The policy and politics of Trumpism

92tide said:

based on the presser this afternoon, we can add the rule of holes to the ever growing list of things that citronella ceausescu knows jack crap about.

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Let’s be very clear about what just happened at Donald Trump’s press conference. He gave the alt-right its greatest national media moment ever. He even called some of them “very fine people.” Don’t believe me? Watch this key statement: Here’s the quote:

Trump: [Inaudible.] You have some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group — excuse me, excuse me — I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

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To understand the significance of Trump’s words, you have to understand a bit about the alt-right. While its members certainly march with Nazis and make common cause with neo-Confederates, it views itself as something different. They’re the “intellectual” adherents to white identity politics. They believe their movement is substantially different and more serious than the Klansmen of days past. When Trump carves them away from the Nazis and distinguishes them from the neo-Confederates, he’s doing exactly what they want. He’s making them respectable. He’s making them different.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corne...-just-gave-press-conference-alt-rights-dreams

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Jon said:

For the first time in my life I don't think a high level Politician is simply a con artist playing to the stupidity of his racist, homophobic, moron constituents to hold power. In this case I firmly believe he is simply one of them

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Jon said:

I remember when the words of National Review held sway in a GOP with actual principles, maybe someday we will get back to those days but I don't see it. The GOP has been dumbed down to point where rational commentary like this from David French will go completely missed.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corne...-just-gave-press-conference-alt-rights-dreams

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CharminTide said:

Trump abruptly ends manufacturing council after CEOs disband strategy and policy forum

Seems like a reasonable and measured response to all the winning.

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CharminTide said:

He just fired all of America's top CEOs on two presidential advisory councils just so they couldn't make him look bad by resigning. 100% snowflake move.

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"Many Republicans do not agree with and will fight back against the idea that the Party of Lincoln has a welcome mat out for the David Dukes of the world," said Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina on Wednesday.

That statement says it all — but not in the way Graham intended.

Many Republicans have a big problem with white supremacists. They are controversial within the party!

Quite a few Republican officials are very upset about the president's statement that some of the torch-bearing marchers who chanted "Jews will not replace us" last Friday in Charlottesville, Virginia are "very fine people." They really wish he would stop saying things like that.

Yes, the party has a pro-Nazi wing, which seems to include the president, and that's distressing, but Graham would like you to also remember there is a large anti-Nazi wing that shares your severe distress about the pro-Nazi wing!

I feel Sen. Graham's pain. I used to be a Republican, too. I did not enjoy watching the party become more and more embarrassing, and I did not enjoy watching the officials I liked repeatedly lose intraparty battles.

I think Graham's reaction is sincere, and his anguish about where Trump has taken his party is real. I swear my point in this column is not to make fun of him.

But the thing is, Sen. Graham's side lost the intraparty fight over whether white supremacists are okay, it lost for a reason, and it's not going to wrest power back.

Trump's business executive councils imploded because corporate CEOs realized it was ethically untenable to be associated with the president. Doesn't this apply even more to elected Republican officials, who are now members of a party whose leader wishes to associate them with at least some fraction of white-power marchers?

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Felix Sater, one of Donald Trump’s shadiest former business partners, is reportedly preparing for prison time — and he says the president will be joining him behind bars.

Sources told The Spectator‘s Paul Wood that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s deep dive into Trump’s business practices may be yielding results.

Trump recently made remarks that could point to a money laundering scheme, Wood reported.

“I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows?” the president said.

Sater, who has a long history of legal troubles and is cooperating with law enforcement, was one of the major players responsible for selling Trump’s condos to the Russians.

And according to Wood’s sources, Sater may have already flipped and given prosecutors the evidence they need to make a case against Trump.

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TIDE-HSV said:

Wow! Per ABC News, Bannon resigned as chief strategist two weeks ago. Helps explain the Korea remarks...

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