Changing positions is a subtle political art. Most politicians never master it. Some pivot gracefully. Donald Trump goes on to Sean Hannity’s show and polls the audience, Should I flip flop, yes or no?
The answer was yes, and not vis-a-vis some trivial issue, but on the issue that defines his campaign, the one he used to hack the Republican primary: immigration reform.
Trump is now embracing the idea of letting law-abiding, undocumented immigrants who’ve been in the U.S. for many years live out the rest of their lives here legally. An amnesty, in other words. Just like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
Not to get too technical here, but by the standards of his own core supporters in the white nationalist “alt right,” this makes Trump a cuck. Just like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
As it happens, Hillary Clinton is giving a speech today denouncing the alt-right as a cradle of racism and weird frog memes. Trump’s change of heart on immigration creates an opportunity for her to sow division among its ranks as well, by persuading them that Trump is a cuck.
Less than 24 hours ago, she went on a tweetstorm berating Donald Trump for softening his immigration policy, which included him hinting at amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Coulter tweeted, “It’s ‘comprehensive immigration reform’!!!!” As Jeet Heer pointed out, her criticism was a sharp 180 from someone who had just (and I mean just) released a book titled In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!
But in another, even more surprising 180 (albeit one that doesn’t quite add up to 360), Coulter herself tempered her immigration rhetoric. Today, she told the Washington Examiner,“Perhaps it is in our interest to let some of them stay.”
Her interview with Bloomberg Businessweek’s Joshua Green sheds some light on why she stepped into Trump’s line so quickly—apparently, she thinks of him as her own Kim Jong-un:
Talked to Coulter last night. She isn't about to jump off the Trump train: compared him (favorably!) to Kim Jong-un pic.twitter.com/WpVEOBjDhB
Hillary goes there: An actual Klansman, white robe and all, endorsing Trump.
As part of the rollout for Clinton’s speech today on Trump and the alt-right, the campaign has posted a video that truly takes the gloves off—and puts the sheet on.
The video begins bluntly, with a clip of a Klansman supporting The Donald: “The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes, we believe in. ... Donald Trump would be best for the job.”
There's a reason the most hateful fringe of the right wing is supporting Donald Trump.https://t.co/AqB3DM2m0N
The video also throws in clips of a white nationalist robocall for Trump from this past January, as well as remarks by Jared Taylor of American Renaissance and the infamous David Duke. We see Trump himself punting a question about Duke’s support: “I don’t know anything about white supremacists, so I don’t know.” Then there’s the coup de grace, the hiring of Steve Bannon from Breitbart.
“If Trump wins, they could be running the country.” It’s a message that works for the entire spectrum of Clinton’s support: minority voters, as well as the great many white people who don’t want to be morally associated with such people.
The University of Chicago is attacking academic freedom.
Jay Ellison, dean of students, has sent a letter to the incoming class of 2020 outlining the school’s policy on academic freedom:
Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called “trigger warnings,” we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual “safe spaces” where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.
Ellison’s letter is a perverse document. It’s very much like the French Burkini ban: an illiberal policy justified in the name of liberal values. As CUNY historian Angus Johnston notes, “There’s no college in the country where profs are required to give trigger warnings. They’re all voluntary pedagogical choices. Which means a professor’s use of trigger warnings isn’t a threat to academic freedom. It’s a MANIFESTATION of academic freedom.”
Johnston is exactly on-point. Prior to Ellison’s letter, University of Chicago professors had the right to use trigger warnings or not use them. Now, if a professor decides to use them, he or she will face administrative opposition. Academic freedom means that professors get to design their syllabus, not administrators like Ellison. His letter is a prime example of how the outcry against “political correctness” often leads to policy changes that limit free speech.
Donald Trump is hoping everyone magically forgets his old positions on immigration.
Following his major turnaround on mass deportations and a new embrace of an amnesty process, his reliably comical spokeswoman Katrina Pierson went on CNN this morning to try to convince people that there was really no change at all—and it wasn’t exactly successful.
“He hasn’t changed his position on immigration,” Pierson said. “He’s changed the words that he is saying.”
CNN host Erica Hill, along with the panelists, burst into laughter.
Pierson continued: “What he has always said from the beginning is that he does not want to allow people to stay in this country illegally. He does want to build a wall. But he wants to work with Congress to get things done. And that’s exactly what he has said from the beginning.”
Hill responded, “Katrina, he has said, ‘Get them out.’ He’s been very clear about his position. This is a change; this is a shift; this is a flip-flop; it’s an evolution, whatever word you want to use.”
Trump has put himself in an impossible trap. Unless he pivots away, he can’t make gains with non-white voters and white voters who don’t want to be associated with his racism. But if he does pivot away, he alienates his far-right base, such as the now-devastated Ann Coulter.
And even if he does pivot away, it can’t possibly work—because we all know what his positions have been for well over a year! The vast trail of TV interviews and campaign rally videos is not simply going to disappear.
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Fifty-two years of bloodshed and terror. Four years of plodding, back-and-forth negotiations. Colombians have been waiting a long time for the armed conflict between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to come to an end. But even after the announcement of a historic peace accord last night, they’ll still have to wait a little bit longer.
Before the terms of the deal—which include sub-agreements on such issues as the eradication of coca, agrarian reform, demobilization and disarmament, transitional justice, and political participation for reintegrated rebels—can be implemented, each party needs to seek approval from their respective constituencies.
On the rebel side, that’s considered little more than a formality. The FARC could not have survived this many decades dispersed across the Colombian jungle were it not for the discipline of its troops, and commanders have been briefing mid-level officers throughout the peace process. Dissent and even subordination are expected on some scale, but for the most part, the guerrillas seem ready to lay down their weapons.
But the outlook for civil society’s ratification is not nearly so certain. President Juan Manuel Santos explained Wednesday that, while he will submit the peace agreement before Congress later today, approval will depend on the outcome of a previously promised plebiscite set to be held October 2. Despite a broad coalition of support, the peace process has never been as popular in Colombia as it is among the international community. The rebels have done much to engender distrust, and former President Alvaro Uribe has been leading a furious propaganda campaign against the talks since the parties first sat down in Havana in 2012.
President Santos—who fielded congratulatory calls from President Obama, among others, last night—has staked his legacy on peace. But that’s not necessarily reassuring, given that his approval rating has been flirting with the single digits for months now. The plebiscite was his idea to begin with, back when it seemed like a clever way of easing pressure on the peace talks. But it’s not hard to imagine it becoming a broader referendum on his leadership. Recent polls suggest the afterglow from Wednesday’s announcement will be enough to carry an up-down vote. But other polls have come back showing the “no’s” on top. As sad as it is to say, after more than a half century of war, the prospect of peace with the FARC is coming down to an ill-informed political bet.
The first rule of the alt-right is you do not talk about the alt-right.
Hillary Clinton is set to to deliver a major speech today on Donald Trump becoming the champion of the alt-right movement, which is rife with racism and misogyny. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has a response: What’s the alt-right?
Norah O’Donnell this morning asked: “Steve Bannon, who led the Breitbart web site, is now part of the Trump campaign, and has heralded the alt-right movement. How would you describe the alt-right movement?”
“I am not that familiar with it, to be frank with you,” Conway responded. “I’ve read about it. But I think we all start cherrypicking headlines from a web site. And is Hillary Clinton running against a web site?”
Anthony Mason asked: “Would you say the Trump campaign has a platform for the alt-right movement?”
“No, not at all. We’ve never even discussed it internally. It certainly isn’t a part of our strategy meetings. It’s nothing that Mr. Trump says out on the stump.”
Considering that the Trump campaign and Breitbart are now essentially a single organization, and that Trump has a penchant for retweeting alt-right memes, a lot of people might find this hard to believe. But in some ways, it really does go right back to the original Know-Nothing movement of the mid-1800s—so named because its members were supposed to say, “I know nothing,” about its secretive meetings.
Ann Coulter is furious at Donald Trump—and for good reason.
Trump has had no bigger media boaster, not even the lick-spittling Sean Hannity, than Coulter. Over the last year, Coulter has lent her considerable polemical power to the cause of defending Trump from Republican doubters. She even has a new book out titled In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! In this tome, she says, “There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies.” So what does Trump do? Change his immigration policies, dropping hints that he’ll accept the very type of amnesty that he once denounced when it was advocated by Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
What’s an author to do when the hero she champions in her book betrays her on the very eve of publication? Especially when your book launch is, by all appearances, a sad affair?
The biggest scandal of the election might be Donald Trump’s definition of a “hot celebrity.”
Speaking in Tampa, the Republican presidential nominee said, “The only people enthusiastic about [Hillary Clinton’s] campaign are Hollywood celebrities—in many cases celebrities that aren’t very hot anymore.” This is an almost classic case of an insult that goes one step too far, like the old joke that “the food at that restaurant is terrible and the portions are too small.” Is Clinton’s problem that she has only celebrity enthusiasts? Or that her celebrity enthusiasts aren’t very hot?
Trump’s remarks also remind us of his habit of projection. After all, at the Republican National Convention he brought out celebrity endorsers like Willie “Duck Dynasty” Robertson, Scott “Joanie Loves Chachi” Baio, and Antonio “Miscellaneous Soap Operas” Sabato Jr. These are hardly the brightest stars in the firmament. They hardly stack up to the Clinton supporters who seem to have set Trump off, notably Justin Timberlake and Meryl Streep. Trump’s outburst supports the general rule that most of his insults are reflections of his own insecurity.
Is this the year when anti-LGBT political campaigns reach a dead end?
It was not so long ago that President George W. Bush won a presidential election thanks to a series of anti–gay marriage referenda put on the ballot by GOP legislatures in states like Ohio. Things have definitely changed since then, with the Supreme Court declaring marriage equality a constitutional right in 2015. Now, conservatives are facing a setback in their one fallback issue when it comes to LGBT rights: preventing transgender people from using the public bathroom of their choice.
The new Monmouth University poll for North Carolina finds that Governor Pat McCrory (R), who signed a restrictive bathroom law earlier this year, trailing Democratic state Attorney General Roy Cooper by a solid margin of 52 percent to 43 percent.
The poll drilled down on the bathrooms issue—and the public doesn’t seem to be happy about it, after it resulted in corporations leaving the state and the loss of the NBA All-Star game:
15. Do you approve or disapprove of H.B. 2 – the state law that prohibits local governments from allowing transgendered people to use the public restroom of their choice?
36% Approve 55% Disapprove 9% (VOL) No opinion
16. Regardless of whether you approve of the law do you think passing H.B. 2 has been good or bad for North Carolina’s reputation nationally, or has it had no impact on the state’s reputation?
9% Good 70% Bad 14% No impact 7% (VOL) Don’t know
When the Republican Party and the conservative activist movement try to put themselves back together after this election, they could be facing a stark reality: Any kind of anti-LGBT campaign could be a vote-loser in the swing states.
Fifteen towns have now banned the full-body swimsuit, citing possible links between its religious symbolism and recent terror attacks in the country. The deputy mayor of Nice, the latest town to implement the ban, explained that the burkini was “not in keeping with our ideal of social relations.” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also expressed his support for the ban, because a garment ““founded on the subjugation of women” was “not compatible with the values of France.”
Those French values were on full display in photographs shot on a beach in Nice, which appear to show armed police forcing a woman to take off her outer clothing. The spectacle struck many as menacing, almost medieval, revealing a deep intolerance for religious expression as well as an absurd notion of what constitutes national security. And in general, the practice of politicians legislating what women can or cannot wear is an unwelcome relic from the past.
Is this laïcité? Is this what being liberal looks like? Men forcing women to take clothes off? https://t.co/NOT4IcvuF5
The burkini ban is only the latest instance of the French government stigmatizing Muslim women in the name of secularism and security. Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2010 burqa ban also sparked debate about whether religious garb threatened French cultural values and whether the state could impinge on the religious expression of Muslim women. Of course, nuns’ habits, priestly robes, and the vestments of other faiths were not targeted in these waves of legislation. Laïcité, a near-sacred principle of secularism often cited in these instances, only seems to target Muslims.
Many argue that such bans only isolate Muslim women, therefore achieving the opposite of the integration that French politicians claim they desire. The burkini ban, in particular, contradicts the garment’s intended purpose. The swimsuit was invented in 2004 by an Australian woman, Aheda Zanetti, to encourage Muslim women to go outdoors, play sports, and swim, key aspects of life in Australia. As she wrote today for The Guardian:
When I invented the burkini in early 2004, it was to give women freedom, not to take it away. ... It symbolizes leisure and happiness and fun and fitness and health and now they are demanding women get off the beach and back into their kitchens? This has given women freedom, and they want to take that freedom away?