“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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Paul Krugman: Their Dark Fantasies
I’m a baby boomer, which means that I’m old enough to remember conservatives yelling “America — love it or leave it!” at people on the left who criticized racism and inequality. But that was a long time ago. These days, disdain for America — the America that actually exists, not an imaginary “real America” in which minorities and women know their place — is concentrated on the right.
To be sure, progressives still see a lot wrong with the state of our society, and seek change. But they also celebrate the progress we have made, and for the most part the change they seek is incremental: It involves building on existing institutions, not burning everything down and starting over.
On the right, however, you increasingly find prominent figures describing our society as a nightmarish dystopia.
Heather Digby Parton: Is Paul Ryan toast? Donald Trump’s campaign should make House speaker worry about his future
It’s not surprising that Trump is melting down even more dramatically than usual. You know how he loves to look at poll numbers and they just aren’t looking very good for him at the moment. But things aren’t looking any better for the GOP in general. It’s foolish to predict anything about this election but if it follows past elections, it’s possible that in addition to losing the presidential race the Republicans will also lose the Senate. They gerrymandered their House majority so efficiently that it’s almost impossible for them to lose their majority (speaking of rigged elections) but the way they’re going it’s likely they will lose more seats than they had anticipated.
So one of the big questions is what happens to the House if the GOP hangs on to a slim majority that’s even more conservative than it was in 2016. After all, those are the safest seats. And it raises the question: Will Paul Ryan remain speaker? [..]
Unless a miracle happens and the Democrats take the House, with or without Paul Ryan it’s very likely that we will see more of the same congressional obstruction and destruction of the last eight years, with the added thrill of ongoing investigations into the new administration. One of the top 2020 presidential hopefuls, Sen. Tom Cotton, is already on board.
Charles M. Blow: Donald Trump, the Worst of America
Donald Trump has virtually stopped trying to win this election by any conventional metric and is instead stacking logs of grievance on the funeral pyre with the great anticipation of setting it ablaze if current polls turn out to be predictive.
There is something calamitous in the air that surrounds the campaign, a hostile fatalism that bespeaks a man convinced that the end is near and aiming his anger at all within reach.
As his path to victory grows narrower, his desperation grows more pronounced. [..]
Trump is back to carelessly shooting off his mouth and recklessly shooting himself in the foot.
It is sad, really, but for him I have no sympathy. He has spent this entire election attacking anyone and everyone whom he felt it would be politically advantageous to attack. Trump, now that you’re under attack, you want to cry woe-is-me and have people commiserate. Slim chance, big guy.
The coarseness of your character has been put on full display, and now the electorate has come to cash the check you wrote.
Bill McKibben: Donald Trump Isn’t the Only Enemy on the Ballot
I voted early at the town hall in my small Vermont hamlet last week. Partly because I may be out of town on election day—and partly because I wanted to make sure that just in case Donald Trump got forced from the race, I had the pleasure of voting against him. And it was a pleasure, the same pleasure an antibody must feel when it wipes out some invading virus.
For me, Trump represents much of what’s wrong with American politics. A man who wants to jail his opponents, harass women, and scapegoat immigrants for the nation’s problems would obviously do great damage in the White House—heck, he’s obviously done great damage already. But it’s the “obviously” part that worries me some.
Harry Boyte: Is this poisonous election actually inspiring a democratic awakening?
It would be wrong to ignore the psychological, social and political damage this poisonous election is causing. When the movement called Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism, an effort to awaken therapists to their public responsibilities, commissioned a study of 1,000 voting-age Americans, 43 percent reported emotional distress from Trump and his campaign. But 28 percent also feel distress from the Clinton campaign. As many have observed, beyond proposals for new government programs it is hard to see an inspiring vision coming from Clinton. This absence is part of a larger crisis in government-centered views of democracy. “The liberal story that has ruled our world in the past few decades … is collapsing,” writes Yuval Noah Harari in a recent New Yorker. “So far no new story has emerged to fill the vacuum.”
But in the midst of a dismal election, it is possible to see signs of a democratic awakening. This way of seeing puts citizens – not government, markets or powerful leaders – at the center of politics, problem-solving and the creation of a democratic way of life.
Robert Kuttner: Here’s Why We Can’t Relax For The Rest Of This Election
Three weeks to go. It would be great if Donald Trump’s escalating weirdness gave Hillary Clinton a lock on the race. But we’re not there yet.
Large numbers of voters still don’t like either candidate. The polls do show a small, steady movement to Clinton. But depending on which poll you believe, the campaign seems to be about a six or seven point race. And in some key states like Ohio and New Hampshire, it’s a lot closer — too close for comfort. [..]
It’s staggeringly disappointing that wavering voters don’t weigh Clinton’s relatively minor flaws against Trump’s overwhelming ones and conclude that Clinton is the only prudent choice. But not enough swing voters have drawn that confusion for this election to be a lock. Not yet, anyway.
The latest leaks of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street audiences reinforce the impression that she’s an opportunist. There is no smoking gun, but clearly Clinton tacks left on the issue of bank regulation banks when that’s politically expedient, and tacks to Wall Street in private conversation.
That doesn’t make her all that different from too many Democrats, but it draws an unflattering spotlight back onto her — when Trump’s outbursts, which become more bizarre by the day, should be getting all the attention.
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