“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Eugene Robinson: Can Trump weather the storms of his own making?
Wow, we went from no drama to all drama in the blink of an eye. An embattled President Trump spent the weekend raging in frustration at his inability to control events — and his administration is just in its second month. How will he make it through a year? Let alone four?
And how long before Trump campaign insiders whose names have surfaced in reports about Russian contacts start lawyering up? How long before nervous political allies start backing away? How long before Republicans in Congress start putting self-interest — and, one dares to hope, the national interest — above party loyalty? [..]
Trump has put himself in a no-win position. If the Republican leadership in Congress denies his request for an investigation, he suffers an embarrassing public rebuke. If the request is granted, however, Trump sets in motion a process he will not be able to control.
It is one thing to take office determined to disrupt traditional ways of doing things. It is quite another to flail wildly at imaginary enemies, wounding oneself in the process. What on Earth will the third month of the Trump presidency be like?
Dean Baker: Progressives Should Support Policies That Help All Working-Class People
In the months following the election there has been a strange debate about whether Democrats should try to recapture the white working class voters who supported Donald Trump. Those arguing against such an effort have said that there is no reason to try to appeal to voters who supported a racist, xenophobic and misogynist candidate.
While no one should have empathy for the hatred expressed by Donald Trump and many of his supporters, there is a separate policy issue. The question is whether progressives should look to support policies that help the working class.
Note that I said “working class,” not “white working class.” It’s true that many white manufacturing workers have been hit badly by changes in the economy over the last four decades, most notably the rise in the trade deficit and the decline in unionization. But millions of African-American, working-class workers were also hit by these same trends, as were working-class Latinos and Latinas, although fewer Latinos and Latinas were working in factories three decades ago.
Workers without college degrees have been losers in the last three decades regardless of their race or ethnic background. This is a simple and important point — and has been noted by a number of critics since the election. However, it is widely misunderstood.
Richard Eskow: Resign, Jeff Sessions. It’s Not About Russia, It’s About Justice
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is a man out of time, a holdover from an age when more people believed that certain groups were exempt from the rule of law. He may be out of time in another way, too: His days as Attorney General might be numbered.
Even in the Senate, Sessions was something of a fringe figure on the far right. Then he had the foresight or good timing to be one of the first politicians to get on board the Trump train. Sessions quickly moved, in the words of one headline, “from the fringe to prime-time.”
How extreme is Jeff Sessions? The head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, Heidi Beirich, reviewed Session’s comments about Muslims and immigrants and concluded he had engaged in “hate speech.” She calls the new extent of Sessions’ influence “a tragedy for American politics.”
Robert Kagan: Republicans are becoming Russia’s accomplices
It would have been impossible to imagine a year ago that the Republican Party’s leaders would be effectively serving as enablers of Russian interference in this country’s political system. Yet, astonishingly, that is the role the Republican Party is playing.
U.S. intelligence services have stated that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the intention of swinging it to one side. Knowing how cautious the intelligence community is in making such judgments, and given the significance of this particular finding, the evidence must be compelling. At the very least, any reasonable person would have to conclude that there is enough evidence to warrant a serious, wide-ranging and open investigation. Polls suggest that a majority of Americans would like to see such an investigation carried out.
It’s important at this time of intense political conflict to remain focused on the most critical issue. Whether certain individuals met with Russian officials, and whether those meetings were significant, is secondary and can eventually be sorted out. The most important question concerns Russia’s ability to manipulate U.S. elections. That is not a political issue. It is a national security issue. If the Russian government did interfere in the United States’ electoral processes last year, then it has the capacity to do so in every election going forward. This is a powerful and dangerous weapon, more than warships or tanks or bombers. Neither Russia nor any potential adversary has the power to damage the U.S. political system with weapons of war. But by creating doubts about the validity, integrity and reliability of U.S. elections, it can shake that system to its foundations.
Lawrence Douglas: President Donald Trump is the most powerful cornered animal in the world
For all his inconstancy of character, Donald Trump is a master manipulator. He rose to political prominence by slandering Barack Obama. He rode the birther myth as far as it would go – before brazenly jettisoning it with the insistence that it was all the handiwork of Hillary Clinton.
Now once again, he seeks to buoy his political fortunes by attacking Obama. Perhaps what is so striking about the tweets is not their desperation, but their cynicism. In exclaiming “This is McCarthyism!”, Trump said something deeply revealing – only about himself. McCarthyism was never in the first instance about wiretapping. It was about defaming public officials with charges of treason without a shred of evidence. Sounds familiar, no? [..]
Since his inauguration a scant six weeks ago, Trump has defamed a great newspaper, a federal judge, and a former president. He has attacked whole institutions, pillars of American democracy. He appears willing to hold a great constitutional order hostage to his narcissism and political insecurities.
One wishes to echo the words of Joseph Welch who famously asked of Joe McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
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