Trump Forces Questions Republicans Don't Want to Answer

During the 2012 GOP presidential primary, Newt Gingrich got in a lot of trouble with Republican base voters for saying that we should allow some undocumented immigrants to stay in this country and go through a process of legalization. Mitt Romney's position was ridiculous - proposing actions that would lead to "self deportation." All of that was a cover for a messy reality among Republicans: their position on immigration was to "seal the border" (which is not a reality) and avoid talking about the 11 million undocumented people who are currently in the country.

If you want to know just how uncomfortable they were talking about that question, take a look at the lengths to which Rep. Tim Huelskamp went to dodge it. Then along came Donald Trump with his "deport 'em all" position and all of the 2016 candidates had to take it on. For example, here is Ted Cruz being asked the question directly because of Trump's proposal.

Last week in an interview with Chris Matthews, Donald Trump unearthed another dirty little secret the GOP has been trying to keep under wraps for a long time. We all know that they want to make abortion illegal and that the case they make is that it kills an unborn child. If, as they believe, it is such a serious crime, who gets punished for it if it is banned? That is the very real outcome of their policy that they wanted to avoid.

Along comes Donald Trump with the response initially to Chris Matthews that women should be punished and then a later correction saying that it should be the doctor who performs the abortion. That blew the lid off the GOP's cover. And this weekend, John Kasich was put on the spot (very uncomfortably) about it.


Obviously Kasich didn't want to answer the question. We're left to wonder what kind of process governors like him would work out with state legislatures on this one if Roe v Wade was ever overturned. That has traditionally been the Republican response to questions like this...keep people in the dark about the consequences of their position because it leads to places that most people don't want to go. It's what David Roberts called "post-truth politics."

One way to understand what is happening with these issues is to see it as the result of Donald Trump's rejection of political correctness. He often uses that word to describe the position of Democrats. But a post-truth party is filled with questions they don't want to talk about. Trump is doing a good job of exposing all of them.

But lest we get tempted to give Trump credit for that, it is important to keep in mind that on most of these issues, he embraces the retrograde policies. The difference is that he just comes right out and says so. That is an improvement in honesty but not so much when it comes to decency.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want"

In his column today Paul Krugman notices that, just as the Republican Party seems to be imploding and the Democrats are in the midst of a contentious presidential primary, President Obama's overall approval numbers are rising. He goes on to catalogue some of this President's most significant successes and then affirms that there is still a lot to do. He ends with this:

The lesson of the Obama years, in other words, is that success doesn’t have to be complete to be very real. You say you want a revolution? Well, you can’t always get what you want — but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

It struck me that the old Rolling Stones tune perfectly captures the angst of the left that is perpetually "disappointed" in Obama. Let's take a look at a couple of current events where - to the extent anyone is actually paying attention - that is happening right now.


First of all, as I noted previously, President Obama recently commuted the sentences of 61 additional individuals via his Clemency Initiative, bringing his total to 248 - more than the previous 6 presidents combined. Bryan Schatz focuses on the fact that we're not getting what we want.

Neil Eggleston, the White House counsel, wrote in a blog post that Obama will continue his relatively aggressive pace of commutations during the remainder of his presidency. But his administration is still far from the goal it announced as part of a clemency initiative in 2011, when former Attorney General Eric Holder said that some 10,000 prisoners "were potentially going to be released."

While that was a pretty ambitious goal set out by the former Attorney General, no where in his article does Schatz mention the fact that, due to this administration's efforts, many of those who might be eligible for commutations are now being considered for the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act - which will affect over 14,000 individuals. Nor does he acknowledge that one of the goals of the Clemency Initiative is to highlight the problem and push for Congressional action on criminal justice reform. When those of us on the left fail to join the administration in that effort and, instead, simply focus on their failure to reach this ambitious goal, it is no wonder we remain "disappointed."

Secondly, David Corn recently wrote about President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit. He too focused his attention on not getting what we want.

Obama has done more than any other world leader to highlight the urgent need for enhancing nuclear security. But this is the big connect-the-dots reality: the world cannot be free of nuclear terrorism unless it is free of nuclear weapons. That fundamental truth is not clear and present at this historic summit.

I will simply remind you what President Obama said about that.

I said in Prague that achieving the security and peace of a world without nuclear weapons will not happen quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime. But we have begun. As the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons, the United States has a moral obligation to continue to lead the way in eliminating them. Still, no one nation can realize this vision alone. It must be the work of the world.

We’re clear-eyed about the high hurdles ahead, but I believe that we must never resign ourselves to the fatalism that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable. Even as we deal with the realities of the world as it is, we must continue to strive for our vision of the world as it ought to be.

What strikes me is that - especially in these two examples - this President has set the bar pretty high. Prior to his doing that, there wasn't a lot of talk on the left about actually upending the entire clemency process or envisioning a world without nuclear weapons. But he put those two powerfully progressive goals on the table. And then he has worked for years to reach them.

When the response of some of the folks on his side is to constantly point out the fact that we're not there yet rather than celebrate the successes along the way and try to figure out if we can engage to move the ball further down the field, we spread the kind of cynicism that impedes progress.

The Stones were right. You can't always get what you want. But it's also true that if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

President Obama Commutes the Sentences of Another 61 Individuals

From the White House:

Today, the President announced 61 new grants of commutation to individuals serving years in prison under outdated and unduly harsh sentencing laws. More than one-third of them were serving life sentences. To date, the President has now commuted the sentences of 248 individuals - more than the previous six Presidents combined. And, in total, he has commuted 92 life sentences.

This is the result of the President's Clemency Initiative that has focused on commuting the sentences of individuals who meet the following criteria:

* They are currently serving a federal sentence in prison and, by operation of law, likely would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of the same offense(s) today;

* They are non-violent, low-level offenders without significant ties to large scale criminal organizations, gangs or cartels;

* They have served at least 10 years of their prison sentence;

* They do not have a significant criminal history;

* They have demonstrated good conduct in prison; and

* They have no history of violence prior to or during their current term of imprisonment.

Presidents have the power to either pardon or commute the sentences of individuals convicted of federal crimes.

In modern times, presidential clemency usually takes one of two forms: pardons, which constitute a full forgiveness for a crime and restore civil rights like voting and gun ownership, and commutations, which shorten prison sentences and usually have conditions attached.

Some have critiqued President Obama for not issuing more pardons. Although he has granted a total of 70 so far, that is far fewer than most modern presidents. In that sense, this President has flipped the precedent set by previous administrations on these two powers. I would suggest that there are two reasons for that.

First of all, Obama was not impressed with the traditional use of presidential pardons.

The president complained that the pardon attorney's office favored petitions from wealthy and connected people, who had good lawyers and knew how to game the system. The typical felon recommended for clemency by the pardon attorney was a hunter who wanted a pardon so that he could apply for a hunting license.

Secondly, as Neil Eggleston wrote in the White House article cited above, President Obama initiated this Clemency Initiative as a way to push for more permanent criminal justice reforms.

Despite the progress we have made, it is important to remember that clemency is nearly always a tool of last resort that can help specific individuals, but does nothing to make our criminal justice system on the whole more fair and just. Clemency of individual cases alone cannot fix decades of overly punitive sentencing policies. So while we continue to work to resolve as many clemency applications as possible - and make no mistake, we are working hard at this - only broader criminal justice reform can truly bring justice to the many thousands of people behind bars serving unduly harsh and outdated sentences.

To date, this administration has used both commutations and the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act to address specific injustices that exist in the criminal justice system. In order to take the next step, Congress needs to act.

Media Should Learn to Avoid Republican Leaks About the Clinton Email Story

You might remember that last summer, the New York Times had to retract major parts of a story about the so-called "Clinton email scandal" because leaks that were provided to them (most likely from Republican lawmakers) turned out to be completely false.

I guess the Washington Post didn't get the memo on how to be careful about what you print from unreliable sources. That's because on Sunday they published a lengthy piece by Robert O'Harrow on the roots of this "scandal." By all accounts, it didn't cover much new ground. But there was one line that became the focus of a lot of headlines.

One hundred forty-seven FBI agents have been deployed to run down leads, according to a lawmaker briefed by FBI Director James B. Comey.

To get a sense of how big that part of the story became, google "Clinton email 147 FBI agents" and you'll find the myriad of stories it produced.

And yet, much like the NYT learned, it turns out that the leaker was not reliable and the Washington Post had to print this correction.

An earlier version of this article reported that 147 FBI agents had been detailed to the investigation, according to a lawmaker briefed by FBI Director James B. Comey. Two U.S. law enforcement officials have since told The Washington Post that figure is too high. The FBI will not provide an exact figure, but the officials say the number of FBI personnel involved is fewer than 50.

In case you are tempted to assume that "fewer than 50" means 49, a source told Ari Melber that "there are currently about 12 FBI agents working full-time on the case."

I don't think that a tin-foil hat is required in order to figure out what's going on here. Republicans are leaking lies to the press about this story - knowing full well that the old adage is sure to hold: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

One has to wonder how long it will take for the media to figure out they're getting played.

The Backlash of Entitlement Sustained by Dominance

Men are entitled to control women's sexuality.

White people are entitled to their supremacy.

Owners are entitled to the profits produced by their laborers.

The United States is entitled to its exceptionalism.

The other day I made a rather bold statement about this election. I suggested that we view all of the issues that are on the table through the lens of whether or not they contribute to dealing another blow to the embrace of dominance as the source of white male power, or give it new life. The statements above capture exactly what I was talking about.

Think about that in light of what Derrick Jensen wrote about entitlement.

I have spent the past several hours now thinking about the notion that masters "shall be entitled to their labor," and at the risk of overstating, it seems to me that entitlement is key to nearly all atrocities, and that any threat to perceived entitlement will provoke hatred...

From the perspective of those who are entitled, the problems begin when those they despise do not go along with—and have the power and wherewithal to not go along with—the perceived entitlement. ...

Several times I have commented that hatred felt long and deeply enough no longer feels like hatred, but more like tradition, economics, religion, what have you. It is when those traditions are challenged, when the entitlement is threatened, when the masks of religion, economics, and so on are pulled away that hate transforms from its more seemingly sophisticated, "normal," chronic state—where those exploited are looked down upon, or despised—to a more acute and obvious manifestation. Hate becomes more perceptible when it is no longer normalized.

Another way to say all of this is that if the rhetoric of superiority works to maintain the entitlement, hatred and direct physical force remains underground. But when that rhetoric begins to fail, force and hatred waits in the wings, ready to explode.

We are living in a moment when all of those entitlements are being challenged. Whether we are talking about women, people of color, workers or global citizens - we are all in the process of developing the power and wherewithal to not go along with the perceived entitlement. That has created a backlash of hatred (in the form of fear and anger), which is exploding and fueling the candidacy of Donald Trump (and Ted Cruz). The promise to "make America great again" is all about reinstating that entitlement via dominance.

It is interesting to note that Josh Marshall is describing Trump's candidacy the same way.

In my series of impromptu essays about Trump and Trumpism I've repeatedly returned to the topic of 'dominance politics' and the way it informs virtually everything about Trump's campaign. So far I've discussed it mainly in the context of domestic, electoral politics. That's the framework in which I usually think about it. But since Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee and thus possibly become President, it's important to think through the implications abroad as well...

As I've written before, Trump's brand of dominance politics is built on "a series of symbols and actions that mark the dominating from the dominated." His attitude toward other countries seems quite similar. In the Trump foreign policy worldview, we, the United States, are the unmanned losers that guys like Trump stomp and humiliate. We've become a nation of Jebs in need of a Trump to lead us. We need a Trump-type president to move back to dominating rather than being dominated.

It is important that we begin to see current events in this light. That is because it gives us the ability to see what is fueling the backlash...progress. That knowledge can steel us for the struggle, but it is also empowering. The threat to entitlement is so strong that it is resulting in a lashing out from the dying beast in its death throes. Or, as Rebecca Traister put it:

This is our country in an excruciating period of change. This is the story of the slow expansion of possibility for figures who have long existed on the margins, and it is also the story of the dangerous rage those figures provoke.

Finally, knowing all this reminds us to keep our eyes on the prize.

A Feminist Democratic Agenda

Years ago I jokingly referred to the Gloria Steinem quote in that image at a family gathering. My mother responded with a rage that was not typical for her. I realized quickly that I had struck a nerve about how she had crafted her own identity and the things she valued. I was joking about the bargain with life that she had made back in the early 1950's.

Years later, that bargain is undergoing radical change. Rebecca Traister has written a book titled: All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation. In an article adapted from the book, Traister begins by giving us the data related to the change:

In 2009, the proportion of American women who were married dropped below 50 percent. In other words, for the first time in American history, single women (including those who were never married, widowed, divorced, or separated) outnumbered married women. Perhaps even more strikingly, the number of adults younger than 34 who had never married was up to 46 percent, rising 12 percentage points in less than a decade. For women under 30, the likelihood of being married has become astonishingly small: Today, only around 20 percent of Americans ages 18-29 are wed, compared to nearly 60 percent in 1960.

Traister then outlines the impact of that change.

It is a radical upheaval, a national reckoning with massive social and political implications. Across classes, and races, we are seeing a wholesale revision of what female life might entail. We are living through the invention of independent female adulthood as a norm, not an aberration, and the creation of an entirely new population: adult women who are no longer economically, socially, sexually, or reproductively dependent on or defined by the men they marry.

This reorganization of our citizenry, unlike the social movements that preceded it and made it possible — from abolition and suffrage and labor fights of the 19th and early-20th centuries to the civil-rights, women’s, and gay-rights movements of the mid-20th century — is not a self-consciously politicized event. Today’s women are, for the most part, not abstaining from or delaying marriage to prove a point about equality. They are doing it because they have internalized assumptions that just a half-century ago would have seemed radical: that it’s okay for them not to be married; that they are whole people able to live full professional, economic, social, sexual, and parental lives on their own if they don’t happen to meet a person to whom they want to legally bind themselves.

Even though this is not a politicized movement, it has had profound effects on our politics.

While they are not often credited for it, single women’s changed circumstances are what’s driving a political agenda that seems to become more progressive every day. The practicalities of female life independent of marriage give rise to demands for pay equity, paid family leave, a higher minimum wage, universal pre-K, lowered college costs, more affordable health care, and broadly accessible reproductive rights; many of these are issues that have, for years, been considered too risky to be central to mainstream Democratic conversation, yet they are policies today supported by both Democratic candidates for president.

Prior to reading this article, it had actually never occurred to me that much of the agenda of the Democratic Party today is so profoundly feminist. That is a remarkable change that has gone largely unnoticed. It is also important to note that this agenda was not put on the table by our current presidential candidates. It was there for them to embrace long before they announced their intentions to enter this race.

As Stan Greenberg documented in his book, America Ascendant, this agenda is supported by the majority of Americans - regardless of their party affiliation. That is how it came to be embraced by Democrats prior to this presidential election and is likely to drive much of the debate going forward.

Of course there is a segment of the population that finds this agenda deeply threatening - exactly because it represents the kind of change to the social order of a bygone era. And so, much like the backlash we're seeing to the changing racial demographics, this one is facing a significant reaction from many conservatives. That is why I recently suggested that almost every issue in this election cycle can be seen through the lens of an old social order clamoring for a return to dominance as the organizing principle.

But as Traister suggests, our economic and social systems will have to adapt.

None of this is easy, or likely to happen quickly, especially not with a Republican-led Congress. But it is the beginning of a new kind of relationship between American women and their government. Single women are taking up space in a world that was not designed for them. They make up a new republic, a new category of citizen. If the country is to flourish, we must make room for free women, and let go of the economic and social systems built around the presumption that no woman really counts unless she is married.

Rogue State and Misogyny: Trump's Foreign Policy

Since I did my due diligence and slogged through Donald Trump's interview with the Washington Post, I have no desire whatsoever to try and get through the one he did with the New York Times. But Max Fisher did the work for me and tried his best to understand Trump's foreign policy. Here's the part of that analysis that stood out to me:

Trump's favorite word in his New York Times interview is "unpredictable."

"We need unpredictability," he says. "Would I go to war? Look, let me just tell you. There’s a question I wouldn’t want to answer. Because I don’t want to say I won’t or I will."

Unpredictability is central to the Trump foreign policy doctrine. So is an emphasis on zero-sum relations with all nations, a disdain for allies, a status quo position of belligerence and uncooperativeness, a strategy of using leverage and bullying to extract concessions from other countries, and an innate suspicion of the international order.

What Trump is describing, in his vision of American foreign policy, is what we might otherwise call a rogue state.

Trump's America is, like North Korea or at times Putin's Russia, a rent seeker leeching off the international order rather than upholding it.

Frankly, I am at a loss for words beyond that. It is incomprehensible to me that rational people would seriously consider voting for a man like that to be Commander-in-Chief. The anger/fear that drives those folks must be some powerful elixir.

Kevin Drum also waded through the interview - which was conducted with David Sanger and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times and noticed something extremely telling.

Trump spent the entire interview practically slobbering over Sanger. Haberman might as well have been nonexistent for all the attention she got and the number of times Trump interrupted her to turn his attention back to Sanger. You may draw your own conclusions.

Here's my conclusion: Franklin Foer is right when he says, "But there’s one ideology that he [Trump] does hold with sincerity and practices with unwavering fervor: misogyny." Nuff said.