“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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Charles P. Pierce: Why Hiring Steve Bannon Is the Same as Hiring David Duke
As I pointed out on the electric Twitter machine over the weekend, appointing Steve Bannon to an important position within the White House is precisely the same as appointing David Duke to an important position within the White House. (If you want to quibble that I’m wrong because Bannon doesn’t wear a hood to work, have at it.) However, the reaction to installing George Lincoln Rockhead in Ted Sorenson’s old office has been disappointing, especially among those people who are supposed to be in a position to keep the barbarians from the gates. Fear for the gates. [..]
It’s a sad moment for this country when the best hope you have for an incoming administration is that it will be able to jettison the racism and xenophobia that was its primary fuel while fulfilling the impossible economic promises that it has made. If that doesn’t happen, and the impossible economic promises do not come to pass, only the racism and xenophobia will be all that’s left and over the weekend, we learned that they will have a friend at the apex of our government to keep them warm.
Dahlia Lithwick: Trump’s judges could damage the US for decades to come
For American progressives, something far greater than the presidency was lost last week. Thanks to unprecedented and indeed unprincipled obstruction by Senate Republicans, Donald Trump will enter the White House with a supreme court vacancy to fill. Having failed to win control of the Senate, and with Republicans there promising to do away with the filibuster rule for supreme court nominations, it is now president-elect Trump’s prerogative to fill the high court seat that has sat empty for almost nine months, with any jurist he wishes, and to fill myriad judicial vacancies in the lower courts – some of which have remained empty for lengthy stretches, also due to GOP obstruction.
In the near term, replacing Antonin Scalia with another rock-ribbed conservative – if Trump’s list of 21 possible nominees are any indication – simply means that America returns to a 5-4 court dominated by conservatives, with Anthony Kennedy occasionally (but with increasing frequency) defecting to vote with the liberals. In the longer term, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 83, Anthony Kennedy 80 and Stephen Breyer at 78, Trump may have an opportunity to swing the high court to the hard right for decades. He has said that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are his model jurists. A few more such nominations in place of a Ginsburg or Kennedy will spell the end of the Warren court revolution, from the demise of Roe v Wade, to the slow erosion of racial and gender protections and environmental regulations.
Steven W. Thrasher: Don’t let Donald Trump become the new normal
I was marching up New York’s Fifth Avenue on Saturday afternoon behind a woman carrying a sign that read: “Keep your tiny hands off my pussy.” We were heading towards a looming tower with tinted windows where the president-elect lives and I thought to myself: this is absurd. We should not think of any of this as “normal”.
Nor should we consider it normal that one of the president-elect’s team appeared to hint that the Senate majority leader might face legal consequences for saying Donald Trump has emboldened bigotry; nor that they’ve refused to rule out jailing Hillary Clinton; nor that he plans to “immediately” deport three million immigrants; nor that he’s hired a documented racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic demagogue to help him run the White House; nor that he’s taken to Twitter to spread lies about the New York Times for reporting on him.
So let’s not. Let’s not accept any of this as a new normal. Let’s resist normalization at every step – in our minds, our words and our actions.
Richard Wolffe: What do Bannon and Priebus tell us about Trump’s coming reign?
Let’s suppose, for a minute, that the Trump transition has some organizing principle beyond the chaotic, conflicting impulses of a megalomaniac.
What do the first two appointments of President-elect Trump, as well as the first week of his transition to power, tell us about his forthcoming reign?
At first blush, Trump seems to have squared two competing desires. With Reince Priebus as his chief of staff, Trump is placating and controlling his own party, now ruling both sides of Capitol Hill. The RNC chairman is perfectly plugged into the messy politics of the Republican leadership.
With Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, Trump is placating the pitchfork mob that helped sweep him to power. Bannon’s role inside any organization is traditionally the keeper of the ideological flame. In case anyone was still confused about Trump’s ideology, Bannon is chairman of Breitbart, a sewer of racist and sexist excrement.
But nothing in Trumpistan is that neat. In the brief time the Great Orange Leader has presided over the semi-public enterprise of his presidential campaign, we know he has a track record of tolerating the kind of internal rivalry that ends up in ritual slaughter.
Lee Glendinning: In this new world, now is the time to support fearless, independent journalism
After one of the most divisive, dark and damaging election campaigns in US political history, Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. His victory sets in motion massive shifts in national and foreign policy, and will no doubt have a huge impact on debates around race, criminal justice, immigration, gender and the environment in the US and beyond. Many people, in America and around the world, are frightened.
Trumpism has exposed faultlines of cynicism, racism, misogyny and xenophobia, and awakened long dormant white nationalist groups. This election has revealed America to be a deeply polarized nation. As Trump assumes the world’s most powerful office, we must work to protect the US’s open, multicultural democracy which celebrates diversity of perspective and plurality of voices, especially with the Republicans winning the House of Representatives and much of the Senate. Trump will face few checks on his power.
Never has the world needed independent journalism more. Through our reporting, the Guardian will hold Trump and his administration to account. We will strive to uncover the truth if those in power hide behind falsehoods. We will continue to sort fact from fiction. When underrepresented experiences are ignored, we will find ways to make sure they are heard.
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