“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.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Keith Olbermann: How Our New Corporate Overlords Plan to Thrive
Authoritarians with an animus against ethnic minorities are on the march across the Western world. They control governments in Hungary and Poland, and will soon take power in America. And they’re organizing across borders: Austria’s Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis, has signed an agreement with Russia’s ruling party — and met with Donald Trump’s choice for national security adviser.
But what should we call these groups? Many reporters are using the term “populist,” which seems both inadequate and misleading. I guess racism can be considered populist in the sense that it represents the views of some non-elite people. But are the other shared features of this movement — addiction to conspiracy theories, indifference to the rule of law, a penchant for punishing critics — really captured by the “populist” label? [..]
Trumpism is, however, different. The campaign rhetoric may have included promises to keep Medicare and Social Security intact and replace Obamacare with something “terrific.” But the emerging policy agenda is anything but populist.
All indications are that we’re looking at huge windfalls for billionaires combined with savage cuts in programs that serve not just the poor but also the middle class. And the white working class, which provided much of the 46 percent Trump vote share, is shaping up as the biggest loser.
True, we don’t yet have detailed policy proposals. But Mr. Trump’s cabinet choices show which way the wind is blowing.
Sarah van Gelder: How to Face a Trump Presidency: Resist, Reconnect, Renew
It’s the solstice, the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. I awaken in the dark and check for news about Standing Rock and about the Trump transition team.
It’s almost an epic pairing: the Native Americans, withstanding water cannons and pepper spray, camped out in below-zero blizzards, holding as sacred the water, land, and well-being of the children—and the president-elect, in his gold-gilded tower named after himself, selects his team of leaders, mainly White men who are remarkable not for their accomplishments or wisdom, but for their contempt for those who are not rich and White, their love for fossil fuels and Russian oligarchs, and their reckless dismissal of science and the impending climate catastrophe.
It would be a mistake to oversimplify this as a conflict between good and evil. Still, the ethical beacon of light shining from the remote plains of North Dakota is very much needed.
Because it is a very dark time. Trump’s error-prone, genital-groping buffoonery is loved by TV. But his choice of a team makes clear that the agenda is dead serious.
So what do we do now, as the solstice is here and the light begins to return? What are we to do as we face Inauguration Day and day after day of a Trump presidency?
Mark Weisbrot: Even Before Taking Office, Trump Has Made a Mess
President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call earlier this month with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan sent shock waves throughout China and much of the world.
For nearly four decades, it has been Washington’s official policy to diplomatically recognize only China and not Taiwan, an island the mainland considers a breakaway province.
Trump has indicated that by abandoning this policy and, in effect, threatening China, he’ll be able to bargain for concessions from the Asian power.
In reality, though, the call will be remembered as one of the worst diplomatic miscalculations of all time. Trump’s team also deserves blame, as apparently the long-distance chat wasn’t just another foot-in-mouth Trump moment but was in fact a deliberate strategy shaped with lobbyist influence. And while the Chinese government responded with stern messaging, its actions have been relatively subdued. But don’t be fooled: Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20.
Bullying may have helped Trump in his real estate career but it is not going to move China.
David Dayen: Trump Kicks Off the Return of the Czars
Cast your mind back to 2009, when conservatives suddenly became quite concerned about executive power. They channeled their rage into Obama’s czars. These were special advisers to the president, who helped set policy from inside the White House, rather than at the cabinet level. The White House health-care czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle, appeared to have greater input on Obamacare than Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The energy-and-climate czar, Carol Browner, advised the president more regularly than then–EPA chief Lisa Jackson.
The Republican complaint seemed to mostly involve using the word “czar” a lot in a bid to make Obama sound vaguely Soviet, which looks rather quaint in retrospect. But other objections made sense. Unlike cabinet officials, czars did not have to seek Senate confirmation. They weren’t required to testify before or issue reports to congressional committees. Their communications could be protected through assertion of executive privilege, unlike more accessible cabinet-agency deliberations. In general, it was a method of centralizing power inside the White House bubble. “The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances,” wrote Democratic Senate lion Robert Byrd in February 2009. “At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”
Flash forward to 2016, and Donald Trump is busy announcing czars. He added two yesterday: activist investor Carl Icahn as an adviser on deregulation, and economist Peter Navarro as a trade-policy czar. Neither will go through Senate confirmation. Icahn will reportedly not be a federal employee, which will keep all of his communications privileged. Financial vetting has been extremely slow for the cabinet choices; Icahn won’t need to jump those hoops. Every concern expressed about Obama’s czars hold for these appointees as well.
I eagerly await congressional hearings on the matter.
Ruben Gallego: I’m a Marine veteran. A recently retired Marine shouldn’t be defense secretary.
As a combat veteran of the Marine Corps and a longtime admirer of Gen. James N. Mattis, I was sad to annouce this month that I could not in good conscience support granting him a waiver to serve as our 26th secretary of defense.
I explained that my decision was motivated not by political considerations but by concern for the enduring American principle of civilian control of the military. I lauded Mattis’s eminent qualifications and leadership skills while affirming that this central tenent of our democracy should matter more than any single individual.
What happened next was revealing.
Despite my considered words, I got an earful from Marines across the country, including men I served alongside in Iraq. They called and wrote letters. They tweeted and texted. In some colorful language that I can’t repeat in this space, they questioned my loyalty to the Marine Corps and to our country.
Paradoxically, their passionate defense of Mattis and their anger toward me confirmed my reservations about his appointment. For me, the reaction immediately verified the wisdom of Congress in establishing a cooling-off period for former military leaders. The anger that my stance elicited among many of my fellow Marines demonstrated, albeit on a small scale, the danger to our democracy of a defense secretary coming to power with the ardent loyalty of the men and women he recently commanded.
Recent Comments