the silly season Archives

Gee. It turns out that the president actually lied. Not that this is a total surprise given his history of being a liar, telling untruths, exaggerating facts, creating alternative facts, being 100% wrong, saying one thing and contradicting another, making stuff up, fibbing, retweeting fake news stories, lying to his wife, and getting his American History facts absolutely wrong. Now he got caught. And this is not going to go away so easily. It was always clear that Donald Trump had affairs, as anyone who read about him during his days as a New York personality in the 1980s and 90s. And I’m sure he paid off a number of women to stay silent or to simply go away. He also convinced himself that he could control his message and make sure that anything too embarrassing would get squashed before it hit the papers. The problem is that he brought these personality traits to the White House, and we know what happens to people who convince themselves of their own importance. Every president has flaws that become magnified once they are in the White House. Clinton had affairs, Nixon believed he could explain himself out of his own lies, GW Bush needed to please his dad, Obama was too detached. And on and on. Now we have Michael Cohen admitting in court that the president knew about the payments to silence Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal before the 2016 election, and that the president intended these payments to influence the election’s outcome. To the president, these are not crimes. To the rest of the legal, political and social world, these are serious enough that President Trump will have to answer for them. This is not anything to celebrate. If Cohen is telling the truth, then the president is lying, and Trump’s talk about a rigged election turns out to be accurate. The problem is that it was his campaign that was trying to influence it. Democrats running in close elections need to be careful about making too much of this issue too quickly. The news is damning enough, but the real concerns are health care, taxes, and local concerns. And if this is all happening in August, imagine the fun we can look forward to in the fall. For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

The Silly Season Starts Early

Technology really speeds things up, no? We used to have to wait until August to read stories that made little sense or that focused on the non-political part of the political process, but this year we should be proud that the press is once again ahead of the calendar and is in full silly season mode on this, the unofficial start of the summer.

Part of the issue might be that both party’s political conventions are in July, which is upsetting the media. Of course, the other reason is that the Republicans will nominate perhaps the least qualified person for president in our nation’s proud history. Whatever the motivation, we needn’t look very far to see evidence of silly-creep.

Point one – I hate to say – is this notion that Donald Trump is a fascist. He is certainly profoundly ignorant on all of the issues of which he’s spoken publicly so far including immigration, energy policy, foreign affairs, climate science, and taxes. But a fascist he is not. We’ll reserve that title for those who really are official members of the Fascist Party and select foreign leaders such as Victor Orban of Hungary and a few African dictators who revel in their personal bloodbaths. Fascism has a specific definition, and since I am a charter member of the Words Have Meanings Collective, I am not going to accept that Trump is anywhere near one. Racist? Sexist? Offensive? Most assuredly. These are the terms we should use and are enough to render him unacceptable as Commander-In-Chief.

The other sillinesses that occupies my thoughts today are the ones associated with the Clinton campaign tactics and polling. That sound that resembles teeth-gnashing on the left is, in fact, teeth-gnashing over the state of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, or non-campaign, against said non-fascist. Can we get a bit of a break here? It’s May. The campaign hasn’t had a chance to consolidate because Bernie Sanders is fighting to the end, which is both his right and a test to see how the Clinton campaign reacts. Hillary always knew that this would not be easy because of both her last name and her gender. She will become a better candidate once she is able to leverage all of the Democratic resources at her disposal. Many of Bernie’s supporters will back her. Both party’s conventions will have their television moments which I hope are not violent, and then the campaign will begin. Then we’ll see what the strategies are.

As for polling, I’ve said it before, but let’s hear from someone really smart on this and repeat – we will not be discussing polling until August 1. This will be a close race and Trump is getting his pre-convention bump. Hillary will get hers. Then they’ll both get their convention bumps. Then we can pay attention.

In the meantime, enjoy the extended silliness and the holiday.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest