping his message around the goal of getting elected. That's so unappetizing.

But listening to "The Daily," I heard some snippets of Biden's podcast, specifically his interview with Washington Governor Jay Inslee, and they were talking about — I think they were talking about — the very subject I was just saying I wanted to hear more talk about. Here's what I wrote 3 days ago:

Why aren't people saying that when we emerge in phases from this lockdown — as we must, or we face economic doom — we should not attempt to go back to everything that we were doing before but go forward into some livable, workable form of the Green New Deal?

Shouldn't the Democrats be saying this? Where's Joe Biden?

I know how to listen to the Biden podcast with Inslee, but I'm not motivated to the point where I'm going to do that, partly because I value my time and hate to give a speaker control over it and partly because as a blogger, I need text. But I will read, because I can scan it at my own speed, and because I can copy and paste. I don't have to do my own transcription to write about it. So where is the transcript?! I can see one transcript at Joe Biden's podcast page — it happens to be with Ron Klain — but I can't find the Inslee transcription.

Did Biden embrace a Green New Deal approach to emergence from the lockdown? I can't believe I'm supposed to slog through a podcast to understand. So frustrating!

"It feels like people are getting a little exhausted from all the impeachment coverage and the hearings haven't even begun," the NYT podcast begins today.

"But I actually found someone this week who was excited to hear more," says the show's producer in a cute, coy way.

The show's host, Michael Barbaro, says "Really?" (with comical suspicion).

The coy producer offers to play a phone call with this presumably very interesting person. We hear the phone ring, so wait for it... then.... it's a kid. A third grader. They found a kid who's still interested, and I guess that's why they think we the listeners are ready to put up with another episode about the impeachment. There's a kid. Isn't that sweet? They get him to write out his 10 questions — see the photo of his handwriting with cute misspellings like "presidient" and "ceniters" — and they take him to the NYT office to get answers from NYT reporter Michael S. Schmidt.

It's a nice move, in terms of entertainment, but it's a clear demonstration of the problem anti-Trumpers have with the impeachment. They're only now getting around to the public hearings, and it should be an exciting threshold, but it all feels like very old news, and we're too bored to pay attention. I think there are millions of Americans who'd like to imagine an eject-the-President button Congress could push, but I don't think there are many who want to sit through hours of questioning low-profile characters about how they felt and what they thought about a telephone call for which we have a transcript.

How many people will tune in and watch these hearings? We'll have ratings soon, tangible evidence of how interested people are. I suspect most of us will wait and see what parts are clipped for our delectation. The most interesting thing about watching for me — and I'm not saying I will watch — would be to monitor the congresspeople to detect when they're trying to make a tweetable sound bite happen. Or maybe I could find something idiosyncratic and bloggable — something that no one else will clip because it doesn't serve either partisan interest.

Or maybe I could find a cute little kid to watch along with me and appropriate his adorable mutterings for our entertainment. That's the level the NYT is reduced to.

But they have to cover the impeachment. Me, I do what interests me, within the limits of my sense of morality, which excludes using children in politics. There's a link on that phrase because it's one of my tags. This is my 98th post with that tag.

ADDED: Meade reads the post out loud. When he gets to "Or maybe I could find a cute little kid to watch along with me and appropriate his adorable mutterings for our entertainment," he says, "Me!"

"So whether or not the music feels true to what Trump actually listens to, the whole scene... evokes a deep sense of what Trump stands for."

"And it feels like this question, which we keep referring to, of authenticity: Trump achieves that on an order of magnitude beyond what anyone else is currently doing on the other side," says Michael Barbaro in today's "The Daily Podcast" at the NYT.

The podcast goes with the NYT article "What Do Rally Playlists Say About the Candidates? Presidential campaigns have a sound. We analyzed the playlists of 10 contenders to see how the songs aligned with the messages." (which I blogged a couple days ago here).

The guest on the podcast is Astead W. Herndon, one of the authors of the article. He responds to Barbaro's prompt:

"We know that each of the candidates is trying to introduce themselves to the public and to stand out from what is a crowded Democratic field and music is one of the ways they try to tell that story. When I think about the scene at Trump rallies, before the speakers begin, when the crowd is doing the 'YMCA,' the Wave, and the dancing, I think that there's actual political value in that energy. And whoever wins on the Democratic side will have to motivate their base in a way that matches or exceeds that level of energy. And it has to be done in a way that seems authentic to who that person is and that is not going to be an easy task."

They have to do it and they will not be able to do it.

Listen to the whole podcast. It's fascinating to hear Barbaro and Herndon puzzle over the strange mix that is Trump's playlist. Why is "Memory" from "Cats" there?! Does Trump listen to "Cats"?! What's with all the Queen? Maybe it's not that Trump listens to Queen, but that the entire mix of the music  embodies something of America that the crowd feels as it dances and sings for hours before the speakers even begin. Maybe it's not the lyrics at all. Barbaro and Herndon don't stop to observe that "Cats" and Queen are totally British, not American at all. They also don't say mention the "surprisingly gay swagger" in Trump's music mix — which was the aspect of the "What Do Rally Playlists Say" article that I chose to blog about.

What's really clear — as you can see in my little transcription and will feel much more if you listen to the podcast — is that Trump's use of music is tremendously effective. It's an "order of magnitude beyond" what the Democratic candidates are doing. The Democratic candidates are trying to say who they are and tell their own story. Joe Biden is the average Joe. Kamala Harris is black. Kirsten Gillibrand is a feminist. They're at the level of introduction and standing out from the others. Obviously, Trump doesn't need to do that. We've known who he is for decades. But it's not just that. Trump isn't saying this is my music. Trump has a big crowd of people who have assembled and who are making a "whole scene" out of themselves that goes on and on long before he steps onto the stage.  None of the Democrats are doing anything like that.

ADDED: It's funny — Trump haters are always saying that Trump makes everything all about him. But Barbaro and Herndon are perceiving that Trump rallies are about the people... the people who love Trump. And maybe they love Trump because he creates a space in which they can love themselves. That's why the slogan is "Make America Great Again" (or "Keep America Great").

(Meanwhile, the Democratic Party idea seems to be "America = racism.")

IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said, "Trump does this to people":



Are the people doing it to themselves? Green Day didn't make the people sing like that in Hyde Park.

Rehajm adds, "The clown car of Democrats are Joni Mitchell at Atlantic City scolding the audience for not paying attention." Here's my recent post about Atlantic City and Joni. You may remember that. You probably don't remember that back in 2004, when John Kerry lost me, the thing that bothered me the most was when he snapped at a guy and said "You're not listening," and then in 2008, Barack Obama said almost the exact same thing — "The people who say [I am shifting to the center] apparently haven’t been listening to me."

The NYT "Daily" podcast traps Jerry Nadler into an implicit confession that his investigation into Trump is biased and political.

I'm listening to today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, which is the 3rd part in a series about what to expect from the Mueller report. It's an interview with Representative Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating President Trump and where an effort to impeach Trump would begin.

The NYT interviewer is the host of the "Daily" podcast, Michael Barbaro, and, at about 8 minutes into the conversation, he traps Nadler with this stunning question: "You said that you believed the President obstructed justice, and I wonder why you would... say that publicly before the release of the Mueller report? What's the value in doing that? Does it not kind of inherently portray whatever investigation..."

Those 2 ellipses are places where Nadler interrupts. On the second interruption, I believe Barbaro was about to say that the Judiciary Committee is going to look political and biased.

Nadler, seems to anticipate that accusation, and he says says, "Well, I believe in answering questions honestly. I was asked a question." There follows a snorty little laugh. The laugh might mean: Hey, it's your fault, Barbaro, for asking me. Or it might mean: Oh, I get how you boxed me in, Barbaro, you rascal.

Barbaro observes that when Nadler was asked if he thought Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice, he could have just said "Let's wait until the Mueller report comes out." That wouldn't have been dishonest. Nadler responds, "Well, maybe I should have." Which I interpret to mean: Yeah, I wish I'd thought of that.

Listen for yourself, and check my interpretation. Don't miss the snorty little laugh after he asserts "I believe in answering questions honestly." To my ear,  it's creepy and villainous.

I love the voice and manner of the NYT "Daily" podcast host, Michael Barbaro, but I didn't know anything about him personally.

I wanted to write a post about this morning's new podcast, which is about how the Democratic Party really has no idea how to present itself to the American people (and a lot of the problem is Obama's fault), and I stumbled into "‘The Daily’ host Michael Barbaro splits from husband, dating female producer" (Page Six).

Political correspondent-turned-podcast star Barbaro married fellow Yale grad Timothy Levin in 2014 and has reportedly been known to make references to his husband on “The Daily.”...

I listen every day and have never noticed such references, and I think I would have. I love the gentle male voice but it had never occurred to me to think about the man's sexual orientation or whether he was married.

A source added of Barbaro and [Lisa] Tobin: “They work very closely together … part of the show’s success is this team’s close work.” The source said there is “nothing inappropriate” about the relationship.

Barbaro, we're told, had already broken up with Levin before getting involved with Tobin. (Too bad the headline creates the opposite impression. The headline is also bad for having a misplaced modifier that makes it look like Levin is dating Tobin.)

A gushing Vanity Fair profile this week dubbed Barbaro “the Ira Glass of the New York Times”...

Ha ha. So true. The voice!

VF’s piece added that the scene at the Times “can often resemble a large high-school cafeteria.” It seems like Barbaro and Tobin’s courtship has been the talk of the cool kids.

I'm just worried the relationship might go bad and mess up the show I love. But I'm sorry somebody's marriage broke up. Is there anything to say about the fact that a man who was married to a man is now interested in a woman? Marriages break up, even gay marriages. I guess, when your new partner is the opposite sex from your old partner, it highlights that your old partner lacked something that you seem to want now, but there are always differences when you switch from one individual to another, and no one outside of the relationships has a basis to know what were the differences that really mattered.

Back to today's show, about the Democratic Party. Here's the info page about it, "The Democrats' Comeback Plan/The party's seemingly narrow strategy for the 2018 midterm elections belies its big hopes for the future" — which sounds more optimistic about the Democrats than the show actually is. The show is much better than that headline makes it sound (and don't get me started about how confusing the word "belies" is).

"How Trump Withstands So Many Controversies... The word 'treason' is being thrown around..."

"... to describe how President Trump seemed to take Russia’s side during his summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin in Helsinki, Finland. But as with every major controversy that Mr. Trump has faced, it’s unclear if anything will happen as a result."

An excellent topic, well-explored on the NYT "Daily" podcast with Michael Barbaro. I recommend listening to the whole thing. There's no transcript, but from the notes on the show:

Under fire for contradicting United States intelligence reports of Russian interference in the presidential election, Mr. Trump asserted on Tuesday that he had misspoken at his news conference with Mr. Putin, and that he had meant to say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” rather than “would.” He added, “Could be other people, also.”

Never in the modern era has the word “treason” become part of the national conversation in such a prominent way. Some of those who voted for Mr. Trump struggled to endorse his approach, but many are reaffirming their support.

On the subject of the prominence of the term "treason," there's a link to an article from yesterday that says:

[John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director... called [Trump's] performance “nothing short of treasonous.” The late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel also invoked treason on their shows. The front-page banner headline for The New York Daily News declared “OPEN TREASON.”

Max Boot, the former Republican who has become one of Mr. Trump’s sharpest critics, noted in a column on Monday in The Washington Post that accusing him of treason was once unthinkable. No longer....

Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Monday night as protesters outside the gate shouted, “Welcome home, traitor.” Even Dictionary.com trolled the president, tweeting out a definition: “Traitor: A person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.”

It later said that searches for “treason” had increased by 2,943 percent. By Tuesday afternoon, the word “traitor” had been used on Twitter 800,000 times and the word “treason” about 1.2 million times....

When I hear "treason" used in political discourse like that, my mind drifts back to 1964 and the rise of Barry Goldwater. One of the key books of that time was "None Dare Call It Treason." I look it up, and what they hell? The first hit is the NYT obituary for its author, dated yesterday!

John A. Stormer, whose self-published 1964 book, “None Dare Call It Treason,” became a right-wing favorite despite being attacked as inaccurate in promulgating the notion that American government and institutions were full of Communist sympathizers, died on July 10 in Troy, Mo. He was 90....

Communists, Mr. Stormer wrote, were bent on infiltrating the American government and had largely succeeded, as evidenced by American and United Nations economic support for Communist countries.

“The Communists have sworn to bury us,” Mr. Stormer wrote. “We are digging our own graves.... From where has the money come to build and finance the vast collectivist underground which reaches its tentacles into education, the churches, labor and the press?” he asked. “Amazingly, the fortunes of America’s most successful tycoons, dedicated by them to the good of mankind, have been redirected to finance the socialization of the United States.”

That was the deployment of the word "treason" that went big in the 60s. People who were not right-wing, of course, viewed it as anti-communist hysteria, a throwback to the McCarthy era, and that's the way I've seen the word "treason" all this time. But John Brennan threw it back into the American discourse and the Trump antagonists have run with it. Nothing else has worked to stop Trump, so why not crack open this 100-foot long gushing fissure?



IN THE COMMENTS: Robert Cook writes:

It's really outrageous and alarming, this tsunami of people shouting "treason" at Trump for...what? Because he disputes our intelligence agencies? That does not fit the definition of treason. And besides, fuck our intelligence agencies!

This must be a coordinated effort to drown Trump in shit to the point where he can't move or speak, where he is immobilized. I don't say this as a fan of Trump--I think he's terrible in just about every way--but to recognize that there are powerful forces who will do whatever they must to stop any president from pursuing courses of action that they do not approve of. The Military/Industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us of, by whatever name it should be known now, is more powerful than ever, and sees itself as sovereign over us all. Those who hate Trump may cheer this now, but they will cry when the same tactics are used by these forces to paralyze the efforts of a president whom they do support.

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Thomas Paine

"When the owner of a thriving Hong Kong bookstore disappeared, questions swirled. What happened? And what did the Chinese government have to do with it?"

Please listen to today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast.

That podcast caused me to find a very important NYT Magazine article from April 3 (which I'd missed), "The Case of Hong Kong’s Missing Booksellers/As China’s Xi Jinping consolidates power, owners of Hong Kong bookstores trafficking in banned books find themselves playing a very dangerous game."

I won't pull out a large enough excerpt to make the story clear to you, only to give you as sense of the drama:

The morning after his interrogation, [Lam Wing-kee] was blindfolded, handcuffed and put on a train for an unknown destination. His captors didn’t say a word. When the train came to a halt 13 hours later, Lam’s escorts shoved him into a car and drove him to a nearby building, where they removed his hat, blindfold and glasses. He took stock of his situation: He was in an unknown location in an unknown city, being held by officers whose identity and affiliation he could not ascertain....

In January 2016, more than two months after he began counting the length of his detention, Lam was informed of the charge against him: “illegal sales of books.”...

Lam was transferred to a new city for the next phase of his detention. There, he was told he would be permitted to return to Hong Kong, but only on the condition that, upon arrival, he report immediately to a police station and tell them his disappearance was all a misunderstanding. He would then go to the home of Lee Bo and pick up a computer containing information on the publisher’s clients and authors, which he would deliver to China....

That night, alone in his hotel room, Lam violated the conditions of his limited release, using his phone to search for news about his case... He saw his name and the names of his Mighty Current colleagues appear again and again...  Lam saw photos of thousands of protesters marching through the streets, holding posters of the missing booksellers and demanding their release; Lam’s shuttered shop had become a site of pilgrimage...

On the morning he was expected back on the mainland, Lam arrived at the train station with the company computer in his backpack. He paused to smoke a cigarette, then another. Other Mighty Current employees had friends, family or wives on the mainland. “Among all of us,” Lam told me, “I carried the smallest burden.” He thought of a short poem by Shu Xiangcheng that he read when he was young:

I have never seen
a knelt reading desk
though I’ve seen
men of knowledge on their knees

"President Trump spoke in intimate and candid terms to the former F.B.I. director James Comey about some of the most sensitive matters before the agency..."

"... including the salacious dossier detailing Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia and the investigation into Michael T. Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser, according to Mr. Comey’s closely guarded memos. The redacted and declassified memos — running 15 pages in total, and sent to Congress from the Justice Department on Thursday night — detail a series of phone calls and encounters between the two men in the months leading up to Mr. Comey’s firing.... The memos are exacting in their specificity, including details about who was sitting where, the precise times that conversations began and their durations. In some cases, Mr. Comey shared his accounts with others immediately afterward. These details add credibility to Mr. Comey’s account of events. Mr. Trump has disputed some parts, including asking Mr. Comey to shut down an investigation into Mr. Flynn....  The three Republican chairmen... issued a joint statement Thursday night [saying that w]hile Mr. Comey 'went to great lengths to set dining room scenes, discuss height requirements, describe the multiple times he felt complimented and myriad other extraneous facts, he never once mentioned the most relevant fact of all, which was whether he felt obstructed in his investigation'..."

Comey Memos Provide Intimate Look Into Trump Presidency" (NYT). And here's the link to PDFs of the 15 pages of memo.

There's also an interview with Comey on the NYT "Daily" podcast, which begins with Comey openly confessing to egomania (and stressing his conscious efforts to keep it under control). From Michael Barbaro's description of the interview:

I started the interview where Mr. Comey begins his book — actually before he begins his book, in the author’s note, with a strikingly candid observation about his own personality. “All people have flaws and I have many,” he wrote. “Some of mine, as you’ll discover in this book, are that I can be stubborn, prideful, overconfident and driven by ego.”

It seemed like his decision to itemize his own shortcomings before recounting his role in the investigation of Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump over the past two years might be an acknowledgment that those flaws help explain his conduct. But Mr. Comey quickly rejected the idea that his ego had played a role in how he managed the investigation into Mr. Trump....

Mr. Comey said his ritual of writing memos about conversations with Mr. Trump began after a meeting inside Trump Tower on Jan. 6, 2017 — but not because Mr. Trump, then president-elect, had said something especially alarming. Instead, Mr. Comey said, from the very first moments of their relationship, he believed Mr. Trump could not be trusted.

"In the past, Mr. Trump said, when dealing with a dishonest rival 'there was nothing you can do other than sue. Which I’ve done... But it’s a long process.'"

"Now, he simply tweets. Caustically, colorfully and repeatedly. Suddenly, he said of his foes, 'I have more power than they do. I can let people know that they were a fraud... I can let people know that they have no talent, that they didn’t know what they’re doing. You have a voice.'... Mr. Trump... is an improbable virtuoso of the tweet...."

From "Pithy, Mean and Powerful: How Donald Trump Mastered Twitter for 2016" in — of all places — the New York Times. Back in October 2015.

... Mr. Trump has mastered Twitter in a way no candidate for president ever has, unleashing and redefining its power as a tool of political promotion, distraction, score-settling and attack — and turning a 140-character task that other candidates farm out to young staff members into a centerpiece of his campaign.

"Farm out" to their troll farm.

In the process, he has managed to fulfill a vision, long predicted but slow to materialize, sketched out a decade ago by a handful of digital campaign strategists: a White House candidacy that forgoes costly, conventional methods of political communication and relies instead on the free, urgent and visceral platforms of social media.

The writer is Michael Barbaro, whom you might know from "The Daily" podcast (at the NYT), which I listen to every weekday. It's great, and I am enjoying happening upon this old article of his, which has special resonance today as we're called upon to fear the national security threat posed by the Russian troll farm. Not only did (and does) Trump do his own tweets, he understands Americans enough to say things that reach us in places Russians don't know about.

What got me to that old article? I clicked on a tag on the previous post, which took me to my old posts containing the name Robert Barnes, including an October '15 post linking to "Pithy, Mean and Powerful...."

Was Trump's SOTU theme "nationalism"? Was it devoid of values?

Every weekday morning I listen to the NYT podcast, "The Daily," which goes up around 5 a.m., so it's usually there when I'm making my first cup of coffee. They don't give us a transcript, so if I want to blog about it, which I almost always do, I'd have to find the point in the recording and transcribe it myself or simply go on my memory of what I believe I heard. The first approach is workable when there's one specific line I want to talk about, but not when I want to convey the whole theme of the show, what the podcasters are trying to tell us, and whether they've really supported that position.

The State of the Union Address is the topic of today's show, and like the State of the Union, the whole thing washes over you and you're left with various feelings and impressions, and it's virtually impossible — without the transcript or careful relistening — to remember exactly what they said and what you contributed as you absorbed all that. But that's life. That's what it means to be human, and if we weren't human, the speech and the entire subject matter of the speech would not exist.

So I'm going to tell you what I believe I heard in the NYT podcast this morning. I think the host Michael Barbaro and his guest Mark Landler (a NYT White House correspondent) said that Trump's SOTU address was deliberately written to minimize Trump and put the spotlight on individual Americans (and one North Korean) who acted heroically, displayed feisty entrepreneurship, or suffered tragically. Trump, the divider, removed himself from the center of things, and filled the screen with vivid stories of people, heightening the effect by repeatedly talking about the importance of individuals. Though Trump didn't talk that much about what government can or should do, the stories created support for things Trump does want to do, because they generate, on a deep emotional level, the sense that foreigners are evil and dangerous. The speech was thus profoundly "nationalist." Trump's idea of America is a crude us-versus-them vision, with no other content, no values.

This is what I feel they were saying, as they expressed what they purportedly felt about what Trump said. Please listen to the podcast and see if you agree. Offer corrections or alternative interpretations. It's a great podcast, carefully composed, and full of audio clips from Trump's speech, so the argument is elegantly developed. There is even music which is, I think, designed to massage your thought processes. At one point, the music is obtrusive, but perhaps where I was annoyed and distracted, a Trump-o-phobic person might have felt powerfully moved because the music would feel like their own heartbeat.

Let me make a few points:

1. Barbaro/Landler seemed critical of Trump's minimizing himself, as if that's a tricky device, but Trump — who is so often denounced as narcissistic — should get at least some credit for performing the absence of narcissism.

2. Individualism is a value, and the whole speech was expressive of the value of individualism. But it was a show-don't-tell statement. The word "individualism" never appeared, and "individual" only came up in a reference to the Obamacare "individual mandate." (You can check the transcript.)

3. Freedom is a value. Trump spoke of it in connection with our kinship with freedom-loving people in foreign countries: We "stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," and we love Ji Seong-ho who "traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom" and "is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom." Freedom is a universal value that we share with good people all over the world and that "gave birth to a special place called America."

4. Self-government is a value. The "yearning... to live in freedom" led to "a revolutionary idea: that [Americans] could rule themselves." By instituting a system of self-government, Americans "light up the world."