Standing up despite the fear

Last Friday, the day before nutrition assistance money didn’t go out Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that even though the poor will go hungry the nasty guy bragged that he had renovated the Lincoln bathroom (the bathroom by the Lincoln bedroom?). The old décor as he described it was “art deco green tile” – “totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era.” That was replaced with black and white “statuary marble,” – supposedly more appropriate for the time of our great president? Wrote Singer:

The absolute lack of self-awareness it takes to post about fancy renovations to the White House that virtually no Americans will ever see or utilize, while millions of federal workers are not being paid and throngs of Americans are worried about losing the funding they rely upon to feed their families is hard to fathom.

This is after razing the East Wing for a ballroom, gilding the Oval Office, and paving over the Rose Garden.

Trump is obsessed with renovating the White House, turning the historic building into a second version of his tacky Mar-a-Lago resort—a terrifying sign as it’s hard to imagine Trump willingly leaving the building when he’s remade it to be his own.

Oliver Willis of Kos, as part of his series on Explaining the Right, tackled the question: Why Republicans think it’s okay to starve poor people. As before in this series Willis is good at documenting that at least since Reagan Republicans are starving people, repeatedly refusing to fund food assistance programs. Their reasoning can tie them into rhetorical knots, producing nonsensical answers. They oppose food assistance and say getting rid of the social safety net is popular. But that idea is really only popular with billionaires and other hard conservatives. Though Willis is good at documenting what Republicans are doing, he’s not so good at answering the questions he poses and I don’t think he did this time either. So I’ll provide the same answer I usually do. To assert a place at the top of the social hierarchy they oppress those towards the bottom. Causing hunger is another way to do it. I’ve written about Kat Abughazaleh, who is running for Congress in a district near Chicago. She has protested at the ICE detention facility in Broadview, IL and has now been indicted by the Department of Justice for impeding an ICE officer’s work, something about he had to drive slowly to avoid injuring Kat’s fellow “conspirators.” That gave Daily Kos another chance to interview Kat. The interviewer was Alix Breeden. Here’s a bit of what Kat said:

And don't get me wrong, this is scary, just like every time I've been thrown to the ground by ICE, every time I've been tear gassed, every time I've been shot with pepper balls, that's been scary. But standing up for what you believe isn't about doing it without fear. It's doing it despite the fear. And that's what so many people across the country and especially right here in Chicago, have been doing. That's really what the far right is. At its core, it's fear of being irrelevant, of things that are different, fear of losing control, losing power. That is why their messaging depends on fear. It depends on pitting us against each other to distract us from billionaires and oligarchs that are trying to hold this country ransom for their own profit. No matter how scared I or anyone else feels, I think we can take some comfort knowing that they are more scared. They are more afraid, and they know that they are on the wrong side of history. ... I have believed in my values since I was a child. I truly believe that if you don't stand by your values, even to your own detriment, then you have nothing at all. And so there is no unconstitutional attack that can make me stop talking about what is right and stop standing up for others. That's why I'm running for Congress, and that's why I'm going to win on Election Day and in court. ... If they're triggered by the people that they claim to represent, what do you think they'll do to you if you don't stand up to them? ... This is a state terror campaign that is meant to attack the people they have spent years prepping the public to accept as “other.” And this has happened in every authoritarian regime we've seen.

In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Greg Sargent of The New Republic, which I’ll summarize. Admiral Holsey resigned from leading the Southern Command of the military before his term was up. Democrats of the House Armed Services Committee would very much like to get Holsey’s testimony about why he left. Was it because he was uncomfortable about the US rattling sabers off the coast of Venezuela? Congress should want to know. But Republicans don’t want Holsey’s testimony. Zack Beauchamp of Vox discussed Republican antisemitism and the feeling that one gets a lot more likes and clicks when promoting an anti-Jewish agenda than when doing the opposite.

Yet this raises a deeper, and more troubling, question: Why is it that they’ve been able to build such a large audience? Why do “you get a lot more clicks” nowadays if you promote right-coded antisemitism? And why is it that so many of the party’s youth operatives get seduced by neo-Nazism?

Kim Holmes tweeted:

I am one of those people who left Heritage for this reason. And I was Executive Vice President.

This tweet included one from Jonah Goldberg which included an excerpt from The Dispatch Newsletter which says, “Unlike other think tanks, scholars at Heritage [Foundation] are not permitted to publicly deviate from the part line.” Conservatives shouldn’t argue among themselves because it “sows division.” I’ve heard that phrase used a lot to silence dissent. A tweet from David French:

The reason this moment isn't remotely surprising is that the conservative movement (such as it exists) has been refusing to police itself in large part because Trump fails any reasonable character test. He'd be one of the first policed out of the movement. So, instead, all too many people try an untenable middle way – sanctifying Trump and anyone in his inner circle while trying to maintain standards on everyone else. It simply can't work. When your leaders are hateful and nihilistic then your movement becomes hateful and nihilistic.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Jeff Danziger of two generals talking quietly, demonstrating why the military frequently goes along with despots.

First: Why don’t we go public? Second: You mean let everyone know that we think Hegseth is a punk and a moron with no idea what he’s doing, pushing the U.S. toward a war with millions of deaths? First: Nobody would believe us. Second: We’d be fired the next day. First: Goodbye career... Second: Goodbye retirement... First: Hmm... Millions of deaths. Second: Shhhh...

In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Sophia McClennen of Salon on the way the nasty guy attacks the minds of Americans.

It isn’t just that the Trump team offers an incessant flood of faulty logic. They also create an environment that makes thinking critically exceptionally difficult. As cognitive scientists Keith Stanovich and Richard West have shown, humans possess two systems of thought: One fast and emotional, the other slow and deliberative. Trump keeps the public in the first mode — triggered, reactive, impulsive. Under Trump, critical reasoning collapses from emotional overload. The threat, then, isn’t just misinformation; it’s misreasoning.

In the comments is a cartoon by Toonerman:

American Mainstream Media kowtows to Trump. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN... They all kiss the Orange one’s ass. There’s no reason to watch any of them. We already have FOX State TV. An authoritarian only needs 1 propaganda network. Fox should be getting worried about all of their kiss ass rivals.