The right-wing media is reluctantly coming to terms with Donald Trump. It’s been difficult for them, since he has no respect for their power and has treated them with the same contempt that conservatives usually treat the so-called liberal media. But they’re finally adapting to the inevitable. For instance, Bill O’Reilly had been something of a Trump skeptic but he’s made his peace with the candidate, explaining to his audience that one of Trump’s most important crowd-pleasing agenda items is not actually fascist:
(Note: It may not be a mark of fascism, but you will certainly recall the argument that other countries treating Germany unfairly was central to Adolph Hitler’s appeal. That didn’t end well.)
In fact, many conservatives are starting to make the transition to their usual “I know you are but what am I” brand of argument in defense of Trump. The following defense, leveled by Newt Gingrich earlier this week on “Hannity,” is a perfect example:
The actions Friday night clearly were left-wing fascism, I’m really saddened by Republicans who want to blame Trump. Donald Trump wasn’t the reason, as you point out — Condi Rice got cancelled, Ayan Hirsi Ali was canceled on campus. You have this entire movement of fascism which is saying, if you don’t agree with me I’m going to shut up your right to speak, I’m going to intimidate you, bully you. And they are terrified of Donald Trump because he seems to be strong enough and dynamic enough to take them head on.
But it is worse than that in the news media. You have on MSNBC for example, Rachel Maddow saying that for Donald Trump to go to Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, is provocative because of racial incidents that have occurred in those cities.
Imagine an American television person saying that a presidential candidate shouldn’t go to Chicago, Cleveland, or St. Louis. This is madness.
We have some obligation to say to the news media, you need to get off this Trump-bashing and report honestly. Not just in the presidential race, but on the campuses what is happening…
The sources of confusion and chaos are left-wing fascists who want to impose their way of life on us, they want to impose their values on us. Remember, the first really big test case was Scott Walker as Governor of Wisconsin, who had a key moment when he had thousands of people in the capitol… occupying the state capitol. They had lost the election fair and square, for governor, for state reps, for the senate, and their reaction was to take it to the streets and try to browbeat the governor.
I think if you see Trump win or Cruz win, if either one goes to Washington and brings real reform, you’re going to see these kinds of militants go out and do everything they can in the streets to try to stop what they’re losing at the ballot box.
Setting aside the obvious fact that the right is working overtime all over the country to literally keep people from voting, conservative provocateurs like Gingrich jumping on a high horse is rich considering the mass primal scream that emanated from the Republicans upon the election of Barack Obama. As Salon’s Brendan Gautheir noted earlier this week, the stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming. These are the same people, after all, who applauded this directive to disrupt town halls nationwide back in 2009:
— Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”
— Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
— Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”
Imagine that. Thousands of conservatives converged on town hall meetings to shut down speech and deny their representatives the ability to “have an intelligent debate.” And if you’ve forgotten how all those people got their instructions and information, there were many industry groups coordinating them, one of which was called “Conservatives for Patients Rights”, run by Rick Scott, at the time a disgraced hospital executive and now the governor of Florida.
This is not to say that Republicans were not genuinely upset that people might get affordable health care. The mere idea of it turned them into ravening beasts. For instance this famous exchange outside of a town hall in Columbus, Ohio, in which “protesters” harass and humiliate a man with Parkinson’s disease, screaming “no more handouts!”
And they engaged in tactics far more intimidating than anything the Black Lives Matter protesters have done: some of them showed up to the town halls armed, at least one carrying a placard saying “it is time to water the tree of liberty!” (a reference to the Thomas Jefferson quote “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”).
“[They] were in a war zone. They were there where the babies were being killed. You go to a war zone. That’s what happens,” said Dear. “In a war there’s gonna be casualties. Are you gonna name the hundred million babies that were killed, that nobody talks about, nobody represents them, they have no voice, but yet our Constitution says we have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?”
When asked about the children of Swasey, Markovsky, and Stewart – parents to two children, each – Dear said he would not say anything to them.
When asked if he had any guilt, Dear replied, “No! I don’t have any guilt! I am in a war!”
The right has a hell of nerve calling protesters at Donald Trump’s rallies “militants” when actual killers confidently spout conservative propaganda to justify their depraved acts.
Considering all that history, this right-wing meme that “left wing fascists” are shutting down free speech and causing violence is absurd. But unfortunately for those who have been peddling this ridiculous story, it was completely refuted by Donald Trump himself this week, when he said this to CNN:
“I think we will win before getting to the convention. But I can tell you, if we didn’t and if we’re 20 votes short or if we’re 100 short and we’re at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400 because we’re way ahead of everybody, I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically, I think you would have riots. I think you would have riots.”
It’s highly doubtful that anyone but Republicans will be roaming the floor of the GOP convention, so if any riots break out even Newt Gingrich won’t be able to rationalize it as a liberal plot.
It should be obvious to anyone that “left wing fascists” really don’t care if the Republicans treat Donald Trump unfairly. If it happens will be led by the same right-wingers who are cheering wildly for Trump’s violent authoritarianism at his rallies. And they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
I forgot to mention this one in the article:
The Brooks Brothers Riot:
Hundreds of paid GOP operatives descended upon South Florida to protest the state's recounts, with at least half a dozen of the demonstrators at Miami-Dade paid by George W. Bush's recount committee. Several of these protesters were identified as Republican staffers and a number later went on to jobs in the Bush administration.
The "Brooks Brothers" name reinforces the allegation that the protesters, in corporate attire, sporting "Hermès ties" were astroturfing, as opposed to local citizens concerned about counting practices.
The demonstration was organized by Republican operatives, sometimes referred to as the "Brooks Brothers Brigade", to oppose the recount of 10,750 ballots during the Florida recount. The canvassers decided to move the counting process to a smaller room and restrict media access to 25 feet away while they continued. At this time, New York Rep. John Sweeney told an aide to "Shut it down." The demonstration turned violent, and according to the NY Times, "several people were trampled, punched or kicked when protesters tried to rush the doors outside the office of the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections. Sheriff's deputies restored order." DNC aide Luis Rosero was kicked and punched. Within two hours after the riot died down, the canvassing board unanimously voted to shut down the count, in part due to perceptions that the process wasn't open or fair, and in part because the court-mandated deadline was impossible to meet.
The controversial incident was set in motion by John E. Sweeney, a New York Republican who was nicknamed "Congressman Kick-Ass" by President Bush for his work in Florida. Sweeney defended his actions by arguing that his aim was not to stop the hand recount but to restore the process to public view. Some Bush supporters did acknowledge they hoped the recount would end. "We were trying to stop the recount; Bush had already won," said Evilio Cepero, a reporter for WAQI, an influential Spanish talk radio station in Miami. "We were urging people to come downtown and support and protest this injustice." A Republican lawyer commented, "People were pounding on the doors, but they had an absolute right to get in." The protest prevented official observers and members of the press from getting in.
By the way, one of the orchestrators of that little operation was none other than Trump confidant Roger Stone.
Students arrived in a steady stream at the Board of Elections office in Asheville, NC late Tuesday afternoon. It was Primary Day, the first election operating under the state's new voter ID law. Students found that their out-of-state IDs and state-issued student IDs were unacceptable under the new law and many could not vote a regular ballot. They had come trying to fix voter registration issues, and some to cast provisional ballots. During early voting in the state, "the highest concentrations of provisional ballots from voters without ID were in places with college campuses."
At the polling place down the road from the University of North Carolina Asheville campus, the parking lot was completely full. The shuttle bus from campus had to thread its way cautiously through the gravel lot. The ID problems were causing such delays that the election observer from Democracy NC reported that officials at one point had divided students into a separate line from other voters. The practice was quickly stopped. Students elsewhere in the state faced similar problems voting:
At a precinct in Raleigh at Pullen Park, where many N.C. State students vote, the university bused students in every 15 minutes, and more than 1,700 people voted there on Tuesday. By 7 p.m., a line of hundreds of people stretched into the parking lot. Polls had been scheduled to close at 7:30 p.m.
“We were voting there until around 11 o’clock last night,” said Nicole Shumaker, Wake County’s deputy elections director. “And the reason for that was the early voting period for this primary coincided exactly with North Carolina State University’s spring break. So all those students were out of town during early voting.”
Across the state, volunteers for Democracy NC spoke with people who reported trouble voting. Bob Hall, the group’s executive director, said voter ID laws appear to have been enforced differently throughout the state, that polling workers often appeared untrained or overworked, and that some voters reported they weren’t allowed to cast provisional ballots when a problem arose.
“All the problems from this primary will be far worse in the general election,” Hall said in a news release. His group has been a vocal opponent of the new ID laws.
A voter in Wake County only had a temporary driver’s license for today’s election. The poll worker at her polling location said she would have to cast a provisional ballot and it should count according to the state’s “reasonable impediment” law, but because the voter was not confident that her ballot would be counted, she returned home to get her passport which is a valid form of ID. The voter has voted in the same precinct and polling location for the last 20 years and never had a problem casting a ballot.
Charlie Pierce observed, "A democracy that does this to its citizens is no democracy at all." Then again, Donald Trump believes a country that doesn't erect barriers to exclude the wrong kind of people is no country at all. He'd feel right at home in the new North Carolina.
This wasn't that long ago folks. Most evolved men knew that this was a throwback, sexist thing to say by the end of the 1990s, much less something you'd put in a book with your name on it.
According to a report from the Daily Dot, which got ahold of a leaked contract from Donald Trump's presidential campaign, volunteers are forbidden from speaking ill of the real estate magnate or any of his family members—for life. The contract also forbids volunteers from jumping ship and working for another presidential candidate "should they change their minds."
But as legal experts who talked to the Daily Dot explained, the contract is likely to have little legal legitimacy and would have a difficult time not getting laughed out of court. "He's apparently so afraid that people would say something bad about him after spending some time on his campaign that they have to sign some sort of agreement," lawyer Davida Perry told the site. "I don't see how this stands up. I don't see how a court enforces this."
Perry's take on the document might be comforting to the volunteers who still care about their own free speech. But it might not matter! As he's admitted recently, Trump enjoys suing people just to make their lives pure hell.
"I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more," he told the Washington Post. "I did it to make his life miserable, which I'm happy about."
This is the man over whom the Republicans are wringing their hands because he's being interrupted at his campaign events.
This one is a bit incoherent but it reflects something I hear all the time about Trump (and from Trump.) They think Trump is the only candidate who can "bring people together."
In his case it seems as if they thinks he will force everyone to do what they want and so we'll be together but the sentiment is not one confined to the right. Recall in 2008 that a whole lot of liberals thought Obama would bring the whole country together.
I was skeptical about that then and am completely convinced now that this is a fantasy. Right now the country is bitterly divided on some fundamental issues and it's just going to have to be fought out and argued for the time being. We may evolve back into some kind of cultural consensus --- that's what we hope will happen as these more tolerant millennials get older and take over. So maybe there will be a time in the future when the arguments aren't so contentious. But right now, this is what we have --- a country filled with people who disagree strongly about some very important stuff.
The Trump voters are especially foolish since Trump is actually polarizing his own party is some ways that may fracture it. But even if he weren't their belief that any conservative Republican, much less a neo-fascist like Trump, can unite the country is as much a pipe dream just as the idea that the first black president was magically going to "change Washington." It doesn't work that way.
If he does this his base will be very, very unhappy. If he doesn't it's going to be even harder for him to consolidate support to fight Trump. This is the the GOP's dilemma in a nutshell. Their base, whether the racist xenophobes or hardcore movement conservatives (or both!) demand total fealty. Any deviation is treason.
But the institutionalists have some clout among themselves:
Senior Senate Republicans are calling on Sen. Ted Cruz to rebuild his strained relationships with his colleagues and apologize to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell before the party establishment considers consolidating behind his presidential bid.
Cruz has increasingly called for Republicans to unify behind his candidacy in order to take down front-runner Donald Trump. But in interviews Tuesday with CNN, it's clear Cruz's fellow GOP senators are not willing to do that, at least not yet.
Republican senators said that Cruz must return to Capitol Hill and make the case directly to his colleagues to help ease long-festering tensions. And a large number of Republicans said the fence-mending starts with this: Apologizing to McConnell for calling him a liar last year on the floor of the Senate.
That message -- to smooth things over with Senate Republicans in a private session -- was personally delivered by fellow Texan and McConnell's chief deputy, Sen. John Cornyn, who spoke with Cruz by phone after the candidate won their home state's primary earlier this month.
"I actually made that suggestion to him when I talked to him last," Cornyn said when asked if he thought Cruz should apologize for his McConnell remarks. (A spokesman later said that Cornyn did not seek an apology but urged Cruz to speak directly to the Senate GOP Conference.)
Others had similar suggestions for Cruz.
"I think he's got some bridges to build here," said Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Senate Republican. "I think it would be helpful obviously for him -- if he thinks he is going to be the guy or wants to be the guy -- to come back here to mend some of those fences that he tore down when he was here."
"That was not proper as you know, and I raised hell about it," Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Senate Republican, said of Cruz's criticism of McConnell. "I'm a great believer of repentance and changing, and I think there's a gradual change there that I'm noticing, which is good."
Hatch also had this to say of Cruz: "It's always helpful when you admit you're wrong."
Right. But if Cruz is seen genuflecting to the Senate, his supporters could easily bolt to Trump. Apparently, he knows on which side his bread is buttered.
Jeff Roe, Cruz's campaign manager, signaled that the Texas senator was unlikely to begin wooing his colleagues.
"It's not like we have some phone tree of U.S. senators to endorse," Roe said. "We never built our campaign that way."
Cruz is all-in with the conservative movement whether he wins the nomination or not. And in the event he isn't, once the smoke has cleared, he's the undisputed leader of that movement --- and maybe the GOP. Oh my God.
Update: Lindsey Graham has endorsed Cruz. This isn't a huge surprise. He has hinted that he might do this for a while because he thinks stopping Trumps is more important and he is obviously prepared to lose with Cruz in the fall rather than take a chance on Trump. It will be interesting to see if anyone follows him.
But either way, Cruz isn't going to apologize to a bunch of senators for being a conservative firebrand. I'm sure he'll take their support but he's not going to beg for it.
On Wednesday afternoon, Obama held a reception at the White House to honor Women's History Month. His remarks on the same day Michelle Obama launched a new Let Girls Learn initiative in Austin at the South by Southwest conference earlier that morning.
President Obama discussed important topics including equal pay, education for women around the world and the online harassment women face far too often on the Internet.
"One thing I’ve been thinking about this past week is the unique challenges women face in the virtual world," Obama told the crowd, made up of historic women like Cecile Richards, Nancy Pelosi and the first female NFL coach Jennifer Welter. "Last Friday, I was at South by Southwest, where the epidemic of online harassment was a topic of discussion. We know that women gamers face harassment and stalking and threats of violence from other players. When they speak out about their experiences, they’re attacked on Twitter and other social media outlets, even threatened in their homes."
The president highlighted how many women are speaking out against this online harassment every day -- and why their activism is so important:
What’s brought these issues to light is that there are a lot of women out there, especially young women, who are speaking out bravely about their experiences, even when they know they’ll be attacked for it -- from feminist bloggers who refuse to be silenced, to women sports reporters who are opening up about the extreme safety precautions they need to take when traveling for work. Every day, women of all ages and all backgrounds and walks of life are speaking out. And by telling their stories, by you telling your stories, women are lifting others out of the shadows and raising our collective consciousness about a problem that affects all of us.
He added that the Internet is a public space "where women have every right to exist freely and safely" without fear of harassment or violent responses of any kind.
President Obama has never been a terrible sexist of the kind we see all the time on the internet and in our own lives, but like many men he has been guilty from time to time of being somewhat paternalistic and a little bit clueless about women's issues. This is a primitive, intractable problem that we see every day in small ways and is magnified whenever a woman challenges the normal power structure as Clinton does now. Most people don't even know it's there and when its pointed out it's evidently very painful and unpleasant for them to hear it because they get extremely angry.
I would guess President Obama has probably been impacted by seeing the world a bit through his wife's eyes, a public woman who has had to endure some outrageously disgusting racist and sexist abuse from his political enemies. And he has two daughters who are growing up very fast and he's naturally seeing the world in a different light.Whatever it is, it's a good thing for a president to acknowledge and speak out against and I thank him for it.
Women have a number of disadvantages in this world but being on the internet often makes you feel like you'd rather not be in it at all.
