Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[PassedOut]

What makes you believe that this is satire?

After writing speeches for Nixon and Ford, Ben Stein switched to entertainment. His schtick (and a very lucrative one) has been a self-important, but very-out-of-touch, doofus -- personified by his role in movies like Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He clearly stays in character when he writes, as the over-the-top nature of this piece shows:

 

No one hates black life more than the Democrat leadership, in my humble opinion...

 

Aren’t the looters supposed to be with the working class? Why didn’t they loot JCPenney or stores that sold work boots?

 

Who is missing? Asians. They don’t loot. They don’t riot. They study and they work. And they get ahead, and they live in nice houses and buy at the stores the looters steal from.

 

My favorite TV commentator is Tucker Carlson. He’s a genius.

 

There is nothing systemically wrong with the USA. Not racial injustice. That was gone long ago. Not class warfare. That’s ancient history.

Sure, as a comedian, Ben Stein knows that some folks believe stuff like this (the beliefs he is satirizing) and that those folks help to boost his bottom line, but he surely doesn't believe this stuff himself and neither does Chas. Comedians say and write lots of stuff. Tucker Carlson is a genius? :) A dead giveaway. (Remember Andy Kaufman?)

[kenberg]

When I saw the article I had no idea who Ben Stein was and did not bother to find out. But now I see from the above post he was in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I saw that movie. So I went to the Wikipedia. They quote Stein:

 

 

Co-star Ben Stein was exceptionally moved by the film, calling it "the most life-affirming movie possibly of the entire post-war period."^[58] "This is to comedies what Gone with the Wind is to epics," Stein added. "It will never die, because it responds to and calls forth such human emotions. It isn't dirty. There's nothing mean-spirited about it. There's nothing sneering or sniggering about it. It's just wholesome.

As I recall, I actually stayed in my seat through the entire movie but I can't promise I was awake the whole time. Either Stein was being satirical or he and I have very different tastes, both about movies and about politics.

[hrothgar]

 

Sure, as a comedian, Ben Stein knows that some folks believe stuff like this (the beliefs he is satirizing) and that those folks help to boost his bottom line, but he surely doesn't believe this stuff himself and neither does Chas.

 

Ben Stein's public statements and Chas's posting history sure as hell paint them as outright racists.

 

Perhaps they might want to steer clear of "satire" around this sort of topic

[y66]

With President Donald Trump now clearly behind in the polls, there’s been a wave of speculation about what the Republican Party might look like after losing the election. Probably the best thing to say about this is that it’s massively premature: Trump could well narrowly win a second term, or former Vice President Joe Biden could get more than 400 electoral votes — or anything could happen between those two possibilities. And even if the president loses, presumably the party’s reaction would differ depending on the margin of defeat and other variables.

 

But I’ll foolishly play along a little bit. National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar has a nice item summarizing the speculation and adding some of his own. Kraushaar comes down in the middle — he suspects “the most likely scenario is that an out-of-power Trump will still be viewed favorably by most Republicans, but will no longer be the political force that can handpick primary winners and dictate the party’s legislative strategy.” Plausible! But so is George Will’s guess that the day after the election Republicans will all abandon Trump and claim they never supported him in the first place. And so is speculation that Trump could still run for and win the nomination in 2024 if he loses in November.

 

The thing is, I don’t think it has much to do with Trump after all. Kraushaar says that Trump will still be active “on Twitter and beyond,” but it’s the beyond that really matters here — specifically, whether Republican-aligned media will still treat him as the leader of the party. I’m fairly sure that most Republican politicians will be happy to see him gone, and the same is true of almost all of the party’s campaign and governing professionals. But of course if it were up to them, Trump wouldn’t have come anywhere close to the nomination in 2016.

 

The truth is that Republican-aligned media outlets have a great deal of influence within the party, and if they choose to treat Trump as the Rightful President throughout a Biden administration then there’s not much that Republican politicians and other party actors can do about it.

 

That’s a big problem. Kraushaar says that Republicans are “not suicidal” and therefore will evolve as needed in order to win elections. Politicians, campaign and governing professionals, and most party-aligned interest groups certainly have strong incentives to try to do so. But Fox News, talk radio shows, and the rest of the conservative marketplace may be better off if Democrats are in the White House. That’s not to say that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity actively want Republicans to lose or would try to make that happen. Only that incentives are important, and when they don’t point in the correct direction people’s behavior tends to follow.

 

What this means for Trump’s influence post-presidency is unclear. I have no idea how Republican-aligned media outlets will judge their own markets: Is it better to stick with the proven product, or to start rolling out new ones? What I do know is that election results are always easy to explain away, and if it’s in their interests to stick with Trump, talk-show hosts will be able to convince themselves that a Biden victory was despite Trump, not because of him.

 

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-08/what-will-republicans-look-like-after-donald-trump?sref=UHfKDqx7

Trump is a caricature of the times. Showing him the door is the easy part.

[PassedOut]

Ben Stein's public statements and Chas's posting history sure as hell paint them as outright racists.

 

Perhaps they might want to steer clear of "satire" around this sort of topic

I find Ben Stein's edgy brand of 'humor' appalling. He knows full well that the racist folks he's making fun of accept at face value his most over-the-top statements while those in on the joke join in with his laughter. But playing both sides this way has made him a lot of money.

 

I see the same sort of thing with Trump. During Romney's campaign against Obama, Trump advised Romney to get on the 'birther' bandwagon because the voters Romney needed were too stupid to know that the whole thing was bull. And then, of course, Trump's claim that his own voters were so stupid that they'd stick with him even if he shot someone on 5th avenue.

 

Playing folks for suckers like Ben Stein and Donald Trump do can backfire. I hope it does.

[Winstonm]

Bill Barr:

On Monday, the president asked me to coordinate the various federal law enforcement agencies, not only the multiple department of justice agencies, but also other agencies such as those in the Department of Homeland Security.

 

Let's go to the tape:

 

Donald Trump: "Do something!"

Bill Barr: "O.K."

[kenberg]

I find Ben Stein's edgy brand of 'humor' appalling. He knows full well that the racist folks he's making fun of accept at face value his most over-the-top statements while those in on the joke join in with his laughter. But playing both sides this way has made him a lot of money.

 

I see the same sort of thing with Trump. During Romney's campaign against Obama, Trump advised Romney to get on the 'birther' bandwagon because the voters Romney needed were too stupid to know that the whole thing was bull. And then, of course, Trump's claim that his own voters were so stupid that they'd stick with him even if he shot someone on 5th avenue.

 

Playing folks for suckers like Ben Stein and Donald Trump do can backfire. I hope it does.

 

I am having one of those deja vu things. Some time back I recall Ben Stein's name coming up and me saying I never heard of him. This time I looked him up on the Wik and it mentioned the show Win Ben Stein's Money and then I realized I had read about that before.

The Wik also notes he supports creationism. Who knows if that is satire or not?

I am not for banning people but I do support ignoring them and Ben Stein seems to fit that picture very well.

I have known people in the past who say outrageous things and leave you to figure out whether they are or are not serious.

That gets old real quick.

[awm]

I thought this was a very good article about the press in the era of Trump.

[cherdano]

This WP reconstruction of the Lafayette park story is amazing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/06/08/timeline-trump-church-photo-op/?arc404=true&no_nav=true&p9w22b2p=b2p22p9w00098

 

What I don't get, doesn't that just make him look even more ridiculous?

 

"In the BBF WC, I may get ridiculed as President Bleach. But here in the White House, my buddy Bill can order hundreds of police officers to clear the park for me. So I can demonstrate to the world that...I..uhm...don't quite know..what, uhm, to do with a bible..."

 

Which Trump supporter will think "Yeah! He had the park cleared off these protesters for a 3 minute photo op - see, he is really in it for us, not those sneering liberals!"??

 

He survived Mueller, and maybe even Fauci. I am not sure he can survive being President Bleach and Sarah Cooper.

[cherdano]

I thought this was a very good article about the press in the era of Trump.

 

I think his old article on Bennet and the NYT editorial page is even better: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/15/17113176/new-york-times-opinion-page-conservatism

[y66]

I thought this was a very good article about the press in the era of Trump.

I think even George Orwell would have been blown away. So well done.

[y66]

Perhaps I should be focused on the larger themes of Donald Trump’s presidency, but today I just can’t get over the little stuff.

 

Item:

 

The Secret Service reportedly told Trump to head down to a secure space in the White House on May 29 because protesters across the street were getting unruly. Seems to me he had several options:

 

• Defy the Secret Service, stay put and then have it leaked out that he heroically stood his ground.
  
• Go down to the bunker, and then when the press reports it just ignore the whole thing.
  
• Go down to the bunker, and then use the incident to bash the protesters (whom the president is portraying as violent).
  
• Or go down the bunker, make up something about doing an “inspection,” fight it out with the media for a week and then be completely embarrassed when your attorney general lets out the truth.
  

Item:

 

Trump’s had a lousy run of polls, capped off by a CNN survey released Monday showing him down 14 percentage points to former Vice President Joe Biden. Options included highlighting the best poll out there, ignoring the polls and focusing on governing, or at least claiming to be ignoring the polls and focused on governing. Instead, Trump had a pollster draft a risible memo accusing the other pollsters of being out to get him and tweeted it out, thus confirming reporting that he’s obsessed with the polls, implying that similar reporting about bad internal polls is true, and drawing attention to the worst of all the recent public surveys.

 

Item:

 

Anti-Trump Republicans have been taking out attack ads on Washington TV during Trump’s favorite cable news shows. Apparently the president is so upset about this that his own campaign has spent almost half a million dollars to counter-advertise on the same programs, mainly to cheer him up and convince him that his staffers are hard at work. Granted, presidential campaigns generally have more money than they know what to do with, so it’s not as if swing-state advertising will suffer, but it’s still an interesting comment about what the campaign professionals think of their candidate.

 

All of those are from Monday’s news. I could easily go further. There’s also Trump’s continuing feud with Senator Mitt Romney, complete with more easily disproved statements. The president seems perfectly pleased to go forward without Romney or Senator Lisa Murkowski on his side. It’s worth remembering that Trump won narrowly in 2016, and can’t afford to lose any significant faction of Republicans.

 

There’s also Trump’s decision to begin his rallies again, regardless of best practices to control the coronavirus. Will it help him? He’s been holding those rallies since early in his presidency and they don’t appear to have done him much good, but he likes doing them and has no one around him to tell him otherwise.

 

And while the story about the attack on protesters has centered on Attorney General William Barr more than on Trump personally, Monday marked a week into increasingly dubious administration claims about the event, including semantic arguments about what counts as using tear gas and evidence-free accusations of protester violence. The Washington Post has probably now debunked those claims for good. Again, even given the original events, there was simply no reason for the White House to stretch out the bad publicity for a week.

 

None of these items makes all that much difference on its own, but that’s a lot of missteps, easily exposed falsehoods and wasted effort, all from one day’s headlines. Have enough days like that and it adds up to a weak, unpopular president who seems to be flailing like no one since Jimmy Carter. We’ll see what Tuesday brings.

[Winstonm]

Trump, and most Republicans, have been railing against an imagined enemy termed: antifa. Antifa is simply short for anti-fascist. Does this mean that Republicans are Profa? If you were pro fascist, wouldn't you be against democracy?

 

Georgia, in particular, has been roiled by a fight over access to voting during the pandemic. In April, the state's Republican House leader, David Ralston, publicly denounced the Republican secretary of state for sending absentee ballots to registered voters ahead of Tuesday's primary, which was postponed from its original May 19 date due to the pandemic. Ralston claimed mail-in voting is "devastating to Republicans."

[barmar]

I find Ben Stein's edgy brand of 'humor' appalling. He knows full well that the racist folks he's making fun of accept at face value his most over-the-top statements while those in on the joke join in with his laughter. But playing both sides this way has made him a lot of money.

 

I see the same sort of thing with Trump. During Romney's campaign against Obama, Trump advised Romney to get on the 'birther' bandwagon because the voters Romney needed were too stupid to know that the whole thing was bull. And then, of course, Trump's claim that his own voters were so stupid that they'd stick with him even if he shot someone on 5th avenue.

 

Playing folks for suckers like Ben Stein and Donald Trump do can backfire. I hope it does.

I'm not sure what to make of that Ben Stein piece.

 

Some of the statements are so over the top that I was sure it must be satire. OTOH, Stein is a known conservative, so why would he be making fun of conservative values?

 

While he may be best known in to the masses for Win Ben Stein's Money and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, he's also a former speech writer for Republican Presidents, and these days he occasionally does opinion pieces on CBS Sunday Morning. I suspect they use him to try to be balanced, since the program is otherwise left-leaning like much of the mainstream media.

[y66]

Oh sweet baby Jesus let this be true.

 

Amy McGrath Takes Narrow Lead Over Mitch McConnell in Kentucky Senate Race, Poll Shows

 

"What this shows is that after 35 years of Mitch McConnell's partisanship and dysfunction, Kentuckians are ready for change," a representative for McGrath's campaign told Newsweek.

[PassedOut]

I'm not sure what to make of that Ben Stein piece.

 

Some of the statements are so over the top that I was sure it must be satire. OTOH, Stein is a known conservative, so why would he be making fun of conservative values?

There's no downside. Folks who don't get the over-the-top satire are going to vote republican. Conservatives who do understand the satire laugh at it -- and how upset it makes some of their opponents --and are happy that it helps to pull in the votes of the gullible.

[johnu]

This discussion about racist Ben Stein is quite amusing.

 

I would like to acknowledge another conservative comedian, Sean Hannity.

 

Sean Hannity Claims Trump Is Also A Victim Of Crooked Cops: ‘It’s Horrific’

 

Fox News host Sean Hannity said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is also a victim of “crooked cops.”

 

Hannity said he wouldn’t compare the supposed victimization of Trump to that of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis killed by police in a May 25 incident that sparked widespread protests, civil unrest and calls for reform.

 

But then, Hannity did just that during a segment on a supposed “deep state” conspiracy to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign by figures within the FBI.

 

“Even the president himself ― it’s not the same thing as what happened to George Floyd ― but it’s horrific,” he said, “He was a victim of crooked cops.”

ROTFL, what delightful irony from America's funnyman B-)

[kenberg]

A thought experiment.

 

Imagine yourself as 20 years old. Ok, tough already. But if you get past that hurdle then imagine yourself as from a middle class family, sound mind and body, normal intelligence, considering a career. Your father says, as mine didn't but could have, "The guy across the street is a cop, have you considered that?" Do you think the chance of a positive response has increased, decreased or stayed the same over the past couple of weeks? I went off to college to study math and physics because I was interested in math and physics. For a brief period I got interested in philosophy and considered that, but I figured math was a better career choice. And, ultimately, a lot more interesting. If there was a movement to de-fund mathematics I would probably, again, have re-thought that choice. I had no plans to get rich, but I don't think I would have wanted to prepare for a profession that the public thought should be de-funded. So how about the guy who had been thinking of being a cop? He might re-think this?

 

I have been mulling this over for a bit. I expect the answer is yes, he might very well re-think it. Nobody is suggesting we de-fund plumbers. So maybe be a plumber.

 

Just asking.

[hrothgar]

Ive seen some interesting discussions that we're going to need something akin to the de-Baathification program to deal with ex-police officers

[kenberg]

Ive seen some interesting discussions that we're going to need something akin to the de-Baathification program to deal with ex-police officers

 

Perhaps we will get some idea of where this is heading by following events in Minneapolis. The Star-Trib had a not very satisfactory article:

 

 

https://www.startribune.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-plans-to-defund-minneapolis-police/571112392/

 

It seems the city council is uncertain as to just what they will be doing, so it's understandable the news article is not all that clear either.

 

There are union contracts, If they decide to substantially cut the police force I suppose there are provisions as to how it can be done. It seems unlikely, and unfair, that a cop on the force for, say, fifteen years could just be told good-bye w/o some sort of compensation.

 

There are short term issues, if the city decides to substantially reduce the size of the police force, how will this be handled? And there is the long term issue of whether any normal young person would now even consider a career in the police force, assuming the decision is to reduce the size but keep some remnant of a force.

 

I was born in Minneapolis and grew up in St. Paul, and then went to the Univ of Minnesota in Minneapolis, leaving in 1967. I have a couple of friends back there that I grew up with, now living "up north" rather than in the cities, and I have been meaning to call them to get their take on what is happening.

[Winstonm]

Ive seen some interesting discussions that we're going to need something akin to the de-Baathification program to deal with ex-police officers

 

I don't know if we can ship them all off to Iraq - but it's not a bad solution.

[kenberg]

I don't know if we can ship them all off to Iraq - but it's not a bad solution.

 

Ben Stein style satire I assume?

 

I think there is a serious issue to be addressed. It appears to me that people are saying de-fund the police without really thinking it through. The Star-Trib article I posted suggests there is something to this assessment.

 

 

 

The Council has not released any specifics. The council members have articulated support for the concept, but the details will be more difficult.

 

They have done the easy part, supporting de-funding. Now they need to decide what it means. And how to do it.

But de-fund the police is a really catchy slogan.

 

An earlier article has a statement that was read by the nine council members supporting this idea:

 

"We recognize that we don't have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does," they said, reading off a prepared statement.

 

Well, that's a relief. Glad someone knows.

 

https://www.startrib...ment/571088302/

 

As a first guess about what a police free future would look like: Those who can afford it would hire personal security. The rest, a large part of them, would but guns.

[Winstonm]

 

Ben Stein style satire I assume?

 

I think there is a serious issue to be addressed. It appears to me that people are saying de-fund the police without really thinking it through. The Star-Trib article I posted suggests there is something to this assessment.

 

 

 

[/color]

 

They have done the easy part, supporting de-funding. Now they need to decide what it means. And how to do it.

But de-fund the police is a really catchy slogan.

 

An earlier article has a statement that was read by the nine council members supporting this idea:

 

 

 

Well, that's a relief. Glad someone knows.

 

https://www.startrib...ment/571088302/

 

As a first guess about what a police free future would look like: Those who can afford it would hire personal security. The rest, a large part of them, would but guns.

 

Yes, it was satirical.

 

As for defunding - my understanding is that it is in relationship to the present configuration of most police departments. In other words, defund the police status quo and refund in a community support model. There is no call of which I am aware to rid the world of policemen.

 

The call I have heard is one to make the police accountable by a number of means: living within the community they serve; criminal and civil liabilities for actions in uniform and on duty; and biggest of all IMO, is to eliminate the Blue Wall of Silence that separates and protects police from prosecutions and other types of accountability.

 

There is no simple answer. But I think community policing is a great start, as is walking a neighborhood beat.

[kenberg]

Yes, it was satirical.

 

As for defunding - my understanding is that it is in relationship to the present configuration of most police departments. In other words, defund the police status quo and refund in a community support model. There is no call of which I am aware to rid the world of policemen.

 

The call I have heard is one to make the police accountable by a number of means: living within the community they serve; criminal and civil liabilities for actions in uniform and on duty; and biggest of all IMO, is to eliminate the Blue Wall of Silence that separates and protects police from prosecutions and other types of accountability.

 

There is no simple answer. But I think community policing is a great start, as is walking a neighborhood beat.

 

If the sloganeers think that "de-fund the police" will be broadly understood as advocating community policing they should think a little harder.

 

"Community policing" would also need some discussion to see exactly what it means but at least there would be discussion. I doubt the movement in Minneapolis will get anywhere until advocates decide that if they mean "community policing" that would be a better way of putting it than de-funding. And if "We recognize that we don't have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does," , taken from the article, means "walking a neighborhood beat" then they need to work on their expository skills. I assume they in fact mean, at least approximately, what they said. But we will see.

 

Donald Trump needs his aides to explain that when he said nobody could come here from Europe some people unfortunately misunderstood this to mean that nobody could come here from Europe. I expect better from Minneapolitans.

[Winstonm]

Worse than defunding police is this totally racist move by Trump:

 

 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, overruling his own Pentagon chief, declared Wednesday that he will not entertain the idea of removing the names of Confederate generals such as Robert E. Lee from 10 Army posts, including Fort Hood in Texas, the nation’s largest military installation.

 

“That is an absolute nonstarter for the president,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a briefing.

 

 

 

 

He will try to turn the election into a matter of race relations - and I hope there are only a handful of true racists left who will vote that ticket.