I consider that question in my latest Bloomberg column, and actually contrary to conventional wisdom the rationality of extreme presidential tweeting cannot be ruled out. Here is just one bit in a longer argument:
On top of all that, now imagine that you consider nationalism, resurrecting America as it once was, negotiating from strength, returning to older notions of masculinity and “building a wall” as the major issues of the day. You don’t see the traditional Republican concerns with cutting taxes and repealing Obamacare as all that salient for reversing America’s deterioration, even if you are willing to go along with those reforms. Nor, given your nationalism and unilateralism, do you see alienating allies as a major cost of opining so openly.
In that rather pessimistic view of the world, it might make sense to give up entirely on the idea that your administration will accomplish much in the way of policy, at least as the concept is traditionally understood. Instead, you might be thinking of shifting the window of policy debate over a 10- to 20-year period. That is, you might be hoping the American public will be thinking in more Trumpian terms a few administrations from now, even if outwardly they have rejected your legacy. It then will be the case that mainstream politicians will work to implement some Trumpian ideas through more traditional channels.
Do read the whole thing.
The question is not about the existence of positive features, but if positive features overcome adverse ones. Even heroine feels good for sometime before destroying the consumer.
For a long time politics has become a performance art more than anything else. Politicians pretend to be people they are not and to support policies they do not in order to better hoodwink the public. Real politics is done behind closed doors and every so often they ask the mob to choose between one or other bland Ivy League twit holding pretty much the same opinions as all the others. Politics has become a game of trying to find a crack in the facade – to threaten the performance by showing that it is false.
The gatekeepers to this vaudeville show are the press. They have acted as ring masters calling each puppet on stage for their turn before driving them off.
Trump’s tweets by-pass that completely. Yes, they are not polished performances. He does not focus group every thought before sending it. Good. Better than good. It shows real policies being made by real people who express real views. No matter what the buffoons who think they are our betters think.
Strategically I think this will work out. Because other countries do it too. We know the Japanese politicians occasionally say what they think. Especially about Blacks, Hispanics and women. The Chinese are even more controlled. I bet that when it comes down to it, Xi Jingping has more in common with Trump than he does with anyone Farid Zakaria has ever talked to. The best thing is that they will all know where Trump is coming from. They will know whether what he says can be trusted or not because it is not a fake pose for the cameras.
‘He does not focus group every thought before sending it’
Which is extremely entertaining, making moot, for example, any argument that candidate Trump’s talking about a TRAVEL BAN should be ignored, when the president himself is typing it. Though admittedly, you don’t actually focus group legal arguments, as the ACLU points out – ‘Glad we both agree the ban is a ban.’ https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/871160314070523905 Washington insiders at the Justice Department had been doing their best to avoid the term ‘ban,’ and to have the courts disregard candidate Trump’s statements, but Trump, in very public fashion, showed what he thinks about such DC swamp legal tactics. Not to mention calling again for a stricter TRAVEL BAN, along the lines of the one that had already been rejected by the courts (along with the American military, appalled at the idea that those who had fought alongside American military personnel in Iraq would not be allowed to travel or reside in the U.S.)
‘It shows real policies being made by real people who express real views.’
Ones that will likely be struck down by real courts with real judges who express real legally binding views. Though as always, Trump has already expressed his view on that process too – ‘In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!’
Though this focus on the press or media remains confusing. You do know that Comey’s hearing, for example, will be streamed, right? No need to read any press account, it can be seen without any need for the press to be involved at all.
Almost as if C-SPAN hasn’t existed for decades at this point, actually.
Is there any strategic justification for anyone’s tweets? Was there for Obama’s tweets? Or Hillary’s? It’s all simply more information, good, bad and irrelevant. It’s up to the consumer to interpret and evaluate. The reason the left wants Trump to stop tweeting is because they want their friend in the MSM to drive the information available for the consumer/voter. Trump is bypassing them and usurping their power. Trump lives in your head rent free.
And Hillary lives in yours. So little self-knowledge.
Perhaps Hillary should live in your head too msgkings Her interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” September 18, 2016 sticks into the minds of many.
“I would like to see us move from what is a good start with 10,000 to 65,000 and begin immediately to put into place the mechanisms for vetting the people that we would take in.”
Had she been elected, how long would we have had before a jihad against non belivers occurred every month? By 2020? 2022?
By then we would be teaching our elementary school children that random public death by jihad had always been commonplace.
It’s really hard for smart people like Tyler Cowen and Scott Adams to fully except just how clowny Trump really is.
Masha Gessen said it very well in the NYT this Sunday, we look back on history’s monsters like Stalin and Hitler and Mao and we think of them as super villains weaving dastardly webs when really they were kind of oafish and looked down on for being not very bright. A true autocrat is not necessarily, and in fact rarely is, some genius evil statesman. They are usually Trumpian douchebags.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/sunday/trumps-incompetence-wont-save-our-democracy.html?mcubz=0&_r=0
“… fully except…”
ha. given a relatively small number of “monsters” it is pretty hard to draw up a complete set of rules for predicting the next “monster”, but the common thread for your 3 here is that they made politics their God, and spent their working lives working in politics, they didn’t drift into it after 70 years of NY real estate and reality TV.
Trump has been interested in politics for a couple of decades, and did not just ‘drift’ into it in the last couple of years.
‘It was a fascinating campaign swing. There was “The Tonight Show” and Michael Bolton. There was a reception in a swank hotel where those attending stuffed food in their pockets and where two guys hired escorts to be their dates in order to appear classy. The next day, there was a museum event and a Tony Robbins pay-for-play, pump-it-up event complete with pyrotechnics that we in the media watched to see if they would ignite the candidate’s hair on fire.
It was 1999, and Donald Trump was running for president, sort of, in what now can be cast as his dress rehearsal for the current effort. Almost all that he has showed in 2015 was very clear during those few months of 1999.
Few paid attention then.
In 1999, Trump quit the Republican Party to join the Reform Party and seek that party’s presidential nomination. As he used to say back then about women around the world, he clearly believed “he had a shot” at the nomination — and he just may have.’ http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/256159-a-look-back-at-trumps-first-run
For slightly more sober reporting, though watch out for the Godwinning – ‘Donald Trump’s presidential campaign of 2000 for the nomination of the Reform Party began when real estate magnate and long-time President/CEO of the Trump Organization Donald Trump of New York announced the creation of a presidential exploratory committee on the October 7, 1999 edition of Larry King Live. Though Trump had never held elected office, he was well known for his frequent comments on public affairs and business exploits as head of The Trump Organization. He had previously considered a presidential run in 1988 as a Republican, but chose not to run. For 2000, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura persuaded Trump to seek the presidential nomination of the Reform Party, which was fracturing despite achieving ballot access and qualifying for matching funds as a result of the 1996 presidential campaign of businessman Ross Perot. Trump’s entrance into the Reform Party race coincided with that of paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan, whom Trump attacked throughout the campaign as a “Hitler-lover.”‘ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,_2000
Trump has been providing entertainment in politics for years before becoming a reality TV star.
given a relatively small number of “monsters” it is pretty hard to draw up a complete set of rules for predicting the next “monster”, but the common thread for your 3 here is that they made politics their God, and spent their working lives working in politics,
The other rule is that they tend to be Franco-phone, or at least from the central core of Western Europe – the lands of the original Holy Roman Empire. So the Russian educated elite had been French-speaking since before Napoleon. Pol Pot was educated at the Sorbonne. Ho Chi-minh went to French schools. Hitler did not come from Protestant Prussia but from Austria.
Which means Trump is not a big risk. He is half Scottish and speaking English is a good protection against totalitarianism. John Kerry on the other hand is someone we ought to keep an eye on. French-speaking. His entire life in politics.
‘His entire life in politics.’
Apart from the years he spent fighting those Francophones Ho and Pot, while earning three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star. Of course, it is easy to forget that, compared to Trump’s heroic Vietnam War record, only marred by fact of him not having one due to a bone spur in his foot.
“The other rule is that they tend to be Franco-phone, or at least from the central core of Western Europe – the lands of the original Holy Roman Empire. ”
I guess Hitler saw some French in WW I (weren’t they who gassed him?), the Russian nobility spoke French and … Hadn’t France concessions in China before WWII? Yes, I guess it was all the French’s fault. Time to cook more Freedom Fries.
“Apart from the years….” And he still has the bandaids to prove it.
So, TMC, do not be modest – please list your medals from serving in a combat zone.
msgkings June 8, 2017 at 1:53 am
It’s really hard for smart people like Tyler Cowen and Scott Adams to fully except just how clowny Trump really is.
So what? The wisdom of fools (or fairly ordinary people) often trumps the folly of the wise. Especially in these days when membership of the “elite” is marked by a willingness to lie, to abase yourself, to pervert your character by pretending, for instance, that modern art is good or worth looking at. That atonal modern music holds any interest at all. That Marx and Lenin were well meaning people. That pretty much every single political problem is caused by the exact opposite of what we all know the cause is.
To be a member of this class of self-selected smug a$$holes, you only have to sell your integrity and credibility. It is easy to do and the rewards are worth it. Sure, we all know the truth. We all pretty much live that truth – how many people here actually live in vibrant racially diverse neighborhoods? But we have to do violence to our consciences by pretending otherwise.
In such times a dumb man with a spine and some courage is worth more than all the Ivy League graduates put together.
‘In such times a dumb man with a spine and some courage’
Well, then you cannot be talking about Trump, as noted by Trump – ‘Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure,it’s not your fault’ https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/332308211321425920?lang=de
What is amazing is how many people don’t even realize how smart Trump is, as noted by Trump himself on Jan. 27, at the CIA in Langley – ‘“Now, I know a lot about West Point. I’m a person that very strongly believes in academics. Like every time I say I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for 35 years who did a fantastic job in so many different ways, academically — he was an academic genius — and then they say, is Donald Trump an intellectual? Trust me, I’m like a smart person.”
Here is another, better quote by Donald Trump about his uncle John:
“Dr. John Trump at M.I.T.; good genes, very good genes, O.K., very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart.”
He doesn’t have a spine. He is at once a buffoon, hateful, lacking any desire to educate himself on literally anything, corrupt at a level that meets or exceeds anyone in Congress, more vain than most of LA, and simply does not care about the outcomes of his presidency so long as they don’t adversely affect him.
Gee, could you vent more about your tribe lost the 2016 US Presidential election, which will go down as the most historic of all time?
Because there is nothing funnier.
Jan, O’s out of office now. We’re talking about Trump.
Hahahaha! Burn!
“to pervert your character by pretending, for instance, that modern art is good or worth looking at. That atonal modern music holds any interest at all.”
This is so silly I am not even quite sure how to respond. You don’t like a certain style of art or music and somehow conclude that folks who do like those styles have perverted their character. This is a very unusual, and in my mind indefensible, viewpoint.
Not unusual, at least among a certain type of political affiliation. Unsurprisingly, there is a term in German for this style of judging certain types of art, which is ‘Entartete Kunst.’
” A true autocrat is not necessarily, and in fact rarely is, some genius evil statesman. They are usually Trumpian douchebags.”
It’s not like there’s a lot of competition to be the autocrat or President. Any idiot can do it, really.
Trump tweets because it goes over and past the media’s control of the message. Sure, they can denigrate the tweeting and the content as much as they like, but they can’t edit the tweet’s themselves. I have long predicted that eventually Twitter will ban Trump- I expect this to happen by the end of 2018, especially if the Democrats make no significant gains in the mid-term elections.
‘Trump tweets because it goes over and past the media’s control of the message.’
And in the case of the TRAVEL BAN, likely straight to the Supreme Court, making utterly moot the question of whether what Trump said as a candidate has any bearing on a court decision concerning his executive order.
So we are going to learn from the Supreme Court whether the President has the power to control immigration, indeed whether people living in other countries have the protections of the US constitution.
This has been simmering for a long time, and instead of a steady drip of jurisprudence in one direction, the issue is going to be faced head on.
I thank Trump’s tweets for this clarity.
Another thing that has been made amply clear, seeing the left to right consensus on the matter, is that the NSA and other security agencies should meddle in politics and spy on the American people. Trump’s tweet brought that out very very clearly.
Another set of tweets has been instrumental in flushing out the corruption of law enforcement, as we are seeing this week.
It would be really nice if Trump maintained the illusions of a competent bureaucracy, diligent law enforcement and honorable security agencies. Then we could get on with renovating the washrooms of the nation.
There’s so much that Twitter can do to mess with Trump’s communication that I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to nationalize it yet. Does Jack Dorsey know how much power he holds in his hands?
Presidents have had multiple ways to directly reach out to the public including the weekly radio addresses started by FDR, op-eds, and live broadcasts from the White House. There is nothing special or unique about Twitter in terms of getting an unfiltered message out to whomever wants to read, listen or watch it. I bet many if not most people learn about Trump’s tweets second-hand through the media anyway.
30 million of Trump’s followers might just disagree with that.
That is 30 million followers worldwide. America is a big country and Pew estimated last year that only about one-fifth of adults use Twitter. Of those, many are infrequent users.
How many of Trump’s Twitter followers were big followers of the media beforehand? We can slice and dice however we wish, but Trump has millions and millions of Americans reading what he writes, without the press playing any role at all.
And it isn’t as if many more people than 30 million may read any individual tweet. I am truly an outsider when it comes to social media, but how many facebook users send Trump’s tweets along directly? Trying to put various pieces together is fraught with difficulties, but there is an excellent chance that more people read what Trump tweets in a fashion that has little to so with the press than through the press.
Hard to know precisely, admittedly, but Trump’s reach using Twitter is likely larger than the combined circulation of all of America’s newspapers, or of cable TV news.
You realize that plenty of people who don’t like Trump follow him, too, mostly just to mock the ridiculousness that his Twitter feed provides?
He lives rent-free in a lot of people’s heads, that’s for sure.
The president always does, at least since Clinton
And all of those people are bypassing the press too, as the response being prompted by this line – ‘There is nothing special or unique about Twitter in terms of getting an unfiltered message out to whomever wants to read, listen or watch it.’
+1
That’s how I hear about Tweety’s tweets too.
Tweets are meaningless ways to distract the press. Normal people dont spend their days obsessing over what people are saying on twitter.
‘In one sentence Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer just eliminated any doubt you may have about whether the media should pay attention to President Trump’s tweets.
“The president is the president of the United States, so they are considered official statements by the president of the United States,” he said in response to a reporter’s question.’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/06/sean-spicer-just-settled-it-we-should-all-pay-attention-to-trumps-tweets/
Considering how the Supreme Court is likely to take up Trump’s TRAVEL BAN, they will then also be reading Trump’s words, though admittedly, they are unlikely to be obsessing over them when using them to provide a foundation for a decision concerning Trump’s executive order. The entertainment value of watching Trump simply blow up the carefully constructed legal fictions his administration has tried to put together to defend something they were at such pains to not call a TRAVEL BAN is truly immense.
Ahh, i got it, so the press is reporting that the White House Press secretary says the press should pay attention to Trump’s tweets. That totally proves that his tweets are not just a way to distract the press!
The press is faithfully repeating the actual words of the actual White House press secretary regarding how to view what the President of the United States of America types on his smartphone.
Let me again link to what that means, in a fashion that completely bypasses the press – https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot
For example, this is apparently the latest official statement of the President of the United States of America that is completely beyond the reach of the media to filter – ‘Getting ready to leave for Cincinnati, in the GREAT STATE of OHIO, to meet with ObamaCare victims and talk Healthcare & also Infrastructure!’ No need to use the press to keep up with the president’s statements – after all, over 30 million of Trump’s followers have already read it, presumably. It is always strange to see people dismiss all of Trump’s followers, those reading his actual words, ones he considers worth sharing without any press filtering, as merely a meaningless way to distract the press.
But then, there are always those willing to dismiss what Trump does when directly reaching his over 30 million followers as being a media plot, somehow. Along with those who refuse to take what Trump writes seriously, of course.
And you do know that you can watch White House events directly, without any filtering from the press, right? https://www.whitehouse.gov/live
Of course the media is playing its own game, which is why it is such a delight to have President Trump provide his own authentic words to show just how DC insiders distort what he thinks and does. For example, all of those people saying Comey was fired due to his Clinton activities were shown to be presenting lies to the American people, thanks to Trump’s refreshing honesty of why Comey was really fired.
As a matter of fact, don’t read about Comey’s testimony, watch him live – https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings
And then, thanks to President Trump’s announcement ‘James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!’ https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/863007411132649473?lang=de , we might be able to see whether the former FBI director’s notes are accurate, compared to Trump’s secretly recorded ‘tapes.’ Not to mention that the president might just be responding directly, to over 30 million followers, to that testimony. One can only hope, of course, as Trump’s own words are so much more enlightening than uninformed speculation of what the president may or may not have meant.
>Tweets are meaningless ways to distract the press.
And it works brilliantly. Which is why Tyler and his tribe need to mock it.
Trump’s tweets, however, are official statements of the President of the United States of America, according to that president’s White House press secretary.
But sure, most things on Twitter on inconsequential. Some of Trump’s tweets, as official statements of the President of the United States of America, are undoubtedly going to be read by the Supreme Court. Personally, one can doubt if any of the nine justices are going to mock those tweets, if only because judges rarely mark evidence entered into the record.
‘mark’ or ‘mock’ – anybody can make a typing mistafefe
‘the rationality of extreme presidential tweeting cannot be ruled out’
And here is a twitter feed that makes every Trump tweet look like what they apparently are, official pronouncements for immediate release from the only person in the White House Office of the Press Secretary that matters – https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot
‘Instead, you might be thinking of shifting the window of policy debate over a 10- to 20-year period’
There is zero evidence that Trump is capable of even thinking of a 10 to 20 day period in terms of policy debate, and his use of Twitter provides public proof of that fact.TRAVEL BAN for the win, right?
I think you are making a mistake. Trump made his mark in business in an environment where a project takes a decade or more from conception to occupancy.
I didn’t (and don’t) think Obama was very bright, but he had goals and did everything he could to advance them, with some measure of success. His silliness was his goals, not his implementation.
Brilliant column by TC! In a word: Trump is a positional sacrifice in chess. Google this.
Does anyone else have the feeling that Prof. Cowen is attempting to play multi-dimensional checkers?
Apart from Ray, who obviously doesn’t.
contrary to conventional wisdom the rationality of extreme Cown hot-take-having cannot be ruled out
Tyler’s job is to write columns that are in line with the DNC directive of the week. It comes down to “whatever makes shattered liberals feel better at the time.”
It has evolved: Trump didn’t really win the election…. Trump may have won the election, but if so, it’s only because he cheated…. Someday very soon, Trump will no longer be President….. Trump, like you gentle reader, does not actually want Trump to be President…. Trump has already given up on being President.
Enraged liberals, still bitter about being told they are irrelevant by no less than the Electoral College of the United States, are desperate for this stuff. They need it like a drowning Mary Jo Kopechne needs air.
It’s transparent, and it’s hilarious. Carry on!
‘Tyler’s job is to write columns that are in line with the DNC directive of the week.’
His column maybe, but some long term, multi-million contributors to the GMU Foundation will be extremely surprised at the assertion that the chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center is working at the behest of DNC directives in any sphere.
‘It comes down to “whatever makes shattered liberals feel better at the time.”’
There is little doubt that some of those long term, multi-million contributors to the GMU Foundation are not liberals, yet they too are seeing some of their most cherished visions of a better America being threatened by a Trump presidency. Though as long as tax cuts for the rich are delivered, they may be able to console themselves that freedom can wait until Scott Walker learns his lines better.
Trump’s sole goal is to dominate the news cycle. He is being the most successful president ever (against that metric) largely because of his tweeting.
The idea of a long-term trumpist agenda raises an important point: what is the state of the trumpist movement. Assuming (controversially) that Trump has a consistent position that he believes, and thus he is on-board with trumpism, I’m not sure anyone at all else is. The white house seems divided between Bannon, Kushner, ‘ordinary conservatives’ and rich businessmen, and none of these groups have exactly the same agenda as Trump. There’s no identifiable trumpist caucus on the hill, and although loads of people are happy to shout at rallies, there’s no coherent grassroots movement to take trumpism forward.
I’m surprised that Trump has no affirmative agenda at all. In terms of legacy I really expected that he would want to do some of these infrastructure projects just out of pure vanity. He could build the tunnel between NJ and NY that Chris Christie sabotaged and have people talking about taking the Trump for the next 100 years. Trump dam, Trump turnpike, I just assumed he wouldn’t be able to help himself.
I think the twitter thing is just ranting out of habit and the pleasure of instant attention. Bathe in the light of the retweets and replies, even if they are negative.
Trump asked NASA to plan a manned mission to orbit the moon Apollo 8 style during his term using the new Space Launch System but, last I heard, NASA vetoed the idea as too risky. I could see him taking on a few infrastructure projects but getting these done requires constructively working with Congress and we don’t know if he can do that.
Yeah that is what surprises me, he doesn’t even have the initiative to put the ball in the other teams court and pressure the Democrats in congress to say no to something they should like. The infrastructure stuff – real federal spending, not tax breaks – should be popular with everyone but the deficit hawks. If they don’t go along he can tour around the country crushing everyone for not creating the jobs. Takes too much initiative and work I suppose.
More like “Trumpian” thinking will be discredited for the next several decades. Don’t act surprised when you get leftist populism.
Actually, no, it was Bush 2 that made it a dead certainty that no Republican would be elected President for the next 40 years.
Oh wait, hold on. It was Bush 1. Yes, that’s the guy. Bush 1.
Leftist populism just means people want their socialism nationalist, like everybody else. That’s what Bernie Sanders learned at various venues when activists would elbow him away from his own microphone.
Black Lives Matter activists are national socialists? And here I was, thinking that this web site had lost its ability to deliver hilarious satire.
Here is a clip from Seattle to see the latest cornrow hair styling of nationalist socialists – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWOuCfdJYMM They certainly don’t look your grandfather’s national socialists. Why, they aren’t even saying “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o6-bi3jlxk
Black socialists want gibmedats for their tribe, not yours, old white man.
‘for their tribe, not yours’
Who knows what they want, apart from not wanting to be shot by the police, as it is not an organized movement. But it would seem that they then aren’t nationalists – so who were the people that want their socialism nationalist that pushed Sanders away from the mike?
http://www.syracuse.com/us-news/index.ssf/2015/08/bernie_sanders_shoved_at_seattle_black_lives_matter_rally_leaves_without_giving.html
http://time.com/3963692/bernie-sanders-martin-omalley-black-lives-matter/
It’s actually kind of hilarious how white and geriatric the Democratic leadership is. At this point the Democrats are the coalition of the fringes but they really don’t have much common cause.
I linked to video of that Seattle incident, along with a video of a victory celebration after Trump’s election. Maybe you could watch both, and then see who are believers in nationalist socialism. Hint – pick the video with the crowd saluting while saying “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”
“You don’t see the traditional Republican concerns with cutting taxes and repealing Obamacare as all that salient for reversing America’s deterioration, even if you are willing to go along with those reforms.”
For some reason, TC now fancies himself a political wiseman, and yet that sentence demonstrates a complete lack of awareness. The Republican establishment shows no stomach for repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes unless Trump keeps the pressure on. Trump is president because the voters saw the weakness of the GOPe in the face of Obama and decided that a new approach was needed and Trump took advantange of it.
Trump is moving on many fronts simultaneously and the stupidity of his opponents is helpful to him. I don’t think most of them will ever realize their error, because the recognition that he is extremely intelligent, bold and decisive would hurt their pride. See, for example, Clinton, Hillary.
I must go fishing now; the trout are waiting.
Why would anyone care about whatever a loser like Clinton thinks? This obsession with the woman is starting to get a bit irritating, actually, almost as if people still want her around. The sooner we all start ignoring her the way most Americans ignore that loser Palin, the better.
So, Comey will be testifying live in just a few hours. Anyone willing to guess on whether Trump will tweet something rational along the lines of “Remember, Comey, I have ‘TAPES’ so watch what you say”
Other rational ideas for what Trump may tweet, without the press standing in his way, are more than welcome. Though in all fairness, no one is able to trump Trump when it comes to using Twitter.
My opinion of Bret Stephens shot up today. In his column in the NYT, he uses my favorite Twilight Zone episode to describe Trump and his presidency. In the episode, the emissary for space aliens arrives on earth and informs the earthlings: “We ask only that you trust us, only that you simply trust us,” delivers a book titled “To Serve Man”, and offers to give earthlings a ride on the aliens’ spaceships to visit the aliens’ planet. Masses fall for it and dutifully line up for what they believe will be a wonderful experience. Of course, it’s too late for them when an analyst figures out that it’s a cookbook. Stephens describes the emissary of the space aliens as “benevolent-seeming” and the masses who fall for it as “credulous”. What Stephens doesn’t mention are the elites who facilitate the deception by themselves lining up for the ride on the spaceships, giving confidence to the masses of the aliens’ benevolence. The masses take their cues from elites, including the elites who are willful participants in the deception that is Trump and his presidency. They as much as Trump will be responsible for the fate that befalls the masses. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/opinion/trump-jeff-sessions-rex-tillerson.html?
Trump at heart is a tabloid strategist, glitzy and vapid. The president’s game theorists, Michael Anton and Steve Bannon, are ripping away all the niceties of politics. At this point, they have shown that an orangutan could be president and there would be no discernible difference.
‘they have shown that an orangutan could be president and there would be no discernible difference’
But what if the orangutan had a cool sidekick? Here is a bit of archival footage – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFFr91atHqE
Niceties of politics like having the US Government spy agencies doing oppo research for you?
Consider this. Trump is normal. I know lots of people like him, and they are often the movers and shakers of communities. I know nobody like Clinton, have passing familiarity with people like Comey, at as far a distance as I possibly can be.
Oddly what we are finding out is how government actually works, how venal the players are, in overwhelming detail.
I see nothing bad about that. It is salutary for a nation to decide not be led.
Well, that was the most Tyler thing I have read in a long time. He certainly finds the perspective that no one else has found, or is willing to use.
I think the best answer ignores Trump the man, to say that no, government is about governance.
In the long term success will be judged by actions, and therefore voters will rebound from this aberration, and seek rational actors.
You don’t need to elect someone just to follow their grumpy objections on Twitter.
Trump isn’t the endgame, just the harbinger. The Overton Window has shifted remarkably due to Trump’s efforts, and will continue to do so.
+1, the most insightful post here.
Of course, I have know idea how any of this is going to play out and who it’s going to help and hurt in the long run. I’m pretty sure no one else knows either.
He’s not the last President of the U.S. as presently constituted, but he’s probably the next-to-next-to-last.
“probably” LOL
How long do you think we have? At some point, somebody will need to prepare for the dissolution of the US.
Longer than 8-16 years
At some point, somebody will need to prepare for the dissolution of the US.
We should be so lucky.
Unfortunately, I think it’s likely too late for an orderly separation. Each side has become too invested in fucking over the other even if it means self-destruction. No, it’s going to be a long, slow, bloody divorce.
I am old enough to remember when good Republicans answered “is this Iraq invasion a good idea?” with “support our troops!”
Bear that in mind when you think you have found a horrible new normal. It might actually be a strained denial, covering a secret rebellion.
In the case of Iraq, that rebellion can come to the fore just a few years later, and good Republicans can demand candidates that opposed that same war.
The pendulum can come at you fast.
“I am old enough to remember when good Republicans answered “is this Iraq invasion a good idea?” with “support our troops!””
The Iraq War was supported by Democrats also.
“Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq
“I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over,” Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book “My Life.”
Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe that Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction remained unaccounted for.”
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/
That misses the point by a mile. Of course Democrats fell in line with “a smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud.” For a time that was the nation’s momentum. That was a pendulum swing. The point is that momentum did not last. The pendulum swung back.
Think about Dick Cheney for a moment. Many Republicans defended him in forums like these for many years, because they thought that was their job. Then, as soon as they didn’t have to, they let him slip away, become a non-person. Trump’s crew is set up for that kind of undoing. (I was reminded this morning that GWB is the only President to ever record lower approval ratings than Trump, and that was in 2008 in the depths of the Great Recession.) This will be especially true if Republicans play Russian-Roulette with AHCA and gamble that a few tens of millions thrown off health insurance is a good electoral policy.
I was seeing bits of Republican talking points re. Comey come by today. I wasn’t thinking about those, but about the poor guys who had to stay up all night righting them. You know the whole time they were thinking:
I. Never. Want. To do this. Ever. Again.
Yeah well, elect a rational actor, a responsible statesman, and you won’t have to.
“Many Republicans defended him in forums like these for many years, because they thought that was their job.”
Sure, partisans are partisan. So what? It’s not like the Democrats don’t do the exact same thing.
Look at how vociferously Democrats defended Hillary Clinton running a private server as Secretary of State from her spare bathroom? And the repeated defenses of the obvious and revealed lies that were spun to get Obamacare passed?
Both sides do it. If you think it’s only significant when Republicans do it, or that Democrats were doing it for the ‘right’ reasons, then you are just caught in the partisan bubble yourself.
I am pretty sure that I keep talking about the pendulum, and you keep trying to make it about sides.
Lol, you even go to the well. The email server.
Oh, I get it now. You can’t stand GWB and Iraq even being an example of overshoot and rebound. Doesn’t matter if it is true, or if there are Democratic examples (Carter’s malaise leading to Reagan’s sunny optimism), you can’t stand the criticism.
Sorry, that’s what happened. It is what will happen again as people admit it is not great having a liar and a fool as President of the United States.
Honestly, I’m having a hard time following you. You seem to be fighting a strawman:
“Lol, you even go to the well. … Oh, I get it now. You can’t stand … you can’t stand the criticism. ”
“It is what will happen again as people admit it is not great having a liar and a fool as President of the United States.”
Certainly there will be a rebound from Trump. I don’t doubt that. But none of us know or can predict, the direction it will go. Will we have a President Pence or a President Sanders? That’s unpredictable at this point. And, as was stated above, the Overton Window has been shifted.
Many of you know history better than I, and I bet you can name extreme points in American history that people fretted were the new normal. Perhaps it was cool to mention Overton.
Tyler likes to point out that domestic bombings peaked in the 70s. From Time: “Nearly a dozen radical underground groups, dimly remembered outfits such as the Weather Underground, the New World Liberation Front and the Symbionese Liberation Army, set off hundreds of bombs during that tumultuous decade.”
4000 years of civilization follow a lot of twists, but much more noise. If someone wants to say that sexuality is not rooted in biology, or other nonsense, you can be sure that is noise too, and not Overton calling.
You know who else was one of the planet’s biggest cheerleaders for invading Iraq? The NYT, of course, who did not let even facts stand in the way of getting what it wanted at the time. Fake news has a long tradition at the NYT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller
Of course, it seems as if Judith Miller is now at Newsmax, undoubtedly providing them with the same sort of reporting that the NYT enjoyed. Those who lie to involve the U.S. in war don’t care about such petty things as liberal or conservative.
Heh. Proof-reading fail. Writing.
I think Professor Cowen is right that Trump’s strategy is to bypass the media, address the people directly and hope for the best — though so far it does not seem as if this strategy has produced much and over time it will probably produce even less.
It will likely provide some fascinating legal analysis regarding presidential intent when deciding on whether an executive order passes constitutional muster.
Tweets show that Trump is either the Wizard of Oz or King Lear; take your pick.
Some worst case combination. The Wizard of Lear.
I really can’t wrap my head around Trump knowing that Russia attacked hundreds, to a thousand, election related servers, and then while holding much of that from the American people, laughing and joshing with the Russians about shutting down the investigation in the Oval Office, US press excluded.
That Trump is just an idiot might excuse some of it, but he is not a good hearted fool. He adores leaders who murder their citizens as matters of business.
In those pictures he seems happier around Russians than Americans. Maybe they’re just his kind of people?
I think you’re overthinking it Tyler. I don’t think Trump cares about policy much at all. He just wants to be liked. At this point, nothing he *does* is likely to help his popularity much: he is constrained in what he can do (policy wise), and what he can do generally won’t excite his fans much. What he can do, though, is *tweet*, and his tweets excite his base. Getting most Americans to like him is, at this point, impossible. But Trump does have millions of fervent fans, and keeping those fans fervent (and their number roughly steady) would seem to be a significant motivation for someone like Trump. And this can be achieved, even in the face of legislative/foreign policy gridlock, by tweeting.
This is pretty much it.
+1
This seems to be the most likely explanation.
The only strategic benefit I can adduce is distraction. Keep the media focused on moronic tweets while the real action happens offstage. That would b tax reform, health care, etc.
Trump is the oldest person in history to be elected . A not insignificant side effect of the tweeting is to make him appear younger and more energetic than he is. Also, the power of it to distract and draw attention to whatever he wants is a kind of time machine. Trump knows exactly what will be in the headlines a week from now, because he makes them.